Apparently, the Ukrainian national mail service had a competition among artists to get the best “RUSSIAN WARSHIP, GO FUCK YOURSELF” stamp design.
This is the winner. pic.twitter.com/RcIIpGVer4— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 11, 2022
We’re going to start tonight with some mixed messages arising from conflicting strategic communication.
This morning, President Biden rightly made it clear that any use of chemical weapons by Putin would result in severe consequences. I expect this also counts for the use of biological weapons too.
BREAKING – Biden says Russia would pay "a severe price" if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine
— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) March 11, 2022
This afternoon, President Biden released this statement:
War for Ukraine Update 17: Friday Night EditionPost + Comments (136)
I want to be clear: We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full might of a united and galvanized NATO.
But we will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine.
A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III. And something we must strive to prevent.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 11, 2022
While each of these individually are clear and concise messaging, together they are actually contradictory statements. If the US and/or NATO is not going to directly confront Putin unless he attacks a NATO member state, then there is no way to inflict a severe price on Putin if he uses chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine. I understand that President Biden is trying to tamp down calls for direct US and NATO military involvement in Ukraine. I understand that he’s trying to avoid saying things that Putin can use to justify whatever it is Putin is going to do anyway. But if you’re going to announce there will be a severe price to pay for behavior, just leave it at that. Let the strategic ambiguity that arises from our strategic communication work against Putin the way that the strategic ambiguity of Putin’s statements about the use of nuclear weapons works against the US and NATO.
One final point on this. Even if the Ukrainians know that this is the reality, that the US, the EU, and NATO are willing to defeat Putin and the Russian military by fighting them to the last Ukrainian – and we need to be honest with ourselves, that is our, the EU’s, and NATO’s policy right now – we don’t have to keep articulating it over and over. Because it demoralizes the Ukrainians even if they do know in their heart of hearts that we’re not coming to help them by providing US and/or NATO forces. Yes, they are making appeals from emotion for our direct involvement. And who can blame them. For the Ukrainians and from their perspective being dead from having a thousand pound bomb dropped on the hospital where you’re waiting to give birth is just the same as dead from having a nuke dropped on the hospital where you’re waiting to give birth. At the end of the day, dead is dead. So it is unnecessary to destroy their morale.
In other misadventures in strategic communication, Facebook/Meta made this absolutely STUPID decision last night:
Reuters: Facebook to temporarily allow posts calling for violence against Russians, calls for Putin's death.
According to internal emails seen by Reuters on March 10, Meta will allow for calls of violence against Russians in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 10, 2022
I cannot stress enough just how galactically, astoundingly, dumb this decision is. There have been lots of people who have observed that Facebook has served like a Radio Rwanda for genocides in Myanmar and other crimes against humanity. This decision makes that observation a reality. Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Kaplan who runs the DC office, and every other senior leader at Facebook/Meta are contributing to war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of this decision. They’re a bunch of sociopathic, avaricous ghouls!
Based on reporting, Putin appears to be going after the heads of the FSB:
Putin appears to be truly unhappy with the FSB in Ukraine: he attacked the 5 Service SOiMS (FSB's foreign Intelligence branch). Sergei Beseda, head of the Service, and his deputy Bolukh, head of the DOI, placed under house arrest, according to my sources inside.
— Andrei Soldatov (@AndreiSoldatov) March 11, 2022
Here’s Dan LaMothe reporting on today’s DOD update briefing. First tweet below followed by all the others copied and pasted into a quote box:
A Friday background briefing at the Pentagon about the war on Ukraine has concluded.
Some notable details ahead:
— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) March 11, 2022
- On to the briefing. No major changes on battlefield. Mariupol and other major cities are getting pummeled. Fierce ground fighting in several areas, too.
- On Thursday, the Pentagon indicated the long-stalled Russian ground convoy north of Kyiv had moved from about 12 miles outside the city center to nine miles away. No change to that Friday, though there is some movement within the column.
- New nugget from Pentagon: A senior U.S. defense official says today that some vehicles in the stalled Russian convoy north of Kyiv have been pulled off the road and into tree lines, an effort to disguise them and hide them from attack.
- In light of questions around chemical-biological issues in Ukraine, senior U.S. defense official says the Pentagon has not sent protective gear for that to the Ukrainians. Also not aware of a request for it.
- The senior U.S. defense official said Ukraine still has 56 operational jets in its arsenal and has been flying them just five to 10 hours per day. Points to that as one reason the Polish proposal to send Polish MiG-29 jets to Ukraine by way of the U.S. government was scuttled.
- The Russian military, by comparison, has been flying about 200 sorties per day, senior U.S. defense official says. Some do not cross into Ukraine, he added, noting the Russians can fire aerial-mounted cruise missiles from planes at Ukraine from the Russian side of the border.
- As of Friday, the Pentagon assesses that Russia has launched “nearly 810” missiles at Ukraine since invasion day. “The majority, nearly 400 of these missile strikes,” have been launched from Russian launchers in Ukraine.
- Russia still has about 90 percent of the combat power it had arrayed at the Ukrainian border prior to invasion available to them for use, senior U.S. defense official says, indicating thousands of soldiers are dead, wounded or captured.
- Ukraine has “a tad more” than 90 percent of its combat forces available, same U.S. defense official says. Important note: Its military is significantly smaller.
- Pentagon is aware of Russian rhetoric that they want to recruit 16K foreign fighters from the Middle East to fight in Ukraine. Some efforts are being made in Syria, but it’s unclear if recruiting goes beyond Syria or if they are having success, senior U.S. defense official says.
- No additional weapons systems to announce going to Ukraine. Arms deliveries to the Ukrainians continue, defense official says.
And a bit from LaMothe’s article in The Washington Post:
The Biden administration, under pressure to expand the arsenal of weapons that Ukraine has in its conflict with Russia, is working with European allies to expedite more sophisticated air-defense systems and other armaments into the war zone, U.S. officials said Friday.
Discussions were ongoing ahead of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s planned trip next week to meet with NATO allies in Brussels and Slovakia, which along with Poland and Romania has indicated a willingness to transfer military aid to its embattled neighbor. Slovakia also possesses the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which is used to shoot down enemy aircraft and is familiar to the Ukrainians.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the United States is committed to arming the government in Kyiv with “the kinds of capabilities that we know the Ukrainians need and are using very well.” He declined to specify what types of weapons could be included in the next wave of shipments.
“Some of that material we have and are providing. Some of that material we don’t have but we know others have, and we’re helping coordinate that as well,” Kirby said.
NATO countries have been limited in what they can send to Ukrainedue in part to the Ukrainian military’s training, which centers heavily on Soviet- or Russian-made weapons that exist in dwindling stock.
Ukraine has sought the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, said a senior European official familiar with the situation. There are ongoing talks about that possibility, the official said, but questions remain about whether there are any that can be spared.
“Nobody wants to mishandle expectations,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The bottom line is we’re not sending anything advanced that they’re not already trained on because we’re not sending anything that will require American or NATO trainers and advisors. And we’re not sending a lot of the former Soviet stuff because our former Soviet NATO allies just don’t have a lot of it left that is operational. I’m pretty sure this also means we’re not going to give them MQ9 Reapers either. But I’d love to be proven wrong.
Much more after the jump
Israeli PM Bennett is doing his thing. It isn’t a very useful or helpful thing, but he’s doing it nonetheless.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy that he recommends Ukraine take the offer made by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war – which includes many Ukrainian sacrifices – in a phone call on Tuesday, according to an official in Ukraine’s government. According to the official, Zelenksy did not take Bennett’s advice.
The source claimed that the phone call was initiated by Bennett. “If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer,” Bennett reportedly said.
Zelenksy’s response was short. “I hear you,” he said.
According to the report, Zelenksy and his people did not like the advice.
“Bennett told us to surrender,” said the official. “We have no intention of doing so. We know Putin’s offer is only the beginning.”
In the past two weeks, and especially since Bennett’s visit to Moscow, the prime minister’s office and the Foreign Ministry have been claiming that Israel’s mediation efforts force them to keep an even more cautious and balanced approach. This message was also passed quietly to Zelenksy’s office. The official also said that Israel asked Ukraine not to request more military and defense aid because such a request could harm the mediation efforts.
According to the official, however, Zelenksy’s office isn’t seeing results from the mediation. He said that Bennett isn’t mediating so much as he is functioning as a mailbox and just passing messages between the two sides. According to him, a mediator needs to try to put together a compromise between the two sides and make his own offers.
Israel is in dire need of running a complete, thorough, broad, and deep anti-Russian and post Soviet state oligarch financial criminal network investigation because the only reason Bennett is doing this is that if there’s one place as badly corrupted by Russian and post Soviet state oligarch money as Britain and the US it’s Israel!
BREAKING: Russia pledges to supply Belarus with the most up-to-date military equipment
— Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2) March 11, 2022
Just as soon as someone at the Ukrainian Farmers and Tractor Operators Union provides them with the list of most up to date Russian military equipment available and the prices. Delivery by Ukrainian tractor to Belarus will include an upcharge!
Ukraine’s Rapid Response Tractor Force is watching your poor-ass armor, Lukashenko. pic.twitter.com/Of7wzxrEfT
— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 11, 2022
Speaking of Belarus… At 1430 Ukrainian local time, the Russians or Belarusians launched a CAP of 2 SU 25 close air support fighters (the Russian version of an A10) from an airfield in Belarus. Ukraine tracked them crossing the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. Once inside Ukraine they first attacked Ukrainian targets and were then tracked by the Ukrainians flying back across the border into Belarusian airspace where they then attacked targets in Belarus. The Ukrainian parliament – the Verkhovna Rada – released the information, as did several other Ukrainian government sources, to preempt Russian and Belarusian attempts to claim that Ukrainian fighters breached the Belarusian border and struck Belarusian targets, which would be a major escalation by the Ukrainians. Bottom line: the Russians tried to stage a false flag to provide justification for Lukashenko, who is in Moscow today meeting with Putin, to order his forces to invade Ukraine to assist Russia in their reinvasion and war on Ukraine.
❗️URGENT! IMPORTANT INFORMATION!
Today, at 2:30pm, Ukrainian Border Guard Service reported that Russian planes left Dubrovytsia airfield in Belarus, flied into Ukrainian airspace, turned around over our towns of Horodychi and Tumeni, after which set a fire in Kopani town in ??.— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (@ua_parliament) March 11, 2022
Separately, Ukrainian authorities released that they believe Belarus will launch such an invasion at or after 2130 hours Ukrainian local time. The SU 25 attack was a false flag to provide a causus belli for Belarus entering the war on behalf of Russia.
Ukraine says the Belarusian military is set to cross the border at 9 p.m. Kyiv time today.
The Western branch of Ukraine’s Armed Forces urges all Belarusians to defy unlawful orders and stay away from Lukashenko’s stupid stunt.— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 11, 2022
The good news is I have seen absolutely no reporting that the Belarusian military has attempted to invade Ukraine. This could mean that the announcements by the Ukrainian authorities achieved their objectives – to freeze the Belarusians by revealing their plans – or that the plans themselves were agitprop intended to goad the Ukrainians into attacking the Belarusians. Or both.
Given that Farage is himself, actually, a Russian oligarch’s asset, I think he’s really concerned that he will be seized by the British government. Of course the current British government is itself being run by and populated with a number of Russian oligarchs’ assets, so…
Nigel Farage defends the oligarchs and criticizes the UK government for seizing the assets of Putin’s pals.
It’s always the people you most suspect. pic.twitter.com/z5yJTHJi3y
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) March 11, 2022
Another Russian general has been killed in action:
The Ukrainian Armed Force officially confirms the general has been eliminated
— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 11, 2022
These guys are starting to be like the #3 guy in al Qaeda…
We now have at least a partial explanation for why the Russian Soldiers in Ukraine have no rations:
One ration goes for 350 Rubles (USD 3) and can feed one for two days – a great deal for residents of the impoverished middle Russia.
— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 11, 2022
Here’s a Russian convoy having a very bad day!
#Ukraine: Very dramatic footage of a Russian convoy ambushed yesterday, showing the destruction of a T-72(B3) and a BTR-82A, as well as the detonation of an unseen Russian vehicle. pic.twitter.com/R8JwSGMQUS
— ?? Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 11, 2022
NPR has published a detailed, in depth report about just how bad things actually were at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant when the Russians attacked it:
Last week’s assault by Russian forces on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was far more dangerous than initial assessments suggested, according to an analysis by NPR of video and photographs of the attack and its aftermath.
A thorough review of a four-hour, 21-minute security camera video of the attack reveals that Russian forces repeatedly fired heavy weapons in the direction of the plant’s massive reactor buildings, which housed dangerous nuclear fuel. Photos show that an administrative building directly in front of the reactor complex was shredded by Russian fire. And a video from inside the plant shows damage and a possible Russian shell that landed less than 250 feet from the Unit 2 reactor building.
The security camera footage also shows Russian troops haphazardly firing rocket-propelled grenades into the main administrative building at the plant and turning away Ukrainian firefighters even as a fire raged out of control in a nearby training building.
The evidence stands in stark contrast to early comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which while acknowledging the seriousness of the assault, emphasized that the action took place away from the reactors. In a news conference immediately after the attack, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi made reference to only a single projectile hitting a training building adjacent to the reactor complex.
“All the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all,” Grossi told reporters at the March 4 briefing.
n fact, the training building took multiple strikes, and it was hardly the only part of the site to take fire from Russian forces. The security footage supports claims by Ukraine’s nuclear regulator of damage at three other locations: the Unit 1 reactor building, the transformer at the Unit 6 reactor and the spent fuel pad, which is used to store nuclear waste. It also shows ordnance striking a high-voltage line outside the plant. The IAEA says two such lines were damaged in the attack.
“This video is very disturbing,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. While the types of reactors used at the plant are far safer than the one that exploded in Chernobyl in 1986, the Russian attack could have triggered a meltdown similar to the kind that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, he warns.
“It’s completely insane to subject a nuclear plant to this kind of an assault,” Lyman says.
In a news conference on Thursday, Grossi said that he had met with Ukrainian and Russian officials but failed to reach an agreement to avoid future attacks on Ukraine’s other nuclear plants. “I’m aiming at having something relatively soon,” he told reporters in Vienna.
Maybe using “aiming” wasn’t the best choice of words there Sparky! Much, much more including imagery and video clips at the link above!
I’ve now seen this reported by three reputable sources, so I’m posting it:
ChNPP is completely disconnected from the monitoring systems of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Russians refused to grant access to the station to Ukrainian repairers. Instead, they let "Belarusian specialists" in, – Ukraine Intelligence reports.
— Iryna Matviyishyn (@IMatviyishyn) March 11, 2022
Here’s your daily bayrakter:
I’m pretty sure these guys are from the West Virginia part of Ukraine!
#Ukraine villager with DIY anti tank rocket ? pic.twitter.com/R9AlOqrlj1
— C4H10FO2P (@markito0171) March 11, 2022
The mayor of Melitopol has been scarfed up by the Russians:
This is Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol, which is controlled by RU troops for several days. Today he was kidnapped with plastic bag on head from crisis center, where he continued to govern the city after he denied to work with occupants. Terror continues #RussiaInvadedUkraine pic.twitter.com/q6MkiiDVL6
— Maria Zolkina (@Mariia_Zolkina) March 11, 2022
This is what the Russians have in store for all the other elected and appointed officials, civil society leaders, military leadership, and religious leaders in Ukraine.
Mariupol is still besieged and suffering.
⚡️City council: 1,582 Mariupol residents killed by Russia.
During 12 days of the blockade of the city in Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces have shelled residential neighborhoods and killed 1582 civilians, according to the Mariupol City Council.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 11, 2022
Mariupol’s population is around 450,000. If humanitarian relief can not be provided soon, this siege and bombardment is going to be in the running for the mother of all mass casualty events against a civilian population as a war crime!
And the Russians have been pounding Mykolaiv:
#Mykolaiv under heavy shelling right now. Putin’s goons can’t beat Ukraine face-to-face – so, they resort to what they did in Grozny and Aleppo. Cowards and criminals. #StandWithUkraine #PutinsWar #PutinWarCriminal #RussianInvasion pic.twitter.com/tBRwkXIg7u
— olexander scherba?? (@olex_scherba) March 11, 2022
Here’s an interview with Mykolaiv’s mayor from earlier today:
??Mykolaiv Mayor: We have lots of evidence of cluster bombs on my city, coming from the direction of Kherson which is now occupied by Russia. They aren't striking military structures. They are striking civilian areas only. Yesterday they devastated a retirement home. pic.twitter.com/T3PlHn8xFK
— ??Paula Chertok??? (@PaulaChertok) March 11, 2022
And, apparently Kyiv Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel.
⚡️CNN reports several explosions in Kyiv.
Chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward noted “a nonstop volley… of just heavy booms in the distance” overnight on March 12.
Heavy fighting continues in the areas outside Kyiv, including in Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 12, 2022
I’m going to say it again: the defenses to the north, west, and east of Kyiv must hold!
Kharkiv is also still being pounded:
Kharkiv’s Constitution Square. https://t.co/9ujDB8YFq5 pic.twitter.com/2JsrW1di0a
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) March 11, 2022
And here’s an update from Luhansk:
⚡️ Governor: Russia controls 70% of Luhansk Oblast.
Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai says the entire region is under heavy fire.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 11, 2022
Frankly, I’d adjust this assessment from may to will!
⚡️ Armed Forces: Russia may intensify missile strikes, shelling.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces made a statement saying that there is a high probability that Russia will increase its rocket and artillery attacks against civilian infrastructure.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 11, 2022
Anne Applebaum retweeted this update from someone in Kherson (there’s video embedded in the third tweet in this thread and a static image in the fourth, so click across on the tweet below if you want to see it):
11 Mar 2022, #Kherson #Ukraine, Ostriv district: Russians are canvassing the residential areas and arrest the locals related to SBU/Police/TerDef/volunteers.
Where they are failing in making a blockaded Leningrad out of Kherson, they have started making a concentration camp.— KherRadio / Радіо Хєрадіо (@kherradio) March 11, 2022
- Looks like Muscovites intend to coerce #Kherson into collaboration by detaining activists and anyone who could mount any resistance. Whether they succeed is dependent on the length of time their occupation takes.
- What can be seen from eyewitnesses: apparently, these are FSB/Rosgvardiya troops (judging by black kevlar vests):
- another one: literally Gestapo, trying to fish people out of their homes
- To clear: we in #Kherson appreciate that Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kyiv region are having it MUCH worse, with shellings and civ deaths. We do NOT urge anyone to “save us now”. We Southrons are fighters even if we are cornered. Just fuck’em proper, folks. For us.
- Importantly, the Russians have NOT lifted the total blockade of #Kherson as of 11 Mar 2022. So the only relatively successful pincer movement they are doing in Ukraine is 1) to starve Kherson into submission and 2) to mow down any dissent by arresting the activists, Gestapo-style
- Updates from our contacts throughout #Kherson as of 18:43, 11 Mar: more forced break-ins & arrests by Ru are reported, including in Ostriv District and Dniprovskyi district. In addition to SBU/police/terr defence members, family members of active army personnel are bng arrested
If you were wondering how Marianna was doing after she survived the bombing of the maternity clinic and children’s hospital at Mariupol, well here’s the update:
Marianna from Mariupol's bombed hospital gave birth to a baby girl yesterday, her aunt told me. The baby is 3200 grams and is healthy. She was named Veronika – in honour of Nike, the goddess of victory. Victory of Ukraine.
