#and use them to write Ukraine off again

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

"One might think that an intelligence failure can be benign: The good guys do far better than expected, the bad guys far worse. In fact, erring on the side of pessimism can be as big a problem as being too bullish. The period just before and after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, is a good example of this. At the West’s most influential research organizations, prominent analysts—many of them political scientists who follow Russian military affairs—confidently predicted that Russia would defeat its smaller neighbor within weeks. American military leaders believed this consensus, to the point that the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair reportedly told members of Congress that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours of a Russian attack. Although those analysts’ gloomy assessments turned out to be wrong, they’ve nevertheless made the United States and its allies overly cautious in assisting Ukraine in its self-defense.(..)

As we reread scores of articles and reports, listened to podcasts, and reviewed op-eds and interviews, we noticed how little uncertainty had been expressed. Russia, prominent analysts had insisted, had completely modernized its military. Its soldiers were no longer chiefly conscripts but professionals. Its military doctrine—particularly its organization of units into so-called battalion tactical groups, which are small infantry battalions reinforced with tanks and artillery—was a stroke of organizational genius. Its soldiers and airmen had been battle-tested in Syria and earlier operations in Ukraine. The two of us pored over the maps, reprinted widely, that showed half a dozen or more red arrows effortlessly piercing Ukraine up to its western border.

To the extent that analysts discussed Ukraine in any detail, its citizens were depicted as the demoralized and atomized victims of a corrupt government. The country’s substantial Russophone population was portrayed as largely indifferent to rule from Moscow or Kyiv. Ukraine’s equipment was no match for advanced Russian systems. They had experienced only static warfare in the Donbas and would have no chance against a Russian blitzkrieg. Volodymyr Zelensky was portrayed as an ineffective president. He was a comedy performer, not a wartime leader; his government, intelligence services, and armed forces had been penetrated by Russian spies and saboteurs. Ukrainians might not even put up much of a guerrilla resistance. On top of it all came consistent policy advocacy: assertions that Ukraine was not worth arming or that well-intentioned efforts to do so would merely increase suffering.

Two and a half years later, the Russians have taken as many as 600,000 casualties; Ukrainian cities have been shattered but still stand, while Ukrainian drones have hit Moscow. Ukrainians have driven the Black Sea Fleet from its anchorages around Crimea, sunk a third of its ships, and freed up sea lanes for the vital export of Ukrainian agricultural products. Ukrainian forces have in the past few weeks seized an area larger than Los Angeles inside the borders of Russia itself.

The same expert analytic community that erred early in the war continues to dominate much of the public and governmental discourse. Many of them persist in downplaying Ukrainian chances and counseling against giving the Ukrainians weapons that they have repeatedly shown themselves able to use with great effect. Some of them still warn of Russian escalation, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons, even as one Russian red line after another has faded to pink and vanished.(..)

The standard analysis of Russia and Ukraine paid almost no attention to the documented corruption of the Russian military, the rote nature of its exercises, and the failure of attempts to professionalize it. Far from having an abundance of well-trained personnel akin to American and British soldiers, Russian forces consisted for the most part of conscripts who had been bribed or coerced into signing up for a second year of duty in the same old abusive system. Many commentators wrongly compared Vladimir Putin’s forces to their Western counterparts, yielding predictions that Russia would employ “shock and awe” against the Ukrainians—as if its air force had experience and organization similar to that of the United States.(..)

Many observers also paid scant attention to all that had changed in Ukraine since 2014. This point is crucial: Many Western analysts had been trained as Russia specialists. Implicitly, perhaps subconsciously, they viewed Ukraine the way Russian imperialists did: as adjunct to Russia. In many cases ignorant of Ukrainian history, and even dismissive of its claims to national identity and political cohesion, authors of nearly a quarter of the reports we read did not even attempt to describe Ukraine as anything more than a target set for Russia. Many had never visited Ukraine, or spoken with Westerners—including members of allied training missions who had served there—who might have had different and better-informed views.

Possibly most disturbing, the two of us discovered just how small and insular the world of Russian-military analysis was. Think-tank political scientists with narrow specialties had enormous influence in a community whose incentives, unlike those in more vibrant academic disciplines, were for consensus rather than vigorous debate. Many authors made oracular pronouncements and seemed to resent serious questioning by outsiders, even including retired senior military.

We do not doubt prominent analysts’ smarts or honest intentions. But we were reminded of how some public-health experts acted in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic: confidently rendering judgments, dismissing doubts about them, excluding other experts—such as child psychologists, on the question of closing or opening schools—with relevant expertise different from their own.

Many in the public-health community have since engaged in some introspection. Russia experts have shown little such self-awareness, let alone self-criticism. The same experts continue to appear in the same forums, visit the White House, and brief an intelligence community that largely shares its views."

[lemon-tree-in-paperbag]

Are you fucking stupid? How tf are individual artists from Russia, often ones who are oppressed by Putin's regime themselves eg because they're queer (as many people on tumblr are including one of the Russian artists whom I know personally) responsible for the actions of their government? Obviously I stand with Ukraine but you CANNOT use a dictator's actions as an excuse for xenophobia. That's bullshit

Hey! You are so brave for writing this anonymously☹️☹️💗

So umm, here's the thing! I am not a xenophobe! I am a victim of genocide that is being committed against my country and my people! Against me too!

And hey! I can hate my agressor! Because THEY are destroying my home and because of them my life was ruined! Wanna know how? I had to leave my home forever! I had to live under russian occupation, had to sit at home for three whole months, had to turn off every light as soon as the it got dark outside! I had to live in the cold ass basement! I hate to sleep sitting up for several days in a row with my nervous dog in my hands and i could do it only when my mom wasn't asleep!

I had to watch russian occupants in the eye when i was leaving my hometown, again, for like... forever!😚

I had to hear shelling every night and day! I had to hide my ukrainian language in my phone and delete all of my information from my phone so i wouldn't get shot!!!

I would think how am i, a 15 year old, will be saving my brother, if something happens to my mom! I would think for every day after that: do i got what it takes? If the russians WERE SHOOTING AT US would i protect my little 10 y.o. brother?

BUT HEEEY of course not all of them are bad! Of course you know some good russians:)

I am not dumb for hating people who fucked me up SO BADLY that i still can't leave my house (which i will have to leave behind, just as my hometown too) that i still get scared at the sound of thunder and planes!

If they are oppressed, please, let them be my guest and do something about it, but i do not fucking care. Queer doesn't equal good, too, actually, so your comment about that doesn't make any sense

Dictators actions didn't kill them! But his actions and their silence OR support kill my people. Hey, do you read news? Yesterday a man had to bury his whole family because of "dictators actions"

You know what's bullshit? You telling me what i can and can't do, meanwhile i still suffer every day, and my friends and my family too, because of russia

I don't want to know about them, i do not care about them, i don't want to hear about them. In my eyes they made ukrainian's life a living hell. And world doesn't care about this and tries to clear their name

Shut up and listen what victims have to say, you illiterate fuck

Sorry for the rude comment😚 fucking stupid of me to know what's really happening

My dear western friends! Do not act like this individual here:) listen to ukrainians!!

OR if you do think like this anonymous PLEASE DNI, i don't want you here

Xoxo

[thelittleukrainianwell-armedgirl]

"On 7th of January Ukrainian poet Maksym Kryvtsov and his ginger cat were killed by rssian army on the frontline. He was 33 years old. He was writing poems about the war and his loyal cat friend, while protecting his homeland. He could create so much if russia would not start this unjust horror.

Every time something inside me dies when I see news like this. Every Ukrainian from the beginning of their time in school learns about Executed Renaissance - when on the beginning of 20th century a lot of Ukrainian artists, writers, poets were chased and executed by Soviet Union for creating works in Ukrainian and expressing their national identity. Now it’s happening again, same evil, but under different flag. Besides occupation of our land russia also often talks about how Ukraine is fake country with fake language, they burn our books on occupied territories, mock us, our POWs for the fact we’re ukrainian. They were mocking us even before the invasion, I grew up with watching it on social medias myself. And now a lot of authors can’t create because of the war, russia kills them on frontlines, in their homes, russia purposefully targets objects of civilian infrastructure to leave us without heat and electricity. It pisses me off every time when I see russian “culture” being praised by the foreigners, knowing that it’s made on blood of other nations. Either 100 years ago or now. Because while russian authors can live and create, we have fight for our survival.

Before being killed by russia Maksym published his last poem, where he told about how his body will grow as violets after his death. Every time it’s hard to draw something about the war, I feel literally empty afterwards but I just felt it would be right thing to do. It’s awful that our artists have to go through all of this, so damn unfair, and I keep telling myself that justice is waiting for them but I can’t even imagine what has to happen, everything feels not enough.

Please support Ukrainian authors, until it’s too late."

(c) @ fate_221

[argyrocratie]

"Catastrophe for somebody, salvation for others. Desertion is flooding Ukraine" by assembly.org.ua

"Imagine: the rulers start a war, and no one goes to it!"

Donations to support the authors are possible at this link. Many thanks everyone for such a great contribution!

(...)

