I noticed that, and Googled to learn that “Vova” is a diminutive form of “Vladimir.”
Reinforces the whole paternalistic / authoritarian view many Russians have of their leader.
There also appears to be a slow attrition of Russian industries at the moment due to “industrial accidents”. It’s not going to bring the country down but combined with the sanctions it’s going to hurt, particularly as the ability to acquire the relevant products from elsewhere is limited.
This, I suspect, is where China and India will step in.
No wonder Russian military efforts have faltered so badly against Ukraine. First it was babushkas uttering curses while handing Russian soldiers sunflower seeds, now it is black magic sigils painted on buildings. How are Russian forces equipped in terms of their Anti-Occult capabilities? Is Ukraine receiving any Supernatural assistance from NATO?
Russian Media Accuse Ukraine of Using ‘Black Magic’ as Invasion Falters (msn.com)
[how the heck do you make ‘boxes’ for articles linked to?]
If you just post the bare link, Discourse normally will display it in a box. There are some links that don’t do it, but that’s the link page itself that doesn’t have that capability.
Like this:
Russian Media Accuse Ukraine of Using ‘Black Magic’ as Invasion Falters (msn.com)
Test. Huh, doesn’t do it for me.
Are you hitting the « link » code at the top of the reply box? It looks like additional coding is being inserted somehow.
Likely related to the Ukraine war:
Russia seems (seems) to have decided to piss off Israel and start supporting Hamas. I’m not seeing any reason to do that other than to help create new crises for the world to worry about, to distract from Ukraine and, maybe, divert resources.
To get it to work, you must paste in a naked url. It must begin with “https://” (no quote marks) and have no formatting tags around it, as in “[ some words ] ( link )” . You may be using some thing that automagically converts it into linked text format.
Test of MSN link
This would presume a more dispassionate master plan than they’ve given any indication of so far. Much more likely to me is a surge of anti-semitism overcoming the former wary practical political agreements with Israel. Anti-semitism is an integral part of the Hate The Others campaigns ongoing in Russia and nearly everywhere else populist autocracies are in the ascendancy. They all seem to read the same playbook.
U.S. Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals, Officials Say
Usually I am all for leaks. But there is nothing I see in the article that isn’t blazingly obvious (including that there is a rank ceiling – Lieutenant General – above which the U.S. won’t pass on the location of a Russian general). The only justifiction for the leak, if you can call it that, is to provoke our adversary. I don’t like it.
Re my last post, I just thought of something that makes me a bit more tolerant of the Biden administration bear-poke. Telling Russia’s colonel generals that they are alive at our sufferance may lead them to think about what would instantly change our approach (use of even one of the smallest battlefield nuclear weapons).
More of a pyre-ic victory, I think.
When one of the historic rulers of the state is nicknamed “the Terrifying” and that is supposed to be a term of praise, and when Princess Olga of the Kyivan Rus is a canonized saint… well…
It’s a vision by which Machiavelli is twisted around into that the way to become loved is by being feared.
It’s a well-tested book. And in the case of Russia, on top of that it had already been a very long standing phenomenon, reached for by both czarist and communist regimes at different times.
True, I don’t get what’s the usefulness of that leak. It only validates Putin’s bullcrap narrative that the West is calling the shots in Ukraine.
Wish there were no rank ceiling. I want to see Russian 4-stars, 5-stars getting sniped/bombed.
It looks like the mystery of this particular Russian fire has been solved, and it wasn’t faulty wiring:
Looks like the Azov Battalion is going to fight to nearly the last man in Mariupol.
They successfully tied up a lot of Russian troops and equipment that could be fighting elsewhere in Ukraine.
Their original beginnings were fascist. But by now a lot of their recent members just wanted to defend Mariupol.
The Soviets did an excellent job building the bunkers under the steel works plant.
Any bets on the Victory Day parade and speech?
Double down? Declare victory and pull out? Car bomb? Cancellation?
The rather dark upside to this is that after the war the fascist contingent is likely to be greatly reduced from its pre-war levels.