Thousands of Russians took to the streets to protest the invasion of Ukraine.
Some 1,702 people in 53 Russian cities were detained, at least 940 of them in Moscow, according to OVD-Info, a rights group that tracks political arrests. https://t.co/7OXJWWjTNQ
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 24, 2022
protests across 53 russian cities, more than 1700 people detained tonight. the regime did not bother with counter-protests. I wonder if Putin underestimated just how unpopular this would be
— Seva (@SevaUT) February 24, 2022
I suppose when you lose a million a people in excess mortality to covid and no one protests you start to think of yourself as invulnerable
— Seva (@SevaUT) February 24, 2022
I also want to stress what those numbers don't capture, which is how anti-war sentiment on russian social media has been. twitter is not representative bc it attracts more liberal russians anyway but even previously apolitical people are united in condemnation and shame
— Seva (@SevaUT) February 24, 2022
Pushkin Square, maybe less than 1000 meters from Red Square and the Kremlin, is the cite of a significant protest. These people know the risks of challenging the regime. They’re on the street in-spite of major personal costs. pic.twitter.com/bYEfbO91xG
— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) February 24, 2022
People marching through central Moscow this evening chanting “No to War!” pic.twitter.com/BTQ3ZOGTan
— Matthew Luxmoore (@mjluxmoore) February 24, 2022
People attend an anti-war protest in Saint Petersburg, Russia, amid Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
LIVE UPDATES: https://t.co/rxHToef8pN pic.twitter.com/qetjJqGPOb
— ABC News (@ABC) February 24, 2022
Marina Litvinovich, a well-known human rights activist, posted a video on social media calling for Russians to take to the streets and protest the assault on Ukraine—but she was arrested outside her home in Moscow a short time later https://t.co/NeVqGSMsvX
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 24, 2022
One ex of what antiwar mvmt faces: "Why do these fucking cannibals… still have contracts with federal channels, movie roles, concert venues…. It's time for all of us to stop flirting with the fifth column and give us oprichniks the opportunity to work with them as expected."
— Dan Trombly (@stcolumbia) February 24, 2022
Oprichnik (Russian: опри́чник, IPA: [ɐˈprʲitɕnʲɪk], man aside; plural Oprichniki) was the designation given to a member of the Oprichnina, a bodyguard corps established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern a division of Russia from 1565 to 1572…
If you can’t hold up a sign without being arrested, then write it on your jacket: “No to war.” pic.twitter.com/xD4BqsSs8p
— Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) February 24, 2022
He was detained within second of holding up that sign. Arrests are getting a lot rougher. pic.twitter.com/UtaaZHKekT
— Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) February 24, 2022
Three journalists from RFE/RL's Russian Service, @SvobodaRadio, were detained by police while attempting to cover an anti-war protest in Moscow. One of them managed to record this video of his violent arrest. pic.twitter.com/nsTJfXe3hY
— Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (@RFERL) February 24, 2022
Russians Now See a New Side to Putin: Dragging Them Into War
“The autocrat who has steered Russia for 22 years was embraced by many Russians for what they saw as his rationality and astute risk management. That image has been upended.”https://t.co/Aq0tV3ESlD
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 24, 2022
… For most of his 22-year rule, Vladimir V. Putin presented an aura of calm determination at home — of an ability to astutely manage risk to navigate the world’s biggest country through treacherous shoals. His attack on Ukraine negated that image, and revealed him as an altogether different leader: one dragging the nuclear superpower he helms into a war with no foreseeable conclusion, one that by all appearances will end Russia’s attempts over its three post-Soviet decades to find a place in a peaceful world order.
Russians awoke in shock after they learned that Mr. Putin, in an address to the nation that aired before 6 a.m., had ordered a full-scale assault against what Russians of all political stripes often refer to as their “brotherly nation.”
There was no spontaneous pro-war jubilation. Instead, liberal-leaning public figures who for years tried to compromise with and adapt to Mr. Putin’s creeping authoritarianism found themselves reduced to posting on social media about their opposition to a war they had no way to stop…
And in Moscow’s foreign policy establishment, where analysts overwhelmingly characterized Mr. Putin’s military buildup around Ukraine as an elaborate and astute bluff in recent months, many admitted on Thursday that they had monumentally misjudged a man they had spent decades studying…
In the last three months, as American officials warned that Mr. Putin’s troop buildup was a prelude to an invasion, Russians dismissed such talk as a Western failure to understand their president’s fundamental determination to manage risk and avoid rash moves with unpredictable consequences. And with leading opposition figures imprisoned or exiled, there were few figures with the influence to organize an antiwar movement.
Some public figures with ties to the government reversed course, though they recognized it was too late. Ivan Urgant, the most prominent late-night comedian on state television, had ridiculed the idea of a looming war on his show earlier this month. On Thursday he posted a black square on Instagram along with the words: “Fear and pain.”…
Interesting: Russians have been very supportive of Putin for 22 years. But not today. via @PjotrSauer https://t.co/s1Q7GbupzA
— mark rice-oxley (@markriceoxley69) February 24, 2022
… There were already signs that Russians were uncomfortable with Putin’s initial decision to recognise the two self-proclaimed republics in Donbas.
On Tuesday, Yuri Dudt, one of Russia’s most popular media personalities, said he “did not vote for this regime” and its need for an empire, and felt ashamed, in a post that received almost a million likes in 24 hours.
A fresh poll by the independent Levada Center released on Thursday showed that only 45% of Russians stood in favour of the recognition move that preceded Thursday morning’s dramatic events…
Russia’s cultural and sporting elite, usually firmly behind Putin and often called upon by the president during election campaigns to gather popular support, also expressed their deep worries about Russia’s invasion.
Valery Meladze, arguable the country’s most beloved singer, posted an emotional video in which he “begged” Russia to stop the war. “Today something happened that should have never happened. History will be the judge of these events. But today, I beg you, please stop the war.”
Likewise, Russian football international Fyodor Smolov posted on his Instagram channel: “No to War!!!”…
For Ukrainians, public messages of opposition to the war will come too late. The country has said that at least 40 soldiers have already been killed and many more civilians injured, as it is threatened with being overrun by a much larger military force.
Yet, sensing that a genuine large-scale pushback against war might be Ukraine’s best bet, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, on Thursday morning urged Russians to speak up.
“If the Russian authorities don’t want to sit down with us to discuss peace, maybe they will sit down with you.”
Ruckus
This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. vlad has gone too far for seeming the majority of people in the world. Much of his own country seems to be willing to risk most everything to protest and stop him, Ukraine has taken an extreme resistance, providing guns and ammunition to as many of the people as possible, making this fight a door to door effort that vlad may have a hard time getting through.
I wish the Ukraine people the best in the fight to protect their country. And I wish vlad the worst in his effort to be a bigger dick than anyone else in the world.
bjacques
Since Putin needs a quick win, I hope the support NATO and the west are giving Ukraine to slow down or halt the offensive is massive and plausibly deniable, like painting targets in front and behind the battle lines, and cyber defense and cyber attack. Could manufacturers of routers, switches, firewalls, etc., reset existing licenses to expire or otherwise invalidate them?
patrick II
Trump and Pompeo have noted that an invasion of Ukraine did not happen under Trump’s administration, and they are right. Putin did not want to hurt Trump’s re-election chances.
Starboard Tack
I’m going to take my rage at Putin and my black hatred for the Reich Wing pukes that support him to bed. I hope there’s some better news in the morning.
Mallard Filmore
@bjacques:
Information seeps into Russia and leaks out with those internet lines. I don’t see the need to shut them down yet.
BeautifulPlumage
I wish Angela Merkel was still leading Germany right now.
Amir Khalid
I don’t know how much Putin cares about his popularity. He has an autocrat’s contempt for public opinion. And I’m pretty damn sure he has ways to hold on to power even if he loses an election — ways that will actually work, if you know what I mean.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
vlad is a dictator, his popularity is likely not high on the list of things he worries about. At least not in the manner of a person that has to run for an election that he might lose. And likely, because of it being Russia, with a monied class that really, really stays highly monied by screwing everyone but themselves, with a dictator like vlad at the top of the heap, the most monied of all, I think there should be no doubt about what you mean. I’d bet that as long as he wins at Ukraine he’s going to try to continue to be the person he is and has been for the last 22 yrs. Unless of course he actually is in ill health as many have thought, which will mean inside Russia will get testy if he dies soon, what with all the infighting to maintain the monetary order. Shutting down a lot of the monetary circus that runs Russia will likely make that a lot less plausible.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: Yes, but #NotAllRussians.
(My personal, Cynic’s bet is that on the morning after the major Russian kleptocrats find themselves personally inconvenienced by the global reaction to this incursion, Vladimir Putin will be found to have committed suicide. Possibly by falling out of a second-story window, after shooting himself in the back of the head… twice.
The point, therefore, is to ratchet up the inconvenience. With the exception of Boris Johnson’s pals from his schoolboy days, that project seems to have started off nicely.)
Dan B
Putin has many more fronts to battle in his war than he intended. Unfortunately he is cornered and ruthless destruction may seem like his only way to survive. I’m not certain his plutocrats will agree when their families begin to feel the ostracizm that the west they love to inhabit shuns them. In Syria the total destruction was of middle class and poor middle eastern people. Ukraine is white, European, and has connections with many well to do, cultured, and educated western Europeans and Americans. There are direct connections to the fun loving Jet setters the oligarchs’ family members love to rub elbows with.
Putin and “his” oligarchs will blink. But the oligarch’s families will blink first. They don’t want to be confined to Russia or pariahs to the rest of the world.
Wealth can’t buy everyone. It can’t fix being shunned, one of the strongest of instinctual fears.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
I like your style….
And this seems to be what most of the world is doing, ratcheting up the financial squeeze. Always hit em where they hurt the most….
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Maybe Putin can stage a photo op where he holds the Bible upside-down
Ruckus
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
I thought that only worked for the terminally stupid office occupiers of the world.
Dan B
@Anne Laurie: My bet is that Putin will be “holed up in dacha X for security purposes”. After weeks when Lavrov and Medvedev have been the public face of the regime and the invasion has been quietly scaled back Putin will be allowed to declare victory or a body double will do so for him.
Call me an optimist. I’ll be fine.
MomSense
I still can’t believe what I’m seeing. With all the actual crises facing humanity right now, Putin decides to inflict this violence and cruelty on the people of Ukraine.
The world would be better without him and his enablers.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
Putin has been known to use the legal system to dispose of even oligarchs who get in his way. (It’s a nice change of pace for when he gets tired of using the law of gravity.) He’s the one with the murderous goons to do his bidding, not the kleptocracy. Or at least he has the most goons.
JaySinWa
This has the air of the Russian coup collapse of 1991. I sense the collapse of Putin’s power and leverage with political and social forces starting to smell blood in the water. While the 1991 coup collapse ostensibly restored Gorbachev, it lead to Yeltsin’s ascendancy and accelerated the dismantlement of the USSR. I will not be surprised if Putin is ousted in the weeks ahead. It is unlikely to be soon enough to keep Ukraine from being a blood bath however.
JaySinWa
@Amir Khalid: The thing about goons is that they are rarely loyal beyond the paycheck. When things start to collapse for Putin, it will be rapid and his henchmen are not likely to be willing or able to stop it.
ETA I think Putin has been alienating the support he has on all fronts. There will be fewer and fewer levers for him to push.
Sebastian
@JaySinWa:
You and me both.
This is not a show of force. This is an embarrassment for Russia.
Amir Khalid
This just in: UEFA has decided to move this year’s Champions League final, scheduled for 28th May, from the Gazprom Arena in St Petersburg (the city in Russia, not the one in Florida) to the Stade de France.
eclare
@Amir Khalid: Excellent news.
Amir Khalid
@JaySinWa:
I don’t see a problem for Putin there. He is the biggest kleptocrat in Russia, by a considerable margin, and he’s likely got his hundreds of billion hidden away someplace really safe. I doubt anyone could outbid him for the loyalty of his goons.
prostratedragon
@Dan B: A small example: conductor Valery Gergiev has been asked by the Vienna Philharmonic to step aside as conductor for their U.S. tour to start soon. His position at La Scala for a Tchaikovsky opera is also in doubt. Link
PS: Heard in person the big band version of this little tune, still feeling the afterglow.
JWR
I’ve been wondering about this. How much “kinetic Russian harassment” would it take to trigger an Article 5 response? Would there even be a response? Also, are any NATO planes landing in Ukraine now that Russia’s invaded? ETA from The Hill:
[Sorry for the pedantic questions, but I’ve been living with excruciating and chronic Sciatica of the foot for quite a long time. It’s gotten worse, and it’s made my thinking a bit hazy. I’m seeing a new, ‘Last Chance’ pain doc’s PA this coming Monday. (About damn time , Dr. PCP!) Fingers crossed for a good outcome and a glorious return to the commentariat! :) ]
Splitting Image
@Amir Khalid:
Those hundreds of billions also make him a tempting target for anyone who thinks they’d be a better owner for all of that money.
The thing about strongmen is that their safety doesn’t lie in how much money they have, it comes from rival kleptocrats thinking that their own piles of money are more secure with the strongman in charge. Then they are content with him having a larger pile. If the strongman can’t give his rivals that security anymore, then they start looking around for someone who will.
I’m not sure that we’re about to see the end of Putin, but I do agree it will come pretty fast when it does.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I keep remembering the historical example of Nicolae Ceausescu, who was in full control of all the levers of power, until all of a sudden he wasn’t.
Ohio Mom
@JWR: Fingers crossed for you. If this new doctor can’t help, keep looking.
I’m going to assume you have researched your condition and noted the names of the doctors who contributed to the journal articles and who are located in a reasonable driving distance of you.
Central Planning
@bjacques:
It’s not that simple. Any decent cyber ops team would prevent those devices from regularly “phoning home” to check license validity. Furthermore, license usage isn’t always enforced by shutting down devices. It can be something like no longer allowing configuration changes.
Or, sometimes license entitlement is based on the honor system and compliance with license agreements. A bad actor wouldn’t care about that and would keep using those devices anyway.
JPL
While reading an article online about Russia’s cyberattacks, my internet went out for a few minutes. I hope that it isn’t a sign of what’s to come,
Baud
@JPL:
I’ll miss you guys.
SiubhanDuinne
@JWR:
All best wishes to you in managing that pain. Hope you’ll be back soon and often.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Will they also ban the Russian team from participating?
debbie
@JWR:
Excuse my language, but sciatica’s a bitch. Hope you find relief ASAP!
debbie
Witness video of the woman inviting Russian soldiers to take the sunflowers she was offering:
Ken
Jeez, and I thought people in the Balkans had long memories. And it’s not like there aren’t plenty of more recent candidates for suppressors of the Russian people.
JWR
@Ohio Mom:
@SiubhanDuinne:
@debbie:
Aw shucks, youse guys. Tanks! ;) But yeah, I’ve been dealing with this since 1990, when it was in my lower back. Went to Chiropractors once or twice a year for some really deep back stretches, but since they’ve all switched to those funky, roly-poly electric tables, they don’t do it for me anymore.
Then came all the physical therapy and the cortisone injections and acupuncture and whatever else they could throw at me, all with no luck. That’s why I called this new doc my “last chance”. I may need one of those surgical implants to control the pain, but we shall see.
Thanks again for the well wishes! It means a lot. ;)
Betty
@JWR: Good luck with the new doctor. Until you have lived with chronic pain, you have no idea how debilitating it is, even when it isn’t excruciating. Fingers crossed for you!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That must be a hell of shocking and waking up to find that you were the one living with Dumb Ass Donny as your leader all along. Sickly, confused and random isn’t a good look for a dictator. Sure, go against Putin and you might die, but if Putin had lost it to the point it might end a nuclear war what do you have to lose then? The Russians make games like Metro so they are quite away of this kind of stuff.
raven
@JWR: I’ve been in a similar situation for a couple of years but my issue is in my left quad and ankle. I’ve done PT, spine surgery and, most recently, a completely useless spinal injection. The latest doc says people would kill for my lower spine so it doesn’t seem to be sciatica. Sucks
Geminid
@Ken: People in Baltic lands have long memories too. They still debate whether the Lizard League tanked at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, or were they scapegoated?
Gin & Tonic
Morning update: Russian troops are getting closer to Kyiv, but anyone with a semi-reliable news source doesn’t need me for those kinds of updates.
The Ukrainian armed forces are inflicting casualties on the Russian troops at a much higher rate than they are suffering themselves. They are, of course motivated by the fact that they are defending their home. Russians do not appear to be that well-motivated. President Zelensky is really rising to the occasion. It’s funny, he was a comedian on TV before this, and a lot of people thought he was a lightweight, but he is an inspiring leader and the country is really rallying around him.
Kyiv will be hard to take, militarily, unless Putin goes *way* beyond anything seen so far. It is a large, dense city, population about 3 million. Russian troops will have to deal with the fact that there could very well be an AK-47 pointed at them out of any window. Things are likely to get very ugly.
Few people in my circle have left. Male citizens aged 18-60 are now prohibited anyway. Expats, at least those I know, are largely staying, but it’s for practical reasons – if you’ve lived there for 20 years, have a spouse and kids, maybe a business, where are you going to go? You don’t have a home in the US/Germany/wherever any more.
“Decapitate the leadership and install a puppet government” is something people with no skin in the game bandy about. That’s actually a difficult project to execute, IMO. This is a nation of over 40 million people that’s been independent for 30 years, with a large government and a population largely united in its hatred of Russia. The last two Presidents have been firmly oriented Westward, and the aims of accession to the EU and NATO are a) very popular and b) now enshrined in the Constitution (by popular mandate.) How many troops will it take to subvert that?
The bad: Putin has so far been restrained in his use of his (significantly greater) air power, and has only inserted a portion of the troops sitting on the several borders. There’s a lot more muscle he can apply. This is somewhat of a problem in a country where everyone has at least one cell phone in their pocket and can upload video at a moment’s notice, but it is already clear that Putin does not give a shit about world opinion.
What’s next? I don’t know, other than the fact that Ukrainians will suffer and die.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:????????????
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently those 40 Russian soldiers the Ukranians captured were a reconisance unit that their superiors forgot to inform them they were at war with the Ukraine. Thus the comment from the POW “We didn’t know we were sent to kill people”.
Just wow.
Josie
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks for the update. This is exactly the information I was seeking this morning. Please continue to do this.
raven
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Recon aren’t sent “to kill people” they are sent to reconnoiter.
eachother
Seeing inspirational courage in the face of oppression and invasion. Freedom fighters in Ukraine and protesters in Russia. I am in awe of these amazing people.
JWR
@Betty:
@raven:
Don’t know if you’ll see this, but as I said to the others, thanks for the good wishes.