Starker on 11/4/2025 at 07:57
Examples of the kind of free speech in Russia that the Russia-supporting free speech absolutists would like to bring to the West:
[video=youtube;xTL4JicaO8Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTL4JicaO8Q[/video]
lowenz on 12/4/2025 at 09:22
Not a fan of Nixon and his convictions (oh, the joke), but about the harsh reality to deal with Russia (and a good bunch of russian people)
[video]https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZHAMqpgil-I[/video]
The problem IS about *a part* of the russian culture, just like here in Italy the mafia problem is about *a part* of italian culture.
Yes, there's a cultural aspect we can't avoid anymore because of some prententious "respect" (not even due by default)
And I'm not posing, it's a real problem that must be addressed because liber(al)ism can't address nothing at "high levels" as we've seen, better, it can work AGAINST (more efficiency -> more power -> more abuse of power as Khrushchev grand daughter said in an interview)
lowenz on 12/4/2025 at 09:51
An Interview with Nina Khrushcheva on Russian Foreign Policy(
https://logosjournal.com/between-the-issues/an-interview-with-nina-khrushcheva-on-russian-foreign-policy/)
I joke sometimes that the problems arise from Russia's desire not to sit at a children's table next to the toilet, where it invariably ends up. And also, Putin is a “hobby historian.” He likes culture, in awe of cultural figures and cultural thought. I was a witness to it myself in Moscow in his early presidency when he was starstruck by sitting next to the dissident musician Mstislav Rostropovch. He saw Alexander Solzhenitsyn as his historical mentor, the true Russian spirit. In many ways, Russia was an empire and therefore after the collapse of the USSR was lacking its own nationalist identity, unlike other republics that fell off. So Putin listened to those like Solzhenitsyn, who offered panslavic Eurasianism as a uniting concept. Russia is a big and complex country with a complex history and culture so it is hard to distinguish what comes first - the imperial drive and the desire to be recognized and respected or a quest for power. That too is an important, and imperial, feature.
In Russia power is barely rotatable. If the “czar” comes in, it is for life. Putin's actions in Ukraine are also driven by necessity to stay in power, because like many leaders he thinks that the first two quests, being imperial and being respected, would perish if it were not for him. In a way, he created a system of governance - with poisonings, arrests of opponents and so on - that is not going to look kindly on him leaving, so he needs to stay. And generally, leaving or wanting to leave power in Russia is a dangerous endeavor - Khrushchev was ousted in 1964 because he wanted to have only two terms of leadership, rotate the party apparatchiks and so on.Thanks "anticommunists" to get the imperial ambitions back.
Starker on 14/4/2025 at 10:02
Russian terrorists kill 34 people with cluster munitions on a religious holiday:
Quote:
(
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/13/russian-missile-strike-kills-injured-ukraine-sumy)
At least 34 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a Russian ballistic missile strike in the Ukrainian city of Sumy as people were going to church for Palm Sunday, in the worst attack on civilians this year.
Two missiles landed in the crowded city centre on Sunday morning. One hit a trolley bus full of passengers. Footage from the scene showed bodies lying in the street, burning cars, and rescuers carrying bloodied survivors. Two of the dead were children.
[...]
Tomi on 14/4/2025 at 10:21
For the first time ever, I gave Trump a cautious nod of approval when I saw the following headline today:
(
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-reacts-russia-missile-strike-sumy-mistake-2059290) Donald Trump Reacts To Deadly Russian Missile Strike: 'They Made A Mistake'
I foolishly thought that Trump had suddenly grown a pair and said something like "they made a mistake that they're going to regret", but
of course he was just defending his dictator pal and his barbarians again. Yeah sure, it was just an unfortunate mistake, eh? Fuck you Trump and all of you who voted for the bastard.
lowenz on 14/4/2025 at 13:46
Quote Posted by Tomi
For the first time ever, I gave Trump a cautious nod of approval when I saw the following headline today:
(
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-reacts-russia-missile-strike-sumy-mistake-2059290) Donald Trump Reacts To Deadly Russian Missile Strike: 'They Made A Mistake'
I foolishly thought that Trump had suddenly grown a pair and said something like "they made a mistake that they're going to regret", but
of course he was just defending his dictator pal and his barbarians again. Yeah sure, it was just an unfortunate mistake, eh? Fuck you Trump and all of you who voted for the bastard.
Exactly.
demagogue on 14/4/2025 at 17:47
Here's a quote from Krasnov's press conference an hour or so ago.
Trump: "He [Zelenskyy] is always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles."
Nobody shut this bs down better than Jasmine Crockett:
(It's a short video, but the money quote is at :52 into the video.)
[video=youtube;IV97_MTXz8E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV97_MTXz8E[/video]
lowenz on 14/4/2025 at 19:41
Trump will always lie, and so his supporters. Of course Zelensky did not start the war but there's no more thuth - you got to start from THIS postulate, you can't talk about "truth" when you're dealing with Trump and his electorate - so everybody can say it was Zelensky the cause.
It's why it's impossible to attack Trump and his supporters, they simply refuse to admit the truth and they're always do because....it's legal to lie. So, they just lie and lie and lie until you give up. It's just the classic children tactics, because we're talking about widespread narcissism.
Thanks freedom of expression.
Starker on 30/4/2025 at 22:35
The reality of what Russkii Mir looks like for civilians in occupied Ukraine. People being detained, tortured, disappeared in massive numbers. This is what is being supported by the people who advocate for Russia to be able to hold onto the occupied territories and wield power over Ukrainian people living under the occupation:
Quote:
(
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/30/europe/ukrainian-journalist-russia-torture-intl/index.html)
The body of a young Ukrainian woman who died in Russian captivity after being held incommunicado for months was returned to Ukraine showing signs of torture, Ukrainian prosecutors have said.
Kyiv said the remains of journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who went missing during a reporting trip, were returned as part of a body exchange between Ukraine and Russia in February.
Yuriy Belousov, who heads the war crimes department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, said that forensic examination found “numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment... including abrasions and hemorrhages on various parts of the body, a broken rib and possible traces of electric shock.”
He said the experts have determined the injuries were sustained while Roshchyna was still alive.
Russia is known to use electric shocks as a method of torture against detained Ukrainians, and the widespread nature of the practice was documented by CNN in the past.
Belousov said that repeated DNA analyses confirmed the body belonged to Roshchyna, even though it reportedly arrived from Russia labeled as “an unidentified male.” He said the state of the body made it impossible to determine the cause of Roshchyna's death, but added that Ukraine was working with international forensic experts to get more answers.
Roshchyna's colleagues at Ukrainska Pravda said her body was returned from Russia with missing organs. Citing members of the investigating team who handled her remains, they said the brain, eyeballs and part of the trachea, or windpipe, were missing, in what they said could have been an attempt by Russia to disguise the cause of death.
[...]
