I remember somebody with a lot of followers (including me, at least, at the time) On Here a year or two ago snickering disbelievingly about the connection between anti-vaxxers, Putinistas, and election conspiracy-theorists.

https://www.politico.eu/article/finland-nato-membership-sanna-marin-ukraine-russia/

«A citizens’ initiative to hold a referendum on whether Finland should join NATO gathered the required 50,000 signatures in less than a week, which forces parliament to debate it.»

https://twitter.com/SanaSaeed/status/1498076694380437506?s=20&t=XgGkBl5tfDGeBe-PhOSgOA

This doesn’t seem good.

Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) Tweeted: “We are together: the Moroccans, the Arabs and the Blacks. On the other side, (are) the Ukrainians. A bus arrives every 15 mins to pick them up and us, every 4 hours. They choose who will ride. The borders are not far, they are about 100m away”

https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/1498201449297321986?s=20&t=aIE65WIaUkbK2kKS3I-H7g

https://twitter.com/GoharHayrapety1/status/1497974158105456650?s=20&t=aIE65WIaUkbK2kKS3I-H7g

İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي (@iyad_elbaghdadi) Tweeted: Who else is seeing something really ugly lurking underneath all the talk of the “civilized West”? War is bringing back a euphoria of standing up for principles, but is also bringing a lot of darkness to the surface

https://twitter.com/FranklinH3000/status/1498116398228381699?s=20&t=Fu_Y6HjW4M84ay8IXejacw

I’m not going to remember what I meant in 6 months, but:

MAN. We’ve been outdone by Europe again. The best we could come up with was Barack Obama. (Well, and Al Franken.)

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Franklin Harris (@FranklinH3000) Tweeted: I had to check these weren’t Photoshops. Zelenskyy really made a movie called “Corporal vs. Napoleon.” This war was pre-memed.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/26/world/ukraine-russia-war

Obviously, I don’t know how to New York Times. Better link:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000008230025/ukraine-volunteers.html

So, the Snake Island 13 and the old woman telling Russian soldiers to put sunflower seeds in their pockets was hard core, but this… She’s crying but she’s still going to point the weapon downrange at another human and pull the trigger. She might be afraid, or mourning her own impending death, or the death of a 19-year-old Russian soldier, but she’s still going to do it, and THAT’S hard core.

P.S. who knows how long this link will show the crying schoolteacher.

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/china-direct/when-your-best-pal-picks-war-eu-dismay-taiwans-watching/

No. China is Russia to Taiwan’s Ukraine, not Ukraine to Taiwan’s Donbas. We are returning to the old days of imperialism and geopolitics with “spheres of influence”.

«On the other hand, the fundamental geopolitical dynamics underlying Putin’s invasion of Ukraine are anathema to sovereignty-obsessed Beijing. Just imagine Taiwan declaring independence like the separatists in Donbas and turning to a sympathetic nuclear superpower for recognition?»

How long before we resume our forward & upward path of democracy, human rights, and capitalism (in the form of free trade, as opposed to rent-seeking, crony capitalism, and kleptocracy)? Overblown language, but I feel it.

https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/next-year-in-kyiv?r=9w7ij&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=url

I don’t think she’s quite right about what the conflict in Ukraine is all about but this is a really interesting read.

https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1496047631969234944?s=20&t=4uXTxGEl-Sb7_zVNVAp8GQ

Interesting thread.

Janne M. Korhonen 🇫🇮🇪🇺🐟🇺🇦 (@jmkorhonen) Tweeted: Greetings from a Finnish leftist! The international situation has apparently left many people in the English-speaking countries confused. I write this thread in the hopes of sharing a perspective I believe is widely if not unilaterally shared in Finland, most leftists included.

Also, makes me think the Baltic republics totally knew what they were doing when they immediately joined NATO.