What is happening with Russia and Ukraine now?

Party hosts are laughing up "butthurt russians" on Vkontakte, Russian facebook clone.

 

AFAIK this was a provocation which wanted to parody russian media. Seems it was succesful.

On a more serious thing:
https://mh17.correctiv.org/mh17-the-path-of-the-buk/

 

I wouldn't say the world leaders really took part in the march at all. Check out the photo below.



Nothing like a bit of media manipulation at a protest against suppression of "free speech", eh? Also, here's a pretty interesting list that tells us why all these suits are a bunch of hypocrites:

- Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain, whose government just passed the Ley Mordaza, a gag law placing historic restrictions on the right to protest in Spain.
- Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia, which last year jailed a journalist for "insulting a government servant" .
- Foreign Minister Shoukry of Egypt, which as well as Al Jazeera staff has detained journalist Shawkan for around 500 days.
- King Abdullah of Jordan, which last year sentenced a Palestinian journalist to 15 years in prison with hard labour.
- Prime Minister Davutoglu of Turkey, which imprisons more journalists than any other country in the world.
- Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, whose forced killed 17 journalists in Gaza last year (second highest after Syria).
- Foreign Minister Lamamra of Algeria, which has detained journalist Abdessami Abdelhai for 15 months without charges.
- The Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates, which in 2013 held a journalist incommunicado for a month on suspicion of MB links.
- Prime Minister Jomaa of Tunisia, which recently jailed blogger Yassine Ayan for 3 years for "defaming the army".
- The Prime Ministers of Georgia and Bulgaria, both of whom have a record of attacking & beating journalists.
- The Attorney General of the US, where police in Ferguson have recently detained and assaulted Washington Post reporters.
- Prime Minister Samaras of Greece, where riot police beat & injured two journalists at a protest in June last year
- Secretary-General of NATO, who are yet to be held to account for deliberately bombing and killing 16 Serbian journalists in '99.
- President Keita of Mali, where journalists are expelled for covering human rights abuses.
- The Foreign Minister of Bahrain, 2nd biggest jailer of journos in the world per capita (they also torture them).
- Sheikh Mohamed Ben Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar, which jailed a man for 15 ys for writing the Jasmine poem.
- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who had several journalists jailed for insulting him in 2013.
- Prime Minister Cerar of Slovenia, which sentenced a blogger to six months in prison for "defamation" in 2013.
- Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland, where "blasphemy" is considered a criminal offense.
- Prime Minister Kopacz of Poland, which raided a magazine to seize recordings embarrassing for the ruling party.
- Prime Minister Cameron of the UK, where authorities destroyed documents obtained by The Guardian and threatened prosecution.
- Prime Minister Orbán of Hungary, the autocrat of who Amnesty says has "put an end to the free press in Hungary.

I don't know the original source for these, but I think it's quite self-explanatory and I can say confidently from my knowledge that this is quite reliable (I can also confirm that the one about Polish prime minister is true).

 

I can say why Lavrov is on this list. This post is biased, so bear with me.

Dimitri Shipilov, the journalist in question, was indeed arrested and the arrest was pretty much political in nature. However, he was advocating the cause of the "Siberian federalization" group, members of which were arrested for "extremism" earlier (Also political). And the group that was pushing the Kuban federalization too. And many others.

These groups occasionally try to stage demonstrations and riots demanding "federalization of the subjects of the federation". We have a bunch of examples of what happens when a country gets a colour revolution. No surprise they get arrested. Not saying arresting people is good, but this is a reasonable action. Neither Russia, nor China want a civil war, but the West keeps sending Nuland cookies and crying bloody murder when the East "opresses freedom". Sorry we aren't more like Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Lybia, Syria and Ukraine.

 

Okay.

A bus with civilians was hit on the 13th of January at the checkpoint in Volnovakha.

Spoiler

12 people have died and I'll try to avoid posting NSFW images.

It's a tragedy, however it is being used by the UA Goverment as a 9/11 style pretence for a 4th wave of mobilization. Here is the president's speech released the same day it happened:

[YOUTUBE]dg2M2zsXNvI[/YOUTUBE]

An investigation is scheduled, but the blame has already been assigned and the mobilization will go ahead regardless.

There is a lot of rampant speculation going on, so I want to see the results of the investigation before pointing fingers, but I've checked all the available info on this and it seems really fishy to me. Here are a few reasons why:

Spoiler

Reason 1.

Spoiler

UA claims that the bus was hit with Grad MRLS.

Here is the video of the bus attack (I'll be using the same video several times in this post for reference):

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]ltw4qPHqihQ[/YOUTUBE]

Here is the video that was posted earlier in this thread of the Grad MRLS from last year, the explosions don't quite match:

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]XVZU0R-VmPA[/YOUTUBE]

Reason 2.1.

Spoiler

Here is a panoramic image from the video:



The explosion that hit the bus is far from the rest of the explosions and it also looks like a different kind of explosion to begin with since the crater doesn't look the same.

Reason 2.2.

Spoiler

If it wasn't hit by the artillery, then what else? This is how the bus looks in Volnovakha (NSFW):

Spoiler

This is how the bus in Donetsk looked like after a Grad rocket landed nearby last summer (NSFW):

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]cNQwqItQqq8[/YOUTUBE]

And here is a video of a car being hit with a claymore type mines:

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]LV1xHXomIxY[/YOUTUBE]

The bus in Volnovakha matches the the claymore mine video results.

Reason 3.

Spoiler

Here is the map of the conflict with the location of the Volnovakha. It's located at the border of the DPR controlled area:

Spoiler

Using google maps and the video from earlier...

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]ltw4qPHqihQ[/YOUTUBE]

...it's possible to establish the point of view of the camera. Check the line of trees going across the road and compare it to the satellite image from Google maps.

The camera appears to be looking to the north-east, along the road. Judging by the dirt kicked up by explosions, the shells came from south-west. The weak wind could not affect the direction of the dirt since during the barrage the smoke is seen slowly moving to the east, perpendicular to the line of sight of the camera and the direction of the dirt being kicked up.

Bottom line:

Spoiler

Judging by the available information, photographs and videos listed above, the bus was hit by a separate explosion (Probably an anti personnel mine). Judging by the maps and camera footage, the barrage that hit the checkpoint came from the south-west, from the government controlled area. Judging by the explosions caught on tape, it was not MRLS (Probably regular artillery). Judging by the history of insincerity and a history of firing upon civilians indiscriminately, UA appears to be lying about what happened at the Volnovakha checkpoint and is using it as a false pretence for further bloodshed.

Do with this information what you will.

 

I'll repeat from the get-go that I'm not a supporter of the people's republics in Eastern Ukraine and I feel they are causing a lot of misery for the local population (the leaders are doing it for their own ends, whilst those of the grass roots who may be trying to fight for justice are only making things worse by letting themselves be manipulated). However, I'm not an advocate of the Ukrainian government's actions in the region either - there have been many cases of them firing on civilians in the name of counter-terrorism. The thing that pisses me off is that both sides are claiming to represent "the people", when it's quite obvious that neither of them are representative of the public's attitudes in the slightest if "the people" they are talking about are fleeing the country in mass numbers at both ends of Ukraine (especially in the east where the Kiev government is performing an "anti-terrorist operation [apparently] in the interests of public security" whilst the martyrs of the separatists are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the people).

Moreover, with the amount of weapons that were acquired by both the ultra nationalist organizations in the west and the nationalist separatists in the east, it could have been anyone that took down this bus. I read your post Komo, but I didn't watch all of the videos since I don't have the stomach for that kind of stuff - so I can't fully assess the validity of your argument. But, with the continued carelessness of the Ukrainian military throughout this conflict, it's not unlikely that the Poroshenko office is simply manipulating a situation that could end up being disastrous for the image of the government otherwise. Though at this point, it doesn't matter that much who kills another group of civilians... the area is a war zone, and whenever a neutral party is murdered, both sides will try to use the event to gain more support for their cause and rally Ukrainians against each other. This is why the whole idea of nation states sucks balls; on the one side you have politicians desperately trying to keep the disunited state together, whilst on the other you have political leaders fighting for secession and the creation of new states. In reality, neither outcome would solve Ukraine's problems for the majority of the population.

 

Every time I visit this thread

 

This thread is nothing, it is the most tame one on the topic I've seen. For the most part everyone just condemns both sides and that's it.

 

Was referring to the conflict, everyone here has been very civil.

 

Kenneth Roth from Human Rights Watch advises Ukraine government to admit the mistakes they made by bombing civilians indiscriminately instead of denying everything.

 

[YOUTUBE]PqS_-NK13d0[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]_2dsVMpyL40[/YOUTUBE]

That shelling...

 

It's a shame that this Армія SOS group is involved in the purchase and delivery of ammunition (among other things) for the Ukrainian soldiers... I mean, it's a very powerful video they've created to show how much destruction this war has caused, but isn't it a bit hypocritical that at the same time they are not only advocating the crimes of one side over the other but also buying bullets for them to shoot at their fellow compatriots?

 

Je suis Volnovakha "peace" rally in Ukraine. Chanting "Kill the Russians! Death to the enemies!" starting at 0:27:

[YOUTUBE]M3AKjF4okpE[/YOUTUBE]

 

DPR claims they have found a cache of NATO weapons and ammunition in the Donetsk Airport they took over several days ago (1:40):

[YOUTUBE]5FySoY0jQHM[/YOUTUBE]

 

UA parliament has passed a law that allows officers to use lethal weapons to stop soldiers from deserting or refusing orders.

 

what is it, "Ни шагу назад!" 2.0 ?

 

Nope, it's wartime law. Most states implement stricter laws, especially in regards to desertion, when the fighting takes place within the country itself. That said, I'm not condoning this act, I'm just saying that murdering people for not following orders was never exclusive to Russians, Soviets or Eastern Europe in general but present throughout the whole world. The military is a hierarchical structure that doesn't accept deviance to begin with.

 

Not quite, this law was passed to allow officers to do this outside of wartime, since Ukraine has never declared war officially.

In other news a new wave of mobilization starts today, on the 20th of January. Interesting timing on that law.

 

Yeah, but it's quite clear they're at war.

 

Ukrainian Channel 112 reports that a key railroad bridge supplying ATO with vehicles and reinforcements has been destroyed (Nevermind the stock image used in the article). Damaged vehicles can no longer be extracted and new ones can only be delivered via roads. It also cuts off factories in Mariupol from a supply of materials, which means they will have to stop production.

Reportedly this was done by Rinat Akhmetov's people. He pretty much owns Mariupol (As far as I know he employs 50 thousand people there). He has been selling his businesses for a few months now and he has recently issued an order to close several of the factories in the city he owns. He has also sent a lot of humanitarian aid to Donbass. Either he is trying to help DPR by destroying a key supply line, or he was forced to make a choice and is cutting his losses in Mariupol which is being surrounded by DPR.