Author: Blazingcatfur

The federal government has warned German residents with roots in Russia not to fall for propaganda, as the Kremlin disinformation machine kicks into overdrive amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Deputy spokesman Wolfgang Büchner said that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government “implores Russian-speaking people in Germany to inform themselves comprehensively with national and international media,” to avoid falling prey to false narratives about what is happening in Ukraine.

Across social media and on Russian national outlets, Kremlin claims, such as that the killing of civilians in Mariupol and Bucha had been staged, have become widespread.

That’s a pretty impressive turn-out.

Rally in support of #Russia on the roads of Berlin. Thousands of cars came out to support the Russian Federation, the flags of Russia, USSR and the Airborne Forces been displayed.#Germany pic.twitter.com/6pxeM5e5Lx

— The Eurasianist ☦️ (@Russ_Warrior) April 3, 2022

LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) – Military conscripts in the Russian-backed Donbas region have been sent into front-line combat against Ukrainian troops with no training, little food and water, and inadequate weapons, six people in the separatist province told Reuters.

The new accounts of untrained and ill-equipped conscripts being deployed are a fresh indication of how stretched the military resources at the Kremlin’s disposal are, over a month into a war that has seen Moscow’s forces hobbled by logistical problems and held up by fierce Ukrainian resistance.

One of the people, a student conscripted in late February, said a fellow fighter told him to prepare to repel a close-quarter attack by Ukrainian forces in southwest Donbas but “I don’t even know how to fire an automatic weapon.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has taken aim at Western leaders who he says enabled Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, including former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In an address delivered Sunday night as reports emerged of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Bucha, a city in Ukraine’s Kyiv region, Zelenskyy said: “I invite Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha, to see what the policy of 14 years of concessions to Russia has led to,” adding that he wants the them “to see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women.”

Revulsion at the atrocities committed by Russian forces in the Ukrainian town of Bucha dominates today’s front pages, as politicians lined up around the world to condemn the massacre of hundreds of civilians.

Ukraine war: Ukraine investigates alleged execution of civilians by Russians

Ukraine has started a war crimes investigation after bodies of civilians were found strewn on the streets as Russian troops pulled out of areas around the capital Kyiv.

Bucha and Irpin were symbols of resistance to the Russian invasion, but they are now becoming synonymous with the war’s most serious abuses.

Ukrainian authorities say the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in the areas around Kyiv so far.

Russia, without evidence, says the photos and videos are “a staged performance” by Ukraine.

Satellite images show long trench at Ukrainian mass grave site, Maxar says

How has the Ukraine crisis affected political life in the West? Deeply but contradictorily. Vladimir Putin’s invasion wakened sleeping populations to eternal power realities, exacerbated leftist de-platforming, and bizarrely enhanced his appeal on the Right.

Power realities: A century-long peace following the Napoleonic wars left Europeans mentally unprepared for the carnage of World War I; similarly, the 77-year peace after World War II bred a faulty European assumption that trade and diplomacy could solve the continent’s problems. Military strength was seen as anachronistic as slavery. Slogans such as “There is no military solution” and “War never solved anything” prevailed.

Meanwhile, the non-West remains focused on the timeless verities of military might.