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mostlysignssomeportents · 23 days ago

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Every internet fight is a speech fight

THIS WEEKEND (November 8-10), I'll be in TUCSON, AZ: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

My latest Locus Magazine column is "Hard (Sovereignty) Cases Make Bad (Internet) Law," an attempt to cut through the knots we tie ourselves in when speech and national sovereignty collide online:

https://locusmag.com/2024/11/cory-doctorow-hard-sovereignty-cases-make-bad-internet-law/

This happens all the time. Indeed, the precipitating incident for my writing this column was someone commenting on the short-lived Brazilian court order blocking Twitter, opining that this was purely a matter of national sovereignty, with no speech dimension.

This is just profoundly wrong. Of course any rules about blocking a communications medium will have a free-speech dimension – how could it not? And of course any dispute relating to globe-spanning medium will have a national sovereignty dimension.

How could it not?

So if every internet fight is a speech fight and a sovereignty fight, which side should we root for? Here's my proposal: we should root for human rights.

In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the US government was illegally wiretapping the whole world. They were able to do this because the world is dominated by US-based tech giants and they shipped all their data stateside for processing. These tech giants secretly colluded with the NSA to help them effect this illegal surveillance (the "Prism" program) – and then the NSA stabbed them in the back by running another program ("Upstream") where they spied on the tech giants without their knowledge.

After the Snowden revelations, countries around the world enacted "data localization" rules that required any company doing business within their borders to keep their residents' data on domestic servers. Obviously, this has a human rights dimension: keeping your people's data out of the hands of US spy agencies is an important way to defend their privacy rights. which are crucial to their speech rights (you can't speak freely if you're being spied on).

So when the EU, a largely democratic bloc, enacted data localization rules, they were harnessing national soveriegnty in service to human rights.

But the EU isn't the only place that enacted data-localization rules. Russia did the same thing. Once again, there's a strong national sovereignty case for doing this. Even in the 2010s, the US and Russia were hostile toward one another, and that hostility has only ramped up since. Russia didn't want its data stored on NSA-accessible servers for the same reason the USA wouldn't want all its' people's data stored in GRU-accessible servers.

But Russia has a significantly poorer human rights record than either the EU or the USA (note that none of these are paragons of respect for human rights). Russia's data-localization policy was motivated by a combination of legitimate national sovereignty concerns and the illegitimate desire to conduct domestic surveillance in order to identify and harass, jail, torture and murder dissidents.

When you put it this way, it's obvious that national sovereignty is important, but not as important as human rights, and when they come into conflict, we should side with human rights over sovereignty.

Some more examples: Thailand's lesse majeste rules prohibit criticism of their corrupt monarchy. Foreigners who help Thai people circumvent blocks on reportage of royal corruption are violating Thailand's national sovereignty, but they're upholding human rights:

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/24/21075149/king-thailand-maha-vajiralongkorn-facebook-video-tattoos

Saudi law prohibits criticism of the royal family; when foreigners help Saudi women's rights activists evade these prohibitions, we violate Saudi sovereignty, but uphold human rights:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55467414

In other words, "sovereignty, yes; but human rights even moreso."

Which brings me back to the precipitating incidents for the Locus column: the arrest of billionaire Telegram owner Pavel Durov in France, and the blocking of billionaire Elon Musk's Twitter in Brazil.

How do we make sense of these? Let's start with Durov. We still don't know exactly why the French government arrested him (legal systems descended from the Napoleonic Code are weird). But the arrest was at least partially motivated by a demand that Telegram conform with a French law requiring businesses to have a domestic agent to receive and act on takedown demands.

Not every takedown demand is good. When a lawyer for the Sackler family demanded that I take down criticism of his mass-murdering clients, that was illegitimate. But there is such a thing as a legitimate takedown: leaked financial information, child sex abuse material, nonconsensual pornography, true threats, etc, are all legitimate targets for takedown orders. Of course, it's not that simple. Even if we broadly agree that this stuff shouldn't be online, we don't necessarily agree whether something fits into one of these categories.

This is true even in categories with the brightest lines, like child sex abuse material:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/facebook-reinstates-napalm-girl-photo

And the other categories are far blurrier, like doxing:

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-camp-worked-with-musks-x-to

But just because not every takedown is a just one, it doesn't follow that every takedown is unjust. The idea that companies should have domestic agents in the countries where they operate isn't necessarily oppressive. If people who sell hamburgers from a street-corner have to register a designated contact with a regulator, why not someone who operates a telecoms network with 900m global users?

Of course, requirements to have a domestic contact can also be used as a prelude to human rights abuses. Countries that insist on a domestic rep are also implicitly demanding that the company place one of its employees or agents within reach of its police-force.

Just as data localization can be a way to improve human rights (by keeping data out of the hands of another country's lawless spy agencies) or to erode them (by keeping data within reach of your own country's lawless spy agencies), so can a requirement for a local agent be a way to preserve the rule of law (by establishing a conduit for legitimate takedowns) or a way to subvert it (by giving the government hostages they can use as leverage against companies who stick up for their users' rights).

In the case of Durov and Telegram, these issues are especially muddy. Telegram bills itself as an encrypted messaging app, but that's only sort of true. Telegram does not encrypt its group-chats, and even the encryption in its person-to-person messaging facility is hard to use and of dubious quality.

This is relevant because France – among many other governments – has waged a decades-long war against encrypted messaging, which is a wholly illegitimate goal. There is no way to make an encrypted messaging tool that works against bad guys (identity thieves, stalkers, corporate and foreign spies) but not against good guys (cops with legitimate warrants). Any effort to weaken end-to-end encrypted messaging creates broad, significant danger for every user of the affected service, all over the world. What's more, bans on end-to-end encrypted messaging tools can't stand on their own – they also have to include blocks of much of the useful internet, mandatory spyware on computers and mobile devices, and even more app-store-like control over which software you can install:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

So when the French state seizes Durov's person and demands that he establish the (pretty reasonable) minimum national presence needed to coordinate takedown requests, it can seem like this is a case where national sovereignty and human rights are broadly in accord.

But when you consider that Durov operates a (nominally) encrypted messaging tool that bears some resemblance to the kinds of messaging tools the French state has been trying to sabotage for decades, and continues to rail against, the human rights picture gets rather dim.

That is only slightly mitigated by the fact that Telegram's encryption is suspect, difficult to use, and not applied to the vast majority of the communications it serves. So where do we net out on this? In the Locus column, I sum things up this way:

Telegram should have a mechanism to comply with lawful takedown orders; and

those orders should respect human rights and the rule of law; and

Telegram should not backdoor its encryption, even if

the sovereign French state orders it to do so.

Sovereignty, sure, but human rights even moreso.

What about Musk? As with Durov in France, the Brazilian government demanded that Musk appoint a Brazilian representative to handle official takedown requests. Despite a recent bout of democratic backsliding under the previous regime, Brazil's current government is broadly favorable to human rights. There's no indication that Brazil would use an in-country representative as a hostage, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with requiring foreign firms doing business in your country to have domestic representatives.

Musk's response was typical: a lawless, arrogant attack on the judge who issued the blocking order, including thinly veiled incitements to violence.

The Brazilian state's response was multi-pronged. There was a national blocking order, and a threat to penalize Brazilians who used VPNs to circumvent the block. Both measures have obvious human rights implications. For one thing, the vast majority of Brazilians who use Twitter are engaged in the legitimate exercise of speech, and they were collateral damage in the dispute between Musk and Brazil.

More serious is the prohibition on VPNs, which represents a broad attack on privacy-enhancing technology with implications far beyond the Twitter matter. Worse still, a VPN ban can only be enforced with extremely invasive network surveillance and blocking orders to app stores and ISPs to restrict access to VPN tools. This is wholly disproportionate and illegitimate.

But that wasn't the only tactic the Brazilian state used. Brazilian corporate law is markedly different from US law, with fewer protections for limited liability for business owners. The Brazilian state claimed the right to fine Musk's other companies for Twitter's failure to comply with orders to nominate a domestic representative. Faced with fines against Spacex and Tesla, Musk caved.

In other words, Brazil had a legitimate national sovereignty interest in ordering Twitter to nominate a domestic agent, and they used a mix of somewhat illegitimate tactics (blocking orders), extremely illegitimate tactics (threats against VPN users) and totally legitimate tactics (fining Musk's other companies) to achieve these goals.

As I put it in the column:

Twitter should have a mechanism to comply with lawful takedown orders; and

those orders should respect human rights and the rule of law; and

banning Twitter is bad for the free speech rights of Twitter users in Brazil; and

banning VPNs is bad for all Brazilian internet users; and

it’s hard to see how a Twitter ban will be effective without bans on VPNs.

There's no such thing as an internet policy fight that isn't about national sovereignty and speech, and when the two collide, we should side with human rights over sovereignty. Sovereignty isn't a good unto itself – it's only a good to the extent that is used to promote human rights.

In other words: "Sovereignty, sure, but human rights even moreso."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/06/brazilian-blowout/#sovereignty-sure-but-human-rights-even-moreso

Image: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Border_Wall_at_Tijuana_and_San_Diego_Border.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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mariacallous · 13 days ago

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He wasn’t kidding. Donald Trump really does want to rule as an extremist strongman, with contempt for the planet, for America’s allies and for the rule of law. He’s made that crystal clear this week, announcing one bombshell appointment after another, each one a declaration of intent. Few things tell you more about a president than their hires – personnel is policy, as they used to say in Ronald Reagan’s White House – and Trump is telling us exactly who he is.

The latest name added to the roster is a storied one: Robert F Kennedy Jr, now lined up for the role of health secretary. You may have known of Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy may be a hero of yours. But, boy, his son is no Bobby Kennedy. Once an admired environmental campaigner, now he is an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist who promotes treatments that don’t work – such as hydroxychloroquine for Covid – and rails against those that do, spreading the long-debunked claim that childhood vaccines are linked to autism and opposing fluoridation of water to prevent tooth decay. Apparently unchastened by the pandemic, Kennedy believes US public health officials have been too focused on infectious diseases. Or as he memorably put it: “We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” If deadly pathogens could lick their lips, they would.

At least the RFK nod was not a surprise: Trump had long said he wanted to let Kennedy “go wild” with the nation’s health. More of a jawdropper is the new president’s choice for attorney general, the most senior law enforcement officer in the land: Matt Gaetz. For two years, Gaetz was under federal investigation for child sex trafficking and statutory rape. (No charges were brought.) Until this week, his fellow members of the House of Representatives were running their own ethics committee inquiry into Gaetz – handily halted, thanks to his resignation just days before they were about to report – examining, besides the allegations of underage sexual abuse, accusations that he engaged in illicit drug use, displayed to colleagues, on the floor of the House, nude photos and videos of previous sexual partners, converted campaign funds for personal use and accepted gifts banned under congressional rules.

Some wonder if naming such a man as head of the US justice department is a diversionary tactic, designed to distract attention from the clutch of other nominations that are scarcely less outrageous, in the hope that those will look reasonable by comparison. In this view, Trump knows that Gaetz will never be attorney general, that his nomination will be blocked in the Senate where, even though the Republicans have a majority, too many will balk. Gaetz is chum, thrown into the water to satisfy the piranhas, so that Trump can quietly ensure his other nominees get through. And what a rum bunch they are.

As director of national intelligence, overseeing 18 separate intelligence agencies including the CIA and NSA, Trump has turned to Tulsi Gabbard, a fringe Democratic congresswoman before she defected to the Republicans, best known for meeting Bashar al-Assad while the Syrian dictator was busy slaughtering hundreds of thousands of his own people, and for parroting Kremlin talking points.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard was swift to blame the west, even repeating the Moscow propaganda line that the US had stationed secret biolabs across Ukraine. One of Vladimir Putin’s mouthpiece TV channels took to referring to Gabbard as Russia’s “girlfriend”. When asked if she was, in fact, a Russian agent, the talking head on the Kremlin-backed network replied: “Yes.” Now consider that at the core of the US relationship with its allies – including Britain – is intelligence-sharing and ask yourself whether the likes of MI6 could in all conscience share what they know with such a person.

Her proposed counterpart over at the Pentagon, set to be in charge of the mightiest, richest military in human history, is the weekend host of Fox News’s breakfast show, Pete Hegseth. Admittedly, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan – and as a prison guard in Guantánamo Bay – but Hegseth has never run a whelk stall, let alone one of the world’s biggest organisations, employing close to 3 million people. His rank inexperience would be worrying enough, until you become familiar with what he believes.

He’s covered in tattoos, including symbols favoured by the Christian nationalist far right, among them the slogan Deus Vult and the Jerusalem cross, which celebrates the medieval Crusades when Christians earned their spurs slaughtering infidel Muslims and Jews. These days, he backs the ultra-right Jewish fundamentalists who seek to rebuild the ancient temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the site revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, a move so incendiary it’s a byword for triggering holy war.

Hegseth will find company in Trump’s choice of ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas governor and evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee. Like Hegseth, Huckabee is against a two-state solution, insists on calling the West Bank by its biblical Hebrew name – Judea and Samaria – and is adamant that “There’s no such thing as an occupation.” In 2008 he said, “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian”.

All of which makes you wonder how those many Arab and Muslim American voters in Michigan and elsewhere, persuaded that Trump had to be a better option for the Palestinians than Kamala Harris, feel now.

We’ve barely got to Lee Zeldin, Trump’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, despite having repeatedly voted against clean water and clean air legislation, and having expressed doubts over whether climate breakdown is “as serious a problem” as people say it is. Or to the self-confessed puppy killer who will head the Department of Homeland Security. Or indeed the man who will lead the new department reviewing government contracts, including, in an arrangement open to spectacular corruption, contracts with his own companies: namely, Elon Musk.

Still, you get the picture. How, then, to make sense of these choices? Some hope it’s no more than an opening bid by Trump, the arch-negotiator: offer the Senate something obviously unacceptable, then haggle from there. Others wonder if it’s part of a dark, deliberate strategy, by which Trump, the agent of chaos, appoints those who are not so much disruptors as wreckers, men and women who can be relied on to make the agencies they lead collapse in failure. When the federal government is a smoking ruin, then all power will have to reside in the single man at the top.

My own view is simpler. At the heart of it is the quality all would-be strongmen value most: loyalty. Trump knows that a character as tawdry as Gaetz, despised by his own colleagues, would owe everything to him. As attorney general, he would do whatever Trump asked, working his way through Trump’s enemies list, prosecuting whoever had crossed his boss, delivering the retribution Trump yearns for.

What’s more, Gaetz and the rest are a kind of test, one that Putin deploys often. You push your allies to defend what they know cannot be defended, to make concessions they would once have considered unpalatable. As the analyst Ron Brownstein put it this week, “Each surrender paves the way for the next.” It is, he says, “a cardinal rule of strongman dominance”.

So now it is up to the Republicans in the Senate. Will they abase themselves yet further, and nod through this parade of ghouls and charlatans? Or will they at last find their backbone and say no to the would-be autocrat who has taken over their party and now looms over all three branches of the US government? After all we’ve seen these last eight years, what do you think is the answer?

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reredram · 2 months ago

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Introduction post (Updated)

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

Open up to read more info about it.

About me

My name is Ram, you can also call me Re, Dram or Rered. I use He\Him pronounce, but don't mind any pronounce at all. I'm pansexual agender and happily taken .3

I'm 22 years old artist, but I also really like voice acting and cooking. My other interests are video games and dragons in any shape and form. I live in Russia, so I can speak on 2 languages.

About my stuff

I draw various stuff, mostly furries, monsters, dragons, and fandom stuff! Currently as this post being created, I dived deep into Rain World fandom, so most of the stuff you'll see here is RW related.

!Content Warning!

I may keep this blog sfw, but I DO draw violent stuff from time to time, such as:

Gore

Violence

Blood

Physical and mental manipulation

Horror stuff

Unnerving images

I usually put respective TWs and CWs before the post, but please, watch those only if you're sure you'll handle such. I don't say that I'm ace in drawing that, but my standarts of if it's traumatizing or not are more hardcore, since I'm more mature and traumatized myself.

Interactions

Gonna point it out so there won't be any questions.

I do allow

✓ Art interactions, such as art trades, art gifts, character interacrions and other fun stuff. I honestly like those, and could overreact if you draw me some sort of gift, bc I'm not used to it. But that's okay!

✓ Text interactions like dms and asks. Gonna clarify 2 things about it:

1. I don't mind speaking with ppl, but I do have anxiety. If you want to chat, please don't just say "hi" and void, state your point and ask away. I don't bite, but I can run away bc of my sociophobia, lol

2. If you're under 18, you're still allowed to dm me, BUT keep it NSFW free, for both yours and my safety, okay? Some of my friends are minors, and I don't mind speaking with such, but again, keeping everything clear.

✓ Collabs. If you suddenly want me for some project, like drawing something or voicing a character, don't be afraid to ask me out for it!

Extra note on my reposts. I rarely do that, since I want this blog focused on my stuff, but if I do repost some stuff, consider yourself lucky. I do it only for 2 reasons:

1. You're my bestie or a good friend and I want to support your creativity <3

2. Your stuff hit me right in the spot and I count it as extremely cool!

I don't allow

✘ NSFW in any other shape that wasn't mentioned before, that includes any kind of sexual content. I want to stay SFW artist as long as I can, I know I can easily draw furry NSFW due having needed skills, being adult and living separate from parents, but I don't want to resort to it.

✘ Ask box spam. Call me cold hearted, but I don't care about your problems. Life sucks for all of us, some more, some less, we all struggling here and I'm not paid for caring about your problems. Adapt and thrive, or die trying. Such messages will be deleted, and sender will be blocked and reported.

✘ Art thieft. I may not put signatures on most of my art because I couldn't care less, but I won't appretiate if you're steal my art and call it yours. If you like my style, or how I draw something, you can always dm me about it, you can copy my drawings for study or use it as reference. If you do so, please don't forget to mention me as inspiration or something like that, I'll greatly appretiate it.

