- Where are all Ukrainian writers? Why there are so few of them?

Just one example of hundreds similar cases:

Geo Shkurupiy was born on April 20, 1903, a Ukrainian writer of the avant-garde genre. Shot by the NKVD (the Secret Police of the USSR) on December 8, 1937, in Leningrad. His place of rest is still unknown. His wife, Varvara Bazas, was assigned the WTM category — "the Wife of a Traitor to the Motherland". Together with their son Georgiy, they - as an "enemy of the people" family - were forcibly evicted from Kyiv by the Soviet authorities.

Some angry couch warrior posting unconfirmed claim about Israel/Palestine: *10,897 reblogs*

Images and videos of daily attacks and destruction of Ukrainian cities and people: *60 reposts and mostly from Ukrainians*

I am honestly so disheartened by this world and so angry at every western leftist, and the flood of Palestinian or Israeli flags when there is no much silence now about Ukraine.

You told us we had enough support that's why you needed to focus elsewhere, so when do enough if us die for you to think us worthy of attention again?

I don't mean this to be an what about. This is just an expression of personal hurt and disappointment at the so called progressives.

And at the so called allies who defend the skies of one ally, finger wagging at them at most over what they do with their offensive weapons they give them while Ukraine begs and pleads for help, told not to hit the enemy here or there, told to watch itself or be left alone and even as Ukraine did everything it was asked for, fighting this war with hands tied and blindfolded, while it was dragged through every possible mud imaginable, belittled, and told to know it's place, it is now left alone anyway, while allies can't even manage sanctions worth a damn, while allies show concern over their oil prices, while allies debate and hand wring about Ukraine isn't NATO and escalation, another ally of theirs erases entire cities and with their weapons.

When so called progressives and allies of the oppressed spent years telling Ukrainians why the mere presence of bad elements in their country, and any mistake among any of their people in history means they should all be left to a hungry empire, don't deserve to live free, now call a terrorist organization who kidnap, rape, murder and oppress "freedom" fighters. The same people who dehumanized Ukrainians for years, called Ukraine a puppet, a proxy, a nation without a will of its own, now do the same to Palestinians, ignoring internal voices and needs. The same people told Ukraine over and over to accept its fate and give up, not to drag the world down with it, to take what they get and be fucking grateful, now demand the most useless and outlandishly impossible, uncompromising victory, who cry genocide at any suggestion of giving up, who have refused to see what life is like for Ukrainians under occupation, are now eagle eyed about why Palestinians or Israel's can't give in based on a history of abuses.

When every tragedy and massive loss of life by Ukraine was called into question, was doubted, lied about, debates, and turned over on every side to diminish the suffering, every report of every tragedy and accusations in I/P conflict is treated as gospel by thousands and then these same people turn around and mock Ukrainians for being so privileged, even as Ukraine stands increasingly alone apart from words and promises.

The hypocrisy is so blatant, so painful. Funny even when these same people point out petty instances of "bias" and "hypocrisy" of this state or that or the media.

This is not a special or unique anger and despair. This must be how many feel as the western "activists" move on to their next hip cause, presiding over tremendous suffering and deciding which one actually matters, completely blind to their own arrogance, and the colonialism of that thinking.

Then the dare, dare to use Ukraine to claim and compare to illustrate the bigger scope of the tragedy as if the losses aren't ongoing, as if soldiers aren't people, as if entire generation isn't being wiped out defending their country, as if lives can be weighted like grain. It does a disservice to all of the people involved and is moreover unnecessary. No one who doesn't yet support your cause is going to be convinced by these comparisons. It serves no benefit to raise support for one, merely feeds the self righteousness of current supporters. It only paints the other as less worthy of attention, as less important. It is a cruel and self serving act by people with no teeth in either game.

And I'm so angry.

I have no trust.

ukraine may be fighting the biggest modern empire in the world that wants to take its colony back to oppress and subjugate its people and culture as it has been for CENTURIES but that still not anti-imperialistic enough for some people

Imagine your city is fucking gone. Really sit with that thought. Let it germinate within your mind. It's no longer there. The streets you lived in, where you played with your friends as a kid, where you fell in love. Gone. It's a pile of smoking rubble. It's not there. You can't go back there. It's not there. It no longer exists. This is what russia did to Avdiivka. This is what they did to Bakhmut earlier, and to many other cities and towns. All because Western aid is being stalled. Because a lunatic religious fanatic is the Speaker of the House, and his party is full of self-serving traitors to the country. Because Polish farmers are blocking transit of important military aid at our border. Because all of you drank up russian psy-ops like thirsty wanderers in the desert. Because we gave away the weapons that could've prevented this to the perpetrator of this, in exchange for a deal to "guarantee our sovereignty" which one of the signatories broke and the other two are afraid to fulfill.

So sit with that thought now, and draw conclusions, and be better, and do whatever is in your power to prevent it from happening in the future, because if they aren't stopped in Ukraine, they won't stop with Ukraine. Do everything you can, so that the thought is a hypothetical, not a premonition.

