A map showing the locations of significant recent fires across Russia.

The Open Society Foundations extend our condolences to the friends and family of loved ones on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of the HIV/AIDS researchers and advocates onboard traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, along with all the other people who perished.

On Facebook, we identified 51,269 posts (0.25% of all posts)sharing links to Russian propaganda outlets, generating 5,065,983interactions (0.17% of all interactions); 80,066 posts (0.4% of allposts) sharing links to low-credibility news websites, generating28,334,900 interactions (0.95% of all interactions); and 147,841 postssharing links to high-credibility news websites (0.73% of all posts),generating 63,837,701 interactions (2.13% of all interactions). Asshown in Figure 2, we notice that the number of posts sharingRussian propaganda and low-credibility news exhibits an increas-ing trend (Mann-Kendall 𝑃 < .001), whereas after the invasion ofUkraine both time series yield a significant decreasing trend (moreprominent in the case of Russian propaganda); high-credibilitycontent also exhibits an increasing trend in the Pre-invasion pe-riod (Mann-Kendall 𝑃 < .001), which becomes stable (no trend)in the period afterward. T

On Twitter, the picture is very similar in the case of Russianpropaganda, where all accounts are verified (with a few exceptions)and mostly associated with news outlets, and generate over 68%of all retweets linking to these websites (see panel a of Figure 4).For what concerns low-credibility news, there are both verified (wecan notice the presence of seanhannity) and not verified users,and only a few of them are directly associated with websites (e.g.zerohedge or Breaking911). Here the top 15 accounts generateroughly 30% of all retweets linking to low-credibility websites.

Figure 5: Top 15 spreaders of Russian propaganda (a) andlow-credibility content (b) ranked by the proportion ofretweets generated over the period of observation, with re-spect to all retweets linking to websites in each group. Weindicate those that are not verified using “hatched” bars

Figure 4: Top 15 spreaders of Russian propaganda (a) andlow-credibility content (b) ranked by the proportion of in-teractions generated over the period of observation, withrespect to all interactions around links to websites in eachgroup. Given the large number of verified accounts, we indi-cate those not verified using “hatched” bars.

Βρέθηκαν στη γραμμή πυρός από την αρχή, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της αεροπορικής επιδρομής της 9ης Μαρτίου που κατέστρεψε ένα μαιευτήριο στην κατεχόμενη πλέον πόλη-λιμάνι της Μαριούπολης.

There are reasons why the U.S. might want to project power into the Black Sea region.

Putin’s regime

The US then began integrating Ukraine into NATO, such that by June of 2020 it was recognised as an “Enhanced Opportunities Partner”. A year later, the two countries signed a “Charter on Strategic Partnership”, which declared that the US supports Ukraine’s “aspirations to join NATO”.

"The attack cast serious doubt on the credibility of Russia's commitment," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said

The reverberations of the war in Ukraine widened on Wednesday, jolting energy markets and threatening

Public Enemy 2022 Most hated & wanted person for today: Vlad Draputin + Xi Jum Ping Reason: Mass Murder and Human Rights Oppression

Let's try to examine the roots of the Ukrainian conflict. It starts with those who for the last eight years have been talking about "separatists" or "independentists" from Donbass. This is a misnomer. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in May 2014, were not referendums of "independence" (независимость), as some unscrupulous journalists have claimed, but referendums of "self-determination" or "autonomy" (самостоятельность). The qualifier "pro-Russian" suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term "Russian speakers" would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.

The Russian statement also cites a video posted online by the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, which claimed Bucha had been liberated as of 31 March 2022.

suspicions they had fought for Ukrainian armed forces in the Donbas in 2014, or even “simply for having a tattoo of Ukraine’s national emblem”.

Russia/Putin

Putin is a Gambler (Takes Calculated Risks aggressively)

In the video, the soldiers of the special forces of the DPR described the real situation in Mariupol, criticizing the hooray-patriotic approach of many Russian and local journalists.

However, Erdogan said Turkey and Russia were also negotiating a way to use the Ruble and Turkish Lira for tourism as Putin promised the Turkish leader he would encourage Russians to travel to Turkey.

Two super-yachts belonging to the sanctioned Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich docked in Turkish ports earlier this week. Istanbul has also become one of the main destinations for Russians fleeing their country.

Putin's Early Bird History Book Russia's occupation on Ukraine and innocent mass murder marked a sign of harassing human life simply because of greed, arrogance and pride. Why they (or we) don't realize if those things only temporary and soon people will write you on the dark side of history books. Surely the topic is about "The most horrible humankind ever lived on earth". This book contains long list and every generation provide it and this period is you. Pray for your after life, Comrade!

The American sanctions created more than just sewage problems, and Japanese leaders came to believe they would lose power if they did nothing. They also believed they would lose power if they abandoned the war in China. As a result, Tokyo expanded the war and attacked Pearl Harbor. Critically, the Japanese cabinet chose to attack the United States even after it received analysis which reached the “unequivocal conclusion” that war with the United States “was unwinnable.”

And this needs to be made explicit. EU leaders and Biden need to announce clearly and repeatedly that if Russian troops pull back from Ukraine, the sanctions will all be quickly dropped. The part about removing Putin from power shouldn’t be stated; it will be implicit, since Putin is unlikely to ever personally forge an enduring peace with Ukraine.

They need to not just pull their soldiers back from Ukraine, but implement some kind of guarantee of lasting peace — and to allow Ukraine to join the EU and NATO if it wishes.

Το «φρούριο Δύση» που συγκροτείται, ενάντια σε Ρωσία και Κίνα ξεκινάει και θα συνεχίσει στραμμένο τέρμα δεξιά με τα μισά του κανόνια να κοιτάνε προς τα μέσα.

How Vladimir Putin’s childhood is affecting us all

“The choice that we faced in Ukraine — and I'm using the past tense there intentionally — was whether Russia exercised a veto over NATO involvement in Ukraine on the negotiating table or on the battlefield,” said George Beebe, a former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and special adviser on Russia to former Vice President Dick Cheney. “And we elected to make sure that the veto was exercised on the battlefield, hoping that either Putin would stay his hand or that the military operation would fail.”

« Η επιλογή που αντιμετωπίσαμε στην Ουκρανία — και χρησιμοποιώ σκόπιμα την ένταση του παρελθόντος εκεί — ήταν εάν η Ρωσία άσκησε βέτο για τη συμμετοχή του ΝΑΤΟ στην Ουκρανία στο τραπέζι των διαπραγματεύσεων ή στο πεδίο της μάχης» δήλωσε ο Τζορτζ Μπίμπε, πρώην διευθυντής ανάλυσης της Ρωσίας στη CIA και ειδικός σύμβουλος για τη Ρωσία στον πρώην αντιπρόεδρο Ντικ Τσένι. Παρακάτω: η πλήρης διάλεξη του Πανεπιστημίου του Σικάγου John J. Mearsheimer, η οποία τώρα γίνεται ιογενής.. Ο Μπίμπι της CIA ακολουθεί αυτή την σχεδόν απίστευτη ατάκα:  «Και εκλέξαμε για να βεβαιωθούμε ότι το βέτο ασκήθηκε στο πεδίο της μάχης, ελπίζοντας ότι είτε ο Πούτιν δεν θα το αποτολμήσει  είτε η επιχείρησή του θα αποτύχει”.

PUTIN DOES HAVE THE CAPACITY TO DRIVE THAT NARRATIVE EVEN IN THE CASE OF WHAT'S GOING TO BE A MUCH WORSE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE THAN WHEN ANYONE IN THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN EXPERIENCING FOR A CENTURY.

At a global climate meeting Monday, Ukraine’s representative, Svitlana Krakovska, pointed out the connection: “Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots—fossil fuels—and our dependence on them,”

The idea that Russia has a particular responsibility for the Russian communities outside Russia became a core part of the identity of Moscow’s foreign policy elite in the early 1990s and has been a key driver in the evolution of Russia’s approach to its neighbourhood.

However, this assertion does not make sense if Ukraine and Russia are the same.

The whole topic is clearly a personal idée fixe for him: back in July 2013, and before the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine that followed during the subsequent year, he gave a speech in Kyiv stating that all of Ukraine was historical Russia.

Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians have all used Rus’ as part of their compound name at various times; but this only means they are kin, not the ‘same people’. Putin’s argument that the Ancient Rus’ were ancient Russians is, therefore, only one possibility out of four.

Putin ignores what happened when Ukrainians and Russians lived in separate states – actually for a longer period than when they lived together.

We could see Kyiv in the same situation as Homs, as the same situation as Aleppo, which would be catastrophic, and, again, would plant terrible seeds of hatred for years and decades. So far, we've seen hundreds of people being killed, Ukrainian citizens being killed. 00:47:04 It could reach tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. So in this sense, it's extremely painful to contemplate. And this is why we need again and again to urge the leaders to stop this war, and especially, again and again, tell Putin, "You will not be able to absorb Ukraine into Russia. 00:47:30 They don't want it, they don't want you. If you continue, the only thing you will achieve is to create terrible hatred between Ukrainians and Russians for generations. It doesn't have to be like that."

his long-term goal, the whole rationale of the war, 00:07:47 is to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation and to absorb it into Russia. And to do that, it's not enough to conquer Ukraine. You also need to hold it. And it's all based on this fantasy, on this gamble, that most of the population in Ukraine would agree to this, would even welcome this. 00:08:11 And we already know that it's not true. That the Ukrainians are a very real nation; they are fiercely independent; they don’t want to be part of Russia; they will fight like hell. And in the long-run, again, you can conquer a country, But as the Russians learned in Afghanistan, as the Americans learned also in Afghanistan, also in Iraq, it's much harder to hold a country.

For centuries, Kyiv was looking westwards and was a part of a union with Lithuania and Poland until it was eventually conquered and absorbed by the Russian Empire, by the czarist empire. But even after that, Ukrainians remained a separate people to a large extent, and it's important to know that because this is really what is at stake in this war.

But the Russian despot has told his lie so many times that he apparently believes it himself.

But if you look at [the demands Putin made of the west before invading], it’s not just Ukraine.

Russian armored vehicles are loaded onto railway platforms

Some 2,000 troops will be sent from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland and Germany, and a further 1,000 already in Germany will go to Romania.

They are determined to prevent the Internet from serving as a tool for “colorrevolution” in the way that online media and communication tools empowered activists inUkraine and Lebanon. Thus in 2005 the Chinese government updated its regulations control-ling online news and information, and aggressively leaned on organizations hosting onlinechatrooms and blogs to stop the spread of online discussions about recent local governmentcrackdowns against farmer protests in the Chinese countryside.

Differential Effects of Capital-Enhancing and Recreational Internet Use on Citizens’ Demand for Democracy

There are several other important considerations related to LEB. First, there is a risk of capture of legislation by the domestic industry. Once an inefficient industry comes to rely on LEB for survival, the Ukrainian parliament might find it difficult to rescind the ban in the future. Second, LEB and other similar measures underscore that the Ukrainian parliament finds it acceptable to intervene in functioning of the markets based on empirically dubious rationale. The parliament substitutes the market by deciding how resources should be allocated. In doing so, the parliament teaches the businesses and the industry that they should compete through lobbying in the parliament, financial and informational, rather than through innovation and efficiency improvement in the market place.