Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 #7

[GRT]

As long as negotiations are still underway, I don't feel it is hopeless. It is now 4 p.m. on Monday in Kyiv, Moscow and Istanbul. They are back at the negotiating table tomorrow, according to reports. Each step taken toward a peace agreement is a step forward. May tomorrow's negotiations bring them closer to something that they can all agree on.

Yes, that's how I feel. The sooner they reach an agreement, the fewer lives will be lost.

 

[CSIDreamer]

Obviously, it's Russia's fault, but that's not the point I'm trying to make, although I'm probably making it poorly. Even disregarding Petraeus, many others are now predicting the fall of Mariupol.

As the war in Ukraine moves into its second month, fears grow of Mariupol’s fall to Russia.
Ukraine defends strategically important Mariupol amid relentless attacks
‘God has left Mariupol’: diary entries chart horror of besieged city in Ukraine

My point is that Ukraine isn't going to beat Russia, no matter how many weapons/munitions we send them.

To me, the best way to save lives at this point is to negotiate a ceasefire and a compromise. Yes, that will mean the probable loss of the Donbas region and Mariupol, but it looks like a foregone conclusion, so I advocate for saving lives rather than fighting until the last man is standing and then losing that ground anyway.

JMOO--but I don't think we're really helping the Ukrainians by sending weapons that will be instrumental in more of their deaths.

I keep thinking of an old Kenny Rogers song, "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em..."

They've been fighting in the Donbas region for 8 years now. If I'm not mistaken, Mariupol is in that region.

JMO

 

[PommyMommy]

NEXTA on Twitter - 5 hrs ago
There will be no humanitarian corridors in #Ukraine today. This was announced by Iryna #Vereshchuk. According to her, the #Ukrainian intelligence is aware of planned provocations, so the corridors will not be opened for security reasons.

NEXTA on Twitter
Negotiations between #Ukraine and #Russia are scheduled to begin this evening in #Istanbul.

NEXTA on Twitter - 4 hrs ago
Talks between #Russia and #Ukraine will continue in a face-to-face format, #Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov has confirmed. Moscow expects the negotiations to be successful.

NEXTA on Twitter - 4 hrs ago
#Putin's press secretary Dmitri #Peskov: #Russian-#Ukrainian negotiations are unlikely to begin today in #Istanbul, it could happen tomorrow.

NEXTA on Twitter
The International Committee of the Red Cross stated that it is still unable to provide assistance to the besieged city of #Mariupol because it requires #Russia and #Ukraine to guarantee safe passage.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 3 hrs ago
Ukrainian intelligence publishes list of 620 Russian FSB agents taking part in Russian criminal activities in European countries. List includes names, passports addresses, car models & license plates, etc Сотрудники ФСБ россии участвующие в преступной деятельности страны-агрессора на территории Европы (gur.gov.ua)

NEXTA on Twitter - 2 hrs ago
The next round of negotiations between #Ukraine and #Russia will begin on Tuesday at 10:00 in Istanbul, said David Arahmia, a participant of the negotiations.

NEXTA on Twitter - 30 min ago, Video
#Ukrainian rescuers received machinery and equipment from #France 27 units of fire-fighting and rescue equipment, as well as rescue equipment are already in #Ukraine.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
Mariupol before the Russian invasion. PHOTOS: https://t.me/mariupolnow/

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
Mariupol these days PHOTOS: https://t.me/mariupolnow/, https://t.me/polkazov/

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 3 min ago
Irpin, Kyiv Oblast, has been fully liberated - the city's mayor

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 28, 2022
Russia shifts focus to try to grind Ukraine's army in east | AP News
[...]

The bulk of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in eastern Ukraine, where it has been locked up in fighting with Moscow-backed separatists in a nearly eight-year conflict. If Russia succeeds in encircling and destroying the Ukrainian forces in the country’s industrial heartland called Donbas, it could try to dictate its terms to Kyiv and, possibly, attempt to split the country in two.

The Russian military declared Friday that the “first stage of the operation” had been largely accomplished, allowing Russian troops to concentrate on their “top goal — the liberation of Donbas.”

[...]

“Russia has shifted tactics ... to redistribute its forces and prepare for the next active stage of the war,” Sunhurovskyi said.

The Russian forces encircled the key strategic port of Mariupol and besieged it for weeks, hammering it with rockets and artillery in a carnage that killed thousands of civilians. The fall of Mariupol would free up Russian forces there and allow them to engage in a potential pincer movement together with another group of troops moving from Kharkiv in the northeast to try to encircle the Ukrainian military in the east.

“Russian forces appear to be concentrating their effort to attempt the encirclement of Ukrainian forces directly facing the separatist regions in the east of the country, advancing from the direction of Kharkiv in the north and Mariupol in the south,” the British Ministry of Defense said Sunday.

[...]

A senior U.S. defense official also noted the latest Russian focus on Donbas. The official said Putin may now hope to take full control of the east while keeping other Ukrainian forces occupied with the defense of Kyiv and other areas and then try to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to formally surrender control over Donbas and recognize Russia’s ownership of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

[...]

 

[dotr]

March 28 2022

'Civilians clear rubble from Russian missile-hit school in Kharkiv, Ukraine'

''Injured Russian soldiers freeze & appear terrified as they are awarded medals for invading Ukraine''

''Ukraine War: Analysis - Russian forces 'withdrawing' from some areas
Mar 28, 2022''

 

[Sundog]

They've been fighting in the Donbas region for 8 years now. If I'm not mistaken, Mariupol is in that region.

JMO

 

[sunshineray]

I'm sorry...this is easy said...I don't feel a collective guilt at all. Putin is the aggressor, Putin's troops are causing this humanitarian drama....He don't need to, never needed to. Sad...horrified....absolutely...but I don't feel guilty.

I feel like the world community has not done enough to help Ukraine in the air which in turn has facilitated more cilvilian deaths and destruction of civilian homes and structures.

If Ukraine needs planes to ensure that most missiles are not fired from inside Ukraine airspace then why are planes off the aid table? If Ukrainian pilots OR others who have come to fight for Ukraine are flying these planes what is the real difference between supplying planes to supplying replacement plane parts or tanks etc...?

I understand why President Zelensky has been asking for help in the sky. It's where most of the threat is coming from and they can't combat it without the right tools. So they watch their people being bombarded...and even when humanitarian corridors are set up by the enemy liars to let civilians escape the battlefields.

Britain asked the same of America before Pearl Harbor and airman and planes were sent to help. They needed help and help was given in specific ways to combat bombardment.

Ukraine can't take out enough Russian planes with what they have, they need more planes.

I wonder why we can't give them Patriot missiles like we did for Israel when Saddam Hussein was firing SCUD missiles at them?

Is it because one dictator is so different than the other?

AJMO

 

[Sundog]

Donbas - Wikipedia

Here's some good background on the Donbas region of Ukraine, where Mariupol is located. The Donbas region of Ukraine includes the two largest cities: the City of Donetsk and the City of Luhansk, also includes several other smaller cities, including Mariupol.

As was posted above, this area has a long, long history of unrest in Ukraine-Russia history - predating the 2014 conflict, including how important the region was to Hitler during WWII.

Note: article says that Donbas region refers to a ridge around which coal mining took place, so Donbas originally referred to a coal-mining region. Cities are now heavily industrialized, with farming in the rural areas. Orignally the industrialization of the two major cities attracted Russian workers to the area.

 

[Charlot123]

I'm sorry...this is easy said...I don't feel a collective guilt at all. Putin is the aggressor, Putin's troops are causing this humanitarian drama....He don't need to, never needed to. Sad...horrified....absolutely...but I don't feel guilty.

Well, it is complex. I left the country when Putin, probably, just arrived to St. Petersburg, and never voted for even Yeltsin, much less for Putin. My dad in Russia voted for a different person. So, I don’t feel collective guilt. The two things connecting me with Russia are mother tongue and my very old dad who is dying of cancer.

Question is, were the Germans living in the US in 1939, who were first generation assimilated immigrants, held liable for what happened in their mother country? And who was not held liable?

I think the ones who accepted US citizenship and did not support Hitler’s regime, were not. In general, very few Germans were persecuted in the US during WWII. But how to behave in such time, is important.

 

[Sundog]

<snipped for focus>

I wonder why we can't give them Patriot missiles like we did for Israel when Saddam Hussein was firing SCUD missiles at them?

Is it because one dictator is so different than the other?

AJMO

The U.S. was already at war with Iraq when they moved the patriot missiles into Israel, so it was not the same situation. Also, the U.S. did not want Israel to retaliate against Iraq, for strategic reasons at the time, This kept the retaliation by Israel from happening at the time. JMO.

 

[Bit of hope]

Real live is intervening...don't know when I'm back to follow. Love and peace...

 

[sunshineray]

As long as negotiations are still underway, I don't feel it is hopeless. It is now 4 p.m. on Monday in Kyiv, Moscow and Istanbul. They are back at the negotiating table tomorrow, according to reports. Each step taken toward a peace agreement is a step forward. May tomorrow's negotiations bring them closer to something that they can all agree on.

I don't have faith in negotiations when one side, in the hours before does this...and this scenario has been the norm throughout "negotiations". AJMO

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 3 hrs
Kharkiv shelled over 200 times within 24 hours. Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Synegubov said that Russia had used artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, and mortars to shell the city

 

[sunshineray]

The U.S. was already at war with Iraq when they moved the patriot missiles into Israel, so it was not the same situation. Also, the U.S. did not want Israel to retaliate against Iraq, for strategic reasons at the time, This kept the retaliation by Israel from happening at the time. JMO.

If we're talking officially...and I by no means want to sound like Putin by not calling war a war...the US was never "at war" with Iraq. It was called a conflict but never declared a war.

It seems that maybe giving Ukraine the Patriot defense could also stop one of the conflicting parties in this case with further acts of violence against the other party's cilvilian. It all shakes out, in my eyes, to pretty much the same situation to those being bombarded. It's actually a more dire situation in Ukraine, than it was in Israel as Ukraine is being bombarded almost 24/7.

AJMO

 

[Elley Mae]

Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Symptoms of Suspected Poisoning

Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Symptoms of Suspected Poisoning

…

Roman Abramovich 'poisoned' at peace negotiations with Ukraine

Roman Abramovich 'poisoned' at peace negotiations with Ukraine

Mr Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of a suspected poisoning following a meeting they attended in Kyiv in early March, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The oligarch was said to have shown symptoms including skin peeling on his face and hands, and red teary eyes. He has since recovered from the symptoms, the newspaper reported.

Mr Abramovich has been moving between Moscow and Lviv, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

 

[Arkay]

Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Symptoms of Suspected Poisoning

Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Symptoms of Suspected Poisoning

…

Roman Abramovich 'poisoned' at peace negotiations with Ukraine

Roman Abramovich 'poisoned' at peace negotiations with Ukraine

Mr Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of a suspected poisoning following a meeting they attended in Kyiv in early March, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The oligarch was said to have shown symptoms including skin peeling on his face and hands, and red teary eyes. He has since recovered from the symptoms, the newspaper reported.

Mr Abramovich has been moving between Moscow and Lviv, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

Classic Putin move. Since they're alive to tell about it, he was just sending a message. He would have given them enough to kill them if that was his goal.

Clearly, he was showing that he has the upper hand, and that "negotiations" are illusory, since I can't picture further negotiations with this invisible threat hanging over anyone who meets with Putin's representatives.

IMO

 

[worldwatcher]

The drone operators who halted Russian convoy headed for Kyiv

"One week into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia massed a 40-mile mechanised column in order to mount an overwhelming attack on Kyiv from the north.

But the convoy of armoured vehicles and supply trucks ground to a halt within days, and the offensive failed, in significant part because of a series of night ambushes carried out by a team of 30 Ukrainian special forces and drone operators on quad bikes, according to a Ukrainian commander.

The drone operators were drawn from an air reconnaissance unit, Aerorozvidka NGO (aerial reconnaissance), which began eight years ago as a group of volunteer IT specialists and hobbyists designing their own machines and has evolved into an essential element in Ukraine’s successful David-and-Goliath resistance... "

Source: The drone operators who halted Russian convoy headed for Kyiv

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Well, it is complex. I left the country when Putin, probably, just arrived to St. Petersburg, and never voted for even Yeltsin, much less for Putin. My dad in Russia voted for a different person. So, I don’t feel collective guilt. The two things connecting me with Russia are mother tongue and my very old dad who is dying of cancer.

Question is, were the Germans living in the US in 1939, who were first generation assimilated immigrants, held liable for what happened in their mother country? And who was not held liable?

I think the ones who accepted US citizenship and did not support Hitler’s regime, were not. In general, very few Germans were persecuted in the US during WWII. But how to behave in such time, is important.

The US had both German and Japanese Internment Camps...
During WWII, the United States detained at least 11,000 ethnic Germans, overwhelmingly German nationals.[3] The government examined the cases of German nationals individually, and detained relatively few in internment camps run by the Department of Justice, as related to its responsibilities under the Alien Enemies Act.

Internment of German Americans - Wikipedia

 

[nhmemorymaker]

I am still trying to follow Shoigu.... This Daily Beast article from today still speculates that Putin hasn't dumped him, because of their long long relationship. Others have not been so lucky.. I dunno... I was not convinced he was actually on that zoom call last week. So where is he?????


So where did all the money for Russia’s military overhaul go?

The Ukrainian outlet NV recently accused Shoigu of “managing the budget of the Russian Ministry of Defense like his personal piggy bank.

Heads are starting to roll as a result of the military’s failure to accomplish a swift occupation of Ukraine. The deputy chief of Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardia), which has suffered tremendous losses in the conflict, has just been arrested; earlier, Sergei Beseda, chief of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch was also put behind bars, along with his deputy, reportedly for providing poor intelligence ahead of Russia’s invasion.

Putin’s Soft Spot for His Favorite Crony Is Wrecking His Precious War

 

[worldwatcher]

If Ukraine needs planes to ensure that most missiles are not fired from inside Ukraine airspace then why are planes off the aid table? If Ukrainian pilots OR others who have come to fight for Ukraine are flying these planes what is the real difference between supplying planes to supplying replacement plane parts or tanks etc...?

I understand why President Zelensky has been asking for help in the sky. It's where most of the threat is coming from and they can't combat it without the right tools. So they watch their people being bombarded...and even when humanitarian corridors are set up by the enemy liars to let civilians escape the battlefields.


Ukraine can't take out enough Russian planes with what they have, they need more planes.

I wonder why we can't give them Patriot missiles like we did for Israel when Saddam Hussein was firing SCUD missiles at them?


AJMO

Snipped for focus:

-->Kyiv claims US has ‘no objections’ to Poland supplying war planes

 

[sunshineray]

Snipped for focus:

-->Kyiv claims US has ‘no objections’ to Poland supplying war planes

It's a start and I hope this means it will happen soon.

I was just watching CNN and Don Lemon live in Lyiv was interviewing a Ukrainian member of Parliament in Kyjv and she had to turn her lights out because of Kyiv bombing coming too close to her home.