US Cluster Munitions en route to Ukraine

The United States has finally decided today to provide strategically invaluable cluster munitions to Ukraine and is expected to announce tomorrow that the Pentagon will send thousands as part of a new military aid package worth up to $800 million to help Ukraine defend itself and even defeat Russia, according to the Associated Press and other news media.

The decision by the Biden Administration was revealed despite widespread concerns that the controversial bombs can cause civilian casualties. Ukrainian officials have been requesting these arms for months. The Pentagon said it will provide munitions that have a reduced “dud rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended collateral damage.

US officials said Thursday, July 6, they expect greater package of military aid to Ukraine will be announced on Friday. The weapons will come from Pentagon stocks and will also include Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles and an array of ammunition, such as rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System – HIMARS that have been successful in striking russian positions, officials said.

Long sought by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or “bomblets,” that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once. Ukrainian officials have asked for the weapons to aid in pushing through lines of russian troops and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield and in populated civilian areas, U.S. officials have said. And as is typical of moscow, it will deny that weapon to its enemy.

Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who has been advocating that Washington send more weapons, was quoted as saying that Ukrainian forces have had to disable mines from much of the territory they are winning back from Russia. As part of that process, Ukrainians will also be able to catch any unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions. “We will have to de-mine anyway, but it’s better to have this capability,” Ustinova said. She credited Congress for pushing the Administration over several months to change its position on the munitions.

It should be noted that many of these unexploded munitions pollute fields that are key in growing agricultural products for domestic and foreign consumption.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the move was long overdue. “Now is the time for the U.S. and its allies to provide Ukraine with the systems it needs from cluster munitions to F-16s to ATACMS in order to aid their critical counteroffensive. Any further delay will cost the lives of countless Ukrainians and prolong this brutal war,” said McCaul.

The Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, would give Ukraine the ability to strike russian targets from as far as about 180 miles (300 kilometers).

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the US has been thinking about providing the cluster munitions “for a long time.”

“The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it,” Milley said during a speech at the National Press Club.

Cluster bombs can be fired by artillery that the US has provided to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has a large stockpile of them.

The discussion of arbitrarily killing civilians or causing collateral damage by one ordinance or another is nonsense because russia has been using missiles, drones and conventional bombs that not only kill servicemen and women, but they’re also used against russia’s other feared military targets – ask the families of the four victims killed last night in Lviv or the 13 killed civilians, mostly young people, in a pizzeria in Kramatorsk.

Russian Murder of Ukrainian Civilians is Deliberate

In addition to deliberate russian acts of torture of Ukrainians in the past 17 months, United Nations investigators also found that at least 77 unarmed Ukrainian civilians were summarily executed – deliberately killed – by the invading cutthroats.

The figure is, unfortunately, likely to be much higher, because of areas still under occupation, and because the russians also carried out on-the-spot summary executions, according to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.

Russian forces carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians who were detained in connection with the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, summarily executing dozens of them, the United Nations human rights office reported last week. The UN interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the war.

The vast majority of those interviewed said they were tortured and in some cases subjected to sexual violence during detention by russian terrorists, the head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine said. It added that Russian armed forces, law enforcement and penitentiary authorities have used torture and ill-treatment of civilian detainees on a massive scale.

“Torture was used to force victims to confess to helping Ukrainian armed forces, compel them to cooperate with the occupying authorities or intimidate those with pro-Ukrainian views,” said Matilda Bogner.

Sexual violence especially against civilians has been denounced and forbidden by international law.

The figure was reported on June 27, 2023, in the latest report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), titled “Detention of civilians in the context of the Russian armed attack, 24 February 2022 – 23 May 2023.” Since this report concentrates on all aspects of civilian detention, the authors do not go into detail and simply express grave concern over the summary executions of some hostages. 

