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56 pointsapp4soft42 comments

Caesar cipher for KRYMSKA BAVOVNA, translates as Crimean cotton.

"Ukrainians ironically call explosions in Russia or in occupied territory 'cotton'-bavovna - бавовна, ridiculing Russian media use of a word хлопóк (a bang) in a sense of explosion, which is written in the same way as cotton - хлóпок"

source: https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1557042276869734401

In addition to this, the fluffy explosion clouds from the hit ammo, mil equpment, and fuel depots do resemble big wads of cotton in the sky, well, of much darker shade.

Another expression apropos is "HIMARS o'clock".

Feint - Mirror signal

IC3PEAK - Зеркало (Mirror)

Feint - Stairway to Heaven (You Are Slaves)

FACE - Коттон (Cotton)

The Russian Futurists - Let's Get Ready To Crumble

Scarcity of Tanks (band)

Is this linked to gun cotton in anyway?

It's because explosion clouds look like cotton. (Edit: And apparently a pun on the words for cotton and clap being similar)

Well the parent said the word for bang and cotton are the same.

I was just wondering if firearms became popular around when gun cotton was a thing, and so they associated the two. Or whether the two words just happen to be the same.

I believe the main reason is that it makes fun of newspeak used by russian propaganda. Newspeak started long before the war.

Explosions are called "claps", plane crashes are "rough landings", decline is "negative growth", flood is "waterlogging", etc.

It's hard to sell the idea of being greatest country in the world if buildings are exploding due to gas leaks. But if there are a few "claps" here and there, noone bats an eye. That's the idea at least.

"bavovna" (бавовна) is explained by Illia Ponomarenko here better than I could myself: https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1557458609541349376

Is this related to the self-awareness Twitter meme? Amtrak tweeted "trains," Department of Energy tweeted "energy," and so on. The official Twitter account of Ukraine tweeted "victory" yesterday, might this be a play on the meme to show Defense Intelligence of Ukraine is all about ciphers?

USSTRATCOM tweeted “Deterrence” I can’t feel anything other than we’re definitely living in the stupid timeline when nuclear weapons are tied to memes.

Be sure... to drink... your ovaltine?

There are two Telegram channels with 'krymbavovna' belonging to the Ukrainian armed forces:

https://t.me/krymbavovna_chat https://t.me/krymbavovna_bot

Reminds me of the fabulous Grass Mud Horse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse

[0] https://www.dcode.fr/letter-number-cipher

So KRYMSKABAVOVNA?

Yes, Crimean cotton. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bavovna seems to have more context for this.

Bavovna means cotton, which in Russian is spelled хлопок, which is a word that means both cotton and clap (or a loud clap), depending on which syllable you accent the word on.

It is a play on current "New Russian" language that is part of the russian propaganda that calls explosions "claps", collapse "negative growth" and so on.

Instead of peace propaganda, Ukrainians create memes about bombings. And not just any Ukrainians, this is posted by official Defence intelligence of Ukraine. How people will judge this in future ? IDK, but I think Ukrainians shooting yourself in the foot.

Lol for real? You think Ukrainians are the ones history is going to judge for this?

> How people will judge this in future ?

Probably quite favorably. There appears to be broad support for Ukrainians across the entire political spectrum in the western world. I can’t think of any other recent issues that have united the western world so completely.

What kind of judgement did you have in mind?

I do not think memes about explosions (killing people) is acceptable in healthy society, does not matter who posts it and against whom.

Hard disagree if the killed are volunteers (i.e. invading, genocidal marauders). As the saying goes, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The solution to the problem of getting blown up by the defending army is pretty simple: surrender, or otherwise get the fuck out.

It always felt like the pro-Ukraine narrative was crammed down our throats though.

I'm sure everyone is desperate to avoid ending up as a modern Chamberlain, trading land for a sham promise of peace, but we do ignore a very real question: should we be treating borders as perfect and correct?

There is a reasonable case to be made that when the USSR partitioned, it created some hard borders between communities that formerly were "closer", historically, culturally, or economically, to a different republic than the one they were assigned to.

Any partitioning is going to end that way-- see India/Pakistan, any sort of two-state Israel/Palestine solution, the two Koreas, or even the split of Virginia during the US Civil War.

But nobody can really right that sort of relationship peacefully because someone stands to lose territory. These things end up getting ironed out with bloodshed. It may be inevitable.

There's also the whole problem that we didn't really "win the peace" after the end of the Cold War. Compare Germany and Japan after WWII. The winners flooded them with aid and guided their reconstruction in ways that let them prosper going forward. They ended up as advanced economies tightly woven into the Western economic system.

Russia, we let rot. We stood by as every quality-of-life metric plummeted below 1991 levels, and an era of kleptocrats plundered the privatization process. Nobody was stewarding them into being anything more than a cheap source of unsophisticated raw materials. If they had enjoyed the same rehabilitation between 1991 and 2021 as Japan did between 1945 and 1975, do you think there'd be any political hay to be made from "we are standing against the Evil West and expansion of NATO and the EU?" No, they'd be queuing up to join in.

It's not like they didn't have the resources to kickstart that growth-- they had an educated population, non-destroyed infrastructure, and plenty of fairly sophisticated industry. Yeah, their microchips were 20 years behind the West, but that's still a pretty robust base to start with compared with plenty of other economic development opportunities.

In the day job, writing code, I have options to give things fun names, to add a touch of humour to the error messages and to add Easter Eggs. These are funny when everything works but if boss man is there and the website is down and the 503 page has my cocky joke then it is not going to be funny or clever.

Due to the nature of either-you-are-with-us-or-against-us two-tribes conflict, public diplomacy has to be very Marmite. The Ukrainian side want to attract numerate people able to help them win the war. They don't care about what people outside their audience think because they get their news sources elsewhere.

I would be surprised if this tweet was considered noteworthy by political commentators that are prone to use the last letter of the alphabet in red white and blue stripes.

If the meme resonates the bombs will detonate.

> Instead of peace propaganda, Ukrainians create memes about bombings.

I think if you're defending from a war of aggression, you might be able to flex now and then when things go alright and maybe even misspeak a few times and still avoid the judgment of history ;)

In WWII, the French surrendered to Germans and preserved some modicum of peace, and the British fought staunchly, at a high cost (see Coventry).

Who, do you think, made a more appropriate choice?

Not relevant comparison, it has nothing to do with current conflict.

Imagine world where china-india-middle_east-russia military organization in 800 km from Washington destabilize region, training military, and doing all kinds of military activities. And US reacts, is it aggression or protection of sovereignty ?

Russia and Venezuela had a military exercise together in a not so distant past.

The closest analogy would be the Communist Cuba and the crisis after the Soviets put nuclear weapons there. Cuba has not been annexed, or declared the core US land, though.

Accusations of the USA and NATO destabilizing Russia are not grounded in facts. Quite the opposite: even before the USSR collapsed, its territorial integrity was among main concerns in the West, driven by the fear of nukes going into wrong hands.

Here's a pretty good article on the topic: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/stop-tiptoeing-...

After 1991, the western aid to that you mention has been built free and stable societies in Eastern Europe, which has given Russia exceptional security at its borders. What "protection of sovereignty" are you talking about, from whom?

Aggression.

If Ukrainians are shooting themselves in the foot by doing memes about bombings, how would you describe Russia's invasion? How will that be judged?

...And that is the topic you choose to focus on?

Russian officials spew genocidal garbage, stating Ukraine is not a nation, all need to be de-nazified. Russian soldiers murder, rape and execute in the occupied areas, routinely shell and bomb civilians. Torture and murder prisoners of war.

...but God forbid the Ukranians post a funny meme. The horror.

You encapsulate the reaction perfectly, which I have seen from Russians en-masse.

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