… oh for sure—I just wouldn’t throw them in the “very not white” category, historically they’re more in the disputed or ambiguous zones
The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.
Well done for not continuing the fortification works. Obviously in times of war archaeology takes a backseat but if you can take it into consideration that’s admirable.
“The closer you get to the downfall of an empire, the more stupid the laws become,” Ivan tells me. "I think this will end with the downfall of Putin’s Russia.
“Patriotism is loving your country, but criticising it to bring change. Patriotism is wanting to make your city better so that it prospers. So that people want to stay and live there and live well. But Russia’s patriotism is about bombing Ukraine to pieces. Our leaders don’t want our country to be better. They just want people in another country to live worse.”
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1605317626581884928
https://twitter.com/SobolLyubovEn/status/1605220175590170624
They hired Max Bialystock to design the scenarios?
As they are also trying to defraud old ladies it makes sense too. Less gay directors nor beatnik actors so don’t see where the punchline is going to come…
Mainly because they are so tasteless it looks closer to the musical than the real ones.
It’s so overtly gaudy and on the nose than my first though went to the producers.
Perhaps I’m being optimistic, but I wonder if the designers were tricking the Kremlin and trying to make it look as Nazi as possible without anybody catching on. Or perhaps the designers who get these gigs are cynical and mercenary enough to rip off Nazi iconography deliberately but without any subversive intent. Why develop your own totalitarian aesthetic when you can simply steal from the masters?
Now in a more serious tone…
I personally find weird they don’t want to reuse the already well stablished (but certainly stale and maybe a bit smelly even by this point) soviet imagery (obviously removing the hammer and sickle, but maybe keeping the red?); if they are fighting the new nazis, it would make sense to reuse the image of the red army that defeated it.
Instead, they are trying to create a new “modern” image, but one that is clearly rooted in neonazi ultramilitaristic imagery, so we go full circle to your photo and mine. I think in fact the gaudyness is them trying to differentiate, but failing badly.
They do use Soviet iconography and play into nostalgia for the USSR (and thought that they could use it to make older Ukrainians accept Russian occupation). They fly the Soviet victory banner and put up busts of Lenin in occupied cities, reversing Ukrainian de-communisation, even though Putin blamed Lenin for establishing Ukraine as a republic separate from Russia. The Ribbon of St George is used as a symbol of Victory Day, helping Putin to put a Russian nationalist and Orthodox Christian spin on the Soviet “victory against fascism”.
Why do the authorities want to change the conscription age range?
It’s probably for the same reason: to get more recruits into the combat zone.
First, it’s easier (in a social sense) to deploy people who are older than 21 than to send people who were just recently schoolkids — it arouses less discontent in society.
Second, due to fluctuations in the birth rate in recent decades, there are almost 330,000 fewer current conscripts aged 18 to 27, than potential conscripts aged 21 to 30. It’s true that in coming years this effect will weaken; people of conscription age will be almost exclusively the small generation born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.
It’s not very far at all from “Did you see what he’s wearing?!” to “We wear blue & yellow on Sundays.”
i don’t get it
who gives a shit
what’s so great about a “suit” anyway
