[aim120]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Twitter is awash with claims of Ukrainian national guards torturing civilians in public. Scroll to see lot more. Very graphic stuff, don't click if you don't want to see it.

https://twitter.com/WithyGrove/statu...94109916569605

Any truth to this? Without knowing the language, it is hard to fact check anything.

Its true. For anyone checking videos of soldiers anyone with a blue or yellow arm or leg band is from Ukraine armed forces.

While soldiers from russia have a red or white bands.

Vehicles with digital camouflage pattern are all Ukraine. Doesn't matter what the twitter caption is. Some captured Ukrainen vehicles may have a Z or O or V symbols to let russians know they are friendly forces. Captured vehicles are mostly used by pro russian rebels or by Chechen forces.

While there are also plenty of deep fake videos of burnt Ukrainen armor/ifv/apc being passed on as russian with deep fake Z or V or O insertions. So check if they have the digital camouflage pattern.

[Poitive]

We live in interesting times.

Communist Refoundation Party national secretary Maurizio Acerbo called for the Italian Ministry of Defence to explain why boxes bound for Kiev contained weapons, ammunition and explosives instead of much-needed food and medicines for the Ukrainian people.

Link: Italian workers block arms shipment bound for Ukraine under guise of humanitarian aid

Short protest video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FO7EPsDvGFQ

[JithinR]

Originally Posted by Poitive

We live in interesting times.

Yep. Also, it amazing to see ordinary people standing in the way of murderous dictators like Lukeshenko.

www.rferl.org/amp/ukraine-russia-belarus-railways-supplies-cut-off/31761964.html

Can't imagine the amount of courage it took for them to sabotage some of the railway infrastructure between their country and Ukraine just to stop the Russians from using it to transport weapons.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by Poitive

Italian workers block arms shipment bound for Ukraine under guise of humanitarian aid

Well if you’re out to make money, why will you fill up a plane with stuff which will cost you a couple of $100k when you can fill it with goods costing a few $ millions..

Any arms coming into Ukraine is being hit by Russian missiles so the west found an alternative to send them along with food and medicines. The airport workers were not willing to load these as their colleagues could die if Russia received any intelligence about the same. We knew Russians are pure Evil and are known for their inhuman behaviour but surprised to see the West going so low just to make some $. If you really are that fearless have your airforce air drop it themselves.

Further the Americans are growingly getting frustrated with India and the Arabs as they are not finding success in getting them to rally behind the West instead of Russia.





But Joe is the one who is on ‘shaky’ ground and has a literal SON problem which he has to answer to his own people and world in general as “Telling the truth is now the most dangerous thing you can do in America” so much for free speech in the free world.

https://youtu.be/as-ftnzTmDg

[mayukh42]

Economics of war









All are defense/ arms dealers of US, and their upward cliffs started bang on the dates the war started.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

Economics of war

All are defense/ arms dealers of US, and their upward cliffs started bang on the dates the war started.

These Members of Congress Could Make a Profit on US Arms Shipments to Ukraine

Some members of Congress stand to personally profit off Russia's war on Ukraine. At least 18 federal lawmakers or their spouses hold stock in Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, which manufacture the weapons Western allies are sending Ukraine to fight Russian invaders, according to an Insider analysis of federal financial records.

The stock holdings by members of Congress come as the U.S. is preparing to send billions of dollars in defense aid to Ukraine. Both companies' stock -- especially that of Lockheed Martin -- have risen since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/...s-ukraine.html

Making windfall gains by spending American tax payers money and at the loss of innocent civilian lives in Ukraine. Nothing new for them its business as usual.

[saikarthik]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

Economics of war

All are defense/ arms dealers of US, and their upward cliffs started bang on the dates the war started.

Usually the shipments take a lot of time once the orders are placed. But now the air defense systems, and others are being rapidly supplied. Don't know if they are from the US active inventory or they had anticipated this requirement!

My assumption- Even old systems are being sold to some east European countries with lower wait times, instead of disposing/retiring. Patriot air defense systems reach Slovakia.

[Poitive]

Originally Posted by JithinR

Yep. Also, it amazing to see ordinary people standing in the way of murderous dictators like Lukeshenko.

