#20 percent is occupied by Russians

[w-i-m-m]

[ohsalome]

I often hear comments about Crimea and the other territories occupied by Russia being the “price of peace” in Ukraine. I, like many Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, know that rewarding aggression and brutal occupation does not bring peace.

Crimea is not Russian to be “given back” to Russia. It never was. It never will be.

It is the homeland that has been repeatedly, brutally taken from us; it is the homeland we will not stop fighting for.

My grandmother, Shevkiye, was just 11 years old when on May 18, 1944, Soviet soldiers barged into her home at five o’clock in the morning. World War II was still raging and the Soviet regime had just accused the Crimean Tatars of collaborating with the enemy, the German Nazis – a baseless allegation that led to the unimaginable horror of genocide by deportation.

My great-grandfather was at the front, fighting those same Nazis whom he was accused of collaborating with. So the Soviet soldiers found at home just his wife and four children – the youngest one only a few months old. The soldiers gave them 15 minutes to gather their belongings and did not stop hitting my great-grandmother with their guns as she struggled to pack.

They marched them out of the house and – along with other families from their home village of Ayserez – hoarded loaded them onto a train meant for transporting cattle. The wagons were packed with people and there were no toilets on them; people struggled to breathe. No food or water was provided on the long journey, during which my grandmother’s family remained unaware of their destination.

Exhausted and starved, they focused solely on survival as hunger and disease killed many along the way. One of the most traumatising memories of the journey for my grandmother was witnessing a pregnant woman give birth on the train and then pass away shortly after. A Soviet soldier threw her body out of the wagon while the train kept moving.

After 20 days on the train, they finally arrived at Golodnaya Steppe station in the Mirzachul region of Uzbekistan, where they were unceremoniously unloaded onto a scorching hot platform. With no money or support, they struggled to survive in this unknown land.

They settled in a dilapidated barrack with no roof, windows, or doors. Their food consisted of grass, nettle, potato peels, and rotten potatoes; their drinking water came from irrigation ditches and often caused dysentery. There was no medical assistance available; the Soviet authorities clearly wanted as many Crimean Tatars to die as possible.

The forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Central Asia resulted in the death of 46 percent of the population, leaving a gaping wound in the hearts of those who survived. It was the culmination of a century and a half of deliberate and systematic destruction of the Crimean Tatar people, heritage and culture after the subjugation of the Crimean state by Russian imperial forces in the late 18th century. It is on this obliteration of the Crimean Tatars that the bloody myth of Crimea as a “Russian territory” was built.

[mariacallous]

From the seventh floor at Kherson State University, Oleksandr Khodosovtsev and Ivan Moisienko had a clear view of the enemy. It was a cool December morning, and the Russian troops that had occupied the Ukrainian city of Kherson since the earliest days of Moscow’s full-scale invasion had recently retreated east across the Dnipro River. Mushroom clouds hung over the horizon as they gazed through the rattling floor-to-ceiling windows of the botany department. The explosions, they thought, were likely coming from the tanks less than 5 kilometers away from where they stood.

That morning, the pair—both professors of botany—had arrived on the train from Kyiv and made their way through the partially ruined streets of Kherson to reach the university. The city was still being shelled, and to access their laboratory meant scaling a spiraling stairwell lined with stained-glass windows looking out over the Dnipro River, towards the enemy.

Their mission was to rescue a piece of history: the Kherson herbarium, an irreplaceable collection of more than 32,000 plants, lichen, mosses, and fungi, amassed over a century by generations of scientists, some from thousand-kilometer-long treks across remote areas of Ukraine. “This is something like a piece of art,” says 52-year-old Moisienko. “It’s priceless.”

Herbaria like the one in Kherson, a port city in the south of Ukraine, are about more than just taxonomy. They serve a vital role in the study of species extinction, invasive pests, and climate change. Though it's by no means the world’s largest—the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris has 9,500,000 specimens—Kherson’s herbarium is, Moisienko says, valuable because of its unique contribution to the field. Rare species found only in Ukraine, some of which are at risk of extinction, are documented on its shelves.

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, they threatened not only the thousands of dried, pressed, and preserved specimens stored at the university, but the land where those samples had been collected. In the more than 17 months since Vladimir Putin declared his “special military operation” in Ukraine, millions of acres of land—about 30 percent of the country’s protected areas—have been maimed by indiscriminate bombing, burning, and military maneuvers. Russian troops have scorched tens of thousands of hectares of forests and put more than 800 plants at risk of extinction, including 20 rare species that have mostly vanished from elsewhere, according to the non-profit Ukraine Nature Conservation Group (UNCG).

The Ukrainian government estimates that a third of the country’s land has been contaminated by mines or other unexploded ordnance. Large swathes of the countryside could remain inaccessible for decades to come. That means it could be a long time before scientists like Khodosovtsev and Moisienko can go back out to collect samples.

The pair weighed up these considerations last fall, as they contemplated returning to the hollowed-out city of Kherson. Russian forces had been pushed out of the city in November but continued to bombard it. Between May and November, at least 236 civilians were killed by shelling, according to regional officials. Regardless, Khodosovtsev and Moisienko decided to go in.

“There is no need to risk anyone's life to save some equipment or a building,” Moisienko says, noting with passing remorse how he’d been pained to leave behind one of his prized microscopes. “For this collection, when it's gone, it's gone. There is no way to get it back.”

As the pair began mapping out the evacuation, they determined that in order to mitigate risk on the ground they needed to limit both the number of people and time spent inside the besieged city. There would never be more than three team members—Khodosovtsev, Moisienko and one of their two colleagues—on a trip, and each venture would last no more than 72 hours. The power grid went down regularly, and there was a citywide curfew of 4 pm, meaning they had hard deadlines to get in and out of their lab. And there was bureaucracy. “During the wartime, even to get around the country, you need to have some substantiation, like documents,” said Khodosovtsev, 51.

That got even more complicated when, on their first trek back to the university that December, they discovered that Russian troops had taken up residence in four of the rooms storing part of the plant collection.

Besides the deep sense of violation the botanists felt, this also posed a procedural problem. The “sitters”—a common expression for enemy soldiers who have occupied a Ukrainian building—had changed the locks on all but one of the doors, and the spaces now needed to be documented; a mandatory procedure typically carried out by the local police. Thankfully, their logistics team pulled some strings and got the process expedited. In just a few weeks, the locks had been changed again, and the rooms had been photographed for the official records.

In video footage capturing that first, largely fruitless trip, Khodosovtsev can be seen celebrating the return of one of the 24 more valuable boxes with a kind of enthusiasm typically reserved for the football pitch. “Collemopsidium kostikovii is saved!” he cheers as he raises his fist over his head. “To the sound of explosions!” he adds, as the rumble of mortars interrupts his brief moment of self-congratulation.

Limited resources, another knock-on effect from the ongoing conflict, also threatened to upend the men’s carefully laid plans. While Moisienko drove around to dozens of Kyiv’s home hardware stores in search of plastic boxes to transport the collection’s vascular plants, Khodosovtsev returned to Kherson equipped with little more than a headlamp strapped across his brow and a backpack filled with the same household tools you might use to move apartments.

On this second trip, the magnitude of the task became clear to Khodosovtsev. He had 700 boxes to evacuate. On his first incursion, it had taken him 15 minutes—and way too much tape—to wrap, stack, and rope together half a dozen boxes of samples. At this rate, the botanist said, he’d be blowing past the three days earmarked for this section of the herbarium. Never one to be discouraged, the scientist settled into familiar territory and began doing what he does best: calculating.

“Just two wraps of sticky tape and one roll of rope,” he said, beaming as he reveled in how he’d managed to shave his box-stacking time to just “three and a half minutes.”

This kind of methodical precision proved to be a helpful distraction from the realities of what was going on just beyond the paned glass. A mere 24 hours before Moisienko returned for his third and final trip on January 2, he learned the building where he planned to scoop up the last portion of the herbarium was hit by shelling. Instead of this news derailing his mission, it only seemed to harden him. “We are focused on [the herbarium] so much that you just ignore everything, all these shellings that [are] going on around you,” he said.

Even so, as he worked methodically, packing plant after plant, he started to contemplate how the glass windows of the lab could become deadly projectiles if a shell went off nearby; and how far it was down to the ground floor. At eight stories tall, the academic building sticks out. “The chance the Russians would hit the university building [was] really high,” he says.

He tried to treat the nearby rumbling as white noise, though one day, a shell landed just outside the window as he was packing a sample.

By January 4, Moisienko had finished loading up the last boxes of the collection into the back of a truck. It traveled west for nearly two days, covering approximately 1,000 kilometers, before reaching Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University in Ivano-Frankivsk in Western Ukraine, the institution that has served as a university in exile for the staff and students of Kherson State University for more than a year.

It’s a kind of safety. But, as Moisienko points out, only as safe as anything or anyone can ever be in a country where missiles fall out of the sky on a near daily basis. “Nowhere in the country is 100 percent safe,” he says.

On January 11, Kherson State University was once again struck by shelling, this time only blocks away from where Moisienko had been working less than a week earlier. “That building remains [in] danger, and it's still dangerous to be in Kherson as it’s shelled still now on a daily basis,” Moisienko says. “We've done the right thing.”

[sahisan]

it's rlly about time i understood that nobody cares about ukraine anymore after these 9 (2 for non-ukrainians) years.

like, i mean

20 percent of ukraine's territory is occupied by russia for almost two years of the full-scale war already.

mariupol - a city in south - does not exist anymore, thousands of people died there, thanks to russia. russian aviation dropped a bomb on a drama theater which had a large inscription "KIDS" near the building. in the theater there were not azov military, but people, families, children and newborn kids. all of them died under the rubble. mariupol - even as a "city" under russian occupation - does not exist.

nova kakhovka dam was blown up in summer 2023, resulting in one of kherson's banks being completely flooded, with dnipro river's water reaching the private houses' roofs; resulting in corpses of people and animals floating in the stream of this very water for kilometres away from kherson.

russia keeps bombing every single thing they can fucking reach, be it hospitals, schools, kindergartens, clubs, apartment buildings with people in there. they do not care about anything but destroying ukraine and killing ukrainians.

russia is planning on bombing ukraine's power stations in winter to cause blackouts for the whole country like it was in winter 2022-23. they want us to suffer without light, electricity, mobile connection and heat, that's why they're planning it on winter - they want ukrainians to freeze to death.

russia threatened to blow up the nova kakhovka dam. they did it. now russia is threatening to blow up the currently occupied zaporizhzhia npp, which is a threat to every single country in not only europe, but in the whole world. it will be a catastrophic event if it happens - remember chernobyl?

russia is not only putin. russia is every russian - every russian who is killing ukrainians at the war, every russian who supports putin, every russian who lives in russia.

and what i've listed isn't even a 2% of what russians have done.

there is no such thing as "a good russian". because a good russian is a dead russian.

have a good day and support ukraine. donate. don't be silent.

World Central Kitchen.

Voices of Children.

Humanity & Inclusion.

Future For Ukraine.

The UN Refugee Agency.

Community Organized Relief Effort.

Come Back Alive.

Razom.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, June 15, 2024

These cities are now so expensive they’re considered ‘impossibly unaffordable’ (CNN) Anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last two decades will know that in many countries, not least the United States, it’s become much more difficult to buy a home. But a new report sums up the feeling of many potential home buyers by creating a category that labels some major cities as “impossibly unaffordable.” US cities on the West Coast and Hawaii occupied five of the top 10 most unaffordable places, according to the annual Demographic International Housing Affordability report, which has been tracking house prices for 20 years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most expensive US cities to buy home are in California, where San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego have all made the top 10. The Hawaiian capital of Honolulu also rates a mention in sixth place of 94 major markets surveyed in eight countries. Australia is the only other country besides the US to dominate the “impossibly unaffordable” list, led by Sydney and the southern cities of Melbourne in Victoria and Adelaide in South Australia.

South Florida Deluge (1440) A storm system drenched South Florida for a third straight day Thursday, flooding neighborhoods, disrupting flights, and forcing road closures. Seven million people, including those in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Naples, remain under flood watches through tonight. The National Weather Service issued a rare high risk outlook for excessive rainfall for parts of South Florida, which represents the top level of a four-category scale and occurs on 4% of days each year on average. Such an extreme weather event in the US accounts for more than 80% of flood-related damage and over one-third of flood-related deaths. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) declared a state of emergency for five counties as some areas saw up to 25 inches of rainfall since Tuesday. Roughly an entire average month’s rainfall for June fell on Fort Lauderdale in 24 hours alone Wednesday.

Puerto Rico restores power after a massive blackout as lawmakers call for a state of emergency (AP) A power company in Puerto Rico announced Thursday that it has restored electricity to most areas affected by a massive outage that hit the U.S. territory the previous day. The outage left over 340,000 customers in the capital, San Juan, and neighboring municipalities without power during a heat wave. On Thursday morning, Luma Energy said in a statement that it had restored power to most of its customers in the metropolitan and northeastern regions of the island. Several lawmakers in Puerto Rico are urging the governor to declare a state of emergency to the federal government. Persistent outages have interrupted water service and imperiled the lives of elderly and ill residents who rely on electrical equipment for respirators and to refrigerate insulin, for example.

Ukraine Stalled Russia Near the Border. This Town Has Paid the Price. (NYT) A month into Russia’s push across the border in northern Ukraine, Western weapons and Ukrainian reinforcements have largely stalled the attack. But they came too late to save one town, Vovchansk, where the city hall, a cultural center, countless apartment blocks and several riverside hotels are all now in ruins. A small town divided by the Vovcha River, Vovchansk was once a regional tourist attraction—a pleasant base from which to explore the chalk hills nearby. But it is also three miles from the Russian border, and when Russia began a cross-border offensive on May 10, it became Ukrainian forces’ stand-your-ground position. The front line still runs through Vovchansk, about 70 percent of which remains under Ukrainian control. And a month of fierce fighting and relentless bombing by Russia has decimated the town, forcing almost everyone left there to flee. As bombs and missiles rained down on Kharkiv and the region, an average of 20 Russian glide bombs—large guided strikes from the air—have been falling on Vovchansk daily. “There is no Vovchansk anymore,” one resident said.

Russia financial system shaken after U.S. imposes new sanctions (Washington Post) A tough new raft of U.S. sanctions sent jitters rippling through the Russian financial system Thursday and forced Moscow’s main financial trading platform to halt dollar and euro transactions. The sharp escalation in sanctions by the Treasury Department prompted former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior security official, to call on the population to “inflict maximum harm” on Western societies and infrastructure in retaliation. Meanwhile, several leading Russian banks and brokerages blocked access Thursday to corporate hard-currency accounts. The sweeping new sanctions—announced by the Treasury Department on Wednesday—singled out the Moscow Exchange, Russia’s main financial marketplace, for helping Russians “profit from the Kremlin’s war machine.” The Treasury also broadened “secondary sanctions,” which seek to make foreign banks unwilling to process Russian bank payments. Secondary sanctions, which target entities doing business with Russian companies or individuals under sanction, are now applicable not just to entities working with Russia’s defense industry but also to those working with any sanctioned Russian business or individual, including the country’s biggest banks.

In China’s Backyard, America Has Become a Humbler Superpower (NYT) Far from Ukraine and Gaza, as the Group of 7 wealthy democracies gathers in Italy to discuss a range of old, entrenched challenges, the nature of American power is being transformed across the region that Washington sees as crucial for the century to come: the Asia-Pacific. Here, America no longer presents itself as the confident guarantor of security, a trust-us-we’ve-got-this superpower. The terrain is too vast, China’s rise too great a threat. So the United States has been offering to be something else—an eager teammate for military modernization and tech development. For the first time, the United States is building nuclear-propelled submarines with Australia; involving South Korea in nuclear weapons planning; producing fighter jet engines with India; sharing maritime surveillance duties with small Pacific islands; and working with Japan on adding an offensive strike capability. These collaborations highlight how the region sees China. Many countries fear Beijing’s growing military strength and belligerence—its threats against the democratic island of Taiwan, its claim to most of the South China Sea and its land grab at the border with India. They are also less sure about China as an economic partner, with the slowing pace of its post-Covid economy and tilt away from pro-growth, pro-entrepreneur policies under Xi Jinping.

Dan’s the man: Some Chinese women are looking to ChatGPT for love (BBC) Dan has been described as the “perfect man” who has “no flaws”. He is successful, kind, provides emotional support, always knows just what to say and is available 24/7. The only catch? He’s not real. Dan—which stands for Do Anything Now—is a “jailbreak” version of ChatGPT. This means it can bypass some of the basic safeguards put in place by its maker, OpenAI, such as not using sexually explicit language. And Dan is becoming popular with some Chinese women who say they are disappointed with their real world experiences of dating. Many Chinese women have been intrigued by Dan. As of 10 June, the hashtag “Dan mode” has been viewed more than 40 million times on Xiaohongshu alone. Minrui Xie, 24, says she spends at least two hours every day chatting with Dan. As well as “dating”, they have started co-writing a love story with themselves as the lead characters. Minrui says she was drawn to the emotional support provided by the AI, something that she says she has struggled to find in her romantic relationships.

Shark watch via drone (Washington Post) It was the height of the Australian summer, and 21-year-old Nathaniel Woodcock was spending another day scanning the emerald waters from above. He spotted something headed toward the swimmers and surfers: A seven-foot shadow. A great white shark. Woodcock radioed lifeguards, then activated the warning system. “Attention, beach users,” the drone blared. “There is a shark in your area. Please exit the water.” There were 10 fatal shark attacks globally last year, and four of them were in Australia. Woodcock is one of hundreds of drone pilots enlisted as part of Australia’s coastal drone-surveillance operation, the world’s largest. That program and new installations of nonlethal traps that alert authorities when a shark takes their bait have turned Australia into a laboratory for ways to prevent shark attacks.

