This Week on an Angry Planet, Tanks are Going to Ukraine and Closer Look at the Anti-Putin Underground

The week of January 20, 2023 ended as it began: with people still trying to figure out what is and isn’t a tank.

The first thing you need to see this week is a set of AI generated images that imagine a film called “The Muppets Take Fallujah.”

These felt nightmares are the product of AI generated art made by the TikTok account Portraits of the Past. (You’ll need to use the phone app to see the pictures.) “Muppets Take Fallujah” is a sequel, of sorts, to the series “The Muppets Go to Vietnam.” I’m not a fan of this kind of thing, placing Muppets into combat scenarios goes against their spirit, and poppies are associated with Afghanistan and not Iraq.

Despite all that, I find something deeply compelling about these computer-made horrors.

Ukraine tank debate continues apace

The great semantic debate about what is and is not a tank continued this week but most people moved on to a serious discussion of whether or not the West should send tanks to Ukraine. Britain will. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has already announced the Sceptered Isle would send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine along with APCs and self-propelled Howitzers.

One of the biggest players trying to stop the shipment of tanks to Ukraine is Germany, which manufactures the Leopard 2. Poland has some and would like to send 14 of them to Ukraine, but the peculiarities of the international order would require Warsaw to get permission from Berlin—permission that is not forthcoming. Poland has said it might send the tanks anyway and suffer the consequences.