This article leaves out WHY these people are Russian citizens: because Latvia made them stateless 'non-citizens' after independence. So they applied for a Russian passport, the only one available. Being stateless is scary, unsafe and also a violation of their human rights.
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Almut Rochowanski
@rochowanski
Feminist activist. Working on women's rights, peace, justice, civil society in post-Soviet Eurasia while harboring grave doubts about how this work is done.
Almut Rochowanski’s posts
It's insane that this huge story is only given attention by hard-left, niche groups (notable exception ). 🇺🇦 workers' rights have been decimated. This is a story about the vast majority of Ukrainians, their rights and democracy. It should be covered everywhere.
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Zelenskyy has ratified Law 5371.
Workers now have no right to bargain, and trade unions cannot protect them.
After 17 days of silence, my friend in Mariupol just reemerged and posted that she and her family are alive
I've been frustrated, depressed and alarmed at this "what's wrong with Russians for not rising up" debate, which I find dishonest, venal and dangerous. Since it's not going away, I took a stab at it. With lots of personal stories from Russia and beyond.⬇️
Repeat after me: NO ONE CAN APPLY FOR A HUMANITARIAN VISA AT AN EMBASSY. No such visas and no such application process exist (I know from helping threatened people flee Russia for 20 years). This is cynical, deceptive, irresponsible. Ffs, this guy is a former FM.
As someone who has learned and agonized about the Holocaust all my life, I admit that even after all that, has deeply affected my thinking about it on a whole new level. It's a rare example of social media being used for learning and transformation. Follow them!
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Our account has lost over 19,000 followers in the last six months. It's difficult to find a reason of such a trend.
That's why we keep asking for your engagement and support. You all help us to remember. twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseu…
On the day Kherson is liberated, friends from a nearby (still occupied) city contact me: local officials (safe in free 🇺🇦) are posting lists of "collaborators" online. Without investigation, let alone trial. Most of them are social service providers, so more than 75% are women.
Until now, it was only rabidly russophobic Baltic leaders proposing to ban all Russians from Europe. Now 🇫🇮, too. It is a shockingly 'un-European' idea: collective punishment, discriminatory, profiling, at least as wrong as Trump's "Muslim travel ban".
This is the most jawdroppingly bizarre, deluded, fantasist and uninformed "analysis" of Russia I have read in a while, and that says a lot, given how strong the competition is
A Polish MP gloats over a man caught in razor wire while trying to cross the Polish-Belarusian border, implying it serves as excellent deterrence of "Near-Easterners". The fortification is built with EU funding. Poland illegally and violently denies access to asylum procedures.
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To zdjęcie powinno pojawić się w serwisach internetowych na Bliskim Wschodzie z informacją, że tak się kończą wycieczki organizowane przez Aleksandra Łukaszenkę.
Once again, tells an urgent, vital story about Ukraine you won't find anywhere else in int'l media: a bill too extreme to pass before the war is now being rushed through and will remove most urban planning and historic protection. ⬇️
Lots of people turning up their noses at the negotiated end to the coup: Russia is weak, chaotic, corrupt, makes no sense
Had Russia's leadership instead bombed and shot up the insurgents, the same people would go: Russia is brutal, chaotic, corrupt, makes no sense
This is starting to get weird. Moldovans don't celebrate Christmas on December 25, but on January 6/7.
Is changing your liturgical calendar a secret condition of EU candidacy?
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May the light in our souls bring peace to everybody’s homes. Wishing everyone a peaceful, healthy, and happy Christmas!
(He was not against that war)
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No one in Russia when I lived there was so generous with me regarding the US war in Iraq. They berated me personally all the time. (I was against that war) twitter.com/ChipBarnes/sta…
Hard to overstate how damning this report is: Latvia doesn't just grossly violate the right to asylum (and thus EU/international law), but commits torture (!!!) and possibly enforced disappearances (!!!) against Middle Eastern refugees. i
It gets worse ⬇️
The majority of Russians support the war, but without euphoria, and they don't feel moral responsibility for Ukrainians' suffering, acc to Lev Gudkov, famous pollster. Who's shocked and dismayed by it. I'm not, because I've seen it all before. ⬇️
I'm old - and Austrian - enough to have known actual Nazis, growing up (sorry, no dinner parties). Can vouch for the fact that they would have had themselves a WWII no matter what anyone else did. And that they thought themselves defeated by the USSR first and foremost. twitter.com/apmassaro3/sta
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A panel of "eminent" economists produced a report-cum-recommendations on Ukraine's economy, which read so we don't have to. It's a doozy. Stupid (like this quote) is one thing, vicious is another. This has both. adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-16
Not a good look: full-throated threats of embargoes and permanent decoupling for half a year and then cry 'foul' when the other side says 'fine'.
