Lexicus
Deity
In other words we put Ukraine on this track and we have done our damnedest to commit them to it for our own sake: control of Ukrainian resources.
That is not saying "in other words" what preceded it.
In other words we put Ukraine on this track and we have done our damnedest to commit them to it for our own sake: control of Ukrainian resources.
Maybe he remembers the time Navalny dressed up as a dentist and compared immigrants to rotten teeth.Putin is scared of him even as a dead man.
I'm curious about your reading of the article and the causal relations you infer from it. I had shared it in the other thread. It clearly presents Ukrainians themselves requesting US help to rebuild their secret services post-Maidan while they were already suffering from a covert Russian invasion. And it also shows the CIA to be often cautions and reluctant in fear of antagonizing Russia. But obviously it's from the pro-establishment NYT so it's no surprise it tried to portray the CIA in a good light and with plausible deniability regarding Ukraine's more bold covert operations.Indeed, which somewhat changes the tenor of complaints about “unprovoked” or “illegal” invasions. Actually those of us who realized Crimea wasn’t going to be reversed any time soon identified that this marked a severe departure from diplomatic options for both sides. In other words we put Ukraine on this track and we have done our damnedest to commit them to it for our own sake: control of Ukrainian resources.
At any rate Crimea was definitely only Ukrainian soil because authorities in the rest of Ukraine felt like they could help themselves. The Crimeans themselves back in 1991 didn’t want to join Ukraine. Whether that’s still true or was even as true as it was in 2014 won’t justify the annexation of Crimea let alone Ukrainian territory proper, but neither will it justify paramilitary struggles to gain control of a supposedly democratic society.
In America the conversation among the military circles was that this was happening because NATO moved first on Ukraine and the Russians remembered that we “promised not to do that.”
Russia Took the City. Now It’s Coming for Their Villages.
Carlotta Gall, Oleksandr Chubko
7–9 minutes
Ukrainian farmers and miners and their families who live to the west of the recently captured Avdiivka are poised to flee in the face of a Russian onslaught.
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A resident walking recently along a road in a village west of Avdiivka, Eastern Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Carlotta Gall and Oleksandr Chubko
Reporting from Ukrainian villages in the Donetsk region around Avdiivka
Feb. 29, 2024, 5:53 a.m. ET
Villagers living near the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka listened with dread in recent weeks to the sound of the bombs falling there, knowing their troops were taking a pounding and their villages were next in line.
Now the chances of bombs landing on them are growing by the day. Russian troops captured Avdiivka 12 days ago and the front line has shifted westward, threatening the next Ukrainian farms and villages that lie in their path.
“It is very tense right now,” said Oleksandr Kobets, a farmer who was butchering a pig in his yard. “You wake up several times a night. They are coming closer and closer.”
The loss of the eastern city of Avdiivka has been a blow for Ukraine, coming amid declining Western support and a shortage of weaponry that left its outnumbered soldiers also outgunned. But for the farmers and miners and their families who live in this nearby stretch of towns and villages, Russia’s sudden advance is upending already hard lives, leaving them poised to flee.
“We are sitting on our suitcases,” Mr. Kobets said.
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Oleksandr Kobets butchering a pig in a village west of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Life in this province, Donetsk, has been disrupted by almost a decade of war and many families have fled the region because of poverty and joblessness as much as from the conflict. But so long as Ukraine’s defenses held for the most part around Avdiivka, many farmers and pensioners hung on, since it was cheaper to live in their own homes than pay rent in a city, and they could live off the land.
After Avdiivka was lost, Ukrainian soldiers fell back to positions in villages abutting the city, but they have lost three more villages in heavy fighting in the last few days. The sound of heavy artillery exploding is a constant background to life in the villages beyond.
On Thursday, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Army, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said in a post on his Telegram channel that some commanders had miscalculated in planning for the latest Russian advance, but he did not provide details.
As they get ready to again face the Russians, Ukrainian soldiers have been resting up in empty houses or with families throughout the parts of the Donetsk region that remain under Ukrainian control, finding local helpers to wash and stitch their uniforms while they fix their cars and stock up on supplies.
Those who were shopping in a village store seemed deeply weary. The bombing in Avdiivka was the worst they had ever seen, one soldier called Oleh said. Almost everyone was suffering from concussions, he added. He gave only his first name according to military protocol.
The villagers seemed unperturbed that the presence of soldiers could bring Russian strikes upon them. Local men were also fighting at the front and some had gone missing in action in previous battles, said Tetyana Rud, the head of the council overseeing two villages near Avdiivka.
“I think the soldiers who pulled back are consolidating positions,” she said. For now, the 389 civilians in her two villages were staying put, she said. There had been artillery strikes on a farm and other targets in the area, but so far both villages had escaped direct damage.
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Ukrainian soldiers who recently pulled out of Avdiivka replenishing supplies in a nearby village.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Yet everyone was packed and prepared to leave on short notice, she said.
“If the soldiers leave, we will leave as well,” she said. “If the soldiers say we should go, we will go.”
She sat in a village council building with a group of women volunteers. “This is my support group,” she said. “We are full of energy, and optimism, and spirit.” The women helped manage the distribution of boxes of humanitarian aid that were stacked in a supply room, and they run a small first-aid post in an adjoining room.
One of the women, Yulia, 62, said she would not leave. Her pension amounted to less than $80 a month, and she felt she would not be able to manage away from home.
“I will not go anywhere,” she said. “And I don’t want to live in a dormitory.”
“Don’t fool around,” Ms. Rud replied. “We will take you with us.”
“If my house falls on me I will be buried under it,” Yulia insisted, leading Ms. Rud to say, “We will tie her up and evacuate her.”
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Tetyana Rud, head of a local council that oversees two villages near Avdiivka, displaying some of the humanitarian supplies the organization had received since the start of the war.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
They all had prepared their cellars as bomb shelters, and the children had taken part in drills to run and take cover, she added. Everyone had a grab bag with their documents at hand, too.
“It’s tough,” Ms. Rud said, “but we try not to lose our spirit because the whole village looks to me.”
But other villagers were gloomy about the approaching Russian onslaught.
“We are all scared,” said Kateryna Lytvynova, 73, who lost her husband a few years ago and spent a month in the hospital last year after suffering a stroke.
“We do not want the Russians,” she said. “We don’t want any outsiders, even if we become worse off, we don’t want them.”
She has hung blankets over her doors and windows to block any light showing from her house at night. The whole village goes dark after 7 p.m. she said. “Even the soldiers use small candles,” she said.
She sits alone in the dark beside a religious icon propped up on a table in the corner of her sitting room, listening to the explosions.
“At a quarter to midnight there was a big explosion, another time at 10 p.m.,” she said. “A week ago a big farm was shelled and the pigs are still running around.”
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Kateryna Lytvynova, 73, at her home in a village west of Avdiivka.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
“I sit and pray in the dark,” she said. “Everything would be fine if it was silent.”
The farmer, Mr. Kobets, said he doubted the Ukrainian Army could stop the Russian advance, and he expected to lose his farm. “I am preparing myself psychologically to go,” he said.
He did not have anywhere to go to, though, nor did he have the money to rent a truck to move his livestock and belongings.
“A Ukrainian farmer is a poor person,” he said. As for the farm, he fully expected the Russians to loot what was not razed.
“I think it will all be destroyed,” he said, gesturing at the farm buildings around him. “One hundred percent.”
in what world was that "provocation" and how would that make the invasion "legal" ?Indeed, which somewhat changes the tenor of complaints about “unprovoked” or “illegal” invasions.
In America the conversation among the military circles was that this was happening because NATO moved first on Ukraine and the Russians remembered that we “promised not to do that.”
France has been slow to understand that, in war, propaganda is as dangerous as cannon fire. In the autumn of 2023, the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI) opened an investigation into suspicions of an attempt to destabilize the European elections on June 9. According to the information gathered by Le Monde, confirmed by a source in the Ministry of the Interior, the suspicions relate to the creation of a list in France serving Russian interests and potentially benefiting from Moscow's support.
For months now, the DGSI has been monitoring the European list project led by Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a former French National Front MEP (formerly known as Rassemblement National, RN), with the help of pro-Russian figures close to the far right, such as former soldier Pierre Plas, journalist Dimitri de Kochko and former RN members Guillaume Pradoura. [...] The DGSI investigation delved into links between Mr. Schaffhauser and members of the Russian secret services, including Valery Levitsky, Russian Consul General, in Strasbourg, until April 1, 2018, when he was expelled for espionage. He was joined by three other Russian diplomats stationed in France, all members of the Russian military secret service (GRU).
According to information exchanged between European secret services, the missi dominici in charge of relaying Moscow's word are said to be in contact with Sergei Kirienko, deputy chief of staff of the Russian presidential administration. He could oversee the operation to destabilize the European elections. Among his French contacts is Xavier Moreau, a pro-Russian activist who has held Russian nationality since 2013. Based in Moscow, he travels back and forth to France and runs the Stratpol blog, which relays politico-military analyses that echo the propaganda of the Russian regime.
“On his orders Alexei was tortured for three years, he was starved in a tiny stone cell cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls and then even letters — and then they killed him, even after that they abused his body and abused his mother,” Navalnaya said.
Arrest already started at Navalny's funeral...Is Putin afraid of dead men as well?
As you said, good propaganda has some basis in fact. Often very tenuous or tangential.French bed-bug panic in Paris etc. last fall – less bugs, more Russian psy-op it turns out:
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Bedbug panic was stoked by Russia, says France
France shut several schools in October last year over concern about bedbug infestations. France has blamed the Kremlin for spreading misinformation about the pests.www.lemonde.fr
And it is the kind of nuisance BS operations we can now expect from Russia. Seemingly trivial, kind of silly, but it does cost money and causes aggravations of all kinds in society.
Not that there aren't cases of bed-bugs in Paris – first rule of good propaganda, base it on something that isn't an actual lie – and if one goes looking for them in Paris, and knows where to look, they will be found. But then, the same applies for New York, London or Moscow itself.
In this instance the Russian propaganda tried to make the connection: Ukranian refugees – eastern Europeans – dirty – bed-bugs. But that doesn't seem to really have come off, certainly not outside France. Possibly because the long-since (WWII at least) established trope (in the English speaking world, which extends well into non-English speaking countries as well) of: French people – dirty – bed bugs.
It wasn't what he expected. Putin wasn't what he expected. Carlson is probably quite right about Putin not being at ease.![]()
Tucker Carlson throws Putin under the bus
The former Fox News host dismissed part of Putin's justification for invading Ukraine as "one of the dumbest things" he's ever heard.www.newsweek.com
Looks like Carlson isn't happy with his role as propaganda puppet anymore...
Tucker Carlson bashed Russian President Vladimir Putin's justification for invading Ukraine, claiming that the "denazification" of the country was "one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard."
Speaking with host Lex Fridman in a podcast episode released Tuesday, Carlson discussed his controversial interview with Putin released earlier this month. The former Fox News star has faced mounds of backlash for meeting with the Kremlin leader, which was the first time Putin agreed to sit down for an interview with Western media personnel since the start of the war in Ukraine.
https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-throws-putin-under-bus-1874897Putin and Carlson's interview touched on a long list of topics, from a long-winded Russian history lesson to Putin's thoughts on the next U.S. presidential election. Carlson also described his first impression of Putin as someone who "seemed nervous," telling Fridman that the Russian president "went into [the interview] like an over-prepared student."
Oh goodness, Putin's lunch didn't settle well?Looks like ol' Tuck is trying to get a little revenge and/or face-saving following his humiliation at the hands of Putin:
Tucker Carlson Throws Putin Under the Bus
https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-throws-putin-under-bus-1874897
Carlson called Putin "nervous... like an overprepared student" towards him?Putin, in Russia, was nervous to talk to Tucker Carlson?
That's pretty rich
, but still a hilarious burn attempt by Tucker
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