Ukraine Invasion: Part 23

[MagicFox]

Welcome all, thanks for the company

www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3470654-ukraine-army-retakes-control-of-village-of-ruska-lozova-in-kharkiv-region.html

So with any luck Kharkiv will see a reduction in shelling, if this is confirmed.

I didn’t realise G20 summit was in Bali this year. Hopefully Putin will attend in person and have some sort of eat pray love epiphany.

US Defence sources have been briefing the media that they do not believe Putin will use nukes. I will try and find a source when I get a minute but im out and about this evening

Am I being really naive to think that they wouldn’t say that without fairly firm evidence?

@Igotjelly No, I don't think you're being naive. US Defence source seems a pretty reliable source for that sort of information and I doubt they'd throw it around willy-nilly.

Could the idea be to demand loads in order to 'compromise' when the time comes?

If he attended in person the seating dynamics would be hilarious.

WHo to put him next to? Do you have to have a specially elongated table so he can be 10m away from anyone else?

@Ijsbear maybe the edge of a volcano 😂🤦🏽‍♀️

Look like nothing has happened in the rescue effort again in Mariupol 😢

I was literally just thinking this. How tragic again.

Today Programme 8.10 a.m (2hrs 10minutes in)

A Cambridge professor from Ukraine,
Andrei Kirilenko, relates how his mother died in Mariupol. He evokes the hard life she had had, born as she was just a couple of years after the Russian induced famine in Ukraine. Her feelings about how under valued freedom is, and his simple message at the end is memorable.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016pmr

I'm ready to be surprised, but the defenders in Mariupol come out on Russian terms so far as I can see. Or agreed terms that are then reneged on.

Have been discussing the situation with a contact in Mykolaiv / Nikolaev, not someone I know well. That's the city NW of Kherson with the front line between. His family have an apartment in the city and a house in a village on the edge. The family members in the village have moved to join the apartment dwellers due to buildings nearby being hit by shells.

He's buoyant about eventual victory. I asked what on earth do people do? Of people he knows perhaps one in five are still working in their old jobs. Of the others 'many stay at home, many help out'. There are water supply issues where he is. I don't know how widespread that is. Food is available but is more expensive. I think he is becoming habituated to the situation: 'the city is shelled every day but today surprisingly I did not hear anything because I was sound asleep but when I woke up I found out that the city was shelled again'.

This is on the Ukrainian side of the line. The relatives in Kherson oblast further SE from there have been in contact a little but seem increasingly depressed and sharing any more than that would be too identifying.

Ukraine given $93.5m I’m aid from the World Bank.

@MMBaranova i find your updates incredibly insightful. Keeping your friends in my thoughts.

Place marking. Thanks to you all

Igotjelly

Thanks. I try to discuss and pass on things that are perhaps not part of the standard narratives or are from real lives that won't make the headlines. I do burn out quickly after following social media and take breaks so if I don't respond to something do nudge me.

CNN spoke to Azov commander,Palamar from the steel works. He said they would only evacuate with their weapons to a safe place.

Often comments under reports say how the soldiers in the Avostal plant are cowards using the civilians as human shields ( for example in under an Al Jazeera article a couple of days ago).

Here it is clear the soldier sees the civilians as separate.

Palomar stressed that the soldiers in the plant wanted civilians who were sheltering there to be evacuated.
"We asked for evacuation of the civilians. We're talking to the whole world since March that international politicians or organization guarantee the safe extraction of civilians to Ukrainian territory. So if being asked whether we are ready for civilians to leave from here, we are not only ready but we ask that the civilians are saved first of all," he told CNN.
Speaking about the Ukrainian government's plan to evacuate civilians stranded in the plant, which was due to go into effect Friday, Palamar said he was aware of such a convoy that would come to Mariupol but could not speak further about it for security reasons.

"We count on the Red Cross and the organizations that are heading here to take our heavily wounded first of all, because they need to be treated, they need to get help," he said.
Palamar said that the soldiers and civilians were in separate parts of the Azovstal plant. They were in cellars and bunkers but some had been wounded.
"There are cellars and bunkers that we cannot reach because they are under rubble. We do not know whether the people there are alive or not. There are children aged four months to 16 years. But there are people trapped in places that you can't get to," he told CNN.

The whole CNN report is here:
www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-04-29-22/index.html

Russia has been increasingly in partnership with Iran in recent years. Look at this, for example:
www.timesofisrael.com/russia-says-it-received-us-guarantees-on-iran-nuclear-deal/

"But the negotiations were halted after Russia on March 5 demanded guarantees that Western sanctions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine would not damage its trade with Iran."
...
"Russia and Iran have seen relations improve in recent years, and Moscow plays a central role in enforcing the 2015 pact, in particular by receiving excess enriched uranium from Tehran."

ie under this pact, Russia was understood to be the "trustworthy" party vis a vis Iran.

And see also:
www.timesofisrael.com/iran-russia-stage-joint-naval-excercise/.

According to Wikipedia - For example, according to official statistics, Iran and Russia had a trade turnover of 1.595 billion dollars in 2019, of which 1 billion 198 million dollars are exports to Iran and 392 million dollars are imports from Iran. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Russia_relations

Thank you @MMBaranova

It is extraordinary to think how your acquaintance has adapted to sleep through the sound and terror of the shelling.

Most of the conversations I have, mostly through messaging, are in English on the basis that their English is generally better than my Russian or Ukrainian. Sometimes we have a little confusion, as shown, but I think the general meaning comes through.

Just after my earlier post I sent a message to the guy in Mykolaiv to see how things were. He might have meant Raion which I believe can have both official and general meaning as 'district'. Still, the point was that the shells seem to be landing anywhere in the city.

I think that in almost any major settlement in free Ukraine there is the background risk of a bomb or rocket landing on or close to you. I would find that hard to bear.

I wanted to ask peoples opinions on Ben Wallace’s comments that putin might use May 9 to announce a new world war against the “world’s nazis” what does this even mean. He can just attack anywhere in the world if he thinks there might be nazis there?!

I suspect Putin is likely to use May 9th for some top notch Willy waving but that anything he says needs to be A) taken will a massive grain of salt B) understood from an internal context.

I imagine there will be a mass of anxiety inducing headlines about nukes in the centre of Moscow without any acknowledgement that Russia hold an annual military parade with exactly that (reckon there will be at least 8 terrified of WW3 MN threads in response).

I think in all seriousness Putin is going to have to mobilise the country due to the logistical restraints that come with officially being in ‘special military action’ mode. I can well imagine Putin would use a symbolic date to do just that.

I’m also confused by the Nazi thing. It makes Putin sound like he’s living in 1943, or he’s like someone suffering with severe mental health issues who thinks they are Napoleon or the like.

@Igotjelly yes I must remember this - I’m already nervous for the anxiety it’ll induce. I’d much rather the nukes were being paraded in the centre of Moscow than plugged in and ready to launch to be quite honest! Parade away. Although actually, are they the real deal for the parade. Part of me imagines them being polystyrene and I don’t know why.

I know how you feel. If you feel anxious come on here and I’m sure we’ll all analyse the shit out of it 😂

I just re-read Wallace’s comments and I think all he expects is for Putin to reframe the Ukraine ‘special military operation’ into a war. Clearly this is bullshit because it’s already a war, it’s a purely internal necessity to free up more young cannon fodder.