“Ukraine – Russia”

After Russian troops withdrew from the town on the outskirts of Kyiv, images of bodies lying in the streets subsequently emerged and members of media organisations also saw corpses.

Ukraine accused Russia of a “deliberate massacre” but Russia called it “a staged provocation by the Kiev regime”. It made a series of unfounded claims about the footage from Bucha.

After the Russian withdrawal, footage taken from a car as it drove through the town showed bodies on either side of the road.

Pro-Russian social media accounts then circulated a slowed-down version of the video, claiming that the arm on one of the bodies moved.

Also, can someone with a medical degree explain to me, how a dead person can move their arm, after being dead for several days? #bucha #fakenews #ukrainefakes pic.twitter.com/ToJhzJkcju

— Irina Molotova (@IrinaGalushkoRT) April 3, 2022

Sky’s @HaynesDeborah describes scenes of ‘absolute devastation’ in Bucha, where people gave harrowing accounts of brutal killings.

WARNING: This video shows distressing images of people who have been killed.

Read more here: https://t.co/aYjTb9OYCa pic.twitter.com/m3D3hvetV2

— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 4, 2022

Russia’s Bucha “Facts” Versus the Evidence

Recent images from the town of Bucha just outside Kyiv, captured as Ukrainian forces regained ground following the retreat of Russian forces, show widespread destruction and corpses in civilians clothes strewn across streets.

These images have been shared on social media and broadcast by members of the international press who have visited the town in recent days.

Initial reports from human rights organisations on the actions of Russian forces have detailed violence targeting civilians. Interviews with local residents, meanwhile, have accused Russian troops of carrying out summary executions of unarmed men over suspicions they had fought for Ukrainian armed forces in the Donbas in 2014, or even “simply for having a tattoo of Ukraine’s national emblem”.

Boxes filled with JT’s personal belongings littered the floor of his home in the west Ottawa suburb of Kanata as he readied to leave in mid-March.

Outside, a “For Rent” sign stands tall with the retired soldier telling his roommate to find a new place, unsure when, or if, the two will meet again.

The 50-year-old Ottawa resident — whom CBC News has agreed to not name due to safety concerns — is now in Ukraine as Russian forces continue their invasion of the sovereign nation.

BARDUFOSS, Norway, April 4 (Reuters) – The sound of gunfire echoed around the Norwegian fjords as a row of Swedish and Finnish soldiers, positioned prone behind banks of snow, trained rifles and missile launchers on nearby hills ready for an enemy attack.

The drill, in March, was the first time forces from Finland and Sweden have formed a combined brigade in a scheduled NATO exercise in Arctic Norway known as “Cold Response.” Neither country is a member of the NATO alliance. The exercise was long planned, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 added intensity to the war game.

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. 

Apart from its political impact on the international order, the war that Russia has launched against Ukraine contains countless features that should interest military analysts and planners across the globe.

This is the first time since World War II that the Russian Army (formerly Soviet Red Army) is tested on the battlefield against a medium-sized adversary in a classical war.

In the 1950s, the Red Army fought border wars with Communist China and managed to annex large chunks of territory across the border. But that was not a full-scale war, as a much weaker China, then also devoid of nuclear weapons, shied away from fighting back in a meaningful way.

#Ukraine: Accurate Ukrainian fire damaging 2x T-72B3 tanks as well as hitting pro-Russian positions somewhere in the East. pic.twitter.com/nmTcj6RZkH

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 3, 2022

Uniforms are one of the most deceptive trappings of military culture. They suggest uniformity but it is often said of the British army that if two officers look the same, one must be improperly dressed. Armies, and especially professional armies, are more often warring tribes of subcultures, and for commanders it is critical to understand how those cultures interact if the force is to be employed effectively in battle.

When it comes to Russian military culture, the Russian army has been through a period of significant change, with constant modernisation since 2008. The Soviet Union fielded an army of more than 3.5 million soldiers in 1991. The Soviet army was largely a conscript force and lacked an experienced noncommissioned officer corps. This meant that Soviet units had to be treated with a degree of uniformity, since the personnel rotated so frequently that most line units were necessarily commanded using set formulas that formed the basis for unit training.

#Ukraine: The Ukrainian sources claim that the Russian jet was shot down near Izium, #Kharkiv Oblast. We believe the shown jet is a Russian Su-30SM fighter. pic.twitter.com/lFQYvcGoTA

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 3, 2022

Two Russian soldiers have died and 28 are in hospital after being POISONED by pastry delicacies offered to them by civilians near besieged Kharkiv, according to the Ukraine Ministry of Defence

Russian troops near Kharkiv died after eating poisoned stuffed buns given to them as ‘gifts’ by Ukrainian citizens, a Ukrainian intelligence agency has claimed.

Two soldiers from the 3rd Motor Rifle Division died immediately after eating the delicacies served by the citizens of Izium, a Facebook post by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine announced on Saturday.

Another 28 Russian troops are in intensive care after the poisoning with several hundred others also suffering from ‘severe illnesses’ after drinking poisoned alcohol given to them by civilians.

The retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has left horrifying evidence of atrocities against civilians littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, turned into hellish war zones by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

As Ukrainian armoured columns rolled into Bucha, a town north-west of the capital, they found streets blocked by burned-out Russian tanks and military vehicles, and strewn with the bodies of civilians whom locals said had been killed by the invading forces without provocation.

Photographs from the town showed a scene of devastation, with hunks of charred and destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles lined up along one street, along with dead bodies.

#Ukraine: A Russian TOS-1A thermobaric multiple rocket launcher, captured by the Ukrainian forces. This MRL is likely the one which was hit with an ATGM yesterday – that’s why its working condition is doubtful. pic.twitter.com/rmLyEjtNM0

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 2, 2022

#Ukraine: A Russian Ka-52 hitting what is likely Ukrainian tanks (or BTR) with ATGM, in the area of #Izyum. Two vehicles are destroyed. pic.twitter.com/WjQntzcm9g

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 3, 2022