Posted on 06/28/2023 1:11:17 PM PDT by Kazan
The Russians claimed they were targeting a meeting of Ukrainian commanders and NATO “instructors” there, and that high-ranking NATO officers were killed.
According to this, “The soldier, who asked to be identified only by the call sign Alex, said there had been a banquet for 45 people at one of the restaurants when the strike occurred, and that it hit “right in the center of the cafe.”
Link:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/27/europe/kramatorsk-strike-ukraine-war-intl/index.html
Now, I’m not necessarily buying the Russian version, but the banquet sounds like there may well have been some important military commanders (perhaps including advisors from NATO countries) there at the time.
Add to this the Ukrainians arrested a local man they allege is a spy for tipping off the Russians:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66045197
Put two and two together and ...
Yes, civilians were killed. It is horrible. War is horrible.
If you listen to the video posted earlier by CapandBall at #9 (or read the captions) you can hear the South African merc saying “there are soldiers under this rubble, all over.” It’s the first video on this Tweet:
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1674023498904215555
We bombed hospitals, apartment buildings, etc. in Serbia in 1999. Some were oopsies. Our bombs and missiles killed civilians in other wars, too, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc. Sadly, civilians get killed in wars.
This is a nasty war. Ukrainians have been shelling residential areas in the LDNR killing women and children since 2014 — about 14,000 killed inside the LDNR, around 10,000 of them civilians. The LDNR forces also shelled residential areas.
I am in no way justifying this strike or this war. Just adding perspective.
Oh sure. You are just "adding perspective", but then you repeat the old Russian propaganda lie about Ukrainians shelling residential areas and killing 14,000 "women and children".
That's an utter lie, and it has been debunked multiple times.
Do you get an extra serving of borscht for working late?
Duckworth contradicts the Russian story, he says there were few military people at the restaurant:
An American volunteer in Ukraine said he was at a Kramatorsk restaurant when it was hit by a Russian missile on Tuesday evening. Nick Duckworth, 28, from Sonora, California, said he arrived at the Ria Lounge restaurant with colleagues around 20 minutes before the missile attack, which took place just after 7.30 p.m. local time. “I can remember trying to tell my team to get down but failing before it hit,” Duckworth said in messages exchanged with CNN.“Once they moved, I ran to help a translator for a journalist team who had severe injuries. Once a more qualified medical professional reached her and our team’s paramedic arrived on scene, I ran into the restaurant to start assessing where help was needed most – which included trying to reach a girl pinned by the roof and a pillar. As well as starting to help move debris where others were pinned but in more stable conditions,” he continued. Duckworth said there was a children’s party at the restaurant. “There was a kids' party, a lot of other humanitarian workers, and journalists. Very few actual military personnel were in the area in comparison to the mass amount of civilians.”
His group had almost ended up sitting inside the restaurant, where the full impact of the strike was felt, except a server managed to find them a table outside at the last minute. He said this likely saved his life.
“The only table open inside would have been buried under the rubble,” Duckworth said.
He and his colleagues, including British volunteer Mo Hornik, escaped with only minor injuries and posted pictures on Facebook from the scene and inside the hospital.
Duckworth said he had been in Ukraine for around 14 months working for a humanitarian charity delivering aid to civilians in frontline villages. He has posted frequently on Facebook about delivering medical supplies and other provisions to frontline areas in eastern Ukraine.
“We are only more united and motivated to continue our work through this act of terror,” Duckworth wrote in a post on Facebook.
You will just have to accept that you are supporting the bombing of children's parties and civilians. Trying to lie about what happened doesn't bring back the dead kids.
“””You can’t stand to be wrong, so you change the definition of “airborne” to mean *only* paratroopers (when in modern use it includes both air assault and paratroopers).
Maybe you should call up the good general and tell him he needs to change the name of 101st Airborne to 101st Non-Paratroopers to suit your definition.”””
The 101st were paratroopers at one time and earned such a reputation as such they have been allowed to continue with the old Division name.
“”Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t immediately recognize the iconic 101st patch — the Screaming Eagle. And when civilians see that patch, they immediately think of elite paratroopers. Here’s the thing: we technically haven’t been an airborne unit since 1968, but you’ll still find the words “AIRBORNE” above Old Abe — here’s why.””
“”The division designated itself as an airmobile division in mid-1968 and became the Air Assault division it is today in 1974.””
“”The reason “airborne” is still in the name (and on a tab above Old Abe) is because it’s difficult as hell to change a division’s name while it’s still active. Go ahead and ask the 1st Cavalry Division about the last time they rode horses into combat or the 10th Mountain Division about when they last fought on an arctic mountaintop.””
The link for post 64.
This is why the Screaming Eagles still rock an Airborne tab
https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/101st-airborne-division-history/
I didn’t say 14,000 women and chidren. I wrote “around 10,000”. Now who’s lying? I would normally think and say you were mistaken, but I’ve noticed that those who are quick to accuse others of lying are themselves liars.
But I did goof. There were 10,000 civilian casualties in the Donbass, not 10,000 deaths. Breakdown is “at least 7,000” civilians injured and over 3,000 civilian deaths, according to the UN.
Go look at the OSCE reports. They are quite fair and accurate. Yes, the Ukrainians shelled residential and civilian shopping areas, etc. From pro-Ukraine news sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/civilians-killed-injured-donetsk-ukraine-shelling
From pro-West Human Rights Watch:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/ukraine-unguided-rockets-killing-civilians
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/01/ukraine-rising-civilian-toll-luhansk
Why do you think your Ukrainians are perfect angels?
Did you notice I said the LNDR rebels also shelled residential areas? At least I am fair and don’t pretend one side is all angels and the other all devils. War is hell.
Chairborne.
That's what you said. And now you claim you said something different. You are now saying that the OSCE reports said "over 3,000" civilian deaths. Since when is 14,000 or even 10,000 the same as 3,000?
Why do you post fake information?
The UN published in a report as of December 2021
During the entire conflict period, from 14 April 2014 to 31 December 2021, OHCHR recorded a total of 3,106 conflict-related civilian deaths (1,852 men, 1,072 women, 102 boys, 50 girls, and 30 adults whose sex is unknown). Taking into account the 298 deaths on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on 17 July 2014, the total death toll of the conflict on civilians has reached at least 3,404
In most of the years after 2014 the largest number of deaths resulted from accidents with mines or unexploded ordnance.
Of course none of those civilians would have died from war if Russia had not armed and led the fighting in the LNR and DNR, or shot down an airliner full of innocent people.
And of course the tourists flying to Malaysia.
There is a video by some clown running around and screaming “there are scores of soldiers under the rubble!” but he has distinctive British accent.
I don’t know whether Duckworth is a merc-type volunteer or a humanitarian-type volunteer, and don’t much care. Often, they are or claim to be both, and ask for donations. Some tag along after real fighters and post videos on social media, others video themselves delivering aid to people, but most of the time are living it up at a nice hotel in Lviv, when not drinking beer and eating pizza in Kramatorsk while on a little field trip for photo-ops.
If he’s a humanitarian type volunteer, he’s not working for a legitimate humanitarian organization that I can see. There are more than enough Make-Up-Your-Own-NGO-And-Get-Other-People-To-Pay-For-Your-Adventure-As-War-Tourist types operating over there. Some are total scammers, some good-hearted and mean well and have some weird need to be seen as brave saints and be admired on social media.
There are way too many James Vasquez types milling about in Ukraine:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4142443/posts?page=10#10
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4140157/posts
Another dodgy “volunteer”:
Maybe Duckworth means well. Maybe he really saw mostly civilians there, or maybe he just said so because it’s good for donations and also what the Western media want to hear — and what the host country wants him to say (say the wrong thing to the media and you get declared PNG and kicked out of the country).
The South African guy on the video who said there were soldiers all over under the rubble seemed to be speaking spontaneously and I believe him more than I believe this Duckworth guy. A number of pro-Ukrainian mainstream Western media articles stated the pizza restaurant was very popular with soldiers. Yet we are to believe only civilians and kids’ parties?
You are so full of it, up on your high horse falsely accusing people and virtue signalling. I never supported the bombing of civilians and kids’ parties. I think it’s horrible and said so. I also said these things happen in wars. Wars are horrible.
Can you not read? I said 14,000 killed, 10,000 of which were civilians (meaning 4,000 were military). Then corrected myself — actually there were 10,000 civilian casualties, not deaths. Of those 10,000 casualties, around 3,000 died, 7,000 injured.
What is your problem?
He’s South African.
Yes, did I not say both the Ukrainians and the LDNR rebels were shelling civilian areas in the first place? Why do you think your Ukrainians are so perfect and angelic they never kill civilians? When Americans kill civilians when we bomb other countries? They are more perfect than we are?
the truly lame, pathetic part of it all is that these traitorous, anti-American, pseudo-conservative neo-Soviets make propaganda claims that the Soviets don’t even make (well, officially. These neo-Stalinists’ sources are almost certainly backed by Soviet cash).
Bookmarked...James Vasquez....Thanks
None of the people you claim are "dodgy" volunteers were involved with the situation in Kramatorsk, so why did you bring them up? Are you so captivated by Putin that you feel the need to create some kind of distraction to cover up his war crimes?
Take a look at the woman below trapped in the rubble. Does she look like some mercenary?
You have some weird attitude. And you know nothing about me. I happen to have done humanitarian work in war zones for years myself — for a large established well-known international agency. No, I never criticize legitimate humanitarian workers who are doing their jobs, not even when they take a break for a beer and pizza. And when I took an occasional break where something like beer and pizza were available, and if in a conflict area, I knew darn well it might be my last pizza, too. Part of the job I signed up for.
Being a humanitarian worker does not in reality exempt one from danger and death. Nor does it make you some kind of hero or heroine or saint, even if you do your job with courage and great caring and competence and dedication. It’s no different innsome respects from being a nurse in a busy hospital, or a skilled medic on an ambulance, or a good policeman — you must deal with horrific injuries, gruesome deaths, horrors of all kinds, terrible human suffering — only you do so in a place where you may get shot, shelled or bombed (but you get used to it), and usually you can’t go home at night to a safe, comfy bed and electricity and stuff. There may well be no running water or shops or restaurants anywhere near you, either. You might have to live on MREs for long stretches, too.
By the way, you won’t see these legitimate humanitarian workers on Tik Tok or your Twitter feed or FB. They are too busy quietly doing their jobs and actually helping people. They are professionals.
I never said Duckworth was dodgy. I said I didn’t know anything about him other than he appears to have no connection to a legitimate humanitarian organization — and that there are lots of dodgy ones and also well-meaning but incompetent “war tourist” type “aid workers” in Ukraine. The dodgy ones I pointed out are just the tip of the iceberg, lots more where they came from. Anyone not employed by a legitimate registered humanitarian organization is suspect, sorry. Maybe he helps people here and there.
You seem to think highly of the Dutch guys who hand out French fries and snacks to cheer up the locals. Well, it’s a nice thing to do, and at least these guys are professionals when it comes to cooking up large quantities of snack foods — it was their business back home. I don’t think they’re bad people. On the other hand, I don’t put them in the same category as the real professionals who are properly assessing and addressing real needs for medical supplies, making sure food aid and hygiene kits are being supplied to those truly in need, directing medical teams to where they are most needed, providing safe shelter for those in danger, etc., in a comprehensive organized fashion.
As for this particular incident, there is much we don’t know. If the Russians were deliberately targeting women and children and “aid workers” (the last of whatever stripe), I condemn it unequivocally as a ghastly war crime. Even if there were 45 high-ranking Ukrainian and NATO officers there at the time. If they were going after a meeting of these officers at the hotel next door, but missed, I would say it was hardly humanitarian to fire a missile into a mainly civilian area (but then again, the Ukrainians chose to put their military HQ there), and still a violation of international conventions. And if this is what happened, while horrible, we have had our share of oopsies when our bombs and missiles overshot or fell short of the intended target and hit hospitals, busy shopping areas, schools, etc., so would we Anericans not be hypocrites for excusing our mistakes while condemning others? Another possibility is that a Patriot fired by Ukrainians at the Russian missile knocked it slightly off target. In that case, am I supposed to condemn the Ukrainians? I would not. Others might.
