This will be my online home during 2023 for reports, discussions, questions, podcasts, and other features about, er, breaking news in Ukraine and environs. And a lot more (including but not limited to well-dressed sexy robots, running very long distances, polo bunnies and cookie pushers — which are a few items I will add below, eventually).
For example, my last post was about the specific language Volodymyr Zelensky used in one of his end-of-the-year speeches, and the obvious and hidden ways the narrative fails to match reality (Update: that post is here. And two more about presidential messaging are here and here.)
Killing the Truth
For continuity’s sake, I have imported a some older posts from Medium, including Plan A, Operation Ы, Paul & Andriana and The Hill. Some published articles, notes and miscellany are still available c/o Google, including Nil Heard and Before the Coup. Maybe I’ll export them here after Substack improves indexing on Search.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5c98a459-f0ea-476a-a3f4-1378ff2a9091_623x708.png)
I’m re-committing to this site this year because I want to find new ways to use the old, fundamental tools — conjecture and refutation — that originally compelled me to expose false narratives and journalistic bullshit about this part of the world. I want to apply them to the trends, the crises, and the possibilities of the moment for accurately reporting about the bloody mess I hope to survive.