Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Jimbuna]

Russian air strikes cut power at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

By Marita Moloney & Emily McGarvey
BBC News

At least nine people have been killed and power at Europe's largest nuclear plant has been lost after Russia launched missiles across Ukraine.

The attacks hit cities from Kharkiv in the north to Odesa in the south and Zhytomyr in the west.

Buildings and infrastructure were hit in Kharkiv and Odesa, with power blackouts in several areas. Attacks on the capital Kyiv are also reported.

Ukraine said Russia fired 81 missiles, in what is the biggest strike in weeks.

The military claimed it successfully shot down 34 cruise missiles and four of the eight Iranian-made Shahed drones which were fired.

The attacks mark the biggest day of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine since the end of January, when 11 people died after dozens of buildings were struck in several regions.

In Thursday's attacks, at least five people were killed in Lviv in western Ukraine, after a rocket hit their home, the region's governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram.

Russian shelling killed three people in the southern city of Kherson, where a public transport stop was hit, Ukraine's presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said.

While one person died and two others were injured following drone and missile strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to governor Serhii Lysak.

Nuclear energy operator Energoatom said a strike at the Zaporizhzhia plant meant the "last link" between the facility and the Ukrainian power system was cut off.

For the sixth time since it was taken over by Russia a year ago, the facility is now operating on diesel generators, which have enough supplies to last at least 10 days.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for a commitment to protecting the safety of the plant, saying he was "astonished by the complacency" surrounding the successive strikes since the invasion began.

"Each time we are rolling a dice. And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out," Rafael Grossi said.

Russia-installed officials in the Moscow-controlled part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region said the halt in electricity supplies to the power station from Ukrainian-held territory was "a provocation".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was "a difficult night", after Russia resumed its "wretched tactics".

He said energy systems were being restored and all services were working after the "massive" rocket attack struck critical infrastructure and residential buildings.

In Kyiv, emergency services are at the scenes of blasts in western and southern districts of the capital where the mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said explosions had taken place.

Mr Klitschko said cars were burning in the courtyard of one residential building and he urged people to stay in shelters. Much of the city has been left without electricity, with four in 10 people without power, he added.

A mass missile attack struck an energy facility in the port city of Odesa, triggering power cuts, its governor Maksym Marchenko said. Residential areas were also hit but no casualties were reported, he added.

"About 15" strikes hit Kharkiv city and region, with "critical infrastructure facilities" and a residential building targeted, regional administration chief Oleg Synegubov said.

Other regions hit include Vynnytsia and Rivne in the west, and Dnipro and Poltava in the centre of the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion just over a year ago. Since then tens of thousands of combatants and civilians have been killed or injured and millions of Ukrainians became refugees.

The US Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, suggested on Wednesday that President Putin might be planning to drag out the war for years but that Russia was not strong enough to launch major new offensives this year.

She said the war in Ukraine had become a "grinding attritional war in which neither side has a definitive military advantage".

"We do not foresee the Russian military recovering enough this year to make major territorial gains, but Putin most likely calculates the time works in his favour, and that prolonging the war including with potential pauses in the fighting may be his best remaining pathway to eventually securing Russia's strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it takes years," she said.

Ms Haines said Russia might turn to defending the territories it now occupies, adding that it would need additional "mandatory mobilization and third-party ammunition sources" to sustain even its level of operations in Ukraine.

Ukraine's military says it has pushed back intense Russian attacks on the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut despite Russian forces claiming to have taken control of its eastern half.

Moscow has been trying to take Bakhmut for months, as both sides suffer heavy losses in a grinding war of attrition.

"The enemy continued its attacks and has shown no sign of a let-up in storming the city of Bakhmut," the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said. "Our defenders repelled attacks on Bakhmut and on surrounding communities."

Between 20,000 and 30,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut since it began last summer, Western officials say. The figures cannot be verified independently.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64897888

[Jimbuna]

Putin's plot to decimate Wagner troops in Bakhmut devastation 'exposed' by expert

Vladimir Putin's military forces may be focussing their attacks on the city of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, in a bid to decimate Wagner Group mercenaries fighting in the region, an expert has claimed. The owner of Russia's Wagner Group military contractor claimed Wednesday that his troops have extended their gains in the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut, but it remained unclear how long the fight might go on.

The battle for the city the Ukrainians have dubbed "fortress Bakhmut" has become emblematic of the way each side has tried to wear down the other.

Russian forces must go through Bakhmut to push deeper into parts of the Donetsk province they do not yet control, though Western officials say that capture of the city is unlikely to change the course of the war.

The battle for Bakhmut has lasted six months and reduced the city with a pre-war population of more than 70,000 to a smouldering wasteland. It's not clear which side has paid a higher price.

But according to Justin Bronk, a research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, the obsession with the smilingly non-strategic city by Russian forces may be explained with Putin's plans to politically eliminate Wagner's chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Writing for the Daily Mail, he said: "These losses, combined with significant shortages of artillery ammunition facing Russian forces as a whole, have led to suggestions that the Russian Army is deliberately limiting support to Wager so that its forces are ultimately used up in grinding combat at Bakhmut.

"This would leave the group, and Prigozhin himself, as potentially less of a political threat to the regular Russian military leadership.

"On the other hand, a victory at Bakhmut that is demonstrably won by mostly Wagner forces in spite of apparently limited Russian military support could have political significance within the Russian system that outweighs the actual battlefield importance of the city."

Prigozhin, whose troops have spearheaded the fight in Bakhmut, said they have taken full control of all districts east of the Bakhmutka River that crosses the city. The city's center lies west of the river.

Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials commented on Prigozhin's claim. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank that closely monitors the fighting, said Russian forces were likely in control in the areas cited by Prigozhin following a Ukrainian withdrawal.

Russian troops have enveloped the city from three sides, leaving only a narrow corridor leading west. The only highway west has been targeted by Russian artillery fire, forcing Ukrainian defenders to rely increasingly on country roads, which are hard to use before the muddy ground dries.

Zelensky vowed Monday not to retreat from Bakhmut after chairing a meeting with his top generals.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that seizing the city would allow Russia to press its offensive further into the Donetsk region, one of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in September.

In a blustery video statement recorded near a World War II monument in Bakhmut, Prigozhin echoed that rationale saying the prospective Russian push would make "the entire world shudder."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the Russians could seize the city soon. "What we see is that Russia is throwing in more troops, more forces, and what Russia lacks in quality they try to make up in quantity," he told reporters on the sidelines of an EU defence ministers meeting in Stockholm.

"They have suffered big losses, but at the same time we cannot rule out that Bakhmut may eventually fall in the coming days."

But like other Western officials, he played down the significance of Bakhmut's potential capture, arguing that this "does not necessarily reflect any turning point of the war, and it just highlights that we should not underestimate Russia."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...ba9a8375&ei=26

[Skybird]

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte


... or when he is happily blowing his own head off.

[Skybird]

Russia is capable of continuing its war of aggression in Ukraine for another two years, according to Lithuanian intelligence. "We estimate that the resources Russia has at its disposal today would be sufficient to wage another two years of war with the same intensity as today," said Col. Elegijus Paulavicius of the Baltic EU and NATO country's military intelligence service.

Russia is becoming "increasingly totalitarian" under President Vladimir Putin, the statement added. But the war in Ukraine is undermining "the political and economic foundations of the regime." Failures on the battlefield, further mobilizations and a deterioration of the economic situation could have negative consequences for its stability.

"In the current social and political environment, the most likely alternative to Putin's regime is another authoritarian regime," Lithuanian intelligence wrote. Russia thus "probably remains a threat and source of instability in the region at least in the medium term."


- Die Welt -

[Commander Wallace]

I came across and interesting article.


