Olav Berstad

Retired ambassador

[Вы поняли, да? @Hugo_StiglitzUA]

Весь адекватный слой Твиттера уже сутки в шоке ��т бредней Путина про "теплые носочки", которые не достались немцам. Но в то время, как многие рассказывают правду о сборе теплых вещей для армии Вермахта в то время, как советские солдаты ходили в лаптях,

я расскажу другое:

За годы Второй Мировой войны Союзники поставили СССР колоссальное количество припасов, техники и оружия. Среди них и огромное количество теплиц одежды. Если вам нужны некоторые цифры, то на армию СССР, в пике своем достигающую 11.5 миллионов человек, было поставлено:

• 15 МИЛЛИОНОВ (!) пар обуви из которые по меньшей мере 10 миллионов утепленной.

• 1.5 миллиона одеял

• 2 миллиона комплектов униформы

• 257 МИЛЛИОНОВ пуговиц

Кроме того Британия и США поставили СССР помимо готового сырья:

- Миллион тонн хлопка и шерсти

- Сотни тысяч тон кожи, ниток, игл

Советские "бабушки" о которых говорит Путин если и шили носочки для солдатиков, то американской иглой, британскими нитками из американской же кожи на американской шерстяной подкладке на американских станках.

Это не говоря уже о готовой продукции, которая шла сразу на фронт, не говоря о локомотивах (союзники поставили ссср каждый второй локомотив, использующийся в войне), о вагонах (только 1 из 10 ссср делал сам. Остальное - поставки) и обо все том, что американцы и британцы предоставили для того, чтоб советский солдат спал в тепле, ел вкусно и воевал с оружием в руках.

Но ни об американцах, ни о британцах ни Путин, ни российский народ не помнит. Британцы и американцы, по мнению этих людей, "можно сказать не воевали вовсе". Их подвиг россиянами не просто забыт - смятен пропагандой на фоне адского победобесия, не терпящего ничего компромиссного.

Поэтому россияне будут славить бабушек с носочками, но ненавидеть американцев и британцев. Паскудно.

[Olav Berstad @BerstadOlav]

Mitt innlegg i Nordnorsk Debatt om fredsavtalen av 1326 mellom Kongeriket Norge og Republikken Novgorod. For 700 år siden i år. Vel verdt en ny analyse! https://t.co/FrBBBbIQWz

[Øystein Bogen @oysteinbogen]

Presis!

[Olav Berstad @BerstadOlav]

@LBirkelund @MasudGh Hei Lars, du vet vel at de iranske prestefanatikerne støtter Z-Rossia? Og mye annen ondskap.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

ZELENSKY: For Americans, it’s hard to grasp the Russian mentality—when they lie or tell the truth. I told Jared and Steve once: it’s simpler to assume they lie every time. Then it’s easier to deal with them. If you know they’re lying, you take control and keep the initiative.

[Illia Ponomarenko ���🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

Alright, I guess it falls to me -- just an ordinary guy from Ukrainian Donbas -- to explain a few obvious things to a New York real-estate developer who seems to care a lot more about the “commercial opportunities” being dangled in front of him by Putin and his mob fixer Kirill Dmitriev than about Ukraine, this region, or the questions of war, life, and death for millions of people whose fate he so casually talks about.

You see, real life is a bit more complicated than a primitive two-color map where Ukrainian regions are divided into “Ukrainian-speaking” and “Russian-speaking.”

Believe it or not, speaking Russian in everyday life does not mean wanting to live under Russian rule and the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin.

It doesn’t mean you’re somehow “by default” obliged to belong to Russia or serve the imperial whims of Vladimir Putin.

Especially not after the 2014 invasion -- and especially not after the slaughter that the business partners in the Kremlin unleashed on what is now an almost completely destroyed Donbas.

That horror opened countless eyes and finally shattered many illusions about what the so-called “Russian world” really is -- a plague, bringing death and cemeteries among the ruins of once-prosperous cities like Mariupol and Bakhmut.

You might be surprised, but back in 2014 the main centers for forming “volunteer battalions” were not Lviv or Ternopil -- they were “Russian-speaking” cities like Dnipro and Kharkiv.

They created and filled numerous famed units made up of local residents who took up arms to repel Russia’s hybrid invasion of Donbas when the regular army and the state were in collapse and paralysis.

That’s because we, the “Russian-speaking” Ukrainians, already understood perfectly well what was happening -- and made our final, irreversible choice in favor of Ukraine.

You might be surprised again, but when business partners in the Kremlin, through collaborators, saboteurs, and unmarked Russian regular forces, occupied Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014–2015, the majority of the region’s educated, entrepreneurial, and democratic-minded population fled those “people’s republics,” which quickly turned into depressed criminal cesspools.

They left their homes and apartments and moved -- believe it or not -- to areas under Ukrainian control: to Kyiv, and to its peaceful suburbs like Irpin and Bucha (where I live), where so many of our fellow Donetsk natives started new lives from scratch.

And here’s a little hint for the self-proclaimed “experts” and “journalists”: even in Donbas, pro-Russian Russian-speaking people never identified themselves as “ethnic Russians” -- only as Ukrainians who just happened to speak Russian.

No matter what years of Russian war propaganda tried to claim about the “Russians in Donbas.”

If you think you know better than me -- someone born in Volnovakha, who grew up and lived there most of his life -- you’re mistaken.

And believe it or not, even now, in the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale slaughter in the so-called “Russian-speaking regions,” masses of Russian-speaking Ukrainians have fled and settled in Kyiv, Lviv, or Chernivtsi -- something you can easily notice just by walking through those cities.

I won’t even start on how many “Russian-speaking” Ukrainians are fighting right now in the Ukrainian army on the front lines against the Russian plague that came to their land.

Why is that?

Because we have long been part of the Ukrainian nation -- part of its political and cultural space.

Our capital is ancient Kyiv, not Moscow.

We argue about and criticize Ukrainian politicians whose decisions shape our lives.

We took part in the revolutions, the elections, the wars for this country.

We cheer for the Ukrainian football team, for Ukrainian singers at Eurovision.

Most of us, one way or another, see Ukraine as our country and our future — and today, more than ever in modern history, we are farther from Russian cultural space and closer to our fellow Ukrainians from Lviv, Lutsk, Ternopil, and Vinnytsia than ever before.

That’s called shared national values.

The democratic, European, and Euro-Atlantic Ukraine that is fighting for its survival and freedom against an imperial invader -- the Ukraine we’ve been trying for a decade to reform and make a better place to live -- that’s us.

That’s who we are. That’s what we believe in, and what matches our values and vision of the future.

And many of us from the “Russian-speaking regions” have already switched to Ukrainian in daily life and in public, returning to the embrace of Ukrainian culture and tradition -- and rejecting “Russian” with disgust and anger, because we don’t want to have anything in common with the fascist Russia of today, which brings only bloodlust, war, hatred, chauvinism, aggression, and the deceitful hypocrisy of its brainwashing television propaganda.

And frankly -- until our last breath -- we will want nothing to do with your Russia.

After all it has done -- killing our friends and relatives, taking our homes, and turning our “Russian-speaking cities” into vast cemeteries amid ruins where life will never return.

[Olav Berstad @BerstadOlav]

@ricwe123 Check the master Soviet rocket engineers Korolyov, Yangel, Glushko, Chelomey. Don’t assume that 21century Ukrainians are less talented, innovative and hardened than their earlier compatriots.

[Claretta Nijhuis @NijhuisClaretta]

Donetsk in 2013…year before invasion. A beautiful, developing, modern European city. Driving Kremlin crazy that right at the border with its poor, degrading empire, Ukraine began to create comfortable conditions for a free happy life

[Bricktop_NAFO @Bricktop_NAFO]

President Zelensky just released a jaw dropping video from Ukraine.

As we celebrate the defeat of the Nazi’s in World War 2, at a time when we face similar evils.

Ukraine will prevail 🇺🇦

[Claretta Nijhuis @NijhuisClaretta]

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past" - George Orwell "1984".

The Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994…has disappeared from White House web site.

[Olav Berstad @BerstadOlav]

@Vankelhane @perteng1 Han lyver!

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

I had a very warm, meaningful, and productive meeting with Norway’s Prime Minister @jonasgahrstore. Throughout all three years of this war, Norway has stood firmly by our side – the side of protecting life – and all Ukrainians deeply appreciate it.

Today, the Prime Minister and I discussed our joint efforts to achieve a dignified and durable peace for Ukraine, backed by robust security guarantees. We also talked about our joint diplomatic work and concrete steps to strengthen our defense capabilities – air defense, ammunition, investments in Ukraine’s defense industry, and mutually beneficial joint production projects that we can launch and develop. All of this will truly enhance security for our nations and for all of Europe.

We are deeply grateful to the people, parliament, and government of Norway for the support provided – especially for the decision to nearly triple the volume of assistance to Ukraine, bringing it to nearly $8 billion. These funds will be directed toward the procurement and production of drones, shells, and artillery – everything that significantly helps our warriors and will ultimately force Russia to shift toward a diplomatic path to ending the war.

[John Christian Elden @jcelden]

Og slik hindret oberst Eriksen at det ble fred i Norge allerede 10. april 1940. Krigshisser. Lille Norge alene måtte jo tape uansett.

[🍏 Vladimir Kara-Murza @vkaramurza]

For once, albeit accidentally, Putin has told the truth: long-term peace in Ukraine is only possible by “eliminating the root causes of this crisis.”

The main “root cause” is an old deranged KGB officer in the Kremlin who views the collapse of the Soviet empire as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”, calls his opponents “national traitors” and Ukraine “an artificial state”, and idolizes Stalin and Andropov.

Without “eliminating” this “root cause” there will not be peace not only in Ukraine, but in Europe as a whole.

[🇺🇦🇳🇴Tore Wilken Nitter Walaker @torewalaker]

4 sjåførar overleverte 2 🚚🛻 i Dnipro torsdag og fredag - til dei kjempande heltane frå Donbass. 🚚 er allereie tatt i bruk som du kan sjå mot slutten av videoen.

Du kan støtte neste 🛻 ved å
🟧 Vippse #907280

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

I spoke with Norwegian Prime Minister @jonasgahrstore. I thanked him for today’s unanimous decision by the Norwegian parliament @Stortinget to increase Norway’s aid to Ukraine this year from $3.2 billion to $7.7 billion.

This is a timely and necessary decision that should serve as an example for all our partners. The funds will be partly directed towards weapons production in Ukraine and strengthening our energy security. Thus, Ukraine’s negotiating positions on the path to a just and lasting peace will become even stronger.

I am grateful to Norway for demonstrating responsibility and readiness to increase its contribution to peace and stability in Europe.

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

Trump and Vance act as if the problem is that Ukraine is resisting an ongoing Russian invasion. The problem is the ongoing Russian invasion. If they want to use American power to stop the war, apply it to the aggressor. Abusing the victim is not going to end a war of aggression.

[Espen Barth Eide @EspenBarthEide]

We stand by Ukraine! 🇺🇦🤝🇳🇴

We are thankful every day to the Ukrainian people, who fight for democracy, freedom, and sovereignty.

Ukraine and Europe need a just and lasting peace, and they need the support of us all.

@ZelenskyyUa @andrii_sybiha @rustem_umerov

[The Government of the Faroe Islands 🇫🇴 @Tinganes]

Prime Minister Johannesen: Faroe Islands stand with Ukraine. We will continue to support the Ukrainian people and @ZelenskyyUA.