The Russians are actually digging fortifications in Crimea - something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago. Of course, such moves aren't always what they seem. Prigozhin's much-advertised "Wagner Lines" are pure theater, for example.

Huh. So much for Dugin. (I think he is mixing up Frazer's The Golden Bough with Bellow's Henderson the Rain King - not that it matters in this context.)

Russian official media has been pretty tight-lipped about the "Kherson maneuver", as it is described by the MoD. In sharp contrast with Kharkiv retreat, most milbloggers and nationalists, as well as public figures like Kadyrov and Prigozhin stick to the party line this time around. Looks like they finally got the message.

There have been mixed messages coming in about the retreat. Many expected this to be a bloody rout, and there were early reports to that effect. Some experts asserted that it would be impossible for the Russians to pull out in anything less than a week. Others describe it as a well-organized retreat. We'll know more in the coming days, but on balance so far it looks more like the latter. Apparently, they had been preparing this for weeks before the official announcement, and managed to pull out most of their working equipment in the meanwhile. (Also, they looted everything they could from the city, from museum collections to toilets and sinks, and trashed what they couldn't take - but that's nothing new.) Their best fighting units withdrew as well, but there have also been reports about some units that were told to change into civvies and piss off any way they can.

This changing into civvies trick had been reported by locals many times, even before the retreat. I am not sure what's up with that. Perhaps the military were mixing with civilian evacuees in order to avoid becoming targets for Ukrainian strikes when they crossed the river?

I woke up this morning with this playing in my head... and it still is.

Russia has a long history of similar views of Putin and Patrushev (or Dugin). We often forget that either the Mensheviks or the Bolsheviks weren't the only play around in Russia when it had it's Revolution and especially before the revolutions. For example, the Chornaya sotnya, the Black Hundreds, promoted an ultra-conservative right-wing idealism which supported the House of Romanov, was against any reforms to the autocracy of the Tzar and favoured ultra-nationalism and anti-semitism. Some of the sycophants of Putin's regime seem like them. And of course, in today's Russia the movement has been refounded. And btw. the movement participated in the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War on the side of pro-Russian separatists. — ssu

Fun fact: Drya Platonova/Dugina - Dugin's daughter who was car-bombed, allegedly by the Ukrainian intelligence - closely cooperated with the present-day Black Hundreds publishing company, and knew its founders well. One of her texts was to be included in "Book Z", a collection of texts about the invasion that the publisher is planning to release later this year.

I have discounted Dugin's influence on Putin here, but lately there have been rumors that since Darya's death, Putin, or at least his administration, have taken a greater interest in Dugin. Dugin, along with another odious ultra-nationalist figure, Alexander Prokhanov, have reportedly been invited for consultations to Kremlin, and their idioms have been cropping up in, e.g., Medvedev's ridiculously ferocious social media posts.

Putin's regime has an ideology problem. It was never really ideological, as I have previously said. What could pass for ideological messaging from the top was amorphous, inconstant and uninspiring, for the most part. As in the late Soviet era, there was an unofficial social contract where the populace was discouraged from participation in politics and activism, and in exchange those in power would leave them be, provide safety from wars and major upheavals, as well as some basic prosperity. Keep your head down, and you'll be fine.

That contract was already fraying before the invasion: prosperity was declining and the future didn't look promising. And then the contract was shattered entirely. The unthinkable happened, and then again and again: an invasion into Ukraine that turned into a protracted war that isn't going well, sanctions and isolation that ordinary people are beginning to feel, and then the ultimate blow: mobilization. The authorities are asking a lot from the populace, but have nothing to give in return. So they feel like they have to come up with some inspiring ideology at last. Or at least they feel like this is what Putin expects of them. Dugin, Prokhanov, etc. - they sound like they are in tune with Papa (as they call Putin among themselves), so they may finally find some use.

It will probably come as no surprise that Isaac is playing fast and loose with the truth in saying that Ukraine banned opposition parties. Only one of the main opposition parties was banned (Opposition Platform). It was an openly pro-Russian party that maintained close ties with Russian officials and Russian ruling party before the invasion. (One of its leaders, Viktor Medvedchuk, has longstanding personal ties to Vladimir Putin. After he was arrested on treason charges, Putin had him exchanged for over 200 Ukrainian prisoners, including all of Azov commanders, as well as foreign prisoners who were sentenced to death in Donbass. That provoked a lot of anger among Russian war hawks.)

It should also be noted that although the parties themselves were banned, their elected representatives were not ejected from legislatures, and members of local governments from those parties continued in their capacities. (Unlike, for example, members of the banned British Fascist party, who were interned until the end of the war.) The Opposition Platform simply renamed its faction in Ukraine's parliament.

Who cares? The Russian economy is rather small. You think the world economy will tank if we boycott Portugal? — Olivier5

It is true though that Russia (unlike Portugal) is an important source of energy and raw materials for other countries, and cutting out that dependency will be difficult - for those who even wish to do that: unlike Europe and the US (which had a small exposure), the rest of the world, Asia in particular, is gladly lapping up the spoils.

Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, posted a thread on the current course of the war.

There might be differences, yet I’m not sure if they are enough to support your claim. The expression “Putinism” would be more insightful if it referred to distinctive/identifiable Putin’s ideological beliefs that he promotes and make a difference with his socio-cultural environment’s, but your claim that Putinism consists in “mining old tropes for ready appeal” doesn’t seem to support that, it simply suggests that Putin’s not an original ideologue. And even if, as you suggest, Putin’s motivations were cynical and not genuine by exploiting the nationalist/imperialist tropes, I wouldn’t qualify a regime “ideological” based on the honesty of its leader (and assumed it's clear what "ideological regime" is as opposed to "non-ideological regime"). — neomac

By "Putinism" I meant, for lack of a better term, the regime that has formed in Russia during Putin's rule. We don't really know what's in Putin's head, and ultimately, that's not what matters most (excepting Putin's biographers). What matters is the character of the regime, and that we can see without the benefit of mindreading.

Is he banned from Russian television?

I'm not so sure how much Dugin's star has faded as his speeches is quite well taken now as there is a war between Russia and Ukraine. — ssu

Yeah, I think Dugin is still in the doghouse for whatever reason. He used to have his own program, appeared on panel discussions and such. Not any more. Doesn't hold any prominent academic positions either.

And let's not forget that his daughter (presumable killed by the Ukrainian intelligence services trying to kill him) is now a martyr for the Russian side in this war. Obviously not the smartest moves that Ukrainians have done as Dugin is a civilian. But I guess an easier target than lawful targets as military commanders. — ssu

That was a very strange affair.

Not sure what you mean by "ideological regime", but I might disagree on that one. Putin's speeches are replete of myth-building claims, philosophical references, and civilization clash rhetoric — neomac

I meant that Putin's regime doesn't have a founding ideology - the kind of ideology that animates the masses, at least in its early years. Such was the case with Communist, Fascist and Islamist regimes, but "Putinism" doesn't have this pedigree. The regime's control over mass media, for example, was always a sloppy, cynical affair, in which carefully curated news and propaganda shows went hand-in-hand with Western or Western-styled TV series and commercials for Western products. (To a large degree, that remains true even today.) Alternative media was marginalized but not entirely banned. Whatever ideology there is, it is ad hoc, tactical, often inconsistent. It is pandering, rather than revolutionary, mining old tropes for ready appeal.

The ultimate proof text of Putinist ideology is Putin himself - and yes, of course, Putin has his influences. He does like citing Ilyin - a Russian monarchist political thinker, who was sympathetic to Nazism and Fascism (like I said, there is a lot of cynicism, inconsistency and fakery in this ideology, if it can even be called such).

Alexandr Dugin is really a "Putin whisperer" in the way he has promoted this semi-fictional historical view of Russia and it's role in the World. — ssu

Dugin's influence is often overstated. His reputation as "Putin whisperer," "Putin's Rasputin" is largely self-created. He is a shrewd self-promoter, but he is probably better known in the West than at home. In Russia he is a fixture in the imperialist nationalist circles, and he has some influence among the siloviks, but Putin doesn't talk to him; they probably never even met. Nor is it likely that Putin reads Dugin: the latter once lamented that Putin doesn't read the right books.

Ironically, Dugin's star went into decline in 2014, during Maidan revolution in Ukraine. He was fired from his position as head of a department in Moscow State University and banned from TV after he called for killing of Ukrainians. Hard to imagine now, when exactly that is being put into practice, although there is an echo in the recent firing of the chief of RT's Russian language division after he called for drowning and burning of Ukrainian children. There have been various speculations as to exactly why Dugin fell from grace, but nothing is known for certain other than that he never quite recovered from that fall.

Putin's regime is not an ideological one, and Putin doesn't need some bearded philosopher to set the agenda for him. He needs flexible, undistinguished and, above all, loyal underlings. That today Dugin's ideology resonates with Putin's is probably more a coincidence than a causal link.

Most of Putin's Valdai speech was devoted to airing his grievances against the West. None of it was new.

• The West wants to rule the world unchecked. They want to impose their rules, their culture, their values upon everyone.
• They have no respect for cultural sovereignty.
• Cancel culture.
• Globalism.
• Liberal world order.
• How come the West can do whatever they like on the world stage, but not anyone else? There should be a "democracy" in international relations.
• Every civilization has the right to choose its own path. No one can tell us how we should live.
• Traditional values.
• Multipolarity.
• Two Wests: traditional, conservative West (good) and liberal, cosmopolitan, neocolonialist West (bad).
• The West was trying to undermine Russia (e.g., by supporting Chechen separatists), but we came out on top.
• We extended the hand of friendship to the West but were rebuffed and slapped with sanctions instead.
• The West is constantly creating sources of tension on our borders with the aim of making Russia more vulnerable and turning it into the instrument of its geopolitical ambitions. (This vague passage is as far as Putin went in articulating his threat perception - aside from all the culture wars stuff.)

In the end he aspirationally talked up autonomy, the end of Western hegemony and reorientation to the East (Belt and Road, etc.)

Ukraine was barely mentioned in the main speech, but it came up in the subsequent Q&A. This is what he said about Ukraine:

• A "coup" in 2014 ultimately led to the "special military operation." (Putin still eschews the W-word, although other high-ranking officials and propagandists have broken the taboo on multiple occasions.) He claimed that a "bloody coup" was staged already after President Yanukovich effectively ceded power by agreeing to early elections, which, Putin candidly admitted, he had no chance of winning. (In actual fact, Yanukovich, together with his siloviks, secretly fled to Russia the day after he signed an accord with Euromaidan representatives, leaving the state legislature to fill the power vacuum.)
• The primary aim of the invasion was to secure Donbass. Also: NATO. But mainly, it's about Donbass.
• We had to attack when we did because Ukraine, with NATO help, was fortifying its defenses, and it would only get more difficult for us if we waited longer.
• Ukraine was originally that part of Russia which fell under foreign domination. People there wanted to reunite with Russia, which eventually happened when Ukraine was absorbed into the Russian Empire. In the 19th century Western powers encouraged Ukrainian nationalism as a divide and conquer strategy against Russia. This led to all sorts of bad things, such as Nazi collaboration. (That Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian language were originally a malicious Western project is a popular thesis among Russian nationalists, to Putin has appealed before.)
• Russians and Ukrainians are one people. And yes, the present war is basically a civil war.
• Modern Ukraine is an artificial state that was created by Soviet Russia.
• Only Russia can guarantee true sovereignty for Ukraine (as part of Russia?)

IEA's World Energy Outlook 2022 is out. A large part of it is about the outlook for clean energy and CO2 reduction. In that context the report notes that the energy crisis precipitated by the war in Ukraine will in the longer term hasten the transition to clean energy (although in the short term there has been some backsliding in Europe as it tries to compensate for energy shortages).

Russia's fossil fuel exports will decline, both in absolute and in relative terms. Russia used to export 75% of its gas and 55% of its oil to Europe. Asia will not make up for the loss of the highly lucrative European market. Russia's share in oil and gas exports will fall by half by 2030, and it will lose 1 trillion dollars in revenue.

The US has always maintained that there would be no American boots on the ground fighting in Ukraine, and to the best of our knowledge, that's still true. But what's the next best thing? US-trained elite foreign troops fighting in Ukraine! Only... they might be fighting for the other side this time.

Members of Afghanistan’s elite National Army Commando Corps, who were abandoned by the United States and Western allies when the country fell to the Taliban last year, say they are being contacted with offers to join the Russian military to fight in Ukraine. Multiple Afghan military and security sources say the U.S.-trained light infantry force, which fought alongside U.S. and other allied special forces for almost 20 years, could make the difference Russia needs on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Afghanistan’s 20,000 to 30,000 volunteer commandos were left behind when the United States ceded Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021 . Only a few hundred senior officers were evacuated when the republic collapsed. Thousands of soldiers escaped to regional neighbors as the Taliban hunted down and killed loyalists to the collapsed government. Many of the commandos who remain in Afghanistan are in hiding to avoid capture and execution.

The United States spent almost $90 billion building the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. Although the force as a whole was incompetent and handed the country over to the Taliban in a matter of weeks, the commandos were always held in high regard, having been schooled by U.S. Navy SEALs and the British Special Air Service...

Now, they are jobless and hopeless, many commandos still waiting for resettlement in the United States or Britain, making them easy targets for recruiters who understand the “band of brothers” mentality of highly skilled fighting men. This potentially makes them easy pickings for Russian recruiters, said Afghan security sources. A former senior Afghan security official, who requested anonymity, said their integration into the Russian military “would be a game-changer” on the Ukrainian battlefield, as Russian President Vladimir Putin struggles to recruit for his faltering war and is reportedly using the notorious mercenary Wagner Group to sign up prisoners. — Foreign Policy

The foresight and follow-through of US and British foreign military engagements never fails to disappoint...

Russian propaganda is lazily reusing old material in its latest campaign. "Russian propagandists can't even be bothered to put any effort into their propaganda anymore, they're just phoning it in." Well, why bother when they aren't trying to convince anyone? What they actually want to broadcast is: "We are going to use nukes in Ukraine! Yes we are! We really are that crazy, so you better back off!"

This is not the first such accusations in this war. Earlier they were announcing imminent chemical and biological attacks.

It looks like Russia is preparing information conditions for a nuclear attack in Ukraine - either with a dirty bomb (as they frame it) or a tactical nuke. At least that is what they want the world to think. They are climbing that escalation ladder.

This in addition to a likely destruction of the Kakhovka dam that would dump water from one of the largest reservoirs in Europe onto Kherson and other nearby settlements (presumably, after they vacate them).

In both cases this would be a false flag operation designed to fool no one who doesn't want to be fooled. This has become their signature move.

I also think that AI mishandled this case. On the one hand, their duty as a human rights advocate is to the people whose rights they seek to protect, not to countries and other such entities. But in view of the combined effect of this report, they failed badly. Their conclusions were overwhelmingly rejected and ignored (for mostly bad reasons, but that doesn't make any difference to the victims), and they have damaged their own standing, which will hurt their future work (including their reports on Russia's human rights abuses in Ukraine).

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!