Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Republicans in disarray!

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

No one could have predicted…

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Second rate reporter says what?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 385: Just Another Quick Update

War for Ukraine Day 385: Just Another Quick Update

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Just another quick update tonight.

Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump: (corrected to today’s address)

Now we feel that the Russian aggression is approaching the point where it can break – address by the President of Ukraine

15 March 2023 – 22:45

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

Today was a fruitful international day for our country, for our defense.

Another meeting in the Ramstein format was held, the tenth one already. Ammunition for our warriors, artillery, tanks, protection of Ukrainian skies – all this was discussed. There are solutions. I am grateful to the United States, which coordinates Ramstein, and all of our partners for their unflagging willingness to help.

This is especially important now, when we feel that the Russian aggression is approaching the point where it can break.

There is no terrorist that can build up its potential in confronting the free world. Russia is no exception.

We must constantly increase the pressure for terror. Pressure in our defense, in sanctions against Russia, in destroying the ways the Russian state and its companies circumvent sanctions, in political and legal pressure.

The more pressure we put on them, the faster we will move towards restoring our territorial integrity and international legal order. We are doing everything for our partners to feel this. This necessity to continue pressure. Step by step. Without ceasing.

I would like to thank Denmark separately today. Both for the new defense package for Ukraine and for the decision to establish a special fund to help our country in the amount of DKK 7 billion, which is USD 1 billion. It is extremely significant. It is extremely necessary.

I am grateful to the Danish government and parliament, to the entire Danish society. Such decisions ensure that we can speed up the return of peace to Ukraine and stability to the whole of Europe.

There is also an important decision in London today – in the case of the Kremlin bribe to Yanukovych back in 2013. When Russian money and dirty schemes with the then-politicians in Ukraine were actually used as part of the aggression against our country. An aggression that began back then – politically, economically, and later with the use of the special services and military force.

It is in this context that the $3 billion bonds case should be considered. Fully considered. And this is fair.

I addressed the participants of the powerful British conference of the Society of Editors. This is a gathering of leading media professionals in the United Kingdom, authoritative journalists, authoritative editors. People who have actually dedicated their lives to freedom – freedom of speech.

I urged them to spread the truth even more actively about Russian aggression, about our people whose lives are being destroyed by Russia, about our defense, which is returning freedom and security to Ukrainians and all Europeans.

Journalists – the free media of Ukraine and the world – have done a lot during this war to make Russian terror lose. To make Russian propaganda lose. And I want to emphasize: they did it simply by spreading information about what is happening here and now in Ukraine, in Europe, in the world. They were just spreading the truth.

This must be continued. The Kremlin will never defeat the truth. Neither will it defeat Ukraine.

I met with representatives of the American magazine The Atlantic, one of the most prominent global media brands. I met with the owner of the magazine, Mrs. Jobs, the editor-in-chief, Mr. Goldberg, and Anne Applebaum, an authoritative journalist.

We had a very meaningful conversation. In particular, about how we use modern technologies to reinforce our warriors and our institutions. About our army of drones, which will only get bigger and more powerful. About our IT specialists who help protect Ukraine. About the threats posed by Russia in the cyber and information space.

The world must know that the terrorist state seeks to bring destruction not only to our people, but also to all peoples who want to be free.

Of course, I am constantly in touch with our military, with the commanders. Everything we do, everything the state does, is subordinated to one task: to give each of our warriors more capabilities to fight, to give each of our cities more security.

As always, today I would like to commend our warriors who are delivering results in critical areas of the frontline. Of course, Bakhmut. Of course, Donetsk region in general. But also the south. And Kharkiv region. We do not forget about any of the directions of state defense.

The 54th and 92nd separate mechanized brigades – guys, thank you for your resilience and strength in Bakhmut.

The 3rd operational brigade of the National Guard and our border guards, who are fighting for Bakhmut together with all units of the defense and security forces… Thank you, warriors!

Thank you for your courage and for replenishing our exchange fund.

The 15th separate regiment and the 1st presidential operational brigade of the National Guard – I thank you for your results in the battles for the cities of Donetsk region!

The border guards of Kharkiv region – thank you for your strong counteraction to the enemy!

The 406th separate artillery brigade and the 131st separate reconnaissance battalion – thank you, warriors, for the defense of Kherson region! Thank you for your powerful responses to enemy strikes at Ukrainian cities.

The occupier must be destroyed. Thank you to everyone who makes this possible! Glory to each and every one who is now in combat! Glory to everyone who helps!

Glory to Ukraine!

Here’s former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situation in Bakhmut:

Bakhmut:

Here’s the details machine translated from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s Telegram channel:

🗣👊Commander of the Land Forces Colonel-General Alexander Sirsky on the situation on the Eastern Front:

💬 Today, a warrior of 93 OMBr «Cold Yar» with a call sign «Alan» destroyed an enemy Su-25 plane in Bakhmut. 

The enemy continues to try unsuccessfully to surround the city and move forward. There, fighters of the 93rd Brigade, along with other defenders, restrain the insane pressure of the enemy. Due to their work, enemy tanks, BMP, RSZV and warehouses with BC – take off into the air.

The occupiers are also pushing in the Kupiansky and Lyman directions. Warriors 92 OMBr. Ivan Sirka was given with dignity on the teeth of the enemy, destroying the systems of radar, RSZV and control points of the aggressor.  Such decisive actions of our army significantly deplete and demoralize the enemy and accelerate our victory.  Glory to Ukraine!

There’s a bit of confusion about the type of Russian fighter. Ukrainska Pravda originally reported it as a SU-24 based on the 93rd Brigade’s Telegram post, which was later updated to identify the downed fighter as an SU-25. Colonel-General Sirsky’s identification of it as a SU-25 in the Ukrainian MOD’s post above is the correct one. Here’s the 93rd Brigade’s updated Telegram post:

93 OMBr landed forever an enemy cacapolitan, probably a Su-24. Bakhmut direction

UPD. Su-25

There’s video at the link. Or below courtesy of Dmitri from WarTranslated:

We really need to be able to embed Telegram posts like we do tweets and YouTube videos…

More Bakhmut news:

Or, more accurately, whinging.

Kostyantynivka:

Kupiansk:

Sometimes you should just SHUT THE FUCK UP!

That should be USEUCOM in case you were wondering.

This is all circumstantial, but it would seem that the Black Sea Fleet was prepared to do recovery operations of the MQ-9 Reaper that was accidentally clipped by one of the two Russian SU-27s yesterday. As I’ve previously written, Ms. Honcharenko is Ukrainian and lives in Odesa. She monitors Russian military aviation and naval transmissions. Anytime Russian military air assets start squawking, she starts tweeting it out. She has no tweets about the SU-27s, which may indicate their transponders were turned off.

Wagner is advertising for new mercenaries.

Ukrainska Pravda‘s tweet machine translates as:

The media drew attention to the fact that the Wagner PMC, owned by Yevhen Prygozhyn, began advertising on the popular porn site Pornhub (18+).

And here’s their English language reporting:

Several media outlets have reported that the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an advertising campaign on Pornhub, a popular pornography website.

Source: Kholod (Cold) and Kasparov, Russian media outlets; A Guy With Porn Dependency Telegram channel

Details: A video shared by Pornhub users in Kemerovo and Volgograd oblasts shows a woman saying “We are the most f***ing amazing private army in the world. We are hiring fighters from all parts of Russia. Don’t wh*ck off, apply for a job with the Wagner Group.”

A phone number then appears on screen; the number has been linked to Wagner Group recruiters.

The video can be accessed by Pornhub users in Russia who do not use VPN or adblocks.

Several media outlets have reported that the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an advertising campaign on Pornhub, a popular pornography website.

That’s enough for tonight.

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Open thread!

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    Lyrebird

    Thank you Adam for gathering this information & presenting key points once again.

    Just checking: Did you mean to include the Mar 14th transcript from Pres. Ze?  Is there a new one or no?

  3. 3.

    Dan B

    I saw a report that Wagner has placed a $15 million bounty on Italy’s Defense Minister.  I don’t have verification.

  6. 6.

    Spanky

    @Cameron:

    Not sure what sort of recruits they’ll get out of that.

    The lonesome, frustrated kind.

    My question is, who is getting the ad money? I.e., what nationality is the porn site?

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    It would be a pity if Prigozhin the pig-man were to suddenly fall out of a window. (A pity for any innocent bugs he happened to land on, I mean.)

    Also, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall listening in on Zelensky’s conversation with Rupert Murdoch. I wonder how/if he broached the topic of Little Lord Fishsticks convincing the GOP to abandon Ukraine. Zelensky’s communication skills are legendary, but damn.

  13. 13.

    Alison Rose

    Here is Zelenskyy’s address from today (subtitled version) on his FB page.

    Advertising on Pornhub. Brilliant. Perfect. Wonder what the russian groupies in the US who tout their good family (read: anti-gay) values now. Plus more whinging from Prigozhin. God, in addition to being evil and hateful and bigoted and all else, the kremlin and the russian command are all a bunch of messy bitches.

    If you have any friends or family who were happy to see the Navalny film win at the Oscars, United24 made a good short video about why that’s nothing to celebrate from a Ukrainian perspective.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  14. 14.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Alison Rose: As someone more clever than I said, Navalny is fighting for power, Ukrainians are fighting for freedom. These are not the same.

  15. 15.

    Jay

    @Spanky:

    Pornhub is Canadian, but while their track record for taking down content and ads is better these days, it’s not that great.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu (@ragipsoylu) reported on remarks by Turkish President Erdogan that his country is prepared to endorse Finland’s accession to NATO. It sounds like this could happen before Turkiye’s May 14 general election, assuming Finland is willing to take NATO membership without Sweden’s inclusion at this time.

    On another matter, Russia announced they are prepared to ratify an extension of the Black Sea grain deal, but only for another 60 days. The UN and Turkiye have signed off on a 120 day extension. The current extension expires this Saturday, March 18. One observer says that 23 million tons of Ukrainian grain have been moved since the deal was struck last August.

  19. 19.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gin & Tonic: Indeed.  He’s willing to make nicey-nicey like he wants to give back Crimea.  But he’s just another Muscovy elite.

    The Russians got the Oscar. Now they don’t need to pretend they’ll give up Crimea. This much is said by Leonid Volkov, the “anti-corruption activist” who recently admitted demanding EU to lift sanctions from Russian oligarchs, and Navalny’s chief of staff, if memory serves me. https://t.co/tNME8mFctO pic.twitter.com/feNtargLXh
    — Шеогорат (@4E_JL0BEDJL0) March 14, 2023

  20. 20.

    CaseyL

    Adam, I am grateful for these roundups, and realize they take a lot out of you – but can you comment at all on some of the scary stories we’ve seen of late?  I’ve read that Ukraine’s army is exhausted,  that casualties are very bad, and they’re running out of ammunition and other vital equipment.

  22. 22.

    Anonymous At Work

    More interested in the drone situation, which is getting murkier.  RU AF forces down a US drone to try to recover it, or recover the data in it?  What’s the drone’s defense against that, anything beyond encryption?  And what’s the US response?

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Anonymous At Work: In today’s news conference SecDef Austin and GEN Milley basically said nothing to worry about, it was remotely wiped as it was going down. And if russia can’t raise their own sub from ~350 feet of water, how are they going to retrieve drone fragments from >10 times that depth?

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    @Anonymous At Work: Reports are that the US drone had a mechanism whereby its software was wiped from its electronic systems when it was ditched.

    Depending on the water depth, Russia might have a hard time recovering the drone. I guess that will also depend on how accurate a fix they got on where it landed.

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    @zhena gogolia: While his wife and kids were wearing tuxes and gowns and hobnobbing with the glitterati in Hollywood this weekend, another friend of mine was killed in Kherson. I have no time for Navalny.

  32. 32.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gin & Tonic: And it’s not just him, either.  Many of the current crop of Putin mouthpieces were, back in the 90s and early noughties, “liberal” journalists and such.  They’re all part of the system, a system of managed faux democracy.  Each has their assigned role to play, so that the public has no actual choices.  Solovyov was one of those liberal, back in the day.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    Time to get cleaned up and go to bed.

    Try not to beat each other up too much.

  34. 34.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: OT, do you thing the current wave of protests in Israel will actually threaten the Netanyahu government, to will Netanyahu push through the judicial “reforms” in face of all opposition?

  36. 36.

    zhena gogolia

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Many of the current crop of Putin mouthpieces were, back in the 90s and early noughties, “liberal” journalists and such.

    Those people are not rotting in solitary confinement.
    This is a counterproductive line of attack, that’s all I’ll say.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: A Guardian story quoted Finnish President Saul Niniisto as saying the Turkiye “has made up its mind” regarding Finland and NATO, and he would hear the decision from Erdogan when the two presidents meet in Ankara later this week. The implication was that the answer will be yes.

       The news came as the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, said on a visit to Berlin that he hoped his country’s NATO accession would be ratified by Turkey soon after general elections scheduled for May.

    The Guardian March 15, 2023

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    I haven’t seen the documentary, but I’m not clear on why thinking Navalny is brave to take on Putin and hoping Navalny prevails in that struggle is a negative thing. It seems like a species of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

  41. 41.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Grrr. Aaron Maté is a loathsome propagandist, and entirely wrong about many (most) things, including a couple of things that consensus opinion has him right about. (Trump-Russia stuff in particular.)
    Related, the grayzone incident recently where they were caught using the generated output of a large language model, including generated fake urls, as source material for a published piece, was pretty funny.

  43. 43.

    zhena gogolia

    @Chetan Murthy:
    I read the Volkov quotation and it doesn’t say what this tweet implies.

    Propaganda is always propaganda. This guy, @golub, speaks Russian; he perfectly knows his English-language tweet does not have anything to do with what I actually said in this q&a-session in 2021, but he also knows the English-speaking audience will not check. So he lies. https://t.co/jEgX1GryX6— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) March 15, 2023

    But I have to go now.

  44. 44.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Betty Cracker: I think the assumption everybody’s making is that “anti-Putin == small-d democrat == anti-imperialist”.  And that second equation isn’t actually substantiated by any evidence.  Until his most recent “theses”, Navalny was a Russian imperialist: he was publicly in favor of keeping Crimea.  He’s referred to Georgians as “rodents”.  And his chief-of-staff said “nah, we’re keepin’ Crimea”.

    So the argument that we shouldn’t take him as the Second Coming, is based on noting that what the *world* needs is not just Russian liberalization, but the end of Russia’s imperial ambitions.  And there’s no evidence that Navalny is that, and lots that he is just another imperialist.

    Or as I read somewhere: all these people — the Putinists, the liberals, all of them — are from Muscovy.  They all come from that region, or were trained there, and so they *all* view the rest of Russia and the near-abroad, as Russia’s imperial domain.

    In that sense to an Estonian, or a Ukrainian, Navalny really isn’t any better.

  45. 45.

    Jay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Navalny is a kinder, gentler Russian Imperialist. That’s not saying much. He’s not really a “reformer”, nor is he a viable challenger to Pootie Poot.

    Remember Medvedev, who was “hailed” in the West as more liberal than Putin? He’s outed himself as as rabid a nutter as anybody else.

  47. 47.

    Chetan Murthy

    @zhena gogolia: You read that image, and you think he’s not saying “we WILL NOT give Crimea back” ?  Wut?  Shall I type the text back in and highlight the relevant parts?

  48. 48.

    Chetan Murthy

    @zhena gogolia: Or perhaps you’re saying that the English translation is inaccurate?  That, I can understand.  But the plain meaning of the English text is *clear*.

  49. 49.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @Alison Rose:

    I think the most charitable description of Navalny is that he is fighting for the freedom of ethnic Russians, particularly the urbanites in Moscow & Saint Petersburg. Not unlike most of the US’ original founders. That does not necessarily make Navalny “evil” (I don’t think “good/evil” is the most useful analytical framework in general), just very problematic & deeply flawed, & human.

    Not all dissidents to authoritarian regimes are liberal. In fact, many of them are themselves illiberal, libertarian, or just cynical opportunists. They are more anti-regime than pro-democracy, at some level understandable due the intense oppression dissidents are generally under, which would color their views. However, many of them have become quite practiced at masquerading as liberal democrats to gain western support (particularly financial support), & western governments & analysts have in the main decided be either naive or willfully blind to their true nature.

    As far as Ukraine is concerned, I think the most important factor w/ Navalny is whether he explicitly supports immediately ending the invasion & restoring the pre-2014 international borders. Seems like he would, w/ the exception of Crimea. That makes him leagues better in the short to medium term than Putin or any of the other conceivable alternatives. Long term, it is entirely possible he could turn out to be another Victor Orban. Human beings are complex creatures w/ complex motivations, we should fully recognize & deal w/ that complexity, we don’t need to flatten them to either their “good” (the Hollywood treatment) or “bad” (the Kamal Galeev treatment) parts.

  50. 50.

    zhena gogolia

    @Chetan Murthy: I don’t see him saying “we” at all. He’s talking about the situation on the ground and how difficult it would be to reverse it. It’s also from 2021, so very different from saying this now. He does not identify with Putin, I can assure you, so “we” is inaccurate. But I give up (really mean it this time!).

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betty Cracker:
    Re Navalny, he’s destiny-entangled with V. Putin[1]. In that context, if he ever gained power, it would be in contrast to V. Putin, with plenty of political capital for change; if it were spent on e.g. focuses on systemic Russian corruption and restoration of Russia’s ties with the rest of the world and attempting to keep the Russian Federation intact, net would be good IMO.
    Unlikely to happen, though.

    [1] Norns grumble.

  52. 52.

    Alison Rose

    @Betty Cracker: G&T could obviously speak to this better than I can, but the United24 video I linked above (here) gets at some of the issues with lionizing Navalny. He supported russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, has (at least in the past, not sure how recently) said that Ukrainians and russians were of one nation and that Crimea should remain under russian control. In April 2022, he tweeted that instead of paying for weapons for Ukraine, the west should pay for social media ads in russia, which seems…blinkered. I’m sure there’s more where that comes from.

    I don’t think anyone should be held in solitary confinement, but it seems like some people want to really put him on a super shiny pedestal and I can imagine that for Ukrainians, seeing his family among the glitz and glamour at the Oscars was perhaps…distasteful, compared to what they are all going through.

  53. 53.

    zhena gogolia

    He is not going to survive his imprisonment, so debating his views is rather comical.

  54. 54.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker: Being anti-Putin is not being pro-Ukraine. He is on record calling Ukrainians “khokhols” – equivalent to calling Mexicans “wetbacks” or Iraqis “sand ni***rs.”

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chetan Murthy: ​
      Please don’t forget that her (zg’s) Russian is far better than yours and that she has probably forgotten more about Russia than you will ever know. But do patronize her because that’s a great look.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: I don’t think the protests will topple Netanyahu’s government. He is under a lot of political and economic pressure to compromise though. I think President Herzog just proposed a compromise formula. Evidently opposition parties are waiting to see Netanyahu’s response before they give theirs. One problem here is that no Israeli politician, not even among his own party and coalition allies, trusts the slippery Prime Minister.

    Netanyahu’s coalition has a lot of other stress points that could break it up in the future, but in the short term it’s 64-56 majority seems safe.

    The United Arab Emirates made an interesting statement a couple days ago. They are postponing an agreement under which they would purchase Israeli air defense systems. A UAE official told reporters that the Emiratis are reluctant to deal with Netanyahu when he cannot control his own government. Observers took this as a dig at Netanyahu’s Justice Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

    Ben-Gvir is a loose cannon, and giving him the Justice portfolio was like putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department. He was a follower of the racist American-Israeli Meir Kahane as a youth and still is. The Israeli Army refused to draft Ben-Gvir because of his political radicalism.

  60. 60.

    Jay

    Encirclement & capture of #Bakhmut is happening almost every day, for the past 9months, it's true, so far only with pro Russian channels & Propagandists reports.In reality, there is a connection with the city, you can enter & leave, but you can also come under fire on the road. pic.twitter.com/1NJjRxUjuH— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) March 15, 2023

  61. 61.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: Thanks! Alway appreciate your insights about the region. It is depressing to see the increasing illiberalism in Israel over the past nearly 3 decades (& the hopeless plight of the Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, becoming less than afterthoughts), but merely part of a larger global trend.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chetan Murthy: She’s speaks, reads, and writes fluent Russian. I’m not a huge Navalny fan, but you may just want to find a way to apologize for insulting her linguistic competence and then move on.

  68. 68.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: I am referring to this link: https://twitter.com/4E_JL0BEDJL0/status/1635720815038562336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    There is an image in this link, with English text.  Now maybe that is not what Volkov said.  Maybe Volkov is not associated with Navalny anymore (he was Navalny’s chief-of-staff in 2018)).  But if thats what Volkov said (translated to English) and he is indeed a valid spokesman for Navalny or Navalny’s movement, then the plain meaning of the English text is clear: “nah, we ain’t givin’ it back”.  Yes yes, it’s dressed up as “oh gosh, it’d be so difficult to give it back”.  But when your country stole it <10yr ago, ethnically cleansed many of the inhabitants, and imported a million of your own people, you can’t claim that it’d be a great hardship on those people.

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gin & Tonic: Okay, it makes more sense in that context; I was unaware that lots of people were assuming Navalny was pro-Ukraine, anti-imperialist, etc. I haven’t seen the film, but my impression of Navalny from what I’ve read is that he is anti-corruption and anti-Putin, which are good qualities but dangerous in Russia.

  72. 72.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: zg did not say that the translation was inaccurate.  she said that I had misinterpreted the *English* quotation.  She wrote:

    I read the Volkov quotation and it doesn’t say what this tweet implies.

  73. 73.

    zhena gogolia

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m not claiming to have found the original Russian. It’s not popping up for me easily. I’m reading the same English he is.

    ETA: The word “we” does not appear in the quotation. The agent taking Crimea is Putin. Volkov does not identify with Putin. The characterization of the quotation is simply wrong.

    From prison Navalny has expressed unqualified support for Ukraine. But I know that’s not good enough.

    Navalny will never be in power in Russia. So what is this fight about? The Oscars? Who cares?

  77. 77.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m not a “huge Navalny fan” either, but the man has suffered quite a bit for his anti-Putin activities, and I give him respect for that. Haven’t seen the documentary.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: Iranian-Saudi agreement brokered by China made it easier for the UAE to forgo the Israeli air defense systems for now. Part of the agreement is that both countries will try to prevent third-party attacks on each other. The Saudis and Emeratis had feared more drone attacks launched from Yemen by the Iran-allied Houthis. Now, the Yemeni conflict itself may be finally settled.

  79. 79.

    Chetan Murthy

    @zhena gogolia: Here’s the text (via an image-to-text converter):

    Journalist: Do you think that returning Crimea to Ukraine is possible? In the near future?

    Volkov: No, I do not think so. I can explain what happens: Putin committed a crime against the international law, against the interests of Russia, got for it sanctions, international isolation and so on. It all was the result of annexation of Crimea. But it happens in real life, that the crime is committed, the criminal can be punished, like, when a man kills somebody, you can put the murderer in prison, but you can not resurrect the victim. You just can’t do it. And here we now have similar situation. We can see that Putin created a great problem, a giant center of pain on the world map. There are 2 millions of citizens there, who have their own interests. There is Ukrainian constitution, according to which the annexation was totally unlawful, as it was according to the international law. There’s the public opinion in Russia, which is by the way is no longer all that pro-Crimea, they’re beginning to understand that Crimea can’t be put on bread and that it brings no joy. That on the contrary, its an expensive money sink, but all of this does not allow to hope for a fast and easy solution. There are problems that have no fast and easy solution. North Cyprus problem is, correct me if I’m wrong, 47 years old. Falklands’ problem is 40 years old, Karabach problem is 30 years old. Putin created another such point on the world map, it’s very bad. I can imagine how politician of Beautiful Russia of Tomorrow and politicians of Ukraine will sit together and begin the dialogue about some absolutely new political framework, which will allow to start to seek out solutions for this problem. And get Noble prizes for it. I can’t imagine this happening during our lifetime.

  81. 81.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @zhena gogolia: ​
      I assumed. Since there was a link to the press conference in the Tweet, I made a mental jump and thought that you were disputing the accuracy of the translation.

  83. 83.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Chetan Murthy: He’s saying “gosh it’s really complicated” and comparing it to Cyprus and the Falklands.  Which it is not.  He’s using the argument that Russia ethnically cleansed Crimea in the last decade, brought in its own people, and now, gosh, those people have rights to stay.  Which is bullshit.

    And KEY, he didn’t say “Sure, if we take power, of course we’re giving it back”.

    Re: Oscars: It has been remarked by many people, that the one thing Navalnaya did not say in her speech, was “Ukraine must win, and Crimea is Ukraine”.  I didn’t watch the speech (b/c don’t want TV) but: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/kate-tsurkan-problem-lionizing-navalny-213241857.html?guccounter=1

    Noticeably missing from Navalnaya’s speech was any mention of Ukraine or the suffering that Russia has inflicted upon the Ukrainian people since invading the country in 2014 and further launching an all-out war in February 2022.

  84. 84.

    Kent

    @Dan B:I saw a report that Wagner has placed a $15 million bounty on Italy’s Defense Minister.  I don’t have verification.

    That would be an act of war on NATO and trigger Article 5 meaning it would be tantamount to an attack on the US and mean war.

  85. 85.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chetan Murthy: Or he is saying “It’s hard to unshit the bed.”  But I am not going to argue with you.  Driving nails into my walls with my forehead would serve the same purpose, but at least I could hang some pictures.

  86. 86.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: One hopes that humanitarian nightmare of the Yemeni civil war/proxy war can come to a firmer end soon. No world power came off well there. China sold a large number of attack drones to Saudi Arabia & the UAE, which were then used in Yemen.

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    I need to say as a corrective to some comments above that I speak Russian but I am not an expert on contemporary Russian politics. I am not a “huge fan” of Navalny, didn’t see the film, didn’t see the Oscars, have only the vaguest notion who Volkov is.

    I read the same English quotation that Chetan Murphy posted, and I did not see it as cheerleading for “us” not giving back Crimea. I saw it as a description of the situation as it existed in 2021 and the difficulty of envisioning Crimea being given back. That seems to me to be quite similar to the position of the US government, so what it has to do with the Oscar for “Navalny” I am not sure.

    All I know is that Navalny is in a solitary confinement cell with minimal medical attention. I give him respect for putting his body on the line to resist Putin.

  89. 89.

    zhena gogolia

    My hero is Boris Nemtsov.

    Nemtsov was among the few Russian statesmen to vocally oppose the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Nemtsov stated that he viewed Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine, that he considered its annexation by the Russian Federation to be illegal, and that the people of Crimea and not Russian legislators should decide which country they want to live in.[64] In an op-ed published on 1 September 2014 in the Kyiv Post, Nemtsov lamented the “fratricidal war” between Russia and Ukraine.

    This is not our war, this is not your war, this is not the war of 20-year-old paratroopers sent out there. This is Vladimir Putin’s war.

    He accused Putin of “trying to dissect Ukraine and create in the east of the country a puppet state, Novorossiya, that is fully economically and politically controlled by the Kremlin.” Meanwhile, wrote Nemtsov, “Russia itself is sinking into lies, violence, obscurantism and imperial hysteria.” He stated that he sometimes thinks Putin is insane, but at other times he recognizes that Putin is driven by one goal: the “preservation of personal power and money at any cost.” Ukraine had overthrown “a thieving president,” and Putin needed to punish it “to make sure that no Russian would get these thoughts.”

    Ukraine chose the European way, which implies the rule of law, democracy and change of power. Ukraine’s success on this way is a direct threat to Putin’s power because he chose the opposite course – a lifetime in power, filled with arbitrariness and corruption.

    But he’s super dead.

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