Stuff I'm currently working on

Rain World AUs

The Frostrot - one of my biggest projects so far. I'm a co-owner of the au, original creator is @dvepalki, a good friend of mine. I'm helping him out with storyline, worldbuilding, slugcat(and other animals in general) designs, and some iterators designs! Whole plot revolves around the idea of dystopia and iterators mostly going off-string and creating own countries, with more evolved, aka anthro, scugs and scavs as citizens, after Ancients mysteriously perish. #the frostrot - main tag for this au, all the content for it could be found here Dreamscape - my personal main AU, that's based mostly on my mental shit, like sleeping patterns, traumas and ext. Currently being actively developed. Instead of seeking a way to get out of The Cycle, Ancients wanted to achieve any kind of immortality, and that's how Dreamscape was created, a wast digital mainframe, that could give you digital immortality. Iterators taking care of their creators, divided in local servers of Dreamscape. At some point, from unfortunate event, Sliver of Straw dies, and Nightmares manifests, and from here everything starts to crumble down. #rw dreamscape - main tag for this au, all the content for it could be found here Bug in a Maze - my secondary personal AU, based on concept of fact that war never changes. Currently being semi-actively developed. Ancients abandoned their pursuit for salvation, and war broke between Houses, as they rip eachother's throats for what's left of the resources. #RW Bug in a Maze - main tag for this au, all the content for it could be found here Rotstruck - my tretiary personal AU, based on idea what if iterators were furries, lol. Currently on hold, characters are only used for Discord rps Mammals and Reptilians were on a brick of a war, when global apocalypse struck down, turning almost everyone into rotstruck zombies. Pebbles, the main suspect on that case, escapes his home universe and wander around other universes, trying to find a cure not only for himself, since he's also infected, but for his whole world. #CFP: Rotstruck - main tag for this au, all the content for it could be found here

Rain World Ships

Forbidden Noodles - Cherrybush with a twist, both of scuggos are dead lmao. Basically a ship of HLL and Echo Saint, two fellas couldn't escape their demise, so they just chill and support each other. #rw forbidden noodles - tag for this ship

Side work stuff

@temple-of-srs - my side blog, dedicated to drawing SRS. You can send your prompts for this character over here!

Aaand that's about it! Enjoy your stay here!

#artists on tumblr #blog intro #pinned intro

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abloodredsettingsun · 2 months ago

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For some time, when you talked about the end of the war, you talked about a total victory for Ukraine: Ukraine would return to its 1991 borders, affirm its sovereignty in Crimea, and retake all of its territory from Russia. But in recent months, you have become more open to the idea of negotiations—through peace summits, for example, the first of which was conducted this summer, in Switzerland. What has changed in your thinking, and your country’s thinking, about how this war might end?

When I’m asked, “How do you define victory,” my response is entirely sincere. There’s been no change in my mind-set. That’s because victory is about justice. A just victory is one whose outcome satisfies all—those who respect international law, those who live in Ukraine, those who lost their loved ones and relatives. For them the price is high. For them there will never be an excuse for what Putin and his Army have done. You can’t simply sew this wound up like a surgeon because it’s in your heart, in your soul. And that is why the crucial nuance is that, although justice does not close our wounds, it affords the possibility of a world that we all recognize as fair. It is not fair that someone’s son or daughter was taken from them, but, unfortunately, there is a finality to this injustice and it is impossible to bring them back. But justice at least provides some closure.

The fact that Ukraine desires a just victory is not the issue; the issue is that Putin has zero desire to end the war on any reasonable terms at all. If the world is united against him, he feigns an interest in dialogue—“I’m ready to negotiate, let’s do it, let’s sit down together”—but this is just talk. It’s empty rhetoric, a fiction, that keeps the world from standing together with Ukraine and isolating Putin. He pretends to open the door to dialogue, and those countries that seek a geopolitical balance—China, for one, but also some other Asian and African states—say, “Ah, see, he hears us and he’s ready to negotiate.” But it is all just appearance. From our side, we see the game he is playing and we amend our approaches to ending the war. Where he offers empty rhetoric, we offer a real formula for bringing peace, a concrete plan for how we can end the war.

And yet, in 2022 and 2023, your words and actions signalled a categorical refusal to negotiate with the enemy, whereas now you seem to have opened a window to the idea of negotiating, a willingness to ask if negotiations are worth pursuing.

If we go back two years, to the G-20 summit, in Indonesia, in my video appearance, I presented our formula for peace. Since then, I’ve been quite consistent in saying that the Russians have blocked all our initiatives from the very beginning, and that they continue to do so. And I said that any negotiation process would be unsuccessful if it’s with Putin or with his entourage, who are all just his puppets.

Everyone said that we have to allow the possibility of some kind of dialogue. And I told them, “Look, your impression that Putin wants to end the war is misguided. That’s a potentially fatal mistake you are making, I’m telling you.” But, on our end, we have to demonstrate that we do have this desire for dialogue—and ours is a genuine one. Our partners think we should be at the negotiating table? Then let’s be constructive. Let’s have a first summit where we all get together. We shall write up a plan and give it to the Russians. They might say, “We are ready to talk,” and then we’d have a second summit where they say, “This formula of yours, we agree with it.” Or, alternatively, “We disagree. We think that it should be like this and like that.” This is called dialogue. But to make it happen, you have to prepare a plan without the Russians, because, unfortunately, they seem to think that they have a kind of red card, as in soccer, that they can hold up and block everything. Our plan, however—it is being prepared.

I understand that you are going to present this plan to Biden?

The victory plan is a bridge. After the first peace summit, our partners saw that Russia was not prepared for any talks at all—which confirmed my message to them and my insistence that without making Ukraine strong, they will never force Putin to negotiate fairly and on equal terms. No one believed me. They said, We’ll invite them to the second summit and they’ll come running. Well, now we have the second summit planned and they don’t look like they’ll come running.

And so the victory plan is a plan that swiftly strengthens Ukraine. A strong Ukraine will force Putin to the negotiating table. I’m convinced of that. It’s just that, before, I was only saying it and now I’ve put it all on paper, with specific arguments and specific steps to strengthen Ukraine during the months of October, November, and December, and to enable a diplomatic end of the war. The difference this time will be that Putin will have grasped the depth of this plan and of our partners’ commitment to strengthening us, and he will realize an important fact: that if he is not ready to end this war in a way that is fair and just, and instead wishes to continue to try to destroy us, then a strengthened Ukraine will not let him do so. Not only that but continuing to pursue that goal would also considerably weaken Russia, which would threaten Putin’s own position.

What happens if Biden says, “With all due respect, this is a difficult time, the election’s coming up, I’m having enough trouble with Congress without trying to increase aid packages for you,” and he rejects your request—do you have a Plan B?

We have been living in Plan B for years. Plan A was proposed before the full-scale war, when we called for two things: preventive sanctions and preventive reinforcement of Ukraine with various weapons. I told our partners, If Ukraine is very strong, nothing will happen. They didn’t listen. Since then, they have all recognized I was right. Strengthening Ukraine would have significantly lowered the probability of Putin invading.

I’m now proposing a new Plan A. This plan means we change the current course, where it’s only thanks to the strength of our military, the heroic devotion to the European values of our people and our fighters, that we have stood our ground. If you don’t want this war to drag on, if you do not want Putin to bury us under the corpses of his people, taking more Ukrainian lives in the process, we offer you a plan to strengthen Ukraine. It is not a fantasy and not science fiction, and, importantly, it does not require the Russians to coöperate to succeed. Rather, the plan spells out what our partners can do without Russia’s participation. If diplomacy is the desire of both sides, then, before diplomacy can be effective, our plan’s implementation depends only on us and on our partners.

You were right, this plan is designed, first and foremost, with Biden’s support in mind. If he doesn’t want to support it, I cannot force him. If he refuses—well, then we must continue to live inside Plan B. And that’s unfortunate.

What would that look like? I mean, if Biden says no?

That’s a horrible thought. It would mean that Biden doesn’t want to end the war in any way that denies Russia a victory. And we would end up with a very long war—an impossible, exhausting situation that would kill a tremendous number of people. Having said that, I can’t blame Biden for anything. At the end of the day, he took a powerful, historic step when he chose to support us at the start of the war, an action that pushed our other partners to do the same. We recognize Biden’s great achievement in this respect. That step of his already constituted a historic victory.

And what would you say, maybe not even to Biden but to the American public, many of whom feel that we cannot raise our engagement and support for Ukraine any further than we already have?

I would tell them that Ukraine has done everything possible to keep America out of this war, actually. Putin counted on defeating Ukraine in a quick campaign and, had Ukraine not stood its ground, Putin would have marched on. Let’s consider what the consequences would have been. Number one, you would have some forty million immigrants coming to Europe, America, and Canada. Second, you would lose the largest country in Europe—a huge blow to America’s influence on the Continent. Russia would now have total influence there. You would lose everyone—Poland, Germany—and your influence would be zero.

The American public should realize that the fact of Ukraine still standing is not the problem. Yes, war brings difficulties, but Ukraine’s resilience has allowed America to solve many other challenges. Let’s say Russia attacked Poland next—what then? In Ukraine, Russia has found fake legal ground for its actions, saying that it’s protecting Russian-speaking people, but it could have been Poland or it could have been the Baltic states, which are all NATO members. This would have been a disaster, a gut punch for the United States, because then you’re definitely involved full scale—with troops on the ground, funding, investment, and with the American economy going to a wartime footing. So saying that you have been in this war for a long time is just not true. Quite the contrary: I believe that we have shielded America from total war.

Here’s another crucial element: this is a war of postponement for the United States. It’s a way to buy time. As far as Russia is concerned, Ukraine does not even need to lose outright for Russia to win. Russia understands that Ukraine is struggling as it is; it already stands excluded from the European Union and NATO, with nearly a third of its territory occupied. Russia might decide that’s enough, so it might strike Poland just the same—in response to some provocation from Belarus, for example. And so, after two and a half years of your support and investment—for which we are very grateful—you can multiply them all by zero. America would have to start investing from scratch, and in a war of a totally different calibre. American soldiers would fight in it. Which would all benefit Russia tremendously, I should add.

During the Presidential debate, moderators asked Trump whether he wanted Ukraine to win against Russia, and he sidestepped the question. He just said, “I want the war to stop.” It must have troubled you to hear his answer and to consider the prospect of his winning.

Trump makes political statements in his election campaign. He says he wants the war to stop. Well, we do, too. This phrase and desire, they unite the world; everyone shares them. But here’s the scary question: Who will shoulder the costs of stopping the war? Some might say that the Minsk Agreements either stopped or froze the fighting at some point. But they also gave the Russians a chance to arm themselves even better, and to strengthen their fake claim over our territories they occupied.

But isn’t that yet more cause for alarm?

My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I’ve seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it’s not that simple.

Apart from Trump’s own reluctance to talk about Ukrainian victory, he has chosen J. D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential candidate.

He is too radical.

Vance has come out with a more precise plan to—

To give up our territories.

Your words, not mine. But, yes, that’s the gist of it.

His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice. This brings us back to the question of the cost and who shoulders it. The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable. But I do not consider this concept of his a plan, in any formal sense. This would be an awful idea, if a person were actually going to carry it out, to make Ukraine shoulder the costs of stopping the war by giving up its territories. But there’s certainly no way this could ever happen. This kind of scenario would have no basis in international norms, in U.N. statute, in justice. And it wouldn’t necessarily end the war, either. It’s just sloganeering.

What does it mean for Ukraine that people with such ideas and slogans are rising to power?

For us, these are dangerous signals, coming as they do from a potential Vice-President. I should say that it hasn’t been like this with Trump. He and I talked on the phone, and his message was as positive as it could be, from my point of view. “I understand,” “I will lend support,” and so on.

[Vance and others who share his views] should clearly understand that the moment they start trading on our territory is the moment they start pawning America’s interests elsewhere: the Middle East, for example, as well as Taiwan and the U.S. relations with China. Whichever President or Vice-President raises this prospect—that ending the war hinges on cementing the status quo, with Ukraine simply giving up its land—should be held responsible for potentially starting a global war. Because such a person would be implying that this kind of behavior is acceptable.

I don’t take Vance’s words seriously, because, if this were a plan, then America is headed for global conflict. It will involve Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Taiwan, China, as well as many African countries. That approach would broadcast to the world the following implicit rule: I came, I conquered, now this is mine. It will apply everywhere: land claims and mineral rights and borders between nations. It would imply that whoever asserts control over territory—not the rightful owner but whoever came in a month or a week ago, with a machine gun in hand—is the one who’s in charge. We’ll end up in a world where might is right. And it will be a completely different world, a global showdown.

Let Mr. Vance read up on the history of the Second World War, when a country was forced to give part of its territory to one particular person. What did that man do? Was he appeased or did he deal a devastating blow to the continent of Europe—to many nations, broadly, and to the Jewish nation in particular? Let him do some reading. The Jewish people are a strong power base in the United States, so let them conduct a public-education campaign and explain why millions perished thanks to the fact that someone offered to give up a sliver of territory.

When we last spoke, in 2019, Ukraine was caught in the middle of an American political scandal. There was the question of your phone call with Trump, an implicit threat to curtail U.S. aid, and the subsequent impeachment hearings against a U.S. President. I recently reread our interview, and you told me at the time, “In this political chess match, I will not let Ukraine be a pawn.” Do you worry that Ukraine has now ended up in a similar situation, used by various political actors to push their own agenda or advantage in the U.S. political context?

To be honest, the incident you mention no longer feels as relevant. That was a long time ago. And since then, many things have changed.

Nonetheless, you must have drawn some conclusions from this experience.

I think Ukraine has demonstrated the wisdom of not becoming captured by American domestic politics. We have always tried to avoid influencing the choices of the American people—that would simply be wrong. But, in that incident and elsewhere, I believe we have always demonstrated that Ukraine is definitely not a pawn, and that our interests have to be taken into account.

You have to work to maintain that every day, though. Because the second you relax, that’s exactly what will happen. A lot of world leaders want to have some sort of dealings with Putin, to reach agreements, to conduct some business with him. I look at such leaders and realize that they are very interested in playing this game—and for them, unfortunately, it really is a game. But what makes a real leader? A leader is someone whom Putin needs for something, not a person who needs Putin. Flirting with him is not a sign of strength. Sitting across the table from him might make you believe you’re making important decisions about the world. But what are those decisions really about? Has the war ended? No. Has it produced the outcome you wanted? Not yet. Is Putin still in power? Yes.

Ukraine is a very painful topic for Putin—he wanted to defeat us and couldn’t—which means that it offers a way to build a bond with him. But the truth is that you can only develop relations with Putin on his terms. That means, for instance, proposing that Ukraine should give up some of its territory. This, in a way, is the easiest thing to call for. It is very concrete. And for Putin, it’s a morsel that he doesn’t even have to cut in order to eat—you have already chewed it for him and placed it right in his mouth. When you give it to him, you think you’re so smart and cunning, that after such a gesture Putin will listen to you and support your positions. Well, tell me, when did Putin respect those who come to him from a position of weakness?

After Russia invaded, many people were inclined to compare you to Winston Churchill, Britain’s leader during the Second World War, but you’ve said in interviews that you prefer the example of Charlie Chaplin, who waged a struggle against fascism through appealing to his audience, the public. How do you regard your role as a communicator?

People are always more comfortable relying not on abstract ideas but on some specific historical examples. But it feels immodest to compare myself with the people you mentioned. That said, Chaplin had an unquestionable talent for telling a story, for finding a way to get through to people. He didn’t merely broadcast some facts and numbers—he used the language of cinema to craft an emotional narrative. He used that talent to fight fascism. As for Churchill, he was the leader of a country that found itself in very difficult circumstances, but still managed to be the only country in Europe that firmly said no to fascism. It’s not that other countries necessarily said yes—some were invaded, lost battles, or were subdued in other ways. Hitler occupied much of Europe. But from Churchill and the U.K., there was a firm no. And this no convinced America that it should become a serious ally in the war.

Let’s talk about the Kursk operation. What is its motive? And who is the intended audience: Putin, to show him that Ukraine, too, can go on the offensive, or Ukraine’s Western partners, to demonstrate to them what Ukraine can achieve if given the proper resources?

Both these motives are important, but there is more at stake here. First, it was clear to us that Russia is pressing us in the east. No matter how the Kursk operation ends, military analysts will someday calculate the speed of Russia’s progress and ask, What prevented us from stopping them earlier? How fast were they moving in the east before the Kursk operation began, and why? Ukraine had trouble mobilizing people, they might say, and didn’t have enough strength to stop them, but that is diverting the focus from the more pertinent point—namely, the fact that we should receive what we’ve been promised. I say, first give it to us, and then analyze if the root of the problem is with Ukraine or with you.

Imagine: you’re struggling in a tough war, you’re not receiving aid, you strain to maintain morale. And the Russians have the initiative in the east, they have taken parts of the Kharkiv region, and they’re about to attack Sumy. You have to do something—something other than endlessly asking your partners for help. So what do you do? Do you tell your people, “Dear Ukrainians, in two weeks, eastern Ukraine will cease to exist”? Sure, you can do that, throw up your hands, but you can also try taking a bold step.

Of course, you’re right to wonder if this action will go down in history as a success or a failure. It’s too early to judge. But I am not preoccupied with historic successes. I’m focussed on the here and now. What we can say, however, is that it has already shown some results. It has slowed down the Russians and forced them to move some of their forces to Kursk, on the order of forty thousand troops. Already, our fighters in the east say that they are being battered less frequently.

I’m not saying it’s a resounding success, or will bring about the end of the war, or the end of Putin. What it has done is show our partners what we’re capable of. We have also shown the Global South that Putin, who claims to have everything under control, in fact does not. And we have shown a very important truth to the Russians. Unfortunately, many of them have their eyes closed, they don’t want to see or hear anything. But some Russian people could not help but notice how Putin did not run to defend his own land. No, instead he wants to first and foremost look after himself, and to finish off Ukraine. His people are not a priority for him.

It has been more than a month since the start of the Kursk operation. We continue to provide food and water to the people in territories we control. These people are free to leave: all the necessary corridors are open, and they could go elsewhere in Russia—but they do not. They don’t understand why Russia didn’t come to help, and left them to survive on their own. And people in Moscow and St. Petersburg—far from Kursk—saw that, if one day the Ukrainian Army showed up there, too, it’s far from certain they would be saved. That’s important. That’s also a part of this operation: long before the war gets to these places, or there’s some other crisis, Russian people should know who they have placed in power for a quarter century, with whom they have thrown in their lot.

This war is being fought not just over territory but over values. But during war, in the name of victory, it may not always be possible to maintain these values as one might in peacetime. Do you feel that there are occasions when these two interests—democratic values and the reality of wartime—can clash, or end up in conflict? The United News TV Marathon, for example, which has been on air since the beginning of the invasion, pulls together multiple television channels to broadcast news about the war and other events in a highly coördinated way.

The truth is that journalists came together because, in the early days of the war, when people feared a total occupation of the country, no one knew what to do. Some people took off in one direction, law enforcement in another. There were even stories about how the President had run off somewhere. It was chaos. The fact is that I was among those who stayed and put an end to that chaos, and I don’t think that has led to anything so terrible. Many would say it’s one of the factors that gave people the strength to fight for their country.

But the centralization of power has a downside.

I want to finish. Journalists in Ukraine decided to join forces in order to combat Russian disinformation. I want to make it clear that simply because the news departments of these [six] TV channels have come together it does not mean the channels themselves are destroyed. They exist as they did before. They have kept their own places in the broadcast lineup. They are free to show what they want. But this telemarathon has become a resource for people who, say, have no electricity or see drones flying overhead. There have been lots of periods when there were all kinds of misinformation going around, and the telemarathon provides the truth. And you’re saying this is a bad thing. O.K., if that’s the case, I’m not insisting.

A last question about how war changes a person. It’s hard to imagine an experience with a more profound effect on the human psyche.

I’m still holding it together, if it’s me you’re talking about.

But I wonder if there are moments when you catch yourself reacting to things differently than you might have before. Do you notice you’ve changed at all?

Perhaps I’ve become less emotional. There’s simply no time for that. Just like there’s no time for reasoned discourse and arguments. I only have the opportunity to think aloud in that way during interviews. I don’t do this with my subordinates and colleagues in the government. If I were to sit down and ruminate on every decision for an hour, I would be able to make only two or three decisions a day. But I have to make twenty or thirty. ♦

#full article in the link this is just the interview #volodymyr zelenskyy #ukraine

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longjiaojiao · 8 months ago

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yeah when China and Russia vote for Palestinian rights they are like "don't actually care about human rights they just want to fuck America" and when any other country vote for Palestinian rights it's like "thank you so much you are amazing you are the best" TBH I find it funny how naive people are that you really think there is ANY government in the world that care about individual human rights... The secret is thinking and learning is actually important dude, when you really learn about history, when you look at the world from a historical perspective, when you leave behind all your contemporary morals and capitalist worldview, you find that it's all about money, yes there is no such thing as human rights for the government, there is only money. Under capitalist I mean America, political power are only an adjunct to economic power. In fact one of the greatest advantages of being a Chinese is to see the world from a perspective that is completely unconstrained by Western values. You will see that the spread of Christianity is what forced the Jews to wander in Europe. In fact after the dissolution of Rome it was the Arabs who peacefully shared the land with the wandering Jews in Europe.

There is only one country's people in the world that is protected from being discrimination due to the loss of national honor, and that is America, because obviously when the Anglo-Saxon first arrived on this land it became a nation of immigrants. I don't know what moral superiority makes some people think that "fuck Israel" and "fuck Russia" is going to do any good, this sound only makes innocent Israelis and innocent Russians suffer from more racism, and by the way makes racists more racist, more extreme and more stupid, thus the new Nazis appear, endless loop! People will only hate each other more and more if you keep saying fuck something.

People just didn't fuck the right one. The arms dealers and rich persons are the ultimate winners. Jews are not bad, but the people who make the most money in America happen to be Jews. Sometimes the religion you hold dear is just an identity in the hands of others, a tool to get more resources.

The reason why Japan government is not apologizing for their actions in WWII is that their economy is not blocked by the world after all these shit. Germany was shunned by the whole Europe and could not make money without some apology. Don't think of politics as morality, or even expect it to be humane.

I have no morality myself actually, no one will force me agree on anything I haven't learn and think about, I only have what everyone else has: the lessons of history. The protection of minors that you attach great importance to came after the animal protection, and the concept of minors was formed because of the popularity of typewriters and printing presses. The concept of minors is so new and fragile that I think that now the Internet and video have replaced typewriters and printing presses, maybe the age of minors needs to be changed. So you see morality is inherently vague, which means being careful when enforcing it too, not to be deceived by anger and hate.

Everyone go watch Princess Mononoke ten times.

在西方待久了实在受不了客体化的东方世界和低语境的伪善了…喜欢中国也不是喜欢中国的政府，而是喜欢中国的文化和历史。中国和美国这两个词就是两个极端，一个偏向文化代指，一个偏向政权代指。但非要说的话，墓志铭也得是『中国饭很好吃，死而无憾了』。

#suibianlao

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lunadreamscaper · 6 months ago

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My favorite take on Colon is that he’s the muscle of the team. But that doesn’t mean he’s just the brawn. I like to think he’s very bad ass.

Technically the canon reason on how he went from being an intern like Spooker to an actual member of P.I.E. Was because he was perfectly headshot Ghost in the head with a sniper… I don’t remember the context or what video but I know it happened bc I watched it in my high school’s computer room instead of doing class work lmao.

Anyways Ghost promoted him out of respect for his skill. B) so that’s something to go off of.

I also know he has… anger issues and is quick to lose his shit. Like when Ghost ran into the woods bc of his fear of Herbal tea. Also jealous of anyone who interacts with Spooker sometimes lol.

For some reason I used to theorize he used to be an undercover cop/detective that lost his partner on a case once. Which would explain his “skills” and weird protectiveness over Spooker.

And a thing im adding to now is that he lost his job due his nature of quickly resorting to anger which probably blew his cover in cases.

Then maybe Colon was hopping from job to job for a bit, like Uber Driver, since he was Ghost’s Uber driver who decided to tag along on a case and the rest is history. He probably missed investigation like jobs and thought ghost hunting would be a good fit.

Speaking of which i feel like he came up with that last name on the spot to make it more appealing or convincing to Ghost bc there’s no way there’s two motherfuckers with the word “Ghost” in their last names/lh/hj

I barely remember any of the details of this headcanon I had and never shared so idk if I’ll keep it but I do like the idea of it though it’ll obviously be different from want my old self had in mind.

Though a fun thing to think about is that Colon said he was from Europe (the Netherlands) and apparently has some sort of connection with the VT world’s version of Russia- Jesus is that why people thought he was a communist 😭 aside from him not liking democracy, bro— anyways it was mentioned during the Elevator game mode in the 5 year anniversary stream. Good stream, lots of lore definitely recommend. He must’ve had some sort of job before pie and stuff though that teaches you to block out your mind from like telepaths or something (watch the stream I just mentioned that’s all I’m gonna say)

Also semi related but I like to headcanon him as some sort of VT-ified of a witchcraft practitioner just because in the Johnny Ghost moving video there’s a comment made on Colon practicing “dark magic” to bring spooker back, though I feel like it could’ve been a misunderstanding on the “dark” part 😭 but anyways I myself am… well I’m a “witchling” but I think it’d be cool to add to his character personally. (Need to do more research tho do make sure it’s done right B) )

#taleblr #venturiantale #venturiantale pie #larrydacat #venturiantale headcanons #venturiantale lore #vt colon #chris colon ghostie #chris colon #vt chris colon ghostie

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warcrimesimulator · 1 year ago

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Really rubs me the wrong way when people who haven't been supporting Ukraine feel the need to point out the hypocrisy in a lot of western rhetoric about Palestine. "Oh its not terrorism when Ukrainians fight back" or "So it's a war crime when Russia bombs Ukrainian cities but when Israel does it they're 'defending itself'" like these are valid points but I don't exactly want to hear these points from the same people who have been jumping through hoops to make excuses for what Russia is doing. What about your own hypocrisy. What is happening in Gaza is straight-up genocide (and it is!) but in Ukraine it's because of something-something NATO. There are horrific videos and images from both Palestine and Ukraine of dead civilians, injured people being pulled out from rubble, crying and traumatized children- how is this more or less horrifying depending on geographic location?

And I could absolutely talk about the hypocrisy of Ukraine-supporting Zionists but that wouldn't be very relevant to Tumblr, where you can support Russia's invasion of Ukraine and still have a massive platform with no major backlash especially from other leftists.

One of the popular pro-Palestinian blogs on here, recently banned and treated like some kind of fucking martyr, was someone who wasn't merely silent on Russia's invasion of Ukraine or into "both sides"ism- she was explicitly pro-invasion and went as far to defend, not deny, Russia's genocidal act of kidnapping Ukrainian children.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of Ukraine supporters are vile, fascist pieces of shit and this is something I've never been afraid to address and have addressed many times including bringing my frustrations about it to Tumblr (and for people who got a laugh out of my blocklist of anti-Ukrainian users, if you want an actual Ukrainian reactionary, who also hates Palestinians, to block look no further than @/bbloggmaym3, I have a shit ton of receipts on them), but it's far more relevant to my experiences on Twitter than it is to my experiences here. I don't like that a lot of prominent users here who make popular posts about Palestine are okay with Ukrainian civilians being bombed and killed for the same reason that I don't like that a lot of Ukrainians and Ukraine-supporters on Twitter cheer on the ethnic cleansings committed by Israel and Azerbaijan. None of you are seeing heaven's light.

#I think terror bombing civilians is always evil sorry if that apparently makes me a liberal or god forbid a fascist

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mikeo56 · 1 year ago

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Witness - by Mr. Fish

Films about war, shorn of the bone crushing fear, the putrid stench of the corpses, the deafening noise of explosions, the constant exhaustion and the nervous anxiety that comes with trying to understand what is happening in the terrifying chaos, are pale and inadequate reflections of the vast enterprise of industrial slaughter. And these are the good films, of which there are only a few.

Most feature war films and documentaries, from The Sands of Iwo Jima to Saving Private Ryan, are war pornography. They romanticize those wielding the terrible instruments of death. They justify the unjustifiable. They pay homage to the war machine. They entice naïve young men and women into becoming cannon fodder. They distort the public’s perception of war, leaving those who return from war and attempt to speak the awful truth alienated and ignored.

Those in war who do the fighting, endowed with a god-like power to kill, are a minority. The real face of war is the hardship and grief suffered by civilians caught up in the maw of destruction. Their stories are hard to hear. Their fate is hard to see, which is why images from war are always sanitized. If we truly saw war, it would be so shocking, so disturbing, so disgusting, war would be hard to wage. The best accounts of war, for these reasons, eschew scenes of combat.

The documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” a chronicle of the first 20 days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, captures what I witnessed as a war correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. It fails, as all films about war must fail, but it succeeds where few films about war succeed. It relentlessly rips back the veil on war - fatally wounded children and pregnant women torn apart by shell fragments; the frantic and doomed efforts of doctors to save them; the shrieks and lamentations of those cradling the bloodied bodies of the dead; the collapse of the social order once the fragile structures of a civil society cease to exist and looting and pillage become a way to survive. In war there are only predators and prey.

War is ugly and tawdry. Violence creates nothing. It only destroys — human beings, animals, schools, homes and apartment blocks, hospitals, bridges. It is the purest expression of death. All the forces that nurture and sustain life — familial, civil, social, cultural, ecological — are slated for obliteration.

Associated Press video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and his colleagues, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, documented the first three weeks of the Russian assault on the port city of Mariupol. The three Ukrainian reporters were the only ones from a foreign news agency to remain in the city. The movie draws from 25 hours of film, only 40 minutes of which were transmitted to the AP editors. Much of the footage, even if it could all have been transmitted, would never have been disseminated. It is too graphic.

The film focuses exclusively on Russian atrocities. It ignores those committed by Ukrainians. I covered enough wars to know there were some. The neo-Nazi Azov Regiment, and other fascist-inspired militias, played a major role in the fighting in Mariupol. These militias have been accused of terrorizing and executing ethnic Russians and those suspected of sympathizing or working with separatists. The Azov Regiment’s symbol is a black “Wolfsangel,” an emblem used by Nazi units in World War II. The regiment embraces the fascist ideology of blood and soil. The fascist militias are absent in the film. This is by design. The journalists do not address the plight of ethnic Russians, although Mariupol is a largely Russian-speaking city. While most in the city consider themselves to be Ukrainian, almost half also identify as Russian. These ethnic Russians usually blame the war in the Donbas, which has been raging since 2014 and where the city is located, on the government in Kyiv.

What happened to the ethnic Russians and separatists the Ukrainians considered collaborators? Were Ukrainian military units using hospitals as bases of operations in violation of the Geneva Conventions? There were scenes of armed Ukrainian soldiers in hospital corridors. The documentary leaves these questions unanswered.

It is not that what we see in the film is not true. Rather, it is that the film omitted what would not reflect well on Ukraine. When you depend on military units for protection and logistics you censor your reporting. If the reporters had reported on the abuses and atrocities carried out by Ukrainian units the protection they received would have been withdrawn. As much as I admire the documentary, the lie of omission is still a lie. It is the most common lie told in war. Only reporters who dare to report without embedding in military units are free to report the truth. But this is very dangerous and lonely work. This willful self-censorship is a serious flaw in the film, but it does not distract from the power of the visceral footage or the courage of the reporters.

There are almost no scenes of combat other than the burning remains of an anti-aircraft battery, the thud and explosion of Russian shells, the billows of black smoke, the roar of Russian jets, the distant rattle of machine guns and the occasional Ukrainian soldier firing down a deserted street.

The film, as all films about war should, focuses on the human detritus. We see elderly men and women, who have lost their homes and possessions, boiling snow to get water. We see bewildered civilians huddled in basements. We see the shelling of a maternity hospital and graphic pictures of wounded and dead pregnant women. We see the frantic efforts, which fail, to save gravely wounded children, including a 4-year-old girl named Evangelina. We see the wailing mothers and fathers who clutch the bodies of their dead children, kissing them one last time before wrapping up their small, pale corpses. We see the rows of corpses in the hospital basement. We see the tears of medics and doctors as they struggle fruitlessly to save lives. We see the heroic work of firefighters and then we see some of their dust covered lifeless bodies in the bombed out remains of their firehouse. We see the freshly dug trenches where the dead, including those of children, are piled one on top of the other, at first wrapped in green garbage bags and later dumped unceremoniously into the pit as exposed corpses.

“War is like an X-ray: all human innards are visible,” a doctor says in the film. “Good people become better. Bad people become worse.”

We also see the daily life of war reporters. Reporters intrude into the lives of those who have undergone unspeakable tragedies and trauma. Many of those filmed feel as if they are being treated by the press like exotic zoo animals, on display for cameras and foreign audiences. They spit venom at the reporters. “Prostitutes,” one enraged father snaps at the journalists. There is a mercenary quality to our work, however important it is to tell the story. While we chronicle the horror we are usually numb, although what we see and hear comes back to haunt us, especially at night, for the rest of our lives.

By the 11th day of the assault, with the Russians blockading the city from all three sides, the AP journalists must, at great risk, defy the curfew to hunt for a wireless connection. The life of a war reporter is consumed by these kinds of logistics, trying to get from one location to the next, trying to find out what is happening, trying to get a satellite or cell phone connection so pictures and reports can be sent.

War reporters have a privileged status. We have powerful institutions that support us. We do not go hungry. We have body armor and armored cars. Those with far less protection and resources ensure we are protected and evacuated so the story can be told. Reporters and photographers, of course, can be wounded and killed. But our chances of survival are enhanced by our status. Volodymyr, a police officer, takes tremendous risks to help extract the AP journalists from a hospital surrounded by the Russian forces. He assists the journalists in escaping the city with their footage. We accept this status. We rationalize to ourselves that we deserve it. But we also are acutely aware that those whose stories we tell are often abandoned and that no matter the risks, no matter how many atrocities we document the world is largely indifferent. By the time the Russians took Mariupol an estimated 25,000 people were dead.

“Thousands have died,” says Chernov, who narrates the film. “We keep filming, but everything stays the same.” He refers to the forlorn hope of Volodymyr, who said that “the image of a dead child will change the war, but we have seen so many deaths, how can we change anything?”

War reporters live with profound shame and guilt, as Chernov admits in the film. Few war reporters are neutral observers. We take the risks we take because we want justice. We want those who ordered and committed these crimes to be held accountable. Stories I wrote for The New York Times documenting Bosnian Serb atrocities were used as evidence in the International Court in the Hague to prosecute war criminals. This is why I wrote them. Chernov says in the film that he hopes one day his images will also bring some of the perpetrators to justice.

There is a brief clip of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, claiming that the images transmitted by the AP reporters from the bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol were staged, carried out by actors.

Brazen lies are always the official answer to the crimes we expose. The Israeli government has turned lying into an art form. Israeli soldiers indiscriminately murder Palestinian civilians, including children, and blame the Palestinians for their own deaths or Hamas for using them as human shields or insist the civilians were combatants. During the war in Sarajevo the besieging Bosnian Serbs tried to float the lie that Bosnian army snipers in Sarajevo were killing their own civilians to garner international support, as if a city being peppered with constant sniper fire and hundreds of shells a day lacked adequate numbers of wounded and dead.

The film is mostly chronological. Each day is documented as the Russian forces tighten the noose. Those interviewed in earlier parts of the film appear later, sometimes as corpses. Death is a constant companion. You look for someone, even a friend, and find out they no longer exist. The film does a masterful job of communicating the randomness of death, the indiscriminate fury of modern weapons and the helplessness of those caught in war’s blood-soaked embrace. It isn’t war. But it comes as close as you can get.

#war #ukraine #russia #chris hedges #war ponography #fish

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nnugatoryextravagance · 2 months ago

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I need to stop liveblogging every silly scuffle I have with youtube but this is so fucking comical to me

-The song there is Drift Away, this song was a fuckin staple on the local rock n roll radio station when I was a kid everyone knows that song and I was fully expecting a claim due to this fact, "not publicly available" my asshole

-That timestamp also includes about half of the bigtop burger clip with Cesare threatening to crash his car (???)

-The very first second of this timestamp is also completely silent and is the clip of Jevil in a wheelchair (????????)

For some reason only this claim out of all three is what got it blocked in two territories and for some reason those territories were, just Belarus and Russia? Weird picks but I guess sorry to the russians you don't get to watch my video about my stupid vocal stims

#sludgetalkz #i was assuming it got blocked in the us but since not i might just leave it i genuinely cannot be assed #or at least gonna take longer to fix it because i dont feel like it im gonna be real dude i went to bed at 2am and i feel like death today

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khiphop-discussions · 6 months ago

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Hi, just wanted to ask if you use any khh music for your yt videos? If so, how do u bypass the copyright?

Thanks! 🤍

I do!

I'm gonna go a bit in depth into this part about bypassing the copyright because I usually DON'T:

Neither of my 2 recent videos got any claims or strikes. The "harsh opinions" only used instrumentals on (one was even from SMTM11) so I think that's one MAJOR reason why they didn't get a copyright claim. Also, I've heard people say they turn the volume down really low and that's a way to dodge it but sometimes it doesn't work so that's generally considered an outdated trick.

The second video was 2024 Awards. Was shocking to me because there's SOOO many songs in that one. The 2022 Awards was partially blocked (copyright + blocked in some countries, in this case in Russia? It was BTBT by BI) and many of the other videos where I used songs were copyright claimed. I think the difference here was that the clips of the songs/music videos I used in the 2024 were around 5-6 seconds whereas the clips from 2022 Awards (and the other videos) were 10+ seconds. Using short clips is a well known way for people to avoid copyrights on YouTube so I guess this method isn't as outdated (but how often will someone need to use less than 10 seconds)?

For reaction videos, I usually CAN'T avoid a copyright strike at all. I'm using the whole song, whole video, and there needs to be a certain amount of volume. Many reaction channels have this issue. Sometimes the videos get blocked altogether. In that case, I usually appeal them. There's a form to fill out where you can say that it is a "reaction video" and then write in an explanation for how your video is different from the original. this usually results in the block being lifted but not the copyright. Recently, for SMTM11 at least, the blocks haven't been lifted all the time. Some were while other weren't. IDK if it was because my explanation wasn't convincing or if they just didn't want certain songs/videos reuploaded. You CAN appeal again in this case, but if the block is upheld a second time then you will get a copyright strike and that's the one that's really bad. I think after 3 copyright strikes, your account is banned. Also, you can't monetize at all if you have ANY copyright strike within a certain amount of time (I think within about 6 months from the day you apply to be monetized?)

Copyright claims aren't that big of a deal for me because I'm not monetized. I think if you're monetized then you just won't be able to monetize those specific videos with copyright claims OR any ad revenue for those just goes straight to the copyright holder. In my case (if I was monetized), that would be CJE&M for the SMTM videos. So if you are monetized or are planning to be then copyrights are important.

#asks

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findinginga · 9 months ago

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“If the ending is this painful…

...I don’t know if this was worth it all.” Dustin Thao (You've Reached Sam)

"Goin' to Chicago. Sorry I can't take you..." (Count Basie and Jimmy Rushing)

I was approaching Chicago in the early evening of 4 December. Driving the last stretch of I-65 north through Northwest Indiana, a light snow began to fall. Passing the many interchanges in the area, I arrived at the exit to I-90 and, shortly after, the toll booth at the Chicago Skyway. The silhouettes of downtown Chicago buildings could be clearly seen despite through the periodic snow flurries. I made my way to the short-term apartment for which I had negotiated a rental agreement weeks before. I selected accommodations within a half city block of the emergency department doors. At least I would have a short walk.

Over the following days I easily fell into a work routine after meeting staff and getting familiar with the hospital geography. When last I worked in the area, the very old and antiquated county facility was still in operation. The new hospital complex was an environment with which I had no experience; however, I was able to "get up to speed" without much difficulty.

The days passed quickly with the exception of one brutally cold week which made even my short walk a little painful. The wind which blows through the city at this time of the year is known as "The Hawk" for good reason. Christmas 2022 was quickly upon me and then passed without anything to note. Inga and I continued to exchange messages; although, the occasional video calls that Inga would initiate, as she was walking to school to retrieve Eva, had to be stopped as I was generally in the area of the hospital and had to be sensitive to confidentiality issues. Over this entire time I had not broached the topic of Inga's early November trip to St. Petersburg. I was avoiding confrontation with her so as not to lose focus on the work before me. As it was now nearly impossible to send parcels to Russia via the usual carriers, I had to rely upon Inga to secure a gift for Eva in preparation for the arrival of Father Christmas

The new year, 2023, arrived with Inga and I exchanging New Year's Eve greetings at about 6:00 pm (midnight in Pskov). An hour later, I began covering a shift in the emergency department. Between my temporary assignment in Chicago and ongoing research-related work in which I was engaged, time seemed to accelerate. However, I still allowed ample time to communicate with Inga even though our exchanges were light and breezy. There was no discussion of securing visas even though I would occasionally forward available real estate listings for different regions of Cyprus to solicit Inga's opinion and, perhaps, action, despite my ever growing doubts of her sincerity. Her responses had the character as though she were "shining me on" so; there was little reason to constantly revisit the topic.

Throughout this time I continued to provide financial support to Inga in the only legal way that was available. This required my purchase of Bitcoin and then the electronic transfer to Inga who would redeem the Bitcoin for rubles. It was a mystery to me as to just how Inga was making these transactions. One of the facts uncovered by PI Lab investigators was that Inga did not have a TIN which is supposedly required to create financial accounts within the Russian Federation. This was highlighted to me in a previous report where it was noted that Denis traveled to Aktau, Kazakhstan on 16 September 2022. He remained for one day, apparently to create a bank account through a Non-Resident Mutual Assistance agreement. It would be inappropriate of me to suggest some sort of conspiracy between Inga and Denis on this matter but it does imply an odd coincidence.

With the arrival of February, things got strange...once again!

As I approached my last few weeks in Chicago I began to perceive a shift in the tenor of Inga's messages. Over the previous weeks she had been mostly upbeat but she was progressively becoming more distracted by personal issues. Of course, Inga would not speak of the details even though she would mention that she was experiencing some form of conflict. What little she did share gave the impression that it was a problem with the apartment in which she and Eva were living. She suggested that she may be forced to move, expressing her frustration that the owner was suddenly becoming difficult. When I asked her to elaborate on this, she quickly parried my questions and minimized the issue. I could have, maybe should have, pursued this with more vigor. After all, I knew that the flat in which Inga, Eva and Denis had been living was owned by the father of Denis. I did not keep it a secret that I learned of these property ownerships through the work of the investigators. It may have been Inga was being purposefully provocative in speaking about her apartment issues. It seemed she wanted me aware of a problem and a potential move without revealing much else.

Related to the concerns Inga was expressing regarding her living situation was the unsolved mystery of asset distribution secondary to the divorce decree. As I have previously written, according to Russian Federation law, marital assets are to be equally divided in the event of divorce in the absence of a superseding agreement. This raised the question as to why Inga would be fretting over such matters when she should have assets with which to work. This is assuming the divorce was more than just a legal contrivance, which the PI Lab investigators were speculating was the case. Mikhail Levko remarked, on more than one occasion, that the divorce was legal but seemed "odd" by not dealing with asset distribution.

Another trip to Saint Petersburg

On 17 February 2023, Inga informed me that she and Eva were traveling to St. Petersburg over the weekend. Inga stated they were traveling with the express purpose of visiting the Cypriot Consulate. This seemed rather odd as the consulate offices are not open over the weekend. It would be necessary for her to remain through Monday 20 February. Given the way Inga framed her plans, I contacted PI Labs as her reasoning seemed just an attempt to placate any suspicions I may have had regarding her motives.

Mikhail produced a summary report of Inga's trip almost immediately after her return to Pskov:

We received information from the surveillance cameras of the St. Petersburg city monitoring centre. The monitoring centre checked for the presence of either the Skoda and Volvo vehicles registered to Denis. According to the centre, the Skoda with number E 244 KU 60 was fixed by surveillance cameras in the period from 18.02.2023 to 20.02.2023. On 18.02 2023, at 15:00, the Skoda arrived in the city of St. Petersburg. On 19.02.2023, at 09:40, the car began driving from Repischeva Street, 11/9. The car proceeded to the city center, then at 13:00 arrived at MEGA DYBENKO shopping mall, located on Murmonsky highway. There was an exhibition of pictures and photos in the shopping mall and this may have been the reason for their travel.

20.02.2023 at 13:00 the Skoda and occupants left the city of St. Petersburg, in the direction of the city of Pskov.

Given the limited amount of time spent in St. Petersburg, the trip seemed purposeful, but not to apply for visas. Once again we see Inga and Denis traveling together and, while in St. Petersburg, staying at the home of Inga's brother, Nikita. Whatever issues to which Inga alluded the previous days related to Denis or his father, it appears not to have influenced this trip as a family.

A further report by PI Labs confirmed that no visa application was received for Inga and Eva by the Cypriot consulate.

Suddenly, a trip to Sochi...

Shortly before my planned departure from Chicago, Inga announced that she and Eva would be traveling to Sochi for a few days. When I initially asked her the purpose of the hastily planned trip, Inga replied by stating that she made the travel arrangements almost a year prior and she she needed to make the trip to avoid losing the money previously spent. It is important to note that a few weeks later, Inga would emphatically deny having made this claim. As I distinctly remembered the discussion I searched archived messages only to find these comments by Inga written 24 February 2022:

Ingeborga: Each day wake up and get shocked more and more Ingeborga: They closed Sochi airport! I have to go there in a few days

Indeed, she had planned a trip to Sochi the year before but because air travel was halted, she was unable to make the trip. It was unclear to me as to why Inga would attempt to gaslight me with her denial. Inga eventually described the purpose of the trip as an attempt to look for a job and how she had been disappointed by friends. How much of it all was true, will remain an unknown.

Okay, I am done...there is no point!

At about 7:00 am on 26 February 2023, I had loaded up the car and was headed toward the entrance of the Dan Ryan Expressway. I would have about 14 hours to drive and think. I concluded that my first step would be to cease all financial support. The last Bitcoin purchase and transfer made was the day before and I vowed it would be the last. I could not be sure how it was being used or even who who was using it There appeared to be no serious effort being made by Inga to change her living situation. I had given her options and was willing to support her in making the change. But she demonstrated no initiative on the matter betraying her true intentions. It was the trip to Cancun all over again - say anything but do nothing. For the time being, I would remain silent about my decisions and assess Inga's reactions for change.

A few days after my return from Chicago I was able to settle back into a routine at home. Inga and I continued to exchange messages but Inga was reporting more stress and announced an imminent move to an apartment she described as "dirty". Within the same time frame, Inga communicated that she had lost her phone - an iPhone that I previously purchased and shipped to her. Following that announcement, Inga purged the entire communication thread between us on Telegram. When I asked the reason for her actions she claimed that she wanted to be sure that if her phone was found, it would not contain any sensitive financial information. Okay, sure!!!

My understanding of Inga, which evolved through a long period of observation and personal pain, told me that these were not a random series of events. The inevitable confrontation occurred. It was necessary for me to withdraw from regular contact with Inga. It was necessary for me to stop assisting her. I had been feeding her narcissistic supply with a steady stream of high availability along with emotional and financial support.

I was guilty of being Inga's enabler!

#relationship #pskov #dating scam #narcissistic sociopath #ingeborga #scam #npd #reshetnikov #jewellerysiren #lopatyuk #covert npd #sochi

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mariacallous · 9 months ago

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Since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, a constant challenge for outside observers has been divining Russian public opinion. Making sense of what Russians “really think” has never been simple, but wartime censorship, an unrelenting crackdown on dissent, and the fact that few now travel to Russia make this task all the more difficult.

We do know about pro-war Russians, as they can more openly express views that typically align with official government narratives. Anti-war exiles are also vocal for the obvious reason that the Russian authorities cannot so easily punish them abroad for criticizing the “special military operation.” But it’s risky to conflate emigres with the anti-war Russians who never left. Many in the West seem to assume that Russians who dare oppose the war are either in prison or exile. In reality, anti-war Russians are far more than the alphabet soup of exiled organizations and activists who have tried to lead or at least influence the movement against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Like clouds, this group doesn’t have sharp edges. Its views are sometimes incoherent and contradictory and always a work in progress. The group eludes simple definition, but its core beliefs haven’t changed: principled opposition to war and violence, fatigue with Putin’s long authoritarian rule, and a yearning for some semblance of a democratic future in Russia.

To find out what has changed over the past two years, we spoke (on condition of anonymity) to several anti-war Russians still living in Russia about the trajectory of their views on the war and how it’s affected their lives.

On the back burner

The war has become part of daily life somewhat in the way Russia’s increasingly authoritarian political system became normalized over the preceding two decades. Although the invasion continues to dominate news headlines, the regular reports on missile and drone strikes, frontline battles, and civilian suffering have morphed into a kind of white noise that people can partly block out.

Most who spoke to us described the heavy emotional toll that staying up to date with the war takes on their mental well-being. At the beginning of the invasion, it was easy to get trapped in a vicious cycle of doom scrolling, watching video after video of destroyed buildings, and reading horrific reports of besieged cities and mass murder. In the throes of disbelief, people frantically sought out information. But constant exposure to distressing news is exhausting and disorienting, especially when you lack the power to change anything.

Two years later, some anti-war Russians have tuned out the uninterrupted flow of news about the war in Ukraine and political repressions at home. As one person in St. Petersburg explained: "If something really important happens, then I'll find out about it, one way or another." When talking about her decision to disconnect entirely, a graduate student told us, "The only piece of news worth reading now is news that the war has ended."

At the same time, events that are harder to ignore, like the deadly attack on the city of Belgorod that killed more than two dozen people in December, increasingly fail to elicit shock. For some, the surprising part is that attacks like these didn’t happen earlier.

In daily conversation — whether via messaging apps or face-to-face — simply mentioning the war can be a faux pas. It’s an energy drain, and it’s naive to keep raking over something no one can do anything about, let alone argue about the war when many took a side long ago. The initial hyper-divisiveness over the invasion has faded somewhat. But like a pot on the back burner, you can’t completely ignore it.

In search of normalcy

It’s often said that the Russian authorities seek to create a sense of “normalcy” at home despite the far-reaching and detrimental impact the war is having on the country, from the thousands killed or injured on the battlefield to a buckling economy. That much is true. But so, too, ordinary Russians do part of this work for themselves as they seek to maintain the “normalcy” in their own lives.

A news-free diet can be just part of this coping strategy, as can discussing anything but the war. When, back in January and early February, we asked our contacts in Russia what news stories stood out to them the most in recent months, they didn’t mention missile or drone attacks or bring up any of the near-daily jailings over “war fakes” or “discrediting” the armed forces.

Instead, they brought up stories like the star-studded “Almost Naked” party that sparked a conservative backlash in December, as well as the pet cat named Twix, who last month was thrown from a train by a railroad employee and froze to death in January, causing an uproar on social media.

It’s bewildering that stories like these would capture the attention of a public whose country is entangled in a war with its neighbor. Behind-the-scenes political engineering might partly explain the attention — the Kremlin allegedly sought to fan the flames of public outrage over Nastya Ivleeva’s scandalous party.

Fixation on these otherwise trivial events would suggest a desire for relief and diversion from the war, to engage in a shared, risk-free experience. Both the “Almost Naked” party and Twix the Cat are relatable to so many Russians who know the celebrities involved in the scandalous event and are cat owners themselves. But the bottom line is that the media environment, despite overt state censorship (as well as self-censorship), is in many ways still like any other society.

In some respects, the story of Boris Nadezhdin’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency and the emotional response to Alexey Navalny’s death should be seen in the same light. The personal feelings these events bring out show how people need some kind of release. In Nadezhdin’s case, pro-peace Russians discussed his platform, personality, and history with animation. That he skyrocketed in popularity reflects a public starved of the much-desired opportunity to talk real politics. In Navalny’s death, people projected the loss of hopes and deep feelings of grief much bigger even than the man himself.

Of course, not all adaptation is strictly political in nature. There are also more mundane approaches to adjusting to war and life under sanctions.

As one young woman in Moscow told us: “We’re Russians, we’re used to adapting, living a hard life” — a long-standing cliche about Russians’ ability to accept suffering and isolation. Mundane adaptation can mean many things, and some of it is proactive. People are focusing more on their pastimes, both consumption-oriented activities like eating out or shopping but also vacationing, sports, and other hobbies.

Narrowing horizons

One constant is growing pessimism. The unrealistic clutching at straws, such as Nadezhdin’s election bid, is itself a sign of the general malaise — the search for a silver lining. Uncertainty about the future cannot really be distracted from or adapted to, and it was in discussing future prospects that our contacts gave some of their most candid responses.

How do anti-war Russians envision the future? As one person put it: “More of the same, but worse.” Several others echoed this sentiment, if only in different words.

No doubt, the war has wreaked havoc with life plans, sometimes dramatically. The uncertainty has forced Russians to narrow their planning horizons to weeks or, at best, months, which feeds into the coping strategy of focusing on the small and mundane aspects of their lives they do control. “There’s no way I can think about what could happen more than a few months from now,” explained one young man, who said he worries about being drafted into the army. “We play things by ear because, who knows, maybe there will be another mobilization after the elections.”

Similarly, the war and its impacts on society have been an exercise in managing expectations. When Moscow first invaded Ukraine, anti-war Russians could have vaguely hoped that Kyiv would swiftly push out invading forces, as Western support seemed boundless and Ukrainian society was rallying. When Ukraine’s army pulled off a stunning counteroffensive in September 2022, this sort of scenario seemed all the more plausible, even if “victory” itself remained a fuzzy idea.

But as the front line has barely inched forward for months, and both sides show no sign they’ll agree to a peace deal soon, anti-war Russians have resigned themselves to the chance that the conflict could last for several more years. Facing this prospect, few of them are thinking about the invasion in terms of winners and losers. They see only destruction. And so, many anti-war Russians now hope for any kind of end to the conflict, even if it means large territorial concessions by Kyiv.

It’s worth emphasizing, though, that this loss of prospects or “fear for the future,” as Russian pollsters call it, also has a continuity about it — it links to the entire trajectory of Putinism going back to 2011-12 and dissatisfaction with his return. The war makes it more acute and more broadly felt, except among a narrow category of economic winners. But this group is relatively small.

Amid all of this, some anti-war Russians have come to view Ukrainian President Voloydymr Zelensky as an unreasonably obstinate figure as he insists on restoring control over all of his country’s internationally recognized territory. “His rhetoric is harsh,” one young woman said of Zelensky, only to clarify immediately: “But it’s not as though I’m saying I like Putin. He’s much worse. But that’s obvious.”

In this way, a trend that began a while ago is becoming more visible, as even some anti-war Russians are starting to believe that Ukraine’s continued resistance is making the conflict worse or at least prolonging unnecessary suffering.

We should be careful not to misinterpret this as anti-Ukrainian sentiment rearing its head among those who oppose the invasion, as they hardly blame Ukraine for the war or its impact back in Russia — whether those be deadly attacks on cities like Belgorod or sanctions.

And yet they do expect Kyiv and the West to bend more rationally to their own country’s intransigence. “Putin is ready to wait this out,” one person told us. And with Western support for Ukraine still up in the air, “it looks like Ukraine will lose territory, either way,” they say, and “so, it’s better to reach a peace agreement now than to let more people die.”

This is said without any enthusiasm for the “gains” made in the Donbas.

* * * *

In the days following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, one of this essay’s authors observed that many Russians were retreating into forms of denial to help them cope with disbelief at the fact that their country attacked its neighbor. Rather than an enthusiastic rallying around the flag, this was a negative patriotic response of “defensive consolidation,” in which feelings of victimhood and bitterness permeate. It was neither support nor condemnation of the invasion.

After two years of war, international isolation, and unabated political repression at home, mixed with an immense feeling of powerlessness, anti-war Russians have grown more detached and defensive about the conflict and its impacts, somewhat in the way that those in denial were from the very beginning. These Russians are still deeply against the invasion, but they are also exhausted by the uncertainty it creates and increasingly disillusioned from their past hopes for positive change in their country.

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