I Give My Little Stars to Children
March 9, 2022 9:06 AM   Subscribe

Title from Maria Primachenko's painting - thread #3 for the invasion of Ukraine. Related on metafilter: I Give You, Kyiv, These Polissia Flowers and This Bright Sun, previous invasion thread. Also, a recent thread on a video game bundle to help Ukraine and an earlier thread for people directly affected and how to help. Please remember: this is a fast-moving and terrible topic. Discussion should be Ukraine-centered, with US news added only when it is highly relevant. If you need to take a break, visit the newest free thread for non-serious chat.
posted by All Might Be Well (9 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: We ended up with two posts landing near each other, and the other one has some more content, so I'm gonna say lets go with that one. -- cortex



 
I missed a credit: the post title was suggested by Silvery Fish in this comment.
posted by All Might Be Well at 9:11 AM on March 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


Reminder for iOS users: if your device loses its place on long threads, click on the time stamp of the last post read before leaving the page. Then if you find yourself back at the top, click the address bar and then return (not refresh) to reload the page to that post.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:16 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


Thank you, @All Might Be Well, for getting this started, and for the reminders to US participants and on ways to help.

I am US-based, and have a question for the MeFis closer to Ukraine :: other than financial donations, is there anything eIse can do? I am thinking about my little pandemic group, who committed to scheduled Zoom calls to make sure everyone knew they were not alone, and offering a place to talk and share their concerns. If something similar is in play for Ukrainians in lock-down or in exile, I can commit to 5 hours a week, regardless of the hour.

And mods - if you feel that I should post this in one of the other threads, let me know and I’ll move it.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:17 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Speaking on if Putin's reign will come to an end, if I had to gamble, I'd say no. He has wide support in Russia. Even some of the people who aren't totally enthusiastic about the war will still support Putin. If the war effort continues to go badly, he will blame Shoygu and purge him. IF the public continues to suffer he will say that is the fault of "the west" and NATO and they will believe him.

ffs my FIL said 2 days ago that Russia could take Berlin again. There are not drugs strong enough to replicate the warpedness of propagandized Russian mind. Truely a waste of human potential.
posted by WeekendJen at 9:28 AM on March 9, 2022 [15 favorites]


Since it's public news, I can report that my huge (35,000 person) company, S&P Global, has decided to suspend all operations in Russia. This is a huge deal because we provide business intelligence for financial (you know, the S&P 500 ...), energy, and other markets. I have mixed feelings - on the one hand, it's the right thing to do solidarity-wise. On the other hand, it means the Russia-based employees get laid off and they aren't the ones who invaded Ukraine.

I am pretty proud of the leadership stance.
posted by freecellwizard at 9:38 AM on March 9, 2022 [12 favorites]


he will blame Shoygu and purge him

That’s some euphemism there.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 9:52 AM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Vindman: "It's not dead, but doing this in a way that Putin can't immediately grasp as a casus belli is hard.

Continuing some discussion from the last thread about the MiG transfers:
It also sounds like these jets may be pretty different from the existing Ukranian MiGs. It's pretty easy to imagine training up pilots on the new jets before the transfer takes place, and then rolling them out whenever is strategically sensible.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:00 AM on March 9, 2022


Since it's public news, I can report that my huge (35,000 person) company, S&P Global, has decided to suspend all operations in Russia. This is a huge deal because we provide business intelligence for financial (you know, the S&P 500 ...), energy, and other markets. I have mixed feelings - on the one hand, it's the right thing to do solidarity-wise. On the other hand, it means the Russia-based employees get laid off and they aren't the ones who invaded Ukraine.

There's unfortunately nothing we can do that won't have consequences for somebody, and often the strongest effects are felt by people who don't have much to do with this. But at least sanction damages are more easily undone than bombarding a Childen's Hospital.

The sanctions and all the companies pulling out, aside from hopefully hampering Russia's ability to continue waging this war of agression, may also be one of our only way of getting through the state propaganda layer to convey the message that things aren't normal. Alas it'll probably be explained as an act of unprovoked agression from the west.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:02 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Two nights ago someone rolled up in a pickup truck and using a massive projector shined a huge blue & yellow light across the front of the Russian Embassy in Lisbon. Just a masterful troll.
posted by chavenet at 10:08 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


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