Kevin Rothrock
@KevinRothrock
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hyper-professional Russia guy, many years at @meduza_en . ✉️: kevin at
New Haven, CT
Joined February 2010
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Last Seen Profiles
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It’s been 2 weeks since “The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine” came out in Foreign Affairs, & folks are still talking about it. On this week’s podcast, I spoke to the authors,
@scharap
&
@DrRadchenko
, about their findings and the reactions.
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Marina Ovsyannikova, the woman who ran onto a live state TV news broadcast, even recorded a message beforehand. In it, she says her father is Ukrainian. She calls for anti-war protests, says she’s ashamed about working for Kremlin propaganda, and she denounces the war absolutely.
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Police officers in Moscow today are stopping people, demanding to see their phones, READING THEIR MESSAGES, and refusing to release them if they refuse. This from Kommersant journalist Ana Vasilyeva.
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Apparently, a woman just ran onto the stage during a Russian state television news broadcast with a sign that said, “Stop the war! Don’t believe propaganda! They’re lying to you here!”
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Police in Nizhny Novgorod arrested a demonstrator today for protesting with a blank sign. Welcome to Russia in 2022.
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This woman may have single-handedly given Russia’s antiwar movement the simplest, most unassailable protest symbol imaginable. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing more blank signs.
Police in Nizhny Novgorod arrested a demonstrator today for protesting with a blank sign. Welcome to Russia in 2022.
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Anti-war solo pickets like this are popping up in cities across Russia. It’s not much but they’re arrested almost immediately, often upon leaving their homes when the cops know to expect them. Here’s Sofya Rusova, co-chair of Russia’s Trade Union of Journalists.
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Russian lawmakers have introduced legislation that would conscript into the military anyone arrested for protesting against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These people would be forced to fight in the invasion itself. What the fuck is happening to Russia. This is absolute madness.
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Kharkiv’s zoo is being evacuated and this footage of tapirs in transit might be the best video I’ve seen in weeks.
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Elena Kovalskaya, the director of Moscow’s Vsevolod Meyerhold State Theater and Cultural Center, has announced her resignation in protest against the invasion of Ukraine. “It’s impossible to work for a murderer and collect a salary from him,” she writes.
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An incredible scene today in Russia. A riot cop tries to arrest a woman from the sidewalk, drawing a large crowd of outraged people. Then a man steps up and volunteers to take her place, saying “If you’re just meeting your quota, take me instead.” So he does.
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Police raid an antiwar concert at a Moscow cultural center, disrupting a performance by pianist Alexei Lubimov. But he still managed to finish his last tune.
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Alexey Navalny's grave is somewhere under all these flowers. If you ask me, this single image disproves the trolls, bots, and propagandists who spent more than a decade insisting that Navalny is a political nobody exaggerated by Western outsiders.
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It’s not a financial collapse — it’s a special economic descent.
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From St. Petersburg. The message reads, “This is my grandfather’s coat. During WWII, he starved as a child in occupied territory.” (Then I can’t quite make it out, maybe: “Why have we ghouls in my time forgotten his distant past?”) “I feel sick and scared. I don’t want war!”
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This, even in Russia, is illegal as hell. Ana says she approached the officers to ask on what grounds they were doing this. They demanded to see her press credentials and ignored her question after confirming that she is a journalist.
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An artist in Russia recorded these images outside famous sites in Moscow to protest the Russian military’s massacre of civilians in Bucha.
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A Russian soldier from Krasnodar reportedly lost his phone while fighting & being wounded in Ukraine. Somebody found it, turned it on, found his bank account app, and apparently transferred away his life savings (2.5 million rubles). His wife has appealed to the local police. 🤷♂️
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I can tell you that independent Russian newsrooms all instruct their employees in Russia to disable all biometrics on their smart devices, to prevent the cops from smashing your finger on Touch ID or holding your phone in front of you for Face ID.
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Artists in St. Petersburg gathered today to paint some sceneries. Nothing to see here, officer. Have a nice day.
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Kamran Manafly, a 28-yr-old geography teacher in Moscow, rejected new guidelines on lecturing to his students about the invasion of Ukraine. Then he wrote on Instagram, “I don’t want to be a mirror for state propaganda.” His school promptly fired him. Now he’s fled the country.
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“I survived the Leningrad Siege! My father died at the front […] What do you want from me?” says an elderly woman in Kaliningrad today. “We have friends and family in Ukraine!” says another woman. “You came to support the fascists?” asks the cop, then orders them all arrested.
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Here's Putin just now ordering Russia's deterrence (nuclear) forces on "a special regime of duty" in response to foreign sanctions. It's a DEFCON situation.
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“They can’t put us all in prison,” is the last thing she says.
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Incredible footage purportedly from Kherson showing local civilians very literally putting their bodies in the path of occupying Russian forces. Even at oncoming trucks and gunfire (into the air, it seems), they do not budge.
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Graphic designer Vladislav Ivanov really outdid himself with this “footage” from St. Petersburg today.
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Another photo of Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kisleyov preparing for the apocalypse while vacationing in Dubai. On last Sunday’s broadcast, he threatened to sink the UK with nuclear weapons.
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People in Moscow are leaving the pro-war rally at Luzhniki Stadium already. Before the event has even started. (They got their tickets punched, so they can split now.)
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In a now deleted VK post, the pro-Kremlin media outlet Readovka claims that Russia’s Defense Ministry stated at a “closed briefing” that it’s lost 13,414 soldiers in Ukraine *plus* another 7,000 who are missing. 116 sailors killed aboard the Moskva, with 100+ still missing.
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A Moscow activist says an FSB officer put a gun to his head during a brutal interrogation & threatened to kill him if he didn’t rat out the people helping him to print antiwar stickers. “I’m fucking crazy & I don’t give a shit what happens to me here,” the officer allegedly said.
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Television audiences in Crimea & the Belgorod region saw a speech from Ukrainian President Zelensky today when tuning into different Russian TV networks. Russian officials blame the Americans for giving Ukrainian intelligence agencies the hijacking tech.
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I don’t know who took footage of Lukashenko explaining to Putin Ukraine’s “plan to attack Belarus” and then spliced him into what looks like a porno, and I’m not totally sure what it means, but I’m very here for it.
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Russian Senator Lilia Gumerova is aghast that many of the Ukrainian children “from the liberated territories” don’t speak fluent Russian. She promises summer schooling to liberate their tongues. (I wish someone would liberate her and her colleagues to a war crimes tribunal.)
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Kramatorsk is under attack. Kharkiv is under attack. Odesa is under attack. Kyiv is under attack. Everything we feared is happening right now.
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Zelensky personally and publicly thanks Marina Ovsyannikova for her brave protest today on Russian state TV. And he thanks all Russians laboring to speak the truth about the war.
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Without naming names, I will say that I have heard privately about mass dejection at Russia Today. We could see an exodus of staff. People you wouldn't expect.
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The Russian govt “legalizes” “parallel imports”: the sale of goods without the permission of copyright holders. The list will include intellectual property like movies, music, software, and “inventions.” Russia goes from int’l pariah to PIRATE 🏴☠️.
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In a new address, Zelensky directly addresses Belarusians ahead of their constitutional referendum, describing Russian attacks on playgrounds, ambulances, civilians. “We are your neighbors,” he says. “Be Belarus, not Russia.”
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Ten hours later, Marina Ovsyannikova is still missing. The human rights project
@OvdInfo
’s lawyers have been unable to locate her since her arrest.
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At the point, you've got to assume that the United States will respond by raising the alert level of its own nuclear forces. How do we de-escalate from the situation when Putin increasingly shows signs that he is no longer acting rationally? I'm at a loss.
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Wow. The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia are apparently in Kyiv right now. Into an active warzone. Brave!
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Somebody spraypainted the words "NO TO WAR" on the front gate of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's Parliament.
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Just wow. A video has surfaced showing Prigozhin at the Southern Military District HQ in Rostov-on-Don talking to (and HUMILIATING) Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. He threatens to blockade Rostov and head for Moscow!
I have extreme trouble understanding Yevkurov and…
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Meanwhile, about 150 miles away, in Ivanovo, police arrested this man for demonstrating with a sign that was comprised entirely of asterisks (but is commonly known to mean “fuck war”).
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In Moscow today, police arrested Konstantin Goldman for standing outside Red Square beside Kyiv’s “Hero City” monument with a copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in hand.
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Dear
@NATO
, if Finland is eligible for fast-tracked membership, why wasn’t Ukraine? Aren’t both countries on Russia’s borders? (Asking for a friend.)
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An activist in Ivanovo named Dmitry Silin has been charged with the administrative offense of “discrediting Russia’s military” because he handed out free copies of George Orwell’s 1984. Welcome to Russia in 2022, everyone.
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This photo by Alexey Furman showing 76-year-old Volodymyr Tykhonov opening the door of his bullet-riddled garage in Zahaltsi, Ukraine, is really something. Looks like a starscape.
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Some very bold peace activists have started plastering Moscow's subway trains with anti-war messages featuring the metro maps for Kyiv and Kharkiv, where the underground stations now serve as bomb shelters.
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Russian lawmakers just passed legislation that will introduce nationwide electronic voting (which is extremely vulnerable to manipulation by the authorities). This will make election monitoring virtually impossible. The Kremlin is clearly bracing for declining real popularity.
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Ruslan Geremeev, the man believed to have organized the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, is recovering from wounds suffered in Mariupol. Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov visited him in the hospital and — don’t worry — he didn’t make it weird or anything.
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Hey,
@Apple
@AppStore
! I work for
@meduzaproject
, part of Russia’s last free press. The Kremlin blocked our website today, so users need our iOS app desperately. The latest update circumvents Russia’s censorship, but you’ve been sitting on it for a week! Please approve it now!
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Absolutely insane. St. Petersburg artist Alexandra Skochilenko is placed in remand prison pending felony prosecution for spreading “false information” about Russia’s military by swapping in war facts on price tags at a local grocery store. A customer reported her to the police.
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Sitting in his gold-plated office, Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov publicly criticizes Russian head negotiator Vladimir Medinsky for supposedly being too accommodating to Ukraine. The cracks are starting to show.
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Quite a crowd of anti-war protesters outside the Great Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg. Police have reportedly arrested more than 180 people, but there are many more left standing. Video from Anna Klimenko.
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How close does Vladimir Putin need to come to ending the world before one of his generals pulls a sidearm?
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Way to go, Twitter. The network has suspended the account, launched yesterday, of Alexey Navalny's widow.
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Russian filmmaker Vladimir Bortko practically weeps on national TV when discussing the sunk Moskva warship, shouting that this is a “real casus belli” for war against Ukraine. Except, oops, the Russian military blames it on exploded ammunition. Get your stories straight, guys!
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Nobody knows where Marina Ovsyannikova is. There are multiple human rights lawyers trying to offer their services to her, but the cops are brushing them off. Marina’s ex-husband, a Russia Today employee, is stonewalling everyone. It’s nearly 3am in Moscow.
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Protesters in St. Petersburg have broken through the police line.
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Zelensky says Ukrainian forces are still in control of part of Mariupol. He’s told them they can retreat if they see a way to do so and survive, but the troops insist on remaining, until they can leave with their dead and wounded.
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Zelensky shares new video showing that he and Ukraine's leadership are still in Kyiv. "Glory to Ukraine," he and his team repeat, as Russian invaders close in.
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A Victory Day celebration broadcast on Russian state TV featured a photograph of the real Bonnie and Clyde in a segment supposedly devoted to couples who were separated during WWII. The image is the first pic on their Wikipedia page lol.
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“we are not fascists! the ukrainians are the nazis! and here’s the video to prove i—ooooooh, okay. right right right right right.”
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Performing in Kazakhstan, rock legend Yuri Shevchuk dedicates a song to Navalny. This might be the biggest crowd yet to hear public remarks about Navalny's death.
“Alexey Navalny, who spoke to us Russians about freedom, has perished. He reminded us that we can all become free…
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Her sign says, “War with Ukraine is Russia’s disgrace.”
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People sheltering in Kharkiv's subway system. A woman can be heard saying, "I never thought something so fucked up would happen in my lifetime."
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Ukraine’s Interior Ministry confirms that Kyiv is under attack from cruise and ballistic missiles. My God.
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Here's her full speech, translated into English.
Marina Ovsyannikova, the woman who ran onto a live state TV news broadcast, even recorded a message beforehand. In it, she says her father is Ukrainian. She calls for anti-war protests, says she’s ashamed about working for Kremlin propaganda, and she denounces the war absolutely.
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Zelensky issues an urgent new message warning that Russian artillery fire at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant risks a nuclear radiation catastrophe that threatens the entire continent. “You know the word Chernobyl,” he says grimly.
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As others have pointed out, this isn’t the first “blank sign” arrest. Near the outset of the war, this woman in Rostov got eight days in jail for picketing with one:
Суд в Ростове-на-Дону арестовал активистку Анастасию Николаеву на восемь суток. В суде ее интересы защищал адвокат Сергей Ковалевич, сотрудничающий с ОВД-Инфо.
Николаеву признали виновной по статье о неповиновении полицейскому из-за одиночного пикета с пустым листом.
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Like it or not, deplatforming works. Here’s a Russia Today stream on March 28 with a whopping 20 viewers. RuTube ain’t YouTube, folks.
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Folks, I realize that bombs are falling on Ukraine, and the erasure of Russia's remaining independent news media seems relatively insignificant and mostly redundant, but I assure you that a Russia without these final crumbs of a free press will be vastly worse. For everyone.
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Some of the riot police in St. Petersburg today have outfitted their helmets with the pro-invasion “Z.” Can anybody identify the red flag thing below?
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In Feb. 2018, ahead of Putin’s most recent re-coronation, Kremlin-adjacent spin-doctors ran this get-out-the-vote ad where a reluctant voter has a nightmare about the army drafting him even though he’s 52 — on the president’s orders. Today, this is reality — on Putin’s orders.
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This could be the Navalnys’ last free moment together for a long time. Whatever you think, the bravery here is undeniable.
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Say hello to Irina Tsybaneva, a 60-year-old woman who lives in St. Petersburg. A local court has placed her under house arrest after she left a note at the gravestones of Putin’s parents that concluded, “You raised a freak and a killer.”
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The Russian Defense Ministry’s TV channel just shared this footage of Syrian combatants ready to “volunteer” in Ukraine. (Putin moments ago endorsed such deployments, claiming that the West is openly sending mercenaries.)
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Hmm. Three Russian embassies repost an appeal from the Czech Foreign Ministry calling on Russian diplomats to ditch their “sinking ship.”
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On the supposed reappearance of Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu,
@MoscowTimes
points out that today’s teeny tiny footage seems to match what we saw on March 11, his last sighting. Background, necktie, and clothes. 🤷♂️
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Comparing today’s speeches by Zelensky and Putin, you’d be forgiven if you thought they were recorded in different centuries.
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Thirty minutes into the event, and here’s the flood of people leaving. I guess they didn’t want to hear
@M_Simonyan
, the RT propagandist who made one of the opening speeches.
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Wow. Krasnodar lawyer Mikhail Benyash is representing 12 local National Guardsmen who refused orders to march into Ukraine. They were fired & now they’re challenging their dismissal in court. Benyash answers questions VERY carefully, knowing a wrong word could mean prison.
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Hours before this scene, Putin gave a national speech where he called Prigozhin's actions a "stab in the back" that threatened Russia's very statehood. An this is how locals in Rostov saw him off tonight.
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Arrested at passport control. Here are the Navalnys hugging each other goodbye.
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Wow. It’s gotten so bad that Russia’s Defense Ministry has actually acknowledged that some conscripts have been sent into battle in Ukraine. Putin has explicitly promised this wouldn’t happen.
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An anti-war protest today in Novosibirsk. Such rallies don’t look like much (in practical terms, they aren’t much), but the demonstrators risk prison by walking outside and chanting these words. (“No to war!”)
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Awesome work here by journalist Dmitry Nizovtsev in a special report for the Telegram channel Sirena. He called a Wagner Group recruiter to see how the PMC is handling the aftermath of Prigozhin’s failed mutiny. (I added some English-lang subtitles.)
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Zelensky just got a standing ovation after an impassioned speech to the European Parliament.
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Putin just greenlit Russia’s nationalization campaign. Foreign companies that leave could (will?) find their properties seized and placed under “external management.”
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And she’s chanting in Russian, “No to war! Stop the war!”
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