Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, which hosted the World Cup final in 2018, is packed out for a pro-war rally on the anniversary of Russia’s Crimea annexation.
Lots of reports of state employees being bussed in. They’re watching a video with Ukrainian flags being thrown to the ground
“They packed us into a bus and drove us here,” one woman tells @SotaVision
Polina Gagarina, once a Russian Eurovision contestant, absolutely butchering “Cuckoo” by the brilliant Soviet 80s rock band Kino. Nobody must have told her they were known for their *anti-war* songs
Dmitry Guberniev is best known as Russia’s unbelievably positive, hyperactive TV biathlon commentator. Now here he is introducing the leader of a Donbas separatist battalion
Seems every Russian pop star not already blacklisted for anti-war posts on Instagram is here. Oleg Gazmanov is leading the crowd in a singalong of a song about Russian army officers
Gazmanov’s whole shtick is being a Russian Bruce Springsteen, except a hypernationalist one who loves war.
Here he is leading the crowd – with clearly a very high number of students born well after the Soviet collapse – in “Made in the USSR”
The only more pro-war singer than Gazmanov is Nikolai Rastorguev, reputedly Putin’s favorite. You can kind of get the vibe of the music from this picture
Oddly, if you listen to the lyrics, the songs are about how bad war is. But nobody really seems bothered
Putin is about to speak at this rally, surprise surprise, per Kremlin pool
Here’s Putin. He seems to be on his own special giant stage so nobody can get within 20 yards of him even in a massive stadium.
The sings behind him say “For a world without Nazism / For Russia”
Putin is justifying the war by talking about the separatist conflict in Donbas.
“This really was genocide. Stopping that was the goal of the special operation.”
Something extremely odd just happened. Putin was halfway through his speech. He said, “By pure coincidence, the start of the special operation was on the birthday of…” – and then the feed suddenly cut out
Then the state TV feed cut straight to Oleg Gazmanov again. Where the hell is Putin? What happened?
Then just random footage of people chanting
Here's video of Putin suddenly vanishing mid-sentence. Where is he?!
State TV now showing RT’s Margarita Simonyan speaking, claiming it’s live, but am pretty sure this was actually an hour ago
Kommersant, citing a reporter inside the stadium, says Putin finished his speech and the concert is ending t.me/kommersant/283…
State TV showing Putin’s speech again from the top
Turns out state TV cut out just before Putin finished the speech. He quoted Fyodor Ushakov, the legendary Tsarist-era admiral who is now the patron saint of Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber fleet, and left.
For someone who rails against western culture so much, the setup at Putin’s speech is very Wrestlemania. You half expect to hear glass breaking and see Stone Cold come out with a steel chair
Peskov confirms the feed cut out because of a server problem. t.me/rian_ru/154357
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It’s time for the annual Putin presser and phone-in, combined into one – the first time he’s done it since the invasion of Ukraine.
Pavel Zarubin is showing off a huge pile of questions supposedly sent in by ordinary Russians. Expect this to be even more stage-managed than usual
Zarubin, the Swiftie-esque Putin fanboy who is moderating this, says some questions have been resolved already. "In the morning I complained I hadn't been paid my salary, and by the evening I got it!", one ordinary Russian supposedly said.
Putin says Russia has "strengthened its sovereignty," and seen off a sanctions onslaught from the west. Putin credits the "high consolidation of Russian society" and "stability of the financial-economic system."
As their yacht bobbed on the Mediterranean, the microchip executive snapped a picture of his Russian partner asleep on the deck.
He only knew the Russian by his first name, Maxim. But he knew Maxim was using a shadowy network to get the chips for the Russian defense industry.
Marc Rocchi’s qcompany Ommic desperately needed Maxim’s business to stay afloat. A few months earlier Rocchi had flown to Greece to hand-deliver Maxim 230 microchips — €45,000 worth. Maxim had, at one point, offered Rocchi “cash and women” for more, though he declined.
Rocchi knew his ultimate customer was NPP Istok, which makes electronic warfare systems for the Russian military. Specialist microchips like Ommic’s high-performance gallium nitride and gallium arsenide-integrated circuit boards are vital to defense manufacturers like Istok.
Insane footage on Russian social media from Makhachkala in the North Caucasus region, where there have been several anti-Semitic protests this weekend.
A crowd of people, some with Palestinian flags, broke into the airport in search of passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv.
Remarkable to see security forces in Russia standing by for so long. By now, according to Baza, police in Makhachkala have chased them off the runway and outside the airport, where they are now protesting. The airport is closed t.me/bazabazon/22573
🚨 Belarus says it has convinced Prigozhin to stand down his armed uprising.
Lukashenko spent "the entire day" negotiating with Prigozhin after "agreeing on joint actions" with Putin and "additionally clarifying the situation through his own channels."
For more on Prigozhin, may I humbly directly you to a few pieces, such as:
This story with @ChristopherJM @SameralAtrush and @felschwartz about how Prigozhin cobbled together a coalition against Russia's army, but then saw his star begin to wane
@ChristopherJM @SameralAtrush @felschwartz Prigozhin's revolt also speaks to much broader problems at the heart of Putin's vision for Russia and plan to invade Ukraine, which @ChristopherJM, @felschwartz and I detailed here: