Ukraine war mega thread

[OhOh]

Perfidious Albion is historic, but not alone now.

Why is West Eager to Give Ukrainians Billions Worth of Weapons But Not Refugee Benefits?

23/11/2022

"United Kingdom

The British government is failing Ukrainian refugees with the Homes for Ukraine scheme now risking collapse, according to the UK press. However, the UK is not the only western country that has failed to deliver on its generous promises to Ukrainian asylum seekers while flooding Kiev with weapons.

The UK's 'Homes for Ukraine' scheme was drawn up with a six-month time limit, meaning that many Ukrainians who flee their country amid the Russian special military operation will be left without any support soon.

British media has revealed that by mid-October, roughly a third of the displaced Ukrainian families in the country saw their hosting arrangements collapsing. Even though some British local authorities recognized the problem and provided deposits and the first month’s rent for displaced Ukrainians, others offered no assistance of any kind.

The program – which housed over 100,000 Ukrainian nationals in the UK so far – has hit several bumps since it was inaugurated on March 14. UK-based refugee charity Positive Action in Housing raised the alarm as early as March 27, arguing that the government's guidelines were confusing and provided Ukrainians with "false hope."

The newcomers had problems getting visas, while hundreds of families were left homeless in England after arriving despite being promised a place to live. With Ukrainian children being promised school places in the UK, many Ukrainian families waited for months for this to come through, being time and again denied entry to local educational institutions.

The Ukraine Family scheme, kicked off by the British government for Ukrainian refugees and their families who have a family connection in the UK, could not boast much success either: a total of 1,915 Ukrainian households from both programs have become homeless between February and September 2022.

The British media blames the hurdles on inadequate government funding, an inconsistent approach to accommodate Ukrainians at local levels, bureaucratic red tape, and the unfolding cost-of-living crisis in the UK.

In August 2022, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that 21% of sponsors of the Homes for Ukraine program had complained that soaring inflation and the rising cost of living affected their ability to provide support for the scheme "quite a lot."

Meanwhile, the UK press reported in mid-November that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is considering reducing funding for the Homes for Ukraine scheme as inflation increases. The Consumer Prices Index - including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) - jumped by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
European Union

Not everything is rosy in the garden of the EU's Ukraine refugee programs either.

As of November 15, roughly 7.8 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe with 4.7 million registering for EU Temporary Protection or similar national schemes, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ....

Canada

Meanwhile, across the pond in Canada, Ukrainians have also found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. In March, the Canadian federal government unveiled a special program called Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET), which fast-tracks immigration for Ukrainians. ....

United States

The US has taken fewer Ukrainian refugees (100,000) than any of the aforementioned blocs and – like its western peers – Washington is inclined to provide shelter to the newcomers from the Eastern European state on a temporary basis with no path for future citizenship.

Earlier this year, the US federal government opened the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program to Ukrainian nationals, which is valid for 18 months. According to the US government website, TPS is "a temporary benefit" that "does not lead to lawful permanent resident status or give any other immigration status."

In addition, the Biden administration kicked off the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program on April 21, allowing Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the US via "private sponsorship" for an initial but renewable period of two years.

The program requires a US-based sponsor to provide them with financial support during their stay in the country. Moreover, unlike the US Department of State’s Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), the U4U does not provide Ukrainians with a pathway to citizenship, work authorization, or any possibility to reunite family members who remain abroad, let alone access to healthcare or other access to safety net programs. ...."

Why is West Eager to Give Ukrainians Billions Worth of Weapons But Not Refugee Benefits? - 22.11.2022, Sputnik International

[OhOh]

A new problem for Ukraine develops.

The more missiles Ukrainian air defence claims to shoot down, the less Ukrainians are able to read, or publish about, their successes.

Due to the lack of power.

[helge]

Not much support for the Kurds in Irac and Syria, who is about to be invaded by our fellow NATO member Turkey.

Yeah well

[helge]

NASA pics:

[helge]

Pics from Ukrainian 'Invincible Centers' and daily life:

[NamPikToot]

Sadly its going to get harder for them. The Russians are targeting civilians, the ineffectual UN is bleating as usual but only NATO can do something about this

[sabang]

As a result of the ongoing massive strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities, the situation in the war-torn country is becoming critical. Cold weather has set in all over Ukraine, and most citizens were left without water and electricity. Many of them will not be able to survive in such conditions. However, the Kiev regime continues to fight with Russia with bravura slogans, ignoring the price of hundreds of lives of civilian people. Kiev’s Western partners continue to fuel the fire and expose the hypocrisy of their policy.

As a result of the latest missile attack by Russian forces, about a dozen strategic objects were damaged.

As of the morning of November 24, more than 70% of Kiev remains without electricity. There is no water in half of the capital. Power outages continue in all regions throughout the country.

At three nuclear power plants in Ukraine, which include Yuzhno-Ukrainskaya, Khmelnitsky and Rivne plants, power units were turned off. According to Energoatom, the power units began to work “in the design mode, without generating into the power system.”

For the ongoing attacks on energy infrastructure facilities, Russia was awarded the title of “state sponsor of terrorism” by the European Parliament. It is amazing how the European Union cynically ignored that Kiev cut off energy and water supplies to Donbass, and unleashed a so-called counter-terrorist operation against its own population. Also in 2014, in the middle of winter, the Kiev regime staged a Blackout in the Crimea, and blocked the North Crimean canal, leaving the peninsula without water needed to support any agriculture work. In his turn, today’s president of Ukraine, who became the main fighter for justice and democracy, then being a clown on TV, mocked Crimeans who were drying up from thirst in his shows.

Sergey Lavrov commented on the resolution of the European Parliament, hinting at the unhealthy policy of the West: “In my opinion, everything is obvious to all sane people, but I have no medical education.”

Meanwhile, the story of Ukrainian missile strikes on the territory of Poland, which has already been dubbed for the pretext of the Third World War, is nearing its denouement, leaving less doubt that it was a staged provocation.

Germany had previously agreed to send Patriot missile systems to Poland.

However, Warsaw decided that it was more convenient to defend the country from the territory of Ukraine. The Polish Defense Minister offered Germany to transfer the Patriot systems to Ukraine. According to him, the systems can be deployed on the western border of Ukraine in order to protect his country.

NATO uses all its ingenuity and hypocrisy in an attempt to win the war against Russia, not paying for with the lives of its own citizens, but sacrificing Ukraine and its population.

Kiev Goes Dark As NATO Sacrifices UkraineSouth Front

[sabang]

“The Ukrainians are in bad shape… It won’t be long before the Ukrainians run out of food. It won’t be long before they freeze… They have done all that we can reasonably expect them to do. It’s time to negotiate…. before the offensive begins, because once it begins, there will be no further discussion between Moscow and Kiev until it is over to the satisfaction of the Russians.” —Colonel Douglas MacGregor,
“War in Ukraine; Quiet Before the Storm”, 15 minute-mark

“Strictly speaking, we haven’t started anything yet.” —Russian President Vladimir Putin

The relentless attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid, fuel-storage units, railway hubs, and Command-and-Control centers mark the beginning of a second and more lethal phase of the war.

The increased tempo of the high-precision, long-range missile attacks suggests that Moscow is laying the groundwork for a major winter offensive that will be launched as soon as Russia’s 300,000 reservists join their formations in east Ukraine. Kiev’s refusal to negotiate a settlement that addresses Russia’s core security concerns, has left Russian president Vladimir Putin with no other option but to defeat Ukrainian forces on the battlefield and impose a settlement through force-of-arms. The impending winter offensive is designed to deliver the knock-out punch Russia needs to achieve its strategic objectives and bring the war to swift end. This is from Reuters:

Russian missile strikes have crippled almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, the government said on Friday, and authorities in the capital Kyiv warned that the city could face a “complete shutdown” of the power grid as winter sets in.

With temperatures falling and Kyiv seeing its first snow, officials were working to restore power nationwide after some of the heaviest bombardment of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in nine months of war.

The United Nations says Ukraine’s electricity and water shortages threaten a humanitarian disaster this winter.“Unfortunately Russia continues to carry out missile strikes on Ukraine’s civilian and critical infrastructure. Almost half of our energy system is disabled,” Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said….“We are preparing for different scenarios, including a complete shutdown,” Mykola Povoroznyk, deputy head of the Kyiv city administration, said in televised comments.” (“Ukraine says half its energy system crippled by Russian attacks, Kyiv could ‘shutdown’”, Reuters)Until recently, Russia had avoided targets that would dramatically impact civilian activities, but now military leaders have returned to a more conventional approach. Presently, the military is destroying whatever facilities, transformers, storage units, substations, rail yards and energy depots that allow Ukraine to continue to wage war. Clearly –as the bigger and more powerful state — it was always within Russia’s ability to take a sledgehammer to Ukraine and break it into a million pieces, but Putin chose to hold back hoping that Kiev would come to its senses and see the hopelessness of its cause.

And –despite the deluge of western propaganda to the contrary– the outcome of this war has never been in doubt. Russia is going to impose a settlement on Kiev and that settlement will require the government to cut all ties with NATO and to sign a treaty declaring its neutrality into perpetuity. Russia is not going to allow a hostile military alliance to place its missile sites and combat troops on its western flank. That won’t happen.

FULL- Putin's Sledgehammer - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

We are looking at an impending humanitarian catastrophe here, I reckon. But all the West has is jingoism, russophobia, and more death, and more debt.

[Loy Toy]

If Putin fails to break the hearts of the Ukrainian's, although the present attack on civilian infrastructure will obviously kill many older and unhealthy civilians, those left will hold a hatred for Russians that will last for generations.

He has no other option but kill off the Ukrainian spirit which means whipping out the whole population. Well his only other option is negotiating a settlement agreement but I doubt that will ever happen.

[bsnub]

Well, the usual shills and useful idiots are posting utter shit as usual. Not one of them expressing outrage or recognizing the genocidal terror attacks as war crimes perpetrated by Putin. Instead, they resort to pathetic whataboutism...

Not much support for the Kurds in Irac and Syria, who is about to be invaded by our fellow NATO member Turkey.

But all the West has is jingoism, russophobia, and more death, and more debt.

Utterly pathetic cretins.

[bsnub]

The Ukrainians are in bad shape… It won’t be long before the Ukrainians run out of food. It won’t be long before they freeze

You are an absolute moron to buy that complete shit. Ukraine is one of the world's breadbaskets and is largely agrarian, the last thing that they will run out of is food. Secondly, most of the small villages and towns in Ukraine do not have centralized heating like the big cites, and most of them use firewood as the primary source of heat.

As usual, you are completely clueless and have no idea what you are talking about. Call this what it is a war crime.

Ukraine is still winning the war.

[david44]

In much of Europe Holocaust denial is a crime and it is enforced.

Holocaust denier jailed | Guardian Weekly | guardian.co.uk

The denial of this second Holdomor by anonymous internet trolls is no less than support for a mass murderer.

[sabang]

If Putin fails to break the hearts of the Ukrainian's, although the present attack on civilian infrastructure will obviously kill many older and unhealthy civilians, those left will hold a hatred for Russians that will last for generations.

Agreed. NATO is pumping Ukraine full of weapons, and extending this tragedy. Russia feels it has no choice. It may not be achievable right now, I just plain do not know- but ways must be found towards Peace. I am as outraged by this war as I have been by any war during my time on this forum. The fact that I find not just one guilty party is kind of irrelevant, if you value human life.

[pickel]

^
One of your most disingenuous posts yet.

If NATO stopped giving weapons to Ukraine the Ukrainians would still be fighting in what ever way they could. Why is it so hard for you to understand a people's desire to fight against an invading force?

Face it, you don't really want peace. You want complete capitulation to Putin. I hate to break it to you, but that's not going to happen no matter how many crocodile tears you shed.

[harrybarracuda]

Agreed. NATO is pumping Ukraine full of weapons, and extending this tragedy.

It's a tragedy that a mass murdering war criminal is invading and bombarding a sovereign country.

It's also pretty tragic that feeble minded idiots are supporting him.

[HermantheGerman]

I am as outraged by this war as I have been by any war during my time on this forum.

Thank you for our regular good morning laugh.

[hallelujah]

Russia feels it has no choice.

What the fucking fuckety fuck?!??!??!!??

[HermantheGerman]

What the fucking fuckety fuck?!??!??!!??

C'ommon, you have to admit that he is funny. Or are you taking ANY of his posts serious?

[NamPikToot]

The increased tempo of the high-precision, long-range missile attacks suggests that Moscow is laying the groundwork for a major winter offensive that will be launched as soon as Russia’s 300,000 reservists join their formations in east Ukraine.

winter offensive


300,000 reservists


was this the original draft plan before they realised they are having to pressgang criminals, teenagers and pensioners into cannon fodder units. Poor bastards.

[HermantheGerman]

Stop laughing at the poor bastard

[harrybarracuda]

The real comedy value is in the witless fuck being serious when he writes this shit.

[bsnub]

The real comedy value is in the witless fuck being serious when he writes this shit.

He really got humiliated today and has retreated in full force. I am surprised that his ass pirate butt buddy icebitch has not come in for his usual beat down.

The useful idiots have a lot of humiliation coming.

[Iceman123]

For clowns like you Snubby that think Ukraine is winning, you are simply manifesting how stupid you really are.

Russia has change tactics, not fair you may scream, whilst others will say all is fair in love and war.

Our armchair general in Seattle prior to February could not have pointed out Ukraine on a world map. Suddenly people who could not have differentiated a Ukranian from a Russian and frankly wouldn’t have cared have suddenly became attached to one corrupt regime over another.

Keep this one for posterity, because this is how this conflict will end.

Around a table with Ukraine being being told by the US/NATO puppet masters that the game is over.

Ukraine will cede at least 10% of its territory, Crimea is never going back to Ukraine.

There is no alternative, the Russians are pounding Ukraine into poverty, they are the world’s 2nd largest nuclear power. Do people think Ukraine will push the Russkies back over the border and celebrate a victory. Dream on.

[harrybarracuda]

For clowns like you Snubby that think Ukraine is winning, you are simply manifesting how stupid you really are.

Russia has change tactics, not fair you may scream, whilst others will say all is fair in love and war.

Our armchair general in Seattle prior to February could not have pointed out Ukraine on a world map. Suddenly people who could not have differentiated a Ukranian from a Russian and frankly wouldn’t have cared have suddenly became attached to one corrupt regime over another.

Keep this one for posterity, because this is how this conflict will end.

Around a table with Ukraine being being told by the US/NATO puppet masters that the game is over.

Ukraine will cede at least 10% of its territory, Crimea is never going back to Ukraine.

There is no alternative, the Russians are pounding Ukraine into poverty, they are the world’s 2nd largest nuclear power. Do people think Ukraine will push the Russkies back over the border and celebrate a victory. Dream on.

These dumb Putin cheerleaders all spout the same shit don't they.

[Iceman123]

These dumb Putin cheerleaders all spout the same shit don't they.

Thanks for the detailed reply Harry. Now fwiw I am no Putin supporter however I can differentiate between what I would like to happen and what is more likely to happen.

Try it sometime. It will be a first for you.