Language is a weapon. That's especially true when russia has tried for centuries to kill and erase Ukrainians and their language.

Recent rushes to invent "good russians" missed this in a way that hurts 🇺🇦s. Fellas, stop and think about what a death cult considers "good"! 🧵👇 Language isn't just a dictionary.

Over centuries, it encodes belief systems; it says who has dignity or doesn't, who matters and who doesn't. It is tells you how to see and treat others.

Ukraine and russia have incredibly opposed value systems, and it's deep in their history.

Shared with permission: select translated stories from one of 🇺🇦's defenders, callsign "Kramer".

What shines from these people through the hell of war i incredible. They fight with clarity and courage, for their homes and people.

Please read, share, and demand better for 🇺🇦! It is humbling to read through these stories, and imagine that our officials could dare, for cynical politics, to break our promises to Ukraine, to let these brave fighters down when they lay down their lives for people, homes, and democracy. The world owes you, ZSU.

"More companies expected to disclose email hacks by russian intelligence"

The public needs to be more literate on cybersecurity, so we can understand events that impact us. Let's talk about this. 🫶🇺🇦 friends, I hope this helps you especially. 🧵
msn.com/en-us/news/pol… When talking about insecure systems, it's a mistake to put the burden of proof on evidence of theft.

Analogy: a bank's back door wide open overnight is an issue, regardless of whether you find muddy footprints tracked in.

"90% of Ukrainians returned from captivity were tortured and abused, with serious health problems... Their chronic conditions have worsened, especially digestive and dental.

'Captivity in ru is one of the worst, most horrible ways of pressuring and exterminating us.'"
🇺🇦🧵👇 💔

https://twitter.com/katalina_ada/status/1743268614487031812

"...Captivity remains a way of pressuring/dividing us into quarreling factions.

'We changed our minds', 'we don't like what those people did, so you get no-one', 'we'll give you them, not *them*, so it'll divide you'.

I.e. the exchange of Berkut officers

https://twitter.com/katalina_ada/status/1743268946478878783

When there's talk of accountability, I have guarded but real hopes for things to improve.

One thing I hope to see undone is "reactive abuse" where people are attacked, but their fighting back gets misrepresented, and habit rather than evidence starts to keep that going. It's a common feature of character assassination. Nobody has to be 100% perfect or gentle to deserve better than that.

I will state for the record that @cryptodrftng and @mriyabudehooy routinely get cast in a light they don't deserve, and what started that pattern was unjust.

@terrelljstarr I must flat-out disagree. These are different conflicts that break any analogies between them.

Ukraine has not illegally annexed territories and bulldozed like Israel, nor has it carried out brutal terroristic actions like Hamas. It has no radicals derailing peace agreements. @terrelljstarr There is nothing in Ukraine's history since independence to compare to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the impact that had on its diplomatic agreements, and overall, its peoples pulled together against centuries of russian genocide.

These are profoundly different scenes.

"To @censor_net: remove this article, even you're not responsible for the column

I'm ready to take responsibility to say that the tourniquets in this article are s**t that kills

The article's author promoted trade with russia, did you know?"
🇺🇦🧵👇

https://twitter.com/sector_m14/status/1688975404298604553

@censor_net "Here's your 'expert' Igor Molodan... next to him is FSB officer Dmitry, who was detained in Odesa, who successfully taught tactical medicine courses in Kyiv, then Moscow, then Kyiv again

They also sold AV TQs in 🇷🇺 together which are bought for the NGU"

https://twitter.com/sector_m14/status/1688975411688968218

Beautiful, must-read article about Ukrainian language:

"You don't leave someone you don't like for someone you love, because you're protesting against your recent partner. It's because you fall in love with the person you want to be with." theukrainians.org/mova-liubovi/ English-speaking supporters, here's a link. We need to be centering Ukrainian voices - plural - to get a sense of what's happening, what's majority-representative. Don't miss this sight, who it supports, and how it stops sly russian narratives cold.
theukrainians-org.translate.goog/mova-liubovi/?…

Fits right in with delisting Ukraine's country code for phone numbers and all the other dirty tricks.

https://twitter.com/mxpoliakov/status/1641887314598150145

For non-programmers: From "Map(" at the upper right to the ")" at the lower left, that indicates a complete list from beginning to end.

If the screenshot's complete, which it sure seems to be, this means Moskal has singled out Ukraine and put it on a short, unsavory list.

He openly admits working for Cambridge Analytica *and* the russian opposition. How many big red flags do you need?? A reminder of what that entails.
theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/…

https://twitter.com/cryptodrftng/status/1641424311100506112

Cambridge Analytica worked with Trump to deter black Americans from voting, and "used dirty tricks to help win elections around the world and had gained unauthorised access to tens of millions of Facebook profiles." theguardian.com/us-news/2020/s…

Translated: Genocide cannot be strong, weak, or 'halfway'. Genocide is not a emphatic word for essays, or a word needed to reinforce something to make it more meaningful. It is a specific term with specific characteristics. It exists or it does not. It is happening in Ukraine. 🧵

https://twitter.com/sutsilnyirozlad/status/1636475702903013383

It's happening right now because of Russia. Rafael Lemkin did an incredible job to introduce this term for a reason. The CPPCG, Article II, does not exist so that international bodies with the competence to investigate cases of genocide use half-tones in their rhetoric. /2

@imax9000 This thesis is blatantly pro-russia. It acknowledges Dugin's extremism, but advocates for another form of #russianColonialism:

"a Russian-led ‘big space’ is not only a preferable, but the only possible option for a successful future of the observed region." @imax9000 At 64 pages long, you might feel uncomfortable at how often it raises russian talking points, like "NATO expansion".

"You're being divisive!" is being used to deflect accountability. The moment Ukrainians and supporters push back, all of a sudden hurt feelings exist.

Like being exploited and talked down to during a genocide doesn't trample feelings?!

But it's insidious in other ways. This "Don't be divisive" rhetoric in the presence of festering malice cultivated by the Useful and the Assets and the Agents is all too like telling them to surrender to #russiaIsANaziState.

How so? It argues for impunity for slander and disinfo.

@BrianGettingDown, your malicious and slanderous intent is clear.

Ukraine DAO is the first DAO to have national endorsement. Ukraine is a leader in blockchain and digital tech, and its Ministry of Digital Transformation is setting trends for the rest of Europe. Heard of DIIA?

https://twitter.com/BrianGettinDown/status/1619049714212818944

Here's @cryptodrftng, whom you've made a determined effort to attack, whom you use people ingratiated on separate topics to get an opening at.

She's standing next to @FedorovMykhailo from @mintsyfra - yes, the Ministry of Digital Transformation.

https://twitter.com/nymproject/status/1600125178830376960

On youtube, Yewleea weighs in:

"I’ve noticed that a lot of you read Kyiv Post and rely on it... KP is another dangerous project of the kremlin. I urge you to listen to this and hear us, Ukrainians, out on why we find this publication so damaging."
youtube.com/post/UgkxWCilm… I completely endorse this message, and will go to bat for it with any honest actor. Supporters are being misled into attacking the messengers here, and smear campaigns against them appear *for a reason*.

Why is the Kyiv Post publishing distortions that support Kremlin spin? Since its mass firing of reputable journalists in 2021, affiliations with dirty operations like Cambridge Analytica and a russophilic thesis in character assassination haven't been dealbreakers for its staff.

https://twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1607345342806200320

For months, there's been a ruckus because the carpetbagger JJS got called on pro-russia takes like "russia will use nukes!" and "russia shouldn't be expelled from the UN", and has launched ad-hominem smear campaigns on his critics.

That's the kind the Kyiv Post hires these days.

A 🧵 about why online culture needs resilience.

I think we need to reinvent social media around the Fediverse. It's a social good, and it should have both gov't and private investment, de-monopolizing standards, and choices for responsible moderation.

https://twitter.com/JoohnChoe/status/1602811112700882944

Some added 🧵 of my own:

First, what's the Fediverse? It's many decentralized servers with common protocols like ActivityPub, a protocol which allows Twitter-like microblogging to be seen and subscribed to on all the participating servers.
lawfareblog.com/what-earth-fed…

Terrific interview! I can't imagine a list of journalists helping the world understand Ukrainians' commonalities with Black Americans and other colonized people without @terrelljstarr in it. TJS, the work you do to help people see each other is so valuable - thank you! 👏👏👏

https://twitter.com/cryptodrftng/status/1602334146021494784

Among the valuable things I learned from TJS this year was that lessons learned from alliances for justice in the US could help us #StandWithUkraine. I'm also excited for what he can tell us about Ukraine to level up the causes at home. Real solidarity is hope for this world.

About privilege, particular toxic western privilege telling Ukrainians how to feel, what to do, or surrender.

People of privilege can thrill to danger and poverty. They're tourists there. They can always leave.

Privilege is immunity to despair. Ukraine has felt subjugation and hopelessness and despair. I'm reading today of the utmost suffering, dying en masse in starvation - which is shocking when grain was in stockpiles, sold abroad. It is at-will, prolonged malice. Ukraine's already been there.

With heavy heart, we bear witness. I shall be reading diary excerpts and survivor's stories from the Holodomor.
twitter.com/i/spaces/1jMJg… Rarely in my life have I read such heartbreaking things. And yet: this space has the kind of people to voice grief and resolve.

Never un-seen, and never in vain. After repeated #GenocideOfUkrainians, Ukraine has not perished.

Героям слава! 😭✊💙💛🇺🇦

This was Ukraine in 1919. Notice the Kuban region, east of the sea? The Holodomor was, in part, targeted to wipe out the Ukrainian population there and forcibly russify that territory.
holodomormuseum.org.ua/en/news-museji… "From 1927, in the Kuban, where Ukrainians accounted for 66% of the total population..."

"The self-identification of the Ukrainian population of Kuban decreased from 915,000 in 1926, to 150,000 in 1939. and to 61,867 in 2002." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian…