Just Russia deliberately killing civilians and rescuers in double-tap strikes with drones, missiles, and FABs. Russia is a terrorist state. Ukraine war: Russian double-tap strikes hit civilians then rescuers too https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68761490 On the night of 3 April, a swarm of Russian drones attacked Kharkiv, in Ukraine's northeast. The country's second-largest city has been targeted almost incessantly since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. But this time was worse than usual, because, when rescue workers arrived at the scene, there was a second strike. Three of them were killed. The following Friday, it happened again when Russian missiles hit Zaporizhzhia, a major city in Ukraine's southeast. Rescuers and journalists rushed to the scene, and then two more missiles hit. In total, four people were killed and more than 20 were wounded, including two local journalists. Both the Kharkiv and the Zaporizhzhia attacks employed a technique called "double-tap" - when an initial air strike is followed by a second attack, killing rescuers trying to help the injured. Russia has carried out this kind of repeat attack before. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a strike on a building in the southern city of Odesa in March that killed 20 was a double-tap, and called it a "despicable act of cowardice". But Ukrainian officials say they have seen an increase in the use of such attacks. Oleh Synehubov, the governor of Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian media that Russia has started incorporating repeat strikes on its targets "day and night". "The occupiers are using the tactic of double-taps to hit civilian rescuers and other workers who are there first to arrive at the scene," he said. On Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it had seen a "particularly troubling pattern" of double taps in recent weeks. It called them "cruel" and "unconscionable" and urged for them to stop. Rescuers from Ukraine's State Emergencies Service DSNS often arrive to deal with the aftermath of Russian attacks before everyone else, and they also say the threat of repeat strikes is becoming ever more frequent. "Unfortunately, the tactic of double-tapping has been used increasingly often recently. This is difficult to comprehend. The Russians have no right to do this," DSNS spokesman Oleksandr Khorunzhy told the BBC. "They know perfectly well what they're doing, and not just to rescuers, police officers, utility workers or medics. This affects ordinary civilians," Mr Khorunzhy said. He called double-taps "utterly immoral". "I can't wrap my head around this, it's just inhuman," he said. "They see perfectly well that unarmed rescuers are the first to arrive at the sites of their attacks." The DSNS says 91 of its rescuers have been killed and more than 340 injured since the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022. Kira Oves was one of the journalists injured in the Zaporizhzhia double-tap attack. She told the BBC that she had just arrived at the scene of a strike when she heard a whistling sound. "A colleague shouted: Incoming! On the ground!" She crouched and heard a massive explosion. She only realised that she was wounded after she felt blood streaming down her face. She and her colleague ran to what they thought was a safe place - only to hear another "enormous blast". "I knelt down, and a policewoman rushed over to me to help close the wound. Another police officer bandaged my head to stop the bleeding. From the shouting we found out that another journalist had been wounded much more badly," Kira said. She had not expected two more strikes to follow the one she had gone to report on. Ukrainians targeted by double-tap attacks accuse Russia of trying to crush their fighting spirit and resilience. They also worry that no medic or emergency worker would be prepared to risk coming to their rescue for fear of coming under fire, too. But there are other pragmatic reasons for Russia's strategy too. "If you abandon any pretence at subscribing to international humanitarian law and even commonly accepted humanitarian norms, then there is a sound military rationale for double-tap attacks because you target high-profile targets," says Keir Giles, director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre, a British think-tank. There is a limited supply of first responders such as medics, emergency personnel and fire crews and they are difficult to replace. "If you take them out by the second attack on the same spot, at exactly the time when they've congregated to help the victims of the first attack, you're actually achieving quite a lot." Karolina Hird, an analyst at the US-based Institute for the Study of War, says double-tap attacks targeting rescue workers could, and likely do, constitute a war crime. "If, indeed, Russian forces are found to be targeting specifically and intentionally these sections of the population - that would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law and the general rules and norms of armed conflict," Ms Hird told the BBC. A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross told the BBC that all parties involved in a conflict had an obligation to "respect and protect" both the wounded and those who cared for them. If one party chooses to re-attack the same target, international humanitarian law requires them to take "particular care" when first responders are trying to evacuate the wounded, the ICRC said. Russia adopted the same strategy previously in Syria, where its troops fought against anti-government rebels between 2015 and 2017. In that case it targeted rescuers from the White Helmets, a civil defence group. "We have documented hundreds of such cases since Russia intervened in 2015," the White Helmets chief Raed al-Saleh says. "Frankly, the Russian army has no morals when it comes to military operations. It focuses on breaking the will of civilians." Russia has not explicitly disavowed double-taps, but it has repeatedly denied it aims for civilian targets. "Our military does not hit social facilities and residential neighbourhoods and does not hit civilians," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in January. But those in towns and cities across Ukraine see the opposite is the case. "They're using double-taps to kill as many of us as possible," says Kira Oves, the journalist wounded in one such attack in Zaporizhzhia. "But they'll fail, because Ukrainians are survivors. We shall win."
Let's catch up with the details of the sinking of the Moskva. Ukrainian Navy unveils details of Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship’s destruction on second anniversary https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-navy-unveils-details-russian-134900987.html
In 1994, former U.S. President Bill Clinton convinced former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk to give Ukraine's nuclear weapons and strategic bombers to Russia in exchange for "security assurances" underwritten by America and Britain. This policy was pursued under the pretext of making the world safer. It accomplished the opposite. America's mistake was twofold. First, Washington assumed that Russia would evolve from a 19th century empire into a law-abiding member of the international community. This was obviously false. Second, despite Kazakhstan and Belarus relinquishing their nuclear arsenals to Moscow alongside Ukraine, other states didn't forgo proliferation. Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko visits the site of a missile attack in Kyiv on March 25, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi maintained his nuclear weapons program until 2003. North Korea followed suit in 2006. Israel destroyed the reactor that Pyongyang built for the Syrian tyrant Bashar Al-Assad in 2007. Iran is also on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons today. Washington's misguided policy toward Kyiv was a moral and strategic mistake of historic proportions. Today, America and Europe subsidize Ukraine's survival against Russian aggression. Meanwhile, Kyiv pays the cost in lives lost, territory stolen, children kidnapped, and cities destroyed. The Ukrainian government regrets giving up its giant nuclear arsenal to Russia. Namely, because a nuclear-armed Kyiv would've deterred the Kremlin from illegally annexing Ukrainian Crimea, setting the Donbas war in motion, and launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Hindsight is nonetheless 20/20. The mistakes of the past are irreversible. History will judge America for her errors. All Washington can do is learn from the past and set its sights on the future. As it stands, replenishing Ukraine's ammunition is by far the best thing the U.S. can do for both Kyiv and global nuclear non-proliferation. America's allies have many reasons not to trust Washington. The U.S. being unable to provide military assistance to Ukraine when the president, the Senate, and a majority of the American people are in favor of doing so is only one of those reasons. This can get worse. If Trump is re-elected in November and withdraws from NATO as he intends to, America's partners will never trust Washington again. Forget purchasing American military equipment, the only thing that'll give smaller states with aggressive neighbors any peace of mind is acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. Countries like Poland, Germany, Romania, Finland, and the Baltic States are unlikely to feel safe under a French or British-led nuclear umbrella. Paris and London are not great powers, let alone a superpower like America. Their nuclear deterrents also lack the range and flexibility provided by Washington's triad (inter-continental ballistic missiles, submarines, and heavy bombers). Some, perhaps even all, of the aforementioned states might even seek nuclear weapons of their own without the U.S. in NATO. Even worse, the Alliance that nearly succeeded in institutionalizing peace on the world's most war-prone continent is at risk of falling apart without Washington. Are Berlin, Paris, and a post-Brexit London even capable of sticking together if America removes herself from the equation? Germany, the so-called leader of Europe, would rather leak classified intelligence and throw allies like France and Britain under the bus instead of providing Ukraine with Taurus missiles. That, alone, says enough. Yet the cascade of consequences doesn't end there. Ankara, already on edge over Tehran's nuclear program, also wants to acquire nukes on its own terms. Not only would Greece follow Turkey down the path of nuclear proliferation, but so would Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Perhaps even Algeria, and therefore Morocco. Failing to stop the Houthis from sabotaging freedom of navigation in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is another reason why America's allies are reluctant to trust her. If Washington is unable to deter and defend international commerce against a second-rate Tehran-backed terrorist group in Yemen, how will it respond if Iran blockades the Strait of Hormuz, or if China does the same to the Taiwan Strait? Europe and the Middle East aside, it is unlikely that any of this inspires confidence for U.S. allies in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. If anything, hanging the Ukrainians out to dry and enabling Russia to continue prosecuting its illegal and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine only emboldens China to adopt a more aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific. By now, every party who has paid any attention knows what happens when you don't possess nuclear weapons. Dictators suffer the same fate as Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. If they're lucky, they end up like Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, sovereign states undergo the same doom that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine since 2014. As the number of states with nuclear weapons increases from 9 to 15, or 22 (and perhaps even more if we consider America's allies in Asia) so too does the likelihood of a nuclear strike or a terrorist group obtaining the technology. If Washington thinks that keeping Americans safe is expensive and complicated today, just wait until any version of the nightmare scenario mentioned above unfolds. Arm Ukraine now or risk global nuclear proliferation later. George Monastiriakos is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa.
Putin spreading the bullshit today. He is acting like he is against further attacks between Israel and Iran because he is such a peaceful diplomatic type of guy. The real story is that Iran is the major supplier of weapons to Iran and if war breaks out between Iran and Israel, Iran is not going to be thinking about Russia's needs. Ukraine war updates: Kremlin warns escalation in Middle East is ‘in no one’s interests’ but won’t condemn ally Iran’s attack https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/15/ukr...test-news-on-russia-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/976...ch-youth-ready-to-enlist-and-fight-in-ukraine More than half of French youth ready to enlist and fight in Ukraine 14.04.2024 12:40 A new survey published by Le Parisien finds that over half of French young people would be ready to enlist and fight against Russia in Ukraine if it were needed to defend France's interests. Emmanuel MacronPAP/EPA/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL A new survey published by Le Parisien this week has surprised commentators by indicating that French youth are well aware of the situation in Ukraine and do not rule out their personal involvement. The article is headed "Renewed Patriotism". The survey shows that 51% of French youth would consider signing up and fighting in Ukraine and 57% answered affirmatively to a more generally phrased question about readiness to fight - without specific mention of Ukraine. The research combined the results of several surveys, including a questionnaire-based survey by Ipsos on 2 300 French people aged 18-25. One of the questions specifically mentioning Ukraine was : "If France's defence required its participation in the war in Ukraine, would you be willing to join to defend your country?" Here 51% of French young men and women answered "yes" with 17% saying "definitely yes and 34% answering "probably yes". In a further question not mentioning Ukraine, 57% of respondents expressed readiness to take up arms to defend France in the event of war. In terms of political support for France entering the war more actively, Ukraine has much more support among young people than the 50+ age group. The respective figures are 31% and 17%. 62% of respondents (aged 18-25) support a return to compulsory military service, abolished in France in 1997. Commentators have pointed out that this data was gathered before President Macron began publicly suggesting that western allies could become involved on the ground in Ukraine and so is not a reflection of his influence on public opinion. Sources: Le Parisien, Ukrainska Pravda
Its facts.If Russia wins in Ukraine every country knows that they cannot depend on the US,even NATO countries and S Korea and Japan and the only way to ensure their regimes survival is to get nuclear weapons,and many countries will begin to do so.