“I am not Russian!” This is the message on a new T-shirt that it is reportedly selling like hot cakes in Kazan, capital of the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. A different version, bearing the slogan “I am not Russian, Love me!” is doing well in Ufa, capital of Bashkortostan, another autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.
“But if Zelensky and his advisers have to one day confront the realities of the war and actually approach a negotiation table once more and consider—or make—territorial concessions, that could leave Zelensky on the precipice of political turmoil, according to Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.”
More… Biden Throws Zelensky Under The Bus: Ukraine Leader ‘Brushed Off’ Invasion Warnings
A former British soldier has been killed fighting for the Ukrainian armed forces, his family has said.
Jordan Gatley, who left the British army in March and travelled to Ukraine, was described as “a hero” by his father Dean in a tribute on social media.
He died in the battle for the eastern city of Severodonetsk, which has seen intense fighting in recent days.
The Foreign Office has said it is “supporting the family of a British man who has died in Ukraine”.
A specialist gang is smuggling valuable historic artefacts out of Ukraine and into Russia, according to an international team of academics and digital technology experts who are tracking thefts.
“There is now very strong evidence this is a purposive Russian move, with specific paintings and ornaments targeted and taken out to Russia,” said Brian Daniels, an anthropologist working with archaeologists, historians and digital imaging specialists.
Eldar Gadzhiev’s heart sank when he heard the sputtering from the engine of his Skoda one day in April. Gadzhiev, who owns a fleet of four cars that he leases as taxicabs in Moscow, knew it was a terrible and expensive time for a breakdown.
Prices for spare parts, if you even could find them, had spiralled out of control since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two months earlier. “I understood that I was in a bad situation,” he said. “I thought: the repairs are going to cost as much as the car.”
Dealerships were useless, he said. His car parts shop told him that the waiting list was months long, time he could not wait to repair his vehicle.
There are plenty of job vacancy announcements on Russian employment websites and social media these days: drivers, dishwashers, cooks, programmers, grocery store cashiers.
Also on offer: jobs/positions fighting in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Now in its fourth month, with no end in sight, the invasion is morphing into a war of attrition, as Russia struggles to achieve a semblance of victory and Ukraine mounts a dogged defense, often against the odds. Both sides are inflicting heavy casualties; Ukrainian officials say they’re losing more than 100 soldiers a day.
Any way you count it, the figures are stark: Ukrainian casualties are running at a rate of somewhere between 6oo and 1,000 a day. One presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, told the Guardian this week it was 150 killed and 800 wounded daily; another, Mykhaylo Podolyak, told the BBC that 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops a day were being killed.
It represents an extraordinary loss of human life and capacity for the defenders, embroiled in a defence of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk that this week turned into a losing battle. Yet the city was also arguably a place that Ukraine could have retreated from to the more defensible Lysychansk, across the Siverski Donets River, the sort of defensive situation that Ukraine has fared far better in.
Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun embody the spirit of solidarity and internationalism.
Yesterday, two Brits and a Moroccan were sentenced to death by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine. The three, who had been fighting with the Ukrainian armed forces, were found guilty, in the words of the court, of ‘mercenary activities and committing actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the DPR’.
The official condemnation from Ukraine’s Western supporters came quickly. The British government pointed out that they were prisoners of war and that, under the Geneva Conventions, they ‘were entitled to combatant immunity… from prosecutions’. UK foreign secretary Liz Truss called it ‘a sham judgement with absolutely no legitimacy’.
Speaking of Internationalism…
Lost photos from Spanish civil war reveal daily life behind anti-fascist lines
Photographs by two Jewish female photographers who worked behind anti-fascist lines during the Spanish civil war have gone on display in Madrid after 80 years. For decades the negatives and prints, many of which have never been published, were believed to be lost or destroyed. They are now on show in the capital for the first time.
I get a kick out of this pic. The photographers were affiliated with anarchist organizations and these are captioned “Anarchist Vehicles.”
Would they mind if I drove off with one?
I don’t hold anything against the left of 1930’s. Too little was then widely known about the anti-human horror of communism. The anti-Franco volunteers may have been naïve true believers but there is no denying they were on the right side of history for once. The horror of WW I and the ravages of capitalism’s virtual collapse made signing up for the cause pretty easy for many I suspect.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth month, Ukrainian officials are increasingly worried the West could soon suffer “war fatigue.”
They fear Russia could take advantage of that to pressure Ukraine into compromise, something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has resisted, saying Ukraine would pursue its own terms for peace.
“The fatigue is growing, people want some kind of outcome [that is beneficial] for themselves, and we want [another] outcome for ourselves,” he said.
Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia on the frontlines and is now almost solely reliant on weapons from the west to keep Russia at bay.
“This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”.
Putin compares himself to Peter the Great in quest to take back Russian lands
Vladimir Putin has compared himself to the 18th-century Russian tsar Peter the Great, drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands.
“Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia’s],” the Russian president said on Thursday after a visiting an exhibition dedicated to the tsar.
Putin: West unlikely to reject Russian energy for years
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the West will not be able to cut itself off from Russian oil and gas for several years.
He added that nobody knows what might happen in that time, so Russian companies would not be “concreting over their oil-wells”.
It comes as a US official admitted that Russian profits on energy may be higher now than they were before the war.
#Ukraine: A Ukrainian 2S7 Pion 203mm self-propelled howitzer was hit by Russian cluster munitions near Bakhmut, #Donetsk Oblast – at the rear side propellant can be seen burning severely, so the SPH is at least damaged and likely requires repair. pic.twitter.com/OYXQyzWQ44
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 9, 2022
Cases of desertion are growing every week in the Ukrainian army, according to a leaked intelligence report, as up to 200 of its outgunned soldiers are being killed every day in the eastern Donbas region.
Kyiv’s troops are outnumbered 20 to one in artillery and 40 to one in ammunition by the Kremlin’s forces in the area, the leaked Ukrainian intelligence report reveals.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to the Ukrainian president, on Thursday said the battle over the war-town country’s industrial heartlands was so intense that Kyiv is suffering up to 200 military casualties per day. The previous upper limit was given as 100 soldiers.
President Duda excoriated Germany’s Scholz and France’s Macron for warning against “humiliating” Putin over the invasin of Ukraine. He accused them of legitimizing Russian atrocities.
Polish President Andrzej Duda slammed the leaders of both Germany and France for their phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, comparing it to maintaining a direct line with Adolf Hitler during World War II.
In an interview published in Thursday’s edition of German best-selling newspaper Bild, Duda questioned what Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron thought was to be gained by the calls as Russia continues to bombard civilian targets in Ukraine.
James Challice, a 42-year-old Canadian Forces veteran, travelled to Ukraine in late March and has been training young recruits to defend their country.
In a video interview with Today’s Northumberland community news site in April, the Cobourg, Ont., man said he is confident Ukrainians will take back their country because “the morale is phenomenal.”
In recent days though, Challice has been fighting at the front and in an exchange with contacts in Canada laid out a far less optimistic synopsis.
A bad stench emanates from this conflict.
It is evident the elites will protect profits over lives as with Freeland floating a deal to benefit her Oligarch friends and the continued free flow of gas, oil and money between so called enemies.
A cynical coalition of nations is very pleased to have tax payer funded aid used to support Russian oil and gas profits so as not to unsettle their home markets.
We are paying the price with runaway inflation and potential food shortages while the Trudeau Liberals virtue signal and use the Ukraine crisis to advance their ruinous green-scam.
Ukrainians are dying while we support their enemy.
PS. If Zelensky makes a Zoom appearance on one more awards show I am washing my hands of this whole thing. My bet is he’s booked for the finals of the Rupaul Drag show.
Two British men and a Moroccan man held by Russian forces in Ukraine have been sentenced to death.
Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin, 28 – along with Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim – were all captured while fighting in Ukraine.
The so-called supreme court of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) issued death their sentences on Thursday, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency said.
In a corner of the leafy town of Irpin, the brutality of the Russian occupation was clear from the start. The body of a young woman in a red coat would remain in the street for four weeks – lying where she had been trampled not once, but over and over again, under the wheels of Russian armoured vehicles.
Irpin is on the doorstep of Kyiv, and in early March Russian troops intent on conquering the capital took hold of the town.
Its blown-up bridge and river crossing became known internationally as a risky escape route from next-door Bucha, the scene of many of Russia’s alleged war crimes.