UN monitors documented the summary execution of 72 men and 5 women whom the russians had arbitrarily detained in Ukraine and are aware of another man who died in russian custody as the result of torture or inhumane conditions. The real number of extrajudicial executions carried out by russia since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine is undoubtedly much higher as the fate of many victims of enforced disappearances remains unknown, and the above figure does not include those whom the russians executed on the spot. News accounts of russian terrorists executing entire families – in some cases grandparents, parents and children – in their automobiles have been reported since the start of the invasion.

An earlier report from December 2022, however, gave more detail about Russia’s summary executions in those parts of the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions that had been occupied russia. By the end of October 2022, OHCHR had recorded the summary execution or fatal attacks on 441 civilians (341 men; 72 women; 20 boys and 8 girls). Fifty-seven of the 100 killings which the report concentrated on were assessed as summary executions (48 men; 7 women and 2 boys). Thirty victims had been killed in places of detention, with the other 27 summarily executed on the spot. The authors warned that in these three regions only, the total number of summary executions and lethal attacks against civilians by the russian military “is likely considerably higher.” This is without taking into account other parts of Ukraine already liberated from the invading forces, as well as those still under occupation. 

In February of this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asserted that russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has triggered “the most massive violations of human rights” in the world today.

The State Department Human Rights Country Report for Ukraine (and an array of other governments, international organizations and NGOs) lists mass and unlawful killings, including summary executions, forced disappearances, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, interrogations with no due process, arbitrary detention, and sexual violence, among other violations. Large numbers of political prisoners and detainees languish in appalling detention centers. There are severe restrictions on political rights and civil liberties, such as freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, religion, movement and, of course, the denial of the right of citizens to vote in free and fair elections, the report concluded.

Most of these rampant human rights abuses and democracy violations have been inflicted on Ukrainian citizens by the russian occupiers since 2014, when moscow seized Crimea and then Donetsk and Luhansk immediately upon the end of 2014 Winter Olympics. However, in the ensuing months the crimes have greatly expanded, intensified and acquired new shocking features and even more terrifying practices since February 2022.

Crimes against humanity, war crimes and atrocities that occurred in places like Bucha, Irpin, Izyum, Mariupol, Kherson and elsewhere shocked the civilized world. In addition, the indiscriminate, relentless drone and missile attacks against innocent civilians and the forcible transfer of Ukrainians including the abduction of Ukrainian children to russia, and the notorious filtration system that dehumanizes by security screenings of Ukrainians who are violently interrogated and detained in concentration camps.

The latest iteration of russia’s war against Ukrainians who are subjected to arbitrary killings, torture, rape, starvation, forcible transfers, and other abuses is part of a centralized plan to break the will of Ukrainian citizens and have them submit to russia’s authority.

In a recent speech to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, U.S. Ambassador Michael Carpenter asserted: “Ukraine’s civilians in Russia-occupied territories have been unjustly detained under the flimsiest of justifications – if any at all – and under appalling conditions. These detained civilians have been sent to penal colonies or detention facilities in occupied territories or deep within Russia, many without charge, leaving their families no ability to track their whereabouts or to appeal their detention.”

Undeniably, this litany of crimes against humanity is aimed at creating a climate of fear and complete subjugation is part and parcel of russian fuhrer vladimir putin’s genocidal attempt to erase the Ukrainian nation, starting with the most vulnerable – the children of Ukraine.

In the words of Ambassador Carpenter, who was reacting to a recent OSCE report exposing russia’s war crimes against Ukraine’s children: “It is heart wrenching to think of Ukrainian children being stolen from their families and uprooted from their homes, and then subjected to systematic efforts to erase their Ukrainian identity and replace it with a Russian one. … As the report makes clear, ‘Not only has the Russian Federation manifestly violated the best interests of these children repeatedly, it has also denied their right to identity, their right to family, … as well as their right to thought, conscience and religion, right to health, and right to liberty and security.”

These children have been forced to sing the Russian national anthem and, at least in one instance, threatened to have their “lips sewn shut” if they uttered support for Ukraine. Or, as the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHRPG) put it: “In January, young people in the devastated city of Mariupol were forced to dance and entertain the invading forces – they were made ‘to thank the killers of their parents, relatives and their childhood [friends], to thank them and entertain them with shows. Parents were warned that anyone who was against, or who filmed it, faced [being imprisoned in] basements for the dissatisfied.’”

