Niet Molotoffis a Finnish propaganda song composed during the Winter War to mock the Soviet invaders. It was composed by Matti Jurva and the lyrics were written by Tatu Pekkarinen. Jurva first recorded the song in 1942.
The song ridicules Soviet foreign affairs minister Vyacheslav Molotov, comparing him to Nikolay Bobrikov, a tsarist official who was murdered for his attempts to institute Russification policies in Finland. The chorus lambasts Molotov for "lying more than Bobrikov himself" in response to Molotov's justifications for the invasion, while the rest of the song mocks the Soviet expectations of a smooth conquest and also derides Joseph Stalin "and other charlatans".
The song's melody is based on that of the Russian folk songUkhar-kupets (Ухарь-купец). In 2022, a Ukrainian version of the song called "Niet Vladimir" appeared on YouTube ridiculing the Russian invaders.
8:45 pm EEST Prigozhin says Wagner will stop march on Moscow: Wagner Group's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on June 24 that the mercenaries would stop their march on Moscow and withdraw to military camps.
A coup d'état ((listen); 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or an overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, rebel group, military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.
Silvio Berlusconi (listen); 29 September 1936 – 12 June 2023 was an Italian media tycoon, politician, and billionaire who served as the prime minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2013; a member of the Senate of the Republic from 2022 to his death in 2023, and previously from March to November 2013; and a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2022, and previously from 1999 to 2001. With a net worth of US$6.8 billion as of June 2023, Berlusconi was the third-wealthiest person in Italy at the time of his death.
Berlusconi was Prime Minister for nine years in total, making him the longest serving post-war Prime Minister of Italy, and the third longest-serving since Italian unification, after Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Giolitti. He was the leader of the centre-right party Forza Italia from 1994 to 2009, and its successor party The People of Freedom from 2009 to 2013. He led the revived Forza Italia from 2013 to 2023. Berlusconi was the senior G8 leader from 2009 until 2011, and he held the record for hosting G8 summits (having hosted three summits in Italy). After serving nearly 19 years as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, the country's lower house, he became a member of the Senate following the 2013 Italian general election.
On 1 August 2013, Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud by the Supreme Court of Cassation. His four-year prison sentence was confirmed, and he was banned from holding public office for two years. Aged 76, he was exempted from direct imprisonment, and instead served his sentence by doing unpaid community service. Three years of his sentence was automatically pardoned under Italian law; because he had been sentenced to gross imprisonment for more than two years, he was banned from holding legislative office for six years and expelled from the Senate. Berlusconi pledged to stay leader of Forza Italia throughout his custodial sentence and public office ban. After his ban ended, Berlusconi ran for and was elected as an MEP at the 2019 European Parliament election. He returned to the Senate after winning a seat in the 2022 Italian general election.
Berlusconi was known for his populist political style and brash personality. In his long tenure, he was often accused of being an authoritarian leader and a strongman.
Tuesday, June 6 7:08 am Ukrainian military: Russian forces blow up Kakhovka dam: Ukraine's Southern Operational Command reported early on June 6 that Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. "The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified," the military said on their official Facebook page.
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In November 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that any attempt by Russian forces to blow up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, flooding Ukrainian territory and dewatering the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would mean that Russia is “declaring war on the whole world.”
Zelensky's warning then came after General Sergey Surovikin, head of Russian forces in Ukraine, said Kyiv planned to flood the area below the Kakhovka power plant.
On Oct. 22, the Institute for the Study of War reported that Russia would likely try to blow up the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant to cover its withdrawal and "prevent Ukraine's forces from pursuing Russian forces deeper into Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast."
The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine was captured in the initial push of Russia's 2022 invasion. It has strategic importance, supplying the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with water. Located on the Dnipro River, the dam is one of the biggest facilities of its kind in Ukraine.
"There would also be probable secondary effects including the cutting of cooling water for Europe´s largest nuclear power plant ZPP, which requires cooling even for the shut down reactors. A radiological disaster is a separate model, but with prevailing winds blowing eastwards it would generally be worse in the by Russia temporarily occupied territories or even within Russia itself if any fallout reaches the internationally accepted borders of Russia east of the Donbas. Exact results would be highly dependent on the weather conditions."
“Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population. Other military objectives located at or in the vicinity of these works or installations shall not be made the object of attack if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces from the works or installations and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.”
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23-6-11 "The uncertainty in" [tiny, desperate] "Russian minds may have been one reason for their sabotage of the Kakhovka Dam. Quite apart from its horrific humanitarian and ecological consequences, the flooding of low ground and widening of the Dnipro may have delayed UAF offensive operations in that area for a time. But there are expert voices saying the floodwaters will subside within the next five to seven days, and the ground will rapidly begin to dry in the summer heat. So the likely intended effect hoped for by the Russian side — of making crossings of the Dnipro harder — is probably going to be relatively short-lived."
23-6-7 After destroying the Nova Kakhovka dam and stranding thousands of Ukrainians in the catastrophic flood zone, Russians prevented people in occupied territories from fleeing or rescuing others, multiple accounts revealed on June 7.
The New York Times (NYT)reported that engineering and munitions experts believe that a deliberate explosion was the likely cause of KHPP dam’s collapse on June 6. NYT reported that a blast within an enclosed space would cause the most damage, whereas external detonations – such as by targeted missile or artillery strikes – would only exert a fraction of the force necessary to breach the dam. The NYT quoted the experts as acknowledging that the KHPP sustained damage from military operations prior to the collapse but questioning whether this prior damage alone was sufficient to collapse the dam. NYT reported that the dam was first breached in its middle, close to the KHPP on the Russian-held east (left) riverbank, and that more of the dam collapsed throughout the day, a pattern that one expert characterized as inconsistent with the dam failing due to prior damage.
Part of Timothy Snyder's warning against giving air-time to Ruscist LIES: "2. When a Russian spokesperson claims that Ukraine did something (e.g. blow a dam), this is not part of a story of an event in the real world. It is part of a different story: about all the outrageous claims Russia has made about Ukraine since invading in 2014."
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"7. Dams are objects. How they can be destroyed is a subject for experts. This NYT story has the merit of treating dams as physical rather than narrative objects. It becomes clear that the dam was likely destroyed by an explosion from the inside."
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"8. Russia was in control of the relevant part of the dam when it exploded. This is an elemental part of the context. ... Russia had the means. Ukraine did not."
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"11/10 Objectivity does not mean treating an event as a coin flip between two public statements. It demands thinking about the objects and the settings that readers require for understanding amidst uncertainty." .........
Comment: "I did some work on dams in the past as a contractor. I'm also Dutch. I like to point out two things regarding the dam; The footage of the explosion of the dam does not match the damage. I bet its older footage. My second point is that it looks like only a part of the utility tunnel has been taken out. To do this it must have been mined from inside and outside (stressed retaining wall) spontaneously. But it also means only a upper segment is now breached. Most of the underwater part will probably hold as long as there are no follow up blasting. Thus the dam wil retain a large portion of the water. Most models will be showing a full breach of the dam, probably as an exercise or dramatic effect But I think that this is not the case here. A very risky and stupid move from the Russians. But also one that proves they know they will not be coming back to the region."