Russian forces invade Ukraine with strikes on major cities

[XianGe]

Give them tanks and drones

[Huat Zai]

 

TL;NW

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Huat Zai

[Huat Zai]

 

[Huat Zai]

Ukraine conflict: 'Russian soldiers raped me and killed my husband'

 

Warning: This report contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence

In a quiet, rural neighbourhood 70km (45miles) west of Kyiv, we spoke to Anna, who is 50. We have changed her name to protect her identity.

Anna told us that on 7 March she had been at home with her husband when a foreign soldier barged in.

"At gunpoint, he took me to a house nearby. He ordered me: 'Take your clothes off or I'll shoot you.' He kept threatening to kill me if I didn't do as he said. Then he started raping me," she said.

Anna described her attacker as a young, thin, Chechen fighter allied with Russia.

"While he was raping me, four more soldiers entered. I thought that I was done for. But they took him away. I never saw him again," she said. She believes she was saved by a separate unit of Russian soldiers.

Anna went back home and found her husband. He had been shot in the abdomen.

"He had tried to run after me to save me, but he was hit by a round of bullets," she said. They both sought shelter in a neighbour's house. They couldn't take her husband to hospital because of the fighting. He died of his injuries two days later.

Anna never stopped crying while telling us her story. She showed us where she and her neighbours buried her husband in the backyard of their home. A tall, wooden cross stands at the head of the grave. Anna told us that she is in contact with the local hospital and is receiving psychological support.

Anna has buried her husband in the garden

The soldiers who saved her stayed in her house for a few days. She says they would point their gun at her and ask her to give them her husband's belongings.

"When they left, I found drugs and Viagra. They would get high and they were often drunk. Most of them are killers, rapists and looters. Only a few are OK," she said.

Down the road from Anna's house, we heard another chilling story.

A woman was allegedly raped and killed, and neighbours say it was done by the same man who raped Anna, before he went to Anna's house.

The woman was in her 40s. She was taken out of her home, say neighbours, and held in the bedroom of a house nearby whose occupants had evacuated when the war began. The well-decorated room, with ornate wallpaper and a bed with a golden headboard, is now a disturbing crime scene. There are large bloodstains on the mattress and duvet.

In a corner, is a mirror which has a note written on it with lipstick - "Tortured by unknown people, buried by Russian soldiers," it says.

The message scrawled on the mirror by Russian soldiers

Oksana, a neighbour, told us it had been left there by Russian soldiers who found the woman's body and buried her. "They [Russian soldiers] told me she had been raped and that her throat was either slit or stabbed, and she bled to death. They said there was a lot of blood."

The woman was buried in a grave in the garden of the house.

A day after we visited, the police exhumed her body to investigate the case. The body was found without clothes, and with a deep, long, cut across the neck.

Andrii Nebytov, the police chief of the Kyiv region, told us about another case they're investigating in a village 50km (30 miles) to the west of Kyiv.

A family of three - a couple in their thirties and their young child - lived in a house on the edge of the village.

"On 9 March, several soldiers of the Russian army entered the house. The husband tried to protect his wife and child. So they shot him in the yard," said Mr Nebytov.

"After that, two soldiers repeatedly raped the wife. They would leave and then come back. They returned three times to rape her. They threatened that if she resisted they would harm her little boy. To protect her child she didn't resist."

When the soldiers left, they burnt down the house and shot the family's dogs.

The family's burned out house

The woman escaped with her son and then contacted the police. Mr Nebytov says his team has met her and recorded her testimony.

They have been gathering evidence at the family home - only its shell is now left. Just a few signs of a previous peaceful, ordinary life lie in the charred ruins. We saw a child's bicycle, a stuffed horse, a dog's leash and a man's fur lined winter shoe.

The husband was buried in the garden by neighbours. The police have now exhumed his body for examination. They plan to take the case to international courts.

Ukraine's ombudsman for human rights Lyudmyla Denisova says they're documenting several such cases.

"About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant," she said. "Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children."

A child's toy outside the burned-out family home

She says they are receiving several calls on support helplines - and also getting information through channels on the Telegram messaging app.

"A 25-year-old woman called to tell us her 16-year-old sister was raped in the street in front of her. She said they were screaming 'This will happen to every Nazi prostitute' as they raped her sister," Ms Denisova said.

We asked if it was possible to assess the scale of sexual crimes committed by Russian troops during the occupation.

"It is impossible at the moment because not everyone is willing to tell us what happened to them. The majority of them currently call for psychological support, so we cannot record those as crimes unless they give us their testimony," Ms Denisova said.

She says Ukraine wants a special tribunal to be set up by the United Nations to try Vladimir Putin personally for allegations of war crimes including rape.

"I want to ask Putin, why is this happening?" said Anna, the woman who told us she was raped. "I don't understand. We're not living in the Stone Age, why can't he negotiate? Why is he occupying and killing?"

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61071243

[The_King]

Putin says peace talks with Ukraine are at dead end, goads the West

 

 

LONDON (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday peace talks with Ukraine had hit a dead end, using his first public comments on the conflict in more than a week to vow his troops would win and to goad the West for failing to bring Moscow to heel.

Addressing the war in public for the first time since Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine after they were halted at the gates of Kyiv, Putin promised that Russia would achieve all of its "noble" aims in Ukraine.

In the strongest signal to date that the war will grind on for longer, Putin said Kyiv had derailed peace talks by staging what he said were fake claims of Russian war crimes and by demanding security guarantees to cover the whole of Ukraine.

"We have again returned to a dead-end situation for us," Putin, Russia's paramount leader since 1999, told a news briefing during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow.

Asked by Russian space agency workers if the operation in Ukraine would achieve its goals, Putin said: "Absolutely. I don't have any doubt at all."

Russia will "rhythmically and calmly" continue its operation but the most important strategic conclusion was that the unipolar international order which the United States had built after the Cold War was breaking up, Putin said.

Putin said Russia had no choice but to fight because it had to defend the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine and prevent its former Soviet neighbour from becoming an anti-Russian springboard for Moscow's enemies.

The West has condemned the war as a brutal imperial-style land grab targeting a sovereign country. Ukraine says it is fighting for its survival after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and on Feb. 21 recognised two of its rebel regions as sovereign.

Putin dismissed the West's sanctions, which have tipped Russia towards its worst recession since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, as a failure.

"That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting did not work," Putin said. "The United States is ready to fight with Russia until the last Ukrainian - that is the way it is."

Putin, who had been ubiquitous on Russian television in the early days of the war, had largely retreated from public view since Russia's withdrawal from northern Ukraine two weeks ago.

His only public appearance in the past week was at the funeral of a nationalist lawmaker, where he did not directly address the war. On Monday he met the visiting chancellor of Austria at a country residence outside Moscow but no images of that meeting were released.

'BUCHA IS FAKE'

Putin dismissed Ukrainian and Western claims that Russia had committed war crimes as fakes.

Since Russian troops withdrew from towns and villages around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Ukrainian troops have been showing journalists corpses of what they say are civilians killed by Russian forces, destroyed houses and burnt-out cars.

Reuters saw dead bodies in the town of Bucha but could not independently verify who was responsible for the killings. Ukraine says Russia is guilty of genocide and U.S. President Joe Biden has accused Putin of war crimes and called for a trial.

Putin said he had told Western leaders to think a little about destruction by the United States of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State caliphate, and in Afghanistan.

"Have you seen how this Syrian city was turned to rubble by American aircraft? Corpses lay in the ruins for months decomposing," Putin said. "Nobody cared. No one even noticed."

"There was no such silence when provocations were staged in Syria, when they portrayed the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Then it turned out that it was fake. It's the same kind of fake in Bucha."

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has found that poison gas was used repeatedly in Syria, including in Ghouta, an opposition-held suburb of Damascus. Russia has objected to those findings that implicated its ally Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Washington and its allies have denied targeting civilians in the 2017 air strikes on Raqqa, a Syrian city that had become the headquarters of the Islamic State militant movement the U.S.-led coalition was fighting.

Putin, who says Ukraine and Russia are essentially one people, casts the war as an inevitable confrontation with the United States, which he accuses of threatening Russia by meddling in its backyard.

Sixty one years to the day since the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin blasted off into the history books by becoming the first man in space, Putin drew an analogy between Soviet space successes and Russia's defiance today.

"The sanctions were total, the isolation was complete but the Soviet Union was still first in space," he said.

"We don't intend to be isolated," Putin added. "It is impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world - especially such a vast country as Russia."

