(Image by NEIVANMADE)
The Russians attacked a kindergarten!
Last night, russian terrorists attacked Ukraine with cruise missiles and S-300 missiles.
The Ukrainian air defense destroyed 16 targets.
Houses and a kindergarten were hit in Lviv and its suburbs.
Three people were killed in Lutsk, Volyn region. pic.twitter.com/TWlErVjPpD— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 15, 2023
During today's russian attack on Lviv, one of the missiles hit the yard of the "Kazka" kindergarten, creating a 9-meter-deep crater. The explosion caused significant damage to both the kindergarten and the surrounding buildings.
📷Roman Baluk / Reuters pic.twitter.com/aecvw6teIJ
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 15, 2023
That’s a doll, but it could have easily been a child!
A russian missile struck one of Dnipro's best sports facilities last night. Another convincing demonstration that the russians have nothing to do at the Olympic Games in Paris. Assassins and terrorists have their own bloody competitions. pic.twitter.com/4TECgTgAUf
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 15, 2023
We’re back to where we were the other day. I have yet to see anything even close to a legitimate target of the Russian air strikes be reported in months. Every target is civilian. Residences, dual use commercial and residential, restaurants and hotels where reporters are staying or working from, schools, playgrounds, food storage facilities, other civilian commercial facilities. This is Russian state terrorism in support of a strategy of genocide. As I wrote way, way back in the first weeks of the war, Putin’s view of Ukraine is that if he can’t have it, then no one can have it. Including the Ukrainians. So he will level it and then rebuild and repopulate it through population transfer. Just the way the Soviets moved populations around. Without more air defense, we are right back to the clip I embedded at the time from The Last of the Mohicans:
The situation is that his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while his troops dig 30 yards of trench a day. When those trenches are 200 yards from the fort and within range, he’ll bring in his 15-inch mortars, lob explosive rounds over our walls, and pound us to dust.
Putin has been slowly pounding Ukraine and the Ukrainians to dust. To terrorize them. To demoralize them. To try to break their will. While none of that is happening, he is able to destroy a lot of civilian infrastructure and kill a lot of non-combatants. I know I keep asking and I know there’s no answer because the people that need the question posed to them aren’t reading this site, but at what point is Never Again actually going to mean Never Again?
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
Feedback from our battalion commanders on combat use of equipment and weapons is what we will discuss with the leaders of partner states – address by the President of Ukraine
15 August 2023 – 19:32
Dear Ukrainians! All our warriors!
Today I continue to visit our combat brigades. Yesterday we were in Donetsk region, today – various districts of Zaporizhzhia region, the territory of the Tavria operational and strategic group of troops. Together with General Tarnavskyi, we visited the positions of the 3rd and 15th operational brigades of the National Guard, the 47th and 65th separate mechanized brigades, the 46th airmobile brigade; the 10th Army Corps – the 116th, 117th and 118th brigades. Each one is special, all of them are doing great. I also visited the frontline surgical unit and thanked our combat medics for saving Ukrainian lives. I spoke with the brigade commanders and battalion commanders about the needs of our warriors – what they really feel on the frontline. Everything the guys talked about will be voiced at the Staff.
When such communication takes place brigade by brigade, and everyone has real combat experience, we can assess the situation much more deeply, see how the specific experience of one brigade can be applied by other units and scaled up to our entire defense forces. Specific needs have been defined: electronic warfare equipment, drones, and medevac armored evacuation vehicles. There are additional organizational issues that were not discussed yesterday, in particular, regarding officer ranks. Training of soldiers is one of the key tasks, we talked about it. Real combat experience, current challenges and trends on the battlefield, fire and maneuver, the skills that our warriors have and that need to be shared with all brigades and made a priority in training centers, especially when training mobilized soldiers. Soldiers’ training is also the responsibility of every commander at all levels. Motivation of people is important, and it is a direct consequence of how they learn to fight.
We heard from the battalion commanders about combat use of equipment and weapons provided by our partners. Each such feedback is something we will discuss with the leaders. And I would like to thank all our warriors who take trophies and put Russian equipment to work for Ukraine. This is not just the rationality of our guys, this is also an important proof of the ability of our heroes to take weapons from the enemy and use them to protect the life of Ukraine.
I was honored to award our warriors – soldiers, sergeants, officers… I am proud of everyone! Thank you, guys, for your chevrons. It’s a pleasure!
Today I would like to thank everyone who helped eliminate the consequences of Russian missile attacks. Yesterday it was in Odesa and Kharkiv region, and today it was in Lviv, Lutsk, Dnipro, Kramatorsk, Cherkasy region, Zaporizhzhia region and other parts of the country. I am grateful to the rescuers, doctors, police, volunteers, local authorities… Thank you! Every day we must remember that the steps forward of our warriors on the frontline bring security and protection closer to all our cities and villages. And the more powerful our air defense system is, the more opportunities the rear regions have to work for defense. In particular, we are already increasing military production, even in the current conditions. And we will further increase it.
Ukraine’s goal is clear: we will win and provide Ukraine with the power to guarantee a lasting peace. And I thank each and every one of our warriors – everyone who is fighting for Ukraine! I am grateful to all the volunteers who help, to each and every one of them. To all Ukrainians who feel that they are at war and therefore help the defense. Thank you very much!
Glory to Ukraine!
President @ZelenskyyUa visited the locations of the brigades that are conducting offensive operations in the Melitopol direction.
The President met with the Commander of the Tavria operational-strategic group, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, and visited the locations of:
– 3rd Brigade… pic.twitter.com/krupmdk08r— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 15, 2023
President @ZelenskyyUa
visited the locations of the brigades that are conducting offensive operations in the Melitopol direction.The President met with the Commander of the Tavria operational-strategic group, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, and visited the locations of:
– 3rd Brigade & 15th Brigade of the operational assignment of @ng_ukraine;
– 47th Mechanized Brigade;
– 117th Mechanized Brigade;
– 65th Mechanized Brigade;
– 116th Mechanized Brigade;
– 46th Airmobile Brigade;
– 118th Mechanized BrigadeThe President received reports of the commanders about the situation in their areas of responsibility and discussed with them any challenges their units are experiencing.
Lutsk:
Three people dead after a missile hit this building in Lutsk, Volyn region.
Last night 28 were launched. The west often feels shielded from the conflict, but it touches all of Ukraine.
Russia is increasing air strikes on the places it can’t occupy.
— James Waterhouse (@JamWaterhouse) August 15, 2023
Lviv:
Six Russian missiles hit Lviv region, one intercepted by air defense. 15 wounded, including a ten-year-old child. pic.twitter.com/1vTuGAT4wX
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) August 15, 2023
The Kakhovka resevoir:
Kakhovka reservoir now. pic.twitter.com/oFsve748yq
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 15, 2023
Do you know what time it is?
/2 Strikes were at maximum HIMARS range. ~73km or more.
Approximate geolocation:
(46.1239437, 33.3838238) pic.twitter.com/vPhXTsI1h9— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 15, 2023
(Image by Boris Groh)
Here’s more video of the Russian naval interdiction the other day:
Russians published footage of the raid on the Sukru Okan ship that was stopped in the Black Sea on its way to Izmail. As I understand, the crew of the ship first told the occupiers to go where Moskva went and only stopped after the Russians fired shots?
Then the officer… pic.twitter.com/vdZkVrPHWe
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) August 15, 2023
Russians published footage of the raid on the Sukru Okan ship that was stopped in the Black Sea on its way to Izmail. As I understand, the crew of the ship first told the occupiers to go where Moskva went and only stopped after the Russians fired shots?
Then the officer embarrassed himself with his level of English.
Oh goody, it looks like the DOJ put on the golf shoes in the Autumn of 2022 and decided step on its crank again:
Meanwhile, Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash hired an American lobbyist in his pursuit of a plea deal for the US indictment on racketeering charges.
It looks like DOJ “expressed a willingness to negotiate” “that does not include Mr. Firtash pleading guilty to a felony”. pic.twitter.com/xmto5re7dS
— Tanya Kozyreva (@TanyaKozyreva) August 15, 2023
Always nice when what should have been breaking news doesn’t break for over a year!
You’ll remember Firtash from the first Black PSYOP post way back in OCT 2o19. Posted in flight about an hour and a half before Bixby decided to use my head as a chin rest.
2) The Firtash initiative. Firtash wants off house arrest in Vienna and out from under the extradition order to send him to the US to face the Federal crimes he’s been indicted for. The reason Firtash wants this done is because he’s Putin’s man in Ukraine’s natural gas industry. If Firtash can get back to Kyiv he can then once again try to take over Ukraine’s natural gas sector, suck it dry of profits, and fuck up its operations, which will force the Ukrainians to buy natural gas from Russia while removing Ukrainian natural gas as an alternative to Russian natural gas for the rest of the EU market. This all benefits Putin, who is Firtash’s krysha (roof/ceiling) in the Russian mob. Just as he is for every other one of these oligarchs aligned with him.
A) Firtash’s efforts weren’t going very far, so he fired his US attorneys and hired Toensing and DiGenova. They then hired Parnas to do their translation work despite it being reported that Firtash and most of his staff speaking fluent and/or functional English.
B) Firtash was laundering manufactured dirt and conspiracy theories about the Bidens, about the Democrats working with Ukraine to steal the 2016 election, etc through Parnas and Fruman and Toensing and DiGenova to Giuliani. Giuliana who was being paid/worked for Parnas, but also somehow also Parnas’s boss.
C) Toensing and DiGenova are also working for free to assist Giuliani with manufacturing dirt on the Bidens.A couple of final points. Both Giuliani and Toensing and DiGenova are now claiming that Parnas, Fruman, and now, I suppose, Solomon cannot be deposed, questioned, etc by investigators since they were either working for Giuliani and/or Toensing and DiGenova or are represented by them and therefore everything they know is either attorney-client privilege or attorney work product. So you can’t ask Giuliani about what Toensing or DiGenova are doing. Or what Parnas or Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Toensing and DiGenova about what Giuliani, Parnas, and/or Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Parnas and Fruman what Giuliani or Toensing or DiGenova are doing. You can’t ask Toensing and DiGenova what Solomon is doing. You can’t ask Soloman what DiGenova and Toensing are doing. You can’t ask Firtash what Giuliani, Toensing, DiGenova, and/or Parnas and Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Giuliani, Toensing, DiGenova, and/or Firtash is doing. And because Giuliani claims all of this is on behalf of his client, the President, you also can’t, because of executive privilege, ask Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman who are working for him and who he is working for, and/or Toensing and DiGenova who are assisting him pro bono and employing Parnas anything because they are all covered from having to divulge anything or answering any questions under executive privilege.
If this sounds familiar, it is similar to how Roy Cohn handled his legal representation of the organized crime families he represented in New York. They’d hold all their business/decision making meetings in his dining room with him present or with him on the phone in case of an emergency, so it was all covered under attorney-client privilege. Nobody, from any angle of inquiry, can say nothing about nothing and no one because everything is privileged.
Fortunately, the Ukrainians are taking this a bit more seriously than Merrick Garland’s Department of Milquetoast.
From The Financial Times:
Ukrainian authorities have increased pressure on one of the country’s richest oligarchs in exile, Dmytro Firtash, by expanding a corruption investigation into his energy businesses.
Security services announced on Tuesday that a further three managers of Firtash’s companies have been charged with embezzlement, bringing the total number of managers charged to 15. Investigators also seized £157mn worth of property belonging to Firtash and assets totalling £4.2mn owned by the charged managers.
The alleged scheme involved regional gas companies linked to Firtash siphoning off gas from Ukraine’s state transportation system from 2016 to 2022. The estimated damage to state coffers amounts to £380mn, according to Ukrainian investigators.
In a statement, Firtash’s company, Group DF, denied the charges and described them as “corrupt pressure”. It called on Ukraine “as a country at the forefront of the fight for European values, (to) respect the rule of law and refrain from engaging in unlawful business expropriation”.
Ukraine is under pressure from its western partners and financiers to reduce the influence of oligarchs and clean up a culture of corruption which has persisted since the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union. For decades, different business interests in Ukraine have battled for control or influence over the highest offices of the state in a bid to gain or maintain assets as well as state contracts.
“This is a move against Firtash because [the regional gas companies are] the foundation of his control over the gas supply system,” Tetiana Shevchuk, legal counsel of the Anti-corruption Action Centre in Ukraine.
Firtash was a partner of Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom in Ukraine’s lucrative gas distribution business. He gradually gained influence and was a backer of Viktor Yanukovych, the disgraced pro-Russian president of Ukraine who was ousted from power in 2014. That year, Firtash fled to Austria, where he has been stuck fighting a US extradition request for allegedly bribing Indian officials.
He attempted to strike a plea deal in November, according to a letter from US lobbyist Ben Barnes detailing he was paid an initial $100,000 to secure a meeting with the US Department of Justice.
Even if Firtash manages to reach a deal with the US, he may not be able to return to Ukraine. In 2021, he was sanctioned in Ukraine for allegedly supplying Russian military companies with titanium and his personal assets and bank accounts were frozen.
Ukrainians will never give up.
📷Erçin Ertürk pic.twitter.com/B34wUZC8IL
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 15, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron tweets or videos, so here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Army Cats & Dogs Twitter feed.
Together. pic.twitter.com/cxXeCUjSfV
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 15, 2023
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 15, 2023
Cat. pic.twitter.com/2JV7ZYTB0U
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 15, 2023
I’d like to clarify that that is a cat with what appears to be some sort of AK style machine pistol.
Open thread!
Manyakitty
Since nobody is willing to give the Ukrainians what they actually need, when they actually need it, at what point do other countries decide to put boots on the ground? It’s starting to look like that’s the only way to end this with Ukraine intact(ish).
(Their success under such restricted conditions is nothing short of spectacular, but that is even more reason not to let them get ground into dust.)
Alison Rose
Apparently, for at least some people in some places, the answer is never.
Bombing a kindergarten. To rescue poor children from their terrible government that treats them badly. Orwell must be spinning so fast in his grave they can feel the tremors up in Scotland. I try not to feel hopeless, because that does nothing to help Ukraine, but some days it is very hard. And I say that from 6,000 miles away. I don’t know how Ukrainians hold onto hope, except that I suppose they have no other choice, and no desire to let putin think he has damaged even a single millimeter of their souls.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Anonymous At Work
@Alison Rose: When the Orange Shit-Gibbon is in jail or dead, and the rest of his followers are too, or realize the error of their ways, such as the death of a nation to ‘own the libs’ is petty and evil and un-Christian.
Gin & Tonic
Charles McGonigal has pleaded guilty.
Manyakitty
@Gin & Tonic: good.
West of the Rockies
If a drone strikes a mailbox in Moscow, Putin squeals in a pitch that would leave Mariah Carey envious.
Is the little goblin asked ever to explain his military targets? Has any journalist anywhere, Russian or otherwise, put the question to the homely, wretched little man that is Putin? Is any Russian military leader asked to justify their cold-blooded murders?
Alison Rose
@West of the Rockies: I imagine if anyone tried to ask such things, the next sound they would make is the scream as they trip and fall from an 8th story window.
Ksmiami
Still think we should make the Black Sea fleet mysteriously disappear. Give Ukraine air power. Jfc
cain
We keep talking about never again, but there is always a new generation that wants to fuck around.
I don’t know if there was a policy failure with Russia when they were going through glasnost. That was a mistake. But I feel like we did not properly manage that and allowed it to turn into a giant crime syndicate.
Omnes Omnibus
That takes more than a bit of agency from the Russians themselves.
cain
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s true – but that population has had nothing but autocracy for a few generation. Sudden freedom doesn’t really lend itself to real freedom.
I’m reminded of all the Russian Jews who went to Israel and help made it swing hard right.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: I am just saying that, while the West may not have covered itself in glory, the Russians made choices. And as a counter-example, look at the strides Ukraine has made since its independence. The Ukrainians made different choices.
Roger Moore
@cain:
I think you’re making the classic mistake of making the whole thing about us. It’s certainly true that the US gave Russia terrible advice about what to do when transitioning away from Communist Party control, but the Russians were ultimately the ones who made the decisions. Other former Soviet countries managed to avoid letting their countries be overrun by the mob.
And, to be 100% clear, the mob was already there and ready to take over the moment the Party lost control. One of the things I’ve only come to realize long after the fact is just how corrupt the USSR was. The Party was nominally in control, but the economy was largely in the hands of gangsters for a long time.
Sebastian
@cain:
For a few generations? They never had anything but genocidal autocracies
@cain:
Yutsano
Maybe it’s just my perception because I’m so far away from all of this, but I feel like the Polish army is just dying to get involved here.
Ksmiami
I feel like the only way to stop Putin is massive firepower rn. No more half measures for Ukraine
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: +1
Galeev (kamilkazani) talked about this in one of his giant Twitter threads. There were all kinds of weird things going on with the Soviet economy (at least 2 official economies with different exchange rates, IIRC) going back to Stalin’s time, and it wasn’t sustainable. Unwinding it was going to be a mess, even without “managers” stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down. And, of course, those managers were stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Sachs and others were given an impossible task, and maybe they were too pig-headed to know that it wasn’t going to work the way their textbooks said. It’s hubris, though, to think that the USA somehow could have managed it better if the Russians in power didn’t want it managed better…
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I am sure they are, but they are also NATO forces. Their getting involved would have larger consequences.
Geminid
@cain: Israel’s swing to the right is often blamed on Russian immigrants, but I am not sure this was so. The right wing strain we see now was present at the nation’s creation and was first empowered when Menachem Begin and the Likud Party led the government in the late 1970s. That was before the influx of Russian immigrants in the next decade.
I think a larger factor in Israel’s rightward swing was the suicide bombing campaign from 2001 to 2004, during the Second Intfitada. Nearly 700 Israeli citizens were killed by the bombers, and most of the rest of Israel’s 8.5 million citizens adopted a much harder line towards Palestinian aspirations.
The Russian immigrants probably were no more conservative than the North African and Middle Eastern “Mizrachi” immigrants who helped put Likud in power in 1977. I think people cite them in order to reconcile their positive feelings about Israel 1948-1978 with their negative feelings today, but the truth is more complex.
Manyakitty
@Yutsano: see my comment at 1. Works for me.
ETA: yes I know Poland is a NATO country and that adds complexity. Even so, something else needs to happen.
Prescott Cactus
In todays New York Times there is an op-ed by economist Paul Krugman titled:
“Science, Technology and War Beyond the Bomb – How World War II was won and why it’s relevant to Ukraine”
Mentions military historian Phillips P. O’Brien. “He was, as it happens, one of the few prominent military analysts who disagreed with the consensus that Russia would quickly and easily conquer Ukraine, and has been a frequent and insightful commentator on the course of the ongoing war.”
Interesting, but behind a paywall. . . try the google. . .
Thank you Adam for your devotion to enlightening us about this travesty. Always !
Alison Rose
@Prescott Cactus: Gift link for anyone interested.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Manyakitty:
Oh I don’t think they’re going to. But a sharp NATO trained army sitting right next to a weak looking Russian army must be goading the Polish. Plus there is centuries of history that has dictated that Poland 🇵🇱 always has to lose to Russia and this time Poland would have the upper hand. I know Poland isn’t going to get involved on their own, but the temptation must be so real.
Sebastian
@Another Scott:
But that was no different than in any other Warsaw Pact or Communist country (like Yugoslavia). Two economies, the official state run one (“they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work”), two exchange rates (the official one and the black market one), stealing and embezzling everywhere, and so on.
Yet, most nations admired the law and order of Western democracies and wanted that. Russians were (and are) different. During the Warsaw Pact, Russia treated the other countries as colonies, plundering their resources. When the USSR fell apart, Russians wanted their colonial empire back.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Precisely.
Adam L Silverman
@Geminid: I’ll try to get to this in a post over the weekend. Feel free to email me on Saturday or Sunday to remind me.
Adam L Silverman
@Prescott Cactus: I’m not a military historian, but I also did not expect a quick resolution in favor of Russia. I was concerned it could happen, but not convinced. And I was so glad to see just how resilient the Ukrainians were and still are.
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: @Manyakitty: @Omnes Omnibus:
Citizen Alan
@cain: I remember saying back in the nineties that the west would need to decide whether it was more important for the former soviet union to be a democracy or to be a capitalist state. They prioritize the latter, and the region degenerated into nothing but kleptocracies.
Another Scott
@Sebastian: But it was more than that. I’m not explaining it well, and of course Melon broke searching on Twitter, but I think it’s part of this thread. (Or this nitter.net version once that is working again.)
Basically, as I recall, favored industries had a ruble that was worth X. Other industries had a ruble that was worth X/5 or X/10. And they had to trade with each other to make tanks or cars or whatever. And hard currencies made yet another way to buy stuff.
Once it was clear that that system had to be unwound, the industries with the high-value ruble (and their managers), were able to plunder the rest of the economy and become the oligarchs we and VVP know today.
It wasn’t just the official market vs the black market. It was a fractured, non-sensical, multi-tiered official market vs the black market.
Corrections welcome.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@Citizen Alan:
Bullshit. russia became (stayed?) a kleptocracy. Some republics did not.
Geminid
Poland is in the midst of a,major military build up. Earlier this summer they took delivery of the first of 300 Abrams tanks, and last December they recieved the first of 900+ Korean K-2 “Black Panther” tanks. They would fight Russia now if they had to, but I think they want to grow their capabilites for a few years first if they can.
But yeah, Poland knows that Russia is their historic enemy, as it is Ukraine’s.
There is another country in the region that has been at odds with Russia for 3 centuries. That would be Turkiye, but so far that nation has assisted both sides in this war. The Russia/Turkiye dynamic could be shifting though. The Turkish economy may have bottomed out, and more orthodox monetary policies have facilitated major investments from the UAE and Saudi Arabia. President Erdogan no longer needs Russia’s economic support like he did during the first 15 months of this war.
At his joint press conference with President Zelenskyy on July 8, Erdogan announced that Putin would visit Turkiye this month. August is now halfway over, and Putin still has not paid his frenemy Erdogan a visit. They have a lot to talk about regarding this war, the Black Sea Grain Initiative and also Syria and Libya. I wish they’d get to it, but for now all I can do is watch Erdogan and Hakan Fidan, his trusted Foreign Minister.
Mr. Fidan is definitely someone worth watching. He took the Foreign Minister position after 13 years as head of Turkiye’s M.I.T., their national intelligence agency. In the 1980s and 90s, Fidan’s 15 years as a non-commissioned Army officer included a posting with NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force. Since then, Fidan has met secretly with persons ranging from the imprisoned PKK chief, Mr. Ocalan, to General Solemeini, the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander. Erdogan has called Fidan “my keeper of secrets.”
Manyakitty
@Adam L Silverman: just a teeny tiny little talk
Geminid
@Adam L Silverman: I will be glad to see what you think about this, whenever you get around to it. Right now Israel is not making a lot of headlines over here, but that can change any time.
YY_Sima Qian
Ukraine’s polity & political economy was not that much healthier than Russia’s before 2014, arguably worse. If Russia had not carved out Donbass & Crimea in 2014, Ukraine probably would not have made nearly as much progress across the board (military effectiveness, political institutionalization, national consciousness, reduction of corruption, etc.). Still a long way to go, but the 2022 invasion has firmly set Ukraine on its path. A true stroke of strategic genius on Putin’s part.
Chetan Murthy
Adam, your posts are always required reading, but tonight you’ve really written something …. compelling.
I suspect all of us here agree with you categorically, and that reading your words is somewhat cathartic for us, expressing our anger and frustration at the cowardice of our elected officials.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: That’s partially true, and partially false. Even before 2014, Ukraine had the Orange Revolution. Sure, it wasn’t completely successful. But it was a first step, and certainly much more than Russia has ever achieved. And then of course there was the Euromaidan and everything that followed it.
I think that unlike Russia, Ukraine and Ukrainians understood their place in Europe, and that they wanted that place and were willing to fight for it. This is in marked contrast to Russia and Russians. And all of this was the case *before* Putin invaded in 2014.
Chetan Murthy
has anybody listen to Mark Galleotti’s latest podcast discussing Alexei Navalny and his anger and recriminations about the 1990s in Russia? I thought it was very interesting. And, Sadly, It pretty much convinced me that the only way Russia will ever become a democratic place Is if it falls apart into some number of smaller states. As big as it is, It’s just impossible for democratic movementsto make any headway against entrenched bad guys. Because those bad guys have so much power and movements start small and can be squashed. It was A little depressing to listen to.
https://inmoscowsshadows.buzzsprout.com/1026985/13393066-in-moscow-s-shadows-110-why-navalny-doesn-t-hate-the-goat
Sebastian
@Another Scott:
You are correct but that’s not the whole story. The Ruble/Zloty/Dinar all were only nominal for the population who was paid in the currency and used the currency to shop for food and certain services provided by government owned entities (public pools, cinemas, etc). Higher value goods, such as cars or apartments but also shoes, were assigned according to waitlists onto which one got via different ways (plus bribes).
Intercompany or interstate trade was a barter system that functioned exactly as you described. The Russians, being in control, would buy Ukrainian wheat and in exchange supply natural gas. Of course the Russian shortchanged everyone massively who wasn’t Russian. Inside Russia the politically best connected and/or whatever was a priority in the 5-year-plan was given priority.
If you wanted anything of value you needed hard (=Western) currency.
Once the USSR/Eastern Block collapsed, the governments issued the workers so called coupons (=shares of the company) but those became quickly worthless as the companies went bankrupt and the government sold the most valuable companies to their cronies (Abramovich, etc) for pennies on the dollar.
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Interested to hear Adam’s take on the subject. This 2009 book by sociologists is worth a look, but I haven’t dug around to map out the arguments from others. (Note: I cannot attest for the legality of the (.org) link.)
Auditing Israeli Democracy – 2009 Twenty Years of Immigration from the Soviet Union (PDF, 2009, Asher Arian, Michael Philippov, Anna Knafelman)
I have not read all of it – 136 pages (a book). Two threads popped out:
(1) Consumption of Russian language media (tending RW)
(2) Political attitudes that resemble those of citizens of the FSU, e.g.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: The Russian immigrants may well be right of center of Israeli political beliefs, but I’m not sure how far. And the Secular/Religious dynamic puts them on the same side as secular liberal parties like Yesh Atid on some matters. That is one reason the Russian-immigrant based party led by Avigdor Lieberman helped form the Bennet/Lapid government and is now in opposition (another reason may be that Lieberman hates Netanyahu’s guts).
Many people see the status of the West Bank and Gaza- the Palestinian question- as the paramount Israeli issue. In that respect, Lieberman could be considered “right wing” because he opposes a Palestinian state. Within the spectrum of the “Zionist” political parties though, he probably is in the mainstream. Now that the “pro-peace” party Meretz has gone from 12 MKs in 2000 to 5 MKs recently and then to none after the last election, the remaining non-Arab parties range from sceptical to hostile on the question of a Palestinian state.
A member of Benny Gantz’s “National Unity” party, Gadi Eisenkot, insists that there must be a political “separation” from the Palestinians, much like another general-turned politican, Ariel Sharon said 20 years ago. However, this was not a formal party proposal in the last election.
Other members of Gantz’s party like Gideon Saar have long standing positions against Palestinian statehood and would prefer to manage the Palestinian question, not solve it. As far as I can tell, that’s Lieberman’s position too.