- Saddle Mountain, a remote and rocky ridge located in central Washington. These hills rise to 2700 feet and offer stunning views of the desert landscape and the Columbia River below. But that’s not all – the fossilized wood on these rugged hills contains a record of the area’s geological history. Petrified or opalized wood is the official gemstone of Washington, and Saddle Mountain is a treasure trove for rock enthusiasts who love agatized wood.
- ‘Putin’s Militant Buryats’ and the Ukraine War: Myths and Facts (blogs.lse.ac.uk)
Buryatia is a sparsely populated region in the Far East of Russia, sharing its southern border with Mongolia. Normally away from the spotlight, Buryatia received vast media attention in the wake of the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when military units based in Buryatia played a significant role in the assault on Ukraine’s Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia regions; they accounted for a notable portion of Russia’s war death toll. Moreover, immediately after the de-occupation of the Kyiv region in April 2022, the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians in the city of Bucha was blamed on troops from Buryatia, attracting even more negative attention to the region and its Indigenous population. The ‘Putin’s militant Buryats’ meme, dating back to the 2015 Donbas war, took on a new, even more sinister meaning.