Surely a bigger deal to go against the powers in a relatively autocratic system; but perhaps it is more than just ordinary citizens at play.

Further:


Link: https://m.jpost.com/international/article-701618/

Also:

Activist hackers in Belarus have reportedly disrupted some of the country’s rail services after breaching computers that control these trains.

This move by Cyber Partisans, as the activist hackers identify themselves, is said to have been made in an attempt to ‘slow down the transfer’ of Russian soldiers that are entering Ukraine.

Link: https://www.railway-technology.com/n...train-systems/
.

[Foxbat]

The Worlds Media (and the Indian Media) is busy covering this:

Deadly shelling in Ukraine’s Kyiv flattens shopping mall

At least eight killed as a result of the shelling that devastated a shopping centre in Ukraine’s capital, says mayor.

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/20...o-central-kyiv

What no mainstream news source will cover is how the mall was abandoned and was used to store Multiple Rocket Launchers and also fire from the location:



Here is a video from the Russian Ministry of Defence showing them in action and being stored in the mall. This will no doubt be removed from the internet soon by the censors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kktVfyG_sRA

[Poitive]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

What no mainstream news source will cover is how the mall was abandoned and was used to store Multiple Rocket Launchers and also fire from the location:

Adding a bit to it, mate. My impression is that most of the damage to civilian areas is largely due to:

1. Civilian areas being used for military purposes.

2. Collateral damage. All weapons wouldn't reach intended target always. Also, targets can't be clearly known; especially in such situations.

3. Ukraine forces and those aligned to them/West carrying out attacks to build narratives and excuses to escalate. (eg: theatre bombing?)

Besides the obvious, a significant reason for the views above is that it is not in Russian interest to simply bomb away civilian areas needlessly. Was elaborated a bit more in my first post here (link). Right from that post, have been saying that Russia seems to prefer reducing damage, but will go for if things don't work out otherwise. A seige like situation with surrunder is more in Russia's interests. Multiple forces and their groupings find that unsuitable however.

By no means am I saying that the Russian side is pious and tbe West+Ukraine devils; it is just a matter of practicality and how interests work out.

[aim120]

Gypsies or any one stealing, even its food are tapped to pole by Ukrainen armed forces. Doesn't matter if they are children/women. So if this the treatment what do you expect for people who are of ethnic russians living in ukraine.


https://www.rt.com/news/552452-ukrai...s-persecution/

[Poitive]

The attack was on the 16th

Originally Posted by Poitive

All news during war times needs to be seen with at least some suspicion.
Dated: 13th March, 2022
Link

Originally Posted by SnS_12

If this is really true then I have no words to describe this action of blowing up children just to demonize Putin and Russia further...

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Sir, your post is number 1000 and I hope people open up their mind and realize who is the real threat out here and can they trust western media to show you the truth?

Interestingly, this quite disappeared from the news cycle. I wonder if it would've been the case had the said media been able to blame Russia/Putin more comprehensively.

1) Enough doubts came out (including one shared in the quoted tweet).

2) If it came to light that it was the work of the Azov Batallion, it would spoil the narrative in a big way.

3) Thankfully no casualty has been reported. One serious injury. The attention the news caught before ascertaining facts was a bit surprising perhaps.



Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari...atre_airstrike

Interestingly, Russia has been named as the perpetrator despite the article mentioning both claims.

Also:

As of Friday, 130 people had been rescued from the theater's basement, Ukrainian officials said, as the search continues for the hundreds more who could be trapped in the makeshift bomb shelter that was hit Wednesday.

Mariupol's city council said on Telegram that "according to initial information, there are no dead. But there is information about one person gravely wounded."

The theater was bombed despite signs indicating that civilians, including children, were sheltering there. Russia denies striking the theater.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-op...y/6491719.html

I just might have missed more recent news. (The wikipedia screenshot is minutes old)

Selection of what news stays in the limelight too plays a role in how people build perceptions about happenings.
.
Edit: On second thoughts, perhaps I'm being prematurely judgemental as recovery and news from such areas could be difficult. Whether or not this is a good example, the basic point of selection of which news is highlighted for long affecting perceptions, remains.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by Poitive

Interestingly, this quite disappeared from the news cycle. I wonder if it would've been the case had the said media been able to blame Russia/Putin more comprehensively.

