Ukraine Teaching Russia Defense Techniques

"[The latest negotiations in Istanbul constituted] a political performance [and] artificial diplomacy [designed to stall for time, delay sanctions and persuade the United States that Russia is engaged in dialogue."

"The same ultimatums they voiced back then -- now they just put them on paper."

"Honestly, this document looks like spam. It's spam meant to flood us and create the impression that they're doing something."

"[The 2025 talks in Istanbul carry] the same content and spirit [as the fruitless negotiations  held in the Turkish city in the early days of the war]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Operation Spiderweb, Ukrainian Secret Service

 

To achieve 'peace' Vladimir Putin recommends a few little concessions from Ukraine that would do the trick. To begin with, the provinces that the Russian military managed to wrest from its Ukrainian defenders which Moscow swiftly declared to be part of the Russian Federation through the usual Russian penchant for expropriating Ukrainian geography, must be formally ceded by Kyiv to Moscow. Ukraine must put down its arms, return to what Russia for now allow it to consider sovereign, and agree to put a stop to its attempts to join NATO.

 

Ukraine must no longer demand reparations from Russia over the gross ruination of Ukraine's infrastructure, its destroyed towns and cities, realizing them to be unreasonable. Along the 1,000-kilometre front line, Ukraine must disassemble its protective blockades as it decamps. Ukraine must swiftly call a general election to put a new government in place. One that will be more amenable to the concerns of its neighbour. That's all, just a few simple recommendations if Ukraine wants peace.

 

And while President Zelenskyy dismissed Russia's ceasefire proposal as "an ultimatum", he is open to a frank, direct, person-to-person meeting with Vladimir Putin. A suggestion that has outraged the Russian president, as he raged over Ukraine's recent "terrorist acts" on Russian soil in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on the countries' border.

 

"How can any such [summit] meetings be conducted in such circumstances? What shall we talk about?" He went on to accuse Ukraine of seeking a truce in bad faith. To use such a hiatus in the 3-1/2-year conflict as an opportunity to replenish its western arms stockpiles, recruit additional servicemen, while preparing new attacks just like those carried out in Kursk and Bryansk. Ukraine's determination to defend itself from the vicious territorial predation that caused the Kremlin to plan a full-scale invasion in reaction to 'neo-Nazi' occupation of Kyiv's government, evidently represents an intolerable insult to Russia. 

 

Both Russia and Ukraine have their established red lines, beyond the U.S.-led international diplomatic enterprise to put a stop to the conflict. Both Kyiv and its allies in the West view the Kremlin's Istanbul proposal's demands as absurd non-starters. Continuing such talks have little value at the current level of delegations, in Mr. Zelenskyy's considered opinion. 

 

While Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov led the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, a mere aide to Putin, headed the Russian negotiating team. As the talks took place, both sides have maintained offensive military actions along the front line, each carrying out deep strikes. Putin views Russia's strikes as legitimate moves of war, and Ukraine's successful attacks deep within Russian territory as illegitimate 'terrorism'. 

Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb. (Nizar al-Rifai/The Kyiv Independent)

 

The spectacular weekend drone strike carried out last weekend by Ukraine's Security Service which destroyed or damaged 41 Russian aircraft including strategic bombers, a case in point. Stunning Russia with the bold ingenuity of the Ukrainian team, able to plan and conduct a operation of that ambitious level without Russian defensive scrutiny to detect the incursion; failing entirely in its critical security and intelligence capabilities.

 

Seven destroyed bombers were shown by Satellite photos on the tarmac of a Russian airbase in eastern Siberia, one of the Ukrainian Secret Service targets struck, representing one of the moseet impressive covert operations of the war. Photos by Planet Labs PBC showed aircraft wreckage and scorched areas at the Belaya Air Base, a major installation for the Russian long-range bomber force. Three Tu-95 bombers and four Tu-22Ms were destroyed, according to the photos.

 

And then, mere days later the Ukrainian Secret Service struck again, this time setting off an undersea explosion beneath the Kerch Bridge the transport link between Russia and the annexed Crimea, to disrupt vital Russian supplies reaching the front lines.  

A map showing Russian control over Crimea and Ukrainian land on the Black Sea coast. (Nizar al-Rifai/The Kyiv Independent)

 

White-Washing the 14th Waffen SS Galicia

"I don't understand this upside-down universe where people here admire the Waffen SS and somehow that's OK."

"It doesn't embarrass the people at my university very much that they have a [group] that has been laundering Waffen SS reputations and funds for years now."

Karyn Ball, professor, Holocaust scholar, University of Alberta

Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22. The University of Alberta is returning endowment funds from the family of Hunka, a Ukrainian man whose military service was linked to the Nazis.Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

After professors at University of Alberta lodged complaints that the University continues to engage in white-washing Nazi crimes, a panel scheduled to discuss the Waffen SS was quietly cancelled. A number of online discussions have been held at the university since an episode involving Ukrainian-Canadian veteran Yaroslav Hunka who served in the Waffen SS was invited to the House of Commons on September 22 on the occasion of Ukraine's Jewish President addressing Parliament. The-then Speaker of the House, ignorant of the Nazi connection, invited the man, characterizing him as a Ukrainian 'hero'.

