KA SEMENOVA
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kasemenova.bsky.social
KA SEMENOVA
@kasemenova.bsky.social
Writer, editor, lapsed Russianist

That guy up there on the left is Vladimir, in Titicut Follies. He was my uncle. I’m writing abt him on Substack.

https://substack.com/@kasemenova?utm_source=byline
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
do you have any idea how much you have to piss somebody off to make them change their gauge
#Finland will begin to #Russia - proof its rail network, integrate with EU train infrastructure.

The Finnish government has announced the conversion of its rail network from Russian gauge (1,524 mm) to European standard (1,435 mm).

www.trenvista.net/en/news/flas...
November 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
The 28-point wishlist from the kremlin is sucking oxygen out of every newsroom.

Meanwhile, we have 11 years of evidence that russia doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, it wants #Ukraine in pieces

Hot off the press nypost.com/2025/11/22/o...
The Ukraine ‘peace plan’ distracts from the real issue: why Russia’s desperate to keep fighting
Say what you will about President Trump’s methods, but his wish to end Russia’s war is genuine. The problem is Moscow doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, it wants Ukraine in pieces. A panicking Vladimir…
nypost.com
November 23, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
This is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Trump Has a Recipe for War and Corruption, Not Peace
Who would benefit from the White House’s 28-point proposal for Ukraine?
www.theatlantic.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Roman was 5 when he legally immigrated here, after his father died at Chernobyl.

He now has 2 young daughters, a wife, & runs a small business in Dallas. He is due to be deported today, for a crime committed 20 years ago & for which he served his sentence.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/16/u...
Former Soviet Union refugee in the US has been detained and is facing deportation to Ukraine | CNN
Roman Surovtsev was prompt in picking up his two daughters from school every afternoon.
www.cnn.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Good round up here on the D primary for MI Senate seat.

open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
This State Will Determine If Dems Win the Senate—and Give an MRI of Their Soul
A three-way contest for the nomination in Michigan is a microcosm of the debate over the party’s future.
open.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Ukrainian medics are reporting cases of gas gangrene, a condition once closely associated with the trenches of the First World War and long thought to have been all but eradicated in Europe.
November 11, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Early Career Rescue Fellowship
www.uni-konstanz.de
November 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM
I thought I knew everything it was possible to know abt this song: I've been singing it since childhood (grew up in Ohio) & I've watched a documentary or two etc, & then I watched the Charismatic Voice ep on it. And wow, I developed my a new appreciation of Lightfoot's technique too.
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 16d
Twenty-nine sailors drowned when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in the Great Lakes' icy waters on Nov. 10, 1975. The ship was immortalized in a surprise hit 1976 folk ballad by Gordon Lightfoot.
50 years ago, the Edmund Fitzgerald, a 'rock star' ship, sank in Lake Superior
Twenty-nine sailors drowned when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in the Great Lakes' icy waters on Nov. 10, 1975. The ship was immortalized in a surprise hit 1976 folk ballad by Gordon Lightfoot.
n.pr
November 10, 2025 at 10:41 PM
The Reddit foodstamp sub has a lot posts about this. Ppl had pending deposits disappear; others went to the store with a credit balance, only to find their ebt cards didn’t work.

The Trump admin is actively terrorizing hungry ppl.
This is an absolutely insane administrative process. Within the space of a week, states were told by judges/White House
*no SNAP benefits
*half benefits
*full benefits
*pause provision of benefits.
Result is chaos, uncertainty, and uneven access to benefits depending on where people live.
NEW: The Trump admin told states it must immediately "undo" the work to provide full food stamp benefits, or face penalties. The feds sent this in a late-night memo, only adding to the chaos and confusion around SNAP. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/b...
November 9, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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November 8, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
I made another video.
Doing some math with the White House.
November 6, 2025 at 7:30 PM
I am going through early 20thC Volhynia (Ukraine) vital records (church books) rn. The first time I hit the death records, it was a shock.

I expected a bunch of old ppl. Nope, majority are babies, whose birth records I'd seen the day before. Some of their moms. And toddlers, so many toddlers.
November 6, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Beshear: Let me be clear. The president has both the funding and the authority to fund snap during a shutdown. In fact, every other president in every other shutdown has done so. People going hungry in this instance is a choice that this president has made.
November 5, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Brand new data:

Republicans blamed for the shutdown (+12) and for health care premiums going up (+28!!).

These are stunning numbers. Republicans aren't immune from the pressure this creates.

Time to press our advantage. Stand for what we believe in.
November 5, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Remembering the Iraq war: How Knight Ridder dug up the truth about Dick Cheney's falsehoods. Now Cheney and McClatchy's DC bureau, the successor to Knight Ridder, have died the same week. New at Media Nation. dankennedy.net/2025/11/05/r...
Remembering the Iraq war: How Knight Ridder dug up the truth about Dick Cheney’s falsehoods
It was sadly ironic that the death of McClatchy’s Washington bureau was announced on the same day as that of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Because it was McClatchy — then known as Knight…
dankennedy.net
November 5, 2025 at 1:48 PM
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Hey folks, an update on the battle to bring down prices!
October 31, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
All I want is to live in a country where this story isn’t the 80th most alarming news story of the day
October 28, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
🚨BIG changes happening -- ICE leadership is being purged tonight. The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Gregory Bovino's "Midway Blitz" style.

Think things are bad now? It'll get worse.
October 28, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Ofelia Torres has spent almost every day of the past month at Lurie Children’s Hospital, where the 16-year-old Lake View High School student is fighting cancer. And now her father has just been arrested by ICE.
ICE arrests Chicago man whose teenage daughter is fighting cancer: ‘He belongs with her’
Ofelia Torres has spent almost every day of the past month at Lurie Children’s Hospital, where the 16-year-old Lake View High School student is fighting cancer.
trib.al
October 21, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Washington Post editorial board, 2 days ago: "The idea that Trump is easily swayed by Putin, let alone manipulated or controlled by him, does not hold water."
Shouting match. Cursing.

And this ⤵️

Trump "adopted many of Putin’s talking points verbatim, even when they contradicted his own statements about Russia’s weaknesses..

"Trump told Zelenskyy that Putin had told him the conflict was a 'special operation, not even a war.'”

www.ft.com/content/7960...
October 19, 2025 at 6:12 PM
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I do not understand why the leader of the largest country on Earth needs a few more kilometers. This war is not about land, but about our independence, Zelensky said about Putin.
October 19, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
Dutch intelligence suspends sharing arrangements with the US after concluding that high level intel was routinely being shared by the White House with their friends in the Kremlin. www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/n...
Nederlandse diensten delen minder informatie met de VS: ‘Soms vertellen we dingen niet meer’
Het aantal dreigingen dat op Nederland afkomt is groot, zien de hoofden van de AIVD en de MIVD elke dag: niet alleen Russische agressie, maar ook de opmars van China als digitale macht en binnenlands ...
www.volkskrant.nl
October 19, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Reposted by KA SEMENOVA
If this regime ever falls, the pardons will have to rain down like tweets.

archive.ph/bha9z
October 19, 2025 at 11:59 AM