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Martin Sauerbrey Profile picture
Martin Sauerbrey
@MartinSauerbrey
Historian | Researcher at LBI for the Consequences of War | Digital Humanities, Eastern Europe, Byzantium | All opinions are my own
3 subscribers
Dec 14 • 24 tweets • 4 min read
Weils mir keine Ruhe lässt:

Militarismusvorwurf die Xte. 🧵

Fangen wir mal von vorne an:

1) "zu schwach": Russland hat ca. 700.000 Mann in der Ukraine. Tausende KPz, SPz und Artilleriesysteme. Drohnen. Hunderte Flugzeuge. Das ist nach allen Definitionen eine große Armee. ⏬️ Die Russen haben viele Fehler gemacht, haben aber auch viel gelernt. Sie drücken die AFU - die zweitgrößte Armee Europas - langsam nach Westen. Unter horrenden Verlusten. Es wird für Russland zusehends schwierig, die Verluste auszugleichen, die Lager laufen leer. ⏬️
Dec 10 • 42 tweets • 14 min read
Feature: Chinese Expansionism

"China is not interested in expansion and has not been so in historically."

A narrative that is often used. However, a weaponized narrative to influence politicians and the public abroad.

[a 3000 years thread] 🧵 ⏬ Image I would like to start with the obvious:

How it started vs. How it's going.

Chinese history also follows a certain pattern:

Dynasty - fragmentation - dynasty - fragmentation .... Image
Image
Image
Dec 10 • 45 tweets • 13 min read
Feature: China & die "Defensiv orientierte Expansion"

"China ist nicht an Expansion interessiert und ist es historisch auch nicht gewesen."

Ein gern bemühtes Narrativ. Aber ein Weaponized Narrative, um Politiker & Öffentlichkeit zu beinflussen.

[3000 years thread]🧵 ⏬ Image Starten möchte ich mit dem Offensichtlichen:

How it started vs. How it´s going.

Auch folgt die chinesische Geschichte einem gewissen Muster:

Dynastie - Zersplitterung - Dynastie - Zersplitterung ....

⏬ Image
Image
Image
Dec 7 • 28 tweets • 6 min read
The Romanian (European) Dilemma

On December 6th the Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the results of the first round of the elections after it became public that one of the candidates - Călin Georgescu - won with the help of a massive Tik-Tok campaign.

[Thread] 🧵 ⏬ Georgescu won the first round of the elections with 23% of all the votes. That came as an surprise as he was quite unknown before and was seen as a fringe candidate. His politicial positions are anti-EU, anti-NATO, pro-Russian and he caters the ususal right wing conspiracies ⏬
Dec 4 • 30 tweets • 6 min read
Ukraine is still fighting for its survival.

Russia is pressing on all fronts. Russian economy is reaching its limits. Trump got elected. New EU-Commission got elected. German coalition is down. China is fishing in hostile waters. etc...

[A very long Thread] 🧵 Since I last wrote about the status of the war some things have changed with the reelection of Trump as the main event. But first let´s take a look at the frontlines:

The last major change that happened were the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk and maybe the fall of Vuhledar. ⏬
Nov 3 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
The thing that we experience in Moldova, Georgia, and elsewhere is a problem that's hard to solve for democracies. The massive, obvious interferences damage the process of election and damage democracy in itself. The affected state has limited possibilities in dealing with it. 1/ 1) It can annull the elections. This is the obvious way, but, as in Moldova or Georgia, there are many who actually vote the way Russia wants it because of real grievances and problems. Those might feel disenfranchised and duped and will harden in their stance or even get
Oct 30 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
Die "Korea-Lösung"

oder wie

"Sulla zu seinen Listen kam."

@JohannesVarwick hat diesmal einen sehr interessanten Artikel geteilt, aber wohl aus anderen Gründen als man es zuerst denkt.

ipg-journal.de/rubriken/ausse… x.com/JohannesVarwic… Der Autor stellt in dem Artikel - zu recht - fest, dass die "Korea-Lösung", also die Teilung der Ukraine ohne einer tatsächlichen Beilegung des Konfliktes, unabsehbare Folgen hätte. Image
Oct 22 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
"Ukraine is finished." 🧵

Some say Ukraine has lost, some that victory is an illusion while others maintain Ukraine can win.
Usually they all have on thing in common: They look at the Ukrainian side in isolation from Russia. Thats bad practice. While the dooming reached new heights during Russias summer offensive, Russia in fact gained little with the fall of Vuhledar the biggest success. Meanwhile the AFU were capable enough to launch a very well executed offensive into Kursk and managed to hold most of the
Oct 14 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Es ist ziemlich unerheblich, ob die russischen Streitkräfte "zweitklassig" - oder unbesiegbar und in 3 Tagen in Kyiv, wie bisher behauptet - sind oder nicht. Die Frage ist vielmehr, wie die russische Führung den Willen von NATO und anderen europäischen Staaten einschätzt, 1/ einem angegriffenen Nachbarn zu Hilfe zu kommen. Und einiges spricht dafür, dass der nur bedingt vorhanden ist.

1) Die letztendlich schwache und ohne erkennbare Strategie durchgeführte Unterstützung der Ukraine
2) Gebetsmühlenartiges Wiederholen der Tatsache, dass
Sep 25 • 29 tweets • 7 min read
Why the Baltics are a good example why it should be a goal to restore Ukraine in it´s 1991 borders as fast as possible.

A long 🧵

In an interview Czech President Petr Pavel said that Moscow might control territories of Ukraine temporarily.

nytimes.com/2024/09/23/wor…
Image The Baltics seem to have regained their independece after they were "occupied for half a century."

So now let´s take a dive into Baltic history and look into the history of Russian and Soviet occupation of the Baltics.
Sep 24 • 28 tweets • 5 min read
Weils mir keine Ruhe lässt.

@JohannesVarwick stellte heute fest, dass sich die Ukraine der Realität stellen solle, dass einige Teile Ihres Territorium zeitweise unter russischer Kontrolle stehen werden würden. Dann führt er die Balten ins Rennen, die ja schließlich🧵 Image nach einem halben Jahrhundert ja auch ihre Freiheit wiedererlangt. Sehen wir uns mal an, was der Professor hier so salopp in den Raum gestellt hat:

1) Die russische Besatzung dauerte wesentlich länger. Estland und Teile Livlands kamen 1710 unter russische Herrschaft.
Aug 29 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
As the thread on BREAKTHROUGHS!! gained some attention, I want to add some more thoughts:

1) Operational and tactical level breakthroughs:

As some of you might already have guessed I chose extremely successfull operations which were operational breakthroughs.
Image Those I compared to something that might be a or might develope into a breakthrough on the tactical (and later operational) level in Donbas (or Kursk).

I did that to make you aware that sometimes we have to wait until things play out over some time. Everytime something happens
Aug 26 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Short 🧵 on what is a BREAKTHROUGH!! and what not:

1) The mothers of all breakthroughs:

Left: Operation Bagration of the Red Army June to August 1944

Right: Unternehmen Barbarossa of the Wehrmacht 1941
Image
Image Not a breakthrough: Image
Aug 19 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
On Kursk, Russia, Ukraine and Humanity 🧵

Since the Kursk-offensive has started many videos of Ukrainian soldiers helping and assisting Russian citizens in the territories they controll surfaced.

In collab with @spartyflyboy

At the same time Russian troops post videos of decapitated AFU-soldiers. Posted by Rusich, a well known ultra-nationalistic neo-nazi group, who also just recently posted that they are looking for a human sacrifice for their pagan gods. But that´s just the tip of the iceberg. Image
Aug 17 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
BREAKING: Ukraine is still fighting for its survival 🧵

The battle for Ukraine is raging with even more intensity since AFU started its Kursk operation. While Ukraine is making gains in Russia, Russia is continuing the meat grinder in Donbas. A few thoughts on what´s happening. A few days ago i wrote a thread about some takeaways from the first days of the offensive. Since then the situation remains quite foggy but we see the AFU making gains while Russia is still struggling to organize resistance. Ukraine is bringing in more

Aug 16 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Über Russische Desinformation 🧵

Heute: COVID-19

Wie Russland die Pandemie nutzte, um die gesellschaftlichen Gräben in Europa zu vertiefen und mithilfe der „Firehose of Falsehoods“ mehr Menschen an seine Informationsumgebung zu binden, und was das mit der Ukraine zu tun hat. Image Aber der Reihe nach. Schon vor Ausbruch der Pandemie hatte Russland ein gut funktionierendes Desinformationsnetzwerk aufgebaut, dessen Flaggschiffe „Russia Today“ – später „RT“ – und „Sputnik News“ waren. Beide sind in zahlreichen Sprachen verfügbar und bieten maßgeschneiderte Image
Aug 13 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
Russische Propaganda und Desinformation 🧵

Jeder Krieg, der geführt wird, geht auch mit dem massiven Einsatz von Propaganda und Desinformation einher. Im Laufe des letzten Jahrhunderts haben die UdSSR und die RF ein unverwechselbares Instrumentarium entwickelt, um 1/ Image und den Informationsraum zu dominieren und dadurch die Wahrnehmung und Entscheidungsfindung in einer Weise zu beeinflussen, die Russland zugute kommt. Konzepte: "Active Measures", "Hybrid Warfare", "Reflexive Control" & "Firehose of Falsehoods", "Weaponized Narratives."
Aug 10 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
BREAKING: Ukraine is still fighting for its survival.

The AFU took the fight on Russian soil for real this time. Many have written a lot about the whole thing even though we (at least I) don't know what the calculus behind it is.

But there are some things we can state by now: 1) Ukraine is willing and capable to undertake operations on a larger scale. I myself had serious doubts, but the Kursk operation shows that they are capable of doing so. They managed to undertake the buildup in relative secrecy, chose the location wisely, and executed it well.
Aug 8 • 32 tweets • 6 min read
On war memorials, riots and cyberattacks -
How Russia's political war threatens our societies. 🧵

or

How a war memorial can plunge a state into crisis. Image At the end of May 2007, Estonia had a difficult time behind it: riots that claimed one life, many injured and devastation in Tallinn; Cyberattacks that paralyzed the state administration. The bone of contention: A war memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers Image
Aug 3 • 41 tweets • 9 min read
Kyiver Rus: Part 3

"For at this time the Russes were ignorant pagans. The devil rejoiced thereat, for he did not know that his ruin was approaching." - Povest vremenykh let, 83

- Excursus: written medieval sources
- Kyiv: The baptism of Voldomir/Valdemar Image In the last thread I briefly talked about medieval sources and the problems that arise in dealing with them. Here are a few additions: 2/
Aug 1 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
Kyiver Rus: Part 2

"Thus Oleg ruled in Kiev, and dwelt at peace with all nations." - Povest vremenikh let, (38)

- Excursus: medieval sources -
- Kyiv: "mythical" foundation and expansion

1/23 Image In addition to archaeological findings, historians rely on written sources. There are some problems here, especially for the "Middle Ages", which can vary depending on the region. For the Rus the problem arises that here for a long 3/