In Solidarity with Ukraine

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raid said:
I post at RFF not because of this thread or any other thread that is not about photography, Jon. Life is too short to make it miserable because of some online thread. There used to exist a Soviet Union, and it became "the Former Soviet Union", so to speak. Is this war about creating " a Former Russia"? Just a thought. Does this world "need" Russia in place? Just a thought.
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Russia's population is declining by roughly 3000 a day with births lagging far behind natural death rates. The Russian Far East is resource-rich and sparsely populated. It will eventually roll over to the PRC, by hook, crook or default. Central Asia? The Turks have had their eyes on the Turkic-speaking lands for the last century. From the start of the 20th century, Poland, the Baltics, Finland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia have been peeled off (thought the latter two now Putin's vassals)--not to mention its lost buffer states of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria too--. Russia may end up no larger than the Grand Duchy of Muscovy was by the mid-16th century (collectively, in the various shades of green, below overlaid on a modern map).

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raid said:
Hm. So my words above can actually be meaningful?! :)
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An "Empire" spanning 11 time zones cannot be sustained with a collapsing population or unwilling subjects. No matter how hard a Czar-wannabe exercises unrestrained brutality to recreate what is lost, whether inside its borders or beyond (i.e., in Syria & Ukraine), the end result will remain the same. Memories of the USSR and Czarist Russia that preceded it, remain potent in the minds of all the unfortunate lands that fell under its sway.
 
james.liam said:
'Disintegration' or 'collapse' is even more frightening.
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To be honest, the disintegration/collapse of the Soviet Union was already bad enough in many ways. If Russia breaks apart, it could be even worse.

I'm reminded of the three men in Lia, Georgia who stumbled upon radioactive material that was originally used to power radio relays. They didn't know what it was, but knew it was generating heat, so camped around it at night to stay warm; you can imagine how well that played out for them. The Wikipedia article on the incident is quite dry, but it explains the event well enough. However, the reason I bring this up is actually mentioned at the very end of the page; "Between the fall of the Soviet Union and 2006, the IAEA had recovered some 300 orphan sources in Georgia, many lost from former industrial and military sites abandoned in the economic collapse after the Soviet breakup."

Last I heard there's still a lot of similar things out there; not just "nuclear sources" that were abandoned, but weapons caches - including nuclear weapons! - that were forgotten about in the chaos of the early Post-Soviet era. Now imagine the "motherland" crumbles apart; God only knows what would end up simply disappearing, whether through neglect or malicious intent.
 
Are photographers so especially gullible to think that Zelensky has even been in the Ukraine for the past month? He could just as easily be standing in front of a green screen while ensconced at a CIA safe house in Belgium or Argentina. He probably has a stack of pressed battle fatigues and a plate carrier following him around as he writes scripts from his villa.

Not a shred of all this anti-Russian propaganda has been verified outside of the select group of approved journalists standing in a circle jerking their hands in up and down repetition, it's a just continuation of the Russiagate smears designed to provoke fear from out of touch boomers.

Back to the blow dried network "journalist" working out of the Kiev or Kyiv Hilton as the camera zooms in on some burning tires off in the distance....
 
Honest question - what source would you believe if they said he was there?

There are thousands of of hours of footage about Ukraine and its current state from an innumerable number of sources. The number of people fleeing the country is documented by the countries taking in refugees - and people don’t abandon their lives easily.

I struggle to understand how people deny in good faith the scale of what’s happening.
 
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