#Героям слава!

[tomorrowusa]

« All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of an autocratic state. There is a bad man at the top. He controls the army and the police. The army and the police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the twenty-first century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality.

Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services— military, paramilitary, police—and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation. The members of these networks are connected not only to one another within a given autocracy but also to networks in other autocratic countries, and sometimes in democracies too. Corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country may arm, equip, and train the police in many others. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms and media networks that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote another’s—as well as themes: the degeneracy of democracy, the stability of autocracy, the evil of America. »

– Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum at Substack quoting from her soon to be released book Autocracy, Inc..

You can read several more paragraphs from Autocracy, Inc. at the Substack link above. Her book will be published on the 23rd; if you're within distance of Washington, DC she will be doing a free book reading and Q&A on Friday July 26th at Politics and Prose. She's a good writer and speaker. I've read two of her previous books and can vouch for their quality.

The war in Ukraine is not some remote conflict that idiots like J.D. Vance or Neville Chamberlain might dismiss out of stupidity. Ukraine is just one arena in a worldwide clash between liberal democracy and kleptocratic tyranny.

[horpyna]

the beginning of that week was full of suspense and yet life was going on until it didn't. on 23.02.2022 i was donating blood. it was my first time donating blood. i found out that my natal documents probably state my blood type wrong. i would have gotten a free blood test results in a few days and found out the truth. i never came back to pick them up.

on 24.02.2022 couldn't sleep bc the news about my blood type bewildered me. that night there were three loud explosions in my city. it wasn't confusing at first bc there were building sight near us and it would usually make a lot of noise. but nothing like those explosions. also, there's no building at night. after the third explosion i checked twitter and everything became clear. the situation was much worse in the East too. Grandma was already awake and worried. i stayed with her during day. we waited for what's coming next.

on 25.02.2023 i was suppose to have a job interview. i applied for it during winter holidays. i never went there. first they've called to postpone then i wasn't in the city anymore.

I didn't have a plan for life anymore, it became apparent the same morning. the front was moving closer from the East, there was no certainty as to when would be our turn. i was afraid that our local government would surrender the city if russians arrive. i was genuinely planning to go to first aid course, now that it was more important that ever. i was even ready to go stand in queue for military training course. i couldn't tell my mom though. i knew she would be horrified. i also knew that have i decide to join the defence forces, they would be left alone. my mom would be left alone to look after my sister and my grandma and my dad. so i stayed by her side. I hoped it would be just for a while. it was still relatively quiet in odesa.

they we hoped it wouldn't be long. we hoped that it wouldn't take so many lives, both civilians and defenders. but it did. and it's been 2 years of full-scale war, 10 years of war for our rights to exist as Ukraine. Brave men and women of Armed Forces of Ukraine have been holding the defence for this long. im grateful for each day that i live through in safety. it's never a granted thing now, it wasn't for 10 years. there's always a price paid in blood, health or someone's life.

I don't know how long it will last, but im hopeful. that we will win, and we will heal after all. and then we will prosper again all odds.

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ Art on the side of an apartment building in Chicago.

Nice, though folkloric representations of Ukraine in the public mind now have to compete with images of the successful defense of the country against Putin's illegal invasion.

Chicago has had a significant Ukrainian community for over a century.

Ukraine

[atheadax]

He was a good stalker

Fly high, Loki. Glory to our Ukrainian Hero ❤️ Героям Слава 🇺🇦

[anastasiamaru]

Fire Support Group "Omega Wings "

Intense fire support is a crucial component for the successful conduct of operations and the effectiveness of military tasks

[yuliia-ozen]

[is-this-working]

1000

[tomorrowusa]

85 years ago today Hitler invaded Poland. He felt he could get away with it the way he got away with a half dozen or so annexations or occupations since 1935. Instead, the worst war in human history broke out. It could have been prevented if Western democracies had said „NEIN!” to Hitler much earlier in his lust for additional territory.

Just as there were people willing to appease Hitler in the 1930s, there are people trying to appease Vladimir Putin today.

History Makes Clear the Risks of Appeasing Putin

Appeasement of Hitler didn’t work, and appeasement of Putin threatens the safety not only of Europe but of the world beyond. The GOP appeasement caucus might want to think about what future generations are going to say about them; history has not looked kindly upon the western leaders who sold out Czechoslovakia and, in the name of peace, fueled a much broader war.

J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate for VP, is a notorious appeaser.

[tomorrowusa]

ICYMI...

Russian General Charged With Chemical Weapons Use In Ukraine Killed In Blast Claimed By Kyiv

A high-ranking officer in charge of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces (RKhBZ) has been killed in an explosion in Moscow that sources told RFE/RL was carried out by Ukrainian intelligence operatives. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed by a bomb concealed in a scooter outside the entrance of a Moscow building early on December 17, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement. Kirillov, 54, is the highest-level Russian military officer to be killed in an apparent assassination since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While no individual or group officially claimed responsibility for the killing, a source at Ukraine’s SBU security service told RFE/RL that the blast was the result of a special operation by the SBU.

Earlier this year the UK had imposed sanctions on Kirillov for his use of chemical weapons.

UK imposes sanctions on Russian chemical warfare commander Britain's Foreign Secretary has accused Russia of deploying First World War-era choking gas on Ukrainian battlefields.

Ukrainian agents are apparently able to operate in the middle of Moscow.

Ukraine Remembers.

Russian Gen. Igor Kirillov had been in charge of using chemical weapons in Ukraine in violation if international law. Such weapons had been banned in warfare since the aftermath of World War I. Apparently Russia has used chemical weapons over 4,800 times in Ukraine. Arguably this makes Putin's Russia worse than Nazi Germany in this regard.

Russian Chemical Weapons General Killed by Bomb in Scooter

Perhaps Arya Stark made a stop in Moscow during her voyage.

[atheadax]

Україна- наша країна. Україна переможе! 🇺🇦💝

Мої сльози і моя любов увійшли в цю картину. За Україну.

[theseekeroftruth]

Незламна духом, рідна Україна.

З тобою воля, правда та сила!

[tomorrowusa]

Poland's Foreign Minister Sikorski has a great point. Russia with its alter ego, the USSR, has a case of pathological expansionism going back half a millennium.

Prof. Gary Saul Morson of Northwestern University describes, in The New Criterion, the almost incessant rate of expansion since the time of Ivan the Terrible.

Putin fears that he's getting behind that centuries-old Belgium a year timetable for Russia.

A number of countries in the global South give Russia a mulligan because they fail to recognize that even though Russia didn't have colonies in Africa, South & Southeast Asia, or Latin America, it was indeed a classic colonial power. Russia's colonies were in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the brutality it exercised in those regions was not that different from what Western European powers did in the developing world. There was genocide, economic exploitation, and political repression. Ukraine was under Russian/Soviet control longer than India and Nigeria combined were under British rule.

Putin is trying to revive Russian colonialism as an alternative to actually modernizing Russia. Russian troops famously steel toilets from Ukraine largely because almost a quarter of rural Russians still depend on outhouses.

Russia is largely a feudal society where Putin is the tsar, the oligarchs are the boyars, and the bulk of the impoverished population are the equivalent of serfs.

As for the matter of size, some perspective...

• [I]n the thirteenth century, Russia was a tiny principality around Moscow. They've grown to the largest, territorially, state on Earth. And yet still they crave other people’s land. Whatever for? Don't they have enough land? —Radosław Sikorski

"A conversation with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Radosław Sikorski" Atlantic Council "A conversation with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Radosław Sikorski" Atlantic Council (at Internet Archive)

[cute-sweet-corgo]

Another year.

[anastasiamaru]

"Come Back Alive"

(c)Mironishin Story

[tomorrowusa]

Sadly, a majority of Americans are almost completely ignorant about Eastern Europe. They probably don't know the difference between Budapest and Bucharest. (Spoiler: They are capitals of two non-Slavic countries in the region)

When Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Americans were surveyed on the location of Ukraine on an unlabeled map. Just 16% got it right. This map shows one dot for each response.

Yes, a couple of people thought Ukraine was in Memphis. Not sure what's up with those many folks who thought it is in Greenland. Maybe that's why Trump tried to buy it from Denmark.

In history in US classrooms almost nothing is mentioned about Eastern Europe that happened before the 20th century. This short list of items is typical.

A few (usually exotic) personalities like Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, and Peter the Great.

Copernicus (real name: Mikołaj Kopernik) sorting out the Solar System. And that is actually more science than history.

