Posted on 01/09/2023 6:12:14 AM PST by lump in the melting pot
It’s the holiday season in Moscow, where the city has put up symbols of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine outside the entrance to Gorky Park: the Latin letters Z, V and O in throbbing neon, looming over slogans urging Russians to think of “victory” and their “valiant” soldiers as they head off to the park’s ice rink.
We’re almost a year into the war, and the Kremlin still has yet to explain what exactly the letters — first seen spray-painted on Russian tanks — are meant to signify. But set alongside the snow-capped firs and kitschy grottoes, their meaninglessness is their defining feature; they are just part of the fabric that lets Muscovites go about their lives as if nothing has happened.
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The antiwar Russians who have not left the country have opted for a Soviet tactic, “internal emigration”, whereby the kitchen table has once again become the only arena for civic discourse. “There’s no way to organise anything,” my friend Sergei*, a biologist, says of protests he attended. “Even all the third-rate opposition leaders have fled or been jailed or been killed.”
——as if nothing has happened.-—
But Muscovites know something is happening.
They see the hug fires that suddenly erupt destroying some important military related structure. They know that the malls are empty of customers because the stores are closed because the merchants have left. They know they can’t buy the wanted furniture because the giant IKEA complex is shuttered. They know they must eat what is left on grocery shelves absent imported food.
So they do what they have always done. They drink vodka and forget about it all
They have been doing it for a long time: Regardless of when or where it originated, a liquor called vodka was present in Russia during the 14th century.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4vpHIuyrg98
Australian Vlogger showing the few food items still on the shelves after the crushing effect of sanctions.
Ah...Potemkimart. Where are all the customers?
One wants to doubt veracity, but that Australian’s channel dates back pre Ukraine. And he has several videos of other supermarkets.
That one I do not think he claimed was most popular. Some of his other videos may have included one.
Actually I thought there were several young men of military age there shopping, which somewhat undercuts the theory that they all fled.
Anyway, go have a look at that Aussie’s channel.
The channel is absolutely real, and why anyone thinks that the shelves need to be empty is a mystery to me.
When I lived under russian occupation, the shelves were not bare, per se. Cabbage, pickles and some type of pork tripe was usually available. The liquor aisle was always fully stocked.
It was the bourgeoisie affectations like dairy, fresh produce and edible meat that was only available sporadically, which you had to stand in line for hoping they didn’t run out before it was your turn.
Was it 60 or 40 years ago?
The West is not holding back on sending weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. Just the opposite. The United States and NATO have sent Ukraine an unprecedented amount of aid and it has not stopped the Russians. Moreover, the United States and NATO no longer have ample stocks of some key weapon systems and ammunition, especially artillery shells, to send to Ukraine. The military cupboard is bare.
But let us ignore reality and indulge the fantasy that NATO can magically find, “longer-range missiles, advanced drones, significant ammunition stocks (including artillery shells), and more reconnaissance and surveillance capability” to send to Ukraine. Who is going to operate those weapon systems? And the timeline for training Ukrainian troops to operate these systems with some measure of competence is counted in months at a minimum.
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Multiple sources now are reporting that Ukraine is suffering catastrophic casualties as they desperately try to hold on the Bakhmut:
Russian forces have ground down their Ukrainian opponents in fierce fighting near Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, with an American mercenary commander recently acknowledging that Ukraine is suffering “extraordinarily high casualties” in that sector, and Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, Vadim Pristaiko, describing his side’s casualties as “huge” and “indigestible.”
Kiev has publicly proclaimed that it plans a major offensive in the spring, but Rice and Gates wrote that Ukraine may have “weeks, not months” to stay in the fight.
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/273331096/ukraine-running-out-of-time-former-us-officials
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The truth is that Russia is methodically moving forward and Ukraine has been unable to mount a credible counter offense.
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Robert Gates and Condoleezza Rice got one thing right, Ukraine may only have weeks, not months, before it is overwhelmed.
The point isn’t when it happened before; the point is that russia is hell-bent on imposing this deprivation and subjugation on its neighbors (and its own citizens) again.
First, it is propaganda, and second, it is Russia’s business.
Russia’s business needs to be confined inside russia’s borders. They are actively trying to export their dysfunction into a neighbor country (Ukraine), by force. They have a long and sordid history of acting this way.
Anyone who has ever had the misery of living under russian oppression instinctively understands why they need to be stopped and defeated. Last summer when they were actively trying to damage the Zaporizhzhia NPP in order to create a dirty bomb disaster in Ukraine, I read a comment on the story that summed it up best: russia is like nuclear waste; the best way to deal with it is to contain it inside its vessel until it decays into something less harmful.
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