#Russia Ukraine

[maaarine]

Russia bans 'child-free propaganda' to try to boost birth rate (Reuters, Nov 12 2024)

"Russia's lower house of parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban what authorities cast as pernicious propaganda for a child-free way of life, hoping to boost a faltering birth rate.

Official data released in September put the birth rate at its lowest in a quarter of a century while mortality rates are up as Moscow's war in Ukraine rages on.

The Kremlin called the figures "catastrophic for the future of the nation".

President Vladimir Putin, who has cast Russia as a bastion of "traditional values" locked in an existential struggle with a decadent West, has encouraged women to have at least three children, saying that will help secure the future of Russians.

There are already financial and other incentives.

The law, expected to be swiftly approved by the upper house of parliament and Putin, joins other restrictions on free expression including a ban on content deemed to promote "non-traditional lifestyles" such as same-sex relationships or gender fluidity, as well as on dissenting accounts of the conflict in Ukraine.

Authors of "child-free propaganda" will be subject to fines of up to 400,000 roubles ($4,100) for individuals, twice that amount for officials, and up to 5 million roubles ($51,000) for legal entities. (…)

But some women were sceptical.

Alina Rzhanova, a 33-year-old who lives in Yaroslavl, 250 km northeast of Moscow, was once determined not to have children but now has an eight-month-old son.

"People want children, but there's no money," she said.

"That's why people are not having children. Not because someone somewhere wrote something.""

[newsrussia]

The Ukrainian city of Maryinka completely destroyed by Russia

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Ukraine had the world’s biggest plane. Russia’s assault destroyed it.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

A video clip from the late Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny, condemning the war in Ukraine while in prison and calling on Russians to continually oppose it. The title says, Navalny on the criminal war in Ukraine.

In it, while quoting Tolstoy, Navalny made the important point that despots need war. And war fuels and maintains despotism. Fabricating a "national enemy" and "foreign threats" is a well-worn tactic of dictators, used to distract and fool the population and justify maintaining authoritarian control.

The answer to why Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago is simple: to preserve his dictatorship. His convoluted excuses about Russia's historical claims (which have no legal validity once Ukraine has declared independence), Western threats from NATO, and his deliberate exaggeration of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, were all concocted to mask this central reason.

Therefore Russia is being bankrupted both financially and morally in order to keep Putin in power. As Zelenskyy correctly said, 'Putin doesn't care who dies, as long as he retains his position.'

Foreign wars also provide dictators with a cover for continuing and enhancing their terrorist deeds at home. Both Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov were murdered in the middle of a Russian war; Nemtsov, during the time that Russia was sending mercenaries into eastern Ukraine to stir up provocation and steal more territory.

Two years into Russia's illegal war against Ukraine, the world must ensure that Putin's delusions of impunity come to an end. He and his terrorist regime have violated all morality, and they have been allowed to get away with it for too long. How many times have foreign powers promised punishment against the Russian terror state, and delivered nothing?

Every failure to punish Putin and his regime enables him to continue fortifying his terrorist state, from murdering political dissidents, to stealing more and more Ukrainian territory. Avdiivka has now fallen to Russian occupiers, and the amount of Ukrainian territory stolen by Russia totals between 16-18%. Once such territory has been stolen, it is then filled with munitions and booby traps, which explains why the Ukrainian counter-offensive last year failed. The plain truth is that it is and will be extremely difficult to reverse Russian occupation.

Punishment of Putin's regime, which should be maintained regardless of what happens in Ukraine, is the key to restoring peace and security abroad, as well as holding him accountable for all of his domestic crimes. Total non-recognition of Putin as a "leader", multiple cases against Russia in international courts, a permanent international arrest warrant on Putin (irrespective of whether Ukrainian children are recovered from Russia or not), and enhanced sanctions that last beyond the war are desperately needed now to isolate and undermine the Kremlin.

STOP THE WAR!

