The Ukrainian Deputy Minister on the issue of the occupied territories Georgey Tuka believes that a “Crimean scenario” is being prepared in Kharkov. On November 9, he wrote on his page on Facebook that the large-scale pro-Russian demonstrations are planned in the city, and urged law enforcement agencies to take decisive action.
Pumping arms into Ukraine by the west is only going to prolong this conflict which at the first place was avoidable. There is no doubt that Ukraine is fighting a battle for their just survival. The Ukraine War in the active combat zones has been a devastating war between Russia and Ukraine producing an increasingly severe humanitarian crisis that includes massive civilian displacement of refugee movements away from embattled cities into the neighbouring countries. The US led NATO allies, their partners and the Western media are aiming to gain the public support for their actions against Russia which are playing on the playfields of Ukraine. “Having pushed Ukraine into war, the US does not know how to save it. Having started it, Russia does not know where to end it.”
U.S. President Joe Biden recently announced the Uniting for Ukraine program, which aims to streamline the process for Ukrainians who have fled their country and are seeking safety in the United States.
The new program, which took effect Monday, will complement existing legal pathways available to those fleeing Russian aggression due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, Biden administration officials said.
Germany’s warm welcome for Ukrainian refugees has accompanied a wider societal and political about-face – the shedding of a decadeslong pacifist nature in the face of the war in Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz overturned long-held policies by promising to send weapons to Ukraine, bolster an under-equipped German military, and shift away from cheap Russian energy supplies.
A specially equipped medical train run by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) completed its first journey across Ukraine on April 26, carrying 26 patients from Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro to hospitals in Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv. Most required post-operative care following traumatic injuries.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was fair to call the ensuing conflict “Putin’s war.” True, the U.S. and Europe could probably have avoided the invasion by calling a halt to NATO expansion and negotiating seriously with the Russians about key security issues. True, U.S. arms had been pouring into Ukraine since the overthrow of the pro-Russian government there in 2014, and Ukraine was using them to kill pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region. But Putin was still responsible for crossing the line into organized violence. It does matter who shoots first, and he shot first.
It has become increasingly clear to the world that there is not one, but two, actually three, distinct levels of conflict embedded in what the world’s media and political leadership deceptively insist of calling the ‘Ukraine War.’ The first level was clearly initiated on February 24, 2022 when Russia launched an aggressive war against Ukraine imperiling its sovereign rights and territorial integrity. The second level was difficult to discern in the first weeks of the war, but became soon evident as the NATO countries led by the United States placed an increasing emphasis on lending escalating support to Ukraine’s adopted goals of achieving an unexpected military victory. This support took various forms including the steady supply of heavy weaponry, robust economic assistance, punitive sanctions, and a drumbeat of ‘official’ demonization of Russia and its leadership. In the beginning it seemed appropriate to lend support to Ukraine as the target of aggression, and hail the resistance effort led by President Volodymyr Zelensky, in defense of a relatively small country being overrun by its large neighbor.
The response of the Gulf Arab states to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been somewhat revealing of the depth of fissures between the United States and its Gulf allies. The “stress test” United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, hinted at on March 3, was on full display in the pushback by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE—against pressure from Washington to condemn the invasion and side with Ukraine.
The Russians don’t seem too keen at the moment to send Syrian fighters to Ukraine, Danny Makki reports for al-Araby al-Jadeed.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine has been viciously raging for approximately two months, leaving little gains to show in the grand scheme of things.
The United States and the European Union have warned against giving in to what they called Russian “blackmail” over gas supplies to Europe.
Russia, which supplies about 40% of Europe’s gas needs, had demanded that what it called “unfriendly” European countries pay their gas bills in rubles — seen as a way to prop up the currency in the face of Western sanctions on Russian banks, including its central bank. Some EU states have set up Russian bank accounts to try to work around the sanctions.