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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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In mid-September, Russians at War, a documentary by the Russian Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, was supposed to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the last minute, after protests from the Ukrainian community and the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the festival first pulled the picture, only to return it to the program a week later.

What made the documentary so controversial was that, although many films have chronicled the devastation caused by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, including the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, Trofimova’s work focused on the invaders. The filmmaker, embedded with a Russian unit for seven months, humanized Moscow’s troops as lost, confused, and disheveled. The men joke, miss their families, and even criticize the Russian government, though they never speak against Putin. A love-on-the-front-lines plot trains the viewer’s sympathy on the soldiers, even while the film avoids any reference to atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

So is Russians at War a propaganda film, as its Ukrainian critics argue? Financed in part by the Canada Media Fund and produced in partnership with Ontario’s public broadcaster TVO, Russians at War avoids the trope of “Russian savior liberates ancestral lands from NATO invaders” that is typical of Kremlin propaganda. But all of Trofimova’s previous documentaries, filmed in Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Iraq, were made for RT—the Kremlin’s global propaganda network. In an interview with Deadline, Trofimova claimed that she embedded with a Russian unit without any military authorization, and just “stuck around.” In a country where a Wall Street Journal reporter gets sentenced to 16 years for merely handling a piece of paper, an independent filmmaker roaming the front lines, filming military installations, and interviewing soldiers without facing repercussions raises questions. Trofimova did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

One thing that the confused response to Russians at War makes clear is that eight years after the revelation that Moscow attempted to influence a U.S. presidential election, most Westerners still don’t really know how Russian propaganda campaigns work. Americans have become familiar with AI botnets, salaried trolls tweeting in broken English about Texas secession, deranged Russian TV hosts calling for a nuclear strike on New York, and alt-right has-beens. But what to make of a French and Canadian documentary, tucked between Pharrell’s Lego-animated film and a Q&A with Zoe Saldaña, that seems cozy with the Russian military and blurs the line between entertainment and politics?

Here is a clue: The Kremlin’s information war in the West is reminiscent of the one it fought—and won—on the home front. I know this because I was in that earlier war, and, regrettably, I fought on the wrong side.

I began working for Kremlin-linked media during my junior year in college. At the time, the Russian government was apparently hoping that by leveraging high energy prices, it could regain a bit of the influence it had lost after the Cold War. The state called this being an “energy superpower.” In practice, high oil and gas prices abroad translated into more Michelin chefs, German cars, and Italian suits for the select few at home.

In 2005, a close friend introduced me to Konstantin Rykov, known as the godfather of the Russian internet and, later, the man who revolutionized digital propaganda in Russia. In 1998, he launched a website called fuck.ru, which included a provocative magazine and mixed Moscow nightlife, humor, and art. With a blend of pop culture and media savvy, Rykov built an empire of news websites, tabloids, and even online games.

Rykov’s latest endeavor at the time of our meeting was The Bourgeois Journal, a glossy luxury-lifestyle magazine aimed at Russia’s affluent class. He hired me to head up the St. Petersburg bureau, not because of my background in student journalism, but in large part because I grew up in Boston, meaning that I was fluent in English and, apparently, the ways of the West. During my interview (a sushi-and-vodka breakfast), the word Kremlin never came up.

Rykov made the Journal available, for free, only at the most exclusive restaurants, gyms, private clinics, and five-star hotels. Inside, between ads for Richard Mille watches and prime London real estate, were interviews with figures such as Vladimir Medinsky and Alexander Dugin—now the ideologues behind Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a single issue, you could read a review of a restaurant located in a 15th-century building in Maastricht, an essay about the West’s fear of a strong Russia, and a report from Art Basel. The Bourgeois Journal used luxury to mask propaganda aimed at Russia’s elite.

Like many people working in Russian propaganda at the time, I didn’t agree with the narrative that my publication was spreading. And, as most people in propaganda will tell you, I was simply doing my job. I was there a little over a year—selling ads, reviewing restaurants, and occasionally interviewing a Western celebrity. The tedious essays on Russia’s place in the world were outweighed by the benefits of running a magazine for the rich: private palaces, private parties, and escapes to the Caribbean sun—something that the birthplace of Dostoyevsky had little of.

After the success of The Bourgeois Journal, Rykov launched Russia.ru, the country’s first online television network, in 2007. Here, pro-Kremlin news ran alongside obscene reality shows, attracting nearly 2.5 million viewers a month. The network’s slogan, “Glory to Russia”—now a battle cry in Russia’s war in Ukraine—demonstrated just how seamlessly Rykov blended patriotism with entertainment to reach an enormous audience.

Building on this, Rykov introduced ZaPutina (“For Putin”), a movement designed to help Vladimir Putin secure an unconstitutional third term. The project included an online platform that aggregated news from various sources, including original reporting from its own correspondents; a ZaPutina campaign bus to take Kremlin-loyal bloggers across the country; and attractive women—proto-influencers—who attended press conferences, introducing themselves by name and their outlet (“For Putin”) before asking their questions.

My biggest contribution to Russian propaganda came in 2009. By then, Russia was positioning itself as an inventive, Western-oriented economy. Vladislav Surkov—an adman, a poet, a columnist, and a Kremlin ideologue—dubbed this period one of “managed democracy,” which will likely be remembered as the midpoint between Russia’s post-Soviet anarchy and its modern-day fascism. Political parties were numerous, but all controlled from the Kremlin, as was almost every form of media. Yet the country sought a veneer of freedom. That’s where Honest Monday came in—a prime-time talk show that I co-created, wrote, and co-produced.

Our remit was to reach the sorts of viewers who ignored the in-your-face messaging of broadcast talk shows. Each week, the Kremlin assigned these shows a topic it wanted highlighted, and most would comply in a very blunt fashion: Do this, vote for that, Russia’s great. With a young host and a flashy studio modeled on French TV, Honest Monday took a different approach. Every week, I wrote up a summary of the left, center, and right perspectives on the topic we were given; I also delineated a viewpoint that reflected the Kremlin’s stance on the matter and sketched a justification for why this view was better than the other three. The producers would then scour the country for guests whose views reflected each of the three perspectives. The three speakers—politicians, celebrities, or pundits—had to defend their stance to, say, a factory worker we flew in from Siberia whose experience was relevant to the topic we covered. The debates were real, many of them heated, and with views contradicting the Kremlin’s. Still, the house always won.

Toward the end of our first season, the ratings for Honest Monday dipped, and the Kremlin’s tolerance waned. The network introduced a new director. As I recall, he outlined for us his vision of the show’s future: “When the viewers tune in, the first thing they should do is shit themselves.”

The Kremlin instructed us to take aim at the powerless Russian opposition, and in a matter of weeks, the messaging turned into outright bashing of everything that stood against Putin. I resigned—publicly—by sanctimoniously calling the show’s producers and host “Kremlin shills.” A couple of years later, two people connected with the Russian propaganda machine lured me outside and assaulted me in broad daylight (one of them later tweeted that he was motivated by a personal issue rather than a political one). When I hit the ground, half a mile from the Kremlin, I was finally out of the game.

Perhaps Rykov’s greatest contribution to Russian propaganda remains his cadre of media managers and propagandists, who now grace Kremlin corridors (and U.S. Treasury sanctions lists). One such protégé was Vladimir Tabak. Formerly a producer at Russia.ru, he rose to prominence in 2010, when he organized a now-infamous birthday calendar for Putin, featuring 12 female students posing in lingerie and captioned with quotes like “I love you,” “Who else but you?,” and “You’re only better with age.” The calendar, designed to create buzz and cultivate Putin’s image, dominated the news cycle for weeks. In an interview with the model Naomi Campbell, Putin even commented on how much he liked it. Legend has it that Surkov personally approved the project.

Although Tabak’s initial endeavor may have seemed playful, his later efforts illustrate just how insidious his propaganda techniques have become. Since 2020, Tabak has led Dialog, a powerful, Kremlin-affiliated organization tasked with controlling and shaping all social-media narratives in the country. If someone uses social media to criticize, say, the mayor of a small town, Dialog knows about it. According to a joint investigation by the independent Russian outlets Meduza, The Bell, and iStories, the organization took on a significant role during the coronavirus pandemic, virtually monopolizing the flow of COVID-related information in Russia by launching the website Stopkoronavirus.rf as the primary source for daily pandemic updates (the investigation report notes that Dialog denies being associated with this site).

At the height of the pandemic, the Kremlin decided to hold a vote on constitutional amendments that would allow Putin to serve two more terms, and Dialog immediately shifted to encouraging people to go to the polls, downplaying COVID-19 concerns. Later, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dialog was reportedly tasked with spreading fake news about the war not just in Russia, but in Ukraine. Some of the narratives included Ukrainian soldiers selling their awards on eBay, high-ranking Ukrainian officials owning expensive property in the European Union, and Kyiv ordering the mobilization of women.

Tabak’s organization has become a key player in Russia’s digital warfare abroad, including in its most recent campaign targeting Western audiences. On September 4, the U.S. Justice Department seized numerous internet domains allegedly involved in Russia’s Doppelganger campaign—an influence operation designed to undermine international support for Ukraine and bolster pro-Russian interests. The domains, many of them made to resemble legitimate news outlets, were linked to Russian companies, including Dialog. According to an unsealed affidavit, the goal of the operation was to spread covert Russian propaganda, manipulate voter sentiment, and influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Doppelganger appears to be a sophisticated operation that used deepfakes, AI, and cybersquatting (registering domains designed to mimic legitimate websites). But the Kremlin’s real innovations were those it employed in Russia in the 1990s; in the West today, it is simply repeating the same playbook using new technology. Washingtonpost.pm, a fake news website created to spread Russian propaganda, was an evolution of the fake newspapers that circulated in Russia during the ’90s ahead of elections. The purpose of those outlets—made to resemble legitimate media but filled with kompromat, gossip, and propaganda—was to get the right people elected.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda has churned out absurd and repulsive lies, such as that Ukraine has biolabs where NATO scientists are working on a virus that targets Slavic DNA, and that Zelensky, who is Jewish, presides over a neo-Nazi regime. Yet, in a way, it has become honest with itself—at least for the domestic audience. There’s no longer a need for platforms like Russia.ru or The Journal, because the message is clear: This is who we are, and you’re either with us or against us. And yet, the entertainment aspect didn’t disappear. Rather, it was absorbed into the propaganda machine through the Institute for Internet Development.

Founded in 2015 with Kremlin backing, and currently under the direction of the former Journal producer Alexey Goreslavsky, the IID helps direct state funds toward producing everything from box-office releases to YouTube videos, blogs, and video games. With a yearly budget of more than $200 million, it dwarfs any private film studio or streaming platform in Russia.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the institute has become the go-to hub for content. Initially, its output was dull and overtly propagandistic, but that has changed. Its catalog now includes 20/22, a TV series about a soldier fighting in Ukraine and his anti-war girlfriend, as well as A Thug’s Word, a 1980s period piece about a street gang, which became the No. 1 show in Russia and surprisingly popular in Ukraine—much to the dismay of the Ukrainian government. A Thug’s Word contains no politics, no war, and no Putin, yet IID—a propaganda organization—considers it its greatest success, because it legitimized the institute in the world of popular entertainment, which it fought so hard to break into.

One reason Russian propaganda is running circles around the West is that the internet was one of the few domains where the Russian state arrived late, forcing it to co-opt those who understood it. RuNet, the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, was created—and run—by people like Rykov: artsy 20-somethings, filled with cynicism, post-Soviet disillusionment, and a cyberpunk mentality. The collapse of the Soviet Union taught them that truth was whatever they wanted it to be, and that survival was the ultimate goal. The advertising executives, philosophy students, and creatives who once made video art, lewd calendars, and scandalous zines are the same minds who in 2016 said, “Let’s make memes about Hillary Clinton,” and in 2024 suggested using AI to flood X with believable comments. In many ways, this confrontation mirrors what’s happening in Ukraine: This time, however, the West is the massive, unwieldy force being outsmarted by a smaller, more tech-savvy adversary.

The good news is that the Kremlin is a graveyard of talent. In time, every gifted person I knew who went behind its brick walls was devoured by deceit, paranoia, and fear of losing one’s place in the sun. Konstantin Rykov was exceptional at his job, so much so that the Kremlin offered him a seat in the Russian Parliament when he was just 28. He accepted the offer. But being a member of the Duma Committee on Science and High Technologies and the Committee for Support in the Field of Electronic Media wasn’t the same as being the editor of fuck.ru. Despite being involved in some foreign influence operations, Rykov, now 45, hasn’t produced any significant work for Russian audiences since he joined Parliament.

Asked by an audience member in Toronto whether Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, Trofimova replied, “I think there are a lot of other factors involved. Yeah, like they are definitely sending troops in to solve whatever grievances there are.” Even if it wasn’t financed by Moscow, Russians at War reminds me of a Rykov production: slick, scandalous, and with a ton of free press. The message the film conveys is that war, not the country that started it, is bad in this scenario. Trofimova seems to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the astonishing scale of the atrocities it has committed there, as something impersonal and inexorable, like a tsunami: We can only accept it and sympathize with the victims, including Russian soldiers.

I stopped working for the Kremlin long before the Russo-Ukrainian war, and whatever I did as the head of a magazine bureau and as a talk-show producer pales in comparison with what some of my former colleagues are doing today. Still, I know that in every bullet flying toward Ukraine—the country where my parents were born—there’s a small part of me. I wonder if Trofimova sees that she’s part of it, too.

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tenderjock · 5 months ago

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i'm rewatching agent carter s1ep5 "the iron ceiling" (as one does) and two things struck me about the scene in the boiler room where nikolai threatens to turn them over to the russians

one: peggy's line "we will not be your leverage. we will die before we are captured ... you have one chance to get out of here, and it is because of our good graces. you kill our friend, and you will die at our hand, instantly" is fucking COLD every time i watch it my little bisexual self is like YES MA'AM OF COURSE MA'AM RIGHT AWAY MA'AM.

two: i hadnt noticed but jack doesnt actually freeze immediately under fire? he's shooting back and generally being helpful in the fight until a series of things happen - first, the little black widow shoots and kills li (jack actually yells "li!" as he falls); next, the black widow shoots happy sam in the leg; and finally, nikolai takes happy sam at gunpoint and offers him up to the russians, during which exchange jack is already crouched on the ground looking scared.

so that means that its not the sound of gunfire or the fear being shot per se like ive seen implied in some fanfic that makes jack freeze up/have a flashback. specifically, given the timing, it seems to be like. having a sniper take out a guy that is standing right next to you that fucks him up so bad.

and honestly i'd like to say mood. if a sniper took out a guy standing right next to me, i'd be useless for the rest of my life fr.

but it does make me wish we got a flashback ep with jack and daniel and maybe even other characters - jarvis perhaps - so we could see some of their experiences in the war. (eta i know that the show is not about them. i know that the show is about peggy. but still) ive seen one (1) post that mentioned how jack was canonically involved in two of the bloodiest battles in the war (okinawa and iwo jima) and obvs daniel lost a whole ass fucking leg in europe. idk i want backstory on these guys.

#backwards and in high heels #jack thompson #mcu #also my mom and i have this running gag where whenever cap does something we yell ''[verb] captain america [verb]''#ie ''jump captain america jump'' ''blow up a tank captain america blow up a tank'' etc #so when dugan yells ''run peggy run'' at the end of this scene i always cant help but crack up

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tam--lin · 8 months ago

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Headcanons: The Leverage team as readers

Nate: Nate's not a big reader, but will occasionally read dense some dense new tome on white collar crime or US politics. Once a year or so, he'll crack open a dense sci-fi classic like Neuromancer.

Sophie: Has a whole shelf of acting books like Blumenfeld's Accents for Actors and that collection on Stella Adler. She reads memoirs of various famous people for work - it's a great way to pick up tidbits of flavor she can bring to cons. When not reading for work, Sophie's partial to untranslated foreign-language literature, especially Russian. We know how she feels about wellness scams specifically, so I think she's read books like The Gospel of Wellness. She has a battered copy of the Nagoski sisters Burnout next to a small library of workout DVDs. When she's really down in the dumps, she'll pick up a romance with half-dressed men and women in bodices on the cover. She sometimes picks up books like The Body Keeps the Score and Unmasking Autism, which she reads mainly to leave sitting around the office in the hopes that some specific other person will read them.

Hardison: Hardison loves modern science fiction, although he generally avoids anything that's too technical because he can't keep himself from picking it apart. (The exception is Andy Weir. He loves Andy Weir.) He likes Star Trek tie-in novels (only the good ones), Cixin Liu, Ann Leckie, and The Expanse. He'll also occasionally dip his toes into scientist or astronaut memoir or non-fiction about crime (he likes Mike Massimino's memoir and tell-alls on Theranos and Scientology, specifically). He loves Murderbot and has somehow managed to convince both Parker and Eliot to read it.

Eliot: Eliot wouldn't deny reading, but you certainly won't catch him doing it. He's partial to food-related microhistories - he's read every Mark Kurlansky book. He's read Emily Nagoski's Come as You Are and is not ashamed about it. He has a sticky-noted, dog-eared copies of The Professional Chef and Mastering the Art of French Cooking in his kitchen, but nothing else - beyond the basics, he mostly cooks on vibes. Every language he knows he's either learned through whatever the US government recommends or through an ex. He read the first Murderbot book because he lost a bet to Hardison. He'll never confess to also having read all of the rest of them, and enjoying them.

Parker: Parker is either reading nothing or spending all her free time reading - there's nothing in between. She's read a few books on crypto because she wants to understand it, but she just doesn't get the appeal. (It's not cash, you see.) Parker has also read all of the Murderbot books, because Hardison got her into them. Parker loves Murderbot.

#leverage #finally getting this out of my brain. you're welcome. also read Murderbot.#forgive any canon references to reading I've forgotten

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mightyflamethrower · 3 months ago

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When Donald Trump seemed to have a lock on the 2016 Republican primary, the Democratic Party concluded that the people could not be counted on to do the “right thing” of electing the Democratic candidate in waiting Hillary Clinton.

What followed were eight long years of extralegal efforts to neuter candidate, then President, then ex-President, and then candidate again, Donald Trump.

The nonstop efforts were all justified as “saving democracy”—albeit by nearly destroying it.

In 2015-2016, the Hillary Clinton campaign fueled the lie that discredited ex-British spy Christopher Steele had discovered Donald Trump to be a veritable Russian agent.

Hillary did not disclose that she had paid Steele—with checks hidden through three paywalls. The FBI, under Director James Comey, also hired the fraudster.

Yet almost nothing in his “Steele dossier” was true.

The FBI doctored evidence submitted to a FISA court. Comey leaked to the press confidential documents about his private conversations with President Trump.

Comey’s successor, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, lied on numerous occasions to federal investigators.

Both former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper repeatedly lied to the nation, saying that Trump was de facto working with the Russians.

The result? Trump lost the 2016 popular vote but still won the Electoral College.

Next, celebrities and well-funded liberals waged a media campaign to convince the electors to become “faithless.” Left-wing elites begged them to renounce their constitutional duties and instead throw the election to Hillary Clinton.

Once Trump was elected, “Russian collusion” was fired up again in hysterical fashion.

A special counsel, Robert Mueller, consumed 22 months of the Trump presidency. His investigation team constantly leaked falsehoods about the “walls closing in on” Trump.

After nearly two years, Mueller announced there was no evidence of a Trump effort to collude with Russia.

Next was the first impeachment of Trump—nearly the moment he lost the House in 2018.

Supposedly, Trump had leveraged Ukraine to investigate a corrupt Hunter Biden by delaying foreign aid.

Trump was impeached on a strictly partisan vote.

But later, no one denied that the drug-addled Hunter Biden had indeed gotten rich from Ukraine, or that Joe Biden had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his son’s misadventures while still vice president, or that Trump released all the military assistance designated by Congress, or that he included offensive weapons formerly denied Ukraine by the Obama-Biden administration.

Next, in 2020, when Hunter’s laptop turned up abandoned at a repair shop and full of incriminating evidence of more Biden family skullduggery, the left struck again.

It rounded up “51 former intelligence authorities” to mislead the American people on the eve of the vote that the laptop was likely a fake—once again cooked up by Russian disinformation experts to aid Trump.

And once more, that was another complete falsehood. But the lie proved useful to Joe Biden in the debates and campaign. And he won the election.

Next, the learn-nothing, forget-nothing left turned to the 2023-2024 campaign.

This time, their next extra-legal efforts were twofold.

One, they unsuccessfully sought to remove Trump from some 15 state ballots.

Two, local, state, and federal courts began to wage lawfare to convict and jail candidate Trump, or at least bankrupt him and keep him off the campaign trail.

Three county and state prosecutors campaigned on getting Trump on charges never filed before against a presidential candidate—and rarely against anyone else as well.

The Fani Willis Georgia lead prosecutor met secretly with the Biden White House counsel.

Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan team hired the third-ranking federal prosecutor in the Biden Justice Department.

Special counsel Jack Smith was found by a court to have been illegally appointed and much of his case was dismissed.

On July 14, a shooter nearly killed candidate Trump, nicking his ear after somehow firing a rifle from a rooftop a mere 140 yards away—while undetected by law enforcement inside the very same building below.

Prior to the shooting, Joe Biden had boasted to donors that “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

Biden had railed nearly nonstop that a Trump victory would spell the end of democracy—a theme the left had fueled by comparing ad nauseam Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Yet here we are in mid-July 2024 and Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, is alive and leads incumbent Biden—either because of, or despite, the crude efforts to destroy him.

After nearly a decade of utter madness, can we finally order the FBI, DOJ, and CIA to butt out of our elections?

Can a bankrupt media cease whipping up hysterias about a supposed Nazi-like takeover?

Can the left stop relying on washed-up British spies, corrupt ex-spooks, and teams of clownish partisan prosecutors?

Instead, why not, at last, just let the people choose their own president?

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nicklloydnow · 1 year ago

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“Force, not diplomacy, has decided the course of this conflict since it first flared up during the era of former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. (Some would say it originated well before, in the early twentieth century.) In 1988, the Karabakhi Armenians tried to break away from Soviet Azerbaijan and join Soviet Armenia in a dispute that developed into armed conflict. In the 1990s, the Armenians prevailed on the battlefield, occupying large parts of Azerbaijani territory and driving hundreds of thousands of inhabitants from their homes. In 2020, the Azerbaijanis reversed the situation, recapturing their lost territories and taking parts of Karabakh, too.

(…)

Diplomacy resumed, with the European Union, the United States, and Russia all negotiating between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The competing mediators made progress on bilateral issues, but the Karabakh issue remained unresolved. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed, along with the rest of the world, to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity (including Nagorny Karabakh), but the vital question of the inhabitants’ rights and security remained unresolved.

The Karabakhis’ fate was probably sealed in April, when Azerbaijan established a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor. This de facto blockade deepened in the summer, and the situation became desperate for tens of thousands of people remaining in Karabakh (estimates range from 50,000 to 120,000) who began to run out of food and medicine.

There is a geopolitical game here. A small Russian peacekeeping force was established in Karabakh in 2020. Moscow, which has always wavered between and manipulated both sides, had presented itself as the protector of the Karabakhis. President Vladimir Putin publicly told them his peacekeepers would guarantee their safe return from Armenia and continued residence in their homeland. But the Russian soldiers stood by as the checkpoint was set up on the Lachin road earlier this year, fracturing trust held in the peacekeeping force.

The context is that after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Armenian government began to pivot toward the West, and Azerbaijan��with which Russia shares a land border and an authoritarian model of government—looked like a more valuable partner.

(…)

The military offensive on September 19 caught Western officials by surprise, which became more understandable when news broke that Russian peacekeepers simply stood down and let the assault happen. The impression that there had been a side deal between Moscow and Baku deepened when Russian officials blamed Pashinyan and his pro-Western tendencies, not Azerbaijan, for the fighting.

(…)

In the darker European order of the past decade, where normative values and a multilateral framework have been devalued, Azerbaijan cares less about statements of condemnation from Western governments. The key thing is almost certainly the support of two regional powers and neighbors: the full backing of Türkiye and deliberate equivocation from Russia, which looks more concerned about keeping its military base on the ground in Azerbaijan and humiliating the government in Yerevan than in ensuring the rights of local Karabakh Armenians.”

“Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed Wednesday to disarm and discuss reintegration with Azerbaijan following a swift but deadly assault by Azerbaijani forces, a capitulation that signals the end of decades of ethnic-Armenian rule in the enclave and the rapid decline of Russian influence in the former Soviet Union territories.

