Posted on 05/07/2023 7:35:17 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Update from Ukraine | Wanger stays in Bakhmut | Prygozhyn Forced to obey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78FoUcJjpQQ
****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here:
Invasion Day 438 – Summary May 7 , 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time).
https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-438-summary/ *** Greatly appreciate the viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use on each Front map!
ARTICLE
Ukrainian soldiers save 5 tonnes of books from Sieversk libraries destroyed by Russians
Ukrainska Pravda
Monday, 8 May 2023, 12:13
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/8/7401138/
In the contact-line city of Sieversk, Donetsk oblast, servicemen of the civil-military cooperation unit completed the evacuation of book collections from several local libraries.
Within a few weeks, “simiks” [officers of the civil-military cooperation group - ed.] managed to take out about 5 tonnes of books from Sieversk to Kramatorsk, reported the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook.
They said that due to Russian attacks, the buildings of educational institutions and libraries had been severely damaged, so the books were almost out in the open.
All photos: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine / Facebook
“We started the evacuation of the book collections from local libraries a few weeks ago, and during this time we managed to take out Ukrainian books from several completely destroyed libraries in the city,” the civil-military cooperation experts added.
The General Staff recalled that once the cities were occupied, the Russians removed textbooks on Ukrainian history and language from libraries, and in some regions they even publicly burned any books in Ukrainian.
“Unlike the Russian invaders, we are here on our own land; our children and grandchildren will live and study here, so they will still need these books,” the unit emphasised.
Good ‘ol Moon of Alabama pro-Russian conspiracy website blog that started in 2004. This article source reports in the Kharkov region the threat of an epidemic of various diseases in Ukraine https://t.me/sitreports/8343
BTW, the Moskva river supplies up to 60% of the Moscow Capitol needs of water. While the Volga river provides 40% of the water supply in Moscow, the Vazuzskoye serve as a reserve source in case of water crisis or contamination on the two prime surface water source. The famous Moscow tap water supplied by the authorities contained high levels of pesticides, etc.
Moscow water treatment equipment has become a prevalent method of filtration and purification among the Moscow residents. Many people are starting to use these systems to filter their water and be confident that their water is clean enough for consumption by their families. The systems are becoming more popular as more people realize what they have been doing by allowing city water to pollute their drinking water. This has caused many health problems for many Russian citizens.
City water cannot be deemed healthy when it contains such contaminants as pesticides, lead, benzene, bacteria, radioactive isotopes, synthetic drugs, and other harmful chemicals. Even the water from wells used for personal consumption must be filtered or cleaned at the source to be deemed safe for drinking.
If someone not accustomed to Moscow Region tap water, they get a case of Gorbachev’s Revenge. While brushing your teeth with it is OK, assume that tap water isn’t safe to drink. Stick to bottled water, boil water for 10 minutes or use water purification tablets or a filter.
Libraries have always been collateral damage in war.
The library at Alexandria is a perfect example. Here’s a list of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries
The Duran Information news source.
The Duran source publishes news and opinions from a pro-Russian perspective. Some stories have been copied and pasted directly from the pro-Russian Strategic Culture Foundation. Often articles are poorly sourced from Russian Propaganda outlets such as RT and Sputnik.
Alexander Mercouris [COUNTRY CYPRUS] is a disbarred attorney in London that Became a “pro-Russian commentator on world affairs for Russian TV news outlets and websites.”
“Thanks, mom!”
You are most welcome :)
“Libraries have always been collateral damage in war”
Uh-huh. Rationale used for Russian invasion military actions:
The General Staff recalled that once the cities were occupied, “the Russians removed textbooks on Ukrainian history and language from libraries, and in some regions they even publicly burned any books in Ukrainian.”
Somewhere in the future...
The following reckless statement by Mr. Budanov, is going to be a big problem:
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1655173906112577538
As the Ukraine war grinds on, Russia is becoming a cultural wasteland
William Fear
The Guardian
Mon 8 May 2023 06.00 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/08/vladimir-putin-russia-culture-writers-ukraine-war
As much as Russia is the country of Tolstoy and Rachmaninov, it is also the country of Stalin and the Lubyanka prison – a nation built as much on beauty as it is on the blood of its people. Russians cherish their cultural history just as strongly as people cherish ours in Britain. And yet historically, to be creative in Russia is to incur a significant risk, for an act of creation is also an act of freedom.
In the years of the Soviet Union, speaking one’s mind might mean being taken to a windowless room and then to Siberia. Today, Russians can – and do – face the same kind of danger for speaking out against Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
In the words of Pyotr Stolypin: “In Russia, every 10 years everything changes, and nothing changes in 200 years.”
In the west, we might think of Russian writers always facing the same kind of censorship they faced under the Soviet Union. We imagine poets being shot in basements or worked to death in the snows of Siberia for a few lines of transgressive verse. But this has broadly not been the case in my lifetime – or at least, until the invasion of Ukraine.
Arguably, the danger involved in speaking out against Putin is greater now than it has been in the recent past, but so is the need for people to do so. [Excerpt]
ARTICLE: opinion
OPINION: Why Putin Bombed the Kremlin: Who exactly flew two drones into the Kremlin on May 3 is a question that may remain unanswered but Putin has previous in using ‘false flags’ to gain support for otherwise unpopular actions.
Robert Zubrin
By Robert Zubrin
May 5, 2023, 3:06 pm
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/16655
Why Putin Bombed the Kremlin
“In September 1999, the Russian FSB blew up four apartment buildings in Moscow and several other cities, killing over 300 people and injuring more than 1000. The FSB, under the control of Russian Prime minister and former FSB director Vladimir Putin, then sent FSB agents to blow up a fifth apartment building in the Russian city of Ryazan, but his agent were caught in the act by ordinary Ryazan cops on the beat.
Unfazed by this exposure, Putin, proceeding according to plan, blamed the bombing of Chechen terrorists and used the resulting hysteria to massively escalate Russia’s murderous war on Chechnya while accelerating his own march to dictatorship.
The details of this operation were made public by dissenting FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who published a complete expose in his noteworthy book Blowing up Russia. His book was the primary reason that Putin had Litvinenko poisoned, signing the assassination for all to see by using radioactive polonium tea as the murder weapon.
Now Putin is at it again. Russia’s war on Ukraine is flagging and, as propounded by many Russian nationalist commentators, can only be saved through mass mobilization. Russia’s prewar standing army has been severely damaged in fighting to date and the unreliable, disease-ridden prison sweepings collected by Putin’s limited conscription order have proven of little worth in combat. If Russia is to prevail, the nation must be led to believe that it is under attack so that more capable citizens rush to the colors, or at least accept the necessity of being drafted. War fever is necessary.
I feel there can be little doubt that, on May 3, Putin bombed the Kremlin. The facts of the incident, in which a tiny slow-moving drone drifted up to the flagpole atop the Kremlin Senate Palace building and then exploded before cameras assembled for the occasion leave little doubt as to Putin’s authorship.
The type of small drone that appeared to be used in the attack has a range measured in tens of kilometers, not the hundreds needed to reach to Kremlin from Ukraine. The speed of its approach would have made it vulnerable to be shot down by an average duck hunter, let alone the hundreds of sharpshooters and extensive sophisticated multi-layer air defense systems assembled around the Kremlin. Furthermore, the Russians have GPS jamming systems active all-around Moscow and especially at the Kremlin. This would make it impossible for the drone to be navigated for its targeted stage appearance before the waiting cameras. In all probability, the drone was probably deployed by the two men, seen atop the Kremlin Senate Palace Building itself, shortly before the explosion.
Further proof of Putin’s authorship, if any were needed, is provided, the Kremlin’s immediate, unified, and well-rehearsed response to the event, with the entire pro-Russian chorus all joining in. As the well-informed Institute for the Study of War noted:
“If the drone attack had not been internally staged it would have been a surprise event. It is very likely that the official Russian response would initially have been much more disorganized as Russian officials scrambled to generate a coherent narrative and offset the rhetorical implications of a clear informational embarrassment. The Kremlin has notably failed to generate a timely and coherent informational response to other military humiliations not of its own making, including the falls of Balakliya and Kherson City in September and November 2022.
“The rapid and coherent presentation of an official Russian narrative around the strike suggests that Russia staged this incident in close proximity to the May 9th Victory Day holiday in order to frame the war as existential to its domestic audience.” [Emphasis in original]
While Putin’s attack on the Kremlin seems to be an obvious fake, it is nevertheless significant because it demonstrates clear intent on his part to generate the level of hysteria needed for mass mobilization. His direction on this is very clear. Putin does not intend to negotiate peace. He intends to fight to win. For that he needs a new army. But it will take some time for him to create it.
Russian forces are currently weak on the battlefield. But they won’t be in six to twelve months. Therefore, the time to win the war is now. Ukraine is planning a major offensive, using Bradley fighting vehicles, Leopard tanks, medium range HIMARS rockets, assorted howitzers, and various ex-soviet armaments that the US and its NATO allies have provided. These may be enough to prevail. But the outcome is by no means certain.
The odds in Ukraine’s favor could be greatly improved if the US provided it with even a small fraction of the 6000 M1 Abrams tanks, 2000 F16 fighters, 350 A-10 ground attack aircraft, 2000 Apache helicopter gunships, 3000 ATACMS long range missiles, and many types of advanced air defense systems that we have in stock. Unfortunately, the Biden administration is either slow-rolling or outright refusing to deliver Ukraine these vitally necessary systems.
There is no valid excuse for holding back these arms. Ukrainian defeat would eliminate a million man army allied to the West, cure a key strategic weakness holding back Russian aggression against the Baltic States and advance Russian forces to the borders to NATO allies Poland and Romania. In such a situation, the US would have to position massive forces in Europe to help defend the continent, costing us vast amounts of treasure and critically weakening our ability to contain Chinese expansionism in Asia.
Yet while President Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have said that the US stands by Ukraine, Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Miley has adopted the point of view of a spectator, saying he doubts Ukraine can win this year, even as he refuses to send the equipment it needs to do so.