The Siege of Vienna (1683). Vienna is not exactly in Eastern Europe but the siege was lifted by Polish King Jan III Sobieski.

A passing reference to Tsar Aleksandr II freeing the serfs – but only because it happened within two years of the Emancipation Proclamation.

So if you know almost nothing about the location and history of a country, you certainly won't understand its importance to international peace and security.

And that's the case with Ukraine which Putin sees simply as a piece in his country collection in his effort to restore the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name.

As Brendan Simms writes in his linked article up top...

It is worth reminding ourselves what is at stake. If Putin is not defeated and forced to withdraw from Ukraine, this will endanger much more than just the viability of that country. It will enable the Russians to reconstitute their forces facing the Baltic states and Finland, constituting a threat that we will have to face without support from Kyiv. The Ukrainians are thus fighting not only for their own sovereignty but our security as well. Their army is one of the best guarantors we have against future Russian aggression. All they ask is our help. We should give them what they need.

About those so called "red lines" we hear about from tankies and Trumpsters – those lines apparently don't really exist.

Robyn Dixon and Catherine Belton at the Washington Post write:

Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion keeps crossing President Vladimir Putin’s red lines. Kyiv’s lightning incursion into Kursk in western Russia this month slashed through the reddest line of all — a direct ground assault on Russia — yet Putin’s response has so far been strikingly passive and muted, in sharp contrast to his rhetoric earlier in the war. On day one of the invasion in February 2022, Putin warned that any country that stood in Russia’s way would face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” a threat that seemed directed at countries that might arm Ukraine. If Russia’s territorial integrity were threatened, “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff,” he said a few months later in September. “The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured — I emphasize this again — with all the means at our disposal,” making a clear reference to Russia’s nuclear weapons.

In other words, Putin has been bullshitting.

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion “proved the Russians are bluffing,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former Ukrainian intelligence and defense official, now an associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London. “It shuts down all of the voices of the pseudo experts … the anti-escalation guys.”

Vladimir Putin can bluff only so much before people see that he's full of shit.💩 We're already past that point. His imperialist fantasies make him think that he's back in the Soviet Union and all he has to do is say something bellicose to get whatever he wants.

There are now Ukrainian troops on Russia's soil and over 133,000 refugees fanning out from the area telling other Russians of what's really going on near the border without censorship from Russian state media. The weaker Putin looks inside Russia, the sooner his invasion will end.

As I've said before, give Ukraine whatever weapons it wants – except nukes. Ukraine is doing NATO an enormous favor by keeping Putin at bay.

[tomorrowusa]

Homophobia is a reliable metric of derangement, and the Putin régime is officially homophobic. 

Putin has delusions of grandeur. He regards himself as the 21st century version of Peter the Great. And like other narcissistic authoritarians, Putin surrounds himself with advisers who only tell him what he wants to hear. So nobody was around to tell him that invading Ukraine was a dumb-ass idea.

So Putin and his clique dredge up bizarre excuses for Russia’s miserable failures in Ukraine. The three-day “special operation” is now in Day 547 (or is it 548?).

Ukrainians are tougher because they are smart and because they are fighting for their existence; Russia’s army is poorly trained, poorly equipped, and requires convicts to keep it from shrinking. Hundreds of thousands of tech savvy Russians have fled the country – leaving the dumbest and most corrupt people behind.

Ukraine’s ability at innovation is world class. You get an innovative mindset in free countries – in dictatorships you think what you are told to think. Ukraine manages to develop new weapons like sea drones while Russia relies on decaying crap left over from the decrepit USSR.

Let Putin’s lickspittles make up zany alibis for Russia’s continuing failures. They are losing the present and will lose the future. This era in Russian history will be remembered most for assassinations, gross incompetence, rampant corruption, and depraved leadership.

Markov said the U.S. and Ukraine will use “neuro-linguistic programming” and other brainwashing techniques to turn Ukrainian soldiers gay against their will. In reality, there’s no evidence that psychological methods can change a person’s sexual orientation.

“They have an artificial political science fascism created by American and British political technologists. They will turn them into zombies, into cult members. I think they will force some to become homosexuals,” Markov claimed.

“These renewed troops of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, zombified and unified through gay sex, along with cult members ready to sacrifice themselves. This is what they’re preparing for us in the spring 2025,” he added.

^^^ concept image by @ethansowls