The terms of the cease-fire lay groundwork that could bring to a close the autonomous rule by the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was won from Baku in a bloody yearslong war after the fall of the Soviet empire.

(…)

“Russia’s leverage is much weakened by what’s happening in Ukraine. We see the Armenians moving away from Russia and Azerbaijan having a relationship with Russia that is more on its own terms,” said Thomas de Waal, an expert on Nagorno-Karabakh and senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based think tank.

(…)

Azerbaijan says it plans to take back the enclave—which sits inside its borders but is populated almost entirely by ethnic Armenians who have ruled since the 1990s under the terms of a peace deal brokered by Russia. Skirmishes in the years since erupted into conflict in 2020 when Azerbaijan reclaimed areas around the territory. That battle ended, again with Russian arbitration, guaranteeing Armenian separatists control over Stepanakert and supply routes from Armenia, policed by Moscow’s troops. But peace has remained shaky with Armenia’s leaders complaining that Russia is no longer able to enforce the deal, distracted by its war in Ukraine.

A senior Azeri official said Baku had advanced on the enclave while Russia’s troops and arms are tied up in Ukraine. Baku had told Russia about its intentions ahead of time, the official said, but Moscow failed to act in part because it seeks regime change in Armenia. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has increasingly criticized Russia’s capabilities as a guarantor of security and worked to forge stronger links with the West.

(…)

Russia, which still has a military base inside Armenia, has seen its influence steadily wane in the South Caucasus, a territory crisscrossed by oil-and-gas pipelines where the U.S., Turkey and Iran all vie for influence. Earlier this month, U.S. forces began joint military exercises that saw 175 Armenian soldiers training for 10 days with about 85 soldiers from U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command outside the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

(…)

The Azeri offensive is the culmination of a nearly yearlong effort to cut Nagorno-Karabakh’s links to Armenia through a de facto blockade that has led to shortages in food, fuel and medicine. In recent weeks, Azerbaijan gathered its forces around Nagorno-Karabakh.

(…)

Azerbaijan’s moves to weaken the enclave violated the terms of the 2020 cease-fire clinched by Russia, and Russian peacekeepers’ inability to prevent them caused Pashinyan to repeatedly criticize Moscow’s role as a guarantor of stability while it is bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine.

The criticism has caused a chill in Russian-Armenian relations and Moscow has broadcast scenes of protesters demonstrating outside Pashinyan’s office in central Yerevan this week. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that his country’s peacekeepers were working in the region, and Russian commentators have placed blame for Nagorno-Karabakh’s capitulation squarely on Pashinyan’s shoulders.

Analysts say that Moscow is now looking to capitalize on any weakness in Pashinyan’s government in the hopes that one of the opposition parties, which it works with more closely, could come to power as a result of rising disapproval among Armenians over the integration of Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan.”

“Officially, the 1,700-square-mile territory is part of Azerbaijan and is known by its Russian name, which translates to “mountainous Karabakh.” But to Armenians and the Armenian-majority population of the region, it’s known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent state that has been outside of Azeri rule since 1988.

For centuries, Muslim Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians, both of whom call the region home, clashed over who should control it. Russian rule began in 1823, and when the Russian Empire dissolved in 1918, tensions between newly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan reignited. Three years later, Communist-controlled Russia set its sights on the independent states of the Caucasus region and began incorporating them into what would become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

At first, it was decided that Karabakh would be part of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (S.S.R.). Though historians differ on the reasons, the initial incorporation of Karabakh into Armenia is thought to have been a plan to ensure Armenian support of Soviet rule. But the Soviets’ new Commissar of Nationalities, Joseph Stalin, reversed the decision. In 1923 Nagorno-Karabakh became an autonomous administrative region of the Azerbaijan S.S.R., even though 94 percent of its population at the time was ethnic Armenian.

(…)

As the Soviet Union disintegrated in the late 1980s, the long-dissatisfied ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh petitioned to become part of the Republic of Armenia. Azerbaijan responded by trying to crush the separatists in 1988, and clashes intensified in the region. In 1991, both Azerbaijan and Armenia declared independence from the U.S.S.R., and the regional clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh flared into full-out war.

As a result, more than a million people became refugees, and around 30,000 people, including civilians, were killed. Both sides engaged in ethnic cleansing during the Nagorno-Karabakh War—the Azerbaijanis against ethnic Armenians, and Armenian forces against ethnic Azeris. Despite the brutal humanitarian toll, negotiations between the sides repeatedly broke down.

In 1994, the newly independent nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed the Bishkek Protocol, a ceasefire brokered by Russia that left Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. But though the fighting ceased, the two sides could not agree on a peace treaty.

For the last two and a half decades, Armenian and Azerbaijani troops have been divided by a contested “line of contact” laid out in the Bishkek Protocol. It has become increasingly militarized over the years, and has been called one of the world’s three most militarized borders. The Council on Foreign Relations says that given the close positioning and limited communication between military forces stationed there, “there is a high risk that inadvertent military action could lead to an escalation in the conflict.”

That’s of even greater importance because of the conflicted nations’ powerful allies. Azerbaijan is supported by NATO member Turkey, while Russia supports Armenia, making the area a potential conflagration zone. While Nagorno-Karabakh is small, the geopolitical stakes are high due to its proximity to strategic oil and gas pipelines, and its location between the powerful regional forces of Russia, Turkey, and Iran.”

#armenia #azerbaijan #nagornokarabakh #russia #ukraine #war #nagorno karabakh

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asirensrage · 10 months ago

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Writer 20 Questions!

I was tagged by @ninjasawakenedmystar! Thanks for that! I'll tag anyone who wants to answer them! Consider this your tag!

1 . How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

766,741

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Oh god. Too many. Divergent. Stranger Things. Supernatural. Shadow and Bone. MCU. HP. Spartacus. Leverage. Jack Reacher. John Wick. Criminal Minds. Teen Wolf. The Walking Dead. Lord of the Rings. Star Trek. Beauty and the Beast. The Lost Boys. Sons of Anarchy. Knives Out. Naruto. Jujutsu Kaisen. Demon Slayer. My Hero Academia. Tokyo Revengers. Blade. True Blood. From Dusk Til Dawn. Star Wars. BtvS.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Tammy Thompson Takes on the Upside Down. The Art of Seclusion. there's a heaven above you (don't you cry). Barred. It's Always Darkest Before the (Second) Dawn

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes. I like to have conversations with people and I like to know what they're thinking about when it comes to my writing. I'm super behind on responding to them rn though.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The Art of Seclusion lol (so far. my unpublished My Hero Academia fic might be angstier. It'll depend if I get free reign or if my character cooperates tbh)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uhhh....Caught in the Crossfire? Or some of my oneshots.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

I have, but not much.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Hahaha, yes. Caught in the Crossfire is a bit of a huge crossover with characters from other fandoms appearing in Supernatural.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes. Tammy Thompson Takes on the Upside Down. Except they tried to change the name of the main character...to Sammy....but Tammy is a canon character.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Someone translated my Divergent oneshot Famous Last Words into Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! Caught in the Crossfire is cowritten, as are a few of my fics that I work on with @vixenofcourse (such as Tammy Thompson Takes on the Upside Down and there's a heaven above you (don't you cry).

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

My ocs with all of their pairings 😉

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'm not answering this. My goal is to finish all of them. I know how most of them will end. I have most of them fully planned out.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Dialogue.

17. What��s your writing weaknesses?

Description lolll

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I usually don't do it unless I know the proper way to write it in that language or I'll write it in English and make it known it's supposed to be a different language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Hahaha, Archie Comics when I was a kid.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

All of them. I reread my own work all the time!

#writing questions #thing i'm tagged in

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thomasshelbydrabbles · 1 year ago

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The Spy (6/?)

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Adeline Taylor (OC)

Warnings: period typical sexism, series typical violence, period typical views of PTSD, period typical racism, blood and gore, angst, sexual situations, infertility, loss of child

Summary: Adeline and Tommy talk for the first time in two years.

**Note: This is a series, so you should read The School Teacher and The Messenger first if you want to understand everything.*

Word Count: 2975

Author’s Note: And here it is!! Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list.

Birmingham, 1924

“You claimed she was Thomas Shelby’s woman!”

Adeline rolled her eyes as the men around her continued to bicker. They’d been arguing over her status as a usable whore for Tommy since they’d left the prison. It wasn’t exactly the reunion she’d envisioned, but seeing him was worth the bruise she felt blooming across her face. The way he’d looked at her though, that hurt more than she expected. Part of her wondered if his reaction had been calculated, designed to cause the infighting occurring right this moment. She clung to that thought because the alternative might destroy her.

“Oh do shut up,” Adeline snapped, pinching the bridge of her nose. “He was hardly going to fall to pieces at the sight of me with a bruise on my face.”

“Rather bold for a woman who lost her fiancé today,” Father Hughes informed her, sneer on his face.

“You assume I’ve lost a fiancé. No way of knowing for sure so long as you keep me locked away here, pulled out only when you need a visual presentation of your leverage. No way a man like Thomas Shelby would allow himself to be pressured in such a way.”

“You cannot be suggesting we simply allow you to do as you please.”

Adeline smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. Not that I have much faith - ” she paused, “Sorry, not much for religion myself. You’ll understand why I don’t think you’ll take the wiser course here and allow me to return to the family.”

“We can’t do that,” Sidney informed her. “We’ll stick to the plan. As Father Hughes pointed out, we’ve a higher power to account to in this endeavor.”

Adeline snickered. “And that’s worked out so well for you thus far. Good to see you continue to bet on the wrong horse.”

“There will come a time when you are no longer of use to the men of Section D.”

“A day we all look forward to, I’m sure,” Adeline interrupted. “And of course, you’ve got grand designs about how I’ll suffer before I die. Perhaps you imagine I’ll beg you to offer me last rights so you can save my soul from eternal damnation. Sadly for us all, you can’t be rid of me yet.”

“You can’t be sure he’ll even take you back,” Sidney reasoned.

“Aye. I can’t be sure. But, you’re whole plan - the plan dreamed up by the illustrious members of Section D hinges on Thomas Shelby giving a damn about my life.”

“He’ll see you alive and well at the Shelby family fundraiser this weekend. You’ll attend with Sidney, as planned. A representative of Section D will make himself know to Mr. Shelby, and detail exactly what he is to do next. Of course, the Grand Duchess will also be present at the fundraiser. Her uncle insists on her presence.”

She hated the slimy, smug grin on Father Hughes’ face. The jealousy she felt bubble up in her gut she hated even more. If he truly had given up on her, the Grand Duchess’ parted thighs just might be enticement enough for Tommy.

“She is to be the direct contact between Thomas Shelby and our Russian friends. You - ” Father Hughes pointed at Adeline, “Are to remain just out of reach. Seen often enough to keep him interested, but far enough from him that he cannot pull you once more to his side.”

“A slow torture,” Adeline murmured. “I wouldn't have believed such a pious, virtuous man of the cloth capable of something so insidious. But to hear it from your own lips. I’m impressed.”

“Let’s not lose focus,” Sidney said, once more trying to maintain the peace.

Adeline wanted to laugh at the irony of that. A man more apt to start a war because he was bored trying to mediate conflict.

“I think Mr. Shelby is still very much enamored with our girl.”

Adeline slanted a look at him, bristling at the use of our.

“The fundraiser is for the Shelby Foundation, which supports the local school. The very school where you used to teach, if I’m not mistaken. Such overtures don’t speak to a man ready to sever his relationship with his wayward fiancée.”

“Wayward?” Adeline asked.

Sidney shrugged a shoulder. “Your neither missing nor dead. Everyone who’s worked with you understands how difficult you can be. Wayward is a rather apt description, don’t you think?”

“Indeed,” Father Hughes agreed.

“A more agreeable woman wouldn’t be able to accomplish the tasks you have set forth.”

“Agreed,” Sidney said with an amiable smile.

He poured a measure of whiskey and handed it to Adeline. Skeptical of his sudden good humor, she took the glass.

“We’ll go shopping for a pretty dress for you to wear. Can’t have Thomas Shelby forgetting himself, thinking he has any sort of advantage or space to maneuver. We must constantly show him what his own waywardness is endangering.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For a grown ass woman, Adeline spent much of her time sneaking into and out of various places. She’d been forbidden from leaving the guest house, but she’d think less of Sidney if he thought for a single moment she’d abide such a ridiculous rule. Not when she was here, in Birmingham. As instructed, she’d gone and bought a dress. While the savvy operative in her wanted to find something homely to wear just to spite Sidney, the woman desperately in love with a man she wanted to have captivated by her won out and she purchased a dress specifically designed to make Thomas Shelby want nothing more than to tear it from her body.

Glancing around his room, she noted how little had changed. Her coat, wet along the bottom from the lingering puddles that seemed to always occupy Birmingham streets hung on the back of the door. Her shoes, soaked through, lay in a haphazard way near the door. Knees tucked up to her chin, Adeline sat waiting. On the bedside table, the last of her cigarette lay burning down to nothing in the tray, small wisp of smoke curling up towards the ceiling.

She heard footfalls on the steps, heard them move closer to the door. When the door began to creak open, Adeline felt her heart stop. Setting this meeting up, moving all the pieces, making promises - how easy that had been compared to this moment. Too many possibilities swam through her head.

The door opened. Tommy stood in the doorway, shadows from the twilight casting his features in stark relief. He stood there as a statue, only the smallest movements convinced her that he was even breathing. Their eyes locked.

“What the fuck are you doin’ here?”

She wanted to smile at the familiarity of the whole scenario. This space - his old room on Watery Lane held so many precious memories for her. Their first kiss.

“Last time you snuck into me bed you had a message for me.”

“Aye.”

Tommy nodded. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket. “Go on. Give me the message then get the fuck out.”

“I don’t have a message, Tommy. I snuck into your bed to see you.”

He took a long drag from his cigarette, eyes distant, unfocused. “I dreamed this,” he whispered. “After the Darby. Every night.”

“Tommy - ”

“And each morning,” he continued as he stepped into the room. “I’d wake up alone. Your spot on the bed cold and empty.”

The anguish in his eyes destroyed her, tore through her like someone was peeling the skin from her back strip by strip. She wanted to turn her face away, to hide from his gaze; it would be easy to play the coward.

“What would you like me to say, Tommy?”

Instead of answering, he threw the door closed. The sound of it echoed through the quiet of the house. She flinched at the noise. Her movement drew his focus back to her.

“I don’t know, Miss Taylor. After two years, what is there to say, eh?”

Another flinch. She clutched her left hand to her chest, the fingers from her right hand nervously twisting the engagement ring around her finger.

Tommy let out a humorless chuckle. He pointed to her, that same bitter smile she’d seen in the prison once more on his face.

“Were you ever mine?”

An aborted, wounded sound escaped her lips. Yet, Sidney’s voice echoed in her mind. You were mine first…Shaking those thoughts from her head she met Tommy’s gaze.

“You fuckin�� bastard, how can you ask me that?”

Again, Sidney’s voice mocked her, You’ve worn his ring, played virgin for the two years you’ve been apart...

“Answer the question.”

Adeline grit her teeth. “I never stopped being yours.”

She watched his expression. Saw how he worked to shut her out, to hold his anger tightly around him as protection. He might be able to do it. She’d always known there was a possibility…a version of this reunion where he didn’t - wouldn’t forgive her. Worst of all, she couldn't find it in herself to blame him for it. Were their roles reversed, she’d not be forgiving either. Didn’t change the fact that he still held what remained of her heart in the palm of his hand, just as surely as Sidney held her life in the palm of his. Damn them both.

He remained silent, just stood there and smoked his cigarette. Adeline stood from the bed, closed some of the distance between them.

“When you were laying in your bed, dreamin’ ‘bout me did you imagine it was my choice to be taken from your side, hm?”

“One moment you were there. The next you allowed them to fuckin’ drag you away.” Tommy glanced away. He tossed his spent cigarette on the floor and ground it beneath his foot. Adeline wanted to scold him for it, but didn’t. He met her gaze once again.

“Aye.”

“Fuckin’ Alfie knocked Arthur unconscious, nearly shot me to keep us from runnin’ after you. We outnumbered them. Would have been simple enough for you to break the hold they had on you. Only one conclusion, Miss Taylor - you wanted to leave with them.”

“Call me Miss Taylor in that tone one more time and I swear to Christ I’ll cut your fuckin’ tongue out.”

“Why?”

Adeline forced herself to take a deep breath. She met Tommy’s steady gaze, felt the burn of the ice in his blue eyes. Had attempting to protect him from her past brought them here? Perhaps. He deserved to know everything.

“Momento Mori.”

Reaching forward, Adeline pulled the pack of cigarettes from Tommy’s pocket. Allowing the smoke to fortify her, she began to pace in a small little line a foot away from where Tommy stood.

“I thought he was dead. Alfie, too. I thought I was safe, but I should have known better. Memento Mori was our code during the war. Sidney - George, whatever he wants to bloody well call himself, used that phrase when the situation became too dangerous to stay. Those men who came in, the ones who grabbed me, whispered that phrase in my ear. No one needed to die. If I’d fought, if I even hesitated, everyone in that room would have been dead. Better you alive and hating me than dead and loving me.”

“Still makin’ my decisions for me.”

Adeline shook her head. “You bloody stubborn bastard. Even with everything I’ve told you. Everything you’ve seen, you still don’t understand how dangerous this is. I’ll not apologize for saving you. I’ll never apologize for protecting you, for keeping you safe.”

“And there it is,” Tommy nodded to himself. “The woman I love, my fiancée, doesn't trust me to protect the family. To protect her.”

Adeline scoffed. “Trust you?”

With a shake of her head, she turned away from him. She took a long drag from the cigarette. Whirling back to face him, she jabbed her finger against his chest.

“The second you got sober enough to have a coherent thought you went to fucking Churchill and made yourself a Devil’s bargain.”

Tommy’s eyes narrowed as he took a step back.

“And how would you know that, eh?”

She’d never thought about how she’d answer that question. Part of her never thought she’d have the opportunity. She’d convinced herself that Sidney would kill her when he was done with her. As she’d told Campbell years ago, women like her were guaranteed one thing in life and that was to die bloody, wrung out - useless. That’d be her tombstone: Here Lies Arke: Useless.

He deserved to know. Even if he hated her for it. It’d been many years since she’d been this desperate to lie to someone. She knew the likelihood of him forgiving her was slim, had known that all along. Yet standing here in his room, facing the reality of it? Nothing felt worse. Squaring her shoulders, she looked up at him.

“About six months after Sidney took me, I figured out a way to get word out that I was alive. I hadn’t managed to find a way to come home. I couldn’t. Not while Sidney breathed. That was my mistake the first time. Instead of verifying for myself, I believed rumors and reports about his death. Allowed my joy at his demise to cloud my judgment. Not again. Not ever again. I sent word through the IRA to Alfie, to Isaiah - ”

She paused at his startled hiss of breath. She knew that dark look in his eye.

“You’ll leave that boy alone, Thomas Shelby. It’s me you're angry with, and rightly so. I couldn’t risk direct or indirect contact with you. Sidney had his people everywhere, and I knew if he caught even a hint that I had reached out to you…well, you’d all be dead. Anyone with the last name Shelby. Anyone associated with the Peaky Blinders. All dead. You’ll scoff. Tell me there’s no way that would happen because Thomas fucking Shelby rules the whole world, and no one would dare cross him. And that’s why I couldn't risk it. You’re not invincible. Men like Sidney are too well connected, too political. I knew Alfie would keep you in the dark. Took a bit of a wager on Isaiah, but he’s a good lad. Knows good sense.”

Adeline threw her spent cigarette on the floor, ignoring the way her hands shook.

“Didn’t expect Michael and Isaiah to show up. They’re the ones who told me about what you’d done, about your foolishness. Good boys. Of course, Alfie’s the one who helped them track me down. Meddling Jewish fool. After that, I couldn’t allow them to risk in person contact. We relied on carefully coded notes with minimal details about anything personal or important. Then we were in France, and Russia because of course Alfie was fucking right, as usual and Sidney is Russian, so he’s involved in this whole mess of Reds and Whites, then I learn that you’ve gone to Churchill and gotten yourself involved in the Russian’s bloody mess. Now they’re using me as a pawn to make sure you stay in line and do exactly as you're told.”

Tommy nodded, the movements abrupt. He raked a hand through his hair before locking his eyes with hers. Adeline’s breath caught. They were so blue, and they still held her as captive as they always had. She’d missed him so much it hurt, and standing here this close…she missed him all the more. Oh how she’d feared this day. The day when it was all too much. When he found the transgression he couldn’t, wouldn’t forgive. Worst of all, she couldn’t even blame him.

“Two years,” Tommy began, voice low, carefully controlled. “You’ve known everythin’ I’ve been doin’ for two years, and not a single word to me.”

Adeline wanted to shake him. Everything she’d told him, and that’s what he focused on. As though she could forget the time. As though she hadn’t died each day since they’d been apart.

“I spent two years worryin’ about you. Not knowin’ if you were alive, or - ”

Tommy clenched his hand into a fist, grit his teeth.

“Two fuckin’ years!”

She startled at the volume of his voice. Her own eyes narrowed. She took a step closer to him.

“Aye,” Adeline screamed back. “745 fuckin’ days!”

Staring at him, her chest heaved. Tommy stared back; his blue eyes piercing.

“745 days,” she whispered.

She fought back the tears that threatened to stream down her face. Not that she minded the thought of crying in front of him, not anymore, but she feared if she gave in now, if she allowed even one tear to fall, she’d never stop.

“Might be 746 by now,” Adeline noted absently, eyes peering out the window into the darkness.

Looking back at Tommy was a mistake. She’d not seen him look so defeated. Anger spent, at least for now, he appeared to her…un-moored. Like a boat adrift in the Cut, loose, but dangerously close to crashing against the bank. Floundering now that the reality of her standing in front of him settled around his shoulders. It was as though he finally believed she stood before him, not some specter he’d conjured in his dreams. She understood the feeling. Seeing him in that prison cell…feeling his eyes on her - nothing could have prepared her for that moment.

Tommy closed the distance between them, his fingers gently traced the edges of the bruise on her face. Leaning into his touch, she bit back the sound of pain that wanted to escape her lips. She’d not allow him to end this connection over something so trivial as pain. The bruise, like all the ones before, would heal. Tommy touching her as though she mattered to him - that she needed like oxygen.

“Tell me how to fix us,” Adeline begged, voice a whisper.

Part 7

Master List

Tag List: @stevie75 @muhahaha303 @highgardenrosexx @dolllol2405

#tommy shelby #thomas shelby #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #thomas shelby x oc #tommy shelby x oc

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nikproxima · 2 years ago

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MTV initial study, done by Marshall Space Flight Center, by Max

Revised conceptual study for MTV, circa 1982 design freeze, by Max

MTV Minerva being serviced prior to departure on an Olympus mission, as well as OV-106 Intrepid, by Jay

The Olympus Mars Transfer Vehicle was something of a miracle of science and engineering, and showcased some of the greatest cooperation for the entire program as a whole. As important as landing on the surface of Mars is, getting to Mars is a whole different half of the equation, and ensuring that the right equipment would do the job was part of the uphill battle for the program. In the beginning of the design process, it was unclear whether or not the architecture would be chemical, nuclear, or some sort of strange combination of the two. Highly experimental solar electric or even nuclear electric proposals had been thrown around, but it was unclear whether those would be ready in time for the projected late 1990s landing date. Initially, things were dire, as the Olympus Partners stared down the failures of General Atomics to produce a working Valkyrie engine, the key to a reusable nuclear architecture. Ultimately, Lockheed and Naval Reactors would succeed in flying their demonstrator, Way-Seeker, and secure the contract to produce the propulsion section. Boeing would lead the work on Habitat design, a radical new concept for inflatable modules that would enable much greater volume on a single launch. This inflatable habitat would be augmented by a Utility Node, also built by Boeing, and would contain the life support, air lock, and docking systems that would be utilized by ships visiting the MTV. Two Multi Purpose Mission Modules, built by Thales Aerospace, would join the MTV before a mission was due to depart, enabling greater habitable volume and delivering mission specific equipment for the intended landing site. The final component, the Earth Return Lifeboat, would ensure the safety of the crew if something were to go wrong. This capsule would be a large, Apollo CM derived vehicle built by Lockheed and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (later Airbus), and could seat a crew of 8.

The MTVs of the Olympus Fleet, Minerva, Prometheus, Hera and Selene, would do their duty well. Each would lead the way in pioneering new triumphs and bring comfort to the crew in times of hardship. They would shelter them from storms, and bring their crews home every time. Even during the disaster of Olympus 9, where all hope seemed lost, Hera gave her all to ensure that her crew would get home safely, sacrificing herself into the inky void of space to throw her passengers home. Towards the end of their usable lives, Minerva, Prometheus and Selene would see continued use supporting Destiny, shuttling cargo landers and crew to and from the lunar surface as infrastructure quickly spread. For the crew of Foundation, the outpost in Noctis, a fleet of new MTVs would emerge, chemical-electric, nuclear and even chemical "cargo sleds" that would push great volumes of equipment. The Americans would lead the charge with their radical Chem-NEP design, the Armstrong class. These would be fully reusable, and leverage design work being done since the start of the program. Japan and Canada would contribute heavily to the Armstrong Class, with logistics modules and robotic arms as their main gifts. Europe's largest contribution would be the Euro-Russian Copernicus Class, a nuclear thermal system based on work done by the Americans in the early days of Olympus. These would be smaller in crew complement but much larger in cargo volume, delivering great aeroshells to the surface. China would also deliver new vehicles, the fully solar-electric Tianzhou class, based on their earlier endeavors in asteroid exploration. These were strictly for cargo, and ensured that Chinese Taikonauts had seats onboard American or European MTVs. This fleet of MTVs would enable a continuous human presence on Mars in the low hundreds throughout the middle of the 21st century.

#proxima: a human exploration of mars #alternate history #science #space #space story #science fiction #alternate future #mars #mars transfer vehicle #NASA #spaceflight #story #worldbuilding

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lethimfertilise · 4 months ago

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The Financial Times published an article titled “Flood of cheap Russian fertilisers risks Europe’s food security, industry says”.

My two cents: When Russia started its invasion of Ukraine back in 2022 and fertiliser prices skyrocketed, the European Union temporarily suspended duties on urea in December 2022 to address supply issues and price volatility caused by the geopolitical situation, particularly the conflict in Ukraine. This suspension was part of a broader effort to ensure the availability of essential agricultural inputs amid global disruptions. The duties were reinstated on 17 June 2023, after a six-month suspension period. This reimposition brought back the standard tariff rates of 6.5% on urea imports and 5.5% on ammonia imports - thanks to Argus for the reminder.

It led to a massive downside correction in nitrogen, and not only nitrogen, fertilisers. The only unhappy producers were Egyptian and Algerian factories, who had lost their duty-free advantage against the other origins and local European producers!

Now, this article sounds like “Hey EU, we need bigger margins! Fertilisers have become affordable again!”

It would be interesting to hear the voice of the European farmers.

#fertilizers #fertilisers #urea #alregia #egypt #eu #europe #russia #ukraine #imstory

#agriculture #fertilizer #fertilization #urea #corn #usa #wheat #india #vessel #nola #imstory #ukraine #russia

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warsofasoiaf · 10 months ago

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With the destruction of their pacific and Baltic fleet in the war with Japan, Russia had virtually lost their entire navy. What did they do about it? Did they have to start over from scratch? Were they forced to buy new naval ships from England, France, or Germany at inflated prices? Was there a kind of bidding war with various contractors who wanted to build new ships for the Russian empire?

The Russians attempted to rebuild their naval forces, commissioning the Gangut-class dreadnought. The Russians originally offered the contract to Blohm and Voss (a German naval engineering firm), but the French protested, and they had considerable leverage given the amount of francs that the French had loaned Russia. To placate both sides, the Russians paid off the Germans, then partnered with the British in a joint venture between Baltic Works and John Brown & Co to produce new ships for the fleet. They saw limited service in WWI, and the Imperial Russian Navy largely decayed in port with the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#history #russia

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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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In the summer of 1941, the United States sought to leverage its economic dominance over Japan by imposing a full oil embargo on its increasingly threatening rival. The idea was to use overwhelming economic might to avoid a shooting war; in the end, of course, U.S. economic sanctions backed Tokyo into a corner whose only apparent escape was the attack on Pearl Harbor. Boomerangs aren’t the only weapons that can rebound.

Stephanie Baker, a veteran Bloomberg reporter who has spent decades covering Russia, has written a masterful account of recent U.S. and Western efforts to leverage their financial and technological dominance to bend a revanchist Russia to their will. It has not gone entirely to plan. Two and a half years into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Russia’s energy revenues are still humming along, feeding a war machine that finds access to high-tech war materiel, including from the United States. Efforts to pry Putin’s oligarchs away from him have driven them closer. Moscow has faced plenty of setbacks, most recently by losing control of a chunk of its own territory near Kursk, but devastating sanctions have not been one of them.

Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia is first and foremost a flat-out rollicking read, the kind of book you press on friends and family with proselytizing zeal. Baker draws on decades of experience and shoe-leather reporting to craft the best account of the Western sanctions campaign yet. Her book is chock-full of larger-than-life characters, sanctioned superyachts, dodgy Cypriot enablers, shadow fleets, and pre-dawn raids.

More than a good tale, it is a clinical analysis of the very tricky balancing acts that lie behind deploying what has become Washington’s go-to weapon. The risky decision just after the invasion to freeze over $300 billion in central bank holdings and cut off the Russian banking system hurt Moscow, sure. But even Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh, one of the architects of the Biden administration’s response, told National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that he feared the sanctions’ “catastrophic success” could blow up global financial markets. And that was before the West decided to take aim at Russia’s massive oil and gas exports, which it did with a series of half-hearted measures beginning later that year.

The bigger reason to cherish Punishing Putin is that it offers a glimpse into the world to come as great-power competition resurges with a vengeance. The U.S. rivalry with China plays out, for now, in fights over duties, semiconductors, and antimony. As Singh tells Baker, “We don’t want that conflict to play out through military channels, so it’s more likely to play out through the weaponization of economic tools—sanctions, export controls, tariffs, price caps, investment restrictions.”

The weaponization of economic tools, as Baker writes, may have started more than a millennium ago when another economic empire was faced with problematic upstarts. In 432 B.C., Athens, the Greek power and trading state supreme, levied a strict trade embargo on the city-state of Megara, an ally of Sparta—a move that, according to some scholars, sparked the Peloponnesian War. (Athens couldn’t break the habit: Not long after, it again bigfooted a neighbor, telling Melos that the “strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”) The irony of course is that Athens, the naval superpower, eventually lost the war to its main rival thanks to a maritime embargo.

It can be tempting to leverage economic tools, but it is difficult to turn them into a precision weapon, or even avoid them becoming counterproductive. The British empire’s 19th-century naval stranglehold and love of blockades helped bring down Napoleon but started a small war with the United States in the process.

Britain was never shy about using its naval and financial might to throw its weight around, but even the pound sterling never acquired the centrality that the U.S. dollar has today in a much bigger, much more integrated system of global trade and finance. That “exorbitant privilege,” in the words of French statesman Giscard D’Estaing, enabled the post-World War II United States to take both charitable (the Marshall Plan, for starters) and punitive economic statecraft to new heights.

The embargoes on Communist Cuba or revolutionary Iran were just opening acts, it turned out, for a turbocharged U.S. approach to leveraging its financial hegemony that finally flourished with the so-called war on terror and rogue states, a story well-told in books such as Juan Zarate’s Treasury Goes to War or Richard Nephew’s The Art of Sanctions.

Osama bin Laden is dead, Kabul is lost, Cuba’s still communist, and a Kim still runs North Korea, but the love of sanctions has never waned in Washington. If anything, given an aversion to casualties and a perennial quest for low-cost ways to impose its will, Washington has grown even fonder of using economic sticks with abandon. The use of sanctions rose under President Barack Obama, and again under Donald Trump; the Biden administration has not only orchestrated the unprecedented suite of sanctions on Putin’s Russia, but also taken Trump’s trade war with China even further.

Despite U.S. sanctions’ mixed record, the almighty dollar can certainly strike fear in countries that are forced to toe a punitive line they might otherwise try to skirt. Banks in third countries—say, a big French lender—could be forced to uphold Washington’s sanctions on Iran regardless of what French policy might dictate. Those so-called secondary sanctions raise hackles at times in places such as Paris and Berlin, prompting periodic calls for “financial sovereignty” from the tyranny of the greenback. But little has changed. Countries that want to continue having functioning banks have little choice but to act as the enforcers of Washington’s will.

What is genuinely surprising, as Baker chronicles, is that the growth of sanctions as the premier tool of U.S. foreign policy has not been matched by a commensurate growth in the corps of people charged with drafting and enforcing them. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury Department’s main sanctions arm, is overworked and understaffed. A lesser-known but equally important branch, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, struggles to vet a vast array of export controls and restrictions with a stagnant staff and stillborn budget. Post-Brexit Britain has faced even steeper challenges in leaping onto the Western sanctions bandwagon, having to recreate in the past few years a new body almost from scratch to enforce novel economic punishments.

Punishing Putin is not, despite the book’s subtitle, about an effort to “bring down” Russia. The sanctions—ranging from individual travel and financial bans on Kremlin oligarchs to asset forfeiture to sweeping measures intended to kneecap the ruble and drain Moscow’s coffers—are ultimately meant to weaken Putin’s ability to continue terrorizing his neighbor. In that sense, they are not working.

One of the strengths of Punishing Putin is Baker’s seeming ability to have spoken with nearly everybody important on those economic frontlines. She details the spadework that took place in Washington, London, and Brussels even before Russian tanks and missiles flew across Ukraine’s borders in February 2022, and especially in the fraught days and weeks afterward. It takes a special gift to make technocrats into action heroes.

The bulk of Baker’s wonderful book centers on the fight to sanction and undermine the oligarchs loyal to Putin who have helped prop up his kleptocracy. Perhaps, as Baker suggests, Western thinking was that whacking the oligarchs would lead to a palace coup against Putin. There was a coup, but not from the oligarchs—and it ended first with a whimper and then a mid-air bang.

There are a couple of problems with that approach, as Baker lays out in entertaining chronicles of hunts for superyachts and Jersey Island holding companies. First, it’s tricky to actually seize much of the ill-gotten billions in oligarch hands; the U.S. government is spending millions of dollars on upkeep for frozen superyachts, for example, but can’t yet turn them into money for Ukraine. And second, the offensive has not split the oligarchs from Putin: To the contrary, a Kremlin source tells Baker, “his power is much stronger because now they’re in his hands.”

At any rate, while the hunt for $60 billion or so in gaudy loot is fun to read about, the real sanctions fight is over Russia’s frozen central bank reserves—two-thirds of which are in the European Union—and the ongoing efforts to strangle its energy revenues without killing the global economy. Baker is outstanding on these big issues, whether that’s with a Present at the Creation-esque story of the fight over Russia’s reserves and the ensuing battle to seize them, or an explanation of the fiendishly complicated details of the “oil price cap” that hasn’t managed to cap Russian oil revenues much at all. More on those bigger fights would have made a remarkable book a downright stunner.

The Western sanctions on Russia, as sweeping and unprecedented as they are, have not ended Putin’s ability to prosecute the war. They have made life more difficult for ordinary Russians and brought down Russia’s energy export revenues, but they have not yet severed the sinews of war. “But, in fact, the West didn’t hit Russia with the kitchen sink,” Baker writes. Greater enforcement of sanctions, especially on energy, will be crucial to ratchet up the pressure and start to actually punish Putin, she argues. The one thing that is unlikely is that the sanctions battle will end anytime soon—not with Putin’s Russia, and not with other revisionist great powers such as China, whose one potential weakness is the asymmetric might of U.S. money.

“As long as Putin is sitting in the Kremlin,” Baker concludes, “the economic war will continue.”

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hourcat · 2 years ago

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this is based on thepavementsings' idea about real-estate agent!pierre and f1driver!charles because I couldn't stop thinking about it and i wanted to scream it in someone's askbox and I'm sorry for the following word vomit BUT pierre owns for an up & coming real estate agency and is "stealing" clients from charles' best friend's riccardo (and martha)'s real estate agency. riccardo is ofcourse pissed and will not stop talking about pierre, like at every meet up or holiday, there is a mention of pierre. even in their LC8 groupchat, he is always like "YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT THAT FRENCH FUCK DID TODAY" because he definitely turns up his nose at pierre being a frenchie trying to sell monacon estates

anyways, charles hears so often about it that it feels like he almost knows pierre. he does do his due diligence as a friend and offers words of support to ric & some half hearted jibes at "that french guy who's a thief". charles doesn't hate pierre though, he's kinda intrigued by him

then there's some award for real estate agents or something and everybody is going, riccardo, pierre, some of his other friends like giada's bf, etc but martha can't make it because baby c is being extra fussy and it's a day off for charles who's like "ofcourse i will be your date, I can always try and charm the people for next year if you don't get the award this year ;)" but really charles is curious about pierre but he can't tell riccardo about it who will leverage baby c for it smh

on the night of the award/gala, he is dressed UP for it, like he put actual efforts into it. and then 20 minutes into being there, he runs into someone at the bar and he starts apologizing before realising OH this is pierre and his brain stops. "Oh hey you must be pierre, riccardo did NOT mention you're so beautiful" and he wants to die and for a hole to swallow him in the ground but pierre just smirks and turns the compliment on charles saying that everyone else pales in comparison to him and then charles is blushing and then they try and start a conversation

pierre's like "your friends must hate me" and Charles is like "oh no, they're mostly tired of hearing about you *giggle*, maybe riccardo hates you a little bit" and then pierre is like oh yes I know him, I think he's great.

they talk for a while about everything and nothing and then just before they exchange numbers someone comes in and steals charles away and when he comes back pierre isn't there and they both spend the gala trying to find each other but unfortunately don't:(

in the next few days, LC8 minus riccardo but including martha and his brothers, hear all about pierre again and they're like NOT PIERRE AGAIN!! but listen to their disaster friend's missed chance anyways because they're good people. pascale and his brothers can not stop teasing him about it, they even bring it jokes about the westside story because that was the last movie watched on the leclerc movie night

then a huge rose bouquet shows up at charles' door, with a sticky note saying "date? check this box for yes and this for EXTRA YES *wink*" and in there is a business card of pierre and charles cant help but laugh but also he loved it because he doesn't have standards and then its a love story

(few months later, pierre and riccardo end up merging their businesses because now some russian fuck is trying to swoop in and they just cannot stand that, forget the french and monagasque "rivalry")(all of his friends tease him and pierre a lot, like it gets brought up at every single gathering. charles always threatens to leave but then pierre pulls him in at his side and they're both lost in their own world while riccardo mutters about annoying coworkers and annoying best friends)

bestie omg.....

FIRST of all. @thepavementsings you have inspired anonymous genius so i must tag you!!!

second of all. the amount of shenanigans that this could entail is. so funny. charles accidentally cinderella'd pierre and cant stop thinking about him so he straight up puts his house on the market and tells daniel "fuck off this is not about you (affectionate)" so pierre will come take the listing and finally, FINALLY give him his number. which just ends up being a disaster bc his house is so nice which means all the local agents are all over him and he keeps deleting voicemails/ignoring calls bc he has RACING to focus on and he didn't realize real estate was such a celebrity nightmare. until pierre finally gets in touch with him!!!! ("finally" it takes like three days bc the moment pierre sees charles' name pop up he SCRAMBLES to get hold of him)

they meet at charles' place and pierre is immediately so smooth, "are you going to invite me in 😏" and charles all but falls over himself as he brings pierre inside to take a look around.

except they dont talk about the place at all, they just fall right back into where they were during the gala. eventually pierre goes "you don't seem ready to leave...." and charles quietly confesses that he doesn't want to leave, but he couldn't think of any other way to get pierre here, and daniel doesn't know and it feels like a betrayal to ask him for his cute nemesis' contact information. (pierre: you think i'm cute? 😌 charles: i don't just let any pretty face inside you know 😏)

anyway eventually they do kiss before pierre leaves to like. go actually meet a client who wants to sell. and pierre tells him, softly, "you know it's going to be a pain in the ass to unlist this house, right?" and charles grimaces. until pierre goes "i will have to come by again to go over everything we have to do" and winks and charles gets SO RED

then pierre shows up w the bouquet of roses one afternoon and yeah. its all over for daniel's one sided rivalry once his bff is like "so there's this real estate agent...."

#I LUV THIS BESTIE STAY INSPIRED AND BEAUTIFUL #10 x 16 #AU tag #ask reply #Anonymous

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