A big thank you to the @Poetry_London team and editor @NiallCPoetry for choosing China as a winner of the #PoetryLondonPresents competition.

"Putin is the new Hitler" - Russian historian and dissident Alexander Skobov said his final words in the trial today, and I can't agree more. Full speech: "I was raised in the Soviet Union with the conviction that when a malicious and cruel aggressor attacks peaceful people, one must take up arms and fight. And if you cannot hold a weapon yourself, you must help those who fight and encourage others to do so. All my publicistic activity is a call to fight the aggressor who attacked Ukraine, to support Ukraine with weapons and ammunition. I consider myself a participant in the armed resistance against the aggressor. In the missiles and shells that destroy the invaders, there is a small contribution from me. And I take responsibility for every eliminated occupier. No one attacked Russia, no one threatened it. It is Putin’s Nazi regime that attacked Ukraine, driven solely by the delusions of grandeur of its leaders and their inhuman lust for power over everyone around them. They assert themselves by killing hundreds of thousands of people. They are degenerates, scum, Nazi filth. The guilt of Putin's Nazi dictatorship in preparing, unleashing, and waging an aggressive war is obvious and needs no proof. Likewise, our right to armed resistance against the aggressor on the battlefield and in the aggressor's rear needs no justification. Indeed, it would be laughable to expect such acknowledgment from a regime that imprisons people merely for verbally condemning its aggression. All possibilities for legal protest against Putin's aggression have been eradicated. My calls for armed resistance against the aggressor’s regime are classified under terrorism charges. I will not argue with the aggressor's authorities, even if they decide to classify my actions under charges of pedophilia. The court in Russia has long proven itself to be an appendage of Nazi tyranny, and seeking justice there is meaningless. I will never bow before these people – accomplices of murderers and scoundrels. I have nothing to discuss with them. Let the cannons speak for me. I see no point in arguing with the dictatorship’s puppets about how faithfully they apply their laws. These are, in any case, the laws of a totalitarian state aimed at suppressing dissent. I do not recognize these laws and will not obey them. I also will not appeal against any decisions or actions of the representatives of the Nazi regime. I do not seek mercy from my armed enemy. The Putin dictatorship may kill me, but it cannot force me to abandon my fight against it. Wherever I may be, I will continue to call on honest Russians to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I will continue to advocate for strikes on military targets deep within Russian territory. I will call on the civilized world to inflict a strategic defeat on Nazi Russia. I will argue for the necessity of the military destruction of the regime of the new Hitler. Putin is the new Hitler, intoxicated by impunity, a ghoul drunk on blood. And I will not tire of repeating: “Crush the serpent!” Death to Putin, the murderer, tyrant, and scoundrel! Death to the Russian-fascist invaders! Glory to Ukraine!"

Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic — to protect the America we love from you.

I'm not here to advocate for Starmer or Labour, but this from the @FT counters the nonsense that Musk and Ackman are spreading about a country that they know nothing about. Source here: