Russia's Special Military Operation in Ukraine

"There was an attack on Kyiv -- it shocked me, not because I'm here but because Kyiv is a sacred city for Ukrainians and Russians alike."

"[The Security Council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine.This was] a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger."  

"Let me be very clear: [it...Security Council] failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war." 

"I am here to say to you Mr President [Zelenskyy], and to the people of Ukraine, we will not give up." "[While the Security Council had been] paralyzed, [the UN was taking other actions]." 

"The UN is the 1,400 staff members in Ukraine who are working to provide assistance, food, cash [and] other forms of support."

"Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis. Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance, many are elderly and in need of medical care, or have limited mobility. They need an escape route out of the apocalypse."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

 

"[The blasts are] proof that we need a quick victory over Russia."

"We must act quickly ... more weapons, more humanitarian efforts ... because every day Ukraine pays a high price for the protection of democracy and freedom."

Andrey Yermak, chief of staff, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Smoke rises after missiles landed at sunset on April 28, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (John Moore/Getty Images)

A member of the United Nations Security Council took especial notice with the UN's Secretary General appearing in Kyiv, to give him a surprise welcome. Warm, in the sense that two missiles blasted the historic city while Antonio Guterres was there, visiting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to see for himself what the population of Russia's neighbour is suffering under an endless barrage of bombs and missiles.

And while Mr. Guterres hugely regretted that the Security Council failed to intervene to convince one of its permanent members that invading another country with violent intent, even naming it a 'liberation' move under a special military operation is uncivilized at best, criminal in its most severe outlook. But then, Russia is accustomed to being misunderstood and blamed for events it is not responsible for. As Vladimir Putin would have it, he was provoked by American interference.

Moreover, the events described as war crimes -- rapes, destruction of civic infrastructure, mass graves are not his doing; they are in reality the malevolent orchestration developed by Ukraine that devised a grisly scenario of ghastly atrocities, enacted by Ukraine's own military and then ascribed to Russia. This is the kind of adversary Moscow faces, a fascist, neo-Nazi Ukrainian administration impudently accusing solicitous Russia of ill intentions toward Ukraine.

American and NATO provocations have brought this situation to pass, not Russian aggression. Russia will always enter the fray to protect its interests, to ensure that Russian-speaking citizens of a neighbouring country are not victimized by Russia-hating neighbours. Those two missiles fired at long range into Kyiv Thursday were just a friendly reminder that Moscow expects Kyiv to do the right thing and surrender its war-mongering government to Russia.

After all, Russian troops withdrew from the suburbs around Kyiv. To focus on the Donbas, where Luhansk and Donetsk are already declared Russian territories. The intention, of course, just to tidy things up, drive the Ukrainian military out of its lair there and leave both Republics in peace. Just incidentally Mariupol's destiny is to welcome its new status, contributing to the land bridge delivering  a direct route from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.

 

A destroyed apartment building in the southern port city of Mariupol

 Moscow is thoroughly displeased with its nemesis, the United States. Not only has the White House pledged a $33-billion gift in humanitarian and food security and weaponry aid to Ukraine, it has outright stated its hope that Ukrainian forces beyond repelling Russia's assault on the east, but succeed to a degree that Russia's military will be reduced in strength so it cannot continue to threaten its neighbours. Russia, a threat to its neighbours? What effrontery; the U.S. is revealing its mendacious spirit, wounding Russia beyond mere words.

Now entrenched in the east, Russian forces are focusing on the separatist Russian-speaking rebels' success in accessing the entire Donbas along with the secession provinces. The southern city of Kherson, the sole regional capital captured by Russia's military since the invasion had overnight blasts to awaken its still-stunned residents. Whose Wednesday pro-Ukrainian protests were faced by Russian troops using tear gas and stun grenades in their peaceful occupation.

Moscow has reported a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Issuing a stern warning that such attacks risk escalation to a significant degree. In the Russian city of Bellgorod two large explosions occurred. It is simply outrageous that Ukraine would take their battle with Russia into Russia, endangering the lives of innocent Russians...

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Cliff-Hanger : Rattling Nuclear-Tipped Spears

"If someone from the outside tries to intervene in what's happening, if they create threats,threats of a strategic nature, our retribution, our counter0strike will be instantaneous."

"We have all the necessary instruments, ones that no one else can boas of. And we will not be bragging about them, we will use them if necessary."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

"I don’t think [Putin] will [use nuclear weapons]."

"[Russia’s President has committed] massive strategic blunders. His so-called lightning invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone too well."

"I don’t feel rattled by it. Because we have strong Armed Forces and a nuclear deterrent and we’re part of a NATO partnership of 30 nations who outgun him, outnumber him and have potentially all the capabilities at our disposal."

"I don’t fear him. I think we should be very grateful in this country that we have a nuclear deterrent, I think that is a really important part of his calculations."

"There are many, as we know, who wanted to get rid of it over the years."

"I’m very grateful that somewhere under the sea, some amazing men and women are deep underwater, hiding, waiting, in case Britain needs to be protected. That’s important."

U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace

One of Britain's Trident nuclear submarines leaves on deterrent patrol from the Clyde Naval Base, Scotland

Sergei Lavrov, Kremlin spokesman had warned of the danger of nuclear confrontation: "We must not underestimate it". Who is talking nuclear to begin with? In the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops surrounded Ukraine's civil nuclear power plants, including the decommissioned Soviet-era Chernobyl plant, risking rising radiation levels by their interference with the monitoring/tending Ukrainian nuclear-plant crew ensuring vigilance and safety.

 

The Russian-Ukraine conflict is fought with conventional weaponry, with the West and NATO countries supplying Ukraine with more up-to-date military hardware to equal the footing between the attacker and the attacked. With that assistance, along with the transfer of high-security intelligence, Ukraine's military has more than countered the Russian attack, and continues to do so. Enraging Vladimir Putin, inciting him to threats against any possible 'intervention' by NATO or its members.

 

That threat made initial oblique references to nuclear weapons, until Mr. Putin formally placed his nuclear defences on standby. Purely a self-protective device, to ensure that if any of his opponents nursed a measure of stupidity sufficient to unleash a nuclear device as a deterrent against further Russian advances and atrocities against Ukraine's civilians Russia would be obliged to counter-strike.

Knowing full well that no country other than his would deploy nuclear strikes, Vladimir Putin's ploy was sufficiently transparent to shock his adversaries at its sheer recklessness. Making it quite clear that nothing would detain a decision on his part to 'reciprocate' for any such move against Russia. As though anyone but himself would contemplate the use of such weapons. The threat of which is more than enough to convince his critics to take care and step back from the brink he has imposed.

In 1947, atomic scientists devised the Doomsday Clock, setting it at seven minutes to midnight in their assessment of the-then risk of atomic weapons once again seeing the light of day after the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, concluding World War II. That clock has been reset numerous times, forward -- never backward. It sits now at 100 seconds to midnight. Vladimir Putin has arrested the world's attention.

As Putin sees the conventional strength of his military wane under a situation he never imagined, with a surprise war of attrition causing him to lose an astonishing number of elite commanders and generals on the battlefield in Ukraine, along with the wreckage of armed personnel carriers, tanks, planes, helicopters and the Russian navy's pride, the Moskva to Ukrainian defence/offence tactics, he has become increasingly morose and vengeful.

Behind his pride in Russia's  projection of power with its nuclear weaponry, with the largest arsenal of nuclear devices of any country in the world, fantasizing pride, fear and admiration, he is obsessed with the belief of being advantaged over his adversaries. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's statement at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the first meeting of the Ukraine Defence Consultative Group where he urged allies to "Move heaven and earth" in stocking Ukraine with weapons, cannot have pleased Putin.

 

The aggression of the U.S. is not equally shared across NATO. European members find themselves too geographically close to Russia for comfort. They are also too dependent on Russian oil and gas to be comfortable about having their energy source cut off. Poland and Bulgaria have been. Germany, always uncomfortable at pressure from the U.S. and NATO to lift its reluctance to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons, foresees a recession in agreeing to stop importing Russian energy.

