Western Audiences Have a Right to Be Accurately Informed About this War
Yesterday, Ukrainian fighters besieged in the Azovstal steelworks surrendered to Russian forces, after a battle lasting almost three months. There’s no doubt this was a surrender: the Ukrainian fighters – who belong to the Azov regiment – were taken in buses to Russian-held territory in Eastern Ukraine (as shown above).
However, that’s not the impression you’d get scanning Western media outlets like the BBC, CNN and the New York Times. These outlets described what happened as an “evacuation” marking an “end to the combat mission”. Here are the headlines:
• ‘Mariupol: Hundreds of besieged Ukrainian soldiers evacuated’ – The BBC
• ‘Hundreds of Ukrainian troops evacuated from Mariupol steelworks after 82-day assault’ – The Guardian
• ‘Azovstal steelworks evacuated as Ukraine ends combat mission in Mariupol’ – The Times
• ‘The battle for Mariupol nears end as Ukraine declares ‘combat mission’ over’ – CNN
• ‘Ukraine ends bloody battle for Mariupol; Azovstal fighters evacuated’ – The Washington Post
• ‘Ukrainian authorities declare an end to the combat mission in Mariupol after weeks of Russian siege’ – The New York Times
In war, an “evacuation” is when you send boats, planes or vehicles to transport your own troops away from a hostile location. Dunkirk was an evacuation. It is not when the enemy transports your troops to a location under his control after those troops have surrendered. That’s called a “surrender”.
Despite reporting where the Ukrainian fighters were taken (Russian-held territory), some of the articles above don’t even use the word ‘surrender’. One is reminded of Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf – nicknamed “Comical Ali” – who became known for his preposterous claims about U.S. losses during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Note: this has nothing to do with being ‘pro-Russia’. This is about journalists using language that actually corresponds with reality. Which prompts the question of why? Why are they going around describing things in transparently misleading terms?
I can think of two possible reasons. One is they don’t want to hurt Ukrainian morale. Perhaps Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines read Western media, or at least read what is written about Western media, and there was a concern that if they saw the headline ‘Mariupol Garrison Surrenders’, they might become dispirited.
The second possible reason is they don’t want Western audiences to believe that Ukraine is faltering, as they might then become less willing to support military aid or sanctions. (Note: I’m not saying that Ukraine is faltering – I have no idea who has the upper hand – only that news of a surrender might lead Western audiences to believe that it’s faltering.)
Of the two reasons, I’d suggest the first is more plausible. Maybe every outlet received the same press release with notes like: ‘Keep ‘surrender’ out of the headline. Use ‘evacuation’ instead.’ This is pure speculation, of course, but I don’t know how else to explain why so many outlets used such bizarre language.
Now, I could perhaps understand if it was British troops surrendering. But it wasn’t: the fighters who surrendered were Ukrainian – and from a regiment that just a few years ago Western media outlets were describing as “far-right” and even “neo-Nazi”.
Not only are the media giving us an inaccurate picture of the most serious armed conflict since the Cold War; they’re doing so despite the fact that it’s not even our troops fighting. They’re running interference for a foreign government – and regardless of how just that government’s cause may be, this puts us in very thorny territory.
We’re not dealing with celebrity gossip here. Western audiences have a right to be accurately informed about this war.
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This is a war between Russia and the Davos “elites” and mainstream new sources cannot be trusted relating to these fast moving events.
It is a war between globalist entities and a country responding to threat as a nation-state. That is the real threat to globocommunist plans, people thinking in terms of national loyalty.
what does this mean?
Just learn to read and then come back when you have something to offer.
OK you explain it.
When I search on “globocommunist meaning” I get the following response
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_communism
We must allow for two things here:
Quite… “Google, what is communism?”
Google: “Would you like to see some pretty pictures of flowers?”
Stop using google
I to am struggling to extract any real meaning from the statement.
Yes and the majority Russians support Putin over this, contrary to the propaganda of the MSM and its hordes of fake experts.
Russia is no nation-state but an empire dominated by Russians.
Ramzan Kadyrov doesn’t see himself as Russia’s little man.
And there are some non-Russians in high positions in the central government.
But it’s true that the Russian state has an imperial flavour. (The coat of arms even shows the two-headed eagle to drive the point home.) It’s not really a “federation”.
“two-headed eagle“!
https://tribulation-now.org/2009/11/11/the-double-headed-phoenix-never-dies/
Oceania Has Always Been at War with Eurasia
while both “sides” rush to get their CBDC ready for the reset
Not buying it, sorry, not sorry.
This thread has been infected by a number of trolls and some members on here who should know better are trying to defeat them with rational arguments.
Bloody boring now.
Myself, I think the term “troll” is often overused.
I’ve been in the position of arguing a minority cause many times (not often here), and often get accused of “trolling” merely for doggedly standing up for my position. I think a true troll is someone who knowingly does what they solely do in order to get a rise, not just anybody who gets a rise because they are annoying in their doggedness in arguing an unpopular case.
“some members on here who should know better are trying to defeat them with rational arguments.
Bloody boring now.”
Genuinely at a loss to see why this is a problem for you, hp. If a discussion is boring, move on to the next one.
Mark, I disagree with you on almost everything, but not this
All you do is make shit up Fingers.
Troll
The forum has been infected by nitwits saying “Good Morning” and “I’m first!”
these apparent courtesies may in fact be veiled insults … for example, when we English want to tell someone to eff off, we often say something like ‘excuse me’ or ‘pardon me’ …
We say “I’m not being funny but”…
And good morning to you too!
I did try and do something about it under the old system as it happens, but it really doesn’t matter. In the face of a concerted effort to destroy morale, anything that can raise people’s spirits must be a good thing. Those who aren’t interested can easily ignore it. Why don’t you worry about the real problems, such as two years of human rights abuses, and others that have been going on for longer?
I appreciate the fact that you have put your warning upfront! I haven’t yet read down to the lower depths.
I get my interesting information from other sources, so I now skim for the names of contributors here who also have interesting information or who express interesting views – and don’t bother reading the others (though I used to do so religiously).
I suppose it’s a case of getting to know your neighbours. I now know which people are likely to be pleasant and warmly disposed to others (unless sorely provoked!), and the odd one here or there who is actually vicious.
I have now returned from those lower depths, and I see your point.
If we’re going to be philosophical about it, perhaps it’s a good indication of how important this entire issue is.
This site was bad enough (in the eyes of tptb) when it allowed a forum for the discussion of such heretical notions as lockdowns and masks.
Talk about the “vaccines” attracted some serious trolls. These people are quite different from the compliant at large. They are warriors for compliance, and they’re here on this issue, too.
Opposition to lockdowns and masks must have been anticipated; and opposition on the issue of climate change is something which they have learnt to dismiss. They think they have won the day on this one. (I think that’s wrong. Once compliance on the subject of climate change means personal impoverishment, opinion will shift).
But Russian opposition to US/NATO world domination is a different matter entirely. They want that opposition crushed; they want the rest of us to hate the Russians for providing it and Putin for leading it; they want us to understand that resistance is futile.
But I never have any interesting views or information…
It’s always difficult to obtain reliable information during warfare. Observers tend to take sides and then to want to interpret often confusing events in a manner that suggests they are moving towards the ends they desire.
That said, the use of “evacuation” (without qualification) rather than “surrender”, throughout the Western media, was an indication of a growing inability to know how to report rather than to propagandise.
All Western media needed to say was that the Ukrainians were saying that it was an evacuation. That’s it. Give the provenance: Ukrainian sources say this, Russians sources say that. It’s then left to the reader or audience to decide which to believe.
When you no longer bother with this, you’re just storytellers for infants.
Spot on Alter ego – we usual.
They know it’s propaganda, we know it’s propaganda and that satisfies me?
Without reading any of their stuff other than the headlines provided, I don’t suppose anyone could tell us how many ‘foreign advisers’ are on those busses?
Like for instance British soldiers – perhaps!
Deliberate misinformation.
This about a foreign war that does not in any way involve this country.
This is NOT about leaning on the MSM to ‘keep people calm over covid’……there is no justifiable reason to ensure uniform coverage of an international incident that has nothing to do with UK……
…….so, we can only conclude that the British government has taken total control of the British MSM.
Dear me.
Given the amount of money they have lobbed into UK media, print, poster and broadcast, at every level from national, almost down to the parish magazine, it would be fair to say that the British Government has purchased “The Media”, or has at least made a substantial down-payment for future ownership and control over owners, editorial, reporting and advertising content. The possession of the media also means that investigative or similar journalism is completely constrained by money, fear of loss of employment and so forth, and”disinformation” (aka what the government wants to hide or twist or reinterpret) is then controlled, with the government able to push its propaganda. The neat thing about the methodology is that, although the government has the media in a death-grip or throat-hold, it doesn’t look that way to most of Joe Public, and this enables the government to peddle the line that all the stuff published (rubbish and lies, often) is nothing to do with them, but is just the media “acting responsibly in the best interests of the nation”. “Freedom of the Press”, and that includes other media as well, is just fine in the UK when it comes to sensational celeb stories and… Read more »
Which is why both the state and the media are keen on censorship of the internet, sorry, reducing online harm 😉
I guess it’s the cost, maybe some faint folk-memory of free enterprise, or it’s in The Plan for the future, that means the government hasn’t taken the short cut and, rather than even having domestic ISPs, don’t take over the whole shebang. At the moment, the internet structures are independent, to a degree, but the day will probably come when the government controls absolutely everything, from the electricity to run all, the hardware and software throughout, and, of course, total, absolute domination of content. It will be a State-owned system throughout.
“It will be a State-owned system throughout.”
Which is intended to apply to every single aspect of life.
Just ignore the TAX payer money (government money is an oxymoron) does any one know how much bribery comes from big tech, big pharma, big arms makers etc For instance how could the BBC and it’s house journal – the Grainog – survive without graft?
“we can only conclude that the British government has taken total control of the British MSM.”
https://bylinetimes.com/2022/05/11/bungs-to-billionaires-cummings-exposes-johnsons-cash-for-content-scandal/
New testimony from the Prime Minister’s former chief aide shows how the free press has been bought by the Government
British government has control over nothing.
Empire of Lies.
They lie about covid. They lie about climate change. They lie about Brexit. They lie about immigration. They lie about race. They lie about sex. They lie about Russia. They lie about every group or nation targeted by our elites.They lie about the Ukraine.
This incident highlighted by Noah Carl is just an unusually obvious example.
who are the “elites”?
Try to be specific.
Why?
If you don’t know who they are, then you are just doing some vague arm waving.
Since you disagree with everything, you are not focused or analytical. You don’t know why you have your opinions. Someone gave them to you!
That is something you know about then?
“If you don’t know who they are”
Please, Sir! Please, Sir! I know the answer to this one! It’s Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, Klaus Schwab and Tony Blair.
And they will all be so very sorry at the Nuremberg 2 trials when Reiner Fuellmich and his crack team of ‘lawyers’ come for them in the year 2030.
Well said, and enough said!
Try growing up.
You don’t know either!
You are right, I don’t know any of them. I do not move in their circles.
Let me give you a few clues since you seem to lack the imagination and knowledge to work it out for yourself Soros, Schwab, Gates, WEF Global Young Leaders, Bilderberg group members …….
…and Hartley Hare!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–6JC8talKg
You can begin with the Bilderberg group.
“When Denis Healey, ex-Labour Chancellor, Bilderberg founder and 30 years a steering committee member, spoke to Jon Ronson, the author of Them: Adventures With Extremists, he said: “To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair.“
I think Mark is referring to the usual suspects: politicians of all hues, big business (especially tech’), MSM and an array of so called ‘experts’ who, often as not, aren’t expert in the topic(s) they pontificate about. By way of example, think Bill Gates and viruses / epidemiology.
MSN surely? Oh wait a minute…
I take it they have lied about nations that don’t have a central bank…
Maybe the rest of the editorial team will finally realise that we have been fed a pack of lies about Ukraine from start to finish, often with the truth being diametrically opposed to media lies? Many of the alleged Russian atrocities were in actual fact Ukrainian atrocities – it is blatent and shameless.
On this, the west is certainly on the side of evil, again.
You’re doing much the same thing.
Frankly, we can’t be certain there even were any atrocities. I have no doubt there were but without irrefutable evidence nothing is a matter of fact.
https://odysee.com/@AlexJonesChannel:c/WARNING!-WAR-CRIME-FOOTAGE–Ukrainian-Troops-Viciously-Torture-Captured-Russian-Soldiers:6
It’s a video.
Rambo wasn’t real life.
you think the ukranians faked shooting russians in the legs and then posted it to telegram boasting about it?
Why not, you seem to believe two pics of the same drop box qualify as different drop boxes because the frame was edited ^.^
https://staging.dailysceptic.org/2022/05/16/why-centre-left-liberals-are-feeling-isolated/#comment-801891
This notorious footage came to light, as you say, not as an accusation made by the Russians, but as a boast by certain Ukrainians.
It is not yet evidence tested in a court, but it is prima facie evidence.
Russians have a clearer motive to fake such an incident, but this is not to suggest that any did.
Everything I’ve looked into is leading to the same conclusion. From the rocket hitting a residential tower, with a propellant trail showing it was an anti-air missile while the media claimed to be a cruise missile. To the attack on the train station that was clearly shot from a Ukrainian battalion. To the gruesome sickening videos of Russian PoWs being shot while defenceless, or even having their dicks shot off. To messaging the family of murdered russian soldiers to demonstrate their torture to the family. To Bucha, that makes no sense from so many perspectives. All lies.
It is revealing that it was the British government which blocked the Russian request for an independent investigation into the events at Bucha.
There is also the interesting fact that the loss of civilian life is unusually low in comparison with other modern military ventures.
Given Russian military resources, they could have destroyed civilian life throughout Ukraine; but they seem to be at some pains to preserve it and to target military infrastructure instead.
It’s no wonder the Irish are throwing their Ukrainian lodgers out now that they know what they’re really like!
Many of the alleged Russian atrocities were in actual fact Ukrainian atrocities
You are of the school of thought that the Ukrainians shot their own civilians?
I suggest you find some local Ukrainian refugees – there are some in most parts of the country now – and explain this to them.
May I suggest you watch some of the documentaries and reports produced by Anne Laure Bonnel. She highlights attrocities from both sides and has been reporting from Ukraine for 8 years.
Either way, the evidence that Ukrainians are killing their own side is zero. It’s just the standard Russian line for every war.
Both sides took casualties in the long Donbass war. From the outside, it’s impossible to say if one side was targeting civilians more or less.
That’s pretty stupid on its face, seeing as the civilians in the areas being fought over were autonomists – the autonomists would have been shelling their own people whereas the Azovites were shelling people they regarded as subhuman traitors, for fun.
You could say that in reverse, with Russians killing Ukrainians who are alleged to be ‘really’ Russians. But you’re missing the point: this is about alleged false flag ops.
I’m talking about the Russian claim that civilian deaths on Ukrainian controlled territory are largely done by Ukraine’s own troops.
As you know, the “Azovites” belong to a category with form in that respect; and I’m not talking about their ethnicity.
It should never be forgotten, though I wonder how many people know any more, that the Nazis began their atrocities against fellow Germans.
https://odysee.com/$/search?q=ukranians%20killing%20civillians
You’re missing the point, Russia claims that Ukrainian’s are killing their own side on a truly massive scale.
I don’t doubt that the Ukrainians are doing some bad stuff – this is a civil war as well as an invasion. But the Russian claims have been ridiculous. No one could hope to win a war, if they spent as much time bombing their own side as Russia claims.
Define “some bad stuff”.
I’m thinking back to the 2003 WMD debacle. How to discern the truth when you’re nowhere near the action (thank God!)
Unrelated.
Standard pseudo argument… “whatabout….”
There was nothing ridiculous in thinking Saddam had bio weapons. It’s a matter of fact that he did – but not by the time of the invasion.
This bears no resemblance at all to mass claims of false flag attacks by Ukrainians on themselves, in support of Russia’s absurd claim not to be actually fighting a war at all.
Do you believe that?
.
but I’m missing the point ^.^
What the Ukrainians are not doing at all, is false flag attacks their own people.
In Russian reports, almost everything that happens is a Ukrainian false flag.
Where they give evidence – which is not often – it usually turns out to be a Russian fake.
Fingers dribbling as usual. Where’s your bib?
There has been independent reports on the casualties both sides have taken and Donbass has taken four times as many.
Do you have a link to that?
Why, too lazy to do it yourself.
I have looked and found different figures, so I thought it reasonable to ask you
LOL, no you didn’t.
You never provide a link to any of your claims. Why should anyone bother providing you one?
There are hundreds of witnesses saying on camera that Ukrainian soldiers used them as a human should or worse directly targeted them.
who are these witnesses?
Agreed.
This is a good start
https://youtu.be/6Hc-50-su4Y
It would seem that most of the thumb people disapprove of your comment.
That means they believe Ukrainians shot their own civilians.
ANYTHING to disagree with mainstream understanding.
It doesn’t matter how appalling the view, they will adopt it.
Why is it supposed to be so surprising that murderous fanatics like the Ukrainian secret police and ultranationalist thugs would “shoot their own people”?
Such behaviour is pretty commonplace in war, especially where there is civil dissent and the regime is trying to intimidate potential “collaborators”, as in the Ukraine.
That seems, prima facie, to have been what happened in Bucha for instance.
We can assume all we want.
The only evidence we have so far is, it seems, that a Russian soldier was convicted of killing a 64 year old unarmed civilian.
Which is evidence (not particularly persuasive evidence, imo, given the likely standards of Ukrainian courts on such issues) only that one particular soldier shot a particular civilian in a war.
Not in the slightest unusual or significant.
Yet you have absolute belief in the things you state.
Don’t you see the problem with your reasoning?
That seems, prima facie, to have been what happened in Bucha for instance.
What about the satellite photographs of the corpses before the Russians left?
A usual, mixtures of manufactured and misrepresented “evidence”.
Full Russian line of propaganda.
Oh, are there videos showing the Russians killing the civilans. I must have missed them.
All I have seen are videos of bodies on the streets taken some time after the Russians left. I would say the only thing they show is that the Ukrainians, for whatever reason, did not bury their dead promptly.
There are satellite photographs of the civilian corpses on the street in the same positions that the Ukrainian videos show them before the Russians left.
So are you suggesting the ukrainians didn’t bother burying their dead and left them laying on the street for a couple of weeks.
I have seen those pictures and there are subtle differences between the before and after ones (I have done a detailed photographic superimposition of before and after). And my question remains, is there proof of who did the killing given that there are many reports of Ukrainian hit squads killing their fellow countrymen for collaboration.
PS It wasn’t a Ukrainian video, it was from the satellite company
So are you suggesting the ukrainians didn’t bother burying their dead and left them laying on the street for a couple of weeks.
No. The videos were made almost as soon as the Ukrainians arrived.
I have seen those pictures and there are subtle differences between the before and after ones (I have done a detailed photographic superimposition of before and after)
Sorry – before and after what?
that the mayor didn’t see LOL
You mean the ones the Russians shot, then kindly put into body bags?
What makes you think they are in body bags?
https://odysee.com/@emersonberlanda:9/ukrainians-describe-ukrainian-army:4
We wren’t told of the artillery bombardment of 5,000 rounds on Donbas in the seven days before Russian intervention.
“Mainstream understanding” is, that didn’t happen, but its documented by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Being that you’re a fully paid up “mainstream” advocate should we assume you don’t believe it happened?
Seen this 5000 statement repeated several times. What’s the source?
