Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Eddie Teach]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Vun2LYnoY

[Razgovory]

Irina Filatova, minister of culture of "Lugansk People's Republic", has demanded that a Ukrainian writer be fined and shot for making a cartoon mocking her.

Here's the cartoon (in Ukrainian):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgCv55IbMmc

And here's the minister of culture (in internationally recognized, NSFW communication):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2TqmCGd_k

500 dollar fine and execution.

[Syt]

Human Rights Watch say they have documented evidence that cluster munitions were used in urban areas in Eastern Ukraine.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions

[...]

During a week-long investigation in eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch documented widespread use of cluster munitions in fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in more than a dozen urban and rural locations. While it was not possible to conclusively determine responsibility for many of the attacks, the evidence points to Ukrainian government forces' responsibility for several cluster munition attacks on Donetsk. An employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was killed on October 2 in an attack on Donetsk that included use of cluster munition rockets.

"It is shocking to see a weapon that most countries have banned used so extensively in eastern Ukraine," said Mark Hiznay, senior arms researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Ukrainian authorities should make an immediate commitment not to use cluster munitions and join the treaty to ban them."

Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of smaller munitions, called submunitions, in a container such as a rocket or a bomb. After launch, the container opens up dispersing the submunitions which are designed to explode when they hit the ground. The submunitions are spread indiscriminately over a wide area, often the size of a football field, putting anyone in the area at the time of attack, whether combatants or civilians, at risk of death or injury. In addition, many of the submunitions do not explode on contact, but remain armed, becoming de facto landmines. Any location contaminated with dud submunitions remains hazardous until cleared by deminers.

To date, 114 countries have joined the treaty that comprehensively bans cluster munitions because of the danger they pose to civilians. Ukraine has not joined the treaty.

[...]

[Jacob]

Apparently Ukraine is planning on cancelling its non-aligned status and apply for NATO membership: http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/ukrainian-coalition-plans-to-cancel-non-aligned-status-seek-nato-membership-agreement-372707.html

I don't know how reliable the source is, however...

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-s-igor-strelkov-claims-responsibility-for-unleashing-war-in-ukraine/511584.html

Russia's Igor Strelkov: I Am Responsible for War in Eastern Ukraine

Russian national Igor Strelkov, a former commander of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, has claimed "personal responsibility" for unleashing the conflict across the border, in which 4,300 people have been killed since April.

"I was the one who pulled the firing trigger of this war," Strelkov said in an interview published Thursday with Russia's Zavtra newspaper, which espouses imperialist views.

"If our unit hadn't crossed the border, in the end everything would have fizzled out, like in [the Ukrainian city of] Kharkiv, like in Odessa," Strelkov, also known as Girkin, was quoted as saying.

"There would have been several dozen killed, burned, detained. And that would have been the end of it. But the flywheel of the war, which is continuing to this day, was spun by our unit. We mixed up all the cards on the table," he said.

Following Russia's annexation of Crimea this spring, clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Moscow activists broke out in the cities of Kharkiv and Odessa, with more than 40 people killed in a fire in Odessa in early May.

Since then, the two cities have remained largely peaceful, and most of the fighting between rebels and government forces has been limited to the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Strelkov's interview was published the same day the UN released a report highlighting the involvement of Russian fighters in the eastern Ukraine conflict, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 4,300 people since mid-April.

"The continuing presence of a large amount of sophisticated weaponry, as well as foreign fighters that include servicemen from the Russian Federation, directly affects the human rights situation in the east of Ukraine," the report said.

Reluctant

Strelkov also told Zavtra that at the beginning of the conflict, Ukrainian separatists and government forces were reluctant to start fighting one another and that the main opposition to the rebels came from Ukraine's ultra-nationalist militants such as the Right Sector.

"At first, nobody wanted to fight," he was quoted as saying. "The first two weeks went on under the auspices of the sides trying to convince each other [to engage]."

But Strelkov claimed Kiev became emboldened after seeing that Russia was refraining from openly interfering in eastern Ukraine, as it did in Crimea, or from sending in large-scale forces.

He added that the lack of large-scale support from Russia was a major disappointment for the separatists, which lacked the manpower or weapons to combat government forces.

"Initially I assumed that the Crimea scenario would be repeated: Russia would enter," he told Zavtra. "That was the best scenario. And the population wanted that. Nobody intended to fight for the Luhansk and Donetsk republics. Initially everybody was for Russia."

Russian Involvement
Strelkov also gave an account of the degree of Russia's involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

At the start of this summer, 90 percent of rebel forces were made up of local residents, Strelkov was quoted as saying. However, by early August, Russian servicemen supposedly on "vacation" from the army had begun to arrive, he said.

According to Strelkov, the assault on the Black Sea town of Mariupol in September, which prompted concerns in Ukraine and the West that Russia has entered the conflict on a large scale, was conducted mostly by the Russian military "vacationers."

The rebel forces advancing on Mariupol at that time met with little resistance from government troops and "could have been taken without a fight, "but there was an order not to take it," he was quoted as saying.

While Moscow has repeatedly denied supplying the rebels with weaponry and manpower, Strelkov said the assistance offered to rebels remains significant: "I can't say that we fully provide for them. But we are really helping them," he said, noting that half of the rebel army was kitted out with winter clothes sent from Russia.

Shock Decision
After Donetsk and Luhansk held "referendums" on their independence from Ukraine in May, separatist leaders appealed to Moscow to accept the territories as Russian regions but Moscow responded with vague statements calling for "dialog" between rebels and Kiev.

Separatist had not contemplated building functional states and had pinned their hopes on being absorbed by Russia, Strelkov said, reasoning that Moscow needed a land connection to Crimea, which it had annexed in March.

"And then, when I understood that Russia was not going to take us in — I associated myself with the resistance — for us that decision was a shock," Strelkov was quoted as saying.

Strelkov has been living in Russia since early this fall, when he said he was moving to Moscow to protect President Vladimir Putin from enemies and traitors.

While he seems to have fallen out of favor with Russia's state-run media, having disappeared from their newscasts, he has taken to YouTube and fringe publication to issue an occasional appeal for increased Russian military involvement in eastern Ukraine.

"From the very beginning we started to fight for real — destroying raiding parties of the Right Sector," Strelkov told Zavtra. "And I take personal responsibility for what is happening there."

According to a UN report released Thursday, at least 4,317 people had been killed in eastern Ukraine by mid-November, and 9,921 have been wounded. The casualties include nearly 1,000 who have perished since "a tenuous cease-fire" was established earlier this fall.

[mongers]

Had to change the thread title from "Russo-Ukrainian Border War Summer-Autumn 2014" to something more accurate.

[DGuller]

Whew, I'm glad it's over.

[mongers]

Fairly typical news report you get from these conflicts, a bbc crew in Vuhlehirsk, one of the recently taken towns on the front:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31284873

There's a nice scene of a rebel holding a cat and stroking it, but when he sees he's being filmed he quickly, but gently puts it down.

And the bbc team only encounter two civilians, one of whom is willing to talk, 63 year old Slava:

"This is my country, my father is Russian and my mother Ukrainian, someone started this whole thing and now they can't stop it, they're idiots I would say."

[mongers]

Whew, I'm glad it's over.

You spotted the 'typo', but I'm still being optimistic.

[mongers]

Fighting on an upsurge in the run up to ceasefire talks.

[derspiess]

I hear before we send arms to Ukraine we're going to send a shipment of reset buttons as a last ditch effort.

[The Minsky Moment]

I hear before we send arms to Ukraine we're going to send a shipment of reset buttons as a last ditch effort.

I take it the soul goggles have already been scrapped?   

[Syt]

What a jolly bunch.

[Caliga]

We need to bring back Silvio.

[MadImmortalMan]

Haha. I'm not standing next to Petro! Put the woman and the French gnome between us.