EU geopolitics was a really bad idea, but its implementation is even worse. Cringe.
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Putin is using energy as a weapon by cutting supply and manipulating our energy markets.
He will fail.
Europe will prevail.
The @EU_Commission is preparing proposals to help vulnerable households and businesses to cope with high energy prices.
Retired German diplomat: it's insane that we Europeans allow the future of Europe to be decided by tank battles, by whether German Leos or their Russian equivalent get destroyed faster. That Europe is not developing a political strategy for its own future at all.
This is the sort of footage they'll show to schoolchildren decades from now, to make them proper scared, swear "never again", but also allow them to think their enlightened generation could never be as demented and unhinged as people in the bad old days
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Fear of nuclear war is a pathetic Western phenomenon, says cheerleader for WW3 and NAFO e-celebrity @HelsinkiComm advisor Paul Massaro, gleefully amped-up about the war in Ukraine at this week's "Captive Nations Summit" held at the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington.
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I won't respond to those who are evidently ignorant of the issues involved. For the bona-fide responses: that Latvia's citizenship law falls short of European and international human rights standards has been established by the OSCE, UNHCR, etc.
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Lithuania, ao, found a solution in compliance with int'l human rights law, so this is entirely feasible.
The "just take the language test" response is problematic, because people must not be forced to prove their worth to enjoy human rights. Not being stateless is a human right.
[Deep breath:] I think Marlene Laruelle makes total sense on all points in this interview - NATO, lived reality inside Russia, decolonization, growth of illiberalism in the West, de-dollarization by key countries. Also, she's brave.
Short, but astonishing analysis by , of Russia's economy and economic policy at war: GDP contraction in 2022 no worse than Germany or France, growth for 2023 predicted better than Britain's. Due to steely fiscal technocrats like Nabiullina. ⬇️
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Since some seem intent on purposely misunderstanding me: this is about the kind of peace and future Ukraine builds as it liberates its territory. Activists have already raised the alarm that turning 30,000 into "collaborators" is unjust and creates new faultlines and grievances.
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Today, this excellent, introspective and poignant piece came out on . It describes, much better than I ever could, what it feels like inside Russia's anti-war movement, the fundamental ethical and moral questions, the sense of loss etc.
Banning all Russians from traveling to the EU is extremist and unjustifiable. It takes us into WWI territory, when 'enemy aliens' were interred en masse. The EU isn't officially at war with Russia and should not go there through some grubby back door.
Practically all Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 6/7, not December 24/25. Why are official Ukrainian government channels pretending it's otherwise?
If it was well-wishes to their Western (culturally-) Christian friends, fine, but that's not what they're doing here.
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Merry Christmas to our soldiers in dugouts and trenches, in barracks and command post!
Merry Christmas to their families in Ukraine and abroad!
Merry Christmas to volunteers!
Merry Christmas to everyone who believes in victory of light over darkness!
Victory will be ours.
In 🇺🇦, a narrow political clique pushes the most extreme neoliberal destruction of social and labor rights Europe has ever seen. The war is just a pretext; draft bills long predate it. Now on the chopping block: pensions, sick leave, unemployment benefits.
Bosnian expert on sexual violence in war: "I've worked with Bosnian, Syrian, Yazidi and Ukrainian women. I'm concerned about the proliferation of actors - ICC, UN, EU, INGOs hunting for universal jurisdiction cases - combing through Ukraine looking for cases to document. 1/2
Disturbing. How could it possibly be legal to deny someone access to a PhD program based on solely on their passpor? Never mind ethical/moral considerations. The use of the word "terrorist" is an uncanny reminder of how 20 years ago, in the GWOT, we did this to Muslims.
