What drives Russia's violence against Ukraine🇺🇦?

Join us Thursday, April 18 for a talk with Eugene Finkel Eugene Finkel (@johnshopkinssais) on Russia's 200-year quest to dominate Ukraine.

#REDS #CREEES Stanford CDDRL Hoover Institution

🔗goto.stanford.edu/Ukraine In person/online.

Hard to escape the impression that Iran's attack was a carefully calibrated message to finally do something about this Ukraine aid bill because even for Russia's allies the situation doesn't make any sense

Wonder if the White House already told Israel not to retaliate against Iranian refineries

Is Russia committing genocide in Ukraine? Some are quick to brush this off for political reasons. Others are even quicker to say 'Yes!' not realizing how complex the question is.

My new documentary investigates the possibility to prove genocide n Ukraine. youtu.be/GKcy8aSntfA

1. efinkel.bsky.social See you there

2. Don't plan to shut up, Twitter or not. As evidence:

Putin can’t be compromised with spectator.co.uk/article/putin-…

Public engagement is important but I am done generating traffic for the anti-Semitic fanboy of a genocidal dictator. See you elsewhere else. If someone has an invite to an alternative platform, would appreciate it.

There will be consequences. They will not be pretty. They will be totally deserved, though likely not as harsh as they ought to be

You know how many times Putin must say what he means and believes to convince some 'foreign policy circles' that he actually really means and believes it? Yeah, neither do I. Likely mission impossible. Yet another Putin's failure

By the way, did you know that Ukrainians killed 1.5 million Jews while the SS were conscientious objectors? No, there is no obsession, just legitimate security concerns

meduza.io/en/feature/202…

Beyond the conspiracy theorism what is key here is the part about the anti-human essence of the Ukrainian statehood as a whole. This is not Solovyev or Medvedev, this is the Putin. Dehumanization and genocide go together. Which other evidence of intent does anyone need?

And now Russia's oil revenues are 60% down as a result.

I feel so much better now

Counting minutes until RU propaganda will start reminding us that Crimean Tatars, all of them, including children and the elderly and those in the Red Army collaborated with the Nazis, a crime for which were justly and mercifully ethnically cleansed by the great Stalin.

For now, the best argument for why Russia won't lose is because it cannot lose. And it cannot lose because it is Russia. And so Russia ought to win because it cannot lose. If this doesn't seem reasonable to you are not realist enough. And a warmonger.

And what the hell am I supposed to do now? I can't even come here to procrastinate anymore, so what's the point

Of course they won't! They will tweet furiously that your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

Fun fact: production funded by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Culture. Pretty much sums up what you need to know about both

theguardian.com/world/2023/sep…

I am pretty sure Russian and Belarusian governments know full well how how important democracy and human rights are. That's why they do their best to destroy both at home and abroad

And had the Kremlin been more strategic, bit less cynical in its view of how influence works in the West and had longer time horizon we would have by now had a Russia Center or Chair funded by some neutrally named foundation or a can-be-worse oligarch in every major University