Photos by Evgeniy Maloletka pic.twitter.com/oreJVHC91w
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) March 11, 2022
As part of my ongoing efforts to harsh everyone’s mellow regarding the economic sanctions and measures, here’s an explainer from The Guardian about how Russians are getting around the civilian aviation embargo.
Russians are exploiting a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to flee to Europe and circumnavigate an EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.
Air Serbia, which is mostly state-owned, has doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet rapidly rising demand after the EU banned Russian planes and airlines from its airspace, after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by closing its airspace to EU and UK planes.
Serbia is not a member of the EU and has refused to impose sanctions against Russia, but its planes are free to cross EU airspace. This has made the Balkan country “the only European air corridor left open to Russia”, according to travel analytics company ForwardKeys.
More at the link above.
And here’s an op-ed in The Atlantic by Olena Halushka, who is a board member of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine:
ever could I have imagined that Ukraine would go through this hell. My beautiful homeland with centuries-old monuments, a country of peace-loving people, is being destroyed. These past 15 days have changed everything and been the most horrifying of my life. I wake up each morning not knowing if my close ones are still safe and alive.
The Kremlin is now executing Ukraine for its democracy-building efforts, while the world’s leading democracies do little to help us defend ourselves. Vladimir Putin’s Russian army continues to claim the lives of innocent Ukrainians each day while the West drags its feet in providing Ukraine with much more meaningful military assistance to protect our sky from Russian bombs and missiles.
I work at the Action Center in Kyiv, an anti-corruption NGO. Until the invasion, my colleagues and I had been watchdogging the Ukrainian government, cleansing the country’s judiciary, and advocating for reform. Despite challenges and roadblocks, Ukraine had been gradually and steadily building democracy.
Now the Russian military is shelling and striking residential areas across Ukraine—places like Kharkiv, Mariupol, Sumy, Chernigiv, and Kyiv have all come under attack. Some 900 towns and villages are cut off from electricity, gas, and heat. Many towns, like Mariupol, face humanitarian catastrophe, as Ukrainians are forced to sit in shelters for days, waiting for the Russian bombardment to end. Thousands of civilians cannot evacuate because Russian invaders are shooting convoys; just a few days ago, a mother and her two children were brutally killed in Irpin, a town in the suburbs of Kyiv. The evacuation route Russia offered out of Mariupol was mined.
Yes, the Ukrainian army is performing miracles defending Ukraine. But most Russian war crimes are being committed with bombs and missiles. Human capacity to stop them is limited. If NATO is afraid to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, it has to do everything possible to arm the country urgently so Ukrainians can do it ourselves. We need much more advanced air and missile defense systems than we have received so far, as well as more drones, fighter jets, anti-tank weapons, and mobile artillery.
What else can the West do to stop Russia? Ukrainians are asking that, in addition to enforcing economic sanctions, the Financial Action Task Force blacklist Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. This measure will block all international transactions with the country. European nations should follow the example of the U.S. and impose an embargo on Russian gas and oil immediately, not wait until 2030. All Western countries’ ports must deny access to Russian ships. Russian oligarchs and their family members with ties to Putin should be sanctioned by Western countries; their assets should be frozen and their visas revoked.
Much more at the link above!
Finally, here’s a video about Horace the elephant at the Kyiv Zoo.
#KyivDiary
Horace the Elephant is 17. When Russian missiles hit Kyiv TV Tower near the Kyiv Zoo, they had to put him on sedatives. He's OK now. The Zoo staff sleep in his enclosure and that soothes him. pic.twitter.com/dScEkuIA4q— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) March 11, 2022
Open thread!