Isolated and Forcibly Russified, Ukrainians Resist the Will of Two Criminals
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Donetsk Oblast’ – Russian forces continue to bombard all settlements in this region, as we have recently reported, using drones and shells. This relentless shelling is made worse by power outages so frequent that even glimpses of light are rare, leading to serious communication issues.
So much so that we have been unable to establish any planned contact with this newspaper’s editorial office or reach our families because the only available Starlink dish in a critical part of the Mykhailivska hromada of Donetsk was hit by shrapnel and debris resulting inoperable.
Unfortunately, our family members living in those territories of this same region which have already been overwhelmed by the russkij mir remain trapped in an even deeper information isolation. Representatives of the occupation authorities in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Crimea have issued orders banning the sale, installation, and use of satellite equipment capable of receiving Ukrainian channels. Since early November, Russian military and police forces have been conducting house-to-house searches not only to seize such equipment but also to pressure Ukrainians – some resisting harshly, as discussed in our other articles – into accepting Russian citizenship. To speed-up this forced passportization, the Kremlin has imposed a ban on unregistered Russian SIM cards, forcing users to link them to their passport data. As the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense (ГУР) stated, «this decision aims to accelerate forced Russification by putting additional pressure on Ukrainians who refuse to become Russian».
After years of living without medical care (often unable to even buy medicine), without a salary or pension (Russians have blocked cash withdrawals from Ukrainian bank accounts), without any external support(Western sanctions have excluded Russian banks from the SWIFT system), and increasingly being evicted from their homes (a simple notice of irregularity in property registration in the Russian system orders them to ‘self-Russify’, under penalty of expropriation), our loved ones now risk being unable to even get in touch with us.
The information repression system imposed by Moscow also forces Telegram channel owners with more than 10,000 subscribers to install a Roskomnadzor bot (the Russian federal authority responsible for supervision, censorship, and control of the media and telecommunications) with administrator rights. This allows the Kremlin to automatically and immediately delete posts, edit them, and block users and comments. As the ГУР emphasized, «the goal of these measures is to create an information bubble, cutting off the temporarily occupied territories from access to Ukrainian and international resources. Any criticism or information not controlled by the Kremlin is thus immediately censored».
Already restricted in Crimea, access to Telegram and WhatsApp is also becoming increasingly difficult in the other Ukrainian regions occupied and illegally annexed by the Russian Federation. Rather, Russian authorities are pushing users to install Max, a spyware disguised as a messaging app that enables the FSB to eavesdrop on conversations, locate users, and even activate the microphone and camera of smartphones without their owners’ consent.
It is our duty to write about this now that the current US administration is applying equalexerting equally strong pressure on the Ukrainian president to become complicit in a heinous crime: authorizing, completely illegally – that is, in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution and international law – the cession of territories and the forced Russification of Ukrainians.
In the russian plan for Ukraine’s capitulation that Washington emissaries placed on Zelensky’s desk as «a road to peace» the current US administration even included to recognize the legality of forcibly altered borders and referendums unrecognized by any country except the aggressor and its accomplices.
Technically, the US president can do so: the power to recognize a country’s sovereignty over unilaterally claimed territory is one of those granted to the Executive Branch by Article II of the US Constitution. But even with the formal power to do so, such a political act – contrary to the US position since 1945 – would constitute a clear violation of the United Nations Charter. Since Article VI of the US Constitution makes treaties considered federal law binding, the president could therefore be prevented from proceeding: by Congress, which can pass laws prohibiting any recognition and initiate impeachment proceedings; by the federal judiciary, which can declare his acts unlawful; and by the State Department, which, following guidelines based on international law, could block any recognition of illegal annexations as violating fundamental precedents of US foreign policy (Stimson Doctrine 1932 on non-recognition of Soviet, Iraqi, et al).
It should not be those who have fought for twelve years to defend the law that remain isolated, but the criminals who violate it.
THANKS TO ALL WHO BACK US IN THESE HARD TIMES
感谢所有在这段艰难时期支持我们的人
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在过去的三年里，作为自由撰稿人，我们一直在乌克兰战争的所有前线进行报道，自从大规模…
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被孤立和强制俄罗斯化的乌克兰人抵抗两个罪犯的意志
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
乌克兰前线报道
顿涅茨克州——正如我们最近报道的那样，俄罗斯军队继续使用无人机和炮弹炮击该地区的所有定居点。这种无情的炮轰炸因频繁停电而使情况更糟，即便是闪烁的一点光亮也变得难得，从而导致严重的通讯问题。
情况如此之严重，以至于我们与本报的编辑部都无法建立任何预定联系，也无法与家人取得联系，因为顿涅茨克的米哈伊利夫卡社区唯一可用的星链天线在一个关键部位被弹片和碎片击中，致使其无法使用。
（图：我在乌克兰顿涅茨克州的米哈伊利夫卡社区。 俄罗斯猛烈炮击这个地区，摧毁他们现在仍推崇的苏联时期的纪念碑。– 版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
不幸的是，居住在这些地区，已经被“俄罗斯世界”所吞没的领土上的家人们仍然陷入深深的信息孤立。顿涅茨克、卢甘斯克、赫尔松、扎波罗热和克里米亚的占领当局发发布命令，禁止销售、安装和使用能够接收乌克兰频道的卫星设备。从11月初开始，俄罗斯军队和警察展开了逐户搜查，不仅为了查扣这些设备，还为了给乌克兰人施加压力——其中一些人顽强抵抗，正如我们其他文章中所讨论的——迫使他们接受俄罗斯国籍。为了加速这种强制护照化，克里姆林宫对未注册的俄罗斯SIM卡实施了禁令，迫使用户将其与护照数据关联。正如乌克兰国防部军事情报局（ГУР）所声明的，“这一决定旨在通过对拒绝成为俄罗斯人的乌克兰人施加额外压力，加速强制俄罗斯化进程”。
多年生活在没有医疗照护（常常连药品都无法购买）、没有薪水或养老金（俄方封锁了乌克兰银行账户的现金取款）、没有任何外部支持（西方制裁已将俄罗斯银行排除在SWIFT体系之外）的情况下，以及越来越多的人被驱逐出家园（在俄罗斯体系中，一个简单的财产登记不规范的通知要求他们“自我俄罗斯化”，否则面临征用的处罚），我们亲爱的亲人现在面临着甚至无法与我们取得联系的风险。
莫斯科实施的信息压制系统还迫使拥有超过一万名订阅者的Telegram账号安装一个包含管理员权限的Roskomnadzor机器人（俄联邦负责监督、审查和控制媒体与通信的机构）。这使得克里姆林宫能够自动和立即删除帖子、编辑内容，以及屏蔽用户和评论。正如ГУР所强调的，“这些措施的目的是创造一个信息泡沫，将临时占领地区与乌克兰和国际资源隔绝。任何不受克里姆林宫控制的批评或信息都将立即被审查”。
在克里米亚已经受到限制的情况下，其他被俄罗斯联邦占领和非法吞并的乌克兰地区，访问Telegram和WhatsApp也变得越来越困难。相反，俄罗斯当局正在推动用户安装Max，这是一款伪装成消息应用的间谍软件，使FSB能够窃听对话、定位用户，甚至在未经用户同意的情况下激活智能手机的麦克风和相机。
（图：我在乌克兰顿涅茨克州的米哈伊利夫卡社区 现在沦为两个罪犯正在交易的绝望之地。– 版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
写下这些内容是我们的责任：当前的美国政府正对乌克兰总统施加同样强大的压力，要求乌克兰总统成为一桩十恶不赦的罪行的同谋：授权完全非法的——即违反乌克兰宪法和国际法——领土的割让和乌克兰人的强制俄罗斯化。
在华盛顿特使将一份俄罗斯的乌克兰投降计划放在泽连斯基桌面上，并称其为“和平之路”，当前的美国政府甚至在计划中包括了承认被强行改变的边界和公投的合法性，而这些公投未被任何国家承认，除了侵略者及其同伙。
从技术上讲，美国总统可以这样做：承认一个国家对单方面声索的领土的主权，是美国宪法第二条赋予行政部门的权力之一。但是，即使拥有这样的正式权力，这种政治行为——与1945年以来美国的立场相悖——将构成对联合国宪章的明显违反。由于美国宪法第六条将条约视为联邦法律并具有约束力，因此总统可能会被阻止继续进行此举：国会可以通过法律禁止任何承认，并启动弹劾程序；联邦司法机构可以宣布他的行为违法；而国务院则可以遵循国际法的指导方针，阻止对非法吞并的任何承认，因为这违反了美国外交政策的基本先例（1932年关于不承认苏联、伊拉克等国的斯廷森原则）。
应当孤立的不是那些为捍卫法律而奋斗了十二年的人，而是那些违反法律的罪犯。
（图：无需多说 – 版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
