Posted on 04/09/2022 11:50:01 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Kiev - The night the war began on February 24, AFP photographer Daniel Leal slept in his clothes in his hotel room in Kyiv. He didn't even take out his contact lenses.
Dmytro Gorshkov didn't believe it would come to war. “Everyone thought it could be averted,” said the Ukrainian editor who has worked for AFP in Kyiv since 2013. “That night I was at my home with my wife and son” in a residential district in the north of the capital. Everything was normal.
But 900 kilometres (560 miles) to the east in Moscow, Russia bureau chief Antoine Lambroschini had a knot in his stomach. “I was convinced there would be a Russian offensive but I kept hoping that I was wrong.
“My brother and his family, who have lived in Ukraine for nearly six years, had just left Kyiv fearful that an assault was imminent. That night I went out with my wife Sofiya and some friends to a trendy Moscow restaurant. Ukraine was on everyone's lips, but no one thought it could happen, 'Not in 2022!'”
It was the beginning of a long night for me and my colleague, Ola Cicowlas.
“Then President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on our screens, Lambroschini recalled. His voice was grave as he spoke movingly in Russian, speaking directly to the Russian people, pleading with them to pressure Vladimir Putin into stopping the tragedy that was about to unfold.”
“When things get this serious, you can hear it in your colleagues' voices. They tremble a little with emotion, fear and fatigue. By 3.30 in the morning the last of our reports were out on the wire. We could go to bed at last. But we slept lightly.
(Excerpt) Read more at correspondent.afp.com ...
This was written thanks in particular to the testimonies of the first teams returning from Ukraine. Thank you to Dave Clark, Sophie Estienne, Dmytro Gorshkov, Antoine Lambroschini, Karim Menasria, Daphné Rousseau, Olga Shylenko, Arman Soldin, Daniel Leal, for their words and to all those who have been or still are on the front line covering this conflict. Interviews by Michaëla Cancela-Kieffer in Paris. English version by Fiachra Gibbons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Bucha on April 4 and urged the world to acknowledge "genocide". AFP FACT-CHECKING ENTIRE ARTICLE REFUTES RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA
ADDENDOM
link to post 2 above re: Bucha, “war crimes”
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.327R8KF
Very moving…anyway let’s hope that Putin liberates the people of Eastern Ukraine from the Zelensky regime…and most importantly…let’s hope the USA isn’t moved by stories such as the one you posted to intervene in the war to help the Ukrainian regime.
Stay out of foreign wars!
Why did many bodies have white arm bands? Answer that please.
Zelensky has the power to stop it now.
He is beholden to Joseph Stolen.
No, Zelensky has repeatedly asked for discussion with Putin ony to be rebuffed. Putin doesn’t want peace negotiations: he wants it all & then some from other nations.
Never take the word of Putin. He is a mad dog killer. Period.
You are a Russian puppet. Russia has no business in "Eastern Ukraine" or invading any other country - and murdering vast swaths of civilians in the process.
People like you should be banned permanently from the FreeRepublic.
I can only share what I have been told: Ukrainian auxiliary police are marked by white armbands.
Agreed 100%. If they are American, they are traitors, period.
FR will go downhill faster than myspace if these traitors are allowed to spew Kremlin’s propaganda day in and day out.
Thank you, Mr. Cancel Culture!
(Just as an FYI, 'impimp' has been a member here several years longer than you have... ;>)
The KGB/FSU has existed longer that I have - what does that prove?
What disgusting thing to say. So you are a fan of butchery, rape, pillaging, indiscriminate murder and destruction, all so which is being perpetrated by Russian soldiers (undisciplined and poorly trained as they are, so they barely qualify as soldiers)?
Putin has f**ked up his country for generations to come. Why would the people of eastern Ukraine want to become part of a pariah state?
Then there is this for consideration.
Kremlin has blasted the ‘neo-Nazi regime’ against Baltic https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10703253/Kremlin-rants-against-Baltic-neo-Nazi-state-chilling-echo-Moscows-threats-Ukraine.html?ito=native_share_article-masthead
Let them spew their disgusting Putin propaganda. We can laugh at them embarrassing themselves. They have no elected official who will take up their cause.
Drama Queen Alert.
"Earth to Chaimail!" Russia invaded Ukraine, not the US! We are not at war with Russia, despite the best efforts of a big part of the political/corporate/media establishment to get us there. An opinion stated by 'impimp' as a summary of his original post ("Stay out of foreign wars!") is shared by many Americans, and was notably voiced by George Washington, as well. People who share that opinion are not "[t]raitors and enemy sympathizers", any more than George Washington was.
If you want a forum where the 1st Amendment doesn't exist, feel free to look elsewhere...
;>)
Father, we lift up Mariupol again before you. Strengthen the Ukrainian army.
Let them cry to you for help. Protect, comfort and save all the civilians. Protect all the women and children. If they die, don’t let them suffer. Receive the dying into your Paradise.
Weaken all that oppose You. Let their courage melt. Let them run away. Let their weapons stop working.
We proclaim that Jesus has shed his blood for all Ukrainian and all Russian troops. Let them all be saved and come into your kingdom, which is not of this world. Let there be true victory in Jesus! Let there be peace!
In Jesus name. Amen.
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