I’ve seen some creators on here offering up their services in exchange for donations to humanitarian relief funds for Ukraine and have decided to join in. If you make a donation to Razom and send me a screenshot I’ll write you whatever you want.
There’s a mysterious film manufacturer from the Ukraine that has alternately been called Svema and Astrum since 1931. They’ve made one or two of my favorite films, now out of production, and a few that I think continue to be made but are hard to get your hands on. Most are black and white, but if you’ve paid attention to my photography, you know I’m mostly a color guy. Their website doesn’t shed much light, stating “TOV ‘Astrum Ltd’ was founded in May, 1995 and for more than 10 years has been successfully working in the Ukrainian market of aerial films.” Meaning I guess the website hasn’t been updated since the aughts? Aerial film usually means infrared, and I know they did at one time make a color infrared film. I would LOVE to get my hands on some of that. Their color motion picture emulsions have a green-ish tint. If you’re ever watching any late-period Soviet cinema, it will likely look a bit, or a lot, green. That’s Svema, or Astrum, or whatever it was called then. The film used in this photo expired in 1992. It was probably made in the late 80’s, when Ukraine was still under Soviet rule. Shortly before it expired, Ukraine gained independence. This roll made its way through time and space into my hands, slowly deteriorating along the way into this lovely, muted yet colorful, fully unpredictable object capable of transforming the ordinary into something of enigmatic depth and beauty. I hope that Svema/Astrum can continue to make their mysterious films long into the future, and free of Russian imperialist rule.
[ID: Series of Tweets by Hogan @Hogan698 “American tank mechanic here. Some advice. Tanks are bad at urban combat. They need infantry support. Without boots on ground they’re just big targets with poor visibility. Rifles should aim for the periscopes, but most importantly the sight unit on top of the turret. Take down street signs. Don’t let the enemy know where they are. Move signs to the wrong streets. Tanks are super heavy, so try to direct them to streets that can’t hold their weight. They can’t move if they break through to the sewer. Break the tracks if you have explosives. Tracks are also terrible for catching stuff like barbed wire/concertina wire. Line the streets with anything that can get sucked in and tangle up. The engine needs to breathe, so throw your molotov cocktails at whatever looks like an intake for the engine. It has rubber belts, hoses, and fuel lines. Tanks are a logistical nightmare. They need a supply chain a mile long for service parts, and especially fuel. They can usually only go about 300 miles on improved roads on one tank of fuel. Stop the supply line, and a tank is just a giant pile of useless iron. Visibility is rather poor from an armored vehicle. If you paint dinner plates to look like mines and set them upsode down in the street, the tank crew won’t be able to tell if they’re real or not. The U.S. ARMY likes to fight at night because we have thermal imagers. Thermal picks up heat, so you can not hide behind a bush, but anything that is ambient temperature just looks like a black square. They can’t see through windows because the glass is ambient. Cut up cardboard boxes and put them everywhere. The cardboard is the same temperature as the environment. Hiding behind anything that obscures vision only works if they don’t have thermal. Sheets of cardboard in every bush, tree, etc. Will just be a square in a thermal imager. Set them up everywhere as distractions. Make a chaos terrain for the enemy.”]
Direct your eyeballs to the eastern (that’s on the right of the map) oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. These two oblasts make up the Donets Coal Basin, or Donbas region, of Ukraine. coal coal coal.
Hold them in your mind.
On this map above you can see an outline of the Russian separatist-controlled area of Eastern Ukraine. Please note that the Russian separatist-controlled area is not analogous to the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. When on 21 February 2022 Putin declared recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) as independent, we did not know if he meant just those cities and the surrounding Russian separatist-controlled areas OR the entirety of the oblasts.Where these borders are is incredibly important because Putin will use any excuse to declare a Ukrainian provocation. This ambiguity is to his advantage. [This is besides the fact that Putin has no fucking right to declare any of this land independent, or take any of it for Russia in the coming days.]
The Russian separatists, of course, claim the entirety of the oblasts, and Putin recognizes those claims. Russia has come to the “aid” of the separatists to defend against Ukrainian “aggression.”
Tonight (23 February 2022), President Zelenskyy of Ukraine tried to speak to Putin on the phone, but was rebuffed. He gave a brief update to his people in Ukrainian, and then a long speech to the Russian people in Russian. Below is text of a translation of that speech from Max Seddon on twitter [thread starts here, good follow]:
We are divided by a shared border of more than 2,000 kilometers. Almost 200,000 of your troops and thousands of military vehicles are standing alongside it. Your leadership has ordered them to move forward, onto another country’s territory. This step could be the start of a big war on the European continent. The whole world is talking about what could happen any day now. Any provocation. Any flare-up – one that could burn everything.
They’re telling you that this flame will liberate the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free. They remember their past and are building their future. Ukraine on your TV news and the real Ukraine are two totally different countries. Ours is real.
There is more, click above link to read.
Russia is going to invade Ukraine, and not just the Russian separatist-controlled regions that were recently declared independent republics by Putin. This is colonization. Ukraine has a rich history and culture separate from Russia (its history and culture is MUCH OLDER than that of Russia, even). Putin denies this and claims that Ukraine is Russian. This is false and ahistorical.
(But why are there so many Russian-speakers in Donetsk and Luhansk? Well perhaps because the Soviets committed genocide in the 1930s and purposely starved millions of Ukrainians so that ethnic Russians could move onto their land. Search “Holodomor” if this is new information to you.)
The UN Security Council has called an emergency meeting for 9:30pm EST (I’m posting this at 7:22 PM EST)
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitaly Klitschko, has declared an emergency.
so i’m seeing this post go around quite a bit uncritically with links to straight up donate to ukrainian neo-nazi groups so i’ll break it down, here’s the post you’ll probably see:
here’s the contents of one link, calling themselves “freikorps” and using what looks to be an azov battalion insignia as an avatar:
and here’s what the azov battalion is if you don’t know:
so please don’t donate to this shit, the situation isn’t just some simple little good guy vs big bad guy thing, if you see someone sharing that post, try sharing this with them bcus they probably don’t know
every single russian person protesting the invasion of ukraine should have their effort duly recognized and respected for what it is: an act of courage and defiance against a violent, criminal regime that could target them any moment. these aren’t feel-good did-my-part went-to-mcdonalds-after protests. marching in the streets is not a simple civic exercise. writing ‘no war please’ on a camera lens at a sports event is not 'doing the bare minimum’. it’s brave and righteous and a part of this war that deserves to be remembered.
Dmitri Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, just stated they are thinking about reinstating the death penalty in Russia.
The Russian protesters are in serious danger, and whinging that their efforts are not enough from a cushy position somewhere in the USA or the UK is a serious dick move.
