Events in Ukraine - April 1-14
Dead teens in the capital, corrupt debauchery in the name of drones in Lviv, clowns safe from mobilization, tiktok trends, Zelensky vs oligarchs
I’ll begin with anti-social behavior. It might seem individualistic, but it expresses plenty of broader processes.
In Kiev, a 16 year old was killed in front of his friends by a 30 year old war veteran. The group was accosted by the drunk veteran late at night - he demanded to know ‘what you have done for the fatherland’. He beat and pushed the 16 year old into a window, where he suffered fatal glass cuts. When the veteran realized what he had done, he first tried to run away, was stopped by the dead boy’s friends. Then he tried to save the boy, but it was too late. He has been imprisoned but denies his guilt.
Meanwhile, the central Ukrainian city of Zhitomyr has seen three 17 year olds kill a pensioner, beating him to death. In March, some young skinheads were arrested for filming their attacks on pensioners in the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk.
Next up, corruption -
among those who we would least expect it - the military ‘volunteers’ who make their living by raising money for the army and browbeating dirty commoners who resist mobilization. Lviv, the Piedmonte of Ukrainian nationalism and liberal European values, has won the contest of most corrupt Ukrainian city for the third year in a row.
A party called ‘Piemont’ held by volunteers to raise funds for the army was revealed to have cost more than it raised. Enough money to buy 7 FlyFish drones was raised. Unfortunately, the cost of merely renting the wonderful resort where the party was held would have been enough to buy 17 such drones. Local journalists estimate that if all the costs are put together, it would have been enough to buy 60 drones.
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