Victory Chronicles
-DAY 181

Above: Solid evidence has been found to prove that russian internal security services bombed an apartment building in 1999, in Buynaksk, Russia and blamed it on Chechens to raise support for putin’s invasion and election campaign.  Photo via Euromaidan Press

• Both Ukrainian and US intelligence has picked up signals that ru is planning to launch new attacks on civilians this week.  The US State Department issued a new warning for American citizens to vacate the country if possible, ahead of independence day on August 24.

• August 24 also marks the six month mark since the enemy invaded its peaceful neighbor.  Ukrainian officials warned that there is an increased threat of missile strikes from within occupied Ukraine and from outside including Belarus, the Black Sea and western russia.

• Ukraine’s secretary of national security Oleksiy Danilov said that, because support for the war in Russia is falling, the kremlin will use the “Chechen apartment bombing” playbook and create mass casualties among its own citizens, then blame it on Ukraine. He called the assassination of ultra-nationalist Darya Dugin only the first in a series.

Above: Russo-soviet war glorification monument in Sofia, Bulgaria, was improved with the addition of yellow and blue accents.  Photo via The Conversation

Below: In Helsinki, authorities carefully removed a soviet monument named “World Peace”, a gift from moscow in 1989.  Photo via Honeybunnyladies

• With the start of kremlin’s full-scale invasion, former soviet bloc countries have started actively removing russo-soviet monuments.  Estonia announced that it will remove all of about 200-400 soviet era monuments in its country as the invasion of Ukraine has  “opened wounds in our society that these communist-era monuments remind us of”.
• In June, Lithuania introduced a “de-sovietization law” prohibiting “the promotion of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes”.  Latvia introduced a similar law with plans to clear 300 soviet monuments including one dedicated to the russian motherland.  Poland started its serious de-russification monument clearing work in 2016.

• The debate for eastern Europe has been two sided.  There is reason to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany, but at the cost of freedom with russo-soviet occupation and repression.  Latvian PM Arvils Aseradens is overseeing the removal campaign and said, “The invasion has made things more black and white.”

• Russian citizens living in the Baltics have been characterized as resistant to integration into host country society.  Many make a point to speak only russian and openly cheer for moscow.  Many Baltic-based russians are feeling vulnerable, complaining of preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees and scared of being deported back to the motherland.

Above: Russia is no stranger to assassinations.  This is the site of Boris Nemtsov’s murder in the shadow of the kremlin in 2015. Photo via Deutsche Welle

• Russia world is highly excited by the recent car bomb assassination of a far right ultra nationalist who called for the annihilation of Ukrainians.  No one agrees whether the killing was intended for the young russo-fascist or her father, a public champion of russo-chauvinism and ethnic hatred. The kremlin has decided to promote this assassination above the numerous ones that happen regularly in russia and weave it into its anti-Ukraine fabrication.

• Initially, a former russian parliamentarian now living in exile in Kyiv, shared a lengthy manifesto from the National Republican Army, an anti-putin partisan group, that claimed responsibility for the bombing and promised more.

• Now, the official moscow spin is that a Ukrainian mom and her twelve year old daughter posed as tourists in Moscow and were able to place a car bomb before fleeing to Estonia.  To make the tale juicier, kremlin mouthpieces claim she works for the Azov National Guard, a unit deemed nazi terrorists by moscow.

• Credible western authorities doubt the validity of the swiftly concocted tale. Kremlin watchers are astonished at the speed at which internal security services solved the crime. Traditionally, when it comes to crime, the FSB (former KGB) commits crime, stages crime and covers up crime rather than solving it.  Kremlin watchers think it is entirely possible that the assassination was internal far-right scorekeeping.

• Ukraine has denied any involvement in the assassination. Ukraine points out that these typical and numerous russian neo-nazi personalities have no strategic military value and, besides, Ukraine doesn’t assassinate people.