Ukraine Invasion Part 18

[Ijsbear]

Place for information, discussion, points of view, useful links and above all, a hope that this sovereign land can regain its freedom.

@EsmaCannonball

“Olga Rudenko (Kyiv Independent journalist) on Twitter:

My friend is writing: "My husband's friend, a doctor from Zaporizhzhia, says a group of girls from Mariupol was admitted to their hospital. The oldest one is 10 years old. They have recto-vaginal tears."

That is horrific.
Monsters. If those men aren’t killed, just think how they’ll go on with their normal lives and people around them will think they are normal.

Unfortunately, Siamese are both expensive and you need at least two as they need, nay crave , the company.

They're not like ordinary cats, they're more "dog" cats

I don't think any of us can imagine what desperation, horror, fear, peer pressure, hunger, horror, anger, adrenalin, terror, conditioning, de-sensitisation, brainwashing, propaganda..... could do to us and what we might be capable of in those circumstances

Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien
A fascinating reflection as it’s provably entirely accurate and it’s by an adviser to President Zelensky. Russia will try and dig into the south and east. Dilemma for Ukraine at that point is how to drive them out.

Михайло Подоляк @Podolyak_M
There’ll be no “Afghanization” & no long conflict exhausting RF as someone expects. RF will leave all territories except the south & east, will try to dig in there, set air defense, drastically reduce losses & dictate terms. Without heavy weapons we won’t be able to drive RF out

MSNBC reporting on the mass grave and executions in Bucha. The bodies of five naked women were found by the side of the road.

Do you think there is any chance that the heavy weopons will be provided ?

Defence of Ukraine @DefenceU
Ukraine government organization
Dead civilians are seen near a highway 20 km outside of Kyiv. Under the blanket are 4-5 dead naked women whom the Russian barbarians tried to burn right there on the side of the road. Photo by @mpalinchak

For obvious reasons I'm not attaching the picture.

For obvious reasons I'm not attaching the picture.
That has been pretty much my summary of Twitter today also.

@Ijsbear

All soldiers who are badly trained and under pressure and then let loose can lose any trace of moral standards.

Look at My Lai, look at other situations.

Don't start hating every Russian soldier. A lot of them are frightened, young and far from home. Some of them behave in a truly loathsome fashion. But some of them will be holding back.

Hate Putin instead.

I have a problem with this.

Every soldier should be judged independently of what they have done. The reason why bodies are not being collected is to obtain DNA evidence as soon as possible. It cannot happen today. But it will happen and no state can contract out of the processes of war crimes.

This war is going to continue for years. We will be reading about this war in 30 years time and some of these soldiers will be brought to justice then. When they have families of their own.

Thank you for not posting images. The descriptions are more than enough to elicit an emotional response from me. It's horrific.
I'll leave it there...

Thank you for the thread. Following with interest.

I don't think that hating a whole country helps. Admittedly I could make an exception for Wagner mercs, and Putin himself.

The images of torture and murder are horrific, but if this is what we are seeing after small towns and villages outside Kyiv are liberated then what is going to be uncovered in places like Kharkhiv and Mariupol? What is happening to all those politicians and journalists and officials who have disappeared? What's happened to all the Ukrainians deported to Russia? Imagine leaving any part of Ukraine to people who will treat them like this.

Don't mind me. Just checking in so I don't loose the thread 🙂

Interestingly some reports of Ukrainian refugees from Mariupol now entering Estonia after being forcibly relocated to Russia and then released.

@Igotjelly

Interestingly some reports of Ukrainian refugees from Mariupol now entering Estonia after being forcibly relocated to Russia and then released.

released? are those reports confirmed? If so .... it would be interesting to know why they are released. One hopes they wouldn't have been told to spread the word of the goodness of Mother Russia under the threat of their families being killed.

@Ijsbear now on the bbc live feed,

The pictures and videos from Bucha are truly horrific

I have seen it being called the new Srebrenica

Odd, to be directed to Russia and then allowed to go. Unless the Russian soldiers have one set of orders but the Russian officials where the Mariupolitans are taken to don't have the same orders. Odd!

@Igotjelly

Interestingly some reports of Ukrainian refugees from Mariupol now entering Estonia after being forcibly relocated to Russia and then released.

I read an account from one woman from Mariupol, where because she has Russian family she was able to go to them. From there she had a certain number of days before she had to do something (I forget what). It meant that if because she had a passport she was able to get out of Russia. But that certainly wasn't the case for others - they had to go to settlements because they had no where else to go, no money and no means to get across the border.

So it does seem that some people have been able to get out of Mariupol via Russia, but they seem to be a small minority.

Twitter has been pretty awful today. The worst I was was long dead russian bodies... Identifible.

Its definitely not for the faint hearted.

With regards to Srebrenica. Even with the horror of whats happened, I think Srebrenica is still next level awful. Sadly I fear we will yet get to that level awful in this war. We just haven't seen it yet.

There is footage of shooting unarmed civilians in Enerhodar earlier today...

Tim White @TWMCLtd
LOL. Russian TV was "forced" to stop transmission of the Bundesliga match between @BlackYellow and @RBLeipzig_EN after 12 minutes.

There must have been some yellow and blue on screen 🤣

However @Bundesliga_EN shouldn't be allowing transmission anyway.

released? are those reports confirmed? If so .... it would be interesting to know why they are released. One hopes they wouldn't have been told to spread the word of the goodness of Mother Russia under the threat of their families being killed.

Conversely, do you want these people in Russia telling Russians what really happened to them?

It's awful reading about the atrocities but sadly they are common in war. Frankly, it's only because it's happening in Europe that we in the West are so much more invested in what's happening.

Personally I think now is the most pivotal point for the West. As Russia regroups it's easy to think Ukraine is winning, especially in light of reported Russian losses - but we have very little insight into the toll that's had on Ukrainian forces.

Personally I think we now need to dig deeper than ever for Ukraine and supply them with even more weapons than to date to push Russia out of the country in full.

The idea that peace is worth any price just isn't true and allowing Russia to keep territorial gains from which to stage another attack in the future is just reverting to the approaches of the past that have already failed and resulted in this invasion.

We need to keep the pressure on Putin and make clear that he will not be allowed to win - not even small victories.

@BreadInCaptivity I couldn't agree with you more!

A total of 4,217 civilians evacuated through corridors in Ukraine on Saturday, according to the country's deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk.

In a statement on Telegram, Vereshchuk said 1,263 people from the besieged city of Mariupol

and

AP News/ Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says 765 residents managed to make it out of Mariupol in private vehicles on Saturday. Iryna Vereshchuk said the residents reached Zaporizhzhia, a city 140 miles (226 kilometers) to the northwest. Meanwhile, the ICRC said a team with 3 vehicles and 9 staff members planned to get into Mariupol on Saturday to evacuate residents. The Red Cross said it could not carry out the operation Friday. City authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.

There were supposed to be seven corridors today.

Humanitarian aid has managed to reach Sumy yesterday but one of those with it was kidnapped. I've not heard much about Sumy in recent days.

Chernihiv seems to be likely to be relieved in the next day or so. The siege was broken yesterday.

Kharkiv seems to have been hit very hard yesterday. And I've not heard much from there apart from it was been shelled badly in recent days.

However getting anyone out via humanitarian corridors seems to be an achievement especially from Mariupol.