Despite reality, speakers at the online discussions claim that the 14th Waffen SS Galicia was never involved in Nazi war crimes, attributing such claims to Russian disinformation. When, once again the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the university planned another online discussion for October 14, university professors launched yet another protest. Complaints were filed to the university's administration charging the CIUS in whitewashing Nazi collaborators and war crimes. 

The Hunka family had endowed the organized event with $30,000, before it was cancelled. The Waffen SS Galicia was involved in massacres of civilians during the Second World War, and used as well by the Nazis to crush an uprising in Slovakia. The university's vice-president of academics announced the Hunka family funding would be returned to them. "On behalf of the university, I want to express our commitment to address antisemitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present", she stated.

Laurie Adkin, a political scientist at the university, called for an investigation of funding and activities of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Recently an article in  media outlet Progress Report revealed that the university took money from Hunka, as well as from other Waffen SS members, accepting as well funds from the estate of Volodymyr Kubijovyc, a Nazi collaborator who founded Waffen SS Galicia, advocating for ethnic cleansing, for a Ukraine without Jews or Poles.

 

Monument to the people slaughtered by the 14th Waffen-SS at Huta Pienacka. Image via Stako

 

Another veteran of the Waffen SS Galicia division, Peter Savaryn, had served at the University of Alberta as chancellor from 1982 to 1986. He helped to fund the CIUS and had been awarded the Order of Canada in 1987. Among nationalist Ukrainian-Canadians, members of Waffen SS Galicia are viewed as heroes, reflecting their battles against Soviet forces, at that time in the war fighting the Nazis with the Allied coalition. Oakville, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta both host monuments in honour of the Ukrainian SS troops.

There is a sharp distinction from that group to the 40,000 Ukrainian-Canadians who were members of Canada's military, fighting the Nazis, for whom no monuments have ever been erected in honour of their loyalty to democratic values and Canada. A 1980s study of war criminals in Canada found 600 former members of SS Galicia still resident in Canada. "The Division was an SS division and technically all of its officers and senior NCOs are liable for trial as war criminals", a 1948 British government report noted.

"The University of Alberta says it is reviewing other donations it has received after returning $30,000 from the family of Yaroslav Hunka, a Waffen SS veteran who got a standing ovation in Parliament during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month."

"The university is facing calls to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in endowments in the names of Ukrainians linked to the Waffen SS Galicia division, who were admitted to Canada after the Second World War. They include an endowment of about $430,000 in the name of Volodymyr Kubijovych, who played a key role in the SS unit’s establishment in 1943."

The Globe and Mail

Left image: Peter Savaryn (left standing) and Volodymyr Kubijovyč (center sitting) pictured here at the 1976 contract signing between the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Shevchenko Scientific Society of Europe to collaborate on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Right image: Volodymyr Kubijovyč (circled in red) gives a Nazi salute at the 14th Waffen-SS recruitment ceremony in 1943.

 

Just Visiting Briefly

"While the president clearly intended to bolster the confidence of Ukraine, and the commitment of ambivalent Europeans and neo-isolationist Americans, his real audiences lay elsewhere, as his remarks about western strength indicated."

"Russia has cycled through a series of theories of victory in Ukraine -- that Kyiv's leaders would flee, that Ukraine's population would not fight, that its army would be crumpled up by a sudden blitz or by grinding assaults."

"It has been reduced to one last hope; that Vladimir Putin's will is stronger than Joe Biden's. And Biden just said, bydeed as well as word, 'Oh no it's not'."

Eliot Cohen, former George W. Bush administration official, Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University 

"When [Russian President] Vladimir Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and theWest was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong."

"The cost that Ukraine has had to pay is extraordinarily high. Sacrifices have been far too great ..."

"We know that there will be difficult days and weeks and years ahead."

U.S. President Joe Biden

"Of course for the Kremlin, this will be seen as further proof that the United States has bet on Russia's strategic defeat in the war and that the war itself has turned irrevocably into a war between Russia and the West."

Tatiana Stanovaya, Russian political analyst

President Biden made a 10-hour train journey from Poland to Kyiv   Reuters

 

European leaders in the past year have made surprise visits to Kyiv, to walk alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as much to give confidence and comfort to the people of Ukraine and its president, during this time of their existential testing, as to demonstrate to Vladimir Putin that his ill-considered 'special military operation' in the country has gained him the enmity and the motivation for these countries to sanction Russia and to commit irrevocably to arming Ukraine for its defence and counter-offensive.

The American president was said by insiders to be champing at the bit to do the same, and so he did just that, quietly, without fanfare, confidently and authoritatively. He surreptitiously under cover of night travelled in an American Air Force C-32 Boeing 757, not Air Force One, to Poland, leaving the White House on Sundayat 3:30 a;m. Twenty hours later he disembarked by train  in downtown Kyiv after first stopping in Poland. The first such incident in modern history when an American leader travelled to a war zone absent the U.S. military.

Over the space of five hours he met and travelled with the Ukrainian President driven in a black SUV, not the presidential imousine he is accustomed to. He was there, but his presence kept a tightly guarded confidence. Inevitably public attention was drawn to the odd presence of long motorcades and closed off roads. Soon private onlooker videos began circulating of those motorcades along access-restricted streets and people clued in to the hugely unusual presence of a primary world leader.

American surveillance planes kept watch over Kyiv from Polish airspace while Mr. Biden was in the capitl city. Centrral Kyiv was absent its usual noise of a busy population as a result of the cordoned-off streets. Through diplomatic messaging, the information had been conveyed to the Kremlin before Mr. Biden's arrival, when Moscow would be best off not to schedule any bombing raids. A small, elite retinue accompanied the U.S. president.

Among them the ubiquitous Secret Service detail, and a military aide conveying the "Nuclear football" along with a small medical staff. It was only when Messrs. Biden and Zelenskyy left the motorcade for a brief walk-about to appaoach the gold-domed St.Michael's Cathedral, strolling unconcernedly through the front gates that initial images of Kyiv hosting President Biden began to pop up on Ukrainian social media sites.

U.S.President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St.Michael's Cathedral during an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday. Zelenskyyy called it the most important visit in the entire  history of Ukraine-U.S. relations'.  Even Vucci/Pool/ via Reuters

"The West is now unified in its aims. Long gone are debates over Iraq and Afghanistan, charges of American unilateralism, and criticism of European quiescence."

"No one harangued allies about free-riding or pointed out their failure to spend two percent of GDP on defence."

Richard Fontaine, chief executive, Center for  New American Security

"We should be grateful every day that the last Atlanticist is in the Oval Office right now, but we shouldn't take it for granted."

"The outsized investment in European security right now by the US. administration will be an exception."

Thorsten Benner, director, Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin

The Symbiosis of Two Great Wheat Growing Nations

The Symbiosis of Two Great Wheat Growing Nations

"Kyiv is the birthplace of the Slavs, and arguably, Ukraine is the starting point. It's really only when the Russian Empire captures this region and takes it over that it becomes a kind of colony of Russia."

"A lot of history is written about generals and battles and famous men who produced a new kind of stirrup or something like that in the Middle Ages."

"And it's really, I think, the men and women who experimented with wheat, seeds and cross-pollination hundreds and hundreds of years ago that are responsible for our survival."

"And the stirrup is not nearly as important in the long run than all that food experimentation that was done, particularly along the Black Sea."

"For Putin [whose master's thesis was on strategic resources in Russia and Ukraine], it's all about resources and always has been. [Russia's] elemental desire [to dominate the Black Sea is important to understanding the conflict]."

"Russia's future has always depended on control of the Black Sea region. When it was the Russian Empire, it was the foreign exchange Russia got from Ukraine that made it possible for it to expand. And then even in the Soviet period, it was Ukrainian grain that was a big part of what held the Eastern Bloc together."

Scott Reynolds Nelson, historian, author: Oceans of Grain

"[The single spring wheat plant Fife received] was not some mutant produced in Canada. It belonged to a variety cultivated in the middle of Europe and was accidentally present as a single grain in this shipment of winter wheat."

"Only because of a strange and very unlikely accident did Ukrainian wheat, in the form of a single grain find its way to Canada -- and not to the address of some experimental farm or famous breeder, but to the field of an ordinary farmer."

The late research biologist Stephan Symko

"The introduction of Marquis wheat is one of the greatest practical triumphs that Canada has ever had, one that is perennially fruitful, not impoverishing but ever increasing the wealth of our country and making it a better land to live in."

"But this is not all, for Marquis extends its blessings far beyond the bounds of this country, not merely to the United States of America where it is also grown on a large scale, but to the Old World. Especially in Europe, to which it is borne by a great fleet of ships across the broad Atlantic, it adds to the quantity and improves the quality of the daily bread of millions of toilers who have never herd its name."

A.H. Reginald Buller: Essays on Wheat

In 1842, David Fife developed Red Fife Wheat, the dominant wheat grown in Western Canada for 60 years – 1860 to 1910. Red Fife is the male parent of Marquis Wheat which, in 1915, supplanted Red Fife as the dominant Canadian wheat.  nGenium

 

In Africa and the Middle East up to 50 million people risk facing famine within months, deprived by the Russian military assault on Ukraine, of wheat grain from Ukraine. Canada stands prepared to send ships to aid export of Ukrainian grain; a metaphor for the grain that binds the two nations historically. Plant breeders and research circles are aware that Canada's famous wheat owes a debt of gratitude to Ukraine as an industry built upon a kernel of grain from Halychyna in Western Ukraine.

Red Fife -- Canada's oldest wheat allied with Slow Food International's Ark of Taste as a catalogue of endangered heritage foods, and its hybrids including Marquis were descended from wheat grown in Halychanka, Western Ukraine. Plant breeders created new wheat variations with the use of the hereditary base of Halychanka. There is an origins story associated with Red Fife relating to a few grains from a ship full of wheat docked at Glasgow that were tucked into a hatband.

Those grains were sent to a farmer whose name was David Fife who farmed in Otonabee, Peterborough County, in Ontario. A friend from Glasgow where David Fife was originally from, sent farmer Fife grains he took from a ship carrying winter wheat from Danzig, (now Gdansk, Poland). Farmer Fife planted the seeds in the spring of 1842. True to its name, winter wheat requires a cold winter; a single seed sprouted and matured out of which farmer Fife developed Red Fife, still valued today for bread.

Eventually Marquis was derived from Red Fife, a cross with an Indian wheat, Hard Red Calcutta, maturing earlier with a higher yield than Red Fife and with similar bread-making qualities. Marquis was released in 1911, and named the best wheat variety in Canada. Marquis took up 80 to 90 percent of total wheat acreage by 1918, from northern Saskatchewan to southern Nebraska, establishing Canada as a wheat export breadbasket.

 

Ukraine is usually a major producer of cereals such as maize and wheat    Reuters

 

Other Ukrainian grains; Odessa 4 and Myronivka 808 have as well formed a portion of Canadian wheat breeding programs. Barley from Brandon was shared with a Kharkiv research institute. Wheat has been sowed along Ukraine's Black Sea coast since 2700 BC, where the country's black soil lends itself marvelously well to the production of the staple grain. Its broad plains, deep rivers and fresh water from snow melt off mountains enabled wheat export from ports like Odessa.

Whether occupied by Russia, Austria or Poland, Ukrainian wheat obscured its origins, labelled for export under the name of the occupying power. For much of recent history Ukraine was not thought of as a separate region. Known as "Little Russia" in the 18th and 19th centuries, yet in the fifth century when the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was founded, the regional importance of Ukraine kept it a vassal state to whichever neighbour was most powerful at the time.

"Everything relates back to the backbone of Marquis. As a direct descendant of Red Fife [Halychanka], the [Ukrainian] contribution is there."

"For the longest time, the standard for winter hardiness in our winter wheat trials was a variety called Kharkov [named after the city of Kharkiv, home to one of the largest national plant gene banks]."

Dr. George Fedak, research scientist emeritus, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada

Pictured is a wheat field in western Ukraine   AFP via Getty Images

 

Russia's Near-Abroad

"What we see in Ukraine, and the way Russia is waging war -- means that this strategy [NATO's batlegroup 'tripwires' meant to forestall Russia's territorial ambitions] needs to be adjusted."

"We do have to reassess the risk posture and how much we need to stand together against potential Russian incursions and aggression."

"Where the Russian military goes, not only is civilian infrastructure destroyed, but civilians are shot, maimed, murdered, raped, tortured, deported, killed."

"That means we need to have a more robust position in the Baltics to prevent an attack from occurring in the first place."

Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krisjanis Karins

"Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay."

"We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days."

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto/Prime Minister Sanna Marin

"Definitely [Finland's accession to NATO poses a direct threat to Russia]."

"Definitely NATO expansion does not make our continent more stable and secure."

This cannot fail to arouse our regret, and is a reason for corresponding symmetrical responses on our side."

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman 

A first responder works at the site of a missile strike, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine in this handout

 

That 'symmetrical responses' phrase was attention-grabbing. Analysts might point out that past situations spoke to potential counter-measures the Kremlin could consider in the event that its neighbours decided to move closer to the West and to join NATO, a prospect that makes the Russian Federation very nervous indeed. And one that reputedly spurred Vladimir Putin to scorn Ukraine as a puppet of the West controlled by fascists which obligated Russia to invade and bring war to Ukraine, a stunning course of punishment.

Responses on a wider basis -- setting aside the prospect of a Russian invasion of all its neighbours simultaneously rather than the feared and anticipated sequentially at a time when the Russian military finds itself bogged down in one country -- could conceivably consist alternately of Russia placing nuclear-armed missiles on the Baltic Seacoast. When asked whether Finland might, by joining NATO, provoke Russia, its President said: "My response would be that you caused this. Look at the mirror".

The expectation of other NATO allies is that Finland, along with Sweden which has also stated its intention to apply for NATO membership, would be quickly granted membership. That would result in an increased troop presence to defend the Nordic region during the period of ratification that would take approximately a year. The irony is that Ukraine which has long sought NATO membership and has been put off for fear of aggravating Russia, was targeted with a "special military operation" to prevent just such NATO expansion.

