And, she told The Associated Press, even the most conservative model suggests 50,000 men dead in Ukraine. — Associated Press

I don't think this is accurate. I suspect that either de Bendern or the AP reporter makes the common mistake of conflating losses and deaths. The former also includes injured, captured and MIA, and it is usually 3-4 times the number of killed (in the case of Russia the ratio appears to be about 1:3).

At the time the Amnesty report on Ukraine came out I was dismayed by the reactions from Ukrainian officials and others. Here is Zelensky, for example (speaking in the aftermath of the latest Russian atrocity):



This statement contains at least two falsehoods. Amnesty has issued numerous reports, news items and statements regarding Russia's war crimes and human rights abuses in Ukraine. And the report does not excuse Russian war crimes - quite the opposite:

The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks. All parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and take all feasible precautions, including in choice of weapons, to minimize civilian harm. Indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians or damage civilian objects are war crimes. — Amnesty International

Nevertheless, these slanders have been endlessly reproduced online, such as in the comments to this Twitter post about an alleged Russian war atrocity:

According to @amnesty and @AgnesCallamard this is not happening.

It's OK, @AgnesCallamard says it's all fine.

A few critics have actually taken issue with the allegations in the report, but they tend to speak in generalities, giving the impression that they are reacting to headlines and media blurbs, rather than addressing anything in the report itself. Even Oksana Pokalchuk, former head of Amnesty's Ukrainian branch who resigned in protest over the report, misrepresents it in her criticism:

First of all, International Humanitarian Law does not impose a blanket prohibition on establishing military bases in proximity to civilian infrastructure. Instead, the military should, to the maximum extent possible, avoid locating military objectives near populated areas and should seek to protect civilians from the dangers resulting from military operations. This warrants an assessment of each situation on a case-by-case basis, not just from a legal perspective, but also in terms of the military realities on the ground. — Oksana Pokalchuk

Here is what the report actually says:

Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.

It should be said, however, that the report - a press release, really - is brief and presents only the conclusions of an investigation. As far as I know, Amnesty does not make its data, methods and analysis public, which makes it difficult to verify the accuracy of its conclusions.

That aspect of their work can be problematic: the accused side can (and usually does) deny the accusations, and the only thing weighing on the opposite scale is the authority of the organization releasing the report. When the public opinion is on the side of the accused (and every side enjoys at least some public support) it becomes a popularity contest.

Russia already moved to drive The Jewish Agency for Israel out of Russia. This is Israel's outreach organization that assists Jewish immigration. It has maintained its presence in Russia since the Perestroika. Court hearings on the case have repeatedly been postponed. Perhaps this is just Russia's way of applying pressure to Israel, or perhaps they are worried about immigration that has sharply accelerated since the announcement of the mobilization.

What a tangled web is weaved:

Russia's help in fighting Assad in Syria versus stopping Iran from becoming a go to arms dealer and producer. — Paine

Russia isn't helping Israel fight Assad - Russia is supporting Assad. Rather, Russia has allowed Israel to conduct its operations against Iranian proxies in Syria - even though Russia and Iran are on the same side there. It's a tangled web indeed.

I'll listen to any version of this and other pieces as I like multiple interpretations - even 'wrong' ones — Tom Storm

Have listen at Dan Tepfer's "upside-down" version then :)

I listened to the All of Bach recording - it's beautiful. Now of course I have an earworm or three. Oh well, it was worth it.

I remember listening to the first movement of Barbirolli's slow Mahler 6th from 1967 and thinking this is way too slow - I love it! — Tom Storm

I got my introduction to Schubert's great B-flat major sonata from Richter's classic recording, and instantly fell in love with it. I didn't know at the time how unusual that interpretation was in terms of tempo. Later a friend gave me Schnabel's recording of the same sonata - which goes about twice as fast. My first reaction was: How dare he! It sounded like a disrespectful parody. In time I learned to appreciate other interpretations, especially Clara Haskil's

I was asking because I found two recordings: one released in 2017 for the Netherlands Bach Society's All of Bach series, and another released on Erato label a few years later. The Aria on the latter recording seemed much too slow for me; the earlier one's tempo is about right. I have to admit, though this is not to my credit as a listener, that hearing a beloved work in an unaccustomed tempo seems almost as wrong as hearing a false note.

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations - Jean Rondeau (harpsichord) — Tom Storm

Gotta listen to that. Which recording were you listening to?

A while ago I came across this interesting project: #BachUpsideDown

Regarding the Schubert, is there a particular recording that rises above the others? — ThinkOfOne

Well, you can't go wrong with the Oistrakh / Knushevitsky / Oborin classic recording that I linked in my post (it is old, but very good sound quality). There are others of course.

No, I was thinking more of the Chinese Room and extended cognition. In order to play pong the dishbrain had to be wired up to a screen that did a fair amount of interpretation for the neural signals to play pong. — Banno

Well, the real brain is also "wired up" to the screen - just not in the same manner. But that doesn't even begin to describe the differences between the two cases.

The dish brain experiment was meant to isolate one basic mechanism of brain function - it wasn't meant to simulate the entire complexity of the brain, nor even that minuscule part of it that would be called upon to play Pong.

Sellars has that just-so story in "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" in which he derives the idea of natural law from the observation that some of the persons in nature (old man river, old man mountain, that sort of thing) are set in their ways, the way people get, and thus predictable, the way some people are. (Big Lake is freezing over again, like he always does this time of year.) He suggests we recognized the efficacy of habit first and derived the idea of mechanical determination from that. (A sort of corollary to the 'theory' that we derive the idea of force from our own efficacious action.) — Srap Tasmaner

For us, children of the scientific revolution, such anthropomorphic inversion would seem odd: we expect simple natural systems to exhibit simpler and more consistent regularities than human minds. And yet, this just-so-story has a ring of... plausibility to it.

For a start, the brain cells did not "learn to play pong", they just avoided "a chaotic stream of white noise". That is, the dishbrain had no intent to play pong. — Banno

The dishbrain was not a simulation (or even an approximation) of what the actual brain does when you learn to play pong, although the article might suggest that. Is this your objection?

Dishbrain. That should be a good insult - it's all the better for its obscurity.

Thus we witness just yesterday, a joint announcement by Erdogan and Putin to build a another pipeline thru Turkey — yebiga

Was there another meeting between Putin and Erdogan? Where was this reported?

Putin and Erdogan met on Thursday. Putin floated an idea of a gas distribution hub in Turkey that would allow exporting more gas to Europe through the existing TurkStream pipeline. Erdogan said that they would conduct a study. Everyone else said that Putin must be living in his own alternative reality.

I don't think it's hard really. The more humiliation Russia suffers, the more they missiles they will use to flatten Ukraine. It's not the "actual opposite" of what I'm saying, it's what's happening.

If you don't know the difference between defensive and offensive, you can look it up. I've been polite with you till now, but you've been insulting one too many times.

It boils down to the fantasy, which is what it is, that you think Ukraine will be able to defeat a NUCLEAR armed country. It won't. The fact that you can't get this through your head, is more a signal of your own inabilities to understand how fucked up this situation is, than any alleged shortcomings I may have.

So keep on dreaming about Ukraine defeating Russia, "helping" the Ukrainians get slaughtered, which is what you are advocating for. — Manuel

Look, I could perhaps discuss with you what helping or abandoning the Ukrainians could mean for them, but I don't see the point. Your response to me has nothing to do with what I wrote, which is indicative of someone whose mind is not on the actual conversation.

You are afraid that the conflict may escalate into a full-scale nuclear war - you've said as much many times. You might be unhappy about the damage that it does to your country's economy and energy security. And perhaps you are uncomfortable with your country getting embroiled in the conflict, however indirectly, which makes it kind of your business, whereas you would have preferred it to be something distant that doesn't lose you any sleep, like so many other awful things going on elsewhere in the world.

I get it. But then say what you think and quit with this fake concern for Ukrainians' wellbeing.

My guess is as good as anyone's.

I don't think the war will formally end any time soon, if ever, in the sense of signing a formal peace treaty or even an armistice. But Russia will probably seek to freeze the conflict for a time while holding on to as much territory as it can. If they stop with the suicidal offensive pushes and seriously dig in along defensible positions, they can hold out for a while, even if Ukrainians try to stay on the offensive. (It looks like they may have already resigned to losing Kherson.) The urgency of stopping the invading hordes from the East gone, Western support will slacken and, willing or not, Ukraine will have to go along with the new status quo. But how long that status quo can hold is hard to predict - too many variables are in play.

(I should add that this fairly pessimistic prognosis is entirely at odds with how the future prospects are perceived from inside Ukraine.)

Putin at a summit in Astana: "2.5 million people live in Crimea. They [Ukrainians] cut off the water [from the Dnieper to the peninsula] just like that - so the [Russian] troops had to go in and open the water to Crimea. Just as an example of the logic of our actions."

Simple as that :roll:

lol

It's not so much that the West tells Ukraine to do whatever they want, and Ukraine must do it, it's more in line with, we are giving you weapons, so you better fight the Russians to the end, don't focus on negotiations, as Johnson said, for instance. He was almost surely following the US/NATO line. — Manuel

So how do you imagine this? Ukrainians constantly cajole, shame and bully their allies into sending them more and better weapons faster, but they don't actually want to use those weapons to fight the Russians? What do they need them for then? And how does the US/NATO make Ukrainians on the ground go into battle and sacrifice their lives? By giving them dirty looks, or what?

Sometimes you say something so absurd I just can't imagine how you even come by such notions.

And as for negotiations, the situation is exactly the opposite to how you present it. It is the Ukrainians who are concerned that Western resolve may crack and they'll seek to make peace with Russia at their expense - and they have every reason to fear that.

Around the period of major advances in technology such as radio, the automobile, the electric light bulb in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, do you think there was a change in how the Western world thought about energy and energy transfer? Like from the eighteenth century onward, there seemed to be this conception that energy represented something an object possessed – as a person possesses physical energy, or a ball has energy when airborne – and at some point when theory about light, electricity, time, and space, began to predominate over simple mechanics it seemed that a transition took place from energy being thought of as a property of an object into it being thought of as an abstract entity itself that could be part of a wave or motion between atoms; something that could be harnessed and stored. — kudos

I don't think that this latter transition happened as you describe it. Energy is not thought of as being an entity in its own right, as opposed to a property like mass. What happened over the past three centuries was that physical ontology has been expanded to include not only tangible objects of direct experience, such as billiard balls, but also theoretical entities such as microscopic particles, fields, chemical bonds, and so on. Those entities can still possess energy in more-or-less the same sense in which billiard balls and such possess energy, although the laws of energy transfer can differ:



Sometimes people use the word "energy" as a shorthand for some of those intangible entities, in particular electromagnetic fields. But it is the field that possesses the energy, in addition to all its other characteristics.

As for the terrorist attack, it is defined in numerous ways, Oxford for instance defines it as "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

Is the bridge in Crimea used for civilian purposes in addition to military ones? Yes.

Is it a legitimate target? Sure. Was it a smart action to do this? I don't think so, look at the results of such actions. This much was predictable. — Manuel

"Terrorist attack" is how Russian officials and media frame it, and this shrill opinion piece seems to hew closely to their talking points. The author also calls it a "suicide bombing" without any evidence, which perhaps is just rhetorical flair (because suicide bombers = terrorists). While that is a possibility that has not been ruled out, there are reasons to doubt it (not that blowing up an unwitting civilian is any better from the ethical standpoint).

The Kerch bridge is the primary supply route for the Russian invasion force in South Ukraine. Destroying it would have severely degraded Russian logistics, so of course it was a legitimate target. The bridge supplies the very weapons and ammunition that the Russian military uses to kill civilians on a daily basis, so an argument could be made that a few civilian casualties (four people died in the attack) were an acceptable tradeoff for destroying it.

However, the actual damage, according to experts, is not expected to seriously disrupt the supply route, at least not for long. There is some debate over whether this was an unsuccessful strategic strike, or whether the effect was always intended to be primarily psychological. That the attack was apparently timed to Putin's 70th birthday speaks in favor of the latter hypothesis. (This is also one reason why it probably wasn't a suicide bombing: the driver made a rest stop just before entering the bridge, delaying the attack until the following morning.) The bridge was Putin's pet project - he saw it as one of his crowning achievements. And I agree with you, escalated attacks against civilians should have been entirely predictable. Personally, I am queasy about this affair.

On the other hand, it is de facto taken to be part of Russia. Obama applied the mildest of sanctions when the Russia annexed Crimea. It has important military value for Russia, given the naval base they have there. — Manuel

The fact that the bridge is located within Ukraine's internationally recognized borders is something of a red herring: since Ukraine is in a state of war with Russia, it would have been perfectly justified in attacking military and strategic targets inside Russia. Which it has done on a limited scale - without provoking WWIII, despite all the talk about Putin's supposed red lines. (And there have been some spectacular ops within Crimea as well.)

The scale has been limited perhaps more by Ukraine's military capabilities than anything else. Whether they cannot or will not carry out large-scale offensive operations against Russia, they make the best of this situation by maintaining strategic silence about the attacks that they do conduct, even within Crimea. Which is why it would have been very surprising if Ukraine's "special forces" openly admitted to carrying out an attack that was clearly designed to fall below the threshold of attribution. (Not that there is a lot of doubt about the actual responsibility.)

As for the US role in all this, they cannot "authorize" any attacks - unless one accepts the Russian propaganda line about Ukraine being controlled by the West. However, they do have a say in how the weapons that they supply to Ukraine are used, and they have always insisted that they should not be used to attack Russia on its soil (Putin's red lines again). That is also given as the reason why longer-range missiles are not supplied to Ukraine, even though they could have helped in the fight.

Crimea presented a difficult dilemma for Ukraine's Western allies, in that it is formally considered to be an occupied territory, but for Putin it is thought to be even more sensitive than actual Russian soil. Nevertheless, the stance that was adopted is that Crimea is fair game. This has been known for a long time, so all these scandalous revelations that the article strains to make (citing such explosive intel as an old interview in The Times of London) look rather ludicrous.

Not that any of this is of any relevance here: the bridge almost certainly was not attacked with Western weaponry.

Forgot who was asking, but here is the evidence of US/Ukraine bombing of bridge:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/10/ymsa-o10.html — Manuel

Wow, Manuel. I knew you weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this? This is your source of information? This is your standard of evidence?

On Friday, Ukrainian special forces organized a suicide bombing on the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea and the Russian mainland, killing three people and collapsing half of one span of the bridge. — World Socialist Web Site

"Ukrainian special forces organized a suicide bombing" - this is given as an established fact. How was it established?

The Ukrainian special forces immediately admitted having carried out the attack to the New York Times. — World Socialist Web Site

I follow the New York Times and I didn't see such a claim published there. This would have been front page news everywhere if true. Notably, there is no link or any other reference.

In an expression of the consummate cynicism that pervades all aspects of US reporting on the war in Ukraine, the media acted as though the jury was out on who carried out the attack.

News outlets said Putin “blamed” the Ukrainian military and “alleged” that the suicide bombing targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure was a “terrorist attack,” as though this was not self-evident. — World Socialist Web Site

Wait, didn't they just say that the media - the New York Times, no less - already admitted this? Did they make that up? But who cares - it's self-evident!

