Posted on 05/26/2022 7:30:24 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
The Battle of Mariupol is over and Russia is busy proclaiming the liberation of the city. In reality, Mariupol has been murdered. This formerly bustling metropolis of almost half a million people now lies on the brink of extinction, pummeled into submission by a vicious campaign of Russian annihilation. The estimated 100,000 remaining residents of Mariupol find themselves reduced to living among the rubble without medicines, running water or electricity.
With Russia in control of the city, there is no way of knowing the final death toll or assessing the true scale of the catastrophe that has befallen Mariupol. During the final weeks of the fighting, Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko estimated more than 20,000 civilians had been killed and noted that this was twice the number of deaths recorded in the entire two-year Nazi occupation of the city during WWII. “Putin is a bigger evil than Hitler and we must stop him,” commented Boychenko.
(Excerpt) Read more at atlanticcouncil.org ...
Jesus wept, how blinkered are you?! Eight million people - Russians as well as Ukrainians - have been displaced by this conflict. Half of all the children in Ukraine have been displaced.. 6.7 million people have left Ukraine altogether. Do you think they're all chicken for leaving, even the mothers and children?!
Even according to Russia (whose latest published stats were 25th May), only 958,060 of that 4 million went into Russia... and not all of them went voluntarily.
If the Chinese invaded and tried to drive you out of your home, would you just roll over and leave?
If it were just me to worry about, no. As I have a family, I'd make damned sure they all got to safety first, before going back to fight. Which is what a lot of Ukrainian men did. They escorted their families by road or rail, to safer places like Lviv, or to the Polish border, said farewell, and went back east. That's no small endeavour given the size of the country and the sheer number of people who were doing the same thing.
Our Ukrainian (Russian) refugee is talking about going back... To fight for Ukraine against Russia, though, not to fight for Russia.
And he is not the only Russian I know from the Donbas area who is now saying, they did side with the DPR and LPR and their orc enablers during the 14-19 period, but they sure as hell regret it now.
Any chance Russia and the DPR/LPR had of securing the support of ethnic Russians from the south and east of Ukraine disappeared once they saw Mariupol being razed, saw atrocities being committed against unarmed civilians (by Azov, but also by Chechens and Russian soldiers), saw a theatre bombed despite it being clearly marked as a civilian shelter with children in it, saw a maternity hospital that THEY KNEW was still operating as a maternity hospital being bombed on the basis of a massive lie the DPR gave to Russia, and saw Kherson being flooded with Russian settlers who're now being given houses that are still owned by pro-Russian families who fled the region. There's a humanitarian crisis brewing in the Russian controlled areas - Kherson's elite opportunists are actually fleeing to Crimea because they've shitted it up so bad that they'd probably starve too if they stayed put.
Russia's war profiteers, looters, and opportunists are now feeling the pinch, not from Uke resistance but from the consequences of their own kleptomania. Kherson's out of food, out of medicine, and out of goodwill. If you think shrink-wrapping Russian collaborators as a punishment was bad, you just wait and see what happens when the ordinary Russian Ukrainians get their hands on the people who were gifted a city with minimal opposition, and who've driven it to the brink of famine.
Correction - “out of that 6.7 million”, not 4 million.
In other words, about 14% of all people who’ve left Ukraine since the February invasion started have gone over to Russia - and by Russia’s own admission, not all of them went voluntarily.
Which is an astonishing indicator of how Russians in Ukraine actually fee. Bearing in mind, the civilian populations all the way along the “Novorussiya” corridor were far more pro-Russian than pro-Ukrainian at the start of this conflict. Towns all along that corridor weren’t opposed to the arrival of Russian troops. But they regret that welcome mat now.
“War crime(s)” is an oxymoron.
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.