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On June 4, we honour the memory of Ukraine’s children whose lives were taken by Russia’s war.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia killed 707 children, according to Ukrainian authorities. Another 2,548 children have been injured. A total of 2,317 children remain missing, while more than 700,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported.

The real number of child victims is likely much higher. Ongoing combat actions and Russia’s temporary occupation of parts of Ukraine make it impossible to fully document the scale of these crimes.

❤️‍🩹 We remember every child. We demand justice and accountability for every crime committed by Russia.

I hope people abandon watching the show when it becomes uninteresting to them instead of watching it to the end just because "they have watched the piece of it so it's better to watch it until the end"

IF IT IS BORING IT IS NOT WORTH IT

Elsagate is so atrocious and not just because it's grown adults exploiting children' interests for profit but also bright colors that causes vomit. It ruins children' developing visual imagination and overstimulates their brain. It triggers people with epilepsy

folklorespring

Starvation in occupied Oleshky: How residents survive on pigeons, dog food and desperation

dworkin-dork

your adoption post is getting around. it's really interesting. do you have any more sources I could read?

Sure! (I did see your follow up message anon, lol, but I had this ready so here's even more info!)

I would recommend this one to start:

Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, by Gretchen Sisson (general background on coercion and adoption).

Shorter articles/organizations to watch:

I Have Studied Child Protective Services for Decades. It Needs to Be Abolished. (Book excerpt from Dorothy Roberts [Torn Apart] via Mother Jones)

The Policy Circle: The Failures and Future of the U.S. Foster Care System (Policy deep dive on the current state of foster care in the U.S., I typically find The Policy Circle as a decent source)

Family Policy Project is an organization collecting NYC parent experiences of the foster care system and surveillance state, their entire blog history is worth checking out

Start here for books on foster care explicitly:

Shattered Bonds: The Color Of Child Welfare, by Dorothy Roberts (one of the seminal books arguing for child welfare reform, originally published in 2002, but still very relevant).

Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World, by Dorothy Roberts (same author as the previous book, this time explicitly arguing for abolition, with updated arguments, statistics, and case studies twenty years later).

To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care, by Cris Beam (this one is more mixed/neutral on foster care than the others, but I believe it highlights the exceptions that prove the rule - the author became a foster parent via having a student/mentee that needed a caregiver, and she profiles the foster system more generally while learning how to be a caregiver for her own foster child)

Domestic violence, abuse, and the implications for the foster care system:

Children of Coercive Control, by Evan Stark (this is the book I referenced originally, where Evan Start expresses regret at how his metric for domestic violence has become weaponized against women who are victims of controlling male partners)

We Were Once A Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America, by Roxanna Asgarian (the Hart children's case, focuses on the Texas court system and interstate adoptions and the marginalization of birth families)

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Snyder (devastating breakdown on the stats of domestic violence and the ways abusive men use the criminal justice system to further victimize their partners and children, and really useful info on family annihilations)

International adoption issues:

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption, by Kathryn Joyce (international adoption, really great, digs into the Christian Evangelical influence on U.S. adoption)

Criminalization and incarceration:

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, by Monique W. Morris (there's significant overlap with foster youth and the criminal justice system, and this book covers some of the dynamics where victimized girls are re-victimized by the educational and legal systems)

Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, by Reuben Jonathan Miller (many, many parents lose custody as a result of incarceration and/or parole violations - this book is great at showcasing how the system sets people up to fail)

If others have more recommendations, please feel free to add on!

Sexual violence among lesbians should be discussed without lesbophobic morons

I told my mother about vietnam war, about how companies cheer on wars as a new way to make money.

She praised me and scolded me at the same time, saying "see? You can learn like it in college", referring to me failing college because i didn't study and failed all classes.

But there's a difference between learning something YOU'RE INTERESTED IN AND SEARCH FOR VOLUNTARILY and studying something boring your college make you to.

Disinterest is barrier against learning and knowledge.

Also history in institutions is less about actual history and more about favoring political agenda of government

Warrior cats should have ended long time ago.

The 6-9 cycles feels like grasping at straws of books' popularity

folklorespring

"Deportation" by Mamut Churlu. In 1944 more than 190 000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea by soviet authorities.

lastivkaa

@/yo_syp from twitter decided to make a thread with some facts about why people hate Russians and Russia. I copy it here respectively.

"Why do so many people hate Russians?"

The first and second Russian-Chechen Wars

Russian-Georgian War

bavovniatko

What about the East and West divide? What about “If you don’t jump, you’re a Moskal”? What about the fact that even before 2014, you were saying that people from eastern Ukraine weren’t real people, that we had “dirty blood”?

What about the people murdered in Odesa in 2014? There were no terrifying Russian soldiers there. There were old, overweight women burned alive. In 2022, some of the girls involved in those killings were bragging on Twitter that they were never punished for it. There were even photos young women making Molotov cocktails for fun, just to burn old ladies alive.

What about “Cut off Crimea”? When you wanted your own fellow citizens to live without electricity, water, or basic utilities.

I was born in Donetsk. I never left. And no, you are not just innocent victims. You are just as monstrous as the Russian government. You either didn’t care or openly celebrated the war in the east after 2014. But the moment the war reached you, suddenly you started screaming.

And then there’s the ideological garbage. How are you any better than Russia? Worshipping fascists? Same thing. Killing innocent people? Same thing. Nationalism and hatred? Same thing.

I know the soft, sheltered Western liberals believe you. And I know they’re so naïve that it may take years, maybe generations before they finally realize what you really are: cruel, bloodthirsty people capable of the exact same horrors you accuse others of.

Here is a classic repeating of standard kremlin talking points that completely flip reality. And I know this so well , because I have lived through all of this, I have experienced the life in the Ussr, I remember how Ukraine became independent, I know Crimea, because my grandparents lived there, I remember all the revolutions and wars (in 2014 and in 2022). So let's get to your points.

The Reality

The "East vs. West" divide was weaponized and heavily amplified by Russian political technologists (during the 2004 and 2010 elections). The infamous "Three Sorts of Ukrainians" political poster was a deliberate psychological operation designed to split the country into regional factions for political gain.

The phrase "Who doesn't jump is a Moskal" originated as a lighthearted football/protest chant (similar to chants used across Europe) to keep warm and build solidarity during peaceful protests. It was never a state doctrine, nor did it call for violence. Ironically, russia is the state that has historically oppressed Ukrainians, implemented the man-made famine that killed millions, and systematically executed Ukrainian artists, writers, and poets during the Stalinist purges (the Executed Renaissance). For the russian state to suddenly act "offended" by a protest chant while erasing Ukrainian culture and lives for centuries is the height of hypocrisy.

The claim of "dirty blood" is a fabrication. Ukraine has never had laws, political platforms, or mainstream social movements promoting racial purity or blood-based discrimination.

What about the people murdered in Odesa in 2014? There were no terrifying Russian soldiers there. There were old, overweight women burned alive...

The Reality

Independent investigations (including those by the Council of Europe and the UN) confirmed that the violence in Odesa on May 2, 2014, was ignited by armed pro-russian provocateurs who attacked a peaceful march of Ukrainian football fans and citizens.

The tragic fire at the Trade Unions House was a chaotic disaster, not a planned execution. It was a horrific accident caused by urban street warfare instigated by russian-backed actors, not a targeted campaign to "burn old ladies alive."

russian state media immediately weaponized this tragedy, inventing gruesome details to dehumanize Ukrainians and recruit fighters for the war in the Donbas.

What about “Cut off Crimea”? When you wanted your own fellow citizens to live without electricity, water, or basic utilities.

Crimea was illegally occupied by the russian military in February 2014. Under international law (specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention), the occupying power (russia) bears full legal responsibility for the civilian population, including providing water, electricity, and resources.

Ukraine was under no obligation to supply resources to a hostile military force that had just stolen its territory at gunpoint. Cutting off utilities was a non-violent, defensive measure to increase the logistical cost of occupation for the Russian military, which was using Crimea as a massive army base.

The Myth of the "8-Year Bombing": Ukraine did not randomly attack Donetsk. In 2014, russian operatives led by Igor Girkin (a former FSB officer) crossed the border, seized government buildings, and started an armed conflict. Ukraine launched an Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) to defend its sovereign territory.

According to the United Nations, civilian casualties in the Donbas had dropped dramatically by 2021 (with 18 civilian deaths recorded that year, mostly from landmines). The war was effectively frozen until Russia launched a catastrophic, full-scale invasion in 2022.

How are you any better than Russia? Worshipping fascists?... cruel, bloodthirsty people capable of the exact same horrors...

This is a classic "whataboutism" tactic designed to blur the line between the aggressor and the victim. Russia is an authoritarian state that launched an unprovoked, full-scale war of conquest, committed documented war crimes (Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol), and openly calls for the eradication of the Ukrainian state. Ukraine is a democracy defending its existence.

Far-right parties in Ukraine have consistently failed to win even 2% of the vote in democratic elections, far lower than in many Western European countries. Ukraine’s president is Jewish, and the country is united by civic nationalism (defending freedom and democracy), not ethnic hatred.

Western support is not based on "naivety," but on international law, satellite intelligence, and the clear reality of who crossed whose borders with tanks.

It was russia that artificially divided Ukraine into 'sorts' of people, russia that occupied Crimea and forced a response, and russia that orchestrated the tragedies in Odesa and Donetsk to justify an unprovoked war of aggression."

So russia should suffer and pay for everything. And I am not going to stop screaming about this!

butch-reidentified

ima go ahead n answer both these at once if that's good w yall.

here's the referenced post for anyone who missed it.

I've posted a LOT about adoption before. feel free to search #adoption, #ethical adoption, #adoptee or #adopted, etc in my tags for those posts. if you can't find them bc Tumblr is shit at searching lmk and I will try to dig em up. I have a Google doc of organized/categorized Tumblr links because of the search function being such a joke

anyway that said. what I meant is that it is sooo obvious to most adoptees from a young age that it's a consumer industry and we are a product for sale. most of us who always knew we were adopted have that horrifying realization very very young, far too young to know how to deal with it. yes I am glad when other people figure this out too but it's a bit irritating for non adoptees to act like this is some mystical wisdom they alone could've uncovered when it's part of the trauma inherent to adoption to realize you were purchased 🤷

I'm not against adoption like some adoptees are, but I could write ESSAYS on my criticisms of the industry and how it SHOULD work. in fact, I have written essay length posts about it in the tags listed above. but ultimately nobody gives a fuck & NOBODY of any political orientation wants to hear that adoption perhaps isn't the utterly selfless flawless silver bullet solution to unwanted kids that everyone treats it as. yet statistically we KNOW most adoptees are extremely damaged by it, the research is there but nobody talks about it. nobody likes you if you talk about it. the walls go up real quick.

one of my favorite things is how adoption seems to be the ONE area that absolutely nobody respects lived material experience about. even loads of leftists/radfems who are always going on and on about the importance of listening to people's real, lived experiences will aggressively talk over us adoptees if we dare have the audacity to critique adoption/the adoption industry or acknowledge that it's fuckin traumatic even for an infant being yanked away from the only stimuli you knew for 9 months and put somewhere where you can't recognize yourself in anyone or anything for the next 18+ years. and that's best case scenario! scenario where they don't abuse you or spend your childhood guilt tripping you because they oh so selflessly took you in when nobody wanted you and now look how difficult you are, crying all the time n shit... just as 1 common experience I know many share from my own life and talking to other adoptees.

but nearly every time we try to talk about this, even if it has nothing to do with criticizing the adoption industry and we are JUST tryna get painful shit off our chest, some non adoptee or 8 is/are gonna jump down our throat (and often even say all the same shit our parents guilted us with as kids lmao)

it's also 1000% a feminist issue bc SO many mothers are forced into adopting out a kid they wanna keep, or adoption being available is used to justify forcing women to give birth instead of aborting an unwanted pregnancy when those women would otherwise choose the latter. not to mention the designer baby shit & the preference for white male babies... and the fact that it's human beings being literally sold as a good. Just because it's legal and isn't outright sex slavery or "forced labor" (tho adopted kids are so often viciously abused and often in those exact ways) doesn't make it right to buy or sell a human being, doesn't make it not human trafficking. & I say this as an adoptee who was ALSO trafficked as a teenager.

maddie-grove

I keep seeing the thumbnail for that “how Mean Girls demonizes hyperfeminity” video on YouTube, and I don’t want to form an opinion on something that my bone-deep revulsion prevents me from watching, but Jesus Christ.

susandsnell

There was a post on here to that effect a few years ago, also listing Heathers, Clueless and High School Musical as examples of “demonized femininity” while Elle Woods’ femininity is celebrated, and aside from my constant aggravation by this reactionary trend of a non-issue where everyone is pretending being feminine is under attack and women being gnc/butch is somehow more accepted, I think it’s interesting to note here that the feminine characters in question here are demonized for being bullies. Specifically the kind of bully that terrorizes other girls for, among other things, not adhering sufficiently to standards of femininity in the social panopticon-like paradigm we frequently see where women socially punish and ostracize one another for not meeting patriarchal standards sufficiently. It happened offscreen, but Regina tormented Janis into a mental health crisis for dressing alt and (possibly) being a lesbian, hence incorrectly female. They bully other girls for being insufficiently pretty, thin, fashionable, white, heterosexual. (Interestingly, if you look at some of cinema’s famous male bullies, your Biff Tannens et cetera, there’s an equivalent of choosing targets due to perceived failures of masculinity!)

The Let Women Be Feminine brigade rushing to these bullies’ defense, claiming they're only demonized for femininity and frequently calling the characters targeted by the hyperfeminine bullies “NLOGs” (because, I suspect, they know they can’t quite get away with saying the d-word anymore like they might have in the early 2000s), is very telling. It’s an affirmation and agreement with the bullies, and the essentialist patriarchal standards they’ve internalized and imposed on others.

suratan-zir

Are there any sources where i can find reliable information (without russian propaganda, especially about occupied territories of Donbas) about Donbas region and how are people who live there are affected by the war?

There are no such sources, at least not in the form of media with articles or opinion pieces. You have to understand one thing about the Donbas under russian occupation: it's like russia x2. Whatever censorship you think exists in russia, in the "LDNR," it's much worse. Also, the "LDNR" has been a testing ground for the implementation of even harsher, unpopular measures, later to be adopted in "mainland" russia, like blocking messengers, business embezzlement, total control over the media, etc. Not that it didn't flourish in russia before, but in Donetsk, it became so much worse.

Any report or news you see from inside the "LDNR" is approved by the russians. In this light, you can only trust people from the outside, regardless of how illogical it may sound. Of course, if you speak russian, you can find some Telegram or VK groups with open and unmoderated comments from locals (which is still very rare), then you'd be able to gather at least some bits of information. But it's a drop in the ocean. And people commenting in such places are still often afraid for their lives, or some of them may be bots, so I wouldn't recommend it.

I also wouldn't know such sources because I don't need them, my parents live in Donetsk, and I lived there until the end of 2021, so I know all I need to know about the occupation. The only journalist I still follow who writes almost exclusively about the Donbas is Denis Kazanskyy. His Telegram channel is also the only channel primarily in russian that I still read. (https://t.me/kazansky2017)

He is from Donetsk, but obviously doesn't live there anymore, or else he wouldn't be alive by now. I can't say he's completely unbiased in everything that he writes, but what he's really good at is pointing out the lies of the occupation authorities - like when they say that the AFU targets civilians while not showing the military equipment, ammunition depots, and such that were the actual targets. Or, the simplest example: deadly car accidents involving the russian military. They happen virtually every day for one simple reason: russian occupiers are allowed to do anything with no repercussions, which includes reckless, often drunk driving. It's a much bigger problem than it seems on the surface, considering how common and fatal it is. But, of course, all the official and unofficial reports from the inside will show you either only civilian cars wrecked, or, if the military Ural can't be hidden, they lie and say that a civilian vehicle violated traffic rules, despite it almost never being the case. Like the accident only three days ago at one of the bus stations in Donetsk city, where a military Ural, traditionally, killed innocent people who were waiting for their bus. There are videos clearly showing it, but the official reports refer to it as just a "truck," cutting it out of the pictures of the scene and not showing the video.

The point is: you can't trust anything coming out of there, even if it looks plausible enough. A lie or half-truth is always a safe assumption.

If you hear how gladly the people of Donbas accepted russian citizenship, know that it's total bullshit. People still living there simply had no choice. Even before the full-scale invasion, in the last couple of years, it was already dangerous to live there with a Ukrainian ID and borderline impossible to get a job. You could be stopped on the street for an ID check and get in trouble. We had to get "LDNR" IDs just to leave the Donbas, otherwise, we wouldn't have made it through the checkpoints.

People in the Donetsk Oblast live without running water because the Siverskyi Donets Canal was destroyed in battles due to the russian army advancing. Of course, they blame it on Ukraine, despite this humanitarian catastrophe being the result of the russian aggression. Then, they promised to build a new canal from russia, but the "head" of the "LDNR," Denis Pushilin, stole the money for the construction while also making a killing by selling bottled water to the desperate population at inflated prices.

As for the people in the more recently seized territories - there are barely any people left. Most are elderly, mentally or physically disabled, or russian sympathizers. The towns and villages are literally reduced to dust, there isn't much to say about them. Remaining people, after the seizure, are often sent to "filtration camps," and sometimes replaced by paid actors for russian TV, saying how grateful they are to the glorious russian army for "liberating" their town. That's not to say there aren't plenty of locals immoral enough to accept payment for this propaganda. After the initial hype of the town's "liberation," nothing follows. The earth is scorched forever. No meaningful rebuilding happens - no future, no residents.

I know it's not a very helpful response, but it is what it is.

Saying that mysogynistic men are "secretly gay" is homophobic

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