 

 

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/putin-flies-russian-far-east-084120314.html

[Huat Zai]

 

[Huat Zai]

Mariupol defenders resist Russian ultimatum, Pope laments 'Easter of War'

 

A local resident looks at a damaged apartment building near the Illich Iron & Steel Works Metallurgical Plant, the second largest metallurgical enterprise in Ukraine, in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol, Apr 16, 2022. (Photo: AP/Alexei Alexandrov)

 

KVIV: Ukrainian soldiers appeared to defy a Russian ultimatum to lay down their arms on Sunday (Apr 17) in the pulverised port of Mariupol which Moscow said its forces had almost completely seized in what would be its biggest prize of the nearly two-month war.

Several hours after a 3am GMT deadline, there was no sign of surrender by Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov.

Citing radio intercepts, Russia's defence ministry said the encircled defenders, including 400 "foreign mercenaries", had orders to shoot any among them who wanted to give up.

There was no word on that from Ukraine's government.

Having failed to overcome Ukrainian resistance in the north, the Russian military has refocused its ground offensive on the eastern Donbas region while maintaining long-distance strikes elsewhere including the capital, Kyiv.

About 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country, cities have been shattered and thousands have died.

"The occupiers will be responsible for everything they did in Ukraine," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account, posting images of destruction he said were akin to the "terrible times" of World War II.

Implicitly criticising Russia too, Pope Francis pleaded for an end to the bloodshed and lamented the "Easter of War" during his address in St Peter's Square after Mass.

"May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged," he said.

Capturing Mariupol, the main port in Donbas, would be a strategic prize for Russia, connecting territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014. Russia said on Saturday its troops had cleared the urban area of Mariupol.

 

LAST STAND

Zelenskyy accused Russia on Saturday of "deliberately trying to destroy everyone" in Mariupol and said his government was in touch with the defenders. But he did not address Moscow's claim that Ukrainian forces were no longer in urban districts.

The city has seen some of the fiercest fighting and worst civilian suffering since the Feb 24 invasion, with bodies littering the rubble and thousands hunkered down in atrocious conditions underground.

The city's steelworks, one of Europe's biggest metallurgical plants with a maze of rail tracks and blast furnaces, has become a last stand for the outnumbered defenders.

"All who lay down their arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared," Russia's defence ministry said, offering the defending "remnants" a four-hour window to leave the plant.

Zelenskyy has said killing his troops would put paid to peace efforts.

It was not known how many soldiers were in the steelworks. Satellite images have shown smoke and fire coming from the area, which is riddled with tunnels.

Russia calls its action a special military operation to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate what it calls dangerous nationalists backed by an expansionist NATO military alliance. The West and Kyiv accuse President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression.

Russia said Ukraine had lost more than 4,000 soldiers in Mariupol as of Saturday. Kyiv says its total troop losses nationwide so far in the war are less than that, between 2,500 and 3,000. Reuters has not been able to verify either side's figures.

NATIONWIDE ATTACKS

Elsewhere in Ukraine, there were more reports on Sunday of Russian strikes around major popular centres.

Local media reported an explosion in the capital Kyiv, though deputy mayor Mykola Povoroznyk said air defence systems had thwarted Russian attacks. The mayor of Brovary city, close to Kyiv, said a missile attack had damaged infrastructure.

Russia said it had destroyed an ammunition factory near the capital, according to the RIA news agency.

As cleanup operations continued in areas where the Russians retreated, Ukraine's human rights ombudswoman said almost all high-rise buildings in the town of Okhtyrka were unfit for occupation, while the State Emergencies Service said 41 bodies had been recovered in the town of Borodyanka.

Most Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter next Sunday, but in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv where Ukraine accuses Russia of killing dozens of civilians, about 50 people attended a service at the town's church, carrying pussy willow and praying for the dead.

Russia denies targeting civilians and has called pictures of those killed in Bucha fake.

"I just prayed today to stop crying," said resident Evgeniya Lebedko outside the church after the service.

"We have survived these horrors and we are constantly crying. And I don't want those tears to fall but I go out every day and I smell it and I cry all the time."

Despite the desperate situation in Mariupol, Ukraine said it was holding off Russian forces in other parts of the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

On Sunday, Donetsk region police said that over the past 24 hours, Russian forces opened fire from tanks, multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery on 13 settlements under Ukrainian control, killing two civilians.

Luhansk governor Sehriy Gaidai said that since the start of the war, all but 20,000 of acting capital Sievierodonetsk's 130,000 residents had left the city

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/mariupol-ukraine-resist-russia-ultimatum-invasion-surrender-2629996

[Huat Zai]

Explosions rock Ukraine, bodies line streets of Mariupol

People walk past the turret of a tank, which was destroyed during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, Apr 17, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

 

 

 

LVIV: Ukrainian authorities said missiles struck Lviv early on Monday (Apr 18) and explosions rocked other cities as Russian forces kept up their bombardments after claiming near full control of the strategic southern port of Mariupol.

Driven back by Ukrainian resistance in the north, the Russian military has refocused its ground offensive on Donbas, while launching long-distance strikes at targets elsewhere, including the capital, Kyiv.

Lviv mayor Andriy Sadoviy said five missile strikes had hit the western city early on Monday. It was unclear if there were any casualties there.

In Kyiv, a Reuters reporter heard a series of blasts near the Dnipro river. Local authorities were yet to provide any official information on their cause.

According to media outlet Suspilne, two people were wounded in attacks in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk.

Eighteen people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in shelling in the past four days in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

"This is nothing but deliberate terror: Mortars, artillery against ordinary residential quarters, against ordinary civilians," he said late on Sunday.

Russia denies targeting civilians and has rejected what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities as staged to undermine peace talks. It calls its action, launched almost two months ago, a special military operation to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate what it calls dangerous nationalists.

The West and Kyiv accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression.

BATTLE FOR MARIUPOL

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said troops in the pulverised port of Mariupol were still fighting on Sunday, despite a Russian demand to surrender.

"The city still has not fallen," he told ABC's "This Week" programme, adding that Ukrainian soldiers continued to control some parts of the south-eastern city.

On Saturday, Russia said it had control of urban areas, with some Ukrainian fighters remaining in the Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov.

Capturing Mariupol would be a strategic prize for Russia, linking territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region Moscow annexed in 2014.

On the eve of the war, it was the biggest city still held by Ukrainian authorities in the two eastern provinces known as the Donbas, which Moscow has demanded Ukraine cede to pro-Russian separatists.

It would unite Russian forces on two of the main axes of the invasion, and free them up to join an expected new offensive against the main Ukrainian force in the east.

On the streets of Mariupol, small groups of bodies were lined up under colourful blankets, surrounded by shredded trees and scorched buildings.

Residents, some pushing bicycles, picked their way around destroyed tanks and civilian vehicles while Russian soldiers checked the documents of motorists.

 

 

 

One resident, Irina, was evacuating with a niece wounded in the shelling.

"I have a daughter in DNR," she said, referring to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. "Maybe we will try to move there for the time being.

"I hope they will re-build (Mariupol). The most important thing is utility systems. Summer will pass fast and in winter it will be hard."

Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, reported street fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops had begun and he repeated a plea for people to evacuate.

"The next week will be difficult," he said in an earlier post on his Facebook page. "It may be the last time we have a chance to save you."

"EASTER OF WAR"

About four million Ukrainians have fled the country, cities have been shattered and thousands have died since the start of the invasion on Feb 24.

The economic damage is significant. Shmyhal said Ukraine's budget deficit was about US$5 billion a month and urged Western governments for more financial aid.

On Twitter, Zelenskyy said he had discussed ensuring Ukraine's financial stability and preparations for post-war reconstruction with International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva, quoting her as having said support was essential to lay the foundations for rebuilding.

Ukraine pressed on with efforts to swiftly join the European Union, as officials completed a questionnaire that is a starting point for the EU to decide on its membership. On Easter Sunday, Pope Francis implicitly criticised Russia, pleading for an end to the bloodshed and lamenting the "Easter of war" in a speech in St Peter's Square after Mass.

"May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged," he said.

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/explosions-rock-ukraine-bodies-streets-mariupol-2631176

[Huat Zai]

 

[Huat Zai]

 

[Huat Zai]

 

[Huat Zai]

 

[Huat Zai]

Mariupol fighting: More evacuations from besieged city on Friday, UN says

 

 

A third operation to pull civilians from Mariupol is due on Friday, the UN says, as more fighting was reported for control of a steelworks where the last Ukrainian defenders are holding out.

About 200 civilians are also believed to be hiding in bunkers in the plant.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said everything should be done to "get people out of these hellscapes".

Russia's Vladimir Putin said his forces are ready to give civilians safe passage, but fighters must surrender.

The Russian president has already declared victory in Mariupol, ordering his forces to seal off the sprawling industrial site - which was designed during the Cold War to serve as a nuclear bunker and has a network of tunnels deep below ground - rather than try to take control of it.

However the remaining Ukrainian forces inside the steelworks - fighters from the Azov regiment, some marines, border guards and police - say Russian attacks are continuing.

In his overnight address Ukraine's President Zelensky also said that Russian shelling and attempts to wrest control of the steelworks were ongoing.

"Just imagine this hell. And there are children! More than two months of constant shelling, bombing, constant death nearby," he said.

The Azov regiment released drone footage showing explosions at the steelworks, but the date of the footage could not be verified. Earlier on Thursday Sviatoslav Palamar, an Azov regiment commander, said Ukrainian defenders were fighting "difficult, bloody battles" with Russian troops who had managed to enter part of the complex.

But the Kremlin denied its forces had tried to storm the plant and insisted that a humanitarian corridor was open as part of a three-day ceasefire that started on Thursday.

Mr Guterres said a third operation to evacuate civilians from the city was under way and would arrive in the city on Friday. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on social media that this would happen at about midday.

• Mariupol steelworks evacuees reach safety

At least 20 children are thought to be among the remaining civilians in the steelworks, and food and water supplies are dwindling fast.

 

On Sunday an initial group of civilians was evacuated from the plant. Footage showed mainly women and children being helped to walk over piles of rubble, and boarding a bus with missing windows.

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine 10 weeks ago but has not yet gained full control over any of Ukraine's major cities.

In other developments:

• The US provided intelligence that helped Ukraine sink the Russian warship Moskva, multiple US media outlets report. Officials said Ukraine had asked the US about a ship in the Black Sea. The US identified it as the Moskva and helped confirm its location. Ukraine then targeted the ship
• Israel says Mr Putin has apologised after his foreign minister said that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had "Jewish blood". Russia's account of the conversation did not mention an apology. Sergei Lavrov made the initial comments to try to justify Russia's portrayal of Ukraine as "Nazi" despite the fact that its president is Jewish
• A key ally of Russia, authoritarian Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, has indicated that the war in Ukraine has not gone to plan. He told the AP news agency that the operation had "dragged on"
• The EU is close to agreeing on a sixth round of sanctions against Russia, the bloc's foreign policy chief says. On Wednesday the EU Commission proposed phasing out Russian oil imports entirely

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61342436

[Huat Zai]

Just now, Huat Zai said:

Russia's Vladimir Putin said his forces are ready to give civilians safe passage, but fighters must surrender.

 

[Satki]

this is the weirdest war in modern times

 

1. Ukraine side seems to know what is being discussed at the highest level of G from the other side

2. Ukraine gets to know exact number of russians killed

3. Ukraine seems to know how to operate sophisticated missile systems with little to no training and with high accuracy

4. I am sure you can add more

 

I guess nowadays no need simi translator. Google is your best friend?

[Huat Zai]

1 hour ago, Satki said:

this is the weirdest war in modern times

 

1. Ukraine side seems to know what is being discussed at the highest level of G from the other side

2. Ukraine gets to know exact number of russians killed

3. Ukraine seems to know how to operate sophisticated missile systems with little to no training and with high accuracy

4. I am sure you can add more

 

I guess nowadays no need simi translator. Google is your best friend?

 

It's very obvious that America and Nato are fighting a proxy war with Pudding, even at the expense of burning their intelligence assets.

As for the training, it's likely they are going the "I say never send troops, never say my private contractors can't go hor!!" route. Pudding suck thumb because he has tons of private contractors on the field too.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Huat Zai

[Satki]

WW2 we need to send in matahari to learn the enemy strength

 

 

now like open book war

 

all eyes and ears for May 9.

 

instead of parading their missiles, they showcase them in action

 

Like Pearl Harbour. Attack the western capitals when they are sleeping

[XianGe]

20 hours ago, Satki said:

this is the weirdest war in modern times

 

1. Ukraine side seems to know what is being discussed at the highest level of G from the other side

2. Ukraine gets to know exact number of russians killed

3. Ukraine seems to know how to operate sophisticated missile systems with little to no training and with high accuracy

4. I am sure you can add more

 

I guess nowadays no need simi translator. Google is your best friend?