The article "In the long hot summer, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers broke records for the growth of desertions", which was published by us on the first day of autumn, turned out to be just in time. (It is available in Russian, in English, in Spanish, in Italian.) A number of feedbacks came from both sides of the front. From discussions in local chats of Kharkov:

"I have a small observation, several busified ones, who haven’t been very critical of the authorities all this time, now quite console themselves with the thought that those at the top know better. While you are "free", your thoughts are within the framework of social currents and have the opportunity to wag. As soon as you get into a collective with outlined tasks, in most cases, your thoughts are in the same tunnel as everyone else. A busified, getting into a collective of previously busified, but already resigned to the situation, mentally assimilates with them, accepts their point of view, creating a comfort zone (swimming against the current is always uncomfortable). There he’s drawn into the topic and also begins to think that everyone else is a scoundrel and an evader, motivation appears. Until he gets into slaughter. There comes awareness and often SOCh [desertion]."

-

"I have three – a godfather and two deceased acquaintances who went voluntarily from the first days, but when they came to Kharkov, we drank together, no one shouted that I’m an evader, but on the contrary, that there’s nothing to do there. One, a volunteer too, is already abroad. He went for 2 weeks and has been there for half a year already. He said that just to take a rest..."

-

"A guy worked nearby, and he had a dog. So he dressed it up in a camouflage vest, a yellow and blue leash. And he himself walked around with all sorts of patriotic bracelets and tridents on his backpack. On the way to work, he was accepted by the TCR and he went to training. Then I see after 2-3 months he is hobbling. I thought he was drunk, but everything turned out to be much more interesting. After training, they were taken in tarpaulin trucks somewhere to the front line. And right when unloading the personnel, they got hit with something cassette-like. So, he wasn't drunk, his legs were cut up by shrapnel, and they hadn't pulled out all the shrapnel from the body yet. They sent him home from the hospital to finish his treatment, but didn’t write him off due to his wounds. And the guy said during conversation that he f*cked all this, he was going to go into SZCh. That's how quickly his surge of patriotism passed."

On September 9, we received a letter from Gorlovka, controlled by the far-right "Donetsk People’s Republic" since 2014:

"The saddest thing is that if you start telling people that soldiers need to desert the army and turn their weapons against those in power, people will widen their eyes and say, "Do you want 1917 to happen again? For brother against brother again, and for people to swell with hunger? It's better if we endure, otherwise it will get worse." We have photos of those wanted for escape on our streets. And the inscriptions: "Betrayed the republic, betrayed comrades, betrayed himself." I’ve heard the opinion that we have a lot of SOCh. But "a lot of" is a flexible concept. And their captures aren’t published here."

We will not cite the name of the person who spoke out.

(...)

Alas, after the end of the Vietnam War, such a type of anti-war activist as a military serviceman engaged in agitation and propaganda among his colleagues was practically forgotten. This is exactly what a Russian leftist who introduces himself as Sergey Thälmann wrote to us about on September 2. In addition to other important inside information, his letter helps us understand why there was no widespread desertion among Russian conscripts in the Kursk region, despite the fact that this seems to be the most logical choice for those poorly prepared for battle:

"I’m a conscript, there was no distinct choice. I actively educate soldiers and explain the injustice of the conflict. Of course, I’m not very fond of anarchism, but I believe that there’s no way without anarchists. Anarchism is the heart of communism, and Marxism is its mind.

I’ll say right away that there’s a strange atmosphere among conscripts – for some reason everyone wants to see the war. And when you start explaining that war is not a shooter, not a computer game, their desire immediately disappears. However, there are even such young people who defend Russian capital. They speak in the paradigm of "friends – foes" about Ukrainians and Russians. This is truly frightening. Many sign the contract, but... Taking into account both material and superstructural values. That is, with the desire to see the war. Consumer society has washed away the human brain so much that 19-year-old guys in Balashikha [near Moscow, – Ed.] want to go to Kursk. And it seems to me that such an atmosphere is not only here.

Well, and interesting observations: many officers are outright Nazis. For example, I talked to the communications chief of the mortar division of the 4th regiment. And he told me that I need to read... German thinkers of the 1930s. And there are hundreds of such ones here. Although there are adequate people... On the faces of the mobilized you can see more fear, despair. I talked to so many mobics here – not a single one wanted to fight. Some worked in a plant, some as an electrician. But conscripts are the opposite. Maybe because many are from the provinces, where life is boring and there are few bright emotions. Or maybe because in a consumer society, the consumer can consume absolutely any product provided. Even war becomes a commodity for sale.

In the companies there is also such a concept – military-political information. There they say absolutely terrible things. About how Ukraine almost burns people alive, and almost exclusively hits peaceful cities, ignoring military objects. As if the AFU isn’t an army, but... some small bandit who shoots at everything in sight. The main thing is that they hush up how in Russia, too, they pack people and forcibly send to war.

What can we get here, two concentrated capitals clashed with each other. Their most loyal dogs came out of their kennels)) Ukrainian capital is just as chauvinistic and concentrated in the form of financial capital as Russian. No government can be defended, they are both criminal, both thieves. And war is a war of slave owners for the strengthening and reinforcement of slavery. To support one of the slave owners in it means to be against the oppressed, that is, against the slaves. Against the serfs. Against the proletarians.

By the way, to those who say that Ukraine is a victim. Supporting a young and inexperienced robber in a fight with an old and fat one is supporting robbery as such and further robbery of one of them."

...

[toaarcan]

Rishi Sunak and the D-Day Disaster

Babes wake up, Rishi Sunak did a fuckup again!

Hokay, so, at time of writing, yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, D-Day is one of the most significant events in the largest and most destructive war humanity ever fought, and this is likely to be the last major anniversary that the surviving veterans will be alive and well enough to attend.

Political leaders from the world over made their way to the Normandy beaches for a commemoration. Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Scholz, and Zelenskyy were present. Keir Starmer was there, as were King Prince Charles and Prince William, but the UK government proper was represented by Rishi Sunak and David Hameron.

Until suddenly it wasn't!

Let's run down everything (that I'm aware of) that went wrong!

As part of the British event, army paratroopers landed on the beach... and then had to reconvene in a tent to get their credentials checked by the French authorities. Because Brexit happened and we don't have free movement any more! Pro-Brexit nimrods have, predictably, complained about getting exactly what they voted for.

Once each nation's part of the proceedings were done, they were to reconvene at Omaha Beach for an International commemoration. Speeches, medals being awarded, that sort of thing. Except... Rishi Sunak was not present.

No, see, Rishi "The Least Elected PM Ever" Sunak had stayed until the end of the British event and then promptly fucked off back to England, snubbing the leaders of America, France, Canada, Germany, and Ukraine and leaving everything in the hands of the Hameron, his also-unelected foreign secretary that last rubbed shoulders with any International politicians when he was fucking everything up in 2016. Also, in the hands of his main rival, Starmer (Okay calling Starmer and Sunak rivals is a bit unfair, it implies Sunak has a snowball's chance in hell, which he does not).

Naturally, people were pretty fuckin' steamed about this, and put Rishi on blast for showing enormous disrespect to... literally everyone involved. Especially since this is right on the heels of Sunak proposing that they bring back National Service to "fill young British people with loyalty and honour."

Don't worry it gets worse.

Naturally, there are a lot of journalists with cameras present, and this means that we get to see images like these:

Image Description: Left to right, David Cameron, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and Joe Biden, standing in front of a partially cloud blue sky. Macron, Scholz, and Biden are lit by the sun, while Cameron appears to be in the shade.

Image Description: Keir Starmer sits, centrally-framed, among D-Day veterans in ceremonial dress uniforms. To the right of the frame sits Emmanuel Macron.

Image Description: Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Keir Starmer talking, with a photojournalist in the background aiming his camera at them. Both are smiling.

Quote Pippa Crerar, writing for the Guardian (You may remember her from that time she blew the lid off of Partygate!), Starmer is "already looking like a Prime Minister."

So this is really, really bad for Rishi. Britain has been keen to support Ukraine lately, and we've actually shipped a supply of our Challenger 2 tanks over to them for their use. The impact from this hasn't been as massive as you'd hope, largely because the British military has been absolutely gutted under the Tories, for reasons that I'm sure had absolutely nothing to do with all the financial support David Cameron got from Russians, but Britain has been trying to help.

Boris Johnson in particular liked to really stress the Ukraine point whenever he was losing control of the narrative, essentially making Ukraine's plight and his support for them a shield from criticism. And now, here's the leader of the opposition being photographed in a positive light with Zelenskyy. The optics are incredibly bad for Rishi.

But surely, Rishi had a reason why he had to zip back to British soil post haste? Maybe an emergency that he had to resolve?

No, he needed to record an interview with ITV, for his election campaign. That was it.

Well, interviews in election cycles become outdated pretty quickly. Normally a few days is enough to render them outdated. It must've been pretty urgent.

No, the interview is scheduled for release in six days' time.

That's an eternity in election season. There's a high chance that more than half of its content will be void by the time it airs.

As a reminder, we are four weeks from the big day. In fact, yesterday was exactly four weeks before election night. Time is very short.

Well, maybe this was the only time they could fit him in?

Nope, Paul Brand of ITV has confirmed that this was the date and time Rishi wanted, and they could've moved it to prevent scheduling conflicts!

So, how did a fuckup on such a grand magnitude happen? How did Rishi manage to create a clash between the 80th anniversary commemoration of an event with a specific date (6th June, 1944 is not hard to remember, my guy!) and the election that he called? Well that's very simple! He didn't want to be there at all.

Yes, it seems that Rishi had already told the French government a week ago that he wouldn't be attending at all. Someone seems to have convinced him that skipping the event entirely was a bad idea, but not enough for him to actually commit to it.

Image Description: A block of text reading "The French government was told a week ago that Rishi Sunak would not attend the D-Day 80th commemoration, Tory sources have confirmed. The message to Paris from his team was that he would be too busy campaigning in the general election to make the trip. The decision was reversed, and a short visit was the compromise, but it is extraordinary that an attendance by a Conservative PM, or any PM, was ever in doubt."

Rishi has denied this, however, so the whether it's true or Sunak has elected to not lie for once, well, that remains to be seen.

Quote John Healey, Labour's defence spokesperson, “Given that the prime minister has been campaigning on the idea young people should complete a year’s national service, what does it say that he appears to have been unable to complete a single afternoon of it?”

Conservative commentator Tim Montgomery called it "political malpractice."

And so, after thumbing his nose at half the world in order to pursue an already-foundering election campaign, Rishi Sunak decided that he needed to apologise. Via tweet.

It's been a very bad day for Rishi Sunak.

[mariacallous]

In the space of four days, the Russia-Ukraine war has dramatically shifted. The incursion of Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk region has quickly turned into the largest territorial gain by either side since the successful Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall of 2022. As of this writing, it is still unclear whether thinned-out and poorly prepared Russian forces have been able to halt the Ukrainian advance, with reports of burning columns of Russian reinforcements reminiscent of the early days of the war.

The operation demonstrates Ukraine’s ability to achieve surprise and exploit sudden breakthroughs, something at which Russia has consistently failed since the start of its invasion. It is also the first time Russia has been invaded by foreign troops since World War II, showing Russians in no uncertain terms that the bloody war they unleashed against their neighbor has come home. Ukraine’s Western supporters seem to be on board, with the White House and European Union headquarters issuing statements that it was up to Ukraine to decide on the operation.

Previously, there had been much debate in Washington, Berlin, and among a wildly speculating media about the Kremlin’s supposed red lines that would set off World War III and nuclear Armageddon, with one of the lines being taking the war to Russia with Western weapons. The latter has now occurred. The belief in uncontrolled escalation led the Biden administration and some of its partners to severely restrict both the types of weapons delivered to Ukraine and their permitted range; Ukraine has not been allowed to use Western missiles to hit military installations on the Russian side of the border, for example. Part of the effect and purpose of the Kursk operation could be to demonstrate, once again, the fallacy of the red-line argument.

As the offensive unfolds and Kyiv stays mostly mum on events, it’s still too early to say what strategic goals Ukraine is hoping to achieve. One speculation that has gained a lot of traction is that it could lead to a quicker end to the war. The operation makes it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine retains significant potential to inflict pain on Russia. And if Ukrainian forces can hold on and maintain control of Russian territory—for which they appear to be digging in as they bring in more equipment and build new defensive lines—it could strengthen Ukraine’s leverage in any potential negotiations to end the war. Already, Ukraine’s lightning foray into Russia undermines the widespread idea that Putin holds all the cards to dictate the terms of a cease-fire.

Kyiv seems to be signaling that leverage in negotiations is one of the goals of the offensive. An unnamed advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post: “This will give them the leverage they need for negotiations with Russia—this is what it’s all about.” This dovetails with recent hints by Zelensky that Kyiv was ready to negotiate. In an interview with BBC News in July, he said, “We don’t have to recapture all the territories” by military means. “I think that can also be achieved with the help of diplomacy.” Occupied Russia could be traded for occupied Ukraine: As former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt suggested on X, “Would an idea be for both states to retreat to within their respective recognized border?”

If Kyiv seems to be preparing the ground for potential negotiations—by seeking to strengthen its hand and publicly declaring its willingness—it is also a response to several factors.

One is growing war weariness among the Ukrainian population. Although the majority of Ukrainians favor fighting on until all the territories Russia has occupied since 2014 are liberated, the number saying that Ukraine could trade some of that territory for peace has been rising.

Second, there has been growing criticism, particularly in Western Europe and the global south, of the way Ukraine has repeatedly ruled out talks with Moscow. Major substantive issues aside, with the Kremlin apparently back-channeling openness to talks, Kyiv risked being seen as intransigent in preventing an early end to the war.

Finally, Ukraine’s strategic position is risky, even if it holds back Russia and maintains the flow of Western weapons. A victory by Donald Trump in the November U.S. presidential election and a sudden stop of U.S. aid cannot be ruled out, and even a Harris administration may have trouble cobbling together future support packages if the Republicans keep their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Zelensky may have decided to gamble to change and accelerate the dynamics of the war, including greater leverage if negotiations end up taking place sooner than anticipated.

Without much leverage, Kyiv has had to appeal to moral, normative, and legal arguments when communicating with its foreign partners about any peace short of full liberation. In the past, this has led to highly skewed negotiations. In the talks that produced the Minsk I and II accords in 2014 and 2015, Ukraine had such a weak hand that it had to agree to impossible terms: It could only get the Russian-controlled Donbas back if it allowed Moscow’s proxies to become part of the Ukrainian polity through local elections manipulated by the Kremlin, which would have given Moscow a permanent veto over Kyiv’s politics. Previously occupied and annexed Crimea was not even included in the discussion.

In March 2022, direct talks between Ukraine and Russia on the Belarusian border were not a negotiation but Russia’s delivery of surrender terms to Ukraine. In April 2022, negotiations brokered by Turkey in Istanbul also went nowhere: Russia’s price for ending its invasion was a considerable limitation of Ukrainian sovereignty and ability to defend itself. Since then, Russia’s proposal has been for Ukraine to permanently cede, in addition to Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts—including substantial parts that Russia has never occupied.

Not only has Ukraine lacked negotiation leverage, but Russia has also been successful in promoting, to audiences around the world, its land-for-peace approach to ending this round of the war. As Ukrainian counteroffensives after 2022 largely failed and the Russian war machine slowly but steadily took more territory in Ukraine’s east, another Minsk-type deal limiting Ukrainian territorial integrity and political sovereignty seemed to loom on the horizon.

Kyiv has not only changed the military narrative on the ground but may also be trying to change the narrative on negotiations—from a “land for peace” deal to a “land for land” deal. This puts Putin in a bind: Loss of control over parts of Russia proper is an enormous embarrassment for the Kremlin. But since their illegal annexation by Russia, the Ukrainian territories Putin seeks to keep are also part of the state territory he is obliged to defend. That said, in terms of Russian elite and popular perception, the restoration of Russia’s legitimate state territory will take precedence over continued occupation of recently conquered domains—especially if a land swap opens an avenue to the end of Western sanctions.

In a way, the new Ukrainian strategy may provide an opening for doves in the Russian leadership—assuming they exist and have any influence over Putin—to argue that the annexations should be reversed in order to restore Russia’s territorial integrity. As long as Ukraine can hold on to its captured territories in Russia, there will a strong pressure on Putin to return them under Moscow’s control.

None of this, however, changes the most fundamental problem with a negotiated outcome: the fact that Russia has ignored just about every agreement it has signed with Ukraine. But for Ukrainians and their Western supporters hoping for an end to the war, some intriguing possibilities may soon be on the table.

[is-the-fire-real]

'Reminder that "punch a nazi uwu" leftists utilize Nazi rhetoric to justify punching Jews.

It was never about punching Nazis; it was about getting social permission to punch.'

It was this very mentality that drove me away from considering myself a liberal anymore (I AM VERY MUCH LEFT LEANING, I DIDN'T DECIDE TO BECOME CONSERVATIVE JUST TO BE CLEAR. I just don't feel like those spaces have any intrinsic safety any longer). It feels like so much of western leftism has become about "punching up". I don't think it's about compassion or concern anymore, it's about finding the "right" targets. And so often that was just used as a way to excuse bigotry. I'm a goy but I noticed this on a personal level plenty with people identifying as feminists, they'd be perfectly okay saying something unquestionably sexist, as long as "white women" was attached onto the front. It's very much the same with shaming people over physical features that others may have, as long as the individual person is "bad enough" it doesn't matter if wide foreheads or big noses or acne are features many people have and would feel hurt by seeing them used as an insult, because they're only "really" directing it at "one of the bad ones"

So, I'm going to link to this piece again because it's been embarrassingly useful, and explains why I say things like "pretending to believe" despite their clunkiness. For new material, I hope you don't mind that you have accidentally triggered a massive unskippable cutscene, but you tapped into a few things I have been pondering and I'd like to take advantage of your observances to add my own.

Part of what you're discussing here, which I agree with, is that toxic slacktivists pretend to believe that they are Good People Doing Good Work. They are Bad People and their work is Bad Work, but if they all get in a group and pretend together that it's Good, then that's almost the same as being Good, right?

Another worthwhile aspect of what you're discussing is something I became aware of in the aftermath of the collapse of Occupy Wall Street. One commenter on a liberal blog I still follow lamented that mass protest never seems to accomplish anything, and how the millions of people who turned out for OWS protests should have affected more political change. Considering most of them could also vote, write to representatives, etc., something other than littering and arrests could've been done.

