In a rather fitting move, Facebook (now officially “Meta”) was completely blocked in Russia yesterday after it refuses to stop posting highly antagonistic and racist content about Russia.

Meta is, of course, now 100% committed to promoting a future in which “everything is digital,” since the real world no longer holds any appeal to those genocidal assholes.

As I reported earlier, EA Sports (and now several other video game makers) have, likewise, decided that “digitally erasing” Russian and Belarusian people from their games is some sort of effective protest against real-world events.

Well, nothing better illustrates this absurdity than the BBC running a chyron quoting Josep Borrel, the EU’s “foreign minister”, saying that the city of Tarkov is “resisting.”

Too bad Tarkov is a completely fictional town in a video game.

Perhaps the good people of Tarkov who are so bravely resisting the Russian “aggressors” might take some comfort in knowing their skies are protected by the Ghost of Kiev.

Wikipedia, of course, continues to maintain that the Ghost’s existence is “disputed” rather than a bald-faced lie perpetrated by the SBU:

My god, the Empire of Lies has its head so far up its own ass that I fear it’s going to have a rather unpleasant and messy mental breakdown soon.

Romania

I truly feel sorry for Romania. I do. My heart goes out to all the Romanians who are being constantly scared by war threats from “just across the border”, atrocities committed by “genocidal Russians,” and nasty scares about radiation leaks from Ukrainian power plants and/or Chernobyl.

The reality is a) There’s no fighting anywhere close to Romanian territory, whatsoever, b) there is zero evidence of anything close to a “genocide” going on Ukraine, and c) not one microgram of (extra) radiation has been released into the atmosphere from anywhere.

Doesn’t stop the Empire from lying its ass off, of course. Anything and everything is justified to keep Romanians a) scared witless and b) happy to let tens of thousands of foreign troops become a permanent fixture on their soil, something that hasn’t happened since 1956.

Furthermore, while I haven’t had time to sort out exact numbers in terms of troop deployments, I am pretty sure that there are now more foreign troops in Romania than there are members of the Romanian army. Romania’s army only numbers about 48,000 people, and that’s if you include all the clerks, drivers, cadets, and cooks. NATO forces in Romania are getting pretty close to that number, and they keep arriving.

Meanwhile, Romanian news continues to flood the media space with anything and everything that suits the Empire’s (and Romania’s naturally racist) agenda, including endlessly showing photos of Russian attacks on a) the City Hall building in Kharkov and b) apartment buildings in Mariupol.

We’ll get to what’s happening in Mariupol in a minute, but what’s missing about that attack on Kharkov is that the Azov battalion had announced they were a) fortifying the City Hall building and b) were moving into it to be used as a command post just two days before Russia fired a single missile at it at six o’clock in the morning to minimize collateral damage. Context matters, assholes!

Additionally, it’s really not too hard to find numerous examples of Romanian press constantly reporting scare stories about Russian attacks in recent years, including the time that Russian warplanes (actually an unarmed patrol plane) were “on the verge” of entering Romanian airspace.

Reality? Not a single Russian warplane, charter plane, commercial plane, or drone has ever once illegally entered Romanian territory. Ever. As in never, ever once in the entire history of humankind.

I truly cannot believe I have to say this, but Russia has also never once expressed any hostile intent towards Romania, ever. Russia has zero claims on a single millimeter of Romanian territory. Romania was never once part of the historical Russian heartland of the Russian Empire, and there is no local population of Russians in Romania which might (theoretically) need defending.

Aside from a few tourists, business folks, and students, the only Russians in Romania are the Lipoveni, who have been in Romania for four hundred years. They primarily belong to a religious sect that truly believes that the Russian Orthodox Church is “corrupted by Satan,” and they have absolutely zero allegiance to or fraternal feelings for Vladimir Putin or anyone else in the Russian government or power structure.

In short, the Lipoveni are much like the Amish in the United States, who do not serve in the armed forces and have absolutely nothing to do with America’s foreign policy.

Furthermore, the Lipoveni have been extremely active over the past 10 days in helping refugees (🇷🇴) from Ukraine. Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped a few racist dicks in Romania from fragging them on Facebook (🇷🇴).

However, all good Empire loyalists in Romania should be in good cheer as none other than Kamala Harris will be coming by for a visit next week!

Moldova

Things remain more or less calm in Chisinau, which is where the majority of the refugees are being housed. The national government (headed up by President Sandu) and the city government (led by mayor Ion Ceban) continue to snipe at each over over who is doing more to help in what is rapidly becoming a virtue signalling battle.

But in Balti (Moldova’s second-largest city), things are different. First, someone posted an image of a taxi driver who used masking tape to write a large letter “Z” on his car. When the taxi driver was confronted by Romanian-speaking journalists, he straight-up refused to apologize (🇲🇩), saying “Moldova is a democracy, and people can say what they want.”

Later, some rando woman in Balti claimed (🇲🇩) that some “provocateurs” had attacked some (parked, unoccupied) cars with Ukrainian license plates, removed the license plates and wrote a “Z” on the vehicles.

My translation of the hysterical rando’s claim:

Provocateurs are writing the swastika of the Russian occupational forces on [multiple] cars with Ukrainian license plates.

Furthermore, it’s unclear that that anyone’s car was actually vandalized as no police reports were filed.

Since the “brave” Romanian-language press has refused to do its job, a lot of people in Moldova have been confused as to why some Russian military vehicles have the letter “Z” painted on them. Others, I should add, have the letter “V”, while yet others have the number “8”, and still others have no markings at all.

These appear to mostly be identification markers so that troops don’t accidentally engage in friendly fire, especially since some Ukrainian equipment is of the same (Soviet) origin. The “V” forces are the ones which came from Crimea. Again, none of this was ever explained or mentioned in Romanian-language media despite it being an elementary fact.

As for how the letter “Z” became a “swastika” is beyond my power to comprehend, yet it’s become en vogue in some fascist Romanian-language media to call it that. It is beyond ludicrous that Russian commanders, which are engaged in a de-Nazification campaign, are somehow writing swastikas on their military vehicles, but hey, that’s where we’re at these days.

For the record, the letter “Z” is used in everyday Romanian words, but it does not exist in the Cyrillic alphabet (either in Ukrainian or Russian). Neither does the letter “V”. Frankly, it seems abundantly obvious that both are pretty easy to write (with straight lines) and hard to confuse with another letter or marking, so that’s probably why they chose it.

As for the city of Balti, it has a very unusual and interesting history that I admit I have been highly deficient for not exploring in greater detail on this here blog. Amongst other things, Balti consistently elects politicians of a different party than the one in power in Chisinau, and Balti was for more enthusiastic about Communism (in the 20th century) than Chisinau was.

Most importantly, local people from Balti actively fought against the Romanian army’s occupation of Moldova in 1919. In fact, the Romanian army fought several nasty and vicious battles with soldiers in Balti that year, something that has been literally erased from the history books in Moldova and Romania.

Long story short? Balti is not a town where people give a shit about Romania or the Empire of Lies. And the people there are quite stubborn and independent.  I’ve visited a couple of times, and it’s definitely not the town for me, but god bless ’em.

Ukraine

Again, I’ve yet to see a single photo or video from Empire media showing all the humanitarian aid that Russia is delivering right now to liberated cities in the east. Nor will you see any photos or videos of people thanking Russia for saving them.

A truly objective media would report all the facts, not just the ones that suit the narrative. But you can’t prop up the flimsy lie that Russia is engaged in “genocide” if it’s actively feeding people, providing drinking water, restoring law and order, and giving health care to folks, including POWs.

Hilariously, President Zelensky went on a rant against NATO yesterday, something that the Empire was unable to spin as a “success.”

In fact, here’s an exact quote of his remarks in English:

Ukraine’s president has hit out at NATO for refusing to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

In an emotional speech last night Volodymyr Zelensky told the military alliance: ‘Starting from today everyone who dies will die because of you as well, because of your weakness, because of your disunity.’

Just as a reminder for all the idiots in the back of the room, trying to impose a “no fly” zone in Ukraine will lead to NUCLEAR FUCKING WAR with Russia. Mm-kay?

Meanwhile, every non-Empire country on the planet is looking at NATO now and laughing their asses off, the same way they did when “mighty” America got its ass kicked by the Taliban in three short weeks last year.

In other news, I’m sad to report that there are still quite a lot of African and Indian citizens trapped in Ukraine. The goons of “democratic” Ukraine are, of course, entirely to blame for this. The last estimate I saw was that there are still two thousand Indian university students blocked from leaving.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fascists are getting really out of control. First, the SBU (former KGB) arrested a sitting member of parliament, Nestor Shufrych, for “taking photos” of a checkpoint. However, Shufrych wasn’t just arrested – the SBU itself posted videos of one of its agents choking and shoving Shufrych while screaming shit about how he is a traitor.  Wow, what a professional interrogation!

Shurfrych is a member of a party called “Opposition Platform – For Life.” Zelensky’s regime has repeatedly arrested members of this political party, including its leader, Viktor Medvedchuk (prior to the Russian invasion) because that’s how gosh darn much Zelensky loves democracy.

