4 Apr, 2022 20:44

EU to send investigators to probe alleged war crimes in Ukraine

People behind these “heinous crimes” must not go unpunished, EU Commission head has said

The EU will send a team of investigators to Ukraine to probe alleged war crimes on the ground, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday, after holding phone talks with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. The move comes after multiple dead civilians were found in Bucha, a suburb of the capital, over the weekend, with Kiev promptly attributing the killings to Russian troops.

“This afternoon I spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the dreadful murders that have been uncovered in Bucha and other areas from which Russian troops have recently left,” von der Leyen said in a statement.

The investigative team dispatched by the EU will not act as an independent entity but will assist Ukrainian authorities in collecting evidence on site, the official signaled.

“The EU has set up a Joint Investigation Team with Ukraine to collect evidence and investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity,” von der Leyen explained. “The EU is ready to reinforce this effort by sending investigation teams on the ground to support theUkrainian Prosecution Services. Eurojust and Europol are ready to assist.”

The Bucha affair unfolded after multiple dead civilians were found in the suburban town northwest of the capital. Kiev without delay blamed Russian troops for the purported mass killing, with top Western officials backing its assessment and also accusing Moscow of war crimes. The latter, however, has vehemently denied any involvement in the killings, branding the whole Bucha affair a deliberately staged “provocation” to frame Russian troops.

Zelensky visited the site of the purported mass killing earlier in the day, vowing to punish those responsible, and reiterating Kiev’s allegations against Moscow.

“We want you to show the world what happened here. What the Russian military did. What the Russian Federation did in peaceful Ukraine. It was important for you to see that these were civilians,” Zelensky told a large group foreign reporters who accompanied him to the site.

Moscow launched a large-scale offensive against Ukraine in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, 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.

https://www.rt.com/news/553295-eu-ukraine-bucha-probe/

4 Apr, 2022 16:33

HomeRussia & FSU

Germany to kick out 'significant number' of Russian diplomats

Germany has reportedly declared 40 Russian diplomats “undesirable persons.” They have five days to leave the country.

Berlin has decided to “declare a significant number of members of the Russian embassy unwanted persons who have worked here in Germany every day against our freedom, against the cohesion of our society,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday. “We will not tolerate this any further.”

If diplomats are pronounced unwanted persons, it means expulsion.

The decision was communicated to the Russian ambassador Sergey Netschayev in the afternoon, Baerbock announced.

The personnel have five days to leave Germany. According to local media reports, the Russian foreign-service employees are suspected of working for Moscow’s intelligence services. German media outlets said that as many as 40 Russian diplomats are to leave the country.

"The pictures from Bucha testify to the incredible brutality of the Russian leadership, and those who follow its propaganda,” Baerbock said as she explained the decision. She offered no evidence to support her assertion.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops from Bucha, hundreds of murdered civilians were discovered in that suburb of Kiev. Ukraine blames the massacre on Russian troops, who had occupied the small town until recently, but Moscow denies that. While Western politicians sided with Ukraine on the matter,the Pentagon said that it doesn't yet have independent evidence to back these claims.

Foreign Minister Baerbock said that the persons had "worked against our freedom"

https://www.rt.com/russia/553292-germany-expel-russian-diplomats/

4 Apr, 2022 17:56

‘World of Tanks’ developer leaves Russia and Belarus

Wargaming announces it will be closing its Minsk studio and handing over live services to an unaffiliated company

Wargaming, the studio behind popular online military games such as ‘World of Tanks,’ ‘World of Warships’ and ‘World of Warplanes,’ has announced it will be completely shutting down operations in Russia and in its ‘native’ Belarus, where it was founded and is the biggest gaming company in the country.

It announced the decision in a statement posted to its website as well as LinkedIn, saying it had already started the process of closing its studio in Minsk and has transferred the business of operating its games in Russia and Belarus to Lesta Studio – a Russian developer that Wargaming acquired in 2011 but is now “no longer affiliated” with the company.

“The company will not profit from this process either today or going forward. Much to the contrary we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision,” Wargaming admitted in the statement.

Nevertheless, the studio maintained that it will be completing the transition “with all due speed” while sticking to local laws and ensuring the safety and support of its employees. It added that the live products and services will remain available for Russians and Belarusians throughout this period, as they will be operated by the new games operator.

“Despite the magnitude of this decision, we as a company are confident in the future of our business and are committed to delivering quality games to our players,” the statement concluded.

Though it did not provide a specific reason for the decision, it is more than likely connected to the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the strict sanctions placed on all Russian and Belarusian companies. Wargaming has also repeatedly expressed support for Ukraine during this conflict, has donated a million dollars to the Ukrainian Red Cross and has fired a creative director for expressing support for Putin’s operation.

Wargaming joins a host of major companies from across all industries that have decided to suspend or completely shut down their operations in Russia and Belarus, after Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk.

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 had been planning to retake the two rebel regions by force.

https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/553291-wargaming-leaves-russia-belarus/

4 Apr, 2022 18:55

The truth about Bucha is out there, but perhaps too inconvenient to be discovered

It should be easy to find out what really happened to the massacred civilians in the Ukrainian town

“In war, truth is the first casualty.” This quote has been attributed to Aeschylus, a 6th BCE Greek tragedian noted for his “copious use of imagery, mythic allusion, grand language, wordplay and riddles.” It is only fitting, therefore, that the man who first gave word to the concept of modern-day war-time propaganda would see his quote come to life in the present-day Ukraine. The Kiev government and their Western information warfare advisers may have coopted all of Aeschylus’ playwright devices to craft a modern-day tragedy in the Ukrainian town of Bucha that exemplifies the notion of the lie as not just a byproduct, but also a weapon of war.

The main source of the Bucha tragedy reports is a videotape, taken by the Ukrainian National Police, of one of their convoys driving through a street in the town. A dozen or so corpses litter the roadway, many of them appearing to have been bound. This video has gone viral, producing a pandemic of anguish and anger that has swept over much of the world, capturing the attention of heads of state and the head of the Catholic Church alike, resulting in a tidal wave of condemnation and outrage directed at Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The cause-and-effect relationship between the video and the global backlash is clear – the former could not exist without the latter.

One of the first lessons of objectivity is to slow things down to make sure that fact is not obscured by emotion. The Bucha videotape is disturbing. The video has been released in its present form, it appears, with the express intent of producing a visceral “shock and awe” moment for the viewer. If this was indeed the case, then those who released it – the Ukrainian National Police – have succeeded beyond their wildest imagination. Or that of their advisors, as the case may be.

The linkage between the dead and the Russian military was established immediately, without any fact-based data to back it up, and subsequently echoed in all forms of media – mainstream and social alike. Anyone who dared question the established “Russia did it” narrative was shouted down and belittled as a “Russian shill,” or worse.

That these conclusions are the byproduct of mass hysteria is beside the point – why seek to be objective when the narrative fits every stereotype that had been carefully assembled beforehand by the same people parroting the Bucha story today. Social “preconditioning” of an audience unused to critical thinking is an essential step in getting this audience to accept at face value anything that is put before it, regardless of how egregiously the facts of the story strain credulity. And let’s be clear – the Ukrainian narrative of the events in Bucha seems to stretch credibility.

The chronology of the narrative produces the first red flag that the story being peddled by Ukraine, and echoed in the West, is not what it seems. It is established fact that Russian troops evacuated Bucha on March 30. Ukrainian National Police began entering Bucha on March 31, and that same day the mayor of Bucha announced that the town was fully under the control of Ukrainian officials. At no time was there any suggestion by the mayor or any other Ukrainian official of mass killings undertaken by Russia. The videotape in question was released by Ukrainian authorities on April 2; it is not certain if the video had been taken earlier, or on that day. What is certain is that the images shown in the video differed sharply from the narrative initially portrayed by the mayor.

For its part, Russia has vehemently denied the allegations, and has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss what the Russian Foreign Ministry has called the “criminal provocations by Ukrainian soldiers and radicals” in Bucha. The presidency of the Security Council is held by Great Britain, and the British mission to the UN has denied the Russian request, stating that a discussion on Ukraine currently scheduled for Tuesday, April 4 would serve as a forum for any discussion about Bucha.

One would think that the Security Council, which has shown a readiness in the past to meet on short notice to discuss the events coming out of Ukraine, would seek to accommodate Russia’s request on a matter of such importance. The goal of the British, however, does not appear to be the rapid search for truth and justice, but rather to buy time to allow the political fallout from the alleged massacre in Bucha to develop further…..

https://www.rt.com/russia/553293-bucha-war-crimes-truth/

He’s enjoying scaring the shit out of them

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1511011921495011328?s=20&t=C8FSeD2ugsvgeFM1Ga4kIg

Well, Musk has a way with Nazis

https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1511072768246300688?s=20&t=eicnZisrFA4CKeIqvAIjcA