Russians running yearslong Trolling operation to project their blame onto Ukraine.

hanimmal said:

Here we go. Russia acting like a bully attacking Ukraine with their bullshit military trolls, while lying that it is really Ukraine attacking itself.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-rebels-accuse-govt-forces-mortar-shelling-report-2022-02-17/View attachment 5087158

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BudmanTX said:

now lets rachet it up a bit.....this is not good.....
Russia expels deputy chief of mission at US embassy in Moscow, which the US calls "an escalatory step"

on CNN bout 10 min ago

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hanimmal said:

Every American should be getting out of Russia now too. This is getting dangerous.

Putin is escalating.

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BudmanTX said:

i'm agreeing with ya there.......

know what would put Putin in orbit......Ukraine say it want to join Nato, and Nato says "yes come on in". Putins jaw would drop....he'd be so pissed...

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MOSCOW (AP) — Amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have also soared in the country’s east, where Ukrainian forces are locked in a long conflict with Russia-backed separatists.

More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting, and a sharp increase in skirmishes Thursday raised concern that Moscow could use the situation as a pretext for an incursion.

Here is a look at the state of affairs in the rebel-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine:

SEPARATIST REBELLION

When Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president was driven from office by mass protests in February 2014, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. It then threw its weight behind an insurgency in the mostly Russian-speaking east, known as Donbas.

In April 2014, Russia-backed rebels seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, proclaimed the creation of “people’s republics” there and battled Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions.

The following month, the separatist regions held a popular vote to declare independence and make a bid to become part of Russia. Moscow hasn’t accepted the motion, in the hope of using the regions as a tool to keep Ukraine in its orbit and prevent it from joining NATO.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

• Ukraine-Russia crisis: What to know as NATO eyes Russia move
• EXPLAINER: Russia-backed rebels a thorn in Ukraine's side
• Biden: 'Every indication' Russia prepared to attack Ukraine
• Ukraine-Russia crisis: What to know as tensions hit new high

Ukraine and the West accused Russia of backing the rebels with troops and weapons. Moscow denied that, saying any Russians who fought in the east were volunteers.

Amid ferocious battles involving tanks, heavy artillery and warplanes, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard. An international probe concluded that the passenger jet was downed by a Russia-supplied missile from the rebel-controlled territory, but Moscow denied any involvement.

PEACE AGREEMENTS

After a massive defeat of Ukrainian troops in the battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014, envoys from Kyiv, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe signed a truce in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014.

The document envisaged an OSCE-observed cease-fire, a pullback of all foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and hostages, an amnesty for the rebels and a promise that separatist regions could have a degree of self-rule.

The deal quickly collapsed and large-scale fighting resumed, leading to another major defeat for Ukrainian forces at Debaltseve in January-February of 2015.

France and Germany brokered another peace agreement, which was signed in Minsk in February 2015 by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the rebels. It envisaged a new cease-fire, a pullback of heavy weapons and a series of moves toward a political settlement. A declaration in support of the deal was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

FROZEN CONFLICT

The 2015 peace deal was a major diplomatic coup for the Kremlin, obliging Ukraine to grant special status to the separatist regions, allowing them to create their own police force and have a say in appointing local prosecutors and judges. It also envisaged that Ukraine could only regain control over the roughly 200-kilometer (125-mile) border with Russia in rebel regions after they get self-rule and hold OSCE-monitored local elections — balloting that would almost certainly keep pro-Moscow rebels in power there.

Many Ukrainians see it as a betrayal of national interests and its implementation has stalled.

The Minsk document helped end full-scale fighting, but the situation has remained tense and regular skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact.

With the Minsk deal effectively stalled, Moscow’s hope to use rebel regions to directly influence Ukraine’s politics has failed, but the frozen conflict has drained Kyiv’s resources and effectively stymied its goal of joining NATO — which is enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution.

Moscow also has worked to secure its hold on the rebel regions by handing out more than 720,000 Russian passports to roughly one-fifth of their population of about 3.6 million. It has provided economic and financial assistance to the separatist territories, but the aid has been insufficient to alleviate the massive damage from fighting and shore up the economy. The Donbas region accounted for about 16% of Ukraine’s Gross Domestic Product before the conflict.

