“Ukraine – Russia”

April 18 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy formally submitted a completed questionnaire on European Union membership to an envoy on Monday and said he believed this step would lead to his country gaining candidate status within weeks.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen handed the questionnaire to Zelenskiy during a visit to Kyiv on April 8, pledging a speedier start to Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the EU following Russia’s invasion of the country.

Join the EU? Madness at the best of times, they’re more totalitarian than Russia. Certainly more communist.

The EU probably hopes Ukraine goes quietly & quickly into that good night before they have to actually cut off Russian gas supplies.

BEIRUT (AP) — During a visit to Syria in 2017, Vladimir Putin lavished praise on a Syrian general whose division played an instrumental role in defeating insurgents in the country’s long-running civil war. The Russian president told him his cooperation with Russian troops “will lead to great successes in the future.”

Now members of Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan’s division are among hundreds of Russian-trained Syrian fighters who have reportedly signed up to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, including Syrian soldiers, former rebels and experienced fighters who fought for years against the Islamic State group in Syria’s desert.

#Ukraine: Video showing a tank operated by the 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard hitting a Russian/separatist BMP in Rubizhne, #Luhansk Oblast. It is destroyed, as can be expected. pic.twitter.com/TKEa4DSSNR

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 18, 2022

Dramatic pictures – and a credible video – allegedly showing the Russian warship Moskva before it sank last week have appeared online.

The video and images match the shape and design of the missile cruiser.

Russia says a fire onboard caused ammunitions to explode and the vessel sank as it was being towed in a storm. Ukraine says it hit it with missiles.

The new images do not immediately back the claims of either side – but there is no sign of a storm at the time.

Video of the Moskva on fire before it sank after being targeted by Ukrainian Neptun missiles. https://t.co/qXXAlX9ZLf pic.twitter.com/WXBPD3RzTr

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 18, 2022

Almost three decades after the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire says he worries too little has changed.

“The West has learned absolutely nothing,” said the former United Nations force commander in an interview with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson.

“What the international community and the developed world in particular has discovered is that it doesn’t want to take risks.”

No.

I am very confused about Canada’s place in this conflict.

I agree we should provide support to Ukraine but I am deeply disturbed by Trudeau’s handlers efforts to game this conflict in order to further their anti-human green-scam agenda.

Did we buy gas from the Nazis in WW II? No? Well our Euro allies buy gas from Putin, and lots of it.

Ukraine receives about a 100 million a month from Putin to transport that gas via pipelines that crisscross the state.

I can’t figure out if that makes us complicit or the good guy. Too nuanced for me.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, an information war has been raging on the internet. This battle for the truth is being fought on many levels. DW’s fact-checking team has compiled some of the false claims and propaganda from both sides here, revealing what is behind them.

A second British soldier who was captured fighting with the Ukrainian army has been paraded on Russian state TV.

Shaun Pinner, 48, was seen in a chilling propaganda video released Saturday night.

“Hi, I’m Shaun Pinner, I am a citizen of the UK. I was captured in Mariupol. I am part of the 36 Brigade First Battalion Ukrainian Marines,” he said in the video.

International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canada is looking at more ways to help humanitarian crisis in eastern Europe as about 100 troops deploy to Poland to help with refugees fleeing war in Ukraine.

“The work that’s ongoing is quite vast, but as you know, the needs are also quite vast given the atrocities that are being committed on the ground in Ukraine,” said Sajjan in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live that aired Sunday.

Sajjan told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton that Canada was co-ordinating with the United Nations and humanitarian agencies such as the Red Cross to deliver additional aid and materiel in the form of hygiene kits, mattresses and tents.

We need to send Trudeau on a walking tour of Ukraine.

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.