Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ukraine: When things fall apart
https://correspondent.afp.com/ukraine-when-things-fall-apart ^ | Thursday 24 March 2022

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 ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: nbenyo

They have no elected official who will take up their cause.


Talk about ‘spew’....

An elected official??

You mean like FJB and all of the Dems and globalist ‘elected officials’?

🙃

Rah, rah! Let’s go, Brandon!


21 posted on 04/09/2022 1:24:53 PM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a “conspiracy theory” in 2020 is now fact. 🙏🏻 Ps 33:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: McGruff

Too many here don’t have a broad enough understanding of the Donbass region and their desire to be either given autonomy or becoming a part of Russia. his was actually worked out between Ukraine and Russia in the Minsk agreements had Zelensky not refused to do his part as he agreed in the Donbass and Lugansk areas.... (And the US encouraged him to resist)...Now I don’t think he ever intended to do his part and was using it as a stall for everything we’re seeing being played out now...- - which is why in any negotiations Putin wants agreements, documentation and all parties signitures so that prior road isn’t traveled down again.

14 - 16,000 peoples deaths in Donbass, and increasing, could only be ignored for so long - that degree of tension could not have continued of Ukrainians army killing it’s citizens in that area.


22 posted on 04/09/2022 1:27:12 PM PDT by caww ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: caww

That is one interpretation. IMO however, I have not seen Putin reflecting to adhere to any prior agreements or documents. Putin appears to be quite deceitful.

As Norman Schwarzkopf once said:

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”


23 posted on 04/09/2022 1:48:11 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: UMCRevMom@aol.com

I wonder what the average Russian thinks of being compared to the Nazis of the past century, attacking civilian targets with no regard of who or how many die.


24 posted on 04/09/2022 2:01:43 PM PDT by Theophilous Meatyard III
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theophilous Meatyard III

Interestingly, Putin signed a ban on comparisons between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany last July.

That means someone could be jailed for mentioning the collaboration between Hitler and Josef Stalin. “Stalin perpetrated a man-made famine that can be called a genocide in Ukraine 90 years ago, the ‘Holodomor’ which claimed some 3 million Ukrainian live.,”


25 posted on 04/09/2022 2:07:26 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Jane Long

You should get busy primarying all the Republicans who support Ukraine. Let me know how that works out.


26 posted on 04/09/2022 2:13:00 PM PDT by nbenyo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: UMCRevMom@aol.com

Russian sympathizers wear white arm bands…Ukrainian is blue arm bands…google it.


27 posted on 04/09/2022 2:20:50 PM PDT by impimp ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: All

Choosing sides in this seems fraught with dangers either way, and I think it is far from an “either/or” situation both in the conflict and also on the forum here. Some, like myself, tend to the idea that Putin has overstepped but with some legitimate cause, and that Ukraine is by no means a model state but even so, these problems are their problems and not something to be decided out of country by other people.

Putin might have remained generally in a favorable light if he had organized this as only a beefing up of security in Dontask and Letsgo (what I call them anyway). As soon as he started blasting away at Kharkiv, Mariupol and later on Kiev and threatening other cities with largely pro-Ukraine populations, he overstepped and lost potential support even if he is the main anti-globalist politician active today.

Hitler was certainly no slouch when it came to anti-communism so we have seen this sort of challenge before, some here in 1941 might be pro-Hitler and anti-Stalin, one would have to imagine. But I think the same principle applies to both these conflicts, first of all, end the major and flagrant violations of international law, then get back to the longer term task of defeating an ideology (globalism) that we might not welcome any more than Vladimir Putin, for whatever reasons (and they are probably not totally the same).


28 posted on 04/09/2022 2:26:55 PM PDT by Peter ODonnell ("Who is winning this war, commander?" "I don't know, everyone seems to be losing today.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Who is John Galt?

Earth to John Galt - the Russians conducted a massive invasion of a neighboring country - killing thousands. They are absolutely wrong and we have to condemn them and we’d be stupid to ignore this and any other armed aggression. Such as China invading Taiwan or Iran attacking Israel.

Isolationism stopped being an option since the modern warship and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles came into being. George was a fine President but the world has changed.

You have my permission to pull your head out of … the sand.


29 posted on 04/09/2022 2:45:27 PM PDT by Chainmail (99.36% of all statistics are made up on the spot)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: nbenyo

Like I said….globalists.

