Surrender Says Russia, and We'll Give You Peace

"[The dosage and type of toxin used was not enough to be life-threatening] and most likely was intended to scare the victims as opposed to cause permanent damage."

"The victims said they were not aware of who might have had an interest in an attack."

Bellincat

"We have destroyed the myth of the invincible Russian army."

"We are resisting against the aggression of one of the strongest armies in the world and have succeeded in making them change their goals."

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko

The gutted remains of Russian military vehicles on a road in the town of Bucha, close to the capital, Kyiv,

 

The Wall Street Journal published a report on a little-commented incident whereby during peace negotiations Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich -- whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskii prevailed upon to use his access to Russian elite circles and involve himself in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia -- and the Ukrainian team of negotiators were exposed to a toxic substance from which they are recovering. The symptoms were visibly red eyes, painful tearing and skin peeling on hands and faces.

Their deteriorated health condition resulting from the poisoning by an as-yet-unknown substance did not keep either the negotiators nor Mr. Abramovich, from being fully engaged in matters around arranging for ongoing negotiations to put a halt to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its deadly destruction. Experts who examined the event reached the conclusion that "poisoning with n undefined chemical weapon" was the likely cause.

As for the ongoing and maddeningly inconclusive peace talks to convince Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine, Dimytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister felt a ceasefire remained the only hope his country could have from the talks. "We are not trading people, land or sovereignty", he said in response to the Kremlin's demands and intention to hive off the Donbas from Ukraine to be included within Russian territory.

 

The aftermath of Russian artillery shelling on a residential area in Mariupol where a rocket hit a house, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is seen in this screengrab from a video uploaded on social media  (Armed Forces of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS)

The threat of Russian attacks continue to block exit routes east and west for civilians desperate to leave their besieged towns and cities. The devastated port of Mariupol's situation appears doomed. Within the Russian troop encirclement, an estimated 160,000 residents remain trapped in the siege.  The city with its formerly 400,000 population has been reduced by constant artillery shelling and bombs to a ghostly vestige of its once-vibrant presence  with 90 percent of its infrastructure in rubble.

 

In the city of Kharkiv a pre-dawn missile hit a school. "They've not been able to take the city, so they've decided to destroy it", observed a Ukrainian who had taken shelter in the school when his home had been bombed out. In Irpin, close to Kyiv, the mayor spoke of Ukrainian forces in full control. Ukrainian military had recaptured the eastern town of Trostyanets as the military continued their offensive to restore their ground.

 

The Russian defence ministry stated that its  troops destroyed ammunition depots in the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv, the prize goal that Moscow keeps seeing eluding their grasp. As well, they claimed that 41 Ukrainian military depots  had been hit in the past two days, reports that remained unverified in a conflict known as much for its propaganda as for its total lack of human scruples.

 

 Kyiv Mayor Klitschko spoke of 100 people killed in the capital, four children among them. Russian bombing had destroyed 82 multi-storey buildings in the capital as well. Also figures that elude verification. Even while the inescapable reality is that one is a staunchly fierce defender of its territorial integrity, the other a brutally unscrupulous imperialist dictatorship.

A charred Russian tank and captured tanks in the Sumy region of Ukraine  (REUTERS)

"A Nation of Terror"

"They didn't want the evidence left behind [leading Iranian forces to remove an unexploded mine from the side of a vessel bombed in the Gulf of Oman]."
"They [Islamic Republic of Iran] are a nation of terror and they've changed a lot since I became president."

"It was them that did it [referring to a video released by US Central Command that the US claims shows a small Iranian boat sailing up to one of the ships to remove an unexploded mine from its hull]."

"We will see what happens. We are being very tough on sanctions ... We're going to see how to stop [it]. They are pulling back from everywhere."

"I personally feel that it is too soon to even think about making a deal. They are not ready, and neither are we!"
U.S. President Donald Trump

"At the moment, both sides in this dispute think the other side doesn't want war. The risk you have is that then they do something provocative that leads to catastrophic consequences that weren't intended."
Jeremy Hunt, British Foreign Secretary

A tanker ablaze in the Gulf of Oman, in an unverified image supplied by an Iranian news agency.

A video released by the U.S. military shows what appears to be Iranian forces attempting the removal of an unexploded mine from the side of one of the two vessels that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman this week. And although the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his president both lay responsibility for the renewed attacks on oil tankers passing through the Strait of Oman directly on the very nation that has threatened just such action, Iran blandly denies any involvement.

"It's not a great video, and you can't see much detail ... but it looks like what the U.S. says it is."
"The working assumption is that it was Iran and this footage points in that direction."
Richard Meade, editor, Lloyd's List

According to Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the United Kingdom has no reason to disbelieve the American assessment of the situation. But they are wary of the hostility rising to heated temperatures between Iran and the United States. Iran called in Britain's representative in Tehran to deliver the Republic's displeasure at Britain's agreement with the U.S. finding implicating Iran in this latest of terrorist actions.

The Japanese owner of the Kokuka Courageous oil tanker, one of the two attacked, believes his ship was struck by "a flying object", and not a mine or a torpedo. Which, if correct, changes little, though the owner, Yukaka Katada, president of the operating company, held his counsel on whether it was his belief that Iran was responsible for the attack. It's like being in the uneasy presence of a psychopath, knowing that anything you say that might offend him, could result in provoking additional violence.

The Japanese tanker became a casualty of the Iranian ire at its economic collapse via crippling sanctions at the very time that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was on a conciliatory diplomatic mission to Tehran. The thought being, no doubt, that Japan, up to the current sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Iran was a major purchaser of Iranian oil, and thus might have some credible clout. His message from Trump, however was not received, the mission a predictable failure.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shake hands after a joint press conference in Tehran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei viewed the unseen and his unresponsive reaction to what he deigned not to read as airily dispensable: "We will not negotiate with the United States. No free nation would ever accept negotiations under pressure", was his considered response. This, of a leader who threatens annihilation of another free nation whose existence he simply happens to consider extraneous to the needs of his theocratic political order.

Of the four other oil tankers sabotaged in the very same area a month earlier, Iran is similarly innocent, of course. That was also the month that Washington tightened economic sanctions against Iran. And in the spirit of reciprocity Tehran threatened to step up its nuclear activities. It has also long threatened blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, seeking to deliver maximum economic damage to its neighbours since it represents the main shipping route for Middle East oil.

"I'm ready when they are", Trump said, of his invitation to Iran to return to the negotiating table for an updated version of the nuclear agreement of 2015 that Trump cancelled a year earlier; affirming one of his pre-election promises. An updated negotiation that would include not only Iranian nuclear aspirations, but its updating of its missile technology, and its support of proxy terrorist groups it dispatches on missions abroad and within the Middle East.

Iran's version of this latest assault on international shipping was its foreign minister's statement when Javad Zarif claimed it was "the B Team" that had carried out the attack. The "B Team" represented by John Bolton, American nation security adviser, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose diabolical plan is to disrupt Iranian diplomacy.

Yes -- Iranian diplomacy.