The BBC has been reporting about the atrocities left behind in town after town after the Russians have left. There are civilians killed everywhere. They also have tape from a closed circuit television that shows Russian troops speaking with a security guard and business owner exchanging greetings and even smoking cigarettes together. As soon as the security guard and business owner walks away, the two Russian soldiers open fire on them. It is some very horrific stuff.
At first when reading this report about these Ukraine soldiers in Mariupol I thought Russia had taken the soldiers, but, evidently it is a Ukraine operation that is going well to secure the safety of the troops left in Mariupol. The civilians were evacuated on May 7th.
This report from President Zelensky is live.
May 16, 2022
Volodymyr Zelensky (click here) has said an operation to "save the defenders of Mariupol" has started, but added the work will require "discretion and time".
Ukraine's defence ministry says 264 fighters have left the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol and been taken to areas held by Russian-backed rebels.
This report originated with CNN. Both of these civilians were shot in the back after the conversations with the Russians.
May 12, 2022
by Sara Sidner, Sandi Sidhu, Vasco Cotovio, Kostyantyn Gak and Oleksandra Titorova
Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN)Russian soldiers (click here) shot two unarmed civilians as they walked away after an encounter in the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
CNN has obtained surveillance video of what is now being investigated as a war crime by Ukrainian prosecutors.
Both civilians died after the heartless shooting that goes against the so-called rules of war that outlaw the targeting of civilians. CNN has identified the victims. One was the owner of the vehicle dealership that was looted, whose family does not want to be named. The other was Leonid Oleksiyovych Plyats, a 68-year-old grandfather who worked as a guard there....
Since the Maidan of 2014 (click here) Putin has used the idea of Ukraine being full of Nazis to justify all the aggression he has exerted on Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea and the continuing civil war in eastern Ukraine.
Putin's propaganda is such poison that the soldiers see no reason to practice any form of proper war protocols, especially when it comes to civilians. One can understand the Russian soldiers point of view, they were given the understanding that right next door to Russia lies the unfinished business of WWII. That is a complete lie, but, it doesn't matter because it is a lie that the Russian people believe and that the Russian military uses to justify it's killing. The Ukraine civilians have been attempting since the initial invasion to drive the Russian soldiers out of Ukraine. They have acted, in some instances, as a volunteer force creating their own offensives to end the bloodshed, defend their neighborhoods and bring about a degree of peace in Ukraine.
That resistance through the eyes of Ukrainians is about defense of their homeland, but, through the eyes of Russian soldiers, that is simply the Nazis striking back at the soldiers. There is nothing anyone can do to change the politics of Vladimir Putin in calling the special operations in Ukraine necessary to rid the world of the Nazis. He won't give it up because he has a former Ukrainian president in Viktor Yanukovych willing to testify that the Nazis drove he and his family out of Ukraine.
That is the story and that is what continues to be a false narrative within Russia. That false narrative, I believe, is what gave the Russian soldiers the right (in their own minds) to take the lives of civilians that were of no threat to them. These two men died needlessly because of Putin's politics. The war Russia is fighting is based in lies and nothing more. The politics within Russia has to change. How and when that will ever happen is anyone's guess. Putin will not change a narrative that continues to protect his grip on power.
The world economy has been rocked by this war into Ukraine. There is a burgeoning food shortage because of the chronic attacks on the farmers and farmlands in Ukraine. The West needs to address the needs of it's people that does not involve communist countries.
