Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 #6

[worldwatcher]

March 8 2022
@1:25 ''Stand ins'' for P. (maybe just one can see that the emperor has no clothes)

snipped for focus

So...Putin is basically living in a moving prison..?
No wonder,he is nuts!
MOO

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Russian propaganda TV threatens to invade West, carry out nuclear strike | Euromaidan Press
A Russian propaganda talk show titled “Evening with Solovyov” on the state television channel Rossiya-1 on 10 March proposed to extend Russia’s invasion beyond the borders of Ukraine. Also, it discusses a possibility of a nuclear strike, referring to a Russian military comedy.

“The most important thing is that in no case can we stop halfway. Like leaving Lviv to someone else, etcetera. Then, otherwise, there was simply no need to start anything,” says one of the invited guests of the studio, referring to the west-Ukrainian city of Lviv, which so far has not been invaded by Russian forces.

He is supported by Russian TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov (under EU sanctions, had two villas in Italy confiscated from him).

“With such sanctions, who said that it is necessary to stop at all at the borders of Ukraine,” Solovyov agrees.

[...]

Russian propaganda TV threatens to invade West, carry out nuclear strike

[...]

The same message is also reiterated by Russian-backed, or even Russian militants in Donbas bragging to take “Novorossiya” tanks to Warsaw and London:

"LNR" militant brags to take his tanks to Warsaw and London

[...]

 

[CSIDreamer]

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

If memory serves, the Russians did the slaughtering in the theater. Back in a jiffy.

Hostage crisis in Moscow theater

How Opioids Were Used as Weapons During the Moscow Theater Hostage Crisis

 

[Satchie]

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

IMO, Ukraine could have surrendered as the first Russian tank crossed the border,and they could surrender now, but the government they elected has chosen not to, and there's no sign ordinary Ukranians disagree.

None of us is protected from events beyond our control, whether from a virus, or a careless driver, or a invading army or just a tree falling our head, this is what life can sometimes be, and there's no point wringing our hands about it, wishing it were different, wishing the world was perfect.

IMO the only thing to do is to try to not hurt people, now or in the future, by being cruel or careless or emotionally reactive. And that includes ourselves: don't torture yourself with fear and catastrophic thinking, then you're just subjecting yourself to your own inner Putin.

JMO

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Russian Rule of Lawlessness in Occupied Crimea and Donbas (khpg.org)

Armed search of the home of Crimean Tatar lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, POW in occupied Donbas tortured and humilitated in show for militant and Russian media.

The text below was first published by Human Rights without Frontiers on the eve of Russia’s invasion. This is the kind of lawlessness that Russia is now very clearly trying to extend to other parts of Ukraine,

[...]

Russia has wielded full control over Crimea since its invasion and annexation in early 2014. Although Moscow’s official narrative avoids any mention of its military seizure of control and claims that ‘the Crimean people’ voted in a pseudo-referendum to ‘join’ the Russian Federation, the latter is internationally recognized as being an occupying power whose application of its legislation in Crimea is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. ...

Since 2014, Russia has imprisoned at least 150 Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians on politically motivated charges. Torture has been used in the majority of these cases, either directly against the people seized, or against others, in order to obtain false testimony.

Such methods were first seen in May 2014 when Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and three other Crimean opponents of Russia’s occupation were seized and held incommunicado for two weeks, before two of the men were shown on Russian television ‘confessing’ to a terrorist plot with Sentsov the supposed ringleader. As soon as Sentsov received access to an independent lawyer, he stated, and later repeated in court, that he had been tortured by Russia’s FSB [security service]. He was told that, if he did not give the required ‘confession’, he would be sentenced to 20 years and “rot” in a Russian prison.

[...]

It is from released hostages, such as journalist Stanislav Aseyev, that we know about secret prisons, such as Izolyatsia in Donetsk, where both men and women are tortured. While serving primarily to extract ‘confessions’, former Izolyatsia inmate, Halyna Hayova, believes that the torture was also for the prison staff’s ‘entertainment’.

[...]

Crimean Tatars thwarted Moscow’s attempt to achieve a coup without openly sending in soldiers and they have paid a high price for their pro-Ukrainian position. Almost all the activists who were murdered or disappeared without trace were Crimean Tatar, as are also the majority of the 120 or more Ukrainian political prisoners whom Russia is currently imprisoning. ...

[...]

^ The above was written before Russia's new act of aggression in recognizing the so-called 'republics' and openly sending in its forces

 

[dotr]

Russian forces strike mosque in Ukraine | CP24.com
''An Associated Press journalist in Mariupol witnessed tanks fire on a nine-story apartment building and was with a group of hospital workers who came under sniper fire on Friday. A worker shot in the hip survived, but conditions in the hospital were deteriorating: electricity was reserved for operating tables, and people with nowhere else to go lined the hallways.

Among them was Anastasiya Erashova, who wept and trembled as she held a sleeping child. Shelling had just killed her other child as well as her brother's child, Erashova said, her scalp crusted with blood.

“We came to my brother's (place), all of us together. The women and children went underground, and then some mortar struck that building,” she said. “We were trapped underground, and two children died. No one was able to save them.”

Meanwhile, French and German leaders spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a failed attempt to reach a cease-fire. According to the Kremlin, Putin laid out terms for ending the war, including Ukraine's demilitarization and its ceding of territory, among other demands.''

 

[gitana1]

It's news to me, too, but I'm not sure I put a lot of faith in it.

Zelensky claims he gave up on the question "long ago" of whether Ukraine could join NATO, but that's not correct--he was begging NATO to accept his country as a member immediately after Russia invaded.

Nothing happens in a vacuum and experts warned us for decades about the potential of Russian aggression if NATO expanded. Yet, it expanded.

During the negotiations over the dissolution of the former USSR, Secretary of State, James Baker, repeatedly assured Gorbechev NATO would not expand to the east.

"Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)"​

NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard | National Security Archive

The Budapest Memorandum that says NATO will help ensure the sovereignty and security of Ukraine (in return for them giving up nukes), also states we will not become involved in foreign state governments, although we did that in 2014 when we (along with the EU) funded and helped orchestrate the ouster of Ukraine's elected president. That was the trigger for Crimea to secede and for Russia to annex that area.

Since then, a large percentage of citizens in the Donbas region, who are heavily pro-Russian, have wanted to do the same thing, but Ukraine won't allow it--and most of the world does not support it, either.

That's where the current war started--the Donetsk and Luhansk areas claimed independence early last month. Russia recognized them as independent but Ukraine and the western world did not.

Since 2014 when the whole thing was triggered (see above link), the Ukrainian military has been trying to put down the protests, civil disobedience, secession activities in the Donbas. In doing so-- the Ukrainian Military has killed an estimated 14,000 citizens in that region.

So yeah, there's been an ongoing problem for 8 years. It didn't happen overnight.

If Zelensky will truly allow the Donbas region to have its independence--AND agree not to pursue a NATO membership--I think the war will end. Those two things will (should) pacify Russia.

Only time will tell. But, I think the western world has done enough damage in that region. I think we need to back off at this point and let them work it out. They are neighbors. They have the most to lose (or gain).

I just hope and pray it's over soon.

That link about the 14,000 citizens killed by the Ukranian military doesn’t work.

 

[PommyMommy]

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 22 min ago
In Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukrainian law enforcers detained two suspects who allegedly planned to create a "federal republic of Ukraine," separating several regions from Ukraine, according to the press service of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Prosecutor's Office.

Ivano-Frankivsk to Kyiv - Google Maps

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 17 min ago
Russia plans to conduct a fake referendum in occupied Kherson to proclaim the so-called "Kherson people's republic."

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 14 min ago
Yuriy Sobolevskyi, deputy head of Kherson Regional Council, said on Rada TV that at an emergency meeting today, 44 deputies of the local council unanimously supported the appeal that “Kherson Oblast is Ukraine. There will be no pseudo-republic."

NEXTA on Twitter Twitter
About 220,000 Ukrainians have returned to #Ukraine since the beginning of the war According to the State Border Guard Service, more than 18,000 people have arrived in the last 24 hours. "Most of them are men who plan to defend the future of their country," the agency added.

NEXTA on Twitter - 9 min ago, Video
A #Russian tank crushed a car with civilians inside, police of the #Zaporizhzhia region report "As a result, two adult men were killed and a teenage boy burned to death in the burning car," the police state, adding that this happened in the #Orykhovsky district.

 

[sunshineray]

Alec Luhn

@ASLuhn

Scripps environmental journalism fellow interested in the far north. Former Russia correspondent for @guardian& @telegraph

A member of the Kherson regional parliament says Russia's planning a referendum to create a "Kherson People's Republic." Which invites images of a future Ukraine carved up into separatist fiefdoms directed from Moscow


https://mobile.twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/1502658349103554572

 

[gitana1]

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.

No way did Russia believe they would incur this amount of casualties this soon, but 12,000? dead hell what about being captured? If you have 12,000 dead would there likely be even more surrendering?

But he doesn’t care about his people being killed. The sanctions to me are vastly more concerning to Putin than casualties.

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Ukraine: Russia strikes near Kyiv, Mariupol under siege | wusa9.com
[...]

“They are bombing it (Mariupol) 24 hours a day, launching missiles. It is hatred. They kill children,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a video address.

An Associated Press journalist in Mariupol witnessed tanks fire on a nine-story apartment building and was with a group of hospital workers who came under sniper fire on Friday. A worker shot in the hip survived, but conditions in the hospital were deteriorating: electricity was reserved for operating tables, and people with nowhere else to go lined the hallways.

Among them was Anastasiya Erashova, who wept and trembled as she held a sleeping child. Shelling had just killed her other child as well as her brother’s child, Erashova said, her scalp crusted with blood.

[...]

Ukraine’s military said Saturday that Russian forces captured Mariupol's eastern outskirts, tightening the armed squeeze on the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.

[...]

As artillery pounded Kyiv’s northwestern outskirts, black and white columns of smoke rose southwest of the capital after a strike on an ammunition depot in the town of Vasylkiv caused hundreds of small explosions. A frozen food warehouse just outside the capital also was struck in an apparent effort to target Kyiv’s food supply.

[...]

 

[Turkeytrot]

This is just so incredibly senseless and devastating.

 

[Mo Thuairim]

That link about the 14,000 citizens killed by the Ukranian military doesn’t work.

It's a misrepresentation of the facts. The 14,000 deaths is correct but only around a quarter of them were civilians. Also that number represents deaths on both sides. Not all were killed by the Ukrainian army. It includes the people killed by the Russian-backed separatists, Ukrainian military deaths and separatist deaths.

22 Jan 2022 — Approximately 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict, more than 3,000 of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

The human toll of the Russia-Ukraine conflict since 2014

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/russia-ukraine-conflict-photos-2014/

 

[sunshineray]

Can anyone speak Russian to translate what's being said in the video recording?

Online translation of tweet from Ukrainian to English.

From this...

СБУ перехопила розмови окупантів: у Харкові їм дали команду стріляти в цивільних Російська армія кидає все більше сил на оточення міста, але це не дає бажаних результатів, а втрати окупантів – незрівнянні. Ми продовжуємо збирати факти воєнних злочинів РФ.

To this...

"The SBU intercepted the occupiers' talks: in Kharkiv, they were ordered to shoot at civilians. We continue to collect facts of Russian war crimes."

Actual supposed recording that
Kyiv Independent tweeted about found on this page...

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1502713940328996869?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1502713940328996869|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://d-36643641113970837565.ampproject.net/2202230359001/frame.html

This is that tweeted about video's link...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1502656642571198467

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
No-fly zone in Ukraine worth the risks; Putin may attack Western nations anyway, GOP rep says | Fox News
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., says he supports imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, despite the risks involved with the U.S. shooting down Russian aircraft and escalating the conflict.

[...]

"I absolutely do support a no-fly zone over the Ukraine," Mast told Fox News. He clarified that he doesn’t think anyone "wants to be in a ground conflict in the Ukraine."

[...]

... Mast, an Army veteran, said the risk is necessary, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unpredictability.

"As much as none of us want to be in the Ukraine, if we do nothing, ultimately, everybody will be forced to be in the Ukraine as a result," Mast, who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, told Fox News.

Mast said Putin may ultimately drag NATO and the U.S. into military conflict, even without a no-fly zone.

[...]

Mast said that "at minimum," the U.S. should provide Ukraine with "tools to go wage this war," including aircraft, another item Zelenskyy has requested. Poland offered to provide fighter jets, but the Pentagon rejected the move.

Additionally, the Florida Republican doesn’t expect the war to end through diplomacy.

"Look at the demands of Vladimir Putin and Russia saying that he wants Crimea to be recognized as part of Russia," Mast said. "He wants to get rid of their elected government and get rid of their constitution, make sure that they're never a part of NATO, and the list goes on.

"The fact of the matter is those are all things that Putin is demanding that we as the West and the EU and NATO should all be demanding of Vladimir Putin. Those are things that there is such an impasse on what we need to demand and what Putin is demanding that there is not at this juncture, in my opinion, a diplomatic solution."

