“Ukraine – Russia”

Russia is willing to use nuclear weapons to bring a catastrophic end to its invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky warned last night – as he urged the world to ‘prepare’ for the worst by stocking up on anti-radiation medicine and building air raid shelters.

The comedian-turned-war time leader made the doomsday warning during an interview with national media, before sharing the clip via his Telegram channel.

He made a similar announcement on Friday, when he said it could not be ruled out that desperate Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would use tactical nukes, as his war against Ukraine continues to stall.

A Russian ultimatum for the last remaining Ukrainian troops holding out in the besieged port city of Mariupol to surrender has passed, as Moscow edged closer to full control of the city in what would be its biggest capture since it invaded Ukraine in February.

The city has been facing a humanitarian catastrophe for weeks, as Russian tanks advanced towards the centre, razing neighbourhoods along the way. The number of civilians killed in the siege is unknown. The Ukrainian-controlled council has accused Russian soldiers of collecting bodies and incinerating them in a mobile crematorium.

Ukraine says it will continue to defend Mariupol and officials reject Russian surrender ultimatum

'Ukraine's armed forces are now fighting Russians from many directions,' says Vitalii Rybak from @InternewsUA pic.twitter.com/tEbdQAtrjf

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) April 17, 2022

Ukraine war: Trucks stuck at Poland-Belarus border as EU sanctions deadline passes

A huge queue of trucks has formed on the Poland-Belarus border as Russian and Belarussian drivers try to leave the EU following a sanctions deadline.

In the run-up to the Saturday deadline, the line extended to 80km (60 miles), with some stuck for up to 33 hours.

The EU has banned lorries from Russia and Belarus – except those carrying medicine, mail or petroleum products – from entering or staying in the bloc.

#Ukraine: Two civilian vehicles, apparently operated by Russian forces, were ambushed by the Ukrainian side, with the weapons inside looted. pic.twitter.com/2wh9aYO0xl

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 16, 2022

The Battle of the Donbas, if that is what we are to witness, may be Russia’s last throw of the dice with this army

Sometimes history is closer than it seems. Russian soldiers who have been wounded, captured or lost friends and colleagues in Ukraine have learned that very painful lesson over the last six weeks.

The losses that the Russian Army has suffered have been extreme, not just by the standards of post-Cold War warfare, but by all 19th and 20th century standards. Indeed the Russian war experience so far is perhaps more reminiscent of the mud and gore of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 than any subsequent military engagement.

By my calculation, based on a variety of public information, the Russians have lost approximately 30% of the forces that they have sent into Ukraine. This is a truly colossal figure, higher, in fact, than almost any engagement in modern military history from the US Civil War through to the two world wars.

#Ukraine: The crash site of a Ukrainian Mi-8MSB helicopter – presumably shot down in the north of the country some time ago.

Interestingly, a single 3BM44 APFSDS projectile assembly is seen, which may indicate it was transporting ammunition. pic.twitter.com/UFqtwRxFEs

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 16, 2022

When Russia invaded Ukraine seven weeks ago, I wrote in this space that if Russia succeeded in crushing Ukraine as an independent state and strangling it as an aspiring democracy, in addition to a tragedy for Ukraine, it would be a terrible setback for the West. The egregious and vastly over-decorated chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, predicted that Russia would occupy Kiev within three days. If this had occurred, it would have been the first roll-back of western civilization since the early days of the Second World War. And when added to the terrible self-inflicted fiasco of the economic shutdown of the western world at the start of the pandemic, and the impending surrender of the West to the nuclear military ambitions of Iran, it would have announced a much clearer and stronger trajectory of western decline than global warming (which has contributed to Western decline also, as we inflict terrible economic hardship on ourselves to reduce carbon emissions on the basis of insufficient knowledge of what we are fighting).

As Russian media and officials struggled on Friday to explain the sinking of the country’s Black Sea flagship, it was clear that the loss of the cruiser and an untold number of its estimated 510 crew was a blow to Vladimir Putin’s war plans and his military’s prestige.

From the beginning, the Russian government tried to play down what had happened. At first its defence ministry claimed an accident had caused a fire onboard. Then the ministry said the damage had been contained and the ship was being towed to port in Sevastopol. Finally, late on Thursday, the ministry announced that the ship had sunk in “stormy seas”.

A British fighter captured by Russia could be treated as a spy by the Kremlin, raising fears for his safety.

Russia’s state TV channels have broadcast suspect footage of former care worker Aiden Aslin being questioned by his captors after he was forced to surrender in Mariupol.

Mr Aslin, 28, joined the Ukrainian marines four years ago. He has dual UK-Ukrainian citizenship and a Ukrainian fiancee, yet Russia appears determined to brand him an enemy agent rather than a prisoner of war.

Canada’s defence minister Anita Anand says that there’s a “strong argument” to be made that the “atrocities” in Ukraine occurring at the hands of the Russians amount to genocide.

“Reports relating to the potential use of chemical weapons have been very disconcerting, and this is an issue that NATO is still considering. And of course, we need to be very cognizant that the atrocities in Ukraine are already of a very serious nature,” Anand said in an interview on CTV’s Question period.

On the evening before Russian forces crossed the border into Ukraine, Igor Volzhanin met up with a friend at a coffee shop at the centre of Kyiv.

“We stayed there until about midnight just talking,” the Canadian recalled in an interview from Ukraine. “Just talking about how, you know, jokingly, what would we do if the war had started. There was deep anxiety, but I don’t think either one of us really expected for it to happen the next morning.”

On Feb. 25, Volzhanin’s holiday in Ukraine was supposed to continue with a Louis C.K. comedy show, and the following day he was to board a plane to France for a skiing trip. But his plans quickly changed.

Zelenskyy asks Biden to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a direct appeal to US President Joe Biden for the United States to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, one of the most powerful and far-reaching sanctions in the US arsenal, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Zelenskyy’s request, which has not previously been reported, came during a recent phone call with Biden that centered on the West’s multifaceted response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, people familiar with the conversation told the newspaper.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces resumed scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and beyond Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Russia’s pivot toward mounting a new offensive in the east.

Stung by the loss of its Black Sea flagship and indignant over what it alleged were Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, Russia’s military command had warned a day earlier of renewed attacks on Ukraine’s capital and said it was targeting military sites.

Up to 3,000 Ukraine troops killed since Russia invaded, says Zelenskiy, as battle rages in Mariupol

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said up to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, with no total yet available for civilian casualties, as fighting intensified in the battle for the southern city of Mariupol.

Ukraine’s president said the military situation in the south and east was “still very difficult”, while praising the work of his armed forces. “The successes of our military on the battlefield are really significant, historically significant. But they are still not enough to clean our land of the occupiers,” he said in a late-night video address, calling again for allies to send heavier weapons and for an international embargo on Russian oil.

#Ukraine: Another Russian T-72B3 Obr. 2016 with a little damage was captured by Ukrainian troops, precise date unknown but 4 days ago or more. pic.twitter.com/B8MTThYgeh

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 15, 2022

IN 1994, George F. Kennan spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. His remarks, which were excerpted in the New York Times, continue to make for fascinating reading. They focused on the abiding preoccupation of his career—American relations with Russia. He recalled that he had originally argued for a containment policy of the Soviet Union after World War II, which the Truman administration largely implemented. But Kennan also observed that after the West had made it clear that it would not permit Stalin to make any further inroads into Europe, he was disappointed to discover that neither Washington nor the Western allies had any real interest in entering into discussions with Moscow. “What they and the others wanted,” Kennan said, “from Moscow, with respect to the future of Europe, was essentially ‘unconditional surrender.’ They were prepared to wait for it. And this was the beginning of the forty years of cold war.”

“… On the left, identity-politics-inflected self-criticism breeds a suspicion of the West’s side of any conflict. An article published by the Washington Post this week is an especially egregious example of this mode of thinking. Under the headline “NATO was founded to protect ‘civilized’ people. That means White,” Amoz Hor exemplifies an all too familiar myopia according to which America’s racial politics are the prism through which geopolitical events are best understood. We are told that warnings about the Soviet threat to “Western civilization” were nothing more than a “dog whistle for whiteness”; that “communism was seen to pose a threat not just to “freedom” — but specifically to White freedom”; and that “NATO was born out of fear of White slavery.” There’s an alarmingly large audience for such ahistorical nonsense.”

KYIV, April 15 (Reuters) – Ukraine said on Friday it was trying to break Russian forces’ siege of Mariupol, with fighting raging around the city’s Illich steel works and port, as the capital Kyiv was rocked by some of the most powerful explosions in two weeks.

Russia said it had struck overnight what it said was a factory in Kyiv that made and repaired anti-ship missiles, in apparent retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet, on Thursday.

#Ukraine: Footage filmed via a Russian Orlan-10 drone of a strike against a Ukrainian vehicle, leading to its destruction- type or location unknown at present. pic.twitter.com/68Ki0pjFB6

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 15, 2022

Captain Vasyl Kravchuk has a surprisingly ready smile for a man who has endured 50 days of war. We spoke to him via video link from his base at an undisclosed location.

He knows the coming weeks will offer no respite. Russia may have received a bloody nose in its aborted attempts to take Kyiv, but with the Eastern region of the Donbas now firmly in Moscow’s sights, the men and women of Dnipro’s Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade will continue to play a key role in the next phase of the war.

Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.