Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10335750

Russia violated Poland's airspace early on Sunday with a cruise missile launched at targets in western Ukraine, Poland's armed forces said.

Russia launched 57 missiles and drones on Ukraine in the early hours, including attacking Kyiv and the western region of Lviv that is near the Polish border.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10335519

The first textbook for the new subject, called The Russian Army in Defence of the Fatherland, has been produced by leading Russian education publisher Enlightenment. Among its authors are two senior figures who work for the defence ministry and Kremlin newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Its 368 pages are filled with stories describing the "heroic achievements of Russian soldiers" from the 13th Century to the present day.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10303224

Amnesty International (AI) reported that since annexation, Russia has oppressed Crimea’s non-Russian residents, namely Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars, in two ways: by changing the region’s ethnic demographics and, more systematically, through “restrictions on education, religion, media, representative institutions, judicial system, and cultural celebrations.”

AI explained that Russian post-annexation figures of Crimea showed a decrease of Ukrainian residents by almost 10 percent and Crimean Tartars by 2 percent, which are figures AI says are inconsistent with even the highest numbers of these residents who fled the peninsula in 2014. AI thus attributed the drop in residents to “ethnic Ukrainians now choosing or feeling compelled to identify as Russian, or a combination of both.”

After annexation, all non-Russian residents were given citizenship to Russia unless they “formally opted out.” Opting out puts the “foreigner” in a disadvantaged position regarding their “economic, social, cultural, political and civil rights.”

Moldova summoned Russia’s ambassador, Oleg Vasnetsov, to protest against the Kremlin’s decision to open six polling stations in Transnistria “contrary to the position of the Moldovan authorities,” the foreign ministry said.

It said it informed Vasnetsov that an unnamed embassy worker was a “collaborator” who was declared persona non grata and must leave the country.

The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions. [...]

One person said that the White House had grown increasingly frustrated by brazen Ukrainian drone attacks that have struck oil refineries, terminals, depots and storage facilities across western Russia, hurting its oil production capacity.

Russia remains one of the world’s most important energy exporters despite western sanctions on its oil and gas sector. Oil prices have risen about 15 per cent this year, to $85 a barrel, pushing up fuel costs just as US President Joe Biden begins his campaign for re-election.

Un-paywalled link: https://archive.ph/wv1Y3

Cross-posting from: https://feddit.de/post/10269693

Alla Antonova says she suffered beatings, had a plastic bag thrust over her head and endured many other threats from Russian soldiers in occupied Ukraine who wanted to know where her son-in-law was serving in the Ukrainian army.

"They took me into the bedroom and mama into the kitchen," Antonova said.

"Three of them. Interrogating me is the way I would put it. And they beat me. I had bruises on my legs, on my back."

Another soldier, she said, pulled the plastic bag over her head and pressed down to stop her breathing.

"I started to lose consciousness. They removed the bag and I felt ill," Antonova said. "I told them: 'Just kill me. It's the truth, I know nothing'."

A report on conditions in occupied areas released this week by the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine described a "climate of fear" in occupied areas more than two years after the Russian invasion. It reports the widespread use of such tactics that Antonova and her family describe.

g4media.ro/report-democracy-in…

Washington's intervention is likely to derail one of the biggest Western deals in Russia since the start of the Ukraine war and piles more pressure on the Austrian group that handles billions of euros of international payments for Russians, two of the people said. The news rattled investors.

Raiffeisen is buying the stake in Vienna-based Strabag from a company the construction group identified as controlled by Oleg Deripaska. The bank billed the deal, which is routed via Russia, as a means of unlocking some of the billions of euros stranded in Russia and potentially loosening its ties. The news in December prompted a rally in the bank's stock, which has been hit hard due to its Russia links.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10249490

An irrigation system, once created at Stalin’s order as a project of grand Soviet social engineering, is now running dry.

Alexander Plaum, Innovation Manager at Deutsche Welle (DW), writes about his team's exceptionally positive experience with microblogging in the Fediverse. He also explains why all public broadcasting professionals should try out Mastodon (and other decentralized social media).

"So what are the skeptics waiting for? Everybody has to prepare posts and threads and multimedia soc med content bits anyway – why not put them out on Mastodon? Imho, there's nothing to lose, only a new (rather interesting) audience to gain," writes Plaum.

Top in happiness. Top in metal bands per capita. Coincidence, I think not.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10209741

Figures from Russian outlet Proekt, which are based on court records, illustrate a huge spike in Russian troops looking for a way out of the war.

It said that in 2023, 4,373 Russians were convicted for the unauthorized abandonment of their unit—a five-fold increase from the 887 cases the previous year. This was also an almost nine-fold increase on the 527 cases recorded in 2021, the year before the war.

Meanwhile, 289 Russian soldiers were last year charged with failing to comply with orders. Before 2023, such a charge was rare, with only nine cases in the previous five years combined. Also in 2023, 129 people were tried for "desertion," while 31 were accused of feigning illness and other methods of evading service.