Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 #8

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  • #781
The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 9 hrs ago
Governor: Russian forces used phosphorus munition in Donetsk Oblast. Russian troops use phosphorus munition in the village of Solovyove, according to Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
Forbes Ukraine: Russia fired missiles worth in total at least $7.5 billion. Forbes Ukraine added that only when the class of the launched missiles was identified the price was added into the total count.

(Can you imagine the good that could have been done with $7.5 billion? :(:mad: )

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 8 hrs ago
Police say Russian troops tortured, killed combat medic. The 27-year old was murdered in Kharkiv Oblast's Izyum District, Serhiy Bolvinov, the chief investigator of Kharkiv Oblast's police, said on April 29.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 6 hrs ago
Ukrainian troops blow up railway bridge in Donetsk Oblast. The bridge across the Siversky Donets River has been blown up along with Russian rail cars, making it impossible for Russian troops to go by rail to the city of Lyman, the Joint Forces Operation said on April 29.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 5 hrs ago
Russian submarine stroke Ukraine with cruise missiles. Reportedly this is the 1st time Russian military used submarine strikes agst Ukraine –Reuters A satellite image collected this morning revealed the loading of probable Kalibr missiles on Kilo-class submarine in Black Sea Sevastopol port @Maxar
FRieMxqWYAMJt79


NEXTA on Twitter
Newborns in #Mariupol are given birth certificates of self-proclaimed DPR Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova confirmed this information. She said that issuance of such documents violates rights enshrined in UN Convention on Rights of the Child.
FRikcM_XMAAErg9


Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 1 hr ago
The psychologist showed a drawing of an 11-year-old boy who was raped by the Russian invaders: he had just started talking The war in Ukraine: another mass grave was found in Kyiv region, – Zelensky (obozrevatel.com) Among the hundreds of Kyiv Oblast residents who have been victims of rape by the Russian soldiers there are children.
FRjH8mmXMAEjEx6


Hundreds of Ukrainian women were raped by Russian soldiers | Euromaidan Press

Again....I lay my head down and cry.....the rapes..no words....
 
  • #782
'Ook Poetin moet voelen: ik loop tegen stootblokken aan'

Western countries are sending more and more weapons to Ukraine to support the country in the fight against Russia. Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin threatens to "strike back at lightning speed" if a country "creates unacceptable threats to Russia".

Is the relationship between the West and Russia escalating, and where does that lead? "Little by little we are getting more and more involved in the war," said former NATO top official Timo Koster. "I don't think we can do otherwise."

We need to start talking some more Putin's language.

Tom Middendorp, former Commander of the Armed Forces
US President Joe Biden wants to support Ukraine with an additional $33 billion, of which $20 billion in military assistance. The Hague decided to send the heaviest ground gun that the Netherlands has: the armored howitzer .

"That can best be regarded as an escalation," says Koster. "Because heavy weapons such as armored howitzers and tanks are offensive weapons. But we cannot prevent us from taking escalating steps, at least in the eyes of Putin. Because we cannot leave Ukraine to its fate."

'We make it our war'
Other military experts also see this increasing involvement of the West as (partly) inevitable. But ex-Commander of the Armed Forces Tom Middendorp does not want to talk about 'escalation'. "What we are doing is helping Ukraine to defend the country, with increasingly heavy means. You can see a kind of intensification in the support we give, but it remains Ukraine's fight against Russia."

"We must not forget that there is one party that has escalated and that is Russia itself. They invaded a sovereign country themselves and started using brute force."

Professor of International Relations Rob de Wijk sees this differently. According to him, the West is indeed escalating. "Absolutely. Not only the weapons that are delivered are getting heavier, but also the rhetoric that sounds from the West."

He was aware that the US Defense Secretary is no longer talking about helping Ukraine, but "weakening" the Russians. And a British deputy minister called it completely legitimate for Ukraine to use Western weapons in Russia. Van Wijk: "Basically, it's not our war, but that's how we make it our war."

According to him, the risk of this can be clearly seen in the words that Putin then uses. Van Wijk: "Putin shouts: if this continues, we fear an existential threat to Russia." He then implicitly threatens to deploy nuclear weapons.

What if Putin indeed deploys a nuclear weapon?

What if Putin deploys a nuclear weapon?
Middendorp agrees with Van Wijk that the language used by the West is escalating. "We are now talking about driving the Russians out of Ukraine, which is a bit more offensive rhetoric."

But he sees this as a necessary development. "It is good that we offer some counterweight to Putin. He is a man who talks in terms of power and strength. And actually we should start talking his language a bit more."

The same goes for military support. "We are now going to counterbalance the Russians more so that Putin also feels: I am going to run into borders, against buffers."

Professor Van Wijk believes that Western arms supplies "have fallen on a sliding scale", but Middendorp and Koster disagree. "We have to take our responsibility to offer as much assistance as possible to a European country, which is in fact also fighting for our freedom," says Koster.

Even if Ukraine attacks supply lines in Russia with Western weapons, "these are still legitimate targets," says Middendorp. "Although you do go one step further on the escalation ladder."


We really shouldn't fall for the frame that would escalate the West.

Wopke Hoekstra, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Middendorp does not take Putin's threats with nuclear weapons too seriously. "That's rhetoric again. He has absolutely no interest in us going to an escalation that also damages Russia enormously. Putin uses everything we say to us. We should also not be fooled by his rhetoric." That's a very close game that we have to learn to play."

Minister Wopke Hoekstra (Foreign Affairs) confirmed this on Friday: "We really should not fall for the frame that the West would escalate. That is exactly what Putin wants, that we allow ourselves to be intimidated."

However, Middendorp believes that the United States and the United Kingdom should be careful not to get too ahead of the troops in their rhetoric. "A few countries cannot dictate what the West is going to say. We have to fine-tune that the words we use don't escalate but deter. That is strategic communication."
 
  • #783
Ukraine war news latest: Putin ‘may declare all-out war on Kyiv’ on Victory Day | The Independent
April 30 2022
''Vladimir Putin could soon drop the term “special operation” and declare all-out war on Ukraine in a bid to salve “outrage” in his military over failures during the invasion, Russian and Western officials reportedly fear.

Seeking “payback” for Moscow’s failures in Kyiv, top army officials are claimed to be imploring Russia’s president to announce the shift during an annual Victory Day parade on 9 May.''

The move would allow the Kremlin to enable martial law, to call on its allies for greater military help, and to drum up the mass-mobilisation of its own population.

Mr Putin’s forces are believed to have so far made minimal gains during their renewed assault in Donbas, with the UK’s Ministry of Defence claiming Moscow has “been forced to merge and redeploy depleted and disparate units” from its failed earlier advances.

Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations over shaky peace talks on Saturday, with president Volodymyr Zelensky saying chances were “high” that the negotiations – which have not been held in person for a month – would end because of Russia's “playbook on murdering people”.

Ukraine-Russia war LIVE - Putin's bloodthirsty assassins just minutes from killing President Zelensky and his family (thesun.ie)
''The hero president spoke in detail of the imminent danger he was in as war broke out in Ukraine during the early days of the Russian invasion.

Zelensky, 44, said kill teams of Russian special forces were parachuted into Kyiv on the day of the invasion.

Armed with Kremlin orders to assassinate or capture him and his family, he claims the mercenaries made two attempts to storm the presidential compound while he was still holed up inside with his wife and two children, aged 17 and nine.

In a video released just hours after the attempt on his life on February 25, Zelensky was filmed saying: "We're all here. Our military is here. Citizens in society are here.

"We're all here defending our independence, our country, and it will stay this way."
 
  • #784
NEXTA on Twitter - 7 hrs ago
#Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov, in an interview with the Chinese #Xinhua news agency, urged #NATO countries to stop supplying weapons to #Ukraine.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 5 hrs ago
Popasna Mayor: Russian forces fired at two evacuation buses, no information about casualties yet. Mayor Mykola Khanatov said only 31 people were evacuated from Popasna in the eastern Luhansk Oblast.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
On April 30, one of evacuation buses gunned down by a Russian saboteur group with grenade launchers was found - Luhansk RegAdm Serhiy Haiday The Ukrainian military arrived found only one empty bus with traces of blood inside.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 4 hrs ago
On 29 April Russia lost 22 tanks - Ukraine General Staff Also, it lost 27 pieces of other armored vehicles and about 200 troops, GenStaff says.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - 3 hrs ago
Russian troops may stage false-flag operations in Luhansk Oblast wearing Ukrainian uniforms - RegAdm Head Serhiy Haiday "We have 100% confirmed information that they've found several containers with our military clothes," he said.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
Ukraine's Intelligence: Resistance can ruin Putin's plan to establish proxy-state in Kherson. Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate says ongoing fighting in Kherson Oblast & civil protests in the regional capital are set to ruin Russian plans to hold a fake “referendum.”

