And so - war.
4 Likes
5 Likes
Posted at 18:0418:04
A piece of theatre with everyone playing their roleSarah Rainsford
BBC Eastern Europe Correspondent
Today’s Russian Security Council meeting was a piece of theatre in which everyone had their allotted role and their script.
Russia’s most senior officials sat in an awkward-looking semi-circle before Vladimir Putin, called upon one by one to step up to the mic and tell him what he wanted to hear.
In the story they spun, Russia was being compelled to step in to protect the people of the Donbas - many of them now Russian citizens - from the deadly threat posed by Kyiv, by giving formal recognition to the breakaway regions.
The word genocide was uttered again and Ukraine’s government described as puppets of the West.
Some played their part with more gusto than others.
At one point, a dry mouthed and stumbling intelligence chief strayed off script and declared his support for incorporating the breakaway regions into Russia. He was corrected like an errant schoolboy by President Putin.
The actual decision hasn’t been announced yet.
In a final flourish, Putin said he would first mull over what he’d heard, then make his call. Which sounded rather like a challenge to the US to try and stop him.
4 Likes
“Patience, my eager beaver friend, patience. That’s next week’s foregone conclusion!”
4 Likes
What’s going on right now with Purim’s speech (if you want to call it that) is fucking terrifying, but at least this gave me a laugh.
5 Likes
Thread:
3 Likes
That particular bit is fascinating to watch:
Most of the speakers at that council meeting look like they are already contemplating what they are going to say when their participation is presented as Exhibit A at the Hague trial for their crimes of aggression.
8 Likes
So…western expansion required because of “Blood and Soil”?
5 Likes
What a bunch of repulsive toadies.
5 Likes
How does one translate “Lebensraum” into Russian?
5 Likes
They look like they’re in the dock already.
https://twitter.com/sarahrainsford/status/1495837851468148737
5 Likes
According to google translate:
среда обитания
4 Likes
From CNN’s coverage of Putin’s remarks. This is very bad, as he’s citing grievances based on highly distorted history and is already discussing the entirety of Ukraine, not just the so-called “republics” he plans on recognising.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered lengthy remarks on Soviet history and the formation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic under Communist rule in the 20th Century.
Here are a few quotes from the remarks:
“Let’s start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia, more precisely, by the Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began almost immediately after the 1917 revolution,” Putin said.
“Then, on the eve and after the Second World War, Stalin already annexed to the USSR and transferred to Ukraine some lands that previously belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary,” Putin said.
“And in 1954, for some reason, Khrushchev took Crimea from Russia and gave it to Ukraine. Actually, this is how the territory of Soviet Ukraine was formed,” Putin said.
11 Likes
Always the explanation, often bolstered by some mumbling about god, too.
7 Likes
EDIT:
Thread:
Thread:
8 Likes
This is one for the people who have been thinking of Putin as just hilarious meme material. 
He’s an actual monster.
Aside of all the terrifying shit going on, this is another aspect that, selfishly perhaps, makes me even more scared of what Orbán Viktor is going to do. He’s been pushing a nationalist propaganda for decades now, he’s been the one constantly standing in the way of Ukraine getting closer to the EU and Nato - obviously at Russian request, but also, there’s been whispers that he may just whip out a claim to the Transcarpathian territory to use it as leverage for… for god even knows that at this point. I pray to any deity that may listen that he still has enough sense not to do it, but…
5 Likes
Putin’s gone nuts. He’s always been a vicious, ruthless bastard, but he used to be competent (if often short-sighted) and more or less reality-based. This is deeply, deeply scary. 
4 Likes
Hilarious memes are appropriate. Despots will welcome fear and hatred but the one thing they cannot countenance is mockery. To make jokes about an autocrat is not necessarily to deny the danger he poses.
I’m similarly worried. These conflicts can expand, especially when neigbourhood creeps like Orban spot an opportunity.
8 Likes
I really hope this isn’t true
9 Likes
Yes, it is entirely appropriate to mock authoritarians. It can also just help to relieve anxiety over something this terrifying.
7 Likes