 

There are fears that Russia may contemplate a 'small' nuclear bomb on a Ukrainian city, as a crude coercion strike, forcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into an immediate, unconditional surrender. That fear evokes pressure on the United States to transition from proxy war to direct involvement, to send troops into Ukraine. A decision on the part of the U.S. that would see push-back by other NATO members fearing repercussions. 

 

 

Ukraine Under Russian Fire

"We are inspired by the resilience of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine in the face of President Putin's brutal war of aggression."

"We are continuing to support them and, today, we wish them and all others celebrating Easter hope and a swift return to peace."

U.S. Secretary of /State Antony Blinken

 

"Poor Russian morale and limited time to reconstitute, re-equip and re-organize forces from prior offensives are likely hindering Russian combat effectiveness."

British military intelligence

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht gives a statement on the sidelines of a meeting with members of a Ukraine Security Consultative Group at the US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, on April 26, 2022. (Andre Pain/AFP)

Easter celebrations were shattered in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, stated Seerhiy Gaidal, its governor. Seven churches in his region were "mutilated" by artillery, and an unspecified number of civilians killed by Russian shelling. Both Ukrainians and Russians celebrate the very same Orthodox Catholic traditions and religious culture. It appears that the Russian tradition of conflict, however, supersedes the sacred nature of Easter and its message of peace and regeneration.

 

Moscow's "special military operation", however, is badly misunderstood. It is a liberating, compassionate move on the part of Vladimir Putin, who so much empathizes with his Slavic cousins in Ukraine. The wider world fails to comprehend -- through sheer spite -- that Kyiv has staged atrocities attributing them to Russia, quite deliberately, with the purpose of undermining peace talks. While Ukrainian refugees fill churches across Central Europe.

"I pray that this horror in Ukraine ends soon and we can return home"; the poignant words of Naaliya Krasnopolskaia, now in Prague where she fled from her home in Odesa, one of over five million Ukrainians to escape the raging conflict in their homeland. The Kremlin's focus is the capture of Mariupol, that utterly destroyed port town that was formerly home to 400,000 Ukrainians. Ukraine authorities succeeded in repulsing a dozen attacks on Donetsk and Luhansk, destroying four tanks, 14 armoured equipment units and five artillery systems.

Russia is outraged that a village in its Belgorod region that borders Ukraine was shelled on Sunday from across the frontier. Despite Russian gains, British military intelligence assessment is that Ukrainian resistance is strong, particularly in the Donbas. Speaking with anonymous confidentiality, U.S. sources assess that Russia will rely on artillery strikes to try to pound Ukrainian positions while moving in ground forces from multiple directions with the intention of enveloping and wiping out a large portion of Ukraine's military.

On the other hand, they also say that Russian units are depleted, some operating with large personnel losses,as high as 30 percent; too steep to continue fighting. Anecdotes have arisen that Russian tanks have sole drivers and no crew with substandard equipment, prone to breakdowns, or out of date. According to British assessments some 15,000 Russian personnel had died, 2,000 armourd vehicles destroyed, including 530 tanks, 60 helicopters and fighter jets. 

 

Yet Russia still possesses forces in superior numbers with a willingness to continue to direct soldiers and units into the conflict. Ukraine, on the other hand, shines with high morale, creativity and adaptive battlefield tactics -- and familiarity with the fighting terrain. Arms and intelligence from the United States and NATO allies continue to benefit Ukraine. "They can win if they have the right equipment, the right support", remarked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as he left Ramstein Air Base in Germany where discussions on Ukraine took place among representatives of over 40 countries.

US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, rear center, delivers a speech as he hosts the meeting of the Ukraine Security Consultative Group at Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, on April 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Soviet-Style Totalitarian Rule : Stalin Lives!

"This idea was born last year and now it has become especially relevant."

"Similar work has already been carried out, but now it will be co-ordinated by the Kremlin's domestic political bloc."

"Through this system, employees at all levels will be explained both their goals and objectives and the national policies and, at the right time, 'signals' will be sent to the Kremlin from this network."

"Each of its divisions has recently appointed a person responsible for informing employees about activities in support of the Russian army, and installations for the placement of various visual content are descending from the head office for this."

Kommersant newspaper report 

In a plan that harks back to the paranoia of Josef Stalin's Soviet Union in the 1930s, these "political officers" will also push Vladimir Putin's political agenda and ensure official support for his war in Ukraine stays on track Credit: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

 

Political commissars have been assigned to Russian government ministries and state-owned companies. Their vital task is to be the eyes and ears of the Kremlin, and their reports will be rendered directly to the Presidential Administration, the beating heart of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin. An old tactic given new life under the special circumstances of President Putin's 'special military operation' in Ukraine. A military operation so special it has, in three months, claimed the lives of fifteen-thousand Russian servicemen, a significantly smaller number of their Ukrainian counterparts, and a much larger number of Ukrainian civilians.

 

This is, needless to say, a reality that must not be whispered within Russia. For to do so, to speak of 'war', to mention in hushed tones 'war crimes', and to hint at the fact that despite Vladimir Putin's pride in equipping his military with the latest technological gadgetry in updated materiel and state-of-the-art munitions, ships, planes, and missiles, there has been a desperate need to dust off Soviet-era tanks and other military equipment to make up for those lost to Ukrainian military prowess standing firm against the Russian invasion.

 

Mention any of this. Protest audibly. Stand in a collaborative protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on a Moscow street, and expect arrest and the possibility of a 15-year prison sentence for sedition. Now, political commissars are tasked to report back to the president's office what they gain in knowledge of the "emotional state and mood" of government staff. Anger and paranoia rule the day in the presidential suite at the Kremlin.

 

The "political officers" are tasked as well with acquainting employees with the virtues of the invasion, and the intention to 'rescue' Ukrainians from the talons of the neo-Nazis governing them from Kyiv. The 'liberation' of Ukraine is uppermost in the tender regard of the Russian president, and he wants everyone to be aware of that singular fact. The trusted political officers, prepared to propagandize the issue in the workplace, have been elevated to the rank of deputy minister.

 

One can judge just how nervous the Kremlin is about the potential for dissent from a wider public, by the fact that even though most of the Russian public is supportive of the invasion, as a good-neighbour act by Russia for their Ukrainian 'cousins', particularly those in Russian government ranks, concern remains with respect to hidden dissent. In a country where criticism of the war is strictly banned, and discussion of any kind focusing on casualties is summarily suppressed. The threat of a long prison sentence can have that effect, in any event.

 

The Kremlin is resolved that the Z logo of the major battle group in Ukraine be popularized and become dear to the hearts of the Russian public. To that end, posters celebrating the mission of the 'special operation' and T-shirts feature the Z logo are being made available. Broadcasts of support for the invasion run continuously on state-operated television. The new initiatives boost a high level of state control, paralleling Stalin's network of informers; no surprise, given Mr. Putin's stated admiration for Stalin as a great man and superb leader.

 

The official narrative of the special operation has had repercussions as well on education curricula. Publishers have been placed on notice that textbooks must delete references to Ukraine. "You can mention how we saved Kyiv, but it is no longer possible to talk about any independence of Ukraine as a country", commented one publishing source. Another source revealed his publishing house was forced to re-write 15 percent of its textbooks, deleting references to Ukraine. 

Putin Taps Into Russia’s Centuries of Paranoid Aggression- Photo: The Daily Beast

Just ... Coincidentally

"I heard three shots and shouting. A woman was screaming. Then two more shots were fired. No one else was screaming."

"I looked out the window -- I thought it was fireworks. It turned out they weren't."

"My mother told me it was definitely gunshots."

Neighbour of Vladislav Avayev, Moscow

 

"He was a smart man, almost the head of Gazprombank. I had seen him -- he did not look like a  maniac. He was a nerd."

"He had no reason to do that. He was rich, smart."

