Journalists use rather primitive approach when they write about the protests in Russia. Conservatives condemn Navalny and protesters, some of them even support Russian police (lol), while global liberal media attack Putin and give positive coverage of the opposition rallies. I tried to be neutral, sorry, if I failed. As for Navalny, he deserved another text. Maybe I'll write it later.

https://telegra.ph/23--31--02-The-protests-in-Russia-02-04

#protest

Ukraine and Russia are flexing on each other, and still I don't believe in full-scale conflict between them. What can happen?

1. The least possible option: Ukraine starts offensive operation in Donbass, Russia doesn't come to help separatists. After a week or so pro-Russian unrecognized republics collapse. The end. I don't believe this will happen because Russia invested in Donbass too many resources. Also this defeat will draw more attention to Crimea, a scenario nobody in Moscow wants to happen.
2. Ukraine starts limited operation in Donbass, Russia supports separatists. Then the situation returns to existed status-quo or maybe Donbass militia will liberate a couple of insignificant villages. Russia will try to avoid sanctions, so the scale of military actions will be minimal.
3. Two sides are shooting at each other, dozens of people die for nothing, than diplomats sign another cease-fire. This option looks stupid, but I consider it to be the most real one. Ukraine must attract attention to the conflict  in order to get credits and military supplies from the West, and shooting helps to achieve this. Also the conflict allows Ukrainian elites to justify their fails in internal affairs. Probably Zelensky counts to boost his ratings blaming Russia for everything, and maybe NATO countries will impose new sanctions on Russia.

Anyway, while a lot of people expect total war, I just see partly-frozen local conflict, where no side can get ultimate victory

#ukraine #international

On April 12th, 1961, a Russian guy from Smolensk province became the first human into space🚀

Yuri Gagarin's flight is a symbol of progress, a triumph of science, and yet another proof that humans are very creative creatures.

On personal level I admire Gagarin for this skill to enjoy life, unfortunately a very rare quality among Russians and other post-soviet peoples. When I look at Gagarin's pictures with his famous happy smile, I'm getting better myself😊

#space

I had some problems at university and didn't have much time. A lot of important events happened in latest two weeks, and I got a feeling that they demand certain coverage

On 29th of April Tajikistan Army started an offensive operation against Kyrgyzstan. Why it happened?

The water resources are scarce in the region, while the population of two countries is growing. The conflict started near the border river, and it escalated quickly.

Later armed operations, like artillery shelling and occupation of border villages spread on the enclaves of Tajikistan. So the second reason is very strange border configuration created in the Soviet period.

What's going on there now?

After some clashes the Tajiks left, now Russia tries to exclude the reiteration of fighting.

Will it work?

For a time, yes. In general - no. Water resources, demography, borders, all these facors stay. Moreover, the growing instability in Afghanistan, general decrease of Russian influence in the region (due to economic expansion of China and cultural initiatives of Turkey) create ideal environment for new conflicts.

#international #kyrgizia #tajikistan

Yesterday the president of Belarus hijacked a plane with opposition journalist on board, now this activist is in jail. That was pretty bold move on Lukashenko's side, and Europe had to react. Just now they banned Belarus Airways from entering the air space of the European Union and urged European air companies not to enter Belarussian air space.

What about Russia? Politicians in the UK believe that the Kremlin knew about the operation and did nothing to prevent it, therefore becoming a partner in crime. Continental Europeans are more restrained. I heard some rumors that Russia was involved, but nothing solid yet.

The problem is, any transport issues in Belarus directly affect Russia. Main motorcade from Moscow to the EU lies through Belarus, same goes for the railroads and air routes. One of the most significant gas pipelines Yamal-Europe also goes through Belarussian land. All of this is making Belarus the most important transit country between Russia and the EU. Now this status is in question.

If the transit is limited by sanctions, regime of Lukashenko wil become obsolete for Moscow. Whether it means that Russia will remove Lukashenko, I don't know. But I hope it will.

As for immediate consequences of Lukashenko's actions, I think European sanctions will destroy Belavia, Belarussian airlines. It's kinda sad, because many Russians use Belavia to get to Ukraine, Georgia and some other countries the Kremlin is in quarell with (for example, for some time Russia banned flights to Turkey). Also new sanctions on Belarus will make some air routes from Moscow to European cities longer for European air companies like Luftgansa, Air France-KLM and so on. Sad!

#international #belarus

Good vibes in Russia.
The beginning of the year was very stressful for Russia. Everybody expected yet another crisis in Russia-Ukraine relations and a new round of Western sanctions. The hyphothetic consequences included the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipe project and collapse of the Russian currency. The worse scenario included oil embargo and dissconnection of Russian banks from SWIFT.

Instead the situation returned to normal, when Russian and Ukrainian troops returned to their bases. In the end of April Putin made the adress to the parliament, concentrating on welfare and infrastructure, almost without mentioning international topics. Ukrainians, who started this escalation, didn't continue. After that it became clear that threat of war dissappeared, at least for a time.

Despite the unpredictable Belarussian crisis, Russian economy was showing signs of recovery after the lockdown in 2020. Finaly, in 1-7 of June the Economic Forum in Saint-Petersburg delievered more positive signals. The biggest event was the end of Nord Stream 2 construction. Now one pipe (out of two) is ready to transport gas, the lauch of this pipe is scheduled for today.

Anyway, there are two factors which can undermine all positive events happened within recent two months. The first is the meeting of Putin and Biden. Two leaders can work out an agreement on lowering tensions, but any agreement means a compromise, so there is a question where and how Russia will give up its interests, or what will be the reaction of the US if it doesn't. The second factor is coronavirus. The number of cases is slowly growing again from 9k cases to 11k cases country-wide. In some regions, like in Buryatia republic, the restrictions on restaraunts and other non-essential businesses were implemented again. Still, in general Russia doesn't have any lockdowns and all quarantine measures were lifted in the end of 2020.

#economy

The Moscow govt made vaccination obligatory for 60% of employed in state, transport, trade, banking and some other economic sectors. I expected smth like this, simply because bureaucrats in Russia can't behave otherwise. Moreover, this pause between the introduction of the vaccine and making its obligatory for millions of people was very atypical from the start.

I don't believe that the vaccine contains computer chips, but I don't believe it is possible to make a normally tested vaccine within 9 months either, no matter whether is is produced in Russia, China, the EU or the US. So potentially Russians can get useless or even dangerous substance in their bodies, and I'm not happy with that.

The logic of the authorities is understandable, too. They fear that without vaccination they will have to declare the new lockdown, a move which will destroy the leftovers of Russian small business and services sector. Also nobody in the govt doesn't want to pay compensations for strict anti-covid measures. It seems Moscow won't be the only region with such vaccination rules. In my opinion, Moscow oblast (a separate region around the city of Moscow) will follow the example, and with certain lag other regions will implement more or less the same rules, too.

#corona

Daily reminder that Russians are pretty based, while the Russian govt and president usually are not
#corona

Moscow and Moscow oblast cancelled qr-code system. Every vaccinated person acquired such code and got opportunity to visit restaraunts, bars, certain parks and museums. Yes, these rules were introduced soon after de-facto obligatary vaccination requirements for millions of Russians.

Apart from evident struggle against the virus, the goals of these restrictions were clear.  Russia registered its vaccine first in the world, since the end of 2020 Russia produces 3 types of vaccines. Still nobody in Russia cared about this. In Russia we don't trust the government, and we have a very long list of the reasons why we do so. The reluctance of Russians to take Sputnik V looked bad for business, after all the government sells this vaccine to Latin American and African countries, in Europe some Balkan countries and Hungary also bought Sputnik V. The further expansion depends on many factors, and image is one of them. If the vaccine is not trusted in the homeland, it will be harder to convince foreign governments to buy it. Russia is a market itself with 146mln of people, which can bring profit to Russian pharma companies.

From the beginning business-owners (those, who survived the lockdown of spring 2020) told the government that they would die under qr-code system, because the level of vaccination was 12% on national scale. Just like every other coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V (and two less popular vaccines produced in Russia) has two doses, which must be injected with approximately two weeks interval. So you can't take the first shot and go to the restaraunt immediately.

The officials realized that access in restaraunts for the vaccinated only can cause the collapse of industry, and allowed people without qr-codes to eat on verandas (if an establishment has it). My experience tells me that such rules didn't have any chance to be followed. Within two weeks I attended two restaurants without qr-codes, and my friends also told me that usually they didn't have any problems. Unfortunately, big food-chains, like McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, and their Russian analogues followed the orders of the Moscow government, but independent establishments usually let people in.

Since qr-codes will be cancelled on Monday (the obligatory vaccination of 60% of employees in certain industries stays), it's time to make some conclusions on obligatory vaccination, qr-code system, and the vaccine itself.

1. The main goal to increase the number of vaccinated people was reached. Officially 21% of Russians took the first shot, two times more than one month ago.

2. Every number related to covid (cases, dead people, vaccinated people) is a lie. Within two years the government manipulated statistics too often to believe in it. The number of corona cases always decreases when the Kremlin needs it (rereferendum on constitution, UEFA Championship, some election days) and increases for the same reason (protests, some election campaigns). As for vaccination, people who don't want to take the vaccine try to buy falsificated vaccination certificates, bribe doctors etc. We will never know how many people out of 21% didn't take anything.

3. It seems, two out of three vaccines help (one is completely useless), but not as good as it is described. You still can get corona, new corona-strains diminish the effectiveness of the vaccines, side-effects are frequent, but they pass quickly. Very rare I hear about people who took the vaccine and died, but mostly these are rumours which I can't check. For now I know for sure about one person who died and one person who became disabled. Pretty sure, there are more cases, but it is impossible to get solid data about them. Of course I can't guarantee that the vaccine won't influence people in the long run. Finally, the vaccine doesn't last long. It seems it is more or less effective for 6-9 months.

4. The covid limitations will stay one way or another for a very long time, just because it is the best way to control the population.

#corona

Maybe I just have distortion of perception, but this year natural disasters look harsher than usual. Everywhere are floods, storms and fires. Russia was hit hard in multiple places, too.

It all started in the middle of June in Crimea. Heavy rains lasted since 17th to 19th of June, Kerch (the easternmost city of the peninsula) and Yalta (main resort with long beach area) were affected. Two people died in floods, hundreds of people were evacuated. For two days some places in Crimea had cut electricity.The republican government paid $3mln compensation. Two weeks later, on 4th of July, heavy rains started in the centre of Crimea. The consequences weren't that significant, though. That was a tragedy, indeed, but one with a silver lining. Crimea relied heavilly on Ukrainian water supply, which was cut in 2015. The lack of water was (and is) a very serious problem for Crimean republic and City of Sevastopol. To tackle this issue the Russian government invested a lot into drilling new wells and creating new water reservoirs. After all these heavy rains the reservoirs have water for one year.

While Crimea was drowning, some regions were struggling against the fires. It's hard to say when the fires in Yakutia republic started, because the regional government tried to hide their scale, even persecuted local bloggers who tried to attract attention. The fires made the headlines in previous week, when the capital of Yakutia was covered with smog. Approximately 1mln ha. was burnt (according to Greenpeace data, the real number three times higher), including some parts of national park "Lena pillars". Due to lack of finances Yakutia looses its forest every year. The square of burnt territories this time equals one Lebanon (or Belgium, if you believe Greenpiece). The governmental media now report that number of fires diminished after the involvement of the Kremlin. Still, Yakutia is not the only affected region. The forests burn in many different regions, including republic of Karelia (borders Finland), Irkutsk oblast and some others.

Today, on 23rd of July, rainstorms caused floods in Zabaikalsky Krai. The streams of water destroyed one of the bridges of the Trans-Siberian Railway. This disaster cut the transit between the regions on Pacific coast and the west of the country. The situation is very serious. There are only two railroads in this part of the country, and both of them are stretched to capacity. The failure of one of them can make some regions cut from national transport network. The Russian railroads company promised to repair the bridge within 3 days.

#nature

Red - fires, blue - floods. Sorry for Madskillz, I will think about normal graphics in future

Cargo spacecraft "Progress" detached "Pirs" (Pier) module from International Space Station. Then both of them drowned in the Pacific ocean, as it was planned. The new module, known as "Nauka" (Science) will be attached to the station tomorrow, on 29th of July (if everything goes right).

UPD: everything went fine, "Nauka" is successfully attached to the Station

#space

I understand those who are happy with American defeat in Afghanistan. Still, everyone should remember that the US always uses geography to its advantage. To put it simply, America is far from Afghanistan. They didn't solve Afghani problems (if they wanted to) and now they fly away. So this old-new unpredictable Afghanistan is now a problem for its neighbours, Middle Asia, and Russia.

Taliban can try to expand its influence on Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan or even organize military or terrorist operations on their territory. An extremely fragile Tajikistan looks like perfect target for such actions. Also drug trafficking from Afghanistan can increase. Apart from drugs and new conflicts, Middle Asia will face a flow of refugees. Yes, thousands of people with civil war experience who have nothing to lose will (in fact, they already do) move to already unstable Middle Asian countries. In apocalyptic scenario this would cause absolute collapse of secular authoritarian regimes on post-soviet Middle Asia and jeopardize the very existence of present-day Russia.

Still, it's hard to say what Taliban will do, moreover, maybe nothing will happen at all. Russian politics in Afghanistan is balanced in many ways. The Kremlin established good relations with former government (they even recognized Crimea as Russian territory) and in recent years Russia intensified its contacts with Taliban (although, they are considered as terrorists by Russia, which is kinda funny, taking their official negotiations in Moscow). Apart from diplomatic efforts, Russia conducted several military drills with China, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, showing that potential agression of Taliban won't be left without response.

So I hope for the best and read pro-western Ukrainian media. Let's say, authors there are not happy. It seems, they don't want to be the guys from the video below.

#international #afghanistan

In recent days Russia lost two airplanes.

The first was Be-200, an amphibious airplane designed for firefighting. The planes of this type were leased by Turkey, which suffers from fires. Hard to say, what caused the crash on 14th of August, but it happened leaving no survivors: 5 Russians and 3 Turks were onboard. Investigation is underway, but the real question for Russia is should we send firefighting planes abroad, while our forests in Siberia are burning in large scale right now.

The second tragedy happened today, during the test of a new transport plane Il-112V. Usually the transport planes in Russian Army are Soviet An-26, which produced in Ukraine. Since the collapse of the USSR Russian authorities were thinking about brand new Russian transport plane. In 2014, when the conflicts in Crimea and Donbass started, the independence of Russian aircraft construction from Ukraine became crucial. Apart from military purpose, such planes have a potential to substitute an outdated Soviet aviation in remote areas of Russia with low population density, mostly in Siberia and the Far East. Anyway, the plane crash showed that Il-12V is not ready to fulfill its tasks. The whole crew is dead, among them was a prominent test-pilot, a hero of Russia Nikolay Kuimov.

#aviation

Yesterday another Russian plane, MIG-29, crashed in Astrakhan oblast. A pilot died.

I don't want to turn the channel into the registry of crashed planes, so maybe it's time to tell you about August month in Russian history, to be more precise, in history of Russian Federation. In short, this month is cursed.

1991 - pro-soviet hardliners organize coup attempt. It fails, any chances to restore Soviet union were lost
1992 - plane crash in Ivanovo oblast. 84 people died
1994 - collapse of the MMM financial pyramide, the biggest in Russian history, because people after 70 years of planned economy weren't that good in financial literacy. Also in August 1994 one dam in Baskiria republic was broken (29 people died, almost 800 lost their homes) and train crashed in Belgorod oblast (20 people died, 56 injured).
1996 - Chechen terrorists attacked Grozny and captured it, except some governmental buildings and airport. On 31st of August First Chechen war came to an end, basically Chechens won. Also the Russian plane crashed in Norway (141 people dead).
1998 - Russian govt declares default. People lost their savings
1999 - Chechens invaded Dagestan republic. The second Chechen war started
2000 - submarine Kursk sank (180 people died)
2002 - storm in Novorossiysk (46 dead). Chechen terrorists shot down military transport plane, 127 people died. Probably the biggest one-time loss in military history of RF
2003 - terrorists blew up a hospital in North Ossetia. 53 people died
2004 - terrorists attacked Grozny (76 people died), blew up two planes (89 people died) and metro station in Moscow (10 people died)
2006 - one terrorist attack in Moscow (10 people died) and plane crash (170 people died)
2008 - war in Georgia
2009 - terrorist attacks in Ingushetia republic, 25 people died. Also an accident on power station in Khakassia republic. 75 people died
2010 - forest fires. Moscow was in smog
2013 - floods in the Far East
2014 - active phase of Donbass war from July to August
2019 - forest fires in Siberia. Since that year they become annual

Of course there is rational explanation to all of this: summer is the best time for military actions, in summer people go on vacation and that puts additional pressure on transport infrastructure etc. Still, rationally or irrationally, I never expect good news this month.

#history

As I said, the natural disasters are very frequent this year. The forests of Yakutia still burn, although the scale of fires was diminished there. Now the fires are spreading in Ural and Volga federal districts. This video was made on the road between Yekaterinburg and Perm, two regional capitals.
Source: https://www.revda-info.ru/2021/08/24/na-trasse-pod-revdoj-strashnyj-lesnoj-pozhar-proezd-zakryt/

#nature