War is not a spectator sport. Not only the fate of Ukraine, but the entire direction of the global contest between the Western alliance and the Eurasian autocratic axis could be determined in the next few months. We need to rise to the occasion now.”
***Thirty Seconds Over Moscow
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/16738
False flag or not, the Kremlin drone attack may serve as a wake-up call to Russia and a message of hope to Ukrainians – just as the 1942 surprise Doolittle Raid did in World War 2.
I’m not making any rationale for the Russian invasion into the Ukraine. I’m just stating a fact that this isn’t the only time a library/libraries have been burned during war. This is nothing unique to the Ukraine.
It’s been done over and over in the past. It is an unfortunate byproduct of war.
I can say the same thing about innocent women and children and men, don’t want anything to do with conflict, that also end up getting killed. It’s happened in the past and it’s happening now in the Ukraine and everywhere there is a conflict on the Earth at the moment.
Please take your invective elsewhere.
“I’m not making any rationale for the Russian invasion into the Ukraine”
Of course not, there is none. LOL
But, your accusation of my statement as invective is a very strong exaggeration and entirely wrong accusation:
“Uh-huh. Rationale used for Russian invasion military actions: The General Staff recalled that once the cities were occupied, “the Russians removed textbooks on Ukrainian history and language from libraries, and in some regions they even publicly burned any books in Ukrainian.”
“reckless statement made by Mr. Budanov”
Yes. You are absolutely correct.
VIDEOS
1. Panicked by arrival of drone, Russians abandoned their “Grad” and started to flee
Kanal13
1.55M subscribers
5-8-2023 2:00 p.m. EST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOhXkruzki4
2. Ukrainian armed forces have released images of Ukrainian fighters preparing for counterattack
Kanal13
1.55M subscribers
5-8-2023 11:30 a.m. EST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHAebF1WFnI
ARTICLE
Russia staging protests for anti-Ukraine propaganda — report
Deutsche Welle
5-7-2023 8:41 PM
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-staging-protests-for-anti-ukraine-propaganda-report/a-65544741
Russian agents not only stage their own fake demonstrations, but also hijack demonstrations organized by others, the research uncovered
According to research by several media outlets, Russian secret services are infiltrating or staging demonstrations in major western European cities to create anti-Ukraine sentiment or hamper Sweden’s bid to join NATO.
Russian secret services have been staging or infiltrating demonstrations in major cities in Europe for propaganda purposes, several news outlets reported on Sunday.
The joint research by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, German broadcasters NDR and WDR, French paper Le Monde, Swedish paper Expressen and the Scandinavian broadcasters DR (Denmark), NRK (Norway) and SVT (Sweden) is based on leaked strategy papers that are said to have come from the Kremlin’s security apparatus.
The documents were leaked to the Dossier Center, a research organization run by the Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Their authenticity cannot be verified, but the links and information given there actually lead to demonstrations that took place as described.
The aim of the staged demonstrations is, among other things, to create anti-Ukraine sentiment or to make Sweden’s NATO accession more difficult, the news outlets reported.
FAKE ANTI-TURKISH PROTESTS IN EUROPEAN CITIES
According to the strategy papers, Moscow recommends for small groups of Russian agents to simulate fake protests in major European cities.
Some Kremlin-directed fake protests are already believed to have taken place, including anti-Turkish rallies where agents pretend to be Ukrainians — all while agitating against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This is apparently intended to give the impression of a broad anti-Islamic mood in Europe.
Examples include a demonstration by alleged members of a Ukrainian community in Paris at the beginning of March, who demonstrated against Erdogan by using a Hitler salute and balaclava and also mocked the victims of the devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February.
PROVOCATEURS HIJACK OTHER PROTESTS
According to the research, provocateurs also apparently infiltrated demonstrations in several cities that were being held on other topics, such as the nursing shortage, pension reform and climate change, with the aim of spreading propaganda directed against support for Ukraine.
The goal, according to the reports, is to generate propaganda material for internet platforms. The Russian strategy paper lists several cities to target — including Paris, The Hague, Brussels and Frankfurt.
Photos of the fake demonstrators have circulated on social media, appearing to give the impression of widespread anti-Ukraine sentiment in western European countries, the outlets reported.
The journalists were able to trace the origin of some of the content back to three social media accounts that are controlled from the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Kremlin did not comment on the allegations when asked.
Ukrainian Intelligence Chief’s ‘Killing Russians’ Comments Spark Hysteria Among Kremlin Propagandists
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/16769
EXCERPT:
Top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov went into hysterics over the Ukrainian intelligence chief’s comments, threatening a missile attack on the military intelligence building in central Kyiv: “Intelligence’s headquarters in central Kyiv still stands almost untouched,” he said.
“The real estate belonging to the same Budanov also remains intact. A couple of missiles could help awaken the Ukrainian leadership’s instinct for self-preservation,” Solovyov said.
“All it takes is a distraction from the prolonged May holidays and an order.”
Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry then got in on the act, with spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming the interview meant the “Kiev [sic] regime has basically announced that the Biden administration is sponsoring terrorism.”
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