An extremely alarming call for Putin. The ghost of 1917 appeared in Russia

Wed, March 8, 2023 at 5:54 AM EST


Kremlin


The incident in Bryansk which happened last week is a consequence of Putin's attack on Ukraine. Before Russia started this war, none of the Russian nationalists had the determination to take up arms and start fighting, to call for the overthrow of Putin's regime and to seize power by military means.
Read also: Incident in Bryansk Oblast ‘part of transformative processes in Russia,’ Ukrainian intel says

We remember that this has happened before in Russian history. And this happened in the 20th century, when in 1914 the Russian Empire was one of those that started World War I. And in 1917, a revolution occurred: all over Russia, bands of armed men who participated in the war began to seize power under the leadership of various leaders - leftists, rightists, anarchists, monarchists, and so on. Perhaps history repeats itself, as the classics said, but on a new level.

About the chronology. Let's recall an interesting moment. On Feb. 28 of this year, Putin spoke to the board of the FSB. This is his alma mater, the environment in which he was formed as a personality - KGB, FSB. So: Putin's texts in this case are prepared very carefully, and every word and every instruction is important. This speech was short, but Putin gave it a special emphasis – he even emphasized that the special task of the FSB and units of the FSB border troops is to provide cover and protect the border precisely on the Ukrainian-Russian section. And, probably, here he had in mind the entire length of the border.

And now, a day after these instructions, on March 2, when Putin warned that there could be terrorist attacks, hostage taking, attacks on civilians, on critical infrastructure facilities, events are taking place. And the assessment that the Kremlin gave them through Putin's mouth, that this was a terrorist act, looks like a preparation that was really prepared in advance.

It is important to understand that this assessment is one phenomenon, and what actually happened is another one.
Read also: Russia's second big offensive: What Putin is betting on - a simple explanation
I have a version that the information was so impressive to the Russian special services that they simply decided to use this blank to impose their version of events and at the same time make everyone forget more quickly what really happened there.

Then Putin said that these are people who set themselves the task of depriving Russia of its historical memory, history, traditions, and language. This list is evidence that the truth is so terrible and unbearable for the Russian authorities that they need to find some excuse, to tell the biggest unimaginable lie. According to Goebbels, when the most incredible lie is told to a society which is policed, under control, where there is a monopoly of power over the sources of information, it will be perceived as the most plausible version.

So they took this terror attack as stock. Perhaps they themselves realized that somewhere there is a ghost of 1917: that there are Russians who are ready to take up arms and provide an example that this government should be overthrown by armed force. They could perceive it as a wake-up call, because I will remind you that until March 2, almost all Russian opposition forces did say that "we will reconcile by peaceful means." There were statements about the environment that "we will federalize" Russia, that there will be a number of states or a number of subjects of the federation or confederation - it doesn't matter.

But no one called to take up arms and overthrow Putin's power by military means. That's exactly what they did on March 2. A little known Russian volunteer corps.
But for the FSB, with its institutional memory that still stretches back to the tsarist guard, it reminded them of the year 1917, when a revolution broke out in Russia during World War I and the Bolsheviks seized power by force of arms. And then Lenin and Trotsky were called agents of German intelligence who want to destroy Russia.

This testifies to a huge fright in the FSB.

This testifies to a huge fright in the FSB. They would really like to forget about this incident as soon as possible. Because with their paranoia and persecution mania, they could have thought that if they didn't do it, if they didn't label this incident as terrorism, if they didn't force everyone to forget it faster, then somewhere it might unwittingly cause a counter-reaction in other regions of Russia.

And since the FSB is overextended now by controlling the society, in order not to allow any dissidence, hunting those who are against the war, it may not have the time and thus sleep through any real violent armed actions against state authorities. They are afraid of this most of all now. The Russian "ultra-patriotic community" immediately started chanting that war should be declared - "call a spade a spade, let's declare war." Let's not forget that these are Soviet people, a Soviet type of thinking, formed back in the days of the Soviet Union.

Voenkors, members of the State Duma are preparing a certain media environment in which Putin's words will be heard not sensationally, not radically, but routinely. They are preparing their media environment, society for the fact that Putin can really declare war.

They are preparing people that Putin could say this, announce this, and it would not sound unexpected, radical, not to raise questions in society.
Regarding the war. Let us recall Lenin's article, which he wrote in 1914, where he claimed that the task of the Bolsheviks was to turn this imperialist war into a civil war. And now the FSB, the Kremlin also think, are afraid that this "special military operation" will turn into a special Russian revolution, into a civil war: Russians against foreign Russians, foreign Russians against Russians, poor against the rich, true Russian nationalists against Putinist fascists.

They think (from the point of view of the FSB) that the appearance of this investigation about Putin's palaces, about his wife Kabaeva, his children, his luxurious life on the anniversary of the start of the war and this incident in the Bryansk region, when they called on the Russians to overthrow the Putin regime by armed force, are the links of a chain. To show that Putin is a tsar who is not real, who is incapable, thinks only of himself, cares only about himself, his children are from different women, he is detached from life and is not capable of ruling Russia, that his clique illegally and forcibly keeps Russia under his rule.

And that's why they should be overthrown. Because the king lost his legitimacy, broke down and so on. And they think that this is informational preparation for the beginning of a rebellion or a revolution. And that this incident in the Bryansk region is only the first hint that there really is some attempt, either within the country independently or with the support of foreign special services, to turn the war against Ukraine into a civil war in Russia. This is what they fear.
Read also: Three options for the future of Russia

And that is why they are trying to intercept the information thesis that there will be no civil war, but there will be a real war against Ukraine, against the collective West. That is, efforts will be directed in the informational plane in order to prevent the spread of the thought and idea that in Russia, not a peaceful, but rather an armed revolution and uprising is possible.

Such an idea can provoke a spontaneous involuntary protest in Russia.
There are certain signs of why they are afraid of this, why they are also preparing for it. In February, Rashid Nurgaliev was appointed first deputy secretary of the Security Council of Russia. He is a former interior minister. He was pulled out of some kind of retirement, out of mothballs, for what? It is a signal that there will be a new curator in the domestic power vertical, who ran the Ministry of the Interior at a time when Russia was fighting internal threats, including the Chechen resistance across the country.

So, they also see that there are some real signs that stricter control is needed along the lines of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB inside Russia. The FSB fears that radicalization will affect the most educated, most radical part of Russian society. That it may affect mainly young people or even old people who, being highly educated, will compare Putin's secret railway with another railway.

When was the first railway in Russia built? To Tsarske Selo! Between one tsar's palace in St. Petersburg and another palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Also a special railway. People will draw parallels in Russia between this. We simply do not fully understand this Russian cultural context. But there, about the 20th century, about the tsarist regime, about the revolution, the role of Bolshevism, the role of monarchists, republicans, the 1990s, about the shelling of the parliament - it's all alive. This is all being discussed in certain circles. This is the first point

Secondly: let's not forget that there are still explosions in different areas of Russia. It is not always and only drones, but also human efforts. In the summer of last year, a wave of arson struck military commissariats in various regions across Russia.
Read also: Russia should cease to exist within current borders, says NSDC secretary

In various regions, the FSB reads information about how people violate the draconian measures aimed at suppressing the truth about the war. They see this picture in different regions. They understand that these are signs of a certain protest movement, a certain social environment, which under certain conditions can be radicalized to the extent that people can take up arms. The only question is how they will get these weapons, who will organize them.

And that is why this Russian volunteer corps is an extremely alarming call, in fact a wake-up call for Putin's Russia, which says that dozens of people can appear who can seize power in a separate territory and successfully resist the repressive apparatus in Russia. If this happens in several regions, it will be a total disaster. As soon as such a mutiny or armed action achieves minimal success, it begins to spread on social networks, and then the FSB will be afraid that the domino principle will happen, that this process will start.

And that the first minimal success will encourage other people to take up arms or even without arms to attack the same authorities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and seize power. And go all the way to the overthrow of the Putin regime.