True, I was wondering what happened to this news. I did not commented on this earlier or dared to ask as we won't know what happened/is happening in war front and it is cruel to debate on civilian causalities.

But I think Russia refuted this news that their fighter aircraft was not there on the said date and time given that the alleged attack is airstrike. I think it would have been easier for military intelligence of various countries to have taken note and verify. So it may have been given a quite burial.

Or, as the news mentions, the theater is used as air raid shelter which means people would have been in the basement shelter and not in the building itself and survived as the bunker has served its purpose. So hence no casualties.

I was anticipating 'news' (if you can still call it) about candlelight marches across the capitals of western nations because it contained everything that has the potential to be a turning point of public opinion if it was indeed true.

Whichever way it is, glad that there are no lives lost and hope it stays the same.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by Poitive

Interestingly, this quite disappeared from the news cycle. I wonder if it would've been the case had the said media been able to blame Russia/Putin more comprehensively.

As the saying goes “The first casualty of a war is Truth.”

With the western government and media almost cutting off the Russian side of the story even people in the West are wondering if their media is busy selling fake news or hiding the truth. All the people who rubbished the Hunter Biden Laptop story or who supported Biden for presidency have gone silent suddenly especially when his presidency is descending into crisis.

On the other hand one really should wonder when they read news about Russian’s bombing schools, malls etc as too why would they do it. Even if somehow one is convinced that these places are brimming with regular activity during a war then what purpose is achieved for the Russians, unless you’re only logic is they are evil and want to erase humanity from the planet.

[Poitive]

Amongst the most important and interesting parts of wars tend to be things lesser known or talked about. In this war:

Could it be the Kolomoyskyi factor?

Sharing some thoughts/hypothesis/contemplations and what I have come across.

Further to contemplations about Zelensky working in the interest of the US as shared in a prior post (link), came across the following:

Connections between Hunter Biden and Kolomyskyi

Connections at a Glance

Among the indirect connections between Kolomoisky and the younger Biden:

• Kolomoisky had a “controlling interest” in Burisma Holdings, the New York Post reported. Burisma employed Hunter Biden as a board member for a widely reported salary of $50,000 per month. Russian media, quoted in State Department emails, referred to Burisma as “part of Kolomoisky’s financial empire.”
• Kolomoisky publicly said in 2019 that he refused to cooperate with efforts by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to get his help in investigating Hunter Biden and Burisma—and potentially Joe Biden, multiple news outlets reported. House Democrats’ impeachment report on Trump also cited the incident in late 2019.
• Emails from 2015, published last year by the New York Post, show a Kolomoisky protege communicated with Hunter Biden about a meeting between the protege and Joe Biden, then vice president under President Barack Obama.
• Court filings from 2019 by a private investigatory firm allege that legally obtained bank records of Hunter Biden show payments to him from the Kolomoisky-owned PrivatBank.

Source, a 31 March 2021 article: How Hunter Biden’s Interests ‘Overlapped’ With Banned Ukrainian Oligarch

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Connections between Kolomyskyi and Zelnsky

This one is before Zelensky won the election

Zelenskiy — a young comedian who rose to fame playing a humble schoolteacher who becomes president of Ukraine in the hit television show, “Servant of the People” — appeals to Ukrainians frustrated with the country’s oligarchic elite, and the failure to drain the swamp after the country’s 2014 revolution.

Ukrainians hope that Zelenskiy will fight for the common man instead. It’s a powerful narrative that has catapulted this political unknown within spitting distance of the presidency.

Sudden rise in politics is a bit of a red flag for me. (Opinions, of course, would vary.) Some more detail in this post. Also, the name of the TV show, it being replicated as the party name; being shown as an upright teacher bringing change - all indicate a possible delicate conditioning of the mind of people (sub-conscious acceptance and hope? - I realize this idea might not appeal to many)

There’s just one major problem with it: the oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, whose television station 1+1 hosts Zelenskiy’s hit show.
Kolomoisky’s media outlet also provides security and logistical backup for the comedian’s campaign, and it has recently emerged that Zelenskiy’s legal counsel, Andrii Bohdan, was the oligarch’s personal lawyer. Investigative journalists have also reported that Zelenskiy traveled 14 times in the past two years to Geneva and Tel Aviv, where Kolomoisky is based in exile. Neither man could be reached for comment.