Watched a documentary about the (now legendary) football games between the national teams of russia and Ukraine in 1998 and 1999. The sheer levels of imperialistic fascism the russians were displaying leading up to those games is just typical. And yes, both those games took place before putin came to power, russians have just always been like that.

Patches and pins "russian invasion of Ukraine 1998" were popular among the russian fans leading up to the first game in Kyiv:

The rhetoric in the russian media about Ukraine not really being a separate country intensified.

For the record, russia lost that game 3:2.

But all of this is nothing compared to the second game, in Moscow in 1999. Russia needed only to win in order to move on in the tournament. Ukraine could settle with a draw. And that is when the true madness unfolded.

Probably the best known episode was this headline in one of the biggest sports newspapers in russia:

You see, they had a player with the last name "Khokhlov". So, on the surface level, the headline says, "Kick, Khokhlov, save Russia!" However, if you read out the headline, it also says "Kick [slur word for Ukrainians], save russia!". The slogan is a paraphrase of one of the main slogans of the russian Black Hundreds (ultra-reactionary, ultra-nationalist pogromist monarchist movement in the russian empire in early 20th century), only in the original versions there was the slur for Jews there instead. The russians were very proud of that pun. It was everywhere at the time.

Vladimir Putin, who was the russian prime minister at the time, was present at the game. The way the russian commentators already went out of their way to keep singing his praises for no reason is a good indicator how russians tend to make a cult of personality around everyone who happens to be a figure of authority.

And then the game finished with a draw 1:1 after an unbeliavable goal by Andriy Shevchenko (and due to a mistake from russia's goalkeeper):

Putin got really upset. He stopped showing up at such sporting events for years after this.

The bus with the Ukrainian national team got attacked on its way to the stadium before the game (according to Shevchenko, russians threw bottles at it) and especially after the game (with all sorts of objects being thrown at it, from beer bottles to rocks).

Absolutely typical. And one of the clearest views of ruscism.

RUSSIA’S SHAM ELECTIONS, where people are “helped” by armed soldiers who check to ensure they vote correctly—or else.

Does this look like they are helping to conduct a fair, peaceful and democratic election process? Or does it look like repressed voters under duress, who are being forced to vote for Putin under threat of armed Russian soldiers? (source) (source) (source)

Meanwhile in tankie clownland Russia became the largest country in the world because of "counter-offensives"…. It's almost funny how most tankie clowns claim to be communists while simultaneously embracing Russian fascism, supporting the imperialism of Russia’s mega-rich ruling class, mindlessely repeating the Kremlin's propaganda and cheerleading their war crimes. These morons seem to have no idea that the Russian Federation is an empire made up of many conquered states that Russia invaded, occupied and colonised in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, or that Russia's war against Ukraine is a brutal attempt to reassert control over one of its former colonies. Russia's history of imperialism is at least as bad as that of any western country - and they're still doing it in the 21st century….

A Georgian man was killed by Russian occupiers on our own territory because he crossed an occupation line and literally no one will be held accountable because as always Russia gets its way silently killing Georgians for decades

do people understand that crimea is only so heavily russian because russia ethnically cleansed the region of the indigenous tatars over like two/three centuries, and even though they were granted right of return in 1989 by the soviets they still only make up like 15% of the crimea population, so frankly any majority opinion over what the crimeans want that doesn't take into account what the tatars want is actually just a symptom of russian imperialism?

oh but I'm sure then these same idiots will claim that because russia doesn't consider them indigenous that they aren't indigenous, even though the tatars have been the people in crimea since ethnogenesis, are now and have historically been marginalized by both russia and ukraine, have connections to the land and distinct culture as well as a governing body.

so no actually it isn't right for ukraine to just give up crimea even though the majority of the region wants to be annexed by russia because that majority was settled there in order to displace the tatars.

now ultimately if the tatars want independence they should absolutely have that, and if the russian majority has a problem with that, they can go back to russia. this is what these folks would say in any other case. and they'd be right - the self-determination of the indigenous people of a region trumps the comfort of settlers. always. but as of right now they are in favor of staying in ukraine.

I get that the west and the us are the spawn of satan but that doesn't make russia good lmao you do not need to defend them for their bullshit

Local kids are collecting things that belonged to their dead friend.

A book on Chemistry for the 7th grade, children drawings, younger brother's book on Math for 1st grade, an Alphabet book, old photos...

In Synelnikove, Russian missile killed a whole family in their own house - a grandmother, her daughter and her two granddaughters - 14 and 8 years old. Doctors were able to reanimate the youngest child - a boy of 6.

I really hope Jack Edwards chokes. "Oh look we made Dostoevsky number one bestseller on Amazon!" as if that fucking guy needed any hype. Maybe you can spend all this time and energy promoting books and authors that truly are not represented? I don’t know, make a video on Georgian literature, spend hours trying to find at least one English translation of the biggest Lithuanian authors? Of course, it’s going to be hard, all of the money was spend on English translations of Russian authors and all of us had only last 33 years trying to do anything to promote our culture while you all were simping for chauvinists, who hated the bare existence of us. Google at least the names of prominent Polish and Latvian authors. What are their names? What were they writing about? Could they afford to write about some highly intellectual suffering while their nations were balancing between life and death? Read the names of modern Ukrainian writers that were killed in the last 2 years. Who killed them? What would they think of Dostoevsky? Were they the "trembling beast" or "did they have the right"? Literature does teach a lot and for some reason the countries that were (are) under Russian attacks don’t like Dostoevsky, why his philosophical thought is so pathetic in our eyes? Do some research, then we’ll talk.

There's an Indigenous page for the ethnic groups in the Caucasus region speaking out against the misuse of the word and bringing education due to the war and erasure going on.

There are a lot of Indigenous pages beginning to form and being highlighted with activism against Russia. This is powerful to see.

This is my homecity, Kyiv, on the 2nd of January after russia attacked Ukraine with Shahed drones, 16 Tu-95MC bombers, "Kinzhal" and "Kaliber" missiles during the night.

(Overall russia launched 99 missiles of various types and 35 attack drones over Ukraine during the night and morning).

As for now, 49 people are injured, 43 out of them were hospitalized. 2 people died.

I cannot express the pain I feel seeing the beautiful and strong city where I was raised being so viciously destroyed in the front of the whole world. And I certainly cannot imagine the pain of those, who suffered during the attack today and who lost their loved ones, one of them being Lyudmyla Shevtsova, doctor of biological sciences, professor, teacher of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

DON'T LOOK AWAY.

DON'T FORGET THE FACE OF THE TERROR.

SUPPORT ARMING UKRAINE SO WE CAN DEFEND OURSELVES, OUR LIVES, OUR CULTURE FROM BEING DESTROYED.

Historically, some of the biggest Russian opponents to domestic repressions are imperialists. Solzhenitsyn, most famously, is, on the one hand, bravely fighting the GULAG, and on the other hand - a vile imperialist with a sense of fascism. These aren't new phenomena, in many ways. Somehow one feels that [moving away from imperialism] is unlikely in Russia, because it goes so deep. This is just the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, this is not just one war, this has been going on for centuries. Russian imperialism is embedded in Russian humour, Russian literature, codes of thinking. It's not about statements. It's not just about policies. When Pushkin writes, I don't know, "Кавказ подо мною" ("The Caucasus lies below me"), one of his famous poems... the amount of imperialist psychology that goes into saying that - that goes very, very deep. So until those much, much deeper sort of deep cultural roots of Russian imperialism, racism and oppression are addressed, nothing is changed. So let's think what we have agency over, in a way. [...] we can change the way Russia is perceived globally and in the West. Because this idea that Russia is a great power that has the right to a sphere of influence and that has the right to suppress others because it's great - that sits very deep in people's heads across the world. We can start working on that. So why don't we start working on that? Let's get people in my world - Britain, America - to re-read the Russian classics and understand how much imperialism and oppression of others there's there. Let's start de-mystifying this idea of "the Russian mystic soul" and really start rooting it to very specific histories of violence and oppression. Let's start changing the way Russia is perceived, so it's no longer seen as inevitable and so vast and huge that you have to drop on your knees in front of it, which still sits in people's heads. That means changing the way the universities overfocus on Russia studies and completely silence the voices of Ukrainians, Georgians, Kazakhs... There's so much we can do that will make people's perceptions of Russia rooted in reality. And they will help gain self-confidence to say, "Stop, we're not dependent on you".

Peter Pomerantsev

Message to all alleged “anti-war tankies”

If you were truly anti-war, at worst you’d at least try to pretend to be neutral, and not support either side. At best, you would not be on the side of Russia, the aggressor that, unprovoked, invaded a smaller sovereign nation that was peacefully minding its own business, was not in NATO, and wasn’t even applying for NATO membership. NATO was not the cause of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As always, I remind people that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, including but not limited to: erasing all mentions of Ukraine from schoolbooks, murdering entire civilian populations of Ukrainian cities, and kidnapping thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children (some as young as 4 months old) and placing them into “re-education” centers where they are forced to learn how to become good little Russians. Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilian targets like funerals, churches, schools and hospitals, and the Russian army is using mass rape as a weapon of war.

(Remember, Ukraine has demonstrated that they have the capability to reach Russian held territory, but unlike Russia, the Ukrainian military has only targeted military installations.)

If you can just hand wave all of the Russian war crimes and atrocities away because “America bad,” then please spare everyone your anti-war concern trolling, and your faux worries about Ukrainians dying. Just admit that as long as, lol, “communist” Russia isn’t the one being invaded, you are morally indifferent to human suffering and you actually do not care about ending wars.

Russia can end the war instantly just by going home.

A reality check on the war from Yale Prof. Timothy Snyder.

The bottom line...

"You can't stop the killing by giving up. The only way to stop the killing is to win the war. The only way to end the war is to win the war."

People who urge "compromise" like Elon Musk have probably not been paying attention to Eastern Europe for the past 300 years.