Velychko, Olga and Urazov: A conversation with Burnett on the emigrant refugees fleeing the war

After arriving in Brooklyn, Urazov and his wife and three children stayed with Velychko and his wife for a time, as they hosted as many as 12 refugees at one time.

As part of the Champions For Change series, CNN’s Erin Burnett spotlights Velychko and his two siblings who emigrated from Ukraine years ago, and are now assisting those fleeing the war.

A few months ago, the Inside CNN newsletter team caught up with Burnett shortly after she returned from a reporting trip to Ukraine. Below is an abbreviated version of that conversation:

I met a couple whose son was killed in the war. The house was full of rockets and bullets. The backyard was filled with mattresses, sheets, and cigarettes they stole from when they lived there for more than a month.

Olga lost her only child in this war and yet she found joy in the newborn goats. I asked Vadim if he wanted to describe his life now, and he didn’t hesitate. He said it was lucky. The Russians raped women and tortured people nearby.

Vadim and Olga told me that sometimes as much as a moment moves you, you cannot understand it. I was silenced by their ability to take joy in their goats and to find themselves lucky.

“Our Russian city of Valuyki… is under constant fire,” he said. “We learn about this from all sorts of folks, from governors, Telegram channels, our war correspondents. But no one else. The reports from theMinistry of Defense are the same as always. They claim to have killed Nazis, destroyed 300 rockets and so on. But people know. Our people are smart. But they don’t want to even tell part of the truth. This can lead to a loss of credibility.”

War strips the soul in a way that he was acutely aware of. He is still fighting on the Ukrainian frontlines. He fights for the specific parts of daily life that create a country while fighting for independence. We can talk about freedom, but in general, these kids need to go to school. That’s all.” He told them that he fights so that he does not have to.

Traveling the world to document the events of the September 11th (2001) Cairo massacre and their impact on the lives of the victims of the 1982 terrorist attacks

One of my favorite things to do is travel. It’s one of the reasons I always dreamed of working at CNN. I wanted to travel to find and tell stories. My mother may have started that when she kept journals on childhood trips. I have traveled the world for work and that is a gift, even though Covid has stopped travel for us all.

The streets in Egypt were protected by armed locals at the start of the Arab Spring. It was unsettled, and yet at the onset there was a triumphant celebration as people reclaimed their country. I will always remember the possibility of that moment.

The children always change you as a reporter: We visited a Pakistani women’s prison where the women were serving life sentences for small infractions. Their children were allowed to live with them until they turned 7 — then they were taken away forever. I remember that Mariam was in a refugee camp along the border of Mali where people sought refuge from al Qaeda terrorists. Her gaze stares out at me from the photo journal I kept of that reporting trip.

I think about the parade of mass shootings, such as a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, a nightclub in Orlando, and a school in Connecticut, when I think of Buffalo and Uvalde. As a reporter, I cannot believe we cover the same story again and again and nothing changes.

I started journalism because I left jobs when they weren’t the right fit. I thought I would end up in the CIA or as a lawyer. I contemplated going to business school.

I had to fill a lot of roles when I started working for a media startup within a bigger company.

I realized I loved asking questions. It was not work! My career became clear from there. I am grateful for my job at CNN, even though there were some bumps along the way to my dream job.

Russian forces should not be blamed on the Ukrainian military: a comment on Kirill Stremousov of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region

And that’s the worrying thing. The talk in Russia isn’t about ending a war but about correcting mistakes that forced a retreat and double down in Ukraine.

The question is when the military will start shifting blame to Putin himself, since he seems to have ill-prepared to change the leadership at the top. The last change was the appointment of Sergei Surovikin as the first person to be placed in overall command of all Russian forces on the Ukraine front — an army general formerly in charge of the brutal Russian bombardment of Aleppo in Syria.

“First of all, we need to stop lying,” said Andrei Kartopolov, a former colonel-general in the Russian military and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. “We brought this up many times before … It seems that it isn’t getting through to individual senior figures.

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Near the border with Ukranian Valuyki is in the Belgorod region. When it comes to striking Russian targets in the border, the Kyiv has adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance.

Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. In a recent four-minute rant on the messaging app Telegram, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing “gaps” on the battlefield that had allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances in the region, which is illegally claimed by Russia.

According to Stremousov, no need to cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of incompetent commanders who did not bother and were not accountable. Many say the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, could potentially shoot himself because he allowed this situation to happen. The word officer is new to many.

But after Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has been a lot less shy about naming names when it comes to blaming Russian commanders.

Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov personally blamed Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

The Russian information space has deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense that things are generally under control, according to a recent analysis.

The Great Patriotic War is a belief in Russia of which Putinism is a part. And those in Russia’s party of war often speak admiringly of the brutal tactics employed by the Red Army to fight Hitler’s Wehrmacht, including the use of punishment battalions – sending soldiers accused of desertion, cowardice or wavering against German positions as cannon fodder – and the use of summary execution to halt unauthorized retreats.

Kadyrov has been one of the most vocal advocates of reverting to the archaic methods of the past. He recently stated in a Telegram post that if he had his way he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.

The Russian military claimed its soldiers had used their cell phones to find their location, after the Ukrainians killed dozens of troops on New Year’s Day.

The barrage continued on a day when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights activists in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, an implicit rebuke to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, for his invasion of Ukraine.

Overnight nearly 40 Russian rockets hit Nikopol, on the Dnipro River, damaging at least 10 homes, several apartment blocks and other infrastructure, according to the head of the regional military administration, Valentyn Reznichenko. One man died and another was wounded by shelling on Friday evening, he said.

Monday, March 6: Ukraine’s most sensitive energy infrastructure will be targeted by a Russian drone, a source of frustration for citizens and business leaders

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. There is more opinion at CNN.

Recent days show that sites beyond the current theater of ground fighting are not immune from attacks. It remains unclear exactly how the Kerch bridge bombing was carried out – and Kyiv has not claimed responsibility – but the fact that a target so deep in Russian-held territory could be successfully hit hinted at a serious Ukrainian threat towards key Russian assets.

The strikes occurred as people headed to work and kids were leaving school. A friend in Kyiv texted me that she had just exited a bridge span 10 minutes before it was struck.

The area surrounding the Odesa office remained eerily quiet in the middle of air raid sirens, with reports of missiles and drones being shot down. Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be busy with customers and chatter about weddings and parties.

Monday’s attacks also came just a few hours after Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, mostly while people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

This week’s air strikes may point towards that endeavor; Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko told CNN that around 30% of energy infrastructure in Ukraine was hit by Russian missiles on Monday and Tuesday. The minister told CNN that this was the first time Russia had targeted an energy infrastructure during the war.

The people of Kharkiv have seen more bombardments than Kyiv, so they havestocked up on canned food, gas and drinking water. Yet they also entertained themselves at the Typsy Cherry, a local bar. The owner told The Times that the mood was cheerful. People had fun while wondering when the electricity will come back. (Power came back hours later.)

Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

With many asylum seekers returning home, the attacks might cause further damage to business confidence.

Russia is struggling on the ground and has failed to achieve supremacy in the air, but Monday’s attacks may have achieved one goal – sending a signal of strength towards the growing list of Putin’s internal critics.

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. It was in this year that the world’s longest sea crossing bridge was built between Macau and Hong Kong. There have been delays for the opening of the road bridge.

The Ukraine Explosion: Why Russia is so strongly concerned about the U.S., and what we can do to keep the Russian people safe

The response of the Ukrainians to the explosion was hilarious, with amusing meme’s on social media channels. People shared their joy through text messages.

The message was obvious for the world to see. Putin didn’t want to be humiliated. He will not admit defeat. He is prepared to cause mass casualty and indiscriminate terror in response to his battlefield reversals.

It was also an act of selfish desperation: facing increasing criticism at home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on unusually thin ice.

“Therefore, I call for the Red Cross mission with international media representatives to arrive in Ukraine no later than in three days, even if you do not receive confirmation from Russia by this time. Russia doesn’t care about the truth being known.

What is crucially important now is for Washington and other allies to use urgent telephone diplomacy to urge China and India – which presumably still have some leverage over Putin – to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.

Against a man who probes for weakness and tends to exploit divisions, the most important thing for the West right now is to show unity and resolve. Even if the rhetoric and sanctions are not having an effect on Putin, the Western governments need to realize that. They need to continue to give aid and training to Ukrainians even if it means sending military experts closer to the battlefield to speed up the integration of high technology weapons.

There is a need for high tech defense systems to protect energy infrastructure in the country. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.

The attack on Kiev on Monday night as a test of Putin’s strategy for changing his strategy on a losing battlefield to a campaign to destroy innocent civilians

It’s time for the West to put further restrictions on travel and trade with Russia but Turkey and the Gulf states can’t do it alone, so they need to be pressured.

The attacks snatched away the semblance of normality that city dwellers, who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters, have managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of new strikes.

But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.

The bombing of power installations seemed to be a sign of the misery the Russian President could cause in the winter, even as he retreats in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western arms.

The attacks on civilians, which killed 14 people, drove new attention to the situation in Ukraine, where billions of dollars of arms and kits were sent by the US and its allies.

The White House didn’t say what the advanced air systems would be sent for, but they did say Biden spoke to Zelensky and offered them.

The National Security Council spoke with the government in Ukraine almost everyday, and John Kirby said that the United States was looking favorably on their requests. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to pummel civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he suggested it was a trend developing in recent days and had already been in the works.

“It likely was something that they had been planning for quite some time. Kirby said that the explosion on the bridge may have sped up some of their planning.

The rain of fire against Ukrainian civilians on Monday was chilling, because it occurred after days of debate over whether Putin might use a tactical nuclear weapon. If he does not, it seems unlikely – given his obliviousness to civilian pain – that any such decision would be motivated by a desire to spare innocents from such a horrific weapon. Still, Kirby said that there was no indication that Russia was activating nuclear arms or that the US needed to change its own nuclear posture.

But French President Emmanuel Macron underscored Western concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the prelude to another pivot in the conflict.

Monday was the first day of a series of strikes that were proof that President Putin was angry after a series of setbacks in the war.

The lesson of the Ukraine war and what can Putin do to help build a better future: a delegation to the Olenivka prisoner of war camp

If we had modern equipment, we might be able to raise the number of drones and missiles that were downed and not kill innocent civilians or hurt Ukrainians.

If there is a long campaign by Putin against civilians, it would be aimed at breaking Ukrainian sense of self-confidence and possibly triggering a new wave of refugees into Western Europe, which might cause some NATO allies to lose faith in them.

The lesson of the war is that everything Putin has done has strengthened and united it, even though he doesn’t believe in a right to exist.

Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper live from her basement in Ukraine on Monday that she was angry at the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians from a new round of Russian “terror.”

She said this was just another terror that could be used to scare people in other countries or to show his people that he is still a bloody tyrant.

“We do not feel desperate … we are more sure even than before that Ukraine will win and we need it as fast as possible because … only after we win in this war and only after Russia is defeated, we will have our peace back here.”

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, along with empty store shelves and a long-range forecast of freezing temperatures there.

It was clear from the shift that domestic pressure had grown so high that it was necessary for President Vladimir V. Putin to show off a fierce show of force.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is asked to send a delegation to the Olenivka prisoner of war camp.

The Russian Story of the Ukrainian Attack and the Implications for the Continuum Security of the Cold War with Ukraine, as seen by CNN

The Russian Defense Ministry said the Ukrainian rocket attack was behind the strike. The Russian story of events was found to be a fabrication by CNN, based on analysis of video and photographs, satellite imagery and the work of forensic and weapons experts.

Russia’s Defense Ministry was ready to allow the Red Cross to visit the camp after the attack. There was no visit arranged despite the requests from the organization.

The conditions of Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia and in the temporarily occupied territory ofUkraine are extremely important.

The war has teetered on the verge of an unpredictable new phase before. Keir Giles, a senior consultant at Chatham House, said that this war is the third, fourth, or fifth different war they have been observing.

With the cold months approaching, and a potential slow down in ground combat, experts say that the next few weeks of the war are crucial, as each side tries to strike another blow.

It means that the stakes of the war have been raised once more. “There’s no doubt Russia would like to keep it up,” Giles said. But the Ukrainian successes of recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin, too. “They are able to do things that take us by surprise, so let’s get used to it,” Giles said.

Oleksii Hromov, a senior military official, said last week that the Ukrainians have regained over 120 settlements since the beginning of the year. On Wednesday,Ukraine stated it had liberated more settlements in Kherson.

Russia promised to help evacuate residents of Kherson to other areas on Thursday, as Ukraine continued to make gains in the region. The Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harms way in the latest sign that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

The counter-offensives pushed the war forward and disproved a suggestion made in the west that the country was not capable of seizing ground.

“The Russians are playing for the whistle – (hoping to) avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in,” Samir Puri, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the author of “Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine,” told CNN.

If they can get the Christmas frontline to look as it is, that will be a huge success for the Russians.

Ukrainian troops are focused primarily on pushing Russian forces eastwards, having crossed the Oskil River in late September, with Moscow likely preparing to defend the cities of Starobilsk and Svatove in the Luhansk region, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

If there is a major blow in the war in Donbas, there will be another powerful signal and the impact of higher energy prices will be felt in Europe.

“There are so many reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to get things done quickly,” Giles said. “The winter energy crisis in Europe, and energy infrastructure and power being destroyed in Ukraine itself, is always going to be a test of resilience for Ukraine and its Western backers.”

And there seems to be little suggestion that the West will be letting up on its support for Ukraine. The US and Europe are determined to seeUkraine through this winter and beyond, despite the fact that they recently committed to raising their funding by $2 billion.

The power supply to the central regions of Ukraine was disrupted due to Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday, but it has been restored by the national electricity company, Ukrenergo. The Prime Minister of the Ukranian asked Ukrainians to reduce their energy usage during peak hours because he warned of a lot of repair work to be done.

The experts believe that Russia is unlikely to form a recurrent pattern of bombardment, but they still don’t know how much Moscow has to keep it up.

Jeremy Fleming, the UK’s spy chief, said on Tuesday that Russian commanders knew that their supplies were running out.

That conclusion was also reached by the ISW, which said in its daily update on the conflict Monday that the strikes “wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.”

The US announced a new $1.8 billion aid package to Ukraine, which included the “first-ever transfer to Ukraine of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, capable of bringing down cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and aircraft at a significantly higher ceiling than previously provided air defense systems.”

The barrage of missiles will be an occasional feature which will be reserved for shows of extreme outrage as the Russians can’t keep up their high-tempo missile assault into the future.

Some help for Putin may be on the way, however. Fears of deepened military cooperation were raised by the announcement by Alexander Lukashenko that the two countries would be establishing a regional group of troops. Belarus has been complaining of alleged Ukrainian threats to its security in recent days, which observers say could be a prelude to some level of involvement.

Giles said the reopening of a northern front would be a new challenge for Ukraine. It would provide Russia a new route into the Kharkiv oblast (region), which has been recaptured by Ukraine, should Putin prioritize an effort to reclaim that territory, he said.

By flipping the narrative of the conflict over the past two months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has achieved one of his own key objectives: showing Ukraine’s Western allies that their military aid can help Kyiv win the war.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Ukraine needed “more” systems to better halt missile attacks, ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

“These air defense systems are making a difference because many of the incoming missiles [this week] were actually shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems provided by NATO Allies,” he said.

Ukraine “badly needed” modern systems such as the IRIS-T that arrived this week from Germany and the NASAMS expected from the United States “Bronk said that.”

The Crimes against the Ukrainian People: Crime, Torture and Missing Families in the Belgorod Regime under Russian Occupation

Two men opened fire on fellow Russian soldiers at a training camp in the Belgorod region, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being killed themselves.

Police officers who have returned to towns and villages to re-establish a Ukrainian administration have been overwhelmed by complaints of theft and property damage, but also accounts of detentions, torture and missing relatives.

The scale of abuse of the population in eastern Ukraine under Russian occupation is most likely greater than that seen in the spring in Bucha and other areas around the capital, Kyiv, given the breadth of the territory and the length of the occupation, police officials said.

Over the course of a year, police officers have taken more than a thousand people to temporary holding facilities across the region, said the police chief of Kharkiv Province. The real figure is probably two or three times that, he said.

People who witnessed the torture said it was routine. The police chief said that there were signs of abuse in some of the bodies. He said there were bodies that were tortured to death. There are people with wounds, with cut genitals, and with tied hands.

The US and others have provided various types of weaponry to the people of Ukraine but there are some issues that need addressing. One of the issues is the need for more weaponry, and another is how to close Russia’s superiority in weaponry.

A joint joint effort by the Biden administration and Ukraine are refusing to respond to a request for specific arms systems and bullets, according to CNN

Senior Biden administration officials have been fielding this request for months and have not rejected it outright, CNN has learned, a detail that has not been previously reported.

There is a long-term risk to anyone who comes across a cluster bomb because it can explode on impact, and even if it does, it won’t blow up. They also create “nasty, bloody fragmentation” to anyone hit by them because of the dozens of submunitions that detonate at once across a large area, Mark Hiznay, a weapons expert and the associate arms director for Human Rights Watch, previously told CNN.

The Biden administration has not taken the option off the table as a last resort, if stockpiles begin to run dangerously low. The proposal has not yet received much consideration because of the restrictions that Congress has put on the US in regards to the transfer of cluster munitions.

Those restrictions apply to munitions with a greater than one percent unexploded ordnance rate, which raises the prospect that they will pose a risk to civilians. President Joe Biden could override that restriction, but the administration has indicated to the Ukrainians that that is unlikely in the near term.

In a statement to Human Rights Watch, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Oleksandr Reznichenko, said Ukraine is adhering to international humanitarian law, but that Ukrainian authorities cannot comment on specific weapons “before the end of the war and restoration of our sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

When asked to comment on reports about requests for particular weapons systems or bullets, the Defense Ministry does not say anything until an agreement is reached with the supplier.

“They [DPICMs] are more effective when you have a concentration of Russian forces,” the Ukrainian official told CNN, noting that Ukraine has been asking for the weapons “for many months.”

Update on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: look ahead at Russian war-dec-12 in the ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has threatened to impose a ban on the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukranian if he isn’t stopped from raiding churches that have ties to Moscow.

The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the Norwegian Prime Minister will be hosted by the French President in Paris on Monday.

Also in France, on Tuesday, the country is set to co-host a conference with Ukraine in support of Ukrainians through the winter, with a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was freed Dec. 8 after nearly 10 months in Russian detention and following months of negotiations. She was freed in exchange for the surrender of a Russian arms dealer. She has come back to the U.S. and is together with her husband. Bout is believed to have joined an ultranationalist party.

The Russian oil revenue measures went into effect on December 5. They include a price cap and a European Union embargo on most Russian oil imports and a Russian oil price cap.

Zelenskyy said that the city of Bakhmut was turned into burned ruins by Russian forces. Russia is attempting to advance in the city that is located in the eastern Donbas region.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/12/1141827823/latest-on-ukraine-a-weekly-recap-and-look-ahead-at-russias-war-dec-12

State of Ukraine: A Cold War Between Russia and the West in the Context of Security and Security. A Report from the Dec. 11 Call from President Zelenskyy

The leaders of France and Turkey received a call from the President Zelenskyy on Dec. 11 in an apparent attempt to calm the situation over the Russian invasion.

