Videos of the day -- pop-culture break

A few favorite Ukrainian videos I've saved over the years.  All of these date back long before the current crisis.


Verka Serduchka (stage identity of comedian and pop singer Andriy Danylko) performs his song "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" at the 2007 Eurovision song contest, where it took second place.  The lyrics are a mix of German, English, Russian, Ukrainian, and stuff he made up.  Some people at the time heard the nonsense phrase "lasha tumbai" as "Russia goodbye", though Serduchka insists that that was not his intent.  Some religious conservatives in Ukraine bitterly objected to having the country represented by a man they called a "transvestite", but the song achieved great popularity at the time.


"Oy Zahray My Muzychenku" by the energetic Ruslana Lyzhychko (usually known just as Ruslana).  Her music is partly inspired by that of the Hutsul minority in the Carpathian mountains in the far west of Ukraine.  Ruslana participated in the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Euromaidan protests, and was a member of the Ukrainian legislature for a short time.


"Ukraina - Yulya" by Potap and Nastya Kamenskih, performed in Independence Square in central Kyiv (I've been in this exact place).  Unlike most Western pop music, this is quite unabashedly patriotic -- what sounds like "oo-kra-yee-na" is how the name of the country is pronounced in Ukrainian.  The woman in the audience with the blond braided hair and red-embroidered white dress is Yulia Tymoshenko, who was prime minister of Ukraine at the time.

o o o o o

Temperatures in Ukraine will drop well below zero today and remain there for several days, adding to the woes of the long-stalled Russian military convoy outside Kyiv -- though also to those of the refugees fleeing the cities.

Ukraine claims to have re-taken the northeastern city of Chuhuiv from the Russians.

According to US intelligence, Russia will try to avoid any direct military conflict with the US.  Considering how its forces have performed in Ukraine so far, this is probably wise.

Photos here showing the devastation inflicted in Ukrainian cities by Russian missiles.

The Ukrainian military has been adopting asymmetrical guerilla tactics, perhaps preparing for the possibility that the war will evolve into a long campaign of resistance to occupation, as in Afghanistan.

Former Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev has some must-see insights into Putin's likely thinking.

Putin has shown dangerous weakness, and it's possible but far from inevitable that he could fall from power.  Also note that the poll I linked earlier, stating that 68% of Russians support the invasion, was by a government-controlled pollster, meaning it may well be skewed and we don't know what the actual level of support is.

Many people in Russia recognize that the invasion is a disaster, and the issue is dividing families.  Here's the scene where the entire staff of that TV channel quit en masse over the invasion.

Some Chinese men have a disappointing response to the plight of Ukrainian refugees (I've heard of some of this kind of thing in the US as well, but not much).

The canceling of Russian culture is getting ridiculous and disturbing.  Russian composers and movie directors aren't invading Ukraine, you idiots.