Google Maps made Russia’s strategic facilities visible to users Monday, revealing the details of the country’s military infrastructure.
Searches on Google Maps showed newly accessible images of military bases, intercontinental ballistic missiles launch pads, naval facilities and key command posts all across Russia.
The left wants a full scale war with Russia.
Russian occupying troops in Mariupol are preparing to close all entries and exits to Mariupol and ban all movement in the city on 18 April in order to carry out a “filtration” operation among the city’s male population, some of whom will be mobilised.
Russia has ‘unleashed chemical weapons on Mariupol’ with Ukrainian troops claiming they were hit by an agent dropped by a drone leaving them unable to breath and dizzy – as the besieged city’s mayor reveals more than 10,000 civilians in the conflict have died so far.
The unidentified agent is said to have been dropped on the southern port city from a Russian drone, according to unverified reports from the city’s Azov regiment.
Russia and Ukraine appear to be in the final stages of preparation to fight the Battle of Donbas, in what is shaping up to be the biggest tank battle in Europe since the decisive Battle of Kursk in World War II.
The stakes for both Moscow and Kyiv couldn’t be higher.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the newspaper that the alliance was “in the midst of a very fundamental transformation” that will reflect “the long-term consequences” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions.
“What we see now is a new reality, a new normal for European security,” Stoltenberg said, per The Telegraph. “Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a longer-term adaptation of NATO.”
“For 25 years people like myself have said that NATO expansion would lead to war. Putin said several times that if it came to Ukraine becoming a member of NATO, there would be no Ukraine anymore. In Bucharest in 2008 there was a plan of quick accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. It was blocked by the efforts of Germany and France, but since that time Ukraine has been integrated into NATO. It was pumped up by weaponry and its troops were trained by NATO, their army getting stronger and stronger day by day. In addition we saw a very rapid increase of neo-Nazi sentiment especially among the military, the society and the ruling elite. It was clear that Ukraine had become something like Germany around 1936-1937. The war was inevitable, they were a spearhead of NATO. We made the very hard decision to strike first, before the threat becomes deadlier.”
‘Russian Oligarchs Are Welcome in Turkey’
Few people could imagine that on a cold March day in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, the presidential corps, after more than a decade of hostility to its neighbor Israel, would welcome Israeli President Isaac Herzog by playing Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva, with two presidential guards holding Turkish and Israeli flags on horseback. Pundits were quick to talk about a “reset in relations,” or a “historic visit.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he now intends to host Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Ankara.
Vladimir Putin was annoyed – or maybe just bored. The Russian leader had been patiently fielding questions from a small group of international journalists in the restaurant of a modest hotel in Davos. Then one of the queries seemed to irritate him. He stared back at the questioner, an American, and said slowly, through an interpreter: “I’ll answer that question in a minute. But first let me ask you about the extraordinary ring you have on your finger.”
All heads in the room swivelled. “Why is the stone so large?” Putin continued. A few of the audience began to giggle and the journalist looked uncomfortable. Putin took on a tone of mock sympathy and continued: “You surely don’t mind me asking, because you wouldn’t be wearing something like that unless you were trying to draw attention to yourself?” There was more laughter. By now, the original question had been forgotten. It was a masterclass in distraction and bullying.
Several of Russia’s top state-controlled nuclear companies stand to gain billions of dollars in revenue as part of a new nuclear accord with Iran that will waive sanctions on these firms so that they can build up Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, according to a U.S. government-authored document reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Russia’s state-controlled Rosatom energy firm and at least four of its major subsidiaries will receive sanctions waivers under a new accord so that they can complete nuclear projects in Iran worth more than $10 billion, according to the 2019 document, which details all the Russian entities involved in these projects.
According to Defence Chief Gen. Wayne Eyre, Canada cannot hope to maintain a permanent presence in the north, but instead will only deploy troops where necessary.
Eyre appeared before a Senate committee earlier this week as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Defence Minister Anita Anand met with premiers from Canada’s territories – Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
The transition to capitalism was chaotic and painful
The Nineties were a time of American hegemony and British cockiness. The internet was a utopian idea as opposed to a collective psychological disorder. Climate change, terrorism, autocracy and gross inequality were either not-on-the-radar or assumed to be moving in the right direction. From the vantage point of 2022, that period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 seems impossibly sunkissed. What did we have to worry about?
The world is seeing Vladimir Putin’s clear plan to reestablish the Russian Empire. It also is hearing rumblings from Asia about restoration of a Chinese dynasty, and in the Middle East, a return to when Persia — now an extremely different Iran — dominated the region.
For any of these empires to expand, they need to take control of other states or groups of people. Those states can either be overrun and annexed, or they can be controlled and remain smaller, more manageable political units. Today, Russia in Ukraine is the focus, but the aspirations of China and Iran must not be ignored.
Russia, China and Iran are all totalitarian regimes with authoritarian leaders. Russia by its actions in Syria and Ukraine, as well as Iran for its actions in the Middle East, easily can be identified as terrorist states. China — with its genocide against the Uyghurs, its illegal seizure of Hong Kong, and its continuing threats against Taiwan — should also be designated that way.
Perhaps the Real Collusion is with Leftist Environmental Groups and Russia
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made a startling statement in the summer of 2014: “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations—environmental organizations working against shale gas—to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”
I probably won’t post any more missives from my Ukrainian second-cousin-twice removed or whatever, but I did think this was worth a quick read. Bits are redacted. (We’re trying to get her into Canada actually, but her husband may be conscripted at any time.)
Thank you very much for your support. I’ve just noticed your letter in my mailbox.
In main , we are doing fine. I know that you phone to my mother regularly. So you know how are they doing. As russian troops go back from Kyiv region to Belarus, it’s comparatively quiet in Baryshivka region. But people say that russians left explosives and mines in every village or town they stayed in, so it’s still dangerous to come back there.
Probably you’ve already seen all those horrible photos of Bucha after russians ran out of it. They even had mobile crematorium to burn out bodies of civil people to hide their’s crimes. I have no words to describe my desperate…
My former colleague and her daughter were hostages for 5 days near Kyiv . They were forced to seat in a very small basement of their private house. Russians came into a little village with tanks and other military armor. They took all the money women had and told them to stay in the basement. Here in Ukraine our basements are not the same as your’s in Canada. It’s a really cold place under the ground. People use to keep there potatoes, carrots and other vegetables from their gardens during whole winter. There is no water or heat or toilet down there. Usually there are no windows also. So poor women lived in such awful conditions while russians stayed in their house. Russians dug a big whole in the backyard and parked tank there to hide it from Ukrainian solgers. All days long the tank was shooting above the heads of women. I can imagine the terrible roar. After couple of days russians brought 5 people from the neighbor housies and put them into the basement of my colleague. They were women and elderly people with health problems. Russians took away all the phones so poor women couldn’t call for help or to get any information about the situation in their region. My colleague told that russians were drunk and aggressive almost all the time. On one of that moments of aggression one of the senior officers came down to the basement and decided to scare his hostages even more – he interrogated them very roughly and in the end he shot 2 people just in the eyes of poor women…. and left bodies in the basement so everyone left alive have to live near the dead bodies… I talked with my colleague by the phone after she was saved from this hell. She said that she think she is out of her mind and she can not be normal adequate person after this. She is over 70 and her daughter is over 40. And the most unbelievable thing is that they were saved just thanks to one of the russians private. He came to them and said that he didn’t want to come to this war and wanted to help them. On that day there was green corridor arranged in the region and the russian private let people escape from the basement. Now women are in Lviv on the western Ukraine.
This history is one of the hundreds , thousands. And I really don’t know if I can ever hear or read all of them because any normal psyche can not hold this horror out.
Me and my sister decided to stay wherever we are till the situation is pretty good in our regions. For now the region is quiet but almost every day and night we here air raid sirens. Only this sounds can drive one crazy, I assure you. But we’re still hoping, we’re still working and still waiting for peace.
Hugging you….
