No idea. But that anyone made that kind of admission is at least eyebrow raising. Putin won't be able to hide it but all he has to do is continue the propaganda, paint the Ukranians/NATO/Americans as the killers, & that's that. I just don't see enough Russians standing up against him.
That was my position from early in the invasion. Those mobile crematoriums must have been intended for Ukrainians, because it’s just too difficult to hide casualties from your own people. The best you can do is delay the release of information … which the Russians did in fact do.
'Liberal-Nazi' Dictators May Take Power in U.S. and Europe, Russia Claims more talking points for Putin sympathizers in the west
Oh look, another military target. Don't tell me - they bombed themselves *sarcasm*. Cnn live "Around 30 dead, 100 injured in Kramatorsk railway station strike, Donetsk regional police say From CNN's Olga Voitovych in Lviv Donetsk regional police said around 30 people were killed and 100 injured in the Russian missile strike on a railway station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, where civilians were waiting for evacuation trains to safer regions of the country. "Russia hit the railway station in Kramatorsk today," police said in a statement. "The rocket hit the temporary waiting room, where hundreds of people were waiting for the evacuation train. "This is another proof that Russia is brutally, barbarically killing the civilian Ukrainians, with one goal only -- to kill." Kramatorsk railway station has been a crucial hub for evacuation of civilians from the Donbas region. .... "It is already known there about 30 dead people, including children, and about 100 injured," the statement read. "Assistance is being provided to all who need it.""
This is why there won't be much hope for cooperation from the Russian people. The down side of pulling social media out of Russia.
Cnn live. Just to make sure it's balanced. I suppose some could say this was wrong by Ukraine. But (a) they were soldiers, not children; (b) what were they doing when captured? Were they looting? Had they already killed civilians? Did they surrender or were they captured? Frankly I don't feel sorry for them, one bit. "Video appears to show execution of Russian prisoner by Ukrainian forces From CNN's Nathan Hodge, Eoin McSweeney and Niamh Kennedy CNN has geolocated a recent video that appears to show the execution of a Russian prisoner by Ukrainian forces following recent fighting in the Kyiv region. The video — first verified by the New York Times — shows a group of soldiers with Ukrainian patches and blue arm bands on a road following a firefight. The bodies of at least four men in Russian uniform are lying on the pavement. Three of them have head wounds and blood is pooled around the body of a fourth, who has a jacket pulled over his head and seems to be rasping. "He's still alive," says one man, in Russian. "He's gasping." A soldier points a rifle and fires two shots at the body, pauses, then fires another. The body stops moving. A person narrating to the camera then turns to film a Russian infantry fighting vehicle with a "V" marking similar to that seen on Russian military hardware operated by many units in Ukraine. "A little trophy," the man says." ..... & it sounds more like 3 were already dead & the 4th was nearly there. Could almost call it a mercy killing if no medial nearby. Then again may have been better to let the Russian lay there and die slowly, saving the bullets.
The latest denial- that it's not a Russian used rocket. Except they've used it before & still do, & they'd admitted to it before the civilian counts came in, then suddenly you get THIS response "Russian Ministry of Defense calls Kramatorsk strike a "provocation" From CNN's Nathan Hodge in Lviv The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement Friday calling the missile strike on a railway station in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk a "provocation." The statement mirrored recent denials of the indiscriminate killing of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. "All the statements of representatives of the Kyiv nationalist regime about the alleged 'missile attack' by Russia on April 8 at the railway station in Kramatorsk are a provocation and absolutely do not correspond to reality," the statement said. "On April 8, the Russian armed forces did not conduct or plan any artillery fires in the city of Kramatorsk. "We emphasize that the Tochka-U tactical missiles, the wreckage of which was found near the Kramatorsk railway station and published by eyewitnesses, are used only by the Ukrainian armed forces." Ukrainian forces have the Soviet-designed Tochka missile in their inventory but it has also been used by Russian and separatist forces in the past."
August? Really?? "EU's import ban on Russian coal will begin in August, source says From CNN’s Chris Liakos in London The European Union import ban on Russian coal will take effect in August, a European source told CNN Friday. .... The package includes an import ban on all forms of Russian coal. This affects one fourth of all Russian coal exports, amounting to around 8 billion euros in loss of revenue per year for Russia, according to the European Commission. The EU source said that the ban will not be immediate but rather a gradual phase out. There will be “a four-month wind-down period,” according to the source. The package also includes the closing of EU ports to Russian vessels and a ban on exports of high-tech products to Moscow." .... Hopefully the port ban & high-tech exports is immediate versus waiting til August.
Should we start calling the Russian spokespeople Moscow Mischa? Somebody can do better than me on this.
Cnn live "Death toll in Kramatorsk train station missile strike rises to 50, according to regional military governor From CNN's Julia Presniakova in Lviv The death toll from a missile strike on a train station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, has risen to 50, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of Donetsk region military administration. In an update on Telegram, Kyrylenko said 50 people had died, five of whom were children, adding that 12 of the victims died after being taken to the hospital. "We have such a large number of victims at this hour as a result of the attack of the Russian occupation forces Tochka-U [ballistic missile] on the Kramatorsk railway station," he said. "At that moment, 98 people have been taken to hospitals. We expect that other victims will seek medical help within one or two days, so the number of victims will be constantly changing." Of the 98 wounded who were taken to medical facilities, 16 were children, 46 were women and 36 were men, Kyrylenko said."
Read somewhere that the rouble is now worth more than pre invasion. I get that's because of Russia's propping of the rouble & controlling the economy, stocks, etc, but frankly there's too many stages to these sanctions. They need to come down like a hammer. Ukraine needs to be put into NATO now. Russians &.Chinese used this as an excuse so you know what? Give them what they want. Put them in NATO, give them 48 hours to get out of Ukraine completely & negotiate borders. Those that don't like the borders can do like the rest of the world and MOVE somewhere they like. Don't comply, then you're fighting NATO.
propping up the ruble means they don’t have that money to invest in fighting. So they run out of money quicker, or they sell it off to fund the war and it crashes again, probably even harder, and as it does they lose in the conversion. Either way, it’s fool’s gold (literally and figuratively).
