Running Newsticker for the War in Ukraine

Nonsense. I recommend you read The Great Terror by Robert Conquest and The GULAG Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
As for nuclear war, no one fears Potemkin Muscovy.

 

With no peace in sight, NATO countries eye more Ukraine military aid

 

Ukraine Conflict Updates
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 3, 2023

Click here to read the full report.
Key Takeaways

• Wagner Group fighters made further advances in central Bakhmut and seized the Bakhmut City Administration Building on the night of April 2.
• Russian authorities are blaming Ukrainian government entities and Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny for the assassination of Russian milblogger Maksim Fomin (also known as Vladlen Tartarsky).
• Official Russian responses to Fomin’s death failed to generate a single narrative in the information space and led to disjointed responses from prominent pro-war voices.
• Russian security services reportedly continue to confiscate passports of senior officials and state company executives in an effort to limit flight from Russia.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian sources reported on April 3 that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) units received TOS-1A thermobaric artillery systems for the first time.
• Russian forces continued ground attacks in and around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Donetsk City, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian officials likely remain concerned about a potential Ukrainian threat to Crimea amid continued fortification and logistical efforts.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing a state fund to support military personnel who participate in the war in Ukraine and their families.
• Likely Ukrainian partisans used an improvised explosive device (IED) to target a former Russian occupation official in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast. . . . .

Ukrainian sources conducted a HIMARS strike against a Russian railway depot in occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast for the third time in the past seven days on April 2.[48] Russian sources noted that Ukrainian forces conducted strikes against rear logistics elements during the Kherson Oblast counteroffensive in fall 2022 and expressed concern about Ukrainian forces conducting these strikes against Melitopol to prepare for an upcoming counteroffensive.[49] . . . .

Russian authorities continue to struggle with internal resistance to the war in Ukraine. Russian sources reported at least four cases of alleged sabotage against Russian railways and arson attempts against military registration and enlistment offices in Russia on April 1 and 2.[55] . . . .

 

Don't make me laugh, do you think I haven't read the Gulag Archipelago? I know about the year 37 not from books, but from people's stories. My grandfather was almost arrested because a denunciation was written against him. But fortunately he was warned and he and his whole family left for another city in time. So no one started looking for him. Then he fought, received awards.
But even in 37, strict record keeping was conducted, evidence was collected, and not so that any random person was taken and arrested. And I looked at the real archives, a lot of people really died there. You read: shot, shot, shot... And suddenly - acquitted, released. And there were some, although they were also imprisoned on charges of subversion or something like that.

If you think that Russia is "Potemkin Muscovy" then your right. But don't say later that you weren't warned.

 

Your posts suggest you have not.

 

AP News
Finland joins NATO, dealing blow to Russia for Ukraine war

 

In fact, slave labor in the USSR has been well documented. Russia under Putin also relies on slave labor. Efforts to cover up this ugly truth have failed.

“Efforts (or Lack Thereof) to Combat Human Trafficking in Russia

So what has President Putin done to stop this human trafficking? Very little. As a result of the UN signing of the Palermo Protocol, in 2003 Putin passed laws that made human trafficking and forced labor illegal (the aforementioned criminal code articles 127.1 and 127.2). While these laws are clearly necessary, they are both wanting in substance and poorly applied in practice. Firstly, they are not aligned with UN definitions for human trafficking and trafficked persons. Current Russian Criminal Code does not include the irrelevance of consent in its definitions of human trafficking, potentially leaving workers like Anton Pogorelov without legal redress. It also allows government officials to charge traffickers with related crimes, which obscures statistics on human trafficking and lightens traffickers’ sentences.

That is only for the cases that are actually prosecuted. Many victims refuse to bring their cases to trial because there is a lack of protections for victims. Furthermore, the high rate of police corruption means that evidence of forced labor often goes completely ignored. For example, despite the fact that forced labor practices in Dagestan are well known, repeated police investigations have failed to “find any evidence of slavery” in the factories there. Similarly, in 2012 eleven people were freed from a forced labor scheme in the basement of a Moscow grocery store, and the story filled international headlines. It was then discovered that local authorities had refused to investigate allegations of forced labor within this exact same store on at least six different occasions prior to 2012. These same store owners had previously been investigated for trafficking crimes, but they were never convicted because articles 127.1 and 127.2 had not been passed yet.”

HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Human Trafficking: The Secret to Putin's Economy, By, 25.NOV.2020 9:00 AM.
https://hir.harvard.edu/putin-and-human-trafficking/

 

Isn't this just fantastic.

 

Perspective
D.C. artist floats pro-Ukraine message above local statues
By John Kelly

 

Top Russian General Dismissed After Vuhledar Defeat

The Moscow Times
https://www.themoscowtimes.com › In depth


1 day ago — General Rustam Muradov, a top Russian commander in Ukraine, has been dismissed in the wake of unsuccessful Russian assaults near the eastern ...

 

Putin has become a threat to Russia’s national security.

“Finland’s membership became official when its foreign minister handed over documents completing its accession process to US secretary of state Antony Blinken, whose department is the repository of Nato membership texts."

"It comes as a former presidential protection officer who has defected from Russia claimed that Mr Putin is “pathologically afraid for his life” and has spent the last few years living in an “information cocoon”.

In an incendiary interview with Dossier, Gleb Karakulov, 35, said Mr Putin had “lost touch with the world” having lived in an “an information cocoon for the past couple of years, spending most of his time in his residences, which the media very fittingly call bunkers.”
THE INDEPENDENT, Ukraine war – live: Finland joins Nato, as ‘paranoid Putin in bunkers fearing for his life’, Putin protection officer defects from Russia and urges colleagues to stop ‘war criminal’ president, By Arpan Rai, Emily Atkinson, Andy Gregory, 4/4/23.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-putin-finland-nato-b2313588.html

 

one bunch of Nazis supports another bunch of Nazis.....well...I don't know....anyway.....

 

Ukraine Conflict Updates
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 4, 2023

Click here to read the full report.
Key Takeaways

• • The Kremlin will likely attempt to coerce Belarus into further Union State integration when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko meet in Moscow on April 5 and 6.
  • The Kremlin continues to attempt to employ nuclear threats to deter Western military aid provisions to Ukraine ahead of Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive.
  • Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s demonstrative response to the assassination of Russian milblogger Maxim Fomin indicates that Prigozhin likely believes that the attack was in part directed at himself.
  • The Kremlin continues to attempt to (falsely) reassure the Russian public that the war in Ukraine will not have significant long-term economic consequences.
  • The Kremlin is likely trying to shift more responsibility for growing Russian industry onto regional bodies to insulate itself from possible criticism about Russia’s deteriorating economic situation.
  • Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
  • Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline.
  • Russian forces continue to prepare for a rumored pending Ukrainian counteroffensive in the southern direction.
  • Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russia’s ongoing spring conscription cycle is going according to plan, progressing as quickly as planned, and has completed initial military registration.
  • Russian occupation officials denied Ukrainian reports that Russian occupation authorities are preparing evacuation plans from occupied regions of Ukraine.
  • Belarusian state media claimed that the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) reportedly arrested two men under the suspicion of attempted terrorist attacks in Grodno. . . . .

Ukrainian forces likely conducted a counterattack northeast of Avdiivka. Geolocated footage published on April 2 indicates that Ukrainian forces likely recaptured positions northwest of Novoselivka (17km northeast of Avdiivka) and advanced close to the settlement.[43] It is unclear if Ukrainian forces still hold these positions or if Ukrainian forces conducted reconnaissance-in-force operations and subsequently left the area. A Russian milblogger claimed on April 3 that Ukrainian forces are preparing for counterattacks in the Avdiivka area after several unsuccessful counterattack attempts.[44] . . . .

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) stated on April 4 that Russia seeks to sponsor and develop alternative private military companies (PMCs) to replace the Wagner Group’s combat role.[58] The UK MoD Intelligence Service implied that Russian authorities desire to replace Wagner with a more-controllable alternative due to the feud between the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Wagner Group.[59] This supports ISW’s ongoing assessments on the declining influence of Wagner and Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin.[60] Independent Russian news outlet Meduza reported on April 4 that the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service proposed mandating that members of the Public Monitoring Commission, which monitors prisoner’s rights, give 48 hours’ notice before visiting Russian detention centers.[61] This reduction of prison oversight may enable the expansion of Russian military recruitment efforts in prisons for Wagner or other groups. . . . .

 

Department of Defense
Large Quantity of Defensive Munitions Earmarked for Ukraine

 

Russia-Ukraine war live: anyone supporting Moscow in conflict is an ‘accomplice’,

 

...and the hits just keep on coming....



France Boosts Spending

...Putin remains the master strategist....

 

Putin forging unity in eastern Europe.


'You stood with us shoulder to shoulder': Zelensky visits key ally Poland

 

g

Putin has managed to unite all of Europe, most of the rest of the world against Russia's aggressive war of imperialist conquest.

“"Russia invading Ukraine, totally against the UN charter, against the basic principles of territorial integrity, put the Irish people very firmly, instinctively on the side of right there," he [Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne] told the AFP news agency.

"We're not neutral when it comes to an invasion like that, but we're neutral when it comes to joining a military alliance.””

“"In Ireland we probably need a new conception of what defence is, a new concept." He added: "The Taoiseach has said he may decide to hold a Citizens Assembly on that issue so that the public can think things through.” Mr Byrne said the assembly could for "part of a wider debate on how to defend ourselves".

