June 12, 2023

Ecocide, Russia's Latest Weapon of War


Ecocide, Russia's Latest Weapon of War
Man holding a baby as the water rises in Ukraine. Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings |, Twitter.

While Ukraine slept in the early hours of June 6, the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River was blown up, becoming the region's worst environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl. The floodings in Kherson Oblast displaced thousands, limited the drinking water supply, and destroyed natural habitats, houses, and historical landmarks. As of the publication of this article, 13 persons are confirmed dead.

The Kakhovka Dam was considered one of the most significant construction projects of the Stalin's era. The station provided irrigation, drinking water, and electricity to Southern Ukraine. 

Russian forces occupied the dam on March 16, 2022, and the plant ceased operations later that year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on October 20, 2022, that the occupants had mined the dam to "commit a terrorist attack and blame Ukraine for it." Russia retreated on November 11, 2022, damaging parts of the plant as they left.

An estimated 20 thousand persons will need to relocate due to the flooding caused by the explosion. Some 29 Kherson settlements were affected by the flooding, 10 of them under Russian occupation. The Kyiv Post reported that, in occupied towns, Russian authorities refused to assist residents who did not have Russian passports. Amid evacuation efforts, Russia shelled inundated Kherson, killing one person.

  • The destruction caused by the floods was such that Odesa residents reported finding debris on their coast 126 miles away.
  • The house of self-taught artist Polina Rayko, a National Monument of Ukraine, is now underwater, and all her paintings on the walls are lost. 
  • All animals of the zoo in Nova Kakhovka, the town adjacent to the dam, drowned. Only the ducks survived.
  • Authorities reported that 150 tons of machine oil poured into the Dnipro River due to the explosion.
  • The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is facing a water shortage that threatens maintenance and safety. 
  • Climate activist Greta Thunberg called the attack an ecocide.

On the date of the explosion, the UN celebrated Russian language day.

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words
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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.

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A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
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Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.

Marooned in Moscow
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Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

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