Althouse: "Ukrainian soldiers pushed through areas around the capital, Kyiv, on Saturday, encountering the grim wreckage left behind by Russian forces retreating from the region."

April 2, 2022

"Ukrainian soldiers pushed through areas around the capital, Kyiv, on Saturday, encountering the grim wreckage left behind by Russian forces retreating from the region."

"The devastated cities and villages around Kyiv bore the hallmarks of Russia’s early assaults and failures: Incinerated tanks, abandoned defensive positions and the bodies of both soldiers and civilians. Despite the collapse, at least for now, of Russia’s initial attempt to seize the capital, it was unclear whether the Russian troops were gone for good or were trying to regroup after weeks of intense Ukrainian resistance and crippling logistical failures."

The NYT reports.

27 comments:

Howard said...: Not what Tucker Trump & Tim in VT want to see.; 4/2/22, 7:17 PM
n.n said...: Eight years since the Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring, two years sine the Zelensky regime grabbed power, all while a Kiev-aligned military and paramilitary axis attacked Ukrainians. As for NYT, they carried out their own insurrection in the form of a cover-up of irregularities and fraud in elections, and conspiracy to bray misinformation and disinformation to influence and steer the vote. Now they care about demos-cracy aborted in darkness.; 4/2/22, 7:30 PM
Bender said...: The Soviets will do what they have done thus far, after getting crushed in close-in fighting, they will destroy hospitals, destroy apartment buildings, destroy homes, destroy schools, kill civilians by missiles and artillery bombardment from miles away. War crimes for which the anti-armor weapons the West has deigned to give to Ukraine offer little defense against.; 4/2/22, 7:46 PM
jrapdx said...: As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. No shortage of opinions on what's happened in Ukraine, and who's done what to whom. But no doubt at all civilians have suffered no matter how the "fault" for the fighting is distributed. Main question I'm asking is what happens after the warfare stops? How is the mess going to be cleaned up? Who pays for it?

If the pattern holds the US will become the primary resource for restoration in Ukraine. Well, OK, but what do we get for going to the trouble and expense? More than anything I want guarantees that it won't get destroyed again. And that means keeping Russia from invading in another few years, in turn, it requires putting our military there or arming Ukraine to the teeth. Which could provoke Russian paranoia to again attack Ukraine.

Some problems stubbornly defy all attempts at logical solutions. So WTH are we supposed to do about it?; 4/2/22, 8:29 PM
Bender said...: Just fucking image how many people they have executed in Mariupol. In my Volnovakha, and all those cities and towns Russia razed to the ground.
One giant insane bloodbath, WWII-scale, for the sake of sick fantasies of “denazification” leaving thousands of dead bodies behind.

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1510394069926748169

Imagine driving through the outskirts of a European capital and having to be cautious not of potholes, but dead innocent people laying every few meters. That’s Bucha right now

https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1510376385470251012; 4/2/22, 8:31 PM
Drago said...: Howard: "Not what Tucker Trump & Tim in VT want to see."

Looks like the child sexual groomers still buy into the long ago debunked collusion lies.; 4/2/22, 8:35 PM
Bender said...: Maria Genkin:
Pictures of some villages freed in Kyiv region, specifically Bucha, are devastating. Dead people lying outside of their houses, in what can only have been a “zachistka” - systemic execution of the men of each house. One body in front of every house.

https://twitter.com/AseyevStanislav/status/1510333593180069896; 4/2/22, 8:37 PM
Bender said...: My friend is writing: "My husband's friend, a doctor from Zaporizhzhia, says a group of girls from Mariupol was admitted to their hospital. The oldest one is 10 years old. They have recto-vaginal tears."

https://twitter.com/olya_rudenko/status/1510304622816251909

Bodies of 4 or 5 naked women were found on a road near Kyiv. Russians allegedly tried to burn them. God knows what happened before that. Spotted by @mpalinchak

https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1510349571976839176; 4/2/22, 8:41 PM
Bender said...: Many civilians were found dead on the outskirts of #Kyiv. Russians executed people after tying their hands behind their backs, or even choked them to death as shown in the first picture.

#Russia will pay for every blood spilled in #Ukraine. #WarCrimes

https://twitter.com/AsamiTerajima/status/1510352624448647171; 4/2/22, 8:45 PM
madAsHell said...: Ya' know.......I am skeptical of all the reports from the conflict. It's a brutal civil war. Nobody wins.; 4/2/22, 9:01 PM
Bender said...: Well, OK, but what do we get for going to the trouble and expense?

You get to call yourself a half-decent human being.; 4/2/22, 9:07 PM
The Godfather said...: I'm beginning to wonder what the downside would be to admitting Ukraine to NATO if they defeat the Russian attack this time.; 4/2/22, 9:12 PM
stunned said...: Ukrainian doctor tells TV interviewer he has ordered his staff to CASTRATE Russian soldiers.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K9xX4kgA-4I

Also, #banderovci
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia; 4/2/22, 9:23 PM
Bender said...: Read this story till the end. During WWII some children were making diaries from concentration camps & occupied cities by nazis. History is repeating. This is a diary of Katya, a 16 years old girl from Mariupol, whose mother died in the basement👇😢

“You know that feeling when it hurts? I once fell in love with a boy, but he didn’t fall in love with me, and I thought it hurt. But it turned out that it hurts to see your mother die in front of you”, says 16 y.o. girl from Mariupol, a hell on earth
1/11
My brother keeps coming up to mom, saying, “Mommy, don’t sleep, you will freeze”. We will never visit her grave. She has remained in the damp and dark basement.
We went to the toilet, slept, ate leftovers in the same basement
2/11
Once uncle Kolya caught a pigeon, and we fried it and ate it. And then we all vomited. Mom held on to the last, 3 days before our evacuation, she died.
I told my brother that she was asleep and should not be awakened. But he seems to have understood it all.
3/11
…Our neighbor died, and we could not carry her outside, and she began to smell. When it got quiet uncle Kolya carried her out, and himself got killed on a trip wire.
Mom cried a lot. After dad died uncle Kolya was the closest person.
4/11
… corpses stink so much. They were everywhere. I covered my brother's eyes with my mother's scarf so that he would not see this. While we were running, I nearly vomited several times.
I no longer believe in your God. Had he existed, we wouldn't have suffered so much.
5/11
My mom never, you hear, never did anything wrong. She went to church. Uncle Kolya quit smoking so that mom wouldn`t be nervous that it`s a sin. And your God took her away. The priest said my mom now serving God, but it`d be better if she were to serve him here, raising us.6/11
I hate russia. My own uncle is there. Do you know what he told me on phone today? "Katya? What Katya? Girl, I don't know you. What war, what Katya? And then he wrote from the a burner phone,“Katya, do not write to me. It is dangerous for me and my family. Your mom is gone.”
7/11
I hate them! She was his sister!? How is that possible?
… you know, I think that I will return to Mariupol. And I will live in the same place. And every time, on the same day, I will go down to the basement of a new house to lay flowers.
8/11
It's also scary when children cry. You can't be heard. These freaks searched for people in basements and killed them. Those who survived said that the russian military were able to rape children and the elderly, and even corpses.
If there is a God, why does He allow this?
9/11
I don't want to live anymore. We'll probably be separated now. And I might not see my brother. What for? Why was this putin saving us? We lived well, we even bought a car. Uncle Kolya promised to teach me how to drive. They even burned the car. And the apartment is gone.
10/11
I want to die, but I can't.
… hug your kids! Otherwise, you may be gone, and they will not remember your smell. If I endure and later have children, I will be hugging them all the time "...
Source: life.nv.ua/ukr/znamenitos…
11/11

https://twitter.com/dkaleniuk/status/1510294004356759553; 4/2/22, 9:26 PM
Charlie Eklund said...: So, as the Russian Army and their gangster mercenaries withdraw, the corpses of murdered cvilians remain, scattered here and there across northern Ukraine. The time to start dusting off an old courtroom in Nuremberg may not yet be at hand but I’m beginning to think it likely will eventually arrive. Interesting times.; 4/2/22, 9:28 PM
Drago said...: The Godfather: "I'm beginning to wonder what the downside would be to admitting Ukraine to NATO if they defeat the Russian attack this time."

Russian missiles in Cuba and Venezuela immediately comes to mind along with increasing Russia/ChiCom spheres of cooperation/coordination.; 4/2/22, 9:35 PM
Bender said...: Bucha massacre- Warning Graphic Images
Russia's genocide- 16-60 year old men executed, nearly 300 buried in mass grave
by Olga Lautman

I write this with the heaviest of hearts and rage beyond belief but these war crimes and genocide committed by Russia need to be documented. Yesterday, Ukrainians celebrated after news came that Bucha, a city in the Kyiv region, was liberated but there are no words to describe what came next. Journalists entered the city to find bodies scattered in the streets.

Ukrainian TV presenter and journalist Dmytro Komarov showed the first footage from the liberated city of Bucha in the Kyiv region. Komarov, filming the video, said that there are many mines in Bucha, which are located on the streets, playgrounds, and on the doors of residential buildings. He noted that the mines can be in the form of anything - a phone, a pack of pasta, or a matchbox. Komarov also added that in Bucha there are many corpses of civilians of all ages lying right on the roads. According to Komarov, Russian troops even tied up the men and shot them. "It's tears and pain. There are a lot of corpses in the city. I saw the bodies of young boys lying about a kilometer away. They have their hands tied and their heads shot. They put on a hood and a hat. This coincides with what I was told. population about 16-60. All young, healthy - were shot, "- said Komarov. His video documentary appeared on the YouTube channel МИР НАИЗНАНКУ, showing the genocide committed....

What will we find in Mariupol (a city under siege for over a month), Sumy, Kherson, and other cities taken by Russian forces if this is the genocide discovered in Bucha? Russian forces are raping women and committing mass murder against innocent civilians. The world must do everything to put a stop to these atrocities committed by Russia.; 4/2/22, 9:46 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Any Ukrainians defending Kiev couldn't be used to fight the Russians in the south and east.

Did Russia intend to capture and hold Kiev or any part of western Ukraine? They haven't used their airpower there either. Why not?
Maybe the forces in the north were a feint, a sacrifice of their least valuable men and equipment.; 4/2/22, 9:56 PM
Richard Aubrey said...: Charlie. Along with, reports say, mines and booby traps. Pretty low.; 4/2/22, 9:57 PM
Mutaman said...: Blogger Drago said...

"Looks like the child sexual groomers still buy into the long ago debunked collusion lies.'

Hey Ann:why do you think you have such a high percentage of QAnon nutcases among your posters? Just a coinky dink or is there something about you that causes them to be crawling out of the woodwork and over to your blog?; 4/3/22, 12:35 AM
wendybar said...: What Mut calls QAnon nutcases are the people who don't want their kids groomed to be sexual beings at 6, and believe that the Bidens are one of the most corrupt government families...after the Clintons of course. We don't want a government who doesn't work for us, but for global elites. Mut can't stand people who don't fall into line, and believe all the lies of the adminstration that was installed with the delusional old man, and the woman who has no clue what the hell she is talking about. Mut....Maybe it's people like YOU who are crawling out of the woodwork trying to pervert the rest of us.; 4/3/22, 5:24 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: WRT rebuilding Ukraine... I would suggest that we'll have plenty to keep us distracted with "migrants" in the coming decade.; 4/3/22, 5:27 AM
Rusty said...: Mutaman said...
When you appeal to the oracle you've already lost the argument. Not to mention referring to obscure web sites. Can't you argue using your own knowledge?; 4/3/22, 6:14 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Wendybar... such creatures don't crawl, slither is the verb.; 4/3/22, 6:26 AM
Mr Wibble said...: Any Ukrainians defending Kiev couldn't be used to fight the Russians in the south and east.

Did Russia intend to capture and hold Kiev or any part of western Ukraine? They haven't used their airpower there either. Why not?
Maybe the forces in the north were a feint, a sacrifice of their least valuable men and equipment.

If it was a feint it was a disastrously stupid one.

More likely the Russians hoped to rapidly take the city, decapitating Ukrainian leadership and command and control, as well as giving Putin a bargaining chip for future negotiations. Instead their own incompetence and corruption resulted in a failed operation that got bogged down.

I have to suspect that when this is over a key moment will be Zelanskyy's refusal to leave Kiev. The Russians and the West both probably figured that the Ukrainians would get steamrolled and that he'd run. Hell, I think that the Biden admin was counting on it, hoping that they could set him up in a puppet government in Lviv or Poland while the US quietly negotiated with the Russians. Putin gets his goals in Eastern Ukraine, while the US got a compliant Ukrainian government and a quick end to the war.

Instead, he stayed in the city, the Ukrainian government and military did not collapse, and NATO has been forced to commit to supporting the Ukraining war effort with sanctions and military supplies, exposing its own internal tensions and weaknesses. Even if Ukraine is eventually forced to concede eastern portions of its country to the Russians, the Ukrainians will still come out of this as the ones who bloodied the Russians' nose, and Zelanskyy comes out as a hero and likely a major player in Europe.; 4/3/22, 7:11 AM
Candide said...: I still remember similar sensational stories about atrocities perpetrated by US in Iraq. Most of them were proven completely bogus, but a few had some truth.

All these stories need to be followed and investigated. We will know how true they are after some time. Meanwhile we can talk about well documented atrocities perpetrated by Ukranians against Donbas separatist regions for the last 8 years.

https://youtu.be/uCtsyN-cmkg; 4/3/22, 12:51 PM
Mutaman said...: wendybar said...

" What Mut calls QAnon nutcases are the people who don't want their kids groomed to be sexual beings at 6,"

No wonder the government puts the chips in the vaccine to track you people.; 4/3/22, 3:18 PM