I've already posted a few videos, often cropped and hard subbed on Twitter. And yet, it may be difficult to navigate through them or to verify their sources. Thus I created a Telegram channel where I will be posting them adding descriptions and links
So far I've only posted 10 videos there, but I'll be adding more. The ones I would recommend the most:
1. Interview with Russian Wagner Mercenary from Feb 26 2. Zhirinovsky speech on Jan 18 on the goals of Z-war 3. TV program on Zvezda channel 4. Sermon by Artemy Vladimirov
February 26, 2022. Wagner mercenary questions the experience that the Russian military got in Syria and predicts that Z-invasion of Ukraine won’t turn out to be a victorious march. He implies that circumstances have changed since 2014 and that the Ukrainian army has changed, too
January 18, 2022. Zhirinovsky’s speech on the future Z-war and its goals. Many of late Zhirinovsky's “hot takes” probably reflected the official position of Kremlin. Zhirinovsky, as a court jester, presented it in a “foolish” manner to test the ground on how they will be accepted
How Russian military are treated by their own higher-ups. TV host Alexey Gudoshnikov yells at a veteran who suggested a minute of silence for “our boys dying in Ukraine”. TV program Открытый эфир, channel Звезда. Notice that it's a channel of the Russian Ministry of Defence
Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov is reading a sermon on the Z-war and its goals. That sermon doesn't necessarily represent the position of the Kremlin but probably reflects the feelings of the Russian nationalist masses and, broadly speaking, the Russian imperialist ideology
Russia appropriated foreign planes leased to Russian air companies. Сompanies ask Minister of transport Savelyev if they'll be ever able to do maintenance abroad. "No, we won't, because we confiscated the other's property". Russia gonna have huge transport problems very soon
Police launched an operation to arrest a sugar dealer. Undercover cops videotaped how they bought a 50 kgs sugar sack "at the above market price" and he openly told he can bring more
Russian TikTok video. This is apparently a truck driver who bought some snacks for his 1000 km trip and is shocked by skyrocketing food prices
Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry points out to the cultural roots of this war. Ukrainians tried to appropriate the exclusive rights on borsch, denying it to Russians and wouldn't compromise. Such Nazism made the war inevitable
Dialogue between Putin and Naryshkin, the chief of Foreign Intelligence Service on what to do in Ukraine. Counterintuitively, Putin's regime is way more personalist than the Soviet one. Politburo debated on policy decisions, while Putin's henchmen are not allowed to question him
On the Day 13 of the Special Operation Russian TV propagandist Solovyov and military expert Kedmi had a pretty depressive discussion on the course of this war. Solovyov argued that this war can't meet the set goals, because it will lead to the destruction of Russia itself
Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Yevkyrov decorated a wounded soldier who lost his leg and wishes him to "get back to his feet again"
A glimpse into the popular Z-mindset. It's not only about Putin or his personal goals, it's about a certain culture, tradition, system of values. Z-war is systemic rather than accidental and the logic that stands behind it is well-rooted in the Russian imperial culture
1991. Sobchak, mayor of St Petersburg and boss of Putin discusses the Ukrainian problem. Sobchak was a well-known liberal and a founder of the Movement for the Democratic Reform. Notice how he weaponises liberal rhetorics in order to delegitimize supposedly too Communist Ukraine
Anton Krasovsky from Russia Today clarifies his position on Ukraine, promising to burn their constitution on Maidan
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One thing you need to understand about wars is that very few engage into the long, protracted warfare on purpose. Almost every war of attrition was planned and designed as a short victorious blitzkrieg
And then everything went wrong
Consider the Russian war in Ukraine. It was not planned as a war. It was not thought of as a war. It was planned as a (swift!) regime change allowing to score a few points in the Russian domestic politics. And then everything went wrong
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planning a short victorious war optimised for the purposes of domestic politics is how you *usually* end up in a deadlock. That is the most common scenario of how it happens, practically speaking
Global politics are usually framed in terms of kindergarten discourse (“good guys” vs “bad guys”) with an implication that you must provide “good guys” with boundless and unconditional support
BUT
Unconditional support is extremely corrupting, and turns the best of the best into the really nasty guys, and relatively fast
Part of the reason is that neither “bad” nor “good” guys are in fact homogenous, and present a spectrum of opinions and personalities. Which means that all of your designated “good guys” include a fair share of really, really nasty guys, almost by definition.
Purely good movements do not really exist
That is a major reason why limitless, unconditional, unquestioning support causes such a profound corrupting effect upon the very best movement. First, because that movement is not all
that purely good as you imagine (neither movement is),
Let's have a look at these four guys. Everything about them seems to be different. Religion. Ideology. Political regime. And yet, there is a common denominator uniting all:
Xi - 71 years old
Putin - 72 years old
Trump - 79 years old
Khamenei - 86 years old
Irrespectively of their political, ideological, religious and whatever differences, Russia, China, the United States, Iran are all governed by the old. Whatever regime, whatever government they have, it is the septuagenarians and octogenarians who have the final saying in it.
This fact is more consequential than it seems. To explain why, let me introduce the following idea:
Every society is a multiracial society, for every generation is a new race
Although we tend to imagine them as cohesive, all these countries are multigenerational -> multiracial
In 1927, when Trotsky was being expelled from the Boslhevik Party, the atmosphere was very and very heated. One cavalry commander met Stalin at the stairs and threatened to cut off his ears. He even pretended he is unsheathing he sabre to proceed
Stalin shut up and said nothing
Like obviously, everyone around could see Stalin is super angry. But he still said nothing and did nothing
Which brings us to an important point:
Nobody becomes powerful accidentally
If Joseph Stalin seized the absolute control over the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union, the most plausible explanation is that Joseph Stalin is exercising some extremely rare virtues, that almost nobody on the planet Earth is capable of
Highly virtuous man, almost to the impossible level
Growing up in Russia in the 1990s, I used to put America on a pedestal. It was not so much a conscious decision, as the admission of an objective fact of reality. It was the country of future, the country thinking about the future, and marching into the future.
And nothing reflected this better than the seething hatred it got from Russia, a country stuck in the past, whose imagination was fully preoccupied with the injuries of yesterday, and the phantasies of terrible revenge, usually in the form of nuclear strike.
Which, of course, projected weakness rather than strength
We will make a huuuuuuge bomb, and drop it onto your heads, and turn you into the radioactive dust, and you will die in agony, and we will be laughing and clapping our hands
Fake jobs are completely normal & totally natural. The reason is: nobody understands what is happening and most certainly does not understand why. Like people, including the upper management have some idea of what is happening in an organisation, and this idea is usually wrong.
As they do not know and cannot know causal relations between the input and output, they just try to increase some sort of input, in a hope for a better output, but they do not really know which input to increase.
Insiders with deep & specific knowledge, on the other hand, may have a more clear & definite idea of what is happening, and even certain, non zero degree of understanding of causal links between the input and output