All things Russia Vs. Ukraine for March 18, 2022

1. Justin Trudeau with friends in Ukraine.

(This might be a good time to mention that Lenin’s party in Russia was called, “The Social Democrat party, much like the communist core of the US Democrat party. is called, “The Democrat Socialist of America, DSA party. In that spirit, Trudeau’s friend in Ukraine called his party, The Social Nationalist party, like the Nazi party which is a condensate of NAtionale SoZialIsten, National Socialist Party. Let us not be ambiguous about this man’s beliefs. It also helps to understand that the difference between communists and Nazis was, at the time Nazis ruled Germany, so small that their #1 ally was communist Russia, and remained so till Hitler attacked Russia. Also at that time, the US Left was fully in support of Hitler, as they were socialist, right till they attacked Russia. Please see the video below on the nature of the Nazis. If this isn’t convincing, please find Hitler’s speeches at Nuremberg where he explains that the way going forward, is Marxist. Class war etc. etc.)

2. Facebook now OK with Nazis, and encourages violent posts. So long as its all directed against Russia

Please check back over the course of the day, here, and the comments. There is a lot more on this all ready to post but one has to hit Publish sooner or later.

3. Ukraine conflict: Putin lays out his demands in Turkish phone call

On Thursday afternoon, President Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia’s precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.

Within half an hour of the ending of the phone call, I interviewed Mr Erdogan’s leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Mr Kalin was part of the small group of officials who had listened in on the call.

The Russian demands fall into two categories.

The first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.

Chief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this. […] Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn’t a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.

(A commenter observed, if there are no Nazis in Ukraine, this should be easy to do. Other reports however, suggest that the Azov battalion, unabashedly Nazi, is pretty large and influential, and Ukraine will probably need Russian help to get rid of it since, well the US trained them.)

4. The UN first demands that the bio-weapons facilities in Ukraine be kept safe, then denies they exist.

5. Russia tells Google to stop spreading threats against Russians on YouTube

Russia on Friday demanded that Google stop spreading what it labeled as threats against Russian citizens on its YouTube video-sharing platform, a move that could presage an outright block of the service on Russian territory.

Google representatives in Russia did not immediately respond to a request for comment by email. Google representatives outside Russia also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said adverts on the platform were calling for the communications systems of Russia and Belarus’ railway networks to be suspended and that their dissemination was evidence of the U.S. tech giant’s anti-Russian position. It did not say which accounts were publishing the adverts.

6. Interview with Jeff Nyquist: A worthy video with another perspective on Russia and the world.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

34 Replies to “All things Russia Vs. Ukraine for March 18, 2022”

  1. europravda – Foreign fighters drawn to Ukraine’s International legion

    French former military planning to enroll in Ukraine’s International legion decides to dedicate himself to humanitarian help instead

  2. europravda – Surrogate mothers, babies and frozen embryos trapped by Ukraine war as IVF parents watch in horror

    Dozens of babies born to surrogate mothers are waiting in a Kiev bomb shelter for their foreign biological parents to claim them, as the war in Ukraine tears through a once booming cross-border business.

  3. europravda – Marianne statue in Paris wears colours of the Ukrainian flag

    … with the message “Stop oil, Stop war” and the signature of the Extinction Rebellion movement.


    • global news – Putin says Russia will prevail in Ukraine in speech to thousands of cheering supporters in Moscow

      Putin hailed what Russia calls its special operation in Ukraine during a rally in a packed stadium on Friday in Moscow, promising the tens of thousands of people in attendance that all the Kremlin’s goals would be achieved.

      The stage where Putin spoke had slogans “For a world without Nazism” and “For our president”, using the “Z” – markings used as markings on Russian military hardware deployed in Ukraine.

      Ukraine says it is fighting for its existence and that Putin’s claims of genocide are nonsense. The West says claims it wants to rip Russia apart are fiction.

      As Putin was talking, state television briefly cut away from his speech and showed earlier pre-recorded footage of patriotic songs. Russia’s RIA news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying a technical fault on a server was the reason.

    • MARCH 18 2022 -President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

      “We, the multi-ethnic nation of the Russian Federation, united by common fate on our land…” These are the first words of our fundamental law, the Russian Constitution. Each word has deep meaning and enormous significance.

      On our land, united by common fate. This is what the people of Crimea and Sevastopol must have been thinking as they went to the referendum on March 18, 2014. They lived and continue to live on their land, and they wanted to have a common fate with their historical motherland, Russia. They had every right to it and they achieved their goal. Let’s congratulate them first because it is their holiday. Happy anniversary!

      Over these years, Russia has done a great deal to help Crimea and Sevastopol grow. There were things that needed to be done that were not immediately obvious to the unaided eye. These were essential things such as gas and power supply, utility infrastructure, restoring the road network, and construction of new roads, motorways and bridges.

      We needed to drag Crimea out of that humiliating position and state that Crimea and Sevastopol had been pushed into when they were part of another state that had only provided leftover financing to these territories.

      There is more to it. The fact is we know what needs to be done next, how it needs to be done, and at what cost – and we will fulfil all these plans, absolutely.

      These decisions are not even as important as the fact that the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol made the right choice when they put up a firm barrier against neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists. What was and is still happening on other territories is the best indication that they did the right thing.

      People who lived and live in Donbass did not agree with this coup d’état, either. Several punitive military operations were instantly staged against them; they were besieged and subjected to systemic shelling with artillery and bombing by aircraft – and this is actually what is called “genocide.”

      The main goal and motive of the military operation that we launched in Donbass and Ukraine is to relieve these people of suffering, of this genocide. At this point, I recall the words from the Holy Scripture: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And we are seeing how heroically our military are fighting during this operation.

      These words come from the Holy Scripture of Christianity, from what is cherished by those who profess this religion. But the bottom line is that this is a universal value for all nations and those of all religions in Russia, and primarily for our people. The best evidence of this is how our fellows are fighting and acting in this operation: shoulder to shoulder, helping and supporting each other. If they have to, they will cover each other with their bodies to protect their comrade from a bullet in the battlefield, as they would to save their brother. It has been a long time since we had such unity.

      It so happened that, by sheer coincidence, the start of the operation was same day as the birthday of one of our outstanding military leaders who was canonised – Fedor Ushakov. He did not lose a single battle throughout his brilliant career. He once said that these thunderstorms would glorify Russia. This is how it was in his time; this is how it is today and will always be!

      Thank you!

      http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68016

  4. MSNBC – ‘End This War Of Choice’: Deputy Secretary Of State Urges All Nations To Press Putin

    Wendy Sherman joins Morning Joe to discuss President Biden’s planned Friday discussion with President Xi, why she says Putin’s ‘war of choice’ continues despite peace talks and why she hopes all nations will encourage Putin to stop attacks in Ukraine.

  5. MSNBC – What Comes After Putin?

    Putin has been at the helm of Russia for more than two decades, but could the invasion of Ukraine – this overreach – be his downfall?

    Tom Nichols, a veteran professor of the Naval War College specializing in Russian studies, joins Katie Phang to discuss.

  6. MSNBC – Lawrence: Putin Wants To Terrorize Ukraine Into Surrender

    Biden called Vladimir Putin a “murderous dictator” as the number of children in Ukraine killed in the war now stands at 108.

    MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell reports that the Pentagon says that that high casualties are hurting the Russian soldiers’ morale as they face fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces.

  7. the gateway pundit – Today’s Ukrainian War Heroes were Yesterday’s White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis Fighting Russia (VIDEO)

    TIME correspondent, Simon Shuster, traveled to Ukraine last summer of 2019 to investigate how white supremacists militias were able to use Facebook to radicalize and recruit people to join their fight.

    It was previously reported that Russia insisted one of the reasons for Putin’s attack on Ukraine was to ‘de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.’

    When Putin said he would focus on Nazis in Ukraine, he likely knew of the Azov Battalion, although this did not give him an excuse to invade another sovereign nation.

    The Gateway Pundit reported on the Azov Battalion previously. Members of this group were recognized at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine in 2014. The group as we noted, is violent, especially against groups like transvestites, gypsies, and immigrants.

    According to a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, in his interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he claimed that there are no Nazis in Ukraine. “He’s [Putin] talking about denazification. There are no Nazis in Ukraine,” McFaul said.

    A documentary from TIME magazine in 2019 revealed the existence of a group called Azov that embodied the neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology led by Andriy Yevhenovych Biletsky in Ukraine.

    Andriy Biletsky, a proud white supremacist, claimed that Ukraine’s national purpose was to rid the country of Jews and other inferior races, Fair Observer reported.

    A former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served with the United Nations, Scott Ritter, claimed that the first troops trained by US and British soldiers were the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

    Here’s a background of the Azov battalion, Reuters reported:

    So what is the Azov regiment?

    Azov is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members – estimated at 900 – are ultra-nationalists and accused of harbouring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.

    The unit was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) group. Both groups engaged in xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideals and physically assaulted migrants, the Roma community and people opposing their views.

    As a battalion, the group fought on the front lines against pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, the eastern region of Ukraine. Just before launching the invasion, Putin recognised the independence of two rebel-held regions from Donbas.

    A few months after recapturing the strategic port city of Mariupol from the Russian-backed separatists, the unit was officially integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high praise from then-President Petro Poroshenko.

    What has been the international response to Azov?

    In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections.

    The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure from the Pentagon.

    In October 2019, 40 members of the US Congress led by Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully calling for the US State Department to designate Azov as a “foreign terrorist organisation” (FTO). Last April, Representative Elissa Slotkin repeated the request – which included other white supremacist groups – to the Biden administration.

    Transnational support for Azov has been wide, and Ukraine has emerged as a new hub for the far right across the world. Men from across three continents have been documented to join the Azov training units in order to seek combat experience and engage in similar ideology.

    The oscillation of Facebook

    In 2016, Facebook first designated the Azov regiment a “dangerous organisation”.

    Under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, Azov was banned from its platforms in 2019. The group was placed under Facebook’s Tier 1 designation, which includes groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and ISIL (ISIS). Users engaging in praise, support or representation of Tier 1 groups are also banned.

    However, on February 24, the day Russia launched its invasion, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would allow praise for Azov.

    “For the time being, we are making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine national guard,” a spokesperson from Facebook’s parent company, Meta, told Business Insider.

    According to TIME magazine’s documentary published in 2021, “Azov is much more than a militia. It has its own political party” who worked hand in hand with the Ukrainian armed forces.

    TIME reported:

    Its fighters resemble the other para-military units—and there are dozens of them—that have helped defend Ukraine against the Russian military over the past six years. But Azov is much more than a militia. It has its own political party; two publishing houses; summer camps for children; and a vigilante force known as the National Militia, which patrols the streets of Ukrainian cities alongside the police. Unlike its ideological peers in the U.S. and Europe, it also has a military wing with at least two training bases and a vast arsenal of weapons, from drones and armored vehicles to artillery pieces.

    Outside Ukraine, Azov occupies a central role in a network of extremist groups stretching from California across Europe to New Zealand, according to law enforcement officials on three continents. And it acts as a magnet for young men eager for combat experience. Ali Soufan, a security consultant and former FBI agent who has studied Azov, estimates that more than 17,000 foreign fighters have come to Ukraine over the past six years from 50 countries.

    The vast majority have no apparent links to far-right ideology. But as Soufan looked into the recruitment methods of Ukraine’s more radical militias, he found an alarming pattern. It reminded him of Afghanistan in the 1990s, after Soviet forces withdrew and the U.S. failed to fill the security vacuum. “Pretty soon the extremists took over. The Taliban was in charge. And we did not wake up until 9/11,” Soufan tells TIME. “This is the parallel now with Ukraine.”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/todays-ukrainian-war-heroes-yesterdays-white-supremacists-fighting-russia-video/

      • Nazi paraphernalia in that part of the world carries a message that’s misunderstood here. NOT jew-centric, NOT left-right, certainly NOT the nonsensical racist, misogynist, homophobe, bleep-bleep…

        AZOB was founded to fight Russian-Ukes after Putin seized Crimea and the Donbass post-Maidan. Flashback WW-2.

        Millions of Russians – men, women, and children – were slaughtered by the invading German army, together with Ukrainian collaborators eager to exact vengence for Soviet depredations. The Ukrainians were more enthusiastic killers than the Nazis.

        *This* carnage took place on *this* ground, under *this* flag, European Nazis vs. mongrel Communists and Untermenschen (both Poles and Jews).

        Resurrecting nazi claptrap was a middle-finger salute to the Russians who survived the Great Patriotic war.

    • MARCH 18 2022 – The Telegraph – Inside Azov, the neo-Nazi brigade killing Russian generals and playing a PR game in the Ukraine war

      Its well-oiled publicity machine has been producing videos with camera drones capturing attacks on invading troops in real time

      While most of Ukraine’s armed forces have been quietly engaged in the grind of a gruelling tug-of-war with Russia, one battalion has been busy putting out slick videos and images trumpeting its own achievements.

      In a photograph released this week, a burly man in dark-blue uniform lies unconscious on the snow-covered ground, his right side caked in blood.

      “Azov has eliminated a major general! And by thy sword shalt thou live!” reads the caption.

      The unnamed officer was reportedly the fourth Russian general to have been killed in Ukraine. His killers? The extreme Right-wing Azov Battalion.

      A long-time focus of Kremlin propaganda attempts to smear all Ukrainians as neo-Nazis, the unit has been making headlines once again after Moscow claimed that it staged a false flag operation to blow up a theatre full of civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol. The truth was more mundane: yet more Russian shelling.

      But Azov has been active in the last month. In particular, its well-oiled PR machine has been producing Ukraine’s arguably best-quality war videos with camera drones perfectly capturing the attacks as they happen in real time. Ukraine’s armed forces have happily used Azov’s videos as visual proof of the country’s counter-attacks on the invading army.

      Russian tanks were seen blown up in pieces, spurting plumes of smoke as aerial footage showed the attacks with a video-game-like precision.

      Azov rose to prominence at the start of the separatist insurgency in Ukraine in 2014. It never held much sway in Ukraine’s politics but videos of its occasional torch-lit marches have helped to feed the false Kremlin narrative of Ukrainians being neo-Nazis.

      Ukraine’s crumbling armed forces were taken by surprise in spring 2014 when Russian-backed separatists began to take over swaths of Ukraine’s industrial heartland in the east.

      As Ukraine’s regular troops were woefully unprepared to wage a war, citizens of all stripes took up arms and travelled to the east.

      Azov Battalion was one of the several volunteer forces that took the job of fighting the separatists that the army seemingly did not want to do.

      Months later, prominent rights advocacies such as Human Rights Watch reported “credible allegations of torture and other egregious abuses” by Azov and other volunteer batallions.

      Several members of other volunteer battalions have been tried and convicted of rights abuse during their time in the east but no one from Azov was reportedly convicted.

      Azov was founded by Andriy Biletsky, an ultra-nationalist political figure who had had run-ins with the law and had been involved in various groups that toyed with Nazi symbols.

      The batallion that attracted football ultras and far-Right activists made no secret of its roots by adopting the Nazi Wolfsangel as its emblem, saying that it views it as a stylised version of the letters N and I standing for “national idea.”

      The 44-year old activist won a seat in parliament as an independent candidate in the autumn of 2014, clearly capitalising on his battalion’s success in fighting the separatists, but he was not re-elected five years later.

      Azov, which takes its name from the Azov Sea, first joined the fight against separatists around the city of Mariupol and has been based there since then.

      The battalion has enjoyed patronage of Ukraine’s controversial minister Arsen Avakov and several Ukrainian oligarchs, some of them of Jewish descent, who appear to have put aside their qualms about the group’s ideology for the sake of securing Ukrainian sovereignty in south-eastern Ukraine.

      Mr Biletsky, also known as the White Leader, has run a fully fledged social media operation since the start of the conflict in 2014, flooding the internet with images of his troops marching the streets with lit torches.

      A native Russian speaker born in the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv, Mr Biletsky refused to identify himself as a neo-Nazi instead preferring to call himself a Ukrainian nationalist – but some of his public statements speak for themselves.

      In his arguably most quoted interview he spoke about Ukraine’s “historic mission in this century to lead white peoples of the world on their last Crusade against Jew-led Untermensch”.

      In recent years Azov has produced perfect content for Russian state television, putting a face to the Kremlin’s claims about the rise of the far-right in Ukraine, where recent presidents and prime ministers have all been regular centrist politicians.

      Azov fighters in the east happily rolled back their sleeves to show Nazi tattoos to foreign correspondents while Mr Biletsky’s team were announcing the creation of local militia forces to deal with issues in big cities.

      In 2018, the battalion put out a slickly produced video showing hundreds of young men in fatigues marching in formation to a torch-lit fortress in Kyiv.

      They swore an oath on camera to “clean” the streets of illegal alcohol, drug dealings and gambling establishments.

      Nothing came out of the idea but the image was there, putting Volodymyr Zelensky, a Russian-speaking comedian with Jewish heritage, and his predecessor in a tight spot.

      “The far-right in general, and their apparent impunity have significantly damaged Ukraine’s international reputation and left the country vulnerable to hostile narratives exaggerating the role of extremist groups in Ukraine,” Oleskiy Kuzmenko wrote in a piece for the Atlantic Council, adding that its recent ties with white supremacists in the West reinforced the concern.

      Bellingcat, an investigative journalist group, as well as Ukrainian media over the years, traced ties between Azov, its political arm National Corps, and American white supremacist groups.

      A 2019 report by the New York-based Soufan Centre said more than 17,000 people from 50 countries had travelled to Ukraine since the start of the conflict to join Azov and other battalions to fight pro-Kremlin separatists.

      In 2016, Azov sought to distance itself from the National Corps after its first commander left the battalion to pursue politics.

      Mr Biletsky, however, still attends Azov events and occasionally uses the Azov troops to put pressure on Ukrainian authorities to ditch the idea of any form of compromise with Russia.

      Just a few months after the invasion, Azov veterans marched across central Kyiv to President Zelensky’s office. They were stopped by a police cordon nearby where they set on fire effigies of “traitors”.

      The National Corps never ran for national elections but its candidates have shown dismal performance at local elections in a clear sign of just how far Azov’s ideology is from concerns of ordinary Ukrainians who have for years viewed them as a marginal, selfie-happy group.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/18/inside-azov-neo-nazi-brigade-killing-russian-generals-playing/

    • MARCH – 2017 – DEUTSCHE PRAVDA – DOCUMENTARY – Women and the Azov battalion in Kiev, Ukraine

      The Azov battalian is far-right and has a reputation for being a fierce fighting force. The group openly uses fascist symbols.

      The group is recruiting more and more young people – many of them are women. Concern about democracy in Ukraine is growing.

  8. reuters – Russia tells Google to stop spreading threats against Russians on YouTube

    Russia on Friday demanded that Google stop spreading what it labeled as threats against Russian citizens on its YouTube video-sharing platform, a move that could presage an outright block of the service on Russian territory.

    Google representatives in Russia did not immediately respond to a request for comment by email. Google representatives outside Russia also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said adverts on the platform were calling for the communications systems of Russia and Belarus’ railway networks to be suspended and that their dissemination was evidence of the U.S. tech giant’s anti-Russian position. It did not say which accounts were publishing the adverts.

    “The actions of YouTube’s administration are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens,” the regulator said.

    “Roskomnadzor categorically opposes such advertising campaigns and demands that Google stop broadcasting anti-Russia videos as soon as possible.”

    It was the latest salvo in a row between Moscow and foreign tech firms over Ukraine.

    YouTube, which has blocked Russian state-funded media globally, is under heavy pressure from Russia’s communications regulator and politicians.

    more:

    https://ottawasun.com/news/world/russia-tells-google-to-stop-spreading-threats-against-russians-on-youtube

    ====================================

    twitter @disclosetv

    JUST IN – Russia to block YouTube as early as today (RIA)

    https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1504829737478365190

  9. CBC – Russia can’t negotiate in good faith while targeting Ukrainian civilians: Joly

    Mélanie Joly says she doesn’t trust Russia to negotiate peace with Ukraine in good faith while its military is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity on the ground.

  10. CBC – The impact of Zelensky’s speech to Parliament, defence spending

    The At Issue panel discusses the impact of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the Canadian Parliament, one week before NATO leaders are expected to meet in Brussels.

    Plus, the panellists examine Defence Minister Anita Anand’s promise to increase defence spending and what that looks like.

  11. the guardian -‘Live in the mess that Putin has created’: a tour of Russian oligarch-linked properties in London

    UK government sanctions have targeted Russian oligarchs’ investments in London property after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The Guardian’s wealth correspondent, Rupert Neate, takes us on a short tour of some of the properties owned by or linked to people named in UK or EU sanctions lists. But will anyone answer the door?

  12. Associated Press – Florida gunmaker funnels weapons to Ukraine resistance

    A Florida gun company was left holding a $200,000 shipment of rifles after a longtime customer in Ukraine suddenly went silent. The company is preparing 400 firearms that will soon be picked up for delivery to a NATO-run facility.

  13. American Foreign Fighter Says He Was Injured In Russian Air Strike

    An American foreign fighter, who would identify himself only as “Zander,” said he was injured March 13 in a Russian airstrike on the “International Center for Peacekeeping and Security” in Yavoriv, located in far Western Ukraine. The strike drew much notice because it was the most westward attack yet committed by Russia, just around 15 miles from the Polish border.

    “Zander,” who said he is originally from New Jersey, was in Ukraine fighting as a member of the “Zelensky Battalion” — a just-created international force named after the Ukraine president now being touted as a global folk hero. Ukraine government officials reported at least 35 fatalities in the bombing, as well as an unknown number of injured, but the nationalities of the casualties has not been specified.

    After the attack, “Zander” crossed into Poland, which is where I encountered him March 16 — at a large processing center for displaced Ukrainians in Korczowa, just over the border.

    “Zander” said he was watching the movie Saving Private Ryan in his room on the base at around 5am, when all of the sudden his “whole fucking window was blown out.” He said if he had been in a slightly different position on his bed, he would’ve been killed by a giant shard of glass. As he scrambled to get his bearings, he suffered some significant abrasions on his hands and arms, which he displayed to me.

    Before departing the US for Ukraine after the invasion started last month, “Zander” got a tattoo on his hand of a logo for the Ukraine military:

    https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faa78fb8f-4701-4cba-8844-516d35ab61bb_4032x3024.jpeg

    He reported hearing from others on base that the Yavoriv facility was being used as a major supply hub for US-made weaponry flowing into Ukraine, and speculated that the purpose of the strike was to disrupt that supply line. This would be consistent with other public reports. The “International Center for Peacekeeping and Security” had been the site of US and NATO “training” exercises for years, including as recently as July 2021. “Zander” said he didn’t know if other Americans were among the casualties, but there have been reports that three British fighters were killed in the strike.

    Speculating on what precipitated Russia’s decision to target the facility, “Zander” said: “We either had a fifth column among us or they had spotters. And what I mean by that is social media. We’ve got these dipshits who want to be Instagram influencers. They came on our base, sort of showing everyone — ‘Hey, look.’ And then they drone on social media.”

    With journalists glamorizing the foreign fighters flocking into Ukraine, and casting the war as a cosmic battle between Good and Evil, it’s highly probable that there will be additional US casualties. Which could subsequently be cited as justification for wider US military involvement. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

    https://mtracey.substack.com/p/american-foreign-fighter-says-he?s=r

  14. TMZ – PRESIDENT ZELENSKY WANTED AS 2022 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOMINEE

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky deserves the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize … according to several world leaders now pushing to get him the high honor.

    It comes as no shock … Zelensky’s become a beacon of courage around the world for the way he’s inspired and rallied Ukrainians against the Russian invasion. That’s clearly why a group of European politicians now want the Norwegian Nobel Committee to reopen the nomination for its 2022 peace prize.

    The politicians issued a statement, saying … “We therefore humbly call upon you, the Committee, to consider: Extending and thereby re-opening the nomination procedure for the Nobel Peace Prize until March 31, 2022 to allow for a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine.”

    The extension is necessary because the nomination process closed on January 31.

    For the uninitiated, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to an organization or person who has done the most/best to advance fellowship among countries, or the reduction of standing armies … and have advocated for peace.

    Translation: hand the thing to Zelensky.

    Nearly 251 people and 92 orgs applied for this year’s honor, but for some politicians — and millions of citizens around the world — this year’s winner should be a no-brainer.

    The 2022 Nobel Prize announcements are slated to take place the first week of October.

    https://www.tmz.com/2022/03/18/ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelensky-nobel-peace-prize-nomination/

    ==================================
    NEWSWEEK – Zelensky Should be Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize—Lawmakers

    The expired deadline for accepting nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize should be extended so Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky can be considered for the award, a group of European politicians have said.

    The Nobel Committee has been sent an appeal to re-open the nomination procedure and push the deadline of January 31 to March 31, so that Zelensky and the people of Ukraine can be considered for the award.

    “Although we are aware that this is a break with procedure, we do believe it is justified by the current unprecedented situation,” said the letter signed by 36 past and present politicians from the Netherlands, U.K., Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia.

    “It is our democratic duty to stand up to authoritarianism and to support a people fighting for democracy and their right to self-government.”

    It said “brave Ukrainian men and women are fighting to preserve democracy and self-government” and that people all over the country invaded by Russia on February 24 “are rising up to resist the forces of authoritarianism.”

    “Our words of sympathy and support can hardly do justice to the sacrifices they make for the principles of human rights and peace,” said the letter dated March 11, which finished with words, “the veneer of civilization is paper-thin, we are its guardians and we can never rest.”

    A nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize can be made by any person who meets the nomination criteria.

    These include members of national assemblies and national governments, members of The International Court of Justice in The Hague as well as certain university professors, professors emeriti and associate professors.

    https://www.newsweek.com/volodymyr-zelensky-nominated-nobel-peace-prize-lawmakers-1689320

  15. NATO Announces Deployment of 140,000 Troops in Europe

    Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO Jens) Stoltenberg said that the Western alliance has deployed about 140,000 troops in Europe.

    “We have already begun to implement plans to defend the alliance, increase our readiness and deploy soldiers on both sides of the Atlantic,” Stoltenberg said.

    He added that the NATO member-states have hundreds of thousands of soldiers on high alert.

    Stoltenberg went on to say that American soldiers are deployed in Europe, and there are about 40,000 additional soldiers under direct NATO command, mainly in the eastern part of the alliance. They are backed by large air and naval forces as well as air defense systems.”

    On the other hand, Russian armed forces have continued, since February 24, to carry out a special military operation in the southeastern part of Ukraine.

    https://see.news/nato-announces-deployment-of-140000-troops-in-europe/