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

[PommyMommy]

[URL='https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/09/ukraine-news-russia-war-ceasefire-broken-humanitarian-corridors-kyiv-russian-invasion-live-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-latest-updates']Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow promises humanitarian corridors; US to send Patriot missiles to Poland – live | World news | The Guardian[/URL]
18m ago 23:09

Here are the main developments in the past few hours:

• The US government has dismissed as “untenable” a suggestion by Poland that it could make 29 of its Soviet-era MIG fighter jets available to the Americans to help defend Ukraine.
  
• But the US will be sending two Patriot anti-missile batteries stationed in Europe to Poland to bolster its defences against attack.
• Russian forces will stop firing starting 10 am Moscow time on Wednesday and are ready to provide human corridors so civilians can evacuate Kyiv and four other cities.
• Russia’s military is solving some of its logistical problems and could launch an attack on Kyiv within days, according to experts.
  
• Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been described as a hero by the British press after he invoked the fight against Nazism in an impassioned video address to MPs to do more to help protect his country.
• Ukraine accused Russia of breaking a ceasefire agreement, by shelling a route intended to allow civilians to escape the besieged city of Mariupol. Residents of the port city are living without heat, water, sanitary systems or phones.
• The US is banning imports of Russian oil “to inflict further pain on Vladimir Putin”, Joe Biden has said. The EU has not joined the ban, but the British government promised to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
• Russia’s war in Ukraine is being bolstered by $285m in daily oil payments from European countries, a thinktank has found.
• Venezuela has released at least two Americans from jail in an apparent goodwill gesture toward the Biden administration following a visit to Caracas by a high-level US delegation.
• Chinese president Xi Jinping called for “maximum restraint” in Ukraine overnight and said China is “pained to see the flames of war reignited in Europe” in his strongest statement to date on the conflict.

 

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Netflix Makes Oscar-Nominated Ukraine Documentary Free to Watch

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 8, 2022
Russia-Ukraine war: Some key developments in the conflict | AP News
[...]

Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC show a buildup of Belarussian and suspected Russian helicopters at Machulishchy Air Base outside Minsk, Belarus, on Tuesday. And analysts believe flooding north of Kyiv seen in satellite photos likely comes from Ukrainian forces trying to stop the Russian advance.

[...]

Additional air-defense capabilities are the No. 1 priority for Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Borys Kremenetskyi, the defense attaché with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday after visiting the Pentagon.

“It can be ground-based air-defense systems. It can be fighter jets, whatever possible,” Kremenetskyi told The Associated Press.

He said there are countries around the world that have Soviet-produced air-defense systems that the Ukrainians know how to operate.

“The U.S. government can also motivate those countries to provide us this equipment,” he said.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

MAR 8, 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 8 | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)
March 8, 3:00 PM EST

Russian forces continued concentrating in the eastern, northwestern, and western outskirts of Kyiv for an assault on the capital in the coming 24-96 hours. The reported appearance of forces belonging to Chechen leader Ramazan Kadyrov, Russia’s Rosgvardia internal security formations, and the Liga (former Wagner) Private Military Company in the western outskirts of Kyiv may indicate that the Russian military is struggling to assemble sufficient conventional combat power to launch its assault on the capital. Russian forces near Kyiv made limited gains and prepared for limited drives to continue their attempted encirclement to the west.

Ukrainian forces have continued to challenge the lengthy Russian ground lines of communication leading from near Sumy to eastern Kyiv. Russian forces near Kharkiv have been steadily diverting to secure and extend those lines over the past few days, as we have reported. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 8 that Russian troops currently near Chernihiv appear to be moving east. We assess that those forces may seek to link up with troops coming from near Sumy to help them consolidate and protect their extended lines in support of the planned offensive against Kyiv.

[...]

Russian forces are engaged in four primary efforts at this time:

• Main effort—Kyiv (comprised of three subordinate supporting efforts);
• Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv;
  • Supporting effort 1a—Luhansk Oblast;
  • Supporting effort 2—Mariupol; and
  • Supporting effort 3—Kherson and advances westward.

[...]

