Day 446

Swimming across the Dnipro

pgb

May 15, 2023

Previously unreported U.S. intelligence?

Thinking about...

War and politics

War is the continuation of politics by other means, says Clausewitz in On War. To an aggressor, war can seem like a direct way to alter the domestic politics of another country. When Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine seeking "denazification and demilitarization," he meant killing Ukraine's leaders, purging its society, changing its regime…

4 months ago · 366 likes · 37 comments · Timothy Snyder

Really?

Western leaders perfectly understand the true goals of Putin's foreign policy, but they have struggled to agree on a unified position on how to best to obliterate Russia’s center of gravity, what Carl von Clausewitz called Schwerpunkt. The 19th century Prussian theorist introduced the topic in his famous treaties, Vom Kriege, calling this the point where all force must be directed
1
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Timothy and Isabelle, a sports writer at The Washington Post, are now screaming for us to pay attention to Putin’s cook

What’s truly amazing, though, is that it took The Washington Post two weeks to transcribe, transcribe (and lightly edit) their groupthink pow wow with Zelensky on May 1.

What is wrong with these flaks?

Don’t be distracted, says Mykhailo Podoliak, deputy head of the President’s Office, who has for weeks told us *news* exclusives published by The Washington Post based on leaked U.S. intelligence briefs are, er, are unintelligent and unhelpful.

Remember Podoliak? He is the guy who told us last August that all public comments about the war can be considered elements of psychological operations directed against the enemy

Epic snowboarder ex-Seal Chuck, meanwhile, wants us to look at his war map, titled “Bakhmut Axis.” So, here it is:

Stefan Korshak, Senior Defense Correspondent at Kyiv Post, now known as Ukraine’s Goat with Teeth

, describes the mess in words on Facebook.

In other news, we ran far. I’m a little bit confused about my swim across the Dnipro, though. Maybe Putin’s cook has jiggered up GPS around the capital? In all fairness, I picked up the pace and the run was indeed “intense.”

Today’s Poem of the Day is “Gift” by Czesław Miłosz.

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Day 201. Schwerpunkt (September 12, 2022)

Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says. (The Washington Post, May 15, 2023)

On Bullshit. Propounding nonsense (August 11, 2022)

Ukraine’s Goat with Teeth. Now a laff riot of boo and petopia (December 14, 2021)