Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 #9

[PrairieWind]

It is just stunning the stupidity of Putin's ongoing declarations. He offers no long term plans that are legitimate in any way. He offers only further aggression when his army is being embarrassed on the field of battle. To threaten the west with his navy is a joke. Even with hypersonic missiles, the Russian navy is no match for the US, the UK, or even most of NATO. His only trump card is his nukes. But I seriously doubt the military would actually carry out orders to launch. In the mean time, Russian young men die by the thousands for a cause that doesn't even exist. I have no doubt Xi in China urged Putin in this war to drain attention and resources from the west. Putin sends Russian boys to die for China's benefit. And the Russian people do nothing. But I bet even the Chinese are appalled by the staggering incompetence of the Russian military. Their main ally is a paper tiger.

 

[PommyMommy]

AUG 1, 2022

1st ship carrying Ukrainian grain leaves the port of Odesa​

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The first ship carrying Ukrainian grain set out Monday from the port of Odesa under an internationally brokered deal to unblock the embattled country's agricultural exports and ease the growing global food crisis.

apnews.com

The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni sounded its horn as it departed with over 26,000 tons of corn destined for Lebanon.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

AUG 2, 2022

Russia declares Ukrainian military unit a terrorist group

apnews.com​

[...]

Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office filed a motion to designate the regiment as a terrorist organization in May.

Azov in an online statement Tuesday dismissed the Supreme Court’s ruling, accusing Russia of “looking for new excuses and explanations for its war crimes.” Azov urged the U.S. and other countries to declare Russia a “terrorist state.”

“Russia has been proving this status for many years with its daily actions,” the statement said.

Scores of Azov fighters are being held captive by Moscow. The Russian authorities have opened multiple criminal cases against them, accusing them of killing civilians.

[...]

Some flee eastern Ukraine, others defy govt order to leave

apnews.com​

[...]

Even as the August weather remains warm in eastern Ukraine, authorities are preparing for the cold months of fall and winter, when they fear that many of the roughly 350,000 residents still inside Donetsk may not have access to heat, electricity or even clean water.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said a train carrying evacuees from Donetsk had arrived in central Ukraine, representing the start of what authorities are describing as a compulsory evacuation effort that would take 200,000-220,000 people out of the eastern province by fall.

On the outskirts of Kramatorsk, which has undergone frequent Russian shelling, volunteers have set up a collection point for gathering evacuees who are then transported to the nearest working train station in Pokrovsk, 50 miles (85 kilometers) to the southwest.

As she struggled to board the van bound for the train station, Valentyna Abramanovska, 87, carried only a black-and-white photograph of her mother and sister taken nearly 50 years ago on the Sea of Azov, a memento of her life to carry with her.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia-Ukraine war: explosions reported across Mykolaiv and occupied Donetsk – live

www.theguardian.com​

2h ago05.58

Summary​

It is nearly 1pm in Kyiv. Here is the latest from our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

• The UN is conducting a fact-finding mission in response to requests from both Russia and Ukraine after 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in an explosion at a barracks in separatist-controlled Olenivka. The warring nations have accused each other of carrying out the attack. Ukraine claims it was a special operation plotted in advance by the Kremlin, and carried out by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group. Russia’s defence ministry, however, claims the Ukrainian military used US-supplied rockets to strike the prison.
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wants to talk directly to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in the hope China can use its influence with Russia to bring the war to an end. According to a report in the South China Morning Post, Zelenskiy said: “It’s a very powerful state. It’s a powerful economy. So (it) can politically, economically influence Russia. And China is [also a] permanent member of the UN security council.” So far, China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion and its president, Xi Jinping, told Putin it would support Russia’s “sovereignty and security”.
• The US Senate has ratified Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, voting 95-1 in support. The US is the 23rd member state to ratify what would be the most significant expansion of the 30-member alliance since the 1990s as it responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan US commitment to Nato, and to ensuring our alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” the president, Joe Biden, said in a statement. All 30 Nato members must ratify the accession before Finland and Sweden can become members.
• Ukraine is pulling out its 40 peacekeepers from the Nato-led mission in Kosovo, which totals 3,800 members, according to Ukrainian news. In March, Zelenskiy issued a decree for all missions to return to Ukraine to support the war.
• The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has again appealed for access to a Ukrainian nuclear power plant now controlled by Russian forces to determine whether it was a source of danger. Contact with the Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which is at Zaporizhzhia and is being operated by Ukrainian technicians under occupation, was “fragile” and communications did not function every day, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi told a Swiss newspaper.
• The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a deal to ease Russia’s naval blockade has reached Turkey. The Sierra Leone-registered ship Razoni set sail from Odesa port for Lebanon on Monday under an accord brokered by Turkey and the UN. The ship has been inspected by members of the joint coordination centre, and is now expected to move through the Bosphorus Strait “shortly”.
• Ukraine failed to stop a Syrian-flagged vessel claimed to be carrying stolen Ukrainian grain from leaving Lebanon. The Lebanese government reported on Thursday that the Syrian-flagged Laodicea had left its territorial waters, despite appeals from Kyiv to reverse a court decision allowing its departure. Russia has denied stealing the grain on the ship, which was reported to be sailing to its ally, Syria.
• The UN has said that there have been over 10m border crossings into and out of Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country on 24 February. Data gathered by the UNHCR states that 6,180,345 individual refugees from Ukraine are now recorded across Europe. Ukraine’s neighbours have taken the largest individual numbers. Poland has 1.25 million refugees.
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has branded “disgusting” the behaviour of the ex German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The former German leader has come under fire, after he went on holiday to Moscow and had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin. Schröder told German media in a lengthy interview he had nothing to apologise for over his friendship with the Russian president.

 

[Niner]

The US Senate has ratified Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, voting 95-1 in support. The US is the 23rd member state to ratify what would be the most significant expansion of the 30-member alliance since the 1990s as it responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan US commitment to Nato, and to ensuring our alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” the president, Joe Biden, said in a statement. All 30 Nato members must ratify the accession before Finland and Sweden can become members.

I was wondering "who" that 1 no vote was... figures...

The UN has said that there have been over 10m border crossings into and out of Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country on 24 February. Data gathered by the UNHCR states that 6,180,345 individual refugees from Ukraine are now recorded across Europe. Ukraine’s neighbours have taken the largest individual numbers. Poland has 1.25 million refugees.

I have seen Ukraine license plates on my street here - so I was wondering how many of the refugees are here in Latvia.

How many refugees does Ukraine have in Latvia?
Currently, there are more than 24 000 Ukrainian refugees in Latvia, including 700 at school age. They receive free housing, regional transportation, health care and education services, and an allowance of EUR 109 per person.

 

[Sundog]

I was wondering "who" that 1 no vote was... figures...




I have seen Ukraine license plates on my street here - so I was wondering how many of the refugees are here in Latvia.

How many refugees does Ukraine have in Latvia?
Currently, there are more than 24 000 Ukrainian refugees in Latvia, including 700 at school age. They receive free housing, regional transportation, health care and education services, and an allowance of EUR 109 per person.

I am surprised that there was only 1 opposition vote. I think that the views on foreign policy and the issue of NATO membership are more complex and vary in both the House and Senate more than this vote indicates, but I think most of the legislators didn't want to be public about their concerns, given that this vote comes in the middle of a war.

 

[dotr]

Huh?

Russia sanctions LGBTQ activist, Freeland and Joly's staff, singer Chantal Kreviazuk

Russia sanctioned a raft of Canadian public figures on Friday including Maj.-Gen. Michael Wright, head of Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, and the pastor who officiated the first gay marriages in Canada.

www.cp24.com

''Russia has also sanctioned pastor Brent Hawkes, the LGBTQ activist who officiated Canada's first legal gay marriages, and Juno-award winning singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, who is of Ukrainian and Indigenous heritage.''

 

[PommyMommy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1555786998471954433

https://twitter.com/x/status/1555902453354217479

https://twitter.com/x/status/1555937260192808961

 

[PommyMommy]

AUG 6, 2022

Ukrainian unit digs in for Russian assault on eastern city

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian military personnel are fortifying their positions around the eastern city of Sloviansk in expectation of a fresh Russian attempt to seize the strategic point in the fiercely fought-over Donetsk region.

apnews.com

“I think it won’t be calm for long. Eventually, there will be an assault,” Col. Yurii Bereza, the head of the volunteer national guard regiment, told The Associated Press on Friday, adding that he expected the area to get “hot” in the coming days.

Sloviansk is considered a strategic target in Moscow’s ambitions to seize all of Donetsk province, a largely Russian-speaking area in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces and pro-Moscow separatists control about 60% of the territory.

Russian forces begin assault on two eastern Ukraine cities

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces began an assault Saturday on two key cities in the eastern Donetsk region and kept up rocket and shelling attacks on other Ukrainian cities, including one close to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Ukraine's military and local officials said.

apnews.com

The governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region said three civilians were injured after Russian rockets fell on a residential neighborhood in Nikopol, a city across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. The nuclear plant has been under Russian control since Moscow’s troops seized it early in the war.

“After midnight, the Russian army struck the Nikopol area with (Soviet-era) Grad rockets, and the Kryvyi Rih area from barrel artillery,” Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram.

Another Russian missile attack overnight damaged unspecified infrastructure in the regional capital of Zaporizhzhia. On Thursday, Russia fired 60 rockets at Nikopol, damaging 50 residential buildings in the city of 107,000 and leaving residents without electricity.

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned this week that the situation was becoming more perilous day by day at the Zaporizhzhia plant.

“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, he said. “What is at stake is extremely serious.”

 

[dotr]

Aug 8 2022

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-nuclear-plant-shelled-1.6544727

''Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Monday that each side is shelling Europe's biggest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Russia claimed that Ukrainian shelling caused a power surge and fire and forced staff to lower output from two reactors, while Ukraine has blamed Russian troops for storing weapons there.

Nuclear experts have warned that more shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which was captured by Russia early in the war, is fraught with danger. The Kremlin echoed that statement Monday, claiming that Ukrainian shelling could create "catastrophic" consequences for Europe.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has warned that the way the plant was being run under Russian forces, and the fighting going on around it, are posing grave health and environmental threats.

Ukraine's military intelligence chief, Andriy Yusov, countered the Russian statements by saying his organization had received credible information from several sources that Russian forces have planted explosives at the Zaporizhzhia plant to head off an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the region. Previously, Ukrainian officials said Russia is launching attacks from the plant and using its Ukrainian workers as human shields.''

 

[sds71]

Ukrainian forces were behind an explosion at a key Russian airbase on the Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday.
This was an air base from which planes regularly took off for attacks against our forces.

Five injured as blasts rock Russian air base in annexed Crimea

Blasts rocked a Russian air base near seaside resorts in the annexed Crimean peninsula on Thursday, injuring five people according to local authorities in what Moscow attributed to detonations in ammunition stories.

www.reuters.com

 

[dotr]

Ukraine says 9 Russian warplanes destroyed in Crimea blasts

Ukraine's air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea, amid speculation the blasts were the result of a Ukrainian attack that would represent a significant escalation in the war.

www.cp24.com

Aug 10 2022 rbbm.

''KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine's air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in massive explosions at an air base in Crimea amid speculation they were the result of a Ukrainian attack that would represent a significant escalation in the war.

Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in Tuesday's blasts - or that any attack took place.

Ukrainian officials have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, while poking fun at Russia's explanation that munitions at the Saki air base caught fire and blew up. Analysts have also said that explanation doesn't make sense and that the Ukrainians could have used anti-ship missiles to strike the base.

While dodging credit, several Ukrainian officials have pointedly underscored the importance of the peninsula, which Moscow annexed eight years ago.

Crimea holds huge strategic and symbolic significance for both Ukraine and Russia - further emphasized by how both danced around what actually happened. The Kremlin's demand that Ukraine recognize Crimea as part of Russia has been one of its key conditions for ending the hostilities, but Ukraine has vowed to drive the Russians from the peninsula and all other occupied territories.

Hours after the blast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised again to do just that.

“This Russian war against Ukraine and against all of free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea - its liberation,” he said in his nightly address.

The explosions, which killed one person and wounded 14, sent tourists fleeing in panic as plumes of smoke towered over the nearby coastline. Video showed shattered windows and holes in the brick work of some buildings.''

 

[Niner]

Ukraine says 9 Russian warplanes destroyed in Crimea blasts

Ukraine's air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea, amid speculation the blasts were the result of a Ukrainian attack that would represent a significant escalation in the war.

www.cp24.com

Aug 10 2022 rbbm.
View attachment 358811
''KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine's air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in massive explosions at an air base in Crimea amid speculation they were the result of a Ukrainian attack that would represent a significant escalation in the war.

Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in Tuesday's blasts - or that any attack took place.

Ukrainian officials have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, while poking fun at Russia's explanation that munitions at the Saki air base caught fire and blew up. Analysts have also said that explanation doesn't make sense and that the Ukrainians could have used anti-ship missiles to strike the base.

While dodging credit, several Ukrainian officials have pointedly underscored the importance of the peninsula, which Moscow annexed eight years ago.

Crimea holds huge strategic and symbolic significance for both Ukraine and Russia - further emphasized by how both danced around what actually happened. The Kremlin's demand that Ukraine recognize Crimea as part of Russia has been one of its key conditions for ending the hostilities, but Ukraine has vowed to drive the Russians from the peninsula and all other occupied territories.

Hours after the blast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised again to do just that.

“This Russian war against Ukraine and against all of free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea - its liberation,” he said in his nightly address.

The explosions, which killed one person and wounded 14, sent tourists fleeing in panic as plumes of smoke towered over the nearby coastline. Video showed shattered windows and holes in the brick work of some buildings.''

What the heck are tourists doing in a war zone??!!

 

[dotr]

What the heck are tourists doing in a war zone??!!

Wondered exactly the same thing, why on earth would there be tourists there, it is the last place anyone would ever want to visit, do people really feel that safe there? Where is the most likely place that these tourists come from? imo.

 

[Niner]

Wondered exactly the same thing, why on earth would there be tourists there, it is the last place anyone would ever want to visit, do people really feel that safe there? Where is the most likely place that these tourists come from? imo.

russia.....

 

[cujenn81]

Explosions at a base in Crimea destroyed about at least eight Russian jets, satellite photos indicate.

www.nytimes.com

Russian authorities said munitions stored at the site — the Saki Air Base, on Crimea’s western Black Sea coast — had exploded, and denied that any aircraft had been destroyed. But pictures released by Planet Labs, a satellite imaging company, appear to show at least three blast craters in areas where planes were parked near the runways, leaving blackened debris.

A senior Ukrainian official has said the blasts were an attack carried out with the help of partisans, but was not more specific, and the Ukrainian military has not publicly acknowledged any involvement. Military analysts have said Ukraine does not have missiles that can reach the base from territory it controls, well over 100 miles away, and that Ukrainian jets would have been unlikely to penetrate that far into Russian-controlled airspace.

Since seizing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russia has heavily militarized it, and has used it as a vital jumping-off point for military operations since its broader invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Even so, the attack on the air base suggests that Ukrainian forces are able to carry out guerrilla operations there.

 

[dotr]

Beachgoers in Novofedorivka, in Russian-occupied Crimea, were initially startled by an explosion at a nearby Russian military air base on Tuesday.Credit...Reuters

By Michael Schwirtz and Alan Yuhas
''Aug. 10, 2022Updated 11:02 p.m. ET rbbm.
ODESA, Ukraine — After explosions tore through a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry quickly played down the extent of the damage, saying a munitions blast had left no casualties and that no equipment had been destroyed.
Videos from the scene and an assessment by local officials, who declared a state of emergency, told a very different story, with at least one person killed, more than a dozen wounded and hundreds moved into shelters. More than 60 apartment buildings were damaged, along with 20 stores and other buildings, officials said. And on the grounds of the base, after the huge plumes of smoke cleared, the remains of a warplane could be seen apparently melted into the tarmac. Satellite imagery showed craters, burn marks and at least eight destroyed fighter jets.
The images and the report by local officials on Wednesday contradicted the Kremlin’s earlier account of what had happened in Crimea, a strategic peninsula in southern Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and suggested that the destruction there was far greater than acknowledged''

 

[Cool Cats]

Russia Vows Revenge at the Latest Country to …​

Latvia’s parliament has moved to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine—and the Kremlin does not appear to be taking it well.

Russia is committing a “genocide against the Ukrainian people,” Latvian MPs said in a statement Thursday, according to AFP. Russia “uses suffering and intimidation as tools in its attempts to weaken the morale of the Ukrainian people and armed forces, and to paralyze the functioning of the state in order to occupy Ukraine.”

Over 40 countries have already committed to helping document and investigate Russia’s suspected war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, from the senseless killing of civilians, to rapes, to mass graves. The International Criminal Court might be putting forward a case as soon as this winter.

 

[Niner]

Russia Vows Revenge at the Latest Country to …​

Latvia’s parliament has moved to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine—and the Kremlin does not appear to be taking it well.

Russia is committing a “genocide against the Ukrainian people,” Latvian MPs said in a statement Thursday, according to AFP. Russia “uses suffering and intimidation as tools in its attempts to weaken the morale of the Ukrainian people and armed forces, and to paralyze the functioning of the state in order to occupy Ukraine.”

Over 40 countries have already committed to helping document and investigate Russia’s suspected war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, from the senseless killing of civilians, to rapes, to mass graves. The International Criminal Court might be putting forward a case as soon as this winter.

Plus! Latvia is demolishing the Soviet "Victory" statue before Nov. 15th. It is just down the street from me. I want to see when they take it apart!! Nov. 18, 2022 will be the 104th anniversary of the First freedom of Latvia. Which then ended when the Soviets took over in 1944....

The Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders, unofficially known simply as the Victory Memorial, is a memorial complex in Victory Park, Riga, Latvia erected in 1985 to commemorate the Soviet Army's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

and now it is barricaded & police on site at all times.

Suspicions of secrecy around demolishing Soviet monument in Rīga

The Rīga City Council has found a company to demolish the Soviet 'Victory' monument in Uzvaras Park. Under the pretext of the risks of provocation, the Council does not currently disclose who it will...

eng.lsm.lv

 

[dotr]

Delicate question perhaps, but are any countries blocking or severely curtailing visas/immigration for Russian citizens?
Do people worry that R. already in other countries would be recruited to commit terrorists acts on behalf of Russia?
speculation, imo.