Immediate items to watch

• Russian forces may launch an attempt to encircle Kyiv from east and west and/or to seize the city center itself within the next 24-96 hours;
• Russian troops may drive on Zaporizhya city itself within the next 48-72 hours, likely attempting to block it from the east and set conditions for subsequent operations after Russian forces besieging Mariupol take that city;
• Russian forces may attempt amphibious landings anywhere along the Black Sea Coast between Odesa and the mouth of the Southern Bug in the next 24-48 hours.

 

[PommyMommy]

9 & 10 News on Twitter - Video
CHECK IT OUT: Hot air balloons with giant Ukrainian and Lithuanian flags hanging from them floated over Vilnius, Lithuania, on Saturday (3/5). The pilots said they wanted to show support for Ukraine.

 

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Why Establishing a No-Fly Zone Over Ukraine Would Be Very Dangerous and Costly (msn.com)
[...]

Since Feb. 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded with the U.S. and its allies for a no-fly zone. On Sunday he reported that the city of Vinnytsia was attacked by eight missiles from Russian troops. “We repeat every day: ‘Close the sky over Ukraine!’” the Ukrainian leader said. “Close it for all Russian missiles, Russian combat aircraft, for all these terrorists. Make a humanitarian air zone—without rockets, without air bombs.”

[...]

... A no-fly zone would put U.S. and other NATO pilots in a position of shooting down Russian planes and helicopters, and likely firing on ground forces. Experts warn such action risks escalating the conflict dramatically—into cataclysmic nuclear war, at worst. The Pentagon has repeatedly dismissed calls for establishing a no-fly zone, citing President Joe Biden’s insistence that no combat forces will be sent to Ukraine.

[...]

The U.S. and its allies have been bolstering Ukraine’s military firepower to aid in the fight against Russia. A senior U.S. official reported to CNN that U.S. and NATO member-states deployed 17,000 anti-tank missiles and 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. ...

However, many military analysts fear that Ukraine’s tough resistance will eventually crumble under the might of Russia’s much larger military—which is among the most formidable in the world. Russia has been doubling down on military modernization since 2008. The latest data from the 2022 Military Balance Report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, reports that Moscow has more than 900,000 troops, while Kyiv has 196,000 active military personnel. IISS indicates that the Russia air force has some 1,172 combat-capable aircraft, while Ukraine has just 172.

... Leaders in Ukraine have pleaded for the U.S. or allies to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine to protect civilians from Russian airstrikes.

[...]

What would it take to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine?

Top of the line American fighter jets, such as the F-22 Raptor, the F-35 Lightning II, and F-15 Eagle, would need to be sent into the warzone all day and night, along with aerial refueling planes. Ground crews would have to be stationed nearby. Electronic attack aircraft would presumably be sent in as well to disrupt and jam Russian radars to avoid detection and targeting.

Benard also says that no-fly zones only work if the militaries of the U.S. and NATO allies are willing to aggressively enforce them. “This means NATO would need to be ready to shoot down Russian planes that violate the no-fly zone,” he said.

That’s a prospect that NATO and the Soviet Union spent decades trying to avoid. While Russia may have a smaller military than its communist predecessor, it still controls the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Additionally, suppressing Russian air power would require massive numbers of planes and SAM missiles. While the U.S. Air Force is the largest in the world, with more than 2,200 fighters, bombers, and attack aircraft, European air forces are considerably smaller. The U.K.’s Royal Air Force has 234 combat-capable aircraft, while the air force of Poland, a NATO member that borders Ukraine, has 94.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

[URL='https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/09/ukraine-news-russia-war-ceasefire-broken-humanitarian-corridors-kyiv-russian-invasion-live-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-latest-updates']Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow promises humanitarian corridors; US to send Patriot missiles to Poland – live | World news | The Guardian[/URL]
5m ago 01:02

The New York Times will have no reporters on the ground in Russia for the first time in a century after the news organisation joined those pulling out of the country.

Russian authorities made reporting from the country impossible when it recently criminalised the act of describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war” with those who commit the offence facing up to 15 years in prison.

As a result Russian media outlets have been forced to close, while global news organisations have pulled out their teams owing to the risk of arrest.

Former NYT Moscow bureau chief, Neil MacFarquhar, said on social media Russia has always been considered a “important country, an important story” but the recent turn. had “just killed off that long tradition”.

“We’ve had reporters there continuously since 1921, with one or two short interruptions due to visa hiccoughs. Not Stalin, not the Cold War, nothing drove us out,” MacFarquhar said.

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia, Blocked From the Global Internet, Plunges Into Digital Isolation

TikTok and Netflix are suspending their services in the country. Facebook has been blocked. Twitter has been partially blocked and YouTube’s future is in doubt. Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and others have pulled back or withdrawn entirely from Russia. Even online video games like Minecraft are no longer available.

While Russia is paying a stiff economic cost for being cut off, the digital isolationism also serves Putin’s interests. It allows him to clamp down further on dissent and information that does not follow the government line.

Under a censorship law passed last week, journalists, website operators and others risk 15 years in prison for publishing “misinformation” about the war on Ukraine.

 

[PommyMommy]

Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine | The Week
The second Chechen war began in 1999. It was then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's war, and it was to the death. A "they make a desert and call it peace" kind of war. The Chechen capital of Grozny — already damaged by the first war — was left as a hole in a map, called the most destroyed city on the planet by the United Nations. Almost nothing was left standing, nearly no one spared.

As many as 250,000 civilians were killed in the combined Chechen wars, along with many thousands more combatants on both sides. Reports of rape, arson, torture, and other crimes by Russian soldiers were widespread — and cast as a wholly necessary evil by those forces. "Without bespredel [no limits warfare], we'll get nowhere in Chechnya," a 21-year-old Russian conscript told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. "We have to be cruel to them. Otherwise, we'll achieve nothing."

Russia again used cluster bombs in Syria, a war it joined in 2015, a war Putin, now president, fought largely through the air, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops providing ground forces.

The bombing was not indiscriminate. It was worse: Hospitals were considered legitimatetargets by Russian commanders. Even civilians whose only concern was the safety of others — rescue workers called the White Helmets because of the hardhats they wore — were killed while they were responding to earlier attacks.

 

[PommyMommy]

A devoted mother-of-two who was mercilessly killed alongside her young children by Russian shelling during a 'ceasefire' was a high-ranking accountant who had previously fled violence in Donetsk, it was revealed today.

Tatyana Perebeynos was killed alongside her daughter Alise, nine, and son Nikita, 18, after Russian artillery rained down on the trio alongside as they desperately fled the besieged town of Irpin, Ukraine.

Tatyana Perebeynos cut down alongside her two children during Russian 'ceasefire' shelling of Irpin | Daily Mail Online

 

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Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) / Twitter

Vitaly Gerasimov: Ukraine claims Russian general has been killed in Kharkiv - CNN

Unilever and Kraft Heinz Stop Exports and Capital Investment in Russia
Unilever became the first major European food company to stop imports and exports out of Russia.

 

[PommyMommy]

The Russian embassy in Latvia has a new neighbor across the street

A stylized 'death's head' Putin – only slightly less attractive than the real thing – was unfurled to welcome visitors to the acclaimed Pauls Stradiņš Museum of Medical History.

'Death's head' Putin gazes into the inferno – and the Russian embassy

labs darbs
@Niner

 

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Russia has committed to observe the ceasefire from 09:00 to 21:00 local time along several humanitarian corridors, Ukraine deputy PM says.
Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council said there would be a special operation to allow children and staff members from an orphanage in the village of Vorzel to leave the area..

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday it had confirmed the humanitarian corridor routes from the Russian side, Vereshchuk said.

Russia, Ukraine establish ceasefire on humanitarian corridors to allow evacuation

Ukrainian officials announced Russia has agreed to a new daylong cease-fire along several evacuation routes for people fleeing cities.

CityNews

 

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Biden’s impossible bind: how should the US tackle Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday: “For everything we’re doing for Ukraine, the president also has a responsibility to not get us into a direct conflict, a direct war, with Russia, a nuclear power, and risk a war that expands even beyond Ukraine to Europe. That’s clearly not our interest. What we’re trying to do is end this war in Ukraine, not start a larger one.”

