We have, thank someone’s, anyone’s, or for the atheist’s no one’s, Deity or Deities for the polytheists, made it to the weekend! I’m fried. I’m sure everyone else is fried. So I’m going to keep tonight’s post as short as possible.
Before I dive in though, I want to address a comment that came in either very late for last night’s post or very early if you go by when it was made. The comment was in response to the news that the Ukrainians had put a 155mm round on where Rogozin was celebrating his birthday in Russian occupied Donetsk on Wednesday. And it was framed as a question – and I’m paraphrasing – that I was telling the commenter that Ukraine targets civilian targets. I don’t know if this was a cynical comment, a sarcastic comment, or the commenter – and I’m not going to look – was actually serious, but I’m going to play it straight and answer the question. The answer is that the Ukrainians had two legitimate military targets – the former Russian Deputy PM and head of Roskosmos and a senior leader in the separatist movement who served in a high position in the breakaway and Russian aligned government in Russian occupied Donbas. In addition to these two targets, they also had their bodyguards, and their friends and other invited guests to Rogozin’s birthday party. All of these are separatists, collaborators, actual Russians and/or people working for them. They have been involved in planning, executing, and in some cases profiting from Russia’s eight year occupation of the Donbas and all the atrocities, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that has entailed. If the Allies in WW II had the chance to take out a high NAZI official who had rented a restaurant in NAZI occupied France for his birthday even if that would also most likely take out the others attending the party, that would have been a legitimate target to strike. Just as it was for the Ukrainian military on Wednesday. I trust I won’t have to address this again.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
I held a meeting of the Staff today. It was as always substantive, but today more news for the troops after a visit to the United States.
We are preparing for the coming months and next year in general. Our tasks are unchanged. It is the liberation of our land. Safety for our people. Restoration of our country after the Russian strikes. These are the elements of the Ukrainian victory, which we are approaching step by step.
We heard today the commanders’ reports at the Staff meeting. We see prospects at the front. We are preparing for different variants of actions of the terrorist state, we see its intentions. And we will respond.
The situation in the energy sector was discussed separately.
Today I held an important annual meeting with the ambassadors of Ukraine – the entire diplomatic corps of our country received tasks for the next year.
We are preparing to step up Ukrainian diplomacy in several directions.
The first are the countries in which our influence is still less than we need from the point of view of the national security of Ukraine and the interests of our people. First of all, these are the countries of Africa and other parts of the Global South – Latin America, Asian countries, and the Pacific region.
This is a huge economic potential, and it is also a significant diplomatic opportunity. For example, during the voting of the UN General Assembly for resolutions that protect our territorial integrity and international law. We will strengthen Ukraine’s position.
The second aspect of Ukrainian diplomacy is to increase cooperation with our traditional partners so that the next year will really be decisive in this war and Ukraine will achieve all its goals.
We are preparing to upgrade the diplomatic service, we will strengthen the Ukrainian embassies.
There was also a non-public part of our meeting with diplomats today – I focused on several important, sensitive points in communication with the ambassadors.
I spoke today with Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte. I am grateful for the new support package – very important, timely EUR 2.5 billion for Ukraine. Of course, our joint actions with the Netherlands next year were also discussed. We are coordinating the steps as much as possible, and I believe that there will be a tangible result, especially in the matter of bringing to justice all those who are guilty of this aggression against Ukraine.
And one more.
It was an honor for me to congratulate those people who, together with their colleagues, are restoring our systems after the Russian strikes. I believe that all of us should thank more often those who work for the preservation of our well-being and normal life. Not political at all. Maybe not always visible to most. But thanks to many of these people, Ukraine is living.
In particular, anyone and everyone who repairs the grids and generation facilities damaged by the strikes, before the air alert has even ended, to give people power faster, is the true hero. Everyone who goes to the de-occupied and front-line areas to return everything for normal life to people is the real hero. Everyone who stabilizes our power system every day and every night, ensures the supply of electricity, the operation of plants and other energy facilities – all of them, along with others who fight and work for Ukraine, guarantee Ukraine’s future. Thank you for that!
I signed decrees on awarding our troops. 215 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were given state awards.
Glory to all who defend our state!
Thanks to all our partners who help us and together with us are securing victory over tyranny!
And please remember who is fighting against us. With the approaching holiday season, Russian terrorists may become active again. They despise Christian values and any values in general. Therefore, please heed the air raid signals, help each other and always take care of each other.
And more. Citizens of Russia must clearly understand that terror never goes unanswered.
Glory to Ukraine!
Looks like Ukrainian SOF and the Ukrainian partisan underground have reached out and touched someone. A couple of someones:
NO PLACE TO HIDE: ON 23 DEC, an explosion ripped apart the engine compartment of a Renault Duster as it was driven in the center of Melitopol. The blast occurred at 1213 (Local) at the entrance to Gorky Park. UKR reports the blast targeted two Russian FSB personnel. pic.twitter.com/N1oxewoLyQ
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) December 23, 2022
And here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Bakhmut:
BAKHMUT /1940 UTC 23 DEC/ RU forces continue a well-established pattern of disjointed company and platoon sized assaults in the Bakhmut Area of Operations. UKR gov’t sources report more that 500 RU troops were killed in the last 24 hours; several hundred of them in Bakhmut. pic.twitter.com/2LCBDS1VB6
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) December 23, 2022
The Financial Times has published a detailed interview with Ukrainian First Lady Zelenska. I’m going to cover it in tomorrow night’s update as I want to make it the sole substantive focus.
In the meantime, here are some excerpts from a great analytical op-ed written by Kier Giles and published by CNN. Giles is the author of Russia’s War on Everbody: And What It Means for You”.
Almost 10 months into Russia’s full-scale invasion, the vital battle for the future of Ukraine is not on the front line.
Instead, it is in protecting the civilian population from Russia’s drone and missile campaign against critical civilian infrastructure – a campaign designed to end Ukrainian resistance by making the country uninhabitable.
Air and missile defense are Kyiv’s greatest needs at this stage in the conflict. And reported US plans to supply Ukraine with the advanced Patriot missile defense system are an essential element for keeping Kyiv in the fight.
Of course, Russia and its backers around the world will present this as a massive and dangerous escalation. That’s nonsense, but it’s highly effective nonsense.
The escalation game
Since well before February’s invasion, portentous but vague threats from Russia of unspecified but alarming responses have been sufficient to serve as a massive brake on Western support for Ukraine.And for almost a year afterward, Western powers were careful not to give the Ukrainian armed forces weapons that could threaten Russia itself.
In doing so, the West has played along with the Kremlin’s pretense that it is not at war, only waging a “special military operation.” In effect, it has protected Russia from the consequences of its own aggression.
In fact, repetition of the narrative that any one of a wide range of events that Russia would dislike will ensure “guaranteed escalation to the Third World War” has been highly effective in shaping US and Western behavior.
The US in particular has felt its way forward through incremental increases in the capability of weapons supplied to Ukraine, wary at each stage of Russia’s supposed “red lines” – but finding in each case that the red lines evaporate, and all Russia’s threats are empty bluster.
But Russia will keep doing this because it works. And US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders consistently reassure Russia that it works by explicitly referring to the fear of escalation – precisely the fear Russia wants to stoke.
Russia’s most effective tool of deterrence remains nuclear threats. Loose talk from Russia about using nuclear weapons has died down a little recently, but a decade or more of driving home the message of inevitable nuclear response if Russia is cornered or humiliated has already had its effect.
Russia’s efforts at deterrence continue to bring success in the form of arguments for a ceasefire as a preferable outcome to a Ukrainian victory – based on fear of the consequences of Russia suffering a defeat.
Changing the terms of conflict
Supplying a high-end capability like the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine is a solid sign of commitment by the US – and, as such, another step in the US steadily overcoming Russia’s successful efforts at deterring it from aiding Ukraine.But increasing air defense support and propping up Ukraine’s vital civilian infrastructure are addressing the symptoms of the problem, not its cause. Responding only in this way is playing Russia’s game by Russia’s rules, and telling Moscow that the West finds its way of warfare acceptable.
Sanctions have not been enough to shake Russia’s determination to restore its empire at the cost of peaceful neighboring states. Instead of continuing to set up more targets for Russia to knock down, the US and Ukraine’s other Western backers should change the terms of the conflict. The international community must do more than simply tolerate Russia’s naked aggression and the savagery with which it is pursuing its war of colonial reconquest. More direct intervention is long overdue.
It is past time for the West to tell Russia that if it continues down this path, its fantasy of a hostile West seeking the overthrow of Putin will become a reality. Russia could hardly claim this, too, was an escalation, when it has long told the world and itself that it is already at war with the West.
It’s hard to imagine any other country being permitted by the world to wage the kind of campaign Russia has in Ukraine (and in Syria before it); still less with an overt agenda of exterminating the Ukrainian people.
And yet, Russia’s UN Security Council veto and the fear it has instilled through nuclear propaganda have given it a free pass to behave as it wishes, without fear of interference from a global community looking on in either ambivalence or helpless paralysis.
That sets a disastrous example for other aggressive powers around the world. It says possession of nuclear weapons allows you to wage genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors, because other nations won’t intervene.
If that’s not the message the US and the West want other aggressor states around the world to receive, then supply of Patriot should be followed by far more direct and assertive means of dissuading Moscow.
Giles is 100% right. And the sooner everyone realizes we have been in World War III since at least 2014 if not late 2011/early 2012, that just because the war hasn’t been evenly distributed yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, and begins to respond accordingly the better off Ukraine and the world will be. Putin has turned Russia into a persistent international menace and what was said of Cathage should be said of Moscow and the rest of the Russian Federation: delenda est!
We will. By Andriy Yermolenko pic.twitter.com/7gVhoThkU6
— Liubov Tsybulska (@TsybulskaLiubov) December 23, 2022
Kyiv’s Podil right now.
Almost everything’s working, even the smallest shawarma places. The city of power generators! pic.twitter.com/FPou81nHrW— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 23, 2022
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
Video congratulation from me for the question 💫
Only on my secret Patreon this week you can ask me ANY question and get an honest answer! For the most interesting question, I will record a personal New Year's greeting for you!
Join and ask: https://t.co/U5SKtrKTfK pic.twitter.com/ott1ZPUYdx
— Patron (@PatronDsns) December 23, 2022
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok!
@patron__dsns Очі – дзеркало душі😌 #песпатрон
The caption machine translates as:
Eyes are the mirror of the soul😌 #PatrontheDog
Open thread!
Alison Rose
[Day 303, oui?]
I agree very much with this:
Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people are keen to keep their heads in the sand on this point.
Regarding Zelenskyy’s comments about increasing Ukraine’s presence and influence around the world, I read this earlier and think it’s awesome: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that Kyiv would boost its footprint in Africa next year by opening 10 new embassies and strengthening trade ties with the continent.” It’s really great to see this push, especially if it can help to undercut russian propaganda that seeps into those countries.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Gin & Tonic
Thank you for taking the time to address the Rogozin question. I have nothing to add.
E&C’s Dad
We did, of course, kill Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943. Maybe not directly analogous, but not too far off.
Gin & Tonic
That video from Podil is great. You think these people have any intention of surrendering?
To those not in the know, it’s a section of downtown Kyiv, right on the river, with shops, restaurants and clubs. There’s a steep, curved, cobblestoned street that goes down there from St. Andrew’s Church that is always lined with stalls selling everything from (good) original art to Chinese-made tourist schlock. Walking down that street in the winter can be a real challenge.
Amir Khalid
Well, now. Vladimir Putin has publicly violated the law against calling the special military operation in Ukraine a war. I wonder if that’ll get him in trouble (he said naively).
“Special military operation”! What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing! Say it again …
Another Scott
@Amir Khalid: Along those lines, … KyivIndependent.com:
Somehow, I think the days of the Kremlin being able to control all the news about a war they are losing are long over.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aussie Sheila
In an occupied country the occupiers are the declared enemy. Their enforcers and active enablers are aiding and abetting the enemy.
This is war, not a policing operation.
There is nothing here to note, except that the Ukrainian armed forces and their supporters are working to expel invaders, wherever they are and whoever supports them. That is all.
Andrya
@E&C’s Dad: More directly analogous: when I was a teenager in the 1960s, my parents had a close friend who had served in the US Army Air Force during WW2. Prior to D-Day, he strafed French trains on a regular basis- it was part of his job. He regretted that it killed French civilians, but the Germans were also using the trains to bring reinforcements to the Atlantic front, and they could not be allowed to do so- preventing this was a military necessity.
This is exactly the same moral calculus as the raid on the restaurant.
Full disclosure- I do think the firebombing of residential areas in Dresden was wrong.
Andrya
@E&C’s Dad: More directly analogous: when I was a teenager in the 1960s, my parents had a close friend who had served in the US Army Air Force during WW2. Prior to D-Day, he strafed French trains on a regular basis- it was part of his job. He regretted that it killed French civilians, but the Germans were also using the trains to bring reinforcements to the Atlantic front, and they could not be allowed to do so- preventing this was a military necessity.
This is exactly the same moral calculus as the raid on the restaurant.
Full disclosure- I do think the firebombing of residential areas in Dresden was wrong.
PIGL
When you wrote here a few years ago, Dr. Silverman, that “Russia must be reduced”, or words to that effect, I thought you were getting a little carried away. I don’t think that anymore.
Carlo Graziani
I don’t have a problem with keeping up the rhetorical pressure to maintain Western support for Ukraine. But as far as “analysis” goes, that Giles piece strikes me as simply overwrought.
We can now look back at nearly a year of progress of the war, from its desperate beginnings to the Zelenskyy-Biden summit just this week. I would have to say that the thing has been managed about as well as could possibly be imagined, and that there were a lot of other very bad outcomes that were averted by steady, careful management on both sides of the alliance.
The UA did not have all NATO kit dumped on it in one go, but it is clear that (for example) the HIMARS operational deployments that began in June were preceded by several months of logistical and training preparations, stretching back to as early as April, a time when shouty Twitter experts were claiming that NATO was doing nothing to assist Ukraine. Other similar examples can be proliferated. The UA had large parts of its equipment upgraded from Warsaw Pact Junkyard-grade to NATO-standard in the middle of a shooting war, without any noticeable disruption to its operations. Are we going to claim that this was a trivial undertaking?
The point is that the notion that the Biden administration self-deterred out of fear instilled by Russian threats is simply bullshit. What they did do is set some clear policy lines for themselves that allowed them to delineate a space within which they could operate to assist Ukraine. Inside that space, they did operate with admirable effectiveness, so as to permit the Ukrainians to fight and win (the Ukrainians themselves did all the fighting and winning) well-planned, well-executed campaigns with clear, well-thought out, achievable objectives, most of which were attained before the end of 2022.
I can’t even understand the mentality that would drive a failure to acknowledge such a simple, obvious point in favor of this kind of carping about imagined “self-deterrence”. Taking the fact of a nuclear-armed Russia seriously is different from taking nuclear bluster seriously. The Biden administration did the first, not the second. It’s time they got a little credit for it.
CaseyL
I’m having trouble even seeing ordinary Russians as innocent civilians at this point. Anyone in Russia’s government or armed forces, or adjacent to those categories, definitely isn’t a civilian.
I am beyond impressed with Ukraine’s push to establish relations and alliances with areas they previously had minimal to no relationship with. When Ukraine wins this war, and rebuilds itself, it is going to be a formidable presence in the world. I am eager to see what their new stature and credibility leads to.
zhena gogolia
@CaseyL: try living in an authoritarian state
Quiltingfool
In re Rogozin, well, maybe Russians ought to get their asses back to Mother Russia if they don’t want their birthday celebrations spoiled.
Don’t start none, won’t be none.
Slava Ukraini!
Dan B
@CaseyL: It is compelling to see the difference between a democracy that continues to marginalize its detractors and a dictatorship where everyone is trying to push down their fellow citizens. Optimizing human endeavor and societal strength is a strategy that is very robust.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Putin also issued a decree the other day setting up a formal relationship for messaging with the Russian pro war bloggers that have been ragging on him for half assing things on their Telegram channels.
Adam L Silverman
@Andrya: Dresden was covered under the reciprocity concept within Just War Theory. Because the NAZIs had blitzed London and other cities, reciprocity made German cities an ethically legitimate target.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of random fires in Russia; over at KOS they are talking about a banking run going on in Russia right now
Adam L Silverman
@PIGL: I’m considering changing my name to Cassandra.
Aussie Sheila
@Adam L Silverman: Good. That means he is entering the information space with potential adversaries.
There will be ‘problems’ no matter how well managed. This shows the first sign of weakness imo. Rooting for injuries.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: I’ve read his book. He’s on point.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This is a major indicator of instability. The other one is whether people can still buy alcohol. When they stop selling the latter, then things will get sporty.
Adam L Silverman
@Aussie Sheila: Maybe. I think it is more likely he’s coopting them.
Carlo Graziani
@Andrya: Quite. It’s one of those depressing facts about war: the moral calculus that it imposes on combatants starts out “ambiguous”, and drifts towards “horrifying” as the war goes on. Some of the debates on the propriety of US drone strikes given likelihood of civilian casualties are perfect illustrations, particularly given that the US is technically not even at war, but has been popping terrorists — or possibly wedding parties — on video-game screens for long enough that the ethical issues seem kind of academic to many of the parties involved.
Just as power corrupts, war brutalizes. But just as someone must wield power, sometimes we cannot avoid wars. If I believed in God, I would agree with Randy Newman: He hates humans.
Andrya
@Adam L Silverman: As always, Adam, thanks for doing this. You aren’t just informing me, you’re informing many people in my family and friends network. I share your work as much as I can.
I see that many people would accept that argument (just war reciprocity), but I don’t. And it isn’t just German civilians whom I would regard as unjustly treated (most of whom, except children, were complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich). 50,000 men died serving in RAF Bomber Command- the least they could expect, in return for their deaths, is some military advantage for the Allied cause. Bombing civilian residential areas is militarily futile. (It is generally accepted that Hitler’s decision to shift the Luftwaffe from bombing RAF targets to British civilian targets was disastrous for the German military.)
Thanks again for doing this!
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
In Soviet Russia, banks run on you.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of that, there is also apparently another mass conscription going on that the Russians are pretending isn’t happening. I can’t imagine taking 600,000 young men out of mostly rural Russia is going to be a good thing come the spring harvest.
Aussie Sheila
@Adam L Silverman: I understand, but even the fact that he feels he needs to do that is a shift. One way or another, no matter how skilful he is he is bound to piss off some faction or group.
In the political environment he has created which is both powerful and brittle at the same time, I see trouble for him now on the home front. Not from war opponents at home, let alone draft resisters abroad, but from the thuggish forces at home he needs to maintain his power. Such forces are dangerous and hard to control if they sniff any weakness or advantage.
We’ll see I guess.
Aussie Sheila
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Women will do what they have always done in these circumstances. In Australian in WW2 my mother joined the women’s ‘land army’. They performed all the work that farmers and their labourers performed before the war. Australia did not go hungry during the war, although of course there was rationing in order to ensure that the army was fed properly.
lee
How accurate do you think the RU casualty count is (the est number just crossed 100k)
Which of the estimates for Ukraine casualties do you think is correct (equal to RU all the way to 1\7th of that of RU)?
Thanks!
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: Alcohol and cigarettes. And cigarettes are probably the worse of the two for immediate withdrawal symptoms.
Sister Golden Bear
@Calouste: Plus it’s a lot harder to make cigarettes than the equivalent of pruno.
Ken B
@E&C’s Dad: I think a better analogy than Yamamoto was the assassination of Heydrich.
Calouste
@E&C’s Dad: The Allies tried that once with a Nazi (Reinhard Heydrich, governor of Nazi-occupied Bohemia), and the Nazis retaliated by killing a few hundred Czechs. No further assassinations were attempted during the war.
Carlo Graziani
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s odd, following that link, I found a lot of Twitter, but no Russian Telegram. I wonder whether it’s a NAFO spoof to try to cause a bank run?
Captain C
@Adam L Silverman:
One of the things I recall from when the USSR was starting to go down in the Gorby years was that this was a problem (though the Russians and other Soviets were very creative and resourceful about making booze from alternate sources of varying safety), and when they announced cigarette rations to a nation that collectively smoked like a chimney, there were riots, like the entire USSR had a group preemptive public nic fit.
Cutting people off from the socially acceptable substances they’re addicted to in one fell swoop never makes things more stable.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
For me, alcohol and cigarettes in wartime = goods for bartering. You sometimes see it in WWII movies. There’s a scene at the end of Schindler’s List where Oskar Schindler is instructing Itzhak Stern to distribute his (Schindler’s) stash of black-market liquor and cigarettes to the Jewish inmates: “They won’t drink it, they know its value,” Schindler says for the audience’s benefit.
Adam L Silverman
@Andrya: Since my copyright has been sold by the journal that published it and then resold over and over and I never saw a cent from it, here’s a link to where someone posted the entirety of my article on Just War Theory published in JAN 2002.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Just+war,+jihad,+and+terrorism:+a+comparison+of+Western+and+Islamic…-a085033362
Another Scott
@Carlo Graziani: In poking around on the birdsite and doing a search for “bank run”, it does seem like some are predicting a bank run in Russia (and in Iran).
I’m not seeing it at XE.com yet, but it does look like something made RUB traders nervous on Monday the 19th.
So, there might be something happening, but it’s hard to know… FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Calouste:
lots of Nazi’s were assasinated during the war,
https://www.history.com/news/dutch-resistance-teenager-killed-nazis-freddie-oversteegen
long after Heydrich. Even Hitler was targetted, right into 1945, and not just by the Germans.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: If you see the Buryats, the Tyvans, and the Dagestanis begin to really push back, then we’ll know something is up.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
@zhena gogolia:
Extremely good response to CaseyL.
Never having been to Russia I don’t know this all that well myself but just keeping up with the news here on BJ and a few decades of observation it’s pretty obvious to me that living in Russia has never been like living in the US. Or even close.
Andrya
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks- just war theory is a huge concern of mine- but the link leads to “404/page not found”.
scav
@Aussie Sheila: I think the formation of a land army, etc, is more effective when the women — especially women of peak physical condition — are previously sitting around as untapped labor. Not arguing that labor won’t likely be found. But other jobs will likely go undone and the new labor pulled into the system will more immediately be the old and the very young.
Another Scott
@Andrya:
It’s an ugly URL, but Google got me to the right place on searching on it.
TheFreeLibrary.org is a cleaner link.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Andrya
@Another Scott: Thanks! Your link worked for me.
zhena gogolia
I know the Lincoln Project is not popular here, but this is a good one, “Comrade Carlson Reacts”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unPJ0Rz0_o4
Aussie Sheila
@scav: True. But women in the prime of their life equals men in theirs, all things being equal, although in Russia probably women outnumber men by now in a considerable amount, given the alcoholism and war casualties and the young draft evaders who have left.
However, women are a huge resource when a society is at war. War is as much an economic and industrial struggle as it is feat of arms.
A society involved in total war can ‘double’ its available labour by ensuring women can and do, agricultural and industrial work previously performed by prime age men.
lowtechcyclist
Adam, you say you’re capitalizing ‘NAZI’ because it’s an acronym. Could you remind me of what German words the A and the I are the initial letters of?
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
If anyone running Russia had reasonable concepts of life other than stealing anything/everything, they might be able to understand supply/demand/availability. But they command, then steal, then demand. And it only works for those at the very top, and only when they aren’t at war. Because war costs in every way imaginable and many that are unimaginable if all the top end is used to doing is theft from the rest of the country. And that is the country of Russia. So they are prepared for bluster war but unprepared for actual war, because they lie to each other and to the top of the shit pile that is their leader about, well everything. They look to the very top to run a military but the very top needs middle leadership to operate and function and they don’t trust the middle and bottom rungs because they expect them to be exactly like they are. (We call the middle NCOs) Russia is losing troops at an amazing rate and extremely untrained newbies won’t make things better. Their entire government/country runs to make the top few % better and everyone else just enough to stay alive to support the top few %. Oh wait that is almost the way this country is now run, at least by any large non government entity. And it’s working so well…..
Chetan Murthy
@Captain C:
I remember reading a while back about an opiate called “krokodil” that’s common in Russia. I forget what it’s made from, but …. basically if you take it, you’re giving yourself a death sentence. A consequence of the prohibition of other opiates, and the poverty of most Russian addicts (even moreso than addicts in the West, in short). Nasty, vile stuff: you cook it up from stuff you can get from the drug store, apparently. Though maybe I’m misremembering.
Chetan Murthy
I’m a big fan of AOC and the Squad, but this is *bullshit*: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/us-elections-government/ny-aoc-assets-russia-putin-oligarch-20220428-g5dttf5fprcwpp3ydodmubq3be-story.html
The *fuck* you talkin’ about this, this is *war* and these are assets owned by *foreigners* and *enemy combatants*. Fuuuuck. Just Fuuuuuck.
Bill Arnold
In my ethics, those who threaten thermonuclear war forfeit their right to continued existence.
Putin’s Nuke-Happy Space Man Is Going Totally Off the Rails – Russian space chief and hardcore Putin loyalist Dmitry Rogozin’s nuclear threats are getting more unhinged by the day. (Anna Nemtsova, Jun. 28, 2022)
Ukraine had other motives, yes.
Just so [the nature of war] is clear, via google translate: “The head and trunk of the penis is dissected, the former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and head of Roscosmos faces a complete amputation of the penis. Doctors are fighting to preserve the reproductive organ, but there is very little chance.”
Gin & Tonic can let us know whether this site is reliable and the story is true.
scav
@Aussie Sheila: The point I was trying to make is more women are likely already doing those things now than they were in prior wars. It’s not going to be as easy a “doubling” as it was previously.
Chetan Murthy
@Bill Arnold: I have to say, I’m laughing out loud reading this. And I don’t care what other people might think of me, for doing so.
Tony G
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Bank runs are always a sign of a healthy economic system. Russia has no equivalent of the FDIC?? What a hellhole.
Adam L Silverman
@Andrya: Try this:
Just keyword search Adam L Silverman Just War, Jihad, and Terrorism and Free Library.
Kent
Russia is busy reducing itself as we speak.
I attribute it to the Trump effect. Absolutely everyone and everything that comes into Trump’s orbit is ends up being horribly diminished. Russia played footsie with Trump and look what happened. They turned themselves from a world power to a more corrupt and evil version of Mexico but with nukes.
Kent
@Chetan Murthy: Evidence that the left and right sometimes go full circle and meet each other on the other side.
Aussie Sheila
@scav: True. But I was mainly replying to an earlier comment about problems Russia will have with agricultural labour, spring planting and harvest etc; I don’t envisage that as a particular problem for Russia, unfortunately.
In any case although they have announced ‘mobilisation’, whatever that means in this context, they are not yet a society involved in ‘total war for survival’, unlike Ukraine.
I don’t believe Russia will face serious person power problems at all. Not to say they won’t face economic problems, just not person power shortages.
Adam L Silverman
@lowtechcyclist: It’s actually a portmanteau, but I’m not writing NaZi.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy: Unbelievable. Not only ‘tone deaf’, but morally wrong on the merits. Apart from anything else, those resources represent wealth seized by corrupt oligarchs. Instead of sprouting constitutional BS, she would be better off urging the same approach to homegrown oligarchs that don’t pay their taxes. Jesus the US left is dumb.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: When you’re voting with Boebert, Gaetz, Green, and Massie you’re on the wrong side of the issue.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00879-6/pdf
““Krokodil” is a mixture of several chemicals; the root agent is
desomorphine, a synthetic derivative of morphine. It can be
manufactured at home from codeine, along with easily available additives, and is significantly cheaper than heroin. Desomorphine has 8 to 10 times higher analgesic potency, faster
onset of action, and shorter half-life compared with morphine,
which accounts for its increased addictive potential.4,5 The
simple and cheap domestic production process involves
boiling codeine with a diluting agent (mostly paint thinner),
gasoline, hydrochloric acid, iodine, and red phosphorous
(which are scraped from the striking surfaces on matchboxes),
resulting in the production of desomorphine and various toxic
byproducts.3Because of the high degree of contamination with
different toxic chemicals, which vary among users, scientific
analysis of the chemical composition is not available. Its regular use results in severe damage to the vasculature, muscles,
and bones, and in multiorgan failure with a mean survival time
of 2 years since its first use.3,6 Use of this novel flesh-eating
drug has been spreading rapidly across Europe1,2 because of
its low cost and higher addictive potential. With a significant
number of prescription opiate drug abusers in the United
States, “Krokodil” could find a fertile breeding ground here.”
Aussie Sheila
@Adam L Silverman: Exactly. Attack homegrown oligarchs instead of defending fascists. How hard is that?
I don’t know if it is inexperience, the lack of a mature left constituency or sheer opportunism, but AOC’s vote and posture is serious political malpractice.
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila:
And *who* among her constituents will applaud her vote on this? It’s the poster child for “stupid fucking position to take”.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: oh, man, ain’t that the truth.
Miss Bianca
@Jay: omg, this sounds fucking horrifying.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay: Well don’t set out how to make it then. That is very bad imo.
YMMV.
Chetan Murthy
@Miss Bianca: It was years ago I read an article profiling the lives of Russian krokodil addicts: hooboy, talk about despair: makes the worst of what we read about in the US look like Club Med.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy: It’s worse than that. It exhibits something I don’t like, which I had never associated her with. I think she is simping parts of the US on line left, that are in themselves more of an obstacle to building a left in the US than the FBI and the dreaded ‘msdnc’ ever could. Absolute cretins and opportunists, all of them.
Andrya
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks! I was able to read your article, which was hugely informative to me. (I’m a just-war Catholic, longtime defense worker, with several total pacifists in my family. These issues come up in my life!) Also, I’m currently teaching math at the community college level, at a college with a lot of Muslim students, and my students persist in discussing moral/historical issues with me that have nothing to do with math. The information about the development of Muslim moral philosophy will be very useful to me, and will help me better serve my students.
That said, I still cannot accept that the bombing of residential Dresden was OK. Also, I have a problem with the idea that violence is only morally legitimate if there is some chance of success. I get it that stirring up a hopeless unnecessary war is wrong – I’m looking at you, Bonnie Prince Charlie, in 1745- but there is also the Warsaw Ghetto. They had no chance of success, but, in my opinion, the Holocaust was so evil that killing German soldiers just to say “this is wrong!” was justified.
Anyway, thanks again, Adam!
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila: I can’t go as far as you’re going, b/c I don’t pay that much attention to people on the left (focused on the fuckers I hate, wot). But I can’t disagree, that if this is a trend, it’s a bad one.
[new paragraph] If having her literal life on the line didn’t convince her that this was a fucking *war* and that in *war* we don’t afford our protections to our FUCKING ENEMIES, then … I don’t know what to say.
I mean, for sure her life was on the line, two years ago. I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten that, and yet …. and yet …. (sigh).
Bill Arnold
@Captain C:
A simple “pot still” is pretty basic kitchen tech. Not efficient, but workable.
https://learntomoonshine.com/how-to-make-a-simple-pot-still-easy-step-by-step-process/
Basically, a big pot, with fermented whatever with a low concentration of ethyl alcohol. A round metal bowl (or maybe a pot lid) larger than the pot diameter. A glass at the center of the pot for collecting the distilled spirits. Bowl upside down, with some ice. Very low heat.
My Quaker grandfather had a very small farm in the Great Depression, and did whatever he could to make money (job was cut to 1/2 hours for everyone at the factory; that was decent capitalism). One thing he did was grow (concord; NY State) grapes, and “sell them to the Italians”, during Prohibition. He and his family personally did not drink, though they would sometimes enjoy spoiled grape juice rather than let it go to waste.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy: I believe it is a trend. The US left needs to grow up-fast. There are very bad people in every country, but in the US they wield economic, social and political power at home and abroad.
They are very dangerous. From my perusal of the left there, since my old colleagues have retired or are out of touch, I don’t see much mature development. Just posturing and flame wars. I hope I am wrong. Until the US develops a strong and principled left, we are all still in danger, not just AOC.
Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
like most summaries of this type, it’s not a recipe on how to make it, just a general overview. Even somebody with a Master’s in Chemistry would not find enough information there to make it, at best a guideline for 2-3 years worth of experimentation to create a workable process.
Synthetic Opioids from both Big Pharma and drug dealers are fairly common, and this “overview” was carefully written to show what a horror show “krocodile” is.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay: OK. Apologies if I have offended. But I hate, hate hate long discussions of addictive drugs. The damage they do is incalculable, and I firmly believe that certain elites are just as happy as not that the working poor are addicted with all the hopelessness and powerlessness that entails. I am an anti hard drug hawk I am afraid. For many reasons, moral, political and social.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Not just in wartime. During the Cold War era, visitors to the USSR could make a lot of extra money bringing Marlboros (and Levi’s.)
Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
US legislation to seize and redistribute Russian Ogliarch assets skirt the 4th Amendment via “Proceeds of Crime” Civil Asset Forfeiture laws, which are already under abuse in many parts of Canada and the US. Concern on much of “the Left” is that this is another “slippery slope” expansion that may lead to abuse.
There are other lawful means to achieve the same ends, but with greater Civil Protections, but those are not “quick and easy”. That Yurtle the Turtle is all for it and a co-sponsor should give one pause.
Adam L Silverman
@Andrya: The Warsaw ghetto uprising would be covered under Just Revolution Theory, which has a different moral calculus than Just War Theory. Also, it was undertaken by Jews and Judaism’s ethics and moral calculus is very different than those that developed under the Just War or Just Revolution concepts.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay:
I want to see it happen, then. Fuck, RU has … what? $300B in Fed accounts? Seize it and transfer it to Ukraine. FFS. Enough already. And sure, maybe that means every fucking dictator will avoid SWIFT. Oh, I’m crying large tears over that one, really I am.
Fuck if I care about “sovereign immunity”. Fuck Russia and fuck them sideways.
phdesmond
@Adam L Silverman:
initial N is good, all caps looks like shouting.
NutmegAgain
@lowtechcyclist: I’m not Adam (!) –no, really? — but if this helps not muddies, in my experience Germans in Germany refer to the reprehensible elders as NSDAP (pronounced as it’s spelled), which is Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in the original. Translates as National-socialist German Workers-party.
Gin & Tonic
@Bill Arnold: The ultimate source of that story is a Telegram channel, which are of mixed reliability. I can’t tell you one way or another. Would be pretty funny if true, though.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay: If that is true, let them take it to the USSC. I am sure they won’t hesitate to protect property, especially that which is large and belongs to the wealthy and well connected. The left should choose carefully when it goes full throttle about US Constitutional provisions. There isn’t one that hasn’t been used selectively to protect the powerful, although occasionally 60 years or so ago, its provisions were used to ensure formal equality for a time, to the traditional US black working class.
I have no time for the kind of BS which pretends to be upholding constitutional norms, while in practice, coddling the worst of the worst.
Gravenstone
@Jay: Dude, the wiki for the desomorphine tells you the exact series of synthetic transformations required to get from A to D. It’s not rocket surgery. The big problem is the substitutions home brew chemists are using to make those transformations, and the multiple side products they make in the process.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Although she does not publicize it widely, it is no secret that Representative Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She still votes with the Democratic caucus 95% per cent of the time.
When Ms. Ocasio-Cortez does not vote with the Democratic caucus, I often see people try to rationalize and justify her votes with various reasons of principle. Many Democrats feel they need to defend her, especially from criticism coming from her own party.
I just interpret her contrarian votes as being intended to maintain credibility with members of her other party, which is the DSA. I’m not saying it’s neccesarily a bad thing she’s a member of the DSA, although I’m definitely not going to say it’s a good thing either. But it’s a fact, and it may condition some of her votes and statements.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: yes, Russia is like the Confederacy, Imperial and Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan; they are too high on their own BS to do anything rational and they won’t stop until the pain for them in unbearable.
I mean after the humiliation the Russian just had, what’s tossing all that occupied land back to Ukrainian? The smart thing is end the war ASP while their military economy haven’t utterly collapsed , rethinking things and rebuilding. Instead Russia is just doubles down and doubles down.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid: I have no problem with her membership of the DSA which I knew about. I have problems with stupid political decisions. If this was done at the urging of DSA, well they are stupid too. But I prefer my original thesis. She is simping for a cretinous and opportunistic part of the ‘left’, that is about as serious as sweet fanny adams. They couldn’t organise a piss up in a pub.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
@Aussie Sheila:
I have no issues with seizing everything the Russian Oglarches and the Russian State have as assets in the West and West trading nations, and giving them to Ukraine for reparations and rebuilding,
but,
the “Proceeds of Crimes” Laws that were a work around to the 4th Amendment, (and similar laws in Canada, UK, etc) have in many places, become just a cash and asset grab in many places, with the “victim” required at their own cost, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the assets were not the “Proceeds of Crime”, even by people never suspected, charged or convicted of any crime.
Sadly, there are many cases where Jorge, travelling with $15,000 cash to buy a late model car, so they can gig work as an Uber driver, is “robbed” for a minor traffic infraction of the cash and the beater car, and in order to get them back, must “prove their innocence”, in a Court of Law, at considerable inital and ongoing legal expense and time.
“Proceeds of Crime” laws used to require charges and a conviction, in many jurisdictions that is no longer the case.
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila:
bit-by-bit over the past six years, we’ve learned that your description … fits the DSA to a “t”. Sigh.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay: Okay. I get what you are saying now. She was still wrong imo. The US Congress needs to legislate more, and posture less. If they legislated more, then bad laws could be changed. In addition a certain section of the bien pensant centre and centre left in the US could drop their awe/fear of the USSC whose power derives as much from the failure of the parliament to legislate as it does from right wing judges.
Judge made law is always inferior to laws enacted by democratically elected legislatures, and it is simply bad on a practical and theoretical level to rest opposition to the seizure of oligarch assets on the US Constitution. The seizure of poor peoples’ money and property is an affront in a democracy. I have never heard of such a thing except where a suspected criminal has to explain ‘unexplained wealth’. Truly the US is brutal towards its poor.
Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
It’s not just the US, Canada, the UK and many other western democracies have eroded the laws to allow the looting of the poor.
Far too many “legislative” laws are poorly written, popualist knee jerk reactions to a “crisis du jour”, that take decades of Judicial quashing of overreach and excess to reform.
It takes a lot of time, revision, consultation to craft “good” legislation at best. Trusting the USSC to protect “property” with the current USSC’s membership is a fools errand. I can see them gleefully protecting a Russian Oglarch’s megayacht but not a Chinese Immigrant’s grub stake to start a business.
”
Police abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws has shaken our nation’s conscience. Civil forfeiture allows police to seize — and then keep or sell — any property they allege is involved in a crime. Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government.
Forfeiture was originally presented as a way to cripple large-scale criminal enterprises by diverting their resources. But today, aided by deeply flawed federal and state laws, many police departments use forfeiture to benefit their bottom lines, making seizures motivated by profit rather than crime-fighting. For people whose property has been seized through civil asset forfeiture, legally regaining such property is notoriously difficult and expensive, with costs sometimes exceeding the value of the property. With the total value of property seized increasing every year, calls for reform are growing louder, and CLRP is at the forefront of organizations seeking to rein in the practice.”
https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/asset-forfeiture-abuse
“Police in B.C. have the authority to take away your personal belongings if they think they are stolen or the proceeds of crime — and if those belongings are worth less than $75,000 they don’t even need to prove it.”
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/bc-administrative-forfeiture-system-ripe-for-abuse-say-critics
etc.
Anyway
@Jay:
There was a good 60 minutes investigation into the practice of police abusing RICO laws and seizing cash that people were travelling with — often their entire life savings. The local police jurisdiction got to keep this money — it was another sourceof of revenue! It was truly awful. This was some years back
ETA: Exactly what Jay is talking about. I didn’t know it happened in Canada as well.
Lyrebird
@Andrya: I just want to say that I appreciate how thoughtfully you wrote what you did.
I have no background to comment on Just War theories, but I read Slaughterhouse Five in school. So after reading wht you said about firing on the trains, I was wondering what you might have thought about the civilians killed in Dresden.
I do not think it is likely to have a war, even a very well justified war, where no atrocities happen, so I think it is very reasonable to consider some parts of the US actions in WWII wrong even while being proud of the role we played in bringing the war and the genocide to an end.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay: I see now. But still parliament can legislate. It should, in a democratic polity. I repeat my earlier point, it is democratic malpractice to rely on the USSC to right social and political outrages. I get the structural problems with US political democracy, but they have been overcome before. The US centre left and left needs to get their boots on. Instead of moaning about Fox News and the USSC they need to get busy politically. Particularly in so called Red States’.
A real left would go quiet and organise busily in areas where electoral and other victories can be won. This doesn’t mean organising noisy demos in NY, although there is nothing wrong with that!
However given the real structural and suppressive political problems in the US the left needs to get a clue, and learn from movements that have succeeded in similar, oppressive and difficult environments. It is bad there, but it is not Russia. Yet.
Carlo Graziani
@Jay: Ferguson. Man, what an eye-opener everyone thought that was going to be. Seemed to be for a while, too. Then the country went back to sleep
Thanks for bringing this up.
YY_Sima Qian
@Andrya: I agree w/ you on the fire bombing German cities during WW II. That is why we now have international laws that pertain to warfare, & countries that ratified the relevant conventions have adopted appropriate laws in their military codes of justice.
Furthermore, if firebombing of German cities was justified by the Luftwaffe blitzing London, then what was the justification for firebombing Japanese cities? Because the Japanese had terror bombed Chinese cities? But it wasn’t the Chinese air force firebombing Tokyo.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman:
How do you propose to achieve that?
Traveller
AOC is not completely wrong in her position in reference to the oligarchs. Well actually she is legally wrong, in that 4th amendment protections do not apply to foreign nationals according to case law. (which is not to say that many constitutional protections do apply to foreign nationals).
Be that as it may, her point is not entirely without meaning ….Please see her full statement at your link (which I do not seem able to cut and paste or upload as an image), but she elaborates correctly that this authorizes a taking without due process of law and especially may be used as a precedence against other people when civil forfeiture law is already out of control in the United States.
@Chetan Murthy:
YY_Sima Qian
@Traveller: Agree w/ you and Jay here. People understandably looking to stick it to Russian oligarchs (& I don’t disagree w/ that sentiment) by any means possible need to be very conscious what GOP executives, legislatures & courts, at different levels) could do w/ these kinds of precedents.
Given the shady dealings these oligarchs have been engaging in, I have a hard time believing that no legal actions could be brought against them that would at least freeze their assets, for eventual seizure when they are convicted (even if in absentia). We really don’t need to give future GOP executives more tools to go after the assets of anyone they deem to be enemies (be they the poor, minorities, D donors, or foreign rival du jour).
lowtechcyclist
@Adam L Silverman:
OK, but you’re shouting NAZI where everyone else in the English-speaking world is just saying Nazi in a normal tone of voice. It’s very weird and distracting.
lowtechcyclist
I think the hard part of people seeing it this way is that war is generally viewed as a clash of arms. And there certainly hasn’t been enough of that (Ukraine, Syria, Georgia) to qualify as anything like a world war. It’s not the distribution, it’s the absence of quantity and reach.
To think of it as world war, one must consider other actions Russia has taken that had much greater reach, particularly its interference in U.S. and European politics, resulting in TFG and his increasingly virulent followers here, and in Brexit on the other side of the pond which has greatly weakened Britain. And of course the Wagner Group in Africa.
You add all that up, it’s starting to look more like a world war.
Traveller
Yes, YY_Sima Qian, I do think you have analyzed this correctly. The problem isn’t the assets and Ferrari owned by a Cali cartel member, we have always been able to reach these assets and properly seize them.
The difficulty is granny’s house where her grandson has hidden a brick of marijuana under her front porch.The feds come in and seize granny’s house as forfeit for hiding illegal drugs. Granny had nothing to do with this, and there is no nexus between the house she bought in 1953 and the attempt to seize the house as forfeit in 2022.
I believe that we have already seized $330 billion worth of liquid assets and funds belonging to the Russian government. I could be wrong on this number, but I think this is correct and there should be not too great a difficulty applying these as war reparations without the need have seizing individual assets, though of course that can be done also but in a different proceeding.
PS Merry Christmas and a very happy new year to you and everyone you love. Best wishes Traveller.<yes, p data-mce-fragment=”1″>@YY_Sima Qian: @YY_Sima Qian:
Chetan Murthy
@Traveller:
AFAICT, we *froze* those funds (in Fedwire accounts) but did not actually seize and start to redistribute them. Which is why we need to keep appropriating money for financial support of Ukraine, instead of just transferring money from these accounts.
Uncle Cosmo
@NutmegAgain: Piling on ;^D, I’ve seen “Nazi” explained as a portmanteau (thanky for the term, Adam) of Nationalsozialismus, which IMO is a long reach – but there’s a simpler explanation: auf deutsch, “national” is pronounced “naah-tsio-nal”. “Nati” is misleading: without the o at the end of tio, it looks like it ought to be pronounced almost like “naughty” – but replace the t with a z (pronounced ts in German) and you get back to the original pronunciation (naught-tsee). (Which is still better than Churchill, who consistently pronounced it naah-zee.)
The Germans like portmanteaux: Stasi (Staatssicherheitsdienst), Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), Grepo (Grenzpolizei), Vopo (Volkspolizei)…und so weiter. But they have never shied away from pure acronyms either when it seemed appropriate (e.g., RSHA, Reichssicherheitshauptamt) – and after WW2, they began abandoning the automatic creation of massive compound words to describe something they didn’t have a term for (e.g., Farbfernsehgeräteschauleiter, the person in charge of a display of color TVs**) in favor of the Anglo-Saxon propensity for simply stealing words from any and every other language on earth whenever possible (e.g., kechap).
** An only slightly exaggerated instance from a discussion in my copy of Cassell’s Colloquial German (formerly Beyond the Dictionary in German)
/arrant pedantry
NutmegAgain
NutmegAgain
@Uncle Cosmo:
I love a deep dive into language(s) and their oddities! The German fondness for acronyms kind of surprised me–between the extraordinary compound nouns and then the acronyms, I feel like, “make up your minds! long or short!!” (Bahasa Indonesia also does the lets-go-wild-with-acronyms thing. But it’s a creole language.)
Anyway. The German human label still in use that gives me the shivers is “azo” used to describe people who are not typically socially engaged, and maybe on the spectrum (?). It’s an abbreviation from “asozial” , and seems to me it really reverberates with echoes of Nazi policies about sorting out people in different and horrible ways.
Frohe Weihnachten!