 

[worldwatcher]

Go Poland!!

Protesters block trucks at Polish border

Polish protesters march in Koroszczyn near the Belarusian border. There they try to stop trucks with Russian and Belarusian number plates. The Polish TVN24 reports that twenty demonstrators are blocking the border crossing, but that the number is increasing.

"We are protesting against the European Union's trade with Russia and Belarus," one of the activists told the channel. "Sanctions have been introduced and yet we see that the reality is different and there are trucks with Belarusian and Russian plates waiting at the border. Those trucks will be unloaded later in Russia."

The line of trucks that want to cross the border was about 10 kilometers long, according to the demonstrator this afternoon. The protesters say they will stay "as long as it is necessary".

From live ticker:
Duizenden mensen op de Dam voor Oekraïne-manifestatie • '1300 Oekraïense militairen gedood sinds invasie'

Orginal source:
Protest na przejściu granicznym, blokada rosyjskich i białoruskich tirów

ETA:
They demand that the borders be closed to Russian and Belarusian trucks.


On Saturday, they protested in Aleje Ujazdowskie.
"People's lives don't count, business counts." Protest in front of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister

"Życie ludzi się nie liczy, liczy się interes". Protest przed KPRM

 

[sunshineray]

MAR 12, 2022
Ukraine: Russia strikes near Kyiv, Mariupol under siege | wusa9.com
[...]

“They are bombing it (Mariupol) 24 hours a day, launching missiles. It is hatred. They kill children,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a video address.

An Associated Press journalist in Mariupol witnessed tanks fire on a nine-story apartment building and was with a group of hospital workers who came under sniper fire on Friday. A worker shot in the hip survived, but conditions in the hospital were deteriorating: electricity was reserved for operating tables, and people with nowhere else to go lined the hallways.

Among them was Anastasiya Erashova, who wept and trembled as she held a sleeping child. Shelling had just killed her other child as well as her brother’s child, Erashova said, her scalp crusted with blood.

[...]

Ukraine’s military said Saturday that Russian forces captured Mariupol's eastern outskirts, tightening the armed squeeze on the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.

[...]

As artillery pounded Kyiv’s northwestern outskirts, black and white columns of smoke rose southwest of the capital after a strike on an ammunition depot in the town of Vasylkiv caused hundreds of small explosions. A frozen food warehouse just outside the capital also was struck in an apparent effort to target Kyiv’s food supply.

[...]

To read these being half a world away is crushing...I can't imagine the devastation of the Ukrainian people. When will this stop? What can I do or speak to to help make this stop. I've emailed everyone I could think to email. I feel so helpless to help...is there no way to help make it stop?

 

[sunshineray]

Go Poland!!

Protesters block trucks at Polish border

Polish protesters march in Koroszczyn near the Belarusian border. There they try to stop trucks with Russian and Belarusian number plates. The Polish TVN24 reports that twenty demonstrators are blocking the border crossing, but that the number is increasing.

"We are protesting against the European Union's trade with Russia and Belarus," one of the activists told the channel. "Sanctions have been introduced and yet we see that the reality is different and there are trucks with Belarusian and Russian plates waiting at the border. Those trucks will be unloaded later in Russia."

The line of trucks that want to cross the border was about 10 kilometers long, according to the demonstrator this afternoon. The protesters say they will stay "as long as it is necessary".

From live ticker:
Duizenden mensen op de Dam voor Oekraïne-manifestatie • '1300 Oekraïense militairen gedood sinds invasie'

Orginal source:
Protest na przejściu granicznym, blokada rosyjskich i białoruskich tirów

Good people <3

 

[Elley Mae]

Looking at maps and the two most northern borders are closed, between Poland and Belarus.

 

[CSIDreamer]

Video at link.

https://twitter.com/ArmedForcesUkr/status/1502744335909011466?t=jPWMG5dBB7rIE9WmTS8wig&s=19

Евакуація з с.Білогородка Бучанського району. https://t.co/VxvsTdX0gX

Evacuation from the village of Belogorodka, Bucha district.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1502744812491096064?t=GNlHg_QdH3iC9J1ZDzu84g&s=19

Russian troops took control of the humanitarian convoy that headed from Zaporizhia to besieged Mariupol on 12 March, Suspilne reported.

"At each checkpoint, the invaders were forcibly seizing food, clothing, hygiene products," according to Zaporizhia Military Administration.

(5th attempt to send humanitarian aid. Per comment)