The latest attack on Crimea comes despite Biden’s explicit public pledge that the United States would not allow its NATO proxy to attack Russian territory. “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” Biden wrote in May, announcing the deployment of the HIMARS system to Ukraine.

It has now emerged that this, like everything else the United States has said about limitations on its involvement in the war, was simply a lie. By pumping Ukraine full of the world’s most advanced weapons systems, backed by the full might of the NATO military-industrial complex, the US has allowed its NATO proxy to score a wave of battlefield advances that set the stage for the latest terror attack. — World Socialist Web Site

Here they simply brush off the fact (cited earlier in the article) that the US, along with almost every other country in the world, considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine, not Russia. And the phraseology, such as "pumping Ukraine full of the world’s most advanced weapons systems" (накачка украины оружием - google this phrase) is straight from Russian propaganda playbook.

Check out Schubert's piano trios if you haven't. The Andate of the 2nd trio (and it miraculous recapitulation in the finale) haunted me for the longest time.


Since you like chamber music, you may like Ginastera's quartets - I know I do. I also like his piano, cello and violin concertos. This is potent stuff.

I am not all that much into Grisey or Johson, but I like a few things. Grisey: Partiels and a couple of other things. Johnson: Combinations for string quartet, especially Tilework and Combinations V. Narayana's Cows (I don't much care about all this mathematical structure behind the music; I just find the music itself - complete with the reading of the text - hypnotically attractive). And this is just fun:

The emphasis on keeping the element of surprise was blown via U.S. Intelligence. — Paine

Tell that to all those Russian soldiers who found out that they were invading Ukraine only when they started seeing Ukrainian road signs from their APCs!

Poulenc Organ Concerto — Tom Storm

This is great.

Poulenc: Gloria

Timothy Snyder published an essay How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end? He argues that Putin is very unlikely to make true on his vague nuclear threats, and that in any case that is not what we should be focusing on. He also argues that "Putin will need no excuse to pull out from Ukraine, since he will be doing so for his own political survival."

And anyone with a post-kindergarten level of understanding Russian/Soviet actions understands that it will happen. Not perhaps with the ferocity as during the war, but still in a way that anyone clear headed would call it a war. The first the Russians will deny is the existence of a war or insurgency, if they can. I guess you have absolutely no idea how long the Lithuans fought against the Soviet invader after WW2, well into the 1950's. Or that the last "Forest Brother" were killed in 1970's in Estonia. — ssu

One doesn't even have to be an insurgent to end up in one of FSB's or DNR/LNR many torture basements. Ever since the Russian 2014 coup the grim expression na podval (into the basement) has entered the common lexicon in Ukraine. The Russians are looking for anyone who has a military or law enforcement experience, or who might give up such contacts. You can get in trouble for social media posts or pictures found on your phone - or for the lack thereof, which can raise suspicions. For a "nationalistic" tattoo, such as Ukraine's national emblem. Or simply because a neighbor or colleague denounced you.

As a matter of curiosity, what Cage have you listened to? What do you think of Morton Feldman? — ThinkOfOne

I don't remember TBH, but I did try a few works of Cage that came recommended (and I don't mean stunts like 4'33''), but nothing left an impression. Same with Feldman.

Since you come from a classical background, what recordings of the various combinations of strings or strings plus piano would you highly recommend? — ThinkOfOne

That's not a fair question, is it? :) There are too many works in the classical repertoire that match the description. Personally, I love Schubert - quartets, quintets, trios.

I'd also be interested in hearing what modern classical has particularly impressed you. — ThinkOfOne

Well, let's see... There are the big 20th century names - don't know if you'd consider them modern: Bartok, Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Satie, Messiaen, Britten... Stravinsky, the quintessential 20th century composer, spanning the gamut from late romanticism to modernism, neo-classicism, serialism. Hindemith, once ubiquitous, now semi-forgotten, I am not sure why. (There is an old man-walks-into-a-bar joke that I came across once, which you can tell must go back at least half a century, because the punch-line implies that Hindemith could be the greatest 20th century composer. It also involves Orff.)

Of the later generations of composers, I like Takemitsu (pretty much everything), Ginastera (the late period, but his nationalist period is also nice). Some things of Ligeti, Schnittke, Gubaidulina. The only Boulez that I have liked is Sur Incises. Steve Reich, Tom Johnson, Gérard Grisey, Henri Dutilleux, Arvo Pärt. Other odds and ends.

John Luther Adams: Canticles of the Holy Wind: The Hour of the Doves

I think Isaac took a page from Russian propaganda here. It's not a war crime if there is no war, and it's not a war if you don't agree to call it a war. There - done.

By that token, Belgian atrocities in Congo do not count - because Belgium was not at war with Congo at the time. Neither do Soviet and German mass killings of Poles count.

I do so like those old-fashioned cartoons with their scrupulous banners, callouts and footnotes!

* Note - X indicates where Japan landed.

Or instead of "surrender", we can call it a "stop" in violence. — Manuel

Yeah no, you can't, unless you are living under a rock or you are Russia's useful idiot. This is what surrender looks like:





Those who dismiss Russia's talk about the "denazification of Ukraine" as nothing but propaganda rhetoric are not paying attention. They are very, very serious about it, in their own perverse way. As serious as the actual historical Nazis were about their "final solution."

This is a cartoonization of the real world. Reminds me quite a bit of the propaganda used in WWI. Very dangerous thinking, in my opinion. — Manuel

Or, you know, the propaganda used in WWII. Which reasonable people like yourself would not believe.

Surrender assures peace and save lives. — frank

Except, of course, it does neither, as we can see in front of our own eyes. What it does though is relieve the West from the cost and the responsibility for the war. (Especially in the eyes of those who believe that the white man the West automatically assumes all of the agency and the responsibility wherever it so much as casts a sideways glance.)

Another detail making it more likely to be Russia is the ease of access. It’s being said they could just wheel explosive down the pipe using the inspection pig. — apokrisis

That the pipes were blown up from inside would be very obvious to even a casual inspection, I would think. Unless they want everyone to know and don't care even for a modicum of deniability, that would be extremely stupid. But we'll know soon enough.

Interesting, so what are your objections to this, considering you had previously expressed doubt that Russia sabotaged their own pipeline? — _db

The "bridge-burning" theory is plausible, but highly speculative. Still, the alternatives are even more problematic. The players who more obviously stand to gain from the destruction of Nord Stream are Ukraine and the US. Both benefit from burning the bridge that would tempt Europe to backslide and make a deal with Russia. US LNG producers and exporters have a better incentive for long-term investment now that they know that they won't be priced out of the market by cheap Russian gas any time soon. And Ukraine now controls one of the main remaining transits for Russian gas into Europe.

But I don't see the US doing something so desperate for a modest commercial gain. Even for Ukraine this would be a very perilous move. If they were caught, this would seriously undermine their vital relationship with Europe, because Europe would see an attack on their infrastructure as a hostile and treacherous act. Besides, it is doubtful that Ukraine actually had the capability to pull off such an attack.

Russia has the capability, and it has nothing to lose reputation-wise. Of all the players it is the only one reckless and desperate enough to do something like this - if they wanted to.

I am coming from a mostly classical background, and from there expanding into more difficult (for me) modern music. Lately I've been listening to more modern than classical - part of the reason being that tonal, melodic music gives me earworms something fierce, and the emotional response can be unbalancing. But I just can't get into highly "conceptual" music like Cage's.

My exposure to jazz is pretty light. I like jazz circa 1950s-1970s, from Parker to Monk, but that's probably because I don't know much else.

But I harbor no illusions of changing minds - and it's too late now to do anything about the past. — Manuel

You can't change minds by repeating for the umpteenth time these weak and tired arguments.

Wait a minute! Didn't Joe Biden talk about it a lot? You remember? The thing you didn't believe was true / was just US propaganda? — ssu

And likewisen, he takes Putin's nuclear threats seriously enough - I don't know where @Manuel gets the idea that he is the lone voice in the wilderness while everyone else remains oblivious to the danger when this is being discussed and debated at all levels, everywhere.

What he said to Macron was that he needed assurances that Ukraine would not be militarized. He did not get this, hence the invasion. — Manuel

Yeah, right. Putin would've cancelled the invasion that he had been planning for at least a year if only he got the right assurances at the last moment.

I do not think Europe has been wise here at all. This whole situation is because of NATO expansion - despite what some here are saying — Manuel

Despite, well, pretty much everything.

Lots of Russian oligarchs see the war is going poorly; they just want to pull back the troops and reopen for business so they can start making money again. Putin blowing up the NS2 pipeline could be his way of telling these oligarchs that he is committed to this war and that there's no going back now. — _db

This is basically the theory that Branislav Slantchev has proposed: Putin is like the commander who orders the bridge to be blown up so that his troops are not tempted to retreat.

In this case, Putin has two bridges he might have wished to burn, an international and domestic one. On the international side, his signal is that he is irrevocably committed to seeing this war through no matter what the West does. The problem with Western dependence on Russian energy sources actually goes both ways because Europe is also the largest client. While most people focus on Putin’s leverage and blackmail, the Europeans have also had substantial leverage with their threats to limit or stop their buying. One argument was always that Putin can’t really afford to lose that buyer, and so the threats to continue the war or keep the gas off were not credible. (I have made this argument as well.) Turning off the tap does not solve this credibility problem — you can always turn it back on if you are sufficiently incentivized. Blowing up the lines, however, removes this option and so you no longer have the choice. Because the lines have become inoperable for a long time (one of them, I understand, potentially permanently), the Europeans have lost the leverage that their money was giving them.

On the domestic side, this is a move designed to consolidate power. Putin must know about the substantial discontent his policies have created among the elites, and he might be worried about conspiracies against him. One driving force behind any such conspiracy is the hope that with Putin gone, relations with the West can be regularized (I would not say “normalized” or “restored” because even the most optimistic Russians must realized that this is impossible for the foreseeable future.) While the West will remain quite hostile to Russia for a long time, this does not have to mean that business relations of some sort would not be able to resume. And so, potential conspirators might be hoping that replacing Putin could salvage the business relationships with Europe (more generally too, not just in the energy sector), and they may even think that Europe’s loss as a customer is not inevitable. If Putin were merely to turn the tap off, they can simply turn it back on when he’s gone. Destroying the lines, however, means that his potential replacement would not be able to resume delivery through them no matter how much they want to. The massive rift the sabotage will cause with Europe is also going to make resumption of relations a lot harder. This decreases the incentives of potential coup plotters to remove Putin since one of the largest benefits from doing so is now gone. What’s the point of removing him if this will not change anything with respect to the economy? — Branislav Slantchev

Max Reger "Cello Suites" — ThinkOfOne

Max Reger "Sonatas for Solo Violin" — ThinkOfOne

I see you like Max Reger - or just exploring? Like most, probably, I am not very familiar with his quite voluminous output. Hadn't heard these works before. Bach's cello suites and violin sonatas and partitas are my favorites, so I was curious about Reger's take. I liked them a lot, especially the cello suites. But I must say, I like Reger best when he is writing more as Reger and less as ersatz Bach.

On a related note, one of my favorites from the same period:

And its companion piece:

And more early Ligeti:

Here is another map with more detail:

(That pocket in the north of Donetsk Oblast has since been closed.)