Erik Wirdheim

Liberal linguist of Swedish-Czech origin, based in Zürich, working in sales in the energy business. Slavic languages. Current focus: Ukrainian and Polish.

[Erik Wirdheim @Wirdheim]

#Bundesplatz #Bern #StandWithUkraine

[Kraut @The_Davos_Man]

In 1916 Romania sent its gold reserves to Russia, so the Germans wouldn't get them. All of it was stolen.

In 1936 the Spanish republic sent its gold reserves to Russia, so Franco wouldn't get it. All of it was stolen.

Unbelievable a country is dumb enough to do this again.

[Mario @PawlowskiMario]

The Volhynia massacre is one of the most difficult subjects I’ve ever tried to understand🇵🇱🇺🇦

The more I read, the less interested I become in simple answers.

Yes, Ukrainians had real historical grievances against the Polish state.

Yes, the mass murder of Polish civilians was a horrific crime.

Yes, Polish retaliatory killings of Ukrainian civilians were also wrong.

The problem begins when each nation remembers only its own suffering and forgets the suffering it caused the other. That’s exactly how history becomes a prison instead of a lesson.

Today, Poland and Ukraine have a choice. They can spend the next hundred years proving whose grandparents suffered more.

Or they can tell the truth about all of it, honor every innocent victim, condemn every crime, and refuse to let the dead decide the future of the living.

History should unite us in wisdom. Not trap us in endless revenge.

[Marko Mihkelson 🇪🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 @markomihkelson]

It is high time for Germany to stop repeating Stalinist narratives about history. The 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, together with the cooperation that preceded it—especially during the 1920s—and the alliance that followed, played a crucial role in the outbreak of the Second World War.

Understanding these relationships is essential if we are to grasp both the full significance of those events and the nature of the post-1945 “peace” that emerged in Europe.

It is also worth remembering that Russians were far from the greatest victims. From Finland to Moldova and Ukraine, the land is soaked with blood shed as a result of the crimes committed by both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The problem is that while Germany has acknowledged and confronted its historical responsibility, Russia continues with impunity to stain these bloodlands anew through imperial aggression, wars of conquest, and war crimes.

[Anna Vero Wendland @VeroWendland]

Auf dem Weg nach Russland trampelte die deutsche Armee erstmal durch Belarus und die Ukraine, die zu 100% besetzt wurden. Russland zu 3%. „Unser Krieg gegen Russland“ war in großen Teilen *unser Krieg gegen die Ukraine*, @derspiegel.

[Jan Claas Behrends @jcbehrends]

Der Punkt ist:
Die UPA wird in der Ukraine 🇺🇦 nicht anti-polnisch, sondern anti-sowjetisch gelesen.
Das kann man wissen.

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

The German consensus is still thinking of World War II as “our war against Russia.” One in five people in Ukraine and one in four people in Belarus were killed in 1941-1945. The historical debt of Nazi Germany is far greater to the peoples of Belarus and Ukraine.
But somehow a strong current in German political thought holds that Germany must atone by accommodating Russia.

[Oleksii MAKEIEV 🇺🇦 @Makeiev]

Irgendwie hat der Nazi-„Krieg gegen Russland“ dem ukrainischen Volk etwa acht Millionen Menschenleben gekostet.

Zur historischen Verantwortung gehört auch die Verantwortung der Medien, mit irreführenden Schlagzeilen nicht ungewollt russische Propaganda widerzuspiegeln.

[Jürgen Nauditt 🇩🇪🇺🇦 @jurgen_nauditt]

Trump’s favorite blogger, Laura Loomer, has publicly admitted to spreading Russian propaganda for years.

A prominent far-right blogger with direct access to Trump has publicly stated that she was subject to manipulation and engaged in anti-Ukraine activities within the U.S.

Addressing her audience of millions, the blogger admitted she had long viewed things through "rose-colored glasses" because the liberal U.S. media accused Republicans of having ties to the Kremlin. In an effort to defend Donald Trump, conservatives began—unwittingly—to sympathize with the Russian Federation.

"I was against Ukraine for so long and kept repeating those talking points, believing I was saying the right thing. But I didn't realize just how much I was being emotionally manipulated by online propaganda. Wow, we fell for Russian propaganda. And I fell for it, too."

She added that while Russia portrays itself as an Orthodox Christian state, in reality, it kills civilians with missiles, persecutes Christians in Ukraine, and supports neo-Nazis within the U.S. itself.

[Robin Tveit @robin_tveit]

The Norwegian parliament doing the Norwegian World Cup chant! Nothing unites a country quite like football and sports! Wonderful! Go Norway! 🇳🇴

[Handre @Handre]

Two small island economies blew up in 2008. Iceland and Ireland. Their names differ by one letter, and their handling of the crisis differed by everything that matters.

Iceland's three big banks, Kaupthing, Landsbanki, and Glitnir, had grown assets to roughly ten times the country's GDP by 2008. Pure credit-fueled madness. When the music stopped, the Icelandic government did the unthinkable: it let them fail. Bondholders ate the losses. The state refused to socialize private bank debt onto 320,000 citizens who never signed up for it. Capital controls went up, the króna collapsed, and the politicians actually prosecuted bankers. Twenty-six of them went to prison. Sigurður Einarsson and Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, the men who ran Kaupthing, served real sentences.

Ireland took the opposite road. In September 2008, the Irish government issued a blanket guarantee covering the liabilities of its major banks, including Anglo Irish Bank, a property-lending casino that should have been allowed to die in peace. The taxpayer absorbed the bill. By the time the rescue ended, Ireland had poured around 64 billion euros into its banks, roughly 40 percent of GDP. The state took on private gambling debts, then went to the Troika in 2010 hat in hand for an 85 billion euro bailout, and accepted years of austerity to pay for losses it had no business owning.

Both economies recovered. Both eventually grew again. The difference is who paid and who learned. Iceland made creditors and reckless bankers bear the consequences of their own decisions, which is the entire point of capitalism: profit and loss, not profit and bailout. Ireland protected the people who made the bad bets and handed the invoice to schoolteachers and shopkeepers.

You will hear economists call Ireland's GDP rebound a triumph (much of that "growth" is multinational accounting fiction, Leprechaun economics, but that's another lesson). What they skip is the moral architecture. When you guarantee bank liabilities, you abolish the discipline that makes markets work. You tell every banker in the country that downside is optional.

Iceland jailed its bankers. Ireland reimbursed theirs.

[Jan Claas Behrends @jcbehrends]

Macht jetzt der Kreml oder das BSW die Titel beim @derspiegel?
Wie wäre es mal mit Osteuropahistorikern zu reden?
#askingforafriend

[Jan Claas Behrends @jcbehrends]

Selbst die Nazis schrieben 1941 die "Ereignismeldungen UdSSR".
Wo leben wir 2026?
1941 gab es kein Russland.

[Yaroslava @strategywoman]

Every time I see it, I’m in awe.

One of the most important buildings of Ukrainian Art Nouveau.

Poltava Local Lore Museum named after Vasyl Krychevskyi.

[Branislav Slantchev @slantchev]

Maybe you didn’t believe me when I told you that nobody wants to invade Russia for its resources in part because its own government has been selling them off at bargain basement prices. Here’s a deputy of the Russian State Duma:

“What would an external enemy do if it conquered Russia? It would seize resources, plunder industry, raise tariffs, and build itself estates.

But no invasion occurred — the authorities have done this themselves, more effectively than any aggressor.”

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Applebaum: Putin has presented a fake image of Russia to the world. He talks about leading a traditional society

In reality, divorce is very high, abortion is common, very few Russians go to church and less than 5% have ever read a Bible. It's not a traditional culture at all 1/

[Kyle Glen @KyleJGlen]

Back in 2022, Russian propagandist Soloviev and his cronies were mocking Ukrainian air raid sirens. For some reason, I don't think they're laughing today.

[Stefan Thumann @StefanThumann]

Ich erinnere an den 17.06.1953.
Das 🇩🇪 deutsche Volk in den östlichen Ländern hat sich gegen die russische Besatzung gewehrt.
Sie wurden brutal von den Russen ermordet.
Anschließend wurde die DDR-Regierung endgültig eine willfährige Marionetten der Russen.

#Volksaufstand

[Alex גדעון בן װעלװל @JewishWonk]

Russia claims it's the true heir of Kyiv Rus and Orthodoxy to justify its genocidal war in Ukraine.

Then it bombed the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, which was founded in 1051, older than any Russian state.

Would you do this to a place you believed was the cradle of your civilization?

[Mark Carney @MarkJCarney]

Canada is the first non-European nation to join SAFE — the EU’s joint defence readiness initiative — and we’re already seeing results.

Because we joined, Montréal-based Marconi Technologies will build made-in-Canada tactical radios for the Polish Cyber Command. This contract is worth more than $10 million and will benefit nearly 100 Canadian suppliers, their workers, and their families.

[Nico Lange @nicolange_]

Heute wird ein deutsch-polnisches Verteidigungsabkommen unterzeichnet - das ist gut. Es ist unverständlich, dass Deutschland und Polen, die die gleiche Bedrohungslage teilen und in Europa am meisten in Verteidigung investieren, bisher zu wenig zusammenarbeiten. 1/