Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 #6

[CSIDreamer]

As this war rages on, how much longer can people continue to ignore it?

I don’t really think anyone is ignoring it. It's a tightrope act. JMO

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Russia concentrates military power for Kyiv assault (kyivindependent.com)
[...]

New indications suggest Russia is getting ready to relaunch a massive offensive in the region, the war’s main goal.

Despite a very complicated situation with many of its main axes of attack throughout Ukraine, Russia keeps throwing more military power west and east of Kyiv, in a bid to possibly surround and penetrate the city.

[...]

“Russia is likely seeking to reset and re-posture its forces for renewed offensive activity in the coming days,” as the British Defense Ministry said in its March 11 intelligence update.

“This will probably include operations against the capital, Kyiv.”

As the expert community believes, Kyiv should brace itself for a hard defense within short notice, potentially for Russian attempts to impose a full blockade and trigger a humanitarian disaster to force the Ukrainian leadership into a deal.

[...]

On March 8, the Institute For the Study of War (ISW), a Washington D.C.-based think tank, said Russian forces were concentrating on a possible assault against the capital in the coming 24 to 96 hours.

Nonetheless, amid extremely slow progress due to logistical issues and a strong Ukrainian defense, Russia has probably decided to take a breathing spell in operations and agreed on civilian evacuation from Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, and Borodyanka, the cities that have been largely ruined.

As the Ukrainian military suggests, Russian forces in many ways used this lull to try and re-array west of Kyiv and possibly get its logistics issues resolved for an effective onslaught.

[...]

And the problem for Russia is that it has so far failed to seize or effectively block two key cities on its way to Kyiv, namely Chernihiv and Sumy, both of which continue offering fierce resistance since day one of the invasion and inflicting severe enemy casualties.

Without the stiff control of either of the two cities, along with ensuring safe communications along the highways, gaining ground east of Kyiv is also extremely problematic.

[...]

“The Kyiv axis is among their top priorities,” says Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an online investigation group checking Russia’s military activity.

“As we believe, Russians may acknowledge the fact that at some point they will have to seek talks and offer a deal. So they need the strongest leverage they can get for the talks, which is the siege of Kyiv and a humanitarian disaster in the city.”

According to the group’s estimates, Russia may be trying to concentrate a total of nearly 21-22 battalion tactical groups against Kyiv, including nearly 15 coming from the northwest.

[...]

It is much more likely that Russians will try and establish a blockade amid relentless shelling and airstrikes. Such tactics of forcing cities into surrendering via total terror have so far barely worked against Mariupol, Sumy, and especially Kharkiv, which carry on with their fierce resistance despite massive destruction and loss of life.

Kyiv, being a very large and well-fortified city, is an incomparably more difficult target for a Russian blockade, let alone an all-out assault, as experts believe.

“Assaulting Kyiv in this situation would a stupid thing to do,” says Zagorodnyuk.

“But we have already seen them doing stupid things — so we should not rule this out.”

 

[CSIDreamer]

I feel the most important thing right now, is to let go of the “would’ve”, “should’ve” and “could’ve” mindset. The reality is we are were we are, and no amount of blaming or creating cracks within the US or the United Nations will take us back in time to change where we are today. I am most concerned about attempts to use historical Political decisions to destroy the unity we have been standing on the last couple weeks. To crack any unity would play in Putins favor. I believe our energy should instead stay focused on what we can do in the here and now. Later, we can take lessons learned from the past. IMO, this includes an intentional ongoing focus on economic sanctions and giving them time to take course.

It may be happening and just not making headlines, but it would be great to see a more intentional strategic focus on humanitarian relief and aide. A solid role in saving lives rather than taking lives. This includes getting in food and medical care supplies in the same way we are getting in weapons. Headlines of Humanitarian efforts would carry us much further with a potential out of touch Russian audience than headlines of sending in weaponry. Both are important at this time, but to the mother of a Russian solider that believes in Putin, the weaponry headlines are going to trigger the emotional reaction Putin needs to maintain his narrative of events.

I also feel we should stand strong and keep showing we will increase our forces on the Nato flank. I feel Putin is attempting to trigger us in some ways. He needs to lose this War on his own without the ability to point the finger back at NATO and the US as much as possible. I also feel we need to stop promoting our own fear for Putins reaction to our decisions.

*All Personal Opinion*

I agree completely.

 

[CSIDreamer]

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502667153388064773?t=Rv9voLggpwcSUr3AYRZT3w&s=19

Evacuation has begun in #Sumy. Also evacuations will be carried out today in populated centers of the #Kyiv region, such as #Vorzel, #Gostomel, #Bucha, #Borodyanka, etc. https://t.co/obWrhELDug

Video at link. Posted about 90 minutes ago.

 

[dotr]

Snippets of lengthy article. rbbm
By Stephen McGrath, Associated Press
March 12, 2022 11:18AM
Human trafficking risks high for Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian invasion; rape reported near Poland's refugee camps - ABC7 San Francisco (abc7news.com)
''SIRET, Romania -- One man was detained in Poland suspected of raping a 19-year-old refugee he'd lured with offers of shelter after she fled war-torn Ukraine. Another was overheard promising work and a room to a 16-year-old girl before authorities intervened.

Another case inside a refugee camp at Poland's Medyka border, raised suspicions when a man was offering help only to women and children. When questioned by police, he changed his story.''.

"You have to worry about any potential risks for trafficking - but also exploitation, and sexual exploitation and abuse. These are the kinds of situations that people like traffickers ... look to take advantage of," she said.''

''Police in Berlin warned women and children in a post on social media in Ukrainian and Russian against accepting offers of overnight stays, and urged them to report anything suspicious.''

"When you've suddenly got a huge cohort of really vulnerable people who need money and assistance immediately," she said, "it's sort of a breeding ground for exploitative situations and sexual exploitation. When I saw all these volunteers offering their houses ... that flagged a worry in my head."

''Security officials in Romania and Poland told The Associated Press that plain-clothed intelligence officers were on the lookout for criminal elements. In the Romanian border town of Siret, authorities said men offering free rides to women have been sent away.''


"This morning we found three men who were trying to get a bunch of women into a van," said one of the former legionnaires, a South African who gave only his first name, Mornay. "I can't 100% say they were trying to recruit them for sex trafficking, but when we started talking to them and approached them - they got nervous and just left immediately."

 

[PommyMommy]

NEXTA on Twitter - 5 hrs ago
Saboteurs who were planning to blow up military and civilian facilities in #Kharkiv were detained. Weapons and explosives was found.

NEXTA on Twitter - 4 hrs ago
The Ministry of Energy of #Azerbaijan has stated that the country has enough gas reserves for supplies to #Europe and if necessary, can increase gas supplies to neighboring countries.

NEXTA on Twitter - 3 hrs ago
A private jet was detained at #London Luton Airport. It is being investigated for possible links with #Russia.

NEXTA on Twitter - 2 hrs ago
The occupiers are destroying the town of #Makarov in the #Kyiv region

 

[PommyMommy]

NEXTA on Twitter - 3 hrs ago
20 buses from #Bucha arrived in #Belogorodka. People are given first aid and food is distributed.

NEXTA on Twitter
#Ukrainian Defense Ministry reports that the #Russian military has been given carte blanche for looting.

Trey Yingst on Twitter - 3 hrs ago
Moscow will treat western arms shipments to Ukraine as legitimate military targets, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov

NEXTA on Twitter - 2 hrs ago
Andrei Panov, the deputy head of Aeroflot, resigned from the company and left #Russia In his Facebook, he wrote the following: "Left Russia. Left Aeroflot. The old life is over."

NEXTA on Twitter - 1 hr ago
Zelenskyy said that the kidnapped mayor of #Melitopol is alive. The occupiers are torturing him.

 

[sunshineray]

They did try ahead of time. Biden cut the request recommended by the National Security Council. We were to ship 100million in equipment in July 2021, when Russian troops lined the border. I'm sure Putin was aware as it made headlines.

White House freezes Ukraine military package that includes lethal weapons

The Biden White House has temporarily halted a military aid package to Ukraine that would include lethal weapons, a plan originally made in response to aggressive Russian troop movements along Ukraine’s border this spring.

The aid package would be worth up to $100 million, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.
...
The latest proposal came about after Russia staged more than 100,000 troops, along with rocket battalions and heavy armor units, near Ukraine’s border this spring, according to estimates. In late April, Russia’s defense ministry announced that it would begin withdrawing some of the troops.

Past discussions over lethal military aid to Ukraine have been politically fraught, given concern over provoking Russia, issues with training the Ukrainian forces themselves and ongoing uneasiness over corruption in the Ukrainian government and military.

But despite Russia’s announcement, a top Ukrainian official said in May that about 100,000 Russian troops were still near its border and in Crimea, Al Jazeera reported. That same month, Biden officials told The New York Times that the number was closer to 80,000.


....


Since Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, the United States has provided some $2.5 billion in military aid to Kyiv, including unarmed drones, radios and Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Well that was a huge misjudgment, especially after Putin's Crimea campaign had shown just what he was willing to do, IMO. And what about the EU? Did they also decide it wasn't the right time, in 2021?

 

[PommyMommy]

Ukraine refugees in Berlin: Tegel takes in the first 500 refugees – warming trains at the main train station - Berlin - Tagesspiegel


Once an airport, then a vaccination centre, now an emergency shelter: the former Berlin-Tegel Airport. PHOTO: IMAGO/STEFAN ZEITZ

2600 Ukrainian war refugees alone spent the night from Friday to Saturday at the main train station. They had been accommodated there in warming trains and in the two tents ...

"For safety reasons, we have to rectify the situation of the many arrivals there. That's why the processes are changed so that there is something to eat on the hand, and then it goes on as quickly as possible to the accommodations," said Kipping. The state has commissioned Messe Berlin's catering company to pack 10,000 packed lunches a day and provide soup.

Refugees have been staying in the exhibition halls since Thursday night. 900 to 1000 beds are set up there for short-term accommodation. On Saturday, a third and fourth hall will also go into operation. They are intended for refugees who arrive late in the evening or at night.

For the first time, according to Kipping, 500 war refugees are to spend the night from Saturday to Sunday at the former Tegel Airport. The capacity of the emergency shelter there is 3000 places. In addition to the arrival centre in Reinickendorf, up to 10,000 refugees from Ukraine are to be registered in Tegel and distributed to other federal states. However, the planned opening of this second arrival centre on Sunday or Monday will be delayed.

[...]

NEXTA on Twitter - 3 min ago, Video
Two #Russian helicopters were shot down in the #Kherson region. One pilot survived and was taken to hospital.

 

[CSIDreamer]

There's a "browser check" at this link. It's normal.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/03...tin-for-that-reason-russian-sociologist-says/

Polls consistently and, the sociologist says, generally accurately, demonstrate this pattern as well as the widespread belief that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is defending itself against a Western attack. Because of this, Russian support for Putin, his government and even his United Russia party has risen since the start of hostilities.


The main dividing line between those who support the war and those who don’t involve television viewing.



Those who watch four hours or more a day back the war; but they do so, Matskevich says, less because of what television tells them than because they self-select themselves to view it rather than the internet.


The sociologist adds that she does not think that the reduction in the standard of living will affect those who support Putin.

ETA Anyone else seeing a rise in the old USSR flag lately? I follow WS approved and not approved sources and I've started seeing it.

 

[dotr]

Putin propagandist news host has British home and citizenship | Russia | The Guardian

Brilev, right, interviewing Vladimir Putin in 2020. Photograph: Russian Look/A

''One of Russia’s most popular television news presenters, who has been accused of being a propagandist for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has British citizenship and a family flat in west London.

Sergei Brilev has been reporting on the war in Ukraine on the state-controlled Rossiya 1, which tightly follows the Kremlin’s messaging. The channel describes the war as a “special military operation” launched to protect Ukrainian citizens from “abuse and genocide”.

British government ministers are coming under pressure to impose sanctions on Brilev. The Labour MP Stephen Kinnock asked in parliament for the Home Office to “take steps to strip [him] of his British citizenship, ban him from the UK and freeze his UK assets”. The Home Office said last week it would not comment on individual cases.''

 

[PommyMommy]

WARNING: Graphic images

War Stories: Evacuees risk their lives as they flee to Kyiv (kyivindependent.com)

While Ukrainian forces have, so far, successfully held off the Russian troops from taking Kyiv, the towns around the capital have become some of the most intense battlegrounds of the ongoing war.

Russia seized the outlying suburban towns with vehicles and infantry, setting up checkpoints and, in many cases, cutting off access to utilities, phone and internet access, and food.

The local civilians bore the brunt of the damage. Many remained trapped, in most cases for over a week, either because Russian forces wouldn’t let them leave or they were afraid of being cut down by Russian fire if they tried to flee to the safety of Kyiv.

[...]

The Kyiv Independent has gathered stories from people who fled the various towns and villages towards the safety of Kyiv.

[...]

Demydiv

“We saw a lot of tanks coming from Belarus,” she told the Kyiv Independent by phone after successfully escaping into Kyiv with her husband and dog. “Then battles began in our village. The center was destroyed, houses were demolished. We didn’t have a phone connection, food or water all this time.”

[...]

When they got to the river, they saw it wasn’t going to be easy. Ukrainian forces had blown a nearby dam and pumping station connecting the river to the reservoir, causing the water level to rise. To cross, the evacuees, including children and the elderly, would have to plunge into waist-high water, while the temperature outside was three degrees below freezing, or 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

[...]

“And then they started to shoot at us from the helicopters,” she told the Kyiv Independent, beginning to cry. “At the children, at us, right where we were crossing… I saw the ‘splash splash splash’ of bullets on the water.”

“My neighbor went underwater and her child on the styrofoam was screaming. She came out again and they survived,” Bilan recalled through her tears. “One paralyzed old woman was being helped by the guys. One guy is a hero, he went a dozen times into the water and pulled us out. After that, his legs were all purple from the cold.”

[...]

Bucha

[...]

Airstrikes had ripped through the town, demolishing and igniting buildings, forcing the family to relocate to the basement, which had a temperature of 5-7 degrees Celsius. Eventually, a Russian tank drove onto their street and fired directly into the second house over from theirs, according to Tkachuk. The tank then struck the cupola of a church just down the street.

[...]

When he saw Russian squads walking around peeking into people’s windows, he realized there was no sense in waiting around any longer. The neighbors joined his family when they saw them leaving. As locals, they knew all the small paths and side streets, letting them avoid the Russian checkpoint.

[...]

... As they moved across the field, numerous rounds came hurtling in, throwing up explosions and demolishing buildings on both sides of the bridge. The family was fleeing with their two grandmothers. On the way to the crossing, one of the grandmothers’ legs gave out, forcing Tkachuk and his sister to carry her, while lugging around a suitcase with his valuables.

“The granny was screaming for us to leave her and run for the bridge,” he wrote. “If that’s not hell, what is?”

[...]

Vorzel

When the war began, Elena Slivinskaya, her husband and two daughters aged 4 and 8 were in Kyiv.

[...]

“The bombing and the shooting was constant,” she said. “We constantly spent time with the children in the basement.”

The earliest explosions terrified the little girls, who started screaming. They constantly wanted to go down to the basement. But staying in the cold, damp basement too long was also dangerous, as one of the girls was sick and running a very high fever.

[...]

Stoyanka

[...]

In early March, two old friends in the village of Stoyanka east of Kyiv went on a supply run.

“They went to pick up some diesel fuel and medicine for civilian use,” said Oleksandr, the nephew of one of the two men. “They had no weapons. When they were returning to Stoyanka, two Russian APCs stood in their way. They ran into a temporary Russian checkpoint.”

[...]

One of the friends was killed outright. But Oleksandr’s uncle, wounded in the arm and side, managed to crawl away and survive. A neighbor picked him up, bound his wounds and took him to Stoyanka-2, a village on the outskirts of Irpin.

[...]

His friend Arkady continued to lie in the road for four days until Oleksandr could pick up his body and drive it towards Kyiv. Along the way, he picked up another slain man and his wife, who had been wounded in the leg and was beside herself with grief.

[...]

 

[dotr]

''A captured Russian soldier tells a press conference that he started to question what he'd been told after seeing his favourite boxers Oleksandr Usyk and Vasyl Lomachenko signing up to fight''

Captured Russian soldier claims Moscow has a special force who kill anyone who tries 'to run home' | Daily Mail Online
''A captured Russian soldier has claimed that Putin's military forces have a special squad set up for killing deserters who don't want to take part in the invasion of Ukraine.

The 22-year-old man said soldiers are threatened with a specialised 'echelon', and that they are kept in the dark until they see the devastation for themselves - at which point the 'only thing we could really do was surrender'.

In a filmed questioning by the Ukrainian Security Service, the POW also said his phone was taken away, so he couldn't read the news on the situation.''

''Captured Russian soldiers speaking on March 2 said the invasion of Ukraine was in 'complete disarray', according to voice recordings obtained by a British intelligence company.

The intercepted radio messages indicated that troops are refusing to obey central command orders to shell Ukrainian towns and are complaining about running out of supplies of food and fuel.

Parts of the Russian military still use analogue 'walkie talkie' two-way radios, making them more vulnerable to interception. ''

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

First drought, now war: Global wheat supplies in peril (nbcnews.com)

Prices soaring are soaring, raising the risk of severe food shortages and hunger in some regions of the globe and threatening to further ratchet up food costs in the United States.

The pandemic already had food prices rising.

Now, Russia’s war in Ukraine — between two top wheat producers and in a region known as Europe’s breadbasket — has sent wheat prices soaring, raising the risk of severe food shortages and hunger in some regions of the globe and threatening to further ratchet up food prices in the United States.

The instability leaves many U.S. farmers, particularly those in the drought-stricken West, scrambling as costs soar for fuel, fertilizer and other key agricultural components...

 

[cujenn81]

Why Donetsk and Luhansk Matter to Putin and the West

Why Donetsk and Luhansk Matter to Putin and the West

Following Yanukovych’s removal, which Russia saw as a Western-backed coup, Putin sent unbadged troops to annex Crimea, without a shot fired. Opponents of the new pro-Western government in Kyiv tried to emulate that success by taking control in cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. But this time there was resistance. Clashes broke out and an armed conflict developed in the Donbas.

The separatist territories are by now mainly of value for the disruption they cause Ukraine, cutting key transport links and supply chains and creating political risks that drive up borrowing costs and deter investors in the rest of the country.

Separatists hold about one third of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, with the remaining two thirds behind a roughly 450 kilometer (280 mile) front line defended by about 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers. The separatist governments, led by Denis Pushilin in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Leonid Pasechnik in the Luhansk People’s Republic, claim the whole Donbas region for their statelets.

Why does the West care?
Putin is demanding a wholesale restructuring of Europe’s security order and has now altered the borders that emerged from the collapse of the former Soviet Union four times -- twice in Georgia and, after Crimea and the Donbas, twice in Ukraine.

Why Donbas is at the heart of the Ukraine crisis

War broke out in 2014 after Russian-backed rebels seized government buildings in towns and cities across eastern Ukraine. Intense fighting left portions of Luhansk and Donetsk, in the Donbas region, in the hands of Russian-backed separatists. The Ukrainian government in Kyiv asserts the two regions are, in effect, Russian-occupied.

More than 14,000 people have died in the conflict in Donbas since 2014. Ukraine says 1.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes, with most staying in the areas of Donbas that remain under Ukrainian control and about 200,000 resettling in the wider Kyiv region.

In recent weeks, Putin has alleged that "genocide" was being committed in Donbas. His allegations aren't new, but the timing is of concern to Western policy-makers, who fear a repeat of a 2008 conflict in Georgia.

By invoking genocide, Putin was echoing Russia's false claim that Georgia committed genocide against civilians in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in August 2008. During that brief conflict, Russia launched a massive military incursion that pushed deep into Georgian territory.

