Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Paying debts in Ukrainian blood is equally unacceptable!

How about rubles then. Hey, it's the strongest currency of 2022.

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It's quite similar to "partly" blame a women wearing a mini skirt for getting raped. Except by partly, you mean 99%, as you never seem to criticize the rapist.

Originally Posted by OhOh

The facts suggest your post is bull shit, once again.

Snubby, hoohoo is partially right here.

Puffy could afford to pay 300m a day for a year or more if he did it from the money he's stolen from the Russian people.

Finland has been cut off from Russia's natural gas flows for refusing to pay in rubles.


Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned on Saturday that only a diplomatic breakthrough rather than an outright military victory could end Russia's war on his country, as Moscow cut gas supplies to Finland.


After just over 12 weeks of fierce fighting, Ukrainian forces have halted Russian attempts to seize Kyiv and the northern city of Kharkiv, but are under renewed and intense pressure in the eastern Donbas region.


Moscow's army have flattened and seized the southeastern port city of Mariupol and subjected Ukrainian troops and towns in the east to a remorseless ground and artillery attack.
Mr Zelenskyy's Western allies have shipped modern weaponry to his forces and imposed sweeping sanctions on the Russian economy and President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.


But the Kremlin has responded by disrupting European energy supplies, and on Saturday cut off gas shipments to Finland, which angered Moscow by applying to join the NATO alliance.

'It will be bloody'


Against this backdrop, Mr Zelenskyy told Ukrainian television the war would end "through diplomacy".


The conflict, he warned, "will be bloody, there will be fighting but will only definitively end through diplomacy".

On order to side-step financial sanctions and force European energy clients to prop up his central bank, Mr Putin has demanded that importers from "unfriendly countries" pay for gas in rubles.

Russian energy giant Gazprom said it had halted supplies to neighbouring Finland as it had not received ruble payments from Finland's state-owned energy company Gasum by the end of Friday.


Gazprom supplied 1.49 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Finland in 2021, about two-thirds of the country's gas consumption but only eight per cent of its total energy use.


Gasum said it would make up for the shortfall from other sources, through the Balticconnector pipeline, which links Finland to Estonia, a fellow European Union member.


Moscow cut off gas to Poland and Bulgaria last month in a move the European Union described as "blackmail", but importers in some other EU countries more dependent on Russian gas plan to open ruble accounts with Gazprom's bank.


Finland and neighbouring Sweden this week broke their historical military non-alignment and applied to join NATO, after public support for the alliance soared following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

'Grave mistake'


Moscow has warned Finland that joining NATO would be "a grave mistake with far-reaching consequences" and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said it would respond by building military bases in western Russia.


But both Finland and Sweden are now apparently on the fast track to join the military alliance, with US President Joe Biden this week offering "full, total, complete backing" to their bids.


All 30 existing NATO members must agree on any new entrants, and Turkey has condemned Sweden's alleged toleration of Kurdish militants, but diplomats are confident of avoiding a veto.

On the ground in Ukraine, the fighting is fiercest in the eastern region of Donbas, a Russian-speaking area that has been partially controlled by pro-Kremlin separatists since 2014.


"They completely ruined Rubizhne, Vonokvakha, just as they did Mariupol," Mr Zelenskyy said on Friday, adding that the Russians were "trying to do the same with Severodonetsk and many other cities".


In Severodonetsk, a frontline city now at risk of encirclement, 12 people were killed and another 40 wounded by Russian shelling, the regional governor said.

'End of the operation'


Mr Zelenskyy described the bombardment of Severodonetsk as "brutal and absolutely pointless", as residents cowering in basements described an unending ordeal of terror.


The city forms part of the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in Lugansk, which along with the neighbouring region of Donetsk comprises the Donbas war zone.


On Friday, Moscow said the battle for the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol — a symbol of Ukraine's dogged resistance since Mr Putin launched the invasion on 24 February — was now over.


Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenko said 2,439 Ukrainian personnel had surrendered at the steelworks since 16 May, the final 500 on Friday.

Ukraine hopes to exchange the surrendering Azovstal soldiers for Russian prisoners. But in Donetsk, pro-Kremlin authorities are threatening to put some of them on trial.


Mr Biden has cast the Ukraine war as part of a US-led struggle pitting democracy against authoritarianism.


The US Congress this week approved a $40-billion aid package, including funds to enhance Ukraine's armoured vehicle fleet and air defence system.


And, meeting in Germany, G7 industrialised nations pledged $19.8 billion to shore up Ukraine's shattered public finances.

Underground living


While the invasion has ebbed around the northeastern city of Kharkiv, it remains in Russian artillery range, and hundreds of people are refusing to leave the relative safety of its metro system.


"We're tired. You can see what home comforts that we have," said Kateryna Talpa, 35, pointing to mattresses and sheets on the ground, and some food in a cardboard box.


She and her husband Yuriy are doing their best to cope in the Soviet-era station called "Heroes of Labour", alongside their cats Marek and Sima.


"They got used to it," Ms Talpa said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says only 'diplomacy' can end war as Russia stops gas flows to Finland (sbs.com.au)


I hope Putin is willing to talk.

The Russian military, mired in a war with no end in sight, is attempting to resuscitate its sputtering offensive in Ukraine, firing commanders, splitting combat units into smaller formations, and redoubling its reliance on artillery and other long-range weapons.

The shift comes nearly three months after Russian and American officials alike predicted a quick and decisive victory for Moscow. After the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers and an avalanche of failures since the invasion began Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin has narrowed his objectives in a campaign viewed as unsustainable, unrealistic — and likely unwinnable.

That assessment is shared by an array of observers, including Western intelligence officials and independent analysts who have tracked the war closely. Russia, said Mikk Marran, director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, is losing in Ukraine militarily, politically and morally.

“When we look at the battlefield, Russia’s conventional capacity is already overstretched,” Marran said. “The losses in Russian manpower and equipment are not sustainable at the same operations tempo that we have seen so far.”

Unless Russia launches a full-scale mobilization of its military, Marran said, it has “no remedy in sight.” And while it appears that “some sense of reality has kicked in” among Russian military leaders, Putin himself remains intent on controlling everything from the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine to the western port city of Odessa and Transnistria, a breakaway republic in neighboring Moldova.

“We might be seeing a continuing military campaign that is, to a degree, detached from what is realistic, from what might be called smart or feasible in the long term,” Marran said. The Estonians had long predicted, even before the invasion, that Russia would face significant resistance from the Ukrainians.

As the war grinds on and Russia’s battlefield gains remain “uneven” and “incremental,” according to the Pentagon’s latest assessment, several of its high-ranking commanders have been sacked. Among them, according to the British Ministry of Defense, are Lt. Gen. Serhiy Kisel, who presided over the 1st Guards Tank Army’s failed effort to capture the northeastern city of Kharkiv, and Vice Adm. Igor Osipov, who was in charge of Russia’s Black Sea fleet when Ukrainian forces sank its flagship, the Moskva. The humiliating blow to Russia’s navy was carried out using the Neptune anti-ship missiles that Ukraine makes. Since then, officials in Kyiv have stepped up their requests for similar weapons from Western partners.

Citing the latest U.S. intelligence assessments of the war, a senior Defense Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, affirmed that “Russian commanders at various levels have been relieved of their duties.” Pentagon officials, this person said, want to be cautious in making predictions about the war’s next phase, but they are encouraged that Ukrainian units have not faced the morale setbacks that plague the Russians.

Russia retains considerable combat power available in Ukraine, the U.S. defense official warned, but “you’ve got to have the will to fight, you have to have good leadership, you have to have command and control.” Russia, he said, is “suffering” as a result of these and other shortcomings.

Meanwhile, sanctions against Russia have caused the country’s transport and shipping logistics to be “practically broken,” Russia’s transport minister said Saturday, a rare admission of problems.

But its defense minister asserted that its military had destroyed a large number of weapons that were supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries. A Pentagon spokesperson told The Washington Post that the United States had no comment on Russia’s claim.

Russia also stepped up its political campaign, permanently banning nearly 1,000 Americans, including President Biden and Vice President Harris, from entering the country. The list of those banned included a wide range of officials and citizens, including lawmakers who have died and actor Morgan Freeman.

The United States continues to send billions of dollars in military equipment to Ukraine, including heavy artillery, drones and antitank missiles. President Biden on Saturday signed a $40 billion package of new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

Although Putin has deployed more than 100 battalion tactical groups into Ukraine, each numbering between 500 and 800 personnel, they have made little headway in Donbas, U.S. intelligence shows. There is evidence that the Russian military has divided some units, dispatching smaller combat teams into villages and hamlets there. Doing so, the Pentagon assessed, makes sense as Putin pursues smaller localized goals. But Russia has struggled to hold ground, with its forces sometimes ceding control back to Ukraine within days of having seized territory.

Russians attacking in smaller units, Pentagon says

In the south, Russia has secured two significant victories, taking control of Mariupol, a major port city, and the smaller city of Kherson. Micholeiv, home to nearly 500,000 people before the war, has been an unattainable objective, however, despite weeks of heavy fighting nearby.

Scott Boston, a former U.S. Army officer who studies the Ukraine war for Rand Corp., said it appears there are massive morale problems within the Russian military, undermining Moscow’s goals. He cited the refusal of some units to carry out orders, as well as Russia’s failure to adequately equip and feed its forces.

“Once it has been abundantly demonstrated that they don’t give a crap about their people, they get it,” Boston said of Russian soldiers. “It’s hard not to notice.”

Russia has seized only a couple kilometers per day in Donbas in recent weeks, according to the Pentagon. At that rate, Boston surmised, the offensive could continue for a year and “there will still be a lot of Ukraine left,” even as Russian military fatalities continue to mount.

“That’s just not a serious proposition,” Boston said.

Russian leaders may realize their military campaign is floundering but still reluctant to acknowledge they are losing the war, he added.

Earlier this month, dozens of Russian combat vehicles were destroyed by Ukrainian forces as the Russians attempted to cross the Siverskyi Donets River in Donbas. The attack is believed to have killed hundreds of Russian troops, and appeared to highlight their continued failings to carry out basic combat maneuvers.

Rob Lee, a Russian military expert and a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Russian troops have been bedeviled both by their own tactical blunders and the Ukrainian’s potent capabilities that have contributed to routs like the deadly crossing near Severodonetsk.

River crossings require favorable terrain and construction of pontoon bridges by military engineers. They are inherently dangerous, Lee said, and the Ukrainian military probably anticipated likely crossing points and logged their coordinates for future attacks. Their surveillance drones allowed artillery units to observe where rounds were falling and then guided them onto Russian personnel.

A grave mistake, Lee said, was the failure of Russian commanders to send smaller numbers of troops across the river. Instead, they bunched them together. The mistake cost the 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade dearly, according to an analysis from the Institute of the Study of War, with an estimated 485 casualties and the loss of 80 pieces of equipment.

“It’s an indication there are leadership problems still,” Lee said of the botched attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces nearby.

It’s hard to say how long Russia may keep its offensive going, said Boston, the Rand Corp. analyst. Even after the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers, he said, Russia could continue to lob artillery rounds from a distance for some time.

Still, the trajectory of the conflict perplexes him. Russia defeated Georgian forces in a five-day war in 2008, but the conflict exposed failures within the Russian military, including an inability to quickly adapt when something goes wrong. Moscow set out to reform its military after that conflict, Boston said, and demonstrated improvement in others.

“You just get this feeling like they’ve abandoned everything they’ve tried to learn over the last 10 years and reverted to an older style that they’re more comfortable with,” Boston said. “Frankly, the Red Army in 1944 was more capable of fire and maneuver than a lot of what we’ve seen from this Russian military, and I don’t understand why.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...raine-victory/

Roger Federer disappears from tennis rankings after Wimbledon bombshell

Roger Federer has suddenly been wiped from the ATP Tour rankings following the Wimbledon storm that has rocked tennis.



Roger Federer has suddenly been wiped from the ATP Tour rankings in the wake of the bombshell decision to strip Wimbledon of rankings points this year.

The tennis world is in meltdown after the world’s most prestigious tennis event was stripped of ranking points by the sport’s main tours in response to the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from the tournament following the invasion of Ukraine.

The move threatens to reduce Wimbledon to the status of a high-profile exhibition event, when it begins on June 27.

The flow-on effects are mind-boggling.

The early suggestions from the ATP Tour and WTA Tour suggest that the rankings points carried by players from the 2021 event will not be frozen, leaving players with no chance of defending the rankings points won at The All England Club last year.

It means tennis icon Federer will cease to exist on the ATP Tour rankings. His only remaining points came from his quarter-final run at Wimbledon last year.

American tennis legend Serena Williams will also be wiped from the top 1000 of the WTA Tour’s rankings.

New York Times tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg wrote on Twitter Williams will also “fall off the rankings completely” if she does not play a tournament before Wimbledon.

FULL- Wimbledon 2022: Roger Federer disappears from ATP tour rankings after bombshell | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Well perhaps the spineless tennis jobsworths should be more interested in actually condemning the brutal invasion of Ukraine rather than worrying about their silly points system.

I'm sure Roger won't care, he is in Spain enjoying the F1 as a guest of Mercedes.

• Russian soldier gets life in prison in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial

A 21-year-old Russian soldier was found guilty Monday of killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion. He was sentenced to life in prison.

A court in Kyiv handed down the verdict after Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty last week to killing a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the northeastern Sumy province but said he was following orders.

Shishimarin pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov, who was pushing his bicycle near the village of Chupakhivka, near the Russian border, during the early days of the invasion in late February.

Shelipov “died on the spot just a few meters from his home,” according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova.

Shishimarin’s charge, “violation of the rules and customs of war," is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment.

Shelipov’s widow last week said she would like Shishimarin to be sentenced to life imprisonment but that she would be open to him being exchanged for Ukrainian fighters who were taken to Russian-held territory from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.

Prosecutors argued that Shishimarin, a member of Russia’s 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya tank division, committed a war crime when he fired multiple rounds from his rifle at Shelipov. Shishimarin said he was ordered by his fellow soldiers to shoot Shelipov because he was talking on a cellphone and they feared he would report their location after they had fled a nearby battle in a stolen car.

Shishimarin was represented by a Ukrainian court-appointed lawyer, who had said that the case against his client was strong. Still, it was important to preserve Shishimarin’s human rights to show him that Ukraine is “a country different to the one he is from," his attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, told the New York Times.

Shishimarin said that he did not want to kill Shelipov and that he only shot because he was ordered to do so. Ovsyanikov said that Shishimarin had feared for his own safety if he had not shot, and that the shots he fired were aimless, Reuters reported.

“I personally think that it should not be this young man in the dock, but the senior leadership of the other country that I think is guilty of unleashing this war,” Ovsyanikov said, according to Reuters.

Throughout the invasion, Moscow has struggled to manage young, inexperienced troops who have suffered low morale and at times seemed uncommitted to the cause.

A separate trial involving two Russian soldiers charged with war crimes in the alleged shelling of civilian targets in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine is ongoing. Legal experts have told The Washington Post that Ukraine, which is party to the European Convention on Human Rights, appears to be adhering to international guidelines on prosecuting war crimes, including the right of the defendant to a fair trial by an independent court.

Shelipov’s family confronted Shishimarin last week while he sat in a glass defendant’s cell. Shelipov’s widow asked the soldier, “Please tell me, what did you feel toward my husband?” Shishimarin replied: “Yes, I admit guilt. I understand that you will not be able to forgive me. I ask for forgiveness for what was done.”

The widow, Kateryna Shelipova, invoked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unfounded justifications for the war — that Moscow was simply rescuing Ukrainians from “Nazis” — asking the soldier: “What did you come to us for? You came to protect us? From whom? You ‘protected’ me from my husband, whom you killed.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...rimes-verdict/

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• YouTube removes more than 9,000 channels relating to Ukraine war

YouTube has taken down more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the war in Ukraine for violating content guidelines, including removal of videos that referred to the invasion as a “liberation mission”.

The platform is hugely popular in Russia, where, unlike some of its US peers, it has not been shut down despite hosting content from opposition figures such as Alexei Navalny. YouTube has also been able to operate in Russia despite cracking down on pro-Kremlin content that has broken guidelines including its major violent events policy, which prohibits denying or trivialising the invasion.

Since the conflict began in February, YouTube has taken down channels including that of the pro-Kremlin journalist Vladimir Solovyov. Channels associated with Russia’s Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs have also been temporarily suspended from uploading videos in recent months for describing the war as a “liberation mission”.

YouTube’s chief product officer, Neal Mohan, said: “We have a major violent events policy and that applies to things like denial of major violent events: everything from the Holocaust to Sandy Hook. And of course, what’s happening in Ukraine is a major violent event. And so we’ve used that policy to take unprecedented action.”

In an interview with the Guardian, Mohan added that YouTube’s news content on the conflict had received more than 40m views in Ukraine alone.

“The first and probably most paramount responsibility is making sure that people who are looking for information about this event can get accurate, high-quality, credible information on YouTube,” he said. “The consumption of authoritative channels on our platform has grown significantly, of course in Ukraine, but also in countries surrounding Ukraine, Poland, and also within Russia itself.”

YouTube did not provide a breakdown of the taken-down content and channels but Mohan said much of it represented Kremlin narratives about the invasion. “I don’t have the specific numbers, but you can imagine a lot of it being the narratives that are coming from Russian government, or Russian actors on behalf of the Russian government,” he said.

YouTube has an estimated 90 million users in Russia, although it no longer allows advertising on the platform in the country. The decision by YouTube’s parent company, Google, has drawn protests from Navalny, who said well-targeted ads helped counteract Kremlin propaganda.

“YouTube remains the largest video-sharing site up and running in Russia itself,” said Mohan. “So YouTube is a place where Russian citizens can get uncensored information about the war, including from many of the same authoritative channels that we all have access to outside of the country. We remain an important platform for Russian citizens themselves as this crisis continues to evolve.”

Last week, the Russian minister for digital development, Maksut Shadaev, said the country would not block YouTube, despite disputes over content that have resulted in the platform being fined in court for not removing banned videos.

Shadaev indicated that blocking Russia’s most popular social media platform would affect users. “We are not planning to close YouTube,” the minister said. “Above all, when we restrict something, we should clearly understand that our users won’t suffer.”

YouTube has also placed a worldwide ban on channels associated with Russian state media, including Russia Today and Sputnik. Facebook and Instagram are banned in Russia and access to Twitter has been restricted, in response to the platforms’ own bans on Russian state-owned media.

Russian Diplomat To UN In Geneva Resigns Over War In Ukraine

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — A veteran Russian diplomat to the U.N. Office at Geneva says he handed in his resignation before sending out a scathing letter to foreign colleagues inveighing against the “aggressive war unleashed” by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.

Boris Bondarev, 41, confirmed his resignation in a letter delivered Monday morning after a diplomatic official passed on his English-language statement to The Associated Press.

“For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24 of this year,” he wrote, alluding to the date of Russia’s invasion.

The resignation amounts to a rare — if not unprecedented — public admission of disgruntlement about Russia’s war in Ukraine among the Russian diplomatic corps. It comes at a time when Putin’s government has sought to crack down on dissent over the invasion and quell narratives that conflict with the Russian government’s line about how the “special military operation” — as it’s officially known in Russia — is proceeding.

“The aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world, is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z crossing out all hopes and prospects for a prosperous and free society in our country,” Bondarev wrote, referring to the widespread use of the letter “Z” as a symbol of support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Reached by phone, Bondarev — a diplomatic counselor who has focused on Russia’s role in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva after postings in places like Cambodia and Mongolia — confirmed he handed in his resignation in a letter addressed to Ambassador Gennady Gatilov.

A spokesman for the mission didn’t immediately respond to AP requests seeking comment.

“It is intolerable what my government is doing now,” Bondarev told the AP. “As a civil servant, I have to carry a share of responsibility for that. And I don’t want to do that.”

Bondarev said he had not received any reaction yet from Russian officials, but added: “Am I concerned about the possible reaction from Moscow? I have to be concerned about it.”

He told the AP that he had no plans to leave Geneva. Previously, he said he had expressed disapproval of the war to Russian colleagues.

“Some said, ‘Everybody disagrees, but we have to keep working’ while others replied ‘Shut up and stop spreading this bad influence– especially among younger diplomats,’” he recalled.

Asked if some colleagues felt the same, Bondarev said: “Not all Russian diplomats are warmongering. They are reasonable, but they have to keep their mouths shut.”

He suggested his case could become an example.

“If my case is prosecuted, then if other people want to follow, they would not,” Bondarev said.

Asked if he planned to defect, he chuckled and said, “I didn’t think so far” ahead.

In his English-language statement, which he said he emailed to about 40 diplomats and others, Bondarev said those who conceived the war “want only one thing — to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity.”

He railed against the growing “lies and unprofessionalism” at Russia’s Foreign Ministry and took particular aim at Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“In 18 years, he (Lavrov) went from a professional and educated intellectual … to a person who constantly broadcasts conflicting statements and threatens the world with nuclear weapons!” he wrote. “Today, the (Russian) Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred.”

Hiller Neuer, executive director of the advocacy group U.N. Watch, tweeted a copy of Bondarev’s letter and said simply: “Boris Bondarev is a hero.”

“Bondarev should be invited to speak in Davos this week,” he added, referring to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “The U.S., the U.K. and the (European Union) should lead the free world in creating a program to encourage more Russian diplomats to follow and defect, by providing protection, financial security and resettlement for diplomats and their families.”

In his email, Bondarev wrote that he should have resigned earlier, but didn’t because of “some unfinished family business” and because he needed to “gather my resolve.”

“It’s been already three months since my government launched a bloody assault on Ukraine and it’s been very hard to keep my mind more or less sane when all about were losing theirs,” he wrote.

More high-tech weapons going to Ukraine after meeting of defence leaders


CREDIT Ukraine will likely use the Harpoon missiles to threaten Russian ships.

Nearly 50 defence leaders from around the world have met and agreed to send more advanced weapons to Ukraine, including a Harpoon launcher and missiles to protect its coast.

Key points:

• Some 20 members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group have agreed to send new packages of security assistance to Ukraine
• Denmark has agreed to deliver a Harpoon launcher and missiles
• Ukraine has asked for long-range artillery and rocket systems, armoured personnel carriers and drones

It came as a veteran Russian diplomat condemned his country's invasion and Moscow's Foreign Minister said Russia would develop closer economic ties with China.

United States Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday told reporters that some 20 members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group had announced they would send new packages of security assistance to Ukraine, as the nation's war with Russia reached the three-month mark.

Here

^ Further

New arms donations <snip> included Danish Harpoon anti-ship launchers and missiles; Czech attack helicopters, tanks, and rocket systems; and more artillery from Italy, Greece, Norway, and Poland. Overall, Austin said the United Kingdom has played a “leading role” in helping to coordinate and send its arms into Ukraine.

Austin will next meet with members of the contact group on the sidelines of the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels on June 15.

Second Meeting of Ukraine Defense Contact Group Adds Nations, Yields ‘Sharper’ Focus - Air Force Magazine

• 48 more Russian soldiers to face war crimes trial with 13,000 alleged offences to be investigated

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said there were about 13,000 cases of Russian alleged war crimes being investigated as of Monday.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Venediktova said 48 more Russian soldiers would face war crimes trials, after a Kyiv court sentenced Vadim Shishimarin to life in prison for the killing of a 62-year-old unarmed civilian, Oleksandr Shelipov.

Venediktova said:

We have already initiated close to 13,000 cases which are connected only to war crimes. In this category, suspicions were reported [about] 49 individuals, which we started to prosecute [for] war crimes.

Ukrainian officials have a list of about 600 suspects thought to have engaged in war crimes, she said, while two cases involving three individuals were already being held by courts.

Venediktova said the scale of complaints against Russia suggested a systemic tolerance or encouragement of war crimes against Ukrainians, adding:

All evidence indicates that the Russian military and political elite has unconditionally reverted to the brutal war tactics of violence.

Civilian populations and civilian objects – including hospitals, educational facilities, and residential buildings – are internationally targeted in a widespread and systematic manner.

She said violations by Russian forces that her team had documented amounted to “unspeakable deliberate cruelty and violence against civilians”, adding:

This is particularly apparent in territories that were on the frontlines of war, which practically became a slaughterhouse.

She said 4,600 civilians were known to have died as a result of the war, including 232 children, and the real number was likely to be higher.

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• New Zealand to help train Ukrainian soldiers in UK

New Zealand on Monday announced it would roll out a training program for Ukrainian soldiers to teach them how to operate artillery weapons as the country continues to defend against Russian forces.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a release that 30 members of an artillery team with the New Zealand Defense Force (NZDF) would begin training Ukrainian soldiers in the United Kingdom on the operation of L119 105 mm tactical howitzer light guns.

Training with the artillery weapons had been requested. The program will begin next month and last until the end of July.

Ardern said New Zealand fully supported Ukraine’s fight for independence after Russia invaded the country in late February.

“We have been clear throughout Russia’s assault on Ukraine, that such a blatant attack on innocent lives and the sovereignty of another country is wrong, and our response has not only included the condemnation of Russia, but practical support for Ukraine,” the prime minister said in a statement.

New Zealand will additionally arm Ukraine with supplies of ammunition and gun sights while assisting the country with humanitarian relief.

The South Pacific nation has already provided $15.7 million to Ukraine for military equipment and has rolled out sanctions against Russian entities and persons.

The news comes just days after U.S. President Biden signed a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine that includes military and humanitarian assistance for the European nation as it fights for its independence.

Support from other nations, particularly NATO, has bolstered the Ukrainian resistance. Ukraine has pushed Russian forces back from the capital region around Kyiv and continues to put up a stiff resistance in the eastern Donbas, where Russia regrouped for a renewed offensive.

Over the weekend, Russia declared victory in the port city of Mariupol after the last of the Ukrainian fighters hiding out in a steel plant were taken prisoner.

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• Schumer, McConnell pressing administration to rush paperwork on Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plan to present a resolution that will press the Biden administration to rush the paperwork for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

In the resolution text, first obtained by Politico, both Senate leaders note the roles played by the Nordic countries in organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and their neutral stance on matters pertaining to Europe as reasons why they should join the alliance.

The resolution calls on President Biden to move swiftly to complete all necessary documents involving both countries’ NATO membership so the Senate can advance the measure, also calling on fellow NATO members to swiftly complete their own ratification processes.

It is being submitted by McConnell and Schumer along with a number of leading Senate voices on Ukraine aid, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).

“NATO has been the cornerstone of Western defense since World War II, and President Niinistö of Finland and Prime Minister Andersson of Sweden are showing strong leadership in joining the United States and its allies against Putin’s deeply immoral campaign of violence,” Schumer said in a statement Monday.

“As the world’s democracies unite against Putin and his crony oligarchs, Finland and Sweden’s ascension into NATO will be a further rebuke of Putin’s murderous attack on Ukraine.”

McConnell said in the statement that “Finland and Sweden are strong countries with formidable military capabilities that surpass many existing NATO allies.”

“Both nations’ robust defense funding means their accession would meaningfully bolster our pursuit of greater burden-sharing across the alliance,” he added.

Biden met with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson last week in a public show of support for expanding the security alliance, which has been bolstered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Both countries submitted their formal request to join the military alliance on Wednesday.

“Sweden and Finland have strong democratic institutions, strong militaries, and strong and transparent economies, and a strong and moral sense of what is right,” Biden said on Thursday. “They meet every NATO requirement and then some.”

Both Niinistö and Andersson also met with U.S lawmakers during their visit, urging Congress to vote on and ratify their entry into the alliance.

“This is historic for U.S.-#Finland-#Sweden relations,” tweeted Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho.), the Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking member. “#NATO is soon to be stronger and better than ever before.”

The resolution will be marked up by the Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Politico reported.

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• Starbucks closes its 130 Russian stores amid war in Ukraine

Starbucks announced Monday that it will permanently close its stores in Russia, putting an end to its 15 years of operation in the country.

Why it matters: Like other international companies, Starbucks suspended its operations in Russia in March, during the early days of Russia's invasion.

• The announcement comes a week after McDonald's said it would exit the country.

The big picture: "Starbucks has made the decision to exit and no longer have a brand presence in the market," the company said in a press release.

• Starbucks added that it will continue to pay its 2,000 employees in Russia for six months and will help them transition to new jobs.
• The coffee giant has 130 stores in the country.

• Henry Kissinger said Ukraine must be prepared to give up territory to Russia in peace talks.
• He warned of the risk of escalation unless peace negotiations start in the next two months.
• Ukraine rejected the suggestion that it should give up territory.

Henry Kissinger said Ukraine must concede territory to Russia to end the war and warned the West that a humiliating defeat for Russia could result in wider destabilization.

The statesman, now 98, made the comments in a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Kissinger was the architect of the détente with China under the Nixon administration, and he's one of the world's foremost advocates of realpolitik, in which nations put morals and principles aside to achieve their aims.

"Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante," Kissinger said.

"Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself," he added.

"Status quo ante" means "how things were before." Kissinger's comments imply that Ukraine should accept a peace deal to restore the situation to what it was before February 24, where Russia formally controlled the Crimea peninsula and informally controlled part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have opposed the idea that they should give up any territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would only accept Russia giving up all claims to land in Ukraine and staging a total withdrawal.

Kissinger: Ukraine Must Give up Land to Russia, Not Humiliate Putin

Western officials skeptical of claim that there was recently an attempt to assassinate Putin

• Western officials refused to back up a claim that there had been an assassination attempt on Putin.
• Putin is "firmly in control of his inner circle," one official said anonymously.
• Ukraine's chief of military intelligence has claimed there was an attempt on his life in March.

.... The officials were also skeptical of increasing rumors that Putin is losing his grip on power due to health issues.

"My observation is that at the moment President Putin is firmly in control of his inner circle, the country, and the decisions which are being made, irrespective of any speculation about his health," an official said. "President Putin is still the decision-maker."

The statement contradicted another claim from Budanov, who told Sky News on May 14 that Putin's power is unraveling and that a coup is under way in the Kremlin.

FULL- Putin Assassination Attempt Unlikely: Western Officials

Anyone who tries to use Kissinger to bolster their argument has already lost.

Originally Posted by sabang

Kissinger says Ukraine must give up land to Russia, warns West not to seek to humilia

More Putin apologists.

• ‘I’m never going back’: the high-profile Russian defectors rejecting war

Igor Volobuyev spent two decades working in the heart of the Russian business establishment, first for Gazprom and then for its affiliate Gazprombank, where until February this year he was vice-president.

Then Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine in late February, and Volobuyev decided he could no longer stand living in Russia. He packed a small rucksack of possessions and a stack of cash, and flew out of the country on 2 March, pretending he was going on holiday.

A few days later, he crossed from Poland into Ukraine, where he spent his childhood years. Now, he spends his days trying to convince officials to provide him with Ukrainian documents and allow him to sign up for military service.

“I want to go to the place where I can defend my homeland with a weapon, I’m trying every day,” he said, in an interview in the suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. “I am never going back to Russia.”

Hundreds of thousands of Russians are believed to have fled the country since Putin launched the war, and many intellectuals, journalists and activists have voiced their opposition to the conflict. However, among the political and business elites, defections have been extremely rare. Despite reports of widespread dismay over the invasion of Ukraine, only a tiny handful of people have spoken publicly to condemn the war.

On Monday, Boris Bondarev, a career diplomat posted to the Russian mission to the UN in Geneva, became the highest-level Russian diplomat to denounce the war. When he resigned, Bondarev published a scathing letter in which he wrote that he was “ashamed” of his country and called the invasion a “disaster”.

Bondarev said he made his mind up to resign on the day Russia launched its invasion, but it took months to gather the resolve to go public.

Like many fellow diplomats, Bondarev had remained in his post over the past decade, despite Russia’s growing isolation due to a series of crises, including its annexation of Crimea and the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.

“You understand that it is wrong,” he said in a telephone interview. “That it’s not good. But it doesn’t really touch you, your life. These bad things they happen somewhere far away. It’s not right but that’s how most people think.”

“But now this is totally different: Russia attacked another country. This is Ukraine who we always considered to be our brothers and attacked them in the most brutal manner. Bombing cities. Claiming them to be Nazis and denazified. It’s something ridiculous. It’s something unimaginable.”

Bondarev said he believed many of his fellow diplomats were also opposed to the war, but he never discussed it with them. “It isn’t something you really talked about with other people, it isn’t something you can speak about openly these days,” Bondarev said. “Everyone is silent.”

Volobuyev said that after 2014, he had started to speak openly about his concerns over Russian politics in the workplace, and while many people were scared of getting involved in a discussion, he felt that most people he knew agreed at least partially.

“In Gazprom there were a few passionate Putinists, but the majority of people understood exactly what kind of country they lived in. A lot of people in Russia are just scared,” he said.

“You have this internal censorship, that it’s dangerous to say certain things, and you live with this permanently. Ukrainians look at this and they don’t understand it because they are a free people,” he said.

Volobuyev grew up in the Ukrainian city of Okhtyrka , and left for Moscow in 1989, when he was 18. After spending some time in journalism, he joined Gazprom, where he worked for 15 years before moving to become one of Gazprombank’s vice-presidents in 2015.

As he tells it, he was originally a supporter of Putin, and voted for him in 2012, but his “eyes were opened” by the Maidan revolution in 2014 and subsequent Russia-backed war in Donbas. He wanted to return to Ukraine then, but said he could not, for family reasons, about which he declined to elaborate.

“It was a choice between my homeland and my family, and at that time I chose my family. On 24 February this year, I understood I could not put it off any longer,” he said.

Volobuyev was a mid-ranking cog in the Gazprom machine; among the higher business echelons few people have dared to break ranks.

Oleg Tinkov, a self-made billionaire who set up one of Russia’s leading banks, has so far been the most outspoken public opponent of the war among the business elite. In one of a series of critical Instagram posts, Tinkov wrote: “I don’t see ANY beneficiary of this crazy war! Innocent people and soldiers are dying.”

After his statements, Tinkov said he was forced to sell his assets at a knockdown price to an oligarch loyal to the Kremlin. In an interview with the Russian journalist Yury Dud, he said he was sure that the entire business elite backed his statements but were too scared to say the same publicly.

“I have spoken to 12 of the top 20 on the Forbes list personally, and they all support me, there is a full consensus,” he said.

He said half of those he had spoken to justified their silence by claiming to fear for their tens of thousands of employees, who could be affected if they fell out of favour with the Kremlin.

“The other half say, ‘We’ll make a statement and then lose our business, like you, and then what, what have you achieved?’”

Putin has referred to those who oppose Moscow’s actions as “scum and traitors”, whom the Russian people will “spit out like a fly”. In the current climate it is clear that public opposition to the war makes it dangerous to return to Russia.

Bondarev said he was worried about the response to his statement and said he would “welcome” an offer of asylum in the west. Tinkov has said he has hired bodyguards.

As a Russian citizen of Ukrainian origin, Volobuyev’s position is a little different. His arrival in Ukraine has given him a feeling that he has finally returned home, he said. But he accepts that he has a lot of work to do to persuade Ukrainians of his sincerity.

“All these years, I said I was Ukrainian but I continued to live and work there. I understand that I have to repent, and to prove for many years that I should be allowed to live here and that I can be trusted,” he said.

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• Alleged Wagner Group fighters accused of murdering civilians in Ukraine

Two alleged Wagner Group fighters from Belarus have been accused of murdering civilians near Kyiv, making them the first international mercenaries to face war crimes charges in Ukraine.

Ukrainian prosecutors late on Tuesday released the names and photographs of eight men wanted for alleged war crimes – including murder and torture – in the village of Motyzhyn. Several are believed to have fought in Syria.

They say five are Russian soldiers, one is a Russian mercenary with the Wagner Group and the final two are Belarusian mercenaries.

The Guardian has previously reported on the alleged involvement of the soldiers named by prosecutors on Tuesday in the systematic torture and murder of civilians in Ukraine including the head of the village council and her husband and son.

There have been reports of Wagner fighters on the ground in Ukraine, but these are the first charges against allegedly serving mercenaries, and the first non-Russians charged.

Established in 2014 to support pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Wagner is allegedly funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful businessman who is closely linked to Vladimir Putin and has faced western sanctions.

Russia has used paid fighters to bolster its forces since the start of the war. It was estimated to have deployed between 10,000 and 20,000 mercenaries from Syria, Libya and elsewhere, including Wagner Group fighters, in its offensive in Ukraine’s Donbas region, a European official said last month.

A survivor had previously described to the Guardian how Russian soldiers who were perpetrating a sadistic killing spree lasting days in the village had described Ukraine as a “fairytale” compared with Syria.

Prosecutors said Sergey Vladimirovich Sazanov 51, born in the town of Rechitsa in Belarus, was one of about 300 Wagner mercenaries who participated in a February 2018 offensive in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. They cited the open source research group InformNapalm.

Another man, Alexander Alexandrovich Stupnitsky, 32, a native of Orsha in Belarus, was identified as a liaison officer for the assault platoon of the Wagner Group’s 1st reconnaissance and assault company.

The third man identified as a Wagner member, Sergey Sergeevich Sazonov, 33, was born in Kaliningrad and is allegedly the driver of the Wagner Group command vehicle.

Denis Korotkov, an expert on the Wagner Group, confirmed that two of the suspects had previously worked for the mercenary company. “Sazonov and Stupnitsky are in my files,” Korotkov told the Guardian. He said it was unusual for Belarusian citizens to fight with the group, because they could face jail sentences for it.

“It is likely that Sazonov and Stupnitsky fought in Syria,” he added. “They don’t have a particular reputation, just regular Wagner soldiers.”

None of the accused men are in custody, and prosecutors believe they may since have been relocated to frontline positions in the Donbas, where Putin has positioned most of his armed forces following their retreat from the area around Kyiv.

“There is a possibility that these men are still fighting in Ukraine, or that they will be killed during the fighting,”said Oleh Tkalenko, a senior prosecutor in the Kyiv region. “We are still working on it and we will do everything possible to arrest them.”

Tkalenko said the investigation was based on photographic evidence, CCTV footage and reports of hundreds of survivors who confirmed the identities of their torturers.

Only three men survived the torture camp in Motyzhyn.

After killing the civilians, the soldiers buried them in mass graves around the camp. In one, investigators found the corpse of Olga Petrivna, the head of the village council of Motyzhyn, together with her husband and son. Petrivna had chosen to stay in the town and coordinate aid and territorial defence when the Russians arrived.

Tkalenko said that Ukrainian authorities had so far identified more than 5,000 Russian soldiers who were deployed north of Kyiv. “We are keeping records of all prisoners of war, and we know which ones committed war crimes.”

The list of alleged war criminals includes 15 other Russian soldiers charged with human rights abuses during the brutal month-long occupation of towns north of Kyiv.

Anna Neistat of the Clooney Foundation for Justice said Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office had signalled that it wanted to lead the overall effort while showing a willingness to accept help from the international community.

“They are very active. To date they’ve opened 11,000 cases,” said Neistat. “For the first time in decades, in a conflict situation, we have a national prosecutor who is able to lead these investigations and it’s absolutely right” that Ukraine has made seeking justice for atrocities committed by Russian troops a priority and national prosecutors are risking their lives to collect evidence of war crimes even in areas still threatened by enemy forces or laced with mines.

“Having said that, there is a danger of the prosecutors are getting overwhelmed because it’s huge number of cases,” said Neistat, who noted that instead of obstructing parallel investigations, the prosecutor’s office had been open to international support and was active in coordinating parallel investigations being launched elsewhere.

There has been unprecedented interest in building cases by foreign prosecutors and NGOs over the crimes committed in Ukraine. More than a dozen national prosecutors outside of Ukraine have opened cases into war crimes or crimes of aggression. The international criminal court opened its investigation just four days after the invasion. On Monday, a court in Kyiv sentenced a Russian soldier to life in prison for the killing of a Ukrainian civilian, in the first verdict in a trial related to war crimes carried out by the Russian army during its invasion of Ukraine.

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Ukraine: The Commission proposes rules on freezing and confiscating assets of oligarchs violating restrictive measures and of criminals

Today, the European Commission is proposing to add the violation of EU restrictive measures to the list of EU crimes. The Commission is also proposing new reinforced rules on asset recovery and confiscation, which will also contribute to the implementation of EU restrictive measures. While the Russian aggression on Ukraine is ongoing, it is paramount that EU restrictive measures are fully implemented and the violation of those measures must not be allowed to pay off. Today's proposals aim to ensure that the assets of individuals and entities that violate the restrictive measures can be effectively confiscated in the future. The proposals come in the context of the ‘Freeze and Seize' Task Force, set up by the Commission in March.

Making the violation of EU restrictive measures an EU crime

Firstly, the Commission is proposing to add the violation of restrictive measures to the list of EU crimes. This will allow to set a common basic standard on criminal offences and penalties across the EU. In turn, such common EU rules would make it easier to investigate, prosecute and punish violations of restrictive measures in all Member States alike.

The violation of restrictive measures, meets the criteria set out in Article 83(1) TFEU, as it is a crime in a majority of Member States. It is also a particularly serious crime, since it may perpetuate threats to international peace and security, and has a clear cross-border context, which requires a uniform response at EU level and global level.

Accompanying the proposal, the Commission is also setting out how a future Directive on criminal sanctions could look like in a Communication with an Annex. The potential criminal offences could include: engaging in actions or activities that seek to directly or indirectly circumvent the restrictive measures, including by concealing assets; failing to freeze funds belonging to, held or controlled by a designated person/entity; or engaging in trade, such as importing or exporting goods covered by trade bans.

Once the EU Member States agree on the Commission's initiative to extend the list of EU crimes, the Commission will present a legislative proposal based on the accompanying Communication and Annex.

Reinforcing EU rules on asset recovery and confiscation to EU restrictive measures

Secondly, the Commission is putting forward a proposal for a Directive on asset recovery and confiscation. The core objective is to ensure that crime does not pay by depriving criminals of their ill-gotten gains and limiting their capacity to commit further crimes. The proposed rules will also apply to the violation of restrictive measures, ensuring the effective tracing, freezing, management and confiscation of proceeds derived from the violation of restrictive measures.

The proposal modernises EU asset recovery rules, among others, by:

Extending the mandate of Asset Recovery Offices to swiftly trace and identify assets of individuals and entities subject to EU restrictive measures. These powers will also apply to criminal assets, including by urgently freezing property when there is a risk that assets could disappear.
Expanding the possibilities to confiscate assets from a wider set of crimes, including the violation of EU restrictive measures, once the Commission proposal on extending the list of EU crimes is adopted.
Establishing Asset Management Offices in all EU Member States to ensure that frozen property does not lose value, enabling the sale of frozen assets that could easily depreciate or are costly to maintain.

Members of the College said:

Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová said: “EU sanctions must be respected and those trying to go around them punished. The violation of EU sanctions is a serious crime and must come with serious consequences. We need EU-wide rules to establish that. As a Union we stand up for our values and we must make those who keep Putin's war machine running pay the price”

Commissioner for Justice and Consumers, Didier Reynders, said: “We must ensure that persons or companies that bypass the EU restrictive measures are held account. Such action is a criminal offence that should be sanctioned firmly throughout the EU. At present, divergent criminal definitions and sanctions as regards the violation of the restrictive measures can still lead to impunity. We need to close the loopholes and provide judicial authorities with the right tools to prosecute violations of Union restrictive measures”.

Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson said: “Crime bosses use intimidation and fear to buy silence and loyalty. But usually their greed means embrace of a rich lifestyle. That always leaves a trail. Now the European Commission is proposing new tools to fight organised crime by following this trail of assets. This proposal allows Asset Recovery officers to trace and freeze: trace where the assets are and issue an urgent freezing order. The tracing allows assets to be found and the urgent freezing gives time for courts to act. This proposal will cover new types of crime including firearms trafficking, extortion, to the tune of 50 billion. Our proposal also goes after unexplained wealth. Those at the top of criminal gangs will no longer be insulated from prosecution. Lastly the criminalisation of sanctions violation mean that reaction time against rogue actors is much quicker.”

Background

Restrictive measures are an essential tool for defending international security and promoting human rights. Such measures include asset freezes, travel bans, import and export restrictions and restrictions on banking and other services. Currently, there are over 40 regimes of restrictive measures in place in the EU and the rules criminalising the violations of such measures vary across Member States.

The Union has put in place a series of restrictive measures against Russian and Belarusian individuals and companies, as well as sectoral measures some of which date back to 2014. The implementation of EU restrictive measures following the Russian attack on Ukraine shows the complexity of identifying assets owned by oligarchs, who hide them across different jurisdictions through complex legal and financial structures. An inconsistent enforcement of restrictive measures undermines the Union's ability to speak with one voice.

In order to enhance Union-level coordination in the enforcement of these restrictive measures, the Commission set up the ‘Freeze and Seize' Task Force. Besides ensuring coordination among Member States, the Task Force seeks to explore the interplay between restrictive measures and criminal law measures. So far, Member States reported frozen assets worth €9.89 billion and blocked €196 billion worth of transactions. On 11 April, Europol, jointly with Member States, Eurojust and Frontex, launched Operation Oscar to support financial and criminal investigations targeting criminal assets owned by individuals and legal entities covered by EU sanctions.

Restrictive measures are only effective if systematically and fully enforced, and violations punished. Member States are already required to introduce effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for violations of restrictive measures. However, some Member States use much broader definitions, others have more detailed provisions in place. In some Member States, violation of restrictive measures is an administrative and a criminal offence, in some purely a criminal offence, and in some, restrictive measures violations currently only lead to administrative penalties. This patchwork enables persons subject to restrictive measures to circumvent them.

The Commission has also published today a progress report on the implementation of the EU Security Union Strategy, which highlights the security threats stemming from Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine. The report emphasizes the need of a coordinated EU approach on a range of issues and highlights that fight against organised crime is one of the top priorities for the EU in ensuring a Security Union for all.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Shishimarin’s charge, “violation of the rules and customs of war," is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment.

Ok, fair nuff but if war crimes trials against folks in previous wars become the norm, the prison construction industry is in for a huge windfall.

I'm not sure of their progress, given the 'News blackout' but there are war crimes trials happening in Russia too. My guess is it will all end in a prisoner swap.

• 115 Russian national guard soldiers sacked for refusing to fight in Ukraine

More than 100 Russian national guardsmen have been fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine, court documents show, in what looks to be the clearest indication yet of dissent among some parts of security forces over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The cases of the 115 national guardsmen, a force also known as Rosgvardia, came to light on Wednesday, after a local Russian court rejected their collective lawsuit that challenged their earlier sacking.

According to the court’s decision, published on its website, the lawsuit was dismissed after the judge determined that the soldiers had been rightfully fired for “refusing to perform an official assignment” to fight in Ukraine and instead returned to a duty station.

The appeal took place in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkarian republic in the Russian Caucasus, where the unit is based.

Since Moscow’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, its military has reportedly been plagued by poor morale, with reports of soldiers claiming they did not know they were going to war until they crossed into Ukraine.

The Pentagon said this month that it had seen “anecdotal reports” that “mid-grade officers at various levels, even up to the battalion level”, had “either refused to obey orders” or were not obeying them with the expected measure of “alacrity”.

Andrei Sabinin, the lawyer who represented the 115 soldiers, said the court’s decision was “unprecedentedly quick” given the complexity of the case.

“I express doubts about the fairness of the process as a whole because my clients were denied to call up certain witnesses and several documents were rejected by the court.”

According to Sabinin, the commanders of the Rosgvardia unit offered the soldiers the option not to fight and their dismissal was illegal.

Russia created Rosgvardia, a militarised force separate from the army, in 2016 to fight terrorism and maintain public order. Since its inception, members of Rosgvardia, which is often referred to as Vladimir Putin’s “private army”, have mostly been involved in crackdowns on peaceful anti-government protests.

Military analysts have linked Russia’s heavy use of Rosgvardia soldiers in Ukraine to Moscow’s strategic aims of capturing and holding major Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv and the capital, Kyiv. These plans failed, while Rosgvardia units suffered heavy casualties after Ukrainian cities remained battlegrounds rather than being captured by Russia, which left Rosgvardia units exposed to Ukrainian attacks.

Documents acquired by the Guardian on Friday from a separate criminal case against a Siberian journalist further reveal Rosgvardia’s role in Ukraine.

Mikhail Afanasyev, the chief editor of Novy Fokus in the Russian region of Khakassia, was arrested by security forces last month over the website’s reporting on a separate Rosgvardia unit that also refused deployment to Ukraine.

Court testimonies given by members of the Rosgvardia unit mentioned in Afanasyev’s reporting confirm earlier reports that 11 Rosgvardia from Khakassia refused to fight.

The testimonies also give weight to suggestions that the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine was intended initially as a blitzkrieg attack on Kyiv with the aim of capturing the capital.

In one testimony, a Roskgvardia soldier told the court that his commander instructed his unit three days prior to the invasion that they would be sent to Ukraine to “patrol the streets and intersections of Kyiv”.

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• Two Russian soldiers plead guilty in war crimes trial

Two Russian soldiers on Thursday pleaded guilty to war crimes in the second such trial of the unprovoked war in Ukraine.

Driving the news: State prosecutors asked for Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov to be jailed for 12 years for shelling a town in eastern Ukraine, a violation of the laws of war, Reuters reports.

• The two captured Russian soldiers acknowledged that they were involved in shelling in the Kharkiv region, which destroyed an educational establishment in the town of Derhachi.
• The defense lawyer asked for leniency for the soldiers, saying they were following orders.
• "I am completely guilty of the crimes of which I am accused. We fired at Ukraine from Russia," Bobikin said in court proceedings, per Reuters.
• "I repent and ask for a reduction in the sentence," Ivanov said.

The big picture: Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old Russian soldier, was sentenced to life in prison on Monday for committing war crimes during Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

• Shishimarin was found guilty of firing several shots at and killing an unarmed resident in a Sumy village near the Russian border.
• Shishimarin's trial is believed to be the first war crimes trial since Russia's invasion began in February.

What to watch: The final verdict is set to take place on May 31, per Reuters.

________________

• Ukraine charges 8 Russian soldiers, mercenaries in killings of mayor and family

Five Russian soldiers and three mercenaries have been charged with the murder of a Ukrainian mayor and her family in a Kyiv region village, Ukraine's prosecutor general Irina Venediktova said Tuesday.

Driving the news: Venediktova alleged in a Facebook post the soldiers and mercenaries from Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization with ties to Russia's President Vladimir Putin, "kidnapped Olga Sukhenko, her husband and son from their home in the village of Motizhyn" in March.

• They allegedly "tortured them, trying to beat out information," Venediktova said. "Just in front of the mother, they first shot her son in the leg and then killed him with a shot in the head. The whole family died from multiple gunshot wounds," she continued.
• "In addition to killing, torturing and holding prisoners ... the suspects also bombarded and [torched] the homes of civilians and stole mobile phones," Venediktova added.
• Their bodies were discovered in a shallow grave near their village, some 30 miles west of Kyiv, on April 2, after Russian forces pulled out of the capital, per the New York Times.

The big picture: Venediktova said last month that her office had opened 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes by Russian soldiers since the start of the invasion.

• Prosecutors have also filed criminal charges against 10 Russian soldiers accused of war crimes in Bucha, where at least 300 Ukrainians were tortured and killed.
• A Ukrainian court last week sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison for committing war crimes during the invasion.

For the record: The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected the war crimes allegations and denied that its forces target civilians.

_________________

Extra

• Biden rebukes Putin in Naval Academy commencement address

President Biden on Friday urged this year’s graduating class of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy to be stewards of strong American leadership abroad as the world faces major challenges including Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“You are graduating at an inflection point, not only in American history but in world history,” Biden said in the commencement address at the Naval Academy graduation in Annapolis, Md. “The challenges we face, the choices we make are more consequential than ever. Things are changing so rapidly that the next 10 years will be the decisive decade of this century.”

He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “literally trying to wipe out the culture and identity of the Ukrainian people” by attacking schools, hospitals and other sites in the war that began more than three months ago.

“A direct assault on the fundamental tenets of rules-based international order. That’s what you’re graduating into,” Biden said.

The president called for “strong, principled, engaged American leadership” on the world stage and underscored the importance of alliances such as NATO, which he argued has been strengthened by the war in Ukraine.

“He NATO-ized all of Europe,” Biden said of Putin.

Biden delivered the commencement address during a time of intense domestic and international problems. In recent days, the president has been largely focused on the tragic mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers, though he did not speak about the shooting during his speech.

He largely used the address to prepare the roughly 1,200 graduating midshipmen for the challenges ahead, repeating his belief that the world is in the midst of a “global struggle between autocracies and democracies.”

The graduates, he said, will be “representatives and defenders of our democracy” on the world stage.

Biden also reflected on the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy officer buried on the academy’s grounds, saying he hoped McCain’s legacy would help guide the midshipmen in their service. He called the former GOP presidential nominee a “man of great principle” and an American hero.

“I cannot promise you the way will be straight or the sailing will be easy, but I can promise you that you all have the tools needed to navigate any waters you encounter,” Biden said as he closed the speech. “You are ready.” https://thehill.com/news/administrat...ement-address/

Russia pummels eastern towns in bid to encircle Ukraine forces as Kyiv steps up calls for weapons


As Kyiv intensifies its calls for longer-range weaponry from the West to help it fight back in the Donbas region, Russian forces are stepping up their assault on the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, after claiming to have captured the nearby rail hub of Lyman.

Key points:

• Russia has claimed control of a critical railway hub but Ukraine says the battle for the town continues
• French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin
• In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says "Donbas will be Ukrainian"

Slow, solid Russian gains in recent days point to a subtle momentum shift in the war, now in its fourth month.
The invading forces appear close to seizing all of the Luhansk region of Donbas, one of the more modest war goals the Kremlin set after abandoning its assault on Kyiv in the face of Ukrainian resistance.

On Saturday, local time, Russia's Defence Ministry said its troops and allied separatist forces were now in full control of Lyman, the site of a railway junction, west of the Siverskyi Donets River in the Donetsk region that neighbours Luhansk.

Ukraine's train system has ferried arms and evacuated citizens through Lyman, a key railway hub in the country's east.
Control of that hub also would give Russia's military another foothold in the region.

It already has bridges for troops and equipment to cross the Siverskiy Donets river, which has so far impeded the Russian advance into the Donbas.

HERE