God help these young men.

When I visited Azov, Mariupol, Shyrokyne in 2015, there were many like this. Intelligent and well spoken. Well mannered.

It’s humbling to know that such men exist.

This reminds me of a story about my father’s father, whom I never met. He traveled to Russia as a representative of his village in the late 40s or 50s. Apparently, in some presentation about the abundance of collective farming, they showed him the same pig over and over, in different places, trying to convince the villagers that there were in fact many pigs.

Recent street art in Yalta:

Occupied Kherson:

A town near Kherson:

This old photo exemplifies Russia. Everything is invested in keeping up appearances. Nothing in reality.

He seemed to have an unusual moment of self-reflection later:

propaganda

For many reasons, Putin’s #Russia has found strange bedfellows with its invasion of #Ukraine. Find out why in our latest podcast episode featuring a US veteran who lived in Ukraine for a decade, Roman Skaskiw (@shchedri)
).

23-year-old Yuri Gorodetsky of Odessa, junior sergeant of the 28th separate mechanized brigade. 🇺🇦

Браття українці

Гімн столиці України

Йшли селом партизани

Russian envoy to UN cites a Ukrainian woman quoted by Meduza as saying Russian soldiers provided humanitarian aid. Ukrainian envoy reads the remainder of the quote: “And then they threw a hand grenade into the cellar.”

https://twitter.com/Ex_Trac/status/1511090748820803596

IMG_0388

(April 4)