“Ukraine – Russia”

They would much rather shout “Slava Ukraini” than “God Bless America.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of Congress Wednesday. Never has one man united the political elite in such admiration. Zelenskyy’s video message drew standing ovations from lawmakers and effusive praise from journalists. His message to American lawmakers: intervene, even if it leads to World War III.

The rapturous reception to Zelenskyy demonstrates a curious phenomenon. Many Americans, particularly liberals, have embraced Ukrainian nationalism.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked on Sunday morning about Russian claims of nazism in the Eastern European nation. Prior to the ongoing ground invasion that he ordered, Russian President Vladimir Putin cited a need for “denazification,” listing the decapitating of the current Ukrainian government as part of that mission.

Olena Kurilo became the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bloodied and bandaged, the 53-year-old teacher said she couldn’t believe what had happened to her and her town of Chuhuiv.

Her picture was on the front pages of newspapers across the world.

Over the next few days, Russia’s government social media accounts began to post a video claiming that Olena hadn’t been injured at all.

AMMAN/BEIRUT, March 20 (Reuters) – Some Syrian paramilitary fighters say they are ready to deploy to Ukraine to fight in support of their ally Russia but have not yet received instructions to go, two of their commanders told Reuters.

Nabil Abdallah, a commander in the paramilitary National Defence Forces (NDF), said he was ready to use expertise in urban combat gained during the Syrian war to aid Russia, speaking to Reuters by phone from the Syrian town of Suqaylabiyah.

Russian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, including the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, have been linked to far-right extremism including an organisation designated by the US as terrorist, analysis reveals.

Although Vladimir Putin says his “special military operation” is aimed at the “denazification” of Ukraine, an investigation has found links between pro-Russian forces and violent rightwing extremism, including those directly affiliated with Wagner.

One post on the messaging app Telegram, dated 15 March, shows the flag of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a white-supremacist paramilitary organisation which the US lists as terrorist, allegedly flown by Moscow-backed separatists in Donetsk. The post was shared by a pro-Putin channel.

MIAMI (AP) — Adrian Kellgren’s family-owned gun company in Florida was left holding a $200,000 shipment of semi-automatic rifles after a longtime customer in Ukraine suddenly went silent during Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the country.

Fearing the worst, Kellgren and his company KelTec decided to put those stranded 400 guns to use, sending them to Ukraine’s nascent resistance movement to help civilians fight back against a Russian military that has been repeatedly shelling their apartment buildings, schools, hospitals and hiding places.

The city council of Mariupol, Ukraine, said on Saturday that thousands of the city’s residents had been forcibly taken into Russia, with the mayor likening their removal to actions performed by the Nazis during World War II, CNN reported.

Mariupol, which sits in the southeastern region of Ukraine, has been the site of constant attacks by Russian forces, who city officials say killed several thousand residents in one day alone last week. The city has seen a mosque, a children’s hospital and a theater bombed, among other buildings.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that Russia’s military bombed an art school sheltering some 400 people in the embattled port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine’s president said an unrelenting Russian siege would be remembered for centuries to come.

It was the second time in less than a week that city officials reported a public building where residents had taken shelter coming under attack. A bomb hit a Mariupol theater with more than 1,300 believed to be inside on Wednesday, local officials said.

#Ukraine: The moment a Russian tank (Appears to be a T-72 variant) is struck by Ukrainian fire, removing the turret and destroying the vehicle. pic.twitter.com/EhnbLXj1nO

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 20, 2022

#Ukraine: Insane footage from a Ukrainian gunner of a BTR-4 APC during a raid on the Russian army in Mariupol. Apparently, a Russian BTR-82A and T-72B3M tank were destroyed. pic.twitter.com/CRkZIDKWOr

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 20, 2022

Some three decades after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and NATO are facing the dangers of possible nuclear war, a development that may end up rivaling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1982 for high drama. Critical to the future outcome of the current conflict over Ukraine is the answer to the following question: just how serious are Russia’s nuclear threats against the United States and NATO?

Merkel & Co. really painted themselves into a corner by rejecting nuclear energy and relying on Russian fossil fuels.

Even if you think Russia has some legitimate grievances, this war thing is not good. M’kay? It’s a horrible waste of life and property, and it will hardly just be the civilians of Ukraine and Russia paying a steep economic price. But it would never have happened if Russia couldn’t afford the world’s third-largest military — with only the 11th-largest GDP. Where is it getting the hard currency to oil that war machine (pun intended)? It’s essentially fossil fuel exports to our NATO allies, and especially the largest of them, Germany. And yes, even some exports to the United States.

If platitudes were air defence missiles, praise was anti-tank rockets, applause was fighters, and wishes and prayers were weapons, after this week’s address to Canada’s Parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would have been able to plan his country’s victory parade over Russia. Sadly, what was on display Tuesday was Canada’s unrelenting drive to provide Zelenskyy and Ukraine with complete assistance short of real help. A close friend, who believes in prayer, says that if you actually do something to give wings to that prayer you can achieve something greater. President Zelenskyy has given us an opening, a chance to put wings on our prayers for Ukraine, to achieve something greater.

BIG on WW III

The night of Feb. 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine sat at anchor in Havana, Cuba. A few minutes after 9 p.m., the nightly ritual of “Taps” from Fifer C. H. Newton’s bugle descended over the ship. Some half an hour later, the forward end of the ship rose suddenly above the water.

“Along the pier, passersby could hear a rumbling explosion,” detailed author Tom Miller. “Within seconds, another eruption — this one deafening and massive — splintered the bow, sending anything that wasn’t battened down, and most that was, flying more than 200 feet into the air.”