Today, Russian State Duma changed the penal code to increase penalties for conscripts dodging draft, put in penalties for willingly surrendering to the enemy and reviving Soviet-era penalties against “marauding” (while also adding what would count as extenuating circumstances, which includes participating in the armed conflicts). And there are also ( Read more... )

I found out about his death from a BBC Russian Service breaking news alert I got on my phone (I got the app shortly after the start of the war). And I was surprised by how much the news... "upset" is a strong word. I would say "unsettled."

( Some more thoughts, in addition to what I wrote elsewhere on social media )

Once again, I must start a post with a sentence that includes words "so it as come to this ( Read more... )

Looking at some of the older posts, I was reminded that, the whole Victory Day thing aside, today marks another anniversary ( Read more... )

This is definitely an... interesting time to mark the 77th anniversary of the Nazi Germany surrender and, with it, the end of World War II in Europe ( Read more... )

Over three weeks into what Russian government still insists ins't a war, things didn't go quite the way I expected ( Read more... )

When the Russian-Ukrainian War broke out, my mom and I knew that there are going to be rallies and protests in support of Ukraine and against the war - and we wanted to be a part of it. But my usual sources within the Russian-speaking communities, and the general activist chatter on Twitter, kept failing me. I kept finding out that event after ( Read more... )

I mean, striking military targets within a foreign territory... Feels like an invasion to me ( Read more... )

Yesterday, I was coming back home after a long school board meeting in the suburbs. Since it's one of those suburbs where the Pace bus schedule peters out to almost nothing after 7:00 PM, I ended up taking the Metra train to downtown Chicago and went to catch the Brown Line 'L' train up to Rogers Park ( Read more... )

This is another one of those posts I've been meaning to write for a while, and I figure I better write it now, before the news cycle ramps up again.

My mom moved to Chicago back in early May 2021. May 9, which Russia and some other ex-Soviet countries mark as Victory (in Europe) Day, which was... interestingly auspicious. This was something she ( Read more... )