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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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Now this is getting interesting

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13124393/Ukraines-spy-chief-says-Alexei-Navalny-died-blood-clot.html

Today, however, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence service, suggested his death could be down to natural causes.

He told reporters: 'I may disappoint you, but what we know is that he really died from a blood clot. And this is more or less confirmed. This was not taken from the Internet, but, unfortunately, a natural [death].'

That makes no sense. Why would the Ukrainian chief of intelligence exonerate Putin and also put an egg on the face of all of the western allies that pearl clutched so hard? What are we missing?

I mean there are really two Navalnys. There is the western mass market patron saint of liberal democracy edition Navalny and then there is the real life Navalny. They have virtually nothing in common with each other and they are marketed to entirely different audiences so it doesn't really seem that weird that they should die of different causes as well. I doubt people that are following updates from Budanov are the sort of people that the state seeks to win over or that they will be overly concerned with how real life Navalny died regardless. Budanov probably just doesn't care.