"There's no way a man like that could kill."

Neighbour of Vladislav Avayev, Moscow

Vladislav Avayev (pictured), 51, was found in his elite Moscow penthouse alongside his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, Maria, 13

Very recently two puzzling deaths of high-profile Russian oligarchs. One day apart; one discovered in Moscow, the other in Spain. Both prominent men, both met violent ends. Investigators in Russia would like to convey the impression that both were suicides. Murder-suicides, since their family members were murdered. Ostensibly, by the very men who supposedly committed suicide. On two occasions, on two consecutive days, two separate families of immensely wealthy men, wiped out.

 

A neighbour had contacted the daughter of one of the men, Vladislav Avayev, because she had heard disturbing sounds coming from his million-dollar residence that made her suspicious. Which led 26-year-led Anastasia to visit his Moscow apartment. There she found her 51-year-old father, her mother Yelena, 47, and her younger sister Maria, age 13. All shot to death. She contacted police, informing them she had found a gun in her father's hand.

 

Her father, Vladislav, was a former vice-president of the state energy corporation, Gazprombank, and was also a Kremlin official. Vladislav Avayev had made his fortune in construction, following which he was appointed a deputy head of a Kremlin major department. He had resigned from his post as Gazprom vice-president. From Russia's third-largest bank, the main oil and gas payments bank in Russia.

 

Sergey Protosenya (right), 55, who had a fortune of over £330 million, is believed to have hacked his wife Natalia (centre) and their 18-year-old daughter to death before hanging himself in the courtyard of his Lloret de Mar villa on Spain's Costa Brava

According to Russian police, any leads will be investigated, in his personal and professional life. They had discovered a collection of 13 weapons in the apartment. Investigators are also involved in another death, one that took place on April 19, when Sergei Protosenya, formerly on the board of directors for Russian natural gas company Novatek was found dead. His wife and daughter were discovered hacked to death inside a Spanish villa in Costa Brava.

 

The 55-year-old Sergei Protosenya himself was found hanging in the villa courtyard. The police theory is that Protosenya had killed his wife and daughter using an axe and knife,and then took his own life. According to local reports, however, someone had taken precautions to ensure no fingerprints were left on the murder weapon. The local news outlet El Punt Avui had it that no suicide note had been left behind, and when Protosenya's body was found there was no blood on it. 

 

These were not the only puzzling deaths of Russians high on the administrative hierarchy of a country at war, where many within the various arms of the Kremlin, as well as journalists, educators and ordinary Russians, along with Russian-Ukrainians have voiced timid dissent over their country launching a deadly conflict with its neighbour. Some oligarchs and influential Russians have spoken out publicly and gone into exile. Some have remained in Russia, and been arrested for sedition.

Two other deaths remain unsolved; that of 61-year-old Gazprom former deputy Alexander Tyulyakov who, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, was found hanged near St.Petersburg, in a cabin. His body hung ln his garage, a suicide note next to him. He had been deputy general director at Gazprom after working there for a decade.

In January, Leonid Shulman, 60, head of Gazprom's transport service, died a suicide, found in the bathroom of a Leningrad-region cabin. The note he left behind spoke of a broken leg and the knife, cause of his death, found in a bathtub beside him, but out of reach. He was found in a pool of blood, his body punctured by multiple stab wounds.

SOURCE:sledcom.ru

The Lord's Shepherd : "The Language of Jesus": A New Schism?

"Disheartening!"

"Ukrainians did not want to hear a less-than-supportive voice from the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church."

"They were gravely hurt that the Holy Father would be willing to preside over a world prayer event that could cast doubt over what was really happening in Ukrainian towns and cities."

Reverend Michael Kwiatkowski, chancellor, Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy, Winnipeg, Manitoba

"It's painful for this to happen, and at Easter."

"I get it, he's the Pope, he's supposed to preach peace, he's supposed to preach reconciliation. But this is a war that Ukrainians didn't start and it's happening right now. People are being murdered, people are being raped, people are being forced from their homes ... It's the wrong time."

Lubomyr Luciuk, political geography professor, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario

"One thing needs to be understood: Francis is not a politician, he is a pastor, [speaking] the language of Jesus."

"Francis acts according to the evangelical spirit, which is one of reconciliation even against all visible hope during this war of aggression."

"His primary interest is not geopolitics but -- as he said three days after the outbreak of the war -- 'ordinary people, who want peace and that in every conflict are the real victims, who pay for the follies of war with their own skin'."

Father Antonio Spadaro, Jesuit priest, editor of journal La Civilta Cattolica, il manifesto

The pope has previously called the invasion “sacrilegious” | Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

 

Pope Francis has declared himself emphatically shocked and has wasted few words in condemning a war of aggression by one neighbour against another, leading to a massive wave of refugees, thousands of people killed, a country's infrastructure massively destroyed and the world in turmoil. In his earnest denunciations of the criminality and lack of humanity involved in any conflict, others of which have occurred in other areas of the world, he also spoke of the inequity of world attention and commiseration in settling refugees, based on racism.

Delivering a pastoral message, at the same time as neutralizing the shock over a European area of conflict and its accompanying civilian victims by conflating it with what is occurring outside of Europe. And while Pope Francis earnestly deplored the war that Russia is waging against its neighbour, he confines himself to notional 'neighbours', never once identifying the aggressor nation -- Russia -- or the man behind the implacable decision to mount a violent campaign against Ukraine -- Vladimir Putin.

Worse, as the Christian world's Shepherd of good faith and brotherly love, at the very time that Russian troops are battering Ukrainian towns and cities, deliberately targeting schools and hospitals and civic institutions, burying some of their victims in mass graves, leaving other corpses to lie in the streets of towns they hurriedly abandoned on orders from Moscow to muster from the north to the eastern Ukraine, Pope Francis decided it would be very 'Christian' to choreograph a tender little play.

During the Vatican's annual Easter 'Way of the Cross' ceremonial procession through the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday, it was arranged that a Ukrainian and a Russian woman, known to one another, in a friendly professional working relationship, held the cross during the procession. A text accompanied the event, stressing peace and reconciliation between peoples. Nowhere any indication that a brutal war is in progress, initiated by Russia against Ukraine.

On that very day, another event that raised critical eyebrows of disbelief from among the Ukrainian community, when the Vatican's Kyiv ambassador along with a cardinal from Poland held a meeting with the main Ukrainian leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. Pope Francis's champions may point out sanctimoniously that the Pope plays no political games, but the emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church represents a church faction led by its Patriarch who has given strong support to the invasion of Ukraine.

What has created a sense of moral indignation and huge disappointment from the Ukrainian communities abroad observing the painful conflict in their country of origin, and as faithful Christians observing the Julian calendar, is their April 24 Easter, leaving them bereft and abandoned in their church. While condemning the barbarity the Ukrainians are facing, Pope Francis avoids naming the aggressor country and its leader, a devout Orthodox Catholic, intransigent and malevolently violent against Ukraine.

Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, hearing of the Pope's Way of the Cross procession plan attempted to warn Francis it was poorly timed, incoherent, ambiguous and "even offensive" to his members, leading to the text being shortened, but the two women, signifying the two nations at peace, not war, remaining to hold the cross, hand over hand. 

 Moscow's Patriarch Kirill, has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has enthusiastically endorsed Putin's war against Ukraine, as 'just' and needful. Russia's Orthodox Church clearly politically motivated, clearly eschewing its pastoral duties, and clearly unwilling to denounce an illegal, destructive conflict brought from his country to a neighbouring country. Patriarch Kirill, with whom Pope Francis fairly recently held a 'reconciliation', spoke of a righteous fight between Western decadence and traditional values, in support of the conflict.

 

Mychailo Wynnyckyj, sociology professor at Ukraine's National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was scathing in his condemnation of the Pope in effectively helping to perpetuate an injustice by saying nothing to offend Russia and Vladimir Putin. According to his assessment the Good Friday events were an effective "slap in the face to Ukrainians" in an outreach to Russian religious leaders involved in Putin's war against Ukraine.