Past recaps are available here. You can find more details about NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

That victim was 66-year-old Luba, when she and her husband were foraging for mushrooms. The explosion ripped apart her body, leaving her with a gash across her stomach. When paramedics arrived, they had no safe way to quickly reach her without potentially triggering another device. Luba died while going to the hospital.

Luba’s death and others like hers can feel tragic, but they are not. Russian soldiers have deliberately left behind booby traps, landmines, and unexploded ordnance while retreating in Ukraine, not to protect themselves, but to spitefully take away the freedom of civilians. Mines are effective at blocking or redirecting enemy troops only when they are monitored by those who set them, explains Mark Hiznay, associate director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch. If an enemy triggers a mine without being subjected to arms or artillery fire, they can retreat, reassess, and perhaps even clear the minefield. Leaving devices behind does not have any strategic value. This is to impose punishment on the population.

History tells us that Ukrainians will return to these places before they are safe. “People have an attachment to where they come from,” says Ruth Bottomley, a consultant and researcher with 20 years’ experience working in areas contaminated by mines, particularly Cambodia. She says that even if there is still threat, people want to return to what they are used to.

Moscow said the war in Ukrainian was set for a long confrontation with Russia following President Zelensky’s visit to Washington.

Russia’s foreign ministry condemned what it called the “monstrous crimes” of the “regime in Kyiv,” after US President Joe Biden promised more military support to Ukraine during Zelensky’s summit at the White House on Wednesday.

Maria Zakharova said that no matter how much military support the West provides to the Ukrainian government, they will not achieve anything.

The tasks set in the framework of the military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on ground and the actual realities, according to Zakharova.

Her comments came after Zelensky delivered a historic speech from the US Capitol, expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began – and asking for more.

Kyiv has repeatedly asked for the US Army’s Patriot – an acronym for Phased Array Tracking Radar for intercept on Target – system, as it is considered one of the most capable long-range air defense systems on the market.

Investigating the massacre along Yablunska Street in Bucha, Sri Lanka, during the March 22 shooting by paratroopers from 234th Air Assault Regime

Peskov said that there was no calls for peace. Zelensky stressed the importance of peace during his address to the US Congress.

Peskov told journalists, however, that Wednesday’s meeting showed the US is waging a proxy war of “indirect fighting” against Russia down “to the last Ukrainian.”

This investigation was reported and produced by Yousur Al-Hlou , Masha Froliak , Dmitriy Khavin , Christoph Koettl , Haley Willis , Alexander Cardia , Natalie Reneau and Malachy Browne .

But an eight-month visual investigation by The New York Times concluded that the perpetrators of the massacre along Yablunska Street were Russian paratroopers from the 234th Air Assault Regiment led by Lt. Col. Artyom Gorodilov.

The evidence shows that the killings were part of a deliberate and systematic effort to ruthlessly secure a route to the capital, Kyiv. Soldiers interrogated and executed unarmed men of fighting age, and killed people who unwittingly crossed their paths — whether it was children fleeing with their families, locals hoping to find groceries or people simply trying to get back home on their bicycles.

Traditionally, journalists and investigators would rely on a single photograph or video to expose atrocities. In 1992, Time magazine published a photo of an emaciated prisoner in Bosnia on its cover. Almost 20 years later, a video captured the execution of captured Tamil Tiger fighters in the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

The scale and detail that link a unit to specific killings are what distinguishes the evidence in Bucha. The International Criminal Court is looking into possible war crimes in Ukranian.

The Times identified — for the first time — three dozen people who were killed along Yablunska Street in March. We reviewed death certificates for most of these victims, and the predominant cause of death was gunshot wounds.

The victims were residents of Bucha or neighboring towns, from all ages and professions. Among the victims killed by Russian paratroopers were 52-year-old Tamila Mishchenko and her 14-year-old daughter, Anna, on March 5. They were among four women who were fleeing when their blue minivan was fired on.

The new colonel was given a promotion in April from the then-head of the airborne forces. The ceremony was held after the shocking images came to light.

The impact of Ukraine’s massive missile barrage on Kyiv civilians in the wake of the February 24 Russian-Russian air raids

Reporting was made up of Evan Hill, Ishaan Jhaveri and Julian Barnes. Translations and research by Aleksandra Koroleva , Oksana Nesterenko and Milana Mazaeva .

Explosions rattled villages and cities across Ukraine on Thursday, damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least three people in what Kyiv has called one of Moscow’s biggest missile barrages since the war began in February.

Anna Kovalchuk, another Kyiv resident, said she was determined not to let the Russians ruin her upcoming celebrations. I am worried that the holiday will have to be spent in the dark because of the lack of electricity on New Years Eve. But I began to prepare myself for such a scenario in advance, stocked up on garlands, power banks, so the blackout would upset us, but not stop us,” she told CNN.

When Anastasiia Hryn, a 34-year-old Kyiv resident, woke up to the sound of air raid sirens followed by an explosion, she and her son descended to the basement shelter beneath their building. But they were not particularly surprised, nor did they let it dampen their spirits.

After the sirens went off, Hryn was able to meet his neighbors in the elevator and found out their child was going to go to the cinema on time. Parents took their children to school and people went to work, while others continued with holiday plans in defiance.

The Russian foreign minister said on Thursday that Moscow will not negotiate with Ukrainian officials on the basis of a peace plan which includes Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory.

In recent days, Putin said he wanted to end the war, but Russia was open to diplomacy. The claim of Putin that he is open to negotiating was dismissed as a ruse by the West.

Observation of the Kramatorsk attack on the Ukrainian city Makiivka during the last Russian missile attack on Odesa

There was an emergency power shortage in Odesa because of the missile attacks. “They are introduced due to the threat of missile attacks to avoid significant damage if the enemy manages to hit energy facilities,” DTEK, a utility company, said in a statement.

At least three people, including a 14-year-old, were injured and two people pulled from a damaged home on Thursday, Klitschko said earlier. Homes, an industrial facility and a playground in the capital were damaged in attacks on Kyiv, according to the city military administration.

“Senseless barbarism.” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said those were the only words that came to mind watching Moscow launch a fresh wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities ahead of the New Year, adding there could be “no neutrality” in the face of such aggression.

Russia claimed that hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in a missile strike in Kramatorsk as a result of the Ukrainian attack on Makiivka.

63 Russian servicemen were killed in the attack, which was acknowledged by the Russian defense ministry, making it one of the deadliest episodes of the war for Moscow.

Russian senator Grigory Karasin said that those responsible for the killing of Russian servicemen in Makiivka must be found, Russian state news agency TASS reported Monday.

“Greetings and congratulations” to the separatists and conscripts who “were brought to the occupied Makiivka and crammed into the building of vocational school,” the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Chief Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram. There were around 400 corpses of Russian soldiers packed in bags.

Daniil Bezsonov, a former official in the Russia-backed Donetsk administration, said on Telegram that “apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon.”

I hope that they will be reprimanded for their actions, Bezsonov said. “There are enough abandoned facilities in Donbas with sturdy buildings and basements where personnel can be quartered.”

The building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of themunitions stores, according to a Russian propagandist who writes on Telegram.

“Nearly all the military equipment, which stood close to the building without the slightest sign of camouflage, was also destroyed,” Girkin said. There is no final figure on how many people have died and are still missing.

The generals who he accuses of directing the war effort far from the frontline are long been decried by him. Girkin was previously minister of defense of the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, and was found guilty by a Dutch court of mass murder for his involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The attack on Bakhmut: a red line in the sand: diplomacy, strategy and the history of wars that might still happen

If the precautions had been taken, the unnecessary losses might not have happened.

Russian forces “lost 760 people killed just yesterday, (and) continue to attempt offensive actions on Bakhmut,” the military’s general staff said Sunday.

Video of the attack is being shared widely on Telegram and a Ukrainian military channel. It shows a pile of smoking rubble, in which almost no part of the building appears to be standing.

The author of “A red line in the sand: diplomacy, strategy and the history of wars that might still happen” is also a contributor to CNN. He was once a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

What happened in Ukraine? Security Communications in the Military and Military, and Implications to Russian Forces and the Orthodox Christmas Break-Oregunning

If the Russian account is accurate, it was the cell phones that the novice troops were using in violation of regulations that allowed Ukrainian forces to target them most accurately. Ukraine, however, has not indicated how the attack was executed. But the implications are broader and deeper, especially for how Russia is conducting its war now.

The Orthodox Christmas holiday was the reason given by President Putin for a temporary ceasefire after the deadly attack on Russian servicemen. The move was viewed as a cynical attempt to try and get some breathing space for Russian forces who are having a bad start to the year.

Russian officials said that four Ukrainian-launched HIMARS rockets hit the vocational school where its forces were housed, apparently adjacent to a large arms depot. (Another two HIMARS rockets were shot down by Russian air defenses).

The satellite-guided HIMARS — short for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — currently have a range of 80 kilometers. A longer-range 300-kilometer HIMARS has not yet been authorized, despite repeated Ukrainian pleas. (The Biden administration has worried that the longer-range system could expand the war beyond Ukraine’s frontiers and lead to an escalation of hostilities.)

Chris has told me that the Russian failure to break up or relocate large arms depots is largely due to their inability to communicate adequately.

Other experts have a similar view. James Lewis told me in an email exchange that bad security communications is standard practice in the Russian Army.

Compounding the problem, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said after the recent Makiivka strikes that “the Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate.”

The troops killed in the conflict seem to be recent conscripts, part of a larger picture of Russians being shipped to the frontlines with little training and poor equipment.

Indeed, a number of the most recent arrivals to the war are inmates from Russian prisons, freed and transferred immediately to the Ukrainian front. It’s impossible to imagine how appealing cell phones would be to inmates who are used to years of isolation and little or no outside contact.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and was personally awarded the Order of Courage by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin two weeks ago, attacked the Ministry of Defense for its “blatant attempt to smear blame” in suggesting it was the troops’ own use of cell phones that led to the precision of the attack.

He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance or a local informant.

The defense ministry had a change in leadership last month when Gen. Bulgakov decided to leave the ministry and be replaced by Col. Gen. Minyotsev. It was likely that the location of the arms depot was on Mizintsev’s watch.

Sergei Shoigu gave his forces a celebratory video on the weekend before the Makiivka attack, telling them that it was inevitable.

How long Putin can insulate himself and prevent the blame from turning on himself is the key question in the wake of Makiivka. There is no indication that Ukrainian forces have any intention of lessening the pressure on Russian forces in the east or south of their country as the war enters a new calendar year.

Bradley armored fighting vehicles were being considered for deployment to Ukraine by the Biden administration. Light tanks would be sent by the French, though Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was pushing for heavier battle tanks. Chancellor Scholz is under increased pressure to add Leopard 2 tanks to the mix.

Investigating the Crimes in Kramtorsk, Russia: Human Rights Watch Observations of Land Mine Explosions in the Yugoslav Region

A CNN team on the ground has seen no indication of any massive casualties in the area. There is no unusual activity in and around Kramatorsk, including in the vicinity of the city morgue, the team reported.

The Russian strike on two college dormitories that Russia claimed had been housing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers did not occur, as reported by a reporter from Kramtorsk.

A rare public blame game broke out between the Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders and military experts in the aftermath of the strike, after Moscow appeared to blame its own soldiers’ use of cell phones.

An influential military blogger dismissed the account and the leader of the self-administered DPR in eastern Ukraine pointed to the differences in the Russian command over its response to the attack.

There have been a number of cases where land mines have been fired by Ukrainian forces into territory that was controlled by Russia.

Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with witnesses after the city of Izium was liberated from Russian control. Researchers documented 11 cases of civilians injured by petal mines over the course of five months, including one man who eventually died.

Petal mines are often green or brown and blend in with the earth. They’re small, and can be launched from a distance. They are able to explode at any time. They are also made of the same material as the hollow plastic playground toys that are ubiquitous in North America.

UN Human Rights Watch identifies two camps that train children, sent to jail, and deported in Ukraine during a brutal conflict with the United Nations

The report states that Ukrainian medical workers had to amputate limbs from almost as many as 50 people, including five children, because of mine injuries. NPR was also unable to reach the Emergency Services working in Izium.

Tuesday’s report says that Ukraine has destroyed 3.4 million antipersonnel mines it once had in its arsenal, but, in documents submitted to the United Nations, the country said it still has 3.3 million stockpiled.

Zhdanov says that under the circumstances of this brutal war, Ukrainian troops are adhering to international law.

Human Rights Watch says its evidence of Ukrainian mining activity in Izium, however, is more unequivocal than past allegations of Ukrainian war crimes. The group wants the Ukrainian military to conduct an internal investigation on their adherence to international obligations.

“The fact that these are transfers and deportations of children is unconscionable by any standard,” the note said. “Russia must immediately halt forced transfers and deportations and return the children to their families or legal guardians. Russia needs to grant access for independent observers to its occupied areas of Ukranian and inside Russia itself, as well as provide registration lists of relocated and deported children.

The report contains disturbing new details about the extent of Moscow’s efforts to relocate, re-educate, and sometimes militarily train or forcibly adopt out Ukrainian children – actions that constitute war crimes and could provide evidence that Russia’s actions amount to genocide, it said.

It identified 43 facilities that are a part of the network, which “stretches from one end of Russia to the other,” including Russian-occupied Crimea, the “eastern Pacific Coast – closer to Alaska than it is to Moscow,” and Siberia, Raymond said.

According to Raymond, a camp in Chechnya and a camp in Crimea “appear to be specifically involved in training children in the use of firearms and military vehicles,” but the researchers have not seen evidence at this point that the children trained in these military camps are being sent into conflict.

Children have been held at these camps for months, it’s not known if they have been returned to their families. This report has identified two camps where children’s scheduled return date has been delayed by weeks. The returns of children at two other camps have been put off indefinitely.

It is critical that we understand how important it is for these children to have regular contact with their parents, since the lack of contact causes a lot of harm on a daily basis.

The report said it “identified several dozen federal, regional, and local figures directly engaged in operating and politically justifying the program,” and “at least 12 of these individuals are not on U.S. and/or international sanction lists.”

The Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention prohibit transfers of children between groups, but Raymond said that the system was consistent with that prohibition.

The US State Department stated that the transfer or deportation of protected persons is a war crime and a grave violation of the Fourth Convention on the Protection of Civilians.

He stated that crimes against humanity determinations are reserved for the most egregious crimes. “Today’s determination underlines staggering extent of the human suffering inflicted by Moscow on the Ukrainian civilian population. The deep commitment of the United States to holding Russia’s personnel accountable for their actions against the people of Ukraine is reflected in this determination.

We examined the evidence in regards to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. We know the legal standards and there is no doubt these are crimes against humanity,” she said at the annual Munich Security Conference in Germany.

The Secretary of State released a statement on Saturday saying that the U.S. will work to hold those responsible to account. The person is at the meeting.

The U.S. and China are in the midst of tension and this weekend there will be talks between the two countries. This will be the highest level of contact between the U.S. and China since the security balloon incident.

The relationship between China and the U.S. has been fraught since the Feb. 4 shootdown of what the Biden administration maintains was a Chinese surveillance balloon that made its way across the continental U.S.

Beijing insists that the balloon was a civilian craft and that it was a violation of international practice to shoot it down.

The hospital Ukraine attack against its health system in 2022: a human rights neophobic and indiscriminate attack on civilians

According to the report co-author and director of Insecurity Insight, Christina Wille, violence against health care in conflict zones is a global phenomenon, but the assault on Ukraine’s health system in 2022 stands out for its scale and indiscriminate violence against civilians.

Alla Barsehian told CNN last week that a number of women were in the labor ward at the time while several patients were undergoing surgery.

Health care workers went to work the next day after all patients were evacuated. They were able to clean up the debris on their own in the rain because of their friends and family. One and a half days later – with plastic wrap for windows and no doors – the facility reopened.

“We are the lifeblood of this district,” Barsehian said. She told CNN when she returned to the destroyed buildings the next day, patients approached her and asked when the next appointment for their doctor was available, she realized they had no choice but to carry on. We had no time to deliberate and had to perform our jobs quickly because people needed us.

“These findings should be a wake-up call for the global community to act now to end impunity for wanton violence against health workers, in Ukraine and around the world,” Christian De Vos, report co-author and research director at Physicians for Human Rights, a US-based human rights NGO, told CNN.

At the time of war, nearly 200 medical workers were either murdered, injured or kidnapped because they were protected under international human rights laws.

A small to medium sized community is feeling the effects of attacks on their health care facilities and workers. Like Bashtanka, they are normally served by just one hospital or clinic, Kovtoniuk said, adding that disruptions result in people dropping their medication for chronic conditions, stopping health checkups or suffering from mental health issues alone, the consequences of which will only be seen in years to come.

Wille told CNN that the method of warfare which was shown in the data was incompatible with international humanitarian law and needs to be addressed.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/europe/report-hospital-ukraine-attacks-russia-invasion-intl-dg/index.html

Towards the resolution of the crisis in Mariupol, Ukraine: Report on the UHC, MIHR, PHR, Insecurity Insight and EyeWitness

More than one in three Ukrainians do not have access to medical services in the eastern and southern regions, according to a survey conducted by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.

According to experts, civilians can’t get medical care in areas with active combat. A Ukrainian healthcare center think tank has found that most of Mariupol’s health care facilities are destroyed, leaving the city’s old and vulnerable population without a place to go. By June last year, at least 320,000 Mariupol citizens have either fled, been forcibly relocated or died, according to Mariupol’s City Council.

A group of Ukrainian and international investigators gathered social media reports and looked at satellite imagery to verify if the events took place in locations that were hard to reach due to combat.

The Geneva Conventions qualify indiscriminate bombing in populated areas, failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and intentionally directing attacks against distinctively marked medical units, transport, and personnel as war crimes. The UN considers targeting of civilians a crime against humanity.

The coalition of investigators from the UHC, MIHR, PHR, Insecurity Insight and eyeWitness is urging the international legal community to investigate the evidence it gathered.

Richard Goldstone, former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa who was instrumental in helping end apartheid in South Africa, said he found the report to be damning. He said that he thought it would help in bringing the criminals who committed the atrocities to justice.

Evidence from the Tuesday report is likely to be presented at a non-binding tribunal this week in The Hague, Stephen Rapp told CNN. Rapp, a former US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, is one of three judges hearing evidence on aggression in Ukraine. An arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin is being considered by a tribunal according to Rapp. We hope our proceedings will prompt the UN to authorize the Secretary General to enter into an agreement with Ukraine to establish a tribunal with legal jurisdiction over aggression in Ukraine, said Rapp.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/europe/report-hospital-ukraine-attacks-russia-invasion-intl-dg/index.html

The hospital project in Bashtanka is not going to be saved, or is it going to die? Comment on Barsehian

Barsehian said that donors and volunteers from all over the country helped rebuild the hospital in Bashtanka. The attacks have only made them more determined, so they are not scaring the workers away.