Peace Negotiations -- Over to You, Putin

"[The] only way to reopen a window of opportunity for diplomacy is through tough measures against all those bankrolling the Russian army and effective sanctions against Moscow itself – banking and energy sanctions."

"It is absolutely clear that Moscow used the time meant for preparing a leaders-level meeting to organize new massive attacks."

"This war won’t stop with political statements alone; real steps are needed. We expect action from the U.S., Europe, and the entire world."

"Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table. We expect a response from everyone in the world who has called for peace but now more often stays silent rather than taking principled positions." 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

 

"It’s inhuman, striking civilians."

"With every cell of my body I want this war to end as soon as possible. I wait, but every time the air raid alarm sounds, I am afraid."

Oleksandr Khilko, Kyiv resident 

 

"You never think it will be your house that's hit. These attacks are very cruel. They happen at a time when people are sleeping and you are unable to get your bearings."

"And they are attacking with everything all together - missiles and Shaheds  [drones]."

"They all attack at the same time. It's just impossible to live like this."

Iryna Kutsenko, Kyiv resident  

Kyiv hit by 'massive' Russian missile and drone attack, killing 18: Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine came under a major combined missile and drone attack overnight into Thursday. ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge

 

 A major air attack was once again launched by Moscow early Thursday, hitting Kyiv, including a rare strike on the centre of the city. 48 people were wounded, and 18 killed. European Union diplomatic offices were also hit and damaged. This was the first major Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital in weeks, as the bombardment of drones and missiles hit, even as U.S.-led peace efforts are ongoing in the hopes of ending the three-year war, without gaining any traction.

 

While Ukraine is anxious for a ceasefire leading to a swift conclusion of the conflict, Vladimir Putin plays the innocent peace-seeker to mollify U.S. President Donald Trump, although there is no way to conceal the reality of Putin's determination to grind on while lending himself to the fantasy of peace, as a shield to the reality of Russia's goal to acquire more Ukrainian territory in the interim. 

 

And while Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will never agree as part of the peace process to accede to Moscow's demands of foregoing Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia, it will represent another nail in his coffin to bring U.S. President Trump to abandon Putin and support Ukraine.

 

The drone and missile bombardment represents Putin's contempt for Trump's mission to secure a peace 'deal', in the hopes of recognition that will lead to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. These ongoing attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine sabotage any peace efforts and do so with that end in mind. Ukraine urgently requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the overnight bombardment, and much good will that do, with Russia sitting on said Council.

 

The Kremlin expresses itself dedicated to ongoing peace talks to placate the American president's fixation on representing himself as a peacemaker extraordinaire. The evidence is front and centre this is all a sham considering Thursday's air attack, one of the largest since 2022. What also distinguishes this attack is its penetration deep into Ukraine, with Russian drones and missiles hitting the heart of Kyiv.

 

Russia launched 598 strike drones and decoys, along with 31 missiles of various kinds across the country early Thursday, most of them directly targeting Kyiv. Some 33 locations across ten of the city's districts were  hit directly, or damaged by falling debris as thousands of windows shattered and close to 100 buildings sustained damage, including a city centre shopping mall.

 

Firefighters tackled blazes in Zaporizhzia in the early hours of Saturday morning.  Photo State Emergency Service of Ukraine

 

Two strikes landed 20 seconds apart, some 50 metres from the EU Mission to Ukraine building in Kyiv, according to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen; fortunately no staff were injured. "In response, we are summoning the Russian envoy in Brussels", stated the European Union's top diplomatic, Kaja Kallas.

 

Western leaders point out the obvious, that Vladimir Putin is dragging out peace efforts, avoiding serious negotiations, allowing time for Russian troops to advance their positions in Ukraine. Ukrainian military leaders conceded this week that Russian forces have broken into an eighth region of Ukraine in their aspirations to capture more ground. 

 

After temporarily criticizing Putin for stalling on a proposal by the U.S. for direct peace talks with Zelenskyy, Trump decided last Friday he expects to decide in two weeks on what possible steps can be taken to further direct talks if they continue to languish without scheduling. As for Zelenskyy, he still holds out hope for the U.S. to exact harsher sanctions to cripple the Russian economy should Putin not demonstrate an intention to end the war. 

 

A photo from Ukraine's emergency and rescue service shows a devastated block of flats. DSNS Ukraine

 

 

 

Indecently Warmongering Lunacy

"My lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition."

"If, because of your petty jealousy, you do not want to give the Russian people the victory of taking Bakhmut, that's your [Russian military bureaucrats] problem."

"Because of the lack of ammunition, our losses are increasing exponentially every day."

"On May 10, 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds."

"Shoigu! [Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu] ... Gerasimov! [Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov] ... Where is the ***** ammunition?"

"[Shoigu and Gerasimov must bear the responsibility for] tens of thousands of Wagner dead and injured."

"We’ve taken 95% of Bakhmut. For this last 5%, the ‘Red Army’ [the Russian Armed Forces] are not playing any role."

"Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the... ammunition?... They came here as volunteers and die for you to fatten yourselves in your mahogany offices."

"There will be no more meat grinder because there’s nothing left to grind the meat with." 

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, video ranting threat

Yevgeny Prigozhin announcing his intent to withdraw from Bakhmut   Concord Press Service

 

A lack of weaponry and of ammunition. This is what the head of the mercenary Russian Wagner Group bemoans and has been demanding for months, while his men in their thousands surround and besiege a relatively much smaller Ukrainian military group defending Bakhmut. The small industrial mining city has become a symbol of Ukrainian perseverance and courage as opposed to Russian incompetence and desperation. An estimated 20,000 Russian troops, both conventional military but mostly mercenary, have died in their offensive efforts to take the city.

 

Although Wagner's head warned he was preparing to pull his mercenaries out of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine authorities the Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions in a plan to seize the battered city in advance of the Russian anniversary of its victory against Nazi Germany during World War II. Because his men have been starved of the ammunition they need to succeed in totally routing the Ukrainian military still holding on to part of the city; according to Prigozhin the Russian army would take their place by next Wednesday.

 

Prigozhin's propagandists produced a video to accompany a written withdrawal announcement addressed to the head of the general staff, the defence minister and Russian supreme leader President Vladimir Putin. Dripping with blame and drama, charging 'bureaucrats' of holding back desperately needed supplies, Prigozhin staged himself standing in a field of Wagner corpses, bitterly emphasizing his loss and the Russian military betrayal of the nobility of the unrecognized Wagner sacrifice.

The threatening appeal had its response when state-operated RIA news agency reported the instructions issued to a deputy by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to ensure the Wagner troops had all the weapons required in the field of combat. Russia views the taking of Bakhmut -- a goal that has eluded Moscow for six months of brutal combat -- as the first in a succession of steps to claiming other cities in the Donbas. The grinding warfare has exacted an enormous toll on the lives of both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, Russia losing the most.

Ukrainian troops, though hard pressed in recent weeks, continue to cling to the city with the intention of inflicting as many losses for Russia as possible, ahead of Kyiv's plans to launch its anticipated spring offensive against the invading forces along the 1,000-km front line. According to a senior Ukrainian official, Russia was in the process of ordering Wagner fighters from along the front line to Bakhmut to conclude its capture by Victory Day.

"We are now seeing them pulling [fighters] from the entire offensive line where the Wagner ftghters were, they are pulling [them] to the Bakhmut direction", stated Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar on Ukrainian television. Former Russian deputy defence minister Col.Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev joined Wagner as a deputy commander, reported Russian pro-war social media channels. 

It is anticipated that the Ukrainian counterattack is likely to encompass the Zaporizhzhia region where some 80 percent is held by Moscow. Moscow issued a directive more recently that ordered residents of a number of towns to evacuate immediately in the region, creating yet another situation of chaotic traffic of desperate people. Russian news agencies reported a second drone attack in as many days n the Ilsky oil refinery in the south on Friday close inside the Russian border.

"Overnight we received a combat order, for the first time in all this time. We have been promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue further operations."

"We have been promised that everything needed to prevent the enemy from cutting us off [from supplies] will be deployed on the flank.”\"

"[Russia’s defence ministry assigned Gen Sergei Surovikin to work alongside Wagner.] This is the only man with the star of an army general who knows how to fight."

Yevgeny Prizozhin, change of plan to depart Bakhmut

Fighting has raged in Bakhmut for months, but the city has not yet fallen to Russian troops.  Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

 

Ukraine: More Weapons to Deal With the Russian Invaders

"This is a drone war. Every drone is armed and they are used every minute of the day. Most deaths are from drones either directly or from corrective fire from mortars. We will not move without drone surveillance."

"If we didn't have them, we'd have lost already."

"I can't believe Canada opted not to send the best drones on the market and instead spent $400 million on NASMs [National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems]."

"Do you know how many drones they could have sent [instead]?"

"I know that when I see a drone with no munitions on it, the artillery is coming, so there is no standing still anymore. It has changed the art of defensive lines."

"The Russians are mobilizing and we have seen double [the numbers] in these past few days. This is a lot bigger than usual."

James Challice, Cdn.Forces veteran fighting with a Ukrainian Army brigade in the Donetsk oblast 

 

"Give us more military equipment, more weapons, and we will deal with the Russian occupier, we will destroy them."

"There were cases when anti-tank mines were detonated, and the soldiers only received contusions [in Bushmaster armoured vehicles]. There were no serious injuries to the soldiers. It has worked very well."

Dmytro, Ukrainian serviceman near Bakhmut

"Negotiations can begin when Russia withdraws its troops from the territory of Ukraine."

"Other options only give Russia time to regroup forces and resume hostilities at any moment."

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"The American warmongers -- supply weapons in huge quantities, provide intelligence and participate directly in the planning of combat operations."

Maria Zakharova, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman

A general view shows an apartment building damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Yevhen Titov

 

February 24 draws near, the one-year anniversary of Moscow's 'special military operation' violent invasion of Ukraine. There have been ample indications on the ground of yet another Russian buildup of troops and war machinery at the border with Ukraine, echoing the earlier strategy prior to the Russian invasion. Mr. Putin is restless and inwardly raging at the lack of progress at a tremendous cost in his goal of annexing Ukrainian territory into Greater Russia. 

The buildup presages a desperate ploy to overwhelm Ukrainian forces with the sheer volume of the Russian servicemen prepared to re-invade along with a renewal of gear and above all a suspected massive air assault dwarfing in numbers the aerial bombing that Ukraine's towns and cities and civilian infrastructure have already in the past year been bombarded with as Russia deliberately and with full malice targeted civilian enclaves and the nation's energy infrastructure. An energy-deficit siege as a winter gift.

 

Ukrainian troops are doggedly holding onto Bakhmut amid fierce Russian attacks BBC/Goktay Koraltan 

 

The strategic Donbas city of Bakhmut whose original 75,000 population has mostly fled, has been under siege for months by the Russian military, with Ukrainian soldiers fighting to hold off Russia's push. Pleas for more weapons from the world outside -- from nations supporting Ukraine's existential battle against a merciless Kremlin assault on Ukrainian independence echo loudly even as senior Western leaders met in Munich for an assessment of this debilitating European war.

The obvious preparations to intensity assaults on Ukraine targeting its vast eastern geography sees Ukraine planning its response in a spring counteroffensive. For this plan to have any significant measure of success Ukraine is in need of more weaponry; heavier and longer-range weapons from its allies in the
West that have been steadily feeding Ukraine's responsive need for the machinery of war. 

Ukrainian servicemen have been impressed with the service on their freezing battlefield of Australia-provided Bushmaster armoured vehicles serving an area where Russian soldiers have been bogged down in the months of fighting in their determination to take Bakhmut. These are vehicles highly prized by Ukraine for their efficacy in shielding soldiers from bullets, enabling evacuations of the wounded, and offering cover for reconnaissance.

 

Ilya and Oleksii use drones armed with grenades to attack Russian troops a short distance away

 

Russia claims a barrage of missile strikes around Ukraine had achieved expected goals, hitting facilities that provide fuel and ammunition to the Ukrainian army. For its part, Kyiv reported that 36 missiles were fired at the capital and 16 were shot down. Ukraine's largest oil refinery, Kremenchuk, was struck by missiles. 

 

Bakhmut has become yet another destroyed city in Donetsk province. According to the Ukrainian 80th Air Assault Brigade's press officer, Russia had paid a heavy price following waves of assaults around the city. "There are places where their bodies are just piled up. There is a trench ... They just don't evacuate their wounded or killed", said spokesman Taras Dzioba standing by a howitzer battery outside a defensive bunker.

 

Two larger cities in Donetsk further west, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk are identified as the targets to follow should Russian forces succeed in capturing Bakhmut. Its possession by Russia allowing it to advance further would be but a Pyrrhic victory, according to Ukraine, in assessment of the losses sustained in the prolonged effort and the time it has taken thus far.

A year earlier, the three-day Munich Security Conference hosted senior Western officials who urged Vladimir Putin to rethink plans to invade Ukraine, warning of dire consequences should he proceed. This year sees them grappling with the consequences of the invasion, the resulting sanctions on
Russia, the near-global condemnation and isolation it now faces in Europe and abroad.

"[The battle is far from over.] Bakhmut will not be taken tomorrow, because there is heavy resistance and grinding, the meat grinder is working."

"We will not be celebrating in the near future."

"[Ukraine is] becoming more active, pulling up more and more new reserves."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head, Wagner mercenary group

Ukrainian gunners firing at Russian positions in Bakhmut. Photograph: Adrien Vautier/Le Pictorium Agency/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock

A Senseless War Pursued by a Barbaric Hegemon

"He [Lloyd Austin, U.S. defence secretary] was very clear that we have a short window of time to help the Ukrainians to prepare for an offensive and that they had some pretty specific needs."

"The Russian land forces are pretty depleted so it's the best indication that they will turn this into an air fight."

"If the Ukrainians are going to survive ... they need to have as many air defence capabilities and as much ammunition ... as possible."

Senior (unidentified) U.S. administration official

 

"What we really have to concentrate on now is Ukraine's ability to defend the air and they'll do that through air defence artillery equipped with the proper ammunition."

"Fighter jets are not and will not be as capable against the Russian air force as an integrated air defence system."

Another (unidentified) U.S. official

Ukrainian servicemen fire a BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine February 11, 2023. REUTERS/Yevhenii Zavhorodnii

It now seems assured that a Russian massive air assault on Ukraine is in the works. Western capitals are in possession of intelligence reports indicating that Moscow is completing preparations to dispatch its jets and helicopters into the sky over Ukraine in support of a land offensive that has failed to an astonishing degree. Verbal belligerence and loud threats have simply not been matched with a Russian military that has demonstrated discipline and effectiveness against the defence the Ukrainian military has mounted.

Ukraine's Western and European allies have scrutinized Volodymyr Zelenskyy's pleas and demands for air power, emphasizing that Ukraine must be provided with warplanes that have the capacity to meet the threat of the impending air brigade the Kremlin is prepared to send over Ukraine to completely demolish infrastructure and civilian structures that the relentless air campaign to date has not yet accomplished, to bring Ukraine to its knees.

The mystery is why Vladimir Putin persists, if not out of sheer rage over a failed strategy that has made him appear a failed leader, impotent in the face of Ukrainian courage and defence. What he would inherit would be a wasteland, a destroyed geography with towns and cities, ports and communications, airfields and factories in a state of demolished ruin. Inheriting that destroyed terrain and the remainder of a once-functional state would require immense capital expended in restoration.

But it is clear that Putin's is not an intelligent, much less a reasonable design to stamp his heel on a nation that refuses to conform to his demands as a satellite reborn. If frustration and rage can produce lunacy, Putin is a stone-faced, bloodless lunatic. The kind of border buildup of troops and war machinery that prepared for an invasion a year ago is now once again rehearsed with amassed fixed-wing and rotary aircraft on Ukraine's border.

An acknowledged renewed threat is on t he cusp of breaking loose. Russia's air force has had a significant presence over Ukraine in countless bombing mission, augmented by attack drones and missiles fired from offshore. Long-range missiles, artillery and land-based troops, however was where the emphasis has largely been, to the present. Analysts in the West speculate a fear that Ukraine's air defence system represented a threat to Russian aircraft might explain the relative restraint in air missions.

According to a senior NATO diplomat on the other hand, intelligence assessments speak of Russia's air force being "actually quite preserved" not at all that as suspected, the fleet being in poor condition. "More than 80 percent probably is safe and available. So we are expecting that they're preparing to launch an air campaign and they've been trying out Ukrainian air defences with attacks", explained the diplomat unauthorized to make public statements.

 

An old Soviet-style howitzer sits in readiness outside Bakhmut, Ukraine. (Jean-Francois Benoit/CBC)

 

On Tuesday, 50 Western allies met at NATO headquarters to lay out added pledges of military equipment for Ukraine's defence. Another assistance package later this week is being anticipated as an American announcement; likely to include air defence and ammunition. Warnings of ammunition shortages from Ukrainian and NATO officials has resulted in Western capitals expressing concerns of strained defence supply chains and domestic stockpiles dwindling.

Requests for material such as fighter jets or more expeditious shipments of western battle gear has swung into full action. "What Ukraine tells us that they really need is ammunition and additional air defence capabilities? according to a Western official. Arms producer Rheinmetall is to restart production of ammunition for Gepard anti-aircraft guns to support Kyiv, according to Boris Pistorius, German defence minister.

 

Artillery crew member Denys checks his phone in a house where he and his comrades have been sheltering in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine. 'The Russians send their soldiers to die,' he said, 'and the Bakhmut battle won't be in their schoolbooks.' (Jean-Francois Benoit/CBC)

 

Decommissioned in 2010 the Gepard has proven its value as an effective weapon to shoot down drones and low-flying missiles. Ammunition has been running low, however. "We will quickly start our own production of Gepard ammunition at Rheinmetall. I am very happy we have been able to guarantee the delivery of this important part of air defence", said Minister Pistorius.

American officials concede that the administration is likely to provide Ukraine with more sophisticated air power or at the very least green-light the transfer of F-16s from other powers since President Biden has stated his country does not intend to send F-16s to Ukraine. Poland will certainly step into the breach. Brokered and financed by allied countries, talks of more direct contracts between Kyiv and western defence companies could be included.

Moscow has 300,000 troops in Ukraine while it gears up for its new offensive. At the same time, U.S. officials estimate that roughly 200,000 Russian troops have thus far in the year-long conflict been killed or wounded. Russia stepped up attacks in the Donbas, renewing air and missile attacks on other Ukrainian areas. Fierce fighting around Bakhmut might see a victory for Russia where such events have been few and far between.

 

Valentyna Samoilenko reacts next to the body of her son Dmytro, 34, during his funeral in Irpin, near Kyiv, Ukraine on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. Dmytro Samoilenko, a civilian who was a volunteer in the armed forces of Ukraine, was killed in the fighting in Bakhmut area. (Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press)

Pounding and Impounding the Donbas

"[The Russians] methodically levelled [the city with Russian tanks targeting one building after another moving on once each was destroyed]."

"So they use these tactics where barrages of ammunition are used to destroy the city and turn it into a burnt-down desert."

"[Russian troops] obliterated any potential defensive positions with constant artillery and burned down forests to prevent trench warfare."

Volodymyr Nazarenko, second-in-command, Svoboda battalion

The Svoboda battalion was part of the June 24 retreat from embattled Sievierodonetsk. They were ordered to retreat in the recognition their lives would be forfeit under the Russian assault should they remain any longer in their long deployment to save the city from falling into Russian hands. They are now stationed in Bakhmut, in relative safety, a city to the southwest.

The city of Lysychansk and surrounding areas is being pounded by Russian forces in an all-out determination to seize the final stronghold of Ukrainian military resistance in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk province. The weeks spent by Ukrainian fighters in efforts to defend the city following the fate of Sievierodonetsk a week ago is coming to an end. "Over the last day, the occupiers opened fire from all available kinds of weapons", stated Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidal.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said late Saturday that Russian forces for the first time crossed the river separating Lysychansk from Sievierodonetsk from the north, a "threatening" situation. Control over Lysychansk, he predicted, would be decided by Monday.

The two provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk that make up Donbas are now falling completely to pro-Russian separatist hands. Portions of both eastern provinces have been held by the separatists since 2014 with Moscow recognizing formally all of the Donbas as Russian; Luhansk and Donetsk as sovereign republics.

The government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria stated it was prepared to recognize the "independence and sovereignty" of the two areas, and to work toward establishing diplomatic relations with the separatists. Payback to Vladimir Putin for his aid to the Syrian dictator in putting down his own rebellious Syrian Sunni rebels, where Russian warplanes bombed Syrian Sunni area hospitals and schools and civilian enclaves. A practise run for its invasion of Ukraine.

 

Plumes of smoke caused by heavy fighting in Lysychansk. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Russian Plans to Free Ukraine From the Tyranny of Democracy

"If our guys in the East need backup and support, we are ready to do that."

"We are defending our land. It's important that we didn't go to anyone else's country. They came here and they are killing our women and children."

"So we are ready to fight and defend to the last one of us."

Hulk ('Hedgehog' pseudonym), 32, Irpin, Kyiv outskirts

"This is an artillery war now."

"Everything now depends on what [the West] gives us."

"Ukraine has one artillery piece to ten to fifteen Russian artillery pieces."

Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine deputy head of military intelligence

"They have big shopping lists of everything they need. It's horrifying. I look at these men and think 'a third of you are not going to live'."

"You do not have enough time to thoroughly drill these guys on the basic principles. You have to go through the motions and hope that they live and learn but it's horrifying to see they are sending these men out to the front with these issues."

Matthew Robinson, Yorkshireman, international ex-military trainer, Georgian Legion, Kyiv

"The Russians have put everything they have into the fight. They don't have a renewable resource when it comes to their own troops and capabilities."

"[They could make limited gains in some areas where they focused artillery power but would] probably suffer equal or more losses [where they did not have similar resources."

"The Ukrainians will sniff that out and make the Russians pay for it."

Matt Dimmick, SOA (Spirit of America) regional director

The reconstruction of a destroyed home in a town in the Kyiv region. Photograph: Sergei Chuzavkov/AFP/Getty Images

 

Ukraine certainly hasn't been the easy pickings that Vladimir Putin anticipated when he launched his vicious 'special operation' against his neighbour to free Ukraine from the shackles of its government's free and democratic society in the interests of saving it for his own repressive autocracy. The barbarism of the Russian assault against Ukraine has been entirely visible to the world at large which can only guess at the horrors visited upon civilians by a well-armed and propaganda-motivated Russian military.

But those who lived those early days of non-stop, distant artillery fire, the unceasing shelling of hospitals, schools, high-rise apartments, civic offices and military bases alike, made the instant decision to pledge themselves to the defence of their homes, their towns, their families and neighbours and their nation. The suburb of Irpin, close to Kyiv was one of those. With the use of hunting rifles, shotguns and anything resembling a weapon neighbours assembled in a home-front pact to defend themselves from Russia's assault.

 

They still remain in their blackened, destroyed towns, guarding what is left of the homes their wives and children left to find temporary refuge elsewhere in Ukraine or in neighbouring countries. Shell craters are an entirely different civic landscape from the once-child-friendly suburb where the defenders enjoyed family life before February 24, when their lives changed completely and Donbas cities like Mariupol and Severodonetsk were yet to come under merciless assault. 

Moscow withdrew its troops when it became clear that the original strategy to take Kyiv and imprison or kill the couintry's government leaders met a solid wall of opposition as lethal as their own. Unwisely, the Kremlin decided under its president's orders to carry on but to focus their attacks on the east and the east is where the withdrawn troops along with others taken from other Russian-aggressive hotspots assembled.

 

Italy’s Mario Draghi, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/EPA

 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks of 700,000 military personnel engaged in defending their country from Russian military savagery. There are reports of Ukrainians still joining the battle for their nation, motivated to meet and defeat the Russian advance. According to Konrad Muzyka, founder of Rochan Consulting, an independent defence consultant, armed forces recruits see numbers high enough to require a month's wait list for induction.

