this is not a joke

A tweet from Ukraine’s national rail service after an explosion severely damaged the Kerch Strait Bridge in occupied Crimea -- Russia’s overland supply link to their war effort against Ukraine and a prized infrastructure project that Vladimir Putin personally celebrated the opening of in 2018 by driving across it in the lead truck in a procession of construction vehicles.

July 2023: Odesa, Ukraine A woman prays next to a Kasperovskaya Mother of God icon recovered from inside the Transfiguration Cathedral after a Russian missile strike

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

every time I hear some dumbass on tumblr claim the Ukrainian government is anti-Semitic I want to beat the shit out of them with a chair. but I can’t do that, so let me hit you with some fun facts instead:

prior to the invasion, Ukraine had Europe's fifth largest Jewish population. (x)

prior to the invasion, Ukraine had the world's 11th largest Jewish population. (x)

As You May Have Heard, their current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is both Ukraine’s sixth president and Ukraine’s first Jewish president. for comparison, the US has had 46 presidents and Biden is our second Catholic. 

Ukraine has had a total of 16 Prime Ministers (not including 2 acting PMs), 2 of which have been Jewish: Volodymyr Groysman and Yukhym Zvyahilsky. (x)

in 2014, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, and the Ukrainian Speaker of Parliament, Groysman mentioned above, were both Jewish. (x) (x) btw, you’ll notice Putin features a lot in these articles...

this makes Ukraine the world’s first country aside from Israel to simultaneously have a Jewish head of state and a Jewish head of government. super neat!!!! (x) 

Ukraine's Jewish population is majority Haredi and Orthodox. Hasidic Judaism actually originated in Ukraine. (x) 

also of Ukraine's cities, the ones with the biggest Jewish population aside from Kyiv? Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Odessa. (x) go see what Russia has done to those cities. just go see. 

not to seem like I’m pushing an agenda or anything* but maybe Vladimir ‘openly cites Stalin as inspiration’ Putin perhaps is not your best source of information?

A fun Russian strategy thought - I have described Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea as a masterstroke before, and I fully stand by that with an emphasis on the past tense. From the vantage point of 2014, maybe you think it wasn’t worth the sanctions, etc, I even agree, but you can’t deny it worked; Russia was able to make the first large territorial gains through conquest in the modern era at minimal direct cost and in a way that gave them just enough plausible deniability to escape the worst of the international response. Ukraine couldn’t justify war, China could easily go “well hey the Crimean people want it” etc. Given Putin’s values it was a win.

In 2014. What the response to the annexation of Crimea was, internationally, was to shovel money into Ukraine, and the response of Ukraine was to get its act together militarily, finally overcome its domestic political divisions in some ways, and modernize its army. This is *completely fine* from Russia’s standpoint if you are content with your gains. You got your Black Sea port back, Ukraine being strong isn’t actually a threat to you, them joining NATO isn't actually a threat to you and all your claims otherwise are obvious propaganda bullshit, etc. Its a totally valid trade, weak Ukraine wasn’t helping you anyway unless you take things, so you took things while you could.

But if your plan is to attempt to conquer the entire country in an Operation Barbarossa LARP 8 years later, now the annexation of Crimea is the worst move you could possibly make. Nothing in Crimea was mission critical for Ukraine’s military capabilities, the 8 year civil war in the Donbass is just an XP grinder for the Ukrainian officer corp, and you telegraphed your intentions well in advance. And if you know, as you should unless you are completely incompetent, that your actually existing stock of fires & tech is nowhere near western parity, that western aid is a massive force leveler. If this was your plan, the correct preparatory move for that plan was to do absolutely nothing to evoke Ukrainian & international ire until you are ready to go all in. As such, Crimea has gone from one of the most strategically insightful maneuvers to an S-tier unforced error.

"Time to plant and time to uproot," 84x52cm, acrylic on carton, 2023

I created and submitted this artwork for the open call for Ukrainian queer artists by Ljubljana Pride. This year, they're doing an exhibition themed "Queer Solidarity. Images of Resilience and Hope."

And guess what? I was selected, and this piece will be exhibited in a gallery in Ljubljana during June, and I'm actually asked to come and participate in a discussion panel with costs covered and get some extra money, so it's like dream come true?? i'm a Real Actual Artist now??? still can't believe it

this is the story of the pieces I submitted with the application:

"A year ago, in March 2022, when the ruzzian army was still standing near Kyiv, I was walking home and saw two old ladies who were planting flowers on a patch of land near our house – just as they used to do every year before that (and yes, this year they are doing it as well). I sketched it immediately because nothing spoke to me of hope and endurance more than these ladies, trying to create life and beauty when rockets were flying over our heads. Life will prevail, I wrote then.

"Time to grow."

Half a year later, after years of fear and indecisiveness, I finally started my medical transition. 

The constant risk of being killed by a random rocket made me realize that whatever I fear, whatever pain I may encounter on my way, even from the people I love, I don't want to get killed without having lived my authentic self. Fear of death finally gave me courage. The autumn and winter were dark – due to the shellings, electricity was often off, sometimes for days on end. It happened that I did my testosterone shots only with the light from my phone or a candle. Still, it filled me with joy and hope.

Time to grow as well, but also time to uproot... 

I painted it on carton because in the spring 2022 I hadn't had the ability to buy art supplies, so I used what was on hand. Two parts of this diptych are connected with the tape. One of the first things we all did when the war broke out was to tape our windows crisscrossed for the chance they would withstand the shock wave if a rocket hit close. So, just like the images themselves, this bit of tape is also all about trying to persevere."

That's the best thing that happened to me in very very long time. So idk if you happen to be in Ljubljana during June, do drop by Gallery Alkatraz 

Russia's RPG-30 In Ukraine

In this video we analyse the appearances I'd Russia's RPG-30 during the conflict in Ukraine. The RPG-30 is an interesting shoulder-fired anti-armour weapon which uses a smaller precursor rocket to, in theory,  defeat explosive reactive armour and active protection systems.

Check out the accompanying article for this video at www.armourersbench.com

From frontlines to diplomatic quagmire: two years of war in Ukraine

Feb. 26 will mark year two of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, a war that has been worth small territorial gains for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia Matters, a project launched in 2016 by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, reported that as of Feb. 6 they can confirm 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 10,191 civilians have been killed and…

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I'm tired of seeing antisemitism on my dash, in all its subtle forms. War is an atrocity, and Israel is not unique in that. Where is the outrage against Russia's ongoing genocide of Ukrainians? What about China's genocide of Uyghurs? What of all the other atrocities being committed around the world? Why is there *so much attention* devoted to hating Israel and seeking, not an end to the conflict, but the end of Israel? Is it just that they're a little country, an easy target to potentially dismantle, compared to the big fish of Russia and China?

Keep calling out the atrocities, by all means, but for the love of humanity maybe broaden your targets and reduce your own genocidal wishes?

Any ideology that says: "They did horrible things so 'they' [the group they belong to] all deserve to die horribly" is an evil one.

Cartoon by Drew Sheneman

Zelensky Takes His War to Cancel The Russian Orthodox Church

Zelensky Takes His War to Cancel The Russian Orthodox Church

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has announced new measures seeking to ban religious institutions deemed to have links with Russia. He said the move is intended to safeguard the nation’s “spiritual independence” amid Kiev’s conflict with Moscow. The statement comes as the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security agency, launched what it called a “counter intelligence” action at several Ukrainian…

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April 16, 2023: A man carries an Orthodox icon outside a church destroyed by a Russian missile strike in the village of Komyshuvakha, Ukraine (Photograph: Reuters)

Reflection (2021) dir. Valentyn Vasyanovych

Final response to a comment in the thread, I did see someone (i am sorry I cannot @ the relevant people, I just lost track) saying that maybe Russia’s mistake is sure, a mistake, but not that ‘epic’ - underestimating an enemy is pretty common in warfare after all. And completely fair, what is epic or not is totally subjective. I will just outline why I think it deserves high billing on the blunders tier list.

For one, modern war is just WAY more impactful than premodern war. The casualty rates, the civilian destruction, the intensity of the mobilization, is simply on another level. The pre-modern era had its share of destructive wars, don’t get me wrong, but Ukraine, a pretty small country in the current world, is wielding an army of probably ~750k men, a total not a single country probably ever fielded until World War One. And that is just the numbers metric. I think the vast majority of the worst blunders will, inherently, be in the 19th or 20th century due to the scale factor.

The more important metric for a blunder is the pre-war probability for victory based on the combatants. A naïve analysis should tell you that Russia should absolutely trounce in this war:

Population: 143 million vs 44 million

GDP:  $1,720 billion vs  $155.6 billion

GDP per Capita:  $12,198 vs  $4,880

Military spending:  $65.9 billion vs $5.9 billion 

(all 2021 figures)

A war of Germany vs France is like sure, maybe you overestimated one side or the other, but these are pretty peer competitors, no one is shocked by either outcome, its not an epic blunder. But Ukraine is widely regarded as the worst-off European successor state to the Soviet Union, and is on any qualitative metric worse off than Russia. For them to be winning this is a gigantic upset by the numbers.

Finally I think the consequences need to be taken into account - when Chad & Niger fight a border war its like, okay, if we are being honest the wider world doesn’t really care win or lose. Those countries will status quo afterwards. But Russia has launched a war of conquest in a world committed to obsoleting the concept, primed to hate them, with an economy completely unable to survive autarky. Meanwhile Ukraine went from political non-entity, with weak internal stability, to the unassailable darling of the globe and an iron will of unity committed to victory. Russia’s economy is freefalling, Europe is actually getting off its ass and committing to the energy transition, and the entire world hates Russia so much they are cancelling Russian ballet performances in Canada. The odds of Putin being overthrown, which seemed impossible, are now no longer zero.  Sweden and Finland joined NATO! Along every single metric you can possibly muster, Russia is destroying itself. Its actually difficult to think of a comparable outcome in history, Nazi Germany had more relevant allies than Russia does. 

I think that last point is what seals the blunder rating - they aren’t just losing the war, Russia is forfeiting its entire strategic apparatus for a fruitless goal they can no longer achieve, and honestly could never achieve, there was never a plan aligned with outcomes that made sense. Pretty epic in my book.

Russischer Angriff Kiew, mindestens 1 Toter

Eine Person wurde durch herabfallende Trümmer einer abgefangenen Drohne getötet. Die Ukraine gab an, mehr als 40 Drohnen abgeschossen zu haben, der größte Angriff auf Kiew seit Kriegsbeginn. Ein von der Kiewer Militärverwaltung zur Verfügung gestelltes Foto zeigt die Folgen herabstürzender Trümmer eines Gebäudes in Kiew am Sonntag.Credit…Kyiv City Military Administration, via Reuters Mindestens…

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