„If he [Trump] were to acknowledge any facet of a reality that does not flatter his ego, he would have a psychic break. So he doesn't. He is beyond accountability because he only lives in the moment, and reinvents the past at will.“
@onlmaps during the Second World War, twenty thousand fighters of the French Resistance died. And against the USSR, on the Soviet-German front, two hundred thousand Frenchmen fought. So who was France fighting?
When the Germans entered Paris in the spring of 1940, their losses were less than, for example, in the capture of one building in Stalingrad held by Sergeant Pavlov and his unit of a dozen soldiers. http://samlib.ru/l/leshenko_j_i/doc1.shtml #WWII#WW2#history#france#germany#USSR
On 29 July 1936, on Stalin's initiative, a secret instruction was adopted on the admissibility of any investigative methods against "spies, counter-revolutionaries, White Guards, Trotskyists and Zinovievists".
New narrative seems to have emerged in #Russia — it was USA and nefarious “Anglosaxons” who provoked Russia to start the war in #Ukraine, very much in the same way as #USSR was “provoked” to invade #Afghanistan in order to lose and then collapse.
The weak point in this theory is why the genius Russian leader, Vladimir #Putin, didn’t see this trap in advance, and instead happily jumped into it head first. Why didn’t Russia withdraw its forces once it saw the trap closing after its initial failures in April 2022? 🤔
> The hilarious story of how the Soviet Army in #Afghanistan in 1982 launched an operation to destroy a mujahedeen base, but due to a navigational error instead attacked an asphalt factory in Iran.
'Roman Abramovich, the most secretive of oligarchs'.
Having become extremely wealthy, the businessman developed a taste for collecting art. But he also financed creative artists in Russia, even those highly critical of Putin's rule.
'Roman Abramovich, the most secretive of oligarchs'. The war in Ukraine has made life in Europe more difficult for the Russian businessman, bringing him closer to his Jewish roots. He has settled in Israel, but his ties with Russia remain strong.
Roman Abramovich's life as a gentleman in Londongrad.
In the 2000s, the Russian businessman settled in the British capital. By buying Chelsea FC and forging friendships among the political and financial elite, he became an almost normal member of the British elite.
Roman Abramovich the 'invisible man,' a business and survival specialist.
The oligarch managed to survive in the turmoil of the Russian business world and capitalise on all his experiences, including political ones, to bolster his invulnerability.
Looking for Roman Abramovich, the human chameleon and 'the most secretive of oligarchs'.
How Abramovich got hold of the USSR's oil.
The businessman, who lost his parents at a very young age, began building his fortune at the fall of the Soviet Union, during the Wild West of privatisations.
The #UN Charter states: "The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council."
Today in Labor History July 18, 1934: “The American Mercury” accepted Emma Goldman's article, "Communism: Bolshevist & Anarchist, A Comparison.” However, it was not until a year later that it was published, in a truncated form, as "There is No Communism in Russia."
Goldman had been deported by the U.S. in 1919, during the Palmer raids, and sent to Russia, where she lived with her comrade, Alexander Berkman, for several years. She was initially supportive of the Bolsheviks, until Trotsky brutally crushed the Kronstadt rebellion, in 1921, slaughtering over 1,000 sailors and then executing over a thousand more. After this, she left the USSR and, in 1923, published a book about her experiences, “My Disillusionment in Russia.”
H.L. Menken founded “The American Mercury,” in 1924, and published radical writers throughout the 1920s and ‘30s. A change of ownership in the 1940s led to a shift to the far right, including virulently antisemitic articles.
I recently became aware of a man named Pyotr Patrushev . His claim to fame is that he was one of the first and only people to escape the Soviet Union by swimming to freedom over 30 km in the Black Sea from Balumi Georgia to Turkey. It is a very inspiring tale. There are links to four YouTube videos of interviews with him on his entire life in the Soviet Union, his escape, and his post-escape treatment in Turkey. It was not smooth sailing right away for him since they thought he must be a KGB agent since no one had successfully completed such a feat since WWII. #history#PyotrPatrushev#ussr#ColdWar#swimmingnequalsonelifestyle.com/2023/0…
The State Inspection of Architecture and Urban Planning announced on July 13 that it issued a permit to replace the Soviet emblem on the Motherland Monument, one of Kyiv's most significant landmarks, with the Ukrainian trident.
Memoirs of #Russia soldier who participated in #USSR war in #Afghanistan 1979-1989 indicate not much has changed in Russian army culture since:
> In the village one of the sergeants remarked, without hiding his emotion, that 'the young women are good'. The sergeant's words set all the others on fire like a spark, and then he threw off his overcoat and moved on one of the women: — Row, lads! In front of the aksakals and the children, our internationalists had their way with the women. The rape went on for two hours. The children huddled in a corner, screaming and shrieking, trying to help their mothers somehow. The old men, trembling, prayed to their God for mercy and salvation. Then the sergeant commanded, "Fire!" - and was the first to shoot the woman he had just raped. Quickly they finished off all the others as well. Then they poured fuel from the tank of the infantry fighting vehicle, poured it all over the dead bodies, covered them with some clothes, rags and even the scanty wooden furniture and set them on fire. The flames flared up inside the adobe...".
The book documents plenty of cases of rape, indiscriminate killing of civilians, torture and targeted destruction of basic food sources such as orchards or food storages by Soviet army.
As the author of Russian "Be TV" channel notes, in November 1989 USSR enacted an amnesty for all war crimes committed by Soviet troops in course of its invasion in Afghanistan.
How cool is this? #Ukraine finds British #WW2 Hurricane planes outside Kyiv: 8 of some 3000 sent to aid #USSR fight #Nazis
The remains will be restored and put on display.
As the article points out: most people are not aware that the Hurricane as more numerous and active than the Spitfire in the Battle of Britain
"...of the Mongol Empire, the collapse of the #RussianFederation will be the largest humanity has experienced. (I see the #RF as a reincarnation of the #USSR.)
What happened last weekend?
In my opinion, some conspirators in the #Kremlin were trying to overthrow #Putler. They made a pact with "#YevgenyPrigozhin.
They didn't uphold their part of the bargain, e.g. to "open the gates of #Moscow.
I agree with #TheEconomist, both sides are regrouping.
> I have just returned from the front line, where our soldiers are fighting against the overwhelming enemy forces, suffering substantial losses...
I just stopped here. "Overwhelming". "Substantial losses". How much honesty can a single Prigozhin trigger in Russian generals... What's next? Putin's speech that will start with "dear brothers and sisters"?
Context: after decades of ruthless collectivization and purges where Stalin presented Soviet citizens as disposable "cogs in the wheel", #USSR was invaded by their ally, Third Reich in 1941. Stalin promptly changed tone and voiced the aforementioned empathical speech...
State approves plans to replace Soviet emblem on Motherland Monument with Ukrainian trident (kyivindependent.com)
The State Inspection of Architecture and Urban Planning announced on July 13 that it issued a permit to replace the Soviet emblem on the Motherland Monument, one of Kyiv's most significant landmarks, with the Ukrainian trident.