It is a rare war where the local population and defending army speak the language of the invader so well.  Clearly, shared language facilitated talking through tense stand-offs and other encounters that could have otherwise easily devolved into bloodshed during the invasion of Crimea.  In my first blog post, I identified discourse as a significant feature in Ukrainians’ responses to the invaders.  (Some examples of subsequent encounters made it into my earlier posts here, here, and here.)  In place of the post-Soviet aphasia Sergei Oushakine found 20 years ago, there’s been an explosion of discourse.  That in itself is worth analyzing.  For now, I’m just taking note.  Forget Stratego, Battleship, or other games of traditional tactical maneuver as heuristic; forget tank counts or brigade movements as the only, or even primary, means of understanding and assessing.  This war has consisted of verbal performance to an extent that  invites interaction analysis as a method for apprehending its tactics.  This post shares some of the last military engagements of the invasion.

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