That’s the air raid alert map as of 6:50 PM EST/1:50 AM local time in Ukraine. An alert went up for Zhytomer Oblast shortly after I took the screen shot. As has happened over and over for the past two weeks, the drones will likely be followed by missiles and bombs.
Kharkiv has been under air raid alert for most of the day:
Kharkiv has been under russian drone strikes for hours now. Russia’s attacks on civilians are not strength, but the convulsions of collapse.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
All Support Programs for Our People Will Be Continued – Address by the President
5 February 2025 – 20:30
I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!
I have just signed a decree that enacts the decision of the National Security and Defense Council following its meeting the day before. We have worked thoroughly on every aspect. All support programs for our people – programs that have proven to be effective – will be continued. Millions of people have already been helped, and we will certainly continue the relevant efforts. The Government has been instructed to allocate financial resources for direct support of our people and Ukrainian manufacturers. This is a top priority – the growth of Ukrainian production through our support. This will bring more revenues to the budget, to the citizens, more jobs to our communities, and, most importantly – more independence for our state. The law enforcement agencies have started processing all the materials provided by the Tax Service and the Financial Monitoring Service on the detected violations. There are schemes in the financial sector worth billions. The task is simple: to pull billions out of the shadow economy and use them to enable our state to genuinely help people. Criminal proceedings have already been initiated against those who created the relevant schemes, who have harmed the state and the budget, and sanctions will follow. Severe sanctions. There is also such a directive from the NSDC. Any weakening of the state in times of war – undermining our financial stability and financial security of Ukraine and thus playing into Russia’s hands – will surely lead to accountability. We also continue to work on sanctions that target Russia directly – that target all those who are helping Russia finance its war against Ukraine. I discussed this today with the British Foreign Secretary – he visited Ukraine. It is vital that we keep pressuring Putin’s shadow tanker fleet, which transports oil around the world and earns money for Russia’s terror and war. The United Kingdom is one of the leaders in putting pressure on the shadow fleet. But it is important to impose sanctions not just on the tankers and the companies associated with them, but also on the captains of such vessels and all those involved. Ukraine has such a sanctions decision, and we will extend it to our partners’ jurisdictions.
We are also preparing a new agenda for the NSDC, in addition to the issues related to the financial resilience of our state. We need to support the financial stability of every Ukrainian family, of all our citizens. In many ways, this includes the issue of prices, especially for vital things like medicines. What some pharmacy chains are doing with prices is absolutely unacceptable. And this is the responsibility of the Government, specifically the Minister of Health and the Antimonopoly Committee. Today I had a meeting with them, and I’m tired of waiting for their respective proposals. There is not much time. Everything that needs to be done is quite clear. We need concrete steps, concrete decisions that will allow us to make healthcare more affordable for our people. If there are no decisions on the availability of medicines, then decisions on personnel will follow.
And one more thing. We have significantly intensified our contacts with the U.S. Administration. We also have quite substantial communications with our other partners. Ukraine needs a real, lasting and guaranteed peace, and the means to ensure that Russia always knows what awaits those who wish to harm Ukraine. We are open to strong diplomacy, and we are preparing just such diplomacy. And this requires the resilience of our warriors, the effectiveness of our army, the modernization of our army. Today we discussed some innovations with Pavlo Palisa, a combat commander who knows the mood and needs of the frontline. I thank everyone who is helping us!
And the joy – the joy of this day: we succeeded in freeing another 150 Ukrainians from Russian captivity. Some of them had been in captivity for years. It is very, very difficult to bring our people back, but we are doing it. And we will continue to do so. We must bring everyone back.
Glory to Ukraine!
Georgia:
Rustaveli Avenue is blocked. It is the 70th day of continuous protests in Georgia against Russian-style oligarchy and deviation from the European path.
Polyphonic singing and other cultural elements are a major tool for Georgian self-mobilization.
Tonight, for the first time in a while, people performed “Chakrulo,” a conspiracy song to overthrow a greedy lord that makes life impossible. #GeorgiaProtests
📷 Zurab Batiashvili
A Georgian woman 🔥 to the regime police that outright tortures people:
“Do not touch my scooter! Do not touch my property! Yes, I will obey your requirement but don’t you shout at me! And let me pass now to move away, I don’t want to run you over!”
1/ Mzia Amaglobeli has been on a hunger strike for 25 days. Yesterday evening, on February 4, she was taken to a clinic for examinations. Today, Amaglobeli stated that she does not want to stay in the hospital and is demanding to be returned to prison.
2/ Previously, Mzia said that she would not apologize to the person who spat in her face. She also mentioned receiving numerous letters asking her to end the hunger strike, but she cannot accept these requests because she cannot imagine coming to terms with injustice.
Hospitalized Mzia Amaghlobeli, an unlawfully detained journalist on a hunger strike, was left in a room full of food. To torture her psychologically.
Meanwhile, they announce new anti-media, anti-opposition, and anti-CSO laws. It’s simply impossible to catch up. #terrorinGeorgia
1/7
Acc/to the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), Temur Katamadze [Jafar Ilmaz], the flag-bearer #GeorgiaProtests in Batumi who has been on hunger strike for 20 days, has become significantly weakened.
GYLA published this information about Temur Katamadze today, February 5, in the evening.
2/7
“He is weaker compared to previous days and shows significant weight loss. During a conversation with his lawyer, he explained that he won’t be able to attend the scheduled hearing at the #Tbilisi Court of Appeals this week due to weakness,” GYLA states.
3/7
Although GYLA has repeatedly requested information about Temur Katamadze’s health condition and medical examinations, the relevant authorities have not provided this information.
The Public Defender has also not received any information.
4/7
GYLA calls on the MIA to immediately provide info about what medical examinations are being conducted on Temur Katamadze and what his health condition is. They also urge the authorities to “follow appropriate medical guidelines & conduct all necessary laboratory and instrumental examinations.”
5/7
Temur Katamadze was arrested twice by police. He was first arrested on January 11, during a protest at the Batumi Police Department, and then again on January 17, immediately after his release from isolation and taken to immigration detention centre.
6/7
After his arrest first, he has wrote a letter to Batumelebi, speaking about physical violence against him by Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze and up to 10 other policemen.
Temur is a citizen of #Turkey, a descendant of Georgian Muhajirs.
7/7
Temur began returning to #Georgia, and restoring his Georgian identity in his youth. He has been trying to obtain Georgian citizenship for more than 10 years; he reads, writes, and speaks Georgian fluently. He also knows Georgian history, literature, and modern legislation.
The regime in Georgia does find itself in a very, very peculiar position.
It has now put all cards on a lightning speed dictatorship, outlawing all protests, and jailing everyone (note: the jailing is to a large degree very arbitrary and depends a lot on a random policeman’s random irritation). 1/
that are seriously overstretched if there are even just two simultaneous protests in the country, and even just in Tbilisi. I do not believe that they have the army, or that their possible recruitment of North Caucasians would not backfire big time (not to even mention outright Russians). 3/
Point two: even now, their system is not fully cleansed and consolidated. They are rushing into this process now, but it’s much more risky to announce a dictatorship and THEN establish one in practice rather than vice versa. 4/
Point three: their business elites and enablers did not sign up for this. They hoped for status, respect, posh lifestyle, EU shopping mall, and US birthright citizenships for their children. They wanted to keep the state in a limbo, and must be very cautious of what’s the prospect for them now. 5/
Do not underestimate Georgian nationalism and our inherent anti-Kremlin mobilization. They do not, and I repeat, they do not want to force us to cement anti-Georgian Dream stance into our national identity. 6/
Point four: equating public criticism towards regime officials to serious crimes and enforcing your own dictatorial laws absolutely arbitrarily might disengage some from protests, but inherently makes others say “well, screw it” and violate your laws, making you look weak. 7/
Not to mention that it would also radicalize some people, as it’s just the rule in political theory, unless Georgia reintroduces death penalty (which I wouldn’t exclude, but still).
Point five: Georgia has no economic backbone of its own and it is extremely vulnerable to foreign fluctuations. 8/
No tourist will come, and most investors from the Middle East only invested here because it was a democratic window to Europe in the wider region. I guess they can attempt to make a depopulated (due to mass exile) Georgia a Chinese village, but that can backfire big time in rural areas. 9/9.
Funds that Congress approved for weapons packages to Ukraine during the Biden administration are nearly empty, with most weapons already in Ukraine.
A Dec. 30 package from former U.S. President Joe Biden used up the last of the funding from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which since 2022 has allocated $32.7 billion to buy Ukraine new equipment.
That final package included mostly air defense missiles and ammunition for rocket systems like HIMARS, as well as simpler artillery shells, which are a consistent pain point given Ukraine’s constant need.
Even prior to Trump’s inauguration, the Pentagon’s 2025 request for funding to restock the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative was a relatively meager $300 million.
Of roughly $45.8 billion that has been sent to a separate “drawdown” fund, approved in the last Congress, only $3.8 billion — about 8% — remains.
The structure of these “drawdowns” pays U.S. arms makers to replenish stockpiles of old weapons sent to Ukraine, with the money going to new equipment that stays in America. Anything the Pentagon actually sends to Ukraine will be worth significantly less than $3.8 billion.
The new Congress has yet to approve a new budget for 2025 and any future weapons appropriations to Ukraine are largely in Trump’s hands. Ukraine’s continued dependence on that dwindling U.S. weaponry gives Trump enormous leverage.
U.S. weapons have been critical to Ukraine’s defense. Zelensky recently tallied U.S. weapons packages as about 40% of Ukraine’s total arms supply — still a hefty chunk despite extensive work to expand Ukraine’s domestic defense production.
The slow pace of physical weapons deliveries to Ukraine has also caused controversy, particularly since the end of 2023. Even after the political approval of packages, the physical relocation process was bogged down and tracking remains uncertain.
As funding nears its end, the Pentagon has, it says, already delivered most of what has been allocated.
“As of Jan. 10, the Department of Defense has delivered 89% of critical munitions, 94% of anti-armor systems, and 75% of other fire capabilities committed to Ukraine through Presidential Drawdown Authority,” said Lt. Col. Charlie Dietz, a Pentagon representative.
Remaining arms are set to trickle in. But what’s left in transit is mostly old armored personnel carriers and military trucks.
“The main refurbishments are vehicles, which will continue to be delivered into the summer,” Dietz said.
“Delivery timelines for critical combat equipment, like artillery systems and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, as well as other armored vehicles, such as M113s and HMMWVs, can sometimes be longer because we must first repair the vehicles.”
American-made vehicles are not at the top of the list of Ukrainian needs at the moment, said Kateryna Bondar, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“No, Ukraine cannot produce (Bradleys) by itself, but Ukraine doesn’t need this kind of weaponry on the front line right now,” she said.
Ukraine’s actual needs are more rote, according to Bondar. “Simply put: 155 mm explosives. Maybe it’s not very fancy. But artillery, long-range strikes, air defense — expensive conventional systems, this is what Ukraine needs the most.”
Back to Ukraine.
Nemesis unit never stops destroying Russian air defence capabilities and this time targets valuable Russian BUK-M3 air defence system. t.me/nemesis_412/…
When Oleg Rostovtsev hovered between life and death after a serious operation last April, he asked friends and family to do something that, until recently, had been impossible — to pray for him by reading the Tehillim, the Hebrew Book of Psalms, in Ukrainian.
“For someone who is sick, someone who is in trouble, you have to do something. We (Jews) read the Tehillim. If we don’t know Hebrew, why should we read the Tehillim in the language of an aggressor?” said Rostovtsev, a prominent member of Ukraine’s Jewish community and well-known local journalist and historian.
Ukraine is the birthplace of the Hasidic Jewish movement, played a key role in the development of Yiddish literature, and has deep roots in Jewish history stretching back more than a thousand years.
Yet crucial sacred texts — including the Torah — have never been translated into Ukrainian.
Only recently has this started to change, through the efforts of Jewish Ukrainians. Although their work began in part prior to 2022, it has radically expanded and accelerated after Russia’s invasion.
While religious texts are often the most widely translated texts on the planet, the absence of Ukrainian translations of Jewish texts is a consequence of the long-lasting effects of the Holocaust and Soviet rule and repression on Jewish life in Ukraine.
The single most destructive event on the Ukrainian Jewish population remains the Holocaust, when historians estimate over one million Jews were killed in Ukraine. But before and after World War II, repressive Soviet policies and antisemitism took their toll as well, undermining Jewish cultural identity. Russification efforts pushed Jewish and non-Jewish Ukrainians alike to switch to the Russian language.
And, even after Ukraine gained its independence and Jewish life began to revitalize, the Russian language provided a bridge for a still weakened Jewish community to millions of other Russian-speaking Jews in former USSR states, the U.S., and Israel.
Many Jewish communities today are centered in the eastern regions of Dnipro and Odesa, where the Russian language has historically been more prevalent than in western Ukraine.
“The inertia of the Russian language in the Jewish environment is quite powerful,” said Leonid Finberg, a sociologist and director of the Center for Studies of East European Jewish Culture and History in Kyiv.
But Russia’s war in Ukraine has galvanized efforts to provide Ukrainian-language Jewish texts to those seeking to deepen their national identity or sever ties to Russia.
Work for Ukrainian translators has “doubled, maybe tripled” since the full-scale invasion began, estimates Inna Zerkal, a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine’s (FJCU) team dedicated to translating classical Jewish literature into Ukrainian.
The prayers read by Rostovtsev’s friends are one of several new translations spearheaded by the FJCU who, among other groups, are working to make Jewish texts available in the country’s national language.
Translators work through power outages and tote laptops to bunkers. The printing presses publishing their work in Kharkiv have come under barrage from missiles. But because of the country’s history, the greatest challenge, say those leading the project, has been gathering translators and editors who have a deep knowledge of Jewish religion and texts as well as fluent enough Ukrainian to capture the nuances and sacred meanings of holy texts.
Despite these challenges, these efforts have already borne fruit in just a few years. For Passover last year, Ukrainians were able to read the holiday’s sacred text, the Haggadah, in Ukrainian for the first time.
Several children’s books about Hanukkah were printed just before the winter holiday, and thousands of copies of the Tehillim are already in circulation.
Many of these Tehillim copies have been delivered to Jewish fighters on the front lines, says FJCU Chaplain Yakov Sinyakov, brought by volunteers along with food, generators, and protective equipment.
“It is specially made in such a format that it can be carried with you,” he said, displaying a palm-sized copy. “The soldiers carry these books with them, in tanks and in their pockets.”
And now, over a thousand draft copies of the newly translated Torah are circulating in sections for feedback and editing ahead of an official printing later this year.
“Those who fight on the front, those who are in the rear, they simply do not want to watch YouTube in Russian, nor read books in Russian, nor have anything to do with the Russian language,” said Rostovtsev, who himself began switching to Ukrainian in 2016, two years after the Russian invasion of Crimea.
“Many people say that they do not want the Russian language — which, for example, I was raised in — to be passed to the next generation,” he said. “I want my grandchildren to go to synagogue so that my grandchildren have a Jewish identity. And when they come, there should be a Torah in Ukrainian.”
Beyond responding to the Jewish community’s needs, however, Rostovtsev sees the translation as important for fighting anti-semitism by making the Jewish religion more accessible to more non-Jews.
“When you understand something, you don’t feel that it’s something so new and unpleasant. People don’t like when something is not clear,” he said.
Not everyone saw the reasoning behind the translation project right away, said Rabbi Levy Engelsman, who heads the FJCU’s publishing department. Some initially felt the existing Russian translations were more practical for the community. When he proposed a new push for Ukrainian translations of holy texts at the start of the full-scale invasion, an acquaintance of his said he didn’t see the point.
“Half a year passed, and this same person is not only interested, but he became a sponsor” of the project, said Engelsman, who expects a final version of the Torah to be printed in the coming months.
“Today, no one asks whether it is necessary at all. It is clear to everyone that we have to do it. It will happen, and we will work on it.”
Translating the Torah has far less wiggle room than, say, translating Hamlet or The Great Gatsby.
“Every word in the Torah has a certain meaning. If you distort this meaning even a little, the meaning of the whole text, the whole message to people, is lost,” said Zerkal, the translator.
While there is no official process for approving a new translation of the Torah, a group of rabbis oversees the project and consults on difficult passages and decisions.
Converting a Russian version into Ukrainian might have been simpler, but they determined that starting from the original Hebrew would bring the final version closer to the original meaning. Every translation, after all, is a series of compromises.
“Russian and Ukrainian are different languages. They have different idioms, different pronunciations of verbs,” explained Shaul Melamed, who volunteers his time as an editor on the Torah translation. “There are many idioms that you can use in Ukraine that are much closer to the original Hebrew meanings.”
Much more at the link!
Kharkiv:
Last night, two russian drones struck Kharkiv, damaging civilian facilities and igniting fires. One man suffered an acute stress reaction due to the attack. Peaceful nights remain just a dream.
Russian forces attacked the Odesa region with a missile, killing one person.
According to the Regional Military Administration, the invaders struck an unfinished residential building. A man was killed, and another was seriously injured and is hospitalized. Both were passing by the building
The bombing on Feb. 1 killed the suspected perpetrator and injured eight service members. Russian operatives recruited the man and then remotely detonated explosives, removing him as an “‘unnecessary’ witness,” the SBU said.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, before the rebranding as ISIS, did this. This tactic actually started with the Lebanese Sh’ia Amal militia, which often used young boys as the ambulatory and usually unwitting conveyors of the bombs.
Hola Prystyn, Kherson Oblast:
💥”Armed Forces of Ukraine struck Hola Prystan, destroying over 10 boats and Russian personnel.” – partisans.
The “Atesh” movement reported that partisans located enemy forces near Hola Prystan, Kherson region, and shared the intel with the military. The strike caused heavy losses.
Somewhere in the streets of Russian-occupied Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, a woman puts a sticker on the wall. It’s a short message, but if she is seen doing it, she will face arrest, prosecution, and likely, torture.
Somewhere in the streets of Russian-occupied Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, a woman puts a sticker on the wall. It’s a short message, but if she is seen doing it, she will face arrest, prosecution, and likely, torture.
The message is: “Soon, we will be home again.” On another sticker, the most dangerous three words in the occupied Crimea: “This is Ukraine.”
What makes it even more risky for their bearer is the language. The words are in Ukrainian.
The woman putting up the stickers is a member of Zla Mavka, an all-female resistance group. She is on a dangerous mission: to give hope.
The prospects for full military liberation of the occupied regions — including Crimea and parts of the Donbas region occupied since 2014 — seem ever more distant.
After seeing the liberation of the parts of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson oblasts in 2022, Ukrainians in other occupied areas have been hoping that their turn will come soon. Now they struggle to find comfort in the latest news.
Nonetheless, Olesia, one of the three women who founded Zla Mavka, an all-women resistance movement that operates across occupied territories, including Crimea and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, says she plans to fight as long as possible. Olesia’s name has been changed and her last name is not being disclosed to protect her identity as she lives under Russian occupation.
“As long as there is hope, we will continue to resist,” she told the Kyiv Independent.
The name, Zla Mavka, or Angry Mavka, harkens back to old Ukrainian folklore — the mavka is a woodland female spirit who uses its beautiful appearance to lure men to their deaths. An image of a young woman, clad in white garb and wearing a wreath of flowers, became the most iconic attribute of their imagery.
Mavkas are not easy to reach. Their members never know when a Russian soldier will stop them in the street to inspect the contents of their phones.
Olesia sends her answers in writing through an intermediary. Audio or video is deemed too risky. Her responses are somber and free of embellishments.
“If we lose, we won’t have a life here,” she writes. “We will have to leave our homes because living under Russian occupation is worse than prison.”
Olesia comes from a city in southeastern Ukraine that was seized by Russia mere days after the outbreak of the full-scale war.
After Moscow illegally declared the annexation of the lands they seized, hers and other cities under Russian control were to be remodeled into Potemkin villages — a veneer of a harmonious cohabitation covering up arrests, torture, and repressions.
On Women’s Day on March 8, 2023 — more than a year after the start of the occupation — Russian troops were lined up in the city’s streets to dutifully hand out flowers to Ukrainian women. The gesture had a different effect than Russia might have hoped.
It was the “insolence of Russian occupiers and their attitudes toward women” that inspired the founding of Zla Mavka, Olesia explains.
“We wanted to remind them that they are not at home, that this is Ukraine, and they are not welcome,” she says.
The trio of founders, one of whom is an artist, began distributing posters bearing an inscription in Russian reading “I don’t want flowers! I want my Ukraine back!” and a drawing of a woman smashing a Russian soldier with a bouquet.
Since these early days, the movement grew to hundreds of activists, forming a decentralized group coordinated through anonymous chatbots on a messenger app. The group spread to different occupied regions and became especially active in Crimea, with a few members hailing even from Donbas.
Zla Mavka may be only one of several resistance groups that sprung up in Russian-held areas, including the Yellow Ribbon and Atesh. But its all-female character and the use of humor and creativity sets it apart from others.
Creativity is the group’s greatest strength, Olesia says, half-jokingly suggesting that women can be more sophisticated in the ways of resistance than their male counterparts.
Among the many acts of resistance since the foundation of the group, Mavkas say they created fake ruble banknotes reminding the Russians that “Crimea is Ukraine,” burned Russian flags, and filled the streets with pro-Ukrainian graffiti, posters, and poetry. At times, they say they mix laxatives into food and alcohol served to Russian soldiers, a treat they mischievously dubbed the “Mavka cocktail.”
Their activities also venture into more usual resistance activities, including the distribution of self-published newspapers to counter Russian propaganda or — according to the Ukrainian military-run National Resistance Center — passing information about the Russian military to Ukraine.
But Olesia emphasizes that Zla Mavka is more than just a resistance group. It has become a source of support for Ukrainians amid the hardship of occupation — a community where anonymity is no obstacle to connection.
Much more at the link!
A couple of points. First, some of the most effective partisan underground fighters in history, especially the 20th century – were women. Second, the Mavka, or white lady, is actually a very common part of folklore in Europe. As is the case with all folklore, there’s lots of variation. The Ukrainian Mavka is a solitary creature. In Germany, France, and the Netherlands it will be the white ladies, three stunningly beautiful women whose promise eternal bliss, but whose embrace means death. In some variants of the mythos, these trio of white ladies have duck feet instead of human ones.
Krasnador Oblast, Russia:
Russian oil depot in the Krasnodar region of Russia burning after tonight’s drone attack. (46.3322560, 38.9368270)
Buzzing drones attacked Primorsko-Akhtarsk, located on the opposite shore of the Sea of Azov from Ukraine, as part of a campaign to enforce peace through force. Eyewitnesses heard multiple UAVs and captured footage of smoke rising in the area of the airfield, where Shaheds are stored.
A Ukrainian drone may have hit the launch/storage area of Russian/Iranian Shahed 131/136 attack drones at the airfield in Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Russia.
Lower left photo shot at: 46.048842, 38.213001.
Source: https://buff.ly/4gu0hWh
Thanks, Adam, for elaborating on the folklore aspect. In Ukrainian folklore, though, the mavka is a solitary actor, never as part of a group. She can best be understood as the woodland analogue to a mermaid (rusalka or русалка in Ukrainian.)
Nevertheless, one cannot understate the bravery of these young women, especially in Crimea.
And once again, thank you for the effort you are expending to keep the Georgia situation in the front of readers’ minds.
4.
Jay
Thank you, Adam.
5.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: You’re welcome. The trio of white ladies came via the Norse and Teutonic myths and are found in German, Dutch, and French folklore. Given how far back the mythos goes in Ukraine, I’m not surprised that the mavka are a solitary creature, rather than a trio. I’ll clarify the language to remove the ambiguity.
6.
Jay
Logo
(((Tendar)))
@Tendar
16h
German authorities revealed that hundreds of cars in German were sabotaged by a group of three men who operated for the Russian state. After damaging the cars they left messages pointing at the Green Party.
The aim has been to further divide Germany and propel the hyper-partisanship, which especially the Pro-Russian AfD picks up.
It is similar to the migration debate which Russia fueled for decades, sometimes even bombing refugee tracks to the West in order to enable the rise of right-wing movements which overwhelmingly support Russian interests, especially the treasonous AfD, which has been caught numerous times to work together with the Russian enemy.
(((Tendar)))
@Tendar
4 p.m.
Source (in German), but with full story without being behind the paywall.
Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt
@schmidtwolf
4 p.m.
A nationwide series of sabotage apparently controlled by Russia: They covered the exhaust pipes of hundreds of cars with construction foam, and covered the windows with Habeck stickers: What looked like the work of climate activists is said to be the work of Moscow. @derspiegel spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/h…
Feb 5, 2025 · 9:53 AM UTC
Adam,
I read your reports every day and throw in a comment every once in a while. But mostly I lurk. So here’s a long-delayed thank you for these vital and comprehensive reports and analysis. With Trump’s chaos these days in Washington and the uncertainty about what comes next in Ukraine (and, well, just about everywhere) it’s so important to keep Russia’s war on Ukraine as top of mind as possible.
9.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
I had no idea how deep the roots of Judaism were in Ukraine. I have always read that the Hasidic Movement started in Russia. 🙄 Now I know better. I’m glad it’s going so strong after the horrors of the Holocaust.
Various legends/myths about the White Lady are all over Slavic mythology. In Poland, it runs so deep that it has been incorporated into the popular video game The Witcher3 . IKR? 😂
I had no idea how deep the roots of Judaism were in Ukraine. I have always read that the Hasidic Movement started in Russia.
As Gin and Tonic regularly points out, that many of the achievements that we think are “ruZZian”, are actually Ukrainian, from Arts, Literature, Science, Military Victories, etc., because of a pro ruZZian bias in the West and non recognition of ethic and cultural minorities.
T and her family always believed their background was ruZZian/Cree, (Metis).
I did some searching and no, they were not ruZZian on her Great Grandfather’s side. They didn’t even speak “ruZZian”. Their food is not “ruZZian”, the Easter eggs are not “ruZZian” , the Grandmothers stitched Vyshyvanka’s, etc.
They were Ukrainian Methodist’s from Uzghorod, whom the Czar had displaced to Siberia for refusing military service, they made their way to Canada, where they were listed on their “papers” as ruZZian.
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AlaskaReader
Thanks Adam
Adam L Silverman
@AlaskaReader: You’re welcome.
Gin & Tonic
Thanks, Adam, for elaborating on the folklore aspect. In Ukrainian folklore, though, the mavka is a solitary actor, never as part of a group. She can best be understood as the woodland analogue to a mermaid (rusalka or русалка in Ukrainian.)
Nevertheless, one cannot understate the bravery of these young women, especially in Crimea.
And once again, thank you for the effort you are expending to keep the Georgia situation in the front of readers’ minds.
Jay
Thank you, Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: You’re welcome. The trio of white ladies came via the Norse and Teutonic myths and are found in German, Dutch, and French folklore. Given how far back the mythos goes in Ukraine, I’m not surprised that the mavka are a solitary creature, rather than a trio. I’ll clarify the language to remove the ambiguity.
Jay
https://nitter.poast.org/Tendar/status/1887072279290388692#m
Link at link.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: You’re welcome.
jackmac
Adam,
I read your reports every day and throw in a comment every once in a while. But mostly I lurk. So here’s a long-delayed thank you for these vital and comprehensive reports and analysis. With Trump’s chaos these days in Washington and the uncertainty about what comes next in Ukraine (and, well, just about everywhere) it’s so important to keep Russia’s war on Ukraine as top of mind as possible.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
I had no idea how deep the roots of Judaism were in Ukraine. I have always read that the Hasidic Movement started in Russia. 🙄 Now I know better. I’m glad it’s going so strong after the horrors of the Holocaust.
Various legends/myths about the White Lady are all over Slavic mythology. In Poland, it runs so deep that it has been incorporated into the popular video game The Witcher3 . IKR? 😂
Thanks as always Adam.
Jay
@Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom:
As Gin and Tonic regularly points out, that many of the achievements that we think are “ruZZian”, are actually Ukrainian, from Arts, Literature, Science, Military Victories, etc., because of a pro ruZZian bias in the West and non recognition of ethic and cultural minorities.
T and her family always believed their background was ruZZian/Cree, (Metis).
I did some searching and no, they were not ruZZian on her Great Grandfather’s side. They didn’t even speak “ruZZian”. Their food is not “ruZZian”, the Easter eggs are not “ruZZian” , the Grandmothers stitched Vyshyvanka’s, etc.
They were Ukrainian Methodist’s from Uzghorod, whom the Czar had displaced to Siberia for refusing military service, they made their way to Canada, where they were listed on their “papers” as ruZZian.