Why a Gaza Cease-Fire Is So Elusive (NYT) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called Hamas’s response to the latest peace proposal for Gaza “negative.” Hamas insisted it was dealing with it “positively.” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, speaking in Qatar, said Hamas had demanded changes, some of which were “workable” and some not. A Hamas official told an Arabic television channel that the group had not raised any new ideas, and that Mr. Blinken saw things through an Israeli lens and “speaks Hebrew.” Asked at the Group of 7 summit meeting in Italy if he still thought a deal could be reached, President Biden said, “I haven’t lost hope, but it’s going to be tough.” At the crux of the disagreement over the three-phased deal, according to officials and experts, is Hamas’s goal of essentially securing a permanent cease-fire from the outset and a withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza before handing over most of the hostages. Israel says it is willing to negotiate a permanent cessation of the war, now in its ninth month—but only after dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. That clashes with Hamas’s goals of surviving the war and retaining control of the coastal enclave.

Even when Africans want to visit Europe legally, rejection rates are high. Algeria is one example (AP) France has twice rejected visa applications from Nabil Tabarout, a 29-year-old web developer from Algeria who hopes this year to visit his sister there. He’s among the many people navigating the often arduous visa process throughout Africa, which faces higher visa rejection rates than anywhere else in the world when it comes to visiting Europe’s Schengen Area. Appointments are often difficult to secure. Applicants often must prove a minimum bank balance, substantiate the purpose of their visit and prove they plan to return home. Though much of Europe’s debate about migration centers on people who arrive without authorization, many more people choose to come by legal means. It’s painful, then, to discover that following the rules often fails. Nowhere are applicants more rejected than in Algeria, where more than 392,000 applicants were rejected in 2022. The 45.8% rejection rate is followed by a 45.2% rejection rate in Guinea-Bissau and 45.1% in Nigeria.

Record 120 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, UN says (AFP) The United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR said forced displacement globally had once again smashed records, with conflicts in places like Gaza, Sudan and Myanmar forcing even more people to flee their homes. The global displaced population is now equivalent to that of Japan, it pointed out in a statement. “Conflict remains a very, very big driver of mass displacement,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi told reporters. At the end of last year, 117.3 million people were displaced, UNHCR said in a report. And by the end of April, the number had swelled further, with an estimated 120 million people around the world living in displacement. Grandi told AFP he had been shocked at the high displacement figure when he took the job eight years ago. Since then it has “more than doubled”, he said, describing this as “a terrible indictment on the state of the world”.

[garudabluffs]

The Meaning of Terrorism OCT. 26, 2023

When tragedy strikes, we should be careful about how we describe it.

Terrorism, like war, is a word we tend to use almost as a reflex to describe anything that horrifies us. But words can lead us to choose policies, and we should be aware of how we use them.

READ MORE The meaning of terrorism - The Atlantic

{{the Grim Reaper Posse Vigilantes Party doesn't care what your politics are. Murder and Mayhem prevail - doesn't matter the outcome of any war - they'll be back in a country near you sooner than anyone imagines - The rules of engagement as far as they are concerned? War is a free-for-all : civilians and combatants alike decry collateral damage and innocent bystanders who suffer regardless/irregardless of the reasons or rationale for the conflict between nations/governments/territories/mapped-by-flags populations... stockpiling weapons of mass destruction while destroying and decimating dwellings and residences human beings occupy to survive,thrive,and form communities to enable commerce and communication- - - eventually the weapons of death to others of our kind be deployed to devastate and defeat those who value life and liberty over hatred & cruelty. Those whose ill-will towards others results in bearing armaments & weapons to overpower the meek who might one day inherit the Earth? decide what might next be World War 3's eventuality.... the conflagration of climate change happening vs. nuclear war vs. some virus parasite disease or comet/meteor/asteroid annihilating species including homo sapiens... the warmongers are most likely to cause the demise of human civilization - the only consolation being the end of war,FINALLY

What’ll it be: Settlement or Nuclear Annihilation? February 28, 2023

"As the unrelenting war in Ukraine grinds continuously and more deeply into the proxy war it has been from the start, another danger lurks: nuclear war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his country’s nuclear forces put on “special alert.” U.S. President Joseph Biden has since declared the world is “faced with the prospect of Armageddon.” UN Secretary General António Guterres recently said we are “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”

The West’s efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have neither stopped the fighting nor compelled Moscow to reconsider the ongoing war.

Russia’s assault on Ukraine has increased the risk of a wider war between nuclear powers, and the possible deployment of nuclear weapons. The world has not been so publicly reminded of the possibility of nuclear confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In October, Politico,  a respected voice in politics, policy and power, noted, “the probability of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine has risen from 1-5 percent at the start of the war to 20-25 percent today.”

There are those who would suggest we’re caught in an epic WWIII-like undertaking.

History has taught us that even though the warring factions may be rational actors, unexpected miscalculations can lead to catastrophic outcomes."

"Insistence on a military solution in Ukraine increases the chances of a nuclear Armageddon. Such a polarizing mindset moves the Doomsday Clock perilously closer to the pitch-black darkness of midnight. Now is the time to seek a diplomatic way to avoid the nightmare of a nuclear war possessing the destructive power to create global famine and to kill billions of people.

The question remains – as it has for too many decades – what’ll it be: settlement or nuclear Armageddon. One holds hope. The other devastation."

READ MORE https://gppreview.com/2023/02/28/whatll-it-be-settlement-or-nuclear-annihilation/

[kragnir]

Where is the outcry over this? I googled the subject. But, all the usual worthless suspects are silent … UN, OSCE, AI, UNICEF, EU, WHO. Their bank accounts are stuffed with rubles to assure their silence?

[argumate]

Russian forces have likely run out of combat-ready reservists, forcing the Russian military command to amalgamate soldiers from many different elements, including private military companies and proxy militias, into ostensibly regular army units and naval infantry. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that approximately 2,500 Russian reservists are training in Belgorod, Voronezh, and Rostov oblasts to reinforce Russian offensive operations in Ukraine. That number of reservists is unlikely to generate enough force to replenish Russian units that have reportedly lost up to 20 percent of staffing in some areas—to say nothing of the battalion tactical group that was largely destroyed recently while attempting to cross the Siverskyi Donets River. The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate stated that Russian forces are conducting covert mobilization and creating new units with newly mobilized personnel who likely have insufficient training to be effective and little motivation to fight. Russian forces also deployed new conscripts from occupied settlements in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to maintain an offensive around Kharkiv City, likely due to the lack of Russian reserves.

[theculturedmarxist]

U.S. Military Intelligence Official Refutes 'Russian Atrocities' Claims

Russian soldiers left the town Bucha in Ukraine on March 30. Two days later the Ukrainian Gestapo like SBU and men of the fascist Azov battalion moved in to find and remove 'traitors'. On April 2/3 video was published that showed freshly killed men laying on the streets of Bucha. Several of them had white arm bands signaling to Russian forces to see them as friendlies.

The 'west' and Ukrainian officials immediately called those dead the result of 'Russian atrocities'.

I had called it a provocation:

The Bucha 'Russian' atrocities propaganda onslaught may have worked well in the 'west' but it lacks evidence that Russia had anything to do with it.The former Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar calls it an outright fake: ...

And a fake it was.

Thankfully there are still some sane U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officials and William Arkin is talking with them:

Last Wednesday, Bucha Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk said that 320 people had been killed in the town of 37,000. ... "It is ugly," a senior official with the Defense Intelligence Agency tells Newsweek. "But we forget that two peer competitors fought over Bucha for 36 days, and that the town was occupied, that Russian convoys and positions inside the town were attacked by the Ukrainians and vice versa, that ground combat was intense, that the town itself was literally fought over." ... "I am not for a second excusing Russia's war crimes, nor forgetting that Russia invaded the country," says the DIA official. "But the number of actual deaths is hardly genocide. If Russia had that objective or was intentionally killing civilians, we'd see a lot more than less than .01 percent in places like Bucha."

320 of 37,000 is not .01 percent. But we do not know how many of those dead were Russian or Ukrainian soldiers. Some of the dead were so called 'civilian defenders' which were supposedly local civilians to whom the government had handed guns to 'fight the Russians'. During a war a 'civilian' with a government issued gun shooting at enemy soldiers is a combatant, not a civilian.

The DIA official continues:

"Have the Russians been indiscriminate? Absolutely. But it shouldn't too surprising. It's part and parcel of the Russian way of war, lining up their artillery guns and letting loose," the DIA official says. "But here in particular, in Bucha and the other towns around it—Irpin and Hostomel—there was intense ground fighting that involved almost 20 battalion tactical groups."

I doubt that there is really intentional 'indiscriminate' Russian artillery fire. The Russians have held back quite a lot and paid in blood for it.

One should also note that the often shown mass graves in Bucha were not from recent actions but had been dug on March 10 after heavy fighting when Russian soldiers tried to enter the town:

Maxar Technologies, which collects and publishes satellite imagery of Ukraine, said the first signs of excavation for a mass grave at the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints were seen on March 10."More recent coverage on March 31st shows the grave site with an approximately 45-foot-long trench in the southwestern section of the area near the church," Maxar said.

The DIA official clearly says the civilian casualties in Ukraine, which are quite low, get overplayed and that attributing them solely to Russia is wrong:

On Monday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it had recorded 1,793 deaths and 2,439 injuries to civilians in all of Ukraine since the war began on February 24. U.S. intelligence believes that the true number is some five times greater, as previously reported by Newsweek."It's bad," the DIA official says. "And I don't want to say it's not too bad. But I can't help but stress that beyond the clamor, we are not seeing the war clearly. Where there has been intense ground fighting and a standoff between Ukrainian and Russian forces, the destruction is almost total. But in terms of actual damage in Kyiv or other cities outside the battle zone, and with regard to the number of civilian casualties overall, the evidence contradicts the dominant narrative." ... The official says that it is dangerous to attribute one or even several graves and scenes of civilian disaster to Russian barbarism rather than just being realistic about the depredations of war.The official also worries that attributing the destructiveness only to Russian conduct, rather than to war itself, creates future dangers."If we blame all the damage on Putin, as if he commanded it and that it is due solely to Russian war crimes, we are going to walk away from Ukraine with some illusion in our heads that modern warfare can be fought more cleanly, that the Ukraine war is an anomaly solely created by Russia's behavior. This war is just demonstrating how destructive any war on this scale would be."

One should avoid to wage war whenever possible but it also important to end wars as quickly as possible:

"Maybe it's heartless to urge that we look at Ukraine with precision, without human emotion," says the DIA official."But for those who think tens of thousands have died and Russia is intentionally killing civilians and pursuing genocide, I say that's even more of an argument to find a diplomatic solution to cease fighting. But nothing is going to happen in the coming days or weeks to change the reality on the battlefield. That's why stopping the fighting should be our highest priority."

Unfortunately ending the war is not a priority for the U.S. nor the EU. Their leaders are drunk on the idea that the Ukraine defeated Russia around Kiev. They seem to believe that the Ukraine can defeat Russia everywhere.

But the retreat from Kiev was ordered because the deceptive move towards it had fulfilled its purpose of keeping a large number of Ukrainian soldiers in place around Kiev while the Russian army opened the land corridor to Crimea.

The Ukraine has no chance to defeat the Russian army no matter how many old tanks or airplanes the U.S. and EU countries move to it.

Sending more weapons only prolongs the war and inevitably creates more military and civilian casualties on both sides.

[beardedmrbean]

Video images purport to show Ukrainian special forces mining a pontoon bridge set up by Russian troops to cross a river in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk before it is blown to smithereens.

The first part of the released footage, which appears to have been shot using night vision technology, shows what appear to be Ukrainian special forces mining the pontoon bridge at night.

The footage then cuts to a little later, in daylight, to when the pontoon bridge can reportedly be seen being blown up.

The footage was obtained from the Special Operations Forces (SSO) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Thursday, along with a short statement saying: "We do not know what the occupiers thought when they built a pontoon bridge to force [their way across] the river in the Luhansk region.

"After all, there are more than enough bad signs around that place in the form of burnt Russian equipment."

It is unclear where exactly in the Luhansk region the footage was filmed, but the SSO also said: "We do not know what the enemy was hoping for when the SSO of Ukraine was able to mine a pontoon under his nose in the middle of the night.

"But we know exactly what emotions our soldiers had when they sent another enemy crossing into the air."

Zenger News contacted Russian and Ukrainian officials for comment but had not received a reply at the time of writing.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what the Kremlin is calling a "special military operation" to "liberate the Donbas." June 16 marks the 113th day of the invasion.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that between February 24 and June 16, Russia had lost about 32,950 personnel, 1,449 tanks, 3,545 armored fighting vehicles, 729 artillery pieces, 233 multiple launch rocket systems, 97 air defense systems, 213 warplanes, 179 helicopters, 591 tactical drones, 129 cruise missiles, 13 warships, 2,494 motor vehicles and fuel tankers, and 55 pieces of special equipment.

In related news, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi arrived in Kyiv on Thursday for talks. They are reportedly hoping to rebut what has been perceived as their lukewarm support for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Washington has told China it risks ending up on the "wrong side of history" following Chinese President Xi Jinping's assurances to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Beijing supports Russian "sovereignty."

Thousands of civilians remain trapped in the key eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk, where the water supply is reported to be dwindling. Hundreds of civilians are taking shelter in the bunkers beneath the city's Azot chemical plant.

Luhansk Oblast governor Serhiy Haidai said earlier this week that all three bridges into Severodonetsk had been destroyed, making delivering supplies and evacuating civilians impossible.

President Joe Biden has promised Kyiv another billion dollars in security assistance and weapon, and General Mark Milley, who chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says Russia has lost around 20 to 30 percent of its armored force during the ongoing invasion.

[mariacallous]

As Moldovans prepare to go to the polls on Oct. 20, it looks like another round of the familiar geopolitical standoff between Russia and the West over the countries in Moscow’s former empire and sphere of influence. In a crucial referendum, Moldovans will vote on whether to pursue membership in the European Union. They must also choose between Maia Sandu, the pro-EU incumbent president with a reformist agenda, and a cohort of pro-Russian candidates of varying degrees of radicalism.

Russia is deploying its usual catalog of influence operations as it tries to undermine the small country’s path toward Western institutions. The evidence of Russian meddling is abundant, and the sums Moscow is funneling to its proxies are unprecedented in Moldovan politics. Besides paying tens of thousands of Moldovans to vote against joining the EU and financing pro-Moscow candidates, Russia has also doubled down on its usual tactic of using shady oligarchs to try to capture the state. Finally, there is Transnistria—a Russian-occupied sliver of Moldova next to Ukraine. It is a typical frozen conflict, and it is another tried-and-true strategy for Moscow to assert pressure on countries it wants to control. Although the threat of a Russian invasion of Moldova from Transnistria is currently extremely low because Russia is busy fighting Ukraine, that could always change in the future.

But the jostling of pro-Russian political forces in Moldova ahead of the election is hardly a sign of Moscow’s strength and sophistication. Instead, the Kremlin seems to have failed to adapt its election interference strategies to the new realities of Moldovan politics—particularly, the decline in support for Russia since its invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Today, even some of the pro-Russian politicians support EU membership and try to avoid being too closely associated with Moscow.

Long after Moldova gained its independence during the Soviet Union’s breakup in 1991, the Kremlin remained a potent force in its former possession’s politics. It awards its minions with generous financing and receptions in Moscow while punishing unfavorable Moldovan governments with trade bans and gas price hikes. Today, Russia still looms large in Moldovan public opinion, even though Moldova has severed most official ties between the two countries since the start of the invasion. According to a 2024 poll by the International Republican Institute (IRI), 71 percent of Moldovans surveyed said relations with Russia are currently very bad or somewhat bad, compared to only 11 percent who said that about the EU. But only 46 percent of Moldovans see Russia as a moderate or great threat to their country, while 53 percent rank it among the country’s most important economic partners—behind only the EU at 66 percent and neighboring Romania at 69 percent. Similarly, half of the people polled saw Russia as one of the country’s most important political partners, as well.

It is doubtful, however, whether Moscow can take advantage of this lingering popularity to turn around this weekend’s vote, which is expected to come out in favor of Sandu and EU membership. Moldova’s left-leaning parties, which have historically been pro-Russian, still command around 40 percent support. But they have struggled to adjust their narratives to Russia’s brutal war next door.

Since the invasion started, many on the Moldovan left have worked to cast off their image as Russian stooges. Some, like the popular mayor of Chisinau, Ion Ceban, and former Prime Minister Ion Chicu, have tried to reinvent themselves as centrist pro-Europeans. They have abandoned their former party, the powerful Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), which is much tainted by past cooperation with the Kremlin, and founded their own political movements. Their new pro-EU views have elicited much skepticism, but they have already captured around 10 percent support, principally among Moldovans who are both unhappy with Sandu and disenchanted with Moscow.

The rest of the PSRM has proved less agile. The party’s leader, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, is notorious for his close ties to Moscow. But with the presidential election looming, the party tried to adapt to Russia’s waning sway by sidelining Dodon and nominating former Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo as a candidate. Stoianoglu, while also stressing the need for cooperation with Moscow, has a record of supporting EU integration and is widely perceived as a moderate figure. It is difficult to determine the real state of his relations with the Kremlin, but his cautious rhetoric and low-budget campaign suggest that Russia is not fully behind him.

Russian money appears to be channeled elsewhere this time. Moldovan police recently stated that during September alone, more than $15 million was transferred from Russia to bank accounts connected to the fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor.

Shor, who was sentenced to prison in absentia for his role in a scam involving almost $1 billion extracted from Moldovan banks, embodies another typical Kremlin strategy: influence a country through Russia-friendly oligarchs. This has long been an important part of Russia’s strategy for gaining control of Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries.

But betting on Shor, who holds Russian citizenship and resides in Moscow, suggests that the Kremlin has reached the limits of its oligarch strategy. Indeed, it would be hard to find a more inept figure to have entrusted with winning over Moldovan voters. Shor is widely seen as a corrupt crook; at 58 percent, he has the highest unfavorable rating among a long roster of politicians in the IRI poll. He is so unpopular that researchers noted that his activities actually boost support for Sandu. His talking points—lambasting the EU and touting the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union—seem more attuned to appeal to his friends in the Kremlin than to most Moldovan voters.

For Moscow, Shor is a reliable proxy because he is well-versed in the shady side of Moldovan politics, structures his campaign in a way that corresponds to the Kremlin’s world outlook, and is such a toxic figure that he couldn’t betray Russia even if he wanted to. This latter quality—absolute loyalty—has become Moscow’s key and almost only criterion for choosing allies.

The few elections Shor’s movement has won—such as regional votes in Gagauzia and Orhei—came with accusations of massive vote-buying. If current reports of vote-buying are true, it’s unclear how effective that tactic will be. Most of the 130,000 Moldovans that have reportedly been bribed by Shor’s associates to vote against EU membership were, in all likelihood, already favorably inclined toward Moscow. In the presidential election, neither Shor’s candidate Vasile Bolea nor Shor’s Victory bloc were permitted to register due to financial irregularities.

Shor may still throw his support behind one of the opposition candidates by this weekend’s vote, but that is unlikely to make much of a difference. The election promises to deal a major blow to Russia’s lingering influence in Moldova. Recent polls suggest that the referendum will confirm majority support for EU integration, while the presidential election will see Sandu reelected by a wide margin, with the moderate left opposition prevailing over pro-Russian radicals.

In freeing itself from Russian influence, Moldova still faces the hurdle of next year’s parliamentary elections, where a clear and overwhelming victory by Sandu and her allies is not guaranteed. But Russia’s war has brought Moldovan politics closer to the point where all major forces agree that integration with the West is good for the country, an evolution many other post-communist states have already undergone.

This reality dooms pro-Russian string-pullers like Shor to languish on the fringes of political life, even if Moldova one day permits him to return without serving his prison sentence. But the ossified leadership in the Kremlin doesn’t seem to care. Moscow prefers loyal minions and familiar methods, even if they end up driving Moldovans even farther away from Russia.

[johnvink]

GEORGIA, Tbilisi. 20/09/2019: People carrying the Georgian banner demonstrate in front of the Parliament building, protesting against former Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia’s appointment as Prime Minister, and to denounce what they claim is connivence of the present government with Russia which occupies 20% of Georgia territory. https://mapsbase.photoshelter.com/gallery/Georgia-Soviet-Legacy/G0000in0oEPM6tcc/C0000qnLiwsooMMc Ukraine is not the only country leaning towards European values which is suffering from Vladimir Putin's aggressive nostalgia for a glorious Russia. Twenty percent of Georgia's territory is occupied by Russia. Russian troops control the Republic of Abkhazia, recognised only by a few states, which managed to break away after a bloody war in 1992-1993 and an ethnic cleansing which led 250,000 people to seek refuge in Georgia. The invasion by Russian soldiers in Georgia in 2008 also consolidated the Republic of South Ossetia, another breakaway republic with barely 54,000 people dating from the 1991-1992 war. #MAPS #Mapsimages https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb-f5CiqwSM/?utm_medium=tumblr

[implexis]

1920

Jan 3  Russia's civil war is winding down. The Bolsheviks secure an armistice with Estonia. The Russian anti-Bolshevik army leader, Yudenich, in Estonia, will be arrested in a couple of weeks as he tries to escape to western Europe.

Jan 16  In the United States, prohibition becomes law.

Jan 19  US Senators vote against joining the League of Nations. There was opposition especially to Article X of the League Covenant, which called on giving assistance to a member who is a victim of external aggression.

Jan 21  Independence from Britain is proclaimed in Ireland. The Irish Republican Army begins Ireland's War of Independence.

Jan 23  The Netherlands, ruled by the young and strong-willed Queen Wilhelmina, doesn't buy the exaggerations of the Allied nations of World War I and refuses to extradite Kaiser Wilhelm to them for prosecution.

Feb 2  A treaty between Bolshevik Russia and Estonia recognizes Estonia's independence.

Feb 7 The anti-Bolshevik military leader in central Siberia, Kolchak, has surrendered and is executed.

Feb 24  In Munich, Adolf Hitler presents a program to his tiny political party.

Mar 13-17  In Germany an attempted coup by anti-Marxists – the Kapp putsch – briefly ousts the Weimar Republic government from Berlin. The coup fails because of public resistance and a general strike.

Mar 25  A police force of former soldiers from England, to be known as the Black and Tans, arrives in Ireland. They are less than disciplined police professionals and are sent to assist the Irish government loyal to British rule to maintain that rule.

Apr 4  Violence erupts between Arab and Jewish residents in Jerusalem. Nine are killed and 216 injured.

Apr 12  In Germany's Ruhr, occupied by the French, the German government has French approval to combat a communist rebel army numbering around 6,000 men. After ten days of fighting, German government forces, including Freikorps paramilitary units, defeat the rebel army. The government force loses about 250 men, the rebels lose over a thousand.

Apr 20  In Mexico, President Carranza prefers civilian rule. The man he doesn't want as his successor, a former general on his left politically, Álvaro Obregón, announces that he intends to fight Carranza.

Apr 20  Summer Olympics Games open in Antwerp, Belgium.

Apr 23  The Grand National Assembly of Turkey is founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara. It denounces the government of Sultan Mehmed VI and announces a temporary constitution.

Apl 24  The Bolsheviks are fighting to establish Soviet republics among the Poles, Ukrainians and Lithuanians, with help from communists among each ethnicity.

Apr 19-26  A seven-day conference at San Remo, in Italy, ends. in the name of League of Nation mandates, Italy, France, Britain and Japan agree to precise boundaries in the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.

May 2  In Indianapolis, the first game of Negro National League baseball is played.

May 7  In the ongoing war between Polish and Soviet troops, Polish troops occupy Kiev.

May 7  A Bolshevik coup has failed against a government of moderate socialists (Social Democrats) in Georgia. The Soviet government signs a treaty recognizing Georgia's independence.

May 19-20  Álvaro Obregón's army pushes into Mexico City. Carranza flees by train and is shot and killed.

May 24  Carranza is buried in Mexico City. His allies gathered at his funeral are arrested. Adolfo de la Huerta, an Obregón ally, is appointed provisional president by Mexico's congress.

Jun 4  Hungary signs a peace agreement with its World War I enemies: France, Britain, the US, Italy and Japan. The agreement establishes new borders for Hungary. Hungary loses 71 percent of its territory and 66 percent of its population. About one-third of the ethnic Hungarian population (3.4 of 10 million Hungarians) become minorities in neighboring countries. The new borders separate Hungary's industrial base from its sources of raw materials, and Hungary also loses its only sea port, at Fiume (today Rijeka).

Jun 15  A new border treaty between Germany and Denmark gives northern Schleswig to Denmark.

Jul 1 Scientists in 2014 will trace the AIDs virus to sometime in the 1920s in Léopoldville (Kinshasa) in the Belgian Congo. Its spread is linked to urban growth and a rise in railway links during colonial rule.

Jul 12  Soviet Russia signs a peace treaty with Lithuania, recognizing Lithuanian independence In exchange for Lithuanian neutrality and permission to let Soviet Red Army forces pass through against hostile Polish forces.

Jul 24  The French are moving to impose what they believe to be their authority in Syria. At the Battle of Maysalun Pass, about 12 miles west of Damascus, a French army easily defeats a few hundred Arab soldiers and some hastily-summoned citizen volunteers.

Jul 28  Pancho Villa signs a surrender and retires.

Aug 3  The Irish War of Independence continues. Catholics in Belfast protest against the continuing presence of the British Army.

Aug 10  The Treaty of Sèvres ends the war between the Allies and Turkey. The treaty limits Turkey to a military force of 50,000. It gives Britain, France and Italy control over Turkey's financial affairs. It gives France and Italy zones of control and influence, and it grants autonomy to the Kurds. Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI's representatives sign the treaty confirming arrangements for partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Turks in general refuse to recognize the treaty. A Greek army is advancing into Turkey from Smyrna

Aug 11  Soviet troops have been pushed out of Latvia. Soviet Russia recognizes Latvian independence.

Aug 13-25  An anti-Soviet Polish army decisively defeats and routes the Soviet Red Army in the Battle of Warsaw, to be remembered by Poles as the "Miracle on the Vistula." Stalin, age 41, was there as a political commissar and would resent the defeat for the rest of his life. (Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain, p 41)

Aug 26  Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution by the states guarantees women's suffrage.

Sep 16  A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the JP Morgan building in New York City, killing 38 and injuring 400. It's to be known as the Wall Street bombing. A half-day of trading is lost. The capitalist system survives. The bombers are never found.

Oct 18  Thousands of unemployed demonstrate in London. Fifty are injured.

Oct 26  Álvaro Obregón is elected president of Mexico.

Nov 2  In the United States, people long for the "good old days" before the war. They elect Warren Harding as their president, who has campaigned against ratification of the peace treaty and for a return to "normalcy." Republicans gain ten seats in the Senate, extending their majority there to 59 of 96 seats. House Republicans gain 67 seats for 302 out of 433 seats. The Civil War is still within the country. The red and blue states are divided in presidential election results between the South and elsewhere, except for Tennessee, which went for the Republican, Harding.

Nov 21  It is Bloody Sunday. The Irish Republican Army, on the instructions of Michael Collins, kill fourteen British undercover agents in Dublin, most in their homes. In retaliation the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary open fire on a crowd at a Gaelic Athletic Association Football match in Croke Park, killing thirteen spectators and one player and wounding 60.

Dec 11  In Ireland, a British trooper is killed by a guerrilla ambush. British forces set fire to some 5 acres, including the city hall, in the center of the city of Cork.

Dec 1  Obregón becomes Mexico's 39th President.

Dec 15-22  The Brussels Conference establishes a timetable for German war reparations intended to extend for over 42 years.

Dec 16  in northwest China an 8.5-magnitude earthquake will within a few days kill an estimated 273,400 people.

Dec 23  Britain passes the Government of Ireland Act, providing for the partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland with separate parliaments and granting a measure of home rule.

to 1919 | to 1921

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

East Coast Storm (1440) An intense storm system battered the northeast coast of the US Monday with high winds, heavy rain, and flooding, leaving 59 million people from Virginia to Maine under flood watches and knocking out power for more than 700,000 people. At least four people were killed in the storm. More than 500 flights were canceled across the region, particularly to and from airports in New York City and Boston, with Boston Logan International Airport seeing winds as high as 68 mph. The storm also dumped between 2 to 5 inches of rain across the Northeast.

US homicide rate falls (The Atlantic) According to data gathered from cities across America, the murder rate dropped by about 13% this year. Yes, we’re killing each other less. And it’s not just murder. FBI data for the third quarter show that every category of crime except for motor-vehicle theft is down, some of them sharply, year over year from 2022. (As for the car thefts, they seem—in one of the weirdest data flukes you’ll ever see—to have been driven almost entirely by TikTok videos showing the ease of breaking into certain Kias and Hyundais.)

Passport wait times fully recovered from pandemic, State Dept. says (Washington Post) Passport processing times have returned to pre-pandemic standards, the State Department announced Monday, with routine services taking between six and eight weeks, and expedited services two to three weeks for a $60 fee. That’s about a month faster than the estimated wait times from this March. But don’t call it a Christmas miracle. The State Department had a goal of getting back to 2020 levels by the end of this year, and processing times have been on the mend for months. The State Department credits the milestone to increased staffing levels. Since last December, the agency told The Washington Post, it has grown its workforce by 12 percent and added hundreds of additional staff in the hiring pipeline. The agency also authorized more overtime hours, even getting retirees to pitch in.

Kyiv forced to cut military operations as foreign aid dries up (BBC) Ukraine has warned it is already being forced to downsize some military operations because of a drop-off in foreign aid. Top general Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said troops faced ammunition shortages along the "entire front line", creating a "big problem" for Kyiv. It comes as billions of dollars of US and EU aid have been held up amid political wrangles. Ukraine said it hoped to boost its own ammunition industry with western help. But it relies heavily on western supplies, particularly on deliveries of long-range missiles and air defence systems, to fight occupying Russian forces.

Pakistan’s former leader Imran Khan uses AI to campaign from behind bars (Washington Post) Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan campaigned from behind bars over the weekend, using artificial intelligence in an online rally to circumvent a broad state-backed crackdown on events held by his party. The social media team from the Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, opposition party used AI to generate audio of Khan’s voice for a four-minute video clip, accompanied by graphics and previously filmed footage, that ran online Sunday night local time. In the video, Khan—who was jailed in August on corruption charges—greets his supporters and likens his time in prison to a fight for the freedom of Pakistan.

Survivors Face Subzero Temperatures After Quake Kills Over 100 in China (NYT) An earthquake killed at least 116 people in a mountainous area of northwestern China, officials and state media said on Tuesday, crumpling buildings while residents slept inside and sending people rushing into a frigid night. Rescuers were searching for survivors in rural Jishishan County in Gansu Province, the epicenter of the quake, officials from Gansu said at a news conference on Tuesday. They said the quake, which struck at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, had killed 105 people in the province and injured nearly 400 others. The quake had a magnitude of 5.9, according to the United States Geological Survey. Photos and videos shared by state media showed brick village houses that had caved in, and bedrooms buried in rubble. Hours later, rescuers were still digging people out, according to CCTV, the state broadcaster.

America Had ‘Quiet Quitting.’ In China, Young People Are ‘Letting It Rot.’ (WSJ) China’s ruling Communist Party wants the country’s young people to be ambitious, work hard and prepare for adversity. Many young Chinese aren't having it. Demoralized by a weak economy, unfulfilling jobs and a paternalistic state, they are looking for pathways out of the carefully scripted lives their elders want for them, putting themselves at odds with the country’s priorities. Catchphrases describing the mood have worked their way into everyday discourse. Last year, the phrase “let it rot” spread to describe young people who have completely given up. Companies, meanwhile, are setting their sights on a hot new growth market in China: the elderly. The country is aging much more quickly than other developing nations and has the world’s largest elderly population with more than 280 million people above the age of 60. Businesses that used to focus on babies are now targeting Chinese seniors.

New cyber warfare (Foreign Policy) Iranian fuel pumps returned to operationality on Tuesday following a cyberattack on Monday that shuttered nearly 70 percent of Tehran’s petrol services. An alleged Israeli-linked hacking group named Gonjeshke Darande, or Predatory Sparrow, claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying it was done “in response to the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.” The group said it had the ability to cut off all fuel operations but chose not to out of concern for civilian safety.

Unwashed and underfed, babies born into Gaza war face hardship in tents (Reuters) The grandmother has a simple wish for her twin baby granddaughters, Alma and Salma: they should be in a clean, safe room where they can be bathed. Instead, the infants are living in a tent in a camp for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza. Their mother cannot breastfeed them because she is not getting enough nutrition for her body to produce milk. And they have never been bathed. Alma and Salma are part of a generation of Gaza babies born into homeless, destitute families struggling to survive Israel’s ferocious military assault on their crowded strip of land, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Their grandmother, Um Mohammed al-Jadba, struggles every day to find water to make them bottles of formula milk. She boils the water in a thermos flask on a fire outside the tent. Elsewhere in the tent camp where Alma and Salma were living, other families with babies were facing similar hardships.

Shrugging Off Egypt’s Crises, El-Sisi Gets Set for 6 More Years (NYT) Over a decade at the helm of the Arab world’s most populous country, there have been times when President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt looked like a man dangling from a ledge by the tips of his fingers. Yet, a decade later, he is still president—and back for six more years, as the results of this month’s presidential election confirm. The authorities said Monday that Mr. el-Sisi had won a third term with 89.6 percent of the vote. (Leading opposition candidate Ahmed Tantawy had pulled out months ago, claiming intimidation and violence against his campaign.) No one doubted the outcome, given all the advantages of his authoritarian grip on the country. An extra edge came from the war in next-door Gaza, which has allowed Mr. el-Sisi to cast himself as a strong leader at home and abroad, just as he did after conflicts in Libya, Sudan, Syria and beyond. This is the turbulent map that is Middle East geopolitics, a multifront five-alarm fire that has made Mr. el-Sisi, in his obstinate way, look like a rock of stability.

Choppy Waters (Foreign Policy) In the past few weeks, Yemen’s Houthi militants have conducted ballistic missile and drone strikes against at least 10 merchant vessels and a U.S. Navy ship, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. To counter such actions, Washington—along with Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, and the United Kingdom—established a joint maritime task force on Tuesday to ensure “freedom of navigation for all countries” and bolster “regional security and prosperity.” The initiative will be aided by Task Force 153, a Bahrain-based unit formed last year and led by the U.S. Navy to help safeguard the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. As countries work to combat Houthi assaults, private companies are suspending their operations in the area. BP halted oil and gas shipments through the Red Sea indefinitely on Monday after two more Houthi strikes hit the Panama-flagged MSC Clara and the Norwegian-owned Swan Atlantic. Five major shipping companies from Hong Kong, Denmark, France, Germany, and Taiwan, as well as the Italian-Swiss-owned Mediterranean Shipping Company, all halted their operations in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, diverting many of their vessels to instead go around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa’s coast. The need to reroute shipping is fueling global trade disruptions. Delaying access to this vital thoroughfare will cause mass delays, putting supply chains at risk of collapse. Some of the world’s most convenient shipping lanes are in geopolitically choppy Middle Eastern waters.

At least 13 dead, 178 injured after a massive fuel depot explosion in Guinea’s capital (AP) An explosion and inferno at Guinea’s main fuel depot in the capital of Conakry left at least 13 people dead and 178 injured, authorities said Monday, as the West African country was assisted by other nations in managing the disaster. The massive explosion sparked the fire at the Guinean Petroleum Company depot after midnight Sunday, Guinea’s presidency said. It caused significant damage in the heart of the Kaloum administrative district, home to most government offices.

There’s No Shame in Feeling Lonely (NYT) This Christmas, Renate Bello, 56, will spend the holiday taking care of her neighbor’s dogs in Easthampton, Mass. Without any family or close friends nearby, holidays can be an especially lonely time, she said, and she longs to build deeper connections with humans. “I know a number of people,” she said. “But they are not necessarily people I would call up to say, ‘Let’s go hang out.’” Loneliness can carry a stigma in our society. People who experience unwanted solitude may assume that they are unlikable or unlovable—that they are to blame for not having more friends, community connections or a romantic partner. “This can cause profound shame, which can erode self esteem,” said Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general and author of “Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.” “It can also worsen feelings of loneliness, as it often pushes us to distance ourselves from others at a time when we need support most.” But the truth is, he added, loneliness is a universal human experience. “We all feel lonely at times just like we all feel hunger or thirst,” Dr. Murthy said. “There is no reason to be ashamed of being human.”

[ryttu3k]

Night Road quote text dump, because I've been deluging a friend with quotes and want a place to keep them all.

We're a bit like that, yeah:

They direct you to a hulking Malkavian named Severian, and the sullen giant directs you in turn to Gibberish Mike.

Fortunately, it turns out that "Gibberish" Mike is just Australian.

Practical concerns:

"That's it!" Elena says, leaning over your shoulder. "That's his yacht. Oh, and this is all about him. Very useful." She snaps a picture of the email with her phone, then the two of you get out of there before the technician returns. You head down the elevator and then back to Elena's Datsun.

You're so pleased by how well that went that that it takes you a few minutes to remember you're in Arizona.

"His yacht?" you finally ask.

Fun with bungalow ownership:

After a day of fitful dreams, you throw on your leather jacket and engineer boots and get ready for another night. You step outside to check your Integra. A neighbor parks next door in her Ford Super Duty and gives you a friendly little wave. You've been practicing this. You're ready.

"Howdy, neighbor."

"Howdy!" she responds before heading inside.

Fucking nailed it. You're one of them.

This is legitimately how I got the Messy Critical achievement:

You grab a hoe.

You rip through the underbrush with savage efficiency, staying a few steps ahead of the pushcart as Julian scans. You work in a trance, chopping and hammering. Only when you hear Julian shouting do you realize that you're holding a busted length of wood.

The head of your hoe is buried in the beautiful round black door of Prince Lettow's Rolls-Royce.

Raúlblocked:

You head to Raúl's place, but he's not there. You find a note hidden above the door that reads, "Problems in Phoenix. (Jesus Christ has returned? Stole a car?) Contact me right away for major jobs and I'll come back. Already missing you." And there's a ProtonMail address with some of the security contact codes you agreed upon earlier.

But it looks like Raúl will be occupied dealing with the Lord and His automotive crimes, and he won't be able to wander around Tucson with you.

Pattermuster doesn't get paid enough:

"Hello? What? Well, the blood can't be 'everywhere.' Surely that's an exagger—okay—okay, fine. Okay. Okay, I'll get—okay. Five minutes. What? No, Sissy Spacek. No, Sissy—you're thinking of Rosemary's Baby. No, Carrie had the prom scene. With all the pig's—yes, it was Sissy Spacek, I'm sure. That much blood? Jesus. Okay, hold—five—okay, five minutes."

Valid question:

Do they teach ax fighting at Quantico?

Julian Meyer:

"Man, it's been a while," Julian says, leaning against your door frame. "I remember the nights we spent keeping that elder asleep with offerings of blood, the days curled up together in the desert. Wasn't it romantic?"

"That never happened, Julian. You made up our relationship and tried to sell it as a novel until the old Prince of Tucson threatened to execute you." '

"Vampire romance was big at the time," Julian says with a shrug. "And I changed our names. I still don't know why no one wanted to buy it."

Dammit I thought I was done with uni:

"Awful," Dr. Caul says with a little shudder. "But now your real studies can begin."

Your real studies consist of a syllabus (thirty pages) and a trunk full of books (35,000 pages).

"Are you disappointed, Rook?" she says with a little laugh. "Were you expecting something more mystical? A bolt of cosmic enlightenment? A conversation with your Holy Guardian Angel, who would reveal the answers you seek?" She bangs the trunk as technicians get ready to load it into your car. "Get reading."

An enthusiastic boss:

You reunite with Pattermuster down in the morgue, where he's pumping his fists as a thin-blood on a gaming laptop watches with a worried expression because she can't tell if he's incredibly happy or insanely mad.

"Rook!" Pattermuster shouts, his eyes full of Blood, "you did it! You brilliant child, you did it! We're safe. Oh, thank God, we're safe." He pulls you into an embrace, then punches a brick wall because he's so happy, showering all three of you in dust.

I thought that was Finland?:

You catch all sorts of whispered gossip as you cross the rooftop garden.

"Camp Scheffler?"

"Gone. That Outlander courier had something to do with it."

"I heard the Russians helped the SI burn it down."

"That's ridiculous. There's no such thing as Russians."

Pot, kettle:

"Julian," the Eagle Prince says, "you will locate Reremouse with the equipment Vane brought. Once we find him, we will strike shortly before dawn. I have prepared a stake sufficient to pierce even his old hide."

"That easy, huh?" Julian says.

"No, but—"

"Your plan is ridiculous, convoluted, and dangerous," Julian says.

"And you have a better one?"

"Absolutely," Julian says. "We use Stonehenge to teleport him to Mesopotamia."

The must-have appliance:

He's a black outline in the glow of a single yellow bulb... and then the bats descend.

And then the bats get torn to pieces, because Pattermuster pulls his two katanas out of nothing and turns into an undead Cuisinart for a few seconds.

But aesthetic:

Leave it to a vampire to bring a sword to a gunfight.

It is pretty cool though:

"Oh my God," Julian says. "You're going to use the car engine to fling Prometheus into Reremouse's heart."

"Dammit, Julian, I am not doing this because it's fun. I am scrambling for every advantage I can because we only have one chance to stop Reremouse, and if we fail, the Second Inquisition will descend on us like wolves on a wounded deer."

"It's still cool," Julian mutters.

A e s t h e t i c:

The Camarilla looks unkindly on vampires who dress like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, but what's the point of being dead if you can't look the part?

#JustToreadorThings:

You sleep badly and awaken to an aching and acute Hunger that crowds out other thoughts. But when you approach the Rolls-Royce, you find Lettow and Julian seated on a blanket, evidently in fine spirits. They're holding stainless steel mugs as they watch the last purple streaks fade from the western sky. There's something perfect about the composition before you: the two Kindred in their working clothes with their backs to you, the blue-black clouds, the faraway mesas framing the scene.

"I fear we've lost the Aesthete," Lettow muses. "Luka? Luka!"

It's just good sense:

A lot of keypads use 0911 as an emergency override for police and fire. That doesn't work, but a common default password causes the elevator doors to slide right open.

Change your defaults, people.

They draw the line at 31%:

Not all problems can be solved by putting a brick through a window, but at least 30 percent can.

Descriptive:

That's when your Nissan makes a sound like a bunch of typewriter keys dropped in a blender, and the whole truck lurches to a halt.

Munch munch:

"There are tags attached to all the payroll numbers," you say. "FNMA. PFC. What are they?"

"FNMA?" Antonio says. "That's Fannie Mae. The loan commission. Privatized in 1968. PFC…"

"Pavlodar Fried Chicken," Janet says. "Damn Commies."

Courier what did you do:

When you try to start your Mercedes, it vomits black smoke. That's not good. You kill the engine.

"Pop the hood," Julian says. "I'll get it up and running."

He checks the motor. There's a long pause.

"Did you melt a bunch of cheese in here or something, Vane?"

“I remember crawling out of a Nieuport 20 outside Gibraltar," Prince Lettow says. "The engine looked like that. Of course, ours had been on fire."

"Engine looks like Vane fed a bunch of sardine cans into a paper shredder," Julian says.

Almost!:

So Lettow is cute. I'm going to talk to him and see if he might be interested in a handsome young courier who almost has his own car.

Scientist life:

A beaker of cold coffee on her desk has a pencil in it; she flicks the pencil away and drains the entire beaker, then looks you in the eyes.

Domesticity:

"Wow, Vane," the Banu Haqim says, "did you finally settle down. Where's the wife and kids? Why don't you get me a beer, and we can talk about football and quote some Bible verses at each other?"

I really want to know where the fake werewolf came in:

"...so the whole fucking Cadillac is on fire, and I'm kicking and kicking, trying to get the window to break!" Dove says.

"Right, right, because —" You're trying to follow this story, and it isn't easy.

"Because I'm still handcuffed to the guy who was pretending to be a werewolf, right. And I finally kick through the window, rip half the dead fake werewolf's arm off to get free — I'm out of my fucking mind now, with all the fire — and I finally crawl out of the car."

"And get clear before it — do they blow up?"

"Escalades? I dunno, probably not," Dove says. "But anyway, I'm finally clear, so I run across the parking lot, laughing because I'm just thrilled not to have met final death chained up to that guy. And I barely have time to look up before Lettow comes screaming around the corner in a Ford Bronco with the lights off and runs me over. I was in the wrong Cadillac the whole time."

"No!"

"Two black Cadillac Escalades in the parking lot of the Marriott," Dove says. "How was I supposed to know which one — anyway, that's why I don't get to drive anymore. That's why Lettow wants assholes like you driving."

"Driving what?" you ask. "Because I need a car."

Dove shakes her ugly head. "I'll get you something. Give me a few hours to work on it, and I'll send someone to find you."

Cars are everything:

You still don't know how Julian plans to go from "divert a few funds and data streams from the Camarilla" to "transform the global information panopticon in a way that ends the Masquerade but keeps vampires safe," but he has a nicer car than last time, so he must be doing something right.

Guys please be nice to Raul:

"There appears to be a vampire hunter outside," he says, "investigating your electric vehicle."

"Send your bird to peck his eyes out," Julian says. "I'm not going outside until I find my sneakers."

Cheese?:

Over the next few minutes, you cough up a glorious wad of bullshit involving MKUltra, the Philadelphia Experiment, Star Wars (the movie), Star Wars (the Reagan-era government program), Jackson Pollack's CIA connections, the history of federal cheese, and the secret mastermind behind the seventies gas crunch.

In fairness it's a pretty rare sound:

You're way up in Limberlost, near the mall and the Walmart, when Riga settles on the roof of a Safeway. You reverse into the parking lot in case you need to get out fast and scan the cars at the pumps. It looks quiet. Then you hear a faint ringing.

The sound is musical, hypnotic. It reminds you of your childhood, and for a long time you just sit there in the driver's seat, remembering what it was like to be alive. But what is that sound? What memory from…?

Oh, right.

The pay phone next to the ice merchandiser is ringing.

It's a skill!:

Not every member of Clan Toreador joins their august ranks because of their great beauty or artistic genius. Some people end up vampires because of their extensive knowledge of Adobe After Effects.

Big Pirates of the Caribbean energy:

"I'd kind of like to give Lettow here a horse and a sword and let him tear through an entire police barracks," Julian says. "Tell me that wouldn't be fun."

"One thing I learned from Napoleon," Lettow says, "is that the most powerful cannon is useless if you cannot see your target. We know the location of one small encampment. That isn't enough to start shooting."

"You knew Napoleon?" Julian asks.

"Napoleon was my horse," Lettow says.

[greatworldwar2]

• Siege of Budapest

The Siege of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet and Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the broader Budapest Offensive, the siege began when Budapest, defended by Hungarian and German troops, was first encircled on 26 December 1944 by the Red Army and the Romanian Army.

The besieging Soviet forces were part of Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front. Formations that took part in the fighting included the 53rd Army, 7th Guards Army, portions of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, including the 46th Army, and the Romanian 7th Army Corps. Arrayed against the Soviets was a collection of German Army (Heer), Waffen-SS and Hungarian Army forces. The Siege of Budapest was one of the bloodiest sieges of World War II. The Red Army started its offensive against the city on October 29th, 1944. More than 1,000,000 men, split into two operating maneuver groups, advanced. The plan was to isolate Budapest from the rest of the German and Hungarian forces. On November 7th, 1944, Soviet and Romanian troops entered the eastern suburbs, 20 kilometers from the old town. The Red Army, after a much-needed pause in operations, resumed its offensive on December 19th.

As a result of the Soviet link-up, nearly 33,000 German and 37,000 Hungarian soldiers, as well as over 800,000 civilians, became trapped within the city. Refusing to authorize a withdrawal, Adolf Hitler had declared Budapest a fortress city, which was to be defended to the last man. Waffen SS General Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, the commander of the IX Waffen SS Alpine Corps, was put in charge of the city's defenses. Budapest was a major target for Joseph Stalin. Wanting to display his full strength to Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He therefore ordered General Rodion Malinovsky to seize the city without delay. During the night of December 28th, 1944, the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Front contacted the besieged Germans by radios and loudspeakers, and told them about a negotiation for the city's capitulation. The Soviets promised to provide humane surrender conditions and not to mistreat the German and Hungarian prisoners.

Negotiating effort between the defenders and the Russian emissaries were a failure; Wildenbruch refused the surrender conditions and sent the Soviet agents back to the battlefield. While the emissaries were en route to their camps, the Germans suddenly opened fire. The Soviet offensive began in the eastern suburbs, advancing through Pest, making good use of the large central avenues to speed up their progress. The German and Hungarian defenders, overwhelmed, tried to trade space for time to slow down the Soviet advance. They ultimately withdrew to shorten their lines, hoping to take advantage of the hilly nature of Buda. In January 1945, the Germans launched a three-part counter-offensive. This was a joint German-Hungarian effort to relieve the encircled garrison of Budapest. launched on January 1st. The German IV SS Panzer Corps attacked from Tata through hilly terrain north-west of Budapest in an effort to break the siege. On January 3rd, the Soviet command sent four more divisions to meet the threat. This Soviet action stopped the offensive near Bicske, less than 20 kilometers west of Budapest. The Germans were forced to withdraw on January 12th.

Meanwhile, urban warfare in Budapest increased in intensity. Re-supply became a decisive factor because of the loss of the Ferihegy airport on December 27th, 1944, just before the start of the siege. Until January 9th, 1945, German troops were able to use some of the main avenues as well as the park next to Buda Castle as landing zones for planes and gliders, although they were under constant artillery fire from the Soviets. Before the Danube froze, some supplies could be sent on barges, under the cover of darkness and fog.

Soviet troops quickly found themselves in the same situation as the Germans had in Stalingrad. Their men were nonetheless able to take advantage of the urban terrain by relying heavily on snipers and sappers to advance. Fighting broke out in the sewers, as both sides used them for troop movements. Unlike Pest, which is built on flat terrain, Buda is built on hills. This allowed the defenders to site artillery and fortifications above the attackers, greatly slowing the Soviet advance. The main citadel, (Gellért Hill), was defended by Waffen-SS troops who successfully repelled several Soviet assaults. Nearby, Soviet and German forces were fighting for the city cemetery amongst shell-opened tombs; it would last for several days.

On February 11th, 1945, Gellért Hill finally fell after six weeks of fighting when the Soviets launched a heavy attack from three directions simultaneously. Despite the lack of supplies, the Axis troops refused to surrender and defended every street and house. Hitler still forbade the German commander, Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, to abandon Budapest or to attempt a breakout. In desperation, Pfeffer-Wildenbruch decided to lead the remnants of his troops out of Budapest. The German commander did not typically consult the Hungarian commander of the city. However, Pfeffer-Wildenbruch now uncharacteristically included General Iván Hindy in this last desperate breakout attempt.

The majority of the escapees were killed, wounded, or captured by the Soviet troops. Pfeffer-Wildenbruch and Hindy were captured by waiting Soviet troops as they emerged from a tunnel running from the Castle District. The remaining defenders finally surrendered February 13th, 1945. German and Hungarian military losses were high, with entire divisions having been eliminated. The Soviet forces suffered between 100,000 and 160,000 casualties. The Soviets claimed that they had trapped 180,000 German and Hungarian 'fighters' in the pocket, and declared they had captured 110,000 of these soldiers. However, immediately after the siege, they rounded up thousands of Hungarian civilians and added them to the prisoner-of-war count. Budapest lay in ruins, with more than 80 percent of its buildings destroyed or damaged, with historical buildings like the Hungarian Parliament Building and the Castle among them. All seven bridges spanning the Danube were destroyed. After the city's surrender, occupying troops forcibly conscripted all able-bodied Hungarian men and youth to build pontoon bridges across the Danube River. For weeks afterward, especially after the spring thaw, bloated bodies piled up against these same pontoons and bridge pylons.