I’m sure everyone is still feeling the imagery and video coming out of Bucha and other areas north and west of Kyiv, so I’m going to try and keep tonight short.
Let’s start with President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier this evening. It’s subtitled.
Powerful, passionate address from Zelensky tonight. Switching from Ukrainian to Russian he addresses mothers of soldiers who committed horrific war crimes in Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, asking how they raised “butchers,” and he tells Moscow to see how it’s orders are being fulfilled. pic.twitter.com/7UyYxqiY4V
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 3, 2022
Here’s Mayor Klitschko speaking in English:
This is Genocide.#Genocide #FreeUkraine #StandWithUkraine #StopTheWar #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/NfLePlWhIl
— Klitschko (@Klitschko) April 3, 2022
Here’s the British Ministry of Defense’s latest update:
And the latest mapping from them as well:
A
More after the jump.
The Ukrainians have added a domain to their multi-domain warfare!
#Ukraine: Ukrainian forces launched a naval attack to intercept a Russian convoy. Capturing a BTR-MDM Rakushka APC (Used by VDV troops), and two MT-LB (first one looks like a SNAR-10M1) pic.twitter.com/KDqqk0KIYr
— Arslon Xudosi ?? (@Arslon_Xudosi) April 3, 2022
Btw, missed this one: a BTR-D damaged, and a group picture! pic.twitter.com/X1OFJjyFVs
— Arslon Xudosi ?? (@Arslon_Xudosi) April 3, 2022
The Russians are now doing what they always do: try to brazen it out. For the past ten to fifteen years it has not mattered what they said or did, if they just kept saying it and doing it everyone let them continue. They learned they can get away with anything.
Moscow is demanding an emergency session of the UN Security Council tomorrow to discuss “Ukrainian radicals’ provocation” in Bucha (the town outside Kyiv where Russian troops slaughtered hundreds of civilians but deny it). https://t.co/j8kNJUAWhS
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) April 3, 2022
Same play book with the bombing of the maternity and children’s hospital in Mariupol:
A very good thread, but we are still not sure whether she is in Russian or in Russian-occupied Donbas (she reportedly said she was in 'DNR' on Russian state TV) https://t.co/S2AXkaPB2b
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) April 2, 2022
Here’s the rest of van Linge’s thread:
- She is able to admit there was an explosion om the maternity hospital, but remains very vague on what it could have been, leaving room for the interpretation the Ukrainians bombed it themselves, a lie pro-Kremlin actors have pushed from the very start.
- They also have her criticizing the AP photographer for taking these pictures of her that went around the world.
- We know this is a well known Kremlin propaganda technique. In 2016 the photo of bloodied little Omar Daqneesh from #Aleppo spread across the world. After the Syrian regime reconquered the city state-tv placed him & his father in front of a camera, having them debunk the story.
- The more I think about it the more it disgusts me. It’s no coincidence Marianna was one of the refugees taken to Russia, they had soldiers at the checkpoints scouting for her. She was a target from the moment her pictures went around the world.
- The only thing that is probably more despicable than bombing a clininc full of pregnant women is kidnapping a woman together with her newborn at gunpoint, and making her appear in your hostage video.
- And for those wondering if she is telling the truth, she is not. Kremlin propaganda is brutal but very inconsistent. They have her touch on all conspiracy theories surrounding thr hospital at ones, making the entire story totally illogical.
- -the hospital was used as a base by Ukrainian soldiers -yet they probably bombed it themselves -but it’s okay, the attack wasn’t big, therefore the AP pictures are dramatized propaganda.
- Small update: other sources are stating Marianna is not in Russia but in separatist-occupied Donetsk, which in principal is just as much a violation. The evacuation deal was for refugees form Mariupol to be allowed to go to Ukrainian-held territory, not to Russia or DNR/LNR.
- But if you’re wondering if her interview was set-up by someone or at her own initiative, just who look at who is sharing it, edited with subtitles and all twitter.com/mission_russia
- Let me just add to close this thread that is was known the Russian invasion force was planning to kidnap people and have the make forced confessions on camera. It was for this exact reason that the AP crew in Mariupol had to evacuate.
- Sorry for all the spelling errors btw, when I’m typing while angry I sometimes hit the wrong letter
Someone quite helpfully added subtitles to this series of person on the street interviews with Russians:
Added subtitles pic.twitter.com/OjRTwk5tkD
— ???????? ???, ??? ???? (@ZeroZhvk) April 2, 2022
Here’s the link to Human Rights Watch’s current reporting on Russian mass atrocities in Ukraine.
(Warsaw) – Human Rights Watch has documented several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine. These include a case of repeated rape; two cases of summary execution, one of six men, the other of one man; and other cases of unlawful violence and threats against civilians between February 27 and March 14, 2022. Soldiers were also implicated in looting civilian property, including food, clothing, and firewood. Those who carried out these abuses are responsible for war crimes.
“The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Rape, murder, and other violent acts against people in the Russian forces’ custody should be investigated as war crimes.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 people, including witnesses, victims, and local residents of Russia-occupied territories, in person or by telephone. Some people asked to be identified only by their first names or by pseudonyms for their protection.
On March 4, Russian forces in Bucha, about 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, rounded up five men and summarily executed one of them. A witness told Human Rights Watch that soldiers forced the five men to kneel on the side of the road, pulled their T-shirts over their heads, and shot one of the men in the back of the head. “He fell [over],” the witness said, “and the women [present at the scene] screamed.”
Russian forces in the village of Staryi Bykiv, in Chernihiv region, rounded up at least six men on February 27, and later executed them, according to the mother of one of the men, who was nearby when her son and another man were apprehended, and who saw the dead bodies of all six.
A 60-year-old man told Human Rights Watch that on March 4, a Russian soldier threatened to summarily execute him and his son in Zabuchchya, a village northwest of Kyiv, after searching their home and finding a hunting rifle and gasoline in the backyard. Another soldier intervened to prevent the other soldier from killing them, the man said. His daughter corroborated his account in a separate interview.
On March 6, Russian soldiers in the village of Vorzel, about 50 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, threw a smoke grenade into a basement, then shot a woman and a 14-year-old child as they emerged from the basement, where they had been sheltering. A man who was with her in the same basement when she died from her wounds two days later, and heard accounts of the incident from others, provided the information to Human Rights Watch. The child died immediately, he said.
Much, much more at the link above.
Here’s President Zelenskyy’s remarks at the Grammy’s:
Here is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's pre-taped speech at the #Grammys, introducing a performance for Ukraine from John Legend: "Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals." https://t.co/rjX2S54hkr pic.twitter.com/43fcZTrjQK
— Variety (@Variety) April 4, 2022
Let’s leave it there and finish with your nightly Chef Jose Andres!
Some thoughts from the train this Sunday… It’s difficult to convey the experience of going to Irpin & Bucha… You’ve all seen the photos—unbelievable to think in 21st century those horrors are happening. I promise you we @WCKitchen will not leave the Ukrainian people alone ?? pic.twitter.com/ZpYAxV3mMG
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) April 3, 2022
I’ll deal with the developments in Hungary and Pakistan tomorrow.
Open thread!
Ninedragonspot
Thank you very much for these posts, Adam.
Martin
Wait, can you take a boat into war without 17 Trump/MAGA flags on it?
oldster
Thanks, Adam .
There’s little that any of us can do to help. But Balloon Juice has taught me that I can always call and write.
Biden and Blinken have worked miracles. Ukraine would not have lasted this long without strong, unified NATO support — and that means: US leadership.
So write and call to thank our president, and to ask him to do more.
bbleh
Absolutely horrifying and conclusive video evidence, in effect as it’s happening.
Of course Russia will “brazen it out”; there’s no realistic alternative. But that’s hardly relevant.
