As Professor Snyder has often said and written, Ukraine needs to win this war, and Russia needs to lose this war. The perpetrators of these past and continuing war crimes must be brought to justice.
Thank you for this new post and a follow up with regard to MH 17. What strikes me is with regard to Russian propaganda is just how much the issue for them is to confuse the story and subvert reality. Just keep throwing different versions out into the echo-sphere and see who picks up this or that piece and runs with it. I keep hoping that some new information will be found as to the origin of the missile that ended up in Poland and killed two people there. Of course if Russia were not shooting missiles and drones into Ukraine, there would be no "spill over" into a neighboring nation. But that is not the point right now. Russia wants to be right in this case which makes me wonder how a missile landed in Poland. I happened upon the Havel Albright lectures from Colby College yesterday and found the panel discussion absolutely fascinating. I hope you will post a link more directly for your readers here. I appreciated especially your discussion of the purpose of Freedom of Speech as not being able to say anything at any time (like on twitter or other social media - the smell of sulfur!) but speaking in a way that brings truth into perspective and places the speaker at a moment of risk . I cannot wait to read your new book!
Thank you, Dr. Snyder, for posting this, and for sharing the excerpt from Road to Unfreedom. Yesterday's verdict is truly only the barest beginning. Russia's disregard for life and for human rights needs to be called out; it needs to stop.
Friday morning means your Tuesday lecture has posted. Woke at 6. Shared your lecture with a request for friends to listen and please contribute. Thank you
Isn’t this, at its core, the old KGB playbook updated for current events? Similar inventions to confuse or muddle were not only peddled during the Cold War but the USSR provided guidance, if not the scripts themselves, on such matters to its Warsaw Pact allies when needed (to justify, among other things, invading Hungary and Czechoslovakia) and its Arab allies to recast their revanchist imperial war against Israel as an anti-colonial venture pressed by an indigenous people (who, oddly enough, have no word in their native tongue for their supposed ancestral homeland).
Both the domestic conflicts within Ukraine and the external aggression against Ukraine, along with politically coercive foreign influences, continue to prompt us to seek forums for popular participation to work toward resolution of both using collective effort, using cooperation for common interests realization. The world's leaders, with few exceptions, appear to work solely for selfish and political advantages and without caring about ordinary peoples' lives and aspirations for cooperation as opposed to confrontation and suspicion.
The living world of which we are part provides countless examples that growth is self-correcting and utilitarian, with part of the utility being inter-generational in nature (not intention). The above conflicts are just two examples of how people consciously interfere with self-correcting tendencies, tending to put effort into managing 'change' to avoid or reduce the need to personally adapt and succeed in novel situations, both opportune and challenging, and to satisfy social inclinations by practicing cooperation, which too can be experienced as managing change. In nature, we see that in ecosystems that we delineate more broadly, such as maritime or oceanic, the more rapid is the succession of generations of living entities there is, the more sustainable is the management of change over long many many generations; flexibility in the form of ecological adaptability gives rise to our perception of a sort of partial harmony and sustainability, even though what we witness is change. By contrast, very long-lived individuals tend to associate with other individuals in less adaptable configurations and with less living diversity over time and, as we perceive multi-generational events horizons, in ecosystems that can be rapidly degraded by disruptions to just a few of its long-lived members.
It is remarkable then to witness so many persons and so many groups consciously working for avoiding and opposing disruption and adaption in all events concerning people and our communities; how can young people, as well as some others, be expected to witness the inadequacies and undesirable consequences of their elders' choices, and then, having witnessed them, be admonished by these elders (along with popular media and even some peers) to consciously resist working for better actions that better realize common interests of everyone and opportunities for novel forms of living that also appear to contribute to everyone living better?
Why choose stasis, which one in our group noted implies stagnant stability, without adaptive capacity AND informed by growing tension that is harmful to the health of people and their communities, bringing about confrontation or even civil strife?