Another commenter pointed out that he had personally been at most of the anti-Iraq War protests, including the largest worldwide protest on 15 February 2003 (6-10 million estimated participants). But most of those protesters did not agree with each other. There were at least four major coalitions of antiwar protesters showing up then and thereafter. The ones he listed were:

"Just war" advocates who believed the Iraq War was unjust.

Total pacifists who believed all armed conflicts are unjust, and therefore the Iraq War is as well.

Right-wing bigots who believed a war might potentially benefit those they thought of as religiously or ethnically inferior and subhuman.

Xenophobes, both left- and right-wing, who believed "the US can't be the police of the world" and that any action taken outside USian borders was immoral.

Imagine four people with these beliefs in a room talking about the Iraq War... then bring up the war in Ukraine to them and see how fast the coalition falls apart.

"Well, the war for Ukrainian liberation is a just war," says the just-war advocate. The pacifist starts to scream "HOW COULD YOU DEFEND ANY ACTION THAT MIGHT LEAD TO CHILDREN DYING, YOU MONSTER!". The right-wing bigot says they support the war, too--on the side of the ethnically and religiously superior Russians. And then a left-wing xenophobe says we're wasting money that should be supporting American workers and uplifting Americans out of poverty instead of buying new bombs for Ukraine.

And your "antiwar" coalition collapses, with the pacifist wandering off to agree with the xenophobe while the just-war liberal and the right-wing bigot scream at each other pointlessly and without resolution.

This is one of the wisest breakdowns of human behavior I have ever discovered:

Any coalition of people is made up of many sub-coalitions who only temporarily agree on a single aspect of a single issue. Making sure the group does not collapse prematurely is the true, unsung labor of movement maintenance.

To be real, it's much easier to let one's coalition collapse and scream about how The Menz, or The CIA, or Greedy Capitalists, or The Jews artificially forced your group's collapse than it is to admit that one might just suck a big one at coalition building. This is especially true among leftists, who are sometimes anti-hierarchy and frequently fall for populist, anti-expert nonsense. Having a leader means you're suggesting someone should have authority, and a lot of leftists are allergic to that suggestion.

Moreover, though, a lot of "leftists" are "leftists" but only agree with one or two aspects of leftism.

To use your feminism example: I have absolutely seen feminists who think they can be misogynists so long as they say "white" before they say "woman". I mean, who can even argue? I have also seen feminists who think they can be gender bioessentialists so long as they're doing it towards "men" (a category which includes a lot of people who neither look like men, nor live as men, nor benefit from male privilege). I have seen feminists who think they can call themselves "trans allies" while consistently ignoring, degrading, and dismissing the concerns of anyone who isn't a binary trans woman. Etc.

The thing is, they are all feminists. What makes someone a feminist, at bottom, is the acceptance of and opposition to patriarchy. That's it. It's similar to how what makes a person a Protestant Christian is the acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior--you might need to do one or two things to be considered a part of a specific branch of Christianity, but all you need is that one specific belief about that one specific idea. There's a lot of bunk about how "you can't be a REAL Christian unless you do X" just like there's bunk about how "you can't be a REAL feminist unless you do Y", and it's all bunk.

There are people who might be really bad feminists or Christians, but that's not the same as not being feminists or Christians.

So, the coalition of leftism has several sub-coalitions who actually despise each other. Here is my proposal for the sub-coalitions. (Please keep in mind that I am not defining groups by how they define themselves, but by the far more useful metric of their actions.)

Liberals who agree with leftist economic thought, but strongly disagree with leftist conclusions regarding violent revolution. Liberals do not have time for online arguments and superficial action. They are generally participating in protests, running for office, writing postcards to advocate for candidates, informing voters, and working within the system for positive change that alleviates suffering. They are pro-expert but opposed to a vanguard party due to its inherent authoritarianism.

Tankies, whose primary interest in leftism is authoritarian. They oppose capitalism and support violent revolution because they imagine themselves as the vanguard party who gets to control everything when the revolution comes.

Anarchists, whose primary interest is opposing hierarchy. They want to burn down the system because it is a system, and frequently become angry and defensive if you try to ask them any questions about what would be built out of the ashes.

Progressives, whose primary interest is opposing liberals. They also oppose capitalism; they are, like tankies, positioning themselves as the vanguard party because they are already in political power. What makes them Not Tankies is that they care more about sticking it to "the Dems" than they do about actually being the vanguard, opposing capitalism, or achieving anything of worth or meaning politically.

"Red fash", who used to be called "beefsteak Nazis". They say all the right things regarding violent revolution and economics/capitalism, but they only believe what they believe for the sake of their specific ethnic group and nation (frequently, white and USian, but this is extremely popular in Europe too). IOW a red fash wants the vanguard party to only have whites of a specific ethnicity in control of the revolution; they only want universal health care for "their" people, that sort of thing. Some red fash are actual Nazis cosplaying as leftists, but some are just really, really, REALLY bigoted leftists.

Whether we like it or note, the acceptance of armed, violent revolution as a Good Thing means that leftism has always regarded punching up and violence as a necessary component of leftist thought. This is not a perversion of Real Leftism. This is leftism. If you think revolution is good and necessary instead of a terrifying possibility, then you also think punching up is okay; it's just a matter of who is Up and who gets to punch.

Of the five sub-coalitions I described, only one has rejected violent revolution--and it's the one all the other leftists accuse of being right-wing. And interestingly enough, only liberals are habitually accused of secretly colluding with the right... when red fash are natural allies to the right, and when all other forms of leftists openly ally with right-wingers so long as they say the right things about economics. (See under: "After Hitler, us" leftists, left-wing Trumpistas who think they'll rule the ashes after Trump burns down the current system.)

And if you believe in violent revolution, then (let me be facetious for a second) what's the problem with making fun of your political enemies for being ugly? If we believe Steve Bannon is a Nazi, aren't we obligated to stop him by any means necessary, and doesn't that include mocking him for his alcoholism? Isn't mocking someone for their appearance and intrinsic characteristics mild compared to, say, threatening them with exploding cars covered with hammers? Or retweeting pictures of pitchforks and guillotines?

If we believe Ben Shapiro is an opponent to the revolution we accept is necessary and vital to the movement, then what's a little antisemitism in the name of the people? Don't we have to be bigots to oppose bigots? And--

--oh. There's that horseshoe bending round to the right again.

[anoonimthepoorchad]

January 2nd, January 8th and January 13th. It feels like the 2024 year has been going on for more than three weeks already, with each week marked by a massive full scale air raid attack of russia on Ukrainians.

Each night begins the same: a message at around 2 am, reporting from 8 to 11 missile carrying planes getting off at russian airports and moving towards the shooting positions. Then at 6 am the full attack begins. Guided missiles swarm in the air, and around 6:30 am several sonic missile planes also launch the deadly weaponry towards the cities. Our air defenders do their best to protect us and at around 9 or 10 am everything ends.

This feels like nights of hell when you live far away from the frontlines. Cities like Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson and thousands and thousands located around the frontlines experience this everyday. But these nights become a nerve-wracking challenge for citizens of every corner of Ukraine (if we don't count all the other air raids which are less full-scaley, less weaponry is launched then). Kyiv, Kharkiv, Myrhorod, Lviv, Khmelnytsky and other cities in the west, north and centre-east of Ukraine have been targeted in these recurring air raids.

About the weaponry, these air raids are different from usual ones because all kinds of weaponry is used by russians during these. Sonic ballistic missiles "kinzhal" or daggers, which you can hear breaking your city apart just two or three minutes after they were launched thousands of kilometers away. These are only destroyed by the Patriot air defense complexes and it's hard af to do so. Our defenders are showing incredible precision but the debris still damages buildings and murders people. Ballistic missiles and guided missiles that can change their direction at any time, even circle around different cities until they are right above the targets. Shaheds, the kamikaze drones. All launched from different parts of russia and from occupated parts of Ukraine.

Personally, I have no right to complain as a person living in well-protected Kyiv, but hearing explosions very close to your home, hiding on the cold floor of the corridor and shaking at the thought that you live on the high enough floor to die in the debris if your home is hit... all this makes me lose sleep at night after I see the dreaded message at 2 am. It hasn't been 2 weeks since the new year but it feels like it's been ages. You try to find new beginnings and motivation to live, but you can't really shake off the feeling that tonight you were lucky to survive but you might not be the next time.

Do I have to repeat how important it is to donate to the Ukrainian army? Do I need to repeat that it's all russians, again and again, killing my people, ruining my home, while others "forgive" them for their horrible deeds? Do I have to say this again, that I'm only here writing this because of all the weaponry given to and bought by Ukraine, due to the support from different countries, and most importantly all the blood and lives of my people given for us to live? What can I do to stop this?

Please, if you read this far, help us survive and win, so that we never have to go through nights and days like these again.

