NEW RESOURCES

Spotted via Reddit: the Ukraine Support Tracker. From the front page: “The Ukraine Support Tracker (Beta) lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid transferred by governments to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022. We focus on support by 31 Western governments, specifically by the G7 and European Union member countries. The database is intended to support a facts-based discussion about support to Ukraine. Because we focus on government to government transfers into Ukraine, we do not include private donations or transfers by international organizations in this version of the database.”

EVENTS

Christie’s: Christie’s Launches Art Relief Initiatives for Ukraine. “This April and May, Christie’s will present an international program of exhibition and sales initiatives from London to New York to benefit Ukraine. Partnering with three major non-profit organisations—the World Monuments Fund (WMF), Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) Effort, Christie’s joins together with artists, consignors and collectors to raise essential funds in support of humanitarian aid and cultural heritage preservation efforts in Ukraine.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NHK World Japan: Ukraine reports over 240 cases of damage to cultural heritage by Russian forces. “Ukraine says it has documented at least 242 instances of Russian occupiers’ war crimes against cultural heritage. Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy on Saturday revealed the numbers. By region, 84 instances were reported in Kharkiv, 45 in Donetsk and 38 in Kyiv.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: The War in Ukraine Has Unleashed a New Word. “‘Pашизм’ is a word built up from the inside, from several languages, as a complex of puns and references that reveal a bilingual society thinking out its predicament and communicating to itself. Its emergence demonstrates how a code-switching people can enrich language while making a horrific war more intelligible to themselves. Putin’s ethnic imperialism insists that Ukrainians must be Russians because they speak Russian. They do — and they speak Ukrainian. But Ukrainian identity has as much to do with an ability to live between languages than it does with the use of any one of them.”

Rolling Stone: Pro-Russia Social Media Accounts Spread Obviously Fake Zelensky Cocaine Video. “A video spreading across social media of Volodymyr Zelensky with a bag of cocaine on his desk is – of course – fake, and the latest in an ongoing smear campaign against the Ukrainian president.”

Ukrinform: Russia spins disinformation, claiming its forces seize “OSCE archive” in Mariupol. “Russian propaganda pundits are circulating misinformation about the alleged seizure of documents from the OSCE archives in Mariupol, which allegedly testify to the ‘crimes committed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Herald (Scotland): Who is the Dundee comedian now ‘committing war crimes’ in Ukraine?. “GRAHAM Phillips could soon be the first comedian from Dundee to end up in The Hague. He was condemned by MPs in the House of Commons this week for his interview with a British prisoner of war taken captive by the Russians during the Ukraine conflict. In the 45-minute video film, Phillips interrogates Aiden Aslin, who surrendered to Russian forces after fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol last week.”

Vedomosti, and machine-translated from Russian: Movies, series and music from unfriendly countries legalized through compulsory license. “The Russian authorities have found a way to keep films, series, music and other intellectual property in the country from companies from unfriendly countries that have announced they are leaving or suspending their activities in Russia. For this, a bill is being developed that expands the effect of a compulsory license, two interlocutors familiar with the discussion of the initiative told Vedomosti.”

C4ISRNET: How one US intelligence agency is supporting Ukraine. “The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which collects, analyzes and distributes satellite imagery in support of U.S. national security, is monitoring events in Ukraine and sharing intelligence with partner nations engaged in joint missions, its director said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Guardian: The big idea: can social media change the course of war?. “Social media users do not just watch these events unfold in real time; they react to and interact with them. Gestures such as incorporating a Ukrainian flag into one’s username may be merely symbolic, but when users lobby politicians online, donate money, or even offer up their own homes to refugees, their engagement with the war begins to have real-world consequences. Invading Russian forces seem to be aware of the potential of social media: they have targeted Ukrainian mobile communications networks, launching a missile attack on Kyivstar’s hub in Okhtyrka on 11 March, and reportedly going after communications infrastructure in Mariupol as well.”

The National Interest: Ukraine Can Show Taiwan How to Win a Cyberwar With China. “Prior to the invasion, many had warned that China was closely watching the events in Ukraine and, if Russia invaded, may be prompted to attack Taiwan. Given many Russian military failures, observers pointed out the challenges that China could face if and when it decides to attack Taiwan. While the Ukrainian case study shows that cyberwarfare is not to be paralleled with traditional kinetic warfare, it is worth asking whether Taiwan will face similar attempts to sabotage and disrupt its infrastructure and services.”

Yusof Ishak Institute: 2022/44 “The Russia-Ukraine War: Unpacking Online Pro-Russia Narratives in Vietnam” by Hoang Thi Ha and Dien Nguyen An Luong. “The Russia-Ukraine war’s ramifications for Vietnam are felt beyond the economic and diplomatic realms. It has in fact become an online hotbed of conflicting and confounding narratives that demonstrate different worldviews and political leanings among Vietnamese netizens. An examination of 28 Facebook pages/groups active in trending pro-Russia narratives finds an ‘echo chamber’ that is on a constant lookout for Russian, Western and even Chinese news sources that peddle and amplify pro-Russia and anti-Western voices.”

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