The Washington Post

2022-04-16 13:30:32 TikTok created an alternate universe just for Russia

Last month, as many tech companies sided with Ukraine over Russia’s invasion, TikTok appeared to follow suit by suspending new video uploads and live streams from Russia. The company said it made the move to protect Russian users from the country’s new laws criminalizing criticism of its military.

But the wildly popular, Chinese-owned social media app also walled off Russian users from seeing any posts at all from outside the country, including from Ukraine — effectively creating a second, censored version of its platform. For the tens of millions of Russians on TikTok, the outside world has fallen silent.

TikTok’s block on outside content appears to have effectively purged the app of non-Russian content. But its block on Russian content has proved porous, letting pro-government propaganda slip through.

Read the full story here. Open / Comment

2022-04-16 11:01:09 Ukrainian refugees vow to return home — even if it’s never the same

Under an Irpin bridge moments before she fled, Olga Gdulia stood in silence.

Gdulia and others were waiting for Ukrainian soldiers to signal that it was safe to head toward buses that would take them away from her besieged hometown. Failure to heed the commands could mean death at the hands of Russian forces.

She had hugged her mother and stepfather tightly and forced herself to memorize their faces in case it would be the last time her eyes would take them in. She knew the place that nurtured her for most of her 37 years of life might never look the same.

She could focus only on getting from one place to the next.

“You are not a person. You are a function,” she told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “ … You turn off your feelings. … You just need to move. The most important task is to get safe and get to Point B on your journey.”

Read the full story here. Open / Comment

2022-04-16 09:06:54 Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- Kyiv region police said Friday that the bodies of more than 900 civilians had been tallied in the area — more than 350 of which were discovered in the Bucha suburb. The vast majority of them were found with gunshot wounds.

- Russia appears to be on the verge of capturing the devastated port city of Mariupol, which a regional leader said had been “wiped off the face of the earth.” Zelensky said in his nightly address Friday that the besieged city was the focus of meetings with senior defense aides.

- The United States on Friday confirmed Ukraine’s account that the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, had sunk after being struck by Ukrainian-made anti-ship missiles. Blasts were heard outside Kyiv shortly after the Kremlin vowed to ramp up airstrikes on the capital in retaliation for purported Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory or assets.

More live updates here. Open / Comment

2022-04-16 08:01:28 Here is the latest on key battlegrounds in Ukraine.

Mariupol: Ukrainian forces here are maintaining their hold on the Azovstal steel plant, one of the largest metallurgical factories in Europe, as Russian troops come closer to seizing this strategic southern port city. Mariupol has been under siege for weeks, creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

Odessa: Ukrainian troops off the coast of this southern city struck the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, with two missiles Thursday and caused it to sink, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday.

Kharkiv region: Moscow has been amassing troops, military vehicles and equipment in this region in preparation for its expected assault on the Donbas area to the east.

Kyiv region: Regional police chief Andriy Nyebytov alleged Friday that officials had found “more than 900” dead civilians in the region of roughly 3 million people as a result of Russian attacks. He did not specify when the bodies were discovered.

More live updates here. Open / Comment

2022-04-15 22:02:39 Moskva warship hit by two Ukrainian missiles before sinking, Pentagon says

Ukrainian forces struck the Russian warship Moskva with two Neptune missiles Thursday, causing it to sink, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday.

The confirmation comes after Ukrainian forces said Thursday that they had attacked the cruiser Moskva. Russian officials claimed that the ship had experienced a fire. The Pentagon observed some Russian sailors evacuating the ship in lifeboats as the vessel burned.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said that Russia will not be able to replace the loss in the war. Russia has two other similar ships, but neither is based in the Black Sea, and Turkey has said that it will only allow in ships that already have home port in the sea.

Read more live updates here. Open / Comment

2022-04-15 20:47:48 Ukrainians celebrate Russian setbacks with stamps, memes and an NFT

The sinking Thursday of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet has boosted Ukrainian morale — and sales of a postage stamp commemorating an earlier incident involving the cruiser — even as the Kremlin readies a fresh assault on the country’s east and south.

The sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva came shortly after Ukraine’s national postal service released 1 million stamps depicting a Ukrainian fighter holding up a middle finger in front of the vessel.

The “First Day” stamp was an interpretation of a Feb. 24 incident on Snake Island in which Ukrainian border guards reportedly told off the encroaching Moskva with colorful language as Russia launched its invasion.

Read the full story here. Open / Comment

2022-04-15 18:23:56 Clearing the deadly litter of unexploded Russian bombs in Ukraine

Valeriy sucked in his breath as a colleague fastened the layers of his thick bomb suit. In Mykolaiv, the 33-year-old was dressed to drop pieces of TNT on unexploded munitions lying around a residential neighborhood.

Despite just seven weeks of war, much of Ukraine is already littered with deadly unexploded ordnances and mines. A spokesman for the State Emergency Service said 54,000 mines and unexploded ordnances — including almost 2,000 missiles — have been found and deactivated. More than 600 deminers are at work across the country, and the department is rushing to hire more.

Read the full story here. Open / Comment

2022-04-15 17:01:42 Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers

Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.

The country’s IT Army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government, says it has used those identifications to inform the families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.

The Ukrainians champion the use of face-scanning software from the U.S. tech firm Clearview AI as a brutal but effective way to stir up dissent inside Russia, discourage other fighters and hasten an end to a devastating war.

Read the full story here. Open / Comment

2022-04-15 14:21:51 Russia says it hit missile plant, threatens to step up attacks on Kyiv

Russia’s Defense Ministry warned in an update Friday that it would step up attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in retaliation for the targeting of Russian territory or assets.

“The number and scale of airstrikes on Kyiv site will be increased in response to any attacks committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime of terrorist and subversive nature on the territory of the Russian Federation,” it said.

A bruised Russia is grappling with the sinking of the flagship of its Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, after a Ukrainian missile attack triggered a “significant explosion,” U.S. officials said Thursday. Moscow acknowledged the sinking but said the ship was damaged by a fire that set off munitions.

Loud explosions were heard early Friday in Kyiv, as Russia claimed to have struck a machine-building plant just outside the capital. The Washington Post could not independently verify that claim.

Read the full story here. Open / Comment

2022-04-15 11:59:00 Russia warns U.S. to stop arming Ukraine

Russia this week sent a formal diplomatic note to the United States warning that U.S. and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine were “adding fuel” to the conflict there and could bring “unpredictable consequences.”

The diplomatic démarche, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post, came as President Biden approved a dramatic expansion in the scope of weapons being provided to Ukraine, an $800 million package including 155-mm Howitzers — a serious upgrade in long-range artillery to match Russian systems — coastal defense drones and armored vehicles, as well as additional portable anti-air and antitank weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition.

The United States has also facilitated the shipment to Ukraine of long-range air defense systems, including Slovakia’s shipment of Russian-manufactured Soviet-era S-300 launchers on which Ukrainian forces have already been trained.

Read the full story here. Open / Comment