Author: Blazingcatfur

Weeping Russian prisoners of war have said they had no idea they were being sent to invade Ukraine and were used like ‘cannon fodder’ by commanders who threw them into battle against ‘peaceful people defending their territory’ after Vladimir Putin’s forces took heavy losses in the opening days of the conflict.

‘This is not our war. Mothers and wives, collect your husbands. There is no need to be here,’ an injured soldier sat in front of a Ukrainian flag was filmed saying. Other footage showed handcuffed Russian prisoner crying, while saying: ‘They don’t even pick up the corpses, there are no funerals’.

Ukraine says Russia has lost 5,840 soldiers in the opening days of the conflict – some of its fastest losses since the Second World War, if the figure proves accurate – with Putin’s men suffering a series of embarrassing defeats as they tried to pull off a quick victory but instead met with stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. intelligence had predicted a blistering assault by Moscow that would quickly mobilize the vast Russian air power that its military assembled in order to dominate Ukraine’s skies.

But the first six days have confounded those expectations and instead seen Moscow act far more delicately with its air power, so much so that U.S. officials can’t exactly explain what’s driving Russia’s apparent risk-averse behavior.

Russia aims to erase Ukraine, its history and its people, the besieged country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, as Moscow, in the face of international isolation, claimed to have seized its first large city amid continued heavy fighting.

A Russian defence ministry spokesperson said its forces had taken control of the strategically important city of Kherson on the Black Sea, with nearly 250,000 inhabitants. Local authorities said the port and train station had been captured overnight but denied the city had been occupied.

Ukraine: Putin’s miscalculations could see him strike harder

Ukraine has fought back much harder during the first week than Vladimir Putin expected, or very probably than his generals promised him, it would. But these are still the early stages of what could be a very nasty war.

Putin must have hoped that a few days after Russian forces invaded, Kyiv would have fallen. And he surely expected that Western countries, cowed and divided, would have accepted that he had reclaimed a territory that he says is historically part of Russia.

None of this has happened.

Ukrainians say they are fighting on in southern city of Kherson

Ukrainians said they were fighting on in the first sizeable city Russia claimed to have seized, while Moscow stepped up its lethal bombardment of major population centres that its invasion force has so far failed to tame.

With Moscow having failed in its aim of swiftly overthrowing Ukraine’s government after nearly a week, Western countries are worried that it is switching to new, far more violent tactics to blast its way into cities it had expected to easily take.

#Ukraine: In the vicinity of #Nikolaev, a MT-LBV (Or vehicle based on it) was abandoned by Russian troops, also leaving behind an AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher, 6x RPG-26, PG-7L, 2x RPG-7, and other ammo. pic.twitter.com/Bf8bvrKTuJ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 2, 2022

… Putin’s attack on Ukraine will have more serious repercussions than rising gas prices, wavering confidence that the United States can act as the world’s policeman or even the dismantling of a sovereign nation. It represents a shock to the system for the cozy “rules-based international order” that has for decades reassured the West that things like naked aggression are relics of the past.

The Russian leader’s actions express essential and unalterable truths about human nature, which we ignore at our peril

When Vladimir Putin sent Russian forces into Crimea in 2014, then-Secretary of State John Kerry professed bewilderment that such imperial aggression could happen in the modern age. It was like something out of “the 19th century.” Kerry’s reaction to Putin’s recent invasion of Ukraine was equally baffled, as the patrician American diplomat lamented that the war would distract Putin from working with him on climate change. Common to both reactions was the astonishment that the material calculations and preoccupations of Western democracies might be blown away by a resurgence of old-fashioned tyrannical ambition.

Kyiv has succeeded in reordering reality

The internet is a chaotic place, but it is nonetheless ruled by a series of iron laws, especially when it comes to what we put on it. Perhaps the most important one is that whatever you post, try to make it visual. Once that’s established it’s about what sort of image will best hoover up those likes and shares and retweets. Well, that’s down to where you are and who your audience is. But as a rule of thumb there are two things that generally never fail: blondes and guns.

British volunteers are laying their lives on the line in Ukraine’s fight for freedom.

On Sunday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urged foreign citizens to join Ukraine’s armed resistance against the invading Russian forces. He asked those who were willing to head to Ukrainian embassies in their own countries and sign up for an ‘international brigade’. It is reported that dozens of British citizens – some with military backgrounds, others without – have already joined this struggle for Ukraine’s future.

The value of Russia’s ruble has collapsed to less than 1 cent after the United States and other Western countries applied biting sanctions against the Russian economy.

The ruble was down nearly 10% against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday at 115.68 to the dollar. On Monday, after a weekend filled with painful new sanctions, the Russian currency saw an even more precipitous decline of about 30%. The ruble was at about 84 per dollar late Friday before the harshest financial penalties kicked in.

Amazing footage from Melitopol of Ukrainians stopping the onward advance of a Russian convoy and chanting “Occupants!” and “Murderers!” The jittery Russians are firing into the air pic.twitter.com/j3jypGJdgz

— Matthew Luxmoore (@mjluxmoore) March 1, 2022