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.