Kolomioiky promotes Zelensky, provides security (good means to keep a check on someone), common lawyer, 14 trips - indications of being propped up?

The 52-year-old oligarch, who has big stakes in media, metals and aviation companies in Ukraine — and whom the government has accused of embezzling over $5 billion from his Privatbank, the nation’s largest, before it was forcibly nationalized in 2016 — is an unlikely war hero. Kolomoisky denies the accusations of embezzlement and calls the nationalization “an illegal seizure of property without court order or compensation.”

Are there skeletons in the cupboard which 'need' to be covered; skeletons which might harm some centres of power?

Above quotes from an article dated 17 April 2019: The comedian and the oligarch

-----

Zelensky, Pandora Papers and his friends

The leaked documents suggest he had – or has – a previously undisclosed stake in an offshore company, which he appears to have secretly transferred to a friend weeks before winning the presidential vote.
----

Zelenskiy has not commented on the claim despite extensive attempts by the Guardian and its media partners to reach him. His spokesperson Sergiy Nikiforov messaged: “Won’t be an answer.”
----

The files reveal Zelenskiy participated in a sprawling network of offshore companies, co-owned with his longtime friends and TV business partners. They include Serhiy Shefir, who produced Zelensky’s hit shows, and Shefir’s older brother, Borys, who wrote the scripts. Another member of the consortium is Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend. Bakanov was general director of Zelenskiy’s production studio, Kvartal 95.

All are associated with Zelenskiy’s home town in southern Ukraine, Kryvyi Rih. After winning power, Zelenskiy brought these close allies into government. Bakanov became head of Ukraine’s SBU security agency. Zelenskiy made Serhiy Shefir his first assistant, an unpaid role that involves handling the president’s daily schedule. A fourth member of this close-knit group, Andriy Yakovlev, is a film director and Kvartal 95 producer.

Don't know if the role being unpaid absolves a person from some issues in the Ukrainian system. IIRC, in some systems it does.

On 13 March 2019, two weeks before the first round of voting in Ukraine’s election, Zelenskiy gave his quarter stake in Maltex to Serhiy Shefir, documents show. It is unclear if Shefir paid Zelenskiy. Bakanov witnessed this secret transfer and signed the offshore papers.

Roughly six weeks later, after Zelenskiy’s landslide victory, a lawyer acting for the Kvartal 95 group signed another document. It stipulated that Maltex would continue to pay dividends to Zelenskiy’s Film Heritage, even though it no longer owned any stake in the company. Its main revenue comes from activity in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, according to a Maltex client profile.

They include real estate in London. Shefir owns two top-end properties – a three-bedroom apartment in an Edwardian mansion block in Regent’s Park bought in 2016 for £1.575m, and another three-bedroom flat in nearby Baker Street, opposite the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and purchased for £2.2m, according to Land Registry records.

Way too much to quote. Probably better to read the whole article. Link:
Revealed: ‘anti-oligarch’ Ukrainian president’s offshore connections

Further:

Some $41 mln transferred from PrivatBank to accounts of Zelensky's Kvartal 95 Studio – MP Ariev

Verkhovna Rada deputy (Bloc of Petro Poroshenko - BPP) Volodymyr Ariev has said that some $41 million in PrivatBank were transferred to the accounts of Kvartal 95 Studio belonging to Volodymyr Zelensky. Ariev said funds were transferred when businessman Ihor Kolomoisky owned the bank.

Source: Some $41 mln transferred from PrivatBank to accounts of Zelensky's Kvartal 95 Studio – MP Ariev



I am not saying that any of the above is conclusive by any means. It is just what I came across and might be coloured by some unknown biases in me based on my own world views; as could be the case for anyone. It is also possible that things aren't as innocent as it might seem to some: Zelensky a hero. IMHO, a sudden rise in politics, especially to a seat of power, is a red flag. There might be skeletons the cupboard which are also being covered with this conflict. Worth pondering over with a healthy dose of doubt seems to be in order.
.