On Monday, March 14, 2022 at 2:26:13 PM UTC-5, Oleg Smirnov wrote:
The videos below are from the Ukraine's cities/towns/settlements that
are currently under the Russian occupation. They show life of regular
locals there. Also you can get some info from the comments. I looked
at the videos history of every of these Youtube accounts to be sure
they aren't somehow linked with an activism or propaganda of any kind.
From the propaganda, activism sources, one can get very crazy claims
in the current situation. Passions are hot.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0azcILvCCh0> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36FshvuUWiA> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEa9EeHFJL0> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH_YiM_cT6I> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFPfzZ2l0B0> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l_pMaRFYd0> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRuRIpW465c> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvdQ_dbEzoo> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6d0FLRsRGM>
From various accounts, it looks like things happen so that as soon as
the Russian troops approach a city or a settlement, they invite local authorities for a talk, where they tell them they aren't going to
interfere into the local administration, but they ask them for a
coordination with the Russian military command.
If there's no Kiev military units (or some militias seeking for fight)
there, then the Russian military set some checkpoints near the
settlement and continue to move further. The military often even don't
enter inside such settlements. If there are some militants willing to
fight, then the settlement becomes encircled and the command decides
whether to fight them or to set it in a siege, while moving the major
troops further.
So far, it apparently fits to the Kremlin's declarations stating that
the troops are sent after the radical nationalist militant formations,
not after the Ukrainians/Ukraine as such.
In large enough cities/towns the military set checkpoints within urban
areas, and the Russian soldiers don't prevent local pro-Kiev activists
from protesting, as long as their protest is peaceful. One can easily
find many videos showing such protesters. Some angry folks are brave
enough to stand next to the armed sodiers and curse/insult them boldly.
The soldiers do not touch such folks. Kiev propaganda seeks to promote
such videos under "Ukrainians don't give up" slogan. Although it does
not look like a big percentage of the residents is taking part in such protest activities.
Given that the invasion disrupted certain supply chains, the military
brings "humanitarian aid" to the locals <https://youtu.be/pw8YsxVuTKA>
One can find videos showing a queue of locals for the aid and as well
there also may be activists there cursing their fellow countrymen for
the fact that they're willing to take this aid. There are some videos
where Russian soldiers prevent such angry activists from attacking the
people standing in the queue.
There were reports that the Russian military switch off Kiev's TV
channels in the occupied areas and instead switch on Russian TV there. However, the Russian military do not seem to seek to destroy internet
and mobile communications. That's why the people in the occupied areas
can upload their videos etc.
For example, description of this video <https://youtu.be/-gtOjgnJVzs>
claims this man is the city mayor of Kherson being interviewed for the America's CNN. Kherson is quite a big city under Russian occupation,
and it had been taken with some fights. The mayor tells in the video
that there should be no doubt the city remains Ukrainian and his administration tries its best to maintain normal life for the people,
even despite some destructions occurred during the sturm of the city.
The tactics of the Kiev's military is so that they typically avoid to
meet the Russian troops in an open field but rather take up defensive positions within important cities and towns. So, if there's a combat,
it's often accompanied with some destructions of urban infrastructure
and collateral casualties among civilians. That's the most dire part. "Humanitarian corridors" to evacuate civilians are organized, but not everyone can or wants to evacuate. Also, Kiev military often prevent
the civilians from evacuation to Russian-held areas. Zelensky has
issued death threats to anyone who would contact with the Russians.
Presently, the most fierce fighting is going on near and within the
city of Mariupol. It's a strategically important city of the Ukraine's south-east. Numerous Kiev troops have entrenched within the city, and
it's known that a large part of them are hardcore neo-Nazi units. This
is why the fights are especially fierce there. Besides Mariupol, there
are several other places where combats are or were hot, which led to
urban destructions and collateral casualties.
* * *
The prerequisites that led to this dire situation were as follows.
Since autumn 2021, many expected that Kiev troops will likely try to
attack Donbas soon. What did give reasons for such expectations? The
Kiev's obvious unwillingness to implement the Minsk-2 agreement.
In the international scene, there were repeated claims that "Minsk-2 agreement is the only way". Russian top officials said so, the Kiev
top officials said so, and the Atlanticist top officials said so. But
within the Kiev regime, there was a clear attitude "we aren't going to implement it", and some functionaries spoke it out openly.
Besides, for about eight years since the 2014 coup, the Atlanticist
powers supplied Kiev with modern weapons, their military instructors
trained the regime's military. The Kiev troops became much stronger
against what was in 2014/15, when the fights in Donbas were hot. So it contributed to the expectations that one day Kiev will certainly try
to attack the Donbas militias with its much strengthened and renoved
army.
The Kremlin's order to concentrate Russian troops near the Ukraine's
border was seen by many, including myself, as a warning sign intended
to turn Kiev away from the temptation to attack Donbas. In turn, the Atlanticist mainstream media started their vocal campaign "Russia is
going to invade Ukraine", and, under this vocalism, the Westerners significantly intensified their supply of weapons to Kiev. In addition,
Kiev functionaries intensified rhetorics about joining NATO, and the Atlanticist official rhetorics also were promising about it. Zelensky
ordered military registration of women and recruitment of male
reservists. Troops near Donbas and in other areas were put on higher readiness. In February, at the Munich Conference, Zelensky said he
now considers the Ukraine's non-nuclear status "in doubt", which was understood as a hint that the regime might try to make nukes. It's in
no way unrealistic, given that since the Soviet time, there are many engineers in the Ukraine who were familiar with the Soviet techniques.
The prospect to have a 40-million neighboring nation which is heavily militarized, which mainstream propaganda heavily indoctrinates,
"zombifies" regular people with hateful anti-Russian ideologies, which government is going to produce nuclear weapons, would be of course
dangerous and highly undesirable from the Russian perspective.
In addition to that, the Kremlins did not get a meaningful answer to
their "security guarantees" proposals addressed to the US and NATO,
and, under American pressure, Germany did put Nord Stream 2 on hold indefinitely, which likely contributed to the Kremlin feelings "there
is nothing to lose anyway".
Did the Kremlin have a beforehand plan to invade the Ukraine? Doubts.
Was it well-calculated? It might be that the decision was made on the
basis of the very recent developments. I can't know for sure and it's difficult to analyze it right now. One may notice, what I've written
above it not really an analysis but rather a set of related facts.
* * *
Bonus link: about the Ukraine history <https://tinyurl.com/yh33mena>
* * *
For China - and other Asian powers, - this situation is mostly
beneficial. It weakens Europe and the whole West. Some European big
factories have already been stopped because the Ukraine-related
developments disrupted their supplies. It weakens Russia, of course.
China emerges relatively more strong against all this mess.
Well, it is nice to know that Russian command at lest knows the right thing to do.
How well this is actually being done might be subject to dispute without better proof.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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