[workersolidarity]

[Photo Source]

🇷🇺🇺🇦 OPINION: The Russian Federation at the beginning of the Special Military Operation were likely losing more tanks and armored vehicles than it was producing at the time.

But today, the Russians are producing considerably more tanks and armored vehicles than they are losing in battle.

Meanwhile, Ukraine cannot replace or even quickly repair its own tanks and armored vehicles to which they are dependent on the West for, that were hammered during the Ukrainian "Greatest Counteroffensive."

So what we are seeing today is that Russian Forces are shifting to an offensive footing at a time they are producing record numbers of tanks, drones and armored vehicles.

Unlike Ukrainian Forces, the Russians can easily replace their destroyed vehicles and continue on an offensive footing indefinitely.

This is a recipe for disaster for the Ukrainians who are not going to be getting enough replacements for their armored vehicles to ever go on the offensive again. At least not during this stage of the conflict.

And this doesn't even take into account the inability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to replace its competent, experienced and well-trained soldiers lost by the tens of thousands in the offensive, with any kind of high quality conscripts.

Short of NATO directly intervening in the war, there is no other way this ends than an eventual collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

And at this point, it is likely far too late for a negotiated end to the conflict, as the Russians have already hinted at, without a change in leadership in Ukraine, and maybe even in the United States as well.

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[aliasanew]

Publicado el Viernes 17-V-2024

[lianeachadosimperdiveis]

Destruição maciça de sistemas de defesa aérea inimigos IRIS-T alemão, 2 estações de radar e um sistema de defesa aérea desconhecido foram queimados

➡️A filmagem mostra a destruição do sistema de defesa aérea de lançamento da OTAN “IRIS-T” na área da vila. Novonikolaevka perto de Krivoy Rog . O Iskander OTRK com uma ogiva cluster funcionou tão bem que, além do lançador, um veículo no cinturão florestal vizinho também foi destruído.

➡️No vídeo nº 2 na direção de Krasnoarmeysky, os atiradores das Forças Aeroespaciais Russas destruíram dois radares P-18 das Forças Armadas Ucranianas com mísseis X-35 nas áreas do assentamento. Novolozovatka e Novomaryevka.

➡️ Em vídeo n ° 3 (httpst.me+pmyypxXr26kzMjYy) um ataque preciso destruiu o sistema de defesa aérea das Forças Armadas Ucranianas na direção de Kupyansk, como evidenciado pela detonação claramente visível de mísseis antiaéreos.

[jloisse]

« Vous avez une chance de rester en vie : vous rendre! »

Une campagne d’information privée russe a atteint les combattants ukrainiens dont les noms n’ont pas encore été inscrits sur les pierres tombales.

La courte vidéo montre clairement la vie d’une famille ukrainienne moyenne en difficulté à cause de la soif de sang du régime ukrainien.

Traduction Vpoutine (Telegram) : sous-titres.

[ivovynckier]

Germany, 1945.

Russia, 2023.

[garudabluffs]

who's keeping score of whose war(s) ?

Why protests now? Letter by P. Greenwald "In March, 1945, the United States firebombed Tokyo and killed 100,000 civilians. In February, 1945, British and American bombing of Dresden, Germany killed 25,000 civilians. READ MORE https://www.gazettenet.com/Letter-to-the-editor-52796440 Dr. Jesse Ferris provides Israeli perspective on Israel-Hamas conflict: ‘This is not a genocide’ November 6, 2023 “A member of the audience raised a question about the usage of the term “genocide” to refer to the current situation in Gaza, to which Ferris replied with examples of historic massacres. “If you think of World War II, when American and British forces bombed Dresden for two days, it left 25,000 civilians dead. Consider the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945, in one single night 100,000 people died. None of those were attempts at a genocide.”I can’t even begin to imagine the scale of suffering under those bombings in Gaza, but calling it a genocide? That’s a completely different ballpark,” Jesse Ferris said. "…the West Bank is now home to over 400,000 Israelis. Additionally, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s pledge to advance 10,000 new settler housing units earlier this year has contributed to the ongoing expansion of settlements in the region." +"Following the event, as part of a discussion with some audience members, Ferris was asked whether he thinks there should be a ceasefire. In response, he stated, “No, not yet.” He elaborated, “A ceasefire from the Israeli perspective would leave both sides seriously bloody but only determined to fight another day.” READ MORE https://dailycollegian.com/2023/11/dr-jesse-ferris-provides-israeli-perspective-on-israel-hamas-conflict-this-is-not-a-genocide/ Golda Meir for having said, “You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.” https://www.gazettenet.com/Columnist-Susan-Wozniak-52794389

A courageous stand at UMass against tide of anti-Israel protests https://www.gazettenet.com/Guest-columnist-Porter-52953396 I agree with journalist Carolina Landsmann, who wrote an op-ed titled, “If Israel must be more brutal than Hamas to win the war, it’s not worth it.” "… the quote attributed to Golda Meir: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. But we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.” https://www.gazettenet.com/Sarena-Neyman-Dangerous-binary-in-Israel-Hamas-war-52939045 The ‘River to the Sea’ Rorschach test by Robert Wright Nov 10, 2023 "But then I remembered a conversation I had a few years ago with a psychologist at Boston College named Liane Young. She and some colleagues had done research on how Palestinians and Israelis view their conflict and found that the two groups have something in common: Both believe that people on their side of the fight are motivated more by love for one another than by hatred of people on the other side, but that on the other side it’s the other way around: there, people are motivated more by hatred of the enemy than by love of one another. Maybe Ahlam was evincing this bias, seeing the love on her side of the conflict but not the love on the other side. And, maybe, so was Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir when she said, half a century ago, “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” And if Israel gave the vote to Palestinians not only in the West Bank but also in Gaza, then the number of Palestinian voters (including those who live in Israel proper and already have the vote) would roughly equal the number of Jewish voters."

READ MORE https://open.substack.com/pub/nonzero/p/the-river-to-the-sea-rorschach-test?r=2cx3l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Dr. Ahmad Samih Khalidi provides a Palestinian voice on the Israel-Gaza conflict https://dailycollegian.com/2023/10/dr-ahmad-samih-khalidi-discusses-the-israel-gaza-conflict/ LISTEN 3:31 https://www.wvpe.org/wvpe-news/2023-11-06/notre-dame-expert-says-u-s-is-complicit-in-israels-genocide-of-palestinian-civilians

[maaarine]

20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov, 2023)

[nationnow]

Putin's next targets identified as Russia tipped to 'look northwest'

Vladimir Putin has his sights set on three European countries to the “northwest” of Ukraine and could attack them after this war is over, a military expert has claimed. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but Putin had already displayed aggression toward other European nations in recent years. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the Baltics are all NATO members, but…

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

As many already suspected, evidence is coming out that suggests a Russian sabotage group planted explosives at the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine, triggering serious ecological damage.

Ukraine's security service posted a segment of an audio conversation online that they said was intercepted, but further information is not available.

If true, the motivate stated on the audio clip was to scare people, in order to deflect any potential Ukrainian counteroffensive. The BBC states this in their own report on Ukraine's counter-offensive:

It seems highly likely that Russian forces, which controlled the dam, decided to blow it up, taking one of Kyiv's military operations off the table.

Ukrainian forces may be starting a counteroffensive in the south, as Vladimir Putin mentioned this in an audio clip on Telegram.

[workersolidarity]

🇺🇦 MOBILIZATION IN UKRAINE

A man escapes “voluntary mobilization” in Ukraine.

@Slavyangrad

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[todayworldnews2k21]

10 Killed, 44 Injured In Russian Missile Attack, Says Ukraine

Kyiv: A Russian missile attack killed 10 people and wounded 44 in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday, local governor Oleh Kiper and national police said. Four children were among the wounded while three people were in serious condition, Kiper said on the Telegram messenger. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram that a Russian ballistic missile had hit a residential…