PETITION: Don’t Let Maria Butina Go To Prison For Supporting American 2nd Amendment Values!

maria-butina

Sign the petition here: Drop or dismiss all charges against Russian human rights activist Maria Butina.

Don’t Let Maria Butina Go To Prison For Supporting American 2nd Amendment Values!

Right to Bear Arms, Russia’s premier gun rights organization, wishes to express its grave concern at what we see as the politically-motivated prosecution of our founder, Maria Butina, and calls on the relevant authorities in the United States to immediately drop or dismiss all charges against her.

Right to Bear Arms has played an active role in Russian civil society under Maria Butina’s leadership. Since our founding in 2011, we have lobbied for a Russian equivalent of the Second Amendment, organized public educational seminars, promoted “castle doctrine” laws such as the ones that exist in many US states, and provided free legal defense for people facing criminal charges for self-defense. Like most civil society organizations, in Russia or elsewhere, we have encountered both support and opposition on the part of our government.

Maria Butina has never made a secret of her conservative and patriotic pro-Russian political views. This is not the behavior of a spy or an agent of influence trying to worm her way into American political organizations. Although not everyone might agree with them, in Russia as in the United States, she has a right both to her opinions (freedom of speech), and to network with people who share said opinions (freedom of association) in both countries. We express particular concern over the timing of Maria Butina’s arrest, which occurred just hours after the Helsinki Summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald J. Trump, as well as the prosecution’s request to withhold evidence from the public. This raises questions about the fairness of the trial and its freedom from political influence.

Right to Bear Arms broadly agrees with Maria Butina’s goals of improving relations between Russia and the United States, and all of us (by definition) support expanded gun rights. However, you don’t exactly have to be a “gun nut” to be concerned about the implications of this case for free speech in the United States, as well as the potential impact on public diplomacy between Russia and the United States – public diplomacy that is arguably needed more than ever, given the current state of relations between the two nuclear superpowers. But given this precedent, how can we reasonably expect ordinary citizens to practice public diplomacy – to learn, network, and exchange ideas with each other – when Russians face the real risk of arrest and imprisonment in the United States for having had associated with officials from both countries?

We reiterate our belief that this case only serves to raise mutual suspicions and constrict civil rights to the detriment of both Russians or Americans.

We repeat our call to the relevant American authorities to immediately drop or dismiss all charges against Maria Butina!

Completely ridiculous if you ask me.

By this precedent, any Russian who has had contacts with both Russian and American officials can go to prison in the US, just so that Democrats can continue to indulge their Trump Derangement Syndrome. Unacceptable!

 

Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.

 

Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.

 

Apart from writing booksreviewstravel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.

Comments

  1. AnonFromTN says

    This might be OK as demagoguery, but in reality the US Constitution was already killed by the ruling elites. Patriot Act is totally unconstitutional, but the authorities pushed it through and the people accepted it.

    Anyway, Butina case has nothing to do with law in general and the Constitution in particular, it is part of the witch hunt. Yes, someone has to stop that witch hunt before the country is irreversibly ruined, so maybe this case would help.

  2. One wonders just what an honest gold digger has to do to be left in peace?

  3. Joe Stalin says

    The new attacks upon the evils of so-called “Printed Guns” seems to me a cover for the delegalising of homemade guns so as to bring all firearms manufacture within the purview of the government authorities. Typical Cosmopolitan anti-gun play.

    Butina is just channeling the Richard Gere character in his movie “Norman.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYoM7Bl95_Y

  4. Female literacy is the cause of all world problems।।

    Who will lead the counter-revolution?

    When it comes to being backward Mysoginists, Trust Jats & Afghans।।

  5. Yes, sign the petition and include your full contact information* and forward it right over to: http://www.ATF.gov.

    *Your address will be used for identity verification purpose only, in order to protect the integrity of the petition count. After all, we don’t want Russian trolls interfering with this democratic exercise, do we?

  6. Felix Keverich says
  7. Felix Keverich says

    Anatoly,

    Do you know that Georgia (russophobic country) had a population census in 2014?

    It was somehow completely ignored in Russian and international media (I didn’t even know until I got an idea to look into Georgian demographics recently), but the results were spectacular: population of Georgia (ex. Abkhasia and South Ossetia) was revised 17% down overnight.

    Obviously, this has implications for the Ukraine. Authorities in post-Soviet countries appear to be very bad at tracking migration. The same factors that caused Georgia to dramatically overestimate its own population are probably in place in the Ukraine.

    Also, I recall you saying that Ukrainian population can’t be substantially below 40 million, cause that would imply a much bigger TFR than current official figures indicate. Well, guess what: Georgian TFR was 1.7 before the census. And afterwards they stopped reporting it altogether.

    The bottomline is that it’s worth to keep an open mind when it comes to post-Soviet demographics and population statistics.

  8. Verymuchalive says

    I can back this up. I have a Bulgarian friend. She has been in the UK for 15 years and is a British citizen. Only recently, she discovered she was registered at her Aunt’s house in Bulgaria and had even “voted” at a number of elections. Needless to say she had no prior knowledge of any of this.
    The population of Bulgaria used to be 8.5 million, but the 2017 estimate ( Wikipedia ) is 7.05 million. My friend suspects, however, that it is nearer 5 million than 7 million.

  9. This sounds a lot like the Donbas area in Ukraine. Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Donbas all had sizable pro-Russian leaning areas that Russia tried to take advantage of by fomenting wars there. After the areas receded into chaos due to Russian meddling, ethnic Georgians resettled into other parts of Georgia, Russians into Russia; Ukrainians in Donbas moved west and ‘separatists moved north and east into Russia. And the jury is still out in Crimea (although it’s not looking good). Wherever you Russians stick your noses, nothing good seems to occur and the local people are forced to leave their homes in search of safety. No wonder the world looks down upon your ‘successes’ and sanctions the hell out of you.

  10. Spisarevski says

    This is completely pointless but it also doesn’t cost anything, so…signed.

    A real solution would be taking Americans hostage for every Russian who is kidnapped and imprisoned by the US. Maybe if someone with balls becomes president, say Nataliya Poklonskaya, it could happen.

  11. Troll Anatoly? Why so? I’m only replying to Keverich’s cogent observation that areas in which Russia has been involved in wars is losing population. In effect, I’m actually agreeing with him.

  12. Greasy William says

    she doesn’t look that good in that pic

  13. Speaking as an American in Saint Petersburg, at the moment, I simply have no idea what I’m supposed to do, here.

    There comes a point where the Russian penchant for irony & sarcasm leaves you struggling helplessly for breath.

  14. AnonFromTN says

    Of course, you can’t trust any stats from failed countries, such as Georgia or Ukraine. Even stats from successful countries are suspect. That applies not only to post-Soviet of post-Warsaw Block countries (such as Bulgaria, see comment #9), but to all countries. By some estimates up to 50-60% of the US GDP is pure hot air (financial services and such). Wherever there is financial or political conflict of interest, you can confidently expect, as the saying goes, “lies, damn lies, and statistics”.

  15. AnonFromTN says

    Hey, the best thing about Americans is their sense of humor (woefully absent in most of Europe). FYI, I lived in the US since 1991, so I know this firsthand.
    Some examples are just great. I remember in Arizona there was a yard sign on sale saying “On this spot 100 years ago nothing happened”. Or a bumper sticker from Bush Jr years saying “I never thought I’d miss Nixon”.
    So, don’t badmouth Americans: they have the sense of humor along with common sense. The latter (not alleged Russian interference) is the reason they voted against corrupt mad witch in 2016, despite anti-Trump hysteria in the MSM. There is hope for the country yet, whereas Western Europe is hopeless.

  16. AnonFromTN says

    She may not look gorgeous, but she is much younger than the punters she milks. As the American saying goes, “there is a loser born every minute”.

  17. Troll is too kind a word, I wish they had a “zionist arse licker” button for you.

  18. Quick, look under your bed, you might find a ‘zionist’ there too? 🙂

  19. Daniel Chieh says

    Pitched in one more.

  20. Also, I recall you saying that Ukrainian population can’t be substantially below 40 million, cause that would imply a much bigger TFR than current official figures indicate.

    Ukraine’s population minus Crimea and 2/3 of Donbas is around 40 million. Upper estimate of number of migrants outside the country is 5 million. So there are about 35 million people in Ukraine.

  21. Greasy William says

    Contra Thor and LatW, women are totally obsessed with height and do not care about muscles at all:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E04CIdkRYhI

    The prosecution rests

    edit: the butthurt manlets in the comments are pretty funny

  22. Regarding some comments made further up this thread, there’s no evidence that the majority of Abkhaz, South Ossetians, Crimeans and Pridnestrovians, prefer the entities claiming them over Russia.

    If anything, it’s quite the contrary, which is quite understandable. Comparatively speaking, Moldova and Ukraine continue to have considerable issues.

  23. Felix Keverich says

    I wasn’t making a general observation about the value of statistical information. I was referring to a specific issue: it is possible, and even likely that the Ukraine’s real population is 15%-25% smaller, than official estimates indicate.

  24. Thorfinnsson says

    False dichotomy.

    I agreed with you that height trumps muscles.

    But unlike you, I recognize that muscles aren’t irrelevant. Take any skinny guy and give him six months of weight training to sharpen his facial angles, eliminate his pencil neck, and get a proper V-shaped torso. It definitely increases his attractiveness.

    I’m leery of listening to women, but LatW’s point about women loving leaning into a strong man is a good one.

    Manlets should just get leg lengthening surgery. Recovery’s a bitch but two inches of height can be a real game changer.

  25. Daniel Chieh says

    How tall are you?

  26. As you may have noticed from afar, things have changed a lot in US since 1991. A sense of humor is now dangerous.

  27. Greasy William says

    5’9

  28. AnonFromTN says

    You are mixing a few things. Crimea is Russia, and to the best of my knowledge most residents like it that way for the sake of safety. They were happy to get out of the Ukrainian madhouse, but they are happier still to be protected by the Russian military, especially considering the devastation inflicted on Donbass by the Ukie goons.
    Most South Ossetians want to be in the same country as North Ossetians, i.e., in the Russian Federation.
    Abkhazia is a mixed bag: Abkhaz nationals likely prefer independence (but still expect Russia to protect them from Georgia), whereas Russians and others there (who collectively constitute more than half of the population) would likely prefer joining Russia, which means guaranteed protection from possible another mad Georgian “president” like Saakashvili.
    Transnistria (Pridnestrovye) also has mixed population consisting of Russians, Moldovans, Ukrainians and smaller ethnic groups. Judging by the results of their referenda (plural!) most prefer being part of Russia, as their main fear is that they will be forced to join Romania if Moldova does so. In fact, most Moldovans, in Transnistria and the rest of the country, do not want to merge with Romania, but bought and payed for Moldovan elites do (making the same mistake as Ukrainian elites: they thought they will still be important and privileged in the Western orbit, but found that they were wrong the hard way).
    It is highly unlikely that Russia will officially accept South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria, regardless of the desires of their populations. After all, Crimea was accepted mostly due to military considerations: Russia cannot afford a NATO military base in Sevastopol for both strategic and sentimental reasons. There are no compelling reasons to formally accept the others, but Russia won’t allow corrupt and/or crazed Georgian, Moldovan, or Ukrainian elites take over these areas, same as Donbass. So, they will likely remain independent de jure, being Russia de facto.

  29. Thorfinnsson says

    I don’t think this is just Americans.

    Anglos period are generally funny. Lots of great comedy from Canada, Australia, and Britain.

    Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Ivp-A413A

    The French and Italians seem to be pretty funny as well in their own way.

    Germans and Nordics by contrast are so hopelessly humorless it’s almost endearing.

  30. AnonFromTN says

    You are right in this particular case. That explains why Ukie authorities are so reluctant to conduct a census: the numbers would lay their “successes” bare. In fact, anything coming from Ukies today is a lie. If you watch their TV or read their media, including web sites (I can do it, I am fluent in standard Ukrainian and even understand Western Ukrainian dialects of Bandera followers), you get an impression of a madhouse taken over by the inmates.
    My point was that this is a universal problem, not just of failed states.

  31. Felix Keverich says

    Upper estimate of number of migrants outside the country is 5 million.

    It’s not the upper estimate, more like the floor. We know that there is 2 million of them in Poland, that is to say at least 2 million, as the Polish migration control isn’t perfect, there could be more. Russia hosts more Ukrainians than Poland, significantly more. And then there is the rest of the world…

    They could be living abroad for years, acquiring other countries’ citizenships and still be registered in the Ukraine somewhere, “voting” in elections etc. 🙂

    I’m thinking population in regime controlled territory is somewhere in low 30s at this time.

  32. AnonFromTN says

    It’s not that bad yet in the US (not for the lack of trying by the Deep State and its goons). You can have a sense of humor and remain un-incarcerated. You won’t get any access to the MSM, though.

  33. LondonBob says

    I see Israel’s closest chums in the US senate are seeking new sanctions on Russia, at some point Russia will have to go to the source and impose wide ranging sanctions on them.

  34. Like Auberon Waugh said, short people aren’t angry because they’re short; rather, God made bad people short so they could do less damage

  35. AnonFromTN says

    Lindsey Graham is the closest chum of the highest bidder. That creature has no scruples, no integrity, and no loyalty. A perfect politician.

  36. AnonFromTN says

    Statistically correct, but that’s on average. I know some humorless sods of various nationalities, including Russians. I also know Germans with a good sense of humor. One even has funny stickers in his office, saying “Being a German is hard, but somebody’s got to do it” or “Living with a German builds character”.

  37. The problem is with your troll-like language. You can equally say: ‘areas where Russian minorities have been attacked by the central government have been losing population‘, or Ossetian minority.

    Russia is ‘involved’ for a reason. So would France if Brussels or Bern would start mis-treating their French speakers. Or Sweden in Finland (10% Swedish minority), or Hungary in Romania, etc…

    The key issue in Georgia and Ukraine was – and is – the way the government treats its minorities. Because they happen to be ‘Russian’ (the horror!), you and West don’t seem to care. Anything goes, Latvia just banned Russian language in its schools (30% of population are Russian speakers). One day, EU will wake up and rediscover its minority rights. Then, Kiev and Riga and Tbilisi will say ‘mistakes were made’, or deny the obvious truth. As you do here all the time. But it might be too late. This is madness.

    Mistakes have consequences.

  38. Daniel Chieh says

    http://i.imgur.com/QA5NF.jpg

    Let’s do a double suicide!

  39. AnonFromTN says

    Hungary just created a post of Minister of Development of Transcarpathian region (https://liveuamap.com/en/2018/2-august-hungary-decided-to-create-the-post-of-minister-of). Ukie Nazis responded in the only way they can think of: proposed to send troops to Transcarpathia.
    Czechs (in fact, anyone who could claim Czech ancestry) were really smart: ran away from the Ukrainian madhouse right after the coup in 2014.

  40. …Hungary just created a post of Minister of Development of Transcarpathian region

    This is heading towards a blow-up. The people claiming mostly Slovak ancestry (not so much Czech) are leaving in large numbers. There is also a large population of Rusyns whose cousins live across the border in eastern Slovakia (Andy Warhol(a) relatives). Plus almost 200k Hungarians. Subcarpathia has 1.4 million people and is the only Western region that voted for the Party of Regions (Yanukovitch).

    It is a mess, for one thousand years it was a part of Hungary, Habsburg Empire, then Czechoslovakia. Kiev is making a huge mistake with its ‘language laws’, but they can’t help it, ultra-nationalism is all they have. So they will go down with it.

  41. So would France if Brussels or Bern would start mis-treating their French speakers.

    German and Italian Swiss have, in my experience, almost no affinity at all with Germany or Italy apart from consuming the same media, so I assume the same applies to French Swiss.

  42. AnonFromTN says

    Slovaks are running away now. Czechs, who lived there since tsarist times, ran away earlier. Primeval tribal nationalism can ruin any country. Especially as heterogenous as Ukraine. Stable countries never do this. Switzerland has four official languages, Singapore also has four, Belgium has three, etc. Transnistria has four official languages: Russian, Moldovan, Ukrainian, and Yiddish. Russia has many official languages in various national republics. Funny thing is, Crimean Tatar became one of the official languages in Crimea only after it ran away from Ukraine and joined Russia.
    But you are right, ultra-nationalism is all Ukies (as opposed to Ukrainians) have. This kind of nationalism is usually a sure sign of severe inferiority complex.

  43. Why do Americans insist on using that retarded measurement system???

  44. Here is another female victim of the deep state/Zionist (same thing) regime.

    https://www.rt.com/news/434907-ahed-tamimi-palestine-resistance/

    Notice the skin colour of the two in that image.

  45. I understand about affinity, it varies considerably. But my point is that if Belgium went all-Flemish-crazy (highly unlikely), France would certainly intervene to ‘meddle’ with the language rights of the French speaking Belgians. It is a given. Most of Europe’s 20th century history was about these minority linguistic and cultural rights.

    EU stands for equal rights for all (that’s what they say). So why is EU indifferent to minority restrictions, language or cultural, when it concerns Russian speakers? Substitute any other group, Roma, Martians,…, and EU would insist on equal treatment. The hatred of anything Russian is that strong…

  46. But we know when a million rushed to Poland last year – it was a huge news story. Poland was reportedly crazy and angryabout it. Half of Ukrainian YouTubers seem to be suddenly making videos about collecting fruit in farms in Poland.

    But when travelling in Western Europe, we don’t see millions of Ukrainians. There must be hundreds of thousands more travelling around the place surely, especially with the visa-waiver, but if it’s millions more than official data? Why don’t I see them everywhere? In the West, you will see much more often Polish and Spanish people.

    Also the EU has reliable data. So the extra numbers are either in Russia, or some other mysterious places. I haven’t been in Turkey – but there seem to be quite a lot wandering around in Turkey (on tourist visas?). In Israel, there’s around 50,000 illegal Ukrainians that arrive as tourists and never leave, but they are being deported. Are there Ukrainians in India? Latin America?

    If numbers in Ukraine are lower than claimed, then alternative explanation could be misreporting of numbers of births since the 1990s.

  47. You are mixing a few things.

    While being 100% correct on what I said. No two situations are identical. That doesn’t mean that comparisons can’t be made. Note the polisci study of comparative politics – something that Michael McFaul is supposed to be expert in.

  48. Subcarpathia has 1.4 million people and is the only Western region that voted for the Party of Regions (Yanukovitch).

    Nonsense. If you believe such nonsense your claims are worth little, indeed.

    Party of Regions got more votes than anybody else but it’s nationalist opponents collectively got about 60%.

