Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The quotation function on this message board sucks fucking ass. So I paste it as plain text, even though this is a quote and not me saying it - but as stated, the quotation function is shit:
Accession to NATO is not automatically a shortcut to a safer Sweden, and there are several reasons why we should not become dependent on member states whose development is unstable. Political scientists Trita Parsi and Frida Stranne write this on SvD's debate page.
The debaters are particularly concerned about the United States and the "deep polarization" in the country, which they believe is getting worse and worse with each passing year. They do not see it as unlikely that an "unpredictable" Trump will become president again, or that a similar leader will become president in a later election.
"We also see similar development trends in other parts of the NATO Alliance, which is ominous."
Such aspects must be taken into account and it would be "pure madness" if Sweden becomes a member of NATO without a long and intense debate, the political scientists say.
Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers
Ukrainian
officials say the use of facial recognition software could help end the
brutal war. But some experts call it ‘classic psychological warfare’
that sets a gruesome precedent.
A
Ukrainian serviceman takes a photo of a dead Russian soldier after
Ukrainian forces overran a Russian position outside Kyiv on March 31.
(Vadim Ghirda/AP)
Ukrainian
officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead
or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion
began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their
families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the
technology to date.
The
country’s IT Army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists that
takes its direction from the Ukrainian government, says it has used
those identifications to inform the families of the deaths of 582
Russians, including by sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.
The Ukrainians champion the use of face-scanning software from the U.S. tech firm Clearview AI
as a brutal but effective way to stir up dissent inside Russia,
discourage other fighters and hasten an end to a devastating war.
But
some military and technology analysts worry that the strategy could
backfire, inflaming anger over a shock campaign directed at mothers who
may be thousands of miles from the drivers of the Kremlin’s war machine.
The
West’s solidarity with Ukraine makes it tempting to support such a
radical act designed to capitalize on family grief, said Stephanie Hare,
a surveillance researcher in London. But contacting soldiers’ parents,
she said, is “classic psychological warfare” and could set a dangerous
new standard for future conflicts.
“If
it were Russian soldiers doing this with Ukrainian mothers, we might
say, ‘Oh, my God, that’s barbaric,’ ” she said. “And is it actually
working? Or is it making them say: ‘Look at these lawless, cruel
Ukrainians, doing this to our boys?’ ”
Clearview
AI’s chief executive, Hoan Ton-That, told The Washington Post that more
than 340 officials across five Ukrainian government agencies now can
use its tool to run facial recognition searches whenever they want, free
of charge.
Clearview
employees now hold weekly, sometimes daily, training calls over Zoom
with new police and military officials looking to gain access. Ton-That
recounted several “‘oh, wow’ moments” as the Ukrainians witnessed how
much data — including family photos, social media posts and relationship
details — they could gather from a single cadaver scan.
Some
of them are using Clearview’s mobile app to scan faces while on the
battlefield, he said. Others have logged in for training while stationed
at a checkpoint or out on patrol, the night sky visible behind their
faces.
“They’re so enthusiastic,” Ton-That said. “Their energy is really high. They say they’re going to win, every call.”
The
company, Ton-That said, first offered its services last month to
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense after he saw Russian propaganda claiming
that soldiers captured there were actors or frauds.
The
system had primarily been used by police officers and federal
investigators in the United States to see whether a photo of a suspect
or witness matched any others in their database of 20 billion images
taken from social media and the public Internet.
But
about 10 percent of the database has come from Russia’s biggest social
network, VKontakte, known as VK, making it a potentially useful tool for
battlefield scans, Ton-That said.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Russia's Chernobyl seizure seen as nuclear risk 'nightmare'
By CARA ANNA and INNA VARENYTSIA
Yesterday
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (AP) — Here in the dirt of one of the world’s most radioactive places, Russian soldiers dug trenches. Ukrainian officials worry they were, in effect, digging their own graves.
Thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the forested Chernobyl exclusion zone in the earliest hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, churning up highly contaminated soil from the site of the 1986 accident that was the world's worst nuclear disaster.
For more than a month, some Russian soldiers bunked in the earth within sight of the massive structure built to contain radiation from the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor. A close inspection of their trenches was impossible because even walking on the dirt is discouraged.
As the 36th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, disaster approaches and Russia’s invasion continues, it’s clear that Chernobyl — a relic of the Cold War — was never prepared for this.
With scientists and others watching in disbelief from afar, Russian forces flew over the long-closed plant, ignoring the restricted airspace around it. They held personnel still working at the plant at gunpoint during a marathon shift of more than a month, with employees sleeping on tabletops and eating just twice a day.
Even now, weeks after the Russians left, “I need to calm down," the plant's main security engineer, Valerii Semenov, told The Associated Press. He worked 35 days straight, sleeping only three hours a night, rationing cigarettes and staying on even after the Russians allowed a shift change.
“I was afraid they would install something and damage the system,” he said in an interview.
Workers kept the Russians from the most dangerous areas, but in what Semenov called the worst situation he has seen in his 30 years at Chernobyl, the plant was without electricity, relying on diesel generators to support the critical work of circulating water for cooling the spent fuel rods.
“It was very dangerous to act in this way,” said Maksym Shevchuck, the deputy head of the state agency managing the exclusion zone. He was scared by it all.
Russia’s invasion marks the first time that occupying a nuclear plant was part of a nation's war strategy, said Rebecca Harms, former president of the Greens group in the European Parliament, who has visited Chernobyl several times. She called it a “nightmare” scenario in which “every nuclear plant can be used like a pre-installed nuclear bomb.”
A visit to the exclusion zone, more desolate than usual, found that the invasion risked a catastrophe worse than the original explosion and fire at Chernobyl that sent radioactive material into the atmosphere and became a symbol of the Soviet Union’s stumbling final years. Billions of dollars were spent by the international community, including Russia, to stabilize and secure the area.
Now authorities are working with Ukraine’s defense ministry on ways to protect Chernobyl’s most critical places. At the top of the list are anti-drone systems and anti-tank barriers, along with a system to protect against warplanes and helicopters.
None of it will matter much if Russian President Vladimir Putin resorts to nuclear weapons, which Shevchuck says he can't rule out anymore.
“I understand they can use any kind of weapon and they can do any awful thing,” he said.
Chernobyl needs special international protection with a robust U.N. mandate, Harms said. As with the original disaster, the risks are not only to Ukraine but to nearby Belarus and beyond.
“It depends from where the wind blows,” she said.
After watching thousands of Soviet soldiers work to contain the effects of the 1986 accident, sometimes with no protection, Harms and others were shocked at the Russian soldiers’ disregard for safety, or their ignorance, in the recent invasion.
Some soldiers even stole highly radioactive materials as souvenirs or possibly to sell.
“I think from movies they have the imagination that all dangerous small things are very valuable,” Shevchuck said.
He believes hundreds or thousands of soldiers damaged their health, likely with little idea of the consequences, despite plant workers' warnings to their commanders.
“Most of the soldiers were around 20 years old,” he said. “All these actions proves that their management, and in Russia in general, human life equals like zero.”
The full extent of Russia’s activities in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is still unknown, especially because the troops scattered mines that the Ukrainian military is still searching for. Some have detonated, further disturbing the radioactive ground. The Russians also set several forest fires, which have been put out.
Ukrainian authorities can’t monitor radiation levels across the zone because Russian soldiers stole the main server for the system, severing the connection on March 2. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday it still wasn’t receiving remote data from its monitoring systems. The Russians even took Chernobyl staffers’ personal radiation monitors.
In the communications center, one of the buildings in the zone not overgrown by nature, the Russians looted and left a carpet of shattered glass. The building felt deeply of the 1980s, with a map on a wall still showing the Soviet Union. Someone at some point had taken a pink marker and traced Ukraine’s border.
In normal times, about 6,000 people work in the zone, about half of them at the nuclear plant. When the Russians invaded, most workers were told to evacuate immediately. Now about 100 are left at the nuclear plant and 100 are elsewhere.
Semenov, the security engineer, recalled the Russians checking the remaining workers for what they called radicals.
“We said, ‘Look at our documents, 90% of us are originally from Russia,'” he said. “But we’re patriots of our country," meaning Ukraine.
When the Russians hurriedly departed March 31 as part of a withdrawal from the region that left behind scorched tanks and traumatized communities, they took more than 150 Ukrainian national guard members into Belarus. Shevchuck fears they’re now in Russia.
In their rush, the Russians gave nuclear plant managers a choice: Sign a document saying the soldiers had protected the site and there were no complaints, or be taken into Belarus. The managers signed.
One protective measure the Russians did appear to take was leaving open a line routing communications from the nuclear plant through the workers’ town of Slavutych and on to authorities in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. It was used several times, Shevchuck said.
“I think they understood it should be for their safety,” he said. The IAEA said Tuesday the plant is now able to contact Ukraine’s nuclear regulator directly.
Another Ukrainian nuclear plant, at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, remains under Russian control. It is the largest in Europe.
Shevchuck, like other Ukrainians, has had it with Putin.
“We’re inviting him inside the new safe confinement shelter,” he said. “Then we will close it.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Russia's Chernobyl seizure seen as nuclear risk 'nightmare'
By CARA ANNA and INNA VARENYTSIA
Yesterday
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (AP) — Here in the dirt of one of the world’s most radioactive places, Russian soldiers dug trenches. Ukrainian officials worry they were, in effect, digging their own graves.
Thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the forested Chernobyl exclusion zone in the earliest hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, churning up highly contaminated soil from the site of the 1986 accident that was the world's worst nuclear disaster.
For more than a month, some Russian soldiers bunked in the earth within sight of the massive structure built to contain radiation from the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor. A close inspection of their trenches was impossible because even walking on the dirt is discouraged.
As the 36th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, disaster approaches and Russia’s invasion continues, it’s clear that Chernobyl — a relic of the Cold War — was never prepared for this.
With scientists and others watching in disbelief from afar, Russian forces flew over the long-closed plant, ignoring the restricted airspace around it. They held personnel still working at the plant at gunpoint during a marathon shift of more than a month, with employees sleeping on tabletops and eating just twice a day.
Even now, weeks after the Russians left, “I need to calm down," the plant's main security engineer, Valerii Semenov, told The Associated Press. He worked 35 days straight, sleeping only three hours a night, rationing cigarettes and staying on even after the Russians allowed a shift change.
“I was afraid they would install something and damage the system,” he said in an interview.
Workers kept the Russians from the most dangerous areas, but in what Semenov called the worst situation he has seen in his 30 years at Chernobyl, the plant was without electricity, relying on diesel generators to support the critical work of circulating water for cooling the spent fuel rods.
“It was very dangerous to act in this way,” said Maksym Shevchuck, the deputy head of the state agency managing the exclusion zone. He was scared by it all.
Russia’s invasion marks the first time that occupying a nuclear plant was part of a nation's war strategy, said Rebecca Harms, former president of the Greens group in the European Parliament, who has visited Chernobyl several times. She called it a “nightmare” scenario in which “every nuclear plant can be used like a pre-installed nuclear bomb.”
A visit to the exclusion zone, more desolate than usual, found that the invasion risked a catastrophe worse than the original explosion and fire at Chernobyl that sent radioactive material into the atmosphere and became a symbol of the Soviet Union’s stumbling final years. Billions of dollars were spent by the international community, including Russia, to stabilize and secure the area.
Now authorities are working with Ukraine’s defense ministry on ways to protect Chernobyl’s most critical places. At the top of the list are anti-drone systems and anti-tank barriers, along with a system to protect against warplanes and helicopters.
None of it will matter much if Russian President Vladimir Putin resorts to nuclear weapons, which Shevchuck says he can't rule out anymore.
“I understand they can use any kind of weapon and they can do any awful thing,” he said.
Chernobyl needs special international protection with a robust U.N. mandate, Harms said. As with the original disaster, the risks are not only to Ukraine but to nearby Belarus and beyond.
“It depends from where the wind blows,” she said.
After watching thousands of Soviet soldiers work to contain the effects of the 1986 accident, sometimes with no protection, Harms and others were shocked at the Russian soldiers’ disregard for safety, or their ignorance, in the recent invasion.
Some soldiers even stole highly radioactive materials as souvenirs or possibly to sell.
“I think from movies they have the imagination that all dangerous small things are very valuable,” Shevchuck said.
He believes hundreds or thousands of soldiers damaged their health, likely with little idea of the consequences, despite plant workers' warnings to their commanders.
“Most of the soldiers were around 20 years old,” he said. “All these actions proves that their management, and in Russia in general, human life equals like zero.”
The full extent of Russia’s activities in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is still unknown, especially because the troops scattered mines that the Ukrainian military is still searching for. Some have detonated, further disturbing the radioactive ground. The Russians also set several forest fires, which have been put out.
Ukrainian authorities can’t monitor radiation levels across the zone because Russian soldiers stole the main server for the system, severing the connection on March 2. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday it still wasn’t receiving remote data from its monitoring systems. The Russians even took Chernobyl staffers’ personal radiation monitors.
In the communications center, one of the buildings in the zone not overgrown by nature, the Russians looted and left a carpet of shattered glass. The building felt deeply of the 1980s, with a map on a wall still showing the Soviet Union. Someone at some point had taken a pink marker and traced Ukraine’s border.