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
Podolyak: Ukraine seeks Mariupol evacuation, Russia rejects proposals. Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the Ukrainian president’s office, said Russia is unwilling to allow a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol. “It is symbolic for them to destroy Mariupol and Azov fighters.”

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 2 hrs ago
Putin rejected Pope Francis’ call for Mariupol humanitarian corridors three times. Pope Francis has tried to convince Vladimir Putin to allow a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol, but the Kremlin claimed “it cannot guarantee security,” Italian newspaper Il Messaggero writes.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter - Video
Ukrainian forces destroyed "more than 30 pieces of Russian equipment" in Izyum area, Kharkiv Oblast - Ukraine National Guard NG says it revealed a Russian command point with a lot of equipment, passed the coordinates to the Army, whose artillery finished the job. Polish gas station networks may appear in Ukraine – Zelensky (suspilne.media)

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 1 hr ago
Grave with bodies of 3 men discovered in Kyiv Oblast. The men were tortured and then shot by Russian soldiers, according to Chief of Police in Kyiv Oblast Andriy Nebytov. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave in the forest in the Buchansky District of the oblast.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
Donetsk Oblast comes under heavy fire, at least 4 civilians killed, including 1 child. The regional police said that the Russian forces shelled 12 settlements over the past 24 hours, destroying at least 36 civilian infrastructure sites, including a school and a hospital.
 
  • #785
OMG, no words...! :eek::mad:

Watch how Russian TV explains slow progress of war with Ukraine


Since the start of the war, state-controlled Russian TV has been telling its viewers that the 'military operation' in Ukraine is going according to plan.

But as Putin's army stalls in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, pundits have attempted to explain the lack of progress.

Russians are told that their troops exercise restraint, with Ukraine repeatedly accused of using civilians as human shields.

“In such conditions we naturally have to act quite carefully, and that is indeed extending the length of the campaign,” Vyacheslav Nikonov, an MP for the Kremlin-backed United Russia party, told viewers of his own talk show, The Great Game.

Nikonov, whose grandfather was Stalin’s foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, claimed that Russian forces were acting with “nobility”, something that “simply does not exist in the West”.
 
  • #786

<snipped>

From one of the news items in the above post, does anyone know what BRIC stands for?

Russia’ foreign minister also thanked Beijing for their “balanced position” on Ukraine.

We are grateful to Beijing, as well as to other BRICS partners, for their balanced position on the Ukrainian issue,” Lavrov said.
 
  • #787
<snipped>

From one of the news items in the above post, does anyone know what BRIC stands for?

Russia’ foreign minister also thanked Beijing for their “balanced position” on Ukraine.

We are grateful to Beijing, as well as to other BRICS partners, for their balanced position on the Ukrainian issue,” Lavrov said.
The BRICS countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are considered the five foremost emerging economies in the world.

Topic: BRICS countries
 
  • #788
  • #789
57239009-0-image-a-37_1651324320786.jpg

Angelina Jolie spotted in Western city of Lviv | Daily Mail Online
''Actress Angelina Jolie surprised Ukrainians after turning up to a cafe in Lviv on Saturday.
Jolie, 46, drew attention as she appeared wearing nondescript clothing at the cafe, with Maya Pidhorodetska posting a video of the famous actress and filmmaker on Facebook.

'Nothing special. Just Lviv. I just went to have coffee. Just Angelina Jolie,' she wrote in Ukrainian after filming the actress, who waved to her from the counter. 'Ukraine is simply supported by the whole world.'''
rbbm.
 
  • #790
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  • #791
  • #792
You guys! OMG!!!! Hallelujah!

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1520461443291832320?t=Yq5brsrldg0_kqjgfBPsrg&s=19

⚡A column of cars with UN logos has arrived in Mariupol. Reportedly, evacuation is underway https://t.co/F3k5OET9sE

Video at link!

Note: this was from several hours ago.
I just saw that!!!
Wonderful, finally!
Seems more international authorities are in Ukraine, the last week..Good sign,imo!

And fantastic, that Angelina Jolina is in Ukraine, bless her kind heart. She is amazing and fearless !
 
  • #793
20 civilians evacuated from Mariupol steelworks plant

A group of 20 civilians are leaving the Azovstal steelworks, where the last Ukrainian troops are holed up in the Black Sea port of Mariupol, the soldiers there said today.

"Twenty civilians, women and children... have been transferred to a suitable place and we hope that they will be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia, on territory controlled by Ukraine," said Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment.

(...)

Many require medical attention.

(...)

In Odessa, regional governor Maxim Marchenko said a Russian missile destroyed the airport runway - as Russia targets infrastructure and supply lines deep in the west of the country.

There were no victims from the airport strike.

(...)

After failing to capture Kyiv in a nine-week assault that has turned cities to rubble, killed thousands and forced five million Ukrainians to flee abroad, Russia is now focusing on the east and south of Ukraine.

Moscow hopes to take full control of the eastern Donbas region made up of Luhansk and Donetsk, parts of which were already controlled by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion.

Moscow said today its artillery units had struck 389 Ukrainian targets overnight.

Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk, told Ukrainian public television that the Russians were shelling all over the region "but they cannot get through our defence".

He said civilians would continue to be evacuated despite the difficult situation.
 
  • #794
  • #795
  • #796
You guys! OMG!!!! Hallelujah!

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1520461443291832320?t=Yq5brsrldg0_kqjgfBPsrg&s=19

⚡A column of cars with UN logos has arrived in Mariupol. Reportedly, evacuation is underway https://t.co/F3k5OET9sE

Video at link!

Note: this was from several hours ago.
Halleluhah indeed!
t2044.gif


There is much more work to be done however. From one hour ago:

Ukrainians plead for Mariupol rescue; Russian advance crawls | AP News
[...]

Russian state media outlets reported Saturday that 25 civilians had been evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks, though there was no confirmation from the U.N. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency said 19 adults and six children were brought out, but gave no further details.

A top official with the Azov Regiment, the Ukrainian unit defending the plant, said 20 civilians were evacuated during a cease-fire, though it was not clear if he was referring to the same group as the Russian news reports.

[...]

Video and images from inside the plant, shared with The Associated Press by two Ukrainian women who said their husbands are among the fighters refusing to surrender there, showed unidentified men with stained bandages; others had open wounds or amputated limbs.

A skeleton medical staff was treating at least 600 wounded people, said the women, who identified their husbands as members of the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s National Guard. Some of the wounds were rotting with gangrene, they said.

[....]

In his nightly video address late Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy switched into Russian to urge Russian troops not to fight in Ukraine, saying even their generals expect that thousands more of them will die.

[...]
 
  • #797
Russian army piles pressure on Putin to unleash its full might on Ukraine

Harsh criticism of the ‘dwarves in the Kremlin’ over failed blitz on capital Kyiv and stalled offensive

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine at the end of February, Vladimir Putin dubbed it a “special operation” and barred Russian media from using the word “war”, thinking it would all be over in a few weeks.

More than two months later, the offensive has stalled, and an increasingly impatient Russian military establishment is pushing Putin to declare an “all-out war”.

“The military are outraged that the blitz on Kyiv has failed,” said Irina Borogan, a Russian journalist and author with contacts in the security services.

“People in the army are seeking payback for failures of the past and they want to go further in Ukraine.”

And it seems their calls are being heard. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, said yesterday Putin was likely to announce general mobilisation of the Russian population within weeks to make up for military losses.

“He is probably going to declare... that we are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people,” Mr Wallace said.

The Defence Secretary added that the announcement could come on May 9, when Russia celebrates the victory of the Soviet army over Nazi Germany.

Meanwhile, Gen Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian army, has reportedly been dispatched to eastern Ukraine, in a highly unusual move that observers said could be a precursor to an escalation of the conflict.

The Kremlin has in recent years showered the armed forces with funding and praise while sabre-rattling at any opportunity – in part to make up for humiliating military campaigns over the past few decades, including in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The strengthened armed forces now appear to be getting frustrated with Putin’s scaled-down offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Igor Girkin, a retired military intelligence officer better known for leading separatist forces in eastern Ukraine before he was recalled to Moscow in 2014, has over the years provided a window into the thinking of rank-and-file Russian officers.

(...)

After reeling off a list of Moscow’s failures – from the sinking of the flagship of its Black Sea fleet to “acts of sabotage” against infrastructure within Russia – he asked: “What else has to happen before the dwarves in the Kremlin realise they are in an all-out, harsh war and start to act accordingly?”

Alexander Arutyunov, a retired Russian commando and usually one of the country’s most popular pro-Kremlin bloggers, has turned into another voice of discontent. “Vladimir Vladimirovich, can you please make up your mind: are we fighting or are we playing around?” he asked in one emotional video. He questioned why Russia had yet to turn Ukraine’s airfields into “lunar craters”.

Declaring all-out war with Ukraine would entail two things the Kremlin has so far tried to avoid: martial law and mass mobilisation.

Mobilisation would mean Russia will need to call up reservists and keep conscripts beyond their one-year term, a politically fraught decision.

Martial law would close the country’s borders and nationalise large parts of the economy, which is hanging by a thread.

(...)

No one needs to put pressure on Putin; he himself said, during Valdai meetings in 2018 or so, “what is the use for the world if there will be no Russia in it?” It is on YouTube. Of course he is not the only one and has cronies like general Patrushev, for example, but I doubt it is the army who is pushing him.

BTW, I watched the interview with Strelkov/Girkin. And odious figure who was replaced and slowly fell into oblivion after the Malaysian Airlines 17 plane shot down in 2014, because it was on his VK page that the first photo emerged, he mostly criticized the ineptitude of the invasion, but did not call for mobilization.
 
  • #798
The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 9 hrs ago
Mariupol mayor: Russian military killed twice as many residents as Nazi Germany. Vadym Boychenko said that in 2 years of Mariupol’s occupation during World War II, the Nazis killed 10,000 people. Russians have doubled the number of victims in 2 months of the Mariupol siege.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 5 hrs ago
CNN: Satellite images show significant destruction of Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. New satellite images from Maxar Technologies pictured ruins of most of the plant buildings. Some of them collapsed while others had visible large holes in the roofs.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
It’s still unclear whether the basement with civilians aged four months to 16 years survived the Russian military strikes.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
Russian occupiers took from Mariupol ventilators necessary for the treatment of seriously ill patients, including those with coronavirus. Only part of the ventilators survived in damaged hospitals but was taken away, the deputy mayor said. Telegram: Contact @andriyshTime

Draft Document Gives New Clues To Russian Plans For Occupied Ukrainian Regions (rferl.org)
A draft document prepared by top officials with Russia’s ruling political party calls for a new state named Southern Rus to be created from some regions of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.

[...]

The draft document obtained by Schemes, titled The Manifesto Of The South Russian People's Council and dated April 16, does not specify which occupied territories would make up the new state of “Southern Rus.”

[...]

The online news site Meduza reported this week that the Kremlin was considering holding two referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on May 14 and 15.

[...]
 
  • #799
  • #800
Russia troll factory spreads disinformation: Britain | CTV News
April 30 2022
''The British Foreign Office said on Sunday Russia is using a troll factory to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine on social media and target politicians across a number of countries including Britain and South Africa.

Britain cited U.K.-funded expert research, which it did not publish. It said the research exposed how the Kremlin's disinformation campaign was designed to manipulate international public opinion of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, boost support for it and recruit new sympathizers.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West say the fascist allegation is baseless and the war is an unprovoked act of aggression.''

''Russia says the Western media have provided an excessively partial narrative of the war that largely ignores Moscow's concerns about the enlargement of NATO and what it says is the persecution of Russian speakers in Ukraine, something denied by Kyiv.''

rbbm.
Ukraine: War has shown Zelenskyy's qualities, wife says | CTV News
''Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, says the war with Russia has not changed her husband but only revealed to the world his determination to prevail and the fact that he is a man you can rely on.

Zelenska, in an interview published Friday in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, also said she has not seen her husband, 44-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, since Russia invaded Ukraine.

When Zelenska woke up on Feb. 24, the day the war began, her husband was already awake and dressed. He told her simply: "It's started," and left for the office in Kyiv, she recalled.''

"The war has not changed him," she replied. "He has always been a man you can rely on. A man who will never fail. Who will hold out until the end. It's just that now the whole world has seen what may not have been clear to everyone before."

She was also asked if she had a message for the mothers, wives and sisters of Russian soldiers. Zelenska said she did not, because "nothing gets through to them."

"During those two months, as their sons are being killed in Ukraine as criminals and occupiers, they had time to define their position. Since there is no such declaration -- if the coffins do not convince them that something is wrong here -- then I have nothing to say to them," she said.''
 
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