Today I've received a lot of news from my boyfriend, Lucius, who's been in this desperate situation being stuck in a country currently despised by the world and himself. While its been my personal preference to keep my art page clean of any political themed shit, In this circumstance I feel it may be important to outline a couple particular event he's reported to me:

For one, he's told me that Russia may soon be implementing Martial Law. This could very well mean that the internet for the whole country may be shut down, in which case, I will most likely lose contact with him indefinitely. On top of this, he's told me that mass conscriptions into military service is possible. He, being military age, very well may be a target for conscription; to be honest, this frightens me. The implications that have followed a lot of these stories of forced service is atrocious, as protestors of the war have been rumored to be imprisoned or placed into forced service. I fear the worst if our sources of communication are severed.

Additionally, it felt appropriate to report on this topic: According to the information he's provided me, as well as a video he said is being live-streamed on Russian media, Russian troops have been shelling Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant; On my end, I haven't of yet seen any updated articles describing more than the troops surrounding the plant, however the earliest report of which was only written this morning. But like I said, he did send me a clip of the feed and in it, the report corroborates that reactor one has caught fire and firemen have not been able to get to the fire due to the shelling. I think this a particularly dangerous scenario... and its absolutely worth addressing, regardless of who's side this information comes from.

Lastly, this mostly regards the restrictions on the flow of information coming from all sides of the war. I don't understand how we as the western world of liberalism (in the classic sense of the word) can possibly find it acceptable to restrict the flow of information that is even outside our own preferences. Minding that with every war, there will always be propaganda campaigns of every distinction and every perspective; when the realm of free-thought is barraged with two equal, yet opposite, forms of propagandist information, the thinker can often find it easier to assume a mantel of deductive reasoning to find the truth in reality. however, when one side of this realm is blocked from the other side, the thinker is much easier to form a disillusion of singular perspective. In essence, by censoring one side or the other, a polarization is created and within that polarization comes radicalization. I detest this. I deeply detest this. WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT.

We see Putin's regime assume control of their media and enforce a law that determines that "military misinformation" which is as simple as perhaps, "Ukraine destroyed the russian tank column" can result in a fifteen year sentence in prison.. then what do we westerners do? Google, Youtube, facebook, etc. all decide to start banning russian media. I've heard a certain university removed an author from their Library because his NAME was something Russian... for god's sake, this is egregious. Its not anything like a fifteen year sentence just yet, but at this pace its inevitable! We've been doing this shit already for two damn years... are we going to learn yet?? *Glory to Oceania*

listen... not everyone will have the right information, not everyone will ever get the right information, but I know damn well that I wouldn't trust anyone who has to silence their opposition in order to make people trust them. And the fact that this is being deliberately done on both sides of this conflict is what sickens me. Putin is the biggest scum, but the rest of the world leaders are all scum too. No one will change my opinion about that.