In normal times, about 6,000 people work in the zone, about half of them at the nuclear plant. When the Russians invaded, most workers were told to evacuate immediately. Now about 100 are left at the nuclear plant and 100 are elsewhere.
Semenov, the security engineer, recalled the Russians checking the remaining workers for what they called radicals.
“We said, ‘Look at our documents, 90% of us are originally from Russia,'” he said. “But we’re patriots of our country," meaning Ukraine.
When the Russians hurriedly departed March 31 as part of a withdrawal from the region that left behind scorched tanks and traumatized communities, they took more than 150 Ukrainian national guard members into Belarus. Shevchuck fears they’re now in Russia.
In their rush, the Russians gave nuclear plant managers a choice: Sign a document saying the soldiers had protected the site and there were no complaints, or be taken into Belarus. The managers signed.
One protective measure the Russians did appear to take was leaving open a line routing communications from the nuclear plant through the workers’ town of Slavutych and on to authorities in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. It was used several times, Shevchuck said.
“I think they understood it should be for their safety,” he said. The IAEA said Tuesday the plant is now able to contact Ukraine’s nuclear regulator directly.
Another Ukrainian nuclear plant, at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, remains under Russian control. It is the largest in Europe.
Shevchuck, like other Ukrainians, has had it with Putin.
“We’re inviting him inside the new safe confinement shelter,” he said. “Then we will close it.”
UN head condemns attacks on civilians during Ukraine visit
By DAVID KEYTON and INNA VARENYTSIA
44 mins ago
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the United Nations said Ukraine has become “an epicenter of unbearable heartache and pain" — a description underscored a short time later by the first Russian strike on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential high-rise and another building and wounded 10 people, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine's emergency services.
The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned the attacks on civilians.
Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital. The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses.
Ukrainian authorities also reported intense Russian fire in the Donbas — the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin says is its main objective — and near Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside the Donbas that is seen as key to the offensive.
In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing killed and wounded more people. And authorities warned that a lack of safe drinking water inside the city could lead to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
In Zaporizhzhia, a crucial way station for tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, an 11-year-old boy was among at least three people wounded in a rocket attack that authorities said was the first to hit a residential area in the southern city since the war began. Shards of glass cut the boy’s leg to the bone.
Vadym Vodostoyev, the boy’s father, said: “It just takes one second and you’re left with nothing.”
In Lyman town near Slovyansk, where Russian forces are reportedly trying to advance as part of their Donbas push, another tragedy unfolded on Monday when shelling rained on Tatiana Maksagory's home.
“There was such a blast and then smoke; you couldn’t hear anything,” she said, crying outside a hospital with a wound in her neck. "You couldn’t see anything in front of your eyes, and then I see that my grandson is lying on the ground.”
Maksagory’s 14-year-old grandson, Igor, was declared dead after emergency services drove him to the hospital. Her daughter was in serious condition and her son-in-law was also killed.
“Grandma, will I live?“ she said Igor asked her when they were in the basement waiting for help. “I said that he would live. But look what happened, I betrayed him. I am alive and he is not. I wish I had died and he had survived. I lived much more than him. I will never forgive myself for it.”
Ukraine’s military said Russian troops have subjected several places in the Donbas to “intense fire” Thursday and that over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian forces had repelled six attacks in the region.
Four civilians were also killed in heavy shelling of residential areas in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, according to the regional governor.
Columns of smoke could be seen rising at different points across the Donetsk region of the Donbas, and artillery and sirens were heard on and off.
The fresh attacks came as Guterres surveyed the destruction in small towns outside the capital that saw some of the worst horrors of the first onslaught of the war. He condemned the atrocities committed in towns like Bucha, where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russia withdrew in early April in the face of unexpectedly stiff resistance.
“Wherever there is a war, the highest price is paid by civilians,” the U.N. chief lamented.
In the attack on Kyiv, explosions shook the city and flames poured out the windows of the residential high-rise and another building. The capital had been relatively unscathed in recent weeks since Moscow refocused its efforts on the Donbas.
The explosions in northwestern Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district came as residents have been increasingly returning to the city. Cafes and other businesses have reopened, and a growing numbers of people have been out and about, enjoying the spring weather.
It was not immediately clear how far the attack was from Guterres.
Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Several journalists have been killed in the war, now in its third month.
Also, both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
Western officials say the Kremlin's apparent goal is to take the Donbas by encircling and crushing Ukrainian forces from the north, south and east.
But so far, Russia's troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains — a senior U.S. defense official described them as covering several kilometers a day — taking several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against staunch Ukrainian resistance.
As of Thursday, Russia had launched about 1,900 missiles into Ukraine – the vast majority fired from outside Ukraine’s borders, the U.S. official said. Most are strikes on Mariupol and the Donbas.
Britain's Defense Ministry said Friday that the limited Russian territorial gains have been achieved at significant cost to their forces.
Russian military units were mauled in the abortive bid to storm Kyiv and had to regroup and refit. Some analysts say the delay in launching a full-fledged offensive may reflect a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to wait until his forces are ready for a decisive battle, instead of rushing in and risking another failure that could shake his rule amid worsening economic conditions at home because of Western sanctions.
Many observers suspect Putin wants to be able to claim a big victory in the east by Victory Day, on May 9, one of the proudest holidays on the Russian calendar, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Many of the Russian troops who were in Mariupol have been leaving and moving to the northwest, the U.S. defense official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, didn't have exact figures but said a “significant number” of the roughly one dozen battalion tactical groups that were in the city were moving out.
In Mariupol, video posted online by Ukraine's Azov Regiment inside the steel plant showed people combing through the rubble to remove the dead and help the wounded. The regiment said the Russians hit an improvised underground hospital and its surgery room, killing an unspecified number of people. The video couldn’t be independently verified.
An estimated 100,000 people remained trapped in Mariupol.
“Deadly epidemics may break out in the city due to the lack of centralized water supply and sewers,” the city council said on the messaging app Telegram. It reported bodies decaying under the rubble and a “catastrophic” shortage of drinking water and food.
Ukraine has urged its allies to send even more military equipment to fend off the Russians. U.S. President Joe Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine.
___
Associated Press journalists Jon Gambrell and Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Yesica Fisch in Sloviansk, and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I just love Joan so much. I used to watch her float by so graceful and beautiful back when I worked at Macy's Stanford.
This is so cool. Her recent portrait of Zelensky.
“If
I were to meet Zelensky today, in the heat of the ghastly battle he has
inherited, though I’m deeply saddened by the organized violence, I
would have no advice, no judgment, only a humble salute to his
monumental courage." -Joan Baez
I’m no expert, but here’s how I think it ends. affer many months of war and it going nowhere Putin decides to end it. Putin is struggling enough as it is, he doesn’t want other countries declaring war. So he’s not going to use nukes or invade anyone else. But he has to save face and not admit he lost, so he’ll bargain for some border land or something small that Ukraine would agree to in order to stop the war. Part of the peace deal is to lift sanctions and not pursue any war crimes against Russia. Which the rest of the world agrees to so that they can end the war, stop worrying if Putin is going to escalate it, and get trade back. With that Putin will declare victory and leave, make up some reason why all they ever wanted was whatever little shabby strip of land they got and say he’s going to let Ukraine govern itself, because he’s such a nice conquerer. In the end it’s like it never happened, except for millions of people in Ukraine. Some rock stars with throw a benefit concert, a few movie stars who wish they were in a cool band will join (Depp, Fallon?). They’ll raise about 0.001% of what Ukraine actually needs, but it’ll be a big deal and we all feel good about ourselves again.
I’m no expert, but here’s how I think it ends. affer many months of war and it going nowhere Putin decides to end it. Putin is struggling enough as it is, he doesn’t want other countries declaring war. So he’s not going to use nukes or invade anyone else. But he has to save face and not admit he lost, so he’ll bargain for some border land or something small that Ukraine would agree to in order to stop the war. Part of the peace deal is to lift sanctions and not pursue any war crimes against Russia. Which the rest of the world agrees to so that they can end the war, stop worrying if Putin is going to escalate it, and get trade back. With that Putin will declare victory and leave, make up some reason why all they ever wanted was whatever little shabby strip of land they got and say he’s going to let Ukraine govern itself, because he’s such a nice conquerer. In the end it’s like it never happened, except for millions of people in Ukraine. Some rock stars with throw a benefit concert, a few movie stars who wish they were in a cool band will join (Depp, Fallon?). They’ll raise about 0.001% of what Ukraine actually needs, but it’ll be a big deal and we all feel good about ourselves again.
I want to come back to this in 6 months or 12 months etc and see how accurate your predictions are especially about the feel good benefit concert.
I’m no expert, but here’s how I think it ends. affer many months of war and it going nowhere Putin decides to end it. Putin is struggling enough as it is, he doesn’t want other countries declaring war. So he’s not going to use nukes or invade anyone else. But he has to save face and not admit he lost, so he’ll bargain for some border land or something small that Ukraine would agree to in order to stop the war. Part of the peace deal is to lift sanctions and not pursue any war crimes against Russia. Which the rest of the world agrees to so that they can end the war, stop worrying if Putin is going to escalate it, and get trade back. With that Putin will declare victory and leave, make up some reason why all they ever wanted was whatever little shabby strip of land they got and say he’s going to let Ukraine govern itself, because he’s such a nice conquerer. In the end it’s like it never happened, except for millions of people in Ukraine. Some rock stars with throw a benefit concert, a few movie stars who wish they were in a cool band will join (Depp, Fallon?). They’ll raise about 0.001% of what Ukraine actually needs, but it’ll be a big deal and we all feel good about ourselves again.
This is what I thought at the beginning, but now I'm wondering, how do you let Putin off with zero consequences for invading another country and committing war crimes?
I realize tough decisions would have to get made, but he'd basically have zero repercussions for leveling the better part of a country and killing many of it's citizens.
Remove the sanctions, Putin stays in power, no lessons learned? Time to regroup and try again?
Not sure what the solution is, with all the financial sanctions, you were kind of hoping his own country would turn on him, but the media is controlled, so people probably don't know.
I’m no expert, but here’s how I think it ends. affer many months of war and it going nowhere Putin decides to end it. Putin is struggling enough as it is, he doesn’t want other countries declaring war. So he’s not going to use nukes or invade anyone else. But he has to save face and not admit he lost, so he’ll bargain for some border land or something small that Ukraine would agree to in order to stop the war. Part of the peace deal is to lift sanctions and not pursue any war crimes against Russia. Which the rest of the world agrees to so that they can end the war, stop worrying if Putin is going to escalate it, and get trade back. With that Putin will declare victory and leave, make up some reason why all they ever wanted was whatever little shabby strip of land they got and say he’s going to let Ukraine govern itself, because he’s such a nice conquerer. In the end it’s like it never happened, except for millions of people in Ukraine. Some rock stars with throw a benefit concert, a few movie stars who wish they were in a cool band will join (Depp, Fallon?). They’ll raise about 0.001% of what Ukraine actually needs, but it’ll be a big deal and we all feel good about ourselves again.
I agree that this war will drag on for a long time. Maybe even for years. I'm not so sure about Putin ending it though, not unless he is somehow given a face-saving out. Also, let's not forget Putin is not a young man. He will be 70 this October (and as we all know, that is old as dirt!) Besides being old, he has had (or reportedly had) thyroid cancer, and almost certainly has taken steroids (which are bad for health). Also, rumor has it he has Parkinson's, and he likely has mental illness as well. If enough of this is true, his ability to maintain control could diminish before the end of this war. If that is the case, much depends on who would take over. That could open up a number of scenarios. So bottom line, I think there are too many uncertainties about where this will go. Let's just hope it is not one of the more disastrous of possibilities.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
I’m no expert, but here’s how I think it ends. affer many months of war and it going nowhere Putin decides to end it. Putin is struggling enough as it is, he doesn’t want other countries declaring war. So he’s not going to use nukes or invade anyone else. But he has to save face and not admit he lost, so he’ll bargain for some border land or something small that Ukraine would agree to in order to stop the war. Part of the peace deal is to lift sanctions and not pursue any war crimes against Russia. Which the rest of the world agrees to so that they can end the war, stop worrying if Putin is going to escalate it, and get trade back. With that Putin will declare victory and leave, make up some reason why all they ever wanted was whatever little shabby strip of land they got and say he’s going to let Ukraine govern itself, because he’s such a nice conquerer. In the end it’s like it never happened, except for millions of people in Ukraine. Some rock stars with throw a benefit concert, a few movie stars who wish they were in a cool band will join (Depp, Fallon?). They’ll raise about 0.001% of what Ukraine actually needs, but it’ll be a big deal and we all feel good about ourselves again.
This is what I thought at the beginning, but now I'm wondering, how do you let Putin off with zero consequences for invading another country and committing war crimes?
I realize tough decisions would have to get made, but he'd basically have zero repercussions for leveling the better part of a country and killing many of it's citizens.
Remove the sanctions, Putin stays in power, no lessons learned? Time to regroup and try again?
Not sure what the solution is, with all the financial sanctions, you were kind of hoping his own country would turn on him, but the media is controlled, so people probably don't know.
There are several ways you let Putin off. The easiest is probably just pretend to believe whatever lie he would give. He’s not going to admit to intentionally bombing a school, so maybe he just says all those responsible for firing on civilians and indiscriminate bombings have been punished and he gives a fake list of names filled with dead Russian soldiers. How world leaders pretend to justify it doesn’t matter.
But do you think the world leaders actually intent to hold him accountable? The same leaders who carefully plan how much aid to give Ukraine without upsetting Putin too much. What else are we really going to do? Invade Russia and capture anyone who they think played a role in the war crimes and put them on trial? Of course not. So then we keep sanctions and ban trade indefinitely? No, too many countries want trade with Russia. And if doing so means the war continues and tens, or hundreds of thousands get killed. He needs a reason to stop sooner, what reason would he have if the world wouldn’t agree to lift sanctions and not pursue war crimes?
Without wanting to risk war and wanting trade, I don’t see him being held accountable.
The Russian people are suffering as well. Their government is lying to the families of the slain soldiers over there. This is nothing more than to feed the ego of an aging man who wants to have a legacy. Ukraine will be victorious,just as the Vietnamese were.
Russia takes losses in failed river crossing, officials say
By OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKYI and DAVID KEYTON
22 mins ago
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia suffered heavy losses when Ukrainian forces destroyed the pontoon bridge enemy troops were using to try to cross a river in the east, Ukrainian and British officials said, another sign of Moscow's struggle to win decisive victories and salvage a war gone awry.
Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, opened the first war crimes trial of the conflict Friday, in proceedings that will be closely watched by international observers eager to ensure atrocities are fairly prosecuted. A Russian soldier stands accused of killing a Ukrainian civilian in the early days of the war.
The trial gets underway as Russia’s campaign in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas makes faltering progress.
Ukraine’s airborne forces command has released photos and video of what it said was a damaged Russian pontoon bridge over the Siversky Donets River and several destroyed or damaged Russian military vehicles nearby.
Ukrainian news reports said troops thwarted Russian passage across the river earlier this week, leaving dozens of tanks or military vehicles damaged or abandoned. The command said Thursday its troops “drowned the Russian occupiers.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday that Russia lost “significant armored maneuver elements" of at least one battalion tactical group as well as equipment used to deploy a makeshift floating bridge.
“Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky maneuver and speaks to the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine,” the ministry said in its daily intelligence update.
Russia's forces have struggled to do so, even after diverting troops from other parts of the country to the Donbas, the statement said.
Some analysts initially thought the campaign in the Donbas might offer President Vladimir Putin an easier battleground after his forces failed to overrun the capital. Instead, Russian and Ukrainian troops have fought village by village.
In that grinding fighting, the Ukrainian military chief for the eastern Luhansk region said Friday that Russian forces opened fire 31 times on residential areas the day before, destroying dozens of homes, notably in Hirske and Popasnianska villages, and a bridge in Rubizhne.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials claimed another success in the Black Sea, saying their forces took out another Russian ship, though there was no confirmation from Russia and no casualties were reported.
The Vsevolod Bobrov logistics ship was badly damaged but not thought to have sunk when it was struck while trying to deliver an anti-aircraft system to Snake Island, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president.
In April, the Ukrainian military sank the Moskva cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. In March it destroyed the landing ship Saratov.
In order to better fend off the Russian advance, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged his country's supporters in the Group of Seven major economies to supply more weapons, including multiple launch rocket systems and military planes. He also asked them to put further pressure on Russia’s economy by stepping up sanctions.
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief announced plans to give Ukraine another 500 million euros ($520 million) to buy heavy weapons to fend off the Russian invasion.
The support of NATO countries to Ukraine has been key in its surprising success in stymieing Russia’s invasion, which has also breathed new life into the western alliance and is could soon expand.
On Thursday, Finland’s president and prime minister announced that the Nordic country should apply right away for membership in the military defense pact founded in part to counter the Soviet Union.
The announcement means it is all but certain to apply, and Sweden, likewise, is considering putting itself under NATO’s protection. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicted Friday his country could use its status as a member of the alliance to veto moves to admit the two countries.
The Kremlin has warned it may take retaliatory “military-technical” steps.
In response to the war, Western nations have also imposed tough sanctions on Russia — and outrage only grew after allegations of atrocities committed by Moscow's troops began to emerge.
On Feb. 28, four days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin, 21, was among a group of Russian troops that had been defeated by Ukrainian forces, according to the prosecutor general.
As the Russians fled, they headed to a village in the Sumy region, and Shyshimarin is accused of shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head there. The killing is just one of several thousand potential war crimes that Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating.
Many of the alleged atrocities came to light last month after Moscow’s forces ended their bid to capture Kyiv and withdrew from around the capital, exposing mass graves and streets strewn with bodies in towns such as Bucha.
In a small Kyiv courtroom Friday, scores of journalists, many with cameras, packed together to see the start of the wartime proceeding. The defendant, dressed in a blue and gray hoodie and gray sweatpants, sat in a small glass cage during the proceedings, which lasted about 15 minutes.
Shyshimarin was asked a series of questions, including whether he understood his rights and whether he wanted a jury trial. He declined the latter. His attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, has acknowledged that the case against him is strong, but said the final decision over what evidence to allow will be made by the court in Kyiv. The lawyer hasn't indicated what defense he will offer.
Shyshimarin, a member of a tank unit that was captured by Ukrainian forces, admitted that he shot the civilian in a video posted by the Security Service of Ukraine, saying he was ordered to do so.
As the war grinds on, teachers were trying to restore some sense of normalcy after the war shuttered Ukraine’s schools and devastated the lives of millions of children. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lessons are being given in a subway station used as a bomb shelter that has become home for many families.
“It helps to support them mentally. Because now there is a war, and many lost their homes ... some people’s parents are fighting now,” said teacher Valeriy Leiko. In part thanks to the lessons, he said, “they feel that someone loves them.”
Primary school-age children joined Leiko around a table for history and art lessons in the subway station, where children’s drawings now line the walls.
An older student, Anna Fedoryaka, monitored lectures on Ukrainian literature being given by Kharkiv professor Mykhailo Spodarets online from his basement.
The internet connection was a problem for some, Fedoryaka said. And, “it is hard to concentrate when you have to do your homework with explosions by your window."
___
Yesica Fisch in Bakhmut, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Jari Tanner in Helsinki, Elena Becatoros in Odesa, and other AP staffers around the world contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
lol. I stole this meme.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Accession to NATO is not automatically a shortcut to a safer Sweden, and there are several reasons why we should not become dependent on member states whose development is unstable. Political scientists Trita Parsi and Frida Stranne write this on SvD's debate page.
Parsi och Stranne: Ett splittrat USA gör Nato mindre stabilt | SvD Debatt
From Sweden's biggest morningpaper. Finland is gonna have a decision on NATO in just a few weeks.
Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers
Ukrainian officials say the use of facial recognition software could help end the brutal war. But some experts call it ‘classic psychological warfare’ that sets a gruesome precedent.
Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.
The country’s IT Army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government, says it has used those identifications to inform the families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.
The Ukrainians champion the use of face-scanning software from the U.S. tech firm Clearview AI as a brutal but effective way to stir up dissent inside Russia, discourage other fighters and hasten an end to a devastating war.
But some military and technology analysts worry that the strategy could backfire, inflaming anger over a shock campaign directed at mothers who may be thousands of miles from the drivers of the Kremlin’s war machine.
The West’s solidarity with Ukraine makes it tempting to support such a radical act designed to capitalize on family grief, said Stephanie Hare, a surveillance researcher in London. But contacting soldiers’ parents, she said, is “classic psychological warfare” and could set a dangerous new standard for future conflicts.
“If it were Russian soldiers doing this with Ukrainian mothers, we might say, ‘Oh, my God, that’s barbaric,’ ” she said. “And is it actually working? Or is it making them say: ‘Look at these lawless, cruel Ukrainians, doing this to our boys?’ ”
As Russia’s war in Ukraine founders, ominous rhetoric gains ground
Clearview AI’s chief executive, Hoan Ton-That, told The Washington Post that more than 340 officials across five Ukrainian government agencies now can use its tool to run facial recognition searches whenever they want, free of charge.
Clearview employees now hold weekly, sometimes daily, training calls over Zoom with new police and military officials looking to gain access. Ton-That recounted several “‘oh, wow’ moments” as the Ukrainians witnessed how much data — including family photos, social media posts and relationship details — they could gather from a single cadaver scan.
Some of them are using Clearview’s mobile app to scan faces while on the battlefield, he said. Others have logged in for training while stationed at a checkpoint or out on patrol, the night sky visible behind their faces.
“They’re so enthusiastic,” Ton-That said. “Their energy is really high. They say they’re going to win, every call.”
The company, Ton-That said, first offered its services last month to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense after he saw Russian propaganda claiming that soldiers captured there were actors or frauds.
The system had primarily been used by police officers and federal investigators in the United States to see whether a photo of a suspect or witness matched any others in their database of 20 billion images taken from social media and the public Internet.
But about 10 percent of the database has come from Russia’s biggest social network, VKontakte, known as VK, making it a potentially useful tool for battlefield scans, Ton-That said.
Continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (AP) — Here in the dirt of one of the world’s most radioactive places, Russian soldiers dug trenches. Ukrainian officials worry they were, in effect, digging their own graves.
Thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the forested Chernobyl exclusion zone in the earliest hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, churning up highly contaminated soil from the site of the 1986 accident that was the world's worst nuclear disaster.
For more than a month, some Russian soldiers bunked in the earth within sight of the massive structure built to contain radiation from the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor. A close inspection of their trenches was impossible because even walking on the dirt is discouraged.
As the 36th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, disaster approaches and Russia’s invasion continues, it’s clear that Chernobyl — a relic of the Cold War — was never prepared for this.
With scientists and others watching in disbelief from afar, Russian forces flew over the long-closed plant, ignoring the restricted airspace around it. They held personnel still working at the plant at gunpoint during a marathon shift of more than a month, with employees sleeping on tabletops and eating just twice a day.
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Even now, weeks after the Russians left, “I need to calm down," the plant's main security engineer, Valerii Semenov, told The Associated Press. He worked 35 days straight, sleeping only three hours a night, rationing cigarettes and staying on even after the Russians allowed a shift change.
“I was afraid they would install something and damage the system,” he said in an interview.
Workers kept the Russians from the most dangerous areas, but in what Semenov called the worst situation he has seen in his 30 years at Chernobyl, the plant was without electricity, relying on diesel generators to support the critical work of circulating water for cooling the spent fuel rods.
“It was very dangerous to act in this way,” said Maksym Shevchuck, the deputy head of the state agency managing the exclusion zone. He was scared by it all.
Russia’s invasion marks the first time that occupying a nuclear plant was part of a nation's war strategy, said Rebecca Harms, former president of the Greens group in the European Parliament, who has visited Chernobyl several times. She called it a “nightmare” scenario in which “every nuclear plant can be used like a pre-installed nuclear bomb.”
A visit to the exclusion zone, more desolate than usual, found that the invasion risked a catastrophe worse than the original explosion and fire at Chernobyl that sent radioactive material into the atmosphere and became a symbol of the Soviet Union’s stumbling final years. Billions of dollars were spent by the international community, including Russia, to stabilize and secure the area.
Now authorities are working with Ukraine’s defense ministry on ways to protect Chernobyl’s most critical places. At the top of the list are anti-drone systems and anti-tank barriers, along with a system to protect against warplanes and helicopters.
None of it will matter much if Russian President Vladimir Putin resorts to nuclear weapons, which Shevchuck says he can't rule out anymore.
“I understand they can use any kind of weapon and they can do any awful thing,” he said.
Chernobyl needs special international protection with a robust U.N. mandate, Harms said. As with the original disaster, the risks are not only to Ukraine but to nearby Belarus and beyond.
“It depends from where the wind blows,” she said.
After watching thousands of Soviet soldiers work to contain the effects of the 1986 accident, sometimes with no protection, Harms and others were shocked at the Russian soldiers’ disregard for safety, or their ignorance, in the recent invasion.
Some soldiers even stole highly radioactive materials as souvenirs or possibly to sell.
“I think from movies they have the imagination that all dangerous small things are very valuable,” Shevchuck said.
He believes hundreds or thousands of soldiers damaged their health, likely with little idea of the consequences, despite plant workers' warnings to their commanders.
“Most of the soldiers were around 20 years old,” he said. “All these actions proves that their management, and in Russia in general, human life equals like zero.”
The full extent of Russia’s activities in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is still unknown, especially because the troops scattered mines that the Ukrainian military is still searching for. Some have detonated, further disturbing the radioactive ground. The Russians also set several forest fires, which have been put out.
Ukrainian authorities can’t monitor radiation levels across the zone because Russian soldiers stole the main server for the system, severing the connection on March 2. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday it still wasn’t receiving remote data from its monitoring systems. The Russians even took Chernobyl staffers’ personal radiation monitors.
In the communications center, one of the buildings in the zone not overgrown by nature, the Russians looted and left a carpet of shattered glass. The building felt deeply of the 1980s, with a map on a wall still showing the Soviet Union. Someone at some point had taken a pink marker and traced Ukraine’s border.
In normal times, about 6,000 people work in the zone, about half of them at the nuclear plant. When the Russians invaded, most workers were told to evacuate immediately. Now about 100 are left at the nuclear plant and 100 are elsewhere.
Semenov, the security engineer, recalled the Russians checking the remaining workers for what they called radicals.
“We said, ‘Look at our documents, 90% of us are originally from Russia,'” he said. “But we’re patriots of our country," meaning Ukraine.
When the Russians hurriedly departed March 31 as part of a withdrawal from the region that left behind scorched tanks and traumatized communities, they took more than 150 Ukrainian national guard members into Belarus. Shevchuck fears they’re now in Russia.
In their rush, the Russians gave nuclear plant managers a choice: Sign a document saying the soldiers had protected the site and there were no complaints, or be taken into Belarus. The managers signed.
One protective measure the Russians did appear to take was leaving open a line routing communications from the nuclear plant through the workers’ town of Slavutych and on to authorities in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. It was used several times, Shevchuck said.
“I think they understood it should be for their safety,” he said. The IAEA said Tuesday the plant is now able to contact Ukraine’s nuclear regulator directly.
Another Ukrainian nuclear plant, at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, remains under Russian control. It is the largest in Europe.
Shevchuck, like other Ukrainians, has had it with Putin.
“We’re inviting him inside the new safe confinement shelter,” he said. “Then we will close it.”
___
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
www.headstonesband.com
All these years later, the freaking Chernobyl nightmare goes on, and now gets worse again.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the United Nations said Ukraine has become “an epicenter of unbearable heartache and pain" — a description underscored a short time later by the first Russian strike on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential high-rise and another building and wounded 10 people, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine's emergency services.
The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned the attacks on civilians.
Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital. The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses.
Ukrainian authorities also reported intense Russian fire in the Donbas — the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin says is its main objective — and near Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside the Donbas that is seen as key to the offensive.
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In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing killed and wounded more people. And authorities warned that a lack of safe drinking water inside the city could lead to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
In Zaporizhzhia, a crucial way station for tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, an 11-year-old boy was among at least three people wounded in a rocket attack that authorities said was the first to hit a residential area in the southern city since the war began. Shards of glass cut the boy’s leg to the bone.
Vadym Vodostoyev, the boy’s father, said: “It just takes one second and you’re left with nothing.”
In Lyman town near Slovyansk, where Russian forces are reportedly trying to advance as part of their Donbas push, another tragedy unfolded on Monday when shelling rained on Tatiana Maksagory's home.
“There was such a blast and then smoke; you couldn’t hear anything,” she said, crying outside a hospital with a wound in her neck. "You couldn’t see anything in front of your eyes, and then I see that my grandson is lying on the ground.”
Maksagory’s 14-year-old grandson, Igor, was declared dead after emergency services drove him to the hospital. Her daughter was in serious condition and her son-in-law was also killed.
“Grandma, will I live?“ she said Igor asked her when they were in the basement waiting for help. “I said that he would live. But look what happened, I betrayed him. I am alive and he is not. I wish I had died and he had survived. I lived much more than him. I will never forgive myself for it.”
Ukraine’s military said Russian troops have subjected several places in the Donbas to “intense fire” Thursday and that over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian forces had repelled six attacks in the region.
Four civilians were also killed in heavy shelling of residential areas in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, according to the regional governor.
Columns of smoke could be seen rising at different points across the Donetsk region of the Donbas, and artillery and sirens were heard on and off.
The fresh attacks came as Guterres surveyed the destruction in small towns outside the capital that saw some of the worst horrors of the first onslaught of the war. He condemned the atrocities committed in towns like Bucha, where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russia withdrew in early April in the face of unexpectedly stiff resistance.
“Wherever there is a war, the highest price is paid by civilians,” the U.N. chief lamented.
In the attack on Kyiv, explosions shook the city and flames poured out the windows of the residential high-rise and another building. The capital had been relatively unscathed in recent weeks since Moscow refocused its efforts on the Donbas.
The explosions in northwestern Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district came as residents have been increasingly returning to the city. Cafes and other businesses have reopened, and a growing numbers of people have been out and about, enjoying the spring weather.
It was not immediately clear how far the attack was from Guterres.
Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Several journalists have been killed in the war, now in its third month.
Also, both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
Western officials say the Kremlin's apparent goal is to take the Donbas by encircling and crushing Ukrainian forces from the north, south and east.
But so far, Russia's troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains — a senior U.S. defense official described them as covering several kilometers a day — taking several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against staunch Ukrainian resistance.
As of Thursday, Russia had launched about 1,900 missiles into Ukraine – the vast majority fired from outside Ukraine’s borders, the U.S. official said. Most are strikes on Mariupol and the Donbas.
Britain's Defense Ministry said Friday that the limited Russian territorial gains have been achieved at significant cost to their forces.
Russian military units were mauled in the abortive bid to storm Kyiv and had to regroup and refit. Some analysts say the delay in launching a full-fledged offensive may reflect a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to wait until his forces are ready for a decisive battle, instead of rushing in and risking another failure that could shake his rule amid worsening economic conditions at home because of Western sanctions.
Many observers suspect Putin wants to be able to claim a big victory in the east by Victory Day, on May 9, one of the proudest holidays on the Russian calendar, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Many of the Russian troops who were in Mariupol have been leaving and moving to the northwest, the U.S. defense official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, didn't have exact figures but said a “significant number” of the roughly one dozen battalion tactical groups that were in the city were moving out.
In Mariupol, video posted online by Ukraine's Azov Regiment inside the steel plant showed people combing through the rubble to remove the dead and help the wounded. The regiment said the Russians hit an improvised underground hospital and its surgery room, killing an unspecified number of people. The video couldn’t be independently verified.
An estimated 100,000 people remained trapped in Mariupol.
“Deadly epidemics may break out in the city due to the lack of centralized water supply and sewers,” the city council said on the messaging app Telegram. It reported bodies decaying under the rubble and a “catastrophic” shortage of drinking water and food.
Ukraine has urged its allies to send even more military equipment to fend off the Russians. U.S. President Joe Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine.
___
Associated Press journalists Jon Gambrell and Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Yesica Fisch in Sloviansk, and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
-Joan Baez
https://nypost.com/2022/04/29/ghost-of-kyiv-major-stepan-tarabalka-killed-in-battle/
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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affer many months of war and it going nowhere Putin decides to end it. Putin is struggling enough as it is, he doesn’t want other countries declaring war. So he’s not going to use nukes or invade anyone else. But he has to save face and not admit he lost, so he’ll bargain for some border land or something small that Ukraine would agree to in order to stop the war. Part of the peace deal is to lift sanctions and not pursue any war crimes against Russia. Which the rest of the world agrees to so that they can end the war, stop worrying if Putin is going to escalate it, and get trade back. With that Putin will declare victory and leave, make up some reason why all they ever wanted was whatever little shabby strip of land they got and say he’s going to let Ukraine govern itself, because he’s such a nice conquerer.
In the end it’s like it never happened, except for millions of people in Ukraine. Some rock stars with throw a benefit concert, a few movie stars who wish they were in a cool band will join (Depp, Fallon?). They’ll raise about 0.001% of what Ukraine actually needs, but it’ll be a big deal and we all feel good about ourselves again.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
I agree that this war will drag on for a long time. Maybe even for years. I'm not so sure about Putin ending it though, not unless he is somehow given a face-saving out. Also, let's not forget Putin is not a young man. He will be 70 this October (and as we all know, that is old as dirt!) Besides being old, he has had (or reportedly had) thyroid cancer, and almost certainly has taken steroids (which are bad for health). Also, rumor has it he has Parkinson's, and he likely has mental illness as well. If enough of this is true, his ability to maintain control could diminish before the end of this war. If that is the case, much depends on who would take over. That could open up a number of scenarios.
So bottom line, I think there are too many uncertainties about where this will go. Let's just hope it is not one of the more disastrous of possibilities.
Without wanting to risk war and wanting trade, I don’t see him being held accountable.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia suffered heavy losses when Ukrainian forces destroyed the pontoon bridge enemy troops were using to try to cross a river in the east, Ukrainian and British officials said, another sign of Moscow's struggle to win decisive victories and salvage a war gone awry.
Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, opened the first war crimes trial of the conflict Friday, in proceedings that will be closely watched by international observers eager to ensure atrocities are fairly prosecuted. A Russian soldier stands accused of killing a Ukrainian civilian in the early days of the war.
The trial gets underway as Russia’s campaign in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas makes faltering progress.
Ukraine’s airborne forces command has released photos and video of what it said was a damaged Russian pontoon bridge over the Siversky Donets River and several destroyed or damaged Russian military vehicles nearby.
Ukrainian news reports said troops thwarted Russian passage across the river earlier this week, leaving dozens of tanks or military vehicles damaged or abandoned. The command said Thursday its troops “drowned the Russian occupiers.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday that Russia lost “significant armored maneuver elements" of at least one battalion tactical group as well as equipment used to deploy a makeshift floating bridge.
“Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky maneuver and speaks to the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine,” the ministry said in its daily intelligence update.
Russia's forces have struggled to do so, even after diverting troops from other parts of the country to the Donbas, the statement said.
Some analysts initially thought the campaign in the Donbas might offer President Vladimir Putin an easier battleground after his forces failed to overrun the capital. Instead, Russian and Ukrainian troops have fought village by village.
In that grinding fighting, the Ukrainian military chief for the eastern Luhansk region said Friday that Russian forces opened fire 31 times on residential areas the day before, destroying dozens of homes, notably in Hirske and Popasnianska villages, and a bridge in Rubizhne.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials claimed another success in the Black Sea, saying their forces took out another Russian ship, though there was no confirmation from Russia and no casualties were reported.
The Vsevolod Bobrov logistics ship was badly damaged but not thought to have sunk when it was struck while trying to deliver an anti-aircraft system to Snake Island, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president.
In April, the Ukrainian military sank the Moskva cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. In March it destroyed the landing ship Saratov.
In order to better fend off the Russian advance, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged his country's supporters in the Group of Seven major economies to supply more weapons, including multiple launch rocket systems and military planes. He also asked them to put further pressure on Russia’s economy by stepping up sanctions.
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief announced plans to give Ukraine another 500 million euros ($520 million) to buy heavy weapons to fend off the Russian invasion.
The support of NATO countries to Ukraine has been key in its surprising success in stymieing Russia’s invasion, which has also breathed new life into the western alliance and is could soon expand.
On Thursday, Finland’s president and prime minister announced that the Nordic country should apply right away for membership in the military defense pact founded in part to counter the Soviet Union.
The announcement means it is all but certain to apply, and Sweden, likewise, is considering putting itself under NATO’s protection. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicted Friday his country could use its status as a member of the alliance to veto moves to admit the two countries.
The Kremlin has warned it may take retaliatory “military-technical” steps.
In response to the war, Western nations have also imposed tough sanctions on Russia — and outrage only grew after allegations of atrocities committed by Moscow's troops began to emerge.
On Feb. 28, four days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin, 21, was among a group of Russian troops that had been defeated by Ukrainian forces, according to the prosecutor general.
As the Russians fled, they headed to a village in the Sumy region, and Shyshimarin is accused of shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head there. The killing is just one of several thousand potential war crimes that Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating.
Many of the alleged atrocities came to light last month after Moscow’s forces ended their bid to capture Kyiv and withdrew from around the capital, exposing mass graves and streets strewn with bodies in towns such as Bucha.
In a small Kyiv courtroom Friday, scores of journalists, many with cameras, packed together to see the start of the wartime proceeding. The defendant, dressed in a blue and gray hoodie and gray sweatpants, sat in a small glass cage during the proceedings, which lasted about 15 minutes.
Shyshimarin was asked a series of questions, including whether he understood his rights and whether he wanted a jury trial. He declined the latter. His attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, has acknowledged that the case against him is strong, but said the final decision over what evidence to allow will be made by the court in Kyiv. The lawyer hasn't indicated what defense he will offer.
Shyshimarin, a member of a tank unit that was captured by Ukrainian forces, admitted that he shot the civilian in a video posted by the Security Service of Ukraine, saying he was ordered to do so.
As the war grinds on, teachers were trying to restore some sense of normalcy after the war shuttered Ukraine’s schools and devastated the lives of millions of children. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lessons are being given in a subway station used as a bomb shelter that has become home for many families.
“It helps to support them mentally. Because now there is a war, and many lost their homes ... some people’s parents are fighting now,” said teacher Valeriy Leiko. In part thanks to the lessons, he said, “they feel that someone loves them.”
Primary school-age children joined Leiko around a table for history and art lessons in the subway station, where children’s drawings now line the walls.
An older student, Anna Fedoryaka, monitored lectures on Ukrainian literature being given by Kharkiv professor Mykhailo Spodarets online from his basement.
The internet connection was a problem for some, Fedoryaka said. And, “it is hard to concentrate when you have to do your homework with explosions by your window."
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Yesica Fisch in Bakhmut, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Jari Tanner in Helsinki, Elena Becatoros in Odesa, and other AP staffers around the world contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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