• Democratic and Republic incumbents and candidates to public office should reconsider their anti-Ukrainian positions in view of this survey.

Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other U.S. rivals a will to protect U.S. interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.

The two-day poll that was concluded on Tuesday charted a sharp rise in backing for arming Ukraine, with 65% of the respondents approving of the shipments compared with 46% in a May poll.

Eighty-one percent of Democrats, 56% of Republicans and 57% of independents favor supplying U.S. weapons to Ukraine, according to the latest poll.

The survey was conducted just days after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private Wagner mercenary company, launched and then called off a mutiny over what he charged was the Russian defense ministry's mishandling of the war in Ukraine.

The findings appeared to provide firmer backing for President Joe Biden’s policy of doing “whatever it takes” to assist Ukraine in recapturing territory that Russia seized in an initial assault in 2014 and its full-scale invasion 16 months ago.

“This definitely reinforces Biden's decision to be all-in on this,” said William Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine now with the US Institute of Peace. “The Republican leadership of the House and Senate will also take heart from this.”

In other findings, the survey said large majorities of Americans - 67% and 73% - are more likely to support a candidate in next year’s US presidential election who will continue military aid to Ukraine and one who backs the NATO alliance.

• Time to pick up the pace of free world’s military aid to Ukraine.

In an interview with The Washington Post, of June 30, 2023, commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Gen. Valery Zaluzhny offered emphatic ideas of what must be done to ensure Ukraine’s victory over russian invaders. The Post wrote: “So it ‘pisses me off,’ Zaluzhny said, when he hears that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive in the country’s east and south has started slower than expected — an opinion publicly expressed by Western officials and military analysts and also by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though Zaluzhny was not referring to Zelenskyy. His troops have gained some ground — even if it’s just 500 meters — every day, he said.

‘This is not a show,’ Zaluzhny said Wednesday in his office at Ukraine’s General Staff headquarters. ‘It’s not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood.’

‘Without being fully supplied, these plans are not feasible at all,’ he added. ‘But they are being carried out. Yes, maybe not as fast as the participants in the show, the observers, would like, but that is their problem.’”

• Earlier I wrote about 11 slices of death at the Kramatorsk pizzeria due to a russian missile strike. The toll has risen to 12. Rescuers retrieved another person’s body from the rubble at the site of moscow’s June 27 crime against humanity, when russian terrorists fired two soviet-era S-300 missiles at the eastern Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk. The number includes three children, two born in 2008 and one in 2011. Another 60 people were injured, including a child. The search and rescue operation is completed, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Viktoriya Amelina, a Ukrainian writer and member of the PEN Club, who was having dinner with Colombian journalists, became the 13th fatal victim, succumbing to her head wounds in the hospital.

11 Slices of Death

Who hasn’t been to a pizzeria? It’s a well-deserved respite at the end of day or week for the entire family. Adults love it and so do kids. We all have our favorite pizzeria, which is different from the one down the street or around the block. With an assortment of toppings or plain, the ubiquitous pizza is so popular that it can be considered America’s favorite food. It’s comfort food. It’s a safe place for family enjoyment.

It’s a culinary delight around the world, even Ukraine.

But thanks to russian terrorists, Ukrainians’ image of this food has dramatically changed. A pizzeria was the latest russian crime against humanity. It was thoroughly obliterated in the bombardment of a Ukrainian city, a non-military target frequented by civilians, a tactic russian war criminals have been using heavily in this 16-month-old war.

Russian cutthroats killed at least 11 people and injured 61 in a strike on a popular restaurant in Kramatorsk on Tuesday, June 27, thanks to the help of a Ukrainian traitor who provided exact coordinates that resulted in a direct hit on the eatery.

Three children, including twin sisters shown here along with mom and injured baby, are among the dead in the attack on the only major city in eastern Ukrainian controlled by Kyiv.

Rescuers have been digging through the rubble of the destroyed building, looking for people throughout Wednesday, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. The shocking images broadcast by BBC this morning showed a mass heap of rubble and injured patrons and passersby.

The strike destroyed the Ria Pizza restaurant in the center of the city of 158,000 residents, popular with journalists, aid workers, soldiers, families and teens. According to Ukrainian sources, the russians used S-300 missile systems to attack the city.

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a local man they accuse of helping Russia direct the missile strike.

Three Colombians, famous writer Hector Abad, politician Sergio Jaramillo and journalist Catalina Gomez were slightly injured while having dinner in the restaurant with the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, according to local information. Amelina was taken to a hospital with head injuries among other wounds. She is the founder of the New York Literary Festival in Donetsk region. She read Oleh Sentsov’s stories translated into English at the Frankfurt Book Fair and participated in numerous actions in support of his release from russian captivity.

The unanswered question of how long will the free world tolerate russia’s war crimes in Ukraine persists? You hear it from Ukrainians around the world. You now hear it in the hearts of the parents of the killed children. There is no excuse for hearing this question if you are human and feel the pain that has enveloped Ukrainians.

Don’t get used to that pain.

Wouldn’t it be grand if the U.S. pizza industry, independent and chain pizzerias and distributors issued a statement of support for the Ukrainian people that condemned russia for this latest war crime?

The March on Moscow that Wasn’t

After a day of vitriolic accusations, threats, denunciations and an actual military threat against moscow, the heart of mother russia, all of which culminated months of incendiary diatribe, is it possible that the two Russian arch nemeses kissed and made up?

I, for one, don’t believe it. Let bygones be bygones is not part of the russian mindset.

As Churchill famously observed about russia, it is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. What is up, is down; what’s black is white; what’s hot is cold. But the historical constant and truth is that russia is evil, aggressive, vicious and deceitful as it obnoxiously disregards outsiders’ views about what it is thinking and doing. On any given Saturday putin will look you in the eye and tell convincingly it’s Monday.

Is it possible that prigozhin had an epiphany while his wagner cutthroats were heading to moscow, where everyone from putin to the lowly woman sweeping streets felt at least menaced by the possibility of an invasion? So the bellicose former hotdog peddler turned military commander ordered his troops to make an about face just a few dozen kilometers from an historic victory.

One of odd elements of this surreal development is that belarus’ strongman lukashenko, recognized as not being the sharpest knife in the drawer who doesn’t do anything without putin’s nod, hatched a plan that would de-escalate the tension. The gambit called for prigozhin’s army to turn around while the wagner boss and his entourage would be given safe haven in belarus and all charges against them would be dropped. Other wagnerites would be offered contracts in the Russian army.

According to the Associated Press, prigozhin, not known for being a humanitarian, acquiesced. Here’s a part of its story moved yesterday, June 24:

 “The greatest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power fizzled out relatively peacefully Saturday after the rebellious mercenary commander who ordered his troops to march on Moscow abruptly reached a deal with the Kremlin to go into exile and sounded the retreat.

“The dramatic if brief revolt shifted the landscape for the Kremlin and the 16-month-old war in Ukraine and prompted Russia to pull soldiers back from the battlefield to defend the capital, a stunning recognition of the threat posed by Wagner Group soldiers under the command of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“Under the deal announced by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Prigozhin will go to neighboring Belarus and charges of mounting an armed rebellion will be dropped. The government said it also would not prosecute fighters who took part, while those who did not join in were to be offered contracts by the Defense Ministry.”

The AP is a credible news service but the story itself is hooey. After mutually threatening each other with death and destruction, denouncing one another for betraying mother russia, and one blaming the other for failing to defeat Ukraine, is the free world to believe that putin and prigozhin are long lost, back slapping buddies?

Indeed there is something simmering far below the surface. The gnawing question is what’s hiding behind the “signature or brains” conversation between prigozhin and aleksandr “Fredo” lukashenko. Extra hotdog wagons? Will putin really forgive and forget prigozhin’s crimes and insults? After all, in 23 years russia’s dictator has killed many opponents in russia and beyond for comparatively smaller crimes. Will prigozhin’s ex-con mercenaries abandon attempts to rescue their leader, who loudly declared just a few hours earlier that they will never surrender?

None of this makes sense in a country consisting of an ersatz nation, where leaders have been known to murder their way to power and remain there the same way.

All of this bodes ill for the future of russia. After 16 months of the latest iteration of russia’s war against Ukraine, many officials, scholars and pundits have been asking how it will end. Is it possible that a defeated russia will be ripe for decolonization and dismemberment? The possibility of an armed insurrection was discounted.

Prigozhin’s rebellion demonstrated that despite tyranny, ruthlessness, and a strong fist, russia and putin are not unbeatable. Cracks in the Kremlin have appeared. The emperor is naked, russia is weaker than thought and any ambitious local or national capo can take a poke at it.

And it should be understood that in russia no one reaches the corner office without a network of backers. Including prigozhin. Yes, he was a hotdog peddler, then a restaurateur, then a government caterer, putin’s best friend ever, organizer of the wagner killers, and finally a viable threat to putin’s hegemony. He does have his supporters who may have egged him on, offering support and encouragement, and bankrolling his army of convicts, which couldn’t have been done on hotdog sales. Consequently, how will they react to prigozhin’s sudden surrender, which leaves them exposed in a country that is known for bloody revenge? Remember how Don Corleone eliminated his enemies and traitors?

Indeed, Ukrainians the world over were watching with glee events unfold in russia. The ubiquitous joke was “pass the popcorn, please.” Russia’s headaches could provide Ukraine with a respite in the war, allowing the Armed Forces of Ukraine to continue forcibly advancing against russian positions in the east and perhaps driving the terrorists out of Ukraine.

However, sadly, as the saying goes, a dead wasp can bite again. On the morning of prigozhin’s march on moscow, russian rockets hit a 20-plus story apartment building in Kyiv, killing three people and wounding a dozen.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed out that prigozhin revealed that russia is not only weak but leaderless since putin is not to be found. Reports said that he left moscow in a hurry for his bunker in the Urals.

On Sunday, June 25, Zelenskyy made this video statement that was visible on many platforms:

“Today is a day when there should definitely be no silence. And leadership is definitely needed.

“Today the world saw that the masters of russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Just complete chaos. Complete lack of any predictability. And this is on russian territory, which is full of weapons.

“The world should not be afraid. We know what protects us. Only our unity. Ukraine will definitely be able to protect Europe from any russian forces – and it does not matter who commands them. We will protect. The security of the eastern flank of Europe depends only on our defense. And that is why every manifestation of support for our defense is support for your defense, everyone in the free world.

“I will say in Russian. The man from the kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself. I am sure that he is no longer in moscow. He calls somewhere, asks for something there... He knows what he is afraid of, because he himself created this threat. All evil, all losses, all hatred - he spreads it himself. And the longer he can run between his bunkers, the more you will lose everything... everything connected with russia.

“What will we, Ukrainians, do? We will defend our country. We will defend our freedom. We will not be silent and we will not be inactive. We know how to win - and it will happen. Our victory in this war will be clear.

“And what will you do?

“The longer your troops stay on Ukrainian soil, the more destruction they will bring to russia. The longer this person is in the kremlin, the more disasters there will be.”

Russia is in a historical turmoil, which should please the free world regardless of unfounded fears of whose finger will appear on the nuclear button. In russia, that is an ever-present possibility.

Here are a few of my conclusions: Don putin will sooner or later have his expected revenge against prigozhin while he’s vacationing in belarus thanks to “Fredo” lukashenko; prigozhin and lukashenko have already set the wheels in motion to eliminate putin; and what will the oligarchs in both camps do when they fully comprehend that the federal system that they’ve been supporting is a rotten tree stump that is further threatened by the ill-fated, never ending war in Ukraine.

According to social media posts in the evil empire, the name of nikolai platonovich patrushev has surfaced as another game changer. He is a russian politician, security officer and intelligence officer who has served as the secretary of the Security Council of russia since 2008. He previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service from 1999 to 2008.

That’s the end of round one with putin winning on points. But the fight isn’t over.

UN: Widespread russian Torture in Ukraine is Deliberate

News and images of russian torture of Ukrainian servicemen and women as well as civilians have shocked the civilized world since moscow invaded Ukraine on February 22, 2022.

The first reports came a couple of weeks after russians cross the Ukrainian border, from Bucha and Irpin. Then came Azovstal. The coldblooded murder of a Ukrainian POW who declared “Glory to Ukraine.” And the beheading of Ukrainian soldiers. And then there’s psychological torture of knowing that your life as a Ukrainian isn’t worth spit in the minds of russian cutthroats and it could end in a second. You could be standing in a breadline, then you’re dead. You can be riding with your family in a car when the invaders riddled the vehicle with rifle fire killing all inhabitants – adults and children. You could be running with your mother to evade missiles when it hits the ground killing 11-year-old Liza. Or you could be captured with your siblings then raped and killed. You could be hiding beneath your home when the russians discovered you and threw grenades into the basement.

Yes, there is physical torture as well as psychological torture and russians are adept at inflicting both on purpose, systematically, deliberately and with authorization. Their cruelty against Ukrainians even exceeds the Nazis’ brutality.

The United Nations has finally declared it to be so. Furthermore, it said, there are no excuses or explanations for torture during wars, which are tantamount with war crimes. The perpetrators cannot point fingers at commanding officers, saying they made us do it.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards yesterday expressed alarm at reports and testimonies which appear to indicate that russian military forces in Ukraine are consistently and intentionally inflicting severe physical and psychological pain and suffering on Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. This torture is being carried out to extract intelligence or to force confessions from detained individuals, or because of their former membership or support of the Ukrainian armed forces, Edwards said in a rather rare, accusatory letter to russian officials.

“The alleged practices include electric shocks, beatings, hooding, mock executions and other threats of death,” Edwards wrote. “If established, they would constitute individual violations and may also amount to a pattern of State-endorsed torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

According to the UN statement, the allegations relate to the detention of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war held in grossly inadequate conditions in facilities run by russian military forces inside Ukraine. In the letter, sent jointly with other independent UN experts, Edwards said that the consistency and methods of the alleged torture suggests “a level of coordination, planning and organization, as well as the direct authorization, deliberate policy or official tolerance from superior authorities.”

“Torture is a war crime, and the systematic or widespread practice of torture constitutes a crime against humanity,” she noted. “Obeying a superior order or policy direction cannot be invoked as justification for torture, and any individual involved should be promptly investigated and prosecuted by independent authorities.”

Reports indicate that as a result of torture, ill-treatment and poor conditions of detention many Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war have suffered physical and psychological traumas, hallucinations, damage to internal organs, fractures and cracks in bones, extreme weight loss, sensory impairment as well as motor losses, strokes or the exacerbation of chronic diseases. Most individuals reportedly did not have access to adequate medical assistance during their detention.

“The longer the war goes on, the more reports are emerging of torture and other inhuman treatment,” Edwards said. “Such cruelty inflames hostility and damages future hopes of peace and reconciliation between neighbors. I strongly urge relevant authorities to ensure that civilians and prisoners of war are protected and treated humanely at all times,” she said.

Based on russia’s conduct in its latest war against Ukraine, the sole purpose of which in the words of putin and all political and military officials is to conquer the country and annihilate the nation, the only way to stop this historically exorbitant level of torture is to defeat russia and bring the perpetrators – all of them from putin to the miserable private on the front line to justice.

Lithuanian FM: Russia must Lose the War and Ukraine must Win

It has been our conviction that the battlement of former captive nations of russian subjugation is the strongest bulwark against unending russian aggression.

The subjugated peoples that became enslaved in moscow’s prison of nations and then in the 1990s began to free themselves of this inhuman yoke are destined to keep the free world free and russia glowering behind the iron curtain that it erected. By working together, forming an unbreakable multifaceted bloc against the kremlin’s malicious mission of imprisoning old and new, near and far away nations, they can preserve regional and global peace, stability and security.

The historic support Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and others show for each other every day is surely the envy of the free world. They have the knowledge, experience, commitment and spirit to fulfill this task. They only need the free world’s latest military technology to keep russia at bay. The latest iteration of russia’s centuries long war against Ukraine is proof of this.

The x-captive nations also comprehend that in the current war russia must lose and Ukraine must win for peace to return to the region first and then the world.

In an interview with French-language website www.rfi.fr, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis, opined during a recent meeting organized by the French Institute of International Relations that victory for Ukraine and defeat for russia are equally essential because that would create the impression of deterrence, that russia is weaker than Ukraine and the other x-captive nations individually or collectively.

“We want the strategy to be such that Putin never considers outside adventures again,” Landsbergis said.

Lithuania is also incessantly concerned by russia’s history of belligerence and invasions of foreign countries because it is wedged between russia (Kaliningrad enclave) and its vassal belarus.

“Therefore our security issues are higher than they normally would be. We see that russia is currently in a bad position in Ukraine, but if we project ourselves into the future, in three, five or seven years, we know that it will be able to rebuild itself. If there is no radical change in Moscow, then we will have two dangerous neighbors on our side,” he said.

Landsbergis doesn’t expect russia to abandon its historical goal of subjugating Ukraine and the others, but deterrence may keep moscow regardless of its leader handcuffed inside the kremlin.

“We want russia to lose in Ukraine, we want Ukraine to win, and then whatever happens in russia is russia’s business. It will take care of it as it sees fit,” Landsbergis observed. “But we must know that we are defended so as not to be attacked by Russia.”

As a member of NATO, Lithuania is protected by the power of Article 5 that states that an attack against one is an attack against all, which should protect it and other member-states. However, Landsbergis isn’t betting his country’s money on that principle.

“This has been the case so far, no doubt. But looking to the future, one has to admit that russia has crossed a psychological red line. This country is an aggressor that has justified a full-scale invasion against its neighbor. So the idea is that it could find a justification for another invasion. That’s what worries us. That is why we ask that this threat translate into further defense and reinforcement of the eastern flank,” he explained.

High-tech military aid definitely helps Ukraine, he said, but it needs to be delivered faster and more often. Ukrainian Armed Forces are capable of mastering their usage, he added.

“Therefore, additional NATO troops would be a logical step after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the deployment of additional equipment and air defense assets would also be very useful. So that we can have the feeling of being protected in the same way as countries further west,” Landsbergis said.

As for the question of the day regarding the perpetrator behind the destruction of Kakhovka dam, Landsbergis doesn’t mince words. Russia did it.

“Russia has been bombing civilian infrastructure since day one and constantly lying about the identity of the bombers. So I think from this experience it is very clear that we can definitely blame russia and demand that they take responsibility. Ukraine must win the war and russia must pay the price for all the damage caused,” he said.

US Demonstrates Long-Term Commitment to Ukraine

Recent developments in the latest iteration of russia’s long-term wars against Ukraine have compelled the United States and other free world allies of Kyiv to step up their expressed support “to the end” for Ukraine.

And it couldn’t have come at a more propitious time.

The latest example of russia’s stubborn commitment to annihilating Ukrainians came on June 6 with destruction of the Kakhovka dam in occupied southeastern Ukraine.

Regardless of how mercilessly brutal they are toward civilian Ukrainians, the russian cutthroats in uniforms are incompetent on the battlefield. Nonetheless, their commanders formulate evil plots to kill as many Ukrainians as possible and to harm as much of Ukrainian towns and countryside as possible.

That was the goal of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam earlier this week. The structure, which has been in russian hands for some 12 months, was built in the days of the evil soviet empire. According to engineering reports from Ukraine, it was meant to withstand intense bombardment from the outside, but not from within. Consequently, russian sappers had the time to find the dam’s vulnerable areas and then plant enough explosive devises to blow up the dam and release water the size of the Great Salt Lake.

Norwegian seismographers determined that a massive explosion caused the dam to be destroyed. A BBC correspondent reporting this finding laid all of the evidence in a row and said the guilty party could not be anyone else but russia, the kremlin, putin and the invading army.

The devastation has been biblical. People have drowned, towns and farms have bene inundated, crops destroyed, livestock killed. The regional and global ecological damage has not yet been calculated but it is expected to consume everything in its path, leaving the people without food or water or arable land.

This is the second time that russia has destroyed this dam for its egocentric malicious reasons, the previous one being during World War Two. And this is the second time russia is forcing famine upon the Ukrainian nation, the previous time was the infamous Holodomor. Clearly, moscow is intent on fulfilling its centuries-old mission of killing all Ukrainians and ravaging the countryside as it captures the country.

The scenes of the devastation ahead of U.S. elections should serve as a stark reminder to all Republican and Democratic candidates that it is in America’s best interest to help Ukraine defeat and subdue Russia before it rolls across Europe and the Atlantic to the shores of the U.S.A.

According to the U.S. Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Ukrainian army has conducted counterattack operations in at least three areas of the front within 24 hours with mixed results, the Baltic News Network reported. ISW said in a report published on Thursday, June 8, that these operations are part of a broader counterattack effort that has been ongoing since the 4th of June.

Ukrainian forces have switched from defense to offensive towards Bakhmut, and have advanced even by two kilometers in some places.

The Ukrainian army carried out a limited but significant offensive in the west of the Zaporizhzhia region overnight on June 8. At the same time, Russian forces put up fierce resistance and regained their original positions.

Fortunately, the Biden Administration has again come forward with help. The U.S. announced today a new $2.1 billion package of military aid to Ukraine.

The Pentagon elaborated that this is long-term weapons aid for Ukraine. The new assistance package will include funding for more Patriot missile battery munitions, Hawk air defense systems and missiles, and small Puma drones that can be launched by hand.

The latest funding, one of the larger packages the U.S. has provided, comes as there are signs that Ukraine has begun the much anticipated counteroffensive to take back territory that has been seized by Russia. Unlike the U.S. equipment, weapons and ammunition that are more frequently sent from Pentagon stocks and delivered quickly to Ukraine, this money would be provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and is meant to be spent over the coming months or even years to ensure Ukraine’s future security needs.

In a statement, the Pentagon said the package shows America’s continued commitment “to both Ukraine’s critical near-term capabilities as well as the enduring capacity of Ukraine’s Armed Forces to defend its territory and deter Russian aggression over the long term.”

The aid also will include munitions for laser-guided rockets, an undisclosed amount of artillery rounds, and funding for training and maintenance support.

President Biden said yesterday he’s confident the U.S. will have the necessary funding to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to fight invading Russian forces, despite skepticism in the GOP-led House about providing supplemental spending for the effort.

“I believe we’ll have the funding necessary to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Biden said at a press conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who supports the policy of helping Ukraine. “And I believe that that support will be real, even though you hear some voices today on Capitol Hill about whether or not we should continue to support Ukraine and for how long.”

Biden and White House officials have been adamant since Russia first invaded in February 2022 that the U.S. would stand with Ukraine for as long as it took to bring the war to an end. The U.S. has thus far allocated billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Kyiv.

A number of administration officials reportedly have acknowledged that the fighting in Ukraine has intensified in recent days, but much of the focus turned early this week to the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

The free world is solidly in support of Ukraine. Which is a good thing but it shouldn’t let its guard down. The kremlin and its killers for hire have stated that they will mobilize 200,000 walking dead russians to fight in Ukraine. Russia must be defeated, dismembered and decolonized as soon as possible before this plan is fulfilled.