You seem to be okay with globalists, on BOTH sides of the aisle.


30 posted on 04/09/2022 2:52:35 PM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a “conspiracy theory” in 2020 is now fact. 🙏🏻 Ps 33:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: UMCRevMom@aol.com
Thank you!

:>)

31 posted on 04/09/2022 2:57:12 PM PDT by Who is John Galt? ("...mit Pulver und Blei, Die Gedanken sind frei!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Chainmail

If the choice is globalist or putin, globalist every time.


32 posted on 04/09/2022 4:16:39 PM PDT by FreshPrince
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: FreshPrince

You’re wrong: the choice is neither of those options.


33 posted on 04/09/2022 4:26:16 PM PDT by Chainmail (99.36% of all statistics are made up on the spot)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Chainmail

Well the west is run by globalist is it not?

I will choose between what exists not what doesn’t exist.


34 posted on 04/09/2022 4:48:47 PM PDT by FreshPrince
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Jane Long

I will pick what you call “globalists” over your war criminal Putin, any day.
Enjoy your primaries.


35 posted on 04/09/2022 6:29:50 PM PDT by nbenyo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: nbenyo

MY war criminal ??

Nope.

Not my war. No dog in this hunt.

Enjoy your NWO globalist overlords, though. Oh, and your $0ros selected nasty comedian.

Telling, the war criminals YOU chose to embed with.

You repeatedly bring up primaries…are you voting for FJB supported candidates?


36 posted on 04/09/2022 6:48:29 PM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a “conspiracy theory” in 2020 is now fact. 🙏🏻 Ps 33:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Jane Long

IMHO, anybody who puts Putin and Zelensky on the same level is morally deficient and will NEVER get my vote.

Fortunately there are very few outside of Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, plus a few nutcases here on FR.


37 posted on 04/09/2022 8:32:06 PM PDT by nbenyo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Chainmail
People like you should be banned permanently from the FreeRepublic.

Agreed. Zot the Russian/Putinist trolls. It's fine to say that USA should have no business in Ukraine because we should remain isolationist, but to say that Russia should liberate Eastern Ukraine is crossing the line to me.

38 posted on 04/09/2022 8:34:53 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: nbenyo

...plus a few nutcases here on FR.


Yep....I won’t argue with YOU, about that.

They’re obsessed w/Zelensky...and, Putin.

They can’t stop posting about them. Like 90% (at least) of their posts.


39 posted on 04/09/2022 8:36:22 PM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a “conspiracy theory” in 2020 is now fact. 🙏🏻 Ps 33:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: caww

his was actually worked out between Ukraine and Russia in the Minsk agreements had Zelensky not refused to do his part as he agreed in the Donbass and Lugansk areas.... (And the US encouraged him to resist)...
***That stuff all took place only after oil & gas were discovered in those regions. This war is about OIL. https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4050958/posts

The Russians weren’t even interested in western Ukraine until oil was found there. Their interest is simply in raping that country. Russia gets 60% of its revenues from oil exports. Europe gets 40% of their oil from Russia.

In 2012 massive oil and gas reserves were found in Crimea. Crimea signed a $10 billion exploration contracts with Shell and Chevron to develop the new found oil and gas fields. These oil and gas products would compete in Europe with Russia’s oil and gas, reducing Russia’s oil revenues, which we recall amount to 60% of their total GDP. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, cancelling the contracts with Shell and Chevron.

But Ukraine still had massive reserves in, you guessed it, Donetsk and Luhansk, and other areas East of the Dnieper River. In 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine, and soon after Ukraine awarded exploration contracts to a consortium of U.S. oil companies. Again, these oil reserves would compete in Europe with Russian oil, so Putin is invading Ukraine to shut down this latest attempt to extract Ukrainian oil and sell it in competition with Russian oil.

This explanation makes more sense to me than the “Putin feels threatened by NATO expansion” excuses for the invasion.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4044221/posts?page=1#1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc

If the Ukes allow some small region in the west to be its own republic, but the OIL belongs to Ukraine, do ya think Pootypoot would allow that? Nope.


40 posted on 04/09/2022 8:56:35 PM PDT by Kevmo (Give back Ukes their Nukes https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4044080/posts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson