Anonymous ID: c3afa3 March 17, 2022, 4:42 p.m. No.15886888   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6950

17 Mar, 2022 20:50

HomeRussia & FSU

Ukraine hints at when Putin and Zelensky could meet

 

The two presidents would meet only when a “peace treaty” is signed, Volodymyr Zelensky’s aide has said

 

IMO Zelensky is fucking with Fire

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin “in the coming weeks,” Zelensky’s aide, Mikhail Podolyak, said on Thursday. The meeting, however, could happen only when a “peace treaty” between Kiev and Moscow is signed, he said.

 

“As soon as the work on the agreement is completed, we will start organizing the meeting. It will happen in the coming weeks. The location, however, does not matter to us. It can be anywhere, except for Russia,” Podolyak told Wirtualna Polska portal in an interview.

 

Finalizing the peace deal could take some time, ranging from several days to a week and a half, the official claimed. Currently, both Ukrainian and Russian sides are “insisting on their view points,” he admitted.

 

“An immediate withdrawal of the Russian troops is one of the key aspects of the peace deal. However, negotiations are a large-scale process involving not only Russia and Ukraine. Poland, among others, takes part in it. It is not just about signing the agreement. We want to develop a specific mechanism that will guarantee our security in the future,” Podolyak explained, suggesting that even reaching the deal would not mean the end of the conflict.

 

The signing of a peace treaty can only end the active phase of the conflict … However, I doubt that the war will end there for Ukrainians. Not after all we’ve been through.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations have held several rounds of talks since the beginning of the ongoing hostilities late in February. The negotiations have failed to yield any tangible result yet, except for Kiev and Moscow finding common ground on organizing humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from the war zones.

 

“Significant progress” in the peace talks was reported by the Financial Times on Wednesday, with the newspaper claiming the two sides were discussing a 15-point draft plan, involving the withdrawal of Russian troops and Ukraine becoming a neutral state under the protection of Western allies.

 

The report, however, was refuted by Moscow, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissing it as a false one and promising to update the public should any actual breakthrough in the negotiations be reached. Kiev dismissed the FT report as well, with Podolyak claiming the 15-point plan reflected Moscow’s demands and nothing more.

 

Moscow attacked its neighbor last months following a seven-year standoff over Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the 2014-15 Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

 

Russia also outlined the goals to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country. Kiev maintains the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/552183-ukraine-zelensky-putin-meeting/

Anonymous ID: c3afa3 March 17, 2022, 4:47 p.m. No.15886912   🗄️.is 🔗kun

17 Mar, 2022 17:37

HomeRussia & Former Soviet Union

Ukrainian army used Tochka-U rocket in fatal Donetsk missile attack, local expert claims

 

Blood stains, broken windows, and shrapnel litter the streets after an alleged Ukrainian ballistic missile assault killed more than 20 and injured over 36 civilians

By Stepan Kostetskiy and Dmitry Pauk

 

Officials in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have claimed that a missile allegedly launched by Ukrainian forces on Monday was aimed at a residential area in their capital city, but was intercepted by air defense systems before reaching its target. However, a portion of the rocket still ended up falling on a densely populated area of Donetsk, killing more than 20 people, some of whom were children, and leaving at least 36 injured.

 

Kiev has denied responsibility for the attack, which has been barely reported by Western media, insisting it was “unmistakably a Russian rocket” and that “there’s no point talking about it.” However, reports from the ground suggest that the downed missile was a Tochka-U rocket, commonly used by the Ukrainian military.

 

This type of missile, dubbed SS-21 Scara by NATO, is a mobile launch system developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Russia has phased out its use, in favor of the newer and far superior 9K270 Iskander, which was introduced in the mid 2000s.

 

RT spoke to local lawyer and war crime investigator, Ivan Kopyl, who’s been working in the area collecting evidence and testimonies from the people who witnessed the attack. Since 2015, he has been attached to the local public organization “Spravedlivaya Zashita” and some of his previous findings were sent to the European Court of Human Rights in 2020.

 

Kopyl says that there is no doubt in his mind that the strike was carried out with a Tochka-U missile, and that there is plenty of evidence to support his claim.

 

“We went to the area of yesterday’s strike to observe the impact sites. The warhead of a Tochka-U missile contains 50 cassettes of cluster munitions,” he explained, on Tuesday. “We managed to find 28 traces of cluster explosions on the soil.”

 

He went on to say that much of the fragments may have ended up on rooftops or even have been already trampled or cleaned up. Kopyl estimates that most, if not all, of the cassettes in the rocket went off, contrary to the claims by DPR officials who state that only one of the rocket’s cassettes exploded.

