Anyone got that small violin handy?
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Guardian liveblog
The attack on the Kramatorsk train station has killed at least 52 people and wounded dozens more, Ukrainian officials said.
Officials previously reported at least 50 people were killed in the strike on the station, which the cityâs mayor said was filled with 4,000 people, most of them elderly, women and children, attempting to leave before fighting in the area intensified.
Photos showed a bloodied stuffed animal at the station as well as the dead covered with tarps and the remnants of a rocket with the words âFor the childrenâ painted on it in Russian.
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Propaganda serves many purposes. The âprebunkingâ the Russians are doing, of faking a fake video and claiming the other side were lying about it (when really itâs the Russians lying about their opponents lying) are level 2: the point of that isnât to convince anyone of anything, itâs to make you unable to trust anything, unable to tell the difference between lies and truth.
This âFor the childrenâ thing, well, one: the missile was meant to blow up. The only people who were meant to know about the message were the people who fired it. Thatâs not propaganda, thatâs a window into what theyâre thinking.
But if it was meant as propaganda, then it works on three of the five levels:
Level 1: You are meant to believe it. Itâs plausible that the people who fired it really do think theyâre fighting to defend âthe childrenâ. You are meant to believe that they are acting in good faith.
Level 3: You are not meant to believe it. Itâs obviously bullshit. The point there isnât that you or I believe that Russia is defending children when it bombs children, but that they can say whatever they want and you canât do anything about it. Itâs meant to drive in your helplessness in the face of their lies; and
Level 4: You are meant to believe this. It is compulsory, in Russia, to believe (or to behave convincingly as if you believe) that all this is being done for the children. Itâs literally illegal to say otherwise. The police are stopping people in the street and searching their instant messages and social media to ensure they arenât even thinking it loudly.
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Youâd think Germans of that age would realise that supporting a genocidal fascist regime wouldnât be warmly welcomed or tolerated in their country.
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OH, they left! Good!
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The Russian government spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has finally revealed the real reason for the war: the Ukrainians were not willing to share their borscht recipe.
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Taking carpet tapestries, washing machines, alcohol, and radiation poisoning with them. 
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And thatâs how they treat their own soldiers.
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That might be betterâŚLA. I just need to be able to get a roof over her head in a safe area.
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Basically they tracked in dirt from the Red Forest, contaminating the Chernobyl facilityâŚ
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After digging trenches and shit in the forest! If those poor saps donât currently have radiation poisoning, they probably got a dose that will shorten their life. 
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Borscht?
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This might explain why Russia is flipping out over borscht.
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