The time capsule relics, buried for 134 years at the base of the statue of General Robert Lee in Virginia, were unveiled on Tuesday, falling short of the expectations of American collectors who were waiting for a photograph of Abraham Lincoln.
Among other things, this box contained ammunition from the American Civil War between 1961 and 1865, banknotes and coins issued by the Confederate government, newspapers, magazines, an 1887 almanac, books, the Bible, and documents from Masonic lodges in the region.
One envelope contained two small wooden carvings, a Masonic compass and square symbols, as well as a Confederate flag.
According to experts, these pieces of wood were carved from a tree that grew near the grave of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, reports AFP.
According to the head of the Virginia Department of Historical Resources, Keith Ridgway, the three-inch square copper box, buried in 1887, was “in much better condition than expected.”
One of the books contained a marker with a painted profile of General Robert Lee, and the box also contained a fragment of a bomb used in the Battle of Fredericksburg, captured by the Southern Confederates in 1862.
The most surprising document remains a drawing of a woman kneeling in front of the coffin of Abraham Lincoln, who was killed on April 14, 1865.
Collectors, however, were expecting the unveiling of a historic photograph of this American president in his coffin.
The photograph, viewed as a “cliché”, was presented as a historical bomb that could break records in the collector’s market.
A time capsule is a container that holds objects or documents representing an era that are to be found and opened by future generations.
The box in question was found under the plinth of an imposing equestrian statue of General Robert Lee, leader of the Confederate Army who defended the preservation of slavery during the American Civil War (1861-1865), opened in 1890 in Richmond, the former capital. the separatist is located in Virginia.
The statue, considered by some in the United States to be a symbol of the country’s slave past, was demolished in September during a series of graffiti on Confederate monuments.
The first box was taken from the base of the statue and then carefully opened, but it contained only three books and a cloth envelope with a photograph, all water-damaged, and a coin of unknown origin.
One of the books was a manual for astronomers and mariners, dated 1875, but the other appears to have been published in 1889, two years after the intended date for placing the capsule, suggesting that another capsule may have been under a pedestal.
General Lee’s statue in Richmond has been the target of anti-racist protests following the death in May 2020 of George Floyd, an African American strangled by a police officer on his knees in Minneapolis, and during the Black Lives Matter protest uprising.
During the Civil War, the Confederation of the South fought to maintain slavery, which was abolished in the rest of the country during the conflict.
Putin has repeatedly consulted with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the invasion, Europa Press told Ukraine’s chief intelligence director Vadim Skibitsky.
According to Skibitsky, it was the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counterintelligence and espionage work, that put pressure on Gerasimov and other military agencies to agree to launch an offensive. .
However, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services, the FSB considered that by the end of February sufficient preparations had already been made to guarantee the success of the Russian Armed Forces in a lightning invasion.
However, according to Kyiv, the Russian General Staff provided the Russian troops with supplies and ammunition for only three days, hoping that the offensive would be swift and immediately successful.
The head of Ukrainian intelligence also emphasized the cooperation of local residents, who always provided the Ukrainian authorities with up-to-date information about the Russian army, such as the number of soldiers or the exact location of troops.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life in prison for spying for Russia, and his brother to at least 12 years in prison. In what is considered one of the most serious cases in Swedish counterintelligence history, much of the trial took place behind closed doors in the name of national security.
According to the prosecution, it was Russian military intelligence, the GRU, who took advantage of the information provided by the two brothers between 2011 and their arrest at the end of 2021.
Peyman Kia, 42, has held many senior positions in the Swedish security apparatus, including the army and his country’s intelligence services (Säpo). His younger brother, Payam, 35, is accused of “participating in the planning” of the plot and of “managing contacts with Russia and the GRU, including passing on information and receiving financial rewards.”
Both men deny the charges, and their lawyers have demanded an acquittal on charges of “aggravated espionage,” according to the Swedish news agency TT.
The trial coincides with another case of alleged Russian espionage, with the arrest of the Russian-born couple in late November in a suburb of Stockholm by a police team arriving at dawn in a Blackhawk helicopter.
Research website Bellingcat identified them as Sergei Skvortsov and Elena Kulkova. The couple allegedly acted as sleeper agents for Moscow, having moved to Sweden in the late 1990s.
According to Swedish press reports, the couple ran companies specializing in the import and export of electronic components and industrial technology.
The man was again detained at the end of November for “illegal intelligence activities.” His partner, suspected of being an accomplice, has been released but remains under investigation.
According to Swedish authorities, the arrests are not related to the trial of the Kia brothers.
“They can strengthen their positions. We understand that this can happen. At the same time, we do not rule out that they will announce a general mobilization,” Danilov said in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda online publication.
Danilov believed that this mobilization would also be convened “to exterminate as many as possible” of Russian citizens, so that “they would no longer have any problems on their territory.”
In this sense, Danilov also reminded that Russia has not given up on securing control over Kyiv or the idea of the complete “destruction” of Ukraine. “We have to be ready for anything,” he said.
“I want everyone to understand that [os russos] they have not given up on the idea of destroying our nation. If they don’t have Kyiv in their hands, they won’t have anything in their hands, we must understand this,” continued Danilov, who also did not rule out that a new Russian offensive would come from “Belarus and other territories.” .
As such, Danilov praised the decision of many of its residents who chose to stay in the Ukrainian capital when the war broke out in order to defend the city.
“They expected that there would be panic, that people would run, that there would be nothing to protect Kyiv,” he added, referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The Russian invasion, justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
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