Russia has had centuries to develop their propaganda chops along with the ruthless treatment of their enemies. It is rather startling to see substackers who are good on filtering through the official bullshit on covid (VST, Paul Alexander, Celia Farber, John Day, Jeff Childers, etc.) get totally snookered by Putin Propaganda. Some very well may be on the Putin Payroll. Paul Alexander routinely refers to Zelensky as the "penis piano player" President of Ukraine based on a comedy routine he did in his previous television career. What does that make Putin? The Pregozhin-murdering, politician poisoning, child-stealing, country-destroying genocidal maniac who wants a totally strategically and economically useless Crimea back in his crumbling Soviet empire or else he'll take his marbles and blow up the world? After appeasing Putin what is their next move? Where is their sense of proportionality? And why take Russia's numbers and map lines at face value when you can see through the official stories the US government puts out on everything from Lahaina to Covid to child re-gendering.
Here's another bit of history which people - although probably not in
Ukraine - have forgotten about, apparently:
"In 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainians were killed in the Holodomor, a man-made famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin. The primary victims of the Holodomor (literally "death inflicted by starvation") were rural farmers and villagers, who made up roughly 80 percent of Ukraine's population in the 1930s. While it is impossible to determine the precise number of victims of the Ukrainian genocide, most estimates by scholars range from roughly 3.5 million to 7 million (with some estimates going higher). The most detailed demographic studies estimate the death toll at 3.9 million. Historians agree that, as with other genocides, the precise number will never be known. Through a study of the Holodomor (which has been referred to as the Great Famine), students can come to understand that the Holodomor is an example of how prejudice and a desire to dominate and control a particular ethnic group can lead to the misuse of power, mass oppression, and genocide.
Ukraine Before the Holodomor
Beginning in the 18th century, Ukrainian territories were divided between the Austrian and Russian Empires. In the aftermath of World War I and the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in February 1917, Ukraine set up a provisional government, declaring itself the independent Ukrainian People's Republic in January 1918. The Ukrainian People's Republic fought the Bolshevik Red Army for three years (1918-1921) but lost its fight for independence. The bulk of Ukrainian territory was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, or USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), and by 1922 Ukraine became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR). Then the USSR sanctioned the requisition of all surplus agricultural products from the rural population, resulting in economic collapse. Discontent among the farmers forced Lenin to halt the requisitions and bring in the New Economic Policy (NEP) in March of 1921. The NEP was intended to provide greater economic freedom and permit private enterprise, mainly for independent farms and small businesses. Beginning in 1923, the Soviet authorities also pursued a policy of indigenization, which in the Ukrainian SSR took the form of Ukrainization, a policy of national and cultural liberalization that promoted Ukrainian language use in education, mass media, and government. The goal for the introduction of both NEP and Ukrainization was to increase support for the Soviet regime in Ukraine.
Causes of the Holodomor
By the end of the 1920s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidated his control over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Feeling threatened by Ukraine's strengthening cultural autonomy, Stalin took measures to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry and the Ukrainian intellectual and cultural elites to prevent them from seeking independence for Ukraine. To prevent "Ukrainian national counterrevolution," Stalin initiated mass-scale political repressions through widespread intimidation, arrests, and imprisonment. Thousands of Ukrainian intellectuals, church leaders, and Ukrainian Communist Party functionaries who had supported pro-Ukrainian policies were executed by the Soviet regime. At the same time, Stalin decreed the First Five Year Plan, which included the collectivization of agriculture, effectively ending the NEP. Collectivization gave the Soviet state direct control over Ukraine's rich agricultural resources and allowed the state to control the supply of grain for export. Grain exports would be used to fund the USSR's transformation into an industrial power. The majority of rural Ukrainians, who were independent small-scale or subsistence farmers, resisted collectivization. They were forced to surrender their land, livestock and farming tools, and work on government collective farms (kolhosps) as laborers. Historians have recorded about 4,000 local rebellions against collectivization, taxation, terror, and violence by Soviet authorities in the early 1930s. The Soviet secret police (GPU) and the Red Army ruthlessly suppressed these protests. Tens of thousands of farmers were arrested for participating in anti-Soviet activities, shot, or deported to labor camps. The wealthy and successful farmers who opposed collectivization were labeled "kulaks" by Soviet propaganda ("kulak" literally means "a fist"). They were declared enemies of the state, to be eliminated as a class. The elimination of the so-called "kulaks" was an integral part of collectivization. It served three purposes: as a warning to those who opposed collectivization, as a means to transfer confiscated land to the collective farms, and as a means to eliminate village leadership. Thus, the secret police and the militia brutally stripped "kulaks" not only of their lands but also their homes and personal belongings, systematically deporting them to the far regions of the USSR or executing them. These mass repressions, along with manipulation of state-controlled grain purchases and collectivization through the destruction of Ukrainian rural community life, set the stage for the total terror – a terror by hunger, the Holodomor." https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor
It's extremely hard to get an accurate view of an ongoing conflict as everyone is biased on way or another but recently there have been signs in the Western media that the war is not going Ukraine's way and even from pro Ukrainian accounts.
The fog of war hides quite a bit. One of the things I like about many of my sources is their humility. Their readiness to admit to uncertainties.
Ukraine is gaining ground, albeit slowly, despite fierce Russian opposition. Ukraine is having undeniable success with high value targets in Crimea. Ukraine has undeniably increased its ability to strike deep within Russia.
As far as the availability of soldiers goes, I can only offer anecdotes. Construction continues on the Podilsko–Vyhurivska_line of the Kyiv metro near our house. Dozens of draft-age men are at work on it every day. I have written about the many young men I see on the streets and in the shops. I talk to friends who have served and been released. There are not bereaved widows and mothers among our neighbors and friends in Kyiv. Life here is fairly normal.
Civilian morale is high. I have not heard any Ukrainian express the opinion that we need to end the war to stop the bloodshed. I have not heard anybody express the kinds of doubts about the war that my Vietnamese wife did years ago in Saigon about her war.
For more effective news from a quite biased view see https://simplicius76.substack.com/. While I might believe Russia can subdue Ukraine eventually as it once consumed eastern Europe, I suspect even Russia can't maintain control over any real time. Ukraine is a nation with language and culture along with citizens who believe themselves distinct from Russia. They will fight on and push Russian out.
I don't accept the propaganda that the Donbas and Crimea are regions that prefer Russian management. Businesses and jobs in those areas that enjoyed Russian trade and investment have been destroyed, perhaps for a very long time. Whether the investments return is unknown.
Russia has had centuries to develop their propaganda chops along with the ruthless treatment of their enemies. It is rather startling to see substackers who are good on filtering through the official bullshit on covid (VST, Paul Alexander, Celia Farber, John Day, Jeff Childers, etc.) get totally snookered by Putin Propaganda. Some very well may be on the Putin Payroll. Paul Alexander routinely refers to Zelensky as the "penis piano player" President of Ukraine based on a comedy routine he did in his previous television career. What does that make Putin? The Pregozhin-murdering, politician poisoning, child-stealing, country-destroying genocidal maniac who wants a totally strategically and economically useless Crimea back in his crumbling Soviet empire or else he'll take his marbles and blow up the world? After appeasing Putin what is their next move? Where is their sense of proportionality? And why take Russia's numbers and map lines at face value when you can see through the official stories the US government puts out on everything from Lahaina to Covid to child re-gendering.
Here's another bit of history which people - although probably not in
Ukraine - have forgotten about, apparently:
"In 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainians were killed in the Holodomor, a man-made famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin. The primary victims of the Holodomor (literally "death inflicted by starvation") were rural farmers and villagers, who made up roughly 80 percent of Ukraine's population in the 1930s. While it is impossible to determine the precise number of victims of the Ukrainian genocide, most estimates by scholars range from roughly 3.5 million to 7 million (with some estimates going higher). The most detailed demographic studies estimate the death toll at 3.9 million. Historians agree that, as with other genocides, the precise number will never be known. Through a study of the Holodomor (which has been referred to as the Great Famine), students can come to understand that the Holodomor is an example of how prejudice and a desire to dominate and control a particular ethnic group can lead to the misuse of power, mass oppression, and genocide.
Ukraine Before the Holodomor
Beginning in the 18th century, Ukrainian territories were divided between the Austrian and Russian Empires. In the aftermath of World War I and the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in February 1917, Ukraine set up a provisional government, declaring itself the independent Ukrainian People's Republic in January 1918. The Ukrainian People's Republic fought the Bolshevik Red Army for three years (1918-1921) but lost its fight for independence. The bulk of Ukrainian territory was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, or USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), and by 1922 Ukraine became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR). Then the USSR sanctioned the requisition of all surplus agricultural products from the rural population, resulting in economic collapse. Discontent among the farmers forced Lenin to halt the requisitions and bring in the New Economic Policy (NEP) in March of 1921. The NEP was intended to provide greater economic freedom and permit private enterprise, mainly for independent farms and small businesses. Beginning in 1923, the Soviet authorities also pursued a policy of indigenization, which in the Ukrainian SSR took the form of Ukrainization, a policy of national and cultural liberalization that promoted Ukrainian language use in education, mass media, and government. The goal for the introduction of both NEP and Ukrainization was to increase support for the Soviet regime in Ukraine.
