Good day all. According to “The Experts,” this shouldn’t be happening, yet it is. The Russian Army is in retreat from Kyiv. As the Ukrainian forces retake the areas that the Russians held, they are finding things that are screaming “WAR CRIMES!”
As we all know, Putin launched an assault on the Ukraine with the goal of returning them to the Soviet Russian Empire. Both the Russians and the world expected this to be over in a matter of days. Instead, the Ukrainians put up a real fight and have been inflicting massive loses on Russian forces. Now, some 35 days later, the Ukrainians are pushing the Russian army back and they are finding things that the Russians never intended to ever come to the light of day. Here are the details from Newsmax:
Ukraine said Saturday it has regained control of the Kyiv region, with Russian troops retreating from around the capital and Chernigiv city, as evidence emerged of possible civilian killings in areas the invading forces have been occupying.
Regarding civilian deaths, there have been way to many, especially since the Russians have been resorting to area bombing and unfocused artillery fire. They have also deliberately hit hospitals and known, declared civilian shelters. Now it’s beginning to look like they’ve been pulling another Katyn forest.
AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies on a single street in the town of Bucha near Kyiv, including one with his hands tied, and the body of a missing photographer was discovered in a nearby village.
“All these people were shot,” Bucha’s mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told AFP, adding that 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves in the town.
Now the question on the mass grave is how it was laid out. Were the bodies laid out in a respectful manner, indicating that they were laid to rest, or were they just dumped in with a bulldozer and buried? The former means that these people were sadly caught in a firefight and had to be quickly buried to avoid health issue. The later, especially if they show signs of being executed, is a war crime.
As it withdraws from some northern areas, Russia appears to be focusing on eastern and southern Ukraine, where it already holds vast swathes of territory.
“Russia is prioritising a different tactic: falling back on the east and south,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on social media.
One of the reasons that Russia is retreating is that their logistics and supply lines have been unable to keep up. Another is the massive losses they have been taking. Almost a dozen generals have been killed and several battalions have been essentially destroyed. Casualty reports, and these have not been reliable, seem to indicate that the Russians may have lost over 10% of their invasion forces. Still, it is going to be very tough for the Ukrainains to push the Russians completely out of the Ukraine.
“Without heavy weapons we won’t be able to drive (Russia) out,” he said.
I beg your pardon Mr. Podolyak, but have to spoken with the Ukrainian First Tractor Brigade to see what they might have picked up recently? Yes, this is a bit of humor for a really tough situation. I assume you are looking for heavy artillery and armor. The Russians have been abandoning a large quantity of equipment, either due to mechanical failure or flat out running out of fuel. A lot of this equipment is quite usable.
This is another indication that the Russians aren’t doing a withdrawal but are in a full retreat. If they were withdrawing to new positions, they wouldn’t be leaving anything useful behind. Whatever couldn’t be removed would have been destroyed in place. During a retreat, the commanders are more concerned with preventing a full on rout and keeping their troops in line then they are in recovering disabled tanks and other equipment.
Ukraine authorities nevertheless offered citizens elements of good news Saturday in claiming progress against the Russians more than five weeks after Moscow’s invasion triggered Europe’s worst conflict in decades.
“Irpin, Bucha, Gostomel and the whole Kyiv region were liberated from the invader,” deputy defence minister Ganna Maliar said on Facebook, referring to towns that have been heavily damaged or destroyed by fighting.
When the Ukrainians basically stopped the Russian advance, and began tearing up their logistics train, the Soviet Russian commanders got got frustrated. Putin was also breathing down their necks to crush the Ukrainian resistance, so the Russians resorted to indiscriminate shelling and bombing of cities and towns, making to attempt and hitting just military targets. The end result is the first European cities destroyed since World War Two. Then we have the atrocities.
Ukrainian authorities said Saturday the body of a well-known photographer, Maks Levin, had been found near a village in the region around Kyiv that had been caught up in the fighting.
“According to preliminary information, unarmed Maxim Levin was killed by servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces with two shots from small fire arms,” prosecutors said in a statement on Telegram.
Levin, a 40-year-old father of four, had been reported missing on March 13; the body was found near Guta Mezhygirksa on April 1, officials said.
Again, the question raised is was he targeted intentionally or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? In the heat of battle, soldiers are looking for any movement and someone with a bunch of cameras hanging off themselves could be mistaken for an enemy soldier. Alternatively, if he was shot at point blank range, especially in the back, then there is a good chance he was “Eliminated.”
In Bucha, 16 of the 20 corpses found on one street were lying either on the pavement or by the verge. Three were sprawled in the middle of the road, and another lay on his side in the courtyard of a destroyed house.
An open Ukrainian passport lay on the ground next to the person who had his hands tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. Two other people had white cloth tied around their upper arms. All were wearing civilian clothes — winter coats, jackets or tracksuit tops, jeans or jogging bottoms, and trainers or boots.
If they were unarmed, they can’t be declared as partisans who, theoretically, could be summarily executed after capture. From what I’ve been seeing in pictures online, Ukrainian irregulars have been putting on identifying ribbons, tape and anything that could be seen as indications that they are acting as uniformed troops. Believe it or not, there is actually international rules on all this. (Not that anyone pays attention to them during a war)
The International Criminal Court has already opened a probe into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine, and several Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have accused Putin of being a “war criminal”.
Yeah, good luck getting Putin into the ICC. If they actually tried, thee odds are that any number of Eurotrash prosecutors, judges and their families would suffer all sorts of fatal “accidents.” As for Dementia Joe’s big mouth? Calling Putin a war criminal is not going to help when it comes to figuring out a way to end this mess. But then this is Joe Biden, and screwing up everything he touches is his “Thing.”
In another southern city, Enerhodar, which is under Russian control, a Ukrainian official said Russian forces opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, injuring four with “severe burns”.
“Today in Enerhodar, city residents gathered again for a rally in support of Ukraine, singing the anthem,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova said on Telegram.
“The occupiers used light and noise grenades and opened mortar fire on the residents, four people were injured and severely burned,” she said.
The Russians have never been overly concerned with little things like avoiding collateral damage and respecting people’s rights. Their answer to any resistance to their rule is generally a pistol bullet to the head. Since it appears that the Russians are actually losing this war, you can expect more and more summery executions for no reasons whatsoever.
As to what happens next? It’s possible the Ukrainians will continue pushing the Russians out of the Ukraine. If they succeed, expect the Ukrainians to go after the Crimea and take that back as well. As for Vladykins Putin, I’m beginning to see Russia laying the groundwork for his “Tragic death by natural causes” in the next few months, leading to “New leadership” that will try and get out of the mess Putin created.
***Postscript***
I wrote this up late yesterday with the intention of posting it today. In the 12+ hours since I wrote it, more and more information has been coming out on the atrocities that the Russians have been committing. From what I’ve been reading, these aren’t the actions of out of control troops or local commanders. The extent indicates that it’s going far higher, and that means Putin.
It appears that the goal was destroying the civilian leadership at the local levels and terrorizing the population into submission. Pretty standard stuff under the old Soviet Union. It looks like the former KGB colonel and current fuhrer of the Federated States of Russia is bringing back some of the tried and true techniques.
The Russian government has been working to block information from reaching the average person, but it is getting out. Protests are increasing along with the crackdowns against them. Eventually, a critical mass will be reached, when that happens? Who knows?
Thatisall
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