Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 #8

[CSIDreamer]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1514984501801332737?t=osP-mMtJuSzZhbS-nlgidw&s=19

️BBC: FSB asks Russian government for additional funding to bury Russian troops.

The FSB asked the Russian government to increase by 17% the “funding for military burials and tombstones,” BBC reported. Ukraine says 20,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Feb. 24

 

[worldwatcher]

Has it been verified if the crew on the Moskva perished or not?

We've went from "oh hey little fire" to rage over "you sunk my ship". So obviously we know Russia lies to lie. But what is the status of the crew? I'm confused.

JMO

Translated from Belgium MSM:

Ukraine: Cruiser Moskva crew could not be rescued

The crew of the cruiser Moskva, which sank in the Black Sea on Thursday, could not be rescued. An official of the Ukrainian defense said this on Friday.

The captain of the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Anton Kuprin, was also killed, Ukrainian sources say.

"According to Ukrainian media, only 58 crew members appear to have been rescued. The commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Igor Osipov, is said to have been arrested in Russia following the sinking of his flagship, according to unconfirmed reports."

DPG Media Privacy Gate

 

[dotr]

Live Updates | Police: Over 900 civilians dead in Kyiv area | AP News
1 hour ago rbbm.
''LVIV, Ukraine — The bodies of more than 900 civilians were discovered in the Kyiv region following the withdrawal of Russian forces, the regional police chief said in a briefing Friday.

Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, said the bodies had been abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% of the casualties had died from sniper fire and gunshot wounds.

“Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said. “The number of killed civilians has surpassed 900 — and I emphasize, these are civilians, whose bodies we have discovered and handed over for forensic examination.”

He added that more bodies were being found every day, under the rubble and in mass graves.

“The most victims were found in Bucha, where there are more than 350 corpses,” he said.''

"According to Nebytov, utilities workers in Bucha had been gathering up and burying bodies in the Kyiv suburb while it remained under Russian control. Nebytov added that Russian troops were “tracking down” people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.''

 

[dotr]

April 15 2022
Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Moscow vows renewed attacks on Kyiv after warship sinks (nbcnews.com)
''Ukraine says Russia used long-range bombers on Mariupol
4h ago / 9:29 AM EDT
Ukraine’s defense ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said on Friday that for, the first time since the start of its invasion, Russia used long-range bombers to attack the besieged port city of Mariupol.
Motuzyanyk said Russia was concentrating its efforts on seizing the cities of Rubizhne, Popasna and Mariupol.''

''Seven people died when Russian servicemen fired on buses as they were evacuating civilians on Thursday, the office of Ukraine’s attorney general said in a statement posted to its Telegram channel.
Another 27 people were injured in the incident which took place in Borova, a small village around 35 miles south of Kyiv, the statement, translated by NBC News, said.
NBC News could not independently verify the claims and Russia has repeatedly denied it is targeting civilians.''

rbbm.
France's Le Pen warns against sending weapons to Ukraine | AP News
''PARIS (AP) — French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen warned Wednesday against sending any more weapons to Ukraine, and called for a rapprochement between NATO and Russia once Moscow’s war in Ukraine winds down.

Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist who has long ties to Russia, also confirmed that if she unseats President Emmanuel Macron in France’s April 24 presidential runoff, she will pull France out of NATO’s military command and dial back French support for the whole European Union.''

 

[Mo Thuairim]

Loss of Moskva strikes serious blow to Russian military’s prestige

Analysis: ship’s sinking will shock Russian public and is latest sign war in Ukraine will not end soon

As Russian media and officials struggled on Friday to explain the sinking of the country’s Black Sea flagship, it was clear that the loss of the cruiser and an untold number of its estimated 510 crew was a blow to Vladimir Putin’s war plans and his military’s prestige.

From the beginning, the Russian government tried to play down what had happened. At first its defence ministry claimed an accident had caused a fire onboard. Then the ministry said the damage had been contained and the ship was being towed to port in Sevastopol. Finally, late on Thursday, the ministry announced that the ship had sunk in “stormy seas”.

But even as commentators on state TV tried to spin the loss of the Moskva as a temporary setback, Russians could understand that something serious had taken place.

(...)

The scale of the loss is yet to be seen. Ukraine claims it struck the Moskva with a Neptune anti-ship missile. No pictures of the Moskva or its crew have been published in Russian media since the ship was damaged. Some western reports suggest just dozens of the estimated 500 crew-members were rescued as the ship went down. Russia has not published any official information about the number of sailors who died.

So unlikely was the loss of the ship in Moscow’s eyes that in 2020 Orthodox Christian officials said it had been designated to carry a piece of the “true cross,” a relic from the wooden cross on which Jesus Christ is said to have been crucified.

At the very least it will strike yet another blow at the image of the Russian military as a professional force carrying out what the Kremlin calls a “special operation” on the territory of Ukraine.

(...)

But the scale of the losses onboard the Moskva will doubtless shock the Russian public, which has been told repeatedly, like Putin, that the war in Ukraine is going to plan. The sinking is just the latest indication that the conflict will not end soon.

 

[worldwatcher]

Scary thoughts, seems like the ship wasn't in the best, safety state -at all :

"However, Ukrainian sources have said that there is a real worry that there were several nuclear missiles onboard the vessel which sank off Sevastopol.

BlackSeaNews editor-in-chief Andriy Klymenko called for an urgent international probe into whether the Moskva was carrying nuclear weapons.

"Friends and experts say that there are two nuclear warheads for cruise missiles on board the Moskva,” he said."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/fears-russian-flagship-moskva-nukes-26718389

<Also,it seems unlikely,that there were many survives, - it was dark, and explosions/ fires..?
I do think,the main concern was about towing and rescue Mosvka. Got the opinion,that it was more worthy then saving lives..>

Sailors from Moskva have not yet collected their cars at Sevastopol naval base amid concern over their fate

 

[Charlot123]

There are satirical news from Russia. One of them started as funny, but ended badly for the person.
Russian Authorities Reveal Where Anti-Putin Shaman Is Being Forcibly Confined

Aleksandr Gabyshev, a shaman (a folk healer, a medicine man) from Chita, started, in 2019, a walk on Moscow, “to drive Putin out of Kremlin”. It really sounded as a joke, but the government took it seriously. The shaman has been forcibly confined to the psychiatric hospital of the “harsh” type, and groups like Amnesty International are protesting it. Gabyshev is in Wiki now.

And another piece of news. A homeless man living in Myass (Ural area) was arrested for trying to dry his wet socks on the “Eternal Flame” (a type of memorial, common in Europe; in Russia mostly to those fallen in WWII). The hapless dude was accused of “propaganda of Nazism” and is facing either a huge fine, or up to three years of prison… (local news, happy to post the photo as I don’t know how to link the Telegram channel here, but trust me - it is not a fake).

As time goes by, the real news become weirder than the jokes.

 

[CSIDreamer]

I'm just asking for opinions, not equipment stats.

Does anyone living in a country that is supplying Ukraine with necessities, or any other country really, wonder if we still have plenty to defend ourselves if we need to?

JMO

 

[dotr]

April 15 2022 rbbm.
'This is what we trained for:' Soldiers depart to help humanitarian crisis in Europe | CP24.com

Eighty soldiers from across 3rd Canadian Division board a plane while deploying to Poland to join the lead elements already in that country as part of the Government of Canada's response to the war in Ukraine, in Edmonton, Friday April 15, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

''Dozens of Canadian soldiers boarded a plane to Poland Friday for what their commander said would be an intense but gratifying mission to help Ukrainians fleeing Russian aggression.

The roughly 80 soldiers who took off from Edmonton and another 20 from Trenton, Ont., will offer humanitarian assistance at reception centres throughout Poland, said Maj. Ryan Pridmore, a company commander with 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

They, along with a Canadian medical unit, are to support the Polish Territorial Defence Force on a two-month mission.''

''We do have a team in place over there who's setting the stage so we're not rolling in blind but it'll definitely be a pretty quick start to business once we get on the ground."

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said in Calgary it's appropriate to declare Russia's occupation a genocide – as U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have said – since thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and brutalized.

Freeland pointed to a "chilling document" on a Russian website published 10 days ago "that effectively laid out a plan for genocide in Ukraine, that called for the suffering, the punishment of people who chose, in the view of this document, wrongly and mistakenly to describe themselves as Ukrainian."

"I was very pleased to see that the morale was exceptionally high and, from my observation, I'd say the task force is going to be very effective in Poland."

 

[Satchie]

I'm not sure how Putin is going to deploy that. What exactly do they mean with the Baltics. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are Nato members...so where are they rattling about?

There are no nuclear weapon in the Baltics, Russian or NATO, however there have been, in recent years, some NATO troops moving into NATO countries and some defensive nuclear capabilities (not capable of launching missiles to another nation, but capable of destroying nuclear missiles coming into their airspace.)

Putin is threatening to rip up the non-proliferation pacts that have been the focus of nuclear treaties for many decades now.

IMO this is no joke, he's not some comic character, he may really mean what he says.

JMO

 

[sds71]

There are fears that sunken Russian warship The Moskva that is now believed to be resting at the bottom of the Black Sea was carrying nuclear weapons.

https://www.news.com.au/world/europ...ws-story/959170261e82bd43b5eb3c37fabf8dcd?amp


The relatives of the doomed crew of Russia's Black Sea flagship Moskva defied Russian censors to hold an unofficial memorial today, as Ukraine claimed that all 510 servicemen onboard died - including the ship's captain…
Meanwhile, Mykhailo Samus, director of a Lviv-based military think-tank; Andriy Klymenko, editor of Black Sea News; and Ukrainian newspaper Defence Express all warned that the Moskva could have been carrying two nuclear warheads designed to be fitted to its P-1000 'carrier killer' missiles.
If true, the loss of the warheads into the Black Sea could spark a 'Broken Arrow' incident - American military slang for potentially lethal accidents involving nuclear weapons.

'On board the Moskva could be nuclear warheads - two units,' Samus said, while Klymenko called on other Black Sea nations - Turkey, Romania, Georgia, and Bulgaria - to insist on an explanation. 'Where are these warheads? Where were they when the ammunition exploded,' he asked.

'To the sailors': Relatives of doomed Moskva crew defy Russian censors with unofficial memorial | Daily Mail Online

 

[LadyL]

In an unprecedented move, Russia has been expelled from the UN Human Rights Council

 

[worldwatcher]

Update – Russian Navy Movements In Black Sea April 15
Since the sinking, Russia’s reaction has been subject to speculation. At around 6.30pm local time on April 15 a radar satellite covered Crimea. Two formations of Russian Navy warships, likely including Landing ships, are seen steaming northwest. Their direction suggests that they are sailing towards the Ukrainian coast.

There is also increased activity near to the naval base of Sevastopol. This subsequently died down, implying that the vessels had left Sevastopol. It is possible that a fresh operation is underway.

Satellite Image Pinpoints Russian Cruiser Moskva As She Burned - Naval News

 

[Mo Thuairim]

Ukraine braces for revenge attacks from Russia after Moskva sinking

Ukraine has said it is bracing itself for revenge attacks from Russia after the “significant and symbolic” sinking of Russia’s flagship cruiser, the Moskva.

The government in Kyiv said it had destroyed the giant missile cruiser during a combat operation against Russian vessels in the Black Sea on Wednesday. The boat’s ammunition deck exploded after it was hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles, it added.

(...)

From 2am a Turkish ship managed to rescue 54 sailors. An hour later Turkey and Romania confirmed the ship had “completely sunk”. Ukrainian officials said stormy weather stopped Russian boats from carrying out an evacuation, adding: “Nature was on our side.”

The Kremlin has not given any details on possible casualties among the 510 crew of the Moskva, and has not released any photographs of the stricken ship.

An article published by the Tass state-run news agency initially claimed the “entire crew” had been evacuated. It was later edited to remove the word “entire”. One unconfirmed Ukrainian report said 14 sailors including the chief of Moskva’s medical service were taken to the Crimean port of Sevastopol. The fate of the other 494 was unknown, it said. If they are confirmed to have drowned it would amount to the largest number of deaths of Russian servicemen in a single incident since the second world war.

Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian interior ministry adviser who has a popular Telegram channel, posted a photo of the Moskva’s captain, Anton Kuprin. Kuprin was killed during the explosion and fire on the ship, Gerashchenko claimed.

It was Kuprin who gave the order for the Moskva to shell Snake Island in the Black Sea during the first hours of Moscow’s invasion. Its Ukrainian defenders refused to surrender and said: “Russian warship ‘go f--- yourself’” – a slogan that has become a national meme

(...)

Russia has said it is investigating what caused the Moskva to sink. Its defence ministry has promised to bomb targets in Kyiv in response to what it said were “terrorist and sabotage” attacks on its territory carried out by Ukraine’s “nationalist regime”.

(...)

On Russian television, hosts and pundits came perilously close to admitting that the loss of the cruiser was the result of an enemy attack as opposed to the result of an accident onboard. They also talked in vehement terms about wiping out “Ukraine-ness”.

(...)

The last time Russia lost its flagship cruiser was in 1904, when the imperial vessel Petropavlovsk went down in the tsar’s war with Japan. Ukrainian officials acknowledge the sinking of the Moskva does not mean Russia is beaten. But they see it as a signal event.

(...)

 

[Charlot123]

I'm just asking for opinions, not equipment stats.

Does anyone living in a country that is supplying Ukraine with necessities, or any other country really, wonder if we still have plenty to defend ourselves if we need to?

JMO

I think the country where I am living in would have enough. I think the real problem would be China/Taiwan, but to a degree, this is also somehow linked to the Russian/Ukrainian conflict.

 

[Charlot123]

Russian Bombers Just Carpet-Bombed Mariupol

 

[PommyMommy]

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 8 hrs ago
Demining of Kyiv Oblast can take up to a year. The head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Pavliuk said on April 15 that they plan to finish demining settlements and roads in Kyiv Oblast by the end of May, but the rest of the territory can take up to a year

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 6 hrs ago
Russian shelling kills 8 people, including 7-month-old baby, in Kharkiv. 42 people were injured, including 9 children, according to Oleh Synegubov, the head of Kharkiv's Regional Administration.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 4 hrs ago
Russian troops set up booby traps in civilians' cars, houses before leaving Kyiv Oblast. Andriy Nebytov, head of Kyiv Oblast's police, reported a number of incidents that left locals injured, and killed at least one person.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
"Russians are not only beefing up military equipment &personnel but also preparing medical infrastr. for wounded They are fully preparing Belarusian territory for missile strikes, change strategies a bit, look for weak spots in our defense,"–Deputy Defense Minister,UA TV Russia amassing troops, preparing medical infrastructure for new offensive, Ukraine’s senior defense official says (ukrinform.net)

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 1 hr ago
Zelensky estimates up to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed during the war. In an interview with CNN on April 15, President Volodymyr Zelensky compared these numbers to Russia’s, an estimated 19,000 to 20,000 soldiers killed.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
Today in Lysychansk (Luhansk Oblast), a couple of volunteers came under Russian shelling. A man was killed, and a woman in intensive care. From the first days of the full-scale war, the couple provided humanitarian aid to the residents,–Oblast Head https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/1623

 

[TGIRecovered]

Russian Bombers Just Carpet-Bombed Mariupol

Putin is a bully having a hissy-fit because someone he attacked hit him back. His poor wittle ego got hurt-wha-wha-waaaah.

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russian warship sunk by Ukraine missile strike, say US officials; bodies of 900 civilians found in Kyiv region – live (theguardian.com)

29m ago 21.03
Zelenskiy has spoken to CNN, saying the world should be prepared for the possibility that Russia decides to use nuclear or chemical weapons against Ukraine.

He said the Russians could do it because Putin did not value the lives of the people.

“We should think not be afraid, not be afraid but be ready. But that is not a question for Ukraine, not only for Ukraine but for all the world, I think,” he said.

US officials have warned of the potential for Putin to use nuclear weapons in the conflict.

“Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low yield nuclear weapons,” CIA Director Bill Burn said on Thursday.

Zelenskiy also said his information was that about 2,500-3,000 Ukrainian military personnel had been killed, and Russia’s military had lost about 19,000-20,000. He said about 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers were injured, some seriously.

 

[PommyMommy]

APR 14, 2022
War Crimes Watch: The woman who would make Putin pay | AP News

The messages, reports from across Ukraine, scroll in real time:

One civilian dead.

Thirteen military casualties.

Five civilians injured.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova glances at her cell phone. The stark numbers and bare-bones accounts that unreel in her hand are just the start; her staff will catalog them, investigate them -- and try to bring the Russian perpetrators of war crimes to justice.

This is her purpose: To make Vladimir Putin and his forces pay for what they have done. While courts around the world are working to hold Russia accountable, the bulk of the investigation – and the largest number of prosecutions – will likely be done by Ukraine itself.

For Venediktova, this is personal.

“I protect the public interest of Ukrainian citizens. And now I see that I can’t protect these dead kids,” she says. “And for me it’s pain.”