It is telling that we forget or ignore the unexpected and unspun assertions of past prominent individuals in relation to this seeming contradiction of self-imposed misery. An example is from a dialogue between then British Prime Minister Thatcher and Russian President Gorbachev; Ms. Thatcher said:
"...In spite of all the differences between our systems, we can still exchange some useful experiences. We are deeply impressed by the vigorous policy of reform you are trying to implement. We have a common problem here -- how to manage change." (March 1987)
In communicating our perceptions of the situations in Ukraine and Russia among ourselves and among journalists, teachers, leaders of these nations, we are wanting dialogue to address stasis. We now have stagnation in many social, political, economic and creative areas of living, and we now have war, which many worked hard to prevent and to prevent by using honest dialogue and formation of collective agreements and protocols instead.
The danger of stasis in institutions and in civil relations is as dangerous in America as it now is in Eurasia; managing change is what is required of us, and this requires us each and as conscious communities to endure the hardships of disruptions to end stasis and to implement collective dialogue, come to agreements and implement them in order to cooperatively regain civic and institutional self-correction and improvement.
"I repeat, the key question is whether Ukraine can build a strong alternative project of political reform. Because among the political forces that are fighting for power today, I don’t see anyone who is really ready to change the country."
"Ukranians, like any country of peoples, is the country of their children and they themselves must work towards its future."
"The Russian art historian Nikolai Nikulin wrote that during the war and Stalinist repression, Darwinian selection took place in reverse. Who died first? The smart, the honest and the active. Who survived? The cunning and insidious opportunists...... This was how it worked till the collapse of the Soviet Union. And today we live in a post-genocide transition period where corruption is one of the consequences. Nations that have experienced extreme violence are particularly prone to corruption. Why? Because for them corruption is the only way of survival..... Moreover, violence creates an apathetic society… because passivity is the most certain way to survive." "What’s important is that Ukraine now has a whole generation that grew up during independence. These young people don’t have these characteristics nor do they remember, either genetically or personally."
"A historian who studies only one side of the question is not a historian, but a propagandist who defends the interests of one side. Conversely, a historian who tries to show the complexity of the situation and the moral and political choices that our ancestors faced allows different parties to find their place in history. ... Of course, this is a very personal approach. I’d like to write a history that unites Ukrainians. No, it won’t unite us; that’s an illusion. I want to write a history that reconciles Ukrainians with each other."
Recognizing the humanness and genuineness of the diversity of human outlook in respect of particulars need not be an obstacle for shared recognition and cooperative agreement on working together for adaptive change to arrive at (or move everyone closer to living) better living and improved chances for everyone's children to also do so together.
Not just the course of the war could be changed; after all, once the fighting stops, what defines the postwar attitudes, common interest efforts, and the character of domestic relations in, for example, Ukraine and Russia? Ditto the US, the West, elsewhere? Could bringing the war to an end through a carefully conducted defense be not only a domestic process for Ukrainians to achieve awareness of a collectively successful democratic state and of a differently politically self-unified or -modified state (different and self-determined for novel internal cooperation and regional collective security and cooperative prosperity), but also a deliberate and internationally articulated beginning of better Ukraine relations with all regional states, including Russia?
Could something like this occur in as Russian citizens and soldiers witness a Ukrainian defense of itself that is not assertively anti-Russia,...a defense that postulates the necessity and desirability of Russians being partners in choosing collectively how to 'end history', to end violent confrontation and to end creating winners and losers, and to instead begin to use cooperative planning and building of a 'future'?
Novel and better 'futures' are worth making mistakes together to achieve. Acting on an ever-longer list of historical grievances is futile and ends not a single problem, appears not ever to contribute to resolution to problems in ways and by means that evoke efforts (and optimism) for collectively decided and worked for changes.
It seems like an essential insight, the final paragraph in Prof. Snyder's essay here. For me, this stands out, "But even if all of these lies could not make a coherent story, they could at least break a story, one that happened to be true. Although there were Russians who grasped what had happened and apologized, the Russian population as a whole was denied the possibility to reflect on its responsibility for a war and its crimes."
