7 Jun, 2023 09:25

People missing after Kakhovka dam destruction – city mayor

Nearly 1,000 local residents have been evacuated from the flooded zone, Vladimir Leontyev has said

At leastseven peoplewent missing in the Russian city of Novaya Kakhovka after a local hydroelectric dam was destroyed on Tuesday in what Moscow claims was a Ukrainian strike, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters, Vladimir Leontyev, the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, noted, however, that preliminary information indicates that those peoplemay have been rescuedfrom the islands on the Dnieper River that went underwater.

“We are talking about herdsmen there… There were seven people that we know about for sure”, he stated, adding that search and rescue efforts are still underway.

The mayor went on to say that theriverside settlementof Korsunka had gonecompletely underwater, while in the settlements of Dniepriany, Krynky, and Kazachiy Lageri the water hadreached the buildings’ roofs.

He also stated that on Tuesday the local authorities had managed to evacuate more than 900 people from the flooded areas, adding that this number includes17 people who had been stranded on the roofsof buildings in an attempt to evade the gushing water.

Meanwhile, Leontyev noted that the water level in Novaya Kakhovka decreased by35cm (1-1/2 ft) overnight. A day earlier, local emergency services said that the water in the area had risen by asmuch as 12 meters (40 ft).

The authorities in Russia’s Kherson Region, where the dam breach took place, declared a state of emergency across the entire territory. Vladimir Saldo, the local acting governor, said that in totalbetween 22,000 and 40,000 peoplewere located in the disaster area.

Moscow and Kiev traded accusations over who is to blame for the incident, which triggered mass evacuation efforts on both sides of the Dnieper River.

Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of “deliberate sabotage” in a bid to deprive Crimea of drinking water and deflect attention away from Kiev’s botched counteroffensive in Donbass.

However, Ukraine denied responsibility, with President Vladimir Zelensky claiming that the facility was damaged in a Russian “terrorist attack.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/577613-people-missing-kakhovka-dam-flooding/

7 Jun, 2023 00:42

Russia holds West responsible for dam disaster – UN envoy

Sponsors encouraged Kiev to carry out its “terrorist” plans, Moscow’s ambassador told the Security Council

Ukraine destroyed the Kakhovka dam in an “unthinkable crime” intended to harm Crimea for choosing Russia in 2014, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security Council on Tuesday.

The Russian diplomat brought up US media reports documenting Ukrainian attacks on the Kakhovka dam in December 2022,using US-supplied HIMARS rockets.

“Feeling its total impunity and being encouraged by Western sponsors, the Kiev regime decided to carry out this terrorist plot this time,” Nebenzia claimed. He noted that the Ukrainians had significantly increased the discharge of water from the Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric power station, leading to even greater flooding downstream, “which indicates that this sabotage was planned in advance.”

The “terrorist act” was intended to free up Ukrainian forces for the “counteroffensive” currently getting bogged down in Zaporozhye, while inflicting massive humanitarian damage on the population of Kherson Region, Nebenzia insisted.

Not only did the flood render a dozen towns along the Dnieper River uninhabitable, it has alsoreduced water levels in the North Crimea canal, which supplies water to the Russian peninsula. Ukraine had shut off the canal after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in a 2014 referendum. It was only reopened last year, when Russian troops took control of the area.

According to Nebenzia, Kiev “once again decided to take revenge on the Crimeansfor their choice in favor of Russia and leave the population of Crimea without water.”

Nebenziacalled the claims by Ukrainian, US and EU officials that Russia was responsiblefor the dam’s destruction a “well-coordinated disinformation campaign,” in the same vein as previous allegations that Moscow was behind the shelling of its own people at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, or the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.

According to the Russian envoy,Kiev has fully embraced terrorist tactics, from the bombing of the Crimean Bridge to the targeted assassinations of journalists Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, and the attempt on Zakhar Prilepin – which none of the Western governments said a word to condemn.

“The Kiev regime has good teachers, responsible for destroying the Nord Stream [pipeline] and the deliberate targeting of the Tabqa dam in Syria. The West is used to doing the dirty work with other people’s hands,” the Russian diplomat told the Security Council.

“We also do not rule out an attempt at provocation against the Zaporozhye NPP,”Nebenzia said, given that the UN has persistently refused to condemn Ukrainian attacks on the facility, “although it is obvious to everyone which side they are coming from.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/577601-kakhovka-dam-western-sponsors-nebenzia/

7 Jun, 2023 16:01

EU fears fatigue over Ukrainian refugees

With inflation strangling the bloc’s economies, Brussels is concerned that the welcome shown to arrivals is wearing thin

The EU is experiencing “solidarity fatigue” towards Ukrainian refugees, the European Commission has warned in a report. The outflow of cash from bloc member governments to refugees iscausing resentment, according to the research.

Despite the “unprecedented outpouring of solidarity” shown by EU citizens to Ukrainian refugees, “what we might call ‘solidarity fatigue’ is beginning to set in in some member states,” EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told a press conference on Tuesday.

In the report, special EU adviser on Ukraine Lodewijk Asscher notes that “the cost of living crisis has hit low- and medium-income families in host societies,” which arealready struggling to integrate the roughly four million Ukrainian refugees in their care. Of this number, only 1.3 million are in any kind of employment, EU Jobs and Social Rights Commissioner Nicolas Schmit told EuroNews.

Those capable of work and seeking employment are often forced into competition withEU citizens, of whom more than 27 million are currently unemployed or underemployed. Likewise with accommodation – governments struggling to house their own people are now expected to house tens of thousands of new arrivals from Ukraine.

Ireland, for example, has been gripped by one of the most acute housing shortages in the world for much of the last decade, yet has taken in more than76,000 Ukrainian refugees, according to EU data. By contrast,Francehas taken in justunder 70,000 Ukrainians, despite having a population '13 times that of Ireland and far more dwellings available per capita.

Aascher claimed that resentment among low- and middle-income Europeanshas “created a context in which Russian propaganda could be more successful.” Neither Aascher nor Johannson suggested slowing the intake of refugees to appease their fatigued citizens, however, with both seemingly more concerned about the prospect of the public starting to side with Russia. (What they are really afraid of is that their Russian propaganda is not working)

“The discourse of migration and refugees can be weaponized to sow division within the EU,” Johansson told reporters on Tuesday. Johansson has long been an advocate for increased migration into the EU. Speaking in Brussels in 2020, she declared that the EU is “an ageing society,” and that Middle Eastern and African immigrants “should be welcomed, and should be part of our society,” despite the “risk of pushbacks” from native Europeans.

https://www.rt.com/news/577652-eu-ukraine-refugee-fatigue/

BREAKING NEWS MORE TO COMEreleased just now

7 Jun, 2023 17:09

FBI and Ukrainian spies conspired to censor Twitter users – report

The operation targeted RT, as well as American critics of Kiev

The FBI asked Twitter to remove more than 160 accounts that Ukrainian intelligence agents claimed were “spreading fear and disinformation,” according to leaked emails seen by reporter Aaron Mate. The FBI also asked Twitter to forward thepersonal information of these accounts to Kiev.

https://www.rt.com/news/577659-fbi-kiev-twitter/

7 Jun, 2023 11:12

Zelensky could be killed by his ‘masters’ – Medvedev

The West’s disappointment with the authorities in Kiev could cost the Ukrainian leader his life, the former Russian president has suggested

Ukraine is being forced to carry out itsmuch-hyped counteroffensivein order to justify the weapons and money it received from the West, claimed ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a Telegram post on Wednesday.

He suggested that if Kiev doesn’t show its “masters” a return on their investment, the West’s disappointment with the Ukrainian government could end up costing its top officials not only their jobs but even their lives.

“The enemy has long promised a great counteroffensive. And it looks like something has already started,” wrote Medvedev, apparently referring to Kiev’s attempt to launch a large-scale offensive operation in the southern part of the Donetsk People’s Republic on Sunday. Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that Russian forces successfully repelled the thrust, destroying a large number of Ukrainian combatants and Western-supplied military equipment in the process.

Medvedev noted that the launch of such an operation came as no surprise, since “the Kiev regime has no choice. It must attack. It has to justify the money and weapons it has received.” He added that “the disappointment of [Kiev’s] overseers may cost Zelensky and his friends not only their posts, but their lives as well.”

The former Russian president then suggested that it would only take a few reports from “American agents,” which he says have long been in control of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU),in order for the “cocaine gangto be “instantly written off as scrap” for wasting American taxpayers’ money.

“Moreover, they will delegate it to someone else, as they like to do in Langley [the CIA headquarters],” said Medvedev. “They will give the order to some radical low-lifes todo away with the drug addict [Zelensky] for treasonagainst Ukraine and the Bandera cause, and then hang him by his feet along with his henchmen,” he added.

“Therefore, the Kiev regime has only one way out – to go to the end, sending thousands of mobilized to their deaths”, Medvedev concluded, insisting that Russia must not underestimate the enemy and launch its own offensive to completely “overthrow the Nazi Kiev regime.”

Last month, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s National Security Council, claimed that Ukraine has no future in its current form and that the collapse of its statehood is inevitable. He stressed that the “Nazi government in Kiev’’ must be destroyed in order to prevent the ongoing conflict from dragging on in perpetuity.

(I got the feeling that his time was getting short with Zelensky disrespected the Pope twice, when Bidan and every other leader, have been very respectful, when he published the video of Graham and him talking about Russian’s dying and it’s the best money the US spent, with him overruling his Generals and military when they said to let go of Bakhmut and they lost 150,000 dead and 150,000 casualties, his begging, demanding and trying to humiliate countries for not giving enough military equipment. I think the US is getting tired of him and his totally incompetence leading this war, his days are numbered. Maybe that is why he was tweeking so bad the G7. Plus, Zelensky being put down, would give the West the propaganda that Russia killed “Saint Zelensky” for outrage and enthusiasm for the war, and to pour more money in with a new leaders.)

https://www.rt.com/russia/577623-medvedev-west-murder-zelensky/

>>18967101

BREAKING NEWS UPDATED

7 Jun, 2023 17:09

FBI and Ukrainian spies conspired to censor Twitter users – report

The operation targeted RT, as well as American critics of Kiev

The FBI asked Twitter to remove more than 160 accounts that Ukrainian intelligence agents claimed were “spreading fear and disinformation,” according to leaked emails seen by reporter Aaron Mate. The FBI also asked Twitter to forward the personal information of these accounts to Kiev.

FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, who is based in theUS embassy in Kiev, reached out to Twitter executives last March, passing them “a list of accounts I received over a couple of weeks from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) ” according to an email published by Mate on Wednesday.

The attached document, compiled by the SBU, included 163 Twitter accounts. Among these were accounts belonging to RT and other Russian media outlets, and to American and Canadian journalists, Mate included.

These accounts, the SBU stated, had been “used to disseminate disinformation and fake news to inaccurately reflect events in Ukraine.”

Article here: https://t.co/onb5mLXrjBIn March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the SBU, Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/mxwGrVNLuz

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

“In order to stop Russian aggression on the information front,” the SBU wrote, “we kindlyask you to take urgent measures to block these Twitter accounts and provide us with user data specified during registration.”

The request was not honored as the SBU wanted. Twitter’s then-head of trust and safety,Yoel Roth, replied to Kobzanetsthat he would investigate theaccounts for “inauthenticity,” and would only suspend those hiding ties to foreign governments. Journalists “who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules,” he wrote. (Good for Roth for doing the right thing.)

Mate asked Kobzanets whether he had vetted the SBU’s list before sending it to Twitter, and whether he revised his work with the SBU afterwards. The agent did not reply. Likewise, the FBI refused to comment when asked about whether its “‘assistance to Ukraine’ entailed censoring journalists.”

Of the 163 accounts named by the SBU,34 were suspended and 20 have since been deleted.

Prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter last October, Roth and other executives regularly communicated with US intelligence agencies and government departments, and often agreed to their censorship requests. Internal communications given by Musk to independent journalists in recent months revealed that Twitter suppressed information damaging to Joe Biden’s election campaign, colluded with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, assisted the US military’s online influence campaigns, and ==censored “anti-Ukraine narratives” on behalf of multiple US intelligence agenci.

https://www.rt.com/news/577659-fbi-kiev-twitter/

>>18967225

how many actual leaders are going to realize taking weapons or freebees from the US are not gifts, and when will are they going to get wise to this pattern? It's too obvious, Z's neo nazis wanted him dead a long time ago, he should have resigned as president and left the country ASAP when the US interfered with his peace making with Putin early on. The Nazis will find him anywhere and kill him. either way he will end up dead from all of this. Medvedev is not wrong

>>18967223

The funny thing is, it's the not the communists killing "useful idiots" but the Nazis.

==Is it possible Medvedev was warning Zelensky, and not just trying to scare him? Her basically aid Z had no choice because of the masters.

== Russia understands that Zelensky and Ukraine were co-opted by Bidan and EU because Z was making progress with Putin in Nov, Dec of 2020, to ratchet down the rhetoric. His speech now is thoroughly Nazi like, uncompromising and he seems scared shitless, are the Nazis there to keep him in line for Bidan?

RT regulary embeds subtle hints or subjects in their articles (not spy message but subtle warnings or advice), like the warning to Erdogan last week about their relationship.