Scarred yet defiant, Mykolaiv will decide the future of the war
Mykolaiv, Ukraine
The lady burrows into the earth. Swathed in blue plastic to protect her against the rain, she pats the soil and digs into it with her hands. She won’t speak to me, but allows me to watch as she tends to her plants and flowers in a patch of soil outside a block of flats in central Mykolaiv.
Dasha smirks at the camera and says in a baby voice: “Hi, I missed you all.” It is 11 March, a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, and the blond 19-year-old Moscow-based influencer with 126,000 Instagram followers is posting to her stories. “I wasn’t on social media for over a week and I want to talk about my news and the news of the world,” she says.
After taking a weekend trip to a friend’s dacha in the countryside, Dasha posts videos of her friends laughing, making pancakes or playing party games. The atmosphere is warm, the alcohol flowing. The next tile shows Dasha looking solemnly at her phone. “I was constantly watching the news to understand what was going on in the world and one thought wouldn’t escape my mind …” she writes. Next tile: “Maybe I should leave Russia?” in bold red letters. In smaller black text underneath, she elaborates: “At least for a little bit of time, until the situation calms down and we have a better understanding.” There is a question box for followers to answer: “What do you think about this?”
KYIV, Ukraine — I was baptized a Ukrainian Catholic. My wife and I were married in a Ukrainian Catholic Church in Kyiv, and our children were all baptized in this faith as well. Our church has a Patriarch (i.e. a separate hierarchy from Roman Catholics), but we recognize the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. In Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholic Church follows the Julian calendar which means Easter will be celebrated on Sunday.
As Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, members of a Ukrainian special forces unit deployed to defend the strategic Hostomel airport outside Kyiv were stunned by what they saw as dawn broke: some 30 Russian attack helicopters coming over the horizon, speeding toward the airport.
An added surprise was that the helicopters were moving on their own toward Hostomel, without supporting ground forces or barrages of long-range missile fire to weaken the Ukrainian defences. It was as if they expected no resistance at all.
Go incognito
On any given day, I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong on any given subject. But not on Canada’s over-cautious response to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.
Being sanctioned by Vladimir Putin’s bandit regime confirmed my conviction that far too often, sober second thought in official Ottawa has been used as an excuse for delay and inaction.
Video footage has emerged from the city of Mariupol in Ukraine showing the bodies of more than 20 civilians lying along a main road.
The graphic videos, posted on social media in recent days, come as the United Nations has confirmed that it is investigating hundreds of allegations of killing of civilians during the invasion of Ukraine.
The southern port city of Mariupol has been the scene of weeks of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces attacked a steel plant in the shattered Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, apparently seeking to eliminate the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic city the Kremlin claims its military has otherwise seized.
The assault was reported by an advisor to Ukraine’s presidential office as an estimated 1,000 civilians sheltered in the Azovstal plant alongside the remaining Ukrainian fighters, while Russian forces pressed their offensive elsewhere in the eastern Donbas region amid fierce Ukrainian counterattacks.
Video of Russian T-80BV tanks conducing a tank carousel firing on Ukrainian positions in Mariupol from a few days ago.
Video: Rob Lee#Mariupol #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/us2HVR2EEd
— Qinglian Jushi (@catminh17) April 23, 2022
Alexander Dugin has endowed Putin’s brutal imperialism with an almost spiritual significance.
In 2014, a Foreign Affairs article described Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin as ‘Putin’s brain’.
At the time, it seemed a fitting epithet. The then 52-year-old Dugin was championing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and urging on the further conquest of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Superficially, at least, he seemed to be uncannily in tune with the Kremlin.
It’s a huge, hangar-like building, disused and decrepit, on the outskirts of Lviv. But for Mykola Piddubnyi and his colleague Irina Gavrilova, the local entrepreneur’s gift was a godsend, allowing them to move their expanding wartime supply operation out of Gavrilova’s tiny apartment. The day I visited, there were dozens of wooden pallets spread out across the big space: one cluster—maybe 40 cardboard boxes—for baked goods, another for large plastic buckets filled with dumplings, still other areas for canned food and toiletries, even a pallet piled high with crutches and wheelchairs.
Canada is expected to send four of its relatively new M-777 howitzers to Ukraine to help it face down a renewed Russian offensive from the east, CBC News has learned.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the plan to ship “heavy artillery” earlier this week, but offered no details on what the Canadian military would be donating.
“Their most recent ask was exactly for that, for heavy artillery, for reasons of operational security,” Trudeau said on Wednesday. “I can’t go into the details at this point on how and what we’re getting to them exactly.”
Eye opener – The shipment is expected to include an unspecified amount of ammunition, including precision-guided Excalibur rounds left over from the Afghan war, said a third source. The GPS-guided shells are worth about $112,000 US per round.
WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) – Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday said that it was impossible to collaborate with Russia in the G20, a group of countries that meets to discuss ways to foster global economic growth, as long as Moscow is waging war in Ukraine.
“The G20 can’t function effectively with Russia at the table,” Freeland said in a joint news conference with Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko in Washington, where G20 countries held talks on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings.
Police across Canada are investigating alleged acts of vandalism, theft and even arson against Ukrainian Canadians or those showing their support amid Russia’s invasion of the neighbouring country.
Alexandra Chyczij of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said these kinds of incidents across Canada are “a growing phenomenon.”
“It’s a very troubling tendency and has frankly a lot of people frightened,” Chyczij told CTV National News’ John Vennavally-Rao.
Russia aims to seize southern Ukraine and to open a route to the separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova, a senior Russian general says.
Maj Gen Rustam Minnekayev specified that Moscow would seek to take “full control” over the south in addition to the eastern Donbas region – the stated objective of the Russian authorities.
Transnistria is a small Russian-backed region that borders Ukraine.
It is unclear if Gen Minnekayev’s comments were officially sanctioned.
Russian commander suggests plan is for permanent occupation of south Ukraine
A senior Russian military commander has said that the goal of Russia’s new offensive is to seize control of southern Ukraine and form a land bridge to Crimea, indicating that Russia plans a permanent occupation of Ukrainian territory taken in the war.
Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of the central military district, also told members of a defence industry forum on Friday that control over southern Ukraine would give Russia access to Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova, indicating that Russia may attack the port city of Odesa.
#Ukraine: In Polohy, #Zaporizhzhia Oblast a Russian BMP infantry fighting vehicle was damaged by a RKG-1600 (RKG-3 based) projectile, dropped from a Ukrainian R18 Octocopter. pic.twitter.com/tca4kyrscL
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 21, 2022
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier this week that Canada will send artillery to Ukraine in response to a request from President Volodymyr Zelensky — which would mark a shift in the nature of the military aid Canada is offering the embattled nation.
Though Trudeau hasn’t said what type of artillery Canada plans to provide, he called the move a response to the shifting state of the war as Russia concentrates its forces in eastern Ukraine.
Foreign minister Pekka Haavisto says Finns ‘on the streets’ are concerned with nuclear question
The prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine is a key factor behind Finland’s debate over whether to join Nato, the country’s foreign minister has said.
Pekka Haavisto is having a busy few weeks. As Finland’s foreign minister, Haavisto, 64, may soon oversee the biggest political shift the country has experienced since it joined the EU almost three decades ago. “Finland is currently making its choices. And among those choices, Nato membership is one,” Haavisto told the Guardian in an interview on Thursday.
This could make Putin Go Nuke! Report: Chinese credit card processor rebuffs Russian banks
BEIJING (AP) — China’s credit card processor has refused to work with banks in Russia for fear of being targeted by sanctions over its war on Ukraine, cutting off a possible alternative after Visa and Mastercard stopped serving them, according to the Russian news outlet RBC.
UnionPay’s decision affects Sberbank, Russia’s biggest commercial bank, and smaller institutions, RBC reported Wednesday. It cited five unidentified sources in large Russian banks.
