Cogitation in the Time of War #7 - Was this a premature glimpse of a future?

RIA Novosti  is a Russian state-owned domestic news agency, that belongs to Rossiya Segodnya,  owned and operated by the Russian government.

On the 26-February, a little more than 48 hours after the start of the so-called "special military operation" by Putin's Russia, an article was published on the RIA Novosti website entitled "The new world order". This article was later taken down but it was up long enough for it to be saved under WebArchive. An English version of it was also shared around the same time in a Pakistani-based website named The Frontier Post and that page is still available.

The article gives an explanation for the invasion and in a way it gives the main reason behind it. It is very much aligned to Putin's speech from the 21-February, where he mentioned the need to correct the errors from the past in regards to Ukraine that, in his own words, was not a real country.

Gone with the War

One week ago I was planning to write a text about a prediction I made 7 years ago (February 24, 2015) in regards to electric cars. I'd already thought and structured the text in my head and even made a research to confirm the data but with the daily stuff hadn't found the time to sit at the computer and start writing it down. The main reason behind writing about this subject was to not keep banging on the same key over and over about the usual subject, the pandemic. But in reality I still had a draft about the pandemic, namely about its announced ending and what was coming with it, almost like a season finale as I wasn't planning to return to it for weeks and months to come.

But then the war came and all plans went up in smoke...

Cogitation in the Time of War #6 - Shocking and surreal

In addition to the videos and photos in the social media, including TikTok, of civilians stealing/recovering russian military equipment, with the emphasis on the Ukrainian farmers towing armoured vehicles among others, I'm in awe with what I just seen on Twitter.

Putin's Russia has been using analog radio communication in their operation and there is a worldwide community of radio amateurs and translators that are listening and documenting their comms; they are also jamming the frequencies thus disturbing even further the operations on the field. This group alone already have hours of comms and will share them online at some point!

More details on this can be seen in this tweet.

I will use again an adjective that will probably become one of the 2 words to define my reaction to this entire conflict: shocking!

Together with the OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) community, and the Anonymous collective, we have several civilian groups "fighting" a non-kinetic action against Putin's Russia. Surreal!

Cogitation in the Time of War #5 - A quick look into another point of view

I was thinking about writing tomorrow, that is Carnival day (or Mardi Gras as some know it), that for sure there would be people thinking the military columns are a parade of floats (decorated cars) and in a month (April 1st) would say all of these talk about an invasion was all a lie.

I was reserving that sort of joke for tomorrow but today I already encountered some posts online (tweets and comments) saying that what we are witnessing now is a staging, all an act (and the authors seemed to be convinced of what they were saying). That means that someone already got ahead of me on that idea, that I admit I thought was kind of original, so might as well write and publish it now to see if I can still claim some credit for this "joke"...

I wrote the above some moments ago on Facebook and in Portuguese since this is a jest that doesn't work so well in English also because the Portuguese Carnival traditions are not well known outside of the country (I suppose) nor many countries outside of (some) catholic ones celebrate Carnival (but due to the one from Venice and from Rio de Janeiro many people know about it and of course in the US for example there's the Mardi Gras tradition although that one is much more know for girls flashing their boobs in exchange for beads, at least in New Orleans).

Cogitation in the Time of War #4 - The first peace negotiations

Both Ukraine and Russia agreed to talk without pre-conditions at the Belarus-Ukraine border. It's a positive development but if they happen soon, I believe they will go nowhere. And why? That is due to the reasons for Putin deciding to invade. Let me explain further.

Cogitation in the Time of War #3 - 78 hours later

Maybe nobody reads this, or cares, but I'll say it anyway:

To me Putin is the aggressor and I want Putin to lose (as in not achieve his objectives). So in a way, Russia (the state ruled by Putin) is the "bad guy".

BUT I have no beef against Russians. My children have friends and classmates that are Russians and we told them they have done nothing wrong and they shouldn't even say anything bad about Russians when they go back to school tomorrow. When my son asked me "are the Russians bad guys?" I tried to be very clear to him that not even the soldiers fighting are bad guys, they are just following orders.

We sometimes simplify these things and make it a "us VS them", I have done it and probably will do it in some posts, but I try hard to remind myself of the same words I shared with my kids

Cogitation in the Time of War #2 - Ghosts of Wars Past

Yeap, the above image shows a Russian tank flying the Soviet Union flag, while moving inside Ukraine in 2022. It's almost like seeing ghosts from wars past, namely de Cold War. To me it makes me think about the soviet tanks rolling into Warsaw Pact countries when the people there would manifest their will to escape Moscow's control.

Some people think (and one friend said that to me) this image is a fake, edited, but it's not; it's a traffic camera feed in the South of Ukraine. The feed was being broadcasted live and several people saw this tank. In this tweet you can see another video, taken from another camera feed, where the same tank with the flag is visible.

As my friend Cravo said to me, considering that Ukraine has the Azov Battalion (actually a regiment) that has neo-nazis/neo-fascists elements, we might watch in 2022 a fight in the ukrainian plains with one side hoisting the Nazi flag and the other side the Soviet flag. A surreal and bizarre scenario, that after 1944 nobody thought could be seen again except during filming of a movie or a documentary... With the added anomaly that this time the roles would be reversed with the "villains" being the invaders and the "heroes" being the defenders.

Cogitation in the Time of War #1 - The beggining

On February 4th around 17:07 I wrote this (in Dutch because the match was here): "Voordat Rusland en Oekraïne vechten op de Oost-Europees Laagland (hopelijk niet), strijden ze nu bij de FUTSAL EURO 2022 halve finale." and this menas: Before Russia and Ukraine battle each other in the East European Plain (I hope not), they fight now in the semi-finals of the Futsal EURO 2022.

Later on the 20th, wrote an additional comment about Putin and Ukraine that said, among other things:

This is so much alike 8 years ago, when there were no Russian troops in Crimea and Crimea was just looking for independence/sovereignty, but not really (it was a Russian plan all along).

All the pieces are set and all conditions are there to "justify" a Russian intervention. With the excuse of an attack on its troops or due to violence against Russians or whatever in the East of Ukraine, they will intervene.

(...)

What happens next depends on the reactions of the rest of the World. Russia can be severely impacted and that can diminish support for Putin.(...)8 years ago there were already many people in the West believing Russia had rights to take Crimea. Some will again think Russia is in its right and only reacting to provocations/moves by others.

The next day, Putin recognised the 2 self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas, making at the same time a lot of statements about Ukraine not being a real nation and the need to correct the mistake that came with the end of the Soviet Union, and I got this off my chest (and there was an interesting debate in the comments that maybe deserve its own dissertation):

It's done. Now all (the) pieces are in place. The 2 regions are recognised, Russian troops will enter to "protect them from Ukrainian aggression" and only question now is where it stops?

We were just starting to get back to normal...

Fuck this shit!