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sayruq · 7 months

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Here's more of what's been happening on the ground. (Once again I'm not an expert in war).

Palestinian fighters are still waging war on the state of Israel

It is clear that Hamas and other groups have access to anti aircraft weaponry and long range missiles, partly from looting Israeli bases but partly from (and this is unconfirmed) from the Russia-Ukraine war. It's not unexpected for weapons to end up smuggled into other countries during a war.

On the other hand, Israel went from swearing it would invade Gaza on the ground to doing just about anything but that

It's understandable why Israel would hesitate even with its 300,000 strong army

IDF is made up of mostly conscripted soldiers who normally act as civilians once they've served their 2.5 year mandatory conscription. Not only that, IDF acts more like a police force than an army. Its soldiers simply don't have the training or mentality to fight militia groups in their home turf.

America itself doubts its capabilities no matter how it words it. This is a country that has yet to win against a guerilla army so it has experience when it comes to this

Edit:

Edit 2: above Hamas states the obvious

In my previous post I highlighted how disorganised the Israel military was in response to Operation Flood Al Aqsa.

This hasn't changed in the days. Israel is behaving more like a cornered animal lashing out than the so called 'strongest army in the Middle East.'

It has been dropping bombs on Syria, Lebanon and Egypt aimlessly, more out of anger than calculated strategy

Its efforts to pushing back against the Palestinian militia isn't going well either

in addition to naked, barbaric cruelty towards Gaza because it is not producing results elsewhere

The tweet below is important as Russia is an Israeli ally. The Israeli right wing has been very favourable towards Putin, even willing to disagree with the US and EU policies on Russia. However Israel repeatedly bombing Syria is quickly souring Russia on the country. While Putin doesn't want to go against Israel at this point, he has become increasingly critical of the country in the past couple of days.

Saudi went from making a half-hearted 'both sides need to stop statements to cutting ties with Israel (ties Israel and America have worked very hard to form) to outrightly condemning Israel's treatment of the people of Gaza.

Naturally, with all of this happening, Israel has responded, not with ceasing the bombardment of Gaza, but by killing and assaulting journalists covering the genocide.

so that it could committ war crimes without it being documented and seen by the world. War crimes such as announcing that they'd bomb a hospital in Gaza and giving doctors and nurses just hours to evacuate their patients.

This, btw, is part of the reason they cut electricity so that Palestinians can't post their own genocide on social media. Israel brutality is costing them allies but they have no intention of stopping.

Despite all of this, there has been a great deal of support for Palestinians globally

In short, this war is not going the way Israel thought it would. They didn't crush Hamas and the other Palestinian military groups immediately after the battle of Re'im. In fact, they're still struggling against those groups right now. They've been humiliated in front of the world after being revealed to be paper tigers and as such, they're going after Palestinian civilians in increasingly horrific ways.

The Palestinian resistance is still optimistic and they're still carrying out their plan. There's still hope for a future without apartheid.

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #colonialism

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blueiskewl · 6 months

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Ancient Scythian Gold Jewelry Stolen From Ukraine Recovered in Spain

An Orthodox Church priest is among the five people accused of trying to sell the pieces, taken after being put on display at a Kyiv museum between 2009 and 2013.

The Spanish authorities have seized Scythian jewelry worth €60m (£52m) they say was stolen from Ukraine.

Police said the 11 ancient gold pieces were smuggled out of Ukraine in 2016 to be resold in Spain.

The bracelets, necklaces and earrings, from the 8th to 4th Centuries BC, had forged documents saying they belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Five arrests were made previously as part of an investigation into the 2021 sale of a gold belt with rams' heads.

The Scythians were a nomadic people who dominated parts of eastern Europe and Asia, including what is now southern Ukraine, from around 800 BC until 400 AD. They were known for their rich cultural heritage and metalworking skills, particularly in the manufacture of elaborate gold jewelry.

Separately, the Ukrainian authorities said last week that they had recovered 14 archaeological items allegedly stolen from areas occupied by Russia. A Russian man was arrested after attempting to smuggle them into the US.

The items include a Neolithic axe dating from approximately 5,000-3,000 BC.

"It's safe to say that Ukraine has received a new shipment of weaponry. The only catch is that this weaponry is incredibly ancient," Ukraine's acting Minister of Culture Rostyslav Karandieiev wryly noted at a news conference.

Artifacts created by the Scythian civilisation are among Ukraine's best-known historical heritage.

Ukrainian archaeologists say Scythian gold held in Ukrainian museums in areas under Russian occupation has been looted since the full-scale invasion last year.

Losses from alleged Russian plundering of Ukraine's historical and artistic heritage are estimated to run into the hundreds of millions of euros.

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theyluvkarolina · 3 months

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𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 !! ⭑

`· . ୨୧⭒๋࣭ ⭑ 𝛢𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝘰'𝑠 𝑔𝘰𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑘𝑖𝑠𝑠 𝘵ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝘰𝑤𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑔𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠, 𝑊ℎ𝘰'𝑠 𝑔𝘰𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑝𝑒 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝘵ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝘵𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠?⊹ ‧₊˚

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐄 ─ karolina ⭑ she/her ⭑ 17 ⭑ croatian-american ⭑ f1, football/soccer, and ice skating fan ⭑ mclaren suporter ⭑ madridista, citizen ⭑ 🗣️ croatian, english, italian ⭑ certified adriana lima lover ✔️ ⭑ booklover

𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 ─

─⭑ ofc, starting with the obvious, no rascism, homophobia, or any of the such on my page. i want this to be a space for everyone to enjoy my writing and be part of a welcoming community,

─⭑ i write fluff and angst! with me being 17, i’m not comfy with writing smut. sorry!

─⭑ i wont write ant dark content. casual mentions of death are fine with me but as soon as i start getting requests for more alarming things, i will delete the request/ask.

─⭑ no rushing! please! i’m still in school and i need time to study and do other work. please be patient with me! I will definitely do your request, just give me some time 🙏

thats all!

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 ─ CLOSED!!

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

─⭑ 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐔𝐋𝐀 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏 ─ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃𝐖𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐔𝐄𝐒

─⭑ Слава Україні (Slava Ukraini!!) ─ Hope for Ukraine , Relief for Ukraine

─⭑ Free Palestine ─ Islamic Relief USA , PCRF

𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐊 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃𝐖𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐔𝐄𝐒?

In my life, it is very personal to worldwide issues such as war and hunger. My family in particular are victims of the Yugoslav Wars of Independence (Specifically Croatia). Croatia was denied any relief or importations to help in the war to the point countries began to smuggle products in. My family knows what it i like to not feel seen or heard. Don’t sit back and watch, take action in someway. Even talking is wonderful enough.

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒 ↓

#☆ﾟ masterlist ↳ theyluvkarolina ◝#☆ﾟasks ↳ theyluvkarolina ◝#☆ﾟ smau ↳ theyluvkarolina ◝#☆ﾟdabble ↳ theyluvkarolina ◝#☆ﾟrandom ↳ theyluvkarolina ◝#☆ﾟ user ↳ theyluvkarolina ◝

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girlactionfigure · 4 months

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Irena Sanderska is 92 years young!

She was born and raised in the city of Boryslaw, today within the borders of Ukraine.

Before the war her father was quite sick and a Jewish doctor in the city, Dr Elias Bander saved his life. When the Germans invaded and the Jews were forced into a ghetto, he knew it was his turn to help them, and Irena a small, slim 11 year old girl, was chosen to smuggle medicines into the ghetto so the doctor could help sick Jews inside. This was no easy task and full of danger and fear, but she did it regardless.

When the situation in the ghetto became worse the doctor asked her father to hide his wife Regina and young son Myron, and later he managed to come himself, they were hidden in the attic in a space where only the young son could sit up, for the doctor and his wife they only had enough space to lay flat.

This was only meant to last a few weeks, but ended up being 8 and a half fearful months, where once again young Irena, was given the task of bringing them food and getting rid of their waste, as she rouse less suspicion.

Her mother often asked her to take her sister for a few days to cousins, because she knew that if they were caught the Germans would kill them all, and at least her daughters would survive, this was all until the Red Army liberated the area.

As the war was coming to an end, the Banders stayed in the home and Irena’s mother suddenly fell very sick with typhus, and Dr Elias stepped in once again, with little possibilities, he managed through old contacts to get medicines and even a space in a hospital and saved her life, just as her family saved his.

After the war, they eventually moved to the United States where their family lives until today.

We’ve been delivering these incredible Christmas packages to all the living Righteous around the world, full of all they need to stay safe and enjoy their holiday season, as well as foods, blankets, hot water bottles, sweets, books, Christmas foods and most importantly, a lot of love.

I have visited the majority of the worlds living Righteous Among The Nations, and will continue to do so, and am able to this, only because of your support.

FromTheDepths.org

jonnydaniels

#👏❤️‍🔥#Shoah #WWll #FromTheDepths.org #Righteous Among The Nations #Irena Sanderska

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odinsblog · 2 months

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Executive summary

Since launching its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian Federation has been locked into a long and costly conflict. Russia has been diplomatically marginalized, subjected to sanctions, and shunned by most of the Western world. Many multinational companies have been forced by international pressure to shutter or sell their Russian operations, and profiting from cooperation with the Russian state is no longer considered acceptable. Russia has found itself in dire need of new allies and resources.

In this environment, the Kremlin-financed Private Military Company Wagner, or Wagner Group, has served as an increasingly important source of revenue for the Russian state. Founded in 2014 to support pro-Russian forces in Donbas, since then Wagner Group has evolved into a complex international network of private military contractors, disinformation campaign infrastruc-ture, and corporate front companies. It has deployed fighters, propaganda and disinformation campaigns, and financing as a proxy for the Russian state in numerous conflicts, from Syria and Libya to Mali, Central African Republic, and beyond

Wagner has most often been described as an independent mercenary group. This status has provided Russia with a thin veil of deniability, particularly in relation to the numerous plausible accusations of murder, rape, torture, and war crimes raised against Wagner fighters. But in reality, Wagner has always operated with the political and material backing of the Russian Federation to advance Russian state interests.

In Africa, Wagner has been deployed in a number of countries across the continent since 2017. In each country it enters, Wagner deploys military trainers, mercenary fighters, and propaganda experts to support anti-democratic regimes, drive instability, and commit human rights abuses. The mercenary group's ostensible provision of "security services" creates a framework for lucrative business contracts for the extraction of natural resources including diamonds, oil, timber, and especially gold.

This report focuses on the Kremlin's 'blood gold': Gold extracted from African countries and laundered into international markets that provides billions in revenue to the Russian state, thereby directly and indirectly financing Russia's war on Ukraine and global hybrid warfare infrastructure.

The Blood Gold Report's analysis suggests that Wagner and Russia have earned more than US$2.5 billion from blood gold since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The report focuses on the case studies of Wagner's blood gold operations in the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Mali. In each of these coun-tries, Russia profits from the blood gold trade in different ways:

In CAR, the mercenary group has been granted exclusive extractive rights for the Ndassima mine, the country's largest gold mine, in return for propping up President Touadera's authoritarian regime. Wagner's Ndassima operations are understood to produce US$290 million of gold annually, while local miners have been pushed aside or murdered by the mercenary group.

In Sudan, through control of a major refinery, Wagner has become the dominant buyer of unprocessed Sudanese gold as well as a major smuggler of processed gold. Russian military transporter flights laden with gold have been identified by Sudanese customs officials. While tracking Sudan's unreported gold market is near impossible, estimates suggest that almost Us$2 billion in gold is smuggled out of the country unreported every year, with 'the Russian Company' in prime position to take advantage.

In Mali, Wagner is paid a monthly retainer - estimated at US $10.8 million per month - to prop up a brutal military junta Meanwhile the junta is in turn dependent on a small number of Western mining companies for the revenue it needs to pay Wagner. Mining companies contributed more than 50% of all tax revenues to the Malian state for 2022. Barrick Gold Corporation, a Canadian listed company and Mali's single biggest tax contributor, paid US$206 million in the first half of 2023 alone.

The junta is increasing its financial demands on gold mining companies. Meanwhile, the four largest gold mining companies (weighted by tax contribution) continue to plan further investments in the country, despite the well-documented abuses of the military junta and growing influence of the Wagner Group.

Wagner's blood gold operations in CAR and Sudan have been subject to sanctions, and the Kremlin-backed mercenaries have developed increasingly complex smuggling routes and corporate subterfuge tactics to move blood gold out of these countries and convert this gold into cash.

In contrast, the Malian blood gold system enables Wagner to remain one degree removed from gold production. Instead, legitimate multinational mining companies convert gold into cash for the Malian military junta without triggering international sanctions.

To secure its position in a target country's political and natural resource extraction landscape, Wagner's African playbook consists of a four-pronged attack on the host country's civic institutions and civilian population - suppressing political opposition, spreading disinformation, silencing free media and terrorising civilians.

The ultimate objective of Wagner's playbook is to increase its clients' dependence on Wagner forces to stay in power, thereby securing a long-term revenue stream for the Kremlin and fostering authoritarianism and instability throughout the region as part of Russia's wider geopolitical strategy to distract and bog down the democratic West.

Since the death of Wagner's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group has formally come under the control of the Russian State. Yet the Kremlin's focus on Africa, and its blood gold operations, show no signs of changing.

(continue reading)

#politics #ukraine #russia #africa #wagner group #syria #libya #russian imperialism #russian colonialism #blood gold #money laundering #mercenaries #barrick gold #barrick gold corporation #russia is a terrorist state

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aronarchy · 7 days

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The extent of Russia’s influence in Sudan goes beyond its involvement in the current war. It’s not only fueling war in Sudan but it’s the reason Russia is able to continue its war in Ukraine and other places despite being sanctioned by the West. Russia is surviving western sanctions by exploiting, smuggling gold and aiding the Sudanese Transitional Military Council (TMC) in the suppression of the pro-civilian led government movement.

In 2014, Putin was vocal about creating an economic plan to circumvent potential Western sanctions tied to the Ukraine war. By 2017, they began extending lifelines to autocrats, and unsurprisingly, former Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir joined Putin’s economic pipeline. After a meeting between the two presidents, Russian geologists and mineralogists employed by Meroe Gold arrived in Sudan.

The Russian companies, including Wagner, a private military company linked to Russia and frequently engaged in conflicts worldwide, began establishing a presence in Sudan. Notably, Wagner leader is under US sanctions, accused of meddling in the 2020 US elections. In 2020, under Trump administration, the group was sanctioned for its heavy exploitation of Sudan’s natural resources. The exploitation was so evident that they literally had to be sanctioned by Trump, which is quite surprising.

In 2019, following Al-Bashir’s overthrow, Wagner transitioned to striking deals with the Rapid Support Forces militia general, Hemeti. This militia, formerly known as Janjaweed and implicated in the Darfur genocide, received weapons and training. Wagner, in return, gained access to smuggled gold and devised plans to maintain control, ultimately contributing to today’s proxy war in Sudan.

The method of gold smuggling involved disguising it as flying cookies and concealing the smuggled gold beneath Russian cookie boxes. 🤣

In 2022, @/nimaelbagir a Sudanese journalist and CNN’s Chief International Investigative Correspondent went to a Russian owned gold mining facility in Sudan. Watch her report here ⬇️

Full report here:

In June 2022, the Darfur Bar Association (DBA) launched an investigation and confirmed Wagner mercenaries presence in South Darfur after its attack on gold miners in South Darfur. The investigation also revealed that the Transitional Military council (SAF+RSF) knew about the presence of Wagner in Sudan and in 2019 a copy of the report was actually sent to then prime minister Hamadok.

The DBA investigation also revealed how the UAE is involved in Sudan and its role in the current war. There’s also an extensive investigation report on the role of the UAE in Sudan by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal that proves the UAE involvement in Sudan.

How are the UAE and Russia linked you might ask?

1) Most Sudanese gold passes through the United Arab Emirates. Unofficial data from the United Arab Emirates reported that over $1.7bn of Sudanese gold landed in Dubai in 2021, just under half the value of all the country’s exports. But there is little accurate data tracking it after it arrives in the UAE (arrives via Russia). Most industry exports reckon that official figures account for less than a quarter of total gold sales. Khartoum’s central bank recorded gold exports of 26.4 tonnes from January to September in 2021 but estimates over 100 tonnes would have been smuggled out during that period. (Africa Confidential)

Amdjarass, the Chadian town just across the Sudanese border, is the base from which the UAE is running an operation supposedly to help Sudanese refugees. But behind the façade of what the UAE maintains are humanitarian efforts, lies covert weapons, drones, and medical treatment to injured RSF fighters. (The Africa Report)