Republican Marco Rubio, vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, told ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos: “A no-fly zone has become a catchphrase. I’m not sure a lot of people fully understand what that means. That means flying Awacs [airborne warning and control system] 24 hours a day. That means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky.

“That means, frankly, you can’t put those planes up there unless you’re willing to knock out the anti-aircraft systems that the Russians have deployed, and not just in Ukraine, but in Russia and also in Belarus … It means starting world war III.”

 

[PommyMommy]

"The GMD system aims to protect the U.S. homeland from intermediate and long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by destroying the incoming warhead in its midcourse phase, outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. First deployed in 2004, this system currently comprises 40 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California, in addition to associated satellite and radar systems. The Pentagon is also constructing a new missile field at Fort Greely, which is slated to host 20 new interceptors, bringing the eventual total to 64 interceptors."
Fact sheet: U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

 

[PommyMommy]

Rusland vraagt kunstmestproducenten om te stoppen met export - Nieuws.nl

Russia is urging fertilizer producers in the country to halt exports, the Russian government said in a statement. This threatens to further increase the already considerably higher global fertilizer prices.

Russia, facing mounting international sanctions since it invaded Ukraine, is known as a major exporter of fertilizers. Natural gas, in which Russia is also very big, is an important component of many fertilizers.

According to experts, cessation of exports from Russia could lead to farmers all over the world having to pay even more for their fertilizer. That could probably also boost the prices of food items in the supermarket. The prices of many types of fertilizer have already risen sharply in recent days due to logistical problems, levies and sanctions.

 

[PommyMommy]

Nato summit: What does the US contribute?
The current agreed target for European Nato members is 2% of GDP on defence by 2024.

President Trump had urged the other countries in the alliance to increase that to 4% of GDP.

In 2020, 10 Nato countries (in addition to the US) reached or exceeded the 2% target - two more than in 2019 including for the first time, France and Norway.

The rest (including Germany, Italy and Spain) spent below that in 2020, even though they've all increased their spending as a percentage of GDP since 2014 (when the 2% target was agreed).

Germany indicated in 2019 that it wouldn't reach the 2% target until 2031.

Nato members also pledged that by 2024 at least 20% of their defence expenditure should go on acquiring and developing equipment.

On this measure, most Nato members in 2020 spent at least that proportion or more on equipment, although Germany and Canada still spent less than 20%.

 

[PommyMommy]

Overal duikt het mysterieuze Z-symbool op, maar niemand weet wat het betekent | NU - Het laatste nieuws het eerst op NU.nl

Rutte wants discrimination against Russians in the Netherlands to stop
Prime Minister Mark Rutte called on Tuesday to stop the harassment against Russians in the Netherlands. "We are not helping anyone with this at all and it is not civilized," said the prime minister.

Rutte said he heard increasing reports of "verbal abuse or even worse" against Russian people, organizations and companies in the Netherlands. "I strongly reject it," he says. "We are in conflict with Putin and his government, not with Russians and certainly not with Russians in the Netherlands."

According to the prime minister, individual Russians cannot do anything about what is currently happening in Ukraine. The prime minister notes that many of them are turning away from this "terrible violence".

 

[PommyMommy]

Ukraine war: FOUR UK squaddies go AWOL to fight Putin's forces including 19-year-old Queen's Guard | Daily Mail Online

• Four British soldiers are feared to have gone AWOL to fight Vladimir Putin's invading forces in Ukraine
• A 19-year-old member of the Queen's Guard signed up for Ukraine's International Legion of foreign fighters
• The move has sparked panic at the Ministry of Defence, with security chiefs racing to intercept the teenager
• Fears are high that Russia could claim Britain has entered the war if UK army soldiers are found in Ukraine

 

[PommyMommy]

March 9 (Reuters) - Radioactive substances could be released from Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant because it cannot cool spent nuclear fuel after its power connection was severed.
Ukraine warns of radiation leak risk after power cut at occupied Chernobyl plant

Chernobyl monitoring suspended
"The International Atomic Energy Agency is no longer connected to the monitoring devices of the Chernobyl nuclear ruins in Ukraine. The nuclear power plant is also separated from the power supply. Experts warn of the escape of radioactive substances."
Krieg gegen die Ukraine: Überwachung von Tschernobyl unterbrochen