I have 100 percent confidence Ukraine is asking for ceasefires and a return to diplomacy. I don't believe at this point anything will work short of defeating Russian militarily. Minsk I and II failed because the Rebels and Putin didn't care about it. A commercial airliner was shot down by the Russian separatists. We know that for a fact, yet, where are the trials and extradiction to Europe of the murderers?
February 25, 2022By Pavel Polityuk
Ukraine wants peace (click here) and is ready for talks with Russia, including on neutral status regarding NATO, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters on Friday.
"If talks are possible, they should be held. If in Moscow they say they want to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this," he said via a text message. "We can talk about that as well."
"Our readiness for dialogue is part of our persistent pursuit of peace."...
Vladimir Putin is full of hate for anyone not a Russian citizen and there are some Russian citizens he hates equally or more. This is not about Ukaine, the Ukrainian people or their magnificent government that fights corruption at every turn. This is about the hate that has welled up in Putin's gut since the fall of the Soviet Union.
There was a fatal flaw in The West's presciption for Ukraine to maintain it's borders and solidify it's sovereignty, it didn't strike Russia first. When Crimea and eastern Ukraine fell to Russia, NATO should have moved to end the occupation and claimed Ukraine as it's own. There was perfect justification for that at the time. Even today, those reasons still live. Would they have confronted Russia? Yes. But, all these years later they will confront Russia anyway.
People with dual citizenship are in Ukraine. NATO cannot turn it's back on them.
February 25, 2022
By Deena Yellin
Rabbi Mendel Moskovitz, (click here) a Brooklyn native transplanted to Ukraine, sounded surprisingly upbeat when reached by phone Thursday afternoon.
“That’s why we’re here,” the rabbi of the Kharkiv Choral Synagogue in northeastern Ukraine told a reporter. “To keep up everyone’s spirits.”
Moskovitz was a baby when his parents took him to the country 32 years ago, as part of an effort to help reinvigorate Jewish communities just beginning to emerge from the Soviet Union's shadow. On Thursday morning, he and his community of some 20,000 Jews awoke to explosions and ran down to their basements for cover, he said.
His job as a Chabad rabbi is to help people, he explained. With Russian troops attacking Ukraine, that job seemed more vital than ever....
February 25, 2022
By Matt Fagan
For many Ukrainians in North Jersey, (click here) a sleepless Wednesday night stretched well into Thursday afternoon as Russia's invasion of their homeland unfolded, the largest invasion in Europe since World War II.
The seven-hour time difference meant that when Russian bombs and missiles began raining down on the former Soviet republic, cellphones and social media's klaxons began ringing out after 10 p.m.
Roksolana Leshchuk, a physician at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, received a call from her terrified niece shortly after midnight.
As bombs were falling, she was alone with two small children because her husband, a Ukrainian police officer, had been called in to work.
"She didn't know whether to stay home or go to her mother's," Leshchuk said. The streets could be dangerous, but it is frightening to be alone....
