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Tag: luhansk

  • Putin slams West and US for ‘double standards’; cites plundering of India & Africa

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has reminded the world of the West’s colonial coverage, plundering of India and Africa, slave commerce, and using nuclear and chemical weapons by the US, as he slammed them for his or her “utter deceit” and “double standards” on insisting on a rules-based international order.

    Putin made the remarks throughout a carefully-choreographed formal speech on the Kremlin’s opulent St George’s Hall on Friday, days after the so-called referendums within the Ukrainian areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that have been dismissed as “shams” by Ukraine and the US-led Western nations.

    In his handle, Putin mentioned, “All we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.” Russia is a superb thousand-year-old energy, an entire civilisation, and it’s not going to dwell by such makeshift, false guidelines, Putin mentioned in his speech in Russian, the English model of which has been uploaded afterward the Kremlin’s official web site.

    Western elites are even shifting repentance for their very own historic crimes on everybody else, demanding that the residents of their nations and different peoples confess to issues they don’t have anything to do with in any respect, for instance, the interval of colonial conquests, Putin mentioned.

    “It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa…This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice,” he mentioned.

    This sounds very scary.
    President Putin just isn’t mincing his phrases. pic.twitter.com/DEhBkhV0Bl

    — Mzwanele Manyi (@MzwaneleManyi) September 29, 2022

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The European Council in a press release on Friday “firmly” rejected and “unequivocally” condemned the “illegal annexation” of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas by Russia.

    “By willfully undermining the rules-based international order and blatantly violating the fundamental rights of Ukraine to independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, core principles as enshrined in the UN Charter and international law, Russia is putting global security at risk,” it mentioned.

    Putin, in his speech, asserted that it was the so-called West that “trampled” on the precept of the “inviolability of borders”, and now it’s deciding, at its personal discretion, who has the correct to self-determination and who doesn’t, who’s unworthy of it.

    “It is unclear what their decisions are based on or who gave them the right to decide in the first place. They just assumed it,” he mentioned.

    The 15-nation UN Security Council voted on Friday on the draft decision on “Illegal So-Called Referenda in Ukraine”, hours after Putin signed treaties to annex Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

    However, the decision did not get adopted as Russia, a everlasting UNSC member, vetoed it. It was supported by 10 of the 15 members of the Council, whereas China, Gabon, India and Brazil abstained.

    Hitting out on the US, Putin mentioned America is the one nation on the planet that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.

    “The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons,” he underlined.

    US President Joe Biden has strongly condemned Russia’s “fraudulent attempt” to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory and accused Moscow of “violating international law, trampling on the United Nations Charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere”.

    “Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy…We will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts to regain control of its territory by strengthening its hand militarily and diplomatically…,” he mentioned in a press release on Friday.

    Biden mentioned the US will rally the worldwide group to each denounce these strikes and to carry Russia accountable.

    “I urge all members of the international community to reject Russia’s illegal attempts at annexation and to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” he mentioned.

    Unlike many different main Western powers, India has not but criticised Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and it abstained from the votes on the UN platforms in condemning the Russian aggression.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had mentioned that “any annexation of a State’s territory by another State resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the Principles of the UN Charter and international law”.

  • Zelenskyy orders necessary evacuation in Donetsk as Russia ramps up offensive

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Saturday his authorities was ordering the necessary evacuation of individuals within the jap Donetsk area, scene of fierce combating with Russia.

    In a late-night tv deal with, Zelenskyy additionally stated the lots of of 1000’s of individuals nonetheless in fight zones within the bigger Donbas area, which accommodates Donetsk in addition to the neighboring Luhansk area, wanted to go away.

    “The more people leave (the) Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he stated, including that residents who left could be given compensation.

    Separately, home Ukrainian media shops quoted Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk as saying the evacuation wanted to happen earlier than winter begins for the reason that area’s pure gasoline provides had been destroyed.

    Zelenskyy stated lots of of 1000’s of individuals have been nonetheless dwelling in areas of Donbas the place combating was fierce.

    “Many refuse to leave but it still needs to be done,” the president stated. “If you have the opportunity, please talk to those who still remain in the combat zones in Donbas. Please convince them that it is necessary to leave.”

    It just isn’t the primary time Ukrainian authorities have known as for civilians to evacuate areas they management in Donetsk, and John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, instructed Reuters it may very well be because of expectations of heavier combating quite than gasoline shortages.

    “I don’t know why Zelenskyy issued the call,” he stated. “What I do know is that there has been fierce fighting in Donetsk. The Russians took (neighbouring) Luhansk (oblast) several weeks ago. I expect further fierce fighting in Donetsk.”

    Herbst stated he didn’t count on Russia to seize the remainder of Donetsk given the longer logistics strains they would wish and the Ukrainian forces’ use of superior long-range artillery and rocket techniques supplied by the United States and others.

    Earlier on Saturday, Ukraine’s army stated greater than 100 Russian troopers had been killed and 7 tanks destroyed in combating within the south on Friday, together with the Kherson area that’s the focus of Kyiv’s counteroffensive in that a part of the nation and a key hyperlink in Moscow’s provide strains.

    Rail visitors to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been lower, the army’s southern command stated, probably additional isolating Russian forces west of the river from provides in occupied Crimea and the east.

    South of the city of Bakhmut, which Russia has cited as a primary goal in Donetsk, the Ukrainian army stated Russian forces had been “partially successful” in establishing management over the settlement of Semyhirya by storming it from three instructions.

    “He established himself on the outskirts of the settlement,” the army’s night report stated, referring to Russian forces.

    Defence and intelligence officers from Britain, which has been one in every of Ukraine’s staunchest allies since Moscow invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, portrayed Russian forces as struggling to keep up momentum.

    Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile techniques to badly harm three bridges throughout the Dnipro in latest weeks, chopping off Kherson metropolis and – within the evaluation of British defence officers – leaving Russia’s forty ninth Army extremely weak on the river’s west financial institution.

    The Kherson area’s pro-Ukrainian governor, Dmytro Butriy, stated combating was persevering with in lots of components of the area, and that Berislav district, simply northwest of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, was significantly laborious hit.

    “In some villages, not a single home has been left intact, all infrastructure has been destroyed, people are living in cellars,” he wrote on Telegram.

    Just to the north of Lysychansk, which Moscow’s forces captured in early July after weeks of combating, Ukrainian partisans destroyed a railway junction field close to the Russian-controlled city of Svatove on Friday night time, making it tougher for Moscow to move ammunition to the entrance strains by prepare, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai stated in a web-based put up.

    Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the battlefield studies.

    Officials from the Russian-appointed administration operating the Kherson area earlier this week rejected Western and Ukrainian assessments of the scenario.

    On Friday the British ministry described the Russian authorities as “growing desperate”, having misplaced tens of 1000’s of troopers within the battle. British MI6 international intelligence company chief Richard Moore added on Twitter that Russia is “running out of steam.”

    — ENDS —

  • Russia Ukraine War News Live Updates: Russian missiles hit Ukraine port metropolis of Mykolaiv; Drone strike hits Russia’s Black Sea naval base

    Blood, treasure and chaos: the price of Russia’s warfare in Ukraine

    Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of 1000’s of useless, displaced hundreds of thousands and sown financial strife internationally. Following are the principle impacts of the warfare:

    * Death

    Since Feb. 24, 5,237 civilians have been recorded as killed and seven,035 as injured, although the precise casualties are a lot increased, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned on July 25. Most of these killed or injured had been the victims of explosive weapons akin to artillery, missile and air strikes, the OHCHR mentioned.

    Neither Russia nor Ukraine have given particulars on the army deaths within the battle.
    The battle in jap Ukraine started in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed forces combating Ukraine’s armed forces.

    About 14,000 folks had been killed there between 2014 and 2022, based on OHCHR, together with 3,106 civilians.

    US intelligence estimates that some 15,000 Russian troopers have been killed to date in Ukraine and thrice that wounded – equal to the full Soviet dying toll throughout Moscow’s occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989.

    Ukrainian army losses are additionally important however in all probability rather less than Russia’s, US intelligence believes, CIA Director William Burns mentioned this month.

  • Russia turns its consideration to Donetsk province because it prepares for subsequent main offensive of the struggle

    Written by Andrew E. Kramer, Maria Varenikova, Shashank Bengali and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

    With Luhansk province firmly in Russia’s grasp after weeks of brutal preventing, the nation’s navy forces Tuesday had been already setting their sights on the following goal. On the outskirts of Bakhmut, a key provide hub for Ukrainian forces, the Russian military was ramping up its shelling as an obvious prelude for an inch-by-inch offensive into the province of Donetsk.

    The tactic drove out Ukrainian defenders from the final two cities standing in Luhansk, the opposite province within the japanese Donbas area, whose seize President Vladimir Putin of Russia has described as a vital goal of his struggle.

    In Sloviansk, one of many cities in Donetsk that lies in Russia’s path, the mayor, Vadym Lyakh, urged residents Tuesday to flee the town, which he stated was now on the entrance traces. “Artillery is already hitting the city,” he warned in an interview on Ukrainian tv, saying that 40 homes had been destroyed by shelling the day earlier than. In a Facebook publish, he stated that one particular person was killed Tuesday and 7 others wounded in an assault on the town’s central market.

    Sloviansk and Bakhmut are more likely to be the following cities to face the brunt of the Russian struggle machine, analysts say. To seize all of Donetsk, Russian forces would probably have to take Kramatorsk, an administrative heart and the headquarters of Ukrainian navy forces within the east.

    The speaker of the decrease home of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, referred to as for Russian forces to proceed their assault, accusing Ukraine with out proof of instigating the preventing.

    “They themselves are doing everything to ensure that our troops do not stop at the borders of Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics,” he stated Tuesday, utilizing the names of the provinces favored by Russia-backed separatists.

    Ukraine’s armed forces stated Tuesday that Russian troops had been centered on restoring transport infrastructure in Luhansk, which has been devastated by months of relentless bombardment, in obvious preparation for a push into Donetsk.

    The present part of Russia’s offensive has been marked by incremental positive aspects backed by withering artillery fireplace, and Ukrainian forces have usually withdrawn from the charred husks of bombed-out cities and cities quite than threat additional casualties. It stays to be seen how closely they are going to defend cities in Donetsk as they rack up tons of of useless and wounded troopers a day and are pressured to depend on National Guard items and different less-well-trained fighters.

    But Russian forces are additionally taking heavy losses, and Ukrainian navy officers say that their objective is to attract out the preventing within the east so long as attainable to exhaust their adversary and purchase time till extra Western weapons attain the entrance. In current days, Ukrainian forces say they’ve destroyed Russian navy infrastructure in occupied areas removed from the entrance traces, an indication that newly arrived, longer-range artillery methods are being put to make use of.

    On Tuesday, Ukraine stated it had used one of the crucial superior long-range weapons methods offered by the United States — a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS — to strike Russian ammunition depots in Dibrivne, within the Kharkiv area of Ukraine. That was round 40 miles inside territory managed by separatists loyal to Russia.

    But any capacity of Ukrainian troops within the subject, a lot of whom have been beneath steady shelling for weeks and even months, and have been taking heavy casualties, to observe up with counterattacks is in deep query.

    This article initially appeared in The New York Times.

  • Russia ally Kazakhstan refuses to recognise Donetsk, Luhansk as ‘unbiased republics’

    Kazakhstan, an ally of Russia, has refused to recognise the Donetsk and Luhansk as unbiased republics.

    Both the leaders of the disputed Donbas area, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, have been current on the twenty fifth St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). But even Russian allies for now are apprehensive to recognise them as ‘Heads of Government’.

    On Friday, one of many key dignitaries, Kazakhstan President President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whereas sharing the stage with President Putin on the plenary session, hit a uncommon discordant observe from Kremlin’s place.

    “If the right to self-determination is put into practice all over the world, then there will be over 600 countries instead of the 193 states that are currently members of the United Nations. Of course, that would be chaos,” Tokayev stated on the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

    “Kazakhstan doesn’t acknowledge “quasi-state territories which, in our view, is what Luhansk and Donetsk are,” Tokayev stated.

    He additional defined that Kazakhstan doesn’t acknowledge Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia or Abkhazia, and the identical applies to Donetsk and Luhansk.

    The query was posed to the Kazakh chief, after Putin justified the navy motion within Ukraine to guard Russian-speakers within the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk peoples’ republics of jap Ukraine.

    In truth, the discussion board had one session devoted to ‘Press approach following the results of the discussion platform of the All-Russian political party United Russia’ which had Pushilin and Pasechnik as panelists.

    The leaders have been seen partaking with corporates and leaders on the discussion board.

    In February this yr, Donetsk and Luhansk each components of the Donbas area in Eastern Ukraine bordering Russia have been declared unbiased republics after breaking away from Ukraine in 2014 throughout the Euromaidan battle and protests.

  • Ukraine conflict’s geographic actuality: Russia has seized a lot of the East

    Russia’s practically 3-month-old invasion of neighboring Ukraine has been punctuated by flawed planning, poor intelligence, barbarity and wanton destruction. But obscured within the each day combating is the geographic actuality that Russia has made good points on the bottom.

    The Russian Defense Ministry stated Tuesday that its forces in japanese Ukraine had superior to the border between Donetsk and Luhansk, the 2 Russian-speaking provinces the place Moscow-backed separatists have been combating Ukraine’s military for eight years.

    The ministry’s assertion, if confirmed, strengthens the prospect that Russia might quickly achieve full management over the area, often known as the Donbas, in contrast with one-third of it earlier than the Feb. 24 invasion.

    That is a far cry from what gave the impression to be the grand ambitions of President Vladimir Putin of Russia when he launched the invasion: fast and straightforward seizure of huge swaths of Ukraine, together with the capital, Kyiv, the overthrow of a hostile authorities and a alternative with unquestioned fealty that will guarantee Ukraine’s subservience.

    Nonetheless, the Donbas seizure, mixed with the Russian invasion’s early success in seizing components of southern Ukraine adjoining the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, offers the Kremlin monumental leverage in any future negotiation to halt the battle.

    And the Russians benefit from the added benefit of naval dominance within the Black Sea, the one maritime route for Ukrainian commerce, which they’ve paralyzed with an embargo that might ultimately starve Ukraine economically and is already contributing to a worldwide grain scarcity.

    All-terrain armoured autos of pro-Russian troops drive alongside a highway throughout Ukraine-Russia battle within the village of Bezimenne within the Donetsk area, Ukraine May 7, 2022. (Reuters)

    Testifying earlier than the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on Tuesday, Avril Haines, the director of nationwide intelligence, warned of a “prolonged conflict” in Ukraine as Russia seeks expansive territorial good points past the Donbas area, together with the creation of a land bridge throughout Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

    But Haines cautioned that Putin would wrestle to attain these good points and not using a large-scale mobilization or draft, which he seems reluctant to order for now. As Putin’s territorial ambitions battle with the restricted capabilities of his navy, Haines stated that the conflict might enter “a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory” over the subsequent few months, rising the probability of Putin issuing direct threats to make use of nuclear weapons.

    For the previous a number of weeks, Ukrainian and Russian troops have been engaged in a grueling attrition, usually combating fiercely over small areas, as one village falls into Russian arms on in the future, solely to be retaken by the Ukrainians just a few days later.

    The Ukrainians are more and more depending on an infusion of Western navy and humanitarian assist, a lot of it from the United States, the place the House voted Tuesday night to approve an almost $40 billion emergency package deal.

    “The Russians aren’t winning and the Ukrainians aren’t winning, and we’re at a bit of a stalemate here,” stated Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, who testified alongside Haines.

    Two our bodies lie on the bottom after a missile strike hit a residential space, amid Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, in Bakhmut within the Donetsk area, Ukraine, May 7, 2022. (Reuters)

    Still, Russia has all however achieved one among its major targets: seizing a land bridge connecting Russian territory to the Crimean Peninsula.

    When Putin ordered the invasion, a few of his navy’s most expert fighters poured out of Crimea and southern Russia, shortly seizing a ribbon of Ukrainian territory alongside the Sea of Azov. The final stronghold of Ukrainian resistance on this space, on the Azovstal metal plant in Mariupol, has been whittled to a couple hundred hungry troops now confined principally to bunkers.

    But efforts by Russian forces to develop and fortify the land bridge have been sophisticated by Ukrainian forces deployed alongside an east-west entrance that undulates by way of sprawling fields of wheat and sometimes engulfs villages and cities.

    Although Russian artillery and rockets have wreaked havoc in residential areas, flattening homes and terrorizing locals, the Russian navy has not dedicated sufficient forces to maneuver the road considerably or threaten the key industrial hub of Zaporizhzhia, the most important metropolis close to the entrance line, Col. Oleg Goncharuk, commander of the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade, stated final month.

    “They will try to block our forces from moving forward and they are trying to solidify their positions,” stated Goncharuk, whose forces are arrayed alongside the southeast entrance. “But we don’t know their orders or what their ambitions are.”

    Ukrainian troopers journey on an armored car enroute to the entrance line, amid Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, in Bakhmut within the Donetsk area, Ukraine, May 8, 2022. (Reuters)

    It is within the japanese provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk the place combating is the fiercest.

    At the principle hospital in Kramatorsk, a metropolis in Donetsk, ambulances stream in day and evening, carrying troopers wounded on the entrance, who describe being pinned down by close to fixed shelling.

    About 80% of the sufferers are wounded by explosives comparable to mines and artillery shells, stated Capt. Eduard Antonovskyy, deputy commander of the medical unit on the hospital. Because of this, he stated, few sufferers have critical accidents. Either you’re far sufficient from an explosion to outlive otherwise you aren’t, he stated.

    “We either get moderate injuries or deaths,” Antonovskyy stated.

    Russian forces now management about 80% of the Donbas, in keeping with Ukrainian officers, and have concentrated their efforts on a pocket of Ukrainian-held territory with Kramatorsk at its middle.

    All across the metropolis, the booms of distant combating could be heard in any respect hours, and heavy smoke hangs like a morning fog. Almost each day, Russian forces launch rocket assaults and airstrikes on the town itself, however essentially the most punishing violence is reserved for these locations in vary of Russian artillery.

    About 62 miles northeast of Kramatorsk is Severodonetsk, the place Russian artillery, parked about 5 or 6 miles outdoors the town, not often relents, making it tough for the 15,000 or so residents who stay to enterprise above floor.

    Oleg Grigorov, police chief within the Luhansk area, in contrast the violence with the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, when Soviet forces turned the tide in opposition to the Nazis, however solely after having suffered large losses.

    “It never ends. At all,” Grigorov stated. “Whole neighborhoods are destroyed. For days, for weeks, they have been shelling. They are intentionally annihilating our infrastructure and the civilian population.”

    Grigorov stated about 200 of his officers remained within the metropolis, which has misplaced electrical energy and water. Their major activity is delivering meals to folks sheltering of their basements and burying the useless.

    Russia’s Black Sea blockade of Ukraine has not diminished the Kremlin’s want to achieve management of Odesa, an important Ukrainian port, which has been subjected to a number of aerial assaults. In the most recent, Russian forces fired seven missiles, putting a shopping center and a shopper items warehouse and killing a minimum of one particular person and wounding a number of extra, Ukrainian officers stated.

    The strike got here solely hours after European Council President Charles Michel had visited Odesa, the place he was pressured to take cowl in a bomb shelter due to one other assault.

    Michel, who met with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal of Ukraine, criticized Russia for strangling Ukrainian grain exports that feed folks world wide.

    “I saw silos full of grain, wheat and corn ready for export,” Michel stated in an announcement. “This badly needed food is stranded because of the Russian war and blockade of Black Sea ports, causing dramatic consequences for vulnerable countries.”

    President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine urged the worldwide neighborhood to stress Russia to elevate the blockade.

    “For the first time in decades there is no usual movement of the merchant fleet, no usual port functioning in Odesa,” he stated in an in a single day deal with. “Probably, this has never happened in Odesa since World War II.”

    Ukraine’s financial system is predicted to shrink 30% this yr, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development stated Tuesday, worsening its forecast from two months in the past, when it predicted a 20% shrinkage.

    The conflict has “put Ukraine’s economy under enormous stress, with the heavy devastation of infrastructure and production capacities,” the financial institution stated in an financial replace.

    It estimated that 30% to 50% of Ukrainian companies have shut down, 10% of the inhabitants has fled the nation and an additional 15% is displaced internally.

    The financial institution additionally forecast that Russia’s financial system would shrink by 10% this yr and stagnate subsequent yr, with a bleak outlook until a peace settlement results in the stress-free of Western sanctions.

    This article initially appeared in The New York Times.