A U.S. Ally Promised to Send Aid to Sudan. It Sent Weapons Instead. (WSJ)

The New York Times report on how the UAE is further involved ⬇️

2) In April 2023, following the onset of the war in Sudan, the Wagner group was exposed by CNN for allegedly supplying missiles to the RSF in their conflict against the Sudanese armed forces (SAF). The arms came through the UAE under the guise of humanitarian aid for Sudanese refugees in Chad. These armaments were destined for the UAE’s local proxy, the RSF, in Sudan’s western region. In addition, CNN exposed that the shipments of surface-to-air missiles provided by Wagner were destined for the RSF via flights shuttling the hardware from Latakia, Syria, to Khadim, Libya, and then airdropped to northwestern Sudan, where the RSF enjoys a strong presence. This support from Wagner is considered a significant factor contributing to the RSF’s continuation of the war and their reported atrocities against Sudanese civilians, including killing, looting, sexual violence, and mass destruction of Sudan’s infrastructure.

The satellite images from CNN and the open-source group “All Eyes On Wagner,” provide evidence of an escalated Wagner presence at the bases of Khalifa Haftar, the leader of a Libyan militia supported by Wagner, in Libya. This heightened presence was purportedly in preparation to assist the RSF militia against the SAF.

Full report here:

3) There is evidence that the UAE has been funding Wagner in Libya to help reduce the financial burden on Russia for its Libyan operations and has been deploying these forces to prop up its ally, General Khalifa Haftar, who has been fighting the UN-recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli. The report that the UAE is funding Wagner in Libya actually came from the US department of defense, which again is a surprise considering the close alliance of the US and the UAE.

East Africa Counterterrorism Operation, North and West Africa Counterterrorism Operation Quarterly Report to Congress, July 1, 2020‒September 30, 2020

#repost of someone else’s content #twitter repost #sudan #keep eyes on sudan #sudanese genocide #uae #russia #putin #wagner #rsf #proxy war #genocide #free sudan #liberate sudan

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workingclasshistory · 1 year

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On this day, 7 January 1994, lifelong Jewish revolutionary Leah Feldman was cremated in London after dying aged approximately 93. Born around 1899 in Warsaw, Poland, she devoted her life to the self-emancipation of the working class. Feldman moved to London where she worked in clothing sweatshops in the East End, and became active in the Yiddish-speaking anarchist movement. With the outbreak of revolution in Russia she travelled there, then moved south and joined the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno, preparing clothes and food for war orphans. Later in life Feldman organised anarchist groups in Palestine, raised money for the anti-Nazi resistance in Germany, and supported anti-fascists in Spain during the civil war against the forces of general Francisco Franco. Feldman began going blind, but continued her activism and in the 1960s smuggled weapons to anarchists in Spain who were continuing underground resistance to Franco. The Catalan anarchists nicknamed her "la yaya Makhnowista" ("the Makhnovist granny"). Feldman remained as active as her health allowed until the end, after at least eight decades of revolutionary activism. See her short biography here: https://libcom.org/history/articles/1899-1993-leah-feldman https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2180818365436635/?type=3

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misfitwashere · 30 days

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Putin's paranoia (updated)

Terror, delusion, and self-destruction

Timothy Snyder

Mar 29, 2024

A week ago, four men associated with Islamic State attacked civilians in a concert venue near Moscow known as Crocus City Hall. Islamic State (IS-K) claimed responsibility for the horrifying mass murder, and released videos recorded the terrorists' perspective (don't watch them). Russia has since apprehended four men, who seem to be the perpetrators.

Russia has been engaged with Islamic State for some time. Russia has been bombing Syria since 2015. Russia and Islamic State compete throughout Africa for resources. All four of the accused are Tajiks, a people subjected to discrimination inside Russia.

These are the facts, subject to further verification and interpretation -- and inherently unpredictable, as facts always are. What was entirely predictable (and predicted) was that, regardless of the facts, Putin and his propagandists would place the blame for the attack on Ukraine and the United States. On the internet (and in the Russian and Serbian press) this version is present.

It is not hard to see why. If Ukraine and the West are guilty, then Russian security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Islamic terrorists from killing so many Russians, because Islamic terror vanishes from the story. And if Ukrainians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Russia is prosecuting against Ukraine.

Aftermath of Russian ballistic missile strike on Kyiv, 25 March

Russian officials make a highly circumstantial argument: the terrorists' car was stopped near Bryansk, which is in western Russia, and so vaguely near Ukraine, which means that the four Tajiks in a Renault were intending to cross the Ukrainian border, which means that they had Ukrainian backers, which means that it was a Ukrainian operation, which means that the Americans were behind it. The reasoning here leaves something to be desired. And the series of associations rests on no factual basis.

The suspects were in a car near the west Russian city of Bryansk. This much seems to be true. The first version of the story was that they were headed for Belarus, which would make more sense, given the route. Anyone with local knowledge would make a still more telling point. Because of the special relationship between Russia and Belarus, the Russian-Belarusian border is porous. Once inside Belarus, it is relatively easy to pass into the European Union, because the Belarusian regime enables human smuggling into Lithuania and Poland. Four Tajiks in a Renault would have been, in this sense, welcome in Belarus. They would have had a decent chance to pay a smuggler to get them into the Schengen zone and thereby escape.

The idea that the suspects were headed for Ukraine seems to be entirely invented and is extremely implausible. As of this writing, none of the suspects seem to have said anything about Ukraine, despite the fact that they have been tortured, presumably with such a confession in mind. And the notion of a Ukrainian escape route makes no sense. The Russian-Ukrainian border is a place where Russian security forces are concentrated. It is a site of combat. It is the last place terrorists would want to go. Four Tajiks in a Renault would have needed some very, very high-level Russian protection to get anywhere near the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Russian propagandists have told the population that it was not Islamic State but Ukraine who is to blame. ISIS is just a "fake." The propagandists need not give reasons, and don't. In the press, one finds the wildest chains of association. Britain is to blame for the attack (goes one claim) because one of the suspects was once in Turkey and the Turkish president knows the head of British foreign intelligence.

Only Putin is permitted to set the theoretical tone for the argument for Ukrainian involvement, and yesterday (25 March) he gave that a shot. His version went like this: Ukrainians are Nazis; Nazis do bad things; a bad thing happened; therefore Ukraine is to blame. One does not have to be a logician to find the holes. They are disturbingly large. While it is true that Nazis do bad things, it does not follow that all bad things are done by Nazis.

And the factual premise is empirically false. One should not have to say this at this point of the war, but the Ukrainians are not the Nazis in this conflict. The Ukrainian far right has never done well in elections, and is far less prominent than in any European state you care to name, let alone the United States. Ukrainians have an active civil society, a vibrant press, multiple political parties, and freedom of speech. Ukraine's president won a free and fair election. He is also, incidentally, Jewish. The Ukrainian minister of defense, for that matter, is a Muslim. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces was born in Russia, where his parents still reside. This kind of political and social pluralism is unusual by any standards.

A Kyivan looks out the window after the 25 March Russian missile strike.

In Putin's version of the Russian language, of course, the word "Nazi" has no meaning beyond "what I wish for you to consider as the enemy." If we are going to pursue the question of who the fascists in this war are, however, it is worth knowing that Russia has none of what Ukraine has. Putin has never won anything like a plausible election to any office. His regime has crushed civil society, political parties (except his own), and the press. Putin runs a single-party state where the only principle of the single party is his personal status as its Leader. He rules at home by terror and prosecutes a genocidal war abroad, in Ukraine, with the help of Russian soldiers who ever more often openly identify as fascists. Putin himself espouses what is unmistakably a fascist ideology.

Calling the Ukrainians the Nazis while being the Nazis is not itself a problem within this system, since being the fascists involves living within a big lie. The challenge to such a system is that reality sometimes intervenes in a way that is hard to control -- as when Islamic State carries out an act of terror. This brings in a whole set of political and social realities that are usually suppressed in Russian propaganda: the bombing of Syrian civilians since 2015; the bloody resource wars in Africa; the oppression of Tajiks.

In Russia's system, it is not simply political convenience that adds the big lie of Ukrainian jihadism to the big lie of Ukrainian Nazism. It is the deeper need to make reality, or at least psychological reality, conform to the story told by the state. In the psychological project, more killing is necessary. Russians are engaged in the project of killing Ukrainians. Russians in Ukraine torture Ukrainians for being loyal to Ukraine, deport Ukrainian children for assimilation to Russia, and persecute and execute local elites who they regard as threats. Russians fire some combination of shells, glide bombs, drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at Ukraine every single day, for no reason that communicates with reality. Yesterday, for example, multiple Ukrainian cities were struck by fifty-seven Russian missiles and drones.

It is the killing itself that makes the lies true, in a psychological sense. Russian soldiers who have killed Ukrainians believe they are fighting "Nazis," whatever that means. And now Russian soldiers write "for Crocus" on he shells they fire at Ukrainians. Yesterday (25 March) Russia fired two ballistic missiles at central Kyiv, even as Russian authorities announced that the terrorist attack means that they are permitted to kill high officials of the Ukrainian state.

Rescue workers prepare to help victims after a Russian ballistic missile hit the Kyiv Academy of Decorative and Applied Arts and Design. Photo by Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)

Among Ukrainians, all of this generates a weary shrug. It has been a kind of Western parlor game these last two years to ascertain the "rational" motivations behind Russia's war of atrocity in Ukraine. Such a debate is attractive in the West, because if one can identify a Russian rationality one can then defend a policy of doing less, or doing nothing, to help Ukraine win the war. If Russia is rational, then surely some compromise can be found. This is a Russian leadership, however, that interprets the fact of American warnings about the attack as a reason to blame the United States for it: as the puppetmaster of Ukraine, which is itself the puppetmaster of Islamic State.

For Ukrainians, being identified as Islamists as well as Nazis is just one more detail in what is for them a war of self-defense and survival. And of course, as Ukrainians will remind you, for different audiences the Kremlin also characterizes Ukraine as the center of gay civilization, as an element of the Jewish international conspiracy, and as a Satanist cult. So (the memes are out there) Ukraine is now a gay Jewish Nazi Islamist Satanist regime.

The Kremlin goal of identifying Ukrainians as terrorists might matter in the war. It can be used as an excuse to continue, to mobilize, to commit new kinds of war crimes. This is one way this will certainly go. But it is not certain that this development will be stable.

It might matter to Russians that Putin's big lie about Ukraine is growing whiskers. Once forced into gay-Nazi-Jewish-Islamist-Satanist territory, Russians just might be reminded of the late Stalinist purges directed against supposed Zionist-Trotskyite-fascist-imperialist (etc.) conspiracies. Or, more simply, people inside the regime, backed into a corner by Putin's escalation of unreality, might just realize that the Ukrainian scenario makes no logistical sense, and lacks any evidentiary basis.

This can undermine Putin's authority, and the sense that his story is a useful one. Judging by yesterday's appearance, this is no longer the nimble post-truth Putin who is capable of changing out one lie for another as necessary, with a wink to the insider along the way. This now seems to be a Putin who actually believes what he says -- or, in the best case, lacks the creativity to react to events in the world. His speech yesterday was grim for everyone, including to Russians who would like to think that their leader is ahead of events.

Putin's Ukrainian theory could make Russia more vulnerable to terrorism. The Crocus City Hall attack was more likely because Putin has chosen to use his security apparatus against Ukraine and the opposition. It is typical of his priorities that, on the very day of the Crocus City Hall attack, the regime defined international LGBT organizations as "terrorist." When Putin publicly ridiculed the United States on 19 March for warning of an Islamic State attack, he was signaling to the security apparatus that this was not a real danger. In conflating Islamic State with Ukraine now, he is doing the same thing at a higher level. That cannot be helpful in the practical work of preventing another attack.

Nor can, surely, Putin’s idea that Islamic State takes orders from the Jewish president of a European state, and that its actors are nothing more than pawns of American masters. I am not going to claim any expert knowledge of how Islamic State works or its leaders think, but it seems like it would not be best practice to ignore it and insult it at the same time. Publicizing the photos of the tortured suspects, as Russia has done, almost seems like goading Islamic State.

And although the official Kremlin position is that Kyiv and Washington and London are to blame, Russians have reacted (to the attack, and presumably also to the photos) by treating migrants and minorities aggressively. Because Putin denies that Islamic State is the actor, he cannot tell Russians that Islamic State is one thing and Muslims in Tajiks in general are another. He has created the impression, instead, that Muslims and Tadjiks are the enemy because they work for the West.

#timothy snyder #thinking about...

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