What’s relevant is what the rest of the world does in response. Just off the top of my head, hello, are you listening:
— International financial clearinghouses?
— Governmental authorities and banks in “tax haven” nations?
— Londongrad and NY real-estate markets?
— European energy markets?
— Suppliers to Russian industries?
One can’t expect China to do anything except promote profitable conflict. But I would hope to see a lot more national legislatures and political press elsewhere shining very bright and demanding lights on the many and layered actors (including many of their own numbers) who continue actively or tacitly to support the Russian regime.
Let’s see … US Congress? Senator “Moscow Mitch” McConnell? What say you? House “Freedom Caucus”? Hell-looo?
Ken B
@Martin: Only if you don’t want it to capsize.
Jay
Thank you again, Adam.
Martin
The evidence we demanded from Germany as proof they weren’t a nation of war criminals was to simply stop doing that. Just do better.
Time for Russians to give us proof. They can sit in the cold while they ponder how.
debbie
That was one powerful speech. I hope Russians will be able to see it. I still want Russia expelled from the UN. At this point, there’s zero reason they should be part of any organization anywhere.
PeakVT
I realize that the clip is nutpicking to some degree, but… wow. A portion of the Russian people is just deeply sick, as sick as any of our wingnuts.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Every Russian Federation soldier needs to either be driven from Ukraine or to be killed, period.
Mike in NC
@Martin: When the fat moron was told about boat parades, he envisioned “thousands of boats” when in reality there were about a dozen.
bbleh
@debbie: On the contrary, keep them there, and abuse them publicly, officially and unofficially, every day. Don’t give them the excuse of throwing them out of the game. Make them suffer through every inning/quarter/whatever and watch the score mount against them
Dear Russia: is this Russian “greatness”? Survey says …! BUZZZZZ. [Audience: “awwww!”]
debbie
@bbleh:
No. Unless their veto power is taken away.
Can’t embed on this iPad, but apparently the first Russian soldier has died of radiation poisoning:
bbleh
@debbie: IIRC veto power applies only in Security Council. GA can still pass resolutions. And there can be lots and lots of speeches that, if Russia is still a member, somebody from their delegation will have to listen to.
Practically, the UN is toothless in this situation. That’s not their purpose anyway. But they can serve as a high-profile source of embarrassment. Might as well use that.
bbleh
@PeakVT: I had to lol when I heard some earnest American news commentator (I think it was CNN) talking about how many Russians swallow the official line, as distorted as it is, because all they hear is official propaganda via sanctioned media, and all I could think was, “yeah, MAGAts, Fox, same ol’ same ol’.”
RaflW
I don’t have an answer, but I am incredibly frustrated at the structure of the UN Security Council. The veto powers have been abused at various times, but right now is just a glaring example of how shitty a process it is. Maybe the world is even less stable if it is altered, and by changing it the key powers quit. This is why I say I haven’t answers. Just a pained awareness of failure.
Rocks
@Mike in NC: Including the ones that sunk.
West of the Rockies
@Mike in NC:
We had stupid Trump car rally here in ’20. Half a mile or even a mile of cars seems like a lot. But it’s not. A dozen boats on a lake appears substantial. It ain’t. Just a group of bigoted morons declaring publicly their idiocy.
West of the Rockies
Have the Ukrainians managed to take out any Russian soldiers or equipment in the last couple of days? I’m seeing no mention of late.
Jay
Slava texted me today. His CAT rotated to the rear. They had some wounded, but no deaths. UA SOF walked their relief through the “green”, where Slava’s group spent a day catching them up to speed, then the UA SOF walked Slava’s group to the rear. They are doing 7 days on, 7 days off, and have more trained personnel than equipment.
Kent
Makes me think of all those Jay Leno “man on the street” interviews and how absolutely cringy and idiotic most Americans sound on TV too.
Kent
Yes, all the numbers keep going up. Apparently they took out a bunch of airplanes and helicopters in the past day as well.
