Few people know that in Tianjin, the Russian colonial concession (brown on the map) was second only to the British in size. There, a Russian merchant could ride a rickshaw down Zheleznodorozhnaia Street toward the railway station, or stroll along Russkaia Embankment.🧵 Established in 1900, after Russian troops—the largest contingent of the international expeditionary corps—helped occupy the city, the concession was the latest tsarist foothold in China. 2/

For Ukraine’s Independence Day, here’s a telling document from the 1668 Cossack rebellion against Moscow rule. Hetman Ivan Briukhovetskyi—who had himself helped bring Ukraine under Moscow’s dominion—now wrote of “Ukraine, our sweet fatherland,” ... 🧵 ... divided the year earlier between the Tsardom of Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and now “plundered and devastated” by both, who sought to “eradicate the residents of big and small towns.” 2/

Saying Alaska was “part of Russia” is like saying India under the East India Company was “part of Britain.” A textbook overseas colony of the empire that, according to Putin, “never colonized anyone,” Alaska was the Russian imperial state’s most peculiar possession. 🧵 Administered by the joint-stock chartered Russian-American Company, which created its own system of governance, exploitation, and resource extraction, Russian America emulated the practices of St. Petersburg’s Western colonial rivals, with British India as the prime example. 2/

A massive blast wave from a Ukrainian drone strike on an arms depot near Toropets in central Russia shook the grave of one of the most notorious figures in Russian imperial history. Who was he? This 🧵will take you through some of the darkest chapters of Russia's colonial past. On September 18, the “Ukraine war” made a sudden visit to every household in Toropets, shattering windows and knocking down doors. Standing silently before the towering mushroom cloud was a bronze monument to General Aleksei Kuropatkin, the region's most famous native. 2/

Among the reasons Crimea holds a special place in the Russian imagination is its prominence as the theater of military action during 1854–56. However, the Crimean War was also Russia's first major encounter with the peninsula, 70 years after its annexation.🧵 As the war erupted, a massive flow of tsarist troops surged into Crimea from the Russian provinces, while in return, letters, newspaper articles, and travel notes flowed back from the Crimean shores to the metropole. It seemed that everyone who could write was eager to share their impressions of the unfamiliar land they were encountering for the first time. 2/

Showcasing migrants in an exhibition to emphasize the allegedly negative aspects of their impact on the urban life of a metropolis is not something we expect to see today. Yet, this is precisely what a current exhibition in Moscow is doing. Why?🧵 The man in the photo above is taking a selfie in front of a kebab shop. This entire scene is part of an exhibit, and the man is the chairman of the Moscow City Duma, visiting one of the largest and most ambitious exhibitions held in Russia's capital in recent years. The exhibition, titled "Moscow 2030," depicts the city as a techno-utopia come true, seemingly untouched by the realities of war. 2/

In 1858, as China was losing the Second Opium War, the Russian Empire forced it to conclude an unequal treaty, seizing over 600,000 km² of Outer Manchuria under the threat of invasion. This colonial land grab was justified using the language of security concerns: 🧵 As the architect of the treaty, Count Nikolai Muraviev, stated: "Do not believe, gentlemen, that Russia is greedy for the expansion of her frontiers... All Russia cares for is the security of her boundaries."
Russia assured this would be its last and only advance into China. 2/

"There is no room for goodness. Just kill! Don't pity them, don't! (...) Only total executions. (...) No humanity. No pardon. They have no right to live. Execute, execute, and execute."

Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev on what to do with Ukrainians. Calling for mass executions of "Ukrainian monsters," Medvedev ends his appeal with the final lines of the famous 1942 verse by Konstantin Simonov "Kill him!":

So kill at least one of them
And as soon as you can. Still
Each one you chance to see!
Kill him! Kill him! Kill!

Russian KA-52 pilot and milblogger Aleksei Voevoda admits that a woman – a gas station operator – was kidnapped and tortured by Russian troops in a basement in Zaporizhzhia Oblast because of him simply for saying, "Good evening. Tap your card" in Ukrainian. A few thoughts: 🧵

https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1805541835294597520

We may safely assume that this was not a one-off episode and that punishment for speaking Ukrainian is a systematic practice in the occupied parts of Ukraine's south. Voevoda himself claims that it helped to "cleanse [Mariupol and Berdiansk] from khokhol shit." 2/

Several Africans were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on Tatarstan. Russia is now exploiting the attack to spark anti-Ukrainian feelings. If anything, however, this incident can elucidate a gendered and racialized reality behind Russia's charm offensive in Africa. 🧵 "I'm from Kenya. I'm a person of color (...) Those who attacked our hostel today are real barbarians," the person on the video says. They are one of the participants of the "Alabuga Start" program, launched in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. 2/

https://x.com/sezalabuga/status/1775457640060973300?s=20

This quote perfectly encapsulates Putin's arguments for war on Ukraine. Show it to any Russia sympathizer, in academia or beyond, and they will say it's a great explanation of why Russia is right – or not entirely wrong – invading Ukraine.
There's a small problem, however: 👇 This quote has nothing to do with either Ukraine or Russia. We've been there, haven't we?

A 1886 city map of Bukhara, the capital of a Tsarist protectorate in Central Asia. The map was part of a secret Russian report to the General Staff that recommended capturing the city, razing its center to the ground, and abolishing the semblance of the colony's independence.🧵 The importance of Bukhara was immense, the author argued. It was the last remnant of Central Asia's bygone greatness. Worse still, it was a "hearth of Islam." The "flame," he argued, "can only be extinguished and covered in blood; the hearth itself, (...) must be scattered ... 2/

I'm writing a book on Ukraine under Russian rule, and here's what I have to say. This situation is radically different from Ukraine's Soviet or tsarist experience. This is Russia's fascist moment of the interwar type, although postponed for a century. 🧵

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1764598144497512613

It originates in the discourses about national rejuvenation and degeneration, frustration over the post-imperial arrangement and the liberal order, dissatisfaction with the national borders ... 2/

In anticipation of a quick victory, Russia’s flagship news show “Vesti nedeli” gives the domestic audience two reasons of why Russia invaded Ukraine: to reshape the world and to eliminate the artificial Ukrainian nation. 1/ The Kremlin's chief propagandist Dmitry Kiselev says that Russia's primary goal is the imposition of a new world order (“novaia konstruktsiia mira”). The message “Bor'ba za mir” is intentionally ambivalent. It means both “a struggle for peace” and “a struggle for the world.” 2/

Let's talk about "peace." Russia invaded Ukraine in the name of "peace." In the early phase of the war, "For peace" was its main slogan.
Few seem to remember that the *previous guy* who sent tanks to redraw the borders of Eastern Europe used exactly the same rhetoric.🧵 One may recall that while the preparations for the invasion of Poland were underway, the Nazis were busy planning a "Rally for Peace" in Nuremberg. "For Germany," as Hitler said in his famous Wilhelmshaven speech in April 1939, "does not dream of attacking other nations." 2/

Russia's Federal Archival Agency has published a collection of documents "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" to substantiate Putin's wild allegations made in his 2021 article of the same name.
A 🧵you don't want to read: This is an extraordinary book, even by Russia's academic standards. Naturally, it opens with Putin's article, which many believe – and rightfully so – to have served as a rationale for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 2/

Dmitry Medvedev has authored a "scholarly" article on the history of Poland's relations with Russia, calling it an "enemy" and threatening it with war.
It's a long (and boring) read, and we have every reason to suspect he isn't the real author. Who wrote it? I know the answer.🧵 Let's look at the footnotes. Medvedev claims to have consulted an issue of the Pravda newspaper from November 25, 1989. He quotes the Polish Prime-minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki here: 2/

“Global support for the war is shrinking,” @TIME says. Indeed, now that “Ukraine fatigue” is everywhere, Russia feels emboldened to carry on with solving the Ukrainian question for good. But what happens if a peace treaty is signed? An op-ed in RIA Novosti explains it all. 🧵 Last June, the RIA Novosti author Viktoriia Nikiforova published an important text, which nearly everyone missed. In it, she argued that peace was in Russia's best interests. The reason? Empire building takes time. 2/

Russia unleashed horror upon the Kharkiv region. Yesterday, it fired an Iskander missile at the village of Hroza, murdering half the villagers (52 people) in a blink of an eye. Today, it launched two missiles at downtown Kharkiv. There's one thing everyone should be aware of: 🧵 Kharkiv was the 5th region of Ukraine that Russia planned to annex one year ago through a sham referendum. It never happened: during the swift Ukrainian counter-offensive last September, almost the entire region was liberated in a matter of days. 2/

Since March 2022, German academic relationships with Russian institutions have been suspended. Now the boycott begins to crack. A public German university renews collaboration with a state university in Russia, notorious for its support for the invasion. Read on.🧵 Media outlets in Russia's Karelia are spreading the news that run counter to everything the EU has said and done in response to the Russian invasion. Offenburg University in Germany has offered Petrozavodsk State University to restore their official partnership. 2/

One of the most resonant initiatives announced on the hills of the recent Russia-Africa Summit was the the construction of 30 settlements for African settlers across Russia. A closer look at the project, however, reveals its fundamental preoccupation with race and whiteness.🧵 Earlier in August, the village of Porech'e in the Tver province saw an unusual ceremony. Local authorities and some high-ranking African diplomats laid the cornerstone of what is meant to become "Afrovillage" – the first exclusively African settlement in Russia. 2/