[thereisnolumos]

Correcting all the atrocities against Russian language in Grishaverse

I think that I might’ve already wrote on this topic here before, but I can’t seem to find it and I’m continuously bitter with the way my language has been expropriated and twisted in the girishaverse series, so, without further ado, 10 things that infuriated me (and the ones I remembered now, for there are surely more) as a Russian speaking person:

1. The first being the Grisha itself. It’s a male name. A shortened version of the name Grigoriy, to be exact. To call an entire group of people like that is… try switching it to “Johnny” every time you read it and you’ll understand the pain. She could’ve at least try and justify it with some “first ever” character with such powers named Grigoriy, so that’s why they’re called that… but no

2. All the names. Listen, if you’re using Russian names while writing in English (or any other language that doesn’t differentiate between genders) you have two ways:

eradicate the switch completely, giving everyone the male version (i.e. default bcs that’s the world we live in), or

FUCKING STICK TO THE RULES OF THE LANGUAGE YOU’RE GOT THEM FROM. The female Russian last names will always have a vowel in the end. So, it’s Aleksander Morozov and Baghra Morozova (I’m dying to know what name she thought that one is a short version of, for it just doesn’t exist). It’s Alina Starkova. Genya Safina (which should be Evgeniya, bcs Genya is a short version). Zoya Nazelenskaya (her name looks to me as of Polish and/or Ukrainian origins, correct me of I’m wrong. I’m only going off from the Russian language rules), etc.

3. It’s Fyodor, not Fedyor. And it’s Kaminskyi or Kaminskyy, there is an extra sound in the end, not just -y. Actually, for this last name use the name of the President of Ukraine as a guide, their names would be of the same origin, same as Zoya’s last name.

4. You cannot use just any word as a name in Russian language. I know that it’s sort of a thing in modern English language, but it’s not a case here. So, if I recall, there was a character with the name “Privyet” in the books. Which means “hi” in Russian. Don’t do things like that. Please. I beg of you. Fun fact, we have Vera, Nadezhda and Lubov (Faith, Hope and Love respectively) as real FEMALE ONLY names, but no such thing as just taking a word like say “Otvaga - Bravery” and making it a name. Nope.

5. Don’t even get me started on the idiocy that “otkazat’sya” is. It’s. A. Fucking. Verb. Means “to refuse” in a slightly different context that “otkazat’”. There isn’t a single version of the reality where it would’ve made sense to call a group of people by verb. None. If she wanted it to mean “the abandoned” as in “the power abandoned them”, she should’ve called them “otvergnutyye” or “ostavlennyye”. If the meaning is more towards “they refused that power”, then it should be smth like “otkazavshiesya”.

6. They have stressed the wrong syllable in the “merzost’” on the show. Supposed to be the first one. Not sure whether or not she meant to use the word “filth” in regards to the forbidden magic, or if, once again, she just liked the sound of this word.

7. “Kefta” should’ve just been “kaftan”

8. I actually hate that she couldn’t just stick to the names that would’ve been found in Russian empire during the time she drew inspiration from. What is Baghra and Malyen???? Where’d she get them??? I can stretch Baghra as being a very strange short version of the name Agrafena (veeeeery old Russian name, which suits her long life), but it’s a big stretch to say the least. Malyen just doesn’t exist. Mal doesn’t exist as a name (it’s a old version of the word “small” though)

9. What is the word “Tsarina” everyone seems to use in fanfiction where Alina and Aleksander rule over Ravka? There is no such word. There are:

Tsar - the male ruler

Tsaritsa - female ruler and/or wife of a Tsar

Tsarevich - son of Tsar and Tsaritsa

Tsarevna - daughter of Tsar and Tsaritsa

No Tsarina.

10. David’s last name is extremely strange. I assume he’s not of Ravkan origins, from his first name, but Kostyk - is a friendly short version of a name Konstantin. I’m debated over the fact whether or not this form of this name has even been in use before Soviet Union actually. I’ve met people with the last name like Kostyukevich and Konstantinov though (there are many last names that originated from first names in Russian language many, many years ago. But there are rules for the ways they were formed)

Feel free to add all the ways Leigh Bardugo butchered other languages and cultures in this series

[nitewrighter]

For the directors cut ask: the Volskaya Incident fics?

I remember when I read those one thing that I really enjoyed about that arc was how, despite jumping between multiple POVs and the action constantly moving around the facility, I never felt like I was lost/confused as to where the characters were or what they were doing. You also did a really good job of this in Breach and Dragonback IMO.

(Also I get if you don’t want to talk about OW so if you’d prefer take a star emoji ⭐️ and use this as an excuse to talk about a different fic if you want)

*takes a long drag from my cigarette holder like I'm Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard* Ah... the Volskaya Incident... I was a star back then.

I don't mind talking about my Overwatch fics--honestly talking about them even though I'm pretty burnt out and disillusioned about Overwatch's canon plot these days really kind of relieves the whole sense of sunk cost with those fics, because it's like... even if I really can't summon up the mental stamina for Overwatch that I used to, it's nice that people liked those fics in the moment, you know?

So we're gonna go way way way back to the ancient year of 2017 (SEVEN YEARS?!?!) when I was working off of a giant pile of shippy Valentines Day prompts from a list I had put together myself-- god, it's been years since I've written a prompt list. In February, I got a prompt for a Gency "confession" (that was the prompt--confession) and the framework for this confession was, "oohh what if this was in the aftermath of finding out Reaper's Identity and Mercy's also recovering from a dire injury." This was 2 years before Michael Chu's "Valkyrie" short story came out which established that Mercy knows Reyes is Reaper in literally the most underwhelming way it possibly could. Back in those days I think all of us who were feverishly combing through every single lore drop were kind of operating off of the assumption that the story was set up for a lot of dramatic "I'm not dead! And I'm actually this guy!" reveals. We had everyone's background, and we could fill in certain things, but we also didn't actually know how much the characters knew about each other. So I wrote that confession fic back in February, but I also knew I was setting myself up for having to write this dramatic, action-packed fic later on.

Thankfully, in what was kind of an arbitrary choice at the time, just my placing the fic in the Volskaya map ended up filling in significant details for how I was going to set up and progress the fic. I can tell you I picked that map because I always LOVED the lighting on that map--it was so soft, and I loved how this soft quiet lighting contrasted against all these big mechanical structures. I know it sounds stupid now, what with the... everything... but a part of me always wanted to visit Russia, drink tea from a samovar and ride the Siberian express---the Russian setting kind of reinforced this sense of SWEEPING VASTNESS AND EPIC ROMANCE---again I must stress that this was back in 2017, fucking five years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Also I saw the Julie Christie Doctor Zhivago at like... 14, which even at 14 had me like, "Hmmm this perspective seems skewed, with regard to the class struggles and all" but just the sheer scale of the story and the sense of these characters being caught up in historical events so far beyond their control and still trying to love each other in spite of everything probably permanently fucked up my brain with regards to Eastern Europe.

I wrote the 'confession' fic in late February, but the actual Volskaya Incident fics didn't pop up until June--and I can tell you why that is! The truth is, I was always a hardcore Gency propagandist, but I felt if I was just pumping out gency fic after gency fic, then people wouldn't take me or my beloved ship seriously, so I made a point of working on plenty of short, non-demanding prompts for the rest of the cast, and also for the purpose of actually getting a stronger grasp of the timeline. Every fic I wrote that wasn't Gency, was, in the back of my mind, contributing to the 'slow burn' factor of Gency, giving it context and passage of time.

Like, for all my love of the Narrowly-Avoided-Robot-Apocalypse worldbuilding, I'm willing to admit that the Gency romance was always pretty much always the emotional heart of my entire fic continuity in general, but also I really wanted to make it feel well-woven into both the action and plot progression, so this wasn't just the Mercy whump fic. The romance needed to be grounded in the world because if what I was writing didn't feel like it could be canon Overwatch, then I felt like I had already lost. So this was also the Reaper Reveal Fic, which quickly also turned into the Jack and Ana Reveal and Recruitment fic, and the Zarya recruitment fic--but of course that was already kind of established by virtue of the Zarya name drop in the confession fic. I also had a desire to like... kind of give it the chaotic feel of an actual round of Overwatch back then. I was honestly surprised at how well the hero kits fit into the narrative progression fo the fic, and honestly I think this was the fic that, for me established the rhythm of character and physical conflict throughout my fic continuity.

It's wild to me that they've taken all of the the 2Cap maps out of regular quickplay--so like, not only has this fic been blown out of the canon water by the Valkyrie short story and Cassidy's "New Blood" comics, but the map it takes place in isn't even really in the mainstream game lobby anymore and can only be accessed either in custom games or on certain days of the week in the Arcade.

[locustheologicus]

Metallica’s For Whom the Bell Tolls: An Anti-War Polemic

This song is Metallica’s take on Hemingway’s novel of the same name. Hemingway writes about the Spanish Civil War and in doing so offers a reproach of modern warfare. As I think of the deepening conflicts and war in the middle east and the Ukraine and other conficts that seem to be escalating I think it would be good to hear the words of caution within the warring style that Metallica offers especially with the amazing use of the bass by the great Cliff Burton. Cliff was an amazing talent but he unfortunately died tragically after the following album “Master of Puppets.” 

The lyrics allow you to just imagine what the combatants are going through within the fevered pitch that is provided by this headbanging music. 

