A cameraman and a journalist working for Fox News have been killed in Ukraine, staff at the US network say.
Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and Oleksandra Kuvshinova, 24, were killed when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire in Horenka, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Their colleague, Benjamin Hall, 39, was wounded in the incident and remains in hospital.
After three weeks of brutal fighting, Ukraine has acknowledged that joining NATO is off the table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he “realized” his country would not become a member of the defensive alliance.
“Ukraine realized that it would not become a member of NATO,” Zelensky said, according to an English translation from Ukrainian news outlet Trukha. “We understand this. We are adequate people. For years, we’ve heard the opposite — open doors. However, it is not.”
From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it was clear that China would not condemn Russia’s invasion. On February 25, Beijing abstained from a vote on a UN Security Council draft resolution condemning the attack. China also abstained from a condemnation of the war by 141 countries in the UN General Assembly.
And Beijing’s implicit support of Russia continues despite Moscow’s continued escalation of the war.
Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China’s friendship with Russia was “solid as a rock,” and constituted the “most important bilateral relationship” in the world contributing to “peace, stability and development.”
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Defence Minister Anita Anand are among multiple Canadians who have been banned from Russia.
They were included in a list of banned foreigners on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.
A Russian journalist who burst on to a live TV news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine has been reported missing overnight.
Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at state-controlled Channel 1, was detained after she ran on to the set on Monday holding an anti-war sign.
The sign, clearly visible for a few seconds, read: “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.”
Her whereabouts are now unknown.
Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy likely to ask for more than Canada or NATO can give
OTTAWA – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address parliamentarians in Ottawa on Tuesday, but his major request is likely more than Canada or other Western nations can give.
… Zelenskyy is set to speak to MPs through a videoconference link at 11:15 Tuesday morning. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the opposition leaders are expected to speak as well.
Anybody want to take bets that Joe Biden will know what to do when the next crisis hits? His presidency is one crisis after another, and his record, well…
The next crisis is bound to be a doozy.
Based on Russia’s horrible war against Ukraine, grain and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing and shortages are on the way. Ukraine’s and Russia’s customers already are hoarding supplies. Based on the little-discussed stories out there, this crisis is bound to be felt in all countries, and looks certain to happen. Joe, of course, is nowhere to be found on this, as we shall shortly see.
The scope and strength of western sanctions seem to have surprised Beijing
Joe Biden appears to be trying to force China’s hand over Ukraine. This follows days during which Beijing has tied itself in knots, offering to play a “positive role” for peace, but refusing to criticize Russia — avoiding even calling the invasion an invasion, and echoing Moscow’s justifications.
US officials at the weekend briefed American news outlets that Russia has asked China to provide military equipment, and requested additional economic assistance to help cushion the impact of Western sanctions. The officials, keen to protect their intelligence sources, declined to say precisely what Russia was seeking, nor what China’s response had been. But they said they were watching closely and warned of “consequences” should Beijing come to Russia’s aid.
The moral defeatism of the West stands in stark contrast to the valiance of Ukraine.
Of the millions of words uttered about the war in Ukraine, the most pertinent came from Olexander Scherba. He’s a Ukrainian diplomat. He was the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria from 2014 to 2021. And like other members of Ukraine’s political class, he has been doing the media rounds this past fortnight, eloquently making the case for his nation’s right to resist the Russian onslaught. A few days ago he took to Twitter to express irritation. ‘Every time I give an interview to Western media I get a feeling that they want us to give up’, he said. Then he posed a question that ought to make our commentariat engage in some serious self-reflection. What’s behind this moral defeatism infecting the media elites, he wondered? ‘[Is] it because they know they wouldn’t be fighting like us if they were in our shoes?’
Putin doesn’t need a reason to kill
Why did Smerdyakov kill cats? Just because. The lackey is one of the most washed-out faces in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. He is inconspicuous, elusive, slippery, always hiding, always doing things on the sly. And yet behind this mask of anonymity there lies something frightening: a compulsion to do evil for its own sake. When Smerdyakov is introduced, we learn of him that “as a child he was fond of hanging cats and then burying them with ceremony”.
Russian soldiers have shot people dead in the street as they took over Ukrainian villages, according to fleeing residents.
Soldiers shot randomly at buildings, threw grenades down roads and went from house to house confiscating phones and laptops, witnesses said.
Online groups created for family members or friends looking for information about people in affected areas are receiving hundreds or even thousands of requests a day.
#Ukraine: Russian Ka-52 helicopters hitting at least one 2S1 Gvozdika SPG of the Ukrainian Army. pic.twitter.com/ZphuIJyq1i
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 14, 2022
#Ukraine: Ukrainian farmers found themselves another two MT-LB, it seems. (We also see a burned out truck) pic.twitter.com/XOaxrdga2a
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 14, 2022
Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine two and a half weeks ago, more than 330 companies have announced that they are suspending or terminating their operations in Russia, according to a list compiled by Yale University professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. While Russia’s aggression was certain to provoke some reduction of trade, the unprecedented scale and speed of the boycott has surprised even the most seasoned analysts. Boycotters include many with significant financial stakes in Russia, and some were pioneers of Western investment in Soviet Russia and corporate emblems of the end of the Cold War.
Putin is building his Russian fantasy atop Ukrainian corpses.
“What’s really happening in Ukraine?” This question has hit my inbox ever since Russia moved troops to the Ukrainian border. Friends look to me because much of my career has centered on Ukraine: I was a U.S. Army Russian linguist, spent four years as an Evangelical missionary in Ukraine, studied Ukrainian history in graduate school, and served in U.S. Embassy Kyiv for two years. I was there for the Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity, and Russia’s 2014 invasion.
So what’s really happening? Putin is a throwback to a bloodier era in Europe when autocrats settled historical grievances by force. Except for Milosevic trying to build Greater Serbia via ethnic cleansing, such wars have been extinct since 1945.
Nearly three weeks have passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, but it still is not clear why he did so and what he hopes to achieve. Western analysts, commentators and government officials have put forward more than a dozen theories to explain Putin’s actions, motives, and objectives.
Some analysts posit that Putin is motivated by a desire to rebuild the Russian Empire. Others say he is obsessed with bringing Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence. Some believe that Putin wants to control Ukraine’s vast offshore energy resources. Still others speculate that Putin, an aging autocrat, is seeking to maintain his grip on power.
Guy wrote earlier this week about Russian intelligence officials warning that their military faces disaster in Ukraine. The invasion has not really gone according to plan. Russian forces are stalled. Major cities have not been taken; the capital of Kyiv has not been taken. The 40-mile convoy outside of the capital, which is supposedly the force that will deliver the death blow, has not moved in days. The Russian death toll ranges are all over the place. The Ukrainians claim that at least 12,000 Russians have been killed. Other estimates are in the 4-8,000 range. The truth is we don’t know, and we may never know.
