iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

I am not mad at you personally, Katherine, I just think Americans in general do not understand that this is existential for us. Please try to keep that in mind, it isn't a thought exercise.

Indigenous leaders say Trump's threats to make Canada a 51st state challenges inherent sovereignity

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Russia arrested two 16 year olds from occupied Melitopol on false charges. Danylo Dakhov and Pavlo Hrymak were both killed in captivity, likely tortured to death.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Russia would have you believe that their alliances are built on the basis of anti-Western, anti-colonial sentiment while obscuring Russia's own deep history of colonialism that impacted these very same countries.

The nature of Russia’s “deep-rooted friendship” today with Iran, China and North Korea — countries that form the loose alliance recently labeled the “axis of upheaval” — hearkens back to a time when Russia sought to dominate and exploit them, either jointly or in competition with other colonial empires. This underscores that today’s “anti-imperialist” alliances are not always forged along lines of shared colonial traumas. Histories of European intervention and domination can be selectively invoked as political arguments or conveniently silenced when advantageous, or even contorted into an anti-colonial frame.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Russia positioned itself as a benefactor and protector of Iran's sovereignty, while intending all along to subordinate them and exploit their resources.

As in other semicolonial contexts, Russia publicly portrayed itself as a disinterested power committed to protecting Iran’s sovereignty. But this rhetoric concealed far less altruistic objectives. In a directive issued to a Russian envoy in Tehran in 1904, Foreign Minister Lamsdorf outlined these aims explicitly: “to gradually subordinate Persia to our dominant influence without, however, violating either the external signs of its independence or its internal structure.” “In other words,” he wrote, “our task is to politically make Persia an obedient and useful — meaning sufficiently strong — weapon in our hands, and economically, to secure the vast Persian market for the free application of Russian labor and capital.”

The tsarist occupation of its “sphere of influence” in Persia transformed it into Russia’s most prized colonial domain, a protectorate in everything but name. Concessionaries enjoyed virtually unrestricted access to Iran’s natural riches, while Russian manufactured goods, such as sugar and textiles, flooded the local markets. Russian consuls amassed such significant power that they were frequently referred to as de facto governors, and a settler-colonial movement saw thousands of “pioneers” from the tsarist heartland establish Russian settlements throughout Khorasan. It was not without reason that, in 1915, the Russian minister in Tehran, Ivan Korostovets, proposed establishing “the direct dependence of Persia’s northern provinces on the Caucasus viceroy and the Turkestan governor-general.”

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Russia considered Iran through a colonial lens too– as part of the "Great Game" where they intended to counter the aims of the British by forbidding the construction of railroads (despite Tehran's objections) and gain the country as a colony of their own, keeping them subservient.

Starting from the 1880s, Persia — as Iran was officially known in the West — became the target of the same novel and sophisticated form of tsarist colonialism that Russia applied in East Asia. But Russia’s efforts at “peaceful conquest” were built upon many decades of asymmetrical relations between the two countries. Both Russian and international leaders and observers viewed Iran as part of a larger “Great Game” geopolitical chessboard on which the empires of St. Petersburg and London vied for dominance over the Asian theater. In Persia, more than anywhere else, Britain and Russia were fixated on countering each other’s advances. For Russia, this often meant not so much seeking favorable conditions for itself, but creating obstacles for its erstwhile rival.

The apogee of this policy came in 1890, when, in an effort to safeguard its interests in Iran from foreign competition, Russia imposed an agreement on the Iranian government forbidding the construction of any railroads. By enforcing the agreement, dubbed “sterilizing” and a “monopoly of roadlessness,” the tsarist government willingly underdeveloped Persia, even if in practice this policy limited Russia’s own ability to expand its trade networks within the country. In response, Shah Naser al-Din of Iran complained: “Why should we not build roads and open factories so that we do not have to rely on foreign goods? If we started building roads, hunger and high prices would not keep recurring every two or three years in Tehran and other cities, and many would be saved. … No state is in the same position as Persia has found itself.”

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Russia's alliance with North Korea can be seen as a relic of the Cold War, but this diminishes the colonial history and intended domination of Korea that happened more than a century ago, when Russia was eyeing their warm water ports and resources.

Lt. Col. Vladimir Alftan, who travelled to Korea from late 1895 to early 1896, went even further, devising a plan for its outright subjugation. In his view, this would be made easier by the Koreans’ ostensible desire to be under Russia’s control. Alftan argued that the full annexation of Korea by Russia, its “fate-decider,” was the most effective way to secure the country’s markets, ice-free ports and strategic locations.

But if Russia was not prepared to go to war with Japan, both empires should “amicably divide Korea into two parts,” with Russia obtaining Pyongyang, Chemulpo and Seoul — “an important political center, which, being in our hands, will make it easier for us to rule the Korean people,” as Alftan put it. In making northern Korea a “protectorate,” he insisted, Russia should discard any “philanthropic feelings” and be guided exclusively by “state interests,” which would ground its policy “on a more solid basis than the fleeting sentiments of dubious gratitude from the entire Korean nation.”

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Russia participated in the "scramble for Asia" as a colonial power like any other, though now according to Putin, “We have never been colonizers anywhere.”

Although the 1902 agreement promised a phased withdrawal of its troops, Russia failed to uphold its commitment. Every senior official found his own advantage in the occupation of Manchuria without formal annexation. For Witte, it was a colonial quest for markets and resources. For War Minister Aleksey Kuropatkin, as he confessed on one occasion, keeping Asians beyond the empire’s borders meant retaining “the purity of our race.” The Foreign Ministry, in turn, justified the invasion on the grounds of security concerns, framing it as a defensive measure to preempt a supposed Chinese threat. The occupation of Manchuria had become a self-serving project, cloaked in the language of protection and security but driven by imperial voracity.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

In the 19th century, the Russian Empire's acquisition of Outer Manchuria from China echoes the logic of their invasion of Ukraine

Russia’s sole concern, according to Muraviev, was “securing its borders.” And yet, security concerns warranted forward expansion. As he wrote on another occasion, “The neighboring populous China, currently powerless due to its ignorance, could easily become dangerous to us under the influence and guidance of the English and the French.” Within just a few years, China was compelled to sign two unequal treaties, in 1858 and 1860, ceding vast territories — the size of France and Germany combined — that would come to be known as the Russian Far East.

Yet the supposed friendship Ukhtomskii preached was laced with unsettling undertones. He argued that Russia’s benevolence granted it a moral right to expand, insisting that this was precisely what the peoples of Asia supposedly desired most. He ominously claimed, “In Asia, for us, there are essentially no bounds and cannot be any, except for the boundless blue sea, as untamed as the spirit of the Russian people, freely lapping at its shores.” Ukhtomskii admitted that many would object to this idea, arguing that Russia already had “plenty of land” and had “spread and expanded to monstrous proportions,” but he dismissed critics of Russian expansion as shortsighted. In his view, they failed to recognize the true danger: The Asian peoples, “awakened” by Western European powers, would ultimately present a far greater threat to Russia than the West itself.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

This was the funniest comment to me. Imagine thinking Russia wasn't already at war with Europe. The arson attacks, nuclear threats, spies and assassinations were just friendly acts of diplomacy. Better give Putin a couple billion dollars back so he can kill more Ukrainians.

Text reads: Frozen Russian assets are not "Putin's little piggy bank that you can just break with a hammer and then take the money out and spend it on whatever you want."
The Belgian PM didn't mince his words when it comes to frozen Russian assets and the risks involved in confiscating the cash to support Ukraine. He added that it could be an "act of war.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

These funds are only frozen as long as the sanctions are in place. Europe needs to act in this moment.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

1) Trump called Trudeau, not the other way around 2) Trump asked for tariffs relief, not the other way around 2) There is no Canadian election happening, the Liberal Party is electing a new leader who will become Prime Minister

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

If the Trump admin does have any coherent foreign policy it's this. The plan is to chip off bits of Europe to feed to Russia while replacing all beneficial trade partners with Russia. Russia gets what they want, while never intending to lift a finger against China

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

So Joe Rogan the other day very clearly said "fuck you people" re: Ukrainians and then after being addressed by Klitschko, Kuleba and a couple hundred thousand people on twitter he is now claiming this was directed to the Biden administration and "absolutely not" at the Ukrainians

Screencap of Joe Rogan speaking on his podcast, JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE lit up behind him. Subtitles read "Which I absolutely was not saying"

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

In Hlukhiv in Sumy region, Russia murdered another family. Tetiana, and her sons Nikita (7 years old) and Vasyl (20)

3 black and white photos, a young boy, a woman in her 40s, a young man

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Bittersweet, this should never have been restricted. This will save Ukrainian lives.

Image text: Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S.
Missiles
With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

The funeral was held for the family of Maksym Kulyk who were all killed in a Russian bombing this week. In this attack Maksym Kulyk lost his wife Olena, 32, and children Kyrylo, 10, Demyd, 2, Ulyana, 2 months old.

A funeral with four coffins, photos of a mother and her 3 children. Flowers and toys surround the coffins.

A family photo projected onto a screen, featuring a Ukrainian family; a wife, two sons and a husband holding a baby daughter.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

In Kryvyi Rih, Russian bombing killed a young mother and her three children, the youngest was a 2 month old baby.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

There is yet another video circulating where Russian soldiers kill wounded Ukrainian POWs. Russians film and share the videos themselves because they do not fear repercussions for the war crimes they commit constantly.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

Apparently Pompeo has a good idea (??) and so of course these guys want to make sure it can't happen

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

One-year-old Adam, his mother and his great-grandmother were killed by a Russian glide bomb in Zaporizhzhia, yesterday. All that remains is a photograph, found in the rubble of their destroyed house.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

4 killed, 18 injured after Russia targeted residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia today

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 02/11/2024

Russian bombing on October 30 killed two more children in their homes while they slept. Borys, 15, and Mark, 11.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

Russia bombed Derzhprom in Kharkiv last night, a UNESCO heritage site in the main square. It was the first modern skyscraper in the USSR.

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 27/10/2024

The young girl who died in a Russian drone strike on a Kyiv apartment building was identified as 14-year-old Mariia Troyanivska, a 9th-grade student

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Personally I find it very unlikely that a country that had recently seen mass protests against the ruling party would turn around and give that party 53% of the vote but it seems like Georgian Dream does not care about optics

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

So apparently if you're a member of the House of Lords you're allowed to just get up on The New Statesman and lie

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Ліна 🌻🇺🇦🍁 @castleton.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

President of the UN is now shaking hands with war criminal Putin, just so we're all up to date here

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