OT subject but worth a main-stream read- OT News Feeds...

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilization that will call up as many as 300,000 reservists for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reinforced the comments in a separate address. Shoigu also announced the Russian death toll as 5,937, but Western estimates have been much higher. Robyn Dixon, Catherine Belton, and Mary Ilyushina report for the Washington Post. 

In 38 cities across Russia, protestors gathered to voice their disapproval of the partial mobilization. At least 1,252 people were detained. Valarie Hopkins reports for the New York Times. 

In a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons, Putin said that “to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal…It’s not a bluff.” A senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world leaders to tell Putin that any use of nuclear weapons would result in “swift retaliatory nuclear strikes to destroy the nuclear launch sites in Russia.” Shuan Walker and Luke Harding report for the Guardian. 

U.S. veterans Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh, along with eight other foreigners who had been held captive in northeastern Ukraine by Russia-backed separatists, have been released as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, along with the Saudi government, were credited with negotiating their release. Dan Lamothe, Karen DeYoung, and Alex Horton report for the Washington Post.

The German government has announced the nationalization of Uniper, Germany’s biggest importer of Russian gas, in a bid to prevent energy shortages due to the war in Ukraine. “The decision was made,” German Economic Affairs and Climate Minister Robert Habeck said at a news conference, “to ensure security of supply for Germany.” Meg Kelly reports for the Washington Post."

JohnInCarolina

This story is nuts:

https://www.wired.com/story/covenant-eyes-anti-porn-accountability-monitoring-apps/

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1573260464917811204?s=20&t=0s3QM7ZsTbe8TrHtt43Grg

I don't know folks, that all sounds legit.

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Voting has begun in staged referendums in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, with Kremlin-installed authorities announcing that a claim of public support for the annexation of Ukrainian territory was assured. The so-called votes, which are being orchestrated in parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of eastern and southeastern Ukraine controlled by the Russian military, are illegal under Ukrainian and international law and have been denounced by Western leaders. Moreover, declarations that the outcome of the votes is a foregone conclusion pose risks for Moscow as Russia does not fully control any of the four partially occupied regions, and is facing stiff resistance from local residents and from Kyiv. Isabelle Khurshudyan, Robyn Dixon, Siobhán O'Grady and Kostiantyn Khudov report for the Washington Post. 

Any weapons, including nuclear weapons, could be used to defend territories incorporated into Russia from Ukraine, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said. Medvedev, who is also deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said that referendums being organised by Russian-installed separatist authorities will take place and that “the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk) republics and other territories with be accepted into Russia.” Once this happens “there is no going back” he said, adding that “strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles,” could be used to protect the territories. Reuters reports. "

lousubcap

Additional Friday Russia-Ukraine material:

"Russia and its proxy forces began holding its rushed referendum votes today for parts of Ukraine that Putin wants to annex before a counteroffensive threatens occupied territory. The votes are being organized inside Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in the east, and for its Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, hugging the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, to the south. Observe how some of that process is going via this two-minute video reportedly from Donetsk on Friday.

• Mapped: See where in Ukraine Putin is trying to annex today in an illustration from the Agence France-Presse graphics team published Friday. Read more of AFP's reporting, here.

In case you had any doubt about Russia's intent with these "votes" on occupied Ukrainian land, Kremlin spokesman Dmetri Peskov cleared that up Friday, saying in state-run TASS, "Russia will regard Ukraine's attempts to retake Donbass and other territories as attacks on its lands, if the referendums held there produce positive results."
An echo from Stalinist history: "The Baltic States experienced similar [referendum and annexation] tactics in 1940" when the Soviet military overran those countries in eastern Europe, historian Roger Moorhouse tweeted Friday, excerpting from his own book, "The Devil's Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941."
On that note: "The last mobilization conducted by the Kremlin was in 1941," Dmetri Alperovitch tweeted Thursday evening. "Putin's future hold on power is now on the line," he said, and added, "This is not yet the end but it may be the beginning of the end."
What Ukraine's president wants: Tanks. "For us, tanks today mean the salvation of our people," President Volodymir Zelenskyy said Thursday. Then he promised, "We will win this war even without your tanks; but I want you to understand that we are fighting for our joint values, and I would want this to be our joint victory.""

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1572923784071372802?s=20&t=Ys7y3YtXMT8Ud33l4o16IQ

Russians sure are clumsy!

Gulfcoastguy

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1572923784071372802?s=20&t=Ys7y3YtXMT8Ud33l4o16IQ

Russians sure are clumsy!

Creative defenestration! Way to stick the landing.

lousubcap

From Fareed Zakaria of CNN today- (worth a read to get a perspective):  

"Fareed on Putin’s Dangerous Game This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t just announce a “partial mobilization” of Russian reservists to augment his war effort in Ukraine—he also issued another thinly veiled nuclear threat to the West, emphasizing that it was “not a bluff.”   That Putin made this statement tells us “the war (in Ukraine) is going very badly for him,” Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column.   The threat introduces a new level of danger, Fareed writes. It “will not deter the Ukrainians,” who already see an existential threat, and “(n)o one knows” Putin’s endgame—“including perhaps Putin himself.”   And yet, Putin remains entrenched in power and solely in control of Russia’s direction. “The largest country in the world, with the most nuclear weapons, is ruled by one man,” Fareed writes. “It is, as he once described it, a ‘vertical of power.’ And that vertical looks more unstable than ever. All of this suggests that we have entered one of the most dangerous periods in international relations in our lifetimes.”

Sizing Up the Nuclear Threat Somewhat comfortingly, the Institute for the Study of War notesthat as referenda are planned in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, to facilitate annexation by Russia, Putin significantly “did not say that the Russian nuclear umbrella would cover annexed areas of Ukraine.” (In other words, Putin did not say Ukrainian attempts to recapture recently seized territory would justify nuclear retaliation by Moscow.)    But at Bloomberg Opinion, Andreas Kluth writes that the “US and its allies—and Putin’s putative friends in China and elsewhere—need to decide now how they’d react” if Putin were to detonate a small-load nuclear warhead.   “Yes, using nuclear weapons would be an existential gamble for Putin,” Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands writes. “But if he was headed for a defeat that threatened his hold on power, and perhaps his life, then why not gamble big rather than end up like Moammar Al Qaddafi? And if Putin landed himself in his current position through a series of disastrous miscalculations, why should we expect his judgment to improve as he becomes more isolated and frightened?” " Edit: So, for those "Don't you have anything better to do on a Friday night" questioners-tonight the short answer is "No."  I am old, have a lawn and cannot comfortably (my definition) drive a car above 120 mph any more.  But like to provide information/articles that may bring some thought to current issues.  FWIW-

nolaegghead

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1572923784071372802?s=20&t=Ys7y3YtXMT8Ud33l4o16IQ

Russians sure are clumsy!

At least it wasn’t a window.  Way to mix it up, defenestration gets so passé after it’s over-played.

Gulfcoastguy

I still think Putin is going to have a 9 mm aneurism. 

Botch

Gulfcoastguy said:

I still think Putin is going to have a 9 mm aneurism. 

I'm hoping for that.  

JohnInCarolina

Unfortunately this does not sound like a guy who cares about what’s best for, well, anyone:

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Protests have erupted in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region, as minorities claim they are being disproportionately targeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization orders. The mayor of the regional capital Makhachkala called for calm yesterday urging people not to "succumb to the provocations of persons engaged in anti-state activities." "I urge you not to commit illegal acts, each of which will be assessed by the law enforcement agencies for legal consequences," said Mayor Salman Dadayev, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Josh Pennington and Jessie Yeung report for CNN. 

Armed soldiers are going door-to-door in occupied parts of Ukraine to collect votes for sham "referendums" on joining Russia, Ukrainians have reported. "You have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it," one woman in Enerhodar told the BBC. In southern Kherson, Russian guardsmen stood with a ballot box in the middle of the city to collect people's votes. Whilst Russian state media has maintained that the door-to-door voting is for "security", reports of the presence of armed men conducting the vote contradict Moscow’s insistence that the referendum is a free and fair process. James Waterhouse, Paul Adams and Merlyn Thomas report for BBC News. 

Ukraine has warned of growing attacks by drones supplied to Russia by Iran. On Saturday, an attack by an Iranian-made drone in Odesa killed one person, officials said. On Sunday, in Odesa, the Ukrainian military southern command said that enemy drones “hit the administrative building in the center of the city three times,” adding that a fourth drone had been shot down. In response to this increasing threat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revoked the accreditation of the Iranian ambassador to Ukraine and significantly reduced the number of diplomatic personnel at the Iranian Embassy. Marc Santora reports for the New York Times. 

Japan has announced a ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia, following a decision by Group of Seven foreign ministers last week. The decision came as Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno expressed grave concern over Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. “As the world’s only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, we strongly demand that the threat or use of nuclear weapons by Russia should never happen,” Matsuno told a regular news conference. AP reports. "

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1574429020615155712?s=20&t=QqtG9En70buuOzLn6H6c5A

Botch

Hah!  

lousubcap

The latest from Tom Nichols of The Atlantic- Russia and Putin's latest moves. Worth a read as always with Tom Nichols.  

"Vladimir Putin’s massive conscription of Russian men is yet another calamity of his own making.

A Darker Motive? A Russian protester holding a sign that translates to "No burialization" in Moscow on September 21 (Contributor / Getty) View in browser Russia continues to lose in Ukraine. A dramatic Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, has recaptured about 2,000 square miles of territory and sent Russian forces reeling. Putin, like many authoritarians, relies on an image of personal invulnerability, and so he rightly fears the political risks of military defeat. At home, even his most loyal sycophants are demanding that he do something to stem the losses in Ukraine. Putin has answered this call by making two foolish moves. First, he is now getting personally involved in some of the operational decisions in Ukraine; second, he has begun a conscription drive that is supposed to mobilize an additional 300,000 men into the Russian military. Both of these decisions will speed up the clocks on the many growing threats to his regime, including sanctions, social unrest, and military collapse, among others. Putin, apparently, is now directing some of the military activity on the ground in Ukraine long-distance from Moscow—he is reported, for example, to have denied requests from some units for permission to retreat from Kherson. Such interventions are always a risky choice for civilian leaders far removed from the battlefield. The Kremlin boss assuming command is, of course, easy fodder for Hitler-in-the-bunker memes, but even Russian imperial history should be a warning to Putin: When Tsar Nicholas II decided to assume command of the Russian empire’s forces in World War I, his own advisers warned him that personal association with failure could destroy his reign. “Consider, Sire,” one wrote to him, “what You are laying hands on—on Your own self, Sire!” (Another warned him bluntly: “The army under Your command must be victorious.”) Putin is running the same risk. One of the many looming deadlines he faces is the onset of winter, when fighting will slow, Russian morale will sink even lower, and supply issues will worsen. The Russian high command and its officers almost certainly want to win this war as a way to recover from the shame and dishonor of their staggering incompetence over the past seven months. But if they lose more men and territory because of some harebrained order from Putin, will they again stand silently and take the blame? The mobilization order is so pointless that I am left wondering who in Moscow thought it might be a good idea. It was a decision guaranteed to generate massive protests for no apparent military benefit. There is no way for the poorly supplied and corrupt Russian military to train, house, clothe, and arm 300,000 men anytime soon, and certainly not before winter arrives. In reality, Putin doesn’t even have 300,000 men; he has roughly 300,000 names of male Russian citizens, many of whom will never set foot on a military base. As a strategic matter, this measure is pure idiocy. One gruesome possibility, however, is that Putin and his commanders have decided simply to throw bodies at Ukraine. The generals may have resigned themselves to feeding the Ukrainian meat grinder, and think they can just dragoon non-Russian minority kids from the Russian Federation’s boondocks and thus keep the call-up limited and off of Russian televisions. The actual implementation, however, has so far been stupendously incompetent, and protests and chaos have spread across the country. There may, however, be a much darker motive at work here. Putin’s fantasy of a “special military operation” to liberate fellow Slavs from a Nazi regime went to pieces in a matter of days, but many Russians remained supportive of the invasion as long as it did not touch them. Putin’s deal with the Russian public is essentially the old Soviet social compact: Leave those in power alone, and they will leave you alone. But drafting young men to go and die in a losing war—as the Soviets learned in Afghanistan—invalidates that contract. Sending untrained men into battle only to die may be part of Putin’s plan. He is furious about losing, and (as I wrote months ago) he has been spoiling to turn the invasion into a nationalist war against NATO as the only way to save face and motivate the Russian people to endure more sacrifices. And therein lies Putin’s dilemma: How can he infuse that sense of fervor into Russians who couldn’t give a damn about fake republics in Luhansk or Donetsk? The answer, for Putin, is to annex Ukrainian land while claiming that the war is now “to defend our motherland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” making it a holy war to protect Russia itself against Ukraine, NATO, and the entire West. Putin then turns Ukraine into “Russia” by taking Russian men from their families, shipping them to Ukraine, getting them killed, and letting their blood soak into the dirt. He could then say, to his own people and to the world, that the buried bones of so many Russian men make Ukraine hallowed ground from which Moscow will never retreat. Soviet leaders treated Eastern Europe the same way. In 1968, for example, Leonid Brezhnev told the leaders of then-Czechoslovakia that they had no right to rebel against the U.S.S.R., because their nations had been bought with the blood of Soviet soldiers and that forevermore their borders were also the Soviet Union’s borders. Putin, facing failure, may be counting on the same idea—while once again refusing to learn from history. The Russian president is facing multiple countdowns that could end in disaster, all of them set in motion by a series of his own stupid and reckless decisions that has cost thousands of lives and put world peace at risk. There is one last mistake he has not yet made—the use of a nuclear weapon—and we can only hope that all the other clocks run out before he even considers the most dire misstep of all."

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The referendums underway in occupied territories in Ukraine are set to conclude today, with Russian President Vladimir Putin likely to announce the accession of these regions to the Russian Federation on Sept. 30. This is according to an intelligence update by the U.K. Ministry of Defense. "Russia's leaders almost certainly hope that any accession announcement will be seen as a vindication of the special military operation and will consolidate patriotic support for the conflict", the update added. Reuters reports. 

Ukrainians who help Russian-backed referendums to annex large swathes of the country will face treason charges and at least five years in jail, Ukraine's presidential adviser has said. "We have lists of names of people who have been involved in some way," presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak said in an interview. "We are talking about hundreds of collaborators. They will be prosecuted for treason. They face prison sentences of at least five years." Ukrainians who were forced to vote would not be punished, he added. Tom Balmforth reports for Reuters. 

In a rare admission of official mistakes, the Kremlin acknowledged yesterday that its new military draft to reinforce the Russian assault on Ukraine has been rife with problems. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” last week, there have been widespread reports of disproportionate conscription of ethnic minorities and conscription of people unfit for duty, leading to protests across the country. However, whilst Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, admitted to irregularities in the call-up, he tried to shift blame to the local authorities carrying out the mobilization. “There are cases when the decree has been violated,” Mr. Peskov told reporters during a daily phone call. “In some regions, governors are actively working to correct the situation.” Valerie Hopkins, Shashank Bengali, and Alan Yuhas report for the New York Times. "

Botch

Apparently a gas pipeline has been damaged by three explosions, most of Europe is blaming Russia.  What I can't understand is that this hurts Russia as much as northern Europe; gives me even less hope that putin will refrain from using nukes.  
 

European leaders blame Russian ‘sabotage’ after Nord Stream explosions

By Meg Kelly

, 

Michael Birnbaum

 and 

Mary Ilyushina

BERLIN — European leaders said Tuesday they believed dual explosions that damaged pipelines built to carry Russian natural gas to Europe were deliberate, and some officials blamed the Kremlin, suggesting the blasts were intended as a threat to the continent.

The damage did not have an immediate impact on Europe’s energy supplies. Russia cut off flows earlier this month, and European countries had scrambled to build up stockpiles and secure alternative energy sources before that.

But the episode is likely to mark a final end to the Nord Stream pipeline projects, a more-than-two-decade effort that deepened Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas — and that many officials now say was a grave strategic mistake.

The pair of explosions Monday produced leaks in all three of the underwater Nord Stream pipelines that connect Russia and Germany, causing massive plumes of gas bubbles to break the surface of the Baltic Sea.

“These are deliberate actions, not an accident,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters Tuesday. “The situation is as serious as it gets.”

Not sure if you can click on the full story, link here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/nord-stream-gas-pipelines-damage-russia/
 
(and that's the first time I've used my new clipboard manager, "Copyclip".  Nice!) 

lousubcap

@Botch - heard that earlier this evening and was able to read the linked post article.  At some point it would be good to drop some submersibles in to see the holes.  A few Scandinavian countries have the technology to conduct that surveillance.  Doubtful it happened from and internal pipe flaw but...

nolaegghead

Couldn’t read the article but it crossed my mind that Putin blew up that pipeline to punish specific gas industry oligarchs that may be perceived as not towing the company line with enough gusto.

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Moscow-installed officials are claiming almost total support for joining Russia among those who voted in the sham referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine. For instance, news agencies run by the pro-Kremlin administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk are reporting that up to 99.23% of people voted in favor of joining Russia - a high percentage that would be unusual in a vote of this nature. Yesterday night Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of "brutally violating the U.N. statute" by trying to annex territories seized by force. "This farce in the occupied territory cannot even be called an imitation of referendums," he said. There is speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin may announce the annexation of the regions in a speech to a joint session of Russia's parliament on Friday. Patrick Jackson reports for BBC News. 

The Kremlin has dispatched forces to Russia’s borders to confront Russian men trying to leave the country. As the avenues for Russians to escape a draft order issued last week narrowed, the Federal Security Service sent armored vehicles to the frontiers, where some men waiting to flee were being served military call-up papers, the state news media reported. According to a statement issued by the service, the forces were deployed at border crossings to ensure that reservists did not leave the country “without completing border formalities.” The Kremlin has dismissed reports that it may soon forbid nearly all military-age men from leaving the country. Marc Santora, Andrew E. Kramer, and Eric Nagourney report for the New York Times. "

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a signing ceremony on Friday formally annexing four areas of Ukraine. The move follows referendums in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. No independent monitoring of the process took place and there were accounts of election officials going from door to door escorted by armed soldiers. The U.S. has said it will impose sanctions on Russia because of the referendums and E.U. member states are considering an eighth round of measures. BBC News reports. 

Russian news agencies have released the final tallies of ballots cast in four Russian-occupied Ukrainian provinces in referendums to join Russia. Tass, the Russian state news agency, said the ballot count showed 87 percent of voters supported joining Russia in Kherson region; 93 percent in Zaporizhzhia region; 99 percent in Donetsk region; and 98 percent in Luhansk region in the east. The voting was widely seen in Ukraine and the West as a sham, with residents of occupied territories reporting how occupation authorities used intimidation and propaganda to influence the vote. Andrew E. Kramer reports for the New York Times. 

RUSSIA, UKRAINE - NORD STREAM LEAKS

A fourth leak has been discovered in the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, according to Germany’s ambassador to the U.K, Miguel Berger. There was a “very strong indication” that these leaks were acts of sabotage, he added. Berger said that in Germany’s view, “everything indicated” the leaks were not the product of natural causes and that a non-state actor could not have caused this damage. He did not blame Russia for the leaks but said it was too early to rule anything out, adding that it is currently too dangerous to investigate. Jorge Engels reports for CNN. 

Russia's foreign ministry said ruptures to the Nord Stream pipelines occurred in territory that is "fully under the control" of U.S. intelligence agencies.Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a pro-Kremlin broadcast that Washington had "full control" over the waters around Denmark and Sweden where four leaks have been detected on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.  Zakharova did not provide evidence of U.S. control over Sweden and Denmark. Russia frequently rails against American influence and military support for Europe. Reuters reports. "

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia will begin formally annexing up to 18% of Ukrainian territory today, with Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to declare four occupied Ukrainian territories part of Russia. The annexation ceremony will take place in the Kremlin at 3 p.m. local time (8 a.m. EST), Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Putin will give a speech and meet with Russian-backed leaders of the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, he added. The ceremony comes after people in four occupied areas of Ukraine supposedly voted in huge numbers in favor of joining Russia, in five-day polls that were illegal under international law and dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a sham. Anna Chernova, Joshua Berlinger, and Rob Picheta report for CNN. 

The U.S. and its allies are planning a number of measures aimed at increasing pressure on Russia following the planned annexation of occupied regions of Ukraine. New sanctions are to be announced on entities inside Russia, and those on the outside that contribute to its war effort, according to U.S. and E.U. officials. Long-term commitments are being made to ensure the continued flow of Western weapons to Ukraine. There may also be a vote later today on a U.S. introduced U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the annexations. “We expect that Russia will do what Russia always does — they will veto it,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in announcing the resolution this week. “We plan to have solid support for it.” Karen DeYoung reports for the Washington Post. 

Putin yesterday signed decrees that recognize the independence of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The two decrees were published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and each says the recognition of independence is “taking into account the will of the people” following referendums. The decrees come into force from the date of publication according to RIA Novosti. Uliana Pavlova and Karen Smith report for CNN. 

RUSSIA, UKRAINE - NORD STREAM LEAKS

NATO has formally blamed sabotage for a series of leaks on the Nord Stream pipelines between Russian and Europe, saying that attacks on the infrastructure of its members would be met with a collective response from the military alliance. The statement, from the North Atlantic Council, the decision-making body of NATO, didn’t provide details or evidence. It also noted that the damage to the pipelines occurred in international waters. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg separately wrote on Twitter that the sabotage on the pipelines was of “deep concern.” Drew Hinshaw, Matthew Dalton, and Laurence Norman report for the Wall Street Journal. "

lousubcap

Comments on Russia's annexation and Putin's speech:

"Russian leader Vladimir Putin said Friday that he's annexing 15% of Ukraine, and he claimed the illegal act must be done—among several seemingly odd justifications—as part of a wider fight against "neocolonialism" and "outright Satanism." He cited "the slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India, of Africa, the wars of England and France against China" as reasons why it's OK in his mind to take large swaths of land from his democratic neighbor. 

Referring to four partially-occupied regions of Ukraine, Putin declared Friday that "People living in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens forever…This is the great liberation mission of our people," he said in a nationally televised address. And from his purported logic, "It is based on historical unity, in the name of which the generations of our ancestors won, those who from the origins of ancient Russia for centuries created and defended Russia."

"The last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our great country," said Putin. This annexation, he implied, will restore some of Moscow's allegedly lost luster because it is following "the will of millions of people," but he said he is not trying to restore the Soviet Union, because "Russia today does not need it anymore." 

According to Putin, "the Western elites" present the biggest challenge right now to nations around the world—because of their "radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family." Tossing in a bit of transphobia, Putin said, "Do we really want ... it drilled into children in our schools ... that there are supposedly genders besides women and men, and [children to be] offered the chance to undergo sex change operations?" He insisted, "This is a complete denial of humanity, the overthrow of faith and traditional values. Indeed, the suppression of freedom itself has taken on the features of a religion: outright Satanism." 

Putin even referenced the United Nations charter in his remarks, a charter he violated with the Russian military's overt invasion of Ukraine in February, as well as its covert invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. 

He also blamed "the Anglo-Saxons" for damaging the Nord Stream pipeline this week, saying, "It is clear to everyone who benefits from this." (To read more from his speech, Kremlin officials are releasing bits of the transcript gradually on their site, here; Reuters seems to be responding to those updates with an English translation here.)"

littlerascal56

I’m sure Biden will have a lot to say about this….or not!

nolaegghead

littlerascal56 said:

I’m sure Biden will have a lot to say about this….or not!

What the hell does this mean?  Nothing.  Go crap elsewhere.

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update;

"Russian lawmakers are poised to finalize the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions this week. Russia’s parliament is expected to approve the documents on Monday and Tuesday, after which Russia will consider the annexation of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk to be complete. The Washington Post reports. 

In a rousing speech following Friday’s annexation ceremony Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Western “elites” of undermining faith, family, and Russia, and promoting “outright satanism." He also made several references to “Anglo Saxon” misdeeds, implying an alliance between the U.S. and U.K. to undermine Russia. Sergey Radchenko, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies, called the speech “full of bile and hatred towards the West” that was more hostile to the U.S. than any diatribe by even Soviet-era leaders. “The point is to deflect and distract from domestic difficulties, the military failures, the mounting economic problems,” Radchenko said. Alan Cullison reports for the Wall Street Journal. 

Russian forces retreated from the strategic eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman on Saturday. The setback came just one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the surrounding region, underscoring Ukraine’s resolve to continue to attack the territory Putin now claims sovereignty over. In a striking display of internal dissent, Russia’s retreat quickly sparked criticism among powerful allies of Putin, who blamed Russia’s military leaders for the recent losses, calling them incompetent. Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Andrew E. Kramer, Anton Troianovski, and Catherine Porter report for the New York Times. 

Ukrainian forces liberated the village of Torske near Lyman in the Donetsk region yesterday, as they inch closer to taking back the Luhansk region, according to the Ukrainian military. Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesperson for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on national television that Ukrainian forces are also hitting Russian military units in Luhansk’s city of Kreminna “with fire.” “After overcoming Kreminna, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will go to Svatovo, Rubizhne, and further on they will be able to liberate the Luhansk region,” Cherevaty said. Mariya Knight reports for CNN. "

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/hannahgais/status/1577041058927898625?s=20&t=5tV0A0vJI0tPwcpdv4tXjA

lousubcap

Tom Nichols and The Atlantic-definitely worth a read, independent of your political leanings (or hard-over position).  

Tom Nichols STAFF WRITER

I am taken aback, and not for the first time, that terrible and shocking things now just flow over Americans as if chaos is part of a normal day. We don’t have to accept the new normal.

The Widening Gyre Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin attend their bilateral meeting at the G20 Osaka Summit 2019, in Osaka, Japan (Mikhail Svetlov / Getty) View in browser I began the morning, as I often do, with a cup of coffee and a discussion with a friend. We were talking about last week’s nuclear warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and while we were on the subject of unhinged threats, I mentioned Donald Trump’s bizarre statement over the weekend that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had a “DEATH WISH,” with a racist slam on McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, added in for good measure. “Oh, yeah,” my friend said. “I’d forgotten about that.” To be honest, so had I. But when I opened Twitter today, The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell’s tweet that “we are still under-reacting to the threat of Trump” jumped out at me. She’s right. We are also, in a way, underreacting to the war in Ukraine. Our attention, understandably, has become focused on the human drama. But we are losing our grip on the larger story and greater danger: Russia’s dictator is demanding that he be allowed to take whatever he wants, at will and by force. He is now, as both my colleague Anne Applebaum and I have written, at war not only with Ukraine, but with the entire international order. He (like his admirer Trump) is at war with democracy itself. And somehow, we have all just gotten used to it. We are inured to these events not because we are callous or uncaring. Rather, people such as Trump and Putin have sent us into a tailspin, a vortex of mad rhetoric and literal violence that has unmoored us from any sense of the moral principles that once guided us, however imperfectly, both at home and abroad. This is “the widening gyre” W. B. Yeats wroteabout in 1919, the sense that “anarchy is loosed upon the world” as “things fall apart.” For many years, I have often felt this way in the course of an ordinary day, when it seems as if I am living in a dystopian alternate universe. A time of hope and progress that began in the late 1980s was somehow derailed, perhaps even before the last chunks of the Berlin Wall’s corpse were being cleared from the Friedrichstrasse. (This was a time, for example, when we started taking people like Ross Perot seriously, which was an early warning sign of our incipient post–Cold War stupor.) Here are some of the many moments in which I have felt that sense of vertigo: In my lifetime, I have seen polio defeated and smallpox eradicated. Now hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead—and still dying—because they refused a lifesaving vaccine as a test of their political loyalty to an ignoramus. After living under the threat of Armageddon, I saw the Soviet flag lowered from the Kremlin and an explosion of freedom across Eastern Europe. An American president then took U.S. strategic forces off high alert and ordered the destruction of thousands of nuclear weapons with the stroke of a pen. Now, each day, I try to estimate the chances that Putin, one of the last orphans of the Soviet system, will spark a nuclear cataclysm in the name of his delusional attempt to turn the clock back 30 years. As a boy in 1974, I delivered the newspaper that announced the resignation of Richard Nixon, who was driven from office in a political drama so wrenching that part of its name—Watergate—has become a suffix in our language for a scandal of any kind. Now the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination is a former president who is a walking Roman candle of racist kookery and unhinged conspiracy theories, who has defied the law with malicious glee, and who has supported mobs that wanted to kill his vice president. Against all this, how can we not be overwhelmed? We stand in the middle of a flood of horrendous events, shouted down by the outsize voices of people such as Trump and his stooges, enervated and exhausted by the dark threats of dictators such as Putin. It’s just too much, especially when we already have plenty of other responsibilities, including our jobs and taking care of our loved ones. We think we are alone and helpless, because there is nothing to convince us otherwise. How can anyone fight the sense that “the center cannot hold”? But we are not helpless. The center can hold—because we are the center. We are citizens of a democracy who can refuse to accept the threats of mob bosses, whether in Florida or in Russia. We can and must vote, but that’s not enough. We must also speak out. By temperament, I am not much for public demonstrations, but if that’s your preferred form of expression, then organize and march. The rest of us, however, can act, every day, on a small scale. Speak up. Do not stay silent when our fellow citizens equivocate and rationalize. Defend what’s right, whether to a friend or a family member. Refuse to laugh along with the flip cynicism that makes a joke of everything. Stay informed so that the stink of a death threat from a former president or the rattle of a nuclear saber from a Russian autocrat does not simply rush past you as if you’ve just driven by a sewage plant. None of this is easy to do. But we are entering a time of important choices, both at home at the ballot box and abroad on foreign battlefields, and the center—the confident and resolute defense of peace, freedom, and the rule of law—must hold."