Brent Renaud, an award-winning US film-maker whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other outlets, has been killed by Russian forces in the flashpoint town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. A US photographer, Juan Arredondo, was wounded.
Renaud, 51, was hit in the neck and died after coming under Russian fire while working on Sunday, according to local police officials and multiple Ukrainian sources.
Russia has escalated its war in Ukraine with a strike on a major military base close to the Polish border killing at least 35 people and injuring 134 more, according to the governor of the Lviv region.
The attack happened hours after the Kremlin had warned that western supply lines into the embattled country were “legitimate targets”.
There were large explosions on Sunday at the base in Yavoriv, a garrison city less than 10 miles from the Polish border. The rocket attack took place at 5.45am.
The governor of the Lviv region said that 35 people have been killed after a Ukrainian military base used for NATO drills less than 15 miles from the Polish border was targeted in a Russian airstrike.
More on this story: https://t.co/j2j5YHyZ4Y pic.twitter.com/gEFiEkYQxp
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 13, 2022
Ukraine has chosen the image for a new postage stamp called “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” as the besieged country continues to try to keep morale high and win the PR battle against invading Russian forces.
The country’s first deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar, announced the stamp commemorating the Snake Island incident, in which 13 border guards stationed on a roughly 16-hectare (40-acre) rocky island about 186 miles (300km) west of Crimea reportedly replied, when asked to surrender: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” They were then attacked, and thought killed.
While much attention is being paid to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, less analysis has focused on how foreign volunteers are flocking to join the conflict. Ukraine’s appeal to foreign fighters is not unusual; such invitations from sovereign states have occurred many times throughout history, and volunteers routinely have fought and risked their lives for countries other than their own.
One way to answer the question in the headline is “It already has.” Even to a rank amateur like me, it was clear by *day three* that Putin was facing a strategic debacle. He misjudged Ukraine’s desire and ability to resist, he misjudged the strength of his military, and he misjudged the west’s willingness to paralyze Russia’s economy with sanctions.
#Ukraine: UAV footage showing a Russian T-72 variant tank being hit by Ukrainian forces anti-tank fire in #Mariupol. pic.twitter.com/DycyL46A3a
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 11, 2022
The Catholic leader has been criticized for being too soft on the Ukraine invasion
On February 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Pope Francis met with Aleksandr Avdeyev, Russia’s ambassador to the Holy See. Yet rather than summoning Mr. Avdeyev to the Vatican, Francis called at the Russian embassy, just two blocks from the Castel Sant’Angelo.
The visit was a violation of diplomatic protocol. Heads of state don’t just pop ‘round to the local embassy.
Over the next couple of days, it became clear that Francis wouldn’t be paying the same honor to Ukraine’s ambassador. Even more strikingly, Francis refused to condemn Russia for the attack. Vatican-watchers fumed.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was touring Europe expressing solidarity with Canada’s NATO partners last week, a new study by the Parliamentary Budget Officer said his government has postponed billions of dollars in capital spending to replace aging military equipment promised in 2017.
Russia has made dire threats to the West that any military shipments to Ukraine will be seen as ‘legitimate targets’, prompting fears there could be an escalation of conflict that could suck in other countries.
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned the US ‘that pumping weapons from a number of countries it orchestrates isn’t just a dangerous move, it’s an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets’.
The warnings came after Joe Biden personally intervened to stop a shipment of Polish MiG fighter jets to Kyiv, fearing the move could lead to ‘World War Three’.
#Ukraine: Very dramatic footage of a Russian convoy ambushed yesterday, showing the destruction of a T-72(B3) and a BTR-82A, as well as the detonation of an unseen Russian vehicle. pic.twitter.com/R8JwSGMQUS
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 11, 2022
Russian Collusion fans have had a hard time of it lately, as their favorite theories about how the evil mastermind Putin installed his dimwitted stooge Trump in the Oval Office have been exploded, but that ever-vigilant guardian of global peace, the United Nations, is ready to fill in the breach. The United Nations’ Department of Global Communications has ordered its staffers not to refer to Ukraine war as a “war,” or to Putin’s invasion as an “invasion.” If you still thought the UN was some sort of impartial international arbiter, this ought to disabuse you of that notion forever.
Father Yuriy asks politely if we can postpone the first leg of an online interview. An air-raid siren has just gone off, he says, and he and his wife Mariia have to hurry to a nearby basement for shelter.
It’s hours before they surface again.
The vast majority of Russia’s oil exports are purchased by Europe and China, which together account for 90 percent of the country’s total exports.
That’s made it tougher for Europe to enact similar bans as the U.S. on Russian imports and lessens the economic hit to Moscow from the Biden administration’s decision this week to cut off Russian oil.
Canada’s plan to help offset Russian oil ban for Europe expected by March 23: minister
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says it will be another week or two before Canada will know with certainty how much extra oil it can produce and ship to help offset bans on the use of fossil fuels from Russia.
But he says longer-term conversations about Canada partnering with Europe on renewable energy are likely more realistic and more lucrative.
With several yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs already having been seized by Germany, France and Italy other yachts have been doing their best to disappear. But for some unfortunate oligarchs that may not be possible because their yacht was having work done and was not even in the water when sanctions were put in place. That may be the case for superyacht Scheherazade, a 459 foot long yacht which remains in an Italian dry dock this week.
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said Saturday as fighting also raged on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.
There was no immediate word of casualties from the shelling of the elegant, city-center mosque. Mariupol has suffered some of the greatest misery from Russia’s war in Ukraine, with unceasing barrages thwarting repeated attempts to bring in food and water, evacuate trapped civilians and to bury all of the dead.
#Ukraine: The Russian Army lost a 9P140 Uragan MRL to another TB-2 drone strike. pic.twitter.com/UrHgCemPvM
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 12, 2022
#Ukraine: The first proof of loitering munitions combat use by the Russian army. ZALA KYB "kamikaze" UAV fell down in #Kyiv today.
The drone didn't explode, however it is unknown if it malfunctioned or it was downed using Ukrainian electronic warfare systems. pic.twitter.com/Ju38t0Qhrp
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 12, 2022
#Ukraine: Corrected Artillery fire from the Ukrainian 30th Mechanized Brigade landing on a Russian BTR. pic.twitter.com/i33BFpKT7q
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 12, 2022
The unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the folly, peril, and incoherence of 21st Century Globalism. Unlike the economic globalism of the 19th and early 20th centuries that focused on the concept of free trade of goods for goods, this iteration can be characterized by allegiance to irrational environmentalism and the creation of elitist global institutions determined to mold mankind and impose regimentation on countries and their populations to ostensibly “save the planet.”
War always creates power vacuums — the West must fill them
War is hardly a game. Nevertheless, in trying to discern the true winner of a conflict, we should always look to the edge of the board.
If a power is present but not directly involved, then it is well-placed to benefit. Having not paid the price of war — or at least not the heaviest price — it has a head start when it comes to winning the peace.
