Dunno, they’ll probably have a reason to travel via Finland. Maybe I misremember that they were coming from StP?
The family is really torn. The account of my former colleague was very personal. I try to convey the facts and hope that this makes the indirect impacts of the war on the lives of people more tangible to everyone who reads this here.
As I said, a a former colleague has family in St. Petersburg. Her mother - grandma to everyone now, since her granddaughter was born more than a decade ago - grew up the russian speaking area of Ukraine. Grandma’s brother lived there for the whole of his life. One of his sons (grandma’s nephew) is living in Hamburg, Germany. He was a soldier once, and is part of the reserve. He had not been to Ukraine for a long time before the war. His father now has refugee status in Germany and lives with him. He himself has no intention to go to war. However, since his father left the family farm behind, he had to visit twice since. Of course, without creating any paper trail - so not to get drafted, not to endanger his own residential permit and not to endanger his father’s refugee status (his father must not leave the country, as someone who has been granted asylum). He went to organise last year’s harvest and this year’s sowing, and secure help for several other senior members of their family who need regular attendance and are in no condition to leave the country to get asylum elsewhere.
The other son (grandma’s other nephew) has been living in StP, as far as I gathered with the family of his aunt (i.e., grandma). He went to Ukraine, the Ukrainian army drafted him, and he is fighting, as far as I gathered, in the current offensive.
Grandma’s own sons, both well-off and in no way affiliated with the army, both volunteered to protect Mother Russia. They are in the Russian-occupied zone. They support the war and Putin without questioning. They also sent content to explain why it is important to combat Nazis in Ukraine to the family chat, including fake news footage so obviously fake that the non-puinists in the family were first wondering if they were pulling their leg. Then it became known they volunteered.
When grandma’s brother arrived in Hamburg, a photo which was posted to a family chat got comments from them. “Enjoy your holiday” was among them.
Grandma herself is consuming Russian media, so of course she bought into the narratives. The part of the family which is outside of Russia tries to counter that.
However, she keeps forgetting a lot of the stuff they try to inform her about. The constant stream of putinews is possibly overwriting everything.
Thanks for listening. Try to walk a while in their boots, if you can.
Is he a principled pacifist, or does he only refuse to fight against Russia?
I do not know, and I do not judge.
I imagine it to be a difficult thing to go to war, and even more so gainst your own kin. In his case, literally.
Some news I found while browsing Mastodon:
It’s easy to preach helplessness in the face of fascism and avoid consequences when you’re rich and connected. At least for a while…
[Archive]
“People are born to live calm, happy lives,” Ms. Sobchak said. “People are not all born heroes.”
There’s a difference between not being a hero and being complicit.
A collaborator official tells Ukrainians who live in the occupied Lazurne in Kherson Oblast that they won’t get medicines if they do not apply for a Russian passport. This includes INSULIN. The collaborator cites issues with “waiters” i.e. those waiting for Ukraine to liberate the land as a reason for this decision. This is the most 1937 thing I’ve seen in a while.
Alexander Dudka, the Russian-appointed head of the village of Lazurne in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson oblast, is on video telling residents that they will not receive medicines like insulin or humanitarian aid if they do not apply for a Russian passport.
“There’s now an official document stating that medicine purchased using Russia’s budget by foreign nationals, that is, Ukrainian citizens, will not be possible,” he said. “This primarily concerns insulin-dependents who already felt what it means to be a citizen of another country.
“The same will apply to the distribution of humanitarian aid,” Dudka continued. “To those who have not received the passport of the country they live in, the country that is feeding them, giving them benefits and provides their security on this territory: things that the so-called ‘waiters’ (those who have not gotten a Russian passport) are doing are beyond all limits now, not just lawfully but in terms of common sense.”
I missed this earlier:
Re: the marines incident, the abusive commanders seem to be more politicised officers than Soviet-style politruks. Not that the behaviour isn’t similar.
five feet deep and three feet wide at a rate of up to 800 yards an hour.
How many fathoms is this deep, how many horse lengths widez and how many furlongs per Kermit can it dig?
SCNR.
Seriously, Forbes is terrible in so many ways, and has been for quite a while, that I preferred to ask Jimbo about it.
Turns out, there is no English lemma for it?
Translation from the Russian Wikipedia:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120615072557/http://www.bmz.ru/earth/btm3.htm
