Thank you for the scale of embezzlement

Straight into Ukraine Updates. In a post from noon yesterday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the biolabs conspiracy that Russia is pushing. No, Ukraine isn’t creating bioweapons. No US run labs in Ukraine aren’t either. There had been Soviet bioweapon labs in Ukraine that the US has been helping to safely shut down. There are also biosafety labs, which are typical for medical and biological work in universities and hospitals. There are likely several of these in or near every US city. Russian propaganda is still pushing this idea and, as usual, with no regard for the truth. And Fox News and QAnon believers are lapping it up, though the latter are inserting their usual bit about pedophile rings they are claiming are headquartered in Joe Biden’s Black Sea villa (hint: fact checkers assure us Biden doesn’t own any villas in Ukraine). Sumner quoted Julia Ioffe discussing Russian shelling of cities:

The Russians have done this before—in Syria. “The idea is to weaken the civilians to make those living under the opposition areas feel life is hell,” he said. “By targeting bakeries, schools, and hospitals, you make people lose all hope.”

Sumner added:

A reminder that Russia’s bombing of civilian sites is not generated from simple carelessness, and the frequent strikes against hospitals, schools, and basic infrastructure are not accidental. This is a systematic approach that Russia has used before. They are deliberately trying to create as much physical discomfort and emotional pain as they can manage.

In a noon update Sumner wrote that the Russians thought the war would go so quickly that soldiers brought dress uniforms to wear in Independence Square in Kyiv. Two weeks later Kyiv is still in Ukrainian hands.

Russia did have a backup plan. It would simply switch to what it did best: Brutally crushing civilian areas. Attacks on schools, homes, hospitals are anything but accidental. That is the plan. Putin may not get to go on a Hitler-in-Paris review of Kyiv, but he’s just fine being king of the bloody ash heap. After all, he’s done it before. ... This is a war on the whole concept of civilization, one that we’ve turned a blind eye to for far too long. Woe to everyone should Ukraine fall.

Visegrád24 tweeted:

Great trolling from the Head of the Ukrainian Anti-corruption Agency. He sent a letter to the Russian Defence Minister thanking him for scale of embezzlement plaguing the Russian Army. Turns out that much of the money Putin allocated to the Russian Army has simply been stolen.

Sumner titled a post from late afternoon yesterday “Panem et circenses et bellum.” I recognize it as Latin, but had to start up Google Translate. It said it means “bread and circuses and war.” We’re all complaining about the price of gas at the pump. But what will really matter is the availability of wheat. Over the last decade Russia has been the top exporter of wheat and Ukraine was fifth. Russian wheat will be locked behind embargoes for a while. And Ukrainians may not be able to harvest the current crop or plant the next one because they’re so caught up in defending their country. There could be famines that could cause waves of unrest. In this post is a good illustration of the situation by a Greek cartoonist. Paula Chertok tweeted an exchange between Jake Tapper of CNN and Wes Clark:

CNN: What does Russia gain by bombing hospitals? CLARK: It's a terror campaign against a civilian population. Intimidates medical personnel. Keeps wounded ppl from going to hospital. Runs out int'l aid orgs who might be in those hospitals. It's pure terror. Absolutely a war crime

An early evening update by Kos of Kos featured a map. I had discussed maps of Ukraine showing the Russian occupied area and the Russian occupied roads. This is somewhere in between. Kos again discussed that Russia has stretched itself too thin by attacking on so many fronts. That has allowed Ukraine to fight Russia to a standstill. Kos quoted Samuel Ramani, adding this is a tactic not an accident:

Russia has bombed more than 280 educational facilities in Ukraine.

Then Kos wrote:

Just imagine if Russia had used those hundreds of missiles and thousands of artillery shells to hit, you know, military targets. Who knows? They might be further along their mission! But Russia only knows how to subjugate via terror.

In an update from this morning Kos again reviewed Russia’s situation. People have been saying Russia will learn from its mistakes and fix them. Kos wrote that’s not possible. There are two problems: (1) Russia’s forces are too spread out. It can’t do a large-scale assault to take a city – for any one city there would be too few Russians against too many Ukrainians. (2) Russia’s supply lines are too insecure. The only way to fix the first problem is to regroup the army into one front. That means ceding territory back to Ukraine as well as other difficulties. Won’t happen. And the only way to fix the second problem is to fix the first. In a post from noon today Sumner discussed the several Russian generals who have been killed. Why are they on the front lines? Is it so they could be on display when Kyiv fell (which hasn’t happened)? Is it morale – promising a quick victory and having to deal with that not happening? Is this the loss of invaluable knowledge and leadership or are they just corrupt jackasses ordered to the front when the money went to dachas instead of tanks? These deaths are a sign of an unhealthy military. A report that might be significant or might be nothing – Sumner quoted Joanna Szostek who quoted Maxim Alyukov. First is Alyukov:

Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion.

And Szostek added:

Wow. Wow. This is significant. Signs that Russian state propagandists are actually turning against the war.

I had written about the Russian attack and takeover of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Geoff Brumfiel of NPR reported was far closer to being catastrophic than had earlier been reported. The report has photos and videos. Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that back on January 27, before the Ukraine invasion began, Putin went to a St. Petersburg cemetery to honor the defenders of the city. St. Petersburg – Leningrad at the time – was under siege by the Nazis for 872 days, ending on January 27, 1944. Perhaps more than a million people died in the siege. Putin’s mother lived through the siege. His father was part of the battalion that worked to keep a narrow supply route open. His brother died in the siege (Putin was born in 1952 – I had to looked it up). One would think such a person would be sensitive to those under siege and prevent sieges from happening. But Putin is trying to do to Ukraine what the Nazis did to his mother and brother and his father worked to prevent. Worse, Putin is claiming he’s doing it to root out Nazis in a place where there are none. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included some late night commentary.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, most of the world thought that they were just gonna roll their tanks in and have the whole country in a few days. But as it turns out, the Ukraine resistance has been so effective that after two weeks the Russians have barely captured any of the cities that they've been attacking. And considering that the Russian army is eight times the size of Ukraine's, this has been humiliating for Russia. It's like Godzilla getting his ass whupped by the Geico gecko. —Trevor Noah Republican senator Susan Collins met yesterday with President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson for 90 minutes. “After meeting with her, I don’t think she's qualified for the position,” said Judge Jackson. —Seth Meyers

With that we switch to other news: David Neiwert of Kos discussed a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. There is a decline in the number of hate groups. That’s usually seen as good news. But ... Wrote Neiwert:

However, the primary reason for the declines is disturbing: Analysts have found that the impetus to organize or join hate groups has mostly declined because extremist belief systems, rhetoric, and organizing have become mainstream within the Republican right. Why join the KKK when you can just join the GOP?

Congress averted a government shutdown – the Treasury would have run out of money tonight. In addition, they actually passed a budget for the year, which should have happened six months ago. A laugh for today. Daily Kos is reviving the Koscars. They had been dormant so long I didn’t know they existed. As with the Oscars, there are nominees in several categories. Unlike the Oscars they are doing one category at a time. At the moment the category is snark and sarcasm. One of the nominees was written back in 2010 and is by Jeff Lieber who is describing a massive windspill:

You see, I live in Southern California... just north of the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm... and this morning a gang of lipstick lesbians lost control of their motorcycles and CRASHED into one of the turbines and now... THERE IS (WHOOOSH) F---ING WIND (WHOOOSH) EVERYWHERE!!!! ... How in God's name (TUMBLEWEED BLOWS BY) are we going to breathe with all this air in the air? ... But the worse part... I now find out that some asshole in the GREEN MOVEMENT allowed these WIND FARMS to be built right near SOLAR FARMS and so (WHOOOSH) what is going to happen when all this extra wind somehow manages to DESTROY THE SOLAR FARM and (WHOOOSH) next thing we know... we're dealing with THE F---ING SUN SPILLING ALL OVER THE DESERT! WHY DIDN'T WE LISTEN TO THE REPUBLICANS AND STICK WITH A SAFE ENERGY SOURCE LIKE OIL!?!?!