#russian for foreigners

[ultimatraditor]

Fucking hell

Russians blew up the Kakhovka Dam and basically destroyed the entire hydroelectric power plant.

Some regions in southern Ukraine are being flooded right now, others are going to lose access to fresh water. Even after the war ends, it will take years to rebuild the destroyed structures, and it will take decades (and enormous amount of resources) to reverse the ecological damage. Some things are going to be irreversible.

This will change the face of Ukrainian south for decades to come.

I want those responsible for this ecocide to eat glass, shit glass, sweat glass

[originalleftist]

Over half of anti-Heard tweets were bots or paid trolls, many linked to Saudi government bots.

"According to an investigation by Tortoise Media, which examined more than one million tweets, more than 50 per cent of anti-Heard messages in the run-up to the 2022 defamation case were "inauthentic' - either from automated "bot" accounts or people hired to attack the actress."

"Bradley Hope, author of a book on Bin Salman, told the podcast that the pro-Depp tweets emanating from Saudi Arabia appear to be produced by "flies", a name for Saudi bot accounts."

"An intelligence professional who tracks online disinformation campaigns, said there was only a "0.1 per cent chance" that the hate directed at Heard was from genuine Depp fans.

The investigation also claims that bot networks in Thailand and Spain tweeted large numbers of pro-Depp messages."

"...more than 100 Twitter accounts sent 1,000 identical messages at exactly the same time to any company that had worked with Heard, reading: "This brand supports domestic violence against men."'

"The makers of the podcast argue that the criticism of Heard could have affected the jury in the 2022 US defamation trial which found in favour of Depp."

"So, if you couldn't tell the difference between a real-life Johnny Depp fan and a bot in 2022, then you probably won't be able to tell a Russian troll from a US election official in 2024. And that represents a serious problem for the security of our democracies."-Alexi Mostrous, presenter of the podcast.

"Johnny Depp and the Saudi Embassy did not respond to Tortoise's request for comment."

[maxbanshees]

uruguaiana, 189X...

[notvv0ltz]

Russian law, from Russian perspective

There's a post on r/Sakartvelo from a Russian person explaining how the foreign agents law worked in Russia. Mind you, the very same law is going to be applied to Georgia if it gets accepted, it's NOT just like American FARA as Kremlin propagandists say. Georgians already know how it's going to be, so it's mainly information for those from western countries (and I'm asking you to reblog this)

Post link:

Screenshots:

[marsprincess889]

Me getting political

🇬🇪🇪🇺

So, I know I mostly only really talk about vedic astrology here, but I'd like to speak to the very same audience who found and followed me because of that about what's going on in my country. So, followers, dear mutuals, those couple of ppl I know irl who are on here, or someone who randomly found this_please, read and interact. (!!!please)

For context, the vast majority Georgia, mainly gen z, has been protesting a "foreign agents law", which is almost identical to the law that russia passed in 2012 and that has resulted in significant restriction of the freedom of its citizens. So, eurovision, met gala, whatever.... this is the reality my country lives in.

I had no idea so many people from other countries were this misinformed about georgia(in general)? People thinking photos from our massive protests were not from here because we have "police" written in english and not "policija"(which is not a fcking georgian word??????)?

People thinking america funded, I repeat, MASSIVE protests that have been going on for a month(and have also taken place in the march of last year for the same reason), just because some of the protestors wrote signs in english? Like, the sheer idea of that is honestly infuriating.

I don't think anyone who has not lived in Georgia will understand the situation clearly. The government is ordering to beat up peaceful protestors, is using pepper spray on them.... and most of the protestors are teens and young adults, trying to make a better future for themselves and for generations to come, tired of fighting the same fight that their parents and grandparents have fought.

When you are born georgian, patriotism is instilled in you like vow. I was born in 2002, a decade after my country exited the soviet union, fresh out of the notoriously hard and dark 90s(full of poverty and crime), six years before I started school and russia invaded the city of Gori. We learned all the poems and novels of our great writers, learned the stories of them fighting for freedom of speech, for the freedom of our country, our teachers would explain every detail of their astristry and their importance. At some point I think we all got tired of it, no matter how loving and full of care they were, but then I remember the presentation my class did in sixth grade about february of 1921, how Georgia exited the russian empire in 1918 and how the brand new(at the time) constitution was implemented just a few days before the red army came in 1921... MY PARENTS were born when Georgia was in ussr, my mother had to spend her years as a young student in the 90s in constant fear of danger on the streets, our parents saw the worst of it and did everything in their power for us to live in a better environment. But we're first generation in georgia who grew up with internet, who is fluent in internet slang and is way more informed, with a completely different mentality, for whom the decades of oppression is more distant. We know russia is an enemy, we know what our country has gone through, but we are the first gen with the freedom to speak up when yet another attemp to control is made.

We have a very long and rich history and one thing that is clear from it is that we are supernaturally resilient, and our refusal to be subdued has protected not only ourselves, but countries that lie west from us, the countries that make Europe, that we consider ourselves a part of.

My friends know I'm the quickest to say that I feel like I don't belong here(georgia), that I never really connected to what I saw, generally, in my country, but maybe there are thousands like me here. Maybe(100%) the men in power haven't been paying their due respect to my generation and how persistent we have been in our actions and convictions. And maybe, the rest of the world(western countries) have significantly undervalued our importance. We deserve our due, and to me, the least that others can do, is to educate themselves before typing or speaking about us.

We are not a "former soviet country", we are an ancient civilization with an extremely unique culture that has survived to this day, that has protected its customs, identity and the right for freedom, and has been under almost constant threat for losing them. And, once again, if there was any doubt, we are not our government.

I sincerely hope for this to get as many notes or possible, or at least, to reach the right people.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Prominent right-wing influencers Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and Tim Pool have huge followings on YouTube and a fondness for the Trumpist talking point that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election on the former president’s behalf are a “hoax.” That’s not all they have in common: They also reportedly enjoyed lucrative deals with a content creation company that was a front for Russian propagandists. The Justice Department indicted two employees of the Russian propaganda outlet RT on Wednesday, charging them with laundering almost $10 million through foreign shell companies and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The DOJ alleges this was done “to covertly fund and direct” a media company that produced videos whose content and subject matter were “often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests.” The company’s description matches that of Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based firm co-founded by Lauren Chen, a creator for Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV (which fired Chen on Thursday) and a contributor to Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Tenet Media publishes content by Rubin, Johnson, Pool and other less-prominent influencers. According to the indictment, the production companies of three unnamed commentators were paid $8.7 million through the scheme. The indictment states two of the commentators were deceived about the source of the funding; the trio all described themselves as unwitting “victims” of the operation in separate statements on social media. But the Tenet Media saga demonstrates once again that Russian election interference is not, as these commentators and their allies have insisted, a “hoax.” It is a fact, a deliberate and ongoing operation by the Kremlin to sway U.S. politics. And the Trumpist right’s yearslong quest to rebut that reality have ended up ensuring that their entire information ecosystem is honeycombed with Russian propaganda. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 final report conclusively documented the Russian government’s systematic effort to influence the 2016 presidential election in order to help Trump and the many ways Trump’s associates participated in that endeavor. This was an inconvenient finding for Trump and his political and media allies, who had spent years fabricating a complex alternate reality in which claims of Russian election interference or corrupt ties between Russia and Trump and his associates were “deep state” lies. They responded by falsely claiming Mueller’s report had found “no collusion” between Trump and Russia, and used that lie to brand the entirety of the probe as a “hoax.” [...] No one on the right has done more to push pro-Russia talking points than former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a longtime defender of Russian president Vladimir Putin and opponent of U.S. support for Ukraine. Russian propaganda channels sought to gin up Western support for its 2022 invasion by highlighting Carlson’s nightly screeds against U.S. aid to Ukraine, and in turn served as a source for Carlson’s program. A Russian state TV host even suggested on-air that Carlson take a job at his network after Fox dropped him the following year. [...] But Russia-friendly narratives about the country’s invasion of Ukraine ultimately spread far beyond Carlson. It became widely accepted orthodoxy on the MAGA right that sending military aid to Ukraine is a waste of money, that the United States is responsible for Russia’s invasion, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the real villain of the conflict. [...] Russian interests and Kremlin-connected sources also fueled the right’s obsession with Hunter Biden’s business interests and the absurd related allegation that Joe Biden accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch — both of which right-wing media and politicians treated as major stories, with House Republicans making it the heart of their impeachment case against the president..

MMFA's Matt Gertz for MSNBC.com on MAGA media pundits being on the Kremlin payroll via TENET Media (09.06.2024).

Matt Gertz wrote in MSNBC’s opinion section that MAGA influencers such as Tim Pool and Benny Johnson have only themselves to blame for the TENET Media debacle in which they pumped out pro-Russia propaganda.

See Also:

MMFA: How MAGA pundits who mocked the Russia “hoax” ended up the Kremlin’s payroll

Public Notice: Russia's useful idiots

[honest-studies]

Goncharov (1973) International Posters

Translation Credits Serbo-Croatian (Croatian/Bosnian) - Katarina Kačevac Hadžihmetović Serbo-Croatian (Serbian/Montenegrin) - Katarina Kačevac Hadžihmetović Chinese (Traditional) - CMH (@honest-studies) Spanish - Nadia C., Dante S., Cristobal B. French - Anonymous Hindi - Anonymous Russian - Haze German - Prinzessin der Spinnen Portuguese (Brazilian) - Anonymous

Original poster design credits to @beelzeebub, Photoshop editing work by me.

[asianhaven4u]

FOREIGNER FRIDAY - Nova (X:IN)

ANGEL IDOL

[tomorrowusa]

Trump was putty in Putin's hands. That's the assessment of Gen. H.R. McMaster – a former national security adviser to Trump.

Vladimir Putin exploited Donald Trump’s “ego and insecurities” to exert an almost mesmeric hold over the former US president, who refused to entertain any negative evaluation of the autocratic Russian leader from his own staff, and ultimately fired his national security adviser, HR McMaster, over it. The bold assessment of Trump’s fealty to Putin comes in McMaster’s book At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, published by HarperCollins and arriving on 27 August. The Guardian obtained a copy. “After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump,” McMaster recalls saying in the memoir covering the turbulent 457 days the now retired general served as national security adviser from February 2017 until he was effectively fired by tweet in April 2018. The comment, to McMaster’s wife, Katie, came in the aftermath of the poisoning in the UK by Putin’s agents of Sergei Skripal, a Russian former intelligence officer, and his daughter, in March 2018. [ ... ] In reality, McMaster says, Putin’s apparent simpering over Trump was a calculated effort by the Russian leader to exploit the president and drive a wedge between him and hawkish advisers in Washington DC such as McMaster urging the US to take a harder line with the Kremlin. “Putin, a ruthless former KGB operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery,” McMaster writes. “Putin had described Trump as ‘a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt’, and Trump had revealed his vulnerability to this approach, his affinity for strongmen, and his belief that he alone could forge a good relationship with Putin.

Weird Donald thinks he comes across as strong by hanging around with tyrants like Putin. In fact, he's just fawning for their approval because he's so personally insecure.

It's bad for American national security when a rogue Russian dictator finds it so easy to manipulate a US president. Vladimir Putin will pull out all the stops in manipulating the media to put his patsy back into the Oval Office.

[alteregoauthentica]

BEST TIP Learning Languages ;

SIMPLICITY is KEY. Simplify the learning process.

MAKE LEARNING A LANGUAGE ;

Simple & understandable.

LEARNING TIP: DO NOT LEARN WHAT YOU DO NOT USE.

Avoid learning useless vocabulary. Do not learn the things that are truly of no use for you in your daily life. 

Think about it …. In reality,

if you NEVER use it ... simply don’t use it .. don’t learn it.

Learn what you will use, and nothing extra. 

For now - Just focus on what you use on a daily basis.

Here’s great exercise to follow this tip ;

Create a realistic list of vocabulary you use day to day - A LIST of only the things you say the most, on a DAILY BASIS.

Focus on learning this list in your target language.

Learn this list

ABOVE ALL ELSE.

Because you will be forced to learn how to say only relevant and useful sayings.

You will learn only WHAT YOU ACTUALLY WILL USE. LOGICALLY, YOU WILL USE THIS LIST, DAILY!

AND YOU WILL HAVE AN EASIER TIME PRACTICING, BECAUSE YOU WILL ACTUALLY USE THE LIST!

Try it ... and see how much this focus shift can make a worlds difference.

[misalpav]

what color do you associate with each language you speak?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dennis Draughon, CBC

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 2, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 03, 2024

Almost six months have passed since President Joe Biden asked Congress to appropriate money for Ukraine in a national security supplemental bill. At first, House Republicans said they would not pass such a bill without border security. Then, when a bipartisan group of senators actually produced a border security provision for the national security bill, they killed it, under orders from former president Trump. 

In February the Senate passed the national security supplemental bill with aid for Ukraine without the border measures by a strong bipartisan vote of 70 to 29. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) cheered its passage, saying: “The national security bill passed by the Senate is of profound importance to America’s security.”

The measure would pass in the House by a bipartisan vote, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has refused to take it up, acting in concert with Trump. 

On March 24, on Washington Week, foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum said: “Trump has decided that he doesn’t want money to go to Ukraine… It's really an extraordinary moment; we have an out-of-power ex-president who is in effect dictating American foreign policy on behalf of a foreign dictator or with the interests of a foreign dictator in mind.” 

On Thursday, March 28, Beth Reinhard, Jon Swaine, and Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post reported that Richard Grenell, an extremist who served as Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, has been traveling around the world to meet with far-right foreign leaders, “acting as a kind of shadow secretary of state, meeting with far-right leaders and movements, pledging Trump’s support and, at times, working against the current administration’s policies.”

Grenell, the authors say, is openly laying the groundwork for a president who will make common cause with authoritarian leaders and destroy partnerships with democratic allies. Trump has referred to Grenell as “my envoy,” and the Trump camp has suggested he is a frontrunner to become secretary of state if Trump is reelected in 2024. 

Applebaum was right: it is extraordinary that we have a former president who is now out of power running his own foreign policy. 

For most of U.S. history, there was an understanding that factionalism stopped at the water’s edge. Partisans might fight tooth and nail within the U.S., but they presented a united front to the rest of the world. That understanding was strong enough that it was not for nearly a half century that we had definitive proof that in 1968 Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon had launched a secret effort to thwart incumbent president Lyndon Baines Johnson’s peace initiative to end the Vietnam War; Nixon had tried very hard to hide it. 

But the era of hiding attempts to undermine foreign policy ended in 2015, when 47 Republican senators openly warned Iranian officials that they would destroy any agreement Iran made with then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, over nuclear weapons as soon as a Republican regained the White House. At the time it sparked a firestorm, although the senators involved could argue that they, too, should be considered the voice of the government.

It was apparently a short step from the idea that it was acceptable to undermine foreign policy decisions made by a Democratic president to the idea that it was acceptable to work with foreign operatives to change foreign policy. In late 2016, Trump’s then national security advisor Michael Flynn talked to Russian foreign minister Sergey Kislyak about relieving Russia of U.S. sanctions. Now, eight years later, Trump is conducting his own foreign policy, and it runs dead against what the administration, the Pentagon, and a majority of senators and representatives think is best for the nation.  

Likely expecting help from foreign countries, Trump is weakening the nation internationally to gain power at home. In that, he is retracing the steps of George Logan, who in 1798 as a private citizen set off for France to urge French officials to court popular American opinion in order to help throw George Washington’s party out of power and put Thomas Jefferson’s party in. 

Congress recognized that inviting foreign countries to interfere on behalf of one candidate or another would turn the United States into a vassal state, and when Logan arrived back on U.S. shores, he discovered that Congress had passed a 1799 law we now know as the Logan Act, making his actions a crime. 

The law reads: “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

Trump’s interference in our foreign policy is weakening Ukraine, which desperately needs equipment to fight off Russia’s invasion. It is also warning partners and allies that they cannot rely on the United States, thus serving Russian president Vladimir Putin’s goal of fracturing the alliance standing against Russian aggression.  

Today, Lara Seligman, Stuart Lau, and Paul McLeary of Politico reported that officials at the meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday are expected to discuss moving the Ukraine Defense Contact Group from U.S. to NATO control. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group is an organization of 56 nations brought together in the early days of the conflict by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and then–Joint Chiefs chair General Mark Milley to coordinate supplying Ukraine. 

Members are concerned about maintaining aid to Ukraine in case of a second Trump presidency. 

Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official, told the Politico reporters: “There’s a feeling among, not the whole group but a part of the NATO group, that thinks it is better to institutionalize the process just in case of a Trump re-election. And that’s something that the U.S. is going to have to get used to hearing, because that is a fear, and a legitimate one.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

'Brazil cannot take part in Russia-Ukraine war,' Lula says after Zelensky's criticism

Brazil cannot interfere in the Russian-Ukrainian war, and those who want to engage in a dialogue with the Brazilian government should have done so before the war, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Sept. 16, Metropoles reported.

The South American country has positioned itself as neutral in the war, refusing to join sanctions or provide military aid while proposing a peace initiative in cooperation with China.

President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Brazil's and China's joint plan, calling it "destructive."

"You either support the war, or you don't support the war. If you don't support it, then help us stop Russia," Zelensky said. The president added that he offered to discuss peace proposals with Chinese and Brazilian leaders.

Lula gave a speech during the graduation ceremony for diplomats at the Rio Branco Institute and, without explicitly mentioning Zelensky's recent statement, said that "those who want to talk to us now could have done so before the war started."

Continue reading.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Timothy Snyder at Thinking About...:

Ukrainians have been asking me what it means for their country that President Joe Biden has decided to withdraw his candidacy and that Vice-President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.  I think that it only means good things.  The Biden administration now has more time for Ukraine.  Until last Sunday, Joe Biden had two jobs: president and candidate for president.  Now he has only one job: to be president.  This means more time for policy, including foreign policy.  The people on his team who work on Ukraine will find it easier to get his attention.  Aside from that: President Biden will now be thinking about his legacy.  He knows that whatever policies he wants attached to his name must be formulated and implemented in the next six months.

Though it is impossible to be sure, I would guess that Ukraine will likely as central to a Harris presidency than it was to the Biden presidency.  On a number of foreign policy issues, including Ukraine, the Biden administration began from traditional assumptions that were outdated, and then worked quickly to catch up.  I do not think that this will be the case for Harris, in part because the Biden administration has caught up.  The vice-president’s foreign policy team might well be more decisive on Ukraine than the Biden team.  Vice-President Harris made a point of traveling to Geneva for Ukraine’s peace summit when it became clear that President Biden would not attend. In fairness, we should remember that President Biden visited Kyiv itself! All of that, though, is far less important than the main issue, which is beating Donald Trump.

[...] In Ukrainian terms, Trump is a Yanukovych figure, a wannabe oligarch backed by actual oligarchs and the Kremlin.  Unlike Yanukovych, he is personally charismatic and politically talented.  The essence of Trump’s agenda is the transformation of the American political order.  Whether or not this succeeds, the attempt at regime change will remove the United States from the international scene for an indefinite period.  Insofar as we have a foreign policy at all under a Trump administration, it will amount to allowing Russia and China to do what they want. When thinking of how the United States matters to Ukraine, it is also worthwhile considering how Ukrainians (Ukrainian-Americans) will matter in this election.  Given the strange American electoral system, certain states matter more than others.  Ukrainian-Americans are 1% of the population of Pennsylvania, and 0.5% of the population of Michigan.  If Trump wins those two states, he will win the general election.  If Harris wins those two states, then she will win the general election. 

Timothy Snyder wrote an excellent piece on how electing Kamala Harris is essential to Ukraine existing as an independent nation.