Hi guys, here we are at the start of a new week. With everything going on in the world one might feel overwhelmed, but as Seneca has said we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. Keep your eyes on the ball, the ball being things you can control. Let’s get started.
War in Ukraine is getting bloodier and bloodier. Seems like Russia gave up the efforts of modern warfare with high precision strikes to avoid civilian casualties and went back to its tried and tested methods of surrounding cities, bombing them to the ground until the everyone is forced to surrender. The NYT picture of a dead family trying the leave the city of Irpin with their dog is haunting. I am not going to post it here but I must say, it messes you up.
During the weekend the Russian parliament passed a law that imposes fines and prison sentences up to 15 years on anyone spreading “falsehood” against the army or public interest. This was accompanied with most of the Western media leaving the country.
Police officers in Moscow today are stopping people, demanding to see their phones, READING THEIR MESSAGES, and refusing to release them if they refuse. This from Kommersant journalist Ana Vasilyeva. t.me/Crexcrexcrex/3…
Faced with unprecedented sanctions from the West, the only way out for Russia would be through China because it the only entity with the scale large enough to accommodate the wide range sectors being impacted. This was made obvious during the weekend when Visa and Mastercard stopped their Russian operations making all the cards in the country useless. Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, immediately switched to Unionpay, a Chinese provider, which turns out to be a major player in the field, see below. More about this here.
Becoming a client state of China is not without costs. The Chinese will buy everything at a discount as Russia finds itself against the wall with no bargaining power whatsoever.
From following western media seems like the narrative is that the vast majority of the Russian population is against this war, that they are actively partaking in protests and for those who aren’t is just because they don’t know what is really happening on the ground, or that the Russian conscripts on the ground didn’t know they were being sent there and that most of them do not agree with the war. Seems like no one wants to even think that Putin might have public support for what he is doing in Ukraine. Let’s take a look at the other side, shall we?
“Z” is the letter that the Russian military is putting on its vehicles departing to Ukraine. Some interpret it as ‘Za pobedy’ meaning ‘for victory’, others as ‘Zapad’ meaning ‘west’.
Anyway, this symbol has been embraced by a lot of supporters. People putting it on their cars.
Businesses showing support for the invasion.
Russian soldiers making Z letters out of badges of killed Ukrainian soldiers.
Terminally ill children from a hospice and their parents making a Z formation.
Ethnic Russians abroad are cheering too. This photo is from Kazakhstan.
There is a whole youth movement embracing the invasion. If this doesn’t look like Nazi youth to you, I don’t know what does.
Credit to: Kamil Galeev.
For those of you who follow the stock market, here is a historical table on the number of days it has taken the market to recover from the news of a military conflict. It doesn’t mean that history will repeat itself but it’s always good to have some context.
After the scare of the nuclear reactor in Ukraine being on fire there was all sort of media hype on the matter (there was a guy on Anderson Cooper who was saying that even a stray bullet would cause a seven fold Chernobyl atomic cloud), and I had a hard time finding something which assessed the situation more rationally. This article from Nature seems to be doing a good job in explaining the risks and measures in place that would mitigate some of those risks. From the article: The plants also have multiple safety back-up systems, says Michael Bluck, director of the Centre for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London. He says that it would be very alarming if the Russian forces were deliberately trying to breach the containment structure, but that catastrophic damage from an accidental hit is unlikely. “If a missile goes astray, I’m less worried about [that]. These are very robust structures,” he says.
Another interesting snippet: Although not comparable to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, such a fire could be hazardous to people in the vicinity of the plant, and even to those further afield. “Russia needs to keep in mind that the prevailing winds are towards Russia,” Rofer tells Nature.
And lastly, time for pics and memes from around the web:
Context: the ruble becoming rubble.
Same guy, different table.
This painting is called ‘The Palace Guard‘ and it is from the Orientalist French-Austrian painter Ludwig Deutsch (1855 - 1935). You can see more paintings from him here. These colors are mesmerizing.
Yeah, screw passwords.
Happens to me more often than I’d like to admit.
Either that, or they got mixed up at the hospital.
That was it for today folks. Wishing you a great week ahead, bye.