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tomorrowusa · 15 days ago

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Over the past decade or so we've encountered various acronyms to refer to specific groupings of countries. BRICS and MINT are a couple of those.

Now the war in Ukraine has prompted a new acronym to name the countries directly or indirectly fighting against it: CRINK for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

One of Zelenskyy’s key messages to his western allies is that Ukraine is no longer fighting Russia but a malign group of autocratic states. They have been dubbed Crink: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. All help Russia’s war. Pyongyang sends soldiers, ballistic missiles, howitzers and shells. Tehran offers kamikaze drones. Beijing sells micro-electronic components used in weapons systems and is a political partner. Pyongyang’s deepening involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945 has implications for the Asia Pacific region, especially for South Korea, Kyiv thinks. According to Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence organisation, the Kremlin is providing Kim Jong Un’s regime with torpedoes and technology for making drones. North Korea is keen to receive intelligence from Russian military satellites and air-to-air missiles, it says.

North Korea's involvement as a combatant sealed the deal for the NK. Putin's flimsy attempts to hide North Korean involvement took a big hit when Ukraine captured a couple of wounded North Korean soldiers.

The Kremlin has taken elaborate steps to conceal the presence of 12,000 elite troops sent in autumn by Pyongyang to Russia. At camps in the Far East they were given Russian equipment: uniforms, rifles and fake military documents.

The foreign soldiers even received phoney Russian names. All were “born” in the Siberian republic of Tuva, where locals have an Asian appearance and belong to a Turkic ethnic group. The North Koreans were then attached to regular Russian marine and assault corps units and sent to the frontline, thousands of kilometres to the west, around the Ukrainian-occupied Russian town of Sudzha. This legalistic pretence fell apart last week when two separate Ukrainian groups found the soldiers on the battlefield. Both were injured. They had lain in the cold for several days. Video shows paratroopers carrying one of them across a pine forest. They were driven to Kyiv, where Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency debriefed them, along with South Korea’s national intelligence service.

The only acronym which will keep Ukraine protected is NATO. Ukrainian membership in NATO will bring peace and stability to the region.

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mariacallous · 6 months ago

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In a small corner of the disintegrating Soviet Union, a young Shakespearean actor named Akhmed Zakayev stepped off the stage and took up arms.

Zakayev, like many Chechens, had been hopeful when the USSR collapsed. A new state had been declared in the capital of Grozny almost immediately, inspired by the massive and peaceful popular uprisings across the ex-Soviet satellite states: the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

But Moscow wasn’t keen to lose any more territory. In 1994, tanks rolled Grozny and asserted that the republic was no more: Chechnya was a member of the new Russian Federation. That’s when Zakayev joined the resistance.

Thirty years later, Zakayev is the prime minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s government-in-exile.

“I couldn’t have imagined that my fate would become what it is today,” Zakayev told Foreign Policy during an interview in Kyiv this spring. “We’ve experienced a lot of tragedy, a lot of bloodshed, a lot of violence since 1994, when we became the victims of Russian aggression.”

For three decades, across two brutal wars waged against the Chechens, Zakayev has tried to convince the world to back his nation’s independence. He has not had much luck: Although the republic was once recognized by Georgia and Afghanistan, no nation currently explicitly recognizes its status as the government of Chechnya.

Today, many of Russia’s separatists, including Zakayev, see enormous opportunity in Ukraine’s struggle for self-defense against Moscow’s aggression. They have supported the resistance both in spirit and by joining Ukraine’s fight. This has led to an extraordinary partnership—not just with Kyiv, but also among the various dissidents hoping to be free from the Russian Federation.

Together, they believe they can bring about the end of President Vladimir Putin—and Russia itself.

The drab boardroom in which I met Zakayev, in Kyiv, is a fairly recent home for the Chechen separatists. On the table before us were the green, red, and white flag of the Republic of Ichkeria; the Ukrainian bicolor, and the European Union flag. Along the wall behind Zakayev were rows of portraits of past Chechen leaders—and the dates of their deaths, usually at Russia’s hands.

“The fact is that, for over 30 years, the world has simply been watching the Chechen tragedy,” Zakayev said. “They have simply been watching as we were being murdered, as we were being forced to leave the country, as we were being scattered across the world.”

Since the 1990s, the official U.S. position on the conflict has been simple: “We consider Chechnya a part of Russia.” That position only hardened when Washington began describing Chechnya’s paramilitary opposition to Russian rule as a movement that was affiliated with al Qaeda. Terror attacks committed against Russia in the name of the Chechen resistance have only made a change in U.S. policy more unlikely, even if serious doubts remain about the responsibility for some of those attacks.

Zakayev, who represents a more moderate wing of the Chechen resistance, has spent more than two decades since the end of the first phase of the Second Chechen War in exile, mostly in the United Kingdom. He has worked to avoid having his portrait added to the wall of martyrs.

In 2007, police at Scotland Yard warned Zakayev that he was high up on a Russian hit list. But he survived. And in 2022, as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zakayev decamped to Ukraine—“unquestionably the leader of the entire free world,” he said.

He sees plenty of parallels between their struggles. “Ukrainians have felt what it was like for us, back in 1994,” Zakayev said. “We were branded as terrorists, as Islamic extremists.”

Zakayev said that this view of the Chechens, fostered by Putin but accepted by the West, is a “great pity.” It has brought about a global view of the Chechen people as either Putin’s shock troops or as violent terrorists. These are views that Putin has relished, broadcasting images of Chechen fighters in an attempt to carry out psychological warfare in Ukraine and using Chechen contract killers to kill Russian liberals such as Boris Nemtsov. Since the start of Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Chechen fighters have been dispatched to fight across Ukraine.

“We are destroying this image by siding with Ukraine and by being here,” Zakayev said.

The Chechens’ support for Ukraine isn’t just symbolic. Chechen volunteers have also fought with the Ukrainians in the Donbas since 2014. Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, they have joined the Russian Legion and other militias of Russian citizens who are fighting alongside Ukraine. When he spoke to Foreign Policy in March, Zakayev’s soldiers were taking part in cross-border incursions into the Belgorod region, a precursor to Ukraine’s larger offensive in Kursk today.

“It’s a very important strategic step, of transferring the combat actions to the enemy’s territory, because it’s the first time in years that the Russians have finally felt what the war is,” Zakayev said. “Since World War II, Russia has waged a lot of wars, but they’ve never felt what a war is like on their own territory. Finally, they’re beginning to experience aid raid alarms, they’re beginning to experience explosions, and they’re starting to feel this war on their own territory.”

To that end, Zakayev no longer sees independence as a regional and isolated concern. In his eyes, independence for Chechnya—and Ukraine, Siberia, Dagestan, and other Russian subjects—can only be achieved through toppling the Russian state itself.

“Putin’s war, that he started in Ukraine, must end in Moscow,” Zakayev continued. “And the people who are going to end this war must be Russians.”

Earlier this year, a correspondent with Russian state broadcaster Channel One toured the trenches on the front lines, reviewing “trophies” taken from Ukrainian fighters killed in action. In the video, the correspondent holds up two patches removed from the fighters’ uniforms—one of which, he says, is the Canadian flag. He looks to the camera: “The presence of mercenaries in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is no secret.”

The video prompted dozens of laughing face emojis when it was posted on Telegram by an account run by Free Ingria, a separatist movement in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast. The patch was not the Canadian red maple leaf at all, but the flag of Udmurtia, a republic in the Urals.

The Ingria separatists, who want independence for the historical Baltic region around the former imperial capital of St. Petersburg, and the Udmurtia separatists, who want an independent state in their region west of the Ural mountains, may be more than 800 miles apart, but they have recently made common cause.

It’s all thanks to Oleg Magaletsky.

Shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Magaletsky founded the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum. Composed of two dozen regionalist movements from across the Russian Federation, including the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, it has become the coordinating body for those hoping to dismantle Russia itself.

It is not the only game in town: The Lithuania-based Free Russia Forum, founded by Russian chess grandmaster and dissident Garry Kasparov, has aimed to become a think tank and philosophical hub for this post-imperial Russia.

Magaletsky’s group is much more hands-on.

“We need to be prepared for big changes—for the collapse,” Magaletsky told me, sitting in a pie shop in Kyiv.

Magaletsky is an unlikely champion for the cause of Russian secession—he’s a soft-spoken and personable Ukrainian restaurateur who was turned on to politics by the Euromaidan protests. Yet he has thrown himself into the work, and he’s moved quickly.

His forum has served as a hub to coordinate the exiled leaders of these independence movements, who, in turn, coordinate with their compatriots who are still in Russia. They’ve also held a series of summits to connect some of the leaders of Russia’s “captive nations” with academics, strategists, and government officials around the world.

When the Free Russia Forum brought some of its members to Washington for a series of talks at the Jamestown Foundation in March, they stressed just how much of Russia’s might comes from its imperial conquests: its access to the Black Sea, its natural resources, and even the fighters who feed its army.

“[There] has been a litany of trials and losses of lives, lands, resources, culture, and language, taken away by the empire,” Radjana Dugar-DePonte, the co-chair of the Buryad-Mongol Erkheten Democratic Movement, told the attendees. The Buryat people are wildly overrepresented in the death toll from the Russia-Ukraine war, as are other ethnic minorities.

When he had the opportunity, Pavel Mezerin enlisted to fight alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

While Zakayev’s forces joined the fight early, more and more Russian dissidents in exile were signing up to fight with Ukraine. Magaletsky rattles off the component members of his forum and which unit they fight under. He said that some are with the Siberian Battalion, others serve with the Free Russia Legion, and others are fighting directly under the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Mezerin, who hails from Ingria, joined the Siberian Battalion but soon grew disenchanted with the mission.

The Ukrainian leadership, he told Foreign Policy, “was not interested in forming full-fledged combat units from Russian citizens who would fight for the freedom of Russia.” They were more “political projects than actual military units,” he added. It was “a very sad experience” for Mezerin—he quit the battalion and channeled his energy through Free Ingria, of which he is a coordinator.

Mezerin told me that he perfectly understands that Ukraine’s priority is in recapturing its own territory. He has been watching afar as Ukraine has pulled off its extraordinary invasion of the Kursk region and is cheering on his former comrades. This time, however, the Ukrainians used their regular soldiers instead of Russian militias. “I sincerely envy the people of Kursk,” Mezerin said.

If it was his territory that had been “liberated” by Ukraine, he said, “of course, we would return there immediately. We would be busy organizing armed militias, armed detachments. Ingria would be free.” He dreams of Ukrainian forces continuing their march north to St. Petersburg.

But he knows that this is a fantasy. “Ukraine is not interested in these regions,” he said, recognizing that they would almost certainly be traded for Ukrainian territory in any peace talks. “Ukraine is interested in its own freedom.”

The quest for independence falls on the shoulders of activists such as Mezerin and Zakayev. And independence, Magaletsky said, cannot come from a think tank. That’s why the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum is actively involved in helping dissidents inside Russia prepare for what comes next.

“We have public activities,” Magaletsky said cryptically. “And, of course, we have unpublic activities.”

While he was careful not to put too much stock in a single operation, Magaletsky said that anything that could dismantle the idea of a “single and indivisible” Russian state would ultimately help their cause. “It is not so much the actual operation of the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region, as the reaction of both the Kremlin and the ‘Russian people’ to it in general.”

To that end, his operation requires a diversity of tactics. “Not all movements have people who are fighting now on the front line,” Magaletsky added, before offering me some of his pie. Others, he said, have members who are still inside Russia, making plans and preparations for when things change.

“They’re preparing, not for a big war on the front line—they’re preparing for their cities fighting.”

Everyone involved said that the work is hard—and dangerous. The Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum was declared an “undesirable organization” by Moscow in 2023 and attacked as an alleged CIA front group by news outlets loyal to the Kremlin. Many of the forum’s members have faced FSB crackdowns for years, and their projects have been declared extremist organizations.

However, Magaletsky said that their work is critical. Although the West has long supported the idea of a democratic Russia, its leaders seem sure that a change at the top is all that is needed. Magaletsky disagrees: “Putin is the result,” he said. “The problem is the imperial, colonial, system of Russia.”

Kyiv is certainly sympathetic to that view. The Ukrainian Rada has recognized Chechnya as “temporarily occupied” by Russia, and it is contemplating full recognition for the independence movements for Tatarstan, Chechnya, and Bashkortostan.

The West, however, is far from any such recognition.

“We, here in Ukraine, remember, of course, the speech of [then-U.S. President] George [H.W.] Bush, the so-called ‘Chicken Kiev’ speech,” he said, referring to the president’s 1991 address to the legislature of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, in which he warned against “suicidal nationalism” and declared that “freedom is not the same as independence.”

“Now, post-Russia chicken speeches are popular,” Magaletsky wrote to me recently. “We are trying to change that.” He will keep trying to win over converts in Western capitals. The forum held its next round of meetings in Vilnius, Lithuania, in June.

As Mezerin told me, there’s no room for fatalism. “I’m an opposition politician in exile, so I’m an optimist. Otherwise, I would have no reason to go on living.”

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justacynicalromantic · 9 months ago

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The sun is rising behind the spoil tips.(2) The world is allowing those with strong beliefs to claim what is rightfully theirs. Babylon is burning, but we are already holding the line with swords in our hands. For fire cannot touch those who were forged in flames. (3)

Listen to the latest song from the authors of the now famous Ukrainain track "Wild Field"

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We human beings have been blessed with a beautiful garden and a myriad of pathways to explore. Each atom is a work of art, a haven of emerald waters. But there are some who get a kick of launching drones into children's rooms. They are just God's mistake, a badly written machine code. Having received the most remarkable creation - human body - In the world of violins and scripts, they want to pull the Soviet oar, Half a world away from home. Cruel beasts from birth, They thirstily feed on blood. True evil, in short. Endowed with gifts to weave love and musical chords, I dive instead into this surreal reality, when I could be building life instead. Because if we do not, all of us will be killed by this horde. Our world is broken again. We have to be the engineers of new Existence.

The sun is rising behind the spoil tips. The world is allowing those with strong beliefs to claim what is rightfully theirs. Babylon is burning, but we are already holding the line with swords in our hands. For fire cannot touch those who were forged in flames.

The uranium of the nation is here, where the spirit of the people is stronger than the everlasting ores. In the cities, there are cobblestones and animal waste. If you are a pound of slag, no money will get you rich. We are the pillars that provide the world with a continuous and influential impetus. The courageous and resolute do not fear death. It would be awful if the two shores were to be torn apart once more, The actions of the heroes - erased, the children - colonized.(4) It's better to go into battle with a pack of wolves than a herd of deer. Destitute slaves dive into the Tisza River. But we emerge from lava, from soot, and fog. Demons are constantly climbing out of the underground mines. With the bodies of the best of us, we are sewing up the cracks of the Earth.

Behind the tericons Babylon is burning, and we are Under the crown of the sky We stand in legions

The video clip shows war-torn Donbas. Especially in the second half of the video, you can see what used to be asphalt roads lined with rubble that used to be houses - all that's left of the city of Mariinka. The landscape of Donbas - endless fields of wheat, sunflowers and wildflowers - burned and scarred with craters left by missiles. For reference, this is how Donbas looked before:

2. Spoil tips, or terricones as we call them, are waste from mines, the size of mountains - a very common sight in Donbas.

3. "For fire cannot burn those who were forged in flames" is a very famous quote from Taras Shevchenko's epic poem "Hamalia"

4. In these 2 lines the song is referencing Ukrainian history in the beginning of the 20th century. The Dnipro River divides all of Ukraine almost cleanly in half, and by this separation line Ukraine had been divided for many years - the Left Bank under the rule of Russian Empire, the Right Bank - under Poland's rule. But after WWI and after Russian Empire fell, Ukrainians were able to first establish two Ukrainian states (people of the Left Bank established Ukraine's People Rebublic and people of the Right Bank established West Ukrainian People Republic) and then, on January 22, 1919 - to unite again into one singular state. This date of signing the Treaty of Unity is a national holiday in modern Ukraine. Alas, soon the whole country was again occupied by Russia and forced into the Soviet Union.

PS: link to the Wild Field, for those who has not heard it yet

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I also highly recommend Ragnarok

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#ukraine #music #art #ukrainian culture #video #genocide #war crimes #ecocide #russian empire #history #russia is a terrorist state #україна #музика #укртумба #укртамблер #укртумбочка #відео #yarmak #Youtube

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nameinconcept-blog · 7 months ago

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President Kim Il-Sung's Visits to Czechoslovakia. 1984

"Czechoslovakia is a federal socialist republic consisting of two ethnic groups: Czech and Slovak. It is a landlocked country with no sea, and it stretches from east to west. Area: 127,870km². The population is 15,395,000 (1982), consisting of Czechs (64.3%), Slovaks (30.5%), and some Hungarians, Ukrainians, and Poles. The official languages are Czech and Slovak. Capital Prague (1,183,000 people)."

"In September 1945, Czechoslovakia was liberated from the tyranny of Hitler's Germany, and in 1948, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Czechoslovak people suppressed the maneuvers of imperialists and reactionary forces and established a people's government. In 1960, the constitution was revised and the country received its current name. After that, it strongly promoted socialist construction and became one of the most advanced socialist industrial countries in Eastern Europe." "With the constitutional amendment in 1968, the Czech Socialist Republic (capital Prague) and the Slovak Socialist Republic (capital Bratislava) became a federal state." "A federal state has a federal parliament (the highest organ of the state) and a federal government (the highest administrative executive organ), and each republic has an ethnic council, a government, and a supreme court." "The Federal Parliament is a bicameral system consisting of the People's Assembly (200 members) elected from all of the federations, and the Ethnic Assembly, consisting of an equal number of representatives from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (75 members, for a total of 150 members)." "The head of state of the federal state is President Gustav Husak. The head of the federal government is Prime Minister Lubomir Strougall." "The political party is the Communist Party (founded in 1921), and the current leader is Gustav Husak, general secretary. In addition, there are the Socialist Party, the People's Party, and the Slovak Reconstruction Party, which form the National Front with the Communist Party." "Since diplomatic relations were established with Korea in 1948, cooperative relations have gradually developed. The friendly and cooperative relationship between the two countries is likely to further develop with President Kim Il Sung's recent official goodwill visit."

"President Kim Il Sung arrived in Czechoslovakia's capital Prague on June 4th by special train." "President Kim Il-sung shook hands with President Husak at Prague Central Station."

"President Kim Il Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, attended a party and state delegation at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, President Gustav Husak of the Czechoslovak Socialist Democratic Republic, and the government. He led an official friendly visit to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from June 4th to 6th." "This visit to Czechoslovakia was a historic event that further deepened the friendship between the developing Korea and Czechoslovakia and greatly contributed to the promotion of peace and the cause of socialism." During his visit, President Kim Il Sung met with President Gustav Husak and other Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Party and government officials, further deepening their friendship and trust. The Czechoslovak people also recognized President Kim Il Sung. They warmly welcomed and entertained him as their most valuable guest." "The citizens of Prague warmly greeted President Kim Il Sung by singing songs of friendship along the roadside. The President's visit to Czechoslovakia was an important opportunity to strengthen and develop to a higher level the traditional friendship and unity between the two countries, the two parties, the two governments, and the people."

"Children in Prague sent a bouquet of flowers to President Kim Il Sung."

"President Kim Il-sung returned the warm welcome to the citizens of the border city of Děčín."

"President Kim Il Sung's visit to Czechoslovakia was warmly welcomed by the citizens of the country's border city of Děčín, waving the national flags of both countries."

"Prague citizens warmly welcome President Kim Il Sung"

"President Kim Il Sung and President Gustav Husak inspected the Prague City Guard Headquarters Honor Guard."

"President Kim Il Sung visited the former Prague City Hall on June 4. The mayor warmly welcomed President Kim Il Sung's visit to Czechoslovakia, wished him a long life, exchanged a toast, and presented him with the key to the city of Prague."

"On June 4, President Kim Il Sung had a chat with President Gustav Husak in a friendly atmosphere."

"A meeting between President Kim Il Sung and President Gustav Husak was held in Prague on June 5th."

"The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and the government held a grand banquet on June 4 to welcome President Kim Il Sung."

"President Kim Il Sung left a commemorative note after visiting the factory."

"On June 4, President Kim Il Sung laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on Vítkov Hill in Prague."

"President Kim Il-sung returns to the welcome of factory workers."

"President Kim Il-sung returns to the welcome of factory workers On June 6, President Kim Il Sung toured the Avia automobile factory in Prague." "Factory workers enthusiastically welcomed the president, holding national flags and bouquets of flowers." "President Kim Il Sung looked at various cars produced at the factory."

"Prague Citizens’ Assembly welcomes President Kim Il Sung"

Text on the Image. "Long live the friendship between the peoples of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea!"

"President Kim Il Sung and President Gustav Husak shook hands after their speeches."

"A Prague citizens' convention to welcome President Kim Il Sung was held on June 6th at Prague Palace." "The Citizens' Assembly is a joint effort between Korea and Czechoslovakia, which is growing stronger and stronger every day, united in a common struggle to oppose imperialism and build socialism based on Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. It was a powerful demonstration of friendship and unity among the people."

"President Kim Il-sung shakes hands with President Gustav Husak."

"President Kim Il Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, departed Prague by special train on June 6th after successfully completing an official goodwill visit to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic." "The citizens of Prague are committed to developing to a new height the traditional friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries, the parties, the governments and the peoples of Korea and Czechoslovakia, and strengthening the unity and cohesion of the socialist countries and the international communist movement. He enthusiastically saw off President Kim Il Sung and his delegation as they departed after completing their visit without a hitch."

"The delegation departed Prague with a warm welcome from party and state officials of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic."

"We took a commemorative photo with the executives who were seeing us off."

Photos and texts from Chongryon magazine, “朝鮮画報” issue 10, 1984.

#dprk #marxism #communism #marxism leninism #socialism #leftism #north korea #czechoslovakia #europe #history

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brookston · 4 months ago

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Holidays 10.19

Holidays

All-Ukrainian Day of Human Responsibility (Ukraine)

Change Your Life Day

Dress Like a Dork Day

Durin’s Day (The Hobbit) [Original Date]

Evaluate Your Life Day

Feast of the Wicked Scam

Freedom to Read Day of Action

Global Niemann-Pick Disease Awareness Day

Imagine a Day Without Water

International Day of Cathedrals

International Day of Service for Kappa Alpha Theta

International Freelancer Day

International Human Rights Day (Turks and Caicos Islands)

International Ska Day

Lawyer’s Day (Moldova)

LGBT Center Awareness Day

Make A Scarecrow Day

Maurice Bishop Day (Grenada)

Mother Theresa Day (Albania)

National Clapping Cheeks Day

National Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day

National Day of Remembrance for Steadfast Clergy (Poland)

National Friendzone Day

National Heroes Day (Grenada)

National Jared Day

National Kentucky Day

National Kiss Your Crush Day

National Payton Summons Day

National Psoriatic Arthritis Awareness Day (Canada)

National Thalassemia Day (UK)

New Friends Day [also 1.19; 7.19]

Oxfordshire Day (UK)

Peruvian-African Friendship Day (Peru)

Rainforest Day

Rescuer Day (Kazakhstan)

Samora Machel Day (Mozambique)

Technology Day (Thailand)

Tomato Day (French Republic)

Women Without Children Day

World Bioethics Day

World Breast Cancer Day (Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Spain)

World Day Against Breast Cancer

World E-Sports Day

World Humanitarian Action Day

World Pediatric Bone and Joint Day

World Slotting Day

World Vagina Day

Yabusame Festival (Koyama, Japan)

Yorktown Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Greasy Spoon Day

International Gin and Tonic Day

National Seafood Bisque Day

Independence & Related Days

Constitution Day (New Zealand, Niue)

Ikonia (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Niue (1974)

3rd Saturday in October

Bridge Day (West Virginia) [3rd Saturday]

Frabjous Day [3rd Saturday]

Home Movie Day [3rd Saturday]

I Love Yarn Day [3rd Saturday]

International Archeology Day [3rd Saturday]

International Independent Video Store Day [3rd Saturday]

International Repair Day [3rd Saturday]

International Sloth Day [3rd Saturday]

National Bridge Day [3rd Saturday]

National Fetch Day [3rd Saturday]

National Harp Day (Ireland) [3rd Saturday]

National Mover Over Day [3rd Saturday]

National Paint Your Own Pottery Day [3rd Saturday]

National Slow Down Day [3rd Saturday]

National Surfing Day (Costa Rica) [3rd Saturday]

National Whole Hog Barbecue Day [3rd Saturday]

O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships [3rd Saturday]

Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day [3rd Saturday]

Sandwich Saturday [Every Saturday]

Sharing Economy Saturday [3rd Saturday]

Six For Saturday [Every Saturday]

Spaghetti Saturday [Every Saturday]

Sweetest Day [3rd Saturday]

World Singing Day [3rd Saturday]

Weekly Holidays beginning October 19 (2nd Full Week of October)

Finno-Ugrian Days (Hõimupäev; Estonia)

Festivals Beginning October 19, 2024

Apple Butter Festival (Lansing, Michigan) [thru 10.20]

Apple Dumpling Festival (Stuart, Virginia)

Apple Harvest Festival (Waynesville, North Carolina)

Borrego Days Desert Festival (San Diego, California) [thru 10.20]

Bowen’s Wharf Seafood Festival (Newport, Rhode Island) [thru 10.20]

Chatsworth Cranberry Festival (Chatsworth, New Jersey) [thru 10.20]

Chili Cookoff (Fort Pierce, Florida)

Cleveland Apple Festival (Cleveland, Tennessee) [thru 10.20]

Cochran-Bleckley Country Fest (Cochran, Georgia)

Conecuh Sausage Festival (Evergreen, Alabama)

Dairyville Orchard Festival (Los Molinos, California)

Deep Roots Festival XX (Milledgeville, Georgia)

Dessert Wars (Charlotte, North Carolina)

Detroit Fall Beer Festival (Detroit, Michigan)

Elkhorn's Oktoberfest (Elkhorn, Wisconsin)

Fall Harvest Festival (Mount Vernon, Virginia) [thru 10.20]

Gainesville Chicken Festival Chicken Cook-Off (Gainesville, Georgia)

Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival (Half Moon Bay, California)

Herb Market (San Antonio, Texas)

Holy Trinity Heritage Food Fair (Baltimore, Maryland) [thru 10.20]

Hop N Hog Culpeper Block Party & BBQ Competition (Culpeper, Virginia)

Kenmare GooseFest (Kenmare, North Dakota) [thru 10.24]

Loris Bog-Off Festival (Loris, South Carolina)

Macomb County HarvestFest (Sterling Heights, Michigan) [thru 10.20]

Marunada Chestnut Festival (Dobreć, Croatia) [thru 10.20]

Missouri Chestnut Roast Festival (New Franklin, Missouri)

Mystic Apple Festival (Mystic, Connecticut) [thru 10.20]

NC Fall Liver Mush Festival: Mush, Music & Mutts (Shelby, North Carolina)

New York Empanada Festival (Newburgh, New York)

North Carolina Oyster Festival (Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina) [thru 10.20]

NYS Sheep & Wool Festival (Rhinebeck, New York) [thru 10.20]

Oktoberfest (Campbell, California) [thru 10.20]

Outer Banks Seafood Festival (Nag's Head, North Carolina)

Pumpkinfest (Franklin, North Carolina)

Return of the Salmon Festival (Anderson, California)

San Diego Spirits Festival (San Diego, California)

Santa Barbara Vintners Festival (Solvang, California)

Seafood Festival (Cedar Key, Florida) [thru 10.20]

Springville Apple Festival (Springville, California)

Taco Fest (Scottsdale, Arizona)

Taste of Soul (Los Angeles, California)

Taylorsville Apple Festival (Taylorsville, North Carolina)

Tennessee Beer, Wine & Shine Festival (Nashville, Tennessee)

Town Point Virginia Wine Festival (Norfolk, Virginia) [thru 10.20]

U.S. National Oyster Festival in St. Mary’s County (St. Mary's County, Maryland) [thru 10.20]

Vimoutiers Apple Festival (Vimoutiers, France) [thru 10.20]

Wellfleet Oysterfest (Wellfleet, Massachusetts) [thru 10.20]

Westy Fest (Westminster, Colorado)

Whiskey Wine & Fire (Timonium, Maryland)

Yadkin Valley Grape Festival (Yadkinville, North Carolina)

Feast Days

Aaron (Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria)

Aquilinus of Évreux (Christian; Saint)

Armilustrium (Ancient Roman Festival of Mars)

Barbarella Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Bettara Ichi (Pickle Market a.k.a. Sticky-Sticky Fair; Ebisu Shrine, Tokyo, Japan)

Carista: Day of Peace in the Family (Pagan)

Desiderius (Didier) of Auxerre (Christian; Saint)

Diderot (Positivist; Saint)

Emma Bell Miles (Artology)

Ethbin (a.k.a. Egbin; Christian; Saint)

Frideswide (Christian; Saint)

Giorgio Cavazzano (Artology)

Henry Martyn (Anglican Communion)

Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf, and Companions (Christian; Saints)

Jerzy Popiełuszko (Christian; Blessed)

John le Carré (Writerism)

Paul of the Cross (Christian; Saint)

Peter Max (Artology)

Peter of Alcantara (Christian; Saint)

Philip Pullman (Writerism)

Pierre Alechinsky (Artology)

Prides (Christian; Saint)

Ptolemaeus and Lucius (Christian; Saint)

Rene Goupil (Christian; Saint)

Seek the King Week (Shamanism)

Theodoros Vryzakis (Artology)

Travel Poobah (Muppetism)

Try Not To Die Day (Pastafarian)

Umberto Boccioni (Artology)

Varus (Christian; Saint)

Veranus of Cavaillon (Christian; Saint)

William Carey (Episcopal Church)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 48 of 60)

Premieres

Angels in the Outfield (Film; 1951)

Antipop, by Primus (Album; 1999)

Believe, by Cher (Song; 1999)

The Boys Bounce Back or Springtime in the Rocky (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S6, Ep. 312; 1964)

A Chorus Line (Broadway Musical; 1975)

Clerks (Film; 1994)

Counterparts, by Rush (Album; 1993)

Damn the Torpedoes, by Tom Petty (Album; 1979)

The Enchanter, by Vladimir Nabokov (Short Story; 1986) [published posthumously]

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (Novel; 1953)

Fried Chicken (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1930)

The Gay Divorcee (Film; 1934)

Honeyland (Ub Iwerks Happy Harmonies MGM Cartoon; 1935)

Hound for Pound (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1963)

Injustice (Animated Film; 2021)

I Second That Emotion, by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (Song; 1967)

Le Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman (Novel; 2017) [The Book of Dust Trilogy #1]

Let’s Stalk Spinach (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1951)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Film; 1977)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Film; 1939)

Mucho Loma, Part 1 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S6, Ep. 311; 1964)

Mulholland Drive (Film; 2001)

Mylo Xyloto, by Coldplay (Album; 2011)

Pin Ups, by David Bowie (Album; 1973)

The Planet Mouseola (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1960)

Prince, by Prince (Album; 1979)

The Razor’s Edge (Film; 1984)

Riding in Cars with Boys (Film; 2001)

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, recorded by Brenda Lee (Song; 1958)

Sir Irving and James (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1956)

Stop Making Sense, by Talking Heads (Film; 1984)

Take On Me, by A-ha (Song; 1985)

Tally-Hokum (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1965)

Tannhäuser, by Richard Wagner (Opera; 1845)

A Tiger’s Tail (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1964)

Turtle Scoop (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1961)

Vs., by Pearl Jam (Album; 1993)

Waking Life (Animated Film; 2001)

Watership Down (US Animated Film; 1978)

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., by Simon & Garfunkel (Album; 1963)

Who’s Who in the Jungle (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1945)

Yule Laff (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1962)

Today’s Name Days

Frieda, Isaak, Johannes, Paul, Peter, Petrus (Austria)

Ivan, Izak, Joel, Pavao (Croatia)

Michaela (Czech Republic)

Balthasar (Denmark)

Stella, Tähte, Tähti (Estonia)

Uljas (Finland)

Cléo, René (France)

Frieda, Frida, Isaak, Paul (Germany)

Cleopatra, Felix (Greece)

Nándor (Hungary)

Isaac, Laura (Italy)

Drosma, Drosme, Drosmis, Elīna, Valts (Latvia)

Geisvilas, Kantrimė, Kleopatra, Laura (Lithuania)

Tora, Tore (Norway)

Ferdynand, Fryda, Pelagia, Pelagiusz, Piotr, Siemowit, Skarbimir, Toma, Ziemowit (Poland)

Ioil (Romania)

Kristián (Slovakia)

Laura, Pablo, Pedro (Spain)

Tor, Tore (Sweden)

Cleo, Cleon, Cleopatra, Howard, Howie (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 293 of 2024; 73 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 6 of Week 42 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 21 of 28]

Chinese: Month 9 (Jia-Xu), Day 17 (Bing-Chen)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 17 Tishri 5785

Islamic: 15 Rabi II 1446

J Cal: 23 Orange; Twosday [23 of 30]

Julian: 6 October 2024

Moon: 92%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 13 Descartes (11th Month) [George Leroy / Cabanis]

Runic Half Month: Gyfu (Gift) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Autumn or Fall (Day 28 of 90)

Week: 3rd Full Week of October

Zodiac: Libra (Day 27 of 30)

#calendar #Holidays

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unhonestlymirror · 1 year ago

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Rating food of the countries I've been to, from West to East:

Disclaimer: it's veeery subjective

***

Spain🇪🇸 : 7/10. It's okay. I expected their fish and seafood to be better, tho. A LOT of relatively cheap fresh juices, 10/10 for health. They also make surprisingly amazing pasta and surprisingly average paella.

France🇫🇷: 9/10. Never visited cafes or restaurants there, but Carrefour has an incredible variety of good meat. I love their pineapple pie, too. There are a lot of products for vegetarians, Muslims, and, in general, different people who have different eating styles. There's a lot to see. And omg, their bazaar days are something worth attending: I still regret that I never tried clams with white wine.

UK🇬🇧 : 6/10. Not impressed. Something tells me that they deliberately make fish-n-chips that terrible. But I absolutely loved the strawberries under hot chocolate, which was sold by two cheerful Polish girls near Madam Tussaud museum.

Switzerland 🇨🇭: 6/10. Migros has nice buns with spinach and those Japanese "sandwiches", overall, your whole salary is gonna be spent on food. (Lithuania core lol😭) McDonald's there SUCKS.

Norway🇳🇴: 4/10. I expected a lot for some reason. Prices gonna cause you a heart attack, the quality is gonna give you a second heart attack. Also!!! THERE WAS NO FISH IN THE SHOPS EXCEPT THE CANNED!!! I was deeply injured. Norwegian salmon is super popular in Ukraine, how can they not have any normal fish in the big supermarkets...

Germany🇩🇪: 1/10. I may be just unlucky, but every time I visit Germany and pick a random cafe with lots of people(!), it has the worst food I've ever tasted in my life. It's like that scene from Desperate Housewives: "Really? A woman who orders Chinese food for Christmas dinner cooked a pineapple pie?" I understand now why Ukrainian women often marry Germans. My heart bleeds when I see what exactly you eat. I want to cover you with a blanket and cook you a normal soup.

Czech Republic 🇨🇿: 7/10. The soup was nice, ставлю вподобайку👍

Poland🇵🇱 : 8/10. Soup in bread, my beloved. Doughnuts were some kind of overcooked in oil, tho.

Montenegro🇲🇪: 10/10. I love you. I love your salads, your seafood, and I LOVE YOUR LEMON ICECREAM!!!!!

Slovakia🇸🇰: 7/10. I don't really remember what I ate, I am sorry. But I was really impressed with your supermarkets for some reason. Gotta visit it again.

Hungary🇭🇺: 6/10. It was my first time I've ever tried street food, and I liked it. You guys know how to cook meat.

Greece🇬🇷: 7/10. One day, I'll find the guy who can cook Karavidopsiha and beg them to cook it once again. Nice fish!!! I remember your arbutus honey as old women remember their best lovers. But. One time, a man served my family with unpeeled shrimps in batter. :/ What the hell was that? Is that some kind of a national dish I'm not aware of? Minus three points for such bullying.

Cyprus 🇨🇾: 7/10. I shouldn't be obsessed with your carob tree pastille that much.

Lithuania🇱🇹: 10/10. I love you. Although, I'd love to spend less money on food too. I love your Maxima and Rimi and Iki. I love your cafes. I love your bakery, I love your cocktails, I looooooove your soups, and I love your Asian food too. It's very easy to become an alcoholic with such delicious wines and tinctures.

Latvia🇱🇻: 11/10. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm on my knees. Your cream chanterelle soup and Lidl croissants and marinated onion and šašlyk and fish and dairy products🛐🛐🛐. You guys know how to serve. I've never seen such pretty food designs anywhere. And of course, Lido. It brings me in tears of joy and makes me remember Puzata Hata. No, for real, is there any dish you don't know how to cook?

Finland🇫🇮: 7/10. That's okay. Nice street food.

Belarus ⚪️🔴⚪️: 9/10. Oh my dear Belarus, you're gonna be the best chef in Europe once you're free from russia. I wish I ate more machanka and drank your pine tincture when I had the chance. I love your chicory, it's a bit greyish, but it's much more delicious than an average chicory. Delicious meat in the shops. Other food is soviet-like, which makes me nauseous.

Ukraine 🇺🇦: ♾️/10. Вітчизно моя! Ти як здоров'я, наскільки ти цінна, тільки той знає, хто тебе втратив. I don't know if my favourite shops still work. I loved every single cafe I've been to, yes, even that shitty prorussian Mafia and Eurasia. I loved Puzata Hata. I loved Khlibna Kava, and its amazing cherry cupcakes. I loved Moloko Vid Fermera. I loved little kiosks with fresh Makadamia nuts and huge variety of vegetables and fruits. I loved Flagman and Silpo, Lvivśki croissants, and chocolate shops. I loved my seafood store. I loved giant frappes in Shevchenko Park. I loved my Continent with its old classical French background songs. I love my Japanese food stores. There are so many places I love. I used to find my bazaar so ugly and dirty, but I would give everything to buy the sea buckthorn jam from the cheerful old lady. But it's not gonna happen. My bazaar was shelled by russians to the ground.

Turkey🇹🇷: 9/10. Your Katmer, seafood soup and baked shrimps(?) are something 🛐.

Jordan🇯🇴: 7/10. Nice! You cook paella better than Spain, be proud of yourself. Although, I'd love to not be scared for my life as a woman all the time. Your bazaar seemed very interesting, but unfortunately, I don't speak Arabic. And I am a woman, which also sucks, I guess. I was totally covered in black, except for the face and hair, and people still stared at me like on a zoo exponate. McDonald's kinda sucks too, but not as much as in Switzerland.

Egypt🇪🇬: 7/10. It's okay. I've tasted only hotel food.

Sakartvelo🇬🇪 : 10/10. Our guide forgot about our existence, and we had to find any source of food to not die from hunger, so we went to your local bazaar and asked to fry some cheap fish. It had lots of bones, and I hate fish with bones, but I ate it all, and it tasted amazing.

Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦: 6/10. Most of the week, I just cooked some simple spiceless products like pasta and eggs from the small store. You are far from the level of grocery stores in Turkey. Although, your cold orange juice bottle saved my life from dying in the middle of the desert.

Qazaqstan 🇰🇿: 7/10. I don't really remember your supermarkets, I guess they were okay. But your bazaars are definitely something worth attending. Millions of varieties of honey with millions of tastes and very salty hard cheese Kurt.

#rambling #countries #food

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sevaghves · 1 year ago

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To clear things up for our Ukrainian friends.

Ukraine didn't condemn Azerbaijan's aggression against Armenia in 2020. Armenia didn't condemn Russia's aggression against Ukraine in 2022.

Why?

For some reason Ukrainian political elite considers Artsakh similar to the Donetsk and Luhansk "republics". That's not the case. Artsakh was annexed from Armenia in 1920s by the bolsheviks along with Nakhijevan. The 1st Karabakh war happened because when Artsakh as autonomous republic voted independence during the collapse of USSR, Azeri and Russian forces started military operations against Armenians. For comparison, imagine these 2 regions be recognized as Russian territory to "stop the conflict", Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhanks organize self-defense units and uprising for reunification with Ukraine and be called separatists.

After the betrayal and war of 2020, when Russia deployed "peacekeepers" to Artsakh, 120000 people in Artsakh became Putin's hostages. That predetermined Armenia's foreign policy for the next 3 years. Every independent move resulted in Azeri attacks on Artsakh and Armenia proper, sanctioned by Putin. Over 140 sq km of Armenian territory became occupied by Azerbaijan. The West refused to help as they didn't want to interfere in the areas of Russian influence.

The war in Ukraine opened the Western eyes to Putin's real objectives. Or rather they could no longer afford to stay blind. Putin's Imperialist agenda arrived at their doorstep.

What can we do as former colonies of Russia to stop this direct and indirect aggression?

First of all recognize each other as sovereign states that are out of Soviet framework of "brotherly" nations. It's okay to have different interests and alliances. But in this fight we have to be united and show understanding for the ways Putin manipulated our countries. We need to be honest and pragmatic with each other.

I wish victory to Armenia in her fight for survival and I wish the same to Ukraine. And just as my Ukrainian friends are focused on their war, I am focused on mine. This doesn't mean we don't care about the other. My family has friends in Ukraine who spend almost every night sheltering from Russian bombing. Some of our Armenian friends are refugees of the 2014 aggression.

And I wish my Russian friends that one day in the future they see their country free from the thugs and fascists that have usurped the power for so long. We all deserve better than this vile chaos.

#armenia #artsakh #karabakh #russia #putin #ukraine #stop azeri aggression #azerbaijan is fascist #ussr #usa #eu

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brookstonalmanac · 9 months ago

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Events 4.27 (after 1970)

1974 – 109 people are killed in a plane crash near Pulkovo Airport. 1976 – Thirty-seven people are killed when American Airlines Flight 625 crashes at Cyril E. King Airport in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. 1978 – John Ehrlichman, a former aide to U.S. President Richard Nixon, is released from the Federal Correctional Institution, Safford, Arizona, after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. 1978 – The Saur Revolution begins in Afghanistan, ending the following morning with the murder of Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. 1978 – Willow Island disaster: In the deadliest construction accident in United States history, 51 construction workers are killed when a cooling tower under construction collapses at the Pleasants Power Station in Willow Island, West Virginia. 1986 – The city of Pripyat and surrounding areas are evacuated due to Chernobyl disaster. 1987 – The U.S. Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim (and his wife, Elisabeth, who had also been a Nazi) from entering the US, charging that he had aided in the deportations and executions of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II. 1989 – The April 27 demonstrations, student-led protests responding to the April 26 Editorial, during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. 1992 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed. 1992 – Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history. 1992 – The Russian Federation and 12 other former Soviet republics become members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 1993 – Most of the Zambia national football team lose their lives in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon en route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Senegal. 1994 – South African general election: The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote. The Interim Constitution comes into force. 2005 – Airbus A380 aircraft has its maiden test flight. 2006 – Construction begins on the Freedom Tower (later renamed One World Trade Center) in New York City. 2007 – Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia. 2007 – Israeli archaeologists discover the tomb of Herod the Great south of Jerusalem. 2011 – The 2011 Super Outbreak devastates parts of the Southeastern United States, especially the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Two hundred five tornadoes touched down on April 27 alone, killing more than 300 and injuring hundreds more. 2012 – At least four explosions hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk with at least 27 people injured. 2018 – The Panmunjom Declaration is signed between North and South Korea, officially declaring their intentions to end the Korean conflict.

#Events

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mightyflamethrower · 7 months ago

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Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.

Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.

In the West, the mere mention of a negotiated settlement is considered a dangerous appeasement of Russia’s flagrant aggression. In Russia, anything short of victory would be seen as synonymous with the collapse of the Putin regime.

Yet as the war nears two and a half years this summer, some facts are no longer much in dispute.

Controversy still arises over the circumstances of the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia charges that the West engineered the “Revolution of Dignity”—an effort to westernize the former Soviet republic, to expand the borders of Europe right to the doorstep of Russia, and eventually to fully arm Ukraine as a member of NATO. Westerners counter that most Ukrainians wished to be part of Europe and independent from Russian bullying—and they had a perfect right to ask to join either NATO or the EU or both despite anticipated escalating tensions.

After the heroic Ukrainian defeat of the 2022 Russian bid to take Kyiv, there have been few significant territorial gains by either side.

Like the seesaw bloodbath on the Western Front of World War I, neither side has developed the momentum to force the other to negotiate or grant concessions.

As nuclear Russian threats against Europe mount, NATO is seeking to regain deterrence capabilities by boosting defense budgets, incorporating robust frontline nations Sweden and Finland, and uniting over shared concerns about Russian aggression.

Many in the U.S. cheer on the conflict as a necessary proxy war to check Russian aggression and bolster NATO’s resistance.

But unlike third-party wars during the Cold War, now the Western client, Ukraine, is fighting directly against the chief antagonist of European NATO members.

Arming a proxy in a war waged against the homeland of a nuclear adversary is a new and dangerous phenomenon.

The West counts on supplying Ukraine with more and better weapons than a richer, larger, and more populous Russia.

But Ukraine’s problem is not so much weapons as manpower. Nearly a fourth of Ukraine’s population has fled the country.

Ukraine may have suffered some 300,000 causalities. The average age of its soldiers is over 40 years. It already lacks sufficient forces to replay the failed 2023 counter-offensive. The Russian plan of attrition is to wear down and bleed out the Ukrainian people.

(The death tally for this war now exceeds the number of British and American deaths in WWII)

In a geostrategic sense, the new alignment of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea is starting to gain opportunistic support from illiberal Middle East regimes, Turkey, and the Islamic world in general.

The Biden administration’s respective approaches to the Ukraine and Gaza wars continue to be utterly incoherent.

It lectures our strongest ally Israel on the need for a ceasefire, proportionality, a coalition wartime cabinet, and the avoidance of collateral damage. The administration considers the terrorist Hamas almost a legitimate state.

However, Biden and the American diplomatic establishment urge Ukraine to keep fighting without negotiations. They urge Kyiv to seek critical disproportionality through superior weaponry, including hitting strategic targets inside Russia.

The U.S. has overlooked the cancellation of Ukrainian political parties and elections by the Zelensky administration. America does not seem to care about Ukrainian collateral damage to the borderlands. And it considers the Russian government a near-terrorist state.

No one in the West, at least prior to the Russian February 2022 invasion—neither the prior Obama, Trump, and current Biden administrations or the Ukrainian government itself—had considered it even possible to regain by force the Crimea and the Donbass absorbed by the Russian invasion of 2014.

Add up all these realities, and the only practicable way to avoid another near-one million dead and wounded would be a settlement, however unpopular.

It would entail the formalization of the 2014 Russian absorption of Crimea and Donbass.

Russia would then agree to withdraw all its forces to its pre-2022 borders. Ukraine would be fully armed but without NATO membership.

Both sides would agree to a demilitarized zone on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Russia would brag that it prevented its former province from joining NATO while finally institutionalizing its prior incorporation of the Donbass and Crimea.

Ukraine would be proud that, like heroic 1940 Finland, it miraculously stopped Russian aggression. It would remain far better armed than at any time in its history and soon enjoy a status similar to that of non-NATO Austria or Switzerland.

The deal would anger all parties. But it would make public what most concede privately—and stop the ongoing destruction of Ukraine and the further slaughter of an entire generation of Ukrainian and Russian youth.

All that the trillion American Taxpayers dollars has accomplished is prolonging the conflict and doubling the death toll. This war could literally go on forever. How can that be anything but immoral??

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dontforgetukraine · 5 months ago

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TIFF: And so it continues...5 to ZFF

Aaand "Russians at War" is going to be at the Zurich Flim Festival. Because of course.

The Russian Canadian director Anastasia Trofimova met a soldier on home leave in Moscow's subway, accompanying him to the front lines, where she spent over a year filming unauthorized footage in a battalion near the Ukrainian border. In her film, she gives voice to soldiers who have no understanding of the war's causes and soon find themselves mourning comrades who have become Putin's cannon fodder. This harrowing and unique war documentary captures images you would never see in the news media. 'Who are the Russian soldiers who are fighting against Ukraine? What do they think of Putin? The documentary has them speak their minds. A film that revealed more to me about this conflict than 100 newspaper articles.' – Christian Jungen Anastasia Trofimova Anastasia Trofimova was born in Moscow and is a Russian-Canadian filmmaker. She first studied communications and political science and then international relations. Trofimova is a renowned filmmaker who has made a name for herself through her work in conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Russia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In her films, she addresses social inequality and injustice. She has been honoured with the Canada Screen Award and has participated as a jury member at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards five times. RUSSIANS AT WAR (2024) / CONGO, MY PRECIOUS (2017) / VICTIMS OF ISIS (2015) / HER WAR: WOMEN VS. ISIS (2015)

No mention of RT in the director's bio of course. Same shit, different film festival.

Also, if this propaganda film reveals more to you about the war than 100 news articles, that's not shining praise for the film, but rather an indictment of the sorry state of our collective media landscape in Ukraine and the West.

The West obviously has a problem of not reporting on Ukraine as often anymore. It's not "fashionable". A lot of the reporting I've come across is superficial and there is rarely a deep dive into the Ukrainian civilian aspect of the war. It seems there always has to be either a grotesque catastrophic event due to Russian aggression (like the Okhmatdyt children's cancer hospital), or an interesting enough topic in order for something to be considered (like the Mykola Hryshko national botanical garden being in danger of losing its tropical plants due to the war causing electricity cuts.) There is a dearth of human interest stories, which is the core of understanding this war and the effects it has on Ukrainians.

When there is such a story, it falls into the situation of the "box-ticking approach", as described by Dr. Olesya Khromeychuk:

It is not enough to simply ‘do Ukraine’ by reviewing one book on the war, especially if it’s by a Western journalist rather than a Ukraine-based author. It’s not enough to host one exhibition, particularly if it is by an artist or photographer who only spent a few weeks in the country. Quickly putting together a panel on Russia’s war in response to a major development at the front and adding a sole Ukrainian voice at the last minute doesn’t cut it either. This box-ticking approach is unhelpful and insulting.

Most if not all of the quotes I pull from human-interest stories are from Ukrainian journalism. If you've been following me for the short time I've had this blog up, you'll notice I read a lot. At this point I've given up on looking up Western based English media, because the core stories that define the war are just not there. If there is an interesting article from the West, I'll usually see it pop up on my Twitter feed (like the botanical garden story) and I'll take a look then because its been recommended and has what I'm looking for.

And finally, Western media can't let go of having some Russian expert talk about Ukraine, instead of actually talking to Ukrainians.

Kate from Kharkiv: Ukrainian media, both in Ukrainian and English, must improve their regional reporting. They are increasingly resembling local Kyiv media, which limits global awareness of events across Ukraine. Consequently, international media rarely cover these regions unless we die en mass. But not too often, because if often it is not news anymore.

Like Kate from Kharkiv points out, mass-casualty events are no longer "fashionable". She further indicates the lack of essential reporting in specific regions where conditions are different from Kyiv. One such example is the Russians turning Kherson into a "human safari". Initially, only Zarina Zabrisky was reporting on how Russian drones pilots were deliberately targeting civilians, and she shouldn't have to be the only one reporting on this. While there are some Western news outlets that have reported on this situation now, it's still not enough. Zarina Zabrisky is still diligently doing the bulk of the work in reporting on this. I can only imagine what other stories in other regions are going untold because there is little to no coverage.

The other obstacle I've noticed is accessibility to news in Ukraine from a language perspective. There isn't enough English language coverage from Ukrainian media outlets. While I would love to be able to read Ukrainian confidently, I'm nowhere near there yet, and the West is collectively even further away. Google translate isn't a great substitute either for obvious reasons. The number of times I wanted to read/watch a news report, and there was no English supplement is a lot. It happens frequently with the English language Ukrainian news accounts I follow. They'll post a clip from a news report with no translated subtitles and say, "look at this!", but I can't extract the information they want to show because of this problem.

This is why I hold volunteer translators as some of the most valuable contributors in the information space, and I will always credit them.

It's a vicious cycle. If a large proportion of Ukrainian news media is inaccessible to Western media due to the language barrier, information has even less of a chance of being noticed and spreading. This is, in my opinion, the other side of the coin on issues in the information war.

#Ukraine #Zurich #Switzerland #russians at war #Russian propaganda #screen reader friendly #Zurich Film festival #ZFF #media #journalism #Ukrainian journalism #language barrier #long post #Kate from Kharkiv #Zarina Zabrisky

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workersolidarity · 1 year ago

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[Russian Lancet strike targets a Ukrainian American-made artillery system]

🇷🇺🇺🇦 🚨

💥 UPDATE ON THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR, EVENTS OF DAY 630💥

In the General direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have neutralised manpower and military hardware in 145 areas.

In addition, one radar station of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, as well as three control points of the 67th Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 31st Operational Brigade, and the 50th Regiment of the National Guard have been hit near Serebryanka (Donetsk People's Republic).

Air defence facilities have shot down one MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force near Pavlograd (Dnepropetrovsk region).

Seven HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system projectiles have also been intercepted.

In addition, 30 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been hit close to Tokarevka (Kharkov region), Svatovo, Kolomiychikha (Lugansk People's Republic), Vasilyovka, Belogorovka, Kirillovka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Romanovskoye (Zaporozhye region).

📊In total, 535 airplanes and 254 helicopters, 8,934 unmanned aerial vehicles, 441 air defence missile systems, 13,396 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,184 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 7,105 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 15,273 special military motor vehicles have been destroyed during the special military operation.

In Kherson direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the enemy losses were over 60 servicemen and three motor vehicles.

In addition, during the counter-battery warfare, one Msta-B howitzer, two D-30 howitzers, as well as one Cobra counter-battery radar station have been destroyed.

Russian Forces continue clearing operations along the western outskirts of Krynky, targeting the Ukrainian foothold there while heavily bombing along the Kronka River [a waterway off the Dnipro leading to Krynky], a Ukrainian supply road used to support troops in Krynky and land troops in the area.

Ukrainian Forces published video showing the successful targeting of a wounded Russian soldier along the western outskirts of Ukrainian-controlled territory in Krynky.

#source1

Ukrainian Forces are said to have since taken positions in the area where the wounded Russian soldier was killed, and now Russian Forces heavily bomb the area according to geolocated video.

#source2

Heavy fog in the area in recent days is said to have given cover to Ukrainian Forces to land their troops and supplies in Krynky, in both the west and eastern parts of Ukrainian-controlled territory here.

However, Russian-held territory is only a few hundred yards from the eastern Ukrainian staging area in Krynky, and if Ukrainian Forces cannot expand their zone of control in the east of the village, Russian Forces will eventually be able to establish fire control over the area, and Russian Forces are currently attacking in the east/southeast of Krynky in order to just that.

The situation is tenuous for Ukrainian Forces at best.

To see what I mean, Ukrainian Forces of the 137th Marine Battalion of the 35th Marine Brigade published a report on the condition of their situation.

According to that report, Ukrainian Forces are sent to the staging areas in Krynky and as soon as they arrive, they are chewed up by Russian artillery fire before another unit is sent in its place. And according to these Ukrainian Marines, the high-ranking officers have no regard for their soldiers lives or there is a traitor in their midst.

#source3

Meanwhile, Russian Forces published geolocated video of a Lancet strike against a Ukrainian radar battery in Ochakiv, on the right bank of the Dnieper.

According to the source:

In the area of the village In Ochakov, an air defense radar station of the VFU, presumably P-18, was opened. The target was destroyed by the Lancet X-52 loitering ammunition.

#source4

And another Lancet strike in the vicinity of Lebedynske targeted a Ukrainian air-defense system.

According to the source:

Group of troops "Dnepr" . BG Energodar. n.p. Lebedinskoe.

Reconnaissance units engage the BUK M1 air defense system with the Lancet X-1 product

#source5

In Kupyansk direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, units of the Zapad Group of Forces, supported by aviation and artillery, have repelled two attacks by assault groups of the 57th Mechanised Brigade of the AFU close to Sinkovka (Kharkov region).

The enemy losses were up to 30 servicemen, one tank, two pickup trucks.

During the counter-battery warfare, one M777 artillery system and one M114 howitzer manufactured by the U.S., one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, one D-20 gun, as well as one U.S.-manufactured AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar.

One ammunition depot of the 1st Special Purpose Brigade of the AFU has been destroyed near Volchansk (Kharkov region).

Russian Forces destroyed a bridge in the vicinity of Kupiansk.

According to the source:

Russia has destroyed a bridge with an airstrike. There were no casualties within the civilians. ⚔️🔱

One of the most common tactics seen world wide through out the entire history is burning bridges. Nowadays it's hard to burn a bridge made of metal and concrete but it's easy to blow it up. 💥

Location: Kupyansk-Uzlovoy

#source14

In Krasny Liman direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, units of the Tsentr Group of Forces, helicopters, and artillery have repelled three attacks by assault groups of the 12th Special Purpose Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 5th Brigade of the National Guard close to Grigorovka and Serebryanka (Donetsk People's Republic).

The enemy losses were up to 180 servicemen, two motor vehicles, Akatsiya and Gvozdika self-propelled artillery systems.

No other updates in this area.

In Zaporozhye direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, units of the Russian Group of Forces, aviation and artillery have repelled one attack of an assault group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and inflicted a fire damage on manpower and hardware concentration areas of the 33rd Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Rabotino (Zaporozhye region).

The enemy losses were over 40 servicemen, three pickup trucks, as well as one U.S.-manufactured M119 howitzer.

In the vicinity of Dmitrov, Zaporizhzhia region, according to Russian sources, Russian Forces launched a powerful strike on Ukrainian Forces of the "Sparta" Brigade.

According to the source:

The enemy confirms that today our Rocketeers repeated the attack on the city of Dmitrov, Zaporozhye region and again hit the enemy concentration. The NSU brigade "Sparta" came under attack. Many ambulances were spotted at the arrival site.

#source6

Russian Forces continue powerful operations in the direction of Piatykhatky, with video published of Russian artillery working on Ukrainian positions in the village, part of days of heavy shelling, bombing and MLRS assaults.

According to the source:

objective control from reconnaissance of the 392nd regiment to cover the air defense forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the village of Pyatikhatki in the Zaporozhye direction.

#source7

Further video from other sources shows very heavy fighting, clashes and bombing in the village of Piatykhatky.

According to the source:

Sniper work of artels and reconnaissance officers of a separate reconnaissance battalion against enemy air defense forces in Pyatikhatki.

#source8

In the Robotyne area, Russian Forces continue bombing and shelling Ukrainian positions on the west of Verbove as Ukrainian Forces launch successive waves of assaults on the western outskirts of the village.

Russian Forces published video showing heavy bombing of the area, suggesting some Ukrainian progress here.

According to the source:

Battle footage: how the landing forces repulse the enemy’s “meat assaults” near Verbovoy on the Zaporozhye Front

▪️In the Orekhovsky sector of the Zaporozhye Front, the enemy on the Rabotino-Verbovoe line again and again sends assault groups to attack our positions.

▪️At Verbovoy, the enemy is trying to advance along the landings, but the guards-paratroopers meet enemy units with fire.

▪️The enemy is suffering very significant losses. Pictures from the front from our comrades.

#source9

In South Donetsk direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, units of the Vostok Group of Forces, in cooperation with helicopters and artillery, have inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware concentration areas of the 72nd Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 102nd and 127th territorial defence brigades near Ugledar, Rovnopol (Donetsk People's Republic) and Chervonoye (Zaporozhye region).

The enemy losses were up to 140 soldiers, two armoured fighting vehicles, three motor vehicles.

During the counter-battery warfare, one M109 Paladin self-propelled artillery system and one M777 artillery system manufactured by the U.S., one Giatsint-S self-propelled gun, two D-20 howitzers, as well as one MT-12 cannon have been destroyed.

Russian Forces continue artillery and drone preparation in the Vrymivka salient area, however few video updates from this area to get a good idea of exactly what happens on the ground here.

In the vacinity of Novomykhailivka, the bridge between Novomykhailivka and Kostiantynivka was damaged in a Russian strike, however is still somewhat usable.

#source10

In Donetsk direction:

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, units of the Yug Group of Forces, in cooperation with aviation and artillery, have eliminated enemy manpower and hardware near Razdolovka, Andreevka, Kleshcheevka, Nikolayevka, and Kurdyumovka (Donetsk People's Republic).

The enemy losses were up to 220 military personnel, one tank, and seven motor vehicles.

In addition, during the counter-battery warfare, French-manufactured Caezar and Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery systems, two Msta-B howitzers, as well as one MT-12 cannon have been destroyed.

In the north of Avdiivka:

Russian Forces continue targeting supporting forces in the area north of Avdiivka, with Russian sources publishing video of a Lancet strike on an Ukrainian American-made howitzer supporting forces on the frontline in Ocheretyne.

According to the source:

🇷🇺 The IX leaders burned the 155 mm M777 howitzer!

Our comrades Black Hussars shared footage of their work on an American gun in the hands of wild boars and even though the Ukrainians tried to disguise the gun, it didn’t help them - as a result, the howitzer BURNED 🔥

#source11

While burning was witnessed a short distance east from the Lancet strike, the likely target of another strike.

According to the source:

The settlement of Ocheretino on the Avdeevsky direction. The fuel warehouse is on fire.

#source12

According to some sources, Ukrainian Forces wiped out a unit in the Stepove area, however I could not find evidence of this.

In the area between Toretsk and Horlivka, reports of a Ukrainian attack from the village of Shumy, southeast of Toretsk towards Horlivka.

While Russian Forces are counter-attacking just north to re-engage forces.

According to the source:

Gorlovka north-west.

The enemy managed to capture one of the waste heaps south of the village. Noises.

Now our fighters are storming the village of Shumy in order to bypass the waste heap and get behind the enemy’s rear. The enemy has transferred the 47th brigade to Gorlovka and is trying to force our army to withdraw some of its reserves from Avdeevka.

At the moment, nothing critical has happened, the usual tactics from the enemy. The only ones who suffer greatly are the civilians of Gorlovka. The enemy has been shelling peaceful areas of Gorlovka all day...

#source13

In the Artmevosk area:

Russian Forces launched ground operations in the direction of Andriivka, to its northeast, returning control of some positions from Ukrainian Forces.

Lots of back and forth in recent days in Artmevosk direction, it's not entirely clear what exactly is happening or who is gaining the upper hand and where.

@WorkerSolidarityNews

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myroslaw · 1 year ago

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🌍 Mapping 13 Countries Inside Ukraine 🇺🇦: A Fascinating Thought Experiment! 🌍

Ever wondered how big Ukraine really is? Let's play a game of geopolitical Tetris! 🎮 📍 Countries Inside Ukraine's Borders 📍

🇦🇱 Albania finds its place in the Northwest, specifically in Volhynia.

Historical Note: Like Ukraine, Albania also struggled for its independence and faced various invasions.

2. 🇨🇿 Czechia snugly fits in the West, in the regions of Galicia-Podolia.

Did You Know?: Both the Czech Republic and Ukraine are Slavic countries with historical ties that span over a thousand years. They have shared moments of solidarity, especially during the Velvet Revolution and Ukraine's own struggle for democracy. The Czech civil society has often been supportive of Ukraine's European aspirations, and both nations have a rich folklore tradition.

3. 🇸🇮 Slovenia nestles in the Southwest, in Transcarpathia.

Cultural Insight: Slovenia and Ukraine share a love for mountainous landscapes.

4. 🇦🇹 Austria takes its spot in the North, covering areas like Polesia, Kyiv, and Siveria. Historical Insight: the Austrian Empire once controlled the region of Galicia, which is now part of modern-day Ukraine. The Austrian rule has left a lasting impact on the culture and architecture of the region.

5. 🇸🇰 Slovakia finds its home right in the Center of Ukraine.

Historical Ties: Slovakia and Ukraine share a border and have a complex history of interaction.

6. 🇷🇸 Serbia is located in the Black Sea Coast and Zaporizhzhia region.

Conflict Legacy and External Influence: Both countries have recent histories of conflict and are still dealing with its aftermath. Russia often leverages shared historical narratives to influence Serbian politics, further complicating Serbia's geopolitical stance.

7. 🇲🇪 Montenegro fits into Southern Bessarabia/Budjak.

Tourism Angle: Montenegro is a tourism gem, something Ukraine is aspiring to become.

8-9. 🇨🇾 Cyprus and 🇹🇷 Northern Cyprus share the southern part of Kherson region.

Political Intrigue: The division of Cyprus into two entities echoes Ukraine's own territorial issues.

10. 🇭🇺 Hungary is situated in the East, covering Poltava region and Sloboda Ukraine.

Historical and Current Ties: Hungary ruled over Transcarpathia for centuries, a region primarily inhabited by Ukrainians. During its rule, Hungary implemented policies aimed at assimilating the local population. Even today, Hungarian politicians occasionally make territorial claims against Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

11-12. 🇮🇱 Israel and 🇵🇸 Palestine are located in the Azov Sea region.

Historical Trauma: Prior to World War II, Ukraine had one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. In many cities, Jews made up between 20% to 50% of the population. Tragically, most were exterminated by German Nazis during the Holocaust, with estimates suggesting that around 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews were killed.

13. 🇦🇲 Armenia finds its place in Crimea.

Historical Trauma: Both Ukraine and Armenia have faced historical tragedies, including genocides and wars.

📊 By the Numbers 📊

Total Area: 511,000 km² (That's 92,000 km² less than Ukraine! Enough room left for Switzerland and Denmark 🇨🇭🇩🇰)

Population: 66.1 million (That's 42% more than Ukraine! 🤯)

Wealth: Only Austria 🇦🇹 and Israel 🇮🇱 are considered wealthy. The rest range from average to poor.

GDP: A staggering $1.9 trillion (nominal) and $2.8 trillion (PPP), which is 9 times Ukraine's GDP pre-Russian invasion. 💰

🤔 What Does This All Mean? 🤔

All these countries have faced historical challenges similar to Ukraine, especially the scars left by the World Wars. Yet, their paths have diverged significantly, leading to different economic and social outcomes.

💬 Your Thoughts? 💬

What do you think led to such drastic differences? Share your thoughts, theories, or even personal stories related to these countries.

#maps #Geopolitics #Ukraine #ThoughtExperiment #History #Economy #Europe

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mariacallous · 11 months ago

Text

In the crowded labyrinth of the open market in downtown Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova, a babble of languages ripples through the throngs of traders hawking a bewildering array of fresh produce, cheap textiles, electronic wares, and much more. A customer may broach the terms of a deal in, say, Ukrainian, and get an answer in Romanian, or propose a price in Romanian and be answered in Russian. Among themselves, the traders from across this diminutive country of 2.5 million, wedged precariously between its outsized neighbors Romania and Ukraine, communicate in other tongues, too.

Moldova is a multiethnic country that wears its patchwork diversity on its sleeve. Particularly in urban centers, the majority Romanians live very much together with Ukrainians, Russians, and the Turkic Gagauz. But the war in Ukraine has completely upended the tenuous status quo that existed before February 2022. The war’s outcome, whether in Ukraine’s or Russia’s favor, has existential consequences for the tiny country nursing aspirations of joining the European Union.

Political convictions in Moldova have long spanned the gamut from aspirations of greater Romanian nationalism to Soviet nostalgia, from pro-Russia patriotism to civic pride in an independent, EU-embedded Moldova. This fractured landscape is also reflected in the country’s geography. Since the first days of its independence in 1991—when the Soviet Republic of Moldova jettisoned Soviet authority and declared statehood, basically for the first time ever—the Republic of Moldova itself has been fractured.

A breakaway, Russia-kowtowing enclave called Transnistria established itself east of the Dniester River—complete with about 1,500 Russian troops that remain there today—while the Gagauz minority, courted by Moscow and Ankara, staked out broad autonomy in the south.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first priority is to stop Moldova from joining the EU and integrating with the West, especially since the EU boosted Moldova to candidate status shortly after the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. But his aspirations may be far wider. Last week, Russia drew the ire of Moldovan authorities by setting up polling stations in Transnistria for its roughly 200,000 residents to vote in the Russian presidential elections held from March 15 to 17. It was a move that harks back to the initial steps taken to absorb occupied territories in Crimea and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine into Russia itself.

“Everything is at stake for Moldova now,” said Alexei Tulbure, the director of the Moldovan Oral History Institute.

If there’s one thing that just about all of Moldova’s peoples agree upon, regardless of political ideology, it is that they have next to no agency to affect the fate of their country—and ultimately, the fate of their own futures. “Moldovans breathe quietly,” according to a Ukrainian saying, mocking the country’s helplessness.

“It’s in the back of our minds,” said Alina Radu, the founder of the independent weekly Ziarul de Garda, of the possibility of the country losing its territory, or autonomy, to Russia. She compared the threat that the country now faces to the first months of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, when the Russian military seemed to be on the doorstep of the nearby Ukrainian city of Odesa. Transnistria’s armies seemed to be preparing to lend Russia a hand there. Had they been successful, all of Moldova could have come under Russian domination.

The staging ground for any future assault on Moldova is still likely to be Ukraine. Putin regularly confirms that Odesa is a military priority and has recently stepped up missile attacks there. It is a development that Moldovans are watching with trepidation. It’s one that Moldova’s allies in the West should be watching, too.

Even over its grinding first decades—marred by civil war, raging corruption, abject poverty, and mass emigration—Moldova’s prospects weren’t as starkly imperiled as they are today. Unlike most Ukrainians—who declare that victory over Russia is the only possible outcome—Moldovans have thought through worst-case scenarios.

“If Ukraine is defeated and Russia carves out a land corridor to Transnistria, Moldova will effectively cease to exist as an independent county,” Radu explained. “If they cross the Dniester River to occupy Moldova proper, then most of the population could well flee to Romania and points in Europe.” Her entire editorial staff has fixed plans to relocate to offices in the Romanian cities of Iasi and Bucharest, she said.

This certainly, at the very least, would put an abrupt end to Moldova’s EU and NATO aspirations, which is Washington’s primary concern. Upon signing a security cooperation deal with France on March 7, Moldovan President Maia Sandu—a 51-year-old Romanian-speaking graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government—told French President Emmanuel Macron that “our shared security is at stake. If the aggressor is not stopped, he will keep going, and the front line will keep moving closer. Closer to us, closer to you.”

Were Russia to take Moldova, it would open a second frontier with direct access to an EU member state. The United States is obviously aware of this threat and upped its defense assistance to Moldova from $3 million in 2022 to more than $30 million today. The United States and France also provided the country with hundreds of millions to shift its energy supply westward.

Ukraine, according to many Moldovans, including Sandu, is fighting for Moldova’s independence, too. “We’re very grateful to Ukraine,” said Ludmila D. Cojocaru, a historian at the National Museum of History of Moldova in Chisinau. “At the moment, it is the guarantor of our freedom.”

On the other hand, “if Ukraine pushes Russia back,” said Radu, the editor, “the Russian troops will have to leave separatist Transnistria, and it will dissolve.” As far as she is concerned, the peoples of Transnistria—hostages, she called them, to the criminal clique controlling the territory—would be more than welcome to join the Moldovan state in full. As for the alleged gangsters who have lorded over the region for 30 years, they will face justice—if they’re naïve enough to hang around, she said.

Until Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Moldova’s overwhelming geopolitical preoccupation was with the self-styled Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (PMR)—recognized as a state by no country in the world, not even Russia. Since a brief but bloody civil war in the region that took an estimated 700 lives in 1992, a hard-nosed, Russian-backed mafioso cartel named Sheriff Holding Co. has turned the vertical sliver of land into an entirely captured, one-party authoritarian state that conducts lucrative black-market business from the eastern bank of the Dniester.

The 90-minute minibus trip from Chisinau to PMR’s capital city, Tiraspol, passes a steady flow of traffic in the opposite direction: This workforce, which possesses Moldovan passports, can no longer find employment in Transnistria since its business to the east was cut off abruptly when Ukraine slammed shut the border last year, a body blow to the Sheriff cartel. At the Dniester, a solitary, AK-wielding Russian Army soldier stands in front of a makeshift border, not unlike Checkpoint Charlie in the divided Berlin.

Two flags fly from the checkpoint: the Russian flag and a green-and-red PMR flag that sometimes—but not all the time—sports a hammer and sickle in the upper right-hand corner just as had the flag of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. In the empty, deafeningly quiet streets of Tiraspol, the only image more prevalent than the bust of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is the Sheriff logo with its Wild West-inspired star. (“Sheriff” was the nickname of Moldovan police officer Viktor Gushan, who is one of the former Soviet sphere’s wealthiest oligarchs.)

The conflict between Transnistria and the Moldovan state, which never ceded sovereignty over the eastern bank territory, remained largely frozen for years despite international diplomacy to initiate a thawing. As long as the matter remained unsolved, Sheriff’s honchos padded their coffers and Moscow maintained a forward pawn that kept Moldova off balance; through propaganda and puppets, Russia influenced Moldova’s internal politics to the extent that until 2021, all but one Moldovan government reflected positions largely in line with Moscow, much as did in Ukraine until 2014. Interestingly, until the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine had sided largely with the Transnistrian ruling clique, business and Russian reinforcements flowing over the Ukraine border while Moldova remained tightly in check.

But now it is the Transnistrians who are on the back foot—and not sure how to play it. The narrow lick of land suddenly finds its greatest ally far away, and its residents are well aware that Ukraine could occupy it within a week, Anatolii Dirun, a former Transnistrian politician, told me. Resupply from Russia is blocked by Ukraine. The PMR made a feeble cry to Moscow for help on Feb. 28, but stopped short of calling for it to intervene.

In fact, the gangsters of Transnistria are petrified and thus playing both ends against the middle: Russia and Moldova proper. All of the region’s trade now runs through Moldova proper—and most of that carries on to the EU through Romania. More Transnistrians than ever before work, study, and learn Romanian in Moldova proper, part of a deft strategy by Sandu to integrate Transnistria back into Moldova.

“Transnistria’s leaders are trying to be prudent—as they don’t have much of a choice,” Oazu Nantoi, a member of the Moldovan Parliament who belongs to Sandu’s party, told Foreign Policy.

And yet, the Transnistrian government, in league with the Gagauz and pro-Russian forces in Moldova proper, remains beholden to Moscow and gladly lends it a hand in chipping away at the Moldovan government’s sovereignty.

The fact is, said Alexei Tulbure, an ethnic Ukrainian and the director of the Moldovan Historical Institute, Moldova is an easy target. It remains a very weak state, he noted, and thus wide open to tampering. “We had hoped that the war would consolidate Moldova the way it did Ukraine’s population, bring us all onto the same page. But this didn’t happen,” he said. Polls show that about a quarter of the country is still pro-Russian.

Russia’s chief means to destabilize its targets are bought votes, propaganda, cyberwarfare, and political parties. There are a handful of Russia-friendly (some also Russian-financed) parties that toe Putin’s line to one degree or another. For most of Moldova’s recent history, a combination of these parties had held power. The propaganda is “very strong and very toxic, and it rings like it’s straight from Moscow,” said Mariana Aricova of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting office in Chisinau, whose job is to monitor and counter the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

The Russian campaigns to topple the Sandu government have picked up pace as the Moldovan presidential election, scheduled to take place in autumn along with a referendum on EU membership, grows nearer. And the Sandu government has responded as if its life depends on it, even by banning one of the pro-Russian parties and shutting down six television channels for alleged misinformation.

But “it didn’t really change much because the banned party has regrouped under a new party, and the Russian message gets out through other channels, like the Internet,” Aricova said.

Above all, Moldovans fear being squashed in a power struggle in which they have no say. Many observers see a slow, gentle reintegration of Transnistria into a federally structured Moldova as a first step in the right direction—Sandu’s chosen path. The Sandu government is seizing the moment as a unique opportunity to reconnect with Transnistria—and from there, to bring the entire country, as one, into the EU. The carrots of cross-border employment prospects, full Schengen Area travel rights, European structural and investment funds, minority rights guarantees, and higher wages could be enticing to everyone—save, of course, Transnistria’s criminals.

In terms of a proven mentor, there’s none better than Romania, which has surged to become Eastern Europe’s second-largest economy after Poland. The question is whether Sandu can pull this off without shattering the fragile country in the process. But then, the war raging next door might just take care of that for her.

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libertariantaoist · 1 year ago

Text

News Roundup 8/14/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 8/14/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

On Thursday, government lawyers went to court to defend federal meddling in content moderation decisions on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. AWC

Russia

Delays have caused the North Atlantic alliance to push back the expected arrival of F-16s in Ukraine until next summer. AWC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he was firing dozens of officials responsible for overseeing military recruitment in each region of the country. The leader claimed the officials were engaging in “revolting” abuses of power. AWC

The White House on Thursday asked Congress to approve a $40 billion bill that includes nearly $24 billion for additional spending on the war in Ukraine. AWC

According to the Washington Post, many citizens of Ukraine are adopting a darker mood about the war with Russia, and national unity is beginning to fray. The change in sentiment comes as Kiev’s spring counteroffensive fails to retake significant territory despite surging casualties. The Institute

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said Thursday that Warsaw plans to deploy 10,000 troops to its border with Belarus as part of a buildup that began after Wagner fighters traveled to Belarus. AWC

Washington and Helsinki are working on a new deal to govern the military relationship between the two nations. Finland recently became the thirty-first member of NATO, doubling the alliance’s border with Russia. AWC

Moscow says Ukrainian forces have launched several drone attacks over the past week targeting Moscow and Crimea. After the sensitive Kertch bridge was targeted, the Kremlin denounced the strikes as “terror attacks” and vowed a response. AWC

Kyiv is now appealing to its allies for more demining equipment. Ukrainians assigned to be deminers – known as sappers have taken heavy losses in the counter offensive. AWC

Middle East

The US and Iran have reached a deal that will free five Americans in exchange for the US releasing some Iranians and granting Tehran limited access to $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds, The New York Times reported Thursday. AWC

Per Syrian state media, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani condemned a Friday Islamic State attack on a Syrian military bus (other sources claim the target consisted of two trucks), which resulted in the deaths of at least 20 government soldiers. AWC

Niger

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Thursday ordered the activation and deployment of a reserve force to “restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger” while also saying it would seek peaceful means to restore Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum. AWC

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the Niger junta told Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland that they would kill deposed President Mohamed Bazoum if neighboring countries launched a military intervention to reinstate him. AWC

A delegation of Nigerian Islamic scholars traveled to Niamey for meetings with the leaders of the military junta who took power last month. The group says the coup leaders expressed an openness to diplomacy, Reuters reported on Sunday. However, this account has been sharply contradicted by a media spokesperson representing the junta who claimed negotiations with regional countries are impossible unless Niger’s new leadership is recognized. AWC

#kyle anzalone #libertarian institute #news roundup

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maximumphilosopheranchor · 2 years ago

Quote

... to understand Putin, all we had to do was to listen. My first article of warning was published in the Wall Street Journal in January 4th, 2001. And all I did, I just was listening to Putin's own words. And when Putin said that there were no such a thing as a former KGB agent, I knew that Russia's fragile democracy was in danger. And when Putin said, actually repeatedly said that collapse with the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of 20th century, I knew Russians knew the independent neighbors were at risk. And eventually when Putin talked at the Munich Security Conference, 15 years ago in 2007, about return to spheres of influence I knew he was ready to launch his attack because that was the language of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, language used by Hitler and Stalin to divide Europe. And of course, next year he attacked Republic of Georgia. And I remember that after this attack, which for me was just the most convincing proof of his intentions, the West didn't respond. They tried to spread the blame between the Republic of Georgia and then President Mikheil Saakashvili and Putin's Russia though, technically Putin was not the president at the time. He was puppet master behind the stage, having his shadow man Medvedev sitting in Kremlin. And America, instead of doing something, offered a reset policy. And I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, and I predicted attack on Ukraine. And later people asked me, "How did you know?" I said, "I looked at the map." And then of course Crimea. I mean, what else did you need to understand that Putin would not respect any international treatise signed by Russia. And for him, Crimea was a very important step in this direction because America and Great Britain had some kind of legal responsibilities to defend Ukraine because in 1994, there was a so-called Budapest Memorandum, when after heavy pressure from Clinton administration, Ukrainians gave up their nuclear arsenal, which few people remember was a third largest in the world. Ukraine have more nuclear warheads than China, France, and Great Britain combined. And then, what we heard is, "Oh, memorandum is not a binding document." And Putin heard what he wanted, so where he could continue his expansion, recovering Soviet Russian influence without any consequences, because the sanctions that were announced, though they were trumpeted as something very powerful, they had almost no impact on Russian economy.(..) ...the free world had to respond at early stage at any sign of recurring Russian nationalism. That's why I mentioned Boris Yeltsin. And then of course, Putin demonstrated it and spoke about it quite frankly. And I think every time when he spoke about it, that's why I mentioned the conference in Munich in 2007, he had no response. The moment when Putin talked about spheres of influence, Americans had to respond even harshly to tell him that just remember it's 21st century, this is not 19th century. And it's not surprising that Putin eventually got a message, what he wanted to hear, same way as Hitler in Sudetes. "Oh, I could do that." And then he thought that he could go even beyond Europe.(..) In 1994, United States pressed Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons. I think that it's maybe not today, but definitely before the war, this administration have been pressing the Ukrainians to accept so called Minsk deal that would offer Putin political control of Ukraine. Ukraine was a destruction for this administration and still a destruction now. And when you said Putin expected to win the work quickly, yes. So CIA and so Pentagon. So yes, I'm shocked now that the Director Burns and General Millie, those who blundered here, because they talked about Ukraine capital would fall in 96 hours. That Ukraine would not last for more than three or four days.(..) ... God forbid, Putin wins in Ukraine, he will not stop there. And are you sure that this piece of paper called Article 5 will stop him? I'm shocked to that oh, we have no obligations to defend Ukraine because it's not member of NATO, but we will fight for every inch of NATO territory. How come? Are you going to fight in Poland against Martians or against the same Russians? If you're afraid of Putin's nukes, why these nations should believe America that America will come to their rescue facing Putin army, blood-thirsty army that will be fresh of success in Ukraine. Right now, we have a unique opportunity to destroy Putin's war machine using Ukrainian manpower and determination and their spirit and all we need is to offer them real help, give them weapons. And also, in the strategy and strategy includes not only tanks, but also banks. (..) The war would not take place if Ukraine are member of NATO. And also ... You're talking about obligations. I don't know what's moral obligations, or you're talking about piece of paper. Again, Budapest memoranda was now in the same piece of paper. I don't want for us to check if Article 5 is also piece of paper the moment Putin crosses a native borders in Lithuania or Poland, actually most likely Lithuania, small country that doesn't have the same resource as Ukraine to fight back. (..) Russian history has many cases where the groups in power, they unsatisfied or scared by the policies of the leader, they conspired against him. So now with Putin, it's different because it's a dictatorship, a fascist dictatorship and he has all the power. I think he has even more power than Stalin because Stalin had politburo and people like Beria. Putin is surrounded by his cronies and henchmen with no aspirations to take over. But even the worst cowards can act out of their fear if they understand that the ship is going to sink and the precondition for any change in Russia, whether it's the social-economic revolt on the streets with millions of people getting to the streets and protesting, or with Putin's entourage deciding it's time to act and to find scapegoat, which is always a dictator. It's a military defeat in Ukraine. Until Russian troops are defeated in Ukraine, decisively, that you cannot hide this anymore, nothing will happen. And that's why I think that state of free-world must supply Ukraine with everything they need to win the war, unless it happens, there will be no revolt on the streets or what you call palace coup.

Garry Kasparov

ALL OF THIS. Kasparov put it brilliantly.

"Good" job, West, for buying in Russia's manipulations for decades. By the way, the conversation above happened in April 2022 and the powerful Western countries still withhold the aviation that Ukraine so urgently needs to both protect its sky (when, you know, Russians deliberately are hitting Ukrainian civilians with rockets daily) and attack. As a Latvian I can say that I have no belief whatsoever that if - God forbid - Russia attacks my country NATO will respond timely and effectively. All hope on Ukraine.

#Garry Kasparov #Ukraine #Russia #praying for Ukraine and Zelensky

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