EFFORTS TO REVIVE PEACE DEAL

Amid soaring tensions over the Russian troop concentration near Ukraine, France and Germany have undertaken renewed efforts to encourage compliance with the 2015 deal, in the hope that it could help defuse the standoff.

Facing calls from Berlin and Paris for its implementation, Ukrainian officials have strengthened criticism of the Minsk deal and warned that it could lead to the country’s demise.

Two rounds of talks in Paris and Berlin between presidential envoys from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have yielded no progress.

Amid the deadlock in talks, the lower house of Russian parliament this week urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin signaled, however, that he wasn’t inclined to make the move that would effectively shatter the Minsk deal.

ESCALATION OF HOSTILITIES

Ukraine and the rebels accused each other Thursday of intensive shelling along the line of contact in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Separatist authorities claimed that Ukraine mounted a “large-scale provocation” and said they returned fire.

Ukraine denied opening fire and said the separatists were shelling government-controlled areas with heavy artillery and mortars. The Ukrainian military command charged that some shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding two civilians, and cut power supply to half of the town.

The OSCE’s observer mission is expected to offer its assessment of the situation later Thursday.

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hanimmal said:

That would be nice.

Putin's terrorists in Ukraine blowing holes in a kids school by shelling it 32 times, and Ukrainian troops are being told not to fire back at them. So false flag event #1 hopefully ends in a fizzle.

What a shit situation. Not shooting back was what triggered Hitler into his full on war, hopefully this is not history repeating itself.

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BudmanTX said:

it would be, and putin would shit bricks.......

yeah i see this as a false flag thing and the world is watching, un-like in the hitler days where some one said they attack us, so we invaded them

i expect many more to come unfortunately.....Russian parliament has already reconized the area and waiting on Putin, Ukriane has already been hit DDOS attack originating from Russia....

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hanimmal said:

Yeah Putin is going to do what he is going to do, really is looking like he wants to take another bite of Ukraine. It sucks he gets to Dear Leader the entire media that a lot of people there are exposed to so they only see his big lies.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Shells struck by the hundreds along the tense front lines in eastern Ukraine, drones monitoring a fragile cease-fire lost their way when the GPS signal they rely on was jammed, and then the cellphone network went dark.

In a sliver of land where pro-Russian separatists have battled for years against Ukrainian government forces, a group of international monitors tasked with keeping the peace reported more than 500 explosions in the the 24 hours ending Thursday midday, around four times as many as an average day over the past month.

As the world warily watches Russian troops massing near Ukraine’s borders for signs they’re preparing to invade, Western officials have warned that the spark could come from the volatile east: Repeatedly in recent weeks, the U.S. has said the simmering conflict there could provide cover or an excuse for Russia to roll across the border.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

• Russia to stage massive nuclear drills amid Ukraine standoff
• Russia to stage nuclear drills with Ukraine tensions high
• Ukraine-Russia crisis: What to know as tension grinds on
• In Ukraine's volatile east, a day of shelling, outages, fear

The number of explosions eased as the day went on, but by then the village of Stanytsia had already suffered more than its share. One shell crashed into a kindergarten, blasting a hole in the wall that sent soccer balls flying off the classroom shelves just as the school day started. Others blasted craters into the schoolyard and shattered windows of nearby homes.

“We heard the sound of broken glass. The children were very scared. Some kids started crying immediately, and the explosions continued for the next 20 minutes,” said Olena Yaryna, the school director.

At Valentyna Melnychenko’s nearby home, the explosions filled her living room and hall with smoke.

“I switched off the TV, and there were seven more shellings and then it stopped,” she said as she surveyed the damage outside, her hair covered in a bright pink scarf that contrasted with the gray debris behind her.

Three people were wounded and half the village lost power. Oleksandr Pavliuk, a Ukrainian army commander, said the explosions were intended to provoke a response and ultimately a counter-response, echoing the warnings from the United States. Russia denies any plans to attack.

“Our task is to control this abnormal situation in order to avoid a pretext for escalation,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Friday.

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been in place in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since 2014 to try and maintain the cease-fire. It’s never been easy, but that task was made harder this week as they found their access repeatedly blocked.

“The gradual fraying of the cease-fire ... has regretably accelerated,” Yaşar Halit Çevik, the mission’s chief monitor, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. He said daily cease-fire violations had doubled since the beginning of the year

In addition to the explosions, the organization recorded nearly 600 cease-fire violations over the course of a day, more than double the average for the past month. And three of the organization’s small surveillance drones went astray after the GPS signal was jammed; a fourth couldn’t make it off the ground without a signal.

Electronic interference went further overnight, when the cellphone network went down in Luhansk for hours, for the second night in a row, according to an Associated Press journalist working in the area.

And Stanytsia Luhanska was struck yet again as night fell.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia announced massive nuclear drills while Western leaders grasped Friday for ways to avert a new war in Europe amid soaring East-West tensions, after unusually dire U.S. warnings that Moscow could order an invasion of Ukraine any day.

Immediate worries focused on the volatile front lines of eastern Ukraine, where an upsurge of recent shelling tore through the walls of a kindergarten and basic communication was disrupted. Western officials, focused on an estimated 150,000 Russian troops posted around Ukraine’s borders, fear the long-simmering conflict could provide the spark for a broader war.

The drumbeat of warnings that a larger conflict could start at any moment continued Friday after U.S. President Joe Biden warned that Washington saw no signs of a promised Russian withdrawal — but instead saw more troops moving toward the border with Ukraine.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

• Russia to stage massive nuclear drills amid Ukraine standoff
• Russia to stage nuclear drills with Ukraine tensions high
• Ukraine-Russia crisis: What to know as tension grinds on
• In Ukraine's volatile east, a day of shelling, outages, fear

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. believes Russia could launch an attack “any time” and also said he still had seen no sign of the promised Russian pullback. He will hold a call Friday with Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Even as Russia claimed to be pulling back troops from extensive military exercises that had sparked fears of invasion, the Kremlin sent a reminder to the world that it has one of the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals, by announcing drills of its nuclear forces for the weekend. The muscle-flexing overshadowed Russian offers this week of continued diplomacy to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

NATO allies are also flexing their might, beefing up military forces around eastern Europe, but insist the actions are purely defensive and to show unity in the face of Russian threats.

The U.S. announced the $6 billion sale of 250 tanks to Poland, a NATO member that has been occupied or attacked by Russia over past centuries. Announcing the deal, Austin said Russia’s military buildup had only reinvigorated NATO instead of cowing it, as Moscow had hoped.

Meanwhile, world leaders meeting at the Munich Security Conference warned that Europe’s security balance is under threat. Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the situation is “calling into question the basic principles of the European peace order.”

“Even steps, millimeters toward peace are better than a big step toward war,” she said.

Moscow has denied any intention of attacking its neighbor, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked the Western warning of an imminent invasion as “fakes” that “cause a smile” in remarks broadcast Friday.

Despite the Russian denials, Washington and its allies are concerned the longtime separatist conflict simmering in eastern Ukraine could provide an excuse for an invasion, though they have not provided details.

With tensions already at their highest level since the Cold War, the Russian military announced that President Vladimir Putin will monitor a sweeping exercise of the country’s nuclear forces Saturday that will involve multiple practice missile launches — a stark reminder of the country’s nuclear might amid the showdown with the West.

While the Kremlin insists it has no plans to invade, it has urged the West to keep Ukraine out of NATO and roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe — demands roundly rejected by Western allies.

Biden planned to speak by phone Friday with trans-Atlantic leaders about the Russian military buildup and continued efforts at deterrence and diplomacy.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed some conclusions of U.S. intelligence in Thursday’s speech at the U.N. Security Council, warning that Russia could create a false pretext for an invasion with a “so-called terrorist bombing” inside Russia, a staged drone strike, “a fake, even a real attack … using chemical weapons.” He charged that invasion would open with cyberattacks, along with missile strikes and bombs across Ukraine, describing the entry of Russian troops and their advance on Kyiv, a city of nearly 3 million, and other key targets.

Despite the stark U.S. warnings, Ukrainian officials sought to project calm, with Oleksii Danilov, head of the National Security and Defense Council, saying late Thursday that there were no signs a massive Russian invasion was imminent.

“We don’t undermine the threat in any case, but the possibility of escalation is considered to be relatively low regarding large-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told lawmakers Friday.

Nevertheless, U.S. and European officials were on high alert for any Russian attempts at a so-called false flag operation, according to a Western official familiar with intelligence findings. Ukrainian government officials shared intelligence with allies that suggested the Russians might try to shell the areas in the Luhansk region controlled by Moscow-backed separatists on Friday morning as part of an effort to create a false reason to take military action, according to the official who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The area saw a sharp spike in shelling Thursday, with monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reporting more than 500 explosions before the tensions eased in the evening. Ukrainian authorities and separatists traded accusations of violations of a shaky truce in the nearly 8-year-old conflict in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, called Donbas. The conflict erupted shortly after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula and has killed 14,000.

The Ukrainian military command said shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding three people, and cut power to half the town. The rebels said nearly 19 houses were damaged by Ukrainian fire.

Early Friday, separatist authorities in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions reported more shelling by Ukrainian forces along the tense line of contact and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation is “potentially very dangerous.”

Ukrainian officials charged that the rebels intensified the shelling in the hopes of provoking a retaliatory attack by government forces.

The Ukrainian military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said that it’s “not planning any offensive operations or shelling of civilians,” adding that “our actions are purely defensive.”

But amid the fears a wider conflict could still come, a flurry of diplomacy is expected this week.

In addition to the call between the Russian and American defense chiefs, Blinken is expected to meet his Russian counterpart next week.

Meanwhile, Putin met Friday with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to discuss the ongoing joint drills in Belarus that borders Ukraine to the north. The massive exercise involving Russian forces moved from the Far East fueled Western fears that they could use it to cut a short way to the Ukrainian capital.

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Herb & Suds said:

Speaking of Putin and shit bricks
This thread is complete politics hidden under the guise of grow thread
Grrrrhttps://www.rollitup.org/t/vert-600-400-5-plant-from-ukraine-with-love.938560/page-167#post-16812699

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hanimmal said:

Not shooting back was what triggered Hitler into his full on war, hopefully this is not history repeating itself.

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Kassiopeija said:

LOOOOL - as if madman Hitler did care about the senseless death of his own troops!

Do you know what he said during the last days of WW2? literally - "when the Germans cannot win this war then they all deserve to die" (in response to one of his last remaining Generals who pointed out that it's futile to resist the russian attack of Berlin any longer)

I sure do understand that "appeasement politics" was a total failure but back then the US, English etc didnt knew how seriously evil Hitler was.

And where exactly did Hitler back off when many western forces declared war & bombed german cities to ash? 0. It was Hess that tried to sue for peace - Hitler immediately ousted him as traitor.

But Putin is not Hitler. Apples to oranges.

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Nuremberg Laws - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Kassiopeija said:

LOOOOL - as if madman Hitler did care about the senseless death of his own troops!

Do you know what he said during the last days of WW2? literally - "when the Germans cannot win this war then they all deserve to die" (in response to one of his last remaining Generals who pointed out that it's futile to resist the russian attack of Berlin any longer)

I sure do understand that "appeasement politics" was a total failure but back then the US, English etc didnt knew how seriously evil Hitler was.

And where exactly did Hitler back off when many western forces declared war & bombed german cities to ash? 0. It was Hess that tried to sue for peace - Hitler immediately ousted him as traitor.

But Putin is not Hitler. Apples to oranges.

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hanimmal said:

Holy shit, went back just one page and the Russian propaganda is off the charts in that troll's thread.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/vert-600-400-5-plant-from-ukraine-with-love.938560/post-16808055
View attachment 5087760View attachment 5087761

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BudmanTX said:

talk bout throwing in a false flag line in that AP article.....sheesh

"
The Ukrainian military command said shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding three people, and cut power to half the town. The rebels said nearly 19 houses were damaged by Ukrainian fire.

Early Friday, separatist authorities in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions reported more shelling by Ukrainian forces along the tense line of contact and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation is “potentially very dangerous.”

smh

a Kremlin spokesman???? HAHA

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BudmanTX said:

rudolph hess...haha....you mean this guy

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hanimmal said:

It is about as believable as someone saying the std they gave to their partner must have come from a toilet seat.

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