War Crimes Watch: A Devastating Walk Through the Horrors of Bucha, Ukraine

National Public Radio ^ | April 9, 2022 | Cara Anna

[Zhang Fei]

BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — There is a body in the basement of the abandoned yellow home at the end of the street, near the railroad tracks. The man is young, pale, a dried trickle of blood by his mouth, shot to death, and no one knows why the Russians brought him there, to a home that wasn’t his.

There is a pile of toys near the stairs to the basement. Plastic clothespins sway on an empty line under a cold, gray sky. They are all that’s left of normal on this blackened end of the street in Bucha, where tank treads lay stripped from charred vehicles, civilian cars are crushed, and ammunition boxes are stacked beside empty Russian military rations and liquor bottles.

The man in the basement is almost an afterthought, one more body in a town where death is abundant, but satisfactory explanations for it are not.

A resident, Mykola Babak, points out the man after pondering the scene in a small courtyard nearby. Three men lay there. One is missing an eye. On an old carpet near one body, someone has placed a handful of yellow flowers.

A dog paces by a wheelbarrow around the corner, agitated. The wheelbarrow holds the body of another dog. It has been shot, too.

Babak stands, a cigarette in one hand, a plastic bag of cat food in the other.

“I’m very calm today,” he says. “I shaved for the first time.”

At the beginning of their monthlong occupation of Bucha, he said, the Russians kept pretty much to themselves, focused on forward progress. When that stalled, they went house to house looking for young men, sometimes taking documents and phones. Ukrainian resistance seemed to be wearing on them. The Russians seemed angrier, more impulsive. Sometimes they seemed drunk.

[kiryandil]

You're on some FR neocon's list as a "Russian troll".

He's actually got a small blog where he posts about "Russian trolls" like you and me because we can say "hello" and "thank you" in Russkaya.

[delta7]

The Donbass area are majority ethnic Russians who declared their Independence from Ukraine in 2015. Ukraine did not honor the Minsk agreement signed by Ukraine, which specified the Donbass to vote for Independence. Instead, the Ukies started shelling the Donbass and moved the Azov Neo Nazis in to quell the rebellion. I am not supporting right or wrong, both sides are guilty of war crimes.

Much more than meets the eye. Don’t get sucked into the western MSM bad Vlad cheerleaders agenda.

Zelensky needs to ditch the Russian Donbass provinces ,which will ultimately happen, by negotiations or force.

[ohioman]

Travis is one of the best posters on FR. Unlike the pond scum who started this thread. Mercyflush is the turd with the troll site.

[Zhang Fei]

[I actually indulged you and read that.

Is English your second language?]

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It’s my first language. The question is - is it yours?

[Travis McGee]

Here is my Father In Law, R.I.P.

I'm looking for the photos I took of his signed captured Jap "meathball" flag (signed by his platoon), and photos of the 2 Arisaka Rifles, 2 samurai swords, and the Nambu pistol he was authorized to bring home to CONUS following the 5th MarDiv occupation of Japan in 1946.

He was a big fan of Truman, for sparing them the invasion of Japan. And he was a big fan of flamethrowers, from his time on Iwo.

You might choose to believe the fantasy that every Japanese soldier fought to the death, and hence almost zero prisoners.

My FIL, who was there, told me different. They didn't take prisoners.

But there were no battlefield video cameras up-linking to 24/7 world news.

Naturally, the few official USMC film cameras were censored for war propaganda benefit.

[Zhang Fei]

[But but all those Ukrainian grand-ma’s were making Molotov cocktails to kill invading Russian soldiers! They were praised 24-7 by the media for bravery and patriotism. I saw that with my own eyes on TeeVee.

But then the soldiers are at fault for killing the killers?]

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You’re absolutely right. The Russians would be justified in rounding up the Ukrainian population, putting them in detention facilities and eliminating them all. We could call these facilities concentration camps.

[kiryandil]

Alex Christoforou from this morning - video time @ 11:49

"So this is what the Russian Ministry of Defense said and I quote":

"The results of radio intercepts show that in addition to nazi guys from the Azov battalion and remnants of the Ukraine armed forces, there is a significant number of foreign mercenaries in the occupied areas of the city.

In addition to Ukrainian and Russian, radio communications are conducted in six other, mostly European, foreign languages.

Radio communications - mostly foreign European languages.

Six other mostly foreign European languages.

[lodi90]

We can’t rule out that the Dominion servers are in the Ukrainian controlled area of Donbas. Langley and Whitehall can’t allow Putin to capture them and expose Dominion. We can expect all sorts of false flags in the coming days to prevent that.

[dila813]

Russia has been trying for the last 70-80 years to quietly push for a race war in the United States, lately it seems to be working.

[ought-six]

“Your turn, based on “your recollection.””

What’s your problem, Sparky?

The Japanese believed in a code of “No surrender.” Ergo, they sustained incredibly high death totals.

Our Marines followed a practice of “Take no prisoners.” Ergo, the Japanese sustained incredibly high death totals.

Therefore, the Japanese sustained incredibly high death totals.

There are people on FR screeching about American war crimes in WWII re: not taking prisoners in the Pacific.

Me, I don’t think that was a war crime.

Maybe you sent your snark to me by mistake, and you actually intended to send it to someone else.

[Travis McGee]

Must not be a lot of fun for the remnants.

Foreign “advisors” (wink wink) surely explain the desperate measures attempted to extract them.

[Zhang Fei]

[He’s just trying to earn a living. Under 20 other screen names he’s doing the same thing on different accounts, from real estate scams to live online porn. It’s just a job. Everybody’s got to earn a living.]

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That’s a lovely thing to say about someone who’s paying your pension. But it’s the kind of thing we keep hearing from a certain segment of vets who seem to think it’s the taxpayers’ job to fight the wars we pay them to fight. It’s like a cop who tells you to deal with criminals personally when you ask them to fight crime. Except cops *never* do that.

[JimRed]

A recent study has shown that every 28 hours a black male in the US is killed by the police somewhere.

If that was even near true it would be shouted from the rooftops by the enemedia, 24-7.

[kiryandil]

Travis is one of the best posters on FR.

Yes, I've read some of his books and short stories.

My favorite:

"What I Saw At The Coup" - https://archive.ph/IK4hN

(archived from the now-defunct Western Rifle Shooters Association site)

[ought-six]

“Numerous unconfirmed reports coming out of Ukraine are claiming that Russian forces have CAPTURED US Army General Roger L. Cloutier in or around Mariupol.”

You know this has been thoroughly debunked, right?

[ought-six]

But but all those Ukrainian grand-ma’s were making Molotov cocktails to kill invading Russian soldiers! They were praised 24-7 by the media for bravery and patriotism. I saw that with my own eyes on TeeVee. But then the soldiers are at fault for killing the killers?”

If they (the grand-mas) were in the act of throwing Molotov cocktails at invading Russian soldiers, or otherwise brandishing weapons, then they are fair game.

[Zhang Fei]

[If that was even near true it would be shouted from the rooftops by the enemedia, 24-7. ]

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That comes to around 300 a year. The number is probably literally true, but 99% of them are likely in the course of fairly pedestrian use-of-force scenarios where the perp was in the middle of some action that threatened the life of the cop or some other person. The issue is that this is falsely portrayed as somehow racist. Point being that Putin (through his mouthpiece Russia Today aka RT) is no different from the liberal media and no less an enemy of the American people than that media.

[ought-six]

“That’s a lovely thing to say about someone who’s paying your pension.”

You’re paying the pensions of anyone who is collecting social security. But, to collect a military pension, one has to have served for a minimum of 20 years. I served 4 years (1970 - 1974), so no military pension for me! :)

[Zhang Fei]

[You’re paying the pensions of anyone who is collecting social security. But, to collect a military pension, one has to have served for a minimum of 20 years. I served 4 years (1970 - 1974), so no military pension for me! :)]

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Thank you for your service. Matt Bracken has the air of a lifer on a pension who thinks he’s better than the hoi polloi who subsidize his literary career, such as it is. He insulted me, and I went right back at him.

[ought-six]

“Thank you for your service. Matt Bracken has the air of a lifer on a pension who thinks he’s better than the hoi polloi who subsidize his literary career, such as it is.”

His bio says he completed the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training, but it says nothing beyond that.

To become a Navy SEAL not only must the candidate complete BUD/S, but also SEAL Qualification Training (SQT) and have been designated as a U.S. Navy SEAL.

So, perhaps he didn’t go farther than BUD/S. Some guys complete BUD/S but for one reason or another go no further in the SEAL program; that could be because of injury, disability, change of heart, or failure to complete the next stage (SQT). But anyone who completed BUD/S deserves a hell of a lot of credit.

It took my cousin’s nephew two attempts to get his Trident (completion of the full SEAL program).