Jay
@West of the Rockies:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1
Every day, faster than Oryx can confirm, there’s a backlog.
bbleh
@RaflW: Yeah. See also years — decades, maybe — of commentary re Andrei Gromyko, aka “Mr. Nyet.”
“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.”
Kent
I read somewhere about Russian forces in eastern Moldova gearing up to join the fight. If you look at a map, Moldova is sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and nowhere near any Russian borders. Which got me wondering what kind of troops Russia actually has in Moldova. Are they an armored division capable off doing battle against an armored foe? Along with the logistics necessary to make that happen? Or are the lightly armed occupation forces intended more for civilian occupation and dependent on Russian supply by air?
Just wondering if anyone here actually knows the status of Russian forces in Moldova and whether they are actually capable of threatening Odessa, which would be the closest Ukrainian strategic objective for such troops I’m guessing.
According to Wiki, Russia has about 1300 troops in Moldova as part of a so-called “peacekeeping” mission. Probably lightly armed and lightly supplied. That doesn’t sound like a force capable of doing much in a conventional ground attack. But what do I know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria_War
Martin
Ukraine’s estimates (take with appropriate skepticism) is that of the 75 battle groups that Russia committed, 34 are recovering after losses, and 16 are completely destroyed. So only ⅓ of the original force is battle ready. That feels optimistic given that Russia still has some pretty solid footholds in the south, but not completely out there.
Nice to see Ukraine has retaken Chernobyl. That’s a small bit of relief. Also seeing reports that Russia has removed some of their air assets from southern Belarus, so at least for the moment Kyiv can probably breathe a little easier.
West of the Rockies
@Jay:
Glad to hear it. I hope the vehicles were packed with soldiers.
Martin
@Kent: Yeah, those forces hasn’t really been seen as a concern. There aren’t a lot there and they’re pretty cut off except by air.
Jay
@Kent:
Russia has been pulling “Peacekeeping” and Wagner’s from around the globe, including South Ossetia, Syria, Libya, Kaliningrad, Armenia, Dagestan to try to desperately back fill losses in Ukraine.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: They have a force in place in Transnistria, which like Luhansk and Donetsk is a self declared breakaway republic. Every former Soviet state that Putin could create one of these breakaway republics in he has. Because it prevents the country from being allowed to joint NATO as there is an active border dispute. Putin helps to create the border dispute that then prevents the former Soviet state from joining NATO. He’s done it in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The peace keepers aren’t actually peace keepers. They’re there to keep Moldova from trying to retake Transnistria.
Calouste
@RaflW: The UN Security Council was set up for the world of 75 years ago, and a lot of things have changed since then. At least for a while, it worked better than the League of Nations before it, but it is quite possible that it has run its course.
Renie
@debbie: if you follow Cheryl’s Twitter there’s a lot of doubt these Russians have radiation poisoning. They weren’t there long enough and the area is not giving off that much radiation that you would get it that quickly.
The Pale Scot
So after a few drinks (hic..) and sitting in a chair thinking over this horror, I think the US needs to heighten its nuclear status. Not defcon whatever.. but we need to put all of our SSBM out to sea, we need to start rotating B-52s over the pole, we to have a B-2 rotation lurking about. I don’t know about whether the B-2 can penetrate RU airspace as designed. If it can, using it to drop on and off radars screens will give the RU military the willies. All of this is really expensive. And if the planes don’t perform because of 3rd party contractors cutting corners, send them to Gitmo
Putin is insane, if there isn’t a core of RU military that sees where this is going we’re all fucked any way, might as well launch first. Unbelievable that my childhood nightmares are back
James E Powell
@Jay:
Checked the War in Ukraine lexicon, but I don’t see, CAT, SOF, or “green.” Can you say again, what happened. And speak to me as you would a young child. Or a golden retriever.
NotMax
Does not serve as an excuse for atrocities, but just as Germany in WW2 dosed troops with Pervitin, Kremlin only knows what kinds of drug cocktails Russian troops are now being hopped up with.
James E Powell
@PeakVT:
They were all pretty close to what I heard ordinary, average Americans saying about Iraq in the Papa Bush days & Bush/Cheney Junta days. One big difference, assuming the subtitles are accurate, not a lot racist epithets like the Americans I heard.
We have to give up on the idea that the Russian people are against what is happening or if they were, that they’d say so on video.
gene108
I find the Russian man-on-the-street interview and support for the war unsurprising, considering how many Americans were passionately in support of invading Iraq nineteen years ago.
I wonder what level of losses will start to cause public support to erode? At some level those Russian soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine have families, and they’ll find out eventually that they lost a son.
Propaganda can work effectively, but it’s ability to distort reality cannot work as facts push against the propaganda campaign.
randal m sexton
Those horrible ‘man on the street’ interviews of Russians makes me think that Russia propoganda/media environment has created a fragile isolated world view that something like a Doolittle raid, or the Berlin bombing that Churchill ordered when he knew the Ribbentrop negotiations were happening. I wonder if the attack by the helicopters a few days ago were something like that.
Jay
@James E Powell:
CAT = Combined Arms Team, Company level mixed teams of Armour, Infantry, Specialists and Artillery,
SOF =Special Operation Forces, ranges broadly from Airborne, to Recon.
“the Green”, natural verges between farmers fields, ravines, woodlots, cover.
ian
@The Pale Scot:
Why?
Adam L Silverman
@James E Powell: SOF is special operations forces. Green is the color reference shorthand for the host country population. Blue is friendly forces and red is the enemy/hostiles. CAT should be Civil Affairs Team.
My only caveat is this is the American terminology. I know the Canadians use SOF and the color scheme shorthand that we use. I don’t know if they use our acronym for a Civil Affairs Team. Also, I’m not sure Jay’s talk to text function is always providing 100% fidelity based on some of his comments…
NotMax
@James E. Powell
Muzzled is not the same as silenced. From early March,
bbleh
@The Pale Scot: uh, yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Aziz, light!
@debbie: Cheryl Rofer has strongly debunked accounts of fatal radiation exposure but it’s a catchy meme that is being amplified by all the people who are piling onto it. See her tweet on the subject.
kalakal
Russian TV is not going to broadcast ‘man on the street’ interviews that are anti the war in Ukraine. I also expect there are some very obvious goons standing around watching the filming. Some of them will be genuine supporters, others will be saying what they think the state wants to hear
kalakal
@The Pale Scot:
No
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@randal m sexton: Do note the guy interview is an Old White Guy. So he can be for the war forever because he is sure as shit isn’t going to serve in it.
Aziz, light!
Here’s a must-watch 2019 documentary that conveys how Russians are brainwashed from an early age into believing that it’s Russia’s destiny to control all the countries in eastern Europe.
Russia: A small town clings to its Soviet past
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Aziz, light!: I can imagine a Russian soldiers has plenty of reasons to claim his long COVID is radiation sickness so he will be sent to rear to recover or be discharged.
NotMax
@Aziz, light!
I wouldn’t discount the possibility of some of the troops digging those trenches in the Red Forest also ingesting (either directly or by way or ersatz tea) mosses and ground vegetation, plants which tend to concentrate radiation within them.
Less likely yet a consideration (and don’t know if any study anywhere has addressed this) is what happens when sitting around fires at night, inhaling smoke from the burning of radioactive firewood.
Kent
So Biden can go down as the worst genocidal maniac in world history with a death toll that exceeds Hitler and Stalin combined?
No thank you.
NotMax
@NotMax
by way or = by way of
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
“the Green” is actually Ukrainian Slang for established cover between the large areas of farm fields.
Combined Arms Teams are Canadian and other NATO Forces acronym for taking a Company of Infantry, from one Regiment, adding an Armoured Company from another, etc, in an environment of interoperability, to create smaller, flexible, fully broad based groups.
