Content warning: executions.
There is currently no diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, Irina Scherbakova, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian rights organisation Memorial, said.
“I am absolutely convinced that there is not a diplomatic solution with Putin’s regime, so long as it is still there,” she said.
“The solution that there will now be is a military one,” said Scherbakova, who was presented with an award for her human rights work at a ceremony in Hamburg, Germany.
“But these decisions, this diplomacy will only happen when Ukraine believes it has won this war and can set its terms.”
Scherbakova added that calls for peace were “childish”, she said, adding that things would not return to the way they were before the outbreak of the conflict.
“This war has turned so many things upside down, it will never be like that again.”
A top Ukrainian presidential aide criticised Twitter owner Elon Musk for the billionaire’s “magical simple solutions,” citing ideas put forward by the billionaire on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Twitter content moderation.
Mykhailo Podolyak listed “exchang(ing) foreign territories for an illusory peace” and “open(ing) all private accounts because freedom of speech has to be total”, as examples of such suggestions.
“(Elon Musk) prefers so-called magical ‘simple solutions’,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, an apparent reference to self-described free speech advocate Musk’s plans to reform Twitter as well as a tweet in which he called for Ukraine to give up the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula in exchange for peace.
Ukraine has had a complicated relationship with Musk, the world’s richest man, since the start of the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.
He was praised for providing thousands of Starlink satellite internet devices, made by Musk’s SpaceX, to Ukraine free of charge but the friendship ran into difficulties in October when Musk voiced support for peace conditions rejected by Kyiv.
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1599422558712930305
I heard a radio programme last week about a woman whose mobik son had died in training camp of alcoholic poisoning, having not been a drinker when he left her weeks earlier.
Paywalled or needing sign-up
Tangentially related…
As with the original “America First” types in the 1930s, the main driving force of those named in the article is not isolationism (and certainly not pacifism), but rather a deep affinity with a fascist regime that hates the same groups they do.
Igor Girkin is back.
Meanwhile Putin’s buddy Orbán does him a solid:
IDK how is this even debatable?
I’m sure it’s the usual mix of affinity (non-affiliated and identitarian) and Useful Idiocy (far left and S&D).
Also, that’s a badly labeled graphic. It’s showing the ideological leanings of individual counties’ reps who voted against the resolution.
