https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/st...73415213973504
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More on the Latvia incident of yesterday, about those protesters that were detained, they are being offered Russian visas
https://twitter.com/LucyGatsby/statu...48820163661824
https://www.rt.com/russia/561434-sho...ffensive-pace/
Slow pace of Ukraine operation meant to protect civilians – Moscow
The Russian military campaign in Ukraine is progressing as intended, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said. The relatively slow pace is the result of a conscious decision to protect civilian lives, he stated.
Speaking at an international event on Wednesday, the minister stated that Russia “strictly follows the norms of humanitarian law” in Ukraine, countering claims to the contrary made by Kiev.
“We do everything to avoid casualties among peaceful citizens. Certainly, it slows down the pace of the offensive, but we take this approach consciously,” he added.
Shoigu contrasted Russia’s priorities in Ukraine with those of the US and its allies. The ongoing supplying of weapons to Kiev and other Western policies only prolong the conflict and inflate the human cost, he said.
READ MORE: Ukraine unplugs from Russian power grid
Western nations have accused Russia of launching an unprovoked war of aggression against the neighboring country, and have said their military assistance will continue for “as long as it takes.” Moscow, which believes the operation was necessary to stop NATO’s creeping expansion into Ukraine, says its opponents want to “fight to the last Ukrainian” in order to hurt Russia.
The senior Russian military official was speaking during a ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional Eurasian security group that counts nations such as China, India, and Pakistan among its members.
https://www.rt.com/russia/561441-zap...assassination/
Zaporozhye official killed in car bombing
The top official in the military-civilian administration of Russian-held Mikhailovka, Ivan Sushko, was killed after his car was blown up by Ukrainian saboteurs, Zaporozhye Region Council member Vladimir Rogov announced on Wednesday.
“An explosive device was planted under the seat of the car of the head of the settlement. As a result of the explosion, Ivan Sushko was wounded and taken to the hospital in critical condition, where he soon died,” Rogov said on Telegram.
Just one day earlier, officials in Kherson Region also reported a blast that was targeted at one of the members of the local administration, according to regional head Kirill Stremousov.
READ MORE: ‘No mercy’ for killers of Russian journalist – Lavrov
He said the perpetrators also used an improvised explosive device and their intended target was Igor Telegin, the deputy head of the department of internal policy of the administration of Kherson Region, which is currently controlled by Russian forces. Stremousov stated that Telegin was not injured as a result of the explosion, which he blamed on local saboteurs.
I didn’t realize the significance of this when I caught it reported on RT but it is,
https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/stat...12808419131392
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2...-russia-voices
The Ukrainian website shaming pro-Russia voices
Being blacklisted on Peacemaker can have serious consequences, including the risk of being killed.
Kyiv, Ukraine – Earlier this month, a flock of birds damaged the engines of a Russian passenger jet that took off from a Moscow airport.
More than 200 passengers on board survived a crash landing in a cornfield, and Russian media extolled the pilots as national heroes.
But within hours, Myrotvorets (or Peacemaker), a Ukrainian website with close ties to law enforcement agencies and hackers, “blacklisted” them in their online database of more than 130,000 names – because the plane was bound for Russia-annexed Crimea.
For the pilots, the “blacklisting” means that Ukrainian border guards, who routinely use the database for background checks, will probably not let them in Ukraine.
However, for some others, being put on the list has had more sinister consequences.
Two pro-Russian figures – publicist Oles Buzina and legislator Oleh Kalashnikov – were shot dead in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in April 2015 just days after Peacemaker published their personal information, including home addresses.
A nationalist group claimed responsibility for both murders, prompting Russian media to lash out at Ukraine’s “fascist junta”. Russian President Vladimir Putin purported that the West “prefers not to notice” such killings.
Peacemaker’s founder Anton Gerashchenko does not understand the fuss.
The interior ministry official and former legislator, who has some 300,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, insists the killings had nothing to do with his publication.
“We are not a punitive body, we are an inquiry office,” Gerashchenko, 39, told Al Jazeera, speaking at a restaurant near Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament.
Thousands of suspected pro-Russian separatists fighting in southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are arrested and interrogated annually based on Peacemaker’s blacklist, he said.
This practice, which still persists in Ukraine, puts journalists at risk and must be stopped, their names taken off the list.
Gulnoza Said, coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists
Peacemaker’s publications have been used as evidence in more than 100 court cases that involved terrorism and pro-Russian paramilitary groups, according to the Uspishna Varta rights group.
Peacemaker is run by dozens of volunteers who maintain their anonymity, even among themselves, and scrupulously sift through email tips, social networking pages, geo-tagged photos, videos and media reports, Gerashchenko said.
In 2015, they created a fake website for pro-Russian separatists. Thousands registered, and soon enough their inboxes were hacked and their personal data was published.
“Militants joke that they have their own social network – Peacemaker,” said Gerashchenko.
Peacemaker has also identified dozens of Russian servicemen and intelligence officers who fought for or “consulted” the separatists, disproving Kremlin’s claims of not being involved in what it calls Ukraine’s “civil conflict”.
In May 2015, Peacemaker released its most notorious leak – the names, emails and phone numbers of more than 4,000 international journalists accredited by separatist authorities.
The accreditations were essential to avoid detention, harassment and robbery by undisciplined separatists, but Peacemaker called the journalists “accomplices to terrorists”.
Some of the reporters received threats, raising concern among Western governments and human rights groups.
Anton Gerashchenko, Peacemaker founder, speaks during a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine on Monday, January 23, 2017 [File: Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press]
“Peacemaker’s creators showed that violation of privacy and confidentiality of personal data, arbitrary public accusations, often of large groups of people, including journalists, of certain transgressions or crimes against the state, readiness to expose them to risks are not just tolerated by the state, but also supported by some government figures,” Maksym Butkevych, coordinator of the No Borders Project rights group in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko called the leak a “big mistake”.
Peacemaker announced its shutdown but reopened within days – with an expanded list of journalists.
“We wrote a letter to President Poroshenko on this specific matter, but have never received a response,” Gulnoza Said of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US-based group, told Al Jazeera. “This practice, which still persists in Ukraine, puts journalists at risk and must be stopped, their names taken off the list.”
In 2015, Moscow launched an investigation into Gerashenko’s “calls for terrorism”, and Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s leader whose enemies have been killed in Russia, Austria and Dubai, promised a “painful response” to Peacemaker’s publications.
Famous characters added to ‘pro-Russian’ blacklist
In January 2017, the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, announced the arrest of two men allegedly hired by Russian intelligence to blow up Gerashchenko’s car. Their trial is still under way.
But Peacemaker kept working.
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who once called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “flawless democrat” and now works for Russia’s largest state-run oil company, was added to the database in August 2018.
Schroeder reportedly said that Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea was “a reality that must one day be recognised”, and Peacemaker accused him of attempting to “justify” the annexation.
Berlin objected to Schroeder’s blacklisting, urging Ukraine to take the website offline, while his wife reportedly said that she feared an attack on her husband.
In August 2018, Peacemaker declared Roger Waters of the Pink Floyd fame a “threat to national security” after the 76-year-old rocker claimed that Russia has more rights to Crimea than Ukraine.
It has also blacklisted former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, several French legislators, former boxing champion Roy Jones Jr and countless Russian pop and film stars for visiting Crimea from Russia – something Ukraine considers illegal border crossing.
Peacemaker has accused British singer-songwriter Roger Waters of being pro-Russian given his stance on Crimea [Silvia Izquierdo/The Associated Press]
For some Ukrainians, being blacklisted is a badge of honour.
In December 2018, Father Hennady Shkil, a priest with a Russia-affiliated Orthodox parish in the southern town of Hola Prystan, was listed as an “opponent” of Ukraine’s religious independence.
“I am proud to be on that list,” Shkil told Al Jazeera.
But some of Peacemaker’s victims are hardly part of a pro-Putin crowd.
Last August, Peacemaker accused Svetlana Alexievich, a Nobel Prize-winning Belarussian writer and Kremlin critic, of “inciting inter-ethnic division” after she mentioned the ethnic Ukrainians who helped German Nazis kill Jews during World War II.
After threats from far-right groups, Alexievich cancelled her speech in the southern city of Odessa.
IT expert Andriy Munchuk was blacklisted in October as one of 500 public servants who happened to be ethnic Hungarians and received Hungarian passports.
Ukraine forbids double citizenship, and Peacemaker branded them “separatists” and “traitors”.
Minchuk said since then, border guards stop and search him every time he crosses the Ukraine-Hungary border in his home region of Transcarpathia.
“They just say I was marked in their database and they have to check me,” he told Al Jazeera.
Gerashchenko said that Munchuk could protest the blacklisting in an email.
He said Peacemaker was inspired by Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish Nazi hunter whose followers are still on the lookout for surviving Holocaust perpetrators.
“We have enough work for decades to come,” he said, huddling over his iPad that displayed search results in the website’s database.
A nuclear showdown? One of the greatest 'realist' fears about the Russia-Ukraine conflict is actually groundless, and here's why
The US will not intervene directly, because it’s not an existential crisis for Washington – it stands to lose little from Kiev’s inevitable defeat
Fears that the Ukraine conflict is now bogged down into some sort of stalemate which risks dangerous escalation from the parties involved in order to achieve victory are misplaced. There is only one victor in the Ukraine conflict, and that is Russia. Nothing can change this reality.
Renowned American intellectual John Mearsheimer has written an important article about the conflict, entitled: ‘Playing with Fire in Ukraine: The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation’. The article paints a dark picture about both the nature of the war in Ukraine (prolonged stalemate) and probable outcome (decisive escalation by the parties involved to stave off defeat).
Mearsheimer’s underpinning premises, however, are fundamentally flawed. Russia possesses the strategic initiative – militarily, politically, and economically – when it comes to the war in Ukraine and the larger proxy engagement with NATO. Moreover, neither the US nor NATO is in a position to escalate, decisively or otherwise, to thwart a Russian victory, and Russia has no need for any similar escalation on its part.
In short, the Ukraine conflict is over, and Russia has won. All that remains is a long and bloody mopping up.
The fact is, while US government officials may make bold statements about the need to inflict harm, via proxy, on the Russian military through the provision of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine, it is the US which has had defeat inflicted on it in terms of the ongoing losses of its Ukrainian proxy military and the destruction of the equipment provided in support. The US, like its NATO allies, has proven to be very good at making bold pronouncements about goals and intent, but very bad at putting them into practice.
There is no ‘military option’ in Ukraine for either the US or NATO because, simply put, there is no military capable of meaningfully executing such an option.
In short, Russia is winning on the ground in Ukraine, and there is nothing either the US or NATO can do to alter this outcome. And once Russia secures this victory, it will be in a far stronger position to insist that its concerns about a viable European security framework be respected and implemented.
At the end of the day, the Ukraine conflict is not an existential one for either the US or NATO; a loss in Ukraine will be another setback – Afghanistan on steroids. But a Ukrainian defeat does not, in and of itself, threaten NATO with collapse or spell the end of the American Republic.
Mearsheimer concludes his article by noting that “This perilous situation creates a powerful incentive to find a diplomatic solution to the war.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just as the US would be loath to seek a “diplomatic solution” to the conflicts waged against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Russia would be similarly disinclined to engage in any diplomacy which denied it the full implementation of its core objectives
Back in March, in response to a tweet from Joe Biden which declared “Let there be no doubt that this war has already been a strategic failure for Russia,” I responded by tweeting, “This war will go down in history as a strategic Russian victory. Russia will have halted NATO expansion, destroyed a dangerous den of Nazi ideology in Ukraine, redefined European security by undermining NATO, and demonstrated Russian military prowess, an important deterrent.”
Those words were accurate then, and they remain accurate today.
https://www.rt.com/russia/561376-ukr...a-conflict-us/
Ukrainian spies detained at nuclear plant – Russia
Two workers at the Zaporozhye facility have been providing information to Kiev, the Russian National Guard has claimed
Russian forces have detained two employees of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, who have been providing information on troops and hardware locations to Kiev’s forces, the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya) said on Wednesday.
“Apart from that, a violator of access control [to the plant], an accomplice of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who transmitted the coordinates of the movement of columns of Russian military hardware, has been detained,” they added.
After seizing control of the power station on March 4, Russian forces have detained 26 violators of access control to the plant – the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the National Guard revealed. The facility continues to operate with local staff, while Russian troops patrol the premises and check for explosive devices and unexploded munitions, the National Guard said.
They noted that “Specialists of the nuclear, biological and chemical defense of the National Guard, together with colleagues from the Ministry of Defense, daily, several times a day, monitor the situation by measuring radiation levels at control points along the perimeter of the facility.”
In recent weeks, the nuclear power plant and the nearby city of Energodar have been repeatedly shelled by Kiev’s forces. The attacks damaged multiple buildings on the premises of the plant, causing fires and power outages, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Moscow has warned that the continuing attacks could ultimately render the power plant inoperable and might even result in a major disaster similar to the one in Chernobyl in 1986. Kiev and some Western officials, however, have accused Russia of shelling the plant, despite the fact that it is controlled by Russia’s own troops.
https://www.rt.com/russia/561487-nuc...r-plant-spies/
https://www.rt.com/russia/561455-us-...ukraine-delay/
‘Months or years’ before US arms reach Ukraine – media
Years could pass before some of the weapons in the upcoming “largest ever” package of US military assistance to Kiev actually reach Ukraine, according to Western media reports.
On Tuesday, a number of mainstream media outlets cited anonymous US officials as describing the impending announcement of a $3 billion package of military aid to Ukraine. If confirmed, it would be the largest of its kind so far. Washington is by far the biggest supplier of military hardware to Ukraine as it fights against Russia.
However, some of the promised equipment “will not be in the hands of Ukrainian fighters for months or years,” according to NBC News, one of the outlets that reported the upcoming package. Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase, it explained.
The same caveat was cited by the Associated Press, which said that it may take “a year or two” for the arms to reach the battlefield, according to its sources. Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come,” US officials told the AP.
READ MORE: US to fund more arms for Ukraine – media
The AeroVironment Switchblade 600 drone is an example of a weapon system that was promised to Ukraine months ago but has yet to be delivered. Defense News said this week that the Pentagon plans to sign the contract necessary for sending 10 of the so-called “kamikaze drones” within a month.
Last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov called on foreign suppliers of arms to use his country as a testing ground for new weapons. He pledged to provide detailed reports about the experiences of Ukrainian soldiers with the prototypes provided to them.
Quote:
Posted by pounamuknight
A functioning human being should physically recoil at the entire premise of such a dodgy manipulative questionQuote:
Posted by JohnnycomelatelyRavenlocke, I don’t agree with you (the tears). She answered properly. The clip had no mention of a first-strike, and MAD only works if the other side believes you will participate.Quote:
Posted by Ravenlocke
But her emotionless answer... "Yes, I'll press the armageddon button." Truly frightening!
The fact UK's ridiculous mainstream media & pathetic oligarchs are publicly & proudly peddling nuclear war is a sad testament of where the empire's demonic hive brain is
We have to push back against these nutjobs before they drag us all down with them, imo
Some truly believe that women are "much better" in politics ... really? ...:
https://cdn.presstv.ir/Photo/2022/8/...3361129e83.jpg
- Uk’s Potential Next Pm Says ‘Ready’ To Use Atomic Weapons If Necessary!
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss – the frontrunner in the race to become the UK’s next prime minister – has chillingly declared she would be ready to use nuclear weapons even if it meant global annihilation.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is likely to rise to UK's premiership next month, has flatly declared her willingness to use nuclear weapons as needed, even if it meant global annihilation.
"I think it's an important duty of the prime minister and I'm ready to do that," Truss said during a meeting of Conservative Party members in Birmingham on Tuesday when asked how she felt about pressing "the button" and unleashing "global annihilation" if necessary.
She did not even mention the possibility of first seeking a diplomatic solution to avert a nuclear confrontation.
The top British diplomat – who appears likely to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson on September 5 – seemed emotionless as she firmly stated she would order the launch of nuclear weapons in response to the event's host, John Pienaar, who said that he would feel "physically sick" at the prospect, according to local reports.
During the hustings event comprising of Tory party faithfuls at the NEC in Birmingham, Pienaar quizzed Truss about the potential outlook, telling her, "One of the first things that will happen when and if you become prime minister, you'll be ushered into a room, a very private room at Number 10, and there will be laid out in front of you what are called the letters of last resort."
"Your orders to our Trident boat captain on whether you, Prime Minister Liz Truss, is giving the order to unleash nuclear weapons. It would mean global annihilation. I won't ask you if you would press the button, you'll say yes, but faced with that task, I would feel physically sick," Pienaar said.
He then asked, "How does that thought make you feel?"
Truss and former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak are the two final candidates in the election race in the Conservative Party for the post of prime minister, which came after Johnson announced his resignation on July 7 after facing numerous political scandals.
- Truss responded by saying: "I think it's an important duty of the prime minister and I'm ready to do that," repeating, "I'm ready to do that." :facepalm:
This is going to be a big thing, however it's spun.
(Maybe the article title should read Mariupol, Donbass...)
International Military Tribunals to be Held in Mariupol, Ukraine
International military tribunals are going to be held in the coming days in Mariupol, Ukraine.
The Russian Embassy in the US put out a statement at 10:47pm this evening [that's 24 August, yesterday], pertaining to the US State Department’s response to upcoming tribunal in Mariupol.
See full statement from the Russian Embassy below.Comment by the Russian Embassy in the United States on the State Department's statement on the upcoming Tribunal in Mariupol:— from https://t.me/EmbUSA/711
- We have taken note of another groundless accusations against our country related to the Tribunal over Ukrainian war criminals.
- The upcoming Trial is aimed at bringing justice to war criminals, among which there are Nazis from the Azov Regiment. Washington is clearly afraid of making public the evidence of the inhumane acts committed by the members of this terrorist organization.
- The International Tribunal in Mariupol can shed light on the true essence of the Kiev regime, of which the United States diligently creates a bright and heroic image. American citizens will finally learn that in reality, their government is helping those who purposefully kill and torture the Russian people of Donbass and Ukraine.
- Russia fully complies with the Geneva Conventions and guarantees Ukrainian captives proper conditions of detention. The same cannot be said of the Kiev regime, which militants mistreated captured Russian soldiers.
- Finally, if the US authorities have questions about what happened in Mariupol, they could discuss it with the administration of the Donetsk People's Republic. It is an independent state.
Ahem… excuse me what? The US State Dept are talking about Russian Military tribunals for Nazis?
It was difficult to find but here is the statement from the US State Dept put out today:By planning to hold so-called ‘tribunals’ in Russia-controlled Mariupol against Ukraine’s brave defenders, the Kremlin is attempting to deflect responsibility for President Putin’s war of aggression and distract from overwhelming evidence of the atrocities Russian forces have committed in Ukraine.https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/...8_828x819.jpeg
The planned show trials are illegitimate and a mockery of justice, and we strongly condemn them. All members of Ukraine’s armed forces, including domestic and foreign volunteers incorporated into the armed forces, are entitled to prisoner of war status if they are captured and must be afforded the treatment and protections commensurate with that status, according to the Geneva Conventions.
We call on Moscow to comply with its obligations under international law. The United States will continue to firmly stand with the Ukrainian people as they defend their freedom.”
— from https://www.state.gov/the-kremlins-i...ls-in-mariupol
No way… the Biden Admin are already trying to delegitimize the tribunals because the Russian allegations for these war crimes go all the way up to the top, to include Biden himself for the production of chemical and biological weapons, as well as arming and assisting Nazi Ukrainian forces responsible for war-crimes and atrocities on civilians.
Russian MIL claimed that the US/Ukraine are terrified of the testimony to be given by Ukrainian POWs, because it will further cement and expose the crimes committed by the Kiev and Biden/DNC regimes.
As per usual, the Western media are complete radio silent on this subject, with the exception of Reuters, who puts out their one tiny article about it that doesn’t seem to get circulated. This came out yesterday at 6AM EST, and I don’t know of anyone in the community or the Western world who has mentioned it.“GENEVA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights office expressed concern on Tuesday about plans by Russian-backed authorities to try Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in the port city of Mariupol, possibly within days, saying such a process could itself amount to a war crime.https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/..._828x1511.jpeg
The Russian-backed authorities appear to be installing metal cages in a hall in Mariupol as part of plans to establish what they were calling an ‘international tribunal’, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told a briefing.”
— from https://reuters.com/world/europe/pla...ice-2022-08-23
So the international military tribunals are going down in Ukraine, just like Russia said they would. They are trying literal Azov Nazis for crimes against humanity, and the Biden admin don’t like it.
Russia have been extremely transparent in their reporting on Nazi war-crimes and attacks on civilians. While the Liberal Globalist leaders of the West continue to gloss over the fact that they are supporting literal admitted Nazi forces in Ukraine…
Another point of interest is if these are to be true “international military tribunals”, there would need to be multiple countries involved in overseeing the tribunals, and multi-lateral agreement amongst the contributing militaries. So who are the militaries?
I assume today’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization Defense Summit between all the highest ranking Military officials of Eurasia, had something to do with it. They did discuss US war crimes and crimes against humanity today. See my piece on this meeting here.
— from https://bioclandestine.substack.com/...crimes-against
In conclusion, tribunals are happening whether the West or the UN Rights Office likes it or not. Russia will start with Ukrainian POWs, and work their way up the chain. The reckoning has begun.
I don’t know when, if, or how the top players get involved, but Russia have begun their ascent. We’ve been waiting for Military tribunals for 6 years now. It may not be like we pictured it, but it appears something is finally happening.
This is the response from the UNHumanRights
https://twitter.com/UNHumanRightsUA/...50484533825538