 

A Ukrainian serviceman patrols an area, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in an undisclosed location in Kharkiv Region   Reuters

 

As the two largest EU countries to  join NATO to the present, Finland's 1,300-km border with Russia would double the frontier between NATO and Russia. NATO guards would be placed with this new alliance, a mere few hours' drive from the northern outskirts of St.Petersburg. As the world's sole superpower European nations feeling the stress and strain of a silent, looming threat from Russia, seek the protection of the world's largest and best-armed military, that of the United States.

Even while Moscow regards these events as a direct threat to its own influence and security in the region, it was that pre-emptive move to demonstrate that it would not tolerate NATO's creeping presence in the Russian near-abroad that motivated the Ukrainian invasion; the extended reach of which has been to shock, unnerve and convince Russia's neighbours that they're in dire need of the backing of an international coalition to give Russia pause over extending its 'special military operations' elsewhere.

And all will have taken note that Ukraine, though not a NATO member-nation, has been amply supported  with the supply of advanced technological weaponry which, together with the Ukraine military's fighting spirit in countering the Russian presence with a strong defense, has now transformed that hugely successful defense into an admirable counter-offensive, pushing Russian troops back towrd their own border, and even threatening Russian towns with the same treatment Russia meted out to Ukrainian towns.

Ukrainian service members fire with a self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in unknown location in Kharkiv region, Ukraine May 7, 2022. REUTERS/Serhii Nuzhnenko

Rallying the Troops : Rewiring History

"[Soviet soldiers fought the Nazis] at Kyiv, Minsk, Sevastopol and Kharkiv -- just as today you are fighting for our people in Donbas, for the safety of our Mother Russia."

"[The West] armed Ukraine, which was preparing for a] neo-Nazi [attack on the Donbas, even might have developed a nuclear bomb, creating an] absolutely unacceptable threat to our security, right on our borders."

"The threat was growing day by day. It [Russia's invasion] was the correct, timely, and absolutely only possible decision."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, May 9, Moscow, Victory Day

Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military parade on Victory Day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS

"On the Day of Victory over Nazism, we are fighting for a new victory. The road to it is difficult, but we have no doubt that we will win."

"There are no shackles that can bind our free spirit. There is no occupier who can take root in our free land. There is no invader who can rule over our free people. Sooner or later we win."

"We are proud of our ancestors who, together with other nations in the anti-Hitler coalition, defeated Nazism. And we will not allow anyone to annex this victory, we will not allow it to be appropriated."

"The one who is repeating the horrific crimes of Hitler's regime today [Vladimir Putin], following Nazi philosophy, copying everything they did. He is doomed."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a powerful speech on Sunday (8 May) delivering his speech in the ruins of an apartment block in Borodyanka, a suburb of Kyiv which has been devastated by Russian shelling over the last few weeks. Still from video

"The military operations of the Ukrainian armed forces around Kharkiv, especially north and northeast of Kharkiv, are sort of a success story."

"The Ukrainian army was able to push these war criminals to a line beyond the reach of their artillery."

Yuriy Saks, an adviser to Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov

There was Vladimir Putin, smug and victorious, praising his troops, admiring the display of Russian military hardware telegraphing power and might, and there were the troops, smiling, resolute, brimming with pride as a well-armed military with a finely choreographed display of solidarity and courage, ready and willing to obey the orders of their president for love of their nation. Russia's annual celebration of countering the Nazi invasion of World War Two went as scheduled, but not quite as Western sources visualized.

No declaration of war emanated from the central Moscow historic Red Square spectacle. An unpopular move by a government that has polarized some elements of the population by attacking a neighbour with whom the population on each side has had deep historical bonds. The veneer of neo-Nazi slander imposed on Ukraine by their president has failed to convince those in Russia who have family and friends in Ukraine; above all the huge Ukrainian-Russian demographic living in Russia. Conscription, accompanying a declaration of war, would be a risky move for a nation that has already suffered grievous casualty numbers.

Russia, declaimed their president, always stood for peace and the determination to prevent a repetition of the ghastly horror of the Second World War. A war which the Soviet Union agreed, with fascist Germany, would and should be launched. It only became horrible for the Soviets when Germany decided it could proceed with other Axis members, absent the presence of the Soviet military, when it turned its own military might on Russia. And Russia responded mightily. Only that response was significant enough to recall; that Russia was part of the Axis that brought Europe-wide conflict an unmentionable irrelevance.

Russian service members march during a parade on Victory Day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

Russians were enjoined by their president to be justifiably proud of themselves for supporting a decision made by him to destroy their neighbour. A neighbour that had chosen to move itself to the fascist sphere by emulating Germany with its ignoble direction toward embracing fascism and denying their heritage as Slavic brothers to Russia, sharing the same Communist ideal. To abandon communism is to become fascist, supported by Western interests immersed in an evil plot to destroy Russia.

As its counterweight to Russia's Victory Day memorial, Ukraine's own president, in a presentation video invoked over 30 years of independence from Russia, while the Ukrainian leader spoke of the Russian failure to learn the lessons taught by the Second World War. Volodymyr Zelenskyy in casual military garb, shirt sleeves rolled, strode down Khreshchatyk, the main central Kyiv thoroughfare destroyed by retreating Soviet forces in 1941 and rebuilt in the brutalist Stalinist architecture.

His video performance stood in contrast to the elaborate pomp and ceremony of Red Square's Victory Day extravaganza; a simple message delivered to Ukrainians assuring them that theirs is the right to existence as a free nation, and the shackles of dictatorship would never shake the confidence of their government defying an enemy determined to destroy their culture and their nation. Ukraine's Victory Day memorial includes a Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, May 8.

Now, even the gains that Russia had orchestrated and celebrated in the early days of their February 24 invasion, are slipping away. The Ukrainian military is on the offensive and pushing back the mighty Russian Army to retake territory close to the border with Russia:

"They’re [Ukrainian military] trying to cut in and behind the Russians to cut off the supply lines, because that’s really one of their [the Russians’] main weaknesses."

"Ukrainians are getting close to the Russian border. So all the gains that the Russians made in the early days in the northeast of Ukraine are increasingly slipping away."

Neil Melvin, RUSI think-tank, London

First responders work at the site of a missile strike, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine in this handout image released May 10, 2022. State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS

Russian Views of the Holocaust

"Such lies are intended to accuse the Jews themselves of the most horrific crimes in history that were committed against them."

"The use of the Holocaust of the Jewish people for political purposes must stop immediately."

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett

 

"When they say 'What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews', well, I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing."

"For a long time now we've been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

 

"[The Russian minister's remarks were] an insult and a severe blow to the victims of the real Nazism."

"[Lavrov was spreading ] an antisemitic conspiracy theory with no basis in fact."

Dani Dayan, former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, now Chairman of Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Israel

President Zelensky reacted to Mr Lavrov's words in his nightly video address  Reuters

 

Russia's persecution of Jews is an issue of long standing from Czarist Russia relegating Russian Jews to the Pale of Settlement, a hostile environment for Jews was always the remedy for their presence. Russian Jews campaigned to leave the Soviet Union as 'refuseniks' to be allowed to emigrate and find homes for themselves anywhere else where they might realize freedom and security, whether settling in greater Europe, North America, or returning to Israel.

Under Russia's Vladimir Putin, Israel managed an uneasy alliance with Russia politically, appealing to Putin to overlook Israel's dire need to defend itself from the malign intentions of the very regimes that the Kremlin was courting in re-establishing a presence in the Middle East. That courtesy alliance negotiated between former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin granted Israel a blind eye by the Russian military when Israel flew missions over Syria to destroy weapons depots provided by the Islamic State of Iran to Hezbollah and the Assad regime.

That delicate balancing act, that managed amicability, faltered then came to a thudding halt when Israel was forced to battle its conscience in restraining its compulsion to criticize Moscow over its criminal invasion of Ukraine with all the war crimes being committed in the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure, the bombing of schools, medical facilities, hospitals and apartment buildings along with wanton mass murder, a reprise of Russian support of the Syrian regime destroying the lives of Syrian Sunnis.

The more ghastly the crimes of the Russian military under direction of their president, the more difficult it became for Israel to seem to remain neutral. Israel, along with the rest of the world knew full well that Vladimir Putin's claims of rescuing Ukrainians from the Nazi thugs that formed their government was a gross slander to cover its territorial ambitions. When, finally, Israel could no longer sustain its effort at neutrality, Russia was quick to strike back.

In this Dec. 5, 1931 photo, Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialists, is saluted as he leaves the party’s Munich headquarters (AP Photo, File)

Criticizing Israel for responding to Palestinian terrorist tactics on the Temple Mount during Ramadan by using tear gas and stun guns to stop the criminal activity with the aim of protecting peaceful Muslim attendees at the al-Aqsa mosque which had been turned into a reservoir for rubble and incendiary devices thrown from its sacred precincts at the security police attempting to re-establish order and security. Accusing Israel of aligning itself with the Ukrainian Nazis fighting Russian invaders in protection of their homeland.

And finally insinuating that Jews were Nazis themselves, responsible themselves for the outcome of the Third Reich-organized institutionalized obliteration of Jewish lives in a fascist-German drive to cleanse Europe of the presence of Jews whom the German fascists likened to sub-humans, a pestilence whose presence sullied the Nordic ideal of humanity by their Semitic roots, religion and culture. But the obscenity of the Holocaust was no one's fault but the Jews, he intimated; self-loathing Jews.

A German in a military uniform shoots at a Jewish woman after a mass execution in Mizocz, Ukraine. In October of 1942, the 1,700 people in the Mizocz ghetto fought with Ukrainian auxiliaries and German policemen who had intended to liquidate the population. About half the residents were able to flee or hide during the confusion before the uprising was finally put down. The captured survivors were taken to a ravine and shot. Photo provided by Paris' Holocaust Memorial

Lavrov had been asked in an interview on Italian television how he justified describing Ukraine as a fascist, neo-Nazi nation, when its duly elected president was himself Jewish. And his response was that this was totally irrelevant, since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was merely following the precedent of other Jews before him, who were not pacifist, freedom-loving people, but raving fascists whose pursuit of eliminating Jews was simply what Jews do.

Conspiracy theorists throughout the years prior to and following World War II and the ascension of Hitler's 'Social Democratic Party' of Germany speculated that Hitler had Jewish blood, bequeathed to him by a grandparent, a teen who had impregnated a housemaid who became the mother of Hitler's father. Hitler's evasion over his birth and background likely stemmed from shame over the fact that his father was illegitimate, not of Jewish heritage. Hitler took inspiration from the Russia-produced tome The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

They had much in common, the Communist Soviet Union and the Third Reich; both focused on Jews and the nuisance factor of their presence, upsetting the world order through their claims of superiority as a civilized cultural/ethnic/religious people seeking to control world banking, communications, industry, academia, earning the scorn and contempt of their betters, the Nazis and the Fascist Communists.

Sergei Lavrov was asked how Russia could claim it was fighting to "de-Nazify" Ukraine  EPA

Missing : Hero of Ukraine Recipient

"She was captured with her driver Serhiy, also a volunteer, driving an ambulance in a humanitarian corridor."

"I know that the Russian occupiers will torture them."

"Russian propaganda talks about her as a really dangerous woman, a killer, really violent, but that's not true."

"She was not only saving the lives of our soldiers, our civilians. She was also fighting for my future and for Ukraine."

"This is my job now, this is my duty. This isn't just about my mother, but the women, children and civilians detained illegally by Russia."

Anna-Sofia Puzanova, 19, daughter of hostage-taken volunteer ambulance corps founder, Ukraine 

Yulia Paevska is the founder of the volunteer ambulance corps, Tayra's Angels

 

Paramedics rushing in hope of using their emergency medical skills to save survivors of the Mariupol theatre bombing are now in an unknown place. While en route to the scene of the bombing knowing that over a thousand women and children were sheltering in the city and would be targets, Yulia Paevska while travelling to the bombing was taken by Russian troops.

She had stopped to treat a civilian wounded on March 15, who had been attempting to evade the Russian military's bombardment through a humanitarian corridor, when she was captured. Since then, her daughter Anna-Sofia Puzanova, has not seen or heard from her mother, apart from forced appearances in Kremlin propaganda videos.

She has no idea whether her kidnapped mother is safe, much less that she remains alive. Before the kidnapping they had spoken when the mother informed her daughter about rescuing civilians as they attempted escape from the Russian forces' constant bombardment. She believes, however, that it is likely her mother is being kept among thousands of Ukrainians in concentration camps in the Russian-held parts of the Donbas.

Her mother, whose nickname is Tayra, is listed as a prisoner of war whom the government of Ukraine is willing to exchange for captured Russians. Moscow, however has repeatedly refused any such requests for her release. She is the founder of the volunteer ambulance corps, Tayra's Angels, and as such considered a prize grab by the Kremlin.

The corps, Tayra's Angels, founded in 2014, is credited with saving over 5,000 lives and training over 1,000 volunteer medics. There is a grim analogy here with the White Helmets volunteer medic group in Syria also dedicated to rushing in wherever Russian planes bombed the civilian populations in Sunni-majority areas of the country, to save lives. And who were themselves bombed on arrival at bombed-out sites.

The White Helmet group turned to giving aid and practical support to their Ukrainian counterparts through video training and encouragement. In acknowledgement of her humanitarian efforts Paevska was awarded the national title of Hero of Ukraine, given to civilians recognized for outstanding service to the country. Her government is anxious to repatriate her. Russia is determined to prevent it.

 

Now, her daughter is mounting another type of campaign; one which would see her mother released, along with the release of an estimated five hundred Ukrainian women who have been captured by Russian troops. In Ukraine, ample evidence is documented of targeted bombings of civilians, deportations and relocation of children and women. 

Irina Dubchenko, a missing Ukrainian journalist, fits a larger pattern of Russian forces detaining Ukrainian women.  CNN

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)

Russia's Military Might Meets Ukraine Mighty Resistance

"This is the price of freedom. This is terror against Ukraine."

"There were no military targets in the square -- nor are they in those residential districts of Kharkiv which come under rocket artillery fire."

"Our soldiers, our border guards, our territorial defense, even simple farmers are capturing Russian soldiers every day, and all of them are saying the same thing: They don’t know why they are here, These are not warriors, they are just lost children."

:Even though there are ten times more of them, the enemy’s morale is getting lower and lower. We are a people who have ruined our enemy’s plans in one week."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelinski

The aftermath of a rocket attack on a university building in Kharkiv   Getty Images

"He thought he would roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined."

"He met the Ukrainian people."

"From President Zelenski to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness,their courage, their determination, inspires the world."

"Putin's war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn't respond. And, he thought he could divide us here at home." 

"Putin was wrong. We were ready."

U.S. President Joe Biden

"Our military already seems to be holding its own, but it's great that the world is finally imposing real sanctions rather than the laughable ones they imposed in 2014 [after Russia's annexation of Crimea]."

"Morale is excellent, and people are still being polite, calm and reasonable, although everyone's been watching how war crimes are already being committed in Kharkiv by that carpet bombing. We in Kyiv could also get the same if we take on that big armoured column near here."

"Otherwise, though, I feel quite safe. Ukrainians are far calmer in these situations than North Americans would be."

Cristina Weretelnyk, 40, Ukrainian-Canadian, Kyiv

People look at the gutted remains of Russian military vehicles on a road in the town of Bucha, close to the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Russia on Tuesday stepped up shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, pounding civilian targets there. Casualties mounted and reports emerged that more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed after Russian artillery recently hit a military base in Okhtyrka, a city between Kharkiv and Kyiv, the capital. (AP Photo/Serhii Nuzhnenko)

 

It took but a week from the start of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine for Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, to come under siege. Ukrainians, on the edge of a conflict they imagined might happen, but didn't believe actually would, live now in a silent city of three million inhabitants. Silence on the empty streets, interrupted now and again by the sound of air raid sirens, punctuated by the thump of Russian ordnance, on occasion.

 

Medical workers operate on people injured by shelling in a residential area at a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Russian strikes on the key southern port city of Mariupol seriously wounded several people. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 

On the outskirts of Kyiv waits and squats a spider's web of Russian armour. The column deployed on the edge of the city, awaiting further orders is comprised of missile launchers, ground attack helicopters and tens of thousands of Russian troops. A presence large enough to be made out from space, stretching for 60 km, leaving the capital in a virtual stranglehold ... waiting.

There is a yawning space of 32 km where the waiting army stands restively. U.S. intelligence parses the situation as one that may have 'stalled' awaiting supplies. Outside military experts are puzzled that Ukrainian forces have made no attempt to counterattack the Russian force. It is thought by many that the Ukrainans are familiar with Russian tactics; should they act to defend the city  before the convoy sweeps into Kyiv, Vladimir Putin would spin the counterattack as a reason to all-out bomb Kyiv.

Russian forces have taken to attacking Kharkiv and Chernihiv from afar, shelling the cities with intensity, signalling the land advance has decelerated. Russian munitions, including cluster bombs, have been pounding the city in areas of residential housing blocks, yesterday hitting the operahouse and concert hall, presumably identifying them as 'military sites'. 

 

Ukraine's Ministry of Defence has interpreted the increased artillery fire as a reflection of "logistical difficulties" being faced on the ground by Russian forces; food and fuel shortages.

 

A man walks past a queue of cars heading to the Poland border near Shehyni, western Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Russian shelling pounded civilian targets in Ukraine's second-largest city again, and a 40-mile convoy of tanks and other vehicles threatened the capital. Ukraine's embattled president said the tactics were designed to force him into concessions in Europe's largest ground war in generations. (AP Photo/Pavlo Palamarchuk)

 

It is that very sustained shelling of Ukraine's second largest city that keeps Kyiv on high alert for the infiltration of Russian saboteurs tasked to identify targets and to guide artillery from the interior. Vehicles have been apprehended driving around the city, their interiors full of weapons and landmines. Yet aspects of life in Kyiv remain as close to normal as unimaginable. The Kyiv Express is still operational, regular trains connecting Kyiv to Lviv near the Polish border.

Supermarkets as well remain open and fairly well stocked for the time being; rumours of food shortages aside. People wait in long line-ups for entry and the opportunity to stock up and most foodstuffs are still available.Kyiv's mayor declared a ban on the sale of alcohol, although wines are available still in fair abundance. The rationale for the ban likely linked to the fact that tens of thousands of rifles have been issued to the populace for self-defence.

 

Ukrainian emergency service personnel carry the body of a victim following shelling of the City Hall building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Russia on Tuesday stepped up shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, pounding civilian targets there. Casualties mounted and reports emerged that more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed after Russian artillery recently hit a military base in Okhtyrka, a city between Kharkiv and Kyiv, the capital. (AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy)

 

The International Criminal Court on Monday pledged it would investigate war crimes charged against Russia, along with crimes against humanity incurred in the past week by Russia. Many Ukrainians look to the attack on Freedom Square in Kharkiv, representing the largest civic plaza in the country, as evidence the Russians mean to break the spirit of Ukrainians. It was that attack that prompted President Zelensky to accuse his Russian counterpart of war crimes.

Approximately four-fifths of Moscow's pre-staged troops have now been dispatched into Ukraine, with over 500 missiles launched on Ukrainian targets to date. Despite which, the swift fall of Ukraine to the Russian military anticipated by Moscow has failed to occur, as no major cities have yet come into Russian control, nor has the Russian air force managed to establish air dominance.