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Another nice way to reject someone from Russia. Are you suggesting us denouncing our citizenship and becoming stateless so we can do a PhD in Germany? The candidate is actually not affiliated with any Russian uni. So how come? @TUBerlin
The most informed, responsible and simultaneously principled take, IMO, on the decolonization/disintegration debate comes from Marlene Laruelle. Who has long worked on Chechnya. After ~20 year of hands-on activism in/on Chechnya, I couldn't agree more.
The Czech Republic's new pin-up president recommends collective suspicion and persecution of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Russian citizens residing in the West on the basis of nationality.
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I've been in this line of work for 20+ years, and if I've learned one thing, it's that you can safely dismiss any expert who refers to Russia as "she".
Plenty of disturbing data in 's piece on 🇺🇦 aid, but this is the most damning. All this money wasn't taken from Russia, but from European taxpayers/consumers. It wasn't given to 🇺🇦, but to Western energy corporations and their stockholders.
adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-19
Where does that leave him? Since he was so fervently for the invasion of Iraq.
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Replying to @benigma2017
If you were against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, then you must be against the Russian annexation of Ukraine. 2 wrongs don't make a right.
He's so eminent a historian that he knows precedent that never actually happened
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To consider regarding nuclear blackmail: when you give in to it, you empower dictators to do it again, encourage worldwide nuclear proliferation, and make nuclear war much, much more likely.
Es kann ja nicht sein, dass weder die Autorin noch die Redakteure der Zeit (!!!) nicht wissen, auf welches (und wessen) Zitat sie hier anspielen. Warum also? Soll das lustig sein? Edgy? Mehr Klicks?
This is manipulative on several levels, and that's unacceptable from a senior EU official. So a quick thread. 1. 'Border crossings' makes it sound like sthg sinister/illegal. It isn't. It's visa-holders entering legally at official border checkpoints. 1/4
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We have seen a substantial increase of border crossings from Russia into neighbouring states. This is becoming a security risk.
We therefore agree today with EU Foreign Ministers on Full Suspension of the EU-Russia visa facilitation agreement.
I see all these maximalist demands out there: "like Germany, Russia must be defeated, dismembered, disarmed, occupied and isolated for decades etc etc", and I think "you do know this didn't actually happen to Germany?".
We've been sold the rise of the tank-riding girl-boss political leader as a feminist triumph, but women like Kallas reach the top by sucking up to patriarchal power and militarism. It's all "You're safe with me, boys, I'm not like the other girls, I'm cool, please like me."
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Greetings to #NAFOfellas at the first-ever #NAFOSummit in Vilnius.
#NAFO is a living example of how to disarm Russian disinformation with humour, intelligence and enthusiasm. Behind every Fella is a real person who believes in #Ukraine’s victory.
Thank you for your service.
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Years before this war, a Ukrainian friend explained Ukrainians' position in the SU: "after the Nazis left, Soviet authorities saw only two types of people in Ukraine - heroes (they were dead) and traitors (who had survived)". The bitterness stuck for decades.
I wrote this in July, about the EU's muddled, millenarian foreign policy. 2 months later, the EU has major egg on its face, as 🇦🇿 has attacked 🇦🇲. Back then, von der Leyen treated herself to a self-congratulatory Twitter storm. Today, she's been silent.
Like a textbook example of how words mean nothing, least of all truth, if they're pronounced cynically, opportunistically and without their full meaning: "Russia", "actual", "historical", "borders"
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The only reason anyone ever questions Russia's "European-ness" (for political, applied purposes anyway) is to prove their own nation's supremacy, superiority and greater entitlement. A profoundly pointless debate that most true students of Russia grow out of as undergrads.
The bulk of the voices calling for decolonization of Russia right now have alternative colonization projects in mind. Like this pan-Turkic fever dream.
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Война РФ против Украины ускорила деколониальный дискурс в самой России. Потери национальных республик на украинском фронте приобретают масштаб национальной катастрофы. newcaucasus.com/nc-other/21992
Something can be illegal even if your country hasn't ratified this or that convention. ~25% of the world's nations haven't ratified the Genocide Convention, and yet, astonishingly, that doesn't mean they're free to commit genocide. Weird stuff, international law.
The tweet that launched a thousand dissertations
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Met Museum recognizes the most famous Armenian painter Aivazovsky as Ukranian.
Western decolonization is colonization.
The "if Wagner fights the Russian army, Ukraine wins" crowd forgets (never knew?) that the last time Russia had a civil war, it defeated and reconquered all its newly independent neighbors simultaneously.
This isn't some Russian exceptionalism, but the exponential nature of war.
My take on the counter-disinformation obsession: it started invading and poisoning the human rights/civil society/free press fields in the post-Soviet space about a decade ago. Invade how? Via money. Much of that sector depends on Western grants, often from governments. 1/6
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1/ Counter-disinformation is now blooming into a full industry - it reminds me of the early days of 'preventing violent extremism' in the UK, when I first started my career.
Just like PVE in the early days however, it's extremely unclear what actually works. A few thoughts:
People claiming asylum have a HUMAN RIGHT not to be turned away at a border. People facing unjust punishment for draft dodging/desertion have a HUMAN RIGHT to asylum. This is the law (in Estonia, too).
Never, ever again say you're in this war with Russia because VALUES.
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“Every citizen is responsible for the actions of their state, and citizens of Russia are no exception. Therefore, we do not give asylum to Russian men who flee their country. They should oppose the war.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas
Sign of the time that this doesn't get said, and thought, more. Azerbaijan is subjecting Karabakh's population to a proper siege, complete with starvation, denial of medical services, like we know from lurid medieval tales or the Leningrad blockade, and the world shrugs.
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I know it’s really annoying to criticize people for recognizing human suffering unequally, mainly because we’re all guilty, but the difference in Western attention paid to Ukraine vs. Nagorno-Karabakh is pretty wild. (I say this with an eye pointed at the mirror.)
Because people in Rostov took excited selfies with Prigozhin, some here go "look, fascism!", others "look, Russians support a coup!".
I see young men fanboying over a toxic masculinity role model, just as they do with Andrew Tate, Ramzan Kadyrov, Trump, ISIS etc.
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It's already problematic to call it a "problem". It is simply a feature of living in large, compact mono-lingual communities that provide work, education, services. Under those circumstances few people anywhere, especially of advanced age, would be able to learn a new language.
The argument that cluster munitions are highly effective is neither here nor there. If they weren't effective, nobody would want to use them and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. You know what else is really effective in trench warfare? Mustard gas.
Planning meeting with Ukrainian grassroots activists, all women: "We're not being part of discussions about the impact of war, overcoming the legacy of war, building peace, rebuilding our country. No one asks us, no one even listens if we try to get through to them." 1/4
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Also, the choice of picture: strapping men in uniform exercising against a backdrop of old-timey religious architecture
I would like to ridicule this, but the jokes get stuck in my throat. I see only inhumanity, cruelty and recklessness in this. I hope my Ukrainian friends won't hear of this.
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Replying to @McFaul
"The Ukrainians’ cause is just; their will to fight is extraordinary. After a nuclear attack, Ukrainians would be more likely to double down than capitulate, and could even try to take the war to Russia." 2/ END washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/
As I watch protests and rising fury about usurious, obscene electricity bills across Europe, I remember these scenes, from Georgia, which privatized its electricity market to Western applause in 1999 and where the West shrugged at people's misery. Chickens coming home to roost.
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A survivor might be interviewed 5 times, by 5 different agencies. Apart from her retraumatization, 5 testimonies means inconsistencies. In rape-as-war-crime cases, testimony is usually the only evidence. So those inconsistencies will be used to get the perpetrator acquitted." 2/2
I won't write another endless, tortured thread about 's much-debated, -vilified and -praised recent article, but I will say this: clearly, he's on to something.
newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/a
The US government openly declares that it abandons the core principle of international refugee law: non-refoulement, the prohibition to push back and expel people who claim asylum at the border, summarily, without giving them a proper hearing.
This is momentous and really scary.
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Starting tonight, people who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway will be presumed ineligible for asylum. We are ready to humanely process and remove people without a legal basis to remain in the U.S. (1/4)
For some 24h, Prigozhin changed from sledgehammering ghoul to inspiring freedom fighter in the minds of many, enough for them to project heroic, selfless qualities onto him.
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Replying to @KyivIndependent
Still something very strange about all of this. Prigozhin using his troops only to now abandon them.
thehill.com/opinion/406611
The Chairman of Latvia's National Council of Electronic Media, which took the decision to withdraw 's license, had this to say about Ukrainians during the Maidan.
twitter.com/Ivars_Abolins/
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Pffft, why stop there? I say it's time to bring back the Holy Roman Empire.
Seeing a lot of tweets "I'm siding with Armenia because they are a democracy" and "with Azerbaijan because Armenia is allied with Russia". This isn't helping, on so many layers. First, attacking a sovereign state is wrong (against international law, for what it's worth). 1/5
EU member state Lithuania has just "outlawed" the main norm of the 1951 Refugee Convention and one of the key norms of European and international human rights law: when a person comes to your border and asks for asylum, you must not turn him/her away.
Me!!!! Me me me!!! Pick me!!!! ME!!!!
Seriously, why are people like Kasparov taken seriously by anyone? His political analysis is as abject as his arrogance is boundless.
newsweek.com/russia-kasparo
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This is such a mansplaining-equivalent. How can Europeans think that it's safe and easy to be a refugee if thousands drown in the Mediterranean, freeze in Belarusian forests, rot on Greek isles? Do they think these people are just too stupid to fill out the proper form?
This thread is dripping with essentialism. Reducing an entire continent's worth of nations to their supposed inherent qualities in the space of one tweet, wow.
And no clue about rule one of international solidarity: trust the locals to choose the best form of resistance.
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Russian police pick off protesters in ones or twos, and no other protesters come to their aid. If they can’t organize self-defense units like the Ukrainians did at the EuroMaidan protests, the Russian public will be unable to offer any resistance to their fascist police state. twitter.com/michaeldweiss/…
Before this war, most Russians who knew or cared about Prigozhin were mum-chat helicopter parents who hated his guts for having won tenders worth billions for school lunches. Which were garbage, as large-scale corporate school meals often are. They sued him and won, too.
The author of this essentializing, othering, dehumanizing tweet leads a school for public policy - he trains future policy-makers. His take on Russians as violently raucous and not decent/civilized is all his own, because the article describes 2 well-behaved (if stupid) Russians.
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Summer is again high season for Russian tourists in Italy.
Obscenely wealthy, violently raucous, and oblivious to any standard of decent civilised behaviour.
In this report from Milan’s shopping streets they complain about… Ukrainian immigrants. ilsussidiario.net/news/storie-ru
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It's about people who've lived in Latvia since before 1991 and have taken Russian citizenship afterwards. They're different from 'non-citizens' in that they took on Russian citizenship in order to escape statelessness. These are not post-1991 immigrants to Latvia from Russia.
Incomprehensibly awful, beyond words.
Tens of thousands of amputees, already reaching WWI levels (after 1.5 years, whereas WWI lasted 4).
"It's a bad sign when people like you start showing up in one's country", a grim, middle-aged Ukrainian activist (male, for once) told me in winter 2014/15, on some dark road in the east. "It's like waking up and seeing doctors standing around your bed."
This is neither an "obvious legal solution" nor a "viable political way forward". Privileging groups with ethnic kin inside the EU goes against the very idea of minority rights in EU law. It would exclude (at least) Roma, Crimean Tatars, Russians.
newsweek.com/suppression-su
To the people who in 2022 found out to their surprise that Russian literature (or any of the "great" European national literatures) can be imperialist: imagine what it's like reading "the classics" of any language as a woman.
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In some circles Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has called into question not just the value of reading Russian masterworks, but also the morality econ.st/3gRnx7f
Yes, Ukrainians fervently support their armed forces, but when I see surveys like this, I remember that before the war, >50% had less than <$150/month. They can't "prefer brands". I often wonder whether we hear this majority in surveys, polls etc. Certainly not on social media.
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Here’s another interesting illustration of how important our army is to Ukrainians: according to a recent study, over half of Ukrainian consumers prefer to buy stuff from brands that donate money to our armed forces. the-village.com.ua/village/busine
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The EU is preparing legislation that would allow member states to ditch their obligation to admit refugees and review their asylum requests. Supposedly only when some nasty third country sends the refugees on to Europe as a dirty trick. But in reality for one reason only: racism.
These are super-serious, senior, PhD'd economists - and they have no idea how the world works. MSF provide all healthcare in Ukraine???? If you wrote this in an undergrad class on development/humanitarian aid, you'd fail. I blush just reading it.
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I've been encouraged by the thoughts of many and have cited , , , , and this wonderful article by Christian Gibbons. My most important source are hundreds of unnamed activists I have worked with.
The interesting thing is, I don't remember ever engaging in a discussion with him or criticizing him directly. His enemies list must be extensive and require a lot of in-depth research. How ironic.
These images are so shocking, and then again, they shouldn't be, because everything we know about war tells us it will inevitably look like this, when the fronts grind to a standstill. Why would it be safer, saner, cleaner, gentler, more clinical 100 years on?
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Anders is working on his first romance novel
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Taking the last night flight from Helsinki to Stockholm. It is packed, overwhelmingly with tall, very quiet, young Russian men, all too obviously escaping Putin’s mobilization. They move with great determination. I am probably the only Swede on this plane.
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State and public lose control over building permits, heritage protection and construction standards. This year in Kyiv, more historic buildings have been torn down than ever - destroyed by developers anticipating a deregulated building boom, not by Russian missiles.
!!!! EURASIA IS FACING AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT!!!!!
Join the Atlantic Council and help defeat Oceania.
(1 year work experience, Russian/Ukrainian proficiency isn't a must.)
In ultra-wealthy Austria, the communist party has won 11% in the federal state of Salzburg, with 21% in the city of Salzburg. For the first time since 1949 (!!!), they will enter the state diet. Main reason (lesson?): offering hands-on help with housing.
I had a hunch, but waited until I could talk face-to-face to Ukrainians (not just any, but activists supporting the army, women, human rights etc), because it's a sensitive topic: turns out they don't think "Ukrainians are so tough, a nuclear strike will only make them stronger".
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Also, now do every other country in the world in 1471. Such fun!
Not really. Elsewhere and in other times, war powers were used to outlaw profiteering and to give additional protections to workers and anyone sustaining the system. Just because we've seen this disaster capitalism a lot lately doesn't mean it's acceptable.
Smirk if you want, but I'm offering a safe space to anyone working professionally on Ukraine and faced with threats, attacks, accusations, feeling low, burnt-out etc. 20 years in grassroots activism have at least taught me that, and how, we need to care for ourselves and others.
Sharply observed piece by . From where I was sitting, in grassroots women's rights activism, it was alienating and infuriating: conferences on 1325, even domestic violence, UN Women projects, all started having NATO stickers on them.
Told you so. This will get incrementally worse. At the end of this trend stands expulsion/internment. The legal basis for such acts is extremely dubious. But that - arbitrary suspension of laws - is another sign of the times.
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Finnair passengers with Russian IDs and EU visas/residence permits were denied boarding intra-EU flights: Dusseldorf - Helsinki; Vienna - Helsinki.
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All of these things except a free press are bad for you. It's a fascinating parable about to the blessings of globalized late-stage capitalism.
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The numbers in Russian polling are strikingly similar to those of Americans before and during the invasion of Iraq. I was young, anti-war, from a neutral country and found it utterly upsetting and alienating, esp when my friends from IR grad school began to support the war.⬇️
Tweeting about sexual violence (or at least exploitation), by a group of drunk armed combattants, in a war zone, against a vulnerable woman thoughtlessly objectified as a prostitute.
It's a hoot. You're just like Hemingway in the Spanish civil war. twitter.com/guillaume_ptak
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Really, this comes as a shock? Russia has a first-strike doctrine, like all nuclear powers except India/China. Peskov just reiterates it. The world has been this scary all of our lives. Count yourself lucky to find out only now.