I took this photo out a train window in Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy, eastern Siberia, in February 2020. I believe the mosaic is of the Decembrists, exiled in 1826 to practically halfway around the world from St Petersburg.
In just the past ten days, Putin launched an all out war on neighbouring Ukraine, but has also destroyed nearly everything which Russia built over the past three decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Borders are nearly shut. Men who could leave, who didn’t have family obligations, who had enough money and visas, left the country. You can’t get a ticket on a flight out of Russia now. Aeroflot is stopping all international flights as of March 8. Trains to Finland are sold out. There is talk of buses to Finland. Draft-aged Russian men and their dogs are walking across the Estonian border. Russians are flying to Turkey, Kazakhstan, Armenia…the gates are slamming shut and locking themselves three times over. It is all happening in real time and everyone is in a state of shock. Even the deepest cynics didn’t expect this, so furiously, so fast.
A thread here and a few highlights:
The situation inside Russia now is unprecedented. Nearly all major western companies and brands are pulling out, effective immediately. International travel has essentially become next to impossible. The internet is being massively controlled: Facebook and Twitter are inaccessible without a VPN, all independent media, the last few who remained, have been shut down as of this week, and foreign media are pulling out one after the other after Russia passed a law essentially making it a criminal offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison to call Putin’s war a war or make any public comments on the “special operation” in Ukraine. Total insanity and yet it is real, it is happening, and people are very scared of what comes next. It is not a joke. Bloomberg, CNN, BBC pulled out, saying they could not report under such circumstances. A Facebook group moderator posted the rules as a warning to the moms in the chat (those who still manage to write in the group using a VPN).
So I’ve been thinking a lot about this social contract which is now in ashes:
And then a person in the west might ask, why don’t Russians protest? But you have to understand both the history of Russia and what the punishment for that might be. A few thoughts in a short thread here
Navalny’s team have called for protests, tomorrow (Sunday). I wouldn’t expect a miracle.
Today, we saw absolutely freaky images out of Russia. Putin had tea with a dozen young women, and called the sanctions a declaration of war by the west against Russia. Just listen to this, the madman has convinced himself Russian soldiers are dying for a holy war, his holy war. The reality is Putin is destroying both Ukraine and Russia in the process. The fascist symbols are appearing everywhere, even in little Slavic brother Serbia, where the far right football thugs are happy to comply with made-for-Russian-TV-protest orders.
I would really recommend reading this interview with the legendary historian of Russia, Prof. Robert Service.
Finally, one glimmer of hope. This exchange from Russia’s upper House of Parliament yesterday. None other than Ksenia Sobchak’s mom dared call out the Russian ministry of defense for the disaster that has been the Russian army’s performance so far. She claims the conscript soldiers were forced to sign contracts on Feb 21, and that of one company, only 4 of 100 men survived. Meanwhile, Ksenia herself is in Turkey “on holiday”.
I have to stop here for today before an 11 year old kills me for waiting too long after sports practice, but tomorrow I will look at the other thing that is really causing me to lose sleep at night: beyond Ukraine, Putin’s eyes on Moldova, Georgia and beyond and the west’s seemingly being ok with this. It is long overdue that NATO and the west stop treating Putin as a rational actor, but more on that tomorrow as I look at the broader context and implications of this mad war that starts but does not end in Ukraine for the region.
A teaser thread here:
Ultimately, Putin is going to lose both the war in Ukraine and Russia. He will lose both, but at an enormous, immeasurable price of loss of human life, suffering, a trauma for generations to come. He has been in his covid and presidential bubble so long he has lost complete touch with reality. This quote from the FT sums it up rather well:
Russia cannot even be trusted to open up humanitarian corridors. All day today residents of Mariupol have been trying to evacuate. They have been without water, electricity, heat, mobile networks for almost a week now. Their heroic mayor negotiated a corridor with the Russians. And what happened? The Russian army kept shooting exactly over the evacuation path. And the whole thing had to be cancelled.
Have you seen the new Leningrad clip? It is called “goodbye, Elite”, was shared by Deripaska of all people yesterday, and my favourite line: Total Donbass has come to us — the best description I’ve heard yet. And actually no longer even true. You could leave Donbass. You can’t necessarily leave Russia anymore.
A few thoughts about that:
Thank you for reading and to be continued tomorrow!
Tanja Maier "Total insanity and yet it is real, it is happening, and people are very scared of what comes next. It is not a joke." Folks here are of mixed opinions, and from what I can tell, are not fully engaged.