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukrain Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May, and their accession protocols were signed in July, while Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine have also applied to join the alliance.”
THE INDEPENDENT, EU Affairs Minister says Russian invasion forcing Ireland to reconsider neutrality and ‘concept of defence’, By Paul Hyland, October 14 2022 12:00 PM.
https://www.independent.ie/news/eu-...utrality-and-concept-of-defence-42066664.html

 

...the rise of the Russian "turbo-patriot"....few of them here....

 

Ukraine Conflict Updates
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 5, 2023

Click here to read the full report.
Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian forces will withdraw from Bakhmut to avoid encirclement if necessary, but do not yet assess the need to do so.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin framed Russia’s efforts to consolidate control of occupied territories of Ukraine as a matter of internal security and rule of law during a meeting with the Russian National Security Council.
• Putin also attempted to portray Russia as a respected world power against the backdrop of Chinese officials downplaying close relations with Russia.
• Putin dismissed Colonel-General Nikolai Grechushkin from his post as Deputy Head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations on April 5.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces continued to engage in positional battles along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian forces likely made gains in and around Bakhmut and continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline.
• Russian businessmen may be assuming a larger role in supporting the Russian MoD’s efforts to form irregular volunteer formations.
• Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova continues to deny international allegations that Russia is forcibly deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. . . . .

The Kremlin is likely increasingly struggling to maintain loyalty among lower-level regional authorities as it continues to place the onus on funding the war on Russian federal subjects. Independent Russian outlet Verstka reported on April 5 that the Kremlin is developing a “program of privileges” in regional administrations to maintain loyalty among lower-level local officials.[9] Verstka stated that the Russian presidential administration demanded that regional administrations create “initiative groups” to cater to the needs of regional civil servants, and that regional vice-governors are being encouraged in an oddly framed measure to install vending machines in administration buildings, secure preferential bank loans for employees, and offer officials free city parking.[10] Verstka reported that these measures in large part are meant to mitigate growing discontent about the continued costs of the war.[11] ISW has previously observed that the Kremlin has repeatedly placed the onus on Russian regional authorities to mobilize and fund the war, and Russian regions continue to bear the brunt of the Kremlin’s decision-making demographically and economically.[12] Such efforts are likely meant to pay lip service to the burden placed on regional entities but are unlikely to stimulate a significant increase in support for the war at the regional and local levels. . . . .

 

I read, rest assured! But you can think what you want.

By the way, how does your conviction that I have not read the "Gulag archipelago" prove that there is legalized slavery in Russia? )))

 

Of course, probably criminal groups use slave labor, but this is not at all what you prove by writing "Russia under Putin relies on slave labor." Every word here is a lie.

 

In fact, under Putin, the Russian economy and the Russian military could not function without forced labor -- slavery.

“New Forced Labour in Russia is the first study of coercive aspects of irregular migration in the country conducted in 2003 in Moscow, the Moscow region, Omsk and the Stavropol territory by the ILO’s Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour.
In early 90s Russia became an actor in the international labour migration as a receiving, sending and transit country. Today the number of irregular migrants in Russia is estimated at 3.5 to 5 million persons, mainly from the CIS countries and the South-East Asia.”

“The study examined a wide range of data and identified different elements of violence - from deception and blackmail to abduction - that are already present in the migration and employment in Russia. In the process of work the wide-spread forms of exploitation of migrants are: compulsion to work extra-time without pay (62%), highly intensified work (44%), lengthy wage delays (39%), compulsion to perform work for which consent has not been given (38%), compulsion to work without pay (24%), compulsion to provide sex services (22% of polled women), psychological violence, threats, blackmail (21%), restricted freedom of movement – being kept locked up all the time or for some time (20%). Such cases are now so wide-spread in the country that they are not perceived as marginal or unlawful practices, but as a normal state of affairs.”

“Moscow has, in comparison with other regions, the highest incidence of the worst forms of exploitation and forced labour: sexual exploitation (30% of women), limitation of freedom in the form of control over movement, keeping people locked up (31%) and physical violence (13%).”

ILO, UN, New Forced Labour in Russia, News | 04 March 2004.
Full text of the Study (PDF 490Kb)
Summary (PDF 132Kb)
Press Clippings (in Russian and English) (PDF 2.8Mb)
https://www.ilo.org/moscow/news/WCMS_245567/lang--en/index.htm

 

My God, how stupid you Americans are!

Yes, there are cases when people are abducted by criminal means and forced to work.
But this is minuscule compared to the total mass of workers. And it is necessary to have thinking at the level of a child to assert that the Russian economy depends on slave labor (and without it, apparently, it will immediately collapse)