That is why they are so scared now. Therefore, they try to use the very first way - to break this topic with information. True, they have a small toolkit, that is, to talk about the war, about something else, so that people do not think about palaces, about a king who is not capable of anything, who is destroying the Russian state. Because the main message is that Putin is not strengthening the Russian state, he is destroying it. In order to not destroy it, it is necessary to destroy him. This may be the theme of the Russian revolution in the 21st century.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/extremely...105400650.html

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine is becoming "combat laboratory" for testing Iranian weapons, - CNN

Ukraine is becoming a "combat laboratory" for testing Iranian weapons.

As reported by Censor.NET with reference to CNN, this was stated by a high-ranking representative of the US Ministry of Defense.

"Everyone should be prepared for what the threat scenarios will look like when Iran takes the tactics, methods and procedures it learned in Ukraine and starts using these coercive tactics here (in the Middle East. - Ed.)," he said.

The official added that Russia is ready to transfer advanced technology to Iran in order to receive Iranian "lethal aid." Source: https://censor.net/en/n3404686

Slovenian parliament refused to recognize Russia as sponsor of terrorism

The Slovenian parliament’s foreign policy committee has rejected a proposal by the opposition Democratic Party for a resolution that would recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The Democrats who introduced this proposal claimed that by adopting the resolution, Slovenia would condemn Russia's attacks on Ukrainian civilians, civilian buildings and key energy infrastructure facilities, Censor.NET reports with reference to "Euro Integration".

"We will demonstrate our support for the Ukrainian people, who are showing incredible courage in defending their homeland and fighting for the universal values of freedom and democracy, and at the same time condemn the Russian invasion," they said.

But even before the vote in the committee, the ruling coalition opposed it, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia, Tanja Fajon, said that any initiative to add Russia to the list of countries sponsoring terrorism would be "equivalent to punishing the entire Russian people."

Instead, the parliamentary committee unanimously supported a statement condemning the Russian war in Ukraine and calls to continue providing assistance to Kyiv and advocate for a "comprehensive, just and lasting peace."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia separately explained that there is no category or list of countries that support terrorism in either European or Slovenian legislation. Relevant resolutions have been adopted by only seven EU member states, and even in the USA, where there are legal grounds to declare states sponsors of terrorism, Russia is not included in this list.

The opposition called the Foreign Ministry's statement "inert," while Democratic MP and former Slovenian Foreign Minister Anje Logar said that diplomatic pressure on Russia should be increased as well as sanctions. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3404702

Russia now has resources to continue intense war for two years, - Lithuanian intelligence

Director of the Second Department of Operational Services at the Ministry of Defense of Lithuania, Elegius Paulaviius, urged not to let down vigilance, as Russia has not yet suffered a setback in the war.

This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to Delfi.

"Despite consistent and comprehensive assistance to Ukraine, we must constantly monitor how this conflict develops. Without a doubt, we want the victory of Ukraine, the defeat of the aggressor, but today we cannot reassure ourselves that Russia is losing the war, that it is weak, that the danger has decreased," Paulavičius emphasized.

He emphasized that "Ukraine has not yet won, and Russia has not been defeated" and added that although the decision to start the war was a strategic mistake of Russia, it has the resources to continue the war.

"The war will cost Moscow dearly. But Russia has occupied and currently controls 1/5 of the territory of Ukraine. It does not seem that it has lost its determination to act further. In addition, Russia has enough resources for a long war," Paulavičius explained.

At the same time, he clarified that Russia now has the resources to continue an intensive war for two years. We are not talking about the quality of resources, but old equipment also causes great damage. And there are more Russian soldiers now than at the beginning of the war.

"That's why comprehensive military, political and economic assistance to Ukraine will remain vital for achieving victory," Paulavičius concluded. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3404711

[Jimbuna]

European Union has included Ukraine in joint gas procurement program, - European Commissioner Simson

The European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, confirmed that Ukraine is included in the new EU program for the joint purchase of gas.

