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

[PommyMommy]

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 2 hours ago
️French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune says Ukraine will “probably” join the European Union “in a few years.”
He added that the admission of Ukraine to the EU “is not for tomorrow.”

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
️ Zelensky’s Chief of Staff: We didn’t believe Russia would launch a full-scale invasion.
Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said that authorities were preparing for Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine for months, but he added that they did not believe it would actually happen.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 1 hour ago
️ Kyiv Oblast Governor: northwest of Kyiv remains most dangerous area.
According to Oleksiy Kuleba, Kyiv’s suburbs – Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, and Vorzel – which have been cut off from the capital by Russian troops, remain among the most dangerous areas.

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
Zelensky: "We will do everything to find the foreign property of Russia's propagandists and get it confiscated. You love luxurious lifestyle and European countries, don't you? You can say goodbye to it."

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
️Zelensky's address to nation: "Russian TV mentioned the attack in Mariupol. But they lied that there were no women or children in the hospital, and said there were nationalists there.
They are lying with confidence, as they always do."

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
️Zelensky: "The Ukrainian army is fighting off the enemy on all key directions.
Thanks to our military, our National Guard, our border guards, our police, our territorial defense forces, we are not slaves. And we never will be. Because it's not in our spirit or in our fate."

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter
️Zelensky: "After the war, we will rebuild everything very fast and very well. Every city that was affected will get a special development program.
There will be the best architects, the best companies, the best projects for every city."

 

[PommyMommy]

[URL='https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/10/ukraine-news-russia-war-kyiv-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-russian-invasion-hospital-bombing-latest-live-updates']Russia-Ukraine war latest news: half of Kyiv population has fled, mayor says; Turkey talks end without progress on ceasefire | World news | The Guardian[/URL]
3h ago 06:13

Here's a summary of the latest developments...

• A meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba, in Turkey ended with little progress appearing to have been made. In a news conference afterwards, Reuters reports that Kuleba said that no progress was made on a ceasefire and that Lavrov did not commit to a humanitarian corridor in the south-eastern city of Mariupol, where he said the situation was most difficult. Lavrov also said that Russia will try to never again be dependent on the west.
• A humanitarian convoy trying to reach Mariupol today has been forced to turn around due to fighting, Reuters reports the Ukrainian deputy prime minister has said. An airstrike on a hospital in Mariupol on Wednesday killed three people, including a child, the city council said today, reports the Associated Press. The attack wounded 17 people in the besieged port city, including women waiting to give birth, doctors and children.
• Ukraine opened seven humanitarian corridors, including the one from Mariupol, according to the country’s deputy prime minister. The governor of Sumy said that three columns of evacuees were leaving after a ceasefire was agreed.
• The British home secretary has pledged to streamline the online visa application system for Ukrainians following heavy criticism of her response to the crisis. Priti Patel said that from Tuesday, Ukrainian refugees will no longer have to go to a visa application centre to provide their biometrics before coming to the UK.
• The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, says she will discuss issues with Poland that will force Russia to pay a price for its invasion on Ukraine, reports Reuters. Speaking today during a visit to Warsaw, she also said that Poland was doing “extraordinary work” to help Ukrainian refugees.
• More than 2.3 million people have fled Ukraine so far since the start of the Russian invasion two weeks ago, the UN said today. The UN migration agency said that of those who have been forced to take refuge in neighbouring countries, 112,000 people are third-country nationals.
  
• The UK has frozen the assets of seven Russian businessmen including Roman Abramovich, Igor Sechin, Oleg Deripaska and Dmitri Lebedev after they were added to the country’s sanctions list, reports Reuters. Abramovich is the owner of Chelsea Football Club, Deripaska has stakes in En+ Group, Sechin is the chief executive of Rosneft and Lebedev is chairman of the board of directors of Bank Rossiya.
• Russia’s foreign ministry has said Moscow will no longer participate in the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights organisation founded in response to the humanitarian outrages of the second world war.

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia-Ukraine war latest news: half of Kyiv population has fled, mayor says; Turkey talks end without progress on ceasefire | World news | The Guardian
3h ago 06:22

The mayor of Zhytomyr has said a civilian building, a thermal electricity plant and two hospitals were hit in Russian airstrikes in the western Ukrainian city.

[...]

3h ago 06:40

Ukraine is investigating 38 cases of alleged treason against local officials and law enforcement officers accused of aiding Russia, Ukraine’s state bureau of investigation said.

Criminal proceedings have been launched against several police officers in the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Kherson.

They have committed treason under conditions of martial law and gone to the side of the enemy.

[...]

2h ago 07:14

Dramatic drone footage is circulating this morning of a Ukrainian ambush on a column of Russian tanks just outside Brovary, in a location around 35km direct drive away from the centre of Kyiv, Dan Sabbagh writes.

Video: Bellingcat on Twitter

[...]

 

[PommyMommy]

@biannagolodryga
As predicted: The Russian military claims to have found chemical laboratories in Ukraine and suggest they may be used to transmit infectious diseases into Russia via birds

 

[PommyMommy]

Russian airstrike on Ukraine maternity hospital kills 3; wounds at least 17 | CP24.com

''Another 17 people were wounded, including women waiting to give birth, doctors and children buried in the rubble.

Images of pregnant women covered in dust and blood dominated news reports in many countries, and brought a new wave of horror at the 2-week-old war sparked by Russia's invasion, which has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, driven more than 2 million people from Ukraine and shaken the foundations of European security.''

 

[PommyMommy]

[URL='https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/10/ukraine-news-russia-war-kyiv-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-russian-invasion-hospital-bombing-latest-live-updates']Russia-Ukraine war latest news: half of Kyiv population has fled, mayor says; Turkey talks end without progress on ceasefire | World news | The Guardian[/URL]
1h ago 08:20

Poland has described Wednesday’s strike on a maternity and children’s hospital in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol as an “act of barbarity” that resembled genocide.

Speaking in Warsaw following a bilateral meeting with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, called for further sanctions against Moscow:

There are pregnant women, there are children. If you kill ordinary people – you throw bombs, rockets, at housing estates – this is an act of barbarity bearing the features of genocide.

[...]

49m ago 08:46

The US commitment to the Nato alliance is “ironclad” and America is prepared to defend “every inch” of Nato territory, the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, has said.

Harris was speaking at a joint news conference with the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, in Warsaw, where she is demonstrating US support for Nato’s eastern flank countries.

The meeting came after the Pentagon rejected Poland’s proposal to transfer its MiG-29 fighter jets to the US for delivery to Ukraine. A Pentagon spokesperson described the plan as “not tenable” on Wednesday.

[...]

5m ago 09:33

Putin claims west trying to blame Russia for own mistakes
Vladimir Putin has claimed the west is trying to blame Russia for its own mistakes with the US ban on oil and accused countries of deceiving their populations.

Reuters reports that the Russian president has said that sanctions on Russia are not legitimate and pledged to resolve problems that arise.

[...]

Meanwhile, Russia’s ministry of finance, known as Minfin, said it has taken measures to limit outflow of capital and that it will work with the Russian central bank to ensure the financial system’s stability.

Its priority, Minfin said, is to stabilise the financial system.

 

[PommyMommy]

Ukraine LIVE: Unhinged Putin vows to attack entire world – airports targeted in new threat | World | News | Express.co.uk
''Maria Zakharova issued a warning that airports could be Russia's next target.

The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said: "We call on EU and NATO countries to stop the thoughtless flooding of the unviable Kyiv regime with the latest weapons systems in order to avoid enormous risk to international civilian aviation and other means of transport in Europe and beyond."

It comes after the UK defence secretary Ben Wallace confirmed the UK would be sending Starstreak high-velocity portable missiles to help Ukraine "better defend its skies".

The missiles travel at over three times the speed of sounds before spitting into three darts.''

 

[PommyMommy]

https://www.knack.be/nieuws/wereld/...e-buitenlandminister/live-normal-1837557.html

13:33 on 10/03/2022

Three Scandinavian newspapers publish in Russian against Kremlin . 'propaganda'

Three major Scandinavian newspapers will translate some of their articles on the war in Ukraine into Russian in order to reach the people of Russia and counter the Kremlin's 'propaganda'. They announced that on Thursday.

"Our aim is to give Russians access to impartial and reliable reporting," the editors-in-chief of leading newspapers Politiken (Denmark), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) and Helsingin Sanomat (Finland) wrote in a joint statement.

"The Ukrainian tragedy must not reach the Russian public through propaganda channels," they argue, lamenting the recent shutdown of "the last independent audiovisual media in Russia." This concerns radio station Echo from Moscow and TV station of the opposition Dojd.

