Putin is mentioned 19 times, Russia 28. Xi is mentioned 0 times, China 44. The author understands that Putin decides for Russia. He may understand that Xi decides for China, but he won’t say it. We’re not dealing so much with states as with individuals: Putin, who is destroying millions of lives to satisfy his personal ambitions, and another, Xi, who may be just as willing to do so.
this feels right though I don;t know anything
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The chorus and orchestra of Odessa Opera yesterday:
The piece is the Chorus of the Exiled Jews from Verdi’s Nabucco. The lines at 1:38 translate to something like:
Oh my homeland, so lovely and so lost,
Oh memory, so dear and so dead.
Afterwards the performers left to fill sandbags, build barriers and otherwise prepare their city’s defense.
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I suppose this would be contrary to the realist view of the state as a “black box”.
Yeah but there’s a thread for that.
@anon10396289 I might eventually answer your reply to me there but I want to punch myself in the face just thinking about it.
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Ukraine already scuttled their only battleship. So I assume this was expected.
That’s been true from the jump. 4 or 5 merchant ships have been fired at and one was sunk. Odessa has also been mined, but it’s not clear by who.
not sure if serious
Here’s a pretty good summation of Realpolitik:
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1503166568980787210?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1503166568980787210|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_1c71a9fe-a32e-11ec-a899-b2efb46bf8e7%2F0
so, Kadyrov is bragging via telegram that he’s personally 20km from kyiv, and Arestovich (Zelensky’s military advisor and quite a anti-putin hawk) is engagingly teasing out that he’d like to kill him.
@someone who is a better handicapper, please propose a betting line and let’s get this “one time dealer” on.
i grew up with this guy. it was such a weird joy seeing his name in the nytimes. going to amplify it here
Since the war began, I have received emails from journalists asking me to explain my poem “We Lived Happily During the War,” which went viral on the day Vladimir Putin’s troops began bombing my birth country. The poem was published on Poetry International in 2013, the same year the Maidan protests began in Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president at time, was trying to lean closer to Putin and crush protests. Ukrainians rejected him; Putin stole Crimea; and the war in Donbas began.
“We lived happily during the war,” the poem begins, “and when they bombed other people’s houses, we / protested / but not enough, we opposed them but not / enough.” As I was writing the poem, my adopted country, the United States, was in the middle of its own “freedom” campaigns.
How are Putin’s bombardments of Kyiv different from George W. Bush’s bombardments of Baghdad? Both invasions used false premises: imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Bush’s case, and imaginary protection of the Russian language, among other justifications, in Putin’s. Odessa is a largely Russian-speaking city and Putin is sending troops to bombard Russian speakers — that is how he “protects” the Russian language.
“I woke up because of explosions,” my cousin Petya emailed me recently. “They were bombing the beach. Who do they think they’ll hit? This isn’t vacation season!” His jokes are typical of Odessa, a city of good humor, where April 1 is one of the most important holidays.
Another friend, who remains in Odessa, tell me he just got back from the store: “People are grabbing any food they can find. I’m trying to do art. Read out loud. To distract myself. Try to read between the lines.”
I ask how I can help. Finally, an older friend, a lifelong journalist, writes back: “Putins come and go. If you want to help, send us some poems and essays. We are putting together a literary magazine.”
In the middle of war, he is asking for poems.
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it’s not clear because it was successful
I think they were more mad about Australia than us. But yeah small change compared to this.
[quote=“hey_you, post:8258, topic:7382, full:true”]
Here’s a pretty good summation of Realpolitik:
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1503166568980787210?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1503166568980787210|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_1c71a9fe-a32e-11ec-a899-b2efb46bf8e7%2F0
Does “morality” translate to something else in Russian?
Incoherent as ever but damn.
He said he believes Putin’s ultimate goal is to eventually rebuild the Soviet Union, and he went on to explain what he believes to be Putin’s mindset.
“You say, what’s the purpose of this? They had a country. You could see it was a country where there was a lot of love and we’re doing it because, you know, somebody wants to make his country larger or he wants to put it back the way it was when actually it didn’t work very well,” Trump said.
Even his BFF couldn’t talk him out of this one.
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https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1503092710089052174
https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1503092712593137666
Apparently the FSB just straight up stole $billions intended for buying off Ukrainians. Either that or the Ukrainians just took the money then didn’t follow through with whatever they were supposed to do.
https://twitter.com/judy_sandra/status/1503139766014939141
https://twitter.com/ScottHarrisonQB/status/1503141721521090561
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