Since the Empire media won’t tell you this, I will: the “For Life” party is the second-biggest party in Ukraine’s parliament. They are (literally) the opposition in Ukraine. Zelensky hasn’t just arrested its leader but has shut down all television and media stations which expressed any support for him over the past few years. And on February 2, “For Life” deputies began the process to try and impeach Zelensky, so his time in office was already running out before Russia fired a single bullet.

In far grimmer news, several Ukrainian media sources are reporting that the SBU just executed Denis Kireev yesterday.

Kireev is no “opposition politician” (not that that would justify his murder) but was a member of Ukraine’s first delegation to the peace talks with Russia last week. Supposedly, Kireev was killed for being “suspected of treason” after the SBU intercepted some phone calls.

Again, I shouldn’t have to say this, but even if Mr. Kireev was calling in Russian airstrikes, he should have been arrested and then tried in court. But hey, the Empire can’t risk that kind of scrutiny.

Based on what I’ve seen (and this is preliminary), it looks like what happened was that the SBU arrested Kireev, then got a little “too aggressive” in its interrogation of him, and now he’s dead.

Speaking of those negotiations, I keep wondering why the hell the Russian side at these negotiations is always professionally dressed up in suits and ties while Ukraine insists on sending yahoos dressed in baseball caps and T-shirts. What a way to show you’re serious about saving your country, amirite?

Lastly, it appears that the “foreign legion” that Ukraine is so desperate to recruit is not materializing. Plenty of Empire morons on the internet (especially Reddit) have been urging NATO to send in troops and more weapons and everything else, but when it comes time to actually do something and put their lives on the line, it looks like they prefer to stay home and fight the war on Twitter, which is about par for the course.

Zelensky continues his descent into madness. First, he trumpeted that bald-faced lie about Russia blowing up the Babi Yar complex (that I discussed yesterday). Second, he claimed that a “fragment” of a Russian missile landed in “his” house. Reality? The fragment was photographed outside the official residence of the president, which belongs to the people of Ukraine, not Mr. Zelensky, personally.

Surely, even the most virulently Russophobic person will admit that Russia knows damn well where the official presidential residence is, and if they wanted to blow it the fuck up, it’d be rubble right now. Anyway, it’s well known that Zelensky has been hiding in bunkers for the past few days, so it doesn’t make sense to target an empty building.

Furthermore, how a pristine “fragment” came to be outside the residence is unclear – after all, where is the rest of the missile? My guess is that it’s just a staged photo op.

Lastly, Zelensky continues his wild assertions about Russians attacking the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant. Just look at this shit:

Uh, even the time is wrong as it happened at 2:05 AM, not six – I’ve seen the video myself. And why in the hell would Russian tank gunners need night vision goggles to blast a ginormous structure that was (and still is!) lit up with bright lights?

Lunacy…

Lastly, I highly recommend you read this article on just what a nasty group of people President Zelensky is aligned with. There’s nothing secret in that article, but clearly, the Empire doesn’t want you to know exactly who their so-called “hero” is, or the narrative they’re spinning would collapse.

Mariupol

Again, it is unbelievable that the media cannot even be bothered to provide basic facts about the ongoing conflict.

Mariupol is a city in southeastern Ukraine on its coast with the Sea of Azov. In 2014, after the US funded and orchestrated the coup in Kiev, Mariupol was one of the places where local residents tried to distance themselves from the “new” Ukraine and declare autonomy.

In 2014, there was some extremely vicious fighting between pro-Kiev and anti-Kiev forces in Mariupol. Ultimately, the pro-Kiev forces won, as opposed to the nearby forces in Donetsk. Mariupol is in the same oblast or state as Donesk, and it’s just a few miles/kilometers down the road from the city of Donetsk.

Since 2014, the really radical Nazi forces, including the Azov Battalion, have been imposing their will on the people of Mariupol. There are lengthy lists of people who have been arrested, beaten up, shot, and charged with “treason” for doing humanitarian work to help the people of (non-Kiev) Donetsk, including taxi drivers who used to shuttle old folks across the line so that they could pick up their pension payments from Ukraine.

This year, when the Russian attack began, the fascists in Ukraine poured into Mariupol, declaring that they would fight to the death. They happily posted pictures of themselves dipping bullets in pork fat to somehow “curse” any (Muslim) Chechen forces they encountered.

And while Russia has been working overtime to allow unarmed civilians to escape the conflict, almost nobody has been allowed to leave Mariupol. Yesterday, DPR and Russian forces announced a humanitarian corridor specifically to allow civilians to leave the city.

How many civilians left the city? A grand total of zero. You know why? Because the Azov Battallion has been shooting anyone who tries to leave. Furthermore, they’ve dug in to positions near schools and residential apartments, as has been testified to (only on Russian media, of course, since you’re not allowed to hear this story) by several refugees who managed to escape in the first few days of the war.

Right this minute, the city of Mariupol is completely surrounded on all sides by Russian and DPR forces. Therefore, there is no chance of them winning, militarily. But these assholes are holding the entire population (~400k) hostage to suit their demonic agenda.

So yeah, that’s why the Empire news is flooding the channels with scenes of apartment buildings being damaged by artillery strikes. In some cases, it appears to be Russian attacks against Azov fighters, however, in other cases, it appears as though the Azov devils are shelling the buildings themselves.

If that seems “outrageous” to you that Ukrainians would ever intentionally fire on their own people, remember that, to the Azov Battalion, they’re not “real” Ukrainians since they speak Russian and many would really rather not live under Ukrainian rule.

So yeah, it’s the Ukrainian whackjobs which are living in a fantasy world where it’s fine for them to reap a “glorious death in battle” to maintain control over a city which is surrounded and outgunned, and they’re going to bring down as many civilians as they can.

Still feel like Standing With Ukraine, morons?

Pridnestrovie

After Moldova formally asked to become a member of the European Union, PMR President Krasnoselsky stated the obvious – that it was time to come to a final resolution on the PMR-RM “conflict.” In fact, the words he used were “a civilized divorce.”

Obviously, the Empire loyalists in Romania weren’t having that even for a second (🇷🇴).

From his little perch a thousand kilometers away, Romania’s Foreign Minister, Bogdan Aurescu stated this (my translation):

Today, Transnistria [sic] asked for its independence to be recognized. I am in direct contact with colleagues in Chisinau. I spoke with my counterpart, [Moldovan foreign] minister Nicu Popescu, and our colleagues are preparing a formal statement on this topic because I want to talk about this during the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee today with my colleagues.

I am going to use this opportunity to repeat Romania’s strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova and its internationally recognized internal borders.

It never fails to make me laugh that Romania’s official position is that Cernauti, which was stolen from Romania by Stalin and given to Ukraine, is 100% part of Ukraine forever, but Pridnestrovie, which was stolen from Ukraine and given to Moldova by Stalin, is completely illegitimate.

Pick a side, bro. Jeez!

Furthermore, Romania has never once ever suggested or described or outlined any sort of plan for the peaceful and democratic resolution of PMR’s desire to be independent. Never.

Of course not! If they held a vote tomorrow, PMR citizens would definitely vote for independence, so Romania would never tolerate that. This despite the fact that I doubt even 10% of Romanians even know where Tiraspol is or anything about it.

In fact, my wife told me that many people she’s met over the years in Romania have no idea where Chisinau is (hint: it’s the capital of Moldova).

Certainly, in the ten plus years that I lived in and visited Romania, I never once met anyone who had visited Chisinau. Literally, the only person (who wasn’t Moldovan) that I met in Cluj who had been to Chisinau was a British woman who worked for a company that had offices in both Cluj and Chisinau, so she had gone to Chisinau for work.

Romanians never visit Moldova. They never go on vacation in Chisinau. They rarely open companies in Chisinau or invest in Moldova, either. They murmur slogans like “Basarabia e pamant romanesc” (Moldova is Romanian territory) but it’s just a bunch of hot air. I doubt one Romanian in a hundred could even name the dominant political parties in Moldova, or who the current prime minister is.

Much like the US and NATO kept blathering on about Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” before abandoning them the moment things got tough, Romania doesn’t actually give a shit about Moldova. It’s just empty words to make them feel good.

As for Aurescu’s “good buddies” in the Moldovan government, they could resolve the PMR issue in a heartbeat. Simply hold a referendum in Moldova on whether people want to a) use military force to conquer PMR or b) find a democratic way to negotiate the “divorce” and get this sham over with once and for all. I guarantee you most Moldovans would vote for option B.

But hey, if the Evil Russkis win through democratic and peaceful means, then the Empire loses. The only way forward is to be too cowardly to fight them with bullets, but spend millions of dollars to demonize them with words and propaganda.

Having a Laugh

After all that ugliness, I had to end this on a more comical tone.

Yesterday, the Russian parliament passed a law, making it an arrestable offense to knowingly publish fake news.

So, how did the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and CBC (Canada’s state broadcaster) respond? By removing all their journalists from Russia.

🤣🤣🤣

For the record, if any of these gutless wonders really thought the new Russian law was unfair, they would’ve done their “truthful” reporting anyway. If they did get arrested, that would’ve turned them into martyrs for free speech and freedom of expression.

But it’s a little hard to maintain the moral high ground when you’ve already got people imprisoned in your own country for committing the crime of publishing the truth or for daring to keep a church open or for organizing a peaceful protest.