#kreminna

[pettania]

Ukrainian cities before and after the arrival of the russians.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Cinema in Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. 1970s.

[greenpostua]

⚡Серебрянський ліс вкривається павутиною з оптоволокна.

На жаль, такі реалії і військова необхідність. Скільки десятків років Україна потім прибиратиме все це — ніхто наразі не може передбачити.

📹: Сталеві леви omrb_63

[stop-war-ukraine]

Aftermath of the “Russian world”.

The Ukrainian cities of Mariupol, Bakhmut, Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Vuhledar, Lyman, Vovchansk, Volnovakha, Marinka, Kreminna... Toretsk has now joined this far from complete list of cities turned into ruins after the start of t🇷🇺 invasion

[vintage-ukraine]

Khata in Kreminna, Luhansk Region, early XXth century

The Byzantine-style 17th century Trinity Church that can be seen in the background was demolished in the 1930s, and the bricks were used to build a school. 

[dialogue-queered]

No stalemate in Ukraine, at least not yet

Some commentators say the Ukraine conflict is at a stalemate, but what we are seeing is the usual ebb and flow of a long war.

At the beginning of 1915, the war on the Western Front had reached a stalemate. There were technical, strategic and doctrinal reasons for this. The machine gun changed tactics and killed soldiers by the hundreds, as did more accurate and concentrated artillery. Poor communications hampered the co-ordination of the different elements of the massive armies. A lack of protected mobility meant that even when a breach was made in enemy lines, the enemy could more quickly fill the gap than the attacker could exploit it.

Recently, this has become the analogy of choice for some writing about the war in Ukraine. Articles in publications from in the United States, Britain and beyond have all touted theories of the current “stalemate in Ukraine”. It makes for good headlines, but there is one problem: it just isn’t true.

The Collins dictionary defines stalemate as a “deadlock, draw, impasse … a situation in which neither side in an argument or contest can win or in which no progress is possible”. War is a complex tableau of military, diplomatic, technological, economic and societal endeavours. Therefore, a stalemate in war implies a situation of geographic, economic, military and intellectual stasis. This is not the case in Ukraine. Both sides in the conflict, and their supporters, have an enormous range of tactical and strategic options available to them in 2023.

What we are seeing instead is the normal ebb and flow of a long war being fought by well-resourced countries with external sources of support. After the initial burst of activity where each side seeks large, hard blows against the adversary to hopefully compel them to concede quickly, most wars settle into a cycle of pulses and pauses.

The most recent pulse, with the Ukrainian offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson, saw huge amounts of territory returned to Ukraine through the courage and innovation of its military forces, and the military, intelligence and technical support of the West. These offensives provided a boost to the morale of the Ukrainian people. They also reinforced that the Ukrainians are quite capable of defeating the Russians.

Importantly, the offensives also resulted in a lower tempo of operations. Humans, even well motivated ones, need a break from operations to reflect, reinforce and relax before the fighting begins again. This is the low ebb of the cycle of war that we are seeing right now.

It is a very long way from a stalemate. There is a huge amount of activity being conducted even in this low tempo phase. Most of it remains invisible to the layman because it is not as exciting to report or because it is hidden by operational security and the normal fog of war.

The Battle of Bakhmut is draining away Russian and Ukrainian lives. Over the past several months, the Russian Army and the mercenary Wagner Group have competed to hurl tens of thousands of Russian soldiers against Ukrainian defensive lines which have been developed and improved since 2014. The town of Bakhmut has no strategic importance beyond its propaganda value for a Russian Army that has had no battlefield victories since the early days of this war. Yet, the fighting there is as bitter as any in this war and is resulting in mass casualties that few armies can sustain.

To the north, the Ukrainian Army presses on with its methodical advance towards the Kreminna-Svatove-Starobilsk triangle. Unlike the battle to the south, this offensive will have important strategic outcomes if the Ukrainians succeed. Within these towns are key transport and logistic support hubs for the Russian Army in Luhansk Oblast. If Ukraine secures this critical triangle of cities, the Russian position in Luhansk is probably untenable, and its forces in Donetsk will be forced into a dilemma about how to orientate their troops.

There is much more occurring that we don’t see directly. Tactical reconnaissance on the ground, in cyberspace and in the air is occurring across the entire front, seeking weaknesses to exploit in the offensives to come. Training and equipping of new troops and formations is occurring – quickly - for these future offensives. Once trained, these formations are being deployed behind the lines and being readied to join the more experienced forces who are defending, scouting and preparing to advance. And changes in command are being made in preparation for attacks in the northern spring, such as the appointment of the Russian general Valery Gerasimov last week.

The strategic fight also rages unabated. Russian missile and drone attacks continue to cause the death of civilians and impact on power supplies, as they did again over the past weekend. The Russians probably have sufficient drones and precision missiles and rockets for several large-scale attacks on Ukraine each month. At the same time, both Ukraine and Russia continue to be energetic in the conduct of information operations in their own nations and beyond, seeking to retain the support of their partners and allies.

So, while we may not be witnessing the rapid advances of late 2022, there is still much activity going on in Ukraine. More importantly, both sides retain the military, economic and intellectual potential to innovate and act in creative ways to win battles and drain the resources of their adversary.

By no means are the main belligerents or their supporters yet in a position where “neither side in an argument or contest can win or in which no progress is possible”.

We may be in a lower tempo phase in this war, but this is a long way from a stalemate.

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up April 25, 2022

Under the cut: Sweden and Finland will submit their NATO applications simultaneously and Russia Does Not Like This; No evacuation corridors out of Mariupol (Russia offered but Ukraine doesn’t trust them to not fire on the corridors); US nominates Briget Brink as ambassador to Ukraine; Heavy fighting continues in Luhansk and Donetsk; UK sending medical supplies, ambulances, and fire trucks to Ukraine; Explosions in Russian-occupied City Hall of Kremmina with no survivors; Evidence of rape is being collected from the bodies of women for the investigation into war crimes by the ICC (mind the content warnings).

“Sweden and Finland have agreed to submit simultaneous membership applications to the US-led Nato alliance as early as the middle of next month, Nordic media reports.

The Finnish daily Iltalehti said on Monday that Stockholm had “suggested the two countries indicate their willingness to join” on the same day, and that Helsinki had agreed “as long as the Swedish government has made its decision”.

The Swedish newspaper Expressen cited government sources as confirming the report. The two countries’ prime ministers said this month they were deliberating the question, arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had changed Europe’s “whole security landscape” and “dramatically shaped mindsets” in the Nordic region.

Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said then that her country, which shares an 810 mile (1,300km) border with Russia, would decide whether to apply to join the alliance “quite fast, in weeks not months”, despite the risk of infuriating Moscow.

Her Swedish counterpart, Magdalena Andersson, said Sweden had to be “prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia” and that “everything had changed” when Moscow attacked Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly warned both countries against the move.

The Kremlin said it would be forced to “restore military balance” by strengthening its defences in the Baltic, including by deploying nuclear weapons, if the two countries decided to abandon decades of military nonalignment by joining Nato.”

-via The Guardian

~

tl;dr the article below: No evacuation corridors were agreed upon out of Mariupol today. Russia says they extended the offer, but the Ukrainian side did not accept because Russia has fired upon agreed corridors before and the Ukrainian side wants representatives from the UN and the Red Cross there before they agree.

“Russia has accused Kyiv of preventing civilians trapped with Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks from leaving the besieged industrial centre despite a ceasefire announcement, AFP reports.

The news agency writes:

“The defence ministry had said it would allow a civilian evacuation from Mariupol’s sprawling steel plant, which has been sheltering the remaining Ukrainian resistance in the southeastern port city, on Monday.

But the Russian army on Monday evening said no one used the proposed humanitarian corridor.

“The Kyiv authorities have again cynically undermined this humanitarian operation,” it said in a statement, accusing the Ukrainian government of “indifference” towards its citizens.

Russian troops “from 14:00 Moscow time (1100 GMT) on April 25, 2022, will unilaterally stop any hostilities, withdraw units to a safe distance and ensure the withdrawal of” civilians, the defence ministry had said.

It said the civilians – women, children and the Azovstal staff – would be taken “in any direction they have chosen”.

It added that the Ukrainian side should show “readiness” to start the humanitarian evacuations “by raising white flags”.

According to the ministry, this information would be communicated to those inside Azovstal “via radio channels” every 30 minutes.

Russia last week said it had gained full control of the strategic eastern Ukrainian city, except for the huge Azovstal industrial area.

President Vladimir Putin ordered a blockade of the steelworks, where hundreds of civilians are reportedly sheltering with Ukrainian troops.”

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, had earlier said the UN should be the “initiator and guarantor” of any agreement with Russia on evacuating civilians from the steel plant.

Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram:

Today, the Russian side once again announced the existence of a corridor for civilians to leave Azovstal. This could be believed if the Russians had not destroyed humanitarian corridors many times before.

A humanitarian corridor must be opened “by the agreement of both sides”, Vereshchuk said, “A corridor announced unilaterally does not provide security, and therefore is not a humanitarian corridor.”

She said Ukraine had “appealed” for the UN secretary general, Antonoi Guterres, to be “the initiator and guarantor of the humanitarian corridor from Azovstal for civilians”.

Representatives of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be present when any humanitarian corridor was established, she said.

-via The Guardian

~

“President Biden’s pick for ambassador to Ukraine will bolster relations between Washington and Kyiv after years without a Senate-confirmed envoy in the post, veteran diplomats say, but a return to a U.S. diplomatic presence during a war brings new risk for the Biden administration.

After months of delays that confounded veteran diplomats, Mr. Biden on Monday announced his intention to nominate for the post Bridget Brink, the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia. A native of Michigan, Ms. Brink joined the State Department in 1996 and has served in Serbia, Uzbekistan and Georgia...

Ms. Brink would be the first Senate-confirmed ambassador to hold the post since mid-2019, when President Donald J. Trump removed Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat and anti-corruption advocate who was criticized by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and associates as Mr. Giuliani tried to dig up dirt in the country on Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter. “-via The New York Times

~

“The Defense Ministry in Ukraine has described explosions that took place in the Transnistria region of neighboring Moldova as a "planned provocation" by the Russian secret services.

