Not sure which sick mind is allowing Oleh Kustovsky’a cartoons on the US-funded RFERL website, but this level of dehumanizing xenophobia is simply mesmerising (and worth a thread). Here, Russian-speaking cockroaches are running away as Ukraine reads a book in Ukrainian language.
Here, a Russian-speaking untermensch insists on watching Svaty (a Ukrainian comedy series produced by country’s current Russian-speaking president) in Russian, while a healthy family watches all films with Ukrainian subtitles.
Here, the highspeed train of Poroshenko’s language law, aimed at squeezing Russian language out of public sphere, is taking over the ramshackle Russian steamer driven by Putin. Of course forced assimilation of minorities is the fastest and most direct route to the EU.
Of course Ukraine is the real Russia and the disgusting place people call Russia should be in fact called Muscovy because it doesn’t deserve the name.
President Zelensky is a tiny prick unworthy of Ukraine’s greatness. Because Russian-speaker supposedly.
Yanukovych and Lukashenko are Russian ladies who sleep with Putin and some skulls.
Glamorous Ukrainian-speakers will never give a lift to a shabby Russian-speaking hitchhiker.
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Kremlin’s definition of victory/defeat in Ukraine is a mystery, so it is interesting when Rybar circulates a post clearly categorising possible outcomes. Caveat: This comes from the “angry patriots” faction, not the Kremlin. I’ll translate some of it below.
Post war trade-off is focused on:
- Ukraine’s future setup: Russia won
- NATO’s setup and European security: Russia won with a knock-out
- line of delimitation: a draw
- 1991 borders: Russia lost
- Russia’s future setup: Russia lost with a knock-out
Not able to read Putin’s mind (and mistaken when trying in the past), but IMHO the Kremlin will perceive a truce based on the current delimitation line (or anything more advantageous than Minsk) as a victory. But they will also insist on neutrality and demilitarisation.
Some trolling on the account of the Moscow drone attack by Ukraine’s most famous war crowdfunding figure Serhiy Prytula and his close ally Serhiy Sternenko, a far right personality. Prytula’s foundation specialises in acquiring drones for the Ukrainian army.
Prytula: Russians, this game can be played by two.
Sternenko: Good night, Moscow.
The pair is producing numerous sketches like this together, mainly with the aim of crowdfunding drones.
This video was released in the morning of the attack although the good night wish makes one wonder if it was recorded the night before.
An important piece by Ilya Zhegulev explaining, in broad brushes, why and how Putin made his decisions on Crimea, Donbas and Feb 2022 invasion. Based partly on Ukrainian, partly on anonymous Kremlin sources. Not the final truth, but crucial details. verstka.media/8964-2
A quick recap. The occupation of Crimea was a spontaneous, knee-jerk decision adopted by Putin on his own and against the opinion of his security aides. It was triggered by Kernes’ betrayal of Yanukovych in Kharkiv.
Donbas war was the result of private entrepreneurship by people like Malofeyev and Glazyev. Putin was not initially interested, but eventually got sucked in by getting Surkov involved.
In an interview with Interfax, Ukrainian land forces commander Col-Gen Syrsky paints a picture of Wagner’s tactics that’s quite different from the “zombie waves” propaganda narrative.
After devastating tank and artillery strikes, he says, roughy 10-men-strong assault groups proceed to capture the target, using apps which mark Ukrainian positions and backed up drones which direct artillery fire.
Not sure how this could lead to 1K per day losses sometimes claimed by the Ukrainian side.
Russian military propagandist Aleksandr Sladkov (not a dodgy milblogger, but fully-fledged government TV correspondent) has interviewed Wagner Group’s top neo-nazi Aleksey Milchakov. Not reposting the interview because it contains open justification of ethnocide and war crimes.
Sladkov openly asks Milchakov if he is a nazi. In response, the latter describes himself as Russian nationalist and claims he has nothing against the Jews and Dagestani. He dismisses neo-nazism as a subculture that was relevant in the past, but no longer.
His black sun (stylized swastika) patch appears in closing shots.
Asked about his Azov (ex)-pals (who often sport the same symbol), he says that they have betrayed their clan. Meaning Russian nazis who joined Azov.
The person behind Kremlin’s hapless attempt to launch its pet anti-globalist movement, Aleksandr Ionov, and his US friends from the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Georgia has been indicted by a US court for conducting a “malign influence campaign” in the US. justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citi…
I reported about Ionov and his friends for Bloomberg. He has many more friends in the US, but like the Uhuru folks, they are all super-fringe - mostly one-person separatist projects in places like Hawaii and California. Not sure why the Uhuru Movement was singled out.
Ionov’s efforts mirror those of Ilya Ponomaryov & Co who are trying to break up Russia into “34 countries” with a little help from Ukrainian and Polish governments. A monumental non-starter, but a major source of income for everyone involved in this circus.