Insane in the Ukraine, Insane in Ukraine

Armed conflict is an ugly thing, and it's not uncommon for a lot of civilians to get killed. Leaders of belligerent parties generally at least pay lip service to the idea that this is an unfortunate consequence of fighting the armed forces of their opponent. Not so Petro Poroshenko in 2014, at the beginning of Ukraine's war on the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, when he declared that  "Their children will hole up in the basements - this is how we win the war!" 'We will win the war by targeting civilians, especially children' - and this has been going on since 2014. This is the side that our entire media is telling us is the bulwark of freedom, democracy and human rights, the poor underdog whom big bad Russia have invaded in a completely unprovoked act of aggression, boo hoo, #StandWithUkraine. If this doesn't make you really, really angry, I don't know what to tell you. Poroshenko wasn't bluffing about targeting kids. This vi

If you are interested in seeing the sources that I'm quoting for yourself, here are some of the best. A lot comes through Telegram, a messaging app (it is necessary to create an account to use it) through which you can subscribe to people's feeds and which isn't censored - beware, you may see things you'd rather not, although all of the following are responsible about what they post. Patrick Lancaster American Navy veteran who has been reporting from Donbass and other warzones for the last 8 years. Has a page on Myrotvorets . https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/ https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Eva Karene Bartlett Canadian journalist who has been reporting on Syria and Ukraine for many years. Has a page on Myrotvorets . https://www.youtube.com/@EvaKBartlett https://twitter.com/EvaKBartlett https://t.me/Reality_Theories UKR Leaks Telegram channel of Ukrainian ex-SBU agent Vasily Prozorov, who saw with his own eyes some of what Ukraine was doing in D

On the morning of Friday 29th April 2022, Russia announced as part of their daily briefing on their Telegram channel that "High-precision, long-range air-based weapons of the Russian Aerospace Forces have destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in Kiev". It was implicit that this had occured in the preceding 24 hours. This strike coincided with the visit of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Kiev , a day after his visit to Moscow. Also on 29th April, Radio Svoboda - the Ukrainian arm of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - announced that the Russian strike had claimed the life of RFE/RL journalist Vera Hyrych (also spelt Vira Gyrych/Ghyrych, from Ukrainian Віра Гирич) who was killed in her apartment building. Віра Гирич Hers was reportedly the only death; there were also some reported injuries. Kiev mayor Vitaly Klitschko posted a video on Telegram on the morning of 29th April from in front of her apartment building, a gaping hole c

You'll have to excuse me if I seem to be harping on the BBC in a number of my posts, but this is the news that I grew up trusting, and which many people I care about still trust. The BBC calls itself a news organisation, which implies a degree of impartiality. Obviously the easiest way for a media outlet to maintain a pretence of impartiality while being very partial to one side, is simply not to report on things that reflect badly on their side. Their trusting audience will assume that the outlet is reporting honestly on what is going on, and thus that these allegations don't exist, or are not credible. If a whole slew of other media outlets do the same, the impression given is that they have all come to the same conclusion, impartially. So what can a media outlet do when stories gain enough traction independent of the mainstream, that people might hear about them from friends, colleagues or family members? The BBC's approach, it seems to me, is to grudgingly report on