"Russian mothers need to know that their sons have been sent into the unknown, that innocent civilians have been killed and injured, that two million Ukrainians have been forced to flee their own country and that the childhoods of millions of Ukrainian children have been devastated," the three editors in chief said. Christian Jensen (Politiken), Peter Wolodarski (Dagens Nyheter) and Kaius Niemi (Helsingi Sanomat).

The official Russian version of the invasion of Ukraine is that it is a limited peacekeeping operation to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from 'genocide'. ( Belgium )

 

[PommyMommy]

How animals in Ukraine are being rescued during war

"The devastation caused by some of these rocket attacks, that open environment full of glass, concrete and metal is dangerous to people but also to animals," James Sawyer, UK director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

His organisation supports shelters in Ukraine and has been supplying resources like food, veterinary supplies and paying the wages of staff during the war to ensure animals can carry on being looked after.

"Local supplies are running out, one of the two animal shelters we support has been damaged by shells, losing one of the animals," he adds.

 

[PommyMommy]

The Russians using emojis to evade censors - BBC News
''On 24 February, as Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, an image started to spread on social media - a picture of the Russian poet Pushkin, the number seven and rows of the "person walking" emoji.

To those in the know, the meaning was clear - a location (Pushkin Square, in Moscow), a time and a call to protest against the government's actions.

The emojis made reference to a code used for years in Russia to refer to protests - one so well known to the authorities, it is barely a code at all, according to human rights group OVD-Info.''
BBC News has learned of other detentions based solely on social media activity, including one woman arrested for a tweet.

On 24 February, she posted: "I haven't walked in the centre for a long time," and quoted another account's tweet containing a more explicit call to rally.

Five days later, she was arrested while taking a train.

She believes she was detected by facial-recognition software active on the Moscow Metro system - and in her court hearing, a document containing her tweet was presented, showing the authorities had taken a screenshot of it almost immediately after she had posted it.

In another case, Niki, a blogger, described how a close friend's brother had been detained twice - once for a few hours after attending a protest and a second time, for a whole week, for sharing the details with his friends on VK, Russia's equivalent of Facebook.''

 

[PommyMommy]

The Kyiv Independent on Twitter - 2 min ago
️Zelensky signs law allowing seizure of Russian property in Ukraine.
It allows Ukraine to confiscate property that belongs to the Russian Federation or its residents without any compensation. The parliament passed it on March 3.

NEXTA on Twitter - 1 hour ago
The Conflict Intelligence Team claims that #Russian aircraft are bombing #Chernihiv with incendiary bombs, which are banned under international law

NEXTA on Twitter - 33 min ago
#Russia intends to change conscription rules It is proposed to make amendments so that a summons can be sent to a conscript by registered mail.

If he does not receive the letter and does not come to the recruiting office on his own, it will be considered a criminal offence.

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia-Ukraine war latest news: half of Kyiv population has fled, mayor says; Turkey talks end without progress on ceasefire | World news | The Guardian
20m ago 14:52

Russia’s energy ministry has claimed that Belarusian specialists have restored electricity supply to the Chernobyl, reports Reuters.

The nuclear power plant in Ukraine lost power after Ukraine’s state energy company said it was cut off by Russian troops who seized it nearly two weeks ago.

The UN nuclear watchdog said afterwards that it did not believe it was a safety risk.

 

[PommyMommy]

Yad Vashem to break ties with Roman Abramovich over Putin connections

https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-700896

…

2 months ago

Roman Abramovich gains EU citizenship via Portuguese passport

Roman Abramovich gains EU citizenship via Portuguese passport

…

Russia-Ukraine war: Roman Abramovich in Belarus assisting talks at Kyiv's request

https://m.jpost.com/international/article-698891

….
Superyachts tracked: Abramovich’s boat heads west after sanctions

Superyachts tracked: Abramovich’s boat heads west after sanctions

In 2018 Abramovich elected not to pursue a UK visa application in the wake of international recriminations following the Salisbury poisoning incident and changes making it harder for powerful Russians to obtain visas.

The complications had prompted Abramovich to pull plans to build a £500m stadium for Chelsea, a scheme that supposedly would have delivered more than £20m in community benefits to the surrounding area.

His new EU passport means the businessman would need to pass the UK’s point-based post-Brexit immigration system and meet “specific requirements” if he now chose to stay and work in the UK.

