Ukraine

• Mama writes
(in reply to the photo of evening Lviv drenched in summer sun):
Teach him Russian!
Your child must not be deprived of the right to learn the Russian language.

• I write:
But didn’t you forbid papa to teach me Romanian?
Who at that point decided our linguistic fate—yours and mine?

In 2017 Strelkov came up with the idea of holding a televised debate with Alexey Navalny, who agreed to participate. One hundred and fifty thousand people tuned in. Strelkov’s principal accusations against Navalny included not just his betrayal of Russian nationalism (he claimed his opponent “never once referred to [ethnic] Russians, only citizens of the Russian Federation”), but also the claim that Navalny’s economic program was incapable of dismantling the “total system of corruption” that defines Russian life. As one of the moderators put it, “they’ve spent an hour calling each other Putin.”