Ukraine War Watch Thread

[weatheriscool]

Ukraine: 15 dead in rocket attack on apartment building
Source: AP

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At least 15 people were killed when a Russian rocket hit an apartment building in the eastern Ukraine town of Chasiv Yar and more than 20 people may still be trapped in the rubble, officials said Sunday.

The Saturday night rocket assault is the latest in a recent burst of high-casualty attacks on civilian structures. At least 19 people died when a Russian missile hit a shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk in late June and 21 people were killed when an apartment building and recreation area came under rocket fire in the southern Odesa region this month.

Russia has repeatedly claimed that it is hitting only targets of military value in the war. There was no comment on Chasiv Yar at a Russian Defense Ministry briefing on Sunday.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region that includes Chasiv Yar, said the town of of about 12,000 was hit by Uragan rockets, which are fired from truck-borne systems.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 81fe71926a

[caltrek]

Yes,
Boudicca was a terrorist,
G. Washington was a terrorist,
the Spanish guerrillas were terrorist,
the IRA -1916- were terrorist,
anybody fighting an occupation government is a terrorist,
the IRA are terrorists
and
Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist,
-provided with weapons and money by the US Government, but let's forget that-
and we -Western Democracies, but not only- love terrorists; "our" terrorists, as much as we love dictators, "our son of a bitch".

Question...
Ukraine is sending 10.000 recruits to UK to get basic training, the U. Army does not have enough troops to train its own recruits?

I looked up the definition of terrorist:

a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

While all that you cite used "unlawful violence" I am not sure that George Washington or the Spanish guerrillas targeted civilians. I tend to use the word in the tight manner of applying unlawful violence against civilians, as opposed to strictly military personnel.

[weatheriscool]

Ukrainian rocket strike targets Russian ammunition depot
Source: AP

By MARIA GRAZIA MURRU

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian ammunition depot was apparently targeted by Ukrainian forces overnight, resulting in a massive blast captured on social media.

The Ukrainian military’s southern command said the rocket strike targeted the depot in Russian-held Nova Kakhovka, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of the important Black Sea port city of Kherson, which is also occupied by Russian forces.

Video on social media showed a massive explosion. The nature of the strike suggested that Ukrainian forces used U.S-supplied multiple-launch High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, to strike the area.

Russia’s Tass news agency offered a different account, saying that the target was a mineral fertilizer storage facility that exploded, and that a market, hospital and houses were damaged. Some of the ingredients in fertilizer can be used for ammunition.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 95611900d3

[ibm9000]

I tend to use

"Collaborationists", do you consider them civilians?
If you target a general and kill a hundred civilians, "collateral damage" and all good?
Your "tend" is too aseptic unless you are in a fantasy world.

(Yes, they did, in the Spanish case they were proud of killing "afrancesados" (French-friendly Spaniards)).

[caltrek]

I tend to use

"Collaborationists", do you consider them civilians?
If you target a general and kill a hundred civilians, "collateral damage" and all good?
Your "tend" is too aseptic unless you are in a fantasy world.

(Yes, they did, in the Spanish case they were proud of killing "afrancesados" (French-friendly Spaniards)).

Collaborationists as civilian?

Depends on the circumstances. If such "collaborationists" take up arms, engage in sabotage, etc. then I suppose a case can be made that they are actually combatants. If they merely feed and give medical assistance to the wounded and simply live in proximity to armed personnel, then no I would not think that such forms of "collaboration" qualify them as military combatants.

"Collateral damage" and deliberate targeting of civilians are two different concepts. Sure, there may be cases where the overlap is so great that it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish the two, but that is not true in all cases.

I am not even sure what era you are talking about in "the Spanish case" so I will not comment on that further.

I have read that in the case of the French resistance, an example that I cited earlier, that they took great pains in the targeting of military combatants to make sure that civilian family members were not present.

Another example might be the African National Congress. Although they targeted "civilian" infrastructure, Mandela insisted that they take great pains to avoid injury or killing people.

So, there are forms of violent resistance which are not "terrorist" in intent.

"Tend" is an appropriate word because the world is full of grey. In language, we often try to distill abstractions that are a little bit more "aseptic" in nature.

[funkervogt]

Russia is doing systematic mass deportations of Ukrainians from Ukraine to distant parts of Russia.

Estimates from a variety of sources, including the Russian government, indicate that Russian authorities have interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes to Russia – often to isolated regions in the Far East.  Moscow’s actions appear pre-meditated and draw immediate historical comparisons to Russian “filtration” operations in Chechnya and other areas. President Putin’s “filtration” operations are separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in an apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine.

https://www.state.gov/russias-filtratio ... -citizens/

[weatheriscool]

Officials: Russian missiles kill at least 21 in Ukraine
Source: AP

By MARIA GRAZIA MURRU and HANNA ARHIROVA

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles that struck a city in central Ukraine killed at least 21 people and wounded about more than 100 Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said. Ukraine’s president alleged the attack deliberately targeted civilians in locations without military value.

Ukraine’s national police said three missiles hit an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, which is located 268 kilometers (167 miles) southwest of the capital, Kyiv. The Ukrainian Emergency Service said 42 were missing after the airstrike.

A Russian submarine in the Black Sea fired Kalibr cruise missiles at the city, and three children were among the dead, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia hasn’t officially confirmed the strike. But Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-controlled Russian television network RT, said on her messaging app channel that military officials told her a building in Vinnytsia was targeted because it housed Ukrainian “Nazis.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 361e5ed7ec

[ibm9000]

Collaborationists as civilian?

They are civilians, unless you want to declare them "enemy combatants" or they want to declare you enemy combatant.

Depends on the circumstances

. Yours or mine?

...two different concepts.

Once you are dead, how much does you family care about the concept?

Spanish case.

You seem to think that The American War of Independence and The Peninsular War were "clean" wars. There is no such thing as a clean war.

I have read...

Yes, I read that about the IRA too, even if, maybe, the British Government disagrees.

Intentions, intent?

You are still in a fantasy world -like our Russian friend-, you are dead, what is the difference.

I do agree with "grey", but it looks like you are trying to turn certain actions into "white". Mind, actions, dead, you can get a lot of unicorns and
rainbows with language.

[ibm9000]

Anybody knows if Biden is going to send the Attorney General to Afghanistan to help them prosecute those crimes committed by the SAS?
How many forensic teams is the EU sending to Afghanistan?
Or is it, again, that they are "war crimes" unless we or our cronies did it?
Yes, it feels great to see how our moral standards work.

[caltrek]

Collaborationists as civilian?

They are civilians, unless you want to declare them "enemy combatants" or they want to declare you enemy combatant.

Reasonable

...two different concepts.

Once you are dead, how much does you family care about the concept?

One such concept may result in a greater number of deaths.

Spanish case.

You seem to think that The American War of Independence and The Peninsular War were "clean" wars. There is no such thing as a clean war.

No, all wars are dirty. That is the reason they should not be indulged in for light and transient reasons

Intentions, intent?

You are still in a fantasy world -like our Russian friend-, you are dead, what is the difference.

Again, the importance of counting the number of corpses. Also, some people believe that there are things for which it is worth dying. Establishing limits beyond which tyrants will not be allowed to operate, for example. (With depriving tyrants of any power at all being a good outcome).

I do agree with "grey", but it looks like you are trying to turn certain actions into "white". Mind, actions, dead, you can get a lot of unicorns and
rainbows with language.

One thing that I am trying to avoid in the use of language is the type of thinking that leads to false equivalencies. Things like "acting in self-defense" is equivalent to "genocide."