Just popping up out of nowhere to remind that nazi state Russia is still committing war crimes and is trying to exterminate Ukrainians. The whole holiday week we’ve been shelled and bombarded on the daily basis.

Today Russians launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones on Ukraine. As of now, 150+ people are injured, 31 found dead.

I woke up in the early morning to the sound of the explosion and the feel of the shockwave.

Meanwhile everyone on TikTok is happily listening to the trendy oldschool Russian song and posting “Slavic girl” challenge.

And all of this doesn’t get as much attention anymore, cause people get used to everything with time, and Israeli-Palestinian war is what’s ‘it’ now.

That’s such a fucking bullshit. After 2 years since the beginning of full scale invasion I am losing hope bit by bit.

So just hi, we’re still here and we’re still being killed off.

When ideology gets in the way of solidarity

>>>What follows below is, in my opinion, a very critical read for the Anarchist movement. If you are an Anarchist, I hope that you take a moment to read this statement by our Black Cross comrades in Belarus.<<<

In the 15 years of our collective’s existence, we have gone through several major political crises. During elections, protests, and political repression, the Belarusan anarchist movement has not met with isolation from its comrades. People from all over the world showed solidarity in the struggle against the Belarusan dictatorship and for a just and free society: from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. During this period, we only rarely encountered people who tried to explain to us that the Belarusan regime is not really that bad, and that all the horrors are just liberal propaganda. Since 2014, we have met anti-fascists or anarchists abroad who somehow believed Russian propaganda about the LDNR. But until 2022, we rarely met “experts” on Eastern Europe who confidently told us about a reality that existed only in the realm of political propaganda. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation changed very dramatically. Suddenly, within the anarchist and anti-fascist movements, there appeared “specialists” of Eastern European realities who completely denied the facts in favor of a simplistic model of the world. Many discussions of the war as a conflict between NATO and Russia or the fascist regime in Kiev fundamentally ignore objective facts. In this text we would like to discuss how this attitude affects the development of international solidarity and how some anarchists choose to distort reality in the struggle for ideological supremacy.

International of Anarchist Federations (IFA)

In eastern Europe, few people have heard of the IFA, an international anarchist organization founded in 1968 in Italy. At the time of this writing, the federation consisted of groups from Europe, Asia, Central and South America. At one point it even included organizations from the former Soviet Union, including Belarus. With the decline of the Federation of Anarchists of Belarus (FAB), our group became the IFA contact organization in the country. For many years we worked closely together: we visited comrades in different regions and together with other organizations we held infotours in separate countries. Up until 2022, we hardly had any serious political conflicts with IFA member organizations. The invasion of Ukraine has greatly changed the attitude of many International members towards our group. One of the reasons lies in our initiative to hold informal online meetings with International members on the war in Ukraine: the main goal at that stage was to convey objective information about what was happening and to actively combat Russian disinformation. Such meetings were to take place every two weeks. Already at the second meeting, we encountered serious problems when some of the International’s participants started repeating Russian propaganda about NATO, fascism in Ukraine, and so on, almost word for word. The series of online meetings ended rather quickly. On the one hand, the unwillingness of many anarchists to accept objective facts hindered them. On the other hand, some of the International’s participants insisted on formalizing such meetings, which we regarded as a blatant attempt to “bureaucratize” inconvenient information. We encountered the problem of “selective bureaucracy” a year later, when at one of the formal meetings of the International we proposed to invite comrades from Ukraine and Russia to explain the situation in these regions and the possibility of interacting directly with local activists, rather than with information from social networks and dubious groups. The participation of anarchists from Ukraine and Russia was blocked, and after several months of constant attempts to exclude people from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia from discussions of the war in Ukraine, we decided to withdraw from the International.

This situation was the first in a long line of building barriers around the topic of the war in Ukraine by certain “expert” groups that prefer the same simplistic picture of the world. Unfortunately, in some countries, our former internationalist comrades play an active role in maintaining the myth of “NATO against Russia”. The conflict within the IFA has shown us how fragile international ties are in the face of government disinformation programs, ideological dogmatism, and the unwillingness of many anarchists to understand complex international conflicts.

Book Fair and Congress

In the summer of 2023, we applied to participate in the Ljubljana Anarchist Book Fair, where we gave a presentation about repression in Belarus, with a separate block discussing how the war in Ukraine affects anarchists’ political struggles. When we saw the “no war propaganda” signs, our collective members were somewhat confused, knowing that the position of the organizers of the book fair on the war is ambiguous. We never realized who the posters were aimed at, although at one point we were worried that we would be told to remove brochures with interviews about the war from various anarchists in Ukraine and Russia. At the event we met, among others, comrades who had previously organized benefit events and presentations for ABC. Some of them refused to talk to us at all, while others preferred to communicate in the format of political statements rather than dialog. At the anarchist congress in St. Imier we began to speak openly about our fears that our political position on the war in Ukraine was affecting solidarity with repressed comrades inside Belarus: the more we try to question positions that do not take into account the situation in the region, the more “untouchable” we become in certain branches of the anarchist movement, which used to be ready to provide diverse support to comrades from the BUR (Belarus, Ukraine, Russia). In Switzerland we also became aware that we started to be considered as militarists and supporters of the war in Ukraine, although nobody directly expressed it to us. We learned about this perception almost a year after our trip to Switzerland.

Partner organizations

Before touching on our “commitment to militarism”, we would like to briefly discuss how Western anarchists and leftists find “alternative” partners in the region to confirm their political views. In the situation with Ukraine, the main partner of the antimilitarists was the odious media group “Assembly” from Kharkiv, which prefers to disassociate itself from the rest of the anarchist movement and actively cooperates with the group of Vadim Damye, a Russian historian who has been spreading the myth of a fascist Ukraine since 2014. If you want to know more about the “Assembly”, ask Ukrainian anarchists. In the case of Belarus, the situation became quite strange, as anti-militarists and pacifists suddenly started working with the controversial Olga Karach, a “professional” NGO activist with a dubious background, which was already entrenched before the events of 2020. People familiar with the political environment of Belarus have heard about Karach, and understand the danger of political interaction with this person: disinformation for Olga serves as one of the tools for building political power and raising money. It turns out that the organization “Our House”, which Olga leads, is actively involved in creating a myth about a mass movement of deserters inside Belarus, who want to leave the country in an attempt to avoid mobilization. In November 2022, there were allegedly already tens of thousands of such evaders [2]. How many such souls Karach sold to the Western left remains a mystery to this day. Using the example of the above-mentioned organization, it becomes obvious that in their search for new “partners” in Eastern Europe, leftists and anti-authoritarians are ready to work with dubious figures, as long as they confirm the facts necessary for their picture of the world. The criterion of trust becomes not an attempt to understand the real situation in the region and a desire to support the struggle, but rather interaction with those who confirm already existing misconceptions. With this approach, some activist groups risk falling into the trap of fraudsters primarily interested in the money side of things. The inability or unwillingness to delve into certain issues makes anarchists easy prey for those who traditionally “dipshit” liberal and center-left political forces.

Does ABC-Belarus support the war in Ukraine?

A few months ago, ABC-Belarus applied to participate in a book fair in Berlin with an info table and/or presentation [3]. The organizers of the fair stated that they planned to pay much attention to the issue of the war in Ukraine. The response to our inquiry came categorically negative and contained the following wording: “…You are in favor of the war in Ukraine, so we have nothing more to say…” And it is obvious that this perception of anarchists from the BUR resisting Russian imperialism continues to strengthen in the minds of a part of the anarchist movement. Instead of critical analysis and attempts to build a dialog, we again and again run into a wall of blatant political ignorance. As a result, ABC-Belarus will not go to the fair in Berlin (our last talk in the city concerning the situation with repression in the country happened before the full-scale invasion began), and the organizers of the event will be able to conduct debates in an atmosphere of general “consent”, having secured themselves from the opposition of people who directly carry out activities in the BUR region. As the war in Ukraine continues and Western activists become “tired” of the topic, we expect this approach to our collective to only increase, and “weeds” of misinformation and outright lies to grow in the place of solidarity. We will not knock on the closed rooms of social centers in the west and try to tell the story of our struggle or repression against our comrades. We have plenty of room to direct our energies as it is. But do the people who censor solidarity groups realize that they would then have to take it upon themselves to support the repressed comrades with their own forces, if they are really committed to the ideas of internationalism and anarchism? It is then also the responsibility of such groups to inform the broader anarchist movement about the repression and to raise money for basic support for those who continue the struggle in prison. In turn, we want to express our gratitude to those who are still supporting our collective and our comrades in Belarus, in Ukraine and in other Eastern European countries. Despite all challenges and obstacles, it is you who show an example of international solidarity and readiness to stand shoulder to shoulder in the most difficult moments of our struggle, no matter how many kilometers and walls separate us!

I remember when 2 years ago, 24th February 2022, all lives of ukrainian people changed overnight. It was horrible.

I am a girl living in Italy, studying there too, but I am ukrainian. I remember so vividly what happened the night before the war. I was scrolling on tumblr, and I remember reposting a photo of My Little Pony right before going to bed. It was late, around midnight (pretty late for a 14 y.o girl).

I woke up the next day around 6 AM with a feeling of dread and alarm bells going off in my mind. "Something's wrong" I remember thinking. I pretended to be asleep and listened to my mother talk to her cousin, who lived in Kyiv. "Don't stay there" she said, "get away from there, it's dangerous".

I wasn't stupid, I understood what had begun. I got up and started texting all my friends in Ukraine. Some of them were all right (physically speaking), all of them were scared. My best friend told me she woke up due to explosions, and then the teachers sent everyone home (because she lived in a college).

I remember crying at school when my classmate made an out of pocket "joke". She said 'Oh, where did you come out from? The bombs?'. I was heartbroken because I thought of her as my friend.

I couldn't focus in class. I texted everyone I knew to make sure they were okay, and luckily my teachers didn't say anything about me being on the phone.

That day was all about news, news, news. On TV, on Telegram, on YouTube, all we listened to and read about were news.

I remember every single detail, as every other ukrainian, of that day.

I wonder if i plastered all the atrocities russia has committed on here (or any other wall) how many would actually care.

Or would they look away and say "it's not my problem." Or "it's too distressing, I can't stand looking at it" .

that was yesterday

Dnipro💔

russia is a terrorist state

As many already suspected, evidence is coming out that suggests a Russian sabotage group planted explosives at the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine, triggering serious ecological damage.

Ukraine's security service posted a segment of an audio conversation online that they said was intercepted, but further information is not available.

If true, the motivate stated on the audio clip was to scare people, in order to deflect any potential Ukrainian counteroffensive. The BBC states this in their own report on Ukraine's counter-offensive:

It seems highly likely that Russian forces, which controlled the dam, decided to blow it up, taking one of Kyiv's military operations off the table.

Ukrainian forces may be starting a counteroffensive in the south, as Vladimir Putin mentioned this in an audio clip on Telegram.

Today marks one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Find out from the following organizations how you can help the people in Ukraine: Fight for Right, Project Kesher, Razom, Sunflower of Peace, Support Hospitals in Ukraine, Ukrainian Red Cross Society, United Help Ukraine, Voices of Children, and Vostok SOS.

📸 by Ivan Bandura on Pexels

Ukrainians Face Penalty For Not Speaking Lithuanian Language

All foreigners who come to work in Lithuania, in accordance with local law, must pass an exam for knowledge of the state language. Last year, an exception in this regard was made for refugees from Ukraine – the authorities gave them a two-year delay. But recently, the head of the State Language Inspectorate of Lithuania, Audrius Valotka, warned that those Ukrainians who do not want to learn…

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russia kills. russia exterminates our culture. exterminates the youth of the nation.

A young ukrainian poet Maxim Krivtsov recently died at the front. His recently published book of poems he wrote while at war is in the list of 50 best books published in 2023. Only he's not here anymore. I've been subscribed to his social media for quite some time to read his poetry because of it's simplicity, which uncovers the ugly truth about war. Now his sm pages are silent. I would've posted a translations of some of those here, but I'm not good at that. So I'll just post a translation of his New Year's resolution. The last of his life:

I don’t really know why I’m writing this – joining the tradition of writing my New Year’s resolution. This year happened to be even harder than the last one. It’s hard to find the strength within to reignite the fire of enthusiasm and combat spirit previously possessed. More and more tiredness and grief are growing – like tumors. And you must complete your assignments with them, must try to be just and loyal. Death managed to lure into the isolation, into her black terrifying cauldron. We gathered tarnished bodies of our combatants, we listened to how the apples fell beside the coffin standing in the backyard of the house, to which a good person can no longer return. We buried our good friend and the best of us in October. We’re also waiting for the return (to the front line) of the few friends. Was there anything good? Of course. Not all my friends had died, the close ones from the city are waiting for my return, my book got published. But it feels like eating a tangerine after brushing your teeth – tastes awful. Or like eating a favorite candy when you have laryngitis. Ahead of us, there’s a year more of war, or two, or even there, or…

These photos are shocking. For a whole generation of young people in Ukraine, this fucking Putin is destroying the future

Hi, disassociation anon here! Ah, it seems when I actually gain some footing in my life, the world around me crumbles😅 Aka, guess who's stuck on the wrong side of the russian-ukrainian war and now has to deal with my abusive brother being violently pro-patriotic and an increased amount of conflicts and abuse going on in the house because of the ideological differences and the economy slowly crumbling around us. My plans to go to a desired uni fell through because of the sanctions, everything is slowly going to shit and half of the essentials are missing from shops, but somehow I'm able to keep my cool despite still planning to go into medicine, which would mean that if things go to shit completely I'll be among the first ones they'll send to die (doctors are technically part of the military here and are immediately summoned in case of a conflict)

Despite all of... Well, that, I only disassociatied like once, and that was for a short two hours! For some reason, this is the time my positive outlook on life, which was lost about 10 years ago, decided to return. Probably as a coping mechanism lmao but not complaining

And how are you doing?)

Hi! Disassociation anon here with an unfortunate update, this one will get heavy✌🏻

Things only keep getting worse and worse - not only in the country, but also in my house. My family, who had already been capital A assholes before complete with racism, homophobia, transphobia as well as shitty abusive personalities have been brainwashed by the propaganda (it's insane, I've literally heard my mother say that genocide is okay, what the fuck). Soooo due to that their violent tendencies have exploded.

In the past two weeks my brother has: come home shaking with rage and screamed that he would kill our mother and then himself by the end of the day (I texted some friends and prepared to run if shit hit the fan), stated that he "should've killed me the first time he pointed a gun at me", has started to regularly attempt to harm me and threaten to hurt me or break my bones, and now he's brought another gun in the house claiming that it "needed maintenance". Ha. As if I can't see through his bullshit. So anyway now I regularly have to worry if my own family member will murder me. Yay!

My mother has gotten even more verbally and physically abusive - hitting him, holding screaming matches and rountinely calling both of us a failure and the reason of her misery.

Worst thing is - I'm stuck. My plan was to lay low until graduation and start working in the summer (since I can't exactly do that with 12 hour school days which drain every bit of energy out of me) to hopefully save up enough to move out in some time, but with the economy crashing looks like that might not happen. So... Any tips for searching jobs or maybe working online? A single dollar can get you quite far with the current state of my country's economy so anything will do but I don't even know where to start. I'm sure I'll be fine (unless my brother goes into a murderous rage and kills me) but if you have any words of support as well that would be greatly appreciated¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hope you have a nice day, sorry for the depressing ask✌🏻

Hi again, nonnie, and really sorry I took so long to reply. 

What you’re going through right now sounds so horrible I honestly don’t have the words, and I have no idea what I could say that could help. I just really hope you’re safe and okay right now. Please remember it’s okay to do anything you need to do to keep yourself safe from your brother and from your family at large.

Unfortunately, when it comes to job searching I don’t have any advice to give :( maybe some of my followers might have some ideas?

Sending the biggest hug and all my love and support your way. I’m really sorry this is happening. I hope things start to look up for you soon and you can take some steps to get yourself out of that house :(

r*ssia after the bridge was bombed: Ukraine is a terrorist state! They bombed our bridge! This is unacceptable! They should be held accountant for their actions!

Ukraine's twitter: lol sick burn

...y yo que estaba contenta porque había encontrado pega :/

Navigating the Labyrinth: Gonzalo Lira's (Coach Red Pill) Legacy and the Concerns of an Independent Thinker

As a fellow American, I want to give my respects to Lira's family and friends. RIP to him as well. We are approaching some strange times in the US and across the world, and while this blog is mainly for self-development I want to bring a moments attention to this. These are my thoughts and reflections after watching this man on Youtube and my own concerns for all Americans. The US Constitution allows for us each day to be able to have the privilege of self development, and I think it is important to recognize what this all means...

In the vast expanse of online discourse, few figures have sparked as much controversy and intrigue as Gonzalo Lira, widely known as Youtube sensation, Coach Red Pill. As an independent thinker who stands outside the bounds of traditional party affiliations, I found myself resonating with some of Lira's insights on heterosexual relationship dynamics and life lessons. However, the complexities surrounding his politics and the alleged failure of the U.S. government to rescue him from Ukraine have given rise to concerns that transcend political lines. This blog post aims to unravel the enigma of Gonzalo Lira, exploring facets beyond my personal agreement or disagreement with his views.

Gonzalo Lira: A Tapestry of Ideas and Controversies

As someone who values diverse perspectives, I appreciate the multifaceted nature of Coach Red Pill's content. Beyond discussions on relationships and life advice, Lira's online presence was marked by politically charged commentary that traversed unconventional terrain. My independent stance allows me to navigate the controversies surrounding him without being tethered to the polarized dynamics of mainstream politics.

Beyond the Online Persona: Gonzalo Lira's Personal and Political Journey

Delving into Lira's background reveals a life shaped by experiences in various countries, contributing to the mosaic of his worldview. While my agreement with some of his insights is tempered by disagreements with certain political perspectives, it is crucial to recognize the complex interplay between the personal and the political in his narrative. The journey of Coach Red Pill extends beyond the confines of online debates, offering a glimpse into the broader canvas of his life.

The Concerns: A Citizen's Perspective

Regardless of party affiliation, the reported failure of the U.S. government to intervene in Lira's situation in Ukraine raises red flags that transcend political divides. As an independent thinker, I am deeply concerned about the potential vulnerability of American citizens abroad and the role our government plays in ensuring their safety. This incident prompts us to question the accountability of those in power, fostering a sense of responsibility that goes beyond party lines.

Navigating the Controversies: A Nuanced Approach

Coach Red Pill's legacy is characterized by both admiration and critique, highlighting the intricacies of his influence. As an independent thinker, I recognize the importance of engaging with nuanced perspectives and acknowledging the gray areas that exist within the realm of online discourse. The controversies surrounding Lira underscore the delicate balance between individual freedom of expression and the societal responsibilities that come with it.

Reflections of an Independent Thinker

In reflecting on Gonzalo Lira's legacy and the concerns raised by his life's narrative, my independent stance allows me to navigate the labyrinth of ideas and controversies without succumbing to the polarizing forces of party politics. The reported failures in ensuring the safety of an American citizen abroad transcend party lines, urging us to collectively demand accountability and transparency from those entrusted with the welfare of citizens. As we contemplate the legacy of Coach Red Pill, let us do so with an independent and critical perspective, recognizing the broader implications for the principles that should bind us together as a society.