“Ukraine – Russia”

Whatever the outcome of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the crisis it triggered may have one lasting effect: the return of war as a routine instrument of politics on a global scale.

Before the invasion, there was an implicit consensus that war was something that happened in the so-called “developing world,” where Arabs fought Israelis, Africans slaughtered Africans, and Indian and Pakistanis were at each other’s throats.

Europe, however, was believed to have closed its book of wars for good. The Balkan wars of the 1990s were regarded as a multi-layered civil war involving component parts of the failed Yugoslav state.

Despite reaching one of the darkest moments in more than 40 years as a dissident and human rights activist, Oleg Orlov says that he has no plans to flee Russia. “I made a decision a long time ago that I want to live and die in Russia, it’s my country,” Orlov told the Observer. “Even though it’s never been so bad.”

That’s saying something for Orlov, who can recall printing homemade anti-war posters in the late 1970s to protest against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan or in support of Poland’s Solidarnost movement, and was an observer and negotiator during the bloody war in Chechnya in the 1990s.

Ukraine is prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia but it would have to be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in remarks broadcast on Sunday.

Zelensky was speaking to Russian journalists in a 90-minute video call, an interview that the Russian authorities had pre-emptively warned Russian media to refrain from reporting. Zelensky spoke in Russian throughout.

Zelensky said Russia’s invasion had caused the destruction of Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine, and said the damage was worse than the Russian wars in Chechnya.

#Ukraine: In the same location in #Donetsk Oblast, other Russian vehicles also ran into mines or Ukrainian fire, and were totally destroyed. This includes two more BMP-2, and three T-72 tanks. https://t.co/OkQaJ1hYoc pic.twitter.com/b01rhZZoDP

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 27, 2022

Vladimir Putin wants to split Ukraine into two, emulating the post-war division between North and South Korea, the invaded country’s military intelligence chief has said.

Gen Kyrylo Budanov, who predicted Russia’s invasion as far back as November, said Moscow had been unable to “swallow” the country but faced guerrilla warfare should it seek to split it.

His warning came as Leonid Pasechnik, the leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic in the contested Donbas region in the east, said he may stage a referendum on his territory becoming part of Russia.

War crimes?

This vid is making the rounds on Twitter, trending under POWS. Ugly if true but then again all wars result in war crimes often committed in tit for tat fashion by both sides in a conflict.

Vid 1

18+ (21+)

Ukrainian soldiers shoot Russian prisoners of war in the legs and afterwards give them a severe beating. At the beginning of the video, there are Russian POWs lying on the ground with bullet wounds in their legs, some of them have got leg bones broken. #WarCrimes pic.twitter.com/t8Wj33X8rv

— Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) March 27, 2022

Vid 2

Appalling footage of #UkrainianHeroes shooting & beating #Russian POWs. Will you see this on BBC, Sky or CNN tonight? pic.twitter.com/Gq9yIkxsA7

— Nick Griffin (@NickGriffinBU) March 27, 2022

This is what Russians did in Mariupol.

Having this in mind, Ukrainians letting Russians live and taking them as POWs is a display of mercy and restraint. pic.twitter.com/eQnkXJk7ye

— Name can't include invalid characters. (@ProcessIts) March 27, 2022

One month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the outcome of the war remains unclear, and any number of scenarios are possible. However, the scenario for which Russia planned — a quick and thorough political subjugation — is not achievable, because of the tenacity of the Ukrainian resistance and the support flowing to the Ukrainian government from so many countries.

#Ukraine: What is claimed to be a Ukrainian drone dropping munitions on to a Russian vehicle, destroying it.

via @CRNICASMILITAR1 pic.twitter.com/SrXn213WTc

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 26, 2022

In the second episode of Volodymyr Zelensky’s very funny comedy series, The Servant of the People, one of the spooky bad guys says of Zelensky’s character, the newly elected President of Ukraine: “He’s known for being iron clad and brave.”

That was the point I reached for the remote, pressed pause, and took a deep breath.

The 2015 series has just starting airing here in America, and for those of us who are new to it, it’s a bit surreal. Every time you catch yourself chuckling, you then start to feel sad. It’s emotionally draining. I find I can’t watch more than an episode at a time and I do so with a certain dread. Friends have told me they can’t watch it at all.

Russian Orlan-10 UAV footage reportedly showing Russian strikes on Ukrainian artillery in an industrial area in Chernihiv Oblast. https://t.co/bjCCLpfNZG pic.twitter.com/LLeTAyPOgv

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 26, 2022

Western officials have said they believe a Russian commander was run over by mutinous forces during the fighting in Ukraine, in a sign of what they described as the “morale challenges” faced by the invading forces.

They highlighted – and repeated – reports from earlier this week from a Ukrainian journalist that a colonel of the 37th separate guards motor rifle brigade was run over by a tank. Some reports said he had died of his injuries.

One official said they believed that the brigade commander was “killed by his own troops” as “a consequence of the scale of losses that had been taken by his brigade” in the bitter fighting.

Is there a lesson here for Canada’s armed forces? Asking for a friend.

Is the Russian military having to change its plans? Perhaps even reduce the scale of Moscow’s ambitions in Ukraine?

It’s probably too early to tell, but there’s definitely a shift in emphasis.

A top Russian general – Sergey Rudskoy – says the “first stage” of what President Vladimir Putin calls Russia’s “special military operation” has been mostly accomplished and that Russian forces will now concentrate on “the complete liberation of the Donbas”.

This is likely to mean a more concerted effort to push beyond the “line of contact” that separates Ukrainian government-held territory in the east of the country from the Russian-backed separatist “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russia reasserts right to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine

The Kremlin again raised the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine as Russian forces struggled to hold a key city in the south of the country.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is deputy chairman of the country’s security council, said Moscow could strike against an enemy that only used conventional weapons while Vladimir Putin’s defence minster claimed nuclear “readiness” was a priority.

Russian general Yakov Rezantsev killed in Ukraine

Ukraine’s defence ministry says another Russian general, Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, was killed in a strike near the southern city of Kherson.

Rezantsev was the commander of Russia’s 49th combined army.

A western official said he was the seventh general to die in Ukraine, and the second lieutenant general – the highest rank officer reportedly killed.

It is thought that low morale among Russian troops has forced senior officers closer to the front line.

#Ukraine: A Russian tank stuck by Ukrainian fire, as viewed from a drone; it is completely destroyed.

Location/date unknown, but the footage appears to be new. via @Arslon_Xudosi. pic.twitter.com/9WOZ2zAacs

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 25, 2022

#Ukraine: Another Russian Tigr(-M) IMV was destroyed by Ukrainian Special Forces, likely during a night raid. pic.twitter.com/NoApvhDI91

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 26, 2022

It’s human nature to sympathize most with what’s familiar.

Millions of Ukrainian refugees are on the move across Europe and have been received by neighboring countries with open arms. Even Hungary, usually criticized for its hostility toward asylum seekers, has been generous in response. American and European commentators have remarked on how shocking it is to see a war in a “civilized” country, affecting people “like us.” To some observers, such as H. A. Hellyer, writing for the Washington Post, this is evidence of “racist biases in Western media and politics.”

If you’re anything like me (and I’ll bet you are), over the past month you’ve been feeling uneasy watching the zealots on the left and the squishes on the right unabashedly cheering for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After the political animosity of the last several years, something has seemed off, not quite right about pundits on the left and the right fervently cheering for the same side in anything let alone a war.

To be clear, I’m not questioning American support of the Ukrainian people.