 

There are 40 international ex-military trainers who work with the Georgian Legion in Kyiv, teaching recruits basics of conflict tactics and the safe and properly effective handling of weapons. Among them, 39-year-old Matthew Robinson from Yorkshire who worries about shortened training sessions calling recruits still in training to be moved to the front. His concern is the exposure of unprepared recruits  being deployed; "ill-trained and ill equipped"; with insufficient body armour, firearms missing optics and sub-optimal ammunition at their disposal. 

 

Ukrainian troops repair an army tank in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region on June 7. Ukrainians have been urging the U.S. and its allies to supply them more weapons in their fight against Russia. Russia has massed greater numbers of combat units, as well as more artillery, than the local defenders in the Donbas have. Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images

"It seems that we were underestimated, and they were overestimated."

"[The Russian] professional army is losing to all of these people [and suffering the deaths of numerous high-ranking Russian officers, 12 generals among them]."

"Russians don't understand how bees operate. It looks like chaos but, in the end, they [Ukrainians] get the job done."

Ruslan Kavatsiuk, Ukrainian adviser for Spirit of America (SOA)

SOA is one of several groups that distribute non-lethal military gear to Ukrainian front lines, engaging a network of military commanders to donate buses and 155 tons of supplies, including bulletproof vests, ballistic helmets and first-aid kits to Ukraine's forces, "invisibly" transported in vans and cars everywhere the supplies are most needed.  

"We didn't invade Ukraine."  

"We declared a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way of explaining to the West that dragging Ukraine into NATO was a criminal act."  

"It's a great pity, but international diplomats, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Secretary-General and other UN representatives, are being put under pressure by the West. And very often they're being used to amplify fake news spread by the West."  

"Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are."  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

Sergei Lavrov (R) accused the BBC of not uncovering the truth of Ukrainian actions in areas held by Russian separatists since 2014

Setting the Standard for Courage Under Fire

"I think they [attacking Russian troops] are trying to catch some of us alive before May 9 [Russian Victory Day Parade, memorializing the WWII battle against Nazi Germany] and send us to the parade in cages."

"Forget about us, we won't get out of here."

Trapped Ukraine solider, in Azovstal plant, Mariupol

 

"The situation is extremely hard. However, we will continue carrying out the order to keep up our defences no matter what."

"I am proud of my soldiers who are making superhuman efforts to contain the pressure of the enemy."

Lt.Col. Denis Prokopenko

 

"There are local residents there, civilians -- hundreds of them there."

"There are children waiting for rescue.There are more than thirty kids."

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko

"It will take time simply to lift people out of these basements [in the vast maze of tunnels in the underground basements of the Azovstal metalworks plant]."

"In the present conditions, we cannot use heavy equipment to clear the rubble [caused by the non-stop bombing] away."

"It all has to be done by hand."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

A group of Mariupol evacuees head for Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Ukrinform/Rex/Shutterstock

Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine is not yet a war, but a 'special military operation'. Expected to take a week to mop up. The resistance of Ukraine and its military, led by the adamant courage of its president whose mettle is no longer in question as an actor-turned-president has taken Moscow by surprise and stalled the advance of the Russian military in its orders to 'liberate' Ukraine from its neo-Nazi government. 

 

When that assault, on the suburbs of Kyiv and associated later-discovered atrocities against civilians failed to materialize, the Russian battalions regrouped and dispatched themselves under orders to literally liberate Ukraine's eastern provinces from Ukrainian dominion, welcoming them as another Russian gift from a punished former satellite. The port city of Mariupol, critical to Vladimir Putin's plan to dominate the Black Sea, has been under direct fire from Russia since February 24. 

Under constant assault from an army with greater numbers of personnel than their own, with access to more materiel than Ukraine has at its disposal, the defenders of Mariupol have nonetheless, kept the invaders at bay. In this war of attrition, Russia has gradually assumed control of most of Mariupol, killing thousands of civilians in the process and utterly destroying the city, pounding it by bombs and artillery fire into rubble.

 

Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Ilya Semolienko: "My phone book is slowly turning into a collective obituary. Death is walking around everywhere. Does my life have value? No. The victory has value." He spoke from within the Mariupol Steel Plant. Photograph: USA Today

 

Yet the vast steelworks of the Azovstal plant's underground redoubts remain relatively intact underground, while the structure above lies in ruins. And in the sprawling underground network an estimated several hundred civilian residents of Mariupol still await rescue as one Russian attack after another is repelled by the military forces within. The Azov battalion troops vowed to fight on to the death. Their commander spoke of his soldiers' "superhuman efforts" in "difficult, bloody battles", spurred to ongoing defence.

Russian troops have now entered the maze of underground passageways prepared to overwhelm its defenders. Video of a female Ukrainian soldier in a dark bunker has emerged, singing songs known for their glorification of resistance fighters during the Second World War. "Be faithful to your Motherland until death. For us, Ukraine is above all", she sang.

"Our defenders are still there trying to protect this last piece of land in Mariupol", said Ukrainian MP Ivanna Klympush. The remaining resistance fighters need a "miracle" to survive the latest Russian onslaught, she stated, as Russia's defence ministry refuted having betrayed a ceasefire agreement to evacuate the remaining civilians still within the plant, forcing a rescue mission to be aborted.

Cliff-Hanger : Rattling Nuclear-Tipped Spears

"If someone from the outside tries to intervene in what's happening, if they create threats,threats of a strategic nature, our retribution, our counter0strike will be instantaneous."

"We have all the necessary instruments, ones that no one else can boas of. And we will not be bragging about them, we will use them if necessary."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

"I don’t think [Putin] will [use nuclear weapons]."

"[Russia’s President has committed] massive strategic blunders. His so-called lightning invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone too well."

"I don’t feel rattled by it. Because we have strong Armed Forces and a nuclear deterrent and we’re part of a NATO partnership of 30 nations who outgun him, outnumber him and have potentially all the capabilities at our disposal."

"I don’t fear him. I think we should be very grateful in this country that we have a nuclear deterrent, I think that is a really important part of his calculations."

"There are many, as we know, who wanted to get rid of it over the years."

"I’m very grateful that somewhere under the sea, some amazing men and women are deep underwater, hiding, waiting, in case Britain needs to be protected. That’s important."

U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace

One of Britain's Trident nuclear submarines leaves on deterrent patrol from the Clyde Naval Base, Scotland

Sergei Lavrov, Kremlin spokesman had warned of the danger of nuclear confrontation: "We must not underestimate it". Who is talking nuclear to begin with? In the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops surrounded Ukraine's civil nuclear power plants, including the decommissioned Soviet-era Chernobyl plant, risking rising radiation levels by their interference with the monitoring/tending Ukrainian nuclear-plant crew ensuring vigilance and safety.

 

The Russian-Ukraine conflict is fought with conventional weaponry, with the West and NATO countries supplying Ukraine with more up-to-date military hardware to equal the footing between the attacker and the attacked. With that assistance, along with the transfer of high-security intelligence, Ukraine's military has more than countered the Russian attack, and continues to do so. Enraging Vladimir Putin, inciting him to threats against any possible 'intervention' by NATO or its members.

 

That threat made initial oblique references to nuclear weapons, until Mr. Putin formally placed his nuclear defences on standby. Purely a self-protective device, to ensure that if any of his opponents nursed a measure of stupidity sufficient to unleash a nuclear device as a deterrent against further Russian advances and atrocities against Ukraine's civilians Russia would be obliged to counter-strike.

Knowing full well that no country other than his would deploy nuclear strikes, Vladimir Putin's ploy was sufficiently transparent to shock his adversaries at its sheer recklessness. Making it quite clear that nothing would detain a decision on his part to 'reciprocate' for any such move against Russia. As though anyone but himself would contemplate the use of such weapons. The threat of which is more than enough to convince his critics to take care and step back from the brink he has imposed.

In 1947, atomic scientists devised the Doomsday Clock, setting it at seven minutes to midnight in their assessment of the-then risk of atomic weapons once again seeing the light of day after the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, concluding World War II. That clock has been reset numerous times, forward -- never backward. It sits now at 100 seconds to midnight. Vladimir Putin has arrested the world's attention.

As Putin sees the conventional strength of his military wane under a situation he never imagined, with a surprise war of attrition causing him to lose an astonishing number of elite commanders and generals on the battlefield in Ukraine, along with the wreckage of armed personnel carriers, tanks, planes, helicopters and the Russian navy's pride, the Moskva to Ukrainian defence/offence tactics, he has become increasingly morose and vengeful.

Behind his pride in Russia's  projection of power with its nuclear weaponry, with the largest arsenal of nuclear devices of any country in the world, fantasizing pride, fear and admiration, he is obsessed with the belief of being advantaged over his adversaries. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's statement at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the first meeting of the Ukraine Defence Consultative Group where he urged allies to "Move heaven and earth" in stocking Ukraine with weapons, cannot have pleased Putin.

 

The aggression of the U.S. is not equally shared across NATO. European members find themselves too geographically close to Russia for comfort. They are also too dependent on Russian oil and gas to be comfortable about having their energy source cut off. Poland and Bulgaria have been. Germany, always uncomfortable at pressure from the U.S. and NATO to lift its reluctance to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons, foresees a recession in agreeing to stop importing Russian energy.

 

There are fears that Russia may contemplate a 'small' nuclear bomb on a Ukrainian city, as a crude coercion strike, forcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into an immediate, unconditional surrender. That fear evokes pressure on the United States to transition from proxy war to direct involvement, to send troops into Ukraine. A decision on the part of the U.S. that would see push-back by other NATO members fearing repercussions. 

 

 

Sinking of the Moskva

"I saw every kid [young Russian conscripts assigned to the warship Moskva] who got burns. I can't describe how tough it was but I didn't find my child [among them, convalescing in hospital]."

"There were 200 people [at the hospital] while there were more than 500 people on the cruiser."

"Where's the rest of them?"

Irina Shkrebets, mother of Yegor Shkrebets, naval conscript

"We need answers, in writing, about where our children are, not text messages with photos and good wishes and prayers."

Father of Yegor Shkrebets, Russian naval conscript

 

"My son was crying when he called me to say what he saw."

"It was terrifying."

"Clearly not everyone made it out alive."

Unnamed Russian woman

"He's [Nikita Syrmyasova] on the missing list now. No one says anything to the parents."

"All our pleas are being stonewalled."

Anna Sromyasova

The warring sides have given conflicting accounts of what caused the sinking  Mike Right/Twitter

 

Under Russian law, conscripts are not permitted to be sent into war zones. That law appears to have been breached. Long suspected even at the beginning of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine when young conscripts called their mothers to tell them they were in Ukraine with the ground forces and hadn't expected to be sent to war. Their understanding was that they were dispatched to border sites to take part in training sessions. 

From ground troops illegally dispatched as conscripts insufficiently trained in combat, to naval command posts on warships, Moscow appears to have ignored all 'normal' rules of war. Reports have arisen that in Bucha, flechettes, deadly little projectiles, three centimetres in length, stuffed into Russian artillery shells to burst overhead had been fired. The premise being they would kill whoever they fell on; thousands of lethal miniature arrows primed to explode, shot into civilian enclaves.

Normal international laws governing warfare forbid the deliberate targeting of civilian structures, much less civilians themselves. Russian troops have been ordered to perform the illegitimate in institutionalized conflict; war crimes. The Ukraine military, despite fewer combatant numbers and far less equipment has been fighting back, repelling the aggressors, making an account for themselves as intrepid, intelligent defenders of their country, not supine victims.

The government of Ukraine has been using every means at their disposal to bring Western powers on line in their struggle to survive the Russian onslaught. Provided with military equipment, but not servicemen to aid in their fight against overwhelming numbers of Russian troops and equipment, the Ukrainian military is using what it has, to good effect. Thwarting Vladimir Putin's orders to his military at every step along the way. They have shelled and destroyed armoured troop carriers, tanks and warplanes.

And finally, the pride of Russia's naval armada, the ship that was to have led a naval assault along the Ukraine seacoast. Two U.S.-produced Neptune missiles were shot by Ukraine as direct hits to Russia's Black Sea fleet's premier vessel, the 40-year-old pride of Russia's fleet, equipped with modern technology; an offshore threat to Ukraine in plans to launch a wholesale invasion by land, air and sea.

 

The missiles' aim disabled the ship, set munitions on board on fire, forced the evacuation of its 520-member crew, and finally sank the vessel, a total, irreplaceable short-order loss in the Kremlin's plans to dominate on the battlefield's every front to completely destroy Ukraine. Moscow denied there were any casualties from among the crew of the Moskva. And nor was it hit by missiles; rather a spontaneous eruption of explosions from onboard stored ammunition, and dangerously stormy conditions sank the impaired vessel.

But the flagship warship that sank in the Black Sea was hit and destroyed by two missiles fired by Ukraine. And now, though according to the official line there were no casualties aboard ship -- the evacuation went smoothly and everyone aboard was accounted for -- parents are stepping forward to demand answers. Answers that would inform them where their missing sons are. Answers to why it might be that young men barely out of their teens were sent to a war zone after involuntary entry to the conflict.

Some were informed their sons were 'missing in action' and no details or explanations were forthcoming. Video footage the military released showed the crew of the ship back at home base. The full complement of 500+ appeared not to be present, much less accounted for.  Irina Shkrebets and her husband went to a hospital in Crimea, looking for their son. Among the 200 crew members in the hospital, no sight of their son.

The Kremlin had admitted that some conscripts had been sent on to Ukraine, through the commission of an error in deployment. Desperate parents took to social media hoping to find information about their sons' whereabouts. Many had heard from their sons from the Moskva before it was sunk, and that was the last they heard from their sons.

Photographs have emerged of the sinking Moskva, taken from another ship nearby, showing the huge vessel listing, black plumes of smoke rising over the stern and hoses spraying water into the air. Lifeboats deployed but no personnel seen on the ship's deck.

"You will always see a team, normally on the flight deck -- in this case, the flight deck would be a good place to gather your equipment and firefighting teams."

"You want to set up safe zones and that's where you put all your firefighting equipment and all your people, they're in fresh air."

"But there's nobody, literally nobody there and if there is no one, there is almost no chance of anyone being alive below deck."

"It also suggests that everyone is off that ship. [The ship was too soon abandoned.]"

Tom Sharpe, retired commander, U.K. Royal Navy