Can we but ask, 'Well before 'the end', it would be helpful to know that we collectively chose how we would arrive, what we collectively changed along the way to end what needed ending and to ready ourselves for novel postwar conditions of perspectives, collective interest agreements, and collective mechanisms to making better futures. At the outset (which is now), it would be helpful to assert that there is the collective will to make the collective choices and efforts (and mistakes, and corrections) that gave everyone confidence to work together to end conflict, to set aside aims of conquest and reckonings, and to adopt cooperative means and ends to make the future a better future.' (from my correspondence with a humanitarian aid worker in the Ukraine, Oct 2022)
Perhaps it is worth considering Prof Snyder's, Prof Nicolai Petro's, Prof Serhii Plokhii's historical presentations and questions as having the capacities to change any person's willingness and capacities to choose among distinctly different futures, different efforts and sorts of efforts.
As Prof. Snyder suggests, we have a lot to do to work factual information into the Russian peoples' factual compendium and dialogue about the Ukraine and the current occupation and invasion and war. How long will the effort take before enough Russian soldiers and citizens have such information? Even in America, how many Americans have any historically and politically coherent narratives about the Ukraine and about post-cold war Russia and their relations and the West's relations with each of them? Few Americans do. Very few.
So, for example, imagine that Pres Biden, or Pres Putin, or Pres Zelenskyy listen to these presentations. In each of these persons, novel questions arise, novel alternative ways of looking at current and future alternative choices begin to form, and novel senses of opportunity and optimism for resolution to some or many or all of the problems besetting the Ukraine and Russia and Eurasia....
Other persons may experience these changes in perception and possibility, as well. By expressing and contrasting novel views and questions (and interpretations of past events), these people use history to reassess present and past international relationships and to suggest why and how people might adopt novel collective views and reinterpret collective common interests and the collective means to achieve them.
Thus, might 'thinking about' history in distinctly novel ways that also are well supported by events become an effective rational vehicle or resource for imagining better, emerging, collectively achieved present and future relationships? If so, then this substack provides an environment and numerous forums for 'collective buildings-up of' historical evidence that, in turn and from recognizing missed opportunities and misused or unused relationship tools, can encourage citizens and leaders to amend and append each one's repertoire of novel futures, and in this situation, what might be conceived and what might be done differently to allow a collectively better "end" to this war to be managed.
Ukraine must win this war: Russia must be held accountable. There's no peace without truth and justice, and no real "countries" without the rule of law.
I wonder if subscribers can ask a question? (I’m aware that it must be impossible for Timothy Snyder to answer all questions perhaps someone else can help). I have a friend in India whose been eagerly reading all of Snyder’s books to fight off the anti-Ukrainian propaganda that is unfortunately ubiquitous in that part of the world. She’d very much like to find a reference for Timothy Snyders argument about Stalin talking about ‘internal colonialism’. The argument is not about whether this is a good way of describing what happened. Its about whether Stalin ever used the term internal colonialism to describe what he was doing in his own speeches. It would be hugely useful to get a reference. Many thanks to whoever can answer this question. It really would be hugely useful.
Prof. Snyder, one needs to be carefull about terminology here - there was never a notable separatist movement neither in ukrainian Donbas, nor in Crimea. There were local protests in Donbas and Crimea as a reaction to the Revolution of Dignity, both pro and contra, but neither in Crimea nor in ukrainian Donbas in reality it ever came to separatism with an idea of separating and forming own state - it did came to collaborationism with a goal of formally join Russia as soon as russian occupational (openly but with no insignia in Crimea and covertly in Donbas) forces arrived - as collaboration always emerges as you perfectly know as soon as occupation happens.
It is very unfortunate that in this case russian propaganda originated and implanted (long before the actual events) term was happily picked up by ukrainian journalists and spread among the ukrainian and foreign public. In fact one could analyse it as a part of russian informational warfare dedicated to divert and twist the reality in order to confuse western public and divert any reaction to another act of aggression and occupation.
It is even more unfortunate when such well-informed experts like you also use it.
P.S. As a volunteer since 2014-2015 I happen to know Khodakovsky colleagues, who communicated with him at the time and were explicitly agitated not to take part in some separatist movement, but to collaborate with Russia and rip the benefits, but did not betrayed their country and could provide you with their respective accounts on how it happened.
Thank you for the details of this incident. I remember being confused by all the misinformation and conjecture at the time and then it was onto the next tragedy. It took so long for this verdict but we must be thankful for it. It goes to prove again the nature of Putin's Russia and how far along the road of unfreedom they are, sadly for us all. It adds to all else that has been happening since February 24th. May this verdict further break down believability, excuses, justifications, sympathy that Russia manages to keep alive with its propaganda. Listening to Peter Pomerantsev's lecture on Youtube from several months ago on his book "This is Not Propaganda". (Pennstate McCoutney Institute) connects as does your "The Road to Unfreedom". May such efforts have reverberations and effect.
Is it possible that the missile explosion in Poland that killed two farmers just now was somehow carried out by Russia? I am bothered that President Zelensky, in accusing Russia, appears to be at odds with his allies US and Poland, who state it seems to have been an accidental misfiring by Ukrainian defence forces.
As Professor Snyder has often said and written, Ukraine needs to win this war, and Russia needs to lose this war. The perpetrators of these past and continuing war crimes must be brought to justice.
Thank you for this new post and a follow up with regard to MH 17. What strikes me is with regard to Russian propaganda is just how much the issue for them is to confuse the story and subvert reality. Just keep throwing different versions out into the echo-sphere and see who picks up this or that piece and runs with it. I keep hoping that some new information will be found as to the origin of the missile that ended up in Poland and killed two people there. Of course if Russia were not shooting missiles and drones into Ukraine, there would be no "spill over" into a neighboring nation. But that is not the point right now. Russia wants to be right in this case which makes me wonder how a missile landed in Poland. I happened upon the Havel Albright lectures from Colby College yesterday and found the panel discussion absolutely fascinating. I hope you will post a link more directly for your readers here. I appreciated especially your discussion of the purpose of Freedom of Speech as not being able to say anything at any time (like on twitter or other social media - the smell of sulfur!) but speaking in a way that brings truth into perspective and places the speaker at a moment of risk . I cannot wait to read your new book!
Thank you, Dr. Snyder, for posting this, and for sharing the excerpt from Road to Unfreedom. Yesterday's verdict is truly only the barest beginning. Russia's disregard for life and for human rights needs to be called out; it needs to stop.
Friday morning means your Tuesday lecture has posted. Woke at 6. Shared your lecture with a request for friends to listen and please contribute. Thank you
Isn’t this, at its core, the old KGB playbook updated for current events? Similar inventions to confuse or muddle were not only peddled during the Cold War but the USSR provided guidance, if not the scripts themselves, on such matters to its Warsaw Pact allies when needed (to justify, among other things, invading Hungary and Czechoslovakia) and its Arab allies to recast their revanchist imperial war against Israel as an anti-colonial venture pressed by an indigenous people (who, oddly enough, have no word in their native tongue for their supposed ancestral homeland).
Donated. Thank you
For today, a last thought:
Both the domestic conflicts within Ukraine and the external aggression against Ukraine, along with politically coercive foreign influences, continue to prompt us to seek forums for popular participation to work toward resolution of both using collective effort, using cooperation for common interests realization. The world's leaders, with few exceptions, appear to work solely for selfish and political advantages and without caring about ordinary peoples' lives and aspirations for cooperation as opposed to confrontation and suspicion.
The living world of which we are part provides countless examples that growth is self-correcting and utilitarian, with part of the utility being inter-generational in nature (not intention). The above conflicts are just two examples of how people consciously interfere with self-correcting tendencies, tending to put effort into managing 'change' to avoid or reduce the need to personally adapt and succeed in novel situations, both opportune and challenging, and to satisfy social inclinations by practicing cooperation, which too can be experienced as managing change. In nature, we see that in ecosystems that we delineate more broadly, such as maritime or oceanic, the more rapid is the succession of generations of living entities there is, the more sustainable is the management of change over long many many generations; flexibility in the form of ecological adaptability gives rise to our perception of a sort of partial harmony and sustainability, even though what we witness is change. By contrast, very long-lived individuals tend to associate with other individuals in less adaptable configurations and with less living diversity over time and, as we perceive multi-generational events horizons, in ecosystems that can be rapidly degraded by disruptions to just a few of its long-lived members.
It is remarkable then to witness so many persons and so many groups consciously working for avoiding and opposing disruption and adaption in all events concerning people and our communities; how can young people, as well as some others, be expected to witness the inadequacies and undesirable consequences of their elders' choices, and then, having witnessed them, be admonished by these elders (along with popular media and even some peers) to consciously resist working for better actions that better realize common interests of everyone and opportunities for novel forms of living that also appear to contribute to everyone living better?
Why choose stasis, which one in our group noted implies stagnant stability, without adaptive capacity AND informed by growing tension that is harmful to the health of people and their communities, bringing about confrontation or even civil strife?
It is telling that we forget or ignore the unexpected and unspun assertions of past prominent individuals in relation to this seeming contradiction of self-imposed misery. An example is from a dialogue between then British Prime Minister Thatcher and Russian President Gorbachev; Ms. Thatcher said:
"...In spite of all the differences between our systems, we can still exchange some useful experiences. We are deeply impressed by the vigorous policy of reform you are trying to implement. We have a common problem here -- how to manage change." (March 1987)
In communicating our perceptions of the situations in Ukraine and Russia among ourselves and among journalists, teachers, leaders of these nations, we are wanting dialogue to address stasis. We now have stagnation in many social, political, economic and creative areas of living, and we now have war, which many worked hard to prevent and to prevent by using honest dialogue and formation of collective agreements and protocols instead.
The danger of stasis in institutions and in civil relations is as dangerous in America as it now is in Eurasia; managing change is what is required of us, and this requires us each and as conscious communities to endure the hardships of disruptions to end stasis and to implement collective dialogue, come to agreements and implement them in order to cooperatively regain civic and institutional self-correction and improvement.
One might well consider observations by Yaroslav Hyrtsak of Ukraine; his observations appear in https://euromaidanpress.com/2020/12/20/historian-yaroslav-hrytsak-ukraine-is-in-a-state-of-permanent-revolution/ , Ukraine -- a state of permanent revolution, dec 20 2020:
"I repeat, the key question is whether Ukraine can build a strong alternative project of political reform. Because among the political forces that are fighting for power today, I don’t see anyone who is really ready to change the country."
"Ukranians, like any country of peoples, is the country of their children and they themselves must work towards its future."
"The Russian art historian Nikolai Nikulin wrote that during the war and Stalinist repression, Darwinian selection took place in reverse. Who died first? The smart, the honest and the active. Who survived? The cunning and insidious opportunists...... This was how it worked till the collapse of the Soviet Union. And today we live in a post-genocide transition period where corruption is one of the consequences. Nations that have experienced extreme violence are particularly prone to corruption. Why? Because for them corruption is the only way of survival..... Moreover, violence creates an apathetic society… because passivity is the most certain way to survive." "What’s important is that Ukraine now has a whole generation that grew up during independence. These young people don’t have these characteristics nor do they remember, either genetically or personally."
"A historian who studies only one side of the question is not a historian, but a propagandist who defends the interests of one side. Conversely, a historian who tries to show the complexity of the situation and the moral and political choices that our ancestors faced allows different parties to find their place in history. ... Of course, this is a very personal approach. I’d like to write a history that unites Ukrainians. No, it won’t unite us; that’s an illusion. I want to write a history that reconciles Ukrainians with each other."
Recognizing the humanness and genuineness of the diversity of human outlook in respect of particulars need not be an obstacle for shared recognition and cooperative agreement on working together for adaptive change to arrive at (or move everyone closer to living) better living and improved chances for everyone's children to also do so together.
Another thought:
Not just the course of the war could be changed; after all, once the fighting stops, what defines the postwar attitudes, common interest efforts, and the character of domestic relations in, for example, Ukraine and Russia? Ditto the US, the West, elsewhere? Could bringing the war to an end through a carefully conducted defense be not only a domestic process for Ukrainians to achieve awareness of a collectively successful democratic state and of a differently politically self-unified or -modified state (different and self-determined for novel internal cooperation and regional collective security and cooperative prosperity), but also a deliberate and internationally articulated beginning of better Ukraine relations with all regional states, including Russia?
Could something like this occur in as Russian citizens and soldiers witness a Ukrainian defense of itself that is not assertively anti-Russia,...a defense that postulates the necessity and desirability of Russians being partners in choosing collectively how to 'end history', to end violent confrontation and to end creating winners and losers, and to instead begin to use cooperative planning and building of a 'future'?
Novel and better 'futures' are worth making mistakes together to achieve. Acting on an ever-longer list of historical grievances is futile and ends not a single problem, appears not ever to contribute to resolution to problems in ways and by means that evoke efforts (and optimism) for collectively decided and worked for changes.
It seems like an essential insight, the final paragraph in Prof. Snyder's essay here. For me, this stands out, "But even if all of these lies could not make a coherent story, they could at least break a story, one that happened to be true. Although there were Russians who grasped what had happened and apologized, the Russian population as a whole was denied the possibility to reflect on its responsibility for a war and its crimes."
Can we but ask, 'Well before 'the end', it would be helpful to know that we collectively chose how we would arrive, what we collectively changed along the way to end what needed ending and to ready ourselves for novel postwar conditions of perspectives, collective interest agreements, and collective mechanisms to making better futures. At the outset (which is now), it would be helpful to assert that there is the collective will to make the collective choices and efforts (and mistakes, and corrections) that gave everyone confidence to work together to end conflict, to set aside aims of conquest and reckonings, and to adopt cooperative means and ends to make the future a better future.' (from my correspondence with a humanitarian aid worker in the Ukraine, Oct 2022)
Perhaps it is worth considering Prof Snyder's, Prof Nicolai Petro's, Prof Serhii Plokhii's historical presentations and questions as having the capacities to change any person's willingness and capacities to choose among distinctly different futures, different efforts and sorts of efforts.
As Prof. Snyder suggests, we have a lot to do to work factual information into the Russian peoples' factual compendium and dialogue about the Ukraine and the current occupation and invasion and war. How long will the effort take before enough Russian soldiers and citizens have such information? Even in America, how many Americans have any historically and politically coherent narratives about the Ukraine and about post-cold war Russia and their relations and the West's relations with each of them? Few Americans do. Very few.
So, for example, imagine that Pres Biden, or Pres Putin, or Pres Zelenskyy listen to these presentations. In each of these persons, novel questions arise, novel alternative ways of looking at current and future alternative choices begin to form, and novel senses of opportunity and optimism for resolution to some or many or all of the problems besetting the Ukraine and Russia and Eurasia....
Other persons may experience these changes in perception and possibility, as well. By expressing and contrasting novel views and questions (and interpretations of past events), these people use history to reassess present and past international relationships and to suggest why and how people might adopt novel collective views and reinterpret collective common interests and the collective means to achieve them.
Thus, might 'thinking about' history in distinctly novel ways that also are well supported by events become an effective rational vehicle or resource for imagining better, emerging, collectively achieved present and future relationships? If so, then this substack provides an environment and numerous forums for 'collective buildings-up of' historical evidence that, in turn and from recognizing missed opportunities and misused or unused relationship tools, can encourage citizens and leaders to amend and append each one's repertoire of novel futures, and in this situation, what might be conceived and what might be done differently to allow a collectively better "end" to this war to be managed.
After the death of two in Poland on the day Putin's Terror lobbed ~100 missiles on Ukraine, Russian TV propagandists watched the international response. One of them boasted: "now we know how to proceed." Shortly after this, the denegation of Zelenskyy by trolls on Twitter exploded on my feed, and I see increasing calls from "progressive" orgs blaming him for not pursuing "peace". Today I am sickened by the US press falling for Both Siderism: https://www.google.com/search?q=russian+shelling+nuclear+plant&oq=russian+shelling+nuclear+plant&aqs=chrome..69i57.26586j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Ukraine must win this war: Russia must be held accountable. There's no peace without truth and justice, and no real "countries" without the rule of law.
I wonder if subscribers can ask a question? (I’m aware that it must be impossible for Timothy Snyder to answer all questions perhaps someone else can help). I have a friend in India whose been eagerly reading all of Snyder’s books to fight off the anti-Ukrainian propaganda that is unfortunately ubiquitous in that part of the world. She’d very much like to find a reference for Timothy Snyders argument about Stalin talking about ‘internal colonialism’. The argument is not about whether this is a good way of describing what happened. Its about whether Stalin ever used the term internal colonialism to describe what he was doing in his own speeches. It would be hugely useful to get a reference. Many thanks to whoever can answer this question. It really would be hugely useful.
"Another separatist commander"
Prof. Snyder, one needs to be carefull about terminology here - there was never a notable separatist movement neither in ukrainian Donbas, nor in Crimea. There were local protests in Donbas and Crimea as a reaction to the Revolution of Dignity, both pro and contra, but neither in Crimea nor in ukrainian Donbas in reality it ever came to separatism with an idea of separating and forming own state - it did came to collaborationism with a goal of formally join Russia as soon as russian occupational (openly but with no insignia in Crimea and covertly in Donbas) forces arrived - as collaboration always emerges as you perfectly know as soon as occupation happens.
It is very unfortunate that in this case russian propaganda originated and implanted (long before the actual events) term was happily picked up by ukrainian journalists and spread among the ukrainian and foreign public. In fact one could analyse it as a part of russian informational warfare dedicated to divert and twist the reality in order to confuse western public and divert any reaction to another act of aggression and occupation.
It is even more unfortunate when such well-informed experts like you also use it.
P.S. As a volunteer since 2014-2015 I happen to know Khodakovsky colleagues, who communicated with him at the time and were explicitly agitated not to take part in some separatist movement, but to collaborate with Russia and rip the benefits, but did not betrayed their country and could provide you with their respective accounts on how it happened.
Does this imply the still missing Malaysia airlines 370 was also a potential victim of Russia?
Thank you for the details of this incident. I remember being confused by all the misinformation and conjecture at the time and then it was onto the next tragedy. It took so long for this verdict but we must be thankful for it. It goes to prove again the nature of Putin's Russia and how far along the road of unfreedom they are, sadly for us all. It adds to all else that has been happening since February 24th. May this verdict further break down believability, excuses, justifications, sympathy that Russia manages to keep alive with its propaganda. Listening to Peter Pomerantsev's lecture on Youtube from several months ago on his book "This is Not Propaganda". (Pennstate McCoutney Institute) connects as does your "The Road to Unfreedom". May such efforts have reverberations and effect.
Is it possible that the missile explosion in Poland that killed two farmers just now was somehow carried out by Russia? I am bothered that President Zelensky, in accusing Russia, appears to be at odds with his allies US and Poland, who state it seems to have been an accidental misfiring by Ukrainian defence forces.
✌️❤️