As it was in 2014, the Donbas region is now the crucible of the conflict between east and west, between Putin's drive to reassert control -- weakening the Ukrainian state -- and the growing aspiration of Ukrainians to join the fold of European democracies.

What are the Ukraine 'separatist' regions at the crux of the Russian invasion

"Those two regions have a lot of people who are not just Russian citizens, but also sympathetic to Russia still, unlike most of the country," said ABC News contributor Steve Ganyard, a retired U.S. Marine colonel and former deputy assistant secretary of state. "So the reason that the Russians were able to sort of maintain puppet governments there is that they had people who are sympathetic to Russia and to their cause."

During the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, which toppled the Russian-friendly regime of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and throwing its support behind an insurgency in Donbas.

Russia-backed fighters, led by former Russian intelligence officer Igor Girkin and supported by Russian special forces, seized several administrative buildings in Donbas, setting off the conflict.

"Russia sent operatives in, both military and political, to create the appearance of separatist movements, and then they sort of brought them to life. These movements would take over city halls in the region, and we'd see pictures of Russian special forces with them," Matthew Schmidt, a national security and political science professor at the University of New Haven, told ABC News.

Ukraine used its military to try to regain control of the region, and as the Russian-backed insurgency faltered, Moscow sent its regular forces in to prop them up, covertly sending tank regiments and other units into battle.

Any possibility of solving the conflict was made far more difficult because the Kremlin refused to even acknowledge its troops were in the separatist areas, falsely claiming the conflict was entirely an internal civil war in Ukraine, the experts said.

"So, that's where Putin is starting, and he's saying essentially these people are majority Russian speakers and if you go back to the 19th century they are really part of Russia or should be. And he's used that term New Russia before," Schmidt said.

But the Ukrainian government counters that Donetsk and Luhansk have been legally recognized as part of Ukraine dating back to 1917. During a referendum in 1991, a majority of people in the regions voted in favor of Ukrainian independence.

In the run-up to the current invasion, Russia manufactured a pretext for it by claiming Ukraine was preparing to attack the separatist regions, backing it with a barrage of fake reports and staged videos showing supposed Ukrainian outrages that were quickly debunked by independent researchers.

The separatist authorities also ordered mass evacuations of civilians to create the illusion of a large-scale humanitarian crisis.


I do think it’s important to understand what the everyday people living in the Donbas regions truly want. If the people truly want to be independent from Ukraine with the support of Russia, I believe Ukraine would agree to cut ties with them. BUT… it’s hard to know one way or the other because a portion of the area is controlled by occupied forces. I think it would be wrong for Ukraine to just take Russia at its word and hand the region over. After watching Winter on Fire (the Netflix documentary about the 2014 revolution that toppled Russian-backed president Yanukovych), it became very clear to me that the people of Ukraine want to be free from Russia — and its influence — because they were literally prepared to fight to their deaths for it.

Ukrainian men and women (both young and old!) showed up day after day for four months and faced off with a military police that beat them with iron clubs and fired machine guns at them from rooftops. 108 citizens sacrificed their lives (and more than 1000 sustained injuries) for Ukraine’s freedom. To give Russia even an inch of that hard earned freedom would be unconscionable… in my opinion.

 

[worldwatcher]

Seems the whole day Russia is busy - flying back and forth to Syria
Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

So what’s up ,with the other plane ? “No call sign”?
Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

Just wondering...

ETA:
Never mind,found the answer :

“Blocking
For security and privacy reasons information about some aircraft is limited or blocked. This includes most military aircraft and certain high profile aircraft...”
Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

 

[Arkay]

I had to stop by here and get re-centered, so many theories and plots floating around wanted to search for a broader perspective. We just got to hold on, give it some time for the sanctions to really bite.

My thoughts are that here in America, we can hold on and give it some time for the sanctions to really bite, but how can the Ukrainians do the same? They're being slaughtered all day everywhere in their country. IMO by the time the sanctions are really felt in Russia, there won't be a Ukraine. Attacks on children, the elderly, hospitals, homes, nuclear plants, mayors being kidnapped...how can they hold on?

I also think the average Russian will feel the sanctions very much more than Putin ever will. He's got that $1.4 billion uber-mansion by the Black Sea. Billions stashed away, too, reputedly in crypto currency and he can bypass the whole banking industry. He's not going to be punching peasants in the street, trying to steal their brown bread and vodka. He lives in Putin world, which is a world apart from the ordinary people.

As to the Chechnyans, my memory of them is that they were the ones who conducted that three day terrorist siege of the school in Beslan in 2004. Remember when they killed all those kids there? IIRC they were also the ones who slaughtered all those Russians in a movie theatre. Obviously not everyone in Chechnya is a terrorist, but there are many in that region who do ascribe to terrorism.

Moo

 

[PommyMommy]

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 22 min ago
Minister: Germany to stop most Russian oil imports by end of 2022. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck also told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Germany would stop importing Russian coal by fall. Yet, he added that it’s hard to halt imports of Russian gas.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 21 min ago
On 11 March, the Russian troops attacked the evacuees from Peremoha, Kyiv Oblast, moving along the 'green corridor,' killing 7 civilians, including one child, Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence reports.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 20 min ago
The agency says that the exact number of injured is currently unknown. After the shooting, the invaders forced the remnants of the column of evacuees to return to the village of Peremoha and didn't let them out of the village.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 16 min ago
Ukraine's defense ministry: Russian forces shoot at evacuating civilians, kill 7. The attack took place on March 11 as a column of women and children was leaving the village Peremoha in Kyiv Oblast, using the approved corridor. Seven people were killed, including a child.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 14 min ago
Peace talks between Ukraine, Russia continue via video conference. The delegations met in person 3 times, with no conclusive results. The last meeting took place on March 7. Now the sides talk virtually, in sub-groups, according to Ukraine's negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
Among the top priorities is expanding and setting up humanitarian corridors, especially for the city of Mariupol.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 11 min ago
At least 80 Russian marines refused to participate in the war against Ukraine after they were landed in Kherson Oblast having realized that they were not going to exercise, according to the media project Graty's sources in law enforcement agencies of occupied Crimea.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 9 min ago
Kharkiv's tram depot after the Russian attacks.
Telegram: Contact @truexanewsua

Felipe Dana on Twitter
Foreign and Ukrainian soldiers cross an improvised path under a destroyed bridge in Irpin, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

 

[Cool Cats]

Captured Russian pilot admits to bombing civilians, urges Russia to stop assault: 'We have already lost this war'

A captured Russian pilot admitted to targeting Ukrainian civilians and urged Russia to call off the assault on Ukraine.

Lieutenant Colonel Krishtop Maxim Sergeevich was shot down on March 6 and taken into custody by Ukrainian forces, Interfax Ukraine reported. At a press conference on Friday, Krishtop said he carried out three bombing missions, Newsweek reported.

"In the process of completing the task, I realized that the target was not enemy military facilities, but residential buildings, peaceful people," Krishtop said, per Newsweek. "But I carried out the criminal order."

"I recognize the enormity of the crimes committed by me," Krishtop said, per Newsweek. "I want to ask forgiveness from the entire Ukrainian people for the misfortune that we brought them. I will do everything in my power to end this war as quickly as possible, and bring those responsible for this genocide of Ukrainians to justice."

Krishtop made the comments at a press conference alongside other other Russian pilots held as prisoners of war, according to Interfax. Ukraine has conducted several similar news conferences with prisoners of war in an attempt to counter Russian propaganda about the war, The Washington Post reported.

 

[PommyMommy]

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 5 min ago
SBU: Intercepted phone calls shows that Russian troops near Kharkiv were ordered to shoot at civilians, including children.



NEXTA on Twitter - 30 min ago
Occupiers shot women and children while they trying to evacuate from the village of #Pobeda in the #Kyiv region War criminals killed seven people, including one child. The exact number of wounded is still unknown.

NEXTA on Twitter - 21 min ago
#Ukrainian soldiers captured an enemy drone as a trophy.


NEXTA on Twitter - Video
#Kharkiv after the bombing. Putin's killers can only destroy and bring death to peaceful cities