Take a look to the sky just before you die It's the last time you will Blackened roar, massive roar, fills the crumbling sky Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry

Stranger now are his eyes to this mystery Hears the silence so loud Crack of dawn, all is gone, except the will to be Now they see what will be, blinded eyes to see

I feel that there is a certain irony here as I recall the way this song made me feel as a teenage boy in the late 1980′s. On the one hand this music moves you towards feelings of anger and passion that bring a sense of deep meaning and purpose for an adolescant youth who craves for simple answers. Almost like a desire to be a unreflectively part of something. Yet the words (which one can eventually reflect on later) force you to pause and consider what it is that you are actually a part of. War and violence has the ability to get the person to find a sense of tribal meaning and this again is what many young men crave. The desire to march off into some sense of victory and glory. But the lyrics then has you think, what is it all about? what is ultimately achieved and why did we value such methods of destruction.

With the escalation of war and violence we may need to be more attentive to the prophetic words etched by Hemingway, sung by James Hetfield, and played by Metallica. This is the hope expressed in Scriptures:

For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. - Isaiah 2:4

Pope Francis recently reflected on the theme of war having reflected on the one year anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel which started the current war in the middle east. In the reflection he calls on the international community (all of us) to “end the spiral of revenge” which calls to mind the teaching of Bishop Helder Camara. The belief that violence ultimately begest violence and that peace is the path that we Christians are called to promote. 

Tomorrow marks one year since the terror attack on the population in Israel, to whom I once again express my closeness. Let us not forget that there are still many hostages in Gaza. I ask for them to be released immediately. Since that day, the Middle East has been plunged into a condition marked by increasing suffering, with destructive military actions continuing to strike the Palestinian people. This people is suffering very much in Gaza and in other territories. Most of them are innocent civilians, all of them are people who must receive all necessary humanitarian aid. I call for an immediate ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon. Let us pray for the Lebanese, especially for those who live in the south, who are forced to leave their villages.

I appeal to the international community, that it may work to end the spiral of revenge and prevent further attacks, like the one recently carried out by Iran, that could make that region fall into an even greater war. All nations have the right to exist in peace and security, and their territories must not be attacked or invaded, their sovereignty must be respected through and guaranteed by dialogue and peace, not by hatred and war.

[alcestas-sloboda]

I mean, I don't like cluster munitions, but then again I don't like mines either (for about the same reasons), but it's impossible to deny the good mines have done for defending Ukraine

They pose a danger down the line, but russia poses a danger now, and I'm a hell of a lot angrier about russia using mines in Ukraine than Ukrainians using them in their own land

I'm not exactly happy the US has cluster munitions, but kind of like with all of the military industrial complex here it's like... well... let's at least do some good with it and give it to the people fighting for freedom

So no, I don't want to see cluster munitions used, but like... russia could just fuck off back into their own borders and this would all be over

I'm not about to condemn Ukrainians for using them. We need to just hand over what it takes to win this war

Just gets tiring when it's crickets over a major dam being blown, but the idea of giving certain weapons is treated as just unforgivable

Yeah... they're bad weapons, that's kind of what all weapons are... bad stuff that exists just to kill, but uh... I kind of care more about the missiles hitting residential buildings than I do if Ukraine deploys a weapon against valid military targets

Sorry about the long ask, just annoys me

no you are absolutely right and cluster munitions were forbidden for a good reason but again this war has shown us that the enemy (russians) don’t give a damn about rules of war. they have broken every law possible starting from using the cluster munitions to bombing civilian infrastructure, hospitals and using nuclear blackmail. so what really pisses me off is exactly what prompted you to write this ask: for some reason only Ukrainians should follow the rules, only Ukrainians, who, I must remind you, are protecting their land, that are being supervised under a microscope, but not russians. HRW and other similar organisations are genuinely writing articles on how Ukrainians endanger Ukrainian civilians? no, the only people who are endangering Ukrainian civilians are russians, and as someone said: russian tanks on Ukrainian land is so much more dangerous than cluster munitions in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers who are liberating their land.

[yellowcry]

How can this be fair?

It feels like just now he was texting to her, alive and happy. Now he was dead. And it still feels surreal

Aka yc wanted to write something about Ukraine so suddenly you have rtc fic.

Natalia yawned, it was early in the morning. And she did stayed awake for the night again. She had to chat with her lyubiy, seriously she would do it in any time of the day. And with nine hours of a time gap, one of them had to sacrifice their sleep either way. So it wasn't strange for her. Lifting her head from the keyboard. Yes, she had passed out in the middle of the night again, sitting by the computer. Sleep deprivation had its effect.

Mischa: Інтернет чогось зовсім не робит. (For sone reason internet doesn't work at all)

Mischa: Океан тягає нас на якой-то циклон. Чо вона причепилася як псина якая-сь? Я хотів іще в тире постріляти. (Ocean, drags us onto some cyclone. Why is she barking like some kind of a dog? A wanted to shot in the gallery more)

Mischa: Кохана ти вже спиш? Ми ідемо на цу гірку (Love, are you asleep alredy? We are going onto that rollercoaster)

The last message. Fairly unusual, Mischa would text hours and hours even when she wasn't online to see it. And she did the same. It was strange, almost painful to meet such a tiny ammount of messages. It wasn't Mischa-like at all.

Natalia shugged, trying not to think about it much. Who knows what happened? Mischa said he had a bad connection. And maybe it didn't restore. Maybe he just was busy, fall fair must be so fun. How could Nata be upset when her loved one had so much fun?

Teenager had poked on her black nails. Hm, she would have to recolor them later, the varnish peeled away. 

Natalia carefully aplied the black paint. Let an annoyed groan when it got out of the edges. She was a cool girl, how could she be at anything but her best? Combed her hair to the side, showing off the temple. Ha, Mischa would like it. 

It's been a few days. Mischa didn't text anything. Nata hated it way more that she let on. He wasn't online. He didn't post anything. He didn't write another thousand of messages of how much he loved her.

And it scared Natalia. At first, she tried to brush it off as being clingy. Mischa had his own life, he could be busy. He could be...

No, she knew him too goog. If there was something keeping him busy, Mischa would tell. He would explain and say something. Not this crushing burning silence. What happened? Were it his adoptive parents again? Just a few days weren't so much. But Natasha wanted to know what happened. She texted and asked  and begged her zhyenih to say something, go back and make her day bright again.

"Uh, hello?" Natalia stared at the message from unknown acc. For a moment she was about to blick them, knowing that it probably were spammers at best. "You're Talia, right?"

Her hands trembled. "Are you Mischa friend? Where's he?" She knew that Mischa called her Talia outside of their chat. He told her it would be fun if they all meet one day and Nata could laugh over them calling her 'waist' from the lack of knowledge. 

The other person. Penny Lamb if her facebook username was correct took a really long time to write back. Natalia suspected she was writing and erasing her message over and over again. And it didn't make her feel confident more than she was already. "I don't know how to say it. There was an accident on the rollercoaster. Mischa didn't get out alive."

Natalia's grip became so strong she was sure her phote would shatter from the sheer pressure. It was a joke? Right? This wasn't fucking funny. But the message was clear. "You're not serious." She waited, hoped that it was some form of a prank. And that she wiuld get confirmation that her kohaniy was fine, a bit busy, maybe got into some problems in school.

Instead, she got a link onto some Canadian site she couldn't understand for the most part. Six meant... sheest', and Saint.... okay, she wasn't completely sure what it meant. But.... An awful crash on the fair. Victims.

Nata could recognise him. Not even looking at the camera. Texting something.  Was he texting to her at the moment? (Was he texting while dying?) Google translator wasn't the best way to know the exact content. But it would work at least for now. Even with her best skills, there was no chance she would be able to translate it throught the read.

Dead.  

The word felt blank. Surreal. 

Just five days ago they were texting, all sweethearts online. Just five daus ago Mischa was telling how he'll get money and move back to Ukraine. How they'd have the biggest pir in the whole Ukraine. When they bake a big fat pig and dance untild their feet is off. Or just buy some cheapest gorilka they could find and lie on the frest grass, cuddling together and laughing vecause alcohol hit inside their blood.

The worst part? It didn't have to happen. The whole thing was an accident. A stupid cheap accident because some jerks didn't want to waste their time to maintain shit. Mischa should be alive. But because of them he wasn't. Natalia trembled, staring at the table. Feeling the traitor tears pushing their way out. Pale shaking fingers gripped onto the wood. She felt that she would get sick any moment now.

Dead. Dead. Crushed. Buried two meters underground

It shouldn't be. It couldn't be. Mischa was alive. He had to be alive. He just... There was no way he was fucking dead. 

Natalia hang her feet down the roof. She had climbed on it, she often did so. It was a good hangout place. Nervosly muttering something under her breath. Lines of old panel houses, same as her own flashed, standing like solgiers on the post. Black leather jerkin lied behind her for the lack of use in the September warmth. Nata sighed, opening another bottle of gorilka. Cheap one. It burned her throat to the core. And it didn't even taste good or made her feel better about anything. But it wasn't like she had anything better to do.

"OAH, Yascher!" She winced, looking back from the nickname. It was Polya, or, as she was known in their circle, Zmeya. One of Nata's pank group. "How's life, you've  been fucking awfully quiet lately."

"Comtele shit" Nata admits. She's slurring, maybe she overdid with drinking a bit too much. But who the fuck cares? 

Polya sits next to her, taking the bottle and taking the sip herseft. "What the hell is this?" Her face wrinkles at the taste. "Don't you have any standards?" 