  49. The only ‘mistakes’ that have been made, are by Russia and Hungary regarding the unnecessary hub-bub regarding Ukraine’s new language laws. Actually, the new Ukrainian language laws seem much more accommodating to its minorities than anything remotely visible on the Russian or Hungarian horizon relating to their large Ukrainian minorities and their ability to study in their own native language. The new language laws do not hinder minority language rights, but only help minorities learn a modicum of Ukrainian to better equip them to integrate more fully into Ukrainian society. Bear in mind that teaching in minority languages will still continue, and at the expense of the Ukrainian government. It should also be pointed out that the governments of Hungary and Russia do not support the teaching of any coursework in the Ukrainian language, even though each country has a large Ukrainian contingent living there. If anything, one needs to ask where is the reciprocity in the level of support for Ukrainian language usage in either Hungary or Russia? It all seems like a bunch of malarkey based on hypocrisy of the highest order.

  50. Where are they going though. We know a million went to Poland last year – because all news is reporting about a million Ukrainians suddenly going to Poland. It was one of the most serious national crisis in Poland last year.

    In Russia, there are around 4 million citizens of Ukraine (2 million permanent residents and 2 million immigrants). Official figures probably seem on a lower floor consistent with the record number of Ukraine citizens getting citizenship last year – 85,000. Numbers getting citizenship should continue to rise in the next few years, because it’s now reaching 5 years since 2013.

    But by comparison, Armenia (a country which has total population of 3 million citizens), has 25,000 Armenians becoming citizens each year, with a consistently high rates. Ukraine numbers are only 3,4 times more than Armenian numbers, yet there are 14 times more Ukrainian citizens than Armenian citizens.

  51. There is also a large population of Rusyns whose cousins live across the border in eastern Slovakia

    Last that I heard, there were officially 10,200 ‘Rusyns’ living in Zakarpattya oblast. And I would bet that a large portion of these would qualify their ethnicity by stating ‘Rusyn-Ukrainian’.

    Were you even aware that up until the 19th century, a great majority of Ukrainians identified themselves as ‘Rusyns’. ‘Rusyn’ is actually an old ethnonym for a Ukrainian.

  52. Upper estimate of number of migrants outside the country is 5 million.

    It’s not the upper estimate, more like the floor.

    Estimate 4-5 million.

    Russia hosts more Ukrainians than Poland, significantly more.

    You are still stuck in 2014. Poland pays more.

    This survey was from 2016. Since then even more have chosen Poland over Russia:

    http://ratinggroup.ua/ru/research/ukraine/nastroeniya_sredi_ukraincev-zarobitchan.html

    Более всего опрошенных выезжали на работу в Польшу – 36%, на втором месте Россия (25%), по 5% работали в Чехии и Германии, 3% – в Италии, остальные – в других странах, в основном, Западной Европы. Почти 30% респондентов отказалась отвечать на этот вопрос.

    So if there are 2 million in Poland there are no more than 2 million in Russia (I am not including Donbas refugees, that’s another story)..

  53. Anonymous says

    “By this precedent, any Russian who has had contacts with both Russian and American officials can go to prison in the US” TBH, US democracy is joke, as it is mostly an auction. (90% of Congress races are won be the candidate with most money from donations.) Now, US justice is proven as another joke. Arbitrary jailing is as American as apple pie. Think crack cocaine. Think Ted Kennedy.

    The problem is, as in any other marketing, the highest investment in ads brings the most results. Losers in Eastern Europe, Russia and Romania included, will still blame their failure on the imagined corruption demon, which, they think, may be destroyed only by “Western standards” in justice. As long as the ads roll on, Butina’s martyrdom is hardly going to sway anyone in the East.

    In the West, simply reaping the fruit will imbue the populace with the idea that they are better, and they live in the best possible world. Maddow jubilating over “people fighting corruption” in various color revolutions feed the feeling that “this can’t happen in America”. Well, of course, for once, you’d be massacred; and second, let’s discuss what the orange orangutan twitted about the kneeling black gibbon.

  54. Gerard1234 says

    Ukraine’s population minus Crimea and 2/3 of Donbas is around 40 million. Upper estimate of number of migrants outside the country is 5 million. So there are about 35 million people in Ukraine.

    errr…….its even lower, much lower than 25 million you dumb prick……..much more likely 22 million. Numerous statistics back this up….plus it you visit African-esque shithole ghosttowns like Lvov and Ivano-Frankivsk you can feel this as correct you moron.

    It pretty much tallys with how Yanukovich had the 2004 election stolen from him…Soros funded American-Banderacunts inflating the numbers of the lower population, poorer western regions and somehow coming out with bullshit like “125% turnout” in areas of Donetsk and Kharkov.even though these are the most populated and economically important and useful areas of Ukraine

  55. Anglos period are generally funny. Lots of great comedy from Canada, Australia, and Britain.

    The Irish too. Many of the British/Irish expats I spent my teenage years with in Ontario found Canadians to be seriously deficient in the humour department. That’s probably because a lot of Canadians take themselves too seriously to be funny. Kind of like the French.

    Almost all the American humour in movies and TV is rubbish. It’s mostly Jewish snarkiness and nastiness towards out-groups.

  56. Gerard1234 says

    Estimate 4-5 million.

    …errrmmmm….5 million BEFORE Maidan you thick imbecile, add in the 2-4 million who have settled permanently and temporarily in Russia after the coup and the fact of Ukraine’s population already being much less than it claims on paper……….and we have a ridiculous situation you cretin

    You are still stuck in 2014

    ….hahahahahahahahaha! WTF does this dumb lying attention-whore babbling garbage mean you thick twat? That since 2014 those living in Russia have been “seduced” into settling back into the Africa of Europe?

    The highest sender of remittances by Ukrainians , by a massive distance, is from Russia you shithead ( expect this to get even higher % “since 2016” with the rouble strengthening against the dollar)
    ……only a moron would even try to dispute that ( a severely f**ked-inthe-head one) . This is more amusing considering all the moves, like in direct flights, anti-Russian propaganda and numerous other things by the Kiev regime to dissuade “Ukrainians” from going to Russia.

    Poland pays more

    …..hahahahahahahahahah! Cleaning toilets, squatting in sewers and picking fruits in Poland( though at least that is noble work) does not “pay more” than Russia you dumb POS. 75% of Ukrop migrants to Poland are from WESTERN Ukraine you dumb sack of faeces. Doing low-skilled work, only highskilled jobs have been available when a section of the highly-skilled eastern Ukrainians started look for work in Poland you idiot, because they are more educated

    T

    his survey was from 2016. Since then even more have chosen Poland over Russia:

    http://ratinggroup.ua/ru/research/ukraine/nastroeniya_sredi_ukraincev-zarobitchan.html

    Более всего опрошенных выезжали на работу в Польшу – 36%, на втором месте Россия (25%), по 5% работали в Чехии и Германии, 3% – в Италии, остальные – в других странах, в основном, Западной Европы. Почти 30% респондентов отказалась отвечать на этот вопрос.

    So if there are 2 million in Poland there are no more than 2 million in Russia (I am not including Donbas refugees, that’s another story)..

    LOL…another BS, fantasist garbage an insecure nutjob freak as you has just pasted from some Banderaswine failure coward diaspora moron blog . It’s obviously not true and on top of that, any “refuse to answer” would be because it is to Russia you dumb prick.

    Further amusing to note the substantial ( but much inferior to Russia) level of Ukrainians going to Poland has nothing to do with the EU Association Agreement…………if these moronic kamikaze dipshit Poles had explained this to the Soros funded/Banderacunt Ukrops…then plenty of lives could have been saved

  57. The highest sender of remittances by Ukrainians , by a massive distance, is from Russia

    Don’t you get tired of being wrong? Or living in 2014?

    https://112.international/finance/remittances-to-ukraine-exceed-5-billion-within-nine-months-of-2017-24113.html

    The amount of money transfers from individuals abroad to Ukraine in the first nine months of 2017 reached $5.192 billion, which is 29.6% (or $1.187 billion) greater than the figure for the same period last year. The National Bank of Ukraine has published this information, UNIAN reports.

    Most of the remittances ($2.093 billion, or 40.3%) was transferred via banks’ correspondent accounts, while $1.67 billion came through international payment systems and another $1.429 billion arrived via informal channels, the National Bank explained.

    The United States for the first time ever became the main source of remittances transferred to Ukraine. In the nine months of 2017, remittances from America increased by 24.6%, $547 million. On the other hand, remittances from Russia dropped by 39.3%, to $460 million.

    Let me guess: you stupidly believe that remittances corresponds exactly to number of migrants 🙂

    LOL…another BS, fantasist garbage

    LOL, you prefer your fairytales over reality.

    Poland pays more

    …..hahahahahahahahahah!

    Ukrainians in Poland make as much as Poles in Poland (though they work longer hours). Which is more than Russians make in Russia, thanks to ruble devaluation. It’s why Ukrainians, even from places in central Ukraine, are going to Poland more often than to Russia.

    Cleaning toilets, squatting in sewers

    You seem to enjoy toilets. Are they your natural habitat? Or are you bitter because some Ukrainian gastarbeiters in Poland make more in $ than you do 🙂

  58. Hyperborean says

    Trianon.

  59. I know some Rusyns, and there are a lot more of them than you claim. They have been forced by the communists to declare themselves as Ukrainian, but they know who they are. There is no love lost in Subcarpathia for Kiev or the insane Ukrainian hyper-nationalism. Now – due to a rather desperate situation in Ukraine – thousands are claiming Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian ethnic origin and leaving as fast as they can.

    You live in deep denial of what is going on. When reality hits it might be painful.

  60. she doesn’t look that good in that pic

    I dunno, looks pretty attractive from where I’m sitting!

  61. Lock her up.
    The last thing Russia needs is another Western craziness. In the last century, Russians tried two western delusions, communism and liberalism, and you all know the results. No one there wants American style gun nuttery.

    Why don’t you move to Texas, buy twenty assault rifles, be happy and leave Russia alone?

  62. Greasy William says

    But unlike you, I recognize that muscles aren’t irrelevant.

    o rly?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKmc6FOddbs&t=

    Take any skinny guy and give him six months of weight training to sharpen his facial angles, eliminate his pencil neck, and get a proper V-shaped torso. It definitely increases his attractiveness.

    Being too skinny can definitely hurt you with women, this is true. But what I’m saying is that any muscles beyond the minimum needed doesn’t get you any bonus points. If you take a guy with an average build who women rate as a “6” and then add 40 lbs of muscle to him, he will not be one iota more attractive to women.

    Give him plastic surgery and leg lengthening surgery, however, and that will dramatically improve his SMV.

  63. I know some Rusyns, and there are a lot more of them than you claim.

    You are the one who claimed Transcarpathia was “only Western region that voted for the Party of Regions (Yanukovitch).”

    In 201o this region voted 52% for Tymoshenko and 42% for Yanukovich.

    In 2012 it was 31% Party of Regions, 28% Fatherland, 20% Udar, 8% Svoboda, 5% Communists.

    So a very easy “Orange” victory.

    :::::::::::::

    Whether you are ignorant and naive, or dishonest, what you claim to know about Rusyns is worthless.

    They have been forced by the communists to declare themselves as Ukrainian

    No one is preventing them now. About 11,00 declared themselves Rusyns on the last census. Of course, they had to write it in, it wasn’t listed like Hungarian or Polish or Ukrainian are. Perhaps if it was listed double that would check off “Rusyn.” At any rate, a small percentage.

  64. You’re the one clearly living in a fantasy world denying reality, not I. If there are a lot more ‘rusyns’ than I claim living in Zakarpattya, then prove it:

    Out of 1,010,100 Ukrainians in the region, 99.2% (~1,002,019) identified their native language as Ukrainian, while about 0.5% (~5,051) consider their native language to be Russian

    The Ukrainian national orientation of the Rusyns is largely complete, with only a few professional Rusyns and their paid sovok supporters making up a few thousand at most. With over one million Ukrainians living in Zakarpattya, trying to promote ‘rusynism’ in that oblast makes far less sense than even trying to foster an independent ‘Moravian’ nationality in either Czechia or Sloavakia. And there are at least one million adherents to a non-existant ‘Moravian’ nationality, and noone is seriously trying to promote such an orientation there. You’re clutching at straws so Good luck to you & your grand project, Mr. ‘Realistic‘ 🙂

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakarpattia_Oblast

  65. . About 11,00 declared themselves Rusyns on the last census.

    Should be 11,000 of course. Or rather 10,183:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusyns

    Roughly around 1% of the Slavic population there.

    If they didn’t have to write it in how many would have checked it off? If it was 5 times as many as wrote it in, it would still be only 5% of the Slavs there.

  66. AnonFromTN says

    I told you before that arguing with a Ukie as if it is human is totally useless, like discussing quantum mechanics with a lamppost. Just look at the comment #65: the argument is that Ukrainians speak Ukrainian, therefore there are very few Rusyns. Super-logical, wouldn’t you say? Typical Ukie argument.

    I guess they sent former gauleiter of Donbass to govern and now want to send troops to Trans-Carpathian region because everything there is hanky-dory.

    Anyway, don’t argue or even talk to Ukies; just let this scum die out or wait till they are hanged by normal Ukrainians. The Earth would become a better place.

  67. Yeah, I know. But look at it this way, it is not really an argument if they are mostly trying to convince themselves and constantly try ad hominem attacks (rather stupid in the virtual space).

    I find the self-brainwashing phenomenon academically fascinating. It is an underestimated part of history: people passionately believing in what they want to happen, lying to fool themselves. Why do that? What can possibly be gained by that? There is a sadness about it that appeals to my remaining empathy (minimal), and we all know where Ukraine is going. An almost deserved catastrophe. But they want it so badly, so passionately. (Kto chce kam, pomozme mu tam…)

  68. No one there wants American style gun nuttery.

    they didn’t just promote “gun nuttery”, they also supported people in limits of self-defence type cases.

    also, I think everyone knows why it doesn’t quite work in America.

    better gun-nuttery than anarcho-tyranny (state does nothing against crime (the anarcho- part) and won’t let you, either (tyranny)). Something in which Russia btw is very European. Also sentences. Problem, Russia, unlike Europe, has a massive, unreformable native underclass, first, and there’s less physical separation, courtesy Sovok urban planners and internal migration, second.

  69. ussr andy says

    and of course, she’s a political prisoner of the US (just the timing alone) regardless of the relative merits of the things she championed.

  70. ussr andy says

    political prisoner of the US

    and that’s being generous. a more cynical interpretation is someone was snatched in broad daylight and thrown into a dungeon just for being Russian.

  71. AnotherDad says

    she doesn’t look that good in that pic

    She isn’t a model–and it shows. She’s an average looking young woman. Which is a perfectly nice thing to be–young women (at least without fat and tats) have their charms.

    The point here isn’t how she looks, it’s that she’s a right-to-bear-arms activists who the feds have thrown in jail for no darn good reason other than their Russia witch hunt.

  72. Felix Keverich says

    How the heck do you identify a Ukrainian abroad? Are you waiting for them to say something? In мова? I prefer to rely on available statistics.

    https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i.jM9gT0dSgQ/v2/620x-1.png
    There is over 100.000 of Ukrainians in Czechia alone. That’s what Ukrainian statistics service says and its estimates are instructive because they show how Ukrainian authorities are failing to document out-migration: there is no way Russia received only 340.000 Ukrainians since 2015. Should be multiplied by factor of 6 or more. Same with Poland. Should be well over 1 million Ukrainians in EU countries ex Poland.

    Plus there is also North America, Turkey, UAE, other countries in Asia – I hear lots of “Natashas” from the Ukraine are moving there to make a living.

  73. Plus there is also North America, Turkey, UAE, other countries in Asia – I hear lots of “Natashas” from the Ukraine are moving there to make a living.

    Truly sickening, the females are prostituting themselves to third world scum, and the men are more concerned about cucking themselves to Brussels and Washington.

  74. Gerard1234 says

    I hear lots of “Natashas” from the Ukraine are moving there to make a living.

    Obviously the fat freak drunkard Valtsmann was too thick to think of doing this before Russia intervened in Syria….. but after Russia arrived, he starting fellating the important middle-east countries by talking theatrically of anti-Assad/anti-Russia actions in Syria ( this dipshit having no shame making arguments against Assad and Russia in Syria that directly contradict, but with lies, the vile acts that the Ukrop regime has done on Donbass)

    The reason he has done this cosying-up off the important Middle East countries…..is not because of any real actual disapproval of Assad/Russia …but so as to get a free-visa agreement with Qatar/Saudi Arabia and investment (lol) and military contracts

    the result of this pathetic behaviour is that ,at last ,Ukrainians got free-visa movement to Qatar and Sauda Arabia…a big thing for nurses, other healthcare professionals, teachers and so on…and something Russians have had available for a much longer time

  75. Just look at the comment #65: the argument is that Ukrainians speak Ukrainian, therefore there are very few Rusyns. Super-logical, wouldn’t you say? Typical Ukie argument.

    So what’s your argument, Mr. Hick from Tennessee? Within the over 1,000,000 Ukrainians living in Zakarpattya, sure there are more than 10.200 that their grandparents once identified themselves as ‘Rusyns’, but now identify themselves as Ukrainians. As I’ve already pointed out. the Ukrainianization process in Zakarpattya is complete. Your Rusyn project in Zakarpattya is as redundant as Karlin’s ‘Triune’ project (or Qudriune project taking the ‘rusyns’ into consideration) project is for the rest of Ukraine. You’re all a bunch of fantasizers (фантазёры). All of you Ukrainophobes are such a desperate lot! 🙂

  76. people passionately believing in what they want to happen, lying to fool themselves. Why do that? What can possibly be gained by that?

    You must be writing about yourself again – but we already know this about you. Tell us something new…

  77. people passionately believing in what they want to happen, lying to fool themselves.

    A perfect self-description, Beckow.

    Unlike you, I back up claims with evidence.

    For example, you made the stupid claim that Transcarpathia was “only Western region that voted for the Party of Regions (Yanukovitch).”

    In 201o this region voted 52% for Tymoshenko and 42% for Yanukovich.

    In 2012 it was 31% Party of Regions, 28% Fatherland, 20% Udar, 8% Svoboda, 5% Communists.

    So a very easy “Orange” victory.

    So you lied to yourself again.

    It’s what you do. Always.

    And you project your approach onto others.

    Fascinating, isn’t it?

  78. The map you posted debunks your previous claim that 5 million is the low estimate.

  79. Greasy William says

    He’s not a hick. He’s an ethnic Russian who was born in Russia. His moniker is very confusing though.

  80. When you an Beckow discuss Ukraine it is like Tweedle Dee discussing something with Tweedle Dum.

    You make some great comments about Ukraine but perhaps your best comment ever was about America, a country where you have lived for 30 years:

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/helsinki-meeting/#comment-2421459

    “Funny when people who know nothing about the US use it as an example. There is NO official federal language in the US, period. NO official language in any state. ”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#Official_language_status

    There is no official language at the U.S. federal level. However, 32 states of the United States, in some cases as part of what has been called the English-only movement, have adopted legislation granting official status to English.

    You live in Tennessee, one of the states that has English as an official language:

    http://www.languagepolicy.net/archives/tenn.htm

    English is hereby established as the official and legal language of Tennessee. All communications and publications, including ballots, produced by governmental entities in Tennessee shall be in English, and instruction in public schools and colleges of Tennessee shall be conducted in English unless the nature of the course would require otherwise.

    You, a man so ignorant so as not to know such a basic fact about the place where he lives, laughably makes claims about places he does not live.

    Naturally, Beckow will believe you though.

    I guess they sent former gauleiter of Donbass to govern and now want to send troops to Trans-Carpathian region because everything there is hanky-dory.

    By such logic, increase of Russian troop presence in Crimea and in southwestern Russia “proves” that Russia is afraid of anti-Russian unrest in these regions. Brilliant.

  81. He’s very ineffective at positing his views in any sort of believable manner. Everything to him boils down to an ‘ad-hominem’ attack, which isn’t true. He seems like a ‘persecuted’ type (no matter what his nationality is) and should stay up in ‘them thare hills’ with his cracker kin and get it back together.
    Oh, did I infer that he was a ‘cracker’? – oops, another ‘ad-hominem’ attack! 🙂

  82. Greasy William says

    A Russian immigrant can’t be a cracker. I guess he could be whatever people in Russia call their “crackers”.

  83. Felix Keverich says

    These are estimates from Ukrostat…Ukrostat also claims that the Ukraine has 42 million population.

    If Ukrostat says that Czechia has 100.000 Ukrainians in it, we can safely multiply this number by a factor of 5 or so.

  84. AnonFromTN says

    As a matter of fact, I was born in Western Ukraine, in Lvov, of all places (this gives Ukie Nazis heebie jeebies), and lived in Eastern Ukraine in Lugansk from ~5 to ~18 years of age. Then I was accepted into Moscow State University (the competition was stiff, 13 applicants per place), graduated and worked in biological research in Moscow and Moscow region, got my PhD, then moved to the US. I live and work in TN for the last 17 years. Hence the moniker.

    What’s more, I am fluent in standard Ukrainian. My Ukrainian language and literature teacher in school in Lugansk loved me because I was the only kid in a class of 40+ students who could speak proper Ukrainian. I can also understand and speak one of the Western Ukrainian dialects, the one spoken in Lvov area (these dialects are very different from standard Ukrainian, some heavily Polonized, some Germanized, some both). I speak better Ukrainian and have read more Ukrainian literature than most self-appointed Ukrainian “patriots”. I even read Western Ukrainian writers these “patriots” never heard of. Like any decent literature, Ukrainian is humanistic and incompatible with Nazi ideology promoted by the current Kiev regime.

    One example to give you an idea what that regime is: very recently (June 27, 2018) “president” Poroshenko gave an honorary title of “Outstanding cultural worker of Ukraine” to one Andriy Avdeenko, who calls himself an admiral and a member of the academy of sciences, while being neither. This “historian” promotes numerous “theories” based on falsifications and PhotoShop. Very fitting: fake scientist awarded by the fake president.

  85. сухарик! 🙂

  86. So, what nationality are you?

  87. Hyperborean says

    Why don’t you talk more about the US? At the very least it would be something new.

  88. for-the-record says

    these dialects are very different from standard Ukrainian, some heavily Polonized, some Germanized, some both

    So is standard Ukrainian closer to Polish or Russian?

  89. These are estimates from Ukrostat…Ukrostat also claims that the Ukraine has 42 million population.

    Which is why the high estimate of 5 million migrants is the realistic one.

    If Ukrostat says that Czechia has 100.000 Ukrainians in it, we can safely multiply this number by a factor of 5 or so.

    LOL, that would mean that about 5% of the people in the Czech Republic are Ukrainian migrants. No one noticed half a million Ukrainians in the Czech Republic. Czech stats indicate 117,000 Ukrainians in Czech Republic legally. Obviously there are also many illegals there also – estimates give the numbers as being similar to the number of legals – at 120,00 or so. So probably around 250,000 Ukrainian migrants in the Czech Republic.

    The map also shows that there are more Ukrainians in Poland than in Russia.

    As of end of 2017 there were about a million Ukrainian migrants in Poland:

    http://www.france24.com/en/20180108-focus-ukraine-poland-immigration-european-union-work-employment-economy-wages

    So in cases of both Czech Republic and Poland, the Ukrainian government underestimates the actual number by half, not by one fifth. It’s probably similar with Russia. However it seems that refugees would not be counted as migrants, so total number of people from Ukraine would be higher. I ran into a few people from Ukraine when I was in Moscow – all of them were from Donbas. There may easily be 1-2 million people from Donbas in Russia, plus 600,000 migrant workers from other parts of Ukraine.

  90. He doesn’t know what he is talking about, don’t take him seriously.

    Standard Ukrainian has a grammar and pronunciation closer to Russian, and is written in Cyrillic as is Russian (there are some minor differences in letters), but a vocabulary closer to Polish.

    In Lviv people speak standard Ukrainian, not a dialect. They do speak with an accent (Lviv speech is
    a bit more abrupt and clipped – kind of reminds me of Urals Russian vs. Moscow Russian in that way) but it is very much standard Ukrainian. You will hear the dialect only in villages outside the city, and among diaspora communities who left prior to Soviet rule. The dialect is more Polish and has some German words also (i.e., the old Austrian greeting ‘Servus’).

    People from Russian-speaking areas who rarely hear standard Ukrainian but who hear surzhyk (A Russian and Ukrainian mish-mash) and falsely assume surzhyk is actual Ukrainian may mistake Lviv speech for some kind of dialect.

  91. Of course I have in the past, but since this is a blog primarily about Russia and what some consider to be the ‘Russian world’, I usually limit the scope of my comments to this part of the world. Why, do my comments about Ukraine and Russia seem out of place to you for some reason?…(at other blogs at the UNZ Review, I do change my focus, and even here when Karlin throws in a travelogue piece or something about transhumanism, I do chime in).

  92. Gerard1234 says

    Within the over 1,000,000 Ukrainians living in Zakarpattya, sure there are more than 10.200 that their grandparents once identified themselves as ‘Rusyns’, but now identify themselves as Ukrainians.

    LOL you dumb as a rock cretin….there are much much more identifying as Rusyn you idiot…and they don’t at all identify themselves as “Ukrainian”………hence why the Banderatards have to make all these repressive rules in the last few years you idiot

    All of you Ukrainophobes

    …no such thing as a “Ukrainophobe” you idiot because no real state or culture exists….just an area of Russians that has got severely fuckedup from anti-“Ukrainians” who are actually, like you, sons /grandsons of disgusting failure cunt Bandera cowards who escaped in shame in the 1940’s and 50’s to North America ( the UK is too small and you fucktards who have got exposed for your animal-raping, village burning past, hence why North America)…who have tried to control Ukraine into the abyss since 1991.

    But seeing as it’s you on your period again, there is a mitigating excuse for your BS….here’s another link proving the fake culture and language of “Ukraine” you thick POS

    Dneprazot, of course, owned by an oligarch, the slimeball Kolmoisky ( WTF the point of Maidan , again?), stopped producing Chlorine….could be a disaster in drinking water for this parasitic state…………here’s their description of themselves on their own site in Russian:

    http://www.azot.com.ua/ru/company/activity/

    and here in Ukrainian:

    http://www.azot.com.ua/uk/

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If ever proof was needed ( and it isn’t ) of how fake and uneccesary the “Ukrainian” language is, you only have to read the Russian and Ukrainian descriptions. What a farce. Identical you stupid twat.

  93. Hyperborean says

    Yes, this is a Russian blog, but we discuss other topics as well. I think this adds to the lively quality of this blog and makes it seem more like IRL discussions.

    I don’t frequent other parts of this site that much, so I wouldn’t know how you are there, maybe my impression of you would change.

    I feel like the topic of Ukraine has been exhausted a long time ago, we are just repeating ourselves, unless something major happens. Also, too many emotions involved.

    There are some other topics which are like this (ex. The ethnic origin of Ancient Egyptians or the proper role of women in society), but they usually are not as enduring.

    But to be fair to you, there is plenty of blame to go around and you are certainly not the worst.

  94. You are being infantile, you know the kinder-garden type of ‘you are stupid…; no, you are…’.

    Ok, gentlemen, let us agree to let whatever happens in the next 2-5 years decide the disagreement. If Ukraine in 2022 is a prosperous, stable country, with a growing economy and a GNP per capita on Romania or Turkey level, if the population is stable (let’s say at least 35-40 million), the trade is booming and Ukraine is either in EU or on a realistic path to EU, if that happens I will admit my error and re-educate myself.

    If on the other hand the current morass persists, economy is in the doldrums, people keep on leaving, hrivna is worthless, foreign debts are un-payable, trade is miserable, there is no EU path, and business relations with Russia are practically non-existent, then I would expect you – if you are a gentleman – to admit that maybe you had been a bit too optimistic.

    Some time ago I asked you if you would invest in a Kiev issued 12% government bond. You replied that no, that it was too risky. I responded that says more about your real thoughts than all your endless cheerleading about the post-Maidan Ukraine. I still think so, it is called ‘skin in the game’, if you are not willing to put some skin behind your ideas, they are basically just empty talk. (And blaming your bad luck on circumstances, or ‘evil Russia’, doesn’t count. Russia was always part of the game, if you didn’t see it, well, what else you don’t see?)

    But let’s see in 2-5 years. I will be here.

  95. Gerard1234 says

    Standard Ukrainian has a grammar and pronunciation closer to Russian, and is written in Cyrillic as is Russian (there are some minor differences in letters), but a vocabulary closer to Polish.

    In Lviv people speak standard Ukrainian, not a dialect. They do speak with an accent (Lviv speech is
    a bit more abrupt and clipped – kind of reminds me of Urals Russian vs. Moscow Russian in that way) but it is very much standard Ukrainian. You will hear the dialect only in villages outside the city, and among diaspora communities who left prior to Soviet rule. The dialect is more Polish and has some German words also (i.e., the old Austrian greeting ‘Servus’).

    People from Russian-speaking areas who rarely hear standard Ukrainian but who hear surzhyk (A Russian and Ukrainian mish-mash) and falsely assume surzhyk is actual Ukrainian may mistake Lviv speech for some kind of dialect.

    pretty much a fantasist scumbag lie from start to finish you disturbed tramp.

    Lvov, the gift from Stalin, the whole myth of the artificial state of Ukraine would rely on the fact that people in Lvov don’t speak “standard Ukrainian” you thick POS

  96. Gerard1234 says

    Most of the remittances ($2.093 billion, or 40.3%) was transferred via banks’ correspondent accounts,

    In the nine months of 2017, remittances from America increased by 24.6%, $547 million.

    hahahaha! In 2014 remittances from the US to Ukraine were 640 million ( both are pitiful sums) you idiot. Ukraine is struggling to get up to 1991 levels of prosperity, it doesn’t need to be reminded of the catastrophic failure after 2014 that make it now very hard to reach pre-Nazi coup levels of economy you twat. Even if you scale up the 547million to 12 months it is a pitiful increase you moron.

    lol……remittances from Russia to Ukraine were 2.7 billion in 2013 , and 2.1 billion in 2014 ( but maintaned their % share) you thick retarded imbecile…but you’re “celebrating” this crap, fake figures?

    Nobody is suggesting there has been an exodus of Ukrainians from Russia to Banderastan you idiot, plus there has been at least 1-2 million more who have gone to Russia permanently after 2014. At a maximum over the last 4 years the Rouble has lost value to the dollar at 250% (briefly) , that would make levels of Russian remittances at 1.1 billion (probably 1.5 billion because the average devaluation has been 180%) without even taking into account the extra “Ukrainians” after 2014.
    Only a moron would try and promote the fake Ukrainian figures.

    Ukrainians in Poland make as much as Poles in Poland (though they work longer hours). Which is more than Russians make in Russia,

    Russia is a richer country in wealth, prosperity, culture,history,sport and military than Poland you deranged sack of faeces….and that’s before we even get to places as Moscow ,Saint Petersburg and Kazan which have significantly higher money than any place in Poland.

    With the massive number of Ukrainians working on farmland and on construction sites et cetera in Russia, plenty of that is cash-in-hand…which obviously there won’t be much of in America, and is likely to be unaccounted for by the ukrop regime you idiot, but the numbers I’ve given speak for themselves

    You’re too thick to understand that 75% of Ukrainians are doing work like cleaning toilets…i.e very cheap labour , although that is also because 75% of the are western Ukrainians, who are much less qualified than those in Novorossiya/Kiev

    You seem to enjoy toilets

    ..Projection by yourself….you know what a deranged tramp you and your spambot algorithm are……..excrement is a natural association for filth like you

    Or are you bitter because some Ukrainian gastarbeiters in Poland make more in $ than you do

    Amusingly, insecure dumb comment

    The United States for the first time ever became the main source of remittances transferred to Ukraine.

    errr…not only is it not true……..wasn’t your whole point that Poland is the number 1 destination for Ukrainians ,you disinfo-spreading sack of shit?! LOL……..what a moron…even though that is fake news, Poland cant even provide 500 million worth of remittances.

  97. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-fines-rfe-rl-over-alleged-foreign-agent-violations/29341761.
    html
    July 05, 2018
    The ruling comes eight months after the Justice Ministry slapped the “foreign-agent” label on RFE/RL, Voice of America (VOA), and several affiliated news services.

    The designation was based on a law signed by President Vladimir Putin in November allowing the government to apply the label to media outlets who receive funding from abroad. The law drew sharp criticism from Western governments and rights activists.

    ALSO READ: CPJ Blasts Russia’s ‘Systematic Policy’ Of Obstructing Free Flow Of News
    Kent said that the entire law appears to have been politically motivated from the start.

    “Of all the foreign media working in Russia, only media funded by the U.S. Congress have been designated as ‘media foreign agents’ under this law,” Kent said. “We view the law as conceived exclusively to target us. U.S. laws guarantee our editorial independence. Suggestions that we are agents of any government are false. They have already affected our ability to gather news in Russia, and they create danger for our people there.”

    Russia was not expecting tit for tat? Money transfers, money from Russia going to the second most formidable lobby in the US.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqdMHUfRhW0

    The federal government has huge programs to track all kinds of things one might think untraceable and real spies would know that. Maybe the American Deep State was worried that Butina was going to use her charms to infiltrate the most politically powerful lobby of all: the AARP

  98. Russia is a richer country in wealth, prosperity

    Russian income is a lot lower in $ than Polish income.

    2016:

    https://www.rbth.com/business/2016/05/20/the-average-salary-in-russia-is-now-lower-than-in-china-and-poland_594893

    The average wage in Russia fell below $450 per month, Mikhail Matovnikov, the chief analyst of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, told journalists during a business meeting on May 19. This makes labor costs in the country cheaper than in China.

    The average monthly salary in Russia is $433, which is less than in Serbia, Romania, China or Poland, Matovnikov said.

    More recent:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

    Russia 520 Euro, Poland 803 Euro.

    So more Ukrainians go to Poland than to Russia nowadays.

    Ukrainian workers in Poland make average Polish salary (though they work longer hours to get it). So they make more than do average Russians.

    It hurts, doesn’t it, better start spewing vulgarities 🙂

  99. AnonFromTN says

    Standard (literary) Ukrainian first appeared in writing in Kotlyarevsky’s Eneyida (written in 1798, when Kotlyarevsky was an officer in the Russian army; first published in 1842), later used by Shevchenko (in his verses; his prose was written in Russian), Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Nechuy-Levytsky, etc. It is closer to Russian than Polish, but has two extra forms of nouns (in addition to the same six forms present in Russian), like Latin. The alphabet is a form of Cyrillic, has some letters abandoned in modern Russian (were used in the old Russian alphabet before the reform that was prepared in tsarist times and implemented by Bolsheviks), and an extra letter ї (i with two dots), recording the sound like the first vowel in “yield”.

  100. here’s their description of themselves on their own site in Russian:

    http://www.azot.com.ua/ru/company/activity/

    and here in Ukrainian:

    http://www.azot.com.ua/uk/

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If ever proof was needed ( and it isn’t ) of how fake and uneccesary the “Ukrainian” language is, you only have to read the Russian and Ukrainian descriptions.

    First sentence.

    Russian:

    АО «ДНЕПРАЗОТ» является одним из крупнейших предприятий химической промышленности Украины.

    Ukrainian:

    АТ «ДНІПРОАЗОТ» є одним з найбільших підприємств хімічної промисловості України.

    I’ll add Polish:

    JSC “DNIPROAZOT” jest jednym z największych przedsiębiorstw przemysłu chemicznego na Ukrainie.

    Your method once again proves that Polish, Russian and Ukrainian are the same language.

    Are you a Ukrainian nationalist troll masquerading as a Sovok?

  101. This part is questionable “It is closer to Russian than Polish” (standard Ukrainians is between the two languages) but surprisingly the rest of the comment is generally accurate.

  102. AnonFromTN says

    What would any Nazi be interested in except bloodlines and tribal ancestry?
    My mother is Ukrainian, I was born and grew up in Ukraine. I speak Ukrainian (in addition to Russian and English). I have read pretty much all decent Ukrainian literature in the original language, as well as lots of Russian and English literature in these languages (it is not my fault that Ukrainian literature is nowhere near the level or volume of Russian and English). Ukrainian culture is also my own, along with Russian and English culture. I have several books in Ukrainian at home. That’s why I cannot just laugh at the Ukrainian madhouse, like most Russians. That’s why I deeply resent what Ukie Nazis did to the country. That’s why I also resent when Ukies lie through their teeth to paper over the crimes committed by Ukie Nazis against Ukrainians and all other residents of that unfortunate country.

  103. AnonFromTN says

    I am not fluent in Polish, know just a few hundred words, some polite, some extremely impolite. However, I’ve heard enough of it to know that the sound structure of Polish is very different from Ukrainian or Russian. There are too many sibilants in Polish, which make it sound harsh. If you compare the latter two, Ukrainian is more melodious than Russian, with very few consonants that are not followed by vowels. That’s why Ukrainian songs were popular in Russia and throughout the USSR.

    Among other things I resent that Ukie Nazis made this beautiful language synonymous with the BS they are spewing. In fact, in Crimea Ukrainian makes people recoil, whereas nowadays in Donbass you can be punched in the face for Ukrainian. I don’t like that and lay the blame for the defamation of everything Ukrainian on Ukies, both thieves and Nazi criminals inside the country and those who provide them cover from afar.

  104. If you look at what has happened to London, it’s a result of everyone in the world wanting to live and work there.

  105. Felix Keverich says

    I ran into a few people from Ukraine when I was in Moscow – all of them were from Donbas.

    You’re doing the same thing Ukrainian government is doing: you’re making shit up.

    Here is a Polish official saying they have more than 2 million Ukrainians in the country:
    https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/2-mln-ukrainians-working-poland-says-polish-ukrainian-economic-chamber.html

    Here is Klimkin secretly complaining about 3 million Ukrainians that are currently working in Russia (official figures are nowhere near this level, but that’s par for the course in the Ukraine):
    https://www.stav.kp.ru/daily/26822/3859995/

    Czechia could be a hub for Ukrainian migrants: there is nothing to stop them from spreading to neighbouring countries after arriving from the Ukraine.

    Stop being a stubborn fuck. It is obvious that your sole purpose here is to make your country look less sucky than it actually is, but you impress nobody with your BS personal anecdotes and disregard for facts.

  106. AnonFromTN says

    In my view, the Ukrainians who expect Russia to solve their problems are just as wrong as those expecting the US/EU/NATO to solve their problems. Ukraine will remain a festering shithole until a sizable fraction of the population realizes that nobody from the outside is going to solve their problems, they have to do it themselves. Does not seem to be happening: Ukraine residents are just running away from that sinking ship, some East, some West. If these processes continue, the ship is doomed.

    BTW, I believe that the guilt of the destruction of Ukraine, which could have been a decent country, is shared by all its presidents, Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yuschenko, Yanukovych, and Poroshenko, as well as Ukrainian oligarchs who keep robbing the country blind like there is no tomorrow from 1991. The forms became more grotesque after the coup in 2014, but the same process with the same people at the helm continues unabated.

  107. Daniel Chieh says

    I think he’s mentioned before that he’s Ukrainian, and you went on a long spiel once about how he is “traitorous.”

  108. If Ukraine in 2022 is a

    It’s far too optimistic dates (economies does not change so fast).

    If you said 2035, then it’s a more realistic target.

    Currently most optimistic news about Ukraine, is how they recently are receiving tens of thousands of hi-tech jobs which are being outsourced from more developed economies, because of far lower wages which can be paid in Ukraine.

    This new trend is work mainly mediated by agencies, a lot from start-ups. (I guess even with agencies themselves taking percentage of employees’ salary, is still good for Ukraine’s economy, as they are located in Ukraine).

    It seems not many large multinational corporations (the best employers) making significant investments in Ukraine.

    Ukraine still far from significant legal and business reforms. Intellectual property is not protected well enough for international corportaions. Why invest in a country, where you don’t know if your companies’ products will be stolen? You can outsource some simple work there through an agency, but to open R&D centers?

    They talk about privatization, but these are large investments – who wants to gamble, without better protection of investments. In fact politicians boasting about Odessa Port Plant for years, and the result that no-one wanted to buy it because of its huge debts and lack of accounting transparency.

    Finally, this week, it published the news, Pericles Global Advisory of London has come to prepare (legal documents and accountancy auditing) for the offering tender to sell of the port, which politicians boasted about privatizing over two years ago.

    So you can see small areas where things move forward, but also the slow speed it is happening. It is 2 years, before they are just able to get the advisory firm for the sale of a port, which they announced its privatization as an achievement 2 years ago.

  109. AnonFromTN says

    The Economist recently published an article about coming presidential elections in Ukraine titled “Politics surpasses satire in Ukraine” (https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/08/04/politics-surpasses-satire-in-ukraine). Enough said.

  110. for-the-record says

    Thanks.

  111. Where I am in West Europe , for all of us without EU passports, we need to apply for the Employment Visa – which requires a corporation to offer you a job before entry, but also within a correct employment category (here they have a system, where they give employment visa mainly in employment categories of jobs requiring bachelor of engineering, science, and upwards, but they have other categories for concretized jobs where they need more people). (Eventually, after five years, and a renewal, you can get a legal residency).

    What happens in the last year, is Ukraine citizens are allowed to stay visa free for six months everywhere in the Schengen area only (all EU, but not in Ireland/UK).

    Mass Ukrainians suddenly went to Poland and Czech Republic, because they have some agreement allowing seasonal work of Ukraine citizens. For other parts of EU, they are supposed to only be there without a visa as tourists.

    Sure, some Ukrainians going to work illegally on the wrong visa, or without visa, is a real phenomenon in many countries, and happens all over Europe and Middle East – but I would see them if it in any large number here.

    Travelling in Europe and Middle East, I’ve seen definitely Ukrainians which I think probabyl are illegally working – but looks like just occasionally small groups of them, not some kind of mass invasion.

    Maybe someone here has a different experience where they live?

  112. MarkinPNW says

    “vatnik”? (Presumably after the cheap quilted cotton coat that poor “crackers” or “rednecks” of Russia could afford and wear.)

  113. That usage of word is just very recently invented by liberals from an internet cartoon – pejorative specifically for people with politics of Gerard2, which is a lot of people. Gerard – really the most normal guy here.

  114. AnonFromTN says

    The substance of Gerard2 posts is often normal, but he is impolite. The people who are right can politely present arguments (like Beckow here), rather than stoop to name-calling, like Ukies who have no arguments except their fervent desire to believe. I don’t even think they actually believe the BS they are posting, as this would imply much lower IQ than required for coherent posts.

  115. Lol Gerard2 is most normal guy here, with the most normal viewpoint – I don’t condone it though.

    Hopefully Ukraine becomes a functional county. Current situation is not good for anyone, and if Ukraine becomes more normal – it will not be so aggressive to neighbours.

    But timeframe of countries changing is slow and like watching an oak tree grow. Even Poland, only developed so fast because EU taxpayers from countries like Germany gives Poland hundreds of billions of dollars since the 1990s.

    Economic situation for Ukraine is that if things could improve each year, everyone is going well, maybe in 2030 their economy will be like Romania is now.

    Timeframe for Ukraine to be a developed economy like Spain or Italy is now – probably 2050s?

  116. Sovok begone.

  117. Correct.

    Though to a large extent “vatnik” has been appropriated by the purported subjects of its abuse (much like rednecks in the US, come to think of it).

  118. However, I’ve heard enough of it to know that the sound structure of Polish is very different from Ukrainian or Russian.

    Correct. Although Ukrainian and Polish have more words in common than Russian and Polish, Polish sounds much different from the other two languages in terms of pronunciation and the “flow” of speech. Polish is both more nasal and has lots of “sh” “psh” sounds.

    So overall it is difficult to say which language is closer to Ukrainian – Polish or Russian. They are about equally close, but in different ways.

    If you compare the latter two, Ukrainian is more melodious than Russian, with very few consonants that are not followed by vowels. That’s why Ukrainian songs were popular in Russia and throughout the USSR.

    And even later. Prior to 2014 Okean Elzy were rather popular in Russia.

    Among other things I resent that Ukie Nazis made this beautiful language synonymous with the BS they are spewing. In fact, in Crimea Ukrainian makes people recoil, whereas nowadays in Donbass you can be punched in the face for Ukrainian. I don’t like that and lay the blame for the defamation of everything Ukrainian on Ukies

    It is a combination of nasty Ukrainian Nazis, and anti-Ukrainian propaganda who magnify and use them for their own purposes, that creates such hysteria (so-called Odessa massacre being a perfect example of this). Hopefully the hysteria will die down eventually.

    I was in Moscow this spring, spoke Ukrainian in the streets a lot (it’s how I speak with my kids) and experienced no anti-Ukrainian sentiment whatsoever. That wonderful city still feels like home to me.

  119. Thanks.

    I was aware that Georgia (and some other countries that have had censuses in the ex-USSR) have experienced nasty surprises, but yes, it seems surprising that Georgia would have an above-replacement level fertility rate (which the natality figures would seem to imply).

    Although this demographer thinks this has been the case there since around 2008:

    https://ifstudies.org/blog/in-georgia-a-religiously-inspired-baby-boom

    TBH he makes a pretty good case:

    https://medium.com/migration-issues/did-the-promise-of-baptism-really-boost-fertility-in-georgia-cf534d92615c

  120. You’re doing the same thing Ukrainian government is doing: you’re making shit up.

    I provided links for numbers. Here’s an example from January 2018 article about 2017:

    https://www.dw.com/en/poland-fears-economic-hit-as-eu-opens-door-to-ukrainians/a-42367764

    Whereas an estimated 1-1.5 million Ukrainians work in Poland, many of whom work without work permits and on temporary contracts, Kononczuk says.

    Here is Klimkin secretly complaining about 3 million Ukrainians that are currently working in Russia

    Foreign minister making rhetoric isn’t facts.

    Average salary in Poland is 803 Euros per month, and in Russia it is only 520 Euros per month:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

    Ukrainians in Poland make as much as Poles make in Poland:

    https://www.ft.com/content/aeda9ebe-3afa-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec

    “Ukrainians earn the same wages as Poles, they’re not cheap labour, as opposed to Poles hired in western Europe,” says Blazej Madejski, vice-president of Pro-Net Media, which installs telecoms and electricity transmission lines and is Mr Talalai’s employer. “There are few Poles left in [construction] here as they work in the EU. Without the Ukrainians, our company couldn’t be efficient.”

    Yuri Kariagin, a Ukrainian with Polish origins who heads a Ukrainian workers’ union in Poland, says that before 2014, many Ukrainians went to Russia to work.

    “Now the majority come to Poland,” he says. “It’s six months working, then back to their family with the money, to renovate the apartment, or help children with their education.”

    :::::::::::::::::::

    Yet you believe that somehow more Ukrainians choose to come to Russia to earn less, when they could work in Poland instead.

    So if there are 2 million Ukrainians working in Poland, there are not more than 2 million Ukrainians working in Russia.

    But by all means keep disregarding facts 🙂

  121. AnonFromTN says

    Russians in general and Moscow residents in particular are a lot less hostile to Ukrainians than Donbass. I guess because nobody is shooting at them and shelling them indiscriminately.

    Last time I was in Moscow in 2015, on my way to a vacation in Crimea and then a scientific meeting in Germany (I try to do a few things on the same visit when I have to switch time to European, which takes a day or two). Didn’t have time to do much, mostly moved between airports.

    I don’t know about Russian propaganda, as I only see the opposite, American propaganda. It is ~90% lies and 10% twisted facts. My info is pretty much from the people who live in Ukraine. Mostly older people, as younger ones ran away: one of my nephews now lives in Russia, and the other one in the Netherlands. Neither feels like coming back to Ukraine. I wouldn’t, either, after what so called Ukraine did in Donbass.

    BTW, the massacre on May 2, 2014, in Odessa was a crime. Nobody was punished for it, as the criminals who facilitated this atrocity are now in power. Nobody was punished for the murder of Oles Buzina or the murders on Maidan in 2014, for exactly the same reason.

  122. Last time I was in Moscow in 2015, on my way to a vacation in Crimea and then a scientific meeting in Germany (I try to do a few things on the same visit when I have to switch time to European, which takes a day or two). Didn’t have time to do much, mostly moved between airports.

    As much of the world now knows, it is truly one of the world’s greatest cities.

    I don’t know about Russian propaganda, as I only see the opposite, American propaganda. It is ~90% lies and 10% twisted facts.

    Both countries’ media lie for their own purposes. Some Americans make the mistake of thinking that because America media lie, and Russian media say something different – Russian media must be correct.

    I suspect that the best approach might be to use an uninvolved third party as a source.

    BTW, the massacre on May 2, 2014, in Odessa was a crime.

    It was not a massacre but it was a crime. The reality was simply different from the Russian narrative Two groups of thugs fought, in the process a deadly fire started and 40+ people died.

    Nobody was punished for it

    IIRC some of the pro-Russian thugs fomt hat day were actually punished, but none of the pro-Kiev thugs were punished, which of course is a shame.

    the criminals who facilitated this atrocity are now in power

    I doubt anyone “facilitated” this this event, which seems to be as preplanned as the death of someone who dies after getting punched in the head during a bar brawl. But the ones in power aren’t prosecuting the thugs who were on their side.

    Russian media lied and turned this into some kind of planned deliberate pogrom, state policy, and stirred people up into taking arms because there would be “Odessa massacres” all over the place.

  123. AnonFromTN says

    There was Mariupol massacre after Odessa. I think that convinced a lot of people that either they fight, or they will be massacred, like sheep. Some chose to fight, some remained sheep. As in one of the parables God said to a man: take whatever you want, but pay for it all. Both types of people are paying their price. Psychologists say that if the woman puts up a fight, there is no lasting psychological damage of rape, but if she submits, the damage is permanent.

  124. There was Mariupol massacre after Odessa.

    The one where mobs attacked soldiers who eventually shot at them after giving warning shots. It looks like much of the shooting involved aiming at legs, with people getting hit by bullets that ricocheted from the ground.

    Lots of details, full of video to back up the author’s claims, here:

    https://www.stopfake.org/en/a-reconstruction-of-clashes-in-mariupol-ukraine-9-may-2014/

  125. Felix Keverich says

    I don’t buy the idea of some “Jesus-fuelled baby boom” in Georgia. That’s nonsense. The total number of births appears to have declined from 2008, which is inconsistent with booming TFR.

    It’s likely that Georgia still has a sub replacement fertility rate. What you seem to be missing is that TFR is calculated on the basis of female population of reproductive age. The number of males in the country is irrelevant for calculating TFR. So you don’t get to simply multiply Georgian TFR by 1.17 – a much more complex adjustement needs to be made.

    It’s possible and even likely that composition of Georgian migrants is overwhelmingly male. 700.000 people may have left the country, but if mostly male, TFR wouldn’t change that much.

  126. AnonFromTN says

    Sorry, but stopfake site is well known for generating and spreading fakes. It is hardly more trustworthy than censor.net. No reputable or even half-reputable (like Western MSM) source has this “evidence”, as it was fabricated. We know by who: the guilty party. Ham-handedness of this fabrication clearly indicates the authors.

  127. I haven’t researched stopfake in depth, but this particular post backs up its claims with video evidence.

    Events in Mariupol look like civil unrest where the government sent in poorly trained troops with weapons, as well as radical nationalist volunteers, rather than riot control specialists with non-lethal methods of crowd dispersion. This may have been a bad thing to do, or maybe the government at that time simply had no choice – no riot control specialists available, so either send in troops or simply surrender the territory to the mob.

    Troops were often attacked first by mobs, they generally gave warning shots first and then shot at the ground (many of the victims were hit by bullets ricocheting from the asphalt streets or sidewalks, as is clear in the videos) indicating the troops weren’t trying to kill. Some of the people in the mobs were themselves armed. This wasn’t some sort of deliberate slaughter of unarmed people. It was turned into a “massacre” by anti-Kiev propaganda.

    Excerpt from article:

    Entry of the Ukrainian military (11:15 AM)

    At approximately 11:15 AM, the first armored personnel carriers (APC) from Ukraine’s 72nd Guards Mechanized Brigade drove into Mariupol. They drove onLenin Prospekt (Lenin Avenue) in the direction of Mariupol’s theater. The time of their arrival is based on webcam footage filmed at the intersection of Lenin Prospekt and Metalurhiv Prospekt, which showed the first two APCs (numbered 240 and 241) passing at about 11:25 AM. Their arrival was delayed because, just prior, one of the APCs had crashed into a billboard. Some commentators suggested that the APC deliberately knocked over the billboard because it may have advertised the Donbass referendum. It seems more likely that the APC had mechanical issues, since later that day the same APC (240) was abandoned due to engine failure. Residents by this time had begun recording clashes between soldiers and protestors. To reconstruct what happened, I will use the following video as a reference point:

    Video 1 (1st part) – Duration: 39m19s (2nd part is here).

    Based on the webcam footage, this video starts just before 11:25 AM, which allows us to understand how the standoff began. The beginning of the video shows APCs driving eastward on Lenin Prospekt. An angry crowd of about a hundred people gathers at the crossing with Ulitsa Kazantseva (Kazantseva Street). This crossing is near the city council building – the headquarters of Mariupol’s separatist movement. Some of the protestors throw rocks and tires and manage to block one of the APCs by forming a human chain. One of the activists climbs on top and tries to cover the vehicle’s sights. Two warning shots are fired from within the APC, and eventually it manages to pass. One protestor receives a wound to the head from a brick thrown at the APC, whichcan be seen at 3m39s.

    As the cameraman runs after the APCs, distant firefights are already audible in the background. Ukrainian soldiers can be seen covering the northwestern and southwestern corners of Ulitsa Engels in order to secure the crossing of troops coming from the south. The crowd follows but initially keeps its distance. They are then persuaded by advancing protestors to close in on the soldiers. Warning shots are heard, but the crowd ignores them and slowly continues forward.

    Injuries near theater square (11:56 AM)

    Another injury can be observed at 31m45s, when one of the protestors, who I will call “Victim 1,” can be seen kneeled down on the road. Earlier on, Victim 1 persuaded the crowd to block the APC at Ulitsa Kazantseva and to close in on soldiers covering Ulitsa Engels. This video (Video 3), shows him nagging one of the soldiers at 4m04s. When a new column of APCs passes by, Victim 1 crosses the street. Three shots are then heard, and at 4m24s, a bullet impact next to him shows he’s being shot at:

    This video (Video 2) shows how one of the soldiers fires two shots at the ground near the victim’s feet (at 6m40s):

    Afterward, bystanders help Victim 1 stand up and assist him toward the sidewalk. Memorial judged Victim 1 to be “heavily intoxicated” and suggested that the shot may have saved his life, as otherwise the APC, driving at high speed, would have hit him. Video 3 shows a wound near his armpit (at 5m47s). Since the soldier aimed downwards, it seems that the victim was struck by a ricocheted bullet. This is a recurring feature throughout this reconstruction; sometimes soldiers seem unaware that shooting at a hardened surface can cause a bullet to ricochet.

    As the last soldiers cross Lenin Prospekt, soldiers standing at the northwest corner of Ulitsa Engels fire more warning shots. One of the protestors, wearing a suit and holding an ID-card (Victim 2), moves closer towards the soldiers, and at 32m58s a 7 bullet strikes near his feet. He ignores the warning shots and continues forward, closely approaching one of the soldiers. He is joined by another protestor (Victim 3), who is crawling forward on his knees. The end of Video 2 shows the soldiers consistently signaling them to keep their distance. Warning shots are fired, but the two continue forward. At 34m16s three shots can be heard. After the second shot, Victim 3 drops to the ground and grabs for the left side of his face. He crawls away shortly afterward. Victim 2 also tries to walk away from the scene but drops to the ground due to an injury to his leg. Right after the third shot, a photographer in blue (Victim 4) can also be seen dropping to the ground against a small kiosk

  128. Lol at the sad dupes who sign this petition.