His Portuguese passport, however, follows his acquisition of an Israeli passport in late 2018 which meant it was already possible for him to visit his family in the UK without the need for a visa.
…

 

[PommyMommy]

Captured Russian soldiers: We will be ‘dead’ if we are sent back home

Prisoners of war (captured Russian soldiers) say they will be seen as failures and ‘shot by our own people’ if exchanged by Ukrainian forces

On Wednesday, after sustained pressure, Russia's defence ministry admitted that it had used conscripts in Ukraine. ( They had been denying this in numerous reports)

 

[PommyMommy]

Russia rejects Ukraine 'neutrality' proposal, high-level talks see 'no progress' after Ukraine hospital attack

Thursday’s high-level talks in Turkey between Ukrainian and Russian foreign affairs counterparts ended in no progress for a potential cease-fire or for protecting civilians in the heavily bombarded Mariupol, even after Ukraine suggested a "neutrality" proposal with security guarantees from world powers.

<snipped>

Russia reportedly rejected Ukraine’s "neutrality" proposals that promised international security guarantees, according to the Financial Times. The two sides discussed a 24-hour cease-fire but did not make progress, as Russia was still seeking "surrender from Ukraine," Kuleba said.

 

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Russia admits sending conscripts into Ukraine, some were captured

Published: 1:23pm, 10 Mar, 2022

Russia’s defence ministry acknowledged that some conscripts were taking part in the conflict with Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin denied this on various occasions, saying only professional soldiers and officers had been sent in.

The ministry on Wednesday said that some of them, serving in supply units, had been taken prisoner by the Ukrainian army since the fighting began on February 24.

Citing Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the RIA news agency said Putin had ordered military prosecutors to investigate and punish the officials responsible for disobeying his instructions to exclude conscripts from the operation.

Some associations of soldiers’ mothers in Russia had raised concerns about a number of conscripts going incommunicado at the start of what Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, suggesting they could have been sent to fight despite a lack of adequate training.

<......>

“Unfortunately, we have discovered several facts of the presence of conscripts in units taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine. Practically all such soldiers have been pulled out to Russia,” the defence ministry said, promising to prevent such situations in the future.

One mother of a conscript, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her 19-year-old son’s military unit was sent south to the Russian city of Kursk soon after he started his military service and was then moved to Belgorod, a town closer to the Ukrainian border, for training.

She says that judging by the few phone calls she had received, he had not yet been deployed into Ukraine and had not signed a contract to do so. “I am not sure what will happen tomorrow,” she told Reuters by telephone.

 

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Xi Jinping 'unsettled' by Vladimir Putin's difficulties in Ukraine

Xi Jinping 'unsettled' by Vladimir Putin's difficulties in Ukraine
The Chinese leader has been surprised by the strength of the Western response, according to US intelligence

China is not allowing much free discussion of the war in China. However, we can be sure their military leadership is studying the Ukraine war, not only as it pertains to their wish to take over Taiwan, but also in terms of how poorly the Russian troops and plan seem to be performing. This will end up going back very negatively on their assessment of Putin's strength.

For the meantime China can deliver words against the conflict from afar. But they are observing every tick of the clock and every new development.

 

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“Zelensky’s Servant of the People party on Tuesday said states such as the US, Turkey or Ukraine’s neighbours could act as guarantors, if their concrete political, economic and military responsibilities in this capacity were formalised.”

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

 

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Cheap Chinese tires "blamed" for stopping Russian convoy to Kyiv - Free Press

Have Flat Tires And Ukraine’s Mud Season Stalled The Russian Column Outside Kyiv?
“On Friday, he told Bloomberg that the Russian Army is likely seeking to seize Ukrainian railways to improve their logistical support. Unlike the rest of Europe, Ukraine uses the same larger gauge (bigger width) tracks that Russia does. The chicken and egg problem for the Russian military, Vershinin asserted, is that its needs “to take major cities” that sit on key junctions to control the railways, including Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv — all cities that have seen major fighting.”

 

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Ukraine war: Putin's forces move on Kyiv but are beaten back | Daily Mail Online

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has been helping Putin's efforts to stabilise Russia's internet | Daily Mail Online
“Last week Russian media sites were hacked by a group claiming to belong to the Anonymous hackers network and replaced pages with a ‘tombstone’ in honour of the war dead.

Huawei, which reportedly has five research centres in Russia, is said to have ‘rushed to Russia’s aid’ to support its internet network in the face of the attacks.

A report, which appeared on a Chinese news site but was later deleted, claimed that Huawei would use its research centres to train ‘50,000 technical experts in Russia’