“Ukraine – Russia”

Over the past week or so, earth-shaking events appeared to be occurring every day: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the dramatic and almost instantaneous determination of Germany to rearm, the imposition of relatively serious sanctions upon Russia and the international condemnation of that country, and the extraordinary bravery of the Ukrainian people and the eloquence, and charismatic leadership qualities, of their president, the formerly somewhat whimsically regarded ex-comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The world appears to be at a turning point between a decline in western, and particularly American, influence and a galvanizing resurgence of the importance and compelling motivating power of human liberty and national patriotism.

The savage Russian invasion of Ukraine has called a distracted and divided world back to the basics of life and death.

I was born in September 1939, three weeks after Hitler invaded Poland. My earliest memories kick in around the time that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. They are memories of the home front in World War II: of blackout curtains at night and rationing and my young uncles going off to war, to Anzio, Normandy, Patton’s Third Army. In living room windows in houses up and down Mount Pleasant Street, we saw little flags with white stars or gold stars on them. They meant that a son or brother or husband was in the service (white) or was dead (gold). I remember the front pages of the Washington Post and the Times–Herald and the Evening Star on the day after the bomb fell on Hiroshima; I have the clearest memory of the inky black headlines and of the photograph of an explosion shaped like an immense mushroom against a flawless blue sky.

As I write this, the centre of Kyiv and much of its suburbs are largely untouched. Sirens and alerts punctuate the day.

Everyone here knows that could change, very quickly. By the time you read this, it might have.

Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, has already felt some of the force of the Russian way of war. So have Mariupol and other cities in the east.

Russia answers resistance with firepower. Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.

The UK, EU, and US governments have responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with devastating sanctions against the billionaire businessmen perceived to be in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

Mr Putin has warned his allies for many years they should protect themselves against such measures, particularly as relations soured with the US and EU countries after the annexation of Crimea.

But while some of those closest to him took his advice and remained invested in Russia, others kept their money in palatial properties overseas and football clubs, and their companies remained listed on foreign stock exchanges.

How does any rational or caring human being watch us lose a 20-year war against cave-dwelling barbarians, and not just lose that war, but lose it in the most humiliating fashion imaginable, and less than a year later already have a war-boner for Ukraine?

I’m convinced the unholy alliance between Neocons, the corporate media, and the Democrat party is the Seventh Seal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Western sanctions were akin to war on Saturday as his forces pressed on with their assault on Ukraine, where planned civilian evacuations from two besieged cities were called off.

Russia and Ukraine traded blame over the failure to provide safe passage to civilians fleeing the two bombarded cities, on the 10th day of a war that has fuelled Europe’s biggest humanitarian disaster in decades.

#Ukraine: In the vicinity of Stary Saltov, #Kharkiv, a large Russian convoy was abandoned, including 6+ supply/fuel trucks and 4+ Rosgvardia Avtozak trucks.

We believe this is previously unseen. pic.twitter.com/5pN2JWMPv5

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 5, 2022

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was one of the reasons he got into politics.

After leaving his career as a comedian and entertainer and becoming Ukraine’s president in April 2019, Zelenskyy hailed Trudeau as “one of those leaders who inspired” him “to join politics,” when he became Ukraine’s president in 2019.

… Like Trudeau, Zelenskyy is an acolyte of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum, the globalist organization behind the now-infamous “Great Reset” agenda, which tells the world that by the year 2030, “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.”

… On Tuesday, for example, Ukrainian journalist Daria Kaleniuk made an emotional demand to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, asking him to instruct NATO to enter the war in Ukraine. After the event was praised in Western media, reports surfaced showing that Kaleniuk is not just a journalist, but a member of the WEF and runs initiatives backed by Soros throughout Eastern Europe.

Well this is enlightening.

h/t WDS

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stark warning against a NATO “no-fly zone” over the skies of Ukraine as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was scheduled to address a virtual meeting of U.S. lawmakers Saturday to plead for a more aggressive Western response to Russia‘s 10-day-old invasion of his country.

The session with a group of U.S. senators will be the first time the comic-actor-turned-president has addressed an American audience since Mr. Putin‘s forces crossed the border into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

VIDEO: Footage circulating on telegram shows what is claimed to be the Ukrainian shoot down of a Russian helicopter this morning. pic.twitter.com/2AWQiySduh

— Conflict News (@Conflicts) March 5, 2022

h/t Mauser

Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk called on the United States to increase its domestic oil output in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while also acknowledging that his electric car company would be negatively affected by that move.

Russia-Ukraine live news: Partial evacuations on hold

Ukraine accuses Russian forces of breaking temporary ceasefire; Moscow blames Ukrainian ‘nationalists’ of preventing civilians from leaving.

Zelensky slams Nato over rejection of no-fly zone

Ukraine’s president has attacked Nato leaders in a fiery speech over their refusal to implement a no-fly zone around the country.

Speaking from Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky said the West’s reluctance to intervene has given Russia “a green light” to continue bombarding towns and villages.

Nato has argued that a no-fly zone will result in confrontation with Moscow.

But Mr Zelensky said he disagrees that direct action could “provoke Russia’s direct aggression against Nato”.

President Zelenskyy has said NATO is ‘very weak’ and ‘lost’ after it refused to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Latest updates: https://t.co/HsyjSWVdV9 pic.twitter.com/48DYVpAdHi

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 5, 2022

Trudeau defends NATO rejection of Ukraine’s no-fly-zone request

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending NATO’s decision to reject establishing a no-fly-zone over Ukraine, warning the move would lead to an “unfortunate” escalation in the conflict.

He made the comment during a press conference on Friday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy enters the ninth day of his call for NATO to impose and enforce a ban on Russian jets flying in Ukrainian skies.

BBC, CBC, CNN and other global news outlets suspend reporting in Russia

Global news media said they were temporarily suspending reporting in Russia to protect their journalists after a new law cracking down on foreign news outlets was passed that threatened jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading “fake news”.

Britain’s BBC said Friday it had temporarily halted reporting in Russia, and by the end of the day, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Bloomberg News said their journalists were also stopping work. CNN and CBS News said they would stop broadcasting in Russia, and other outlets removed Russian-based journalists’ bylines as they assessed the situation.

Ukrainian officials said several civilians, including at least one child, were killed when Russian warplanes bombed homes and vehicles in the village of Markhalivka, south of Kyiv. Latest updates: https://t.co/HsyjSWDD3B pic.twitter.com/TEpUm2ydlU

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 5, 2022

Sky News journalists evacuated after being shot by Russian ‘death squad’

A Sky News crew has been evacuated back to the UK from Ukraine after journalists were shot during an ambush by a suspected Russian “death squad” on Monday.

The team of five were attacked while out in a car, after unsuccessfully trying to visit the town of Bucha near Kyiv.

WATCH: Sky News reporters ambushed near Kyiv, injuring one of them pic.twitter.com/zDXGGEwJ40

— BNO News (@BNONews) March 4, 2022

A tough choice between Muslim Europe and Muslim Russia.

Russia, with a birth rate of 1.5 children per woman, has invaded Ukraine, where the birth rate is 1.2 children per woman, to determine which nation with below replacement birth rates will go extinct the fastest. In the long run the only winners of the war to determine whether Ukraine will belong to the 1.2 or 1.5 people will be the Chechen and other Muslim soldiers doing the fighting.

The Chechens have a birth rate of 2.5. Their religion and mosques are more likely to inherit the territories they are fighting over than either the Russian or Ukrainian Orthodox churches.

With Russia largely blocked from the US dollar-based global financial system as a result of wide-ranging sanctions, some policymakers and money-laundering experts have warned that cryptocurrencies could provide a hidden route for Russians to preserve their wealth.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren said “cryptocurrencies risk undermining sanctions against Russia, allowing Putin and his cronies to avoid economic pain,” and called upon US regulators to clamp down. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, has repeatedly called upon crypto exchanges to block Russian users since the invasion began.

Ukraine will never bow down to a pro-Kremlin stooge

A week after it launched its attempted blitz across Ukraine, finally the Russian army has taken its first major city: Kherson, a key port city in the south of the country. But the defenders of Kyiv and Kharkiv have held out; elsewhere, Ukrainians have succeeded in repelling the invasion.