Some motivations behind Putin’s sphere-of-influence demand in #Ukraine:
😭Soviet Trauma: Hurt national psyche
😤Great Power status: Lost, Want
😬Origin Story: #Russia’s history begins in Kyiv
🤭Identity: Russian “greats”- Ukrainian
🇺🇦Democracy: if works next door,🥾corrupt Putin
"There are tactical reasons for threatening an invasion, but the real cause may lie in the Kremlin’s fixation with righting what it sees as a historical injustice."
I've always found Putin's "one people" argument incoherent in an abusive husband kind of way: Ukrainians & Russians are one people, have shared history, language & culture. Therefore, #Russia will invade #Ukraine, kill more "brothers & sisters", proving Russia really cares??🤔
On Ukraine, Putin is 💯King George:
"Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other thru it all
When push comes to shove
I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love!
…Cause when push comes to shove
I will kill your friends & family to remind you of my love
Also absurd is Putin demanding “legal guarantees” Ukraine doesn't join NATO or host more Western forces. The guy shred the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine's borders when he invaded & annexed Crimea. And now wants guarantees?! Ukraine gave up 1900 nukes for nothing.
Today Dec. 5 is the anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum by Russia, the UK & the US. The 1994 memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan.
Putin's done everything possible to turn Ukraine away from democracy—propaganda, corruption, even war. As a result, Ukrainians see the appeal to history & culture as hollow & pretextual.
Alyona Getmanchuk sums it up: “They stole our past. Now they’re trying to steal our future."
"Russian identity does not exist w/o Ukrainian identity"—@iponomarev, fmr Russian lawmaker who had to flee b/c he voted against Crimea's annexation.
Russia wants Ukraine to own its origin story (Russia's birthplace is Kyiv) and many historical & cultural icons (from 🇺🇦 not 🇷🇺).
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
😳“the first leak came less than 48 hours into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… Some of the intelligence posted appeared to foretell battlefield development.”
Airman Teixeira Shared Sensitive Intelligence More Widely and for Longer Than Previously Known nytimes.com/2023/04/21/us/…
“Airman Teixeira also claimed that he was actively combing classified computer networks for material on the Ukraine war.…
At one point he offered to share information privately with members of the group living outside the United States. ‘DM me and I can tell you what I have’”😨
Teixeira leaked info to the larger group from Feb 2022-March 2023.
He insanely saw leaking war info as a news event >> “I was very happy and willing and enthusiastic to have covered this event for the past year and share with all of you something that not many people get to see”
#Russia’s clandestine spetsnaz forces have been gutted by the war in #Ukraine, will take Moscow years to rebuild them, according to classified U.S. assessments among the documents leaked on Discord washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
#Russia’s senior commanders were eager to seize momentum (expecting to assassinate Zelensky & a 3-day 🇺🇦war), so deployed spetsnaz commandos alongside infantry, resulting in massive dead/wounded—90+% attrition rate. One unit has only 125 personnel active left—out of 900 deployed.
"rapid depletion of Russia’s commando units…shifted the war’s dynamic from the outset, severely limiting Moscow’s ability to employ clandestine tactics… the staggering casualties…will render [spetsnaz] less effective, not only in Ukraine but [elsewhere] Russian forces operate"
"Putin's stolen an enormous amt of money from the Russian ppl. He's worried abt people turning on him. So he started a war to stay in power. Ukraine is definitely not his last stop"
Putin's a thief protecting his thiefdom. Aggression keeps him in power. That's why it won't stop.
"The Ukrainians have given us a chance to turn this century around, a chance for freedom & security that we could not have achieved by our own efforts… All we have to do is help them win."
@TimothyDSnyder "defeating an ongoing genocidal project—would be more than enough reason to want Ukrainian victory. But every single one of other 14 is hugely significant. Each presents the kind of opportunity…generations of policy planners…almost never get…we have not yet…seized the moment"
HRW investigated one of Russia's worst war crimes in a year of war crimes, at the #Kramatorsk🇺🇦 train station, a known evacuation hub. 500+ people waiting with families, pets & belongings to flee Donbas were hit by a missile packed w/ 50 small bombs. 58 killed, many more wounded.
10,000s of civilians were evacuated via the #Kramatorsk🇺🇦 train station in the days prior to Russia's April 8 deadly missile attack. People across Donbas came by buses organized for evacuees & by private car to board trains at Kramatorsk hub to relative safety in western Ukraine.
Everyone knew #Kramatorsk🇺🇦 was a main evacuation point from Donbas. Local officials posted public information w/ daily train schedules, encouraging civilians to evacuate as the threat posed by Russian forces grew. 8,200 evacuated on April 7, the day before Russia's strike.
Foxnews is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party—w/o which it might be a normal democratic party accountable to the public. But Fox cynically chose to prop up GOP toxic lies & frauds, more worried about “brand damage” than the brain damage they cause the country & democracy.
KEY Point: Fox figures who gave the most intense embrace to Trump allies peddling lies KNEW they were peddling lies.
More than unethical & hypocritical, Fox was key to mainstreaming the lies that caused the damage. W/o Fox, coup & insurrection would be fringe ideas not reality.
Fox isn't news. It's the propaganda arm of a terrorist political party—knowingly & deliberately pushing GOP lies, even purging journalists & fact-checkers to dupe viewers more easily.
With a suitably Orwellian justification: Fox is "respecting our audience"…by lying to them.🤨