“I took a decision to die here, on my home soil, without someone else’s blood on my hands.”
Russian conscript soldier Sergei Gridin, 20, has hanged himself on a belt after learning about upcoming deployed to Ukraine.
Translation of a suicidal note. Full text. Thread. 1/5
"If you read this, that means I am not alive anymore. Yesterday they have included me in rotation for Ukraine. No one from our company has returned from there yet…"
2/5
"I was naive enough to file an application to our platoon commander to stay at the place of our current deployment, and now he and the sergeant, they constantly pursue me with abuses."
3/5
Opinion. After the sudden death of long-term Foreign Affairs Minister Makei the events in Belarus might speed up dramatically. First of all, Ukraine should brace for threats from the north.
Just to give you an idea how important Makei was - he was the only top-tier minister who survived post-2020 purge of Lukashenka apparatchiks.
(Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, Minister of Interior, Prosecutor General - they all gone).
For decades Lukashenka performed a bizarre play pretending that he tried to maintain balance between the EU and Russia in foreign affairs. Makei was the crucial piece of this puzzle.
Photo: Makei and EU Ambassador Wictorin, wearing shirts with Belarusian vyshyvankas, 2017.
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Day-to-day life in Izyum during 6 months of Russian occupation.
Source: @TarasBerezovets. Based on the conversations with locals hours after liberation.
50 families have sent their kids to summer school camps in Russia (Russians were pressing for many more, but people were reluctant). Now, after the town was recaptured by Ukraine, children’s whereabouts are unknown. It is impossible to contact them.
Russians were paying money (approx USD 160) per month if people agreed to send their children to schools.
Russians brought the teachers from Russia and then left them behind. Now those teachers are in custody of Ukrainian authorities
"Many Russians, even some dissidents (not all of them, but even some dissidents) are not considering enough, in my view, that the Russian people should feel a kind of guilt for what their government is doing, even if they are not directly responsible for the crimes."
"They were saying, 'We are very concerned. That is very unfortunate.' But they are not very conscious about the very significance of the war crimes committed in their name."
A body of Yuri Voronov, 61, was found floating in the pool of his mansion in the suburbs of St Petersburg with bullet in his head.
Mr Voronov ran transport company which had contracts with Gazprom.
Former top manager of Lukoil Alexander Subbotin, 43, was found dead in Mytishchi, a city just northeast of Moscow on May 9 reportedly after being treated with toad venom to cure a hangover
Sergei Protosenya, 55, former deputy head of Russian gas giant Novatek, was found hanged in Spain on April 21.
Transcript of intercepted conversation of a Russian occupier (S) and his mom (M).
He tries to explain her what he sees with his own eyes, but she is filled with Russian preposterous propaganda and hardly accepts any logical arguments.
S: What the heck we are doing in Ukraine? OK, what if we took it, what next?
M: We took what?
S: Ukraine. What would have changed?
M: Wait. They have nukes.
S: OK. So if they shoot us, they would be leveled too. There is no sense in it.
M: I see. You are so politically shortsighted there. I wish I’d come there and explain.
S: Well, yes. That the case. You are such a political.
M: You are defending your people, your country. How you don’t know what you are doing there?