"We have integrated Ukraine into the joint gas procurement platform, which will provide an additional 2 billion cubic meters of gas," said the European Commissioner during a speech at a meeting of the Commission on Industry, Research and Energy of the European Parliament, Censor.NET reports with reference to LigaBusinessInform.

Joint gas purchases are a new EU tool created to limit spikes in energy prices due to the cessation of supplies from Russia. Now the countries of the European Union will organize joint purchases of gas on a regular basis in order to provide the bloc with a sufficient amount of fuel both for the next heating season and for future ones.

The first tenders for the purchase of gas will be announced in April. The first contracts with suppliers will be signed in June.

There are already proposals from more than 50 companies from all over the world regarding cooperation with the European Union within the framework of the platform. On the European side, industrial companies are ready to participate in joint procurement.

According to the Vice President of the European Commission, Maros Šefković, the total demand of the 27 members of the bloc and three neighboring countries - Ukraine, Moldova, and Serbia - will amount to 24 billion cubic meters per year for the next three years. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3404724

Finland allowed Estonia to re-export 122-mm howitzers and their shells to Ukraine

At a meeting on Wednesday, the Finnish government approved a permit for Estonia to re-export its military equipment and equipment to Ukraine.

The decision concerns the export of 122-mm howitzers D-30 and shells for them. The number of units of both military goods is not specified, Censor.NET reports with reference to "Euro Integration".

"The recipient of the goods is the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Estonia noted that the amount of exported weapons is confidential," the Finnish government said in a decision.

The export is likely to take place as part of a military aid package totaling 113 million euros approved by the Estonian government in January 2023.

It contains "dozens" of 155-mm and 122-mm howitzers, thousands of shells and trucks for their use, more than a hundred Carl-Gustav anti-tank guns and more than a thousand units of ammunition for them.

After that, Estonian Ambassador to Ukraine Kaimo Kuusk emphasized that Tallinn will transfer all available 155 mm howitzers to Kyiv. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3404744

US introduced sanctions against companies from China that supplied Iran with parts for "Shaheds"

The United States has imposed sanctions on a Chinese network of companies that supplied aerospace parts to an Iranian company involved in the production of drones used by Tehran to attack oil tankers and exported to Russia.

This is stated in a statement on the website of the US Ministry of Finance, Censor.NET reports with reference to "Euro Integration".

According to the ministry, the chain, based in China, is responsible for selling and shipping thousands of aerospace components, including components that could be used for UAVs, to the Iran Aircraft Industry Company (HESA).

HESA participated in the production of the Shahed-136 UAV model, which Iran used to attack oil tankers and exported to Russia for the war in Ukraine.

HESA was sanctioned back in 2008 for being owned or controlled by Iran's Ministry of Defense and Rear Support, and for providing support to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"Iran is directly involved in the casualties among the Ukrainian civilian population that are the result of Russia's use of Iranian UAVs in Ukraine," said US Deputy Treasury Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson.

"The United States will continue to fight Iran's global procurement networks that supply Russia with deadly UAVs for use in its illegal war in Ukraine," he added. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3404747

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Sometimes voices can be heard that demand to think about the time after the war, then to get along with Russia again, to reach out to it.

To illustrate what it is that you want to shake hands with, this story from the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

--------------------


Masha paints rockets



In Russia, children are supposed to produce patriotic drawings for the soldiers at the front in class. One girl submits an anti-war drawing. Then the secret service arrives.

Children are also used to justify President Vladimir Putin's "special operation. For example, by making maps and drawings for soldiers at school. Last April, this was also the task of a sixth-grade art class at a school in Yefremov, a small town in the Tula region a good 300 kilometers south of Moscow.

But what the student, Mariya Moskalyova, called Masha, painted did not meet expectations: Her picture shows a Ukrainian flag with the words "Glory to Ukraine" written on it, and next to it a mother with a child. Missiles are flying toward the two from the direction of the Russian tricolor, which reads "No to war." The single father of the girl, Alexei Moskaliev, told journalists that "everything started" with the drawing.

The art teacher went to the principal of the school, who called the police, who asked all the children for their names at the entrance to the school. His daughter knew what it was about, gave a false name and slipped through. The next day, he went to pick up the frightened child from school. Again, the principal called the police.
Proceedings under the new censorship laws

The latter showed up with the equivalent of the youth welfare office, he said. He was shown the drawing, Moskaljow said. He asked what was special about it, saying that his daughter was "against war, against bloodshed". On the same day, a misdemeanor case was opened against him under military censorship laws enacted in early March 2022: The entrepreneur, who raised ornamental birds such as peacocks and pheasants, was charged with pro-Ukrainian comments and Putin caricatures on his social media appearances. Because of the words "Army of Russia. Perpetrators of violence next to us" a fine was imposed on him.

That was just the beginning. Employees of the FSB intelligence agency took the child out of class, the father recounted. He rushed to the school, where the agents told him that he was not raising his daughter "properly," threatening "that she would be taken away from me and I would be put away." The suggestion that "Masha should lead a youth team in support of the Russian troops" he "kindly refused" because the daughter was so busy.

She then stopped going to school, and the father reportedly requested that she be home-schooled. In December, at the girl's former school, children posed with thumbs up in front of the slogans "For Peace - For Russia - For the President," each with a "Z," the main symbol of war. As in many places.

Then, at the end of December, the father and daughter were raided. All savings, computers and telephones were confiscated, the daughter was photographed with her drawing, Moskaljow said. The daughter was sent to a children's home, and the father was interrogated by the FSB. In the process, he reported, his head was banged "against the wall and the floor." He had been asked why part of his savings, $3150, was in this very currency: "Who is your master? Who are you working for?" Then, he said, he was left alone, but Russia's national anthem was played at full volume. He had developed health problems, the FSB called the emergency services, then showed him a social media comment by his daughter asking how much money a month "our boys" were dying for in Ukraine.

A criminal case was opened against Moskaliev for "repeatedly discrediting" the army. He faces up to three years in prison. He was initially released and was able to pick up his daughter. Moskaljow sold his birds, contacted the child's mother, who had been separated from him for a long time and who, according to Moskaljow, had not wanted to take Marija. In the interview with journalists published at the end of February, the father feared that his daughter would be permanently placed in a children's home if he were arrested.

Shortly after, on March 1, he was arrested. The thirteen-year-old stayed behind, then went to a "social rehabilitation center for minors" called "Youth" - and stayed there after a court released her father to house arrest. Now authorities want to limit his parenting rights. An online petition to send the girl home to her father already had nearly 77,000 signatures as of Thursday evening. For Russia, that's a lot.
----------------------

6th class, so the girl's age is around 12.


No, we must not, under no circumstances, reach out to such a Russia, must not shake hands with it. What we must is building a new iron curtain and contain the existential danger that Russia is for all world. We cannot escape to be geograpohical neighbour to this Russia. But we can learn again to be prepared.



But is that really wanted in Europe? Opposite to the media chorus, I have my doubts.

[Reece]

Miserable bastards!!

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Aktungbby]

/\ too bad Ukrainian missiles cannot target Iranian container ships currently transporting drones/weapons to Russia on the Caspian Sea. WWIII is well under way; with China being the 'big shoe' that has`hasn't dropped' quite yet in "eternal friendship" and neo-commie comeradery!?? The fuse will probably be lit when N.Korea does something rash-nukewise ( think 1914 Sarajevo?) and we respond obliteratingly... forcing Chins's face-saving hand. They're already screaming about US, Australian, Japan, Philippine conspiratical "encirclement and containment" of their South China Sea aspirations, which, like their Tibet takeover in '59, will need to be answered
shortly ...my bet with Jimmy the Greek says civilization ends in 2040. (17 years! I'll be 89...and unable to collect!??)