Nata had to admit that Zmeya had a good point. It was the worst gorilka she ever tasted. "Yeah, crap so much. But taking what can afford." She shrugged, blinking to wash away the sleepiness. 

"So, what happened? Sis, you look like complete shit."

Natalia looked down at the old playground. It seemed to stand here longer than she could remember herself. "Remeber my online boyfriend, Mischa? Who is Bad egg?"

Zmeya stared at her for a moment before her face twitches in rage. "Fuck, if that dick dumped you I swear, I'll go all the way to his fucking Canada and..."

"He's dead." Nata interrupted her, she always preffered to get straight to the point. 

She saw Polya's face changing into a look of shocked disbelief. "Like, for reals?" She gasped, as Natalia looked away, hugging herself. Setting down sun brightened her hair in gold. Polina wrapped her arm around Natalia, pulling her closer in. "God, I'm so sorry."

Penny: Hey, I'm just checking. How are you doing?

Natalia stared at the message, it's been a little over a month since accident. They didn't talk much after the breaking news. Not like she even was online after it. And it still stinged. Like somebody poked her with a rusty needle all over. 

Natalia: Pretty bad, I still can't get over it

She knew it took too long for her to answer back for it to be socially appropriate. But she couldn't exectly care about this. 

Natalia: You're the one who survived, yes?

She read about it in the news. Six kids on the rollercoaster, including Mischa. One made it out alive. What a huge luck. Nata swallowed, knowing how unfair it was. Some girl she didn't know before got her chance to live. Her love, the dearest Mykhailo didn't. And even if it wasn't Penny's fault, she wasn't the one who did such an awful job in making sure the rollercoaster was in the good condition, the situation still was painful.

Penny: I wish other kids were alive too. We all were so young.

High schoolers. What was so bad. Nata had to admit, even those about whom she didn't care at all. Of course, nobody of them was making her pained as much as Mischa. They were just four random kids she knew from Mischa's messages at best. But... they all deserved their chance to live. But life turned out cruel and unfair. And, knowing how the news worked, how big were chanches that they lied about something?

Nata stared at the computer paunchy monitor. Where flickered open their chat with Penny. She had at least someone to tell how it was. Even if Natalia knew it would make her sick and cry and mourn for Mischa and something thay would never happen now. But, maybe, it would be nice to know someone who knew Mischa in person.

Natalia: Hey, mind sayin, how close was you with the choir?

[mariacallous]

The sound of birdsong is so loud outside Yulia Mykytenko’s current home, an abandoned house somewhere in the Donbas region of Ukraine, that I can hear it through my laptop. We’re speaking on Zoom, Mykytenko visible briefly – young, wearing black, her dark bobbed hair with blue-dyed streaks in it – before she turns the camera off because her signal isn’t great. She has some outside space and, she says with a laugh, a local sheep sometimes comes to visit her dog. Mykytenko, a lieutenant in the Ukrainian army, also feeds the street cats, pets abandoned by residents who fled, and has her own cat. In her new memoir, How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying (the name comes from the first line of a poem by the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus), she writes that each of the houses her 15-strong platoon live in has a cat, to catch the mice and rats that chew everything, including the cables to the generators and satellite communications. Their numbers boom in the area, she writes, as they “feed on the bodies of hapless soldiers”.

Mykytenko, 29, spent two years here between 2016 and 2018, when Russia invaded the region, then again after the full-scale invasion in 2022. One of the first female frontline commanders, she leads a reconnaissance and attack unit. Her pilots use drones to track the Russian army and to locate the dead bodies of fallen colleagues and support their retrieval. Just this morning, some of her men – she lives with five of her platoon – told her there had been some heavy shelling at 5am, but she slept through it. “I got used to it,” she says. This current house is “quite comfortable” – it has running water (at the previous one, they had to fetch water from a well), but it is cold and takes an hour to heat.

She is “tired, very tired”, she says. A year ago, she felt more motivated: “I was ready to be at war for at least maybe three years more, but now, sometimes I really want to go home [to Kyiv]. But I know that nobody will replace me, and I know that my experience can preserve my people, my fellows [her name for her comrades], which is why I’m ready to work for them.” Is it a struggle to keep her morale up? “I wouldn’t say that it’s a struggle, but yes, it takes some resources.” On bad days, Mykytenko will ask her sergeants to take over, and she’ll spend the day watching Harry Potter movies.

The coming year, she thinks, “will be most critical. I think maybe we will see some results, and maybe peace agreements, because our side is completely exhausted, and the enemy is also completely exhausted.” There have been concerns for what it could mean for Ukraine if Donald Trump wins the US election, including decreased military spending and pressure on the country to negotiate an unfavourable settlement with Russia. She doesn’t spend much time thinking about global politics, she says, “but I believe in US democracy, and the only thing I can do is support the American people and their choice. I just hope that the western world may see that this is not only a war between Ukraine and Russia, it’s a war of democratic values. For now, it’s a critical moment for the democratic world, whether they push away dictators, or they continue with intolerance.”

Mykytenko is resigned to war fatigue from the west; that Ukraine only gets attention “if something extremely bad happens, like the bombarding of a children’s hospital in Kyiv”, as happened in July this year. “I can understand. Our citizens are exhausted and try to live not seeing war. I can see that with donations, it’s a very small amount now, compared [with what] it was one or two years ago.” (Like other platoons, Mykytenko’s raises money online to pay for expenses, such as new drones and fixing vehicles.) “So it’s not so surprising that the west is also tired.” In her book, written with the journalist Lara Marlowe, she states she doesn’t expect to see peace in Ukraine in her lifetime. “I think that my generation won’t,” she says now. She just hopes that future generations will.

Mykytenko grew up on the outskirts of Kyiv. Shortly after her younger brother was born, their father left, though she still saw him. She and her brother were brought up by their mother, who went back to work to support them, getting a job in a call centre (later, she would go back to university and become a psychotherapist, working for the military). Until she was 17, she spoke Russian, and viewed the country “as our friend”; her father, especially, was very pro-Russia. Mykytenko hadn’t been particularly interested in Ukraine’s 1991 independence, a few years before she was born. At university, though – the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, which actively promotes Ukrainian identity – everything changed. “The history events that we learned at school had a Russian perspective. At university, everyone spoke Ukrainian.” She started, she says, “to think in Ukrainian. Language gives you the right perspective on your history, on your culture.” She started removing whatever aspects of Russian language and culture she could from her life.

Mykytenko joined the 2013 protests at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv, which ended with the Revolution of Dignity the following year and the ousting of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. She says she felt as if she had been at the right time and place in history, and was “doing the right thing” even though back then she was “a good girl”, she says with a laugh, and found it hard to disobey the law. It was frightening to see protesters armed only with cycling helmets and plywood shields shot by snipers, and experience smoke bombs and teargas – nothing, in retrospect, compared with what she would go through later. “I saw bodies of protesters, the price we paid for that, but it definitely was worth it.”

Around the same time, Russia occupied Crimea. Mykytenko wanted to join up, but stayed on to finish university. In 2015, she met her husband, Illia Serbin, a young soldier – he was on leave from his unit in Mariupol and was lodging with Mykytenko and her mother in their Kyiv apartment. They fell in love and married quickly. They joined a unit together the following year, the day before her 21st birthday. “He supported my decision, and with him, I wasn’t so frightened,” she says.

Serbin was transferred to an infantry unit, but Mykytenko was only allowed to do admin work, which was frustrating. “I wanted to join to a combat unit, but I was told that I’m a woman with no experience, there is no way. My husband told me, just calm down, you are at war, and you have to do your job best in the place where you are.” Was she scared when he was fighting? “Yes, I was really frightened for him, because I knew that he’s a warrior and he won’t just sit in one place. He wanted to be in action, to go somewhere, to a grey zone [between the Ukrainian and Russian lines], or go and steal weapons from the enemy.”

Eventually, Mykytenko managed to convince one of her superiors to let her be on the guard duty rota (a packet of peanuts may or may not have helped with his decision, she says with a laugh). It wasn’t a huge leap – she was guarding the building where she had been working – but it felt big. “It was important to insist that I can be the same as a man. I can do the same job.”

Mykytenko found out that, as a graduate, she was eligible for officer training. There weren’t many female officers – those that there were had mostly been medics, psychologists and financial workers. Mykytenko was determined to be in combat. Once she was commissioned, she was put in charge of a reconnaissance platoon of 20 men; 16 of them resigned. “It was one of the hardest times in my service,” she says. She told them it was their choice whether they stayed or not, but they weren’t going to push her out. Did she feel strong, or was it an act? Mykytenko laughs. “At first, maybe acting,” she says, but her confidence in herself and her decisions grew. “I felt that I was working in the right way, so I felt strong.” It took a few months to earn respect, she says, and she gradually built the unit back up. “I was doing everything with them, I didn’t refuse hard work. I also lived with them, so they felt that I shared this service with them.”

Of her early experiences of coming under fire, she says: “To be honest, I was mainly excited, and with a lot of adrenaline, I actually didn’t think that I could die.” She hadn’t seen anyone killed then. “The war wasn’t so intensive as it is now.” The fighting worsened, though. As a drone commander, she would watch battles on her video screen in real time. It was the hardest to watch colleagues being killed. “You understand that you can do nothing,” she says, then adds that at least they can see where that person fell, to later retrieve their body. “I just don’t let feelings come too close, that it was a human being, my friends – I just do my job, and after that, when the person is evacuated from the battlefield, I can give myself a few hours of mourning.”

In February 2018, Serbin was killed. There were moments in that intense early grief, she says, “when I wanted to die”. She describes walking out into the open during shelling, “hoping that something …” She pauses. “During the shelling that I would die.” It only lasted a few moments, she says, “then I thought that it wasn’t a very competent and reasonable decision”. I hear her give a small laugh. She requested a transfer out of combat, and back to Kyiv. Some people might think of it as weakness, she says, but “I completely understood that I couldn’t take the right decisions” and never wanted to put her unit at risk.

Back in Kyiv, Mykytenko joined the military training academy. It helped her recover, she says. “I was working with teenagers, and I put all my energy and resources into preparing them. And some of them actually are now fighting not far from me, unfortunately – I was hoping that they wouldn’t do that.” She was responsible for the first class of female cadets. To succeed in the Ukrainian army, she thinks, women “have to be ready to work hard and also have a tough skin”. She has heard stories of sexual harassment, but says she hasn’t experienced it, beyond inappropriate “jokes”. She differentiates between “warriors” and “soldiers”. “I was surrounded by warriors – warriors respect you and accept you and support you, so I was pleased to be surrounded by such men.” She has heard plenty of sexist attitudes from men in senior ranks, but says she has stopped responding. “In the first years, it did hurt, but for now, it doesn’t bother me. It isn’t worth my resources.”

Mykytenko is not yet 30 and has been through so much, not just losing her husband, colleagues and experiencing the horrors of war. In 2020, her father, Mykola, died by suicide in Maidan square, after posting on Facebook about Ukrainian independence. He had changed his pro-Russia stance and had been campaigning against what he saw as President Zelenskyy’s capitulation and withdrawal of troops. How does she cope with it all? “I’m trying not to concentrate on it, just because it’s not the right time,” she says. “Sometimes I think I need some psychological support.” She supports herself with “books, movies, to try to find a way to have a rest”.

She works much less now than when the invasion started. Back then, she felt like a sprinter “when I should have been preparing for a marathon”. Mykytenko is mindful of her health and energy, “because it’s not only my productivity that depends on my resources, but also the health and lives of my fellows. I understand when I have no resources that somebody might die because I could miss something.” In her book, she writes about not fearing death. “I just hope that it might be fast,” she says.

She seems to live in such a present and physical way – whether heating water with chopped wood just to go through her basic morning routine, or enduring shelling, or watching drone footage in real time. Does she think about the future? Or allow herself to think about peace and what she might do when she can leave the army? She is quiet for a moment. “Not really,” she says, but adds that she has started to renovate her flat in Kyiv. “I don’t know [if that’s] thinking about the future, but at least it gives me some stability.” I hope she gets there one day, with her dog, and her rescued cats, and peace and birdsong.

How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying: Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko’s Fight for Ukraine by Lara Marlowe is published on 24 October (Head of Zeus, £20)

[hetalian456]

I don't post often. I live my life as peacefully and quietly as I can. And when I do post, it is mostly just reposts of tiktok videos because I am mostly a lurker on this and all other socials I have. But I am so incredibly angry and saddened. I know this post will not reach many people or anyone at all, but I just need to scream into the void and hope it will satiate the ever-growing anger, pain, sorrow, and complete and utter hopelessness I feel waking up everyday in a world that I fear has lost its mind. I wake up and wonder who it is today. Who is waking up to see their home gone. Who is waking up to a world where they are all alone because the people they love have already died. Who is waking up and finding their whole family eradicated because of air raids. Who is not waking up at all. How many lives have been lost while I shower. While I sleep. While I read and write and laugh and cry. How many times am I going to mourn people I have not met. People whose names I don't know. People whose names will be lost forever. And how can I do anything but mourn. Mourn for the mothers who have lost their babies. Mourn for the babies who have lost their parents. Mourn for the brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins who saw their loved ones die in front of them and where helpless to stop it. How can I not mourn the people who look at their TV or phone screens and see what is happening and wonder. Are they OK. Did they make it out. Are they hurt or dead hidden under the rubble they once called home. Will I ever see them again. How can I not mourn for those who have no one to mourn them. Mourn for the people who saw everyone they loved die and have mourned a thousand times. Mourn for people whose names I will never know. For people, I will never meet. Mourn for the mother who has lost her title. Mourn for the father who has failed in his duty though no fault of his own. Mourn for the grandparents who have lost everything they had and everyone they helped create and raise. Mourn for the children who no longer children. Whose bodies have remained the same, but their minds and souls have aged decades. Mourn for the children who will forever be children because their bodies have stopped growing and gone cold.

Mourn for the over 7 thousand in Ukraine

Mourn for the over 9 thousand in Palestine

Mourn for the 9 thousand in Sudan

Mourn for the over 5 MILLION killed in Congo due to ongoing on again off again civil wars over the last few decades

Mourn for the estimated eight hundred thousand to two million Uyghurs in China who have been put in camps and the untold number killed.

And these are just the atrocities I know about. Who knows how many I am unaware of. But I will mourn them all the same because any loss of innocent life is unacceptable.

So I will sit here in my quiet home on my peaceful street in my sleepy little town and sob. I will do what I can, but I am afraid that is not much. I feel as if nothing I do will ever be enough. Not for them. Not for the people crying and screaming and praying and dying.

I hope that the Gods, whichever one one you worship, forgive us as they stare down at us and watch as we kill each other in the name of money and power and greed. Some of us hiding behind their names.

[warsofasoiaf]

One frustration I have with people opposed to American support for Ukraine is they offer little policy solutions to how to handle the situation. However I do sympathize with their fears that the war can go on for years and result in a stalemate. I have always squared this circle in my mind because supporting Ukraine to improve its bargaining position and supporting Ukraine to allow it to win outright are the same. Do you think the Doves have any fair points, or are they fear mongering?

I think they're fear-mongering, and I'd argue that plenty of opponents, when you really get into the nitty-gritty, are more or less have policy positions that are contradictory to their stated aims, and the better explanation for their policies is that they desire either a Russian win or a treaty that leaves Ukraine in a diminished state for self-serving political gains.

For example, the current brouhaha in the United States is that the money spent on Ukrainian aid would be better serviced in East Palestine, Ohio, where the train derailment and chemical spill happened. But most Ukrainian aid is in the form of military hardware - you can't use a Bradley to fund a chemical cleanup operation. A lot of the MAGA opposition to aid in Ukraine is clumsily associated with the Hunter Biden story, turning it into a conspiracy theory where somehow that money gets funneled back to corrupt Biden politicians and appointees, but again, how exactly do you use Javelins in a payback scheme? It's already been debunked that US aid has been sold on the black market - that was already exposed as a Russian psyop. It does however, make sense if you see it as wanting a Ukrainian loss to hurt Democrats and establishment Republicans (Mitch McConnell and establishment Republicans are largely supportive of US/Western aid to Ukraine), to paint them as idiots pursuing wasteful policies to further their own political careers.

Similarly, the Chomskyite path for American leftists (your DSA/CodePink types - the progressive and socdem circles in America have also largely been supportive of aid to Ukraine) about wanting to secure peace via negotiation to end the war promptly is a fairly transparent lie, since encouraging a pro-Russian settlement would incentivize further territorial aggression by provide concrete benefits for taking those action - that's basic psychology. Similarly, given that Ukraine is willing to fight, opposing aid for Ukraine just means more dead Ukrainians and more categorical civilian atrocities such as what happened in Bucha. No one can really compel Ukraine to negotiate, so the idea that cutting off aid will create a peace deal is one more lie even if you sincerely believed that Russia wouldn't engage in ethnic cleansing. However, it does make sense if you see it as wanting to deliver a defeat to the West, along with fracturing and dissolving NATO and preserving Putin as a figurehead of authoritarian anti-Westernism. There's a large undercurrent in a lot of these circles for punishing CEE folks for overthrowing communism, de-legitimizing the movement, and joining the West, hence why the outcries on Russian atrocities are so muted and engage in so much whataboutism. Just compare Chomsky's writings on Yugoslavia to his writings on Iraq; this is just the latest example of that worldview.

The anti-MIC types who argue that more money being devoted to military production means less money devoted to consumer goods or social programs are also wrong. The goods, for the most part, have already been made and paid for, you can't convert an old AFV into social spending by selling it on the open market due to the restricted nature of arms exports. I'd even go so far as to say that the anemic defense spending in Europe, the "peace dividend" helped enable this conflict by refusing to establish credible European deterrence and outsourcing defense needs to the United States and NATO. The genie is out of the bottle, increased defense spending will continue until the destabilizing factor is resolved. So that doesn't make sense from a policy standpoint, but it does make sense if you want to paint aid to Ukraine as a doomed endeavor. There's also a psychological component, fear that the hawks and defense contractors hold the moral high ground, which has honestly been hilarious.

So no, I don't really see any merit to their proposals. Many are firmly rooted in disinformation like "Donbas genocide" or "NATO expansion," and don't hold up when scrutinized. But if there's an actual serious dovish proposal that isn't like the others, please let me know.

Thanks for the question, Cle.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King