Notices by kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)

George Orwell, 1942, writing on #pacifism

Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.

And a strong resemblance to today’s twisted logic where #Russia is kind of morally allowed to do things that would be unimaginable elsewhere, just because “so they are”

Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories.

And here’s the ancestors of our tankies - “realists”, Chomskys and Mearscheimers…

The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw

@rysiek

Pecunia non olet 🤷

It’s fascinating to discover that Alice Weidel (🇩🇪 AfD) and Yanis Varoufakis ( 🇬🇷 socialist) share exactly the same emphatic view on #Putin 🤷

@shuro “Putin was provoked, Europe must offer peace to Putin, Putin only wants peace” and all the other usual bullshit.

@shuro

That’s 2022. Since then he had been in Moscow and changed his position radically:

https://agora.echelon.pl/objects/4a1af91a-d629-4130-822c-10c2f014c478

@shuro

You could say a 15 years old is “naive”, not a matured politicians, former prime minister of Greece, who understood all nuances of the war back in 2022 correctly. When someone like that uses vague phrases like “invasion of Ukraine” and “forever war” without even considering that Russia could stop the war, it’s not “naivety”.

Also check this - Varoufakis is literally speaking Kremlin language in his article:’

https://agora.echelon.pl/objects/74858df4-ee0c-45cc-8070-691ab088cf8b

@shuro

it is pretty clear how exactly this conflict started and goes on

Maybe for you and me. Certainly not for the “global south” who is largely still influenced by Kremlin’s constructed “bothsideism”. Also, if it’s so obvious, then what’s the problem to simply say “Russian invasion of Ukraine”? That shouldn’t be an issue for anyone if it’s so obvious, yet it’s clearly a huge taboo for Varoufakis, Mearscheimer, Chomsky and other tankies.

journalist is mostly nitpicking particular words

Of course he is, because Varoufakis is literally speaking Putin while pretending to be “concerned citizen”.

He doesn’t want to poke Kremlin in the eye with a stick

You think saying Russia invaded Ukraine and it’s only Russia who can stop the invasion is “poking Kremlin”? 🤔

@shuro

Did ever Moscow “start using neutral words” in relation to Ukraine?

@shuro

Meanwhile Peskov & Miroshnik 😄

Интересно, что 31 марта пресс-секретарь президента Дмитрий Песков заявлял, что Киев отчаянно нуждается в любом перемирии из-за ситуации на фронте.

“Киевский режим отчаянно нуждается в перемирии, любом перемирии, потому что динамика на фронтах, которая, кстати, мониторится не только нашими специалистами, но и зарубежными, свидетельствует о том, что российские войска где-то быстрее, где-то медленнее, но по всей линии фронта продвигаются вперед”, - заявил Песков.

Аналогичную мысль высказывал посол по особым поручениям МИД России Родион Мирошник, заявивший, что Украине сейчас нужна любая передышка, но она им не обломится.

“Уставшим карателям сейчас любая передышка важна, но не обломится”, - написал Мирошник.

https://t.me/milinfolive/170255

#Russia enters a shaky ground here, because if you look at 20th century nobody killed more Soviet people than… Soviet people themselves. The ethnic structure of Soviet leadership is more complex - Stalin was a Georgian, even if totally Russified - but leadership of VChK, NKVD, GULag and other countless repression structures in #USSR were always dominated by ethnic Russians.

In late March, the State Duma rushed through a bill introducing penalties for denying the so-called “genocide of the Soviet people.” This happened weeks after news broke that Moscow’s shuttered Gulag History Museum is being turned into a museum on the same subject.

Taking place while Russia draws international condemnation for its war in Ukraine, the pushing of the “genocide of the Soviet people” into the public debate shows that the Kremlin is trying to frame Russia as a victim while waving away its own crimes, such as the deportations of Crimean Tatars, Chechens and other Indigenous peoples.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/06/russia-is-redefining-genocide-for-political-purposes-a92434

On 10 April, the anniversary of #Katyn massacre, #Russia opened a historical exhibition titled “10 centuries of Polish Russophobia”. Katyń massacre is where in April-May 1940 NKVD executed 20’000 Polish citizens taken prisoners in 1939 when it invaded Poland jointly with Nazi Germany. USSR consistently denied the massacre until 1991 when it shared original NKVD documents and orders of the massacre, along with the lists of executed.

On the photo below you can see a curious example of what, according to modern Russian “historians”, constitutes “Russophobia” - Polish president Duda hugging Ukraine president Zelenskyy in 2022.

P.S. Russia did not even exist “10 centuries” ago - Poland didn’t really have a target of its alleged phobia until ~400 years later.

@tzimmer_history

Very interesting reading… I had an impression for a long time that what Trump is trying to achieve is reversal of the US idea of state based on rule of law and return to the Wild West. But I’m missing the curriculum on US history and legal system to fully connect the dots so very pleased to see someone conduct the analysis in a proper way.

If I can add something from my area of expertise, I think Trump and MAGA had one more valuable inspiration - Putin. It was Putin has actually reconstructed this feudal system in Russia since 1999 after deconstructing the rule of law Russia briefly tried to build from 1991 to around 2003 but failed.

Trump seems to be genuinely bored by the whole “woke babbling” at parliament, all the trade-offs of the legislative process, lost elections (!) and everything else we tend to describe as democratic institutions. Trump also seems to be very much fascinated by the one feature Putin has - decisiveness - even if otherwise he’s rather a failure as it comes to delivering declared economic and social promises.

What we are watching now is Trump having the very decisiveness he loved in Putin - and he doesn’t seem to care that in both cases it’s primarily decisiveness to make bold yet completely failed decisions…

Today’s #Vance remark that Hungary is the only European country seeking peace with Putin makes logical sense in only one scenario: if Trump’s “peace plan” involves handing over Ukraine and Eastern Europe to Russia, just as Putin demanded in his 2021 ultimatum.

Indeed, in that case, Orbán’s subservience to Moscow could be seen as the model example of the future relations between the countries of our region and Russia.

In any other case what Vance says makes literally zero sense from any point of view, from international law to common sense.

#France strategic decisions in the last half year (summary by journalist Joan Larroumec):

• Aircraft carrier “France Libre”: 80,000-ton nuclear carrier, largest warship ever built in Europe announced, €10-12 billion
• Nuclear arsenal expansion: first warhead increase in 30+ years, stockpile size now classified, forward-basing on allied territory authorized
• European nuclear umbrella: “forward deterrence” doctrine with 8 partners (Germany, UK, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Denmark)
• UK-France nuclear pact: joint strategy consultations, joint submarine patrols, joint R&D since July 2025
• 140 Rafale sold to India: 26 Rafale Marine ($7.5B, April 2025) + 114 Rafale for air force ($39B, cleared January 2026), largest Indian arms deal ever
• World’s 2nd largest arms exporter: 9.8% global share (SIPRI, March 2026), up 21%, replacing Russia
• Gold repatriation: 129 tonnes sold at the NY Fed, repurchased in Paris, entire 2,437-tonne reserve now in France, €12.8B profit
• €36B defense spending increase: budget to reach €64B by 2027, two years ahead of schedule
• Strait of Hormuz: leading EU escort mission, 19 of 23 major warships deployed to Mediterranean/Gulf. On April 3, a French-owned CMA CGM vessel became the first Western European ship to transit the strait since Iran closed it
• New SSBN “L’Invincible”: next-generation nuclear ballistic missile submarine announced
• JEWEL program: sovereign European space-based missile early warning system
• ELSA initiative: Franco-British-German long-range conventional strike missile program
• SAMP/T NG air defense: next-gen surface-to-air system, Denmark and Ukraine already buyers
• 14 EPR2 nuclear reactors planned: largest nuclear construction program in Western Europe
• Africa strategy reset: new Africa-France Summit in Nairobi, post-withdrawal from Sahel
• 2025 National Strategic Review: new strategic objective on scientific and technological sovereignty (AI, quantum, nuclear propulsion)

Greco-Sophian Church in #Kherson #Ukraine after #Russia shelling on Easter Sunday.

#Russia invented a completely made-up ‘expert’ - ‘Dr Manuel Godsin’ - complete with a stolen photo from a real Russian guy, fake PhD claims, and zero real existence.

They used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to ghostwrite dozens of pro-Russia, anti-West articles under his name, planting them in #Africa newsrooms across #SouthAfrica, #Kenya, #Nigeria & more.

73 publications. 27 sites. 8 countries.

https://disinfo.africa/warning-bells-openais-operation-no-bell-86aa3c113170

@steter

They are not really mining anything, because they have destroyed all mines in the region - they merely selling snake oil in the form of licenses for mining hoping to find suckers who will buy mining rights in the active war zone.

#CzechRepublic police arrested two morons posing as pro-Palestine “Earthquake Foundation” who burned LPP factory producing drones for #Ukraine. Another arrest was also made in Warsaw #Poland in relation to this case.

The group was previously unknown, their website was set up a week ago and they claimed the reason for the attack is LPP “producing weapons for Israel”. The attack was also quite professionally planned and executed.

However, LPP never produced any drones or other weapons for Israel which suggests the saboteurs were misled by #Russia special services who have a history of such operations in EU, including blowing up a whole ammunition depot in 2014. The attack on LPP did not interrupt drone production, which was done in another compound, but it did impact manufacturing of optical aiming devices.

In any case, the detained morons are now facing up to 20 years in prison for terrorism charges. Whatever Russians promised them - evacuation or safety - they dumped them as always.

@aral

By using the term “fascism” for everything hing you don’t like you make the word entirely meaningless, as described by Orwell in 1944 already https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

By not understanding the actual reasons for caching the age attribute in OS - these I have described in detail here https://agora.echelon.pl/objects/7cc327d7-b4ed-4776-9302-46998c93ba73 - you actually defend much more intrusive commercial techniques