Russian Entitlement to Ukraine

"[If those behind such reports; forced deportation of children; supported objectivity] then we are ready to analyze specific cases, answer questions, provide data, statistics and facts."

"But if they are biased, if they represent only one point of view ... then there is no use responding to these reports."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

Stasik, 45, a Ukrainian soldier who recently had his right arm amputated, is examined by a medical volunteer during an evacuation operation from the eastern frontline near Bakhmut to hospitals in the Dnipropetrovsk region on March 15.

 

The reports this spokeswoman refers to based on over 500 interviews along with satellite images and in-person visits to detention sites and graves, discuss incidents of Russian forces committing war crimes in Ukraine; out of a UN-mandated investigation. Detailing wilful killing, torture, detaining non-combatants and in some instances forcing children to witness their mothers, sisters, aunts being raped. How can there be 'neutrality' over such episodes of military atrocities being carried out by Russian forces in Ukraine?

Coincidentally with the release of the report, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Russian officials for their role in having Ukrainian children forcibly deported from Ukraine, as well as the Russian military's deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure in the country Russia has invaded. Russia, needless to say, denies having committed any such atrocities, much less attacking Ukrainian civilians.

Meeting members of Russia's business elite this week, President Vladimir Putin urged them to invest in their country, to give it the financial assistance it needs to see out what he names the "sanctions war" imposed on Russia by the West. Of those attending the meeting called for the first time since the invasion, many are themselves under Western sanctions.

And it just happens that a day later, Russian President Vladimir Putin was placed under a warrant of arrest by the ICC, also obviously persecuting Russia for no good reason.

 

Ukrainian troops fire a howitzer at Russian positions near Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, on Friday. A Nato official says Russia is sustaining up to 1,500 casualties a day, mostly in Bakhmut, while Ukraine is taking ‘an order of magnitude less’. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

 

The man who has instructed the Russian military to destroy Ukraine, at the same time that he has declared eastern Ukraine Russian territory, oversees a military and a nation that brooks no interference or criticism in its brutality to bring a neighbouring country to its knees. A stubborn neighbour at that, refusing to pay obeisance to the bully next door intent on expanding its territory while terrorizing a community which refuses to submit to terror.

In destroyed Bakhmut the bloody infantry battle continues, with Russian forces led by the Wagner mercenary army capturing the city's east portion. Plans to encircle Bakhmut that had been boasted of have not yet materialized, since the Ukraine military has no intention of allowing it.  "Sometimes we see  groups of seven people (Russian soldiers). We strike, three fall and the rest continue to advance" -- Marian, age 21, a member of the 80th Ukrainian Air Assault Brigade, describes, at his mortar position.

 

A Ukrainian soldier, Bakhmut trench   Reuters

 

Seven mortars were fired by the brigade from that position, as small arms fire in the distance speak to the constant unfolding of a long-drawn-out checkmate. Taking Bakhmut has become a major aspiration for Moscow which sees it as opening a path to the entire surrounding Donetsk region finally falling to Russia. Kyiv, on the other hand, has decided that the ruined city is still worth fighting to contain for its value in inflicting huge damage on Russian troops.

"They (the Russians) need this victory like air and therefore do not count the losses" of untrained, poorly kitted-out Russian conscripts and mercenaries falling in huge numbers of dead and wounded in the fray of conflict where they are ordered to advance en masse, explained Serhiy Cherevatyl, a spokesman for Ukraine's eastern military command.

A declassified video was released Thursday of a Russian military jet intercepting an American drone in  international airspace over the Black Sea two days previously. Highlighting risks of a potential clash between the two nuclear powers. Moscow accused Washington of escalating tensions near Ukrainian Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014. The Pentagon's release of the video recorded the incident when the MQ-9 Reaper drone was intercepted by a Russian jet, sending it crashing into the sea.

A Russian Su-27 fighter jet can be seen in the video close to the drone dumping jet fuel over it in an obvious attempt to damage the aircraft. A second pass by another Russian jet resulted in a collision with the drone, the Russian plane striking the propeller, disabling the damaged drone. According to Russia, no such collision took place, the drone crashed when it made "sharp manoeuvres" while "provocatively" flying close to Russian airspace.

The episode proving that the United States is actively, directly taking part in the Ukraine war that is none of their business; strictly a Russian internal affair, proclaims Moscow.