“Ukraine – Russia”

When Russia invaded Ukraine seven weeks ago, I wrote in this space that if Russia succeeded in crushing Ukraine as an independent state and strangling it as an aspiring democracy, in addition to a tragedy for Ukraine, it would be a terrible setback for the West. The egregious and vastly over-decorated chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, predicted that Russia would occupy Kiev within three days. If this had occurred, it would have been the first roll-back of western civilization since the early days of the Second World War. And when added to the terrible self-inflicted fiasco of the economic shutdown of the western world at the start of the pandemic, and the impending surrender of the West to the nuclear military ambitions of Iran, it would have announced a much clearer and stronger trajectory of western decline than global warming (which has contributed to Western decline also, as we inflict terrible economic hardship on ourselves to reduce carbon emissions on the basis of insufficient knowledge of what we are fighting).

As Russian media and officials struggled on Friday to explain the sinking of the country’s Black Sea flagship, it was clear that the loss of the cruiser and an untold number of its estimated 510 crew was a blow to Vladimir Putin’s war plans and his military’s prestige.

From the beginning, the Russian government tried to play down what had happened. At first its defence ministry claimed an accident had caused a fire onboard. Then the ministry said the damage had been contained and the ship was being towed to port in Sevastopol. Finally, late on Thursday, the ministry announced that the ship had sunk in “stormy seas”.

A British fighter captured by Russia could be treated as a spy by the Kremlin, raising fears for his safety.

Russia’s state TV channels have broadcast suspect footage of former care worker Aiden Aslin being questioned by his captors after he was forced to surrender in Mariupol.

Mr Aslin, 28, joined the Ukrainian marines four years ago. He has dual UK-Ukrainian citizenship and a Ukrainian fiancee, yet Russia appears determined to brand him an enemy agent rather than a prisoner of war.

Canada’s defence minister Anita Anand says that there’s a “strong argument” to be made that the “atrocities” in Ukraine occurring at the hands of the Russians amount to genocide.

“Reports relating to the potential use of chemical weapons have been very disconcerting, and this is an issue that NATO is still considering. And of course, we need to be very cognizant that the atrocities in Ukraine are already of a very serious nature,” Anand said in an interview on CTV’s Question period.

On the evening before Russian forces crossed the border into Ukraine, Igor Volzhanin met up with a friend at a coffee shop at the centre of Kyiv.

“We stayed there until about midnight just talking,” the Canadian recalled in an interview from Ukraine. “Just talking about how, you know, jokingly, what would we do if the war had started. There was deep anxiety, but I don’t think either one of us really expected for it to happen the next morning.”

On Feb. 25, Volzhanin’s holiday in Ukraine was supposed to continue with a Louis C.K. comedy show, and the following day he was to board a plane to France for a skiing trip. But his plans quickly changed.

Zelenskyy asks Biden to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a direct appeal to US President Joe Biden for the United States to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, one of the most powerful and far-reaching sanctions in the US arsenal, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Zelenskyy’s request, which has not previously been reported, came during a recent phone call with Biden that centered on the West’s multifaceted response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, people familiar with the conversation told the newspaper.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces resumed scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and beyond Saturday in an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Russia’s pivot toward mounting a new offensive in the east.

Stung by the loss of its Black Sea flagship and indignant over what it alleged were Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, Russia’s military command had warned a day earlier of renewed attacks on Ukraine’s capital and said it was targeting military sites.

Up to 3,000 Ukraine troops killed since Russia invaded, says Zelenskiy, as battle rages in Mariupol

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said up to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, with no total yet available for civilian casualties, as fighting intensified in the battle for the southern city of Mariupol.

Ukraine’s president said the military situation in the south and east was “still very difficult”, while praising the work of his armed forces. “The successes of our military on the battlefield are really significant, historically significant. But they are still not enough to clean our land of the occupiers,” he said in a late-night video address, calling again for allies to send heavier weapons and for an international embargo on Russian oil.

#Ukraine: Another Russian T-72B3 Obr. 2016 with a little damage was captured by Ukrainian troops, precise date unknown but 4 days ago or more. pic.twitter.com/B8MTThYgeh

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 15, 2022

IN 1994, George F. Kennan spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. His remarks, which were excerpted in the New York Times, continue to make for fascinating reading. They focused on the abiding preoccupation of his career—American relations with Russia. He recalled that he had originally argued for a containment policy of the Soviet Union after World War II, which the Truman administration largely implemented. But Kennan also observed that after the West had made it clear that it would not permit Stalin to make any further inroads into Europe, he was disappointed to discover that neither Washington nor the Western allies had any real interest in entering into discussions with Moscow. “What they and the others wanted,” Kennan said, “from Moscow, with respect to the future of Europe, was essentially ‘unconditional surrender.’ They were prepared to wait for it. And this was the beginning of the forty years of cold war.”

“… On the left, identity-politics-inflected self-criticism breeds a suspicion of the West’s side of any conflict. An article published by the Washington Post this week is an especially egregious example of this mode of thinking. Under the headline “NATO was founded to protect ‘civilized’ people. That means White,” Amoz Hor exemplifies an all too familiar myopia according to which America’s racial politics are the prism through which geopolitical events are best understood. We are told that warnings about the Soviet threat to “Western civilization” were nothing more than a “dog whistle for whiteness”; that “communism was seen to pose a threat not just to “freedom” — but specifically to White freedom”; and that “NATO was born out of fear of White slavery.” There’s an alarmingly large audience for such ahistorical nonsense.”

KYIV, April 15 (Reuters) – Ukraine said on Friday it was trying to break Russian forces’ siege of Mariupol, with fighting raging around the city’s Illich steel works and port, as the capital Kyiv was rocked by some of the most powerful explosions in two weeks.

Russia said it had struck overnight what it said was a factory in Kyiv that made and repaired anti-ship missiles, in apparent retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet, on Thursday.

#Ukraine: Footage filmed via a Russian Orlan-10 drone of a strike against a Ukrainian vehicle, leading to its destruction- type or location unknown at present. pic.twitter.com/68Ki0pjFB6

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 15, 2022

Captain Vasyl Kravchuk has a surprisingly ready smile for a man who has endured 50 days of war. We spoke to him via video link from his base at an undisclosed location.

He knows the coming weeks will offer no respite. Russia may have received a bloody nose in its aborted attempts to take Kyiv, but with the Eastern region of the Donbas now firmly in Moscow’s sights, the men and women of Dnipro’s Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade will continue to play a key role in the next phase of the war.

Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.

Russia sent a formal warning to the US not to send more arms to Ukraine or it could face “unpredictable consequences”, it has been reported.

According to the Washington Post, Moscow sent a diplomatic note, a démarche, warning that US and Nato deliveries of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine were “adding fuel” to the conflict there and could bring “unpredictable consequences”.

A spokesperson said the state department ddid not confirm any diplomatic correspondence as a matter of course, and made clear that the US would continue to send arms to Ukraine.

German chancellor ‘stalling on heavy weaponry to Ukraine’

… The centre-left leader had surprised even close partners in his three-party coalition when on 27 February he announced an “epochal change” in Germany’s foreign policy to boost defence spending and relax its restrictive stance on exporting weapons to conflict zones.

Six weeks on, prominent politicians from allied parties urged the Social Democrat to follow up words with actions after Germany was accused of stalling on delivering heavy weaponry to Ukraine and blocking a wholesale ban on Russian oil and gas.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — More than 900 civilian bodies have been discovered in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital following the withdrawal of Russian forces — most of them fatally shot, police said Friday, an indication that many people were “simply executed.”

The number of dead is double that announced by Ukrainian authorities almost two weeks ago.

Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, said the bodies were abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% died from gunshot wounds.

“Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said.

Expert interview: What Russia did in Syria, may predict what happens next in Ukraine

First Syria and Chechnya, and now Ukraine — experts have already drawn many parallels between the Russian approach to conflicts in those areas.

Hanna Notte, a senior research associate with the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, focuses on security issues and arms control with a particular emphasis on where those intersect when it comes to Russia and the Middle East.

DW spoke to Notte about parallels she has observed in conflicts in Syria and now in Ukraine, and how that may help predict what happens next in Ukraine.

The sinking of the Moskva, which is the Black Sea fleet’s flagship, has both symbolic and operational significance.

Beyond its symbolic role, it is the sole vessel in the fleet equipped with wide-area air defences in the form of the S-300F. The Moskva has thus provided air cover to other vessels during their operations, which have included coastal bombardments and amphibious feints.

In the absence of the Moskva, the fleet lacks vessels with a comparable air defence suite, and will thus find it more risky to conduct similar operations.