“Ukraine – Russia”

Chilling drone footage appears to show Russian soldiers gunning down an unarmed Ukrainian motorist with his hands up — as a woman and child watched.

The footage, obtained by German broadcaster ZDF, shows a number of cars making sudden U-turns after seeing soldiers emerging from a tank parked on the edge of a highway heading to the heart of the capital, Kyiv.

Shocking footage from German TV showing Russian soldiers shooting and killing a Ukrainian civilian on March 7th near Kyiv.

These are war crimes that must be prosecuted. pic.twitter.com/I4gJCHuKY1

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 15, 2022

Vladimir Putin today sent a chilling warning to the West and oligarchs telling ‘scum’ traitors that Russians will ‘spit them out like a midge that flew into their mouths’ – as he claimed Western ‘attempts to have global dominance’ is coming to an end.

The Russian President, speaking in a bombastic televised address from the Kremlin nearly three weeks into Moscow’s invasion, warned the West would use ‘those who earn their money here, but live over there’ as a ‘fifth column’ to ‘divide our society’.

‘I do not judge those with villas in Miami or the French Riviera. Or who can’t get by without oysters or foie gras or so-called ‘gender freedoms.’ The problem is they mentally exist there, and not here, with our people, with Russia,’ he said. ‘The West will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors… to divide our society.. to provoke civil confrontation… to strive to achieve its aim. And there is one aim – the destruction of Russia.’

#Ukraine: Footage of urban combat in #Mariupol. A T-64BV tank belonging to the DNR forces was destroyed after being hit four times with RPG/ATGM. pic.twitter.com/kqMOrFHb2B

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

#Ukraine: Another Russian Attack Helicopter was destroyed by Ukrainian Air Defenses; this time a Ka-52 with tail number of RF-13411. pic.twitter.com/xeRhgB3mrv

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

When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last month, 27-year-old Nigerian Ottah Abraham was outraged.

He picked up his phone and tweeted: “I want to join the team.”

He was some 8,700km (5,400 miles) away from the front line, in a small apartment in Nigeria’s main city, Lagos.

The philosophy graduate is one of several hundred Africans, from countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and Algeria, who say they are willing to take up arms in the battle against Russia, partly to escape the bleak prospects faced by many young men at home.

Andrii Pastushenko, 39, is a dairy farmer who lives 20km away from Kherson in the south of Ukraine, a city that has been under control of the Russian military.

On Monday, 10 Russian soldiers came and set up a base on the farm, leaving their tanks in barns, with more soldiers arriving later. But after overnight shelling by Ukraine’s military at Kherson airport, the Russian troops left on Wednesday morning.

“They quickly packed up this morning, taking two cars and food from the farm and saying they were ‘nationalising’ them,” he said, adding that they did not pay for either but said “See you soon”.

AMSTERDAM, March 16 (Reuters) – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Russia on Wednesday to stop the military actions it started in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

“The Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on Feb 24, 2022 in the territory of Ukraine,” the judges said.

The judges added Russia must also ensure that other forces under its control or supported by Moscow should not continue the military operation.

The risk of Canadian weapons shipments being lost, stolen or otherwise misused is growing as the war in Ukraine enters a chaotic and uncertain new phase.

And with shipments of Canadian weapons still due to arrive in Ukraine, some are warning that parts of those shipments could end up on the black market or be turned against the Ukrainian people by the Russian military or local paramilitary groups.

“There is the real threat that the Ukrainian government can potentially not control all of these weapons,” said Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher with Project Ploughshares, a Canadian non-government disarmament group.

Ratings agencies say Russia is on the verge of defaulting on government bonds following its invasion of Ukraine, with billions of dollars owed to foreigners. That prospect recalls memories of a 1998 default by Moscow that helped fuel financial disruption worldwide.

The possibility has become more than market speculation after the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, conceded that a Russian default is no longer an ”improbable event.”

I could be wrong but this default sounds like another golden opportunity for the poor to bail-out the rich. Gosh it’s great to be alive!

The Western elite is preventing us from going after the assets of Russia’s hyper-rich

The Ukrainian crisis has revived an old debate: how to effectively sanction a state like Russia? Let’s say it straight away: it is time to imagine a new type of sanction focused on the oligarchs who have prospered thanks to the regime in question. This will require the establishment of an international financial register, which will not be to the liking of western fortunes, whose interests are much more closely linked to those of the Russian and Chinese oligarchs than is sometimes claimed. However, it is at this price that western countries will succeed in winning the political and moral battle against the autocracies and in demonstrating to the world that the resounding speeches on democracy and justice are not simply empty words.

If in total Muslims are 15-18%, among young people of conscription age we speak of 30-40% of his army. Russia’s future is there.

“The only way for Russia to escape geopolitical demise is to become an Islamic state,” said Guidar Djemal, Russia’s most famous Muslim who passed away five years ago. The news coming from the Ukrainian front seems to prove him right.

At a funeral in the Kurchaloyevsky district of Chechnya, a Muslim cleric announced that the families of Abdulbek Taramov and Tamirlan Isaev would each receive one million rubles (7,000 euros) and a cow. A few days earlier, an Islamic scholar from the Chechen capital of Grozny, Salakh Mezhiev, had declared the Russian invasion a ‘jihad’. The Washington Post wrote on one of the most important but least told aspects of the war in Ukraine: the role of Islam.

35% favor U.S. military action even if it risks nuclear conflict with Russia

Three weeks into Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, nearly half of Americans (47%) approve of the Biden administration’s handling of the Russian invasion, while about four-in-ten (39%) disapprove; 13% say they are not sure.

Roughly a third of Americans (32%) say that the United States is providing about the right amount of support to Ukraine as it fights to hold off the Russian invasion. A larger share – 42% – say the U.S. should be providing more support to Ukraine, while just 7% say it is providing too much support. About one-in-five (19%) say they are not sure.

[ 🇷🇺 RUSSIE | 🇺🇦 UKRAINE ]

🔸📍Kharkiv, aujourd’hui.

pic.twitter.com/OIzB0XJ6QC

— (Little) Think Tank (@L_ThinkTank) March 15, 2022

Ukraine’s president invoked the horror of the 2001 terror attacks on the US as he pleaded for more military aid in a historic address to the US Congress.

Volodymyr Zelensky said via video link that Ukraine was enduring a 9/11 every day as it battled Russian forces.

He again urged the US and Nato allies to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying: “I need to protect the sky.”

President Biden is later set to sign off an extra $800m (£612m) in military aid to Ukraine.

#Ukraine: A Russian convoy transporting 122mm rockets for BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers was attacked by the Ukrainian forces. As a result, two cargo trucks were obliterated. pic.twitter.com/SiJUqANLuP

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

As a result of the Russian missile attack this morning in Kiev, hopefully the war will stop soon and the world will return to peace#Russia #Ukraine #Kyiv #Odessa #Kharkiv pic.twitter.com/D0ylppVFFX

— Goes TDI (@GoesTDI) March 16, 2022

The answer may lie in his tactics in previous conflicts.

Geographically, Ukraine is the largest country in Europe (about the size of Texas and some 1800km across from west to east); it has a population of more than 40,000,000. The Russian invasion is being conducted along four axes: 1) from the north, out of Belarus; 2) from the northeast, along the Chernihiv-Sumy-Kharkiv axis; 3) out of the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine (with the help of the two Russian separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk); and, 4) out of Crimea in the south. In general, while the Russian assault has been significantly less effective than anticipated, Russian forces are still managing, deliberately and inexorably, to encircle and bombard key Russian cities and towns, e.g., the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second largest city), Mariupol. In the process, they have created the most tragic humanitarian disaster in Europe since the end of World War II, with more than 2,000,000 refugees now fleeing Ukraine.

What the Ukrainian Invasion has Revealed about Russian Military Power

Some Russians are risking everything to speak out against Putin’s invasion.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is facing fierce resistance – not just from the Ukrainian fighters defending their homeland, but on the homefront, too.

Since the invasion, the Putin regime has implemented strict controls on the media and has cracked down heavily on protests. A liberal TV channel and radio station have been forced to shut down. Any journalist caught contradicting the Kremlin line – that Russia has not invaded Ukraine, but rather is conducting a ‘special military operation’ – can face up to 15 years in prison, for the crime of spreading ‘fake’ information or disrespecting the military. But none of this has stopped Russians from speaking out. Far from it.

“This is a war about all the world.” -Volodymyr Zelensky

I can’t get the horror of the Russian atrocities in Ukraine out of my head. I keep hearing that cute little toddler crying out hysterically, “Daddy, Mommy is dead!” Her mother was killed in her apartment by a Russian bomb. The videos of teenage Russian conscripts burning to death in their tanks from Javelin missiles don’t make me feel much better.

Is there any point to all of this needless human suffering? “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Perhaps it is time to start reflecting on what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will mean to future historians.

That’s not nice!

Kolejny przykład ludobójstwa #RussianArmy. Na nagraniu widać czołg, który strzela do cywila z #Ukraine https://t.co/LLy6ZmUASa

— 🇵🇱 Independent Poland (@maszczepinski) March 15, 2022