Finally, if the Russians did indeed target the pizza joint after receiving a tip many high-ranking officers were gathered there for a “banquet”, while I would condemn it as a war crime, there’s also ugly reality. The Russians consider this an existential war, as do the Ukrainians. In existential wars, countries resort to very nasty tactics. We considered WWII an existential war and fire-bombed Japanese cities to rubble and nuked a couple. Many, many thousands of civilians, including little babies, died horribly. We don’t resort to such tactics in wars we do not consider existential (bombing of Serbia and Libya, for example, although we did have some oopsies, and we did target shoe factories, car factories, TV and radio stations, power grid, etc. in Serbia).
Would we have bombed a pizza joint where we believed a large group of high-ranking Nazi or Japanese officers and their allies were gathered during WWII, even though civilians and aid workers were also present? You bet we would have. What a juicy target. It’s horrible, but that’s all-out war. It’s horrible.
There are conflicting reports about this horrific incident. According to several media reports (I mean by big name ones, not some fly-by-night “news” website), several buildings were hit and there were several restaurants in that small area, some say “restaurants” (plural) were hit. There was also a report from the Ukrainians that a piece of a Patriot landed in a suburb of Kramatorsk. I don’t know whether any of these reports are true or false or mistaken.
I know all my words here will not make any difference with you, and you’ll just make more highly emotionally-charged false accusations and hurl more insults at me. You appear to be all caught up in feelings of anger and moral outrage and feeling all superior and virtuous. And that feels good. The fact is you know nothing about me. If you bothered to check out my earlier posts, you’d know I am no admirer of Putin. For my opinion of Putin, see the last three paragraphs in my post here:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4155541/posts?page=29#29
I mainly stay off these Ukraine threads because they are usually nothing but Twitter-style football hooligan slugfests between ignorant Team Zelensky zealots and ignorant Team Putin zealots, lots of insults, little insight or analysis, nothing to be learned or gained.
As for the photo you posted, I have no idea who or where that young lady is. She does not appear to be Ukrainian. For all I know, that photo is from Syria or even Turkey (recent earthquake). If it was actually taken in Kramatorsk, she could be a journalist, an aid worker, an interpreter working for some foreign group or other, or just about anything. For some reason, you refuse to acknowledge I never ever said no civilians were there, or no civilians killed. There obviously were. I did say there may well have been military there, too, and likely were, as the restaurant was widely reported to be popular with soldiers stationed next door to it.
Tin Eye pegs it as a photo attached to a recent Telegraph article about Catalonian independence, but it could be from Kramatorsk or somewhere else entirely, and on that page as a teaser for another article (although it would be odd it only shows up as from the Spain/Catalonia page if the last case is true, but it also does not seem to belong to a story about Catalonia):
https://tineye.com/search/484a8f06e5fb67b68595cb03405226aaf46d7732?sort=score&order=desc&page=1
If there were military among the dead and injured, we won’t hear about it in the news. No Ukrainian (or foreigner) there will publicly say so, and rightfully so (OPSEC). We may never learn the truth if there were. Given the restaurant’s reputed popularity with military, and close proximity to military HQ, it would certainly be strange if there were none at all, yet that’s what you and the Ukrainians allege. The Ukrainians have good reason; you don’t.
There is also the question of the supposed “spy” — the one who allegedly tipped off the Russians to send the missile, who has been arrested. Why would he tip off the Russians to strike a restaurant where there was not a single military person present for once? Or are the Ukrainians lying about this “spy”? Or lying about no large banquet for these officers in the restaurant (did it have a banquet room, like many large restaurants?). Or was there a high-level meeting of military officers next door and the Russians missed and hit the pizza place in error? We simply don’t the answers to these questions. All we know is this was a day of horror and tragedy for all these people and their families, and eleven people lost their lives (according to latest media reports — there could be more).
Now, go ahead, twist my words to mean things I never said again, claim I said things I did not say again, slander me unjustly again, feel all good about your superior self all over again. Dump all your anger on me. Hey, it’s a Ukraine thread on FR, why not?
The ones who show up in countries at war (and much in the news — they only pick those) and make up their own NGO are all too often not helpful, get in the way of those doing effective humanitarian relief, stupidly get themselves in trouble and expect the professional aid agencies to rescue them, grift off kind-hearted people while running up big bar tabs in the capital city — sorry, not much use for them.
Occassionally, one of these made-up little do-it-yourself NGOs fill a gap not covered by the major humanitarian agencies. In those rare cases, the lead humanitarian agencies in country support them. These are often run by people who formerly worked for established humanitarian agencies and retired, only to be drawn back into that work when they saw a real need to be addressed in a new conflict area. In general, these Make Up Your Own NGO people often cause more trouble than they are worth, and in the worst cases they just cause trouble.
There’s a certain type of person who wants to go on a cool newsworthy adventure, be admired by fans on social media, the folks back home, etc. Some really want to do something good or to see themselves as doing something courageous and good, or “prove themseoves” and it can be another form of “virtue signalling”. A few are grifter types, often escaping problems or financial trouble at home. Some are going through “midlife crisis” aka “male menopause” and rather than buy a red sports car and take up with a floozy, they go for the Walter Mitty option, only rather than keeping it in their heads, they buy plane tickets to adventure and danger and instant heroism and hot babe interpreters. Some are young women high on the activism and virtue signalling they’ve been trained to indulge in.
Some young people are naive and imagine they can just show up and get a job with a real humanitarian agency, only to find they can’t — these agencies recruit experienced credentialed professionals in their home countries, not kids looking for do-gooder adventure and social media fame. These kids sometimes get sucked into joining up with the grifter types, not because they’re grifters themselves, but because they’re clueless.
The rare really good newly-formed NGOs that do make a difference for those in need are quietly busy doing good, and the lead agencies help them get funding and facilitate their work.
Social media has caused a proliferation of shady operators and well-meaning but ineffective individuals and little groups running about willy-nilly delivering a food package here and there and taking selfies. Real effective humanitarian relief requires an organized coordinated effort. Legitimate agencies work together to ensure all areas and types of need are covered in an organized fashion. There are some excellent small NGOs that cover needs not met as well as the huge “umbrella” agencies would like and they welcome them. One that comes to mind is a top-notch German NGO that specializes in helping the elderly. I can’t say enough good about them, and so grateful they came to my war-torn area after we made an appeal.
If anyone ever comes up with an NGO that provides socks and underwear for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), I will donate. This is always a problem. People send all kinds of cast-off clothing, but what these refugees and IDPs really need are socks and underwear. I once used a box of bolts of felt donated by well-meaning Americans for schools to instead fashion undies for elderly IDPs who had been hiding in woods and cornfields from bad guys and a number had UTIs from lying on damp earth (yes, I had doctors treat them, but they needed fresh clean undies — and clean dry socks). This was in an area totally shattered by war with no schools operating. So I “re-purposed” that felt.
Some very good NGOs are organized and run by locals. They know their country and its needs and fill gaps — the main international agencies appreciate them and facilitate their work. These work in tandem with the main international agencies in an organized fashion and do much good.
Finally, I would advise anyone who wants to donate to help Ukrainian civilians (or those suffering from war in any country) to look for a reputable humanitarian organization which is registered in its home country. Check it out and do research on it, even if it’s large and well known. Some of the big names really are better than others. Some of the smaller and lesser known ones can be very good. Avoid the incompetents and the grifters on social media.
He raked in well over a million dollars in donations from kind-hearted gullible people. And lived it up in Kiev running up huge tabs for premium whiskey. A very troubled man.
Meanwhile, real humanitarian aid workers stay off social media, do their jobs, earn their salaries (well below the million mark, of course), and actually help people.
Volunteer in Ukraine
https://www.volunteeringukraine.com/
https://www.allhandsandhearts.org/volunteer/ukraine-crisis-relief-volunteer-application/
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