A woman walks by a destroyed Russian military vehicle on the outskirts of Brovary, Ukraine, on March 28. (Heidi Levine)
SouthFront: The U.S. seems to have realized what a monster it has raised in Ukraine. Nazism is the same at all times. Here is the first timid attempt by the US MSM to condemn the actions of the AFU.
Written by Sudarsan Raghavan. Originally published on The Washington Post.
The suspected Russian missile hit the tall apartment building, engulfing it in flames and smoke. It killed at least four people, including elderly residents, and shattered the lives of a close-knit community. For lawmaker Oleksii Goncharenko, the tragedy was yet another example of potential Russian war crimes.
“They are just hitting residential buildings in these areas,” said the Ukrainian parliament member, who arrived at the scene shortly after the explosion two weeks ago. “You can walk around, you will not find any military targets, or any military people. This is just terror.”
Yet a few minutes later, the whooshing sound of Ukrainian rockets fired from a multiple rocket launcher startled residents staring blankly at their destroyed homes.Then, another outgoing barrage. The weapons seemed to be nearby, perhaps a few streets away, certainly well inside the capital.
Increasingly, Ukrainians are confronting an uncomfortable truth: The military’s understandable impulse to defend against Russian attacks could be putting civilians in the crosshairs. Virtually every neighborhood in most cities has become militarized, some more than others, making them potential targets for Russian forces trying to take out Ukrainian defenses.
“I am very reluctant to suggest that Ukraine is responsible for civilian casualties, because Ukraine is fighting to defend its country from an aggressor,” said William Schabas, an international law professor at Middlesex University in London. “But to the extent that Ukraine brings the battlefield to the civilian neighborhoods, it increases the danger to civilians.”
Ukraine’s cities — and civilian areas — have become the crucible of the war, where an intense struggle is unfolding between Russians who want to seize or control these areas and Ukrainians defiantly resisting. That has transformed the conflict into a largely urban war, forged more by aerial weaponry and bombardments than traditional street-by-street fighting in many areas. With Russian forces targeting cities, the Ukrainians have responded by fortifying civilian areas to defend Kyiv, deploying air defense systems, heavy weaponry, soldiers and volunteers to patrol enclaves. Civilian casualties are mounting.
Livestock near a damaged shed at a farm on the outskirts of Brovary. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Yuriy Yunevych’s home and farm on the outskirts of Brovary were heavily damaged in fighting between Russian forces and the Ukrainian military. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
There’s no doubt that Russian forces are behind the most horrific acts of the war as it continues into a second month. They have struck schools, clinics, ambulances, shopping centers, electric and water facilities, passenger cars, among numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians, according to human rights activists. In the southern city of Mariupol, a suspected Russian airstrike killed many people taking refuge inside a theater. It was clearly marked, with the Russian word for “children” in huge letters visible from the sky. Days earlier, a maternity hospital was hit.
But Ukraine’s strategy of placing heavy military equipment and other fortifications in civilian zones could weaken Western and Ukrainian efforts to hold Russia legally culpable for possible war crimes, said human rights activists and international humanitarian law experts. Last week, the Biden administration formally declared that Moscow has committed crimes against humanity.
“If there is military equipment there and [the Russians] are saying we are launching at this military equipment, it undermines an assertion that they are attacking intentionally civilian objects and civilians,” said Richard Weir, a researcher in Human Rights Watch’s crisis and conflict division, who is working in Ukraine.
Over the past month, Washington Post journalists have witnessed Ukrainian antitank rockets, antiaircraft guns and armored personnel carriers placed near apartment buildings. Inone vacant lot, Post journalists spotted a truck carrying a multiple Grad rocket launcher. Checkpoints with armed men, barricades of sandbags and tires, and boxes of molotov cocktails are ubiquitous on city highways and residential streets. The sound of outgoing rockets and artillery can be heard constantly in Kyiv, the capital, the squiggly white trails of missiles visible in the sky.
“Every day, it’s like this,” said Lubov Bura, 73, standing outside the apartment building where she lived that was destroyed two weeks ago. Moments later, as the building was still burning, the sound of outgoing Ukrainian rockets was heard again.“Sometimes it sounds closer, sometimes it seems far. We think about it and, of course, we are worried, especially in the night.”
A police officer carries a piece of a suspected Russian missile that was shot down by Ukrainian forces earlier this month and landed on an apartment block in Kyiv, according to authorities. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
A Ukrainian defensive position in a residential area of Kyiv on March 21. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
The Ukrainian military has “a responsibility under international law” to remove their forces and equipment from civilian-populated areas, and if that is not possible, move civilians out of those areas, said Weir.
“If they don’t do that, that is a violation of the laws of war,” he added. “Because what they are doing is they are putting civilians at risk. Because all that military equipment are legitimate targets.”
Andriy Kovalyov, a military spokesman for Ukraine’s 112th Territorial Defense Brigade, whose forces and equipment are positioned in the capital, scoffed at that reasoning. “If we follow your logic, then we shouldn’t be defending our city,” he said.
In response to written questions from The Post, Alexei Arestovich, adviser to the head of the Office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the country’s military doctrine, approved by parliament, provides for the principle of “total defense.”
That means that volunteers in the Territorial Defense Forces or in other self-defense units have the legal authority to protect their homes, which are mostly in urban areas. Moreover, he argued that international humanitarian laws or the laws of war don’t apply in this conflict because “the main task of Putin’s military campaign is the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.”He said Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s existence as an independent nation.
“Therefore, what is happening here is not a competition of European armies according to established rules, but a struggle of the people for survival in the face of an existential threat,” said Arestovich. “We cannot prevent our citizens from defending their homes, freedoms, values and identities as they understand them.”
On Monday, Ukrainian forces showed a group of journalists a military fortification in a northern residential neighborhood of the capital, near tall apartment buildings, a subway station and shops. The road was barricaded with lines of tires, concrete blocks, piles of sandbags, sharp metallic objects to stop vehicles and large metal tank traps known as “hedgehogs.”
There were also two lines of antitank mines on the road. To one side, a lush patch of greenery, an ideal place for picnics, was sealed off with a warning sign: Mines.
The Expocenter of Ukraine in Kyiv is barricaded by sandbags and tank traps. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
A sign along a road in Sosnivka, Ukraine, warns of land mines. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
“If you want to protect the city, you should be ready to fight inside the city,” said Pavlo Kazarin, a territorial defense unit volunteer and spokesman for his battalion. “Unfortunately, we cannot evacuate all the city because there are still 2 million people. Still, we can stop the Russian army outside the city. But we all understand the risks. We cannot defend the city without risks or injuring the civilians, unfortunately.”
When asked if there was concern that Russian forces could view the residential apartments as a military target because of the fortifications out front, Kazarin agreed. “But I repeat: There are always some risks when you are trying to protect the city.”
He said the Ukrainian forces are trying “everything to prevent” Kyiv from becoming another Mariupol or Kharkiv, cities that were heavily bombed and besieged by Russian forces. “There is a very cruel logic to war when we are trying to protect the civilians,” said Kazarin.
Even if Ukraine violates its responsibilities under international law, “that doesn’t mean Russia gets a pass to do whatever it wants,” Weir said. If civilians are killed near a military position or equipment, Russia can still be held responsible for a possible war crime if its attack was indiscriminate and disproportionate against the civilian population.
Much depends on the size and importance of the military target, the type of weapons used, whether civilians were knowingly targeted and if the harm to them was excessive. For example, Russia’s firing of banned cluster munitions last month into three residential neighborhoods in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was a possible war crime, even if the Russians claim they were targeting Ukrainian military equipment or positions, said activists.
“Where an attack on a military objective may result in civilian casualties, the damage to civilians needs to be balanced against the military advantage,” said Schabas, the professor. “If there is no military advantage, then the violence is not justified, and it is reasonable to speak of war crimes.”
But the line between what constitutes a war crime becomes more blurred if residential neighborhoods are militarized and become battlefields where civilian deaths are inevitable.
“Ukraine cannot use civilian neighborhoods as ‘human shields,’” said Schabas, adding that he was not suggesting this is what is happening.
After every suspected Russian airstrike in the capital and elsewhere, the Ukrainians have dispatched teams to gather video and other evidence to use in a potential war crimes case against Russia at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, but many of those sites could be weak grounds for alleging war crimes.
“If there are military targets in the area, then it might undermine their claim that a specific strike was a war crime,” said Weir of Human Rights Watch.
There are plenty of places in Kyiv where military forces coexist within civilian enclaves. Offices, homes or even restaurants in many residential neighborhoods have been transformed into bases for Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, armed militias made up mostly of volunteers who have signed up to the fight the Russians.
Inside municipal buildings and in underground basements, including one underneath a coffee shop, Ukrainians make molotov cocktails to be used against Russian forces if they enter the capital. Inside a large factory complex, nestled in front of a bustling main highway with shops and apartment buildings nearby, a paramilitary force trains recruits before deploying them to the front lines.
Ukrainian forces keep watch over a young man who was detained near a checkpoint and taken to a compound in Kyiv. They said he was acting suspiciously and did not have identification. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Volunteers prepare molotov cocktails in Kyiv on Feb. 26. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Security experts for Western media organizations have noted that Ukrainian air defenses are so centered in the city that when they hit incoming Russian rockets, missiles or drones, the debris has sometimes struck or fallen into residential complexes.
Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers warn journalists not to take photos or video of military checkpoints, equipment, fortifications or impromptu bases inside the city to avoid alerting Russians to their locations. One Ukrainian blogger uploaded a TikTok post of a Ukrainian tank and other military vehicles positioned at a shopping mall. The mall was later destroyed March 20 in a Russian strike that killed eight people.
There is no proof that the TikTok post led to the strike. On Facebook, a person supportive of the Ukrainian military urged that the man be hunted down for revealing Ukrainian military positions “for the sake of likes” on social media. “I pay $500 for any information about this author on TikTok. ID, residence address, contact details.” The Security Service of Ukraine later said it had arrested the blogger.
In other militarized neighborhoods, residents also expressed concern about hearing outgoing rockets and artillery. “It’s scary,” said Ludmila Kramerenko. “It happens three or four times a day.”
When asked whether she worried about having military weaponry and fighters so close to where she lives, she replied after a long pause: “I don’t know what to say. We are just hoping that everything will be all right and this will end soon.”
Like most residents interviewed, she expressed stoicism and loyalty to Ukraine’s military forces. She said she doesn’t like how the capital has been altered into a fortresslike military zone, but she understands. It was worth hearing the sound of outgoing rockets or living within sight of heavy guns to prevent the Russians from entering the capital, she said.
“We feel bad and saddened because of how our city has changed,” said Kramerenko. “But we understand the situation and believe in our Ukrainian soldiers. We Ukrainians have to fight back.”
Claire Parker in Washington and Volodymyr Petrov in Kyiv contributed to this report.
And all of the cryptos agreed, the angry young nazi had ceased to be.
Congratulation Russian you must be proud bringing war to innocents;; https://t.me/c/1736151536/3292
Problem with Russians is, that they don’t use correct language when talking about their successes. It is not ‘killed civilians’ but collateral damage. See, noone died! Please follow the way, US is dealing with such things. No, better not.
Like when the UN-NATO bombed Libya then it was called surgical precision.
It’s actually better to have the decency to admit that civilians were killed by your side. Trying to downplay it or call it “collateral damage” only adds to the dismay and anger those affected.
One thing I’ve noticed is Google translate is making a lot more mistranslations of Russian text since the war began.
The outright defeat of Russian millitary is inevitable. Ukraine millitary has and is continuing to absolutely destroy Russian army on all fronts. Even the leadership of Dontesk and Luhansk have admitted that Russia has made a big mistake in using millitary forces against Ukraine and the future of Dontesk and Luhansk is not going to be with Russia. Dontesk and Luhansk will be Ukraine there’s no doubt about that. Crimea territory wi be discussed diplomatic and there will be a referendum.
Many high-ranking security officials of the FSB and other departments left the Russian Federation and large cities, some went to Turkey to a NATO country.
How did you open door to our reality?
The outright defeat of banderite millitary is inevitable. Russian millitary has and is continuing to absolutely destroy Ukrop army on all fronts. Even the leadership of Dontesk and Luhansk have admitted that Ukraine has made a big mistake in using millitary forces against Donbas and the future of Dontesk and Luhansk is going to be with Russia. Dontesk and Luhansk will be Russian there’s no doubt about that. Crimea territory wi be discussed diplomatic and there was already a referendum.
Many high-ranking security officials of the SBU and other departments left the Glorious Ukroisisbanderistan and large cities, some went to Turkey to a NATO country.
Inevitable? The Banderpites are suppposed to be wrapping up their “Joint Operation” to cleanse Donbass right now. Defeat occurred for the Kiev Klown Kabal in February.
You do realise the CIA just posted a secret study showing the AFU basically does not operates in brigade/divison levels anymore due to heavy losses to russian attacks, rigth ?
Wow thats some good glue yer sniffing there. Your totally out of her.
When the unhinged paranοid dictatοr Putin Anυs and his shameful puppies will also get blοwn up to tiny charred bits, then world will be a better place.
Mossad
When the unhinged paranοid dictatοr Zellerboy Anυs and his shameful puppies will also get blοwn up to tiny charred bits, then world will be a better place.
BREAKING: Russian state media says Russia will reduce their assault around Kyiv and Chernihiv. This comes after successful Ukrainian counter attacks in the region.
Many high-ranking security officials of the FSB and other departments left the Russian Federation and large cities, some went to Turkey to a NATO country.
BREAKING: Russian state media says Russia will reduce their assault around Kyiv and Chernihiv. This comes after unsuccessful Ukrainian counter attacks in the region.
Many high-ranking security officials of the SBU and other departments left the Glorious Ukropisstan and large cities, some went to Turkey to a NATO country.
No shit. The Ukrops are deliberately hiding among the civilian population, which goes to show how afraid they are of the Russians and how badly they are losing.
Not a word about the nazi infiltration and their leading role in Ukrainian military and politic.
These are people who at one time or another employed the Shah of Iran and Savakh, the Israeli murder machine, Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, Diem, and the House of Saud. Don’t expect much reality-based programming from the Post, a bona fide CIA front from the time CIA became a thing.
“Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein has performed the laborious but useful job of assembling all the known information, plus some new, unknown facts, on journalism’s cooperation with the CIA. All in all, Bernstein reports in an upcoming issue of “Rolling Stone,” the agency files contain the names of 400 journalists who cooperated with the great haunted house of a headquarters in Langley.”
Its no report but some thouths about possibilitis wath people could do, and some USA-CIA idées about Russians, to leth them look bad, stupid Americans they are hoples debiellike their prsident !
Too funny to see a US newspaper having the nerve to write about war crimes from another country. If they wanted to write about war crimes they should imbed with the US Army or Air Force. In American military doctrine there are no civilians on the battlefield.
But according to Adolf and Bander praise them its ok to use Humans as shields. I mean CIA trained isis does the same. Duh…
Everything is going to plan the Russian delegates. We lost over 17000 soliders in just 1 months we are cutting back millitary aggression against Ukraine. First phase of millitary operation has been achieved. The destruction of Russian millitary is first now whatever is leftover from Russian millitary will be sent to die in South of Ukraine. Great millitary operation from Russia Unbelievable dumb fucking Russian millitary. Hey but alcohol is better when you sell an engine from a tank to buy alcohol. The greatest military defeat in modern age and the quickest millitary defeat of the so called great millitary army in the world.
Everything is going to plan the Glorious Banderistan delegates. We lost over 17000 soliders in just 1 months we are cutting back millitary aggression against Donbas First phase of millitary operation has been achieved. The destruction of Ukrobot millitary is first now whatever is leftover from bandera millitary will be sent to die in South of Ukraine. Great millitary operation from Russia. Unbelievable dumb fucking hohl millitary. Hey but alcohol is better when you sell an engine from a tank to buy alcohol. The greatest military defeat in modern age and the quickest millitary defeat of the so called great millitary army in the world.
Evidence ? Lol
I enjoy your desperation—now laughing
Cherish this moment. Because it will be the last time the designated Langley all-seeing eye “Wa-Po” tells the truth.
Breaking a column of 27 Russian t80u has been destroyed 75km from Kyiv Death to invaders. Slava Ukraine
Breaking a column of 27 Ukrop t84u has been destroyed 75km from Kiev Death to invaders. Slava Rossiye
Show us the evidence mister !
The American company Johnson & Johnson suspends the supply of personal care products to Russia. The company also promised to increase donations to help Ukrainian refugees and provide medicine to crisis regions. Is ok the Russians have Caustic soda for washing their brains
Oh no, look an very strategic company is not going to sell deodorants in russia ! Thats going to help the ukranians a lot for sure ! Oh what was that ? The russian goverment can just legally occuppy and nationalise that fabric and sell then to an russian company or any external company while JeJ just lost its real state and dividens in that contry ?? Oh F*
Is ok, Ukrobots such low priority for CIA training that Banderpite troll farm not learn English good.
Hey those who are brainwashed by Russian TV. Can you please explain this.
Many high-ranking security officials of the FSB and other departments left the Russian Federation and large cities, some went to Turkey to a NATO country.
Any answers??
Hey those who are brainwashed by Ukrobot TV. Can you please explain this.
Many high-ranking security officials of the SBU and other departments left the glorious Ukropisstan and large cities, some went to Turkey to a NATO country.
Any answers??
Well if you can provide evidence from that, one thats not coming from ukranian govermnet controled media sites, then we can explain to you why this is fake.
LSD cannot improve your mental illness—cry cry more—I enjoy your tears!
“Nazism is the same at all times. ”
Hm, well, the nazis here in Sweden are one of the very few groups that have a balanced and neutral view of the conflict rather than just going all out on Russia hatered.
How about the majority, the Muslims?
I do not know, I do not follow their sites. And its not about religion, Ahristian Arabs are just as bad for us Swedes. Where I grew up there are no more Swedes, only Christian Arabs. I do not have a home town anymore.
The mass migration and the destruction of culture is what follows in the wake of the US empire. This is why I am highly critical of the Poles and Ukrainians and Balts. Opposing Russia, with their history, is natural. But being dependent on the weapons, financing and backing of the Anglo Empire is increadibly stupid. Being subjugated by Russia is nowhere near as bad as being protected by the Anglo Empire. The Anglos destroy everything they touch and they have the hatered of Europeans as their core ideology. Just watch the “culture” and movies they make? Do you think they are kidding when they destroy European myth and replace Europeans with Africans and Arabs in all the stories? They are not, they are deadly serious and they hate the very existence of Europeans.
Dont you understand that the only reason they let you exist is because you are useful cannonfodder against Russia? What do you think they will do to you once they destroy Russia? Dont you understand that we have resisted this the best we could. But they are masters of lies and manipulation. You have put yourself in the sambe boat as the devil and the more you row the closer you come to hell.
Have you learned nothing from history? Cant you see you are playing the same role as Poland during WW2, used as cannonfodder and then handed over to Stalin. Today, you wont even be handed over to Stalin if you succeed, your people will simply be eradicated. As we have been.
Stop parroting the Washington Post. It is the epitome of US propaganda, owned by oligarch Jeff Bezos.
It was literally a CIA front under the Grahams.
Ukraine may come to realize they are fighting a giant holding one fist behind his back which if used would end in their complete destruction. I pray the western Satanists will withdraw and allow the peaceful settlement of this and once again these brave people can see themselves as brothers against the Satanists.
Fuck WaPo – the original cheerleaders for Blitzkrieg on Baghdad, based on FALSE WMD trash spoken by Colin Powell at UN. Powell – my kids are at US Colleges – I need money! I’ll say anything required to get that cash from the from the Neo-Com regime.
Morters guns were developed for the masses not just for scattered militants. Therefore, mortar guns are useless in nowadays wars. It should be replaced with suicide drones and ATGMs.
Every tank and armoured vehicle should be protected by anti-ATGM devices as used in Syria.
Don’t send an army to an area without knowing the enemies locations in that area rather first send UAV drones.
Don’t allow any humanitarian vehicle from the West because they supply weapons in that. The history of the Western humanitarian strategy is very dirty.
The hacker group Anonymous said on Twitter that it had carried out a powerful cyber attack on Russian civil aviation control servers. So now there is no more data and backup In total, about 65 terabytes of data were erased.
Quote Tweet
If I would be a Russian citizen I would be worried about my all my details leaked to the Internet including bank details and password.
Who would expect anything less from CIA than continuing a thirty-year tradition of robbing the Russian population?
if I were hillbilly in your arkansas trailer park I would sell you overdose of meth
lieutenant colonel Igor Zharov, paratrooper Kirzhach, Vladimir region Liquidated
Thousands of Ukrotard Banderpites turned into taco meat, Donbass gone forever. Great Ukrainian success!
senile nazi hillbilly in arkansas cry cry cry
So much CIA comedy. Ukrotards are on SF claiming that the Russians are nowhere near Kiev, and the CIA front WaPo has pictures of a Banderpite bravely hiding behind his defensive position in Kiev. Black is white in the wonderful world of CIA Banderpistan!
nazi amerikant media designed for the 8 year old —same as the 45 year old amerikant mind
Congratulation Russian you must be proud bringing war to innocent people. https://t.me/c/1736151536/3292