RUNNING UPDATES ON THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE - 21.01.2024
RUNNING UPDATES ON THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE - 21.01.2024
Including geopolitical issues affecting the balance of power in the ongoing end game war to establish our common future, a closely monitored prison planet or tolerance for diverse modes of governance.
THE ROAD TO THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSION OF WORLD WAR III RUNS THROUGH HERE.
*** UKRAINIAN ARMY LOSING GROUND ACROSS ENTIRE FRONT ***
“Ukraine. What is the truth...?
Why won’t western media tell both sides…?”
VIRTUALLY UNREPORTED ATROCITY IN LUGANSK, 2nd JUNE 2014
A lot has been said about atrocities in the western media claimed to have been perpetrated by the Russians, for example at Bucha and Mariupol among others. These assertions are conveyed on the say so of the Ukrainian authorities. How willing though are western news broadcasters to convey atrocities attributed to the Ukrainians? The following will I think provide the answer.
If anyone wonders if they are receiving accurate coverage of the conflict in Ukraine I would suggest watching the video below of an event which occurred on the 2nd of June 2014 and ask themselves if they recall hearing about it on any mainstream media news channel at the time.
The video is harrowing to watch. The bodies (five women and three men) are real. Yet across western media there was only one single news report that occurred a day later. This was from CNN and occurred only because a CNN team happened to be nearby at the time of the atrocity and so the network could hardly ignore it as all others so obviously did.
The video below shows the unvarnished truth that was not considered newsworthy in western mainstream news.
THE SINGLE WESTERN MSM REPORT ON THE LUGANSK ATROCITY, 3rd JUNE 2014
The video at the CNN link below is the crime scene sanitised by CNN, though played straight with honest reporting on the scene not playing things to Kiev’s tune.
(There was a time early in the war in the Donbass when CNN were not afraid to contradict the Ukrainian regime in Kiev.) Watch, because it's the first and last time you will see this.
5 women and 3 men died, all civilians.
Air attack on pro-Russian separatists in Luhansk kills 8, stuns residents.
COLLECTIVE WEST-UKRAINE <-> RUSSIA
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO - PATRICK LANCASTER
Eye Witness of Ukraine Attack on Civilian Marketplace.
January 21 at 6:00 PM
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‘Barbaric attack using Western arms’ – Moscow decries Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk.
The US and its allies are pushing Kiev towards increasingly reckless steps, Russia’s foreign ministry has said.
The shelling by Ukraine of the Russian city of Donetsk on Sunday, which claimed the lives of at least 25 civilians and wounded 20 others, was “a barbaric terrorist act” carried out with the support of the West, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said.
Sunday's bombardment of a busy market in the capital of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic was inflicted with weapons supplied to Kiev by the US and its allies, the ministry said in a statement.
“This again confirms [the West’s] direct involvement in the conflict and makes it complicit in the criminal acts of the Zelensky regime, which has once again displayed its inhumanity and hatred towards innocent people,” it said.
“The West’s unrestrained desire to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia through the hands of their Ukrainian puppets, whom it is eager to support mindlessly and without limit, is pushing the Kiev regime to increasingly reckless steps, including acts of terrorism, massive violations of international humanitarian law, and war crimes,” the ministry added.
READ MORE: Death toll spikes from Ukrainian shelling of Russian city
Russia has called on governments and international bodies to condemn this “treacherous attack on the civilian population,” it stated. Failure to do so would be a sign of “silent approval of the murders of civilians” that would only encourage Kiev “to commit even more bloody atrocities,” it also pointed out.
All those involved in the shelling of Donetsk and in other “terrorist attacks” on Russia will face “an inevitable punishment,” the ministry warned, adding that the “desperate strikes” clearly demonstrate the lack of political will on the part of the Ukrainian authorities to search for peace through diplomatic means.
“The need to achieve all of the goals and objectives of Russia’s military operation is obvious. Security threats and acts of terrorism shouldn’t be committed from the territory of Ukraine,” it said.
Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, wrote on Telegram that the attack on Donetsk, which he described as a “another heinous crime” by Ukraine, will “undoubtedly” become one of the main topics of discussion during the UN Security Council meeting on Monday. Russia had requested the UNSC meeting several days ago, to discuss deliveries of Western weapons to the Kiev government.
‘Barbaric attack using Western arms’ – Moscow decries Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk.
Death toll spikes from Ukrainian shelling of Russian city.
The ‘horrendous’ attack claimed at least 25 lives, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic says.
The number of fatalities from the Ukrainian shelling of a busy market in Donetsk has climbed to at least 25, Denis Pushilin, the leader of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, has said.
Some 20 civilians were also wounded in the “horrendous” attack on Sunday, which has left dozens dead, he wrote in a post on Telegram.
Many of the injured are in a serious condition, including with “penetrating wounds in the area of vital organs and traumatic amputation of limbs,” according to the official. Two children who were wounded in the bombardment have been described as being in moderate condition, the regional chief added.
The shelling, which hit the Kirov District in the southwest of Donetsk, was carried out with the use of 152mm and 155mm munitions, Pushilin said.
Read more: Multiple casualties as Ukraine shells Donetsk
Earlier on Sunday, the republic’s Joint Center for Control and Coordination said three shells were fired at the Kirov District shortly after 10am local time (8am GMT) and three more around ten minutes later.
The mayor of Donetsk, Aleksey Kulemzin, condemned the attack as “another dark day in the history of the city.” Ukrainian forces “wickedly” decided to bring death and destruction on the civilians of Donetsk to avenge failures on the battlefield, he wrote on Telegram.
Donetsk, which is close to the conflict frontline, and other towns and villages in the republic, have been targeted by Ukrainian forces on almost a daily basis since the conflict between Moscow and Kiev escalated in February 2022. Ukrainian neo-Nazi troops also regularly shelled the city in the aftermath of the 2014 coup in Kiev that prompted the Donetsk region to secede from Ukraine and eventually become part of the Russian Federation.
Sunday’s attack, however, was among the city’s worst.
Ukraine’s first deadly bombardment of Donetsk in 2024 took place shortly after midnight on January 1, claiming four lives. Earlier this week, six civilians were wounded by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Gorlovka, when a kindergarten and a hotel were hit.
Death toll spikes from Ukrainian shelling of Russian city.
EU state to resume cultural cooperation with Russia – media.
Slovakia banned contacts with Russian and Belarusian cultural institutions two years ago.
The new Slovak minister of culture, Martina Simkovicova, has reversed an order prohibiting cultural cooperation with Russia and Belarus, which was introduced by her predecessor in March 2022 following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
The document overturning the suspension of “any academic cultural or other similar official cooperation with the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus” was issued on January 12, with the decision coming into effect three days later, Slovakia's Pravda newspaper reported on Saturday, citing the documents it reviewed.
The minister explained her decision by saying that cultural cooperation should not be affected by the political climate.
“There are dozens of military conflicts going on in the world, and, in our opinion, artists and culture must not suffer because of them,” she said through her spokesperson Pavel Corba.
READ MORE: ‘No air defense, no air force, no money’ – EU state complains after helping Ukraine
The decision was supported by the chairman of the parliamentary media and culture committee, Roman Michelko, who said the former minister introduced the ban for ideological reasons. “I am against any censorship of culture,” he stressed, arguing that cultural exchanges should continue regardless of politics.
“The innocent are being punished and that is sick, ideology should not interfere with culture. Creators of Russian culture should not be discriminated against or ostracized because of the regime in power,” he stressed.
Martina Simkovicova, a former television presenter and a member of the Slovak National Party (SNS), assumed the post of culture minister in October 2023, following the victory of Robert Fico’s Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) party and subsequent creation of the coalition government. At the time, the leader of SNS – Andrej Darko – said he was willing to join a coalition with Fico to “compete with liberalism.”
READ MORE: Letting Ukraine into NATO is ‘basis for World War Three’ – member state
Last week, Simkovicova said she “rejects progressive normalization” and announced her decision to stop funding various LGBTQ projects.
“Non-governmental organizations related to LGBT will no longer parasitize on the money from the culture department. I will certainly not allow it under my leadership,” she said in an official ministry statement on Facebook. “Such practices have come to an end, we are returning to normality.”
EU state to resume cultural cooperation with Russia – media.
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Ukraine conflict is ‘America’s war’ – congresswoman.
Washington shouldn’t send any more money to Kiev amid the fighting with Russia, Marjorie Taylor Greene said.
It’s Washington, not Kiev, that’s interested in the continuation of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said.
Greene took to X (formerly Twitter) on Friday to comment on an article entitled “Zelensky Calls for Peace, Not More Weapons, in Davos,” which had been published by the New York Times earlier this week and reported on the Ukrainian leader’s speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps.
“Zelensky is asking for peace talks in Switzerland and the warmongers in Washington are desperately trying to fund $60 billion to keep the war in Ukraine going. This is sick,” she wrote.
Taylor Greene was referring to the ongoing resistance by herself and other hardline Republican lawmakers to attempts by the administration of President Joe Biden to push through another $60 billion in military aid for Kiev.
“This is America’s war and they are proving it,” the Republican Representative said, referring to the conflict in Ukraine. “No more money to Ukraine! Let them make peace!” she stressed.
Zelensky came to Davos to promote his so-called ‘Peace Formula,’ which, among other things, calls for Russia to withdraw from all territories claimed by Kiev, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for the formation of a war-crimes tribunal. Russian authorities instantly rejected the proposal as “unrealistic,” arguing that it was a sign of Ukraine’s unwillingness to look for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
The NYT also acknowledged in its article that Kiev’s demands “are considered, by analysts and even politicians backing the proposal, to be unreachable given the current balance of forces on the battlefield.”
In late November, Zelensky said that the Ukrainian troops were switching to a defensive posture, acknowledging that Kiev’s much-hyped counteroffensive, which had begun in early June and aimed to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, had ended without success. According to Moscow, Russian forces have improved their position in many areas along the frontline since then by carrying out what the country’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, described as “active defense.”
Zelensky has been reluctant to engage in direct dialogue with Russia, even signing a decree in the fall of 2022 that officially bans him from negotiating with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
READ MORE: US Republican lawmakers ‘swatted’ on Christmas
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that Moscow hasn’t ruled out the idea of peace talks but stressed that all the goals of the country’s military operation in Ukraine must and will be achieved.
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Attempts to isolate Russia have failed – Zelensky aide.
Senior adviser Mikhail Podoliak also clarified that there is no talk among Kiev's Western backers of sending troops to Ukraine.
A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has admitted that Western efforts to isolate Russia have failed to produce any results so far. Mikhail Podoliak also acknowledged in an interview with Germany’s BILD magazine published on Friday that Kiev is facing difficulties in trying to mobilize more troops.
Zelensky also expressed concerns in Novermber that Moscow was not being isolated as planned, as China and multiple Global South nations refused to toe the line set by the West and instead maintained a neutral position. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said that the campaign to reduce Russia to a “rogue state” had failed.
Podoliak replied in the negative when asked whether there is a scenario in which neighboring European countries would send their own troops to Ukraine.
“We will agree to any help but, so far, there is no such talk,” the presidential aide clarified.
“We are talking about weapons and sanctions for isolating Russia… but that has not yet led to results,” he added.
READ MORE: German defense chief against going ‘all in’ on Ukraine
Amid such “disappointments,” Ukrainian authorities will step up efforts to explain to their citizens why they should go to the front line, the senior adviser said. Following the country’s failed summer counteroffensive, officials in Kiev have been concerned about a decline in both in the quantity and quality of troops, and have resolved to intensify mobilization, Podoliak explained.
As Ukrainian MPs work out a new law aimed at closing military-service loopholes, reports abound of Ukrainian men attempting to illegally flee the country. Over 20 Ukrainians have died trying to escape in sub-freezing temperatures on Ukraine’s Western border, The Times newspaper reported last week, citing a Ukrainian border guard.
Podoliak warned that European nations should either give Ukraine all the means necessary to prevail on the battlefield now or they can expect the conflict to spread to their soil eventually.
Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out last month however that “Russia has no interest… geopolitically, economically or militarily... in waging war against NATO.”
While Western leaders and NATO representatives have repeatedly stressed that they have no plans to send their military personnel to Ukraine, there have been multiple reports that some have nonetheless operated in the country.
As recently as Friday, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu acknowledged that “there are French civilians who went to fight in Ukraine in Ukrainian military uniform.” He hastened to emphasize, however, that such individuals “have no connection with the French armed forces.”
His remark came after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed earlier this week that one of its strikes had killed dozens of French fighters in the city of Kharkov.
Late last year, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu alleged that “NATO service members are directly operating air defense systems, tactical ballistic missiles, and multiple-launch rocket systems” in Ukraine. He cited radio intercepts of communications in English and Polish.
Also in December, Declassified UK, citing a recent book by Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz, reported that British special forces troops were operating on the outskirts of Kiev in March 2022.
Attempts to isolate Russia have failed – Zelensky aide.
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MAPPING CHANNELS
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VICTORY BELONGS TO RUSSIA: IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
Each day that passes makes a conclusive Russian victory in the Donbass and beyond more certain. As Russia bolsters her forces, and weaponry, those of Ukraine decrease. Russian forces gain ready access to rest and recuperation as troop numbers increase. The increasingly exhausted and demoralised Ukrainian troops have an ever decreasing prospect of such respite. This situation is likely to bring them to complete breakdown as Russia unleashes the firepower of the more modern and advanced weaponry that is arriving with the newly mobilised Russian troops.
The various Ukrainian offensives are now weak when confronted by the reinforced Russian lines. A few futile efforts achieve quite miserable results before fire reigns down on the Ukrainian troops and they are forced back to their starting positions.
And now, all this being said, we have arrived at the wet, and later, freezing conditions where these pathetic Ukrainian forces will be subject to myriad forms of abject misery with death and injury all around them while they lie sodden or frozen, abandoned to their fate by Kiev.
The pitiable young and old of Ukraine have been frogmarched to their deaths as cannon-fodder while the bestial elites of the collective West urge their "president" to add more to their number there at the gates of Hell and their doom. We must feel for the majority of them as they are not the Nazis we revile, in most part they are decent men, fathers, sons, brothers, husband and uncles, who no doubt saw through the coup of 2014 for what it was. But sadly, their fate seems sealed.
Nothing will stop Russia now. Every factor favours them. Victory will be Russia's. In Donbass and beyond and in due course across the world.
Victory belongs to Russia: It is now only a matter of time.
UPDATES TO BE ADDED HERE AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
UPDATES TO BE ADDED HERE AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
THE WEST’S GEOPOLITICAL CHESSBOARD IS SOAKED IN UKRAINIAN BLOOD
We are nearing the bloody end of the Ukraine saga. The puppets of the western powers are sagging at the end of their strings, drowning in their own blood. To pull the curtain down is long overdue.
We have been watching a tragedy take place at the furthest edge of Europe for almost two years now, a tragedy of epic proportions written by some of the most experienced authors of such tragedies across the western world. Unabashed by their initiation of many similar, earlier, bloodbaths they sought to stage yet another sequel, one last bout of “useful” carnage. The epilogue however, is being rewritten for them.
If the American, British and European political elites have any sense of decency left in their bodies they will release their death grip on Ukraine now before Ukrainians die in even greater numbers. What we have seen so far is only a prelude to the wholesale massacre of Ukrainians that will come with further input of finance, weaponry and ammunition from the West. It is time for them to show humility now, accept the humiliation that comes with defeat and spare the lives of the Ukrainians who will now die if they don’t.
Russia has won. They have lost. And through the intransigence of the western powers an unthinkable number of Ukrainians have died who would still be alive and with their families if they had abandoned their plan to initiate regime change in Russia. Ukraine was their chosen tool, their pawn in a global chess game. Russia was the ultimate target of a scheme initiated in 2008 at the NATO Bucharest summit, pushed onward during Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2004 and carried through to a yet further stage in the Maidan insurrection of 2014.
Only a few steps more were required after the coup on Kiev’s Maidan Square. The next elements involving inexorable pressure against Russia, of continual deceptions, goaded Russia further and further until she was brought to the final corner from which there was only one way out. The trap had been laid meticulously. Russia, made to mount her campaign against her chief tormentor, NATO, via the illegal Ukrainian regime that had been maneuvered into position with all military advantage catered for. Every financial and economic weapon was poised to bring Russia down and bring about regime change in short order.
As we see now, it all went horribly wrong for all those terribly “clever” western planners who had readied every possible weapon, poised for the right moment to strike. One by one Russia blunted every single one of them. In a little short of two years Russia has brought about a momentous defeat for all her attackers. One by one Russia tore down every defence so meticulously constructed and strategically arraigned against her by all the best military minds the West had at its disposal. Russia, alone, defeated every NATO nation through the complete and utter defeat of Ukraine.
Even now, in the face of this utter defeat the leaders of these nations appear ready to sacrifice more Ukrainians, unwilling as they are to face the humiliation this by rights ought to be owned by them. For those who care to look past whatever prejudices, wishful and magical thinking they might still retain, can surely acknowledge that the Ukrainians have paid a high enough price for the geopolitical mendacity and cynical “cunning” of their western masters. It’s time to say “Enough!” and let the blood-letting end. There has been carnage enough. Far, far more than enough. The West must let Ukraine go. The tool is broken. The pawn is fallen. The chessboard is no longer black and white, but soaked blood red.
Posted on X/Twitter 6th January 2024 by Maria Mateiciuc @MariaMateiciuc.
I just got back from Ukraine, where I was visiting some friends.
Everything we have heard about what’s happening in Ukraine is a lie.
The reality is darker, bleaker, and unequivocally hopeless.
There is no such thing as Ukraine "winning" this war.
- By their estimates, they have lost over one million of their sons, fathers and husbands; an entire generation is gone.
- Even in the Southwest, where the anti-Russian sentiment is long-standing, citizens are reluctant or straight-up scared to publicly criticize Zelensky; they will go to jail.
- In every village and town, the streets, shops, and restaurants are mostly absent of men. - The few men who remain are terrified of leaving their homes for fear of being kidnapped into conscription. Some have resorted to begging friends to break their legs to avoid service.
- Army search parties take place early in the morning, when men leave their homes to go to work. They ambush and kidnap them off the streets and within 3-4 hours they get listed in the army and taken away straight to the front lines with minimal or no training at all; it is "a death sentence."
- It's getting worse every day. Where I was staying, a dentist had just been taken by security forces on his way to work, leaving behind two small children. Every day, 3-5 dead bodies keep arriving from the front lines.
- Mothers and wives fight tooth and nail with the armed forces, beg and plead not to have their men taken away. They try bribing, which sometimes works, but most of the time they are met with physical violence and death threats.
- The territory celebrated as having been "won back" from Russia has been reduced to rubble and is uninhabitable. Regardless, there is no one left to live there and displaced families will likely never return.
- They see the way the war has been reported, at home and abroad. It's a "joke" and "propaganda." They say: “Look around: is this winning?”.
- Worse, some have been hoaxed into believing that once Ukrainians forces are exhausted, American soldiers will come in to replace them and “win the war”.
There is no ambiguity in these people. The war was for nothing - a travesty. The outcome always was, and is, clear. The people are hopeless, utterly destroyed, and living in an unending nightmare.
They are pleading for an end, any end - most likely the same "peace" that could have been achieved two years ago. In their minds, they have already lost, for their sons, fathers and husbands are gone, and their country has been destroyed. There is no "victory" that can change that.
Make no mistake, they are angry with Putin. But they are also angry with Zelensky and the West. They have lost everything, worst of all, hope and faith, and cannot comprehend why Zelensky wishes to continue the current trajectory, the one of human devastation.
I didn't witness the war; but what I saw was absolutely heart-breaking.
Shame on the people, regardless of their intentions, who have supported this war. And shame on the media for continuing to lie about it.
https://twitter.com/MariaMateiciuc/status/1743658029893984735