 

While Kopyl was not able to confirm or deny assertions that the projectile was shot down by air defense systems, as its remains had already been cleared out by the time he arrived at the scene, he maintains that it’s undeniable that the rocket was being aimed at civilians.

 

“I think it is absolutely clear that the missile was aimed at a densely-populated civilian area where there were certainly no military targets present. Because the rocket hit Pushkin Boulevard - the central street in Donetsk - where people go for walks and where there are only a bunch of cafes. The courtyard of an art museum was damaged from the back. There was also damage to a yard where there are two kindergartens - there were several craters there. And then, of course, there was damage to that street near the bank where there is always a queue of mostly elderly people who are trying to get their pensions from the ATM.”

 

Surveillance footage from the bank has recently been making the rounds on social media, showing in gruesome detail how several people standing in line were caught in the blast, with some seemingly killed on the spot.

 

Kopyl claims that another piece of evidence indicating it was a Tochka-U missile strike is the characteristic blast pattern that has been left in the wake of the attack.

 

“When it comes to the traces of the explosion, they usually form a sort of circle. A Tochka-U missile changes its orientation just before landing, so after it flies on a trajectory it makes a turn and falls vertically down before detonating at a certain height. The fragments then shower the surface in a radius of approximately 150 meters.”

 

Looking at a map, detailing the impact site, Kopyl says it completely falls in line with a Tochka-U strike - forming a circle of a corresponding radius, with the blast managing to strike numerous people.

 

He added that there are also characteristic traces in the soil and the asphalt, indicating multiple striking fragments. But one of the biggest giveaways, he says, are the white ribbons that have been found throughout the impact area….

 

“Several white ribbons have been found at the site - these are stabilizers for cluster submunitions……

 

https://www.rt.com/news/552178-tochka-u-missile-attack-donetsk/

Anonymous ID: c3afa3 March 17, 2022, 5:15 p.m. No.15887055   🗄️.is 🔗kun

17 Mar, 2022 16:17

 

Cheerleader of NATO wars spotted in Ukraine

 

Bernard-Henri Levy’s presence in Odessa should give pause to those who still believe NATO is not involved in Ukraine

 

French intellectual and philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy (commonly referred to as “BHL”), has an odd propensity for appearing alongside western proxy fighters in war zones. And new reports now place him on the ground amid the conflict in Ukraine.

 

The day after the February 24 launch of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, France 2, the main state-owned television network, hosted a debate featuring, on one side, former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, perhaps best known worldwide for his role during the run up to the Iraq war in 2003. Back then, he served as the foreign minister and represented France’s opposition to the American efforts under then president Jacques Chirac at the United Nations Security Council.

 

After then US Secretary of State Colin Powell made his now infamous speech imploring the international community to back an invasion of Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein’s use of weapons of mass destruction, De Villepin argued in favor of inspections.

 

“Given this context, the use of force is not justified at this time. There is an alternative to war: Disarming Iraq via inspections. Moreover, premature recourse to the military option would be fraught with risks,” he said.

 

History has now proven him correct in his assessment.

 

De Villepin’s call for prudence and avoidance of military escalation in Ukraine was loaded with historical lessons learned. “Military interventions never yield the expected results,” recalled the former French prime minister. “History has taught us this in Libya, Iraq and the Sahel.”

 

On the other side of the France 2 debate table was BHL, who has a rather interesting relationship to some of the conflicts evoked by De Villepin. “[Russian President Vladimir Putin] launched this crazy war, without reason, against a people who had done nothing to him,” replied the philosopher.

It seems that in BHL’s world, wars start like magic with a need to protect completely innocent parties that just happen to be on NATO’s side, and not because of covert shenanigans that predate them — something that BHL should certainly know about.

 

During the NATO-backed war in Yugoslavia — the war in Europe that those commenting on the current situation in Ukraine seem to forget — BHL, who just happened to be hanging out in the region, overtly backed the NATO proxy, then Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović, who, his opponents believed, was a Muslim fundmentalist. Izetbegović was allegedly used by western forces to helm Islamist fighters against Serbia and ultimately carve out a zone of influence and military control in the Balkans. Later, in a 2019 tweet, BHL referred to the al-Qaeda-linked Izetbegović as “one of the great, luminous figures of the 20th century.”

Then, in March 2011, ahead of the NATO invasion of Libya, which led to an overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi that October, BHL was spotted in Libya meeting with “Libyan rebels,” footage of which can be seen in BHL’s documentary, “The Oath of Tobruk.” It would be easy to chalk up Levy’s presence among the western-backed proxy fighters ahead of Gaddafi’s ultimate demise at their hands as just journalistic interest or intellectual curiosity. But that theory is betrayed by French reports of an activist role at the highest level of the French government.

 

BHL succeeded in bringing three members of the future Libyan government in waiting to meet with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace on March 10, 2011 — seven months before Gaddafi’s demise, according to Le Figaro. The newspaper also reported that BHL, who met with then US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, at a Paris hotel and noted an American disinterest in military intervention, subsequently took to French airwaves to pressure Sarkozy into having the French take the lead in the invasion by telling the French audience that, “If Gaddafi takes Benghazi, the huge French flag flying on the Corniche will literally be spattered with the blood of the massacred Libyans.” Four days after the media appearance, NATO began its military intervention in Libya.

 

In 2012, as the NATO-led invasion of yet another country, Syria, raged in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad with “Syrian rebels” backed by CIA and Pentagon covert programs, BHL took to the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival with both Libyan and Syrian rebels, to symbolize “the passing of the torch of Liberty,” according to Le Point magazine. Just a few months later, BHL was calling for France to also send weapons to the western’s proxy “rebels” to fight the Syrian army, specifically, “cannons, anti-aircraft missiles, defensive weapons, for Aleppo, Homs and the rest of Free Syria.” …..

 

https://www.rt.com/news/552168-french-bhl-odessa-ukraine-nato/

Anonymous ID: c3afa3 March 17, 2022, 5:25 p.m. No.15887097   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>7100

17 Mar, 2022 15:36

 

NATO begins major war games near Russia

 

NATO has deployed 30,000 troops, 50 vessels, and 200 aircraft from 27 member-states in Norway to conduct the long-planned military exercise ‘Cold Response’, which started on Monday and will last until April.

 

“The exercise will ensure that Norwegian and allied forces are capable in carrying out complex joint operations in a demanding climate and under challenging high-intensity situations,” explains the Norwegian Armed Forces’ website.

 

NATO soldiers will test their skills operating in extreme and rugged surroundings, from frozen fjords to shivering seas and ice-encrusted mountains. Since the main focus of the drills is to practice deploying military units to and from the sea coast, naval forces will play a crucial role.

 

According to NATO, the goal of the drills is to help “Allies and partners practise [sic] working together so that they are prepared for any situation.” The Norwegian Armed Forces attest that this exercise is a central arena for testing the deployment of the NATO Response Force.

 

‘Cold Response’ biennial drills are underway in Norway

 

NATO’s drills are unfolding as Russia continues its military action in Ukraine. Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk.

 

Both Norwegian and NATO officials have repeatedly stated that the exercise had been planned long before Moscow launched its military operation in late February.

 

It is important to emphasize that ‘Cold Response 2022’ has been planned long before the war in Ukraine. The exercise is neither unexpected nor surprising to Russian authorities,” the Norwegian Armed Forces said.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/552173-nato-military-drills-norway/

Anonymous ID: c3afa3 March 17, 2022, 5:27 p.m. No.15887114   🗄️.is 🔗kun

17 Mar, 2022 17:04

HomeRussia & FSU

Belarus explains what could derail Russia-Ukraine peace deal

 

President Alexander Lukashenko said that Kiev was presented with “acceptable” terms

 

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has argued that Ukraine will have to eventually capitulate before Russia unless it accepts the terms put forward by Moscow today. The fighting has been raging since February.

 

“I'm convinced that, in the nearest future, this conflict – the Russian [military] operation – will end with a peace,” Lukashenko said in an interview with Japan’s TBS on Thursday.

 

He then shared his thoughts on a deal that he said President Vladimir Putin of Russia had proposed to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.

 

“I know with the utmost certainty that Putin is offering Zelensky an absolutely acceptable treaty. It is still possible today for Russia and Ukraine to reach an agreement, and for Zelensky to sign it.”

 

Lukashenko argued, however, that if Zelensky rejects the deal, “after some time he will have to sign a capitulation.”He added that “Russia will not lose this war.”

 

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held several rounds of talks in Belarus before switching to discussions via video link. They have not signaled that they had made any breakthroughs.

 

Russian troops have used Belarusian territory to advance on Ukraine's capital, Kiev, but Lukashenko denied that his soldiers were participating in the campaign. On Thursday, he claimed that at least two ballistic missiles were launched from Ukraine into Belarus. “If Ukraine continues its escalation towards Belarus, we'll respond,” Lukashenko said.

 

Russia started its offensive in Ukraine following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics with capitals in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

 

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/552180-belarus-ukraine-peace-deal/