Causes of the Holodomor
By the end of the 1920s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidated his control over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Feeling threatened by Ukraine's strengthening cultural autonomy, Stalin took measures to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry and the Ukrainian intellectual and cultural elites to prevent them from seeking independence for Ukraine. To prevent "Ukrainian national counterrevolution," Stalin initiated mass-scale political repressions through widespread intimidation, arrests, and imprisonment. Thousands of Ukrainian intellectuals, church leaders, and Ukrainian Communist Party functionaries who had supported pro-Ukrainian policies were executed by the Soviet regime. At the same time, Stalin decreed the First Five Year Plan, which included the collectivization of agriculture, effectively ending the NEP. Collectivization gave the Soviet state direct control over Ukraine's rich agricultural resources and allowed the state to control the supply of grain for export. Grain exports would be used to fund the USSR's transformation into an industrial power. The majority of rural Ukrainians, who were independent small-scale or subsistence farmers, resisted collectivization. They were forced to surrender their land, livestock and farming tools, and work on government collective farms (kolhosps) as laborers. Historians have recorded about 4,000 local rebellions against collectivization, taxation, terror, and violence by Soviet authorities in the early 1930s. The Soviet secret police (GPU) and the Red Army ruthlessly suppressed these protests. Tens of thousands of farmers were arrested for participating in anti-Soviet activities, shot, or deported to labor camps. The wealthy and successful farmers who opposed collectivization were labeled "kulaks" by Soviet propaganda ("kulak" literally means "a fist"). They were declared enemies of the state, to be eliminated as a class. The elimination of the so-called "kulaks" was an integral part of collectivization. It served three purposes: as a warning to those who opposed collectivization, as a means to transfer confiscated land to the collective farms, and as a means to eliminate village leadership. Thus, the secret police and the militia brutally stripped "kulaks" not only of their lands but also their homes and personal belongings, systematically deporting them to the far regions of the USSR or executing them. These mass repressions, along with manipulation of state-controlled grain purchases and collectivization through the destruction of Ukrainian rural community life, set the stage for the total terror – a terror by hunger, the Holodomor." https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor
https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/neil-oliver-and-justin-trudeau-both
It's extremely hard to get an accurate view of an ongoing conflict as everyone is biased on way or another but recently there have been signs in the Western media that the war is not going Ukraine's way and even from pro Ukrainian accounts.
https://x.com/JulianRoepcke/status/1707521517741830629?s=20
https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/features-66924502
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-defensive-lines-stronger-than-west-expected-admits-british-defence-chief-xjlvqrm86
The fog of war hides quite a bit. One of the things I like about many of my sources is their humility. Their readiness to admit to uncertainties.
Ukraine is gaining ground, albeit slowly, despite fierce Russian opposition. Ukraine is having undeniable success with high value targets in Crimea. Ukraine has undeniably increased its ability to strike deep within Russia.
As far as the availability of soldiers goes, I can only offer anecdotes. Construction continues on the Podilsko–Vyhurivska_line of the Kyiv metro near our house. Dozens of draft-age men are at work on it every day. I have written about the many young men I see on the streets and in the shops. I talk to friends who have served and been released. There are not bereaved widows and mothers among our neighbors and friends in Kyiv. Life here is fairly normal.
Civilian morale is high. I have not heard any Ukrainian express the opinion that we need to end the war to stop the bloodshed. I have not heard anybody express the kinds of doubts about the war that my Vietnamese wife did years ago in Saigon about her war.
All just anecdotes, but they add up.
For more effective news from a quite biased view see https://simplicius76.substack.com/. While I might believe Russia can subdue Ukraine eventually as it once consumed eastern Europe, I suspect even Russia can't maintain control over any real time. Ukraine is a nation with language and culture along with citizens who believe themselves distinct from Russia. They will fight on and push Russian out.
I don't accept the propaganda that the Donbas and Crimea are regions that prefer Russian management. Businesses and jobs in those areas that enjoyed Russian trade and investment have been destroyed, perhaps for a very long time. Whether the investments return is unknown.