Since the 1964 War, Canada has been deploying for example, a Company of Seaforths, ( infantry) Calgary, ( armour) Westminsters, (artillery), specialized platoons, often seconded under the command of the PPLI to create small(ish) combat/peacekeeping forces with everything they need, rather than deploying large combined full Regimental forces in the form of an Army.
Canadian training missions to Ukraine, spent a lot of time focusing on this mix and match approach given the space of Ukraine, the benefits of interoperability, etc.
The Pale Scot
Because I think that the UAK is not going to surrender, and Putler cannot accept defeat. If, as some are saying he will use tactical nukes, that’s a distinction without a difference. If he uses nukes without a response, N.Korea, Israel, China will be right behind. I’m horrified by this, but the response I see is to threaten a first strike. It won’t deter Putler, I want to believe there a rational people in the chain of command.
As Adam says, Putler has been at war with the west since 2014. We’re already at war
Kent
@The Pale Scot: If Putin uses nukes the rest of the world will cut every last economic, military, and social tie to Russia and they will be as isolated, alone, and impoverished as North Korea. Just the images of war crimes out of Burcha and Irpin has dramatically shifted the sanctions landscape in Europe. Use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would instantly eliminate any debate. Russia would be unable to sell a drop of oil or gas anywhere. Not even to countries like India
He knows that.
Besides, Nuclear weapons are not a tactical weapon. They are a terror weapon. What is he going to do? Nuke Kyiv?
Aziz, light!
@The Pale Scot: I think Putin is deluded about his country’s destiny, but is not crazy. I expect him to take his prize, most or all of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, declare victory, and go home. The question then will be whether the Ukrainians will ever be able to wrest it back from him. That will depend on whether the Western nations have the fortitude to keep the weapon supply and sanctions going indefinitely. I rather doubt they will.
ian
Every time we do this “should we nuke Russia” debate in these threads, I have to wonder what the fallout would do to the countries neighboring Russia. Do we think people in Ukraine would benefit from having their environment destroyed?
Jay
@Aziz, light!:
Mariupol still stands, Odessa still stands.
The Russian “plan” was one swift kick,
hasn’t worked out well so far.
Mallard Filmore
@Aziz, light!:
There will not be peace while Russian soldiers are in Ukraine. This may be simply my wishful thinking, but the sanctions will erode Russian military ability to operate at an advanced level. The jets that are not shot down need maintenance, engines with highly specialized parts wear out. Maybe they can build those parts, but it’s not so certain that the machines needed to build those parts can run forever without western supplies.
I have every confidence that Russia can fight well at an upgraded WWII level.
Princess
We need to talk about Israel and Russia. The foreign ministry walked back their envoy’s disgust with the Russian killings. And then Lapid, the minister, tweeted out a “condemnation” that implicitly suggests the Ukrainians might have done the killings themselves noting it was “after the Russians left.”
Jay
@Mallard Filmore:
Russia has tons of military hardware in storage.
As the Pantsir* episode showed, that’s problematic.
*UA recovered an abandoned, stuck $14.6 million dollar Pantsir portable AAM system.
– a) the RA forces abandoned it, they did not sabotage or destroy it,
-b) the wheel hubs were destroyed on at least 3 of the 4 axels, because they were not properly lubed and maintained,
– c) sidewalls on at least 3 wheels were burst, and while in storage, nobody bothered to drive the platform forward once a month to take the load off or block the vehicle up,
– d) what were identified as cheap Chinese copies of a Michelin military tire, turned out to be even cheaper Belorussian copies, of a Chinese copy, of a Michelin military tire. Somebody stole a fortune.
Adam L Silverman
@Princess: This is what Lapid said:
Mallard Filmore
@Jay: Maybe I was optimistic about Russia’s chances. I think they have the capability to build WWII era equipment, with more modern improvements. The high tech stuff isn’t replaceable.
If Ukraine is lucky, the Russian army will grind itself to dust before the west gets tired of sanctions.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
a), the RA didn’t “leave”, they were driven out,
b), the passive voice will be seized on and amplified. Words matter.
Jay
@Mallard Filmore:
much of the Russian “high tech” stuff, other than ELINT, isn’t really “high tech”, and there is not much of it.
read an analysis a couple of days ago about some aspects of Russian Combat ELINT. They have to schedule a bunch of it, because while it jams a whole bunch of systems, it also jams many Russian systems as well. And of course, because they destroyed the 4G network, they are stuck with “open” comms, so “scheduling” is a problem.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: The original was in Hebrew. All I’ve seen is Tarnopolsky’s translation.
Princess
@Adam L Silverman: yes, that’s the quote I saw. He worded it very carefully. It reads like he wants to have it both ways — supporters of Russia and of Ukraine can read what they want in it. It makes me sick.
ETA: but good point about it being a translation.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
translation or not, the passive voice will be seized on and amplified by the “tankies”,
this is a time when words should be clear, concise and unequivocal.
eg, “Fuck you, Russian Warship”.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: My point was the passive voice may solely be a result of the translation and translator.
Jay
@Mallard Filmore:
the Koronet-EM is Russia’s “fire and forget” ATGM.
it’s only vehicle mounted because the computing systems aren’t man portable.
It’s 20 years behind Western technology.
The man portable Koronet requires that the operator guides it in by keeping the laser on target until contact.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
I understand, but this is not a time for “soft words”,
It is a time for “brutal” clarity.
bjacques
Russia may call it consolidation, but it’s still a retreat and that can’t be good for morale. In the face of Ukrainian counterattack, can the Russians still consider the Donbas and Luhansk regions, even the “People’s Republics”, and the Crimea be as reliably friendly? They must have worn out their welcome after eight years of zachistka and predation by imported mafiyas. (Speaking of which, I hope Ukraine, with the help of the ICC, can afterward do some forensic digging to document the people who were disappeared over that time.) Would it be useful for the Ukrainian government to offer amnesty to the pro-Russian populations in those regions, to give them space to rejoin the country and to mess with the heads of Russian forces stationed there?
Finally, about sanctions, I’m aware they will take time to degrade Russia’s economy and ability to wage war, but isn’t it also possible Putin will rashly self-harm? He already has, after all, as he’s no strategist. I said it a few days ago, that he could have withdrawn on Feb 24, exercises finished, and laughed at imperialist warmongers. Orbán’s re-election would have been a golden opportunity to further split NATO, and he could have done more by continuing to work the GOP and Tories try to score again this year and in 2024. That’s all gone. So why expect he’ll play the long game and wait out the sanctions?
Frankensteinbeck
In a country where it is illegal to even call this a war, political dissent is brutally punished, and lying about your politics to prevent trouble was already a cultural tradition, interviews and polls are useless. We may never know what the Russian people think about Putin’s invasion and war crimes.
Amir Khalid
@Jay:
First, that is the active voice, not the passive. If you want to call people out for using the latter, you should at least be able to identify it correctly. It is clear that you cannot.
Also, too: seizing on any use of the passive voice as bad, indicative of someone being evasive with their words and/or meaning, is dumb. There are many ways to be evasive, in any language, and the passive voice is far from being a sure indicator of evasion.
Geminid
@Princess:
Lapid said that the “horrific” pictures were taken after the Russians left Bucha, and in no way implied that anyone but Russian troops might have perpetrated these acts.
sab
@Amir Khalid: Our Malaysian grammar monitor.
As an American I am humiliated but grateful that somebody somewhere is monitoring our misuse of our own language
Gotta laugh but thank you
Also too. I know Jay is Canadian, but his language is pretty much the same as ours except for the spelling.
Geminid
@sab: Since the commenter responded to is Canadian, I guess these are multilateral talks.
Geminid
The ceasefire in Yemen went into effect Saturday at 7pm local time. Both sides have accused the other of violating it since then, and it’s too early to know if the two month truce will actully take hold. The first ship in months has docked at the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida. It carried fuel, and hopefully more ships with food will be unloading soon.
The ABC story that reported this noted that observers believe that 150,000 soldiers and civilians have been killed since hostilities began 8 years ago. The U.N. rates Yemen’s 30 million people as the second to last in the world for food security.
AndoChronic
I will say this, I haven’t needed nearly as much coffee in the morning, for some time, after reading your posts Adam. I need to get back to my morning meditation readings, but we need to bear witness. Thank you for the archives. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Goes for everyone reading these posts too… Russia needs to exit the civilized world.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
One of the odd things about the Russian War crimes – while Russians made it clear they were going to do this from the start, but it’s really hard to tell what is a planned war crime and what is sheer dumbassry from a pack of badly trained and led armed teens who are being abused by their elders. Makes me wonder if the internal Russian talk of “haha! this was planned all along by Dear Leader Putin” the Ukrarians were reporting is just spin to hide the Russian army simply sucks ass.
zhena gogolia
@Jay: It’s not passive voice! You actually want it to be PUT INTO the passive voice — “The Russians were driven out” — that’s passive!
TonyG
@gene108: I’ve never lived in a society like Russia under Putin, but I would imagine that most people are strongly motivated to repeat the official dogma in public. To do otherwise would be very risky. Also, I would imagine that the genocide that Nazi Germany inflicted on Russia and on the rest of the Soviet Union — about 27 million dead, most of them civilians — is still very much in the mind of Russians 77 years later. Putin has exploited this historical memory by call the Ukrainians “Nazis”. Exploitation of peoples’ fears with the credible threat of violence against anyone who fails to obey. Most people are not heroes, and will fall into line.
Pharniel
@Adam L Silverman: Terrifying read that’s been going around from RAIN (Russian [State] News Agency) that basically says “Ukrainian desires for independence is Nazism, and we need to de-nazifiy the country, so Ukraine as an identity and idea must be liquidated” a/k/a The Full Irish treatment. Genocide by any reckoning.
English Translation in screen caps from the website – https://imgur.com/a/9vZI9Gj
Twitter Translation https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1510908227202002947?s=20&t=RjQFFaVZwOPaJuRNJutDtg
Bruce K in ATH-GR
So, dumb question, but haven’t the Russian war crimes reached the threshold that got Nazi higher-ups sent to the gallows at Nuremberg after the end of the Second World War?
TonyG
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I imagine that the Russian war crimes have reached that level. However — the reason why the Nuremberg Trials and punishments occurred is that Germany was defeated and occupied by the victorious countries. If (somehow) the Second World War had ended with a negotiated cease fir, then Hitler and his cronies would have had a peaceful retirement.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@PeakVT:
Imagine the U.S. if Fox & other Murdoch media were the only news outlets.
Bill Arnold
@ian:
In a global thermonuclear war, millions (10+?) of Ukrainians die of the long-term effects in the fullness of time, which are mainly the short-term (several growing seasons) collapse of agriculture and transportation disruptions (bulk food transport), and the severe damage to civilization (regional, concentrated in the northern hemisphere, but with difficult-to-predict knock-on effects due to globalization, and supply chains, and just-in-time, and markets with a high percentage of players that deliberately create and/or amplify instabilities for personal gain). The eventual human death toll (and mass biological extinctions) due to global heating would be reduced due to reductions in human-caused GHG emissions. Maybe a net win!
The people confidently estimating casualties in the 10s or 100s of millions are incorrect in their confidence. (People in power (including propagandists) threatening and pushing for thermonuclear war have forfeited their right to continued ;existencepower, IMO.)
J R in WV
@AndoChronic:
…Russia
needs to exitHas Exited the civilized world.