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Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - December 22
This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Addresses Joint Meeting of Congress (C-SPAN)
Speech starts at 21m 40s. And for context, he received a several minute standing ovation from almost all the members present, which is why he was so emotional at the start.
Full transcript of the speech from NYT:
Click to expand
Russian border service now has "coordination committees" attached to each point of entry. The "coordination" is between various law-enforcement agencies, as well as "other entities", which may include the military commisariats responsible for conscription and the ongoing mobilization. In other words, the establishment of said committees is likely in preparation for the upcoming second wave of mobilization, as a way to further detain potential conscripts (read: unwilling participants for the meat grinder).
Putin is on the record saying mobilization is over based on his word alone, and has been stalling signing the document cancelling it. All other signs point to the mobilization still being in effect, legally speaking. Summons notes are still being issued – for either "medical examination" or "coordination of details in the documents", both of which are just pretext for getting an able (and sometimes a disabled) man into the building to force them into military service.
The source is this document on
regulation.gov.ru
, though good luck opening it. I certainly couldn't. More on that in the follow-up comment below. (This post on Telegram could be considered a second-hand source.)Long story short: Russia has been slowly entering the state of the digital Iron Curtain, since before even the war.
A few years ago, Russia had been testing cutting off access to the external Internet completely – in this case, only for a short while – under the pretext of state cybersecurity. I don't remember what came of it exactly, but it certainly rang a warning bell for me.
Starting in the summer of 2022, banks and popular Russian platforms – such as Yandex – started promoting downloading Russian signed digital certificates. According to these platforms, introducing those certificates would improve one's access to the platforms.
Unfortunately, I'm rather hazy on details in this matter. My understanding is: these kinds of certificates specify which "handshakes" (between the browser and the website) are trustworthy, so having certificates from shady sources is a sure way to open yourself up to an attack. Your data could be stolen as a result, because the certificates guarding access to it are no longer reliable. (I do hope a more tech-savvy user on Tildes could explain the risks involved here in more detail.)
Needless to say, I did not even look in the direction of those certs. This may or may not have led to one of my credit cards being blocked: I forgot to turn off the VPN while accessing the Web interface for the bank's services, and so it'd flagged my attempt as potentially coming from malicious agents. (I tried reinstating access via the bank's hotline several times, to no effect, and ended up abandoning the card. It had but some change on it, either way. I did have a card from a different bank up and ready, so it wasn't that big of an issue.)
Oh, and by the way: VPN and similar services have been steadily getting more and more blocked across Russia. By the time I left, even the resilient ProtonVPN (which'd served me faithfully all this time) was barely responsive. It's not just me, either: I keep hearing stories of VPNs being blocked, but up to a certain point (a a few weeks before I left) it didn't touch me that much.
This, combined with the clear political vector of "Russha stronk alon", points to an actual digital Iron Curtain being established in the near future. Maybe even next year, with the speed with which Russia's fascicized in 2022.
Today I learned that there is a very small desert in Ukraine, complete with sand dunes. (Now in Russian-held territory, unfortunately.)
Pussy Riot has released a new track condemning the war and everything Russia has become over the last year. In the description, there's an English-language note detailing Pussy Riot's position and goals in regards to the war, Russia, and Putin.
In Russian, just below that, they add:
Closed captions are available as a translation for the lyrics. The original Russian-language lyrics are available in the description.
Of note is the fact that the track ends with "Украина, я тебя люблю" ("Ukraine, I love you").
Coverage in English:
— The Guardian
— The Independent
— The Moscow Times
Russian shelling leaves at least 10 dead, 55 wounded in Ukrainian city of Kherson (CBC)
Ukrainian forces have seized hundreds of tanks and other military vehicles, but many are languishing as they wait for repairs and spare parts (Washington Post)
Ukraine’s military policy puts women in headlines, but not front lines (Washington Post)
[...]
That there are politicians in the U.S. who are this blini gly isolationist is not surprising to me. That there are politicians that would like to make Russia an ally is not surprising to me. What is surprising is that these folks are getting elected. Are so many Americans really so myopic?
Some are, but on the other hand, domestic issues tend to be more important than foreign policy in US elections. If you want to know what Americans think about a particular foreign policy, polls are probably a more direct way of observing that. (Despite the usual problems with surveys.)
Putin says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine, Kyiv voices doubts
https://news.yahoo.com/putin-says-russia-ready-negotiate-100626901.html
And related:
Kremlin Offer to Negotiate on Ukraine Dismissed by Ret. General: 'They Lie'
https://www.newsweek.com/kremlin-offer-negotiate-ukraine-dismissed-ret-general-they-lie-1769578
It sounds like Putin's saying "Well, we want to end this war, but look: Ukraine doesn't want to!".
Sounds like playing a victim in order to push the existing anti-Ukraine/pro-Russia forces in Western governments to make an appeal to said governments: "Let's make Ukraine concede, since we want to end this war sooner rather than later".
I'm positive Putin would rather avoid brewing further internal anger. I'm also fairly certain Putin would rather win this war than lose it, or at least have the perception of victory – again, for internal consumption. This won't please the hawks, but it will quell a lot of popular worry around the war, the sanctions, and particularly the mobilization.
It's a tightrope walk, in a sense, though it looks like for Putin, the stakes are much, much lower. He centralized his power very effectively and is managing his surroundings very carefully, so as to prevent a coup or even a way to undermine his power.
(With that in mind, Kamil Galeev makes the case that Alexander Lukashenko is looking to undermine Putin by playing him like a fiddle, for his own gains. I'm not buying it yet, but it paints a compelling narrative for why Lukashenko both acts like an idiot and undercuts Putin at every public opportunity since the start of the war.)
Yes, that’s pretty much exactly what he said: