hogwarts posts

As most/all of you know at this point, last night/early morning Ukraine time, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine after Putin announced that he had decided "to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine.

I am not an expert on this, nor do I claim to be, so I'm not going to be talking about what's actually going on on the ground. But a few things to keep in mind:

Be very careful about the sources you read and trust. Russia is incredibly good at disinformation campaigns. Sources such as Reuters, AP, NY Times, and Washington Post are reliable. Sources such as RT are not. If you want to see what sort of disinformation Russia is putting out on this topic, Bellingcat has a database that's tracking it.

Be careful what you share. If something could be a disinformation campaign, don't share it. If something seems unreliable or out of date, don't share it. If something shares Ukrainian troop movements, don't share it.

This is not something to joke about, or to meme, or to treat callously. These are, and I cannot say this strongly enough, real people who are going to be hurt and killed, not some hypothetical thing that's just happening on CNN.

If you want to help, help in ways that Ukrainians ask for. There are a lot of Ukrainian people on social media talking about useful ways for foreigners to help, so I recommend checking out those. Here are a few:

Jane Lytvynenko's link to resources on how foreigners can help

A thread about what should and shouldn't be done to help Ukraine