Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

[Frelga]

It was a good thread. A corollary is that Putin uses no nazi/denazification in the Soviet sense as well. Nazis are bad not because of Holocaust, extreme authoritarian regime, etc. but because they attacked Russia. It makes sense if you consider that Stalin only narrowly avoided being remembered as the worst villain of the 20th century because Hitler was even worse.

[RoseMorninStar]

If Nazi's are thought of as bad in Russia because they attacked and invaded Russia, is the implication that Ukraine (alleged Nazism) is bad because they were a threat to attack Russia? So are THEY now the Nazi's since they attacked and invaded Ukraine? That really doesn't make sense. Not that I think Putin was going for making sense but for the fear factor/justification. I think Putin believes 'Western values/depravity' (LGBTQ especially it seems) is a threat to the Russian way of life.

[RoseMorninStar]

Resistance in Belarus. Ukrainian Railways Chief Says 'Honest' Belarusians Are Cutting Russian Supplies By Train

“At the present moment, I can say that there is no railway connection between Ukraine and Belarus. I cannot discuss details, but I am grateful to Belarus’s railway workers for what they are doing,” he said.

Also, to go with my earlier post on Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church/history: Putin's 'Holy War' for Russia. It was also in play in 2014 in Crimea WP: Don’t underestimate importance of religion for understanding Russia’s actions in Crimea.

Patriarch Kirill seems to be Putin's Rasputin.

[N.E. Brigand]

Per this new piece in The Guardian, the assets of Russian oligarach Alisher Usmanov are housed in an irrevocable trust and thus are protected from sanctions.

Per this October 2021 report in The Atlantic, it's believed that many such trusts, containing unknown billions of Russian oligarchs' funds, are set up in South Dakota.

And apparently there's no way to find out what's in them? Not even for the federal government?

South Dakota trusts provide precisely the kind of anonymity that clients are looking for. Not only can those establishing trusts list themselves as beneficiaries—contradicting the original purpose of a trust, which is to shield assets for others—but they don’t even need to visit the state to set one up. The state prohibits sharing information about these trusts with other governments, and any court documents pertaining to South Dakota trusts are kept private in perpetuity. More important, South Dakota pioneered regulations that allow its trusts (which typically expire after a century or so) to remain in place forever, forming the bedrock for dynastic wealth.

[N.E. Brigand]

Associates of jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced today to nine years' imprisonment, present what they claim is evidence that the world's largest yacht, the Scheherazade, which is currently docked in Italy and whose owner is unidentified (officially), is crewed entirely by employees of the Russian secret service. Navalny's people say they contacted one of those crew members, who told them the yacht is Vladimir Putin's.

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Meanwhile the Ukrainian government says that a Russian soldier has surrendered himself and his tank to them, so he'll be rewarded $10,000 and given the opportunity to apply for Ukrainian citizenship.

I like the commentator's suggestion that Ukraine should also pay Russian soldiers something for sabotaging their own equipment.

[Frelga]

Choices were made...

[elengil]

I thought Americans didn't believe in asylum?

[Túrin Turambar]

I ran into a Twitter thread which makes the interesting observation that Russia's casualties are being disproportionately borne by conscripts from Russia's ethnic minorities, particularly from Central Asia. For example, the most common given name in a list of wounded Russian soldiers from a hospital in Rostov in Mohammad.

[Sunsilver]

So - cannon fodder? That's sickening!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Kinda like the casualty lists for the U.S. in Vietnam were disproportionately black and brown.

[Frelga]

This is interesting, although I wouldn't get my hopes up. Possibly putin will do what Stalin would have done - find someone to blame, like Shoigu, have him arrested or defenestrated, and claim that he is the tool of the West who betrayed putin and sabotaged the war.

Shoigu may still have to take the blame, perhaps posthumously, but with the quiet nature of his disappearance possibly he was being viewed as a potential rival to putin.

[N.E. Brigand]

Interesting about Shoigu. A few days ago I linked to some commentary about the uneasy relationship between the Kremlin and the Chechen militia fighting in Ukraine for Russia, a militia which in some respects acts as the personal army of Chechen "Republic" leader Ramzan Kadryov. As I recall, that piece mentioned one other Russian leader also has his own private army: Sergei Shoigu, but his personal militia was said to be smaller and less well equipped than Kadryov's. Also I don't believe they've been deployed to Ukraine. I gather that they are based in Shoigu's home province of Tuva: Shoigu is only half Russian, and reportedly on that basis has not been considered as a possible successor to Putin.

[RoseMorninStar]

Putin (and his paranoia) are his own worst enemy. Contrary to the power and glory (now & forever) that he was seeking, the nations of Europe are increasing their military budgets while Russia has laid bare it's shortcomings. Putin will drag his country into the mud creating problems that will likely last generations to assuage his ego and ineptitude.

[N.E. Brigand]

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken today said that the United States's official assessment is that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine.

(I'll use this post to note that one of Blinken's predecessors, Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, died today at age 84.)

[Frelga]

This was posted by the official account of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Screenshot_20220324-092224.png (517.41 KiB) Viewed 2005 times

I will henceforth start all work emails with "Dear Anglo-Saxon geopolitical engineers." Although only a minority of my coworkers are Anglo-Saxon.

[Sunsilver]

Wow! That's even crazier than some of the conspiracy theories I've heard from the American far right!

[RoseMorninStar]

Events of this year have opened my eyes to the myriad of ways people view (and abuse) 'race' and has shaken up my thinking on the subject. I hadn't realized that the European (especially Eastern European) view was so delineated. Russia/Putin seem to be quite fixated on the race issue (bigoted/racist). I find it interesting too, in the photo above from the Russian Foreign ministry, that they separately name Ukrainian and Russian 'blood' since Putin seems to think they are all 'one people' which is the justification for his invasion (uniting one people, one land).

Maria Zakharova blames the war on Anglo-Saxons/Americans (as if Russia had no control over the situation?). According to her FB account:

"The hysteria of the White House is clearer than ever. The Anglo-Saxons need war. At any cost. Provocations, misinformation and threats are a favorite way to solve their problems. The skating rink of the American military-political machine is ready to take people's lives again. The whole world is watching the militarism and imperial ambitions reveal themselves. It serves all of this."

Further, I find it interesting that people from Russia are not the ones reading this tripe, because they do not have access to Facebook. So I ask myself, should I be adding to the spread of her misinformation campaign? Probably not.

[N.E. Brigand]

[Frelga]

As comments on that tweet point out, that proves absolutely nothing. Maybe he's really been sick and as much in tzar's favor as ever, maybe it's canned footage and he's been dead since last week.

In one of those internet coincidences, I don't follow Paula on Twitter, but I've met her IRL.

[N.E. Brigand]

Choices were made...

So Evan Neumann apparently once said in an interview that one of his hobbies is making bombs, and he also gave advice on how to hide one's finances. The source was linked by a writer whose work I trust, but I don't know for sure that it's reliable.