Russia Attacks Ukraine - 23 Feb 2022 **Media Thread** NO DISCUSSION #2

[PommyMommy]

[URL='https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/12/ukraine-news-russia-war-ceasefire-broken-humanitarian-corridors-kyiv-russian-invasion-live-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-latest-updates-live']Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Russia will only take Kyiv if city is ‘razed to the ground’, Zelenskiy says, as Moscow threatens western shipments – live | World news | The Guardian[/URL]
11m ago 13:03

Here's a summary of the latest developments…

• The Ukrainian intelligence service says seven civilians have died after Russian troops fired at an evacuation convoy in the Kyiv region. Ukraine accused Russia of firing at a convoy of civilian evacuees from the village of Peremoha.
• US president Joe Biden has authorised $200m in weapons and other assistance for Ukraine, the White House has said. In a memorandum to the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, Biden directed that the funds be allocated through the Foreign Assistance Act and designated for Ukraine’s defence.
• The Ukrainian foreign minister said Russia is using similar tactics in Ukraine to what it did in Syria and that Mariupol is besieged but still under Ukrainian control. Dmytro Kuleba also said that Russia tried to make a logistics base near Chernobyl.
• The US has said it is willing to take diplomatic steps to help the Ukrainian government. A state department spokesperson made the comments on Saturday after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the west should be more involved in negotiations to end the war.

 

[PommyMommy]

Captured Russian pilot admits to bombing civilians, urges Russia to stop assault: 'We have already lost this war'

A captured Russian pilot admitted to targeting Ukrainian civilians and urged Russia to call off the assault on Ukraine.

Lieutenant Colonel Krishtop Maxim Sergeevich was shot down on March 6 and taken into custody by Ukrainian forces, Interfax Ukraine reported. At a press conference on Friday, Krishtop said he carried out three bombing missions, Newsweek reported.

"In the process of completing the task, I realized that the target was not enemy military facilities, but residential buildings, peaceful people," Krishtop said, per Newsweek. "But I carried out the criminal order."

"I recognize the enormity of the crimes committed by me," Krishtop said, per Newsweek. "I want to ask forgiveness from the entire Ukrainian people for the misfortune that we brought them. I will do everything in my power to end this war as quickly as possible, and bring those responsible for this genocide of Ukrainians to justice."

Krishtop made the comments at a press conference alongside other other Russian pilots held as prisoners of war, according to Interfax. Ukraine has conducted several similar news conferences with prisoners of war in an attempt to counter Russian propaganda about the war, The Washington Post reported.

 

[PommyMommy]

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 5 min ago
SBU: Intercepted phone calls shows that Russian troops near Kharkiv were ordered to shoot at civilians, including children.

NEXTA on Twitter - 30 min ago
Occupiers shot women and children while they trying to evacuate from the village of #Pobeda in the #Kyiv region War criminals killed seven people, including one child. The exact number of wounded is still unknown.

NEXTA on Twitter - 21 min ago
#Ukrainian soldiers captured an enemy drone as a trophy.


NEXTA on Twitter - Video
#Kharkiv after the bombing. Putin's killers can only destroy and bring death to peaceful cities

 

[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

 

[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

[...]

 

[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.

“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.”

[...]

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.

[...]

 

[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.

 

[PommyMommy]

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.''

 

[PommyMommy]

Alec Luhn on Twitter
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
Sergey Khlan | Facebook

 

[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."

 

[PommyMommy]

Online translation of tweet from Ukrainian to English.

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.

"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/KyivInde...37565.ampproject.net/2202230359001/frame.html

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

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

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Ukrainian Pianist Plays A Final Rendition of Chopin In The Ruins Of Her House (rferl.org) - Video
A Ukrainian pianist has been filmed playing a final rendition of Chopin in the ruins of her house after it was badly damaged by Russian shelling. In a video recorded by her daughter, Iryna Manyukina is seen playing the piano in their home in Bila Tserkva, some 80 kilometers from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on March 5. A Russian shell exploded just a few meters from the house, but no one from the family was injured. The family has since left the damaged home.

Largest Hypermarket Chain In Russia's Far East Imposes Limits Amid Buying Frenzy (rferl.org)
The largest hypermarket chain in Russia’s Far East is restricting how much sugar, salt, and other essential foods people can purchase amid a buying frenzy triggered by fears of future shortages.

[...]

The hypermarket said demand for sugar has risen 400 percent compared with the average and that the sizes of individual purchases resemble what a small neighborhood retail store would buy, implying owners of mom-and-pop shops could be turning to Samberi to fill up their empty shelves.

[...]

Lviv Opens Its Arms To Ukraine's Displaced Cancer Patients (rferl.org)
[...]

“Yesterday, we had 52 patients, and 45 of them were…from the east and the south,” said Yaroslav Shparyk, head of chemotherapy at the Lviv center. “The number of patients from places like Kherson, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Mariupol is increasing exponentially.”
Before the war, patients were provided medicines at the clinics where they were being treated.

“Today, many hospitals are cut off from the world,” said Oleh Duda, deputy head of surgery at the Lviv oncology center. “They can’t send us this medicine. Now we are grappling with the problem of providing chemotherapy at our center and other oncological facilities in western Ukraine.”

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Cashless and flightless, Russian tourists stuck in Thailand | AP News
Thousands of Russian tourists are stranded in Thailand’s beach resorts because of the war in Ukraine, many unable to pay their bills or return home because of sanctions and canceled flights.

[...]

There are about 6,500 Russian tourists stuck in Phuket, Surat Thani, Krabi and Pattaya, four provinces that are popular seaside resort destinations, in addition to 1,000 Ukrainians, Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, told The Associated Press on Friday.

[...]

While almost all direct flights from Russia have been suspended, connections are still available through major carriers based in the Middle East.

He said efforts are also being made to find alternative methods of payments for Russian tourists.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

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

 

[PommyMommy]

Armed Forces on Twitter - Video
Евакуація з с.Білогородка Бучанського району.

Translated by Google:
Evacuation from the village of Belogorodka, Bucha district.

Euromaidan Press on Twitter
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.

 

[PommyMommy]

Latest stats on refugees: Situation Ukraine Refugee Situation (unhcr.org)
Refugees fleeing Ukraine (since 24 February 2022)
2,597,543
Last updated 11 Mar 2022

NEXTA on Twitter - Video
A girl with a blank sheet of paper was detained at an anti-war rally in Nizhny Novgorod

Lithuania will be the next country that Putin wants to seize if he wins in Ukraine – Danilov (interfax.com.ua)
Lithuania will be the next country that Russian President Vladimir Putin will seize if he wins the war with Ukraine, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov said, citing Ukrainian intelligence.

"What we understand and what our intelligence gives: today we are talking about Lithuania. The Russian Federation is not going to stop. They have the next goal – if they have a victory, God forbid, on our territory, then the next country that Putin will want to seize will be Lithuania directly," Danilov said on a telethon on Saturday evening.

Eugene Czolij: NATO member states must provide Ukraine with fighter jets without further delay (kyivindependent.com)
Indeed, numerous UN and NATO member states, including the U.S., have publicly provided Ukraine defensive lethal weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger surface-to-air missiles, and imposed severe sanctions on Russia, Putin and Russian oligarchs, all of which Putin considers to be acts of aggression against Russia.

In that sense, it is very difficult to follow the logic that providing Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger surface-to-air missiles somehow does not involve NATO and its member states in the war that Russia has launched against Ukraine, whereas providing Ukraine with fighter jets would get them involved, particularly since these fighter jets would be operated under Ukrainian command by Ukraine’s pilots from Ukraine’s airfields.

'We're Encircled': Residents Flee Russian Forces In Southeast Ukraine -Video
RFE/RL has spoken to evacuees fleeing Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhya region of southeast Ukraine. Nine buses and 150 cars were used on March 11 to move people from areas including the city of Dniprorudne, near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Station, which Russian troops seized on March 4. Residents said the city itself was still in Ukrainian hands but was encircled by Russian troops.

WARNING: Viewers may find the content of this video disturbing.
'Who Will Bring Back Our Children?' Russian Tanks Shell Residential Buildings In Mariupol (rferl.org)
Russian forces continue to heavily bombard Ukraine's southeastern port city of Mariupol. Residential buildings have been reduced to rubble and there are bodies of civilians strewn on the streets. In this video, Mariupol resident Anastasiya Erashova is seen holding her surviving child after her second child was killed.

 

[CrimeAway]

NPR article about evacuees' pets:

The power of the dog and how pets are helping Ukrainians cope with war

 

[PommyMommy]

The Zaporozhye regional administration says a new mayor has been installed in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, which is under Russian military control, after the elected mayor was detained on Friday.

The newly installed mayor is Galina Danilchenko, a former member of the city council, Danilchenko, who was not elected by the people, was introduced as the acting mayor on local TV, the statement said.

In her televised statement, which was posted by the administration on Telegram, Danilchenko said her "main task is to take all necessary steps to get the city back to normal."

She claimed there were people still in Melitopol who would try to destabilize "the situation and provoke a reaction of bad behavior."

"I ask you to keep your wits about you and not to give in to these provocations," Danilchenko said. "I appeal to the deputies, elected by the people, on all levels. Since you were elected by the people, it is your duty to care about the well-being of your citizens."

Danilchenko proposed the creation of a "People's Choice Committee" to "solve all the critical issues for Melitopol and the Melitopol region."

New mayor installed in Russia-controlled Melitopol after the Ukrainian city's elected mayor was detained

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 12, 2022
Why Russia bombs hospitals and maternity wards in Ukraine | Euromaidan Press
[...]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 11 March, there have been 24 verified attacks on health care facilities in Ukraine.

[...]

One of the explanations is that this barbaric decision is the most effective way to force the local population to flee. People are resilient and they use to stay in their native communities – cities and villages, even when they suffer from very serious hardships. They may face serious shortcomings of food, water, housing, electricity, but still, they will stay and do their best to survive and raise their children.

However, when people see that there is no medical infrastructure around, when you cannot reach any doctor or nurse, when you know that all hospitals and outpatient medical facilities stopped working, especially when they have been destroyed – then people decide that they will not survive if the stay. And with pain in their hearts, they leave their home and their motherland and they turn into refugees.

For Assad and Putin, this was the way to win. Not just medical facilities were destroyed to achieve this goal and to force entire populations to flee (thus additionally creating a problem for Europe – the migrant crisis because of very large numbers of refugees). Entire cities, like Aleppo, were fully destroyed.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia Ukraine live updates: Vladimir Putin faces ‘coup’ as ‘discontent’ grows | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
The Russian ambassador is “apoplectic” over an epic stunt on Russia’s embassy in Portugal’s capital, according to former UN war crimes investigator David Savage.

Two neighbouring houses have projected blue and yellow onto the Russian embassy’s Lisbon facade, which are the colours of the Ukrainian flag.