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Post by pieter on Mar 3, 2022 5:40:28 GMT -7
Mariupol surrounded, 'they besiege the city'
The strategically located port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov is surrounded by pro-Russian separatists and Russian troops, an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry said.
Ukrainian authorities in the city say the Russians are "constantly and deliberately" harassing civilian infrastructure. As a result, residents are without water and electricity and the city cannot be supplied. Civilians can't leave either.
"They are besieging the city, just as they once happened with Leningrad," the city government said in a statement. During the siege of Leningrad, the name of Saint Petersburg during the Soviet Union, around 1.5 million people were killed.
Mariupol is still under attack. Women, children and the elderly suffer. We are being destroyed as a country. This is a genocide against the Ukrainian people," the city council said.
Source: NOS
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Post by pieter on Mar 3, 2022 5:47:51 GMT -7
The siege of Leningrad (Russian: блокада Ленинграда; German: Leningrader Blockade) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken from the south by the Army Group North of Nazi Germany against the Soviet city of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front in World War II. The Finnish army invaded from the north, co-operating with the Germans, and completed the ring around the city.
The siege began on 8 September 1941, when the Wehrmacht severed the last road to the city. Although Soviet forces managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the Red Army did not lift the siege until 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. The blockade became one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and it was possibly the costliest siege in history due to the number of casualties which were suffered throughout its duration. In the 21st century, some historians have classified it as a genocide due to the systematic starvation and intentional destruction of the city's civilian population.
Leningrad's capture was one of three strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. The strategy was motivated by Leningrad's political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution and the hated Bolshevism, the city's military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories. By 1939, the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output.
It has been reported that Adolf Hitler was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had invitations printed to the victory celebrations to be held in the city's Hotel Astoria.
Although various theories have been put forward about Germany's plans for Leningrad, including making it the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich in Generalplan Ost, it is clear Hitler's intention was to utterly destroy the city and its population.
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Post by pieter on Mar 3, 2022 5:51:10 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Mar 3, 2022 6:31:02 GMT -7
Folks,
The situation in Mariupul is very worrisome and extremely dangerous for the Civilian population. Why? First of all because the civilians are surrounded by hostile troops and secondly they are blocked from food and water.
I am also worried about the presence of these pro-Russian separatist forces of the Novorossiya confederation (also referred to as the Union of People's Republics, the Donbas Peoples Republic and the Luhansk Peoples Republic in Eastern-Ukraine). These Pro-Russian separatist forces from the Donbas region are battle hardened, very anti-Ukrainian locals, volunteers and mercenaries. These people have been fighting from 2014 until today. They are filled with hatred and contempt for the Ukrainians and might commit atrocities against the Ukrainian population.
I make a destination with the fresh Russian troops with new recruits and soldiers of whom many never have been at a war or have seen a war. I saw the restraint and discipline of some of these Russian soldiers in confrontations with Ukrainian civilians. They didn’t aim their arms at them and didn’t shoot (execute) these civilians, who were quite hostile, called them ‘fascists’ and shouted Glory to Ukraine!" (Ukrainian: Слава Україні!, romanized: Slava Ukraini!).
Of course you will have crooks and thugs under the Russian military as well. But I don’t think Russian soldiers are evil per se. The Russian soldiers are under huge pressure. They have to fight and if they refuse they will be treated badly, like Wehrmacht soldiers who refused to kill the enemy in armed combat because they opposed the ‘imperialist’, ‘Fascist’, ‘Genocidal’, ‘inhumane’, ‘Nazi ideological’, ‘unreasonable’ and ‘irrational’ war against the Soviet population and the Jews. You had brave German and Austrian Wehrmacht soldiers like that.
For instance the German mystic Bruno Bernhard Gröning (May 30, 1906 in Danzig – January 26, 1959 in Paris) (born as Bruno Grönkowski in Gdańsk) was conscripted into the Wehrmacht as a Panzerjäger in Match 1943; after stating that he would not kill another human being, he came close to being executed for this stance at a court martial.
German soldiers of the Wehrmacht or SS did not actually face drastic consequences if refusing an order to execute Russian, Belarussian, Ukrainian or Jewish citizens behind the Eastern Front during the war. Refusing a lawful order did however result in consequences, with 23,000 German soldiers executed for refusing orders.
I wonder what the Russian military law and the rules are in the separatist forces of the Novorossiya confederation. In wars and civil wars normal civil laws, separation of Powers, the Rechtsstaat, Human Rights and rule of law fade away in Chaos, Anarchy, bloodthirsty, the dark cage which is opened inside worriers and the beast that is let loose. In wars brutality is rule, lawlessness common, and women, children, elderly and men and women vulnerable, without a lot of power over their own fate. The only hope people have is that the war be over soon, that war doesn’t come to their region and that bilateral negotiations, multilateral negotiations, ceasefires, diplomacy, reconciliation and peace take place sooner than later.
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Mar 3, 2022 6:56:56 GMT -7
To add to the last post of course I am also worried about the vacuum bomb, Katyusha-type multiple launch rocket systems like BM-21 Grad rockets, Sukhoi Su-24 and Sukhoi Su-35, Fighter jets, artillery and tanks shelling the city. And the use of the Buk missile system against Ukrainian arms.
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Post by pieter on Mar 3, 2022 7:13:45 GMT -7
Mariupol on the Sea of Azov being surrounded by pro-Russian separatists and Russian troops you could compare to a Soviet Belarussian or Russian town or city being surrounded by Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht troops. I compare the Waffen-SS in this case with the battle hardened and ideological seperatist forces, whom are filled with anti-Ukrainian propaganda against the Ukrainian ‘Fascists’, ‘Banderites’ (Banderivtsi (Ukrainian: Бандерівці, Bandе́rivtsi or bandе́rovtsy, Polish: banderowcy, Russian: Бандеровцы) and ‘Neo-Nazi’s’. Members of Russian far-right groups have played an important role among the pro-Russian separatists, more so than on the Ukrainian side. Leaders of the Donetsk People's Militia are closely linked to the neo-Nazi party Russian National Unity (RNU) led by Alexander Barkashov, which recruits fighters. A member of RNU, Pavel Gubarev, was founder of the Donbas People's Militia and first "governor" of the Donetsk People's Republic. RNU is particularly linked to the Russian Orthodox Army, which is part of the Russian separatist forces, and Barkashov is said to have given instructions to its commander Dmitry Boytsov. Volunteers from several other Russian far-right groups have joined the separatist militias, including members of the Eurasian Youth Union, the Russian Imperial Movement, and the banned Slavic Union and Movement Against Illegal Immigration. Other neo-Nazi groups fighting as part of the Russian separatist forces include the 'Svarozhich', 'Rusich' and 'Ratibor' battalions, which have Slavic swastikas on their badges. The badge of the Sparta Battalion bears the black-yellow-white flag of the Russian Empire. Another Russian separatist paramilitary, the Interbrigades, is made up of activists from the Nazbol group Other Russia. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banderitesen.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya_(confederation) |
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