#rubizhne

[suratan-zir]

Today (May 20), the minister of defense of the russian federation reported that "the liberation of the LPR (Luhansk region of Ukraine) is nearly completed"

Take a look at what liberation looks like according to russia

the inscription: "there is no longer a playground in my yard…"

This is Rubizhne - a city in Luhansk oblast. Before the war, more than 60,000 people lived there. This was Rubizhne. There are no undamaged houses left. The city is under constant russian artillery fire, it is completely destroyed, as well as a big part of Luhansk region. People bury the dead in their yards. Ukrainians live in bomb shelters without the source of water, gas, electricity.

In many other cities of Luhansk region the situation is about the same. This is, for example, Severodonetsk. Russians kill civilians there every day. Hospitals, schools and houses are being shelled.

Russians came and liberated Ukrainians from life. To later celebrate it on the bones of their victims, as they are now doing in Mariupol.

edit: this morning, the russians shelled a school in Severodonetsk where 200 civilians were hiding. 3 people were killed, others are being evacuated by the police to another shelter.

[aif0s-w]

https://twitter.com/iaponomarenko/status/1527576136993103873?s=21&t=ao85Zp8GMuEGrdaLHTQy8A

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By John Parker

On April 27, I began a trip to the Lugansk People’s Republic in the Donbass region as part of a fact-finding mission organized by Struggle-La Lucha newspaper to gather eyewitness observations and testimony of Lugansk residents, some of whom I found were living in shelters near the front lines of the war. The loud blasts are a constant reminder for them of the artillery of the Ukrainian military, targeting apartment buildings nearby and hopefully continuing to miss them.

One of the ways to determine whether someone is telling the truth when you have no access to events far away, under media whiteouts and the jailing of journalists, is to either catch the liar at other lies to bring their credibility into question, or find a way to get access to the location of the events.

We did both.

[ricisidro]

Day 69 🇷🇺 #Russia's Invasion of 🇺🇦 #Ukraine Russian forces trying to take over #Rubizhne, #Popasna in #Luhansk region. Offensive in #Donbas, #Odessa continuous. 🔴 LIVE updates: -https://aje.io/nakyrj -https://www.trtworld.com/europe/live-blog-uk-announces-376m-in-new-military-aid-to-help-ukraine-56836 -https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60525350 -https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-03-22/index.html -https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/03/world/ukraine-russia-war-news -https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine -https://abcn.ws/3ulqqBJ -https://cnb.cx/3KBmqlB -https://twitter.com/i/events/1483255084750282753 -https://f24.my/8b7k.T -https://www.newsweek.com/topic/russia-ukraine-war -https://www.theguardian.com/international https://www.instagram.com/p/CdGRVP3rkae/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Destroyed Russian  T-80BV main battle tank on the roadside,  Rubizhne, Ukraine, March 15, 2023. Source: ukr.warspotting.net 

[leeenuu]

Ivan, a 12-year-old Ukrainian boy, was woken up by the sound of a shell exploding near his home in Kurakhove, in the Donetsk region, on Tuesday, June 8, 2022. Later that day, Ivan and his friends went swimming. “Bombing is routine here now,” he said. “But when we come here to swim, we can relax and have fun, and you don’t think about about the war.” (Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times)

Ukrainian servicemen take a break after digging trenches near the frontline in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Wednesday, June 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a field peppered with craters caused by artillery, northwest of Slovyansk, Ukraine on Monday, June 6, 2022. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

Drawings made by Ukrainian children decorate a sleeping area in a Ukrainian trench near the front lines in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Wednesday, June 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Ukrainian injured servicemen and an injured civilian wait for medical treatment in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A Ukrainian tank firing at Russian positions on Friday, June 10, 2022 in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows destroyed buildings in Rubizhne, Ukraine near Severodonetsk, on Monday, June 6, 2022. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

An elderly woman who has been evacuated from the Lysychansk area looks out the window of an evacuation train in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, Friday, June 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A member of the Ukrainian regional police force standing next to a destroyed bridge that connected the cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. (Ivor Prickett/The New York Times)

[mapsontheweb]

A map of the approximate situation on the ground in Ukraine as of 00:00 UTC 17/06/22.

by @War_Mapper

Updates:

Clashes and shelling occurred during the past 24 hours around Bachivs'k in the north of Sumy Oblast.

🇷🇺 are applying increased pressure due north of Kharkiv.

Fighting is ongoing for control in and around Ternova and Rubizhne.

🇷🇺 is continuing to push from Izyum towards Slovyansk. Fighting continues on this axis in the settlements of Bohorodychne, Dolyna, and Krasnopillya.

🇺🇦 counterattack in the Kherson Oblast have taken back control of Soldats'ke, Pravdyne, and Oleksandrivka.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Serhii Telizhenko, of the National Institute of Archaeology in Kyiv, who has been monitoring the wave of destruction, said he realised there would be losses after the invasion, “but I could not imagine the scale”.

Some museums managed to move their collections to safety in time. They include Odesa’s archaeological museum and one in Melitopol that holds Ukraine’s most important collection of Scythian gold. Meanwhile Irina Shramko, director of Kharkiv’s archaeological museum, and her colleagues have been spending their nights close to their Scythian and bronze age treasures.

“This is the case all over Ukraine,” said Regina Uhl of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, which has been providing money and materials for its Ukrainian colleagues. “They thought they could protect the objects better if they were closer.”

However the rapidity of the Russian occupation in the east of the country, especially, meant many museums had no time to implement their evacuation plans. Local history museums in Lyman, in the Donetsk region, and Rubizhne in Luhansk had been destroyed, Telizhenko said, and the fate of their collections was unknown.

The museum of local lore in Mariupol, which also had an important collection of Scythian gold, was badly shelled in the spring, and in April Russian media announced that about 2,000 objects had been removed from it to the occupied city of Donetsk. They include priceless paintings by Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ivan Aivazovsky.

Ukrainian intelligence claims that much of the material taken from its museums has found its way to Crimea. Telizhenko cited reports that in late October, employees of the Chersonese state museum in Sevastopol, Crimea, arrived at the Kherson regional museum of local lore to remove its collection.

While this report is hard to confirm, it is corroborated by sources in the country as well as exchanges in virtual forums being monitored from outside Ukraine. Much of the destruction and removal of objects has been documented photographically, and the photos published on a website set up by the Ukrainian government to record “culture crimes”.

The website includes images of damaged archaeological sites. Telizhenko said that some of the destruction predated the current conflict. Russian troops began building defensive structures on a cluster of bronze age burial mounds near the village in Dovhe in the Luhansk region in 2017, he said. “The integrity of this complex is lost forever,” he said of the 5,000-year-old site. “There are many such cases, because the warring parties use the features of the terrain for self-defence.”

Archaeologist Mykhailo Videiko of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University confirmed this: “They dig in for defence, often in places where people did the same hundreds and thousands of years ago.” He noted that ramparts up to nine metres high, built by the princes of Kyiv in the 10th century to repel eastern marauders, successfully repelled Russian tanks more than 12 centuries later.

Sam Hardy, head of illicit trade research at international charity the Heritage Management Organisation, said the loss of ancient sites’ integrity was more serious than the loss of priceless artefacts. “The thing that we get the information from is the context, the relationship between everything, the site rather than the individual object,” he said.

Hardy said that there had been organised removal efforts by the Russians in territories they had occupied, and looting by Ukrainians and Russians – though mostly by Russians. “There’s a huge problem of legal nihilism in both societies,” he says. “People don’t really feel that the law exists or is implemented fairly.”

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up January 26-27 2023

Under the cut:

A new barrage of Russian shelling has killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, the Associated Press (AP) reports, citing the office of Ukraine’s president. Regional officials said towns and villages in the east and in the south that are within reach of the Russian artillery suffered most. Six people died in the Donetsk region, two in Kherson, and two in the Kharkiv region, the AP quotes them as saying. A day earlier, missiles and self-propelled drones that Russian forces fired had hit deeper into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.

Ukrainian officials claim Russia is intensifying hostilities in the southeastern part of Donetsk region, around the towns of Avdiivka and Vuhledar. Although Bakhmut remains the area where the fighting is the most vicious, Avdiivka has become almost as contentious, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region military administration.

Poland plans to send 60 more modern battle tanks to Ukraine in addition to the 14 Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged, according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.  

Belgium has announced a package of an additional €93.6m (£84.5m/$104.7m) in military aid for Ukraine. In a press conference the prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said that, taking into account previous spending, it amounted to the biggest ever military aid package given to another country by Belgium

The US Treasury Department on Thursday designated the Wagner Group, a Russian private mercenary organization heavily involved in the war in Ukraine, as a significant transnational criminal organization, and imposed a slew of sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.

“A new barrage of Russian shelling has killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, the Associated Press (AP) reports, citing the office of Ukraine’s president.

Regional officials said towns and villages in the east and in the south that are within reach of the Russian artillery suffered most. Six people died in the Donetsk region, two in Kherson, and two in the Kharkiv region, the AP quotes them as saying. A day earlier, missiles and self-propelled drones that Russian forces fired had hit deeper into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.

Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the Russian military used fiercely-burning phosphorus munitions in its shelling of the village of Zvanivka, about 12 miles (20 km) north of Bakhmut; a city that has become the focus of a gruelling standoff in recent months. The shelling also damaged apartment buildings and two schools in the nearby town of Vuhledar, Kyrylenko said.

The governor of the neighbouring Luhansk region Serhii Haidai said Ukrainian shelling hit two Russian bases in the occupied towns of Kreminna and Rubizhne, killing and wounding “dozens” of Russian soldiers. The AP said it could not independently verify his claim.

Further south, Russian troops resumed shelling the town of Nikopol, across the river Dnieper from the Russia-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, damaging apartment buildings, gas pipelines, power lines and a bakery, the AP quoted officials as saying.”-via The Guardian

~

“Ukrainian officials claim Russia is intensifying hostilities in the southeastern part of Donetsk region, around the towns of Avdiivka and Vuhledar.

Although Bakhmut remains the area where the fighting is the most vicious, Avdiivka has become almost as contentious, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region military administration.

“Now it is also very hot in Avdiivka,” he said.

“The enemy shelled Vuhledar community many times today, one person was killed and two were wounded, and two people were killed in Ocheretyne community,” he added. “In other words, we observe escalation along the entire front line from the south and from the north.” Why this territory matters: The southeastern area of Donetsk is seen as strategic territory by Russia to deter a potential offensive by Ukrainian forces towards Crimea.

Ukraine says Russia is employing similar tactics to those it has employed around Bakhmut, which is located further north in the Donetsk region.

Moscow’s armies are relying heavily on artillery and committing large numbers of men on doomed offensives, said Serhii Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson.

Targeting several communities, Russian forces "conducted 28 attacks in one day, fired 264 times, losing 141 people ... and 165 wounded, but failed to achieve any results,” Cherevatyi claimed in a military briefing.

Cherevatyi said fighting around the entire eastern front line continues to be relentless.

“The enemy is trying to succeed in breaking through our defense, in particular in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Lyman directions,” Cherevatyi said. “In total, 199 attacks and 35 combat engagements took place in the Bakhmut sector (on Thursday). The enemy fired from all types of artillery and multiple rocket launchers.”

“However, our defense forces did not allow the enemy to succeed,” he added.”-via CNN

~

“Poland plans to send 60 more modern battle tanks to Ukraine in addition to the 14 Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged, according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.  

Morawiecki is glad Poland could "convince our allies and partners from Western Europe that they should be much more active in supporting Ukraine," the prime minister told Canadian broadcaster CTV on Friday.

Germany's decided earlier this week to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine after much diplomatic discussion.

Morawiecki said Poland likes to "lead by example," and touted the country's decision to send 250 tanks to Ukraine last year, adding that they were first country to do so.

"Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of them PT-91," the prime minister said, referencing the country's main battle tank, PT-91 Twardy. "And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession."

Poland, he said, has made a habit of telling its partners “how many tanks we've already delivered.”  

“I have quoted President Zelensky (to explain) how important it is in this kind of war to have modern tanks. Russians have several thousands, or some say even more than 15,000, of the tanks in their stores,” Morawiecki added.   Poland last week harshly criticized Germany’s initial hesitancy to approve Warsaw's request to transfer some of its German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.”-via CNN

~

“Belgium has announced a package of an additional €93.6m (£84.5m/$104.7m) in military aid for Ukraine. In a press conference the prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said that, taking into account previous spending, it amounted to the biggest ever military aid package given to another country by Belgium.

VRT, the public service broadcaster for Belgium’s Flemish community reports:

Federal defence minister Ludivine Dedonder gave details about the nature of the military aid that Belgium is giving to Ukraine. This will include surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank weapons, machine guns, grenades and munition. Some of this will come from stocks held by the Belgian army, while the rest will be bought from Belgian arms manufacturers. Dedonder would not go into specific details about the quantities of arms that will be sent.

The defence minister went on to say that armoured jeeps and lorries will also be given to the Ukrainians. All of the vehicles that will be sent to Ukraine are all in working order and in a good state of repair or will soon undergo a full service.”-via The Guardian

~

“The US Treasury Department on Thursday designated the Wagner Group, a Russian private mercenary organization heavily involved in the war in Ukraine, as a significant transnational criminal organization, and imposed a slew of sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.

The US Department of State concurrently announced a number of sanctions meant to “target a range of Wagner’s key infrastructure – including an aviation firm used by Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Here are the actions taken by both US departments:

The State Department announced sanctions on the following:

Three individuals for their roles as heads of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, which has been reported to facilitate the recruitment of Russian prisoners into the Wagner Group.

A deputy prime minister who also serves as the Minister of Industry and Trade

The chairman of the Election Commission of the Rostov Region.

A network tied to an already-sanctioned Russian oligarch.

A financier to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The department also announced it will take steps to impose visa restrictions “on 531 members of the Russian Federation military" associated with the assault on Ukraine.

The Treasury Department announced sanctions on the following:

A number of individuals and companies tied to Moscow’s defense industrial complex.

Putin allies and their family members.

Two people involved with Russia’s attempts to annex parts of Ukraine.

The White House had previewed the significant transnational criminal organization designation and forthcoming sanctions against the Wagner group last week.”

-via CNN

[argumate]

Russian military bloggers continued to post analysis that is skeptical of Russian efforts and increasingly in-line with Western assessments of Russian military failures in Ukraine. One such blogger, Igor Strelkov, claimed that the Russian offensive to take Donbas has ultimately failed and that “not a single large settlement “has been liberated. Strelkov even noted that the capture of Rubizhne is relatively insignificant because it happened before the new offensive in Donbas had begun. Strelkov stated that Russian forces are unlikely to liberate Donbas by the summer and that Ukrainian troops will hold their positions around Donetsk City. Strelkov notably claimed that Russian failures thus far have not surprised him because the intent of Russian command has been so evident throughout the operation that Ukrainian troops are aware of exactly how to best respond and warns that Russian troops are fighting to the point of exhaustion under “rules proposed by the enemy.” The continued disenchantment of pro-Russian milbloggers with the Russian war effort may fuel dissatisfaction in Russia itself, especially if Moscow continues to press recruitment and conscription efforts that send poorly-trained cannon-fodder to the front lines.

[vasilinaorlova]

Kick Russia out of the Security Council of the United Nations

I have meant to write this message for a while, and finally submitted it in the form of the UN. If you agree with it, my ask to you is to submit it too. I also have letters to various European and American bureaucracies in support of arming of Ukraine and demanding more sanctions on Russia. You can request them from me too. Please help me to do something to aid Ukraine in its fight against the Russian colonial conquest. Dear United Nations:

The mission of the Security Council, according to the statement on the website, is to provide security. With Russia being a threat to security and waging a genocidal war of hatred, annihilation, and conquest against the sovereign country of Ukraine, it is clear to everyone in the world the way it has not been before: Russia can no longer remain on the Security Council of the UN. Russia has a history of abuse of the veto right, having vetoed in succession the vital decisions that should have called it to account for its war crimes and atrocities.

Russia usurped the seat of the USSR on the Security Council of the UN despite that the successor of the USSR was the Commonwealth of Independent Nations, not Russia and, specifically, not the "Russian Federation"--a country that is living through a crisis yielding to its imperial ambitions, a country that never confronted its ambitions, and likely a country, too, that may not remain on the map for a long period of time given its spread across the vast territory, poor infrastructural development, and the severity of sanctions justly imposed on it.

Given the unlawlessness with which Russia took the seat of the Security Council, usurping the place of the republic that constituted the Soviet Union, and given that Russia is currently a global threat that ramps one global refugee crisis after another (Syria, Ukraine, African countries to follow), given the scale of the destruction it wages destroying cities (Aleppo, Mariupol, Popasna, Rubizhne, Severodonetsk), given the history of invasions that Russia continues to perpetuate (Georgia, Ukraine), given that Russia not only orchestrates the world hunger, in effect the Holodomor 2.0., but also uses it as a blackmail tactic against "the West" and blames its victims for it (Ukraine and "the West)--given all that, the time has come to admit: Russia cannot remain on the Security Council of the UN.

Kick Russia out of the UN SC. If this is "not possible," as some argue, to kick Russia out, then the time has come for the UN to self-disband, as it has failed profoundly in its current mission and will not be able to live up to it having the structure it now has. The League of Nations self-disbanded as it failed to prevent WWII having left the space for the UN. It is time, then, if the UN cannot exclude Russia from the SC, to disband the UN and give space for the new organization that will be able to respond adequately to the challenges that the world that has emerged poses. Delaying the inevitable will only undermine the remainders of the beliefs that humanity still harbors in its leaders to organize against the wars and hunger of the future.

Best,

Vasilina Orlova, Ph.D.        

[pretordh]

According to the European war researchers ASPI Cyber ​​Policy, which is confirmed by other sources, Russian troops have achieved significant success in the Popasnaya area, and were also able to occupy the border village of Ternovaya and the suburbs of Rubizhne.

It is worth noting that Russian sources often confuse reaching a village with capturing it. The "capture" of Yampol was announced 9 days before the capture, Drobyshevo was "captured" 4 days ago without any evidence. According to experts, the state of affairs in Popasna may also be far from reality.

Also, last week Russia resumed cross-border artillery and rocket attacks on the Sumy and Chernihiv regions of Ukraine. Presumably, this should put pressure on Ukrainian defenses in the area and prevent redeployment.

[blueiskewl]

2022 Ukraine-Russia War

Ukrainian forces destroy a Russian BRDM-2 with a ATGM hit in Rubizhne.

[ultrajaphunter]

The battle for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions is now the epicenter of the war between Russia and #Ukraine. Here's how it's shaping up.

After failing to take Kyiv, Russia shifted its attention to the east, hoping to encircle Ukraine's largest & most combat-ready forces in Luhansk & Donetsk. Key to that strategy was capturing the city of Izium, giving Russia control over the main road between Kharkiv and Sloviansk

Russia deployed its tried-and-true cannon fodder strategy, throwing untold numbers of troops at Izium, allowing it to finally capture the pivotal city. 

This created the possibility of a large encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the eastern half of the country.

In fact, Russia was planning to simply cut Ukraine in half along the Dnieper River, allowing it to return to Kyiv later. 

To do this, Russian forces moving north from the Zaporizhzhia region would need to link up with Russian forces heading south from Izium

Russian forces are on the verge of launching a much bigger operation than simply encircling Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Preliminary battlefield info shows that they are aiming for Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region and Lozova in the Kharkiv region.

This is an ambitious operation that may be an attempt to compensate for losing north of Kyiv. 

Russia's strategy is likely based on the fact that it finally captured Izium and that it can initially bypass Zaporizhzhia instead of trying to seize it, which would be costly.

Russia has the necessary resources for this operation and Ukraine's ability to stop Russia's offensive will depend in large part in its ability to mobilize reinforcements. 

Western offensive heavy weapons would also help, but Ukrainians aren't holding their breath for them.

Once again, however, Putin's plans were ruined by stiff Ukrainian resistance, which stopped Russian forces in the south near Huliaipole and north near Izium. This effectively stalled Russia's advance and forced it to change plans.

Russia didn't fully give up hope of a large encirclement & is still trying to break through Ukrainian defenses south of Izium, especially in the direction of Barvinkove. 

Although large Russian forces are concentrated in Izium they are moving in too many directions to be effective

Russia's less ambitious plan would be to capture Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the remaining significant urban areas in the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control. 

This would encircle Ukrainian troops as planned & Putin could claim a significant military and political victory.

Capturing Sloviansk and Kramatorsk is not simple, given not only Ukrainian resistance south of Izium, but also in the wooded areas of zone A, where Ukrainian forces can set up ambushes with impunity.

Russia, however, has had success east of zone A where it was able to advance all the way south to Yampil and the Siverskyi Donets River. 

This makes an encirclement of Ukrainian troops in Zone B possible if Russian forces moving north through Popasna can make progress.

In some sense, Russia's encirclement of Ukrainian forces in zone B could lead to a minimally viable political achievement, at least in the short term because it would allow Putin to claim that he has fully "liberated" the Luhansk region (after Ukrainian forces are removed).

Some of the heaviest fighting is now in Zone B, where Russian forces are trying to capture Rubizhne & Sieverodonetsk. 

Zone B is the only remaining area in Luhansk under Ukrainian control and Russia's military is throwing everything it has at it without regard to casualties.

As Russia continues to limit the short-term scope of its military operations, Ukrainian forces are counterattacking, especially west of Izium and north of Kharkiv, forcing Russia's military to weigh the benefits of new advances against the possibility of losing ground elsewhere.

Putin will not have any significant symbolic victory in time for Victory Day (May 9), no matter how many troops and Ukrainian civilians he sacrifices. 

The war will continue, and its trajectory will be determined, in large part, by the fight for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Russian forces crossed the Siverskyi Donets river near Bilohorivka.

Ukrainian forces destroyed a pontoon bridge there, but  Russian forces are establishing a bridgehead and setting up new bridges. 

There is heavy fighting in the area as Russians looks to encircle remaining  Ukrainian forces in Luhansk.

Russia desperately needed to cross the Siverskyi Donets river to fully take advantage of its success in the area between zones A and B.

[unhonestlymirror]

Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Volnovaha, Popasna, Rubizhne, Lyman are mainly destroyed.

Russia already destroyed about 350 000 objects

[gorky-gorod]

Instead of a postcard, an 87-year-old pensioner from #Tomsk, who survived the #German occupation in Rubizhne, was sent an agitation offering to join the #Wagner PMC.