#Putin's "annexation" announcement today will, it seems, occur in the shadow of #Ukraine taking back territories that are being claimed as new parts of #Russia.
https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1575718258451546112
#Russia has shelled a humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhiya, one of the occupied zones #Russia will claim to annex later today, murdering at least 23 people and wounding 28. interfax.com.ua/news/general/8…
#Ukraine's "I Want to Live" program, encouraging #Russia's soldiers to surrender rather than commit war crimes and/or be killed, has about 2,000 applicants.
https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1575523854440620035
Aaaaaaand Putin is late
#Putin says the rigged referendums in #Ukraine showed people wanted to return to their "true historic fatherland", adding that the Ukrainian government and its "real" masters in the West must understand that Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhiya, and Kherson are joining #Russia forever. 
#pt: Putin with the greatest hits: the theft of Ukraine's territory is really "self-determination", all options (i.e. nukes) will be used to defend the new lands.
One noteable thing: Putin said he was open to peace talks, suggests the effort here really is to freeze the conflict
One noteable thing: Putin said he was open to peace talks, suggests the effort here really is to freeze the conflict
#pt: Putin, in trying to explain who the enemy is and what #Russia is fighting for, rambles about US hegemony, for-profit something, "awful 1990s", "neo-colonial" machinations trying to break up Russia - that blend of nonsense that appeals to the Western hard-Right and far-Left.
#Ukraine dropped out of this speech a while ago. #Putin has meandered into the Opium Wars and the Indian Mutiny since then. He is absolutely insistent that his war is with the #West, and he is appealing to all other anti-Western forces to join him.
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1575828349796356096
Anglo-Saxons have just been blamed for the Nord Stream sabotage by #Putin in his speech, which is nominally about annexing the occupied areas in Ukraine.
#Putin mentions his allies in #Iran and #China, and the meanness of the #US in sanctioning them for wanting to develop in their own sovereign way.
#Putin not-so-subtly making reference to his energy weapon: people "can't eat pieces of paper (money)", they need oil and gas to keep their houses warm.
#Putin now onto the uncancellability of Russian culture, the West's attack on the gender binary, and ... oh God it just goes on and on. None of it about #Ukraine, incidentally.
Into the signing ceremony of #Putin annexing Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhiya, and Kherson.
It looks, and everyone seems to feel, slightly ridiculous being "ceremonial" and clapping everything.
It looks, and everyone seems to feel, slightly ridiculous being "ceremonial" and clapping everything.
And now the Russian national anthem ...
Helpful summary by @KonstantinKisin of #Putin's speech, which had a cursory note on the "annexation" of the occupied zones in #Ukraine, before a detailed explanation of what his war is - an attempt to rewrite the world order with the West no longer on top konstantinkisin.substack.com/p/putin-the-en…
#Putin and his minions have taken every chance they have had to explain that their war is against the West - spiritual, as well as geopolitical (note: he called the US "Satanic" again today) - and it just so happens that this round is taking place on #Ukraine's territory.
Apparently another coup in #Burkina_Faso.
There was a coup in the country on 23 January that had #Russia's fingerprints all over it, part of Moscow pushing #France out of West Africa kyleorton.substack.com/p/reduced-but-…
There was a coup in the country on 23 January that had #Russia's fingerprints all over it, part of Moscow pushing #France out of West Africa kyleorton.substack.com/p/reduced-but-…
https://twitter.com/guyelster/status/1575940785245126661
Pavel Pchelnikov, 52, director of communications at Digital Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, was found dead at 6:30 in the morning on Sept. 28 "on the balcony of his apartment in central Moscow". Russian media said "suicide", added no details. newsweek.com/russia-ukraine…
The story arc of Volodymyr Zelensky really is extraordinary. Right up to the eve of the invasion he seemed unequal to the job, insisting war was not upon him. And then he changed Europe's history: stayed at his post when anybody else would have fled.
https://twitter.com/YuliaTymosha/status/1575589317392871424
One key impact of Zelensky being prepared to die rather than abandon his capital: a number of nominal agents - Ukrainians the Russians paid and thought they had recruited - came back, sided with their country when the moment came because Zelensky gave them something to fight for.
More on the coup in Burkina Faso, the second this year: 23 January was the first, now 30 September. Russia was heavily involved in the first; no reason to think it wasn't involved in this one.
https://twitter.com/BateFelix/status/1575939687650557952
The great hope is that, if only in retrospect, #Russians come to see #Ukraine shattering the Russian Army and liberating her territory as the means of their liberation, too, from the big prison Putin has turned their country into.
https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1575955315300130817
Still, has to be said, it was quite extraordinary to see #Russians protesting again this week, taking mobilisation as the trigger but against the war and Putin generally, knowing how severe the penalties are and the surveillance system makes it unlikely they can evade punishment.
.@USTreasury has sanctioned #China for materially assisting #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine, which seems noteworthy. #Armenia and the nominally-independent state of #Belarus also sanctioned. home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
The reality of what life is like in the #Russian-occupied zones is what has made the idea #Ukraine should give up territory for the sake of "peace" so laughable. As Solzhenitsyn once put it, the opposite of peace is not (inter-state) war but violence.
https://twitter.com/delphine_damora/status/1575940082288439297
#Dagestan: "regional governor cursed out military recruitment officers…filmed driving the streets with loudspeakers … 'What kinds of idiots are these?' said Gov. Sergei Melikov … 'Are you morons?'" North Caucasus is a flashpoint of anti-draft protests. themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/30/rus…
Latest @DefenceHQ update: Looks at the dire state of medical provisions for #Russia's Army, which is going to get worse on average if only because the conscripts sent to the front in the mobilisation only have first aid supplies if they bring their own.
#Ukraine is lobbying against lifting sanctions on #Iran, since resources channelled to the Islamic Republic are being used to assist #Russia's war on Ukraine. Notable: Kyiv is having trouble gaining #Israel's full cooperation in what should be an easy call
https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1575714891549134848
#US pressing #Israel over the dangerous space within its system it has given #China, which in turn gives the CCP access to intelligence and intellectual property from other Western states.
https://twitter.com/AaronMehta/status/1575579336282820608
Thread on the implications of the Nord Stream sabotage, particularly re undersea internet cables. Threat remains quite unlikely but given the amount of damage some Vietnamese fishermen did by accident in 2007 [had no idea about this], worth watching.
https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/1575842227145826311
This really is #Putin's war: only he would have launched it; it was initiated with only a very small circle of people knowing about it (troops participated in the invasion without knowing that's what they were doing); and he has centrally commanded it
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1575727300049784832
Real Madrid raised $1 million with its "All for Ukraine" campaign and sent it to #Ukraine through #Spain's NGOs working in the country. #Britain's Premier League sent $1m to the Disasters Emergency Committee, plus individual clubs made their own donations. kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/…
Takes a heart of stone not to laugh
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1575550915855392768
29 September: "Russian Oligarch Oleg Vladimirovich #Deripaska And Associates Indicted [by @TheJusticeDept] For Sanctions Evasion And Obstruction Of Justice" justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/r…
Given the available data in February, explaining #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine by reference to #NATO "expansion" meant either severe analytical incapacity or bad faith. The chances that either category will recognise or admit error are very minimal.
https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1575887094500597766
Genuinely unsure when Medvedev last said anything else
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1575893781114941441
Sort of in the nature of miracles that they are few and far between. Bold strategy for #Russia to rely on their routine occurrence as a replacement for medical treatment in the Army.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1575965258790813697
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