Reminiscent of Pope Pius XII, whose lack of action during the Second World War and neutrality over the Holocaust the Vatican still defends. The Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches are in early discussions of a potential merger. It is now entirely possible that a unified church will no longer consider falling under the Catholic banner, for Pope Francis, according to Mr. Wynnyckyj has made "a massive step in the wrong direction".

Mariupol. Putin's Special Operation

"This is just the first step [for Russia]= to gain control of eastern Europe, to destroy democracy in Ukraine."

"We are fighting not only for our independence, but for our survival, for our people so that they do not get killed, tortured and raped."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"There's no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities..."

"Block off this industrial area so that not even a fly can get through."

"Taking control of such an important center in the South as Mariupol is a success."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Smoke rises above Azovstal steelworks, in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo by MARIUPOL CITY COUNCIL /via REUTERS

It was not a glory moment for Vladimir Putin when he was forced by Ukrainian military resistance against Russian troops' orders to enter Kyiv and take it under control so the government could be removed and yet another Russian-puppet could be installed -- and his only possible move left to him in the face of massive Russian losses of men and materiel was to withdraw troops stating his real intention was to contest for the entire Donbas region so it too could be annexed as the Crimean Peninsula was, in 2014

 

If Mr. Putin is committed to anything at this point, close to two months after he launched his surprise 'special operation', it is to cover himself, not to lose any more 'face' in the court of world opinion, and to uphold his champion-standing in the opinion of the Russian public. Capturing Mariupol, the port city on the Sea of Azov is of primary importance to his Donbas-Crimean plan. And Ukrainian forces are inconveniently stalling his intentions.

 

Hundreds of fighters and up to a thousand civilians, including many children are ensconced in dozens of bunkers in the vast underground network of Mariupol's steel fort, the Azovstal plant. Their nuisance presence is stalling the Russian military's strategy of 'liberating' Mariupol. Their frustrating insistence on holding on in the face of a two-month siege is insolently intolerable to the Russian president.

 

That intransigence has led the Russian leader to order his troops to tighten the siege and close in on the plant. In the face of that resistance, it is entirely feasible that Mr. Putin could order those holding out in the plant to be smoked out or to resort to the use of proscribed deadly chemical weapons. The niceties of international war conventions do not appear to have a particularly strong hold on this man's sense of moral appropriateness.

Ukraine's interpretation to these tense periods that present as Mariupol's final hours as a Ukrainian possession, that Putin is anxious to avoid a final clash with Ukrainian forces, lacking troop numbers to ensure the Ukrainians can be defeated in a conventional urban military clash. In addressing the Portuguese parliament recently, Mr. Zelenskyy appealed yet again to the West for more weapons and the imposition of added economic sanctions on Moscow.

Once home to 400,000 people, Mariupol has fought the most intense battle of the war and has suffered the conflict's worse humanitarian consequences where hundreds of thousands of civilians were under Russian siege for close to two months, under constant bombardment. The Azovstal steel complex, one of the larges metallurgical facilities in Europe, covering 11 square km with its huge infrastructure, underground bunkers and tunnels, is a formidable site offering protection to Ukrainians and impotence of action to Russians.

Journalists who managed to reach Mariupol during the siege reported streets littered with corpses, with most buildings destroyed, residents huddling in the cold in cellars, only venturing out to cook sparse amounts of food on makeshift cooking arrangements. According to Ukrainian estimates, tens of thousands of civilians died in Mariupol. Some of whom were found buried in mass graves.

President Putin was informed by his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, that Russia had succeeded in killing over 4,000 Ukrainian troops in the Mariupol campaign, with an additional 1,478 surrendering to Russian forces. In addition Moscow claims to have taken in 140,000 civilian Ukrainians from Mariupol in a humanitarian evacuation from the war zone. To which Kyiv responds that some had been deported by force, a war crime.

An emergency management specialist pauses while searching for the bodies of people killed in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

When a Super Power Fizzles: Fall of An Empire

"One of two dangers will arise [from a renegotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA]."

"Either Iran will feel it can up its aggression, or its enemies will conclude that they have no choice but to take out all Iranian nuclear facilities."

"[The JCPOA] was born in deceit, sold through deception and kept alive by wilful blindness."

Victor Davis Hanson, U.S. historian

"No agreement will stop Iran from its determination to become a nuclear power, and Russia won't enforce the deal."

"The two malign powers will work together to harm American interests around the world."

Editorial, Wall Street Journal

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, U.S. Secretary of State' John Kerry, and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton meet Sept. 25, 2013 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

 

Former U.S. President Barack Obama orchestrated and led the negotiations in 2013 that led to the signing of the 'nuclear agreement' between the UN Security Council, Germany and the EU, (P5+1) and basked in international praise for a diplomatic coup that was presumed to have successfully delayed the Islamic Republic of Iran's striving toward enriching uranium to produce a nuclear arsenal. A generally accepted reality that Iran was steadily and surreptitiously moving toward that goal, which it strenuously denied, claiming the oil-rich nation was seeking alternative sources of civil-use energy.

Iran's neighbours thought differently. Their great unease at the prospect of Iran reaching its goal to possess that dread power to enhance its position as a threat by a non-Arab, Aryan nation, a Shiite theocracy challenging the primacy of the Arab majority Sunni Middle East for greater power and authority, led to its al-Quds division of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps entering war-torn Lebanon

to help form an Iranian proxy terrorist group, Shia Hezbollah.

The JCPOA did nothing whatever to address the IRGC's ongoing recruitment, formation, financial support, training and weapons' supply to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis, destabilizing the Middle East and beyond. For the most part their malevolence was aimed toward Israel, the Jewish nemesis state installed anew in a solid Islamic geography, despite sectarian-tribal antipathies.

The Arab states know they too are targets of an ascendant Iran.

In the current Biden presidential political environment backgrounded by Barack Obama's legacy project, former allies of the United States see themselves abandoned by a disinterested power that once dominated the Middle East. An administration that is determined to proceed with reconstituting that abrogated nuclear agreement that favours Iran and distances the Sunni-majority Arab states. and Israel.

The tail has always wagged this dog, Iran moving the guideposts by clever maneuvering. 

This time around, Tehran refused to negotiate directly with the United States, the "Great Satan", which stood back and though it has been responsible for moving renewed talks forward, agreed that Russian diplomats could negotiate directly with Tehran's negotiators on behalf of the same actors who signed the original agreement. Now that Moscow has invaded Ukraine and brought war to Europe, matters became even more complicated.

Russia and China, both involved with Iran, with its nuclear installations, and aiding Iran in evading sanctions lead the negotiations. Should a new agreement be signed, sanctions against Iran would be set aside so it can sell its oil freely, reconnecting it to the global financial system for a temporary restriction on enriching uranium and centrifuge testing. The IAEA nuclear watchdog is not convinced it will be given full monitoring access; a return to the previous agreement when critical military sites had been  deemed off limits.

Iran's demands for sanction relief, its demand that the Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from America's terrorist blacklist has seen a backlash in Congress that President Biden must deal with. Israel denounced that demand by Tehran as representing "an insult to the victims" of the nefarious actions leading to terrorist attacks and the deaths of innocents, on the part of the IRGC. The expectation is that should the agreement be signed and Iran achieve its breakthrough, Israel alone would be forced to react.

A signed agreement would favour Iran in released billions, and relaxed sanctions. It would be to Russia's benefit to buy enriched uranium from Iran and sell it two nuclear reactors for billions, effectively helping to fund its war in Ukraine. Achieved through the sole world power that has chosen to take a back seat internationally, effectively abandoning its former role as global sheriff coming to the defence of the vulnerable against the predations of tyrants. 

 

Granted, those occasions when American power chose to make common cause with dictators sullied its opinion of itself in concert with its detractors.

As the two key players have returned to the negotiating table, it seems that it has become even more difficult for them to see eye to eye   Observer Research Foundation