The ministry's defense intelligence department said in a statement on its Telegram channel that three days before the incident, the leaders of the breakaway region "were already preparing for it and took care to install a secure and comfortable bunker" at the Ministry of State Security, which was damaged in the explosions. "Obviously, this case is one of a number of provocative measures organized by the FSB (the Russian security service) to instill panic and anti-Ukrainian sentiment," it said.

What Russia is saying: Earlier Monday, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported a series of explosions were heard around the building of the Ministry of State Security in Tiraspol, the capital of the separatist statelet of Transnistria in Moldova.

A correspondent for Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported explosions, saying that powerful booms were heard on the scene and that windows in neighboring houses were damaged. Traffic near the ministry building was blocked, the agency reported.

Russia has maintained a contingent of troops inside Transnistria since the early 1990s. Last week, a top Russian general said Russia intended to establish "full control" over southern Ukraine in the second phase of its invasion of Ukraine, adding that control over Ukraine's south would give Russian forces access to Transnistria.“-via CNN

~

There’s still heavy fighting going on in Luhansk and Donetsk. 

“Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, said on Ukrainian television Monday that the Russians "keep razing everything to the ground."

He referred to a village on the frontlines, Novotoshkivka, which now lies in ruins. "Unfortunately, there are almost no houses left in Novotoshkivka. Our [troops] retreated a little, but not much, because there was no longer anything to hold on to, there was nowhere to keep the defense," he said.

Drone video from the area showed that much of the village has been destroyed.

Hayday said Russian forces were still trying to break through in the neighboring towns of Rubizhne and Popasna. "They don't get anything there. But they throw huge forces there. And shelling is carried out there around the clock."Hayday also said that the Russians had "damaged the electricity substation that powered the entire region.

Further west, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that four command posts and one ammunition depot near the town of Sloviansk had been destroyed. Russian forces have been targeting Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk as they try to reach the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It also said another Ukrainian military target — in the town of Novogrodovka — had been hit. The Russians have amassed forces around the town of Izium, which they occupied at the beginning of April, but have made little progress since. Ukrainian officials reported fighting around the nearby village of Zavody Monday.“-via CNN

~

“The UK plans to send more medical aid to Ukraine, including ambulances, fire engines and medical supplies. Ukraine will receive 22 new ambulances, as well as more than 44 fire engines with rescue equipment, thermal imaging cameras and thousands of items of protective clothing, from the UK, Reuters reports. The aid is intended to help emergency services in Ukraine deal with the aftermath of Russian attacks.“ -via The Guardian

~

“A senior official in Ukraine's Interior Ministry says there has been a large explosion in the town of Kreminna in the Luhansk region, an area recently occupied by Russian forces.

Anton Gerashchenko said the explosion took place at an administrative building in the town. Ukrainian forces withdrew from Kreminna last week.

"As a result of a gas explosion in the city council's building in Kreminna, no one survived," he said on Telegram. "Simultaneously with the natural gas explosion in the building of the city council, there was a second explosion of domestic gas in the district police department, where a group of collaborators had gone for a meeting," he said.“-via CNN

As of the time of writing, it’s not clear how many casualties there were in the explosion. According to Pravda (translated from Ukranian): 

“Russian occupiers and collaborators exploded in the city hall of the temporarily occupied Kreminna when they gathered for a "meeting". The head of the OVA says that "gas" is to blame for everything.”

~

CW: Rape, descriptions of violent death

“Forensic doctors carrying out postmortem examinations on bodies in mass graves north of Kyiv say they have found evidence some women were raped before being killed by Russian forces, Lorenzo Tondo and Isobel Koshiw report.

“We already have a few cases which suggest that these women had been raped before being shot to death,” said Vladyslav Pirovskyi, a Ukrainian forensic doctor who with a team of coroners has carried out dozens of autopsies on residents from Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka who died during Russia’s month-long occupation of the area.

“We can’t give more details as my colleagues are still collecting the data and we still have hundreds of bodies to examine,” he said.

Pirovskyi’s team has been examining about 15 bodies a day, many of them mutilated. “There are many burnt bodies, and heavily disfigured bodies that are just impossible to identify,” he said. “The face could be smashed into pieces, you can’t put it back together, sometimes there’s no head at all.

”He said the bodies of some women they had examined showed signs that the victims had been killed by automatic gunfire, with upwards of six bullet holes in their backs.

Oleh Tkalenko, a senior prosecutor for the Kyiv region, said details of alleged rapes had been forwarded to his office, which is investigating circumstances such as locations and the ages of victims.

“Rape cases are a very delicate and sensitive matter,” Tkalenko said. “Forensic doctors have a specific task of checking the genitalia of female victims and looking for signs of rape.”

A foreign coroner working north of Kyiv who asked to remain anonymous said some bodies “are in such bad shape that it is not easy to find signs of rapes and sexual abuses. But we are collecting evidence in a few cases of women we believe had been raