One has to be very careful with one’s reading matter these days. You open a book and it seems perfectly normal. You start reading and it still looks normal. You continue reading and it is still quite normal.

And then, when you are about 25% in, it turns out to be fantasy.

It’s like one has to invest 5 hours into researching every casual read to spare oneself such unfortunate occurrences.

Today is the international Free Nadiya Savchenko Day.

Nadiya is a 33 – year-old fighter pilot from Ukraine who was captured by the Russians in Ukraine, dragged across the border into Russia, charged with crossing the Russian border without a visa (which she obviously did although not of her own will) and a host of other ridiculous things.

To protest against her illegal detention, Nadiya declared a hunger strike. At first, she accepted glucose during the strike but Russia’s media celebrity Doctor Lisa (like our Dr Phil but with homicidal tendencies) came to visit Nadiya in prison and started making fun of her, saying that this wasn’t a real hunger strike. So Nadiya refused the glucose.

In 2004-5 Nadiya served as part of the peacekeeping forces in Iraq at the request of the US. And today the US leadership is pretending not to know that Nadiya is dying a slow death in a Russian jail.

The only reason for the Russians to keep torturing Nadiya is to demonstrate their utter impunity to the world.

Time is running out for this heroic woman. The Russians are torturing her because through Nadiya they can torture all Ukrainians.

And while the impotent Russian opposition is congratulating itself for today’s useless march, Nadiya is dying and fresh Russian troops are pouring across the border into Ukraine. And the Ukrainian woman who was walking next to the dissident Nemtsov when he was killed has been kidnapped by the Russians and is being held in an undisclosed location by them.

Russians are marching right now to honor the memory of the slain dissident Boris Nemtsov. Many are simultaneously protesting their country’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s all a waste of time, though. They will march, sloganeer, feel good about themselves, and then go home and let everything remain the same. This is what happened during the protests of 2011-2012 when the same people protested against the falsified elections.

Real change can’t be bought by walking down a street and waving a placard. When Ukrainians wanted change, they went out into the Maidan and stayed there even when they were shot at and a hundred of their comrades died. And after winning, they still didn’t disperse and started the patient, difficult work of state building that is still going on.

All the Russians do is argue whether their tsar is a good tsar or a better one might be found. Their infrequent protests are the protests of consumers, not makers. I have zero hope that today’s event in Moscow will achieve anything.

So who’s with me on watching the third season of House of Cards?

The season is great and the efforts to portray the insanity of Russians are almost kind of decent. The character playing Putin (Petrov in the series) is way too refined and intellectual to be a good portrayal of the original. But it’s a decent effort. I wish Russians didn’t have to mar the experience of watching the series but it’s no escaping them.

The character I’m identifying the most with is the hacker because of how desperately he’s trying to emigrate.

We’re on episode six of the new season, so if you’re done already, please no spoilers.

So I decided to support not only the families of Ukrainian POWs but also Ukrainian artists. It is very hard for an artist to survive in times of war and in a crumbling economy. Of course, I don’t try to exploit the difficult situation and would never haggle for a piece that I like. 

Today, a really beautiful oil painting of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity arrived. I will post the picture of it after I have it framed but for now I want to share what I found on the back of the painting.

The artist had attached a post-it note that said, in broken English, “UKRAINE NOT WANT WWIII!” This is simply heart-breaking.

Are things so bad in Spain that Spanish men have to whore themselves out like this?

Police have arrested eight Spaniards accused of fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The suspects were detained in raids in six regions across Spain, the interior ministry said, describing the operation as the first of its kind in Europe.

They face charges of complicity in murder, possession of weapons and violating Spain’s neutrality in the conflict.

This is from the BBC, and please note the completely insane attachment of this channel to the crazy “pro-Russian rebels” verbiage. They are such freaks.

Yesterday, by the way, a leader of the “pro-Russian rebels and separatists”, a citizen of Russia who had fought in Chechnya and bears a proud nickname of Motorolla, issued yet another passionate statement berating the people of the occupied territories for not joining him and other “separatists” with Russian passports in fighting against Ukraine. The Russian leaders of the “separatists” have been ranting and raving on social media and in the press against the vile Ukrainians of the occupied Donbass Region for showing so little interest in the efforts of these Russian citizens to liberate them. 

Yet the BBC still refers to these people as “Ukrainian separatists” and “Russian rebels.” 

Please, please just remember this the next time you trust the BBC reporting on anything.

When I told N about the murder of the dissident in Russia, his first response was, “Are they blaming Muslims yet?”

It took a few hours, but N knows his former compatriots well and now they are blaming Muslims. Nemtsov was Jewish, so it will not be hard to create some weird narrative around this.

Another official version is that Nemtsov was killed because of an abortion he forced someone to have.

I’m still waiting for Jen Psaki, the object of absolutely irrational hatred in Russia, to get worked into the story of Muslims and abortions conspiring to kill Nemtsov.

The scene of Boris Nemtsov’s assassination is being hosed down. Because that’s how crime is investigated in Russia:

These people are something else.

Boris Nemtsov was murdered right in front of the Kremlin on a very busy bridge and in full view of a great number of people. It was past 11 pm, but as you can see in the photos, the area is extremely well lit with patriotic lighting. 

Putin has made a statement to the effect that Nemtsov has been murdered by provocateurs. Putin’s media are reporting that during the murder, Nemtsov was taking a stroll with a woman from Ukraine. A car stopped next to the pair, murderers got out of the car and shot Nemtsov four (some sources say seven) times in the chest. Putin will now suggest that Nemtsov was murdered by Ukrainians to discredit Putin.

Nemtsov was about to publish a report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a lot of documentary evidence, interviews with soldiers, etc. Two weeks ago, Nemtsov said in an interview that he feared that Putin would have him killed.

Right after the murder, Putin’s media started spreading the false information that the Ukrainian fighter pilot Nadiya Savchenko died in a Russian jail. This was soon disproved by Nadiya’s lawyer but half of Ukraine already started having heart attacks and spikes in blood pressure.

The most popular reaction to the news of the murder among regular Russians is “it’s good that Nemtsov was killed, because he is an ‘American project’.”

There is something really bad going on in Russia but nobody will pay attention until it will be too late.

There are photos of the location under the fold, don’t look if you are too sensitive. There are no close-ups of the body but still.

Continue reading “Nemtsov’s Murder” →

Russian news agencies inform that Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician, a dissident and the former deputy prime minister of Russia under Yeltsin, has been murdered in Moscow.

Nemtsov has been extremely critical of Putin’s regime and of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He is reported to have been shot dead with 4 shots to the chest while taking a stroll in downtown Moscow. Nemtsov was killed the day before he was scheduled to participate in an opposition march in Moscow.

P.S. Exactly one month ago today, Nemtsov said, “Putin should step down or Russia’s future will be limited to war and crisis.” Words cannot express how absolutely shocked I’m feeling. I’m very sorry for the people of Russia who have to be living in this mess of a country.