 

Even doctor will google

Tink Ukraine GG liao... 

[Huat Zai]

Ukraine war: Dozens feared dead after bomb hits school

 

 

Dozens of people are feared dead after a bomb hit a school in east Ukraine, where government forces are battling Russian troops and separatists.

Luhansk region's governor, Serhiy Haidai, confirmed two deaths, saying 60 people were feared dead under the rubble of the school in Bilohorivka.

About 90 people had been sheltering in the building and 30 were rescued, seven of them wounded, he added.

Mr Haidai said a Russian plane had dropped the bomb on Saturday.

His accusation could not be verified independently and there was no immediate response from Russia.

Luhansk has seen fierce combat as Russian troops and separatist fighters seek to surround government forces, just over two months since the start of the Russian invasion.

Bilohorivka is close to the government-held city of Severodonetsk, where heavy fighting was reported in the suburbs on Saturday. One Ukrainian newspaper, Ukrayinska Pravda, says the village became a "hot spot" during fighting last week.

The blast brought down the building which caught fire and it took firefighters three hours to extinguish the blaze, according to the governor, writing on Telegram.

He said almost the entire village had been sheltering in the basement of the school.

The final death toll would only be known when the rubble had been cleared, the governor said.

Mr Haidai said a house in a neighbouring village, which he named as Shypilovo, had been hit by Russian shelling, and 11 people were trapped in its basement. Rescuers were still trying to reach the scene, he said, as shelling continued.

There are reports of new fighting in eastern Ukraine on Sunday morning. According to separatist officials, government forces shelled Donetsk city and the town of Holmivskyi, Russian state media report.

 

Since the invasion began on 24 February, the UN has recorded at least 2,345 civilian deaths and 2,919 injured in Ukraine, the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in an update last month. Thousands of combatants are also believed to have been killed or injured on both sides.

More than 12 million people are said to have fled their homes since the conflict began, with 5.7 million leaving for neighbouring countries and another 6.5 million people thought to be displaced inside the war-torn country itself.

Much of Luhansk, which along with Donetsk forms part of the Donbas region, has been under the control of the separatists for the past eight years.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61369229

[Satki]

War still go to school

 

daft or what

 

[Huat Zai]

21 minutes ago, Satki said:

War still go to school

 

daft or what

 

They were using it as air raid shelter lah, but obviously not built for it

Edited May 8, 2022 by Huat Zai

[Huat Zai]

Putin channels memory of Hitler's defeat to urge victory in Ukraine

Russian service members take part in a military parade on Victory Day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2022. (Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

 

LONDON: Russian President Vladimir Putin evoked the memory of Soviet heroism in World War II on Monday (May 9) to urge his army towards victory in Ukraine but acknowledged the cost in Russian lives as he pledged to help the families of fallen soldiers.

Addressing massed ranks of service personnel on Red Square on the 77th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, Putin condemned what he called external threats to weaken and split Russia, and repeated familiar arguments that he had used to justify Russia's invasion - that NATO was creating threats right next to its borders.

He directly addressed soldiers fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which Russia has pledged to "liberate" from Kyiv's control.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military parade on Victory Day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS

 

"You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II. So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis," he said.

His speech included a minute of silence. "The death of each one of our soldiers and officers is our shared grief and an irreparable loss for their friends and relatives," said Putin, promising that the state would look after their children and families.

But his 11-minute speech, on day 75 of the invasion, was largely notable for what he did not say.

He did not mention Ukraine by name, gave no assessment of progress in the war and offered no indication of how long it might continue.

There was no mention of the bloody battle for Mariupol, where Ukrainian defenders holed up in the ruins of the Azovstal steelworks are still defying Russia's assault.

Putin has repeatedly likened the war - which he casts as a battle against dangerous "Nazi"- inspired nationalists in Ukraine - to the challenge the Soviet Union faced when Adolf Hitler invaded in 1941.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said it is Russia that is staging a "bloody re-enactment of Nazism" in Ukraine.

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/russia-putin-evokes-world-war-ii-triumph-urge-victory-ukraine-2672181

 

 

 

 

[Satki]

22 hours ago, Huat Zai said:

They were using it as air raid shelter lah, but obviously not built for it

 

 

QED

 

Daft is daft

 

[Huat Zai]

 

 

 

 

[Huat Zai]