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Sugar Skull (raspberry flavored) by Joseph Marr

The Cataracts II.

Lots and lots of waterfall images from the little hike I did on Sunday up Baldpate. Here’s another.

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Oh deer!

I can no longer silently watch the Kremlin bots spread disinformation about Ukraine and Donbas region in particular. It pisses me off.

As many of my long-time followers know, I am not only Ukrainian, but also originally from Donbas. I lived in Donetsk under the occupation of Russian proxies for 8 years and moved to free Ukraine only a few months ago, before Russia attacked us.

Russian bots are trying to sow doubt in the minds of people from all over the world. They are saying that Ukraine subjected to genocide the people of Donbas. This is the official Kremlin's agenda and a pretext for invading Ukraine, DON'T BELIEVE THIS LIE.

The only person who carried out the genocide of Ukrainians (including Donbas people) is Putin. Kremlin bots are saying that this issue is "very complex" and intricate. I'll try to prove to you that this is not true, describing the events from 2014 to 2022 step by step. This is for people who really want to understand what's going on in Ukraine.

This is a VERY LONG post.

In 2014 the Revolution of Dignity took place in Ukraine. People protested against the former president of Ukraine Yanukovych who was the agent of Kremlin, basically Putin's henchman. He bloked the Eurointegration of Ukraine, people were pissed off, because they wanted to move away from the imperialist Russia and get closer to Europe. Yanukovych tried to disperse peaceful at first protest by force, but met a strong resistance. Then Maidan massacre happened, over a hundred of protesters were shot.

Ukrainians rebelled against the crimes of Yanukovych and he had to flee the country. Of course, it was Russia he fled to.

Putin couldn't afford to lose the influence over Ukraine, so he created his sock puppet "republics" (DPR and LPR) on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Basically, he invaded parts of Ukraine, starting the hybrid war. He also annexed Crimea and turned it into his military base.

Ukrainian army at that time was pretty much non-existing, extremely vulnerable. Because Yanukovych, being Putin's agent, did all in his power to destroy our military potential. Thus making it really easy for Russia to occupate our land. But still, Putin failed to fully execute his plans. He planned to turn the entire south-east of Ukraine into puppet republics, he got only some parts of the east instead. In the south, the people fought back and were able to defend their land from the separatists sponsored by Russia.

This was the beginning of a long war in eastern Ukraine. Russian propaganda presented the creation of the separatist "DPR and LPR" as the result of the persecution of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine. In the east and south of Ukraine, the majority of the population indeed speaks Russian as their first language, 'tho everyone in Ukraine can speak and fully understand Ukrainian. But Kremlin's claims of discrimination and persecution of the Russian speakers in Ukraine are all completely false and fabricated. How's that, you ask?

The entire argument about aforementioned "persecution" is built on the basis of the "Language law" that establishes Ukrainian as the state language. Literally, that's it. Ukrainian is the official language in Ukraine, what a shocker, huh? There is absolutely no language regulation of any kind in everyday life. Ukrainians can speak to each other both in Russian and Ukrainian and don't even notice who speaks which language. Actually, many Ukrainians speak in "surzhyk" - mix of Russian and Ukrainian. Russia's accusations are simply ridiculous.

Eventually Russia moves even further from these ridiculous accusations and declares that Ukrainians are fascists because of the completely fake "discrimination" against Russian-speaking and ethnic Russians.

- You know, your regular fascists who VOTED for a JEWISH person, president Zelenskyy (he won with 73%). BTW, Zelenskyy speaks Russian in everyday life, so does half of our parliament.

- The only right-wing party in Ukraine doesn't even come close to 5% of votes, even pro-Russian parties get much more support, even though Ukraine has been at war with Russia for 8 years.

Now let's talk about those separatist "republics". This is how they function:

- Putin's terrorists who occupied my homeland Donbas place their military bases exclusively in residential areas, right among the houses. Terrorists fire from residential streets, so that if Ukrainian side would fire back, these shells will hit residential or public buildings and kill civilians.

- If there are not enough victims for Kremlin's propaganda, terrorists themselves fire on civilians or just stage it, then Russian media such as RT films it and presents as war crimes commited by Ukrainians.

I personally miraculously avoided death at least twice because of Putin's terrorists.

- In 2015 I used to live in the district of Donetsk called Bosse (Боссе). One morning I was woken up by the sound of artilery. I clearly heard the launch and then the landing of the projectile, which meant that the shot was fired from somewhere very close. On a busy morning, mortar projectiles landed on a bus stop, killing 8 civilians and injuring 13. You can find wiki page by googling "Обстріл зупинки «Донгірмаш» у Донецьку" I could've been on that bus stop or in the grocery store in front of it. I was lucky. Occupants at first claimed that it was Ukrainians responsible for the shelling, but quickly figured that positions of Ukrainian army was too far away to reach that place with mortars. They destroyed evidences (filled the funnels so it's impossible for the OSCE to investigate) and fabricated this insanely hilarious version: Ukrainian diversionists on a garbage truck (!) with a mortar inside of it were driving around the city and shooting. Everyone knows what really happened.

- The Volnovakha bus attack. Terrorists from "DPR" fired at a civilian bus heading to Volnovakha. 12 people dead, 18 injured. I was ON THE SAME DAMN YELLOW BUS to Volnovakha only earlier that morning. And I saw with my own eyes what was left of it few days after the event, I will never forget what I saw.

I can't even count how many times terrorists fired heavy artillery right across the street from my house.

And now, Putin says he wants to "free" Russian-speaking people of Ukraine. He wants to bring the same pain and suffering to the whole Ukraine as he already did with my once beatiful Donetsk.

He denies the very existence of the Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainian language, our history. He wants to wipe out all Ukrainians. Putin is the true fascist here.

It's Putin himself who reduces the number of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. I used to speak Russian for my whole life and switched to Ukrainian 5 months ago, because I can no longer speak the language of this fascist. And I am not the only one who made such choice.

Don't believe in Putin's lies and propaganda. Double-check everything you hear and read. Don't spread disinformation.

There is no complexity and grey area in this war. Russia attacked us first in 2014 and now for the second time, in 2022. Simply because we, Ukrainians, dare to exist.

Night Owl

Painted with Gouache

Goodnight

Books

For ambroseharte and his wonderful poetry

So i was watching Shrek 3 and…… 

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