Young Master Smeet
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So, apparently Macron has addressed the nation and it sounds like he has called for talks with the unions, but they seem not to want to talk, just yet.
Now, this is the the thing, are the unions forming the organisation skeleton of this protest, from what I’ve seen, inchoate riot seems to be the situation (and that is what Macron is banking on, holding his nerve, letting the riots dissipate, establishing new facts on the ground). If there is organisation, and *demands* things get interesting, especially of this organisation is democratic (if it’s just union bosses and leaders, expect sell-out).
So, some updates:
Bakhmut still(!!) holds, and the bulge remains – although the cost is questionable.
Bellingcat and the New York Times identified the leaker but, by some accounts, by holding onto the leaked data, and mixing in some secret state disinfo, may also be helping to remedy the situation. The reports, therefore, that the UK has around 50 special forces members in Ukraine seem plausible (and a democratic outrage that the government would refuse to comment on special forces operations – how many are still active in Syria, I wonder).
So, it seems that the power of the market prevails: Poland and other states bordering Ukraine are restricting food imports, because the cheap Ukrainian food is destabilising their farmer’s markets: so much for solidarity. Of course, the endgame of this story will be the agricultural areas of Ukraine (one way or another) being added to the EU, which would be a powerful resource for the bloc, but it would destabilise the common agricultural agreement.
8% of Russians are not patriots That’s a pleasing, and surprisingly high number.
“Nine in ten Russians say they are patriots (91%), one in two Russians (52%) say they are absolute patriots. Throughout the entire monitoring period, the metric [of those calling themselves patriots] has not fallen below 80%, with the highest figured registered in 2018 at 92%. Some 5% of Russians surveyed do not consider themselves patriots at all,”
12 million Russian citizens are not patriots. We can work with that.
I think the ‘leaks’ need to be taken with more than a pinch of salt, the possibility of disinfo permeates the Russia propaganda reaction.
I notice that the substantive fall of Bakhmut has had zero coverage in both Western and Russian media: OK, there is still fighting in the city. There is a point though that apparently Russia needs to win in Bakhmut before any Ukrainian counter offensive (plausibly why they’ve put so many resources into continuing to hold it.
From the sounds of it, Bakhmut has fallen, I suppose the question now is can the remaining Ukrainian troops retreat in good order, or will many thousands be killed or captured. Of course, Ukraine still has many divisions in the theatre, and may be looking to counter attack north of the ruins.
The capacity for substantial counter attack is a big question, and of course, while Ukraine has been getting deliveries of armour, the Russians have been ramping up tank production themselves, and may be planning a massed tank assault.
Religious repression in Ukraine
Things have come to a pretty pass when even the BBC has to report the religious repression in Ukraine.
“He also made statements that justified or denied the actions of the aggressor state,” the SBU says. It has posted recordings on YouTube which it alleges are phone intercepts of Metropolitan Pavel.
In one, a male voice believed to be his, describes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war between the Russian Federation and America until the last Ukrainian is killed”, claiming it was Ukraine that provoked Russian aggression.
This is standard nationalist nation building, sweeping away any rival ideological bases, much like clearing Russian books off library shelves.
A good speech here by Melenchon on what free time means : incredible to hear this from a national level politician, and it does cut to the root of why the French are right to take up this struggle.
He was initially fined for criticism of the Russia military operation in Ukraine on social media in April last year. He was investigated shortly after his daughter’s school alerted the police about her drawing in a fine arts class, which reportedly featured Russian and Ukrainian flags, along with an image of a woman and a child, and flying missiles.
Moskalev has written several more posts criticizing the Russian military operation since then, which led to a criminal case being launched against him before the New Year. In early March, he was placed under house arrest. His daughter is currently staying at a social rehabilitation center in Yefremov. It’s yet to be decided whether she will move to stay with relatives or will be sent to an orphanage, the lawyers said. The court hearing is scheduled to take place in early April.
What can I say?
Wagner Calling victory in Bakhmut?
“And we are persistently moving along this pathway. The battle for Bakhmut has practically destroyed the Ukrainian army today,” the Wagner press office quoted Prigozhin as saying on its Telegram channel.
Foreign units are also incorporated into the Ukrainian army, Prigozhin added.
All the Russian units positioned in the flanks, the south and the north must “move forward,” the Wagner founder said.
Reports seem to be flitting about that the fighting has reached the centre of Bakhmut. RT has been reporting Zelensky as giving his reasons for holding the city He claimed that if Russia were to capture Artyomovsk, his government would come under international and domestic pressure to seek peace with Moscow.
“Our society will feel tired,” he told the news agency of this scenario. “Our society will push me to have compromise with them.” We’ll have to see: lots of chatter about the big AFU push coming soon.
This explains so, it looks like I took this at face value (although I think I was swayed by the authority of it coming from the TUC account: someone must have forgot which twitter account they were logged into.
Anyway, it seems the video is the police moving protestors on, not joining the protest.
Seems Credit Suisse have just had to hike their interest offer to depositors to dig themselves out of trouble…
At the time they said it was Russia. Now they are revealing that the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline was organised by some Ukrainian oligarch. I wonder why they are revealing it now.
I suppose because the Hersh story was landing and people were believing it was the US (who, I suppose, are a pro-Ukraine group). At the least, it creates chaff.
Well, more like that we have communist roads, and some form of welfare: that line of what everyone thinks it’s acceptable to share versus what it costs them: I suppose his idea was directaction could move that line…
