The star witness
The two Ukrainians accused of torturing and killing Russian servicemen Chechnya in 1994-5 will be tried by a jury in Grozny, according to Russian press reports. It appears that one was kidnapped in Ukraine and the other seized on a…
Winterings in Trans-Scythia
Fragments of a blog
Winterings in Trans-Scythia
Fragments of a blog
Category Ukraine
More Ukrainian hostages in Russia
Last week, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, sensationally claimed that the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseny Yatsenyuk, had fought on the side of Chechen separatists in December 1994 – February 1995 against Russian troops and, moreover,…
The Crimean show trial
The conviction and jailing of Oleg Sentsov and Alexander Kolchenko for “terrorism” are shameful and will stain Russia and its pro-Putin citizens for years to come, unless the injustice is promptly remedied. Alexander Sokurov, the great Russian director of our time,…
Everything is permitted
The Russian Investigative Committee, which is supposed to look into all sorts of serious and high-profile crime but is mostly infamous for fabricating dossiers against Alexei Navalny, Nadiya Savchenko, and Bolotnaya Square protesters, has published a book titled The Tragedy…
Food as foe
I did not expect the Kremlin to break the ancient, deep-rooted, almost archetypal taboo against the wasting of food. Or do they think that “Western” food is not real food? Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Wednesday ordering the “destruction” of…
Casus Savchenko: women no longer entitled to a jury trial in Russia
Nadiya Savchenko is a Ukrainian military held in a Russian jail, accused of a “war crime” against Russian citizens. She took part in Ukraine’s war against Russia-backed separatists in 2014. It appears that she was kidnapped in Eastern Ukraine and…
New MH17 footage, one year after
Like carrion-eating hyenas, News Corp. and its peers sometimes help the ecosystem to cleanse itself. This time they’ve dug up this: …after a 12-month pursuit, News Corp Australia has obtained new footage shot by the rebels themselves on a camcorder…
Mr. Perfect goes to church
Putin met with Pope Francis last week, but just before that… In a rare newspaper interview ahead of his state visit to Italy, Vladimir Putin has claimed he never makes mistakes because God “built his life so he’d have nothing…
What next?
By presidential decree, information on losses incurred by the Russian army in “special operations” in peacetime is now a state secret. Previously, only wartime losses were so classified. The point of the secrecy regime expansion seems to be preventing leaks from the…
Cheering for the greater evil
The value of Mark Ames‘ writings to humanity lies in the fact that sometimes he goes after the right people. It is diminished by his habit of assaulting the lesser evil out of any two, in 2015 as in 1998, in…
The conflict is shaping new identities
The Guardian published a long article by Peter Pomerantsev on the Kremlin’s information warfare last week, along with a Russian translation. While it reads smoothly in English, the Russian version requires a little effort to take in, but I still hope it…
“Worldview factors”
Paul Goble has summarized a piece by the Ukrainian journalist Bogdan Butkevich, 10 Reasons Why the Donbass Will Not Become Ulster. I’ve been saying some of these things here and elsewhere but a Ukrainian perspective is more valuable. Some quotes – first, on…