Thread: 18 April 2022: Day 54 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
"'I screamed at the [#Russian] guards: "He is dying, he is dying." I tried with my bound feet to push a bottle of water towards him,' says Dima, visibly distressed. 'All they did was laugh and say: "If he dies, he dies. All Ukrainians must die".'" independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…
#pt: "For 10 days, survivors of this room – all civilians – say they were starved, tortured, subjected to multiple mock executions [by #Russian soldiers], threatened with rape and forced to sit in their own excrement by soldiers under Trostyanets station [in Sumy]."
#Russia still attempting to stage false-flag events to give their invasion some tincture of defensibility, this time in Kherson
The head of Russia Today (now RT) Margarita Simonyan explains that she has been "dreaming" of making #Russia like #China, banning YouTube and all Western media, setting aside the "naive" approach of "let a hundred flowers bloom" in Russia since 1991.
Probably #Putin's lead propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, is "furious" with #Russia's Ministry of Defence, asking how the Moskva missile cruiser could have been sunk so easily; it should have been able to defend itself from #Ukraine's Neptunes, he says.
No choice now for #Putin but to double down, and double down again. It has seemed to "work" domestically, even if the damage done to the country over the long-term will be awful - not even mentioning the terrible death toll in #Ukraine in the short-term
#Russia tried to draw attention to #Ukraine's Jewish population and to politicise them - and Moscow succeeded, just in the exact opposite way to what they intended.
Even after #Russia stole Crimea and occupied eastern #Ukraine, the two leading #EU states - France and Germany - continued providing the Russians with all kinds of military equipment.
Horrible. The #Russian scattering of mines is one of the most needlessly cruel parts of their war policy, and the longest lasting - ensuring the killing goes on even after the war is over.
#Russia's redeployment of the remnants of its army from around Kiev to east #Ukraine for a new offensive there is not going well; the Ukrainians have mauled and thwarted them on multiple fronts before the Russians could even set themselves to begin again.
Notable that #Russia is continuing attacks in the far west of #Ukraine, a material indicator that there has been no change in strategy to limit this "special operation" to annexing the east
The #Soviet nostalgia of the #Russian forces assaulting #Ukraine is getting a bit out of hand. Also laughably off-message: Putin hates Lenin and has blamed him in public messaging for creating Ukraine, and Russians tend to associate Lenin with destruction.
#Ukraine's President Zelensky in his Easter message notes the "torture chambers" #Russia has built in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and the impending effort to create a DPR/LPR-style separatist "republics" there, already integrating these zones with the ruble. president.gov.ua/en/news/vidpov…
"Former" #Putin adviser Sergey Karaganov reiterates that #Russia should conquer as much of east #Ukraine as possible and neutralise the rest; this is a war with #NATO/West, which will soon collapse internally and Moscow and #China will dominate the world. globalaffairs.ru/articles/proti…
#Russia's federal censor Roskomnadzor has blocked the website of Human Rights Watch. The HRW office was among those closed on 8 April when the Kremlin shut down fifteen foreign NGOs in Moscow. interfax.ru/digital/835435
The #Ukrainian defenders of #Mariupol are making their last stand at the Azovstal complex. The #Russians are trying to break them with airstrikes, but it probably won't be enough. A protracted and sanguinary conclusion is likely.
"After my attempts to clarify ... the incident, the [Moskva] cruiser commander and his depuy stopped communicating. I asked directly why [are] you, the officers, are alive, and my son, a conscript soldier, died?"
#Putin awarded the title of Guards to the the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade, responsible for the massacres in Bucha, praising them for their defence of the "Motherland and state interests" and praised the "mass heroism" of the unit. rferl.org/a/russia-bucha…
Maybe that's what happened. In Putin's Russia, how would we ever know.
Horrible video of Kharkiv of a #Ukrainian teenager killed in the #Russian attacks, his mother and grandmother finding him and begging for him to wake up.
About three hours ago (late 18 April), #Ukraine's President Zelensky announced that #Russia had begun its all-out attack on the east of his country, an offensive expected for many weeks, since the Russians were routed around Kiev in the last days of March.
In earlier wars, it was snuff boxes or Bibles that stopped bullets. Now it's mobile telephones.
The #US will soon begin training Ukrainians how to operate howitzer artillery systems, though from outside #Ukraine.
Some states, like #Britain, are back within Ukraine, and this was supposed to be before the eastern offensive, which is now underway. aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/18…
An attempt to survey opinion in the #Donbas in east Ukraine, encompassing 4,000 people, finds a 42% plurality in favour of remaining in #Ukraine, about one-third wanted to be annexed by #Russia, and only 9% said they preferred independence for the area. washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
Difficult to take too much from this, though: about half the six million people in the Donbas have been displaced, and it is very clear that respondents were sensitive to where the questioners telephoned them from - whether Russia or Ukraine.
Thread: 17 April 2022: Day 53 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
#Russia: Sergei Erzhenkov, a journalist, attended a 4 March anti-war rally in Kasimov, where inter alia he filmed activists spray-painting "Putin — go away" on a Lenin statue. The FSB arrested him the next day and he says tortured him. themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/14/rus…
#Putin's propaganda has domestically done its work: there is a mass-rejection of claims about Russian war crimes, the "Z" and "V" symbols and a stay-the-course attitude have been embraced by enough people, and neither casualties nor economic pain dissuade.
Thread: 5 April 2022: Day 41 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
The Pentagon believes #Russia has temporarily reoriented to focus on conquering eastern #Ukraine first, after its attempt to seize the capital in the west was repelled.
The #US briefing suggests that #Russia's switch to conquering #Ukraine east to west (after its attempt for the reverse failed) still includes #Odessa as an immediate target, which the Russians would have to land at from the sea.
Thread: 4 April 2022: Day 40 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Not exactly subtle from #Russia, and quite funny to include #Belarus, which has been stripped of even the minimal sovereignty it had before the war on #Ukraine began.
#Russia's troops ransacked and looted Trostyanets, one of the towns retaken by #Ukraine's army near Sumy in the northeast. Among the victims was an elderly man who fought for the Soviets in Afghanistan, because he wouldn't give up his home.
Thread: 3 April 2022: Day 39 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
#Ukraine beginning to de-mine the areas around Kyiv that they have taken back from #Russia, a process that will take years. Sadly, it's also likely some of these areas will have to be fought over again after Moscow resets and tries again for the capital.