Category: Russia

An Expat Russian’s Open Letter To His Former Countrymen

This part of Maksim Frank-Kamenetsky's letter is particularly astute:

"Russians are furious that Americans care about Crimea. It's a world away from them and a year ago no one in the United States had — and still has — the faintest idea where it's located. Russians don't understand this is not what it's all about. Americans don't give a damn about Crimea and they don't care a straw about Ukraine either (or about Russia, for that matter). But they do give a damn about stability in Europe. Americans are not good at geography, but they a have a good memory and they remember that twice in the 20th century thousands of American boys died in Europe because Europe was incapable of solving its own problems." [emphasis added]

Russia Takes Unorthodox Measures To Stem The Ruble’s Decline

Of course, Putin could stanch the hemorrhaging by calling off his invasion of Ukraine and pulling back his tanks and troops.

But since that's not going to happen, then yes – holy water looks like the Russian economy's last best hope.

Trigger-Happy Russians Down Passenger Airliner, Killing All Aboard

Granted, it's not entirely impossible that the Ukrainians might have done it. But given that Putin's mercenaries and fifth-columnists have been destroying Ukrainian planes on a semi-regular basis, the preponderance of evidence points to Russian responsibility.

More sanctions. Now.

We Will Never Be Brothers

A poem by a young Ukrainian woman about the "fraternity" of Ukraine & Russia.

This is the best of the two translations I've seen:

We will never be brothers
Neither countrymen, nor blood brothers.
You don’t have the freedom breath –
We can’t be even stepbrothers.
You have called yourselves “elder brothers” –
We would like to be younger brothers, but not yours.
There’re so many of you, but you all are faceless.
You are huge, but we are great.
You press… you trudge,
You will choke on your envy.
You don’t know what freedom means,
You all are encased in chains from childhood up.
Silence is golden in your home,
And we burn Molotov cocktails,
Yes, there’s warm blood in our hearts,
What sort of blind “relatives” are you for us?
We all have fearless eyes,
We are dangerous without any weapons.
We grew up and became courageous
We all are at the shooters’ gunpoint.
We were forced to our knees by the hangmen –
But we revolted and corrected everything.
The rats are hiding and praying for nothing –
They will wash themselves with their blood.
You have new instructions –
And there’re revolt lights here.
You have your Tsar, but we have Democracy.
We will never be brothers.

"What is this doing on a blog mostly about Taiwan?" you might ask…

China Ponders Putin’s Georgian & Crimean Precedents

Is Vladimir Putin just about the world's greatest fool?

There is, however, one country with an imperial past and a renewed craving for empire that has territorial ambitions which make of it a threat to Russia, and that country is China…The majority of those who live there [Siberia] today are not Russian. Many of them are Chinese who have journeyed north in search of well-paid work; and China, which is just across the border from Siberia, is an economic juggernaut increasingly desperate for resources of the very sort that are found in abundance in Siberia.

Vladimir Putin should think hard about the precedent he is setting in the Crimea. The day may come when China does to Russia in Siberia what he is trying to do right now to the Ukraine in the Crimea. Putin's government piously states that its only concern is to protect the majority Russian population in the Crimea from the Tatars and the Ukrainians there. China, in time, will say the like about the Chinese in Siberia. And when that day comes, he will have alienated everyone of any significance who might otherwise have rallied to Russia's defense. [Emphasis added]

More on Putin's folly.