Yep, I can’t find it anywhere.
that’s a measure of you research skills, that we know from experiance are severly lacking. Since you can’t even use a search engine I’ll do it for you…
try the 1st link after wikipedia, the western backed crisisgroup.org listing reports to OSCE of explosions in the Donbas, less than 400 at the start of Jan, over 8000 by the end of Jan, 5000 of those from Luhansk alone, more than double the reports at any time since june 2020
https://engine.presearch.org/search?q=artillery+bombardment+of+5%2C000+rounds+on+Donbas+in+the+seven+days+before+Russian+intervention
You don’t appear to have separated out the two sides.
Looking at the daily reports rather than the summary, most of the explosions came from rebel shelling, not the other way round.
You cant find anything online.
To think that people were saying that ‘Ukraine’ was a smokescreen to cover up the millions of deaths from ‘the vaccines’.
“Look – Ukraine!”
And here we are.
Neil Ferguson sniggers from his lair.
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
Summarised here with links to each day and the number of artillery rounds fired. Just make it easy for you.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/ukraine-putin-on-why-the-war-started-failed-attempts-on-snake-island-other-issues-.html#more
And until you start providing sources of your own, don’t ask me for any more. I always bring receipts but I’m not employed to educate you.
“TORTURE IN UKRAINE: INTERVIEW WITH LAURENT BRAYARD
Stratpol recently interviewed Laurent Brayard, a French journalist and pro-Donbass activist who has been collecting testimonies of Ukraine’s prison survivors: militiamen, spies or innocent passerby, the stories he collected shed a new light on the historical roots of the ongoing conflict, and the methods used by Ukrainians since 2014.
00:00 Laurent Brayard’s background and motives
01:53 Finding and meeting witnesses
05:07 Natasha’s story
10:01 Oleg’s story
18:53 «The number of prisoners is very significant»
19:38 Vitali’s story
29:05 «The Red Cross and the UN knows everything I know»
30:48 Olga’s story
37:53 The torture of a priest, and the Pagan/Satanic influence among Ukrainian militias
40:21 Conclusion ”
https://t.me/GalliaDaily/4056
*Originally published at https://odysee.com/@STRATPOL:0/torturukr:0
And you have done this, have you?
Yes – I have been talking to some of the refugees round here.
Did you find out when they left Ukraine and where they lived when the witnessed these things?
Yea, I had a community meeting with them all in my area.
Problem is, like you, I don’t speak Ukrainian.
There is an excellent translation app plus I found several spoke English
“krainian” refugees here have simply bought dodgy identity papers from that corrupt country.
“In war, an “evacuation” is when you send boats, planes or vehicles to transport your own troops away from a hostile location. Dunkirk was an evacuation. It is not when the enemy transports your troops to a location under his control after those troops have surrendered. That’s called a “surrender”.”
Peter Hitchens
@ClarkeMicah
· May 17
German soldiers are evacuated from Stalingrad, February 1943, as the BBC would put it.
https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1526547650035822592
Glad someone out there has their eyes open.
The amount of dissenting replies to his really indisputable point makes me despair for humanity. Like most times I look at Twitter.
SHOCKER!
Western MSM deliberately misleads the pubic.
It’s enough to induce the vapours.
What could you mean? 🧐
More nuance can be read at the Institute of War’s updates. It is thought to be a conditional surrender with the Russians agreeing to a prisoner exchange. Sometimes the news cant report what is not known, which is the exact agreement between Russia and Ukraine on these surrenders.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
“It is thought to be a conditional surrender with the Russians agreeing to a prisoner exchange.”
Thought by whom, and on what basis?
Given the reality of what has been going on in Mariupol and Azovstal for the past weeks – in stark contrast to the propaganda nonsense put out by our elites and the Ukraine liars, it would be genuinely remarkable if the Russians had agreed to anything other than unconditional surrender. And for honest people (as opposed to wishful thinkers and liars), remarkable claims require remarkable evidence.
The people at the Insititute of War Studies – read the page I linked to for more.
You are actually suggesting going to the Institute for the Study of War for actual information, as opposed to going there just to see what latest lunacy the neocon and liberal interventionist warmongers are trying to push?
Are you even aware of who the people are who run that organisation? Expecting useful and honest information from the ISW is like asking Paul Wolfowitz in 2002 to advise on whether there might be WMD in Iraq.
The information there hardly chimes with the garbage coming from western MSM. Most of it seems factual more than opinion, however, like any other site we use for informed comment, it must be viewed with scepticism rather than outright condemnation.
Granted, one can use any source provided one understands its nature and applies due caution, but it remains risky.
The ISW is an extreme case of supping with the devil, and requires an extremely long spoon, precisely because it is such a massively well funded and connected operation. These are bad people pushing bad causes, but they are not stupid by any means.
The danger is, of course, of overestimating one’s own capacity to see through the lies buried in such stuff.
With the information on that site, and reading between the lines a bit, it appears that Russia is doing what Putin said it was doing, controlling the eastern, ethnic Russian areas and securing them from incursion by western Ukrainians. At the very start of all this Putin stated that as one of his objectives, to protect the language and culture of these regions. It was roundly condemned as lies, but having been as far as Kiev, he’s withdrawn back to his stated objective. So why did he advance as far as Kiev then withdraw? One of his other objectives was to eliminate Naziism as far as possible and the centre of political and military power in the region is Kiev. It would, presumably be heavily defended and a centre for Nazi extremism. Putin also claimed he didn’t want to occupy Ukraine. Why would he want to expend men and resources to capture an entire country that has NATO (US/UK/European) support? With Ukrainian armoured divisions probably severely compromised, and with no possibility of the supply of more coming from NATO, which would likely be considered a declaration of war, Russian forces would be better placed to dig in and defend the… Read more »
Believing anything Putin says is about as naive as a human being can ever get.
It’s not what he says that matters, it’s what he does. And from the evidence I have presented, he appears to be doing what he said he was going to do.
He does indeed. Unlike so many western leaders whom it is impossible to believe, or even take seriously: e.g. Obama’s red line on chemical weapons; Trudeau’s national emergency to remove a few peacefully protesting truckers, Biden’s winter of ‘severe illness and death’ for the unvaccinated.
Putin says Boris is a liar.
He has an 83% approval rating in Russia right now. I guess almost the whole of Russia is naive.
What is the reality of what has been going on in Mariupol and how do you know?
From where we sit there’s no way of telling.
The Mariupol defenders must surely fear that surrender is the same thing as immediate massacre (as indeed some Russian politicians are shouting for). A surrender with terms (ie a prisoner swap) would be what you’d go for, if you could.
As for Russia, the failure to close down the last resistance has been an embarrassment. There’s no public accountability with Russia so if they lie to get a surrender, who’s to stop them?
That’s the fear of any surrendering force.
You of course have evidence for this, and the numbers that comprise “some”.
Wouldn’t humane treatment be the first thing you would go for?
They have closed it down, so why would it be an embarrassment?
What would conform to “public accountability”?
No it is not. Some armies routinely massacred/maltreated captive troops, others did not.
Check the tense, LukeWarm.
There’s no government, public, media or electoral pressure at all on Putin.
F’kin eejit. Nobody knows if they will survive a surrender. The Japanese either killed themselves or fought to the death because they had been assured Americans would kill them if they surrendered.
I checked the tense. The last resistance was the power station.
Putin answers to his electorate. He has an 83% approval rating right now. The country also has a constitution to which he is answerable.
Despite strong competition, you are the least intelligent member of this forum.
Good site, thanks for that.
No, it isn’t. Seriously.
It’s very well funded and very well connected in US military circles, for very good reasons (from their pov). A neocon propaganda outfit, through and through.
Structure
The ISW board includes General Jack Keane, Kimberly Kagan, former US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft, William Kristol, former US Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Kevin Mandia, Jack D. McCarthy, Jr., Bruce Mosler, General David Petraeus, Warren Phillips, and William Roberti.[16] Previous and current members of the ISW’s corporate council include Raytheon, Microsoft, Palantir, General Motors, General Dynamics, and Kirkland & Ellis.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_of_War#Structure
(For those who might be unaware, Kimberley Kagan is married to neocon Frederik Kagan, who was part of the US neocon warmongering push in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the brother of neocon Robert Kagan (both signatories of the outright evil Project for a New American Century), married to the notorious Victoria Nuland.
This is neocon central – probably among the most concentrated familial forces for harm in the world today, responsible for influencing US regime policy in all the most disastrous and mass murderous directions it has traveled in the past two decades, and certainly significant players in causing the current catastrophe in the Ukraine.
Sure, let’s go to them for information about how their project is progressing. Always remembering that neocons generally are adherents of the philosophy of Leo Strauss and the noble lie.)
Then pick out the factual bits that can be confirmed.
I’d rather spend my time on less inherently corrupt sources.
Condemning everyone or everything because they have military expertise or accept funding from Gates is a futile, obsessive exercise. Bearing in mind Wikipedia is a cesspool of far left fanatics.
“Condemning everyone or everything because they have military expertise or accept funding from Gates is a futile, obsessive exercise. “
I don’t, I just recognise the nature of a corrupt body and the motivations of its owners, and especially so in a case like this where the issue (US backed wars of aggression) falls directly within the area of special interest of the said corrupt owners.
“Bearing in mind Wikipedia is a cesspool of far left fanatics.“
Indeed, but that most likely doesn’t affect simple factual issues like the names of the board members. But feel free to rebut if you think some of those names of ill repute are incorrect. I’ve seen more than enough of the ISW’s output to recognise a neocon cesspool.
Institute for the study of war…..
Founder and President …Kimberley Kagen…>.married to Frederick Kagen..resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute…and brother of > Robert Kagan a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and spouse of> Undersecretary of the US Dept’ of State Victoria Nuland…..
Do you get your vaccine advice from Bill Gates?
I’d have to disagree with you there, given the unmitigated drool to which we’ve been subjected over the last two years and more.
If it’s not known, they’ll make it up.
And by the way, this is why it’s appropriate to have articles like Noah’s that question the mainstream Official Truth on Russia and the Ukraine on the Daily Sceptic, and why it’s legitimate to question, at least, the publishing of pro-Ukraine, pro-narrative pieces.
Though I think DS has been doing reasonably ok on this, recently. Personally I’d like a lot more questioning of the Official Truth nonsense on Russia and the Ukraine, but given that the site owner and some at least of the management are clearly in thrall to the said Official Truth nonsense on these topics, I think they do pretty well.
Would you like the Russian narrative to be questioned?
It’s hardly the first priority, for us here in the US sphere.
I’d have to wonder how much ‘Russian narrative’ we might see, given how they’ve been silenced and shut down. Anything we get via our MSM will have had the usual filters and distortion added.
I don’t believe either side while this goes on, but whereas, two and a bit years ago, I’d have trusted our MSM more, that’s no longer the case.
I learned my final lesson about the MSM in 2014 during the Scottish independence referendum. Maliciously stoking division between the two sides of the debate.
It was no surprise to me what went on over Brexit or civid.
It is.
The problem is there is no balance.
Surely “evacuation” is just a generic term for getting them out of the location. Yesterday it appears to have been uncertain that under what terms they are leaving so evacuation would not prejudge whether it was surrender or some deal e.g based on prisoner swap. The MSM all use “surrender” today now it is clear.
“Yesterday it appears to have been uncertain that under what terms they are leaving so evacuation would not prejudge whether it was surrender or some deal e.g based on prisoner swap. “
Only “uncertain” for fantasists who’ve been deceived by all the misrepresentations about Azovstal for weeks, pretending that “Mariupol is still contested” when the Russians have been just pounding the helpless and cowering defenders for weeks now, waiting for the inevitable that has now occurred.
Don’t forget the Russians have also been pounding civilians for months.
How many thousands in Mariupol? Or tens of thousands?
Civilians die in wars. You might not have grasped that, if you’ve been swallowing US sphere media garbage about “precision” strikes for all these decades.
Absolutely no reason to believe the Russians have been intentionally targeting civilians at all, and many reasons to believe the opposite.
Evidence required. Not from the BBC/MSM thanks.
Mariupol is in Donbas, the region Putin has stated he would protect because of its ethnic Russian speaking population.
Wouldn’t make much sense “pounding” the people he’s supporting.
Fighting took place principally in the Azovstal steelworks, not the city. What would be the point in wasting expensive ordnance against a city of civilians who represent no threat?
Yet the city is completely destroyed!
That’s what happens when the defenders have no regard for the civilian population and use civilian buildings as defensive points. See Mosul, for instance (Islamic State being a legitimate comparator for Azov)..
Sometimes the desperation to find something to support Putin blinkers what’s right at the end of your nose
And all the reports stated where the troops were going.
This is a weak article. You can tell because all the “faux sceptics” like it.
It riles them up and they shout “elites”, “conspiracy” “globalists” “scam” etc etc etc.
LOL. You don’t believe there are globalists who desire a New World Order?
Considering Klaus Schwab has written a book on it and numerous politicians including Biden have used the term it seems you are genuinely cognitively dissonant.
Another excellent discussion piece, particularly since its basic premise appears flawed. The first two articles that I came across quite clearly made the surrender point. ‘More than 250 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol after weeks of desperate resistance, bringing an end to the most devastating siege of Russia’s war in Ukraine and allowing President Vladimir Putin to claim a rare victory in his faltering campaign. Even as the Kremlin prepares to take full control of the ruins of Mariupol, it faces the growing prospect of defeat in its bid to conquer all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas because its badly mauled forces lack the manpower for significant advances, some analysts of the Russian campaign said.’ Reuters 18 May 22 ‘Hundreds of die-hard Ukrainian soldiers who had made a last stand against Russian forces from a Mariupol steel mill faced an uncertain future Tuesday under Kremlin custody after Ukraine’s military ordered them to surrender.’ NY Times 17 May 22 It seems that the media is doing a good job, even in Russia: ‘A Russian defence analyst has condemned how the invasion of Ukraine has panned out, admitting virtually the “whole world” is against it and… Read more »
“It seems that the media is doing a good job, even in Russia:
‘A Russian defence analyst has condemned how the invasion of Ukraine has panned out, admitting virtually the “whole world” is against it and warning Kyiv can mobilise a million troops.
Mikhail Khodaryonok, a retired colonel, told Russian state TV they should not take “information tranquillisers” and dismissed notions that the Ukrainian army is becoming demoralised.”
No, sorry, this can’t be true. After all, you’ve been telling us over and over and over again what an appalling murderous dictatorship Russia is.
Unless this defeatist Russian fool turns up dead tomorrow with a bottle of novichok in his garden, alongside all the journalists and editors who allowed his interview to be broadcast, I’m going to have to start questioning your assertions about Russia.
No-one will know it’s Novichok because it’s so secret it is undetectable. Oh! Hang on……..
‘M: In your opinion, how did the Germans eventually discover it all?
K: Well, they got the Bundeswehr involved. They have military chemists working there. Maybe they have some methods of detection.’
It all sounds a bit pants, doesn’t it?
Oh! Hang on……..
‘M: And on which piece of cloth was your focus on? Which garment had the highest risk factor?
K: The underpants.
M: The underpants.
K: A risk factor in what sense?
M: Where the concentration could be highest?
K: Well, the underpants.’
“No-one will know it’s Novichok because it’s so secret it is undetectable. Oh! Hang on……..“
What, this Novichok?
“Novichok has been known to most western secret services since the 1990s,[23] and in 2016 Iranian chemists working at a university in Tehran synthesised five of the seven Novichok agents for analysis and produced detailed mass spectral data which was added to the OPCW’s Central Analytical Database”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok#History_and_disclosure
Who would believe a secret service could be so hopeless?
Oh! Hang on……
‘Putin ‘purges’ 150 FSB agents in response to Russia’s botched war’
The Times 11 Apr 22
Oh well, if The Times says it, it must be so.
I suppose someone who believes such obvious nonsense as the Russian government choosing to use the most fantastically risky, costly and counterproductive method it could possibly think up to try to kill a couple of old folk in a foreign country, for, erm, reasons, entirely coincidentally just next door to the very place in the target county likely to be producing and leaking such material, might just as well read the Times for his bedtime fairy stories.
My reaction was identical. A once trustworthy news source, now gone the way of the rest of them.
You pays your money and takes your choice:
‘According to Christo Grozev, executive director of investigative organisation Bellingcat, an estimated 150 Federal Security Bureau (FSB) officers have been dismissed so far, with some even being arrested.
The mass purge has targeted employees with the Fifth Service, a division set up during Putin’s past tenure as FSB director with the goal of keeping former Soviet Union countries in Russia’s orbit.
Sergei Beseda, who earlier served as the service’s chief, has since been sent to Lefortovo prison in Moscow after being placed on house arrest last month. He was sacked for ‘reporting false information to the Kremlin about the real situation in Ukraine before the invasion’, according to Grozev.
He added: “I can say that although a significant number of them have not been arrested they will no longer work for the FSB.”
Beseda is being held on an embezzlement charge, but it’s believed was arrested as a result of the failures in the Ukraine invasion.
Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian security services, said Beseda’s imprisonment has sent a ‘very strong message’.
Taking it you don’t know much about Bellingcat!
Just a pity the FBI, CIA, MI5 & MI6 didn’t sack some of their employees, and jail others.
Seems a purge of useless wasters in Russia is considered a good thing.
Perhaps Trump’s calls to Putin were to offer him a job……..
Why bother with these idiot trolls?
Sometimes it’s fun to slap them around a bit.
🤣👍
Ironic that the article seeks to deceive, while criticising western MSM for doing so.
Of course the “sceptics” are easy to deceive and wind-up.
Presumably you believed the MSM over WMD’s in Iraq, Scottish independence, Brexit, Trump’s Russia collusion, and “safe and effective” ‘vaccines’.
Mikhail Khodaryonok stated “we are in full geopolitical isolation, and that, however much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us.”
Presumably some sort of spoof as China, India, Africa and Latin America have refused to condemn Russia for its actions.
Well over half the worlds population.
Mikhail Khodaryonok has form in this regard, according to Martyanov (in his usual “grumpy old guy” style):
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/05/larry-johnson-and-hyperbole-mikhail.html
Note: this has nothing to do with being ‘pro-Russia’. This is about journalists using language that actually corresponds with reality. This is unfortunately not how things work now. We are always at war. At war with COVID, at war with Climate Change, at war with Russia (even though they don’t openly admit it). When you are war, you have to take sides and as they say, the first casualty of war is the truth. The truth is no longer relevant. The only thing that is relevant is winning the war. At all costs. You are not allowed to question the premise for war. COVID is lethal. If you question that premise, you are an enemy, because you don’t care if people die. Human activity is changing the climate in dangerous ways and if you question that it you are the enemy because you want to destroy the planet. Russia is evil and if you question that it you are the enemy and pro-Russian. And all the information that comes out from “trusted sources” is true or needs to be true, or is aligned with our goals and therefore should be true, even if it isn’t and to question it means you don’t… Read more »
Are you misgendering me? 🧐
We are at war with misinformation however, it’s easy to counter.
We (the US, UK and Europe) may be at war with Russia but Russia is most certainly not at war with us. Ukraine isn’t a NATO member so, in fact, we are interfering where we shouldn’t be.
Switzerland doesn’t take sides.
Covid has a 98% recovery rate. Only to very few is it lethal.
The IPCC agrees there is no increase in ‘extreme’ weather.
“Aggregate mortality attributed to all extreme weather events globally has declined by more than 90% since the 1920s, in spite of a four-fold rise in population and much more complete reporting of such events. The aggregate mortality rate declined by 98%…” (Reason Foundation)
Russia has built 27,000 Churches since 1991, hardly an example of an evil regime. They usually destroy them.
Perhaps the Russians found what they were looking for.
https://southfront.org/a-secret-nato-bioweapon-laboratory-in-the-underground-of-mariupol/
‘Western audiences have a right to be accurately informed about this war.’ Correct. ‘Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said there had been no deal, tweeting: “I didn’t know English has so many ways to express a single message: the #Azovnazis have unconditionally surrendered.” TASS news agency reported a Russian committee planned to question the soldiers, many of them members of the Azov Battalion, as part of an investigation into what Moscow calls “Ukrainian regime crimes”. High-profile Russian lawmakers spoke out against any prisoner swap. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house, said: “Nazi criminals should not be exchanged.” Lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, one of Russia’s negotiators in talks with Ukraine, called the evacuated combatants “animals in human form” and said they should be executed.’ Those incitations to war criminality are very much in line with Putin’s war aims written up by him in his own newspaper: ‘…lustration, publication of the names of accomplices of the Na$i regime, involving them in forced labor to restore the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Na$i activities (from among those who will not be subject to the death penalty or imprisonment);’ ‘….liquidation of armed Na$i formations (which refers to… Read more »
“Those incitations to war criminality “
Is it your position then that executing nazis (and equivalent fanatics) who are found after capture and due process to have committed atrocities is “war criminality”?
Bet you wouldn’t have been taking that position in Nuremberg in 1946.
Though I note that Amnesty considers Russia (unlike the US) to be “abolitionist in practice” as far as the death penalty is concerned. Unlike the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, whose people have been at the receiving end of Azov brutality for years now.
Seems likely if there was any “deal” held out for by the Azov scum, it was most likely a desperate plea to be sent to Russian prisons rather than DPR.
Try and spot the difference:
Due process:
‘(Russian soldier) Vadim Shishimarin admitted shooting a 62-year-old man a few days after the invasion began.’
Just a couple of metres from him, the widow of the man killed was sitting.
She wiped tears from her eyes as the soldier entered court, then sat with hands clasped as the prosecutor set out his case, describing the moment Kateryna’s husband was shot in the head.
“Do you accept your guilt?” the judge asked.
“Yes,” Shishimarin replied.
“Totally?”
“Yes,” he replied quietly from behind the glass of his grey metal-and-glass cage.
‘”By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility,” Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Iryna Venediktova tweeted.
BBC 18 May 22
Not due process:
‘Lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, one of Russia’s negotiators in talks with Ukraine, called the evacuated combatants “animals in human form” and said they should be executed.’
Calling for people to be “executed” usually incorporates trial first, though I have no idea what the particular individual had in mind. Regardless, whatever he might have had in mind certainly hasn’t happened yet and most likely won’t, given the points I made above.
Why are you trying to pretend intemperate (though understandable) words should be treated as though they are events?
You blew it.
Eh?
By demonstrating you don’t understand the difference between the legal process and an opinion, I’m afraid it’s you who “blew it”.
I am sure that there must be an error in translation. It seems implausible that the Russian lawmaker referred to evacuated combatants.
An opinion.
Is anyone aware if Ukrainian Azov battalion have been executed by Russians?
No probably not.
Perhaps you should learn to differentiate between the legal process and an opinion.
Inflation
The value of money is the quantity of money divided by the sum of goods and services
Lockdown society but carry on paying people and you’ll get inflation
Which is what we have got. Of course they’ll blame Brexit or Russia because they were in favour of the lockdowns. Don’t let them get away with it. If you reduce GDP then either a) people have to be paid less b) you pay them the same but their money is worth less. Inflation is our pay cut for sitting on our arses for a year
Yep. Economics 101.
It’s mind-boggling the intellectual gymnastics which the MSM & other supposedly educated people are performing to “explain” inflation now, when the answer has been right in front of them for the best part of 2 years. The explanation for THAT of course is that all these folks swallowed the covid scam hook line and sinker & looked the other way when inflation was already rearing its ugly head in late 2020. As any housewife could tell you, “All that cash has to come from somewhere!”. Anyone with half a brain who has been paying attention can tell you that this inflation has absolutely nothing to do with Putin.
P.S. you forgot to add the billions borrowed on the never-never to pay for a “vaccine” which doesn’t work.
They lie about the Ukraine conflict for the exact same reason they lie about the covid scam. This conflict can not be allowed to come to an early close before the global economy is utterly ruined – including the Russian’s of course.
Just like the lies around Ukraine, last night I caught a glimpse of the BBC local news who were piling the fear on about covid again, highlighting a case a son and father who died “OF” covid because they both apparently caught it in hospital.
I didn’t hear the reason why they were in hospital or if they showed symptoms described as covid.
Liklihood is they tested positive while in hospital but died of something else.
Jonathan Van-Tam misses knighthood ceremony due to Covid – BBC News
What? This cannot be true?
He either took all the jabs and is therefore vaccinated and cannot get the rona.
Or, he didn’t have the jabs whilst telling everyone else to get jabbed
I’m confused, I believed in these people
“misses knighthood ceremony due to Covid”
If he hadn’t had the “vaccine” he’d have missed his dinner as well…
‘We’re not dealing with celebrity gossip here. Western audiences have a right to be accurately informed about this war.’ Correct. ‘A 21-year-old Russian soldier has pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian, in the first war crimes trial in Ukraine since the war started. Vadim Shishimarin admitted shooting a 62-year-old man a few days after the invasion began.’ ‘Just a couple of metres from him, the widow of the man killed was sitting. She wiped tears from her eyes as the soldier entered court, then sat with hands clasped as the prosecutor set out his case, describing the moment Kateryna’s husband was shot in the head. “Do you accept your guilt?” the judge asked. “Yes,” Shishimarin replied. “Totally?” “Yes,” he replied quietly from behind the glass of his grey metal-and-glass cage.’ ‘”By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility,” Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Iryna Venediktova tweeted. Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers. Moscow has denied its troops have targeted civilians. Shishimarin’s trial is being watched closely because investigators have been collecting… Read more »
Yes, Noah the question “why” is the beginning of scepticism. And not of course just in this bloody war.
How the media portray the neo-Nazi Azovs compared with reality.
You accept the Russian view of Reality, then?
I accept the truth.
How do you KNOW the truth?
Because Putin tells you?
I have been studying modern world affairs for over 40 years and have a wealth of “trusted” information channels which counter the government and main stream media narrative.
I have paid in the past subscriptions to “trusted” independent journalists to go to conflict zones to report on the ground.
I analyse the information from these sources to obtain a good understanding of the likely “truth”.
Or, because the BBC tells you?
Nah. He believes Biden and Boris, unlike anyone else on the planet.
Where is your critique of Russian state media outlets?
Why would anyone bother to “critique” foreign state media outlets?
It’s ours that affect us and that are (or ought to be) accountable to us.
But you lot claim to be on some moral high ground. Your bias is obvious when to accept the Russian stuff and claim lies from the western outlets.
Sceptics in general don’t “accept the Russian stuff”, they try to form their own opinions based on all the available information. It happens that in most regards the Russian side is closer to the truth than our own media at the moment, because our media is mostly systematically pushing a false narrative for propagandist reasons, motivated by power, money and ideology.
The problems we face here are mostly due to over-credulous acceptance of our own “respectable” media, which has been demonstrably and systematically dishonest on all these issues for decades.
People find it easy to question foreign sources, but tend to be gullible for “our own”.
Mark , the only way to deal with idiot trolls is to ignore them.
I disagree with that, although I understand the point. Sometimes it’s appropriate to ignore them, other times it’s appropriate to slap them around a bit, if you are in the mood.
The point is not to get annoyed by them.
Where’s your critique of our own government and allies. Which is far more important that critiquing Russian state media outlets.
Did Zelensky really go to Cannes and the Eurovision?
‘Western Audiences Have a Right to Be Accurately Informed About this War’
Au contraire. Western audiences do not have any rights
Have you not been paying attention for the past two years?
‘We’re not dealing with celebrity gossip here. Western audiences have a right to be accurately informed about this war.’
Correct
‘From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 16 May 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 7,814 civilian casualties in the country: 3,752 killed and 4,062 injured.
This included:
And now some of the perpetrators are being brought to justice:
‘According to prosecutors, (21-year-old Russian soldier) Shishmarin was ordered to kill the civilian and used a Kalashnikov assault rifle to do so.’
‘“Do you accept your guilt?” the judge asked. “Yes,” Shishimarin replied.
“Totally?”
“Yes,” he replied quietly from behind the glass of his grey metal-and-glass cage.’
Sadly, you keep quoting from a BBC piece.
You’re several years too late for that to work here.
I’m not saying it’s untrue; but you can’t know that it is true. And certainly not because the BBC told you it was so.
It is splashed everywhere.
‘Shishimarin was told to kill the civilian and used a Kalashnikov assault rifle to do so, prosecutors said.
The next hearing in the case will take place Thursday at 09:00 GMT.
Prosecutor Andriy Sinyuk told reporters after Wednesday’s hearing that two witnesses — including one of the Russian soldiers who was with Shishimarin at the time of the incident — will be brought to testify in court.’
The Moscow Times 18 May 22
Definition.
1. to leave empty; vacate ; 2. to remove (persons or things) from a place, as a dangerous place or disaster area, for reasons of safety or protection. to …
But “surrendered” more accurately describes what happened, doesn’t it?
“Evacuated by the Russians after surrendering to them” would have been a non-misleading use of the word “evacuated”.
It’s still misleading, because evacuation implies some sort of rescue. And surrendering in order to become prisoners certainly isn’t a rescue.
Perhaps ‘surrendered’ has been redefined, along with ‘vaccine’, ‘pandemic’ and ‘knighthood for services to the public’?
Every report I have seen states that the evacuation is by the Russians, with the prospect of a prisoner swap.
Nothing wrong with the use of the word evacuation.
Nothing wrong with the reporting.
Would you like to give similar analysis to Putin’s “Special Military Operation”
Why is this not actually an invasion of a neighbouring country?
Isn’t it akin to a Kinetic military action?
Those get you a Nobel Peace prize.
Of course it’s an invasion of a neighbouring country.
I’ve still no idea why anyone would believe either side of this shenanigans until the dust settles (if it ever does).
Has anyone denied it’s an “invasion” (in the common English sense of the term)? As far as I’m aware the point of the “SMO” is that it is an operation with limited goals that is intended (mostly for Russian internal institutional reasons) to fall short of declaring war formally for open ended goals. Which seems perfectly reasonable and prima facie true, and doesn’t in any way deny that an invasion in the common English sense of the term is occurring
If the invasion is mounted to stop the ethnic cleansing of a region, does that not make it a humanitarian intervention?
Absolutely. I just tend to use these terms without the spin baggage most do. So just because something is an “invasion”, for me, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily unjustified.
And there’s nothing to stop it being both – a humanitarian intervention that takes the form of an invasion.
‘We’re not dealing with celebrity gossip here. Western audiences have a right to be accurately informed about this war.’
Correct.
‘Some forty countries are now working with Kyiv, including some, like Israel, that once sought to remain neutral – Israel hoped to maintain its working relationship with Russia to constrain Iran’s terrorist proxies in Syria and Lebanon. Almost no countries are supporting Russia. Even Belarus, a neighbour and subordinate ally, has expressed doubts about the war and refused to send forces to fight in Ukraine. Russia’s chief geopolitical ally, China, is reported to be deeply concerned about the failed war and its reputational impact on Beijing. It has refused to provide Moscow the economic and military aid it desperately needs.’
Spectator 18 May 22
‘Speaking about the broader, global picture, (Retired Russian Colonel) Khodaryonok says:
“Don’t engage in sabre-rattling with missiles in Finland’s direction. It actually looks quite amusing.
“After all, the main deficiency of our military-political position is that, in a way, we are in full geopolitical isolation, and that, however much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us.’
ROSSIYA 1 17 May 22
But the “faux sceptics” support Russia.
They don’t know why and they don’t matter, though.
You keep dribbling this nonsense.
China has refused to condemn Russia for its actions. As has India, Africa and Latin America. That’s well over half the population of the world.
Do you imagine Russia would ever look to China for any type of military support in all this? The concept is just ridiculous.
You are regurgitating your usual MSM nonsense and you should have learned by now not to believe anything it says.
“Why are they going around describing things in transparently misleading terms?”
The answer to that question is quite simple. This really is the Orwellian age and the age of ‘newspeak.’
So, a “vaccine” which maims and kills really is ‘safe and effective.’
A diagnostic test which does not diagnose is “the gold standard.”
Masks that harm the wearer actually ‘protect those around you,’ and so on.
A woman with wholly male physiology is still a “woman.”
So called anthropogenic global warming is all the fault of “white privilege.”
This madness will ultimately drive mad even those pushing this inversion of reality.
The future of humanity does not look promising.
You seem to have universal objection disease.
What is a ‘special military operation’?
‘We’re not dealing with celebrity gossip here. Western audiences have a right to be accurately informed about this war.’ Correct. ‘Russia’s Donbas offensive has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule. Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition. Russia has now likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force it committed in February. These delays will almost certainly be exacerbated by the loss of critical enablers such as bridging equipment and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones. Russian bridging equipment has been in short supply throughout the conflict, slowing and restricting offensive manoeuvres. Russian UAVs are vital for tactical awareness and directing artillery, but have been vulnerable to Ukrainian anti-air capabilities. Russian forces are increasingly constrained by degraded enabling capabilities, continued low morale and reduced combat effectiveness. Many of these capabilities cannot be quickly replaced or reconstituted, and are likely to continue to hinder Russian operations in Ukraine. Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.’ UK MOD 15 May 22 ‘….there is also a notable intelligence failure that has been overlooked,… Read more »