Don’t be a tankie
For the left, solidarity with Ukrainians under Russian siege is just as vital as solidarity with Palestinians suffering under Israeli apartheid, Yemenis being bombed by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, or any other people fighting oppressive regimes. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
More talks tomorrow. Nobody’s expecting a miracle, but the two sides’ positions will be interesting.
That wasn’t Putin’s plan to level cities right away.
He just doesn’t have a choice any more if he wants to conquer Ukraine.
Leaving Ukraine empty handed means his head is on a stake domestically.
He is on a high way to hell with no off ramp. He has to conquer Ukraine at this point at the cost of destroying everything.
The crush to board the 14.07 was too intense for many to even attempt, and as pleading wails emanated from the scrums around each carriage door, a middle-aged couple stood nervously some metres back, carrying a suitcase and a five-litre bottle of water, their brown boxer dog standing alongside them, panting nervously.
The man, Yuri, said his children lived in Munich and had been pleading with him for weeks to leave Ukraine, but like most people here, he had simply not believed Putin was capable of launching the kind of war that is now under way.
On the first night of the assault, he and his wife slept in the basement of their apartment block. It was icily cold, structurally insecure and there was no toilet. Since then, they had been sleeping in the bathroom of their ninth floor apartment and hoping for the best. When they saw images of the missile attacks on Kharkiv on Monday, they made the decision to flee.
“I am scared for what’s coming and I really want to get out of here,” he said.
But Yuri and his wife were far too low down the priority list, and far too polite, to have any chance of boarding the train. His wife tried to make the case that he had high blood pressure and had passed out the previous day, but he shushed her out of embarrassment, and nobody was listening anyway.
Finally, with a grinding of wheels and a hiss of smoke, the train pulled out of the station, a huddle of humans visible through the grimy windows and the faces of small children squashed against the glass.
Digital billboards on the outskirts of town announce: “Putin has lost! The whole world is with Ukraine,” while the information tableaux at the side of the highway announce: “Air temperature +1, road temperature +2, Russians, fuck off!”
The threat from the Russian defence ministry appeared to justify the fears of Yuri, voiced on the platform earlier in the day as he explained his decision to leave.
“It was hard to believe Russia could strike Kharkiv, but now it’s clear what the plan is. They’re going to do here what they did in Chechnya.”
The rest of the world needs to level Russia’s economy and cause maximum internal suffering so that Putin’s head is on a stake domestically regardless of how he does in Ukraine.
We don’t know if that will work. Our experience is that sanctions aren’t good at effecting regime change. One argument I’ve heard against turning Russia into North Korea is you want to have tools available in case Russia does start leveling cities.
Can’t sit around waiting for sure things.
https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1498774891126042632/photo/1
He better hope Putin’s check already cleared.
Somewhat. It’s interesting that china doesn’t have to kiss Putin’s ass at all, because they’ll be taking much of Russia’s oil and supplying most of its products and goods over the next year
YCBWF
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1498778170283249667
And a gigantic FU to Dennis Miller. What a POS.
Holy crap I didn’t know about William Shatner. wtf
wasn’t larry king there?
You laugh, but the US poll I saw had sanctions at 50% and sending weapons at 35%.
Think that was pre shit getting real: