Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

In after Baud. Damn.

He really is that stupid.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

This really is a full service blog.

All hail the time of the bunny!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 493: (Some of) You Have Questions, I (May) Have Answers

War for Ukraine Day 493: (Some of) You Have Questions, I (May) Have Answers

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A couple of housekeeping items. First, as always, thank you all for the kind words. And you are all most welcome. Though, as I’ve repeatedly stated, I wish I didn’t have to keep doing these. But as long as the Ukrainians are fighting, we’ll sit the vigil for them. Second, a special thanks to PirateDan for not only the kind words but for stating them someplace he probably figured I wouldn’t see them. Should any of your fellow lizards follow you back, you all are most welcome. I scroll the comments over there somewhat regularly just to see who is linking to what. Third, and finally, I’m not sure how much material we’re going to have for these updates over the next few days until whatever it is that the Starlink Snowflake thinks he’s doing at Twitter gets resolved. Also, if you believe this has to do with data scraping, I’ve got a bridge on a beach on some Floriduh! swampland to sell you!

Last week, before all the Prigozhin excitement, commenter Low Key Swagger emailed me with the following question:

Hi Adam, you’ve been doing a bang up job keeping us posted on the events in Ukraine. I realize you are very busy so feel free to take all the time you need to respond. As you well know, after WW2 Israel developed very effective intelligence capabilities and used them to track down Nazis and their collaborators all over the world. Some were brought to justice, others eliminated on sight. They were very good at this. Assuming Ukraine achieves a complete victory, do you see a scenario wherein they develop similar covert groups to carry out similar operations? My understanding is that Ukraine has very good intelligence capabilities, and the language and cultural similarities might make doing so less difficult than it was for Israel. Do you think the world looks the other way?

Thank you, as well, for the kind words! I had hoped to get to this last weekend, but all the oxygen got used up by the revolt. So here’s the answer: I fully expect that the Ukrainians, specifically Major General Budanov’s Main Director of Intelligence, which is abbreviated as either the HUR or the GUR, has already been developing a strategy for this and building plans off of it. As for whether the world looks the other way, if the Ukrainians know their business, the world either won’t know or won’t be able to do much about it. The Israelis scarfed up an Iranian planning a terrorist attack in Cyprus last week. And they got him in Iran. Didn’t get a whole lot of coverage.

If you want a good read on Israel’s targeted assassination program, then give Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First a read.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

All those who help aggressor to receive response of Ukraine and the whole world – address of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

1 July 2023 – 21:26

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!

We are ending this day in Rivne region – I held another visiting meeting of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s Staff. Key issues of security in the northern regions of our country, our measures to strengthen security. Everything that concerns the border, our forces of the Pivnich operational-strategic group, and Ukrainian strategic facilities – such as the Rivne nuclear power plant, where the Staff meeting took place.

There were reports of intelligence, the Commander-in-Chief, the commander of the Pivnich group, the head of the border guard service, the minister of internal affairs, and the head of Rivne Regional Military Administration on social issues and people’s needs. There was also a report by Head of Energoatom Kotin, director of the Rivne NPP.

In general, not only everything related to the physical security of our strategic facilities and northern regions but also such sensitive issues as cybersecurity were worked out in detail.

Thank you to everyone in Rivne region and here, at the Rivne NPP, and along the entire perimeter of our northern border, who cares about the safety of Ukraine and our people.

Today, another package of Ukrainian sanctions was published against those who help Russia wage this terrorist war. In particular, sanctions against almost 300 legal entities and almost 200 individuals. And these are not only citizens of Russia. Anyone in the world who helps the aggressor will receive a response from Ukraine and the whole world.

Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez paid a visit to Ukraine today. It is very symbolic – on the first day of the beginning of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. This clearly speaks to a new reality. It was always impossible to imagine our common European home as complete without Ukraine. And now we have achieved at the political level that European affairs are no longer considered without Ukraine.

This visit of Mr. Prime Minister Sánchez speaks about the priorities of the Spanish presidency and our cooperation. I thank you, Spain, for your support – defense, political, economic! I’d like to express my special thanks for the respect and help to our people who found refuge in Spain, fleeing the hostilities in Ukraine. I believe soon we will be able to provide all the necessary conditions for our people to return home to Ukraine.

By the way, today, we signed a joint statement with Mr. Prime Minister Sánchez regarding support for Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic prospects, and this is already the 21st such statement, that is, the majority supported our prospects, in particular in the issue of membership in the Alliance… Belgium, Denmark, our friends from Estonia, Italy, Iceland, Spain, Canada, this is Latvia, this is Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany, this is Norway and Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, France, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, and Sweden. Thanks to all of you!

I am also grateful to those states with which we do not yet have such joint signed statements and declarations, but which absolutely clearly support Ukraine on its way to NATO, and therefore support the approach of real peace throughout Europe. Thank you!

And one more.

Today, there was a message from the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission about the increase in water tariffs. Shameful decision to say the least. Unprofessional. Not agreed with the government. We cannot and will not accept such decisions calmly. The government is instructed to present a solution in response. And they will be.

Glory to Ukraine!

Bakhmut:

Donetsk:

Kramatorsk:

Tokmak, Zaporizhzhia Oblast:

It’s HIMARS O’Clock!

On the Prigozhin front, Russian TV, which is all state controlled, has decided to inform Russians that Wagner wasn’t very effective:

Here’s the full text of Dmitri’s tweet:

Russian state TV is now doubting the effectiveness of Wagner which took much longer to “liberate a less important Bakhmut” in comparison to Mariupol”. Hilarious. The biggest irony is that this will actually work and in a few weeks, Wagner will be condemned by Russians who get all their news from TV.

Igor Girkin, aka Igor Strelkov (or the other way around), a Black Sea Cossack who committed war crimes in Moldova fighting to establish the break away statelet of Transnistria and was one of the principal instigators of Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, has some thoughts on the fallout from Prigozhin’s revolt on his Telegram channel. Here’s the machine translation:

A week has passed since Prigogine’s rebellion. Which – judging by the consequences – was not a rebellion, it turns out. Well, if only because, despite 6 downed helicopters and a plane, the death of more than 10 (no one knows for sure) Russian servicemen – no measures have been taken to punish the rebels. Moreover, Mr. Prigozhin freely moves across the state border of the Russian Federation, lives in St. Petersburg, and the authorities pretend that “this is how it should be.”

There is no mention of any resignations of persons who showed incompetence and cowardice during the rebellion. The highest statesmen who fled abroad during the days of the rebellion are all in their places. Not a word of condemnation, not even the slightest hint of punishment from the lips of a person who remotely resembles the president, sounded.

Hence the consequence: another rebellion is not far off. It remains only to wait for a major defeat at the front. And, yes, – no matter who starts it – now no one will resist the rebels. Nobody at all. Because it makes no sense to risk your life defending such a miserable and miserable government.

What will this lead to – I have already written more than once … too many “the living will envy the dead.” But it is impossible to save a country whose rulers are so rotten that they have lost even the elementary instinct of self-preservation, exchanging it for the opportunity to “do nothing at any cost” a little more.

Meduza reports that Prigozhin’s troll factory may have been turned against him in May!

A network of online bots connected to tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “troll factory” sided with their creator until recently. But in May and June they reportedly began to turn on him, says independent news outlet Agentstvo, citing two experts who monitor troll activity on Twitter and Russian social networking site VKontakte.

Beginning in early May, around 13,000 of the troll factory bots stopped working for Prigozhin, said the creator of a project called Lovushka Povara (Chef’s Trap), who does not publicly disclose his name. According to this person, for the past few years the bots have “obviously worked for Prigozhin, but now, evidently, they don’t work for him because they write pointed and coordinated critiques of him.” Experts estimate that before May, there were around 15,000 bots supporting Prigozhin on VKontakte. Around 1,400 remain now.

Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University in South Carolina and a specialist in internet misinformation, says that the Twitter bots he knew about did not support Prigozhin during the recent rebellion — in fact, they criticized Prigozhin harshly. Linvill’s team monitors the activity of around 200 bots connected to the troll factory.

One of the experts interviewed by Agentstvo suggested that Prigozhin could lose control of the troll factory.

Prigozhin reportedly recently dissolved his Patriot Media Group, which housed dozens of “news” sites and had become the home of his “troll factory.”

Full text of MOD Reznikov’s tweet:

Dear #fellas, it’s an honor for me to be a proud member of #NAFO. Just want to take this opportunity to once again thank you for what you are doing: donating to support our troops, fighting misinformation and propaganda, and of course, bonking those russian trolls.
We will win, and we’ll rock out at that Crimean Beach Party 🏖️ 🎉 🍹

Obligatory!

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

A new video from Patron’s official TikTok!

@patron__dsns

Тут навіть без роздумів!

♬ LOOK AT ME – sanika • skywvker

Here is the machine translation of the caption:

There is no hesitation here!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    Traveller

    A Quick but Honest question…does Sweden really want to join NATO? There is an upcoming meeting where Accession into NATO seemed relatively assured….

    And yet they could not….delay another month or so this symbolic burning of the Koran in front of a Mosque?!?

    Seriously curious of your opinion.

    [URL=”https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/28/europe/sweden-quran-protest-intl/index.html”]https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/28/europe/sweden-quran-protest-intl/index.html[/URL]

    [I]A single person took part in the planned Quran burning in the Swedish capital and images of the event show he was the only person apart from his translator at the demonstration, which coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, one of the most significant in the Islamic calendar.

    Speaking to CNN on the phone earlier on Wednesday, the protester Salwan Momika said he came to Sweden five years ago from Iraq and has Swedish citizenship. He told CNN he identifies as an atheist.
    [B]
    He said he was doing this demonstration after three months of legal battles in court.[/B]

    “This book should be banned in the world because of the danger it causes to democracy, ethics, human values, human rights, and women’s rights. It just doesn’t work in this time and age,” he said.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    Sweden couldn’t find another court delay?

    Best Wishes, Traveller

  2. 2.

    japa21

    I am positive I saw that video from Dmitri last week or before.  And that is an issue.  A lot of times the same video gets recirculated as if it is new.  Russia, I think, is still showing the video of the Leopard and Bradleys.

  3. 3.

    Chris

    If we do assume Ukraine has a complete victory and it and Russia are at something approximating peace, do we really think they’d risk another war by assassinating senior Russian officials? Even accounting for all the ways this war has revealed Russian power as far weaker than they want us to think, they’ve still inflicted an immense amount of damage to Ukraine that the Ukrainians wouldn’t be eager to risk again.

    Ukraine assassinating Russian bigwigs in peacetime would seem to be like, I don’t know, Nicaragua assassinating Oliver North: I would have the greatest sympathy for them if they did, but given the huge potential downsides of pissing off their bigger neighbor, versus the fact that they don’t really get any benefit from it other than general principle, I can understand why thirty years later, it still hasn’t happened.

    (Assassinating them while the war’s still going is, of course, a whole other ballgame. As long as that’s happening they have no incentive not to).

  4. 4.

    Alison Rose

    LOL russian state media going full Damian on prigozhin. What a bunch of psychotic babies. Imagine being on the side of these ridiculous losers, and furthermore, being proud of that. But then, all the orc-humpers in this country are equally ridiculous losers, so…birds of a feather, I suppose.

    That Bakhmut photo should win an award.

    Speaking of Bakhmut, can we raise money to hire someone to kidnap Muskrat and drop him off there? No wallet, no phone, no shoes. He’s a gEnIuS so I’m sure he’ll find his way out.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  5. 5.

    Shalimar

    I don’t  understand the Twitter limitation, i.e. how they count posts.  Apparently i can view 600.  When I go to Twitter on my own, not through a link from here or somewhere else, I look through the long list of tweets from my feed and occasionally click on one to see responses.  Does every tweet in that long list count as a view even though I didn’t choose any of them?  Do all the reply tweets count even if I don’t even read them?

    Because all of those would add up to 600 really fast.  Whereas the ones I actually look at never gets above 50.

  6. 6.

    oldster

    I miss Ukraine twitter.

    I miss Julia Davis’ reports about ruzzian propaganda, and Ilia Ponomarenko’s reports, and Kevin Rothrock’s insights, and lots more.

    It was a very useful platform — useful for a mere spectator like me, and I suspect even more useful for people more directly engaged.

    Skum is such a destructive person.

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose

    @Shalimar: Yeah, I’m curious how the tallying works too. If you swipe up in a quick motion to make the feed roll by fast, do all of those count as views? If someone quote RTs something, does that count as two when you see it? TBH I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers are bullshit and he’s just gonna “rate limit” people at random.

  9. 9.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chris: Russia has a history – known to every Ukrainian – of assassinating Ukrainian nationalist leaders during “peacetime” in neutral countries. I’m not necessarily saying that Ukraine should follow that example, but if, say, Prigozhin or Mizintsev or even Girkin were to fall out of a high window in Madrid or Marseille, that’s the way things go. As Adam says, I’m quite sure it would look unconnected to Ukraine, although russia would understand.

  10. 10.

    Bill Arnold

    Also, the much earlier Operation Nemesisa (1920-22) vs Armenian Genocide culprits. Different era, different methods.

    There can be hard-to-predict consequences if attribution for an assassination is clear. That’s one reason why Russian dissidents often die from heart attacks or suicidal jumps from their windows.
    E.g. the (proximate) root cause of the (investigation determined it was accidental/twitchy air defense) shootdown of shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752) was a assassination of the head of a branch of Iran’s government, ordered by POTUS Trump. That is, it would not have happened had D.J Trump not ordered the assassination.

  11. 11.

    Chris

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If it’s Prigozhin who falls out of a window, Ukraine does have gold plated deniability: no one will ever believe it wasn’t Putin who ordered the hit.

    Boy, I hope it doesn’t happen in Marseille. That city has enough scumbags on its hands already without importing someone like Prigozhin.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shalimar: Technically scrolling past a tweet is an impression – as in you saw it even if you didn’t stop and really process it. The question is whether Twitter is using that as the metric or if you have to actually click on the tweet and that I cannot answer.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    @oldster: As discussed in a few places downstairs, there are still ways to see stuff on Twitter without an account, but it’s limited. Since it uses standard Twitter functions, Melon shouldn’t be able to break it easily.

    E.g. Oryx

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Low Key Swagger

    Thanks Adam!  Appreciate your answer and the answers and observations of other Jackals.  I was thinking along the lines of both those who helped bankroll the invasion in whatever fashion, and certain collaborators would be obvious targets.  I assume those who planned and ordered missile strikes would most definitely be fair game, at least the ones on civilian targets.  Does it prevent further invasions or invite them?  If Ukraine is brought into NATO, I doubt a second large scale invasion occurs.  I’m not sure of any of it, of course.  Not sure anyone is.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Low Key Swagger: We’ve covered a number of actions against collaborators in occupied parts of Ukraine already. So that part is definitely underway.

  19. 19.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Chris:

    If we do assume Ukraine has a complete victory and it and Russia are at something approximating peace

    One supposes that your quoted text encompasses a lot.  Why would Ukraine agree to “peace” with Russia, without delivery of war criminals for trial ?  And without reparations?  It’s one thing to agree to a cease-fire, but a “peace” ?  I would think that that would require quite a bit of change to the current Russia — enough that none of us here would recognize it.  A Russia that grudgingly agrees to a truce in the name of quiet and calm to rearm ….. well, that’s not peace now, is it?

  20. 20.

    Bill Arnold

    @Shalimar:

    Apparently i can view 600.

    Haven’t hit the limit yet today.
    But it’s the limit of zero for people with no accounts that’s a Kill Shot vs Twitter. Self-inflicted. This move instantly reduced the value of Twitter as an engine of communication from (and between) the otherwise-platformless by a lot; it also greatly reduced its value as an engine supporting malign influence ops; links to tweets are now useless for many.
    Heck, I have a few accounts and am never ever logged in into twitter in a some browsers, for reasons. Those browsers have open twitter tabs that I can’t even easily copy to other browsers any more.

  21. 21.

    Chetan Murthy

    Re: Twitter, I asked a techie friend who has friends “in those circles” and he tells me that today’s birdsite fiasco is squarely due to Eloi Skumbucket not paying his Google Compute Platform bill.  They apparently cut him off today.  From this one might infer that he’s running really, really, really low on servers to actually serve traffic, and thus that soon the birdsite is gonna really die.

    It *is* interesting, the coincidence of this mess happening on the day they cut him off.

  22. 22.

    Jay

    Igor Girkin, aka Igor Strelkov (or the other way around), a Black Sea Cossack who committed war crimes in Moldova

    He also, as the leader of the Russian Corp in the Serbian war on Bosnia, gladly participated in some of the worst war crimes in that war,

    And then there is Chechenia I and II that we really don’t have good information on.

  23. 23.

    Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

    I don’t know whom I’m more sick of. Prigozin or The Starlink Snowflake!😡 I can’t express the fury I feel watching the wilful destruction of Twitter. For most, it’s an important utility. For those like me, still forced to self isolate, it is a necessary tool of communication. Watching Elmo destroy it has been soul destroying. As for the Wagner Opera, let them eat cake! I really don’t care what happens to them. I just hope whatever happens, it benefits Ukraine.

    Thank you Adam, for all you do. With the slow murder of Twitter, these updates are more valuable than ever. Take care.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, … DW.com:

    Russia’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, Mikhail Kasyanov, told DW on Friday that he believed the Wagner mutiny had weakened President Vladimir Putin considerably inside Russia.

    “The main impact is very easy and very simple,” Kasyanov said. “Just the stability with Mr Putin.”

    For 20 years, Kasyanov said, Russian propaganda had sought to assure people “that the main basis for Putin’s rule is stability and potential prosperity.”

    The rebellion staged by Russian private military company Wagner and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin at the weekend, and Putin’s response to it, had shattered this image, he said.

    “Prigozhin managed to destroy this myth, this image of stability.”

    […]

    “I think the morale of these officers on the battlefield, Russian officers, just decreased,” Kasyanov said, adding that it had not been high in the first place.

    But he said the terms of the weekend truce, and the people who brokered it, after Wagner inflicted casualties on the Russian military, would not sit well with commanders or troops.

    “Right now they see that there was a settlement between two bandits,” Kasyanov said, seemingly meaning Belarus’ Lukashenko to be the second bandit after Prigozhin, given that he was the mediator.

    [ DW’s Russian caricaturist Sergey Elkin composed an image of a giant Alexander Lukashenko cradling and protecting an infant Vladimir Putin ]

    “No single state institution was involved. No Ministry of Interior, no FSB [Russia’s principal intelligence and security agency], no Ministry of Defense, nor any other agencies. There was commitment between two people just to give money and to give freedom. And this was settled.”

    To the same token, he argued the deal undermined Putin’s credibility at home.

    “The whole criminal case was opened in the morning and closed in the evening,” Kasyanov said. “That is — people understand this — that is not a state. No law has an application in Russia at this time.”

    It’s hard to imagine cynicism getting deeper in russia, but this episode may have actually made that happen. Whether it will result in domestic political changes, or changes in the course of the war, remains to be seen…

    Worth a click.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    Carlo Graziani

    I had beer and pizza this evening with a couple of friends who are also professors of history—one at The University of Chicago, the other a Ukrainian who teaches Russian history at Loyola. They brought up a couple of historical analogies that I thought really interesting, although I haven’t yet had a chance to process the relevant insights completely.

    One analogy was between Prigozhin’s attempted, well, whatever that was, and the July 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life with Von Stauffenberg on point for a Wermacht Staff conspiracy. What followed was immediate purges of the Wermacht, and demotion of its status in War policy. But also, massive propaganda giving thanks for Hitler’s well-being, and promoting a message of stability, continuity and success. Which, of course, concealed a reality of battlefield disasters to the East and West, and of a massive and violent upheaval in the councils of government and of the military. It’s interesting to imagine a similar (or at least analogous) dynamic playing out in Russia now and in the weeks to come.

    The other insight was an analogy that helps think out the “How does this end” question: the end of the First Iraq War, AKA Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Saddam Hussein’s claims on Kuwait and his aspiration to guide the Arab Nationalist movement have rather strong echoes in Putin’s claims on Ukraine and his aspirations to restore Russian greatness, viewed through his toxic ethno-religious-nationalistic framing. Hussein’s and Putin’s intransigent militaristic threat-laden rhetoric concerning their respective claims also rhyme.

    But when Hussein’s dreams of striking a mortal blow at the forces arrayed against Iraq (for all intents and purposes, NATO) were definitively shattered over the course of a few days of battle, he did not unleash armaggeddon upon Israel, as he had promised to do, or even follow up on his oath to pursue further efforts at Kuwaiti conquest. Instead he declared a moral victory in the alleged heroic resistance of Iraqi defenders against overwhelming odds, and turned to suppressing various Shiite and Kurd uprisings, turning those into further propaganda “victories”.

    The lesson here, perhaps, is that even if Russia is routed by the UA on the field, Putin and the committee of Siloviki that he represents (and ever more tenuously controls) have a face-saving out in claiming heroic resistance in the face of an overwhelming NATO enemy. The fact that this is not the reality doesn’t matter, since it is an alternative to nuclear escalation, which amounts to nuclear suicide, which none of these wily specialists in personal survival really want.

    Anyway, an interesting evening.

  26. 26.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott: Putin’s “Myth of Stability” was definitively destroyed last fall, when he was coerced into accepting mass mobilization, almost certainly against his will by panicked Siloviki who saw the war going south. Mobilization totally destroyed any public impression of “normalcy” that had been peddled so assiduously by Russian media to a narcotized population. Prigozhin’s clown show is only a late accelerant to that particular dumpster fire.

  27. 27.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Carlo Graziani: Oh one other thing that I learned this evening: apparently, Prigozhin is from a Russian Jewish family! This was never an issue before, any more than Kadhyrov’s ethnic disability, but it is reportedly an issue now, as Prigozhin is being made the target of anti-semitic attacks.

  32. 32.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    Thank you as always Adam. We are lucky to have your insight, esp as all these domains (cyber, kinetic, informational) interact and you show us what’s behind the curtain.

    I found Rise and Kill First really hard to finish because of the writing. The topic and the information is fascinating, but I’m not sure the author could have made it more flat and dry imo. And I think he has outstanding credentials too. Makes me appreciate writers like Philip Gourevitch even more. The Rwandan genocide is mind bendingly horrific, but I found his writing so compelling that I devoured We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. 

  36. 36.

    bjacques

    @Carlo Graziani: as usual, I see that long after everyone’s gone to bed. Check out the photo credit. If this is from 1993, then it’s when Bruce Sterling went to Yugoslavia and met Jasmina Tesanovič, a documentary filmmaker who became famous for dodging sniper bullets to make her films. They’re still together as far as I know. I remember a lot of this from being on nettime, a “cyberculture” mailing list that still exists.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    I ran across an interesting article on Swedish NATO accession, published June 30 by Deutch Welle and titled: “Sweden’s fraught path to NATO.”

    The reporter led off with the news of the recent Quran-burning in Stockholm and Turkish President Erdogan’s blustery response to it in front of a meeting of his AKP party members. The reporter noted that:

         But significantly, Erdogan did not cancel talks with Sweden and Finland scheduled for July 6 at NATO headquarters. After a similar incident in January, he cut off talks for months.

    The reporter interviewed former Turkish Ambassador to Sweden Selim Kuneralp, who had an interesting take:

        [Erdogan] has not concluded that [the Quran burning] will have a lasting impact on relations with Sweden….He said this was a provocative thing, and he would not surrender to provocation, so I think that the message is that the whole Quran-burning issue is being manipulated by Moscow is finally being understood by Turkish authorities.

    The actor in the January Quran burning was shown to have ties with Russia as well as with right-wing Swedish elements. Last week’s Quran burning was done by Salwan Mouvka, a Syrian immigrant and former leader in a pro-Assad militia sponsored by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp.

    Swedish police originally denied Mouvka a permit for a demonstration involving the Quran, but an appeals court overruled them so Mouvka burned pages of a Quran (after stomping on it) outside a Stockholm mosque, choosing the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr for maximum effect. Police arrested Mouvka afterwards on a charge of “agitation against an ethnic or national group.”

    While some of the protests over Sweden’s NATO accession are led by Kurdish immigrants (and their allies) who are concerned about concessions to Turkiye that could undermine their security in Sweden, there is also a component of Swedes both Left and Right who oppose NATO membership under any circumstances. Having lost the political battle in Parliament, they now hope to sabotage accession by means of provocation.

  39. 39.

    way2blue

    @AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team:

    I prefer history in novel form, and remain startled at the reverberations between current events and Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series.  (Albeit Silva was a journalist before turning to novels, and his wife works as a journalist for CNN.)

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