Rebel leader announces launch of assault on Ukraine's Mariupol
Source: AFP
A top pro-Russian rebel on Saturday announced the launch of a major offensive on Ukraine's government-held port of Mariupol, confirming responsibility for rocket fire that killed at least 20 people.
"Today, we launched an offensive against Mariupol," Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted Donetsk separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko as saying. "This will be the best tribute possible for all our dead."
Read more: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/rebel-leader-announces-launch-assault-ukraines-mariupol-151640496.html#czyDt9F
Earlier : 'At least 20 killed' in rocket attack on Ukraine's Mariupol
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)PUTIN'S true agenda. What better way to garner public support and to get them to ignore his collapsing economic mess than to pull a George Bush-like move on Ukraine, much like Cheney did to Iraq?
newthinking
(3,982 posts)Even if you have established boundaries, if the enemy continues to shell they MUST eventually go on the offensive. War begets war. If your enemy continues to kill the only way to stop them is to go on the offensive. Period.
Nothing extraordinary about this. Ukraine has continued shelling and has continued to indicate they are preparing for an offensive. So the rebels of course are going to do this. DUH!
Time to work out an agreement for peacekeepers. It is telling we have not allowed their use (Russia has already said they would be in favor of international peacekeepers). WHY?
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)How can you ignore Mother Russia's mother fucking up of the Ukraine under Stalin? You think that didn't leave a stain? A memory? Some bad feelings? If so, you obviously don't know any Ukies.
newthinking
(3,982 posts)Most of the rest of the population is simply scared shitless. Why the hell do you think that even now Ukraine has so much difficulty with it's army? Don't believe the western propaganda. Ukrainians have far more experience in military than most of the west. They have mandatory service, every male in the country has been through at least some military training (another reason why it was so easy for the east to pull together a fairly qualified army from scratch.
No, the reason that Ukraine is having so much trouble is that most Ukrainians do not have their heart in fighting the east. Of course you will not hear that on Ukrainian media because if they say so in public they will get a "visit" soon enough.
And I know more "Ukies" (Not a term I would use nor most Ukrainians) than most everyone on this site. If the people you are talking to are obsessed with revenge you are most likely talking only to people who grew up around Lviv or living in the US they have been caught up in the media spin.
The party that came into power in Kiev could never have done so except by violence, threat, and mass disinfranchisement. They have always lost elections because they are a minority.
polly7
(20,582 posts)The Green Manalishi
(1,054 posts)With extreme prejudice.
If the 'Russian Minority" wants to live in Russia, let 'em go.
7962
(11,841 posts)Attacking once more. Hope the Ukrainians put up a fight
Duckhunter935
(16,974 posts)people will be here any minute to explain it is all some kind of misunderstanding. They signed a fucking cease fire and they now have totally broken it. We need to start sending intel and maybe a few cruise missiles in military targets to warn them back. Obviously Ukraine cannot defend itself from the Russian military.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Ukraine is pretty much fucked, but degrading Russia's ability to do anything outside its own borders is necessary to protect its neighbors from this feral has-been of a state.
Duckhunter935
(16,974 posts)is looking at other countries and the "Russian minority". They are saying they may need to invade to "protect" them.
Igel
(35,191 posts)The best tribute to our dead is to kill the living.
Yup. Sums up one possible worldview.
Meanwhile, Lavrov is lamenting that Ukraine has chosen the "military" solution. Obviously confusing all those khokhol names, Zakharchenko, Poroshenko. All those "enkos", who can possibly keep them straight?
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)a violation of the Geneva conventions? If those are no longer in use, the rebels should find themselves on the receiving end of an unpleasant surprise.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/icrc-says-pow-images-breach-geneva-convention/3231184
<...>
Article 13 specifically refers to the use and distribution of images of PoWs and calls for their protection against "insults and public curiosity".
newthinking
(3,982 posts)all countries. Like our torture and imprisonment policies. Our war policies, etc.
Ukraine has also broken conventions. That is why Putin requested, at the Valdai conference, the world work together to resolve the crisis in the standard war rules such as Geneva.
Geneva Conventions Redefined Part 1: The New U.S Department of War
https://spktruth2power.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/geneva-conventions-redefined-%E2%80%93-part-1-the-new-u-s-department-of-war/
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) is considering an emergency meeting to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict after rocket attacks killed at least 30 people in Ukraine's strategic Maruipol port on Saturday (Jan 24).
Latvia, which holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency until July, called for an emergency meeting of the EU foreign affairs council next week.
"I call for extraordinary EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting next week, fully support action by HR Federica Mog addressing situation in UA," Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics said Saturday via Twitter.
In a separate statement the Latvian Foreign Ministry said it was increasingly evident that Russia "is not interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict" in Ukraine in light of events in Mariupol.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/eu-mulls-emergency/1613536.html
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If the conflict ends, people in Russia will have to pay attention to internal matters like corruption and a struggling economy instead of an external, diabolical enemy on their doorstep.
Russia can't be rolled back militarily, so the only real question is how much of Ukraine gets de facto annexed into the Russian empire/federation.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)As long as the government remains hostile. And since they have that long open flat border, there is no neat simple cheap way to prevent them.
It will wind up like Georgia/S. Ossetia, most likely.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)own territory it has to amputate and how many of its citizens it has to effectively strip of their citizenship unless they move.
Gruesome decision, but that's their reality.
No NATO membership so long as there is a territorial dispute, so they should cut their losses sooner rather than later. What they need to do is stabilize the country, what's left of it anyways.
Of course, sanctions on Russia are also pretty much permanent at this point, to the extent they change it will be expansion.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)In the sense that he won't change his course on their account, I think they make him more intransigent.
Somebody is going to own it, it's bankrupt. I would as soon let Putin fix it, since he broke it, and it's his business. It should be very "interesting" seeing to two sides try to work things out now.
Right, continuing on this course is not a good idea, that Zackachnenko fellow will be in Kiev before you know it if Putin doesn't pull the leash. He doesn't seem as incompetent as the previous bunch.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)The Ukrainians are beyond help, but Russia's going to get one hell of a bloody nose from this when the change gets counted.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)hoping everybody will come to their senses and stop it.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)In launching an offensive against the Ukrainian coastal city of Mariupol, pro-Russian separatists have selected a target of both strategic and symbolic importance in their bloody conflict with the government in Kyiv.
Located on the Azov Sea, some 100 kilometers from the rebel-held provincial capital Donetsk, Mariupol is seen as a key element of a potential land corridor from Russia to the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed from Ukraine in March, should the city fall to the rebels.
But because Mariupol and Crimea are separated by several hundred kilometers of territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, the city's sea access and status as a temporary regional capital controlled by Kyiv could be of more significance to the separatists, analysts say.
"Every town -- especially such a big city, and quite symbolic as well -- lost by the Ukrainian government undermines the morale of the Ukrainian side and encourages the Russian rebels to go farther and farther," said Oleksiy Melnyk, a military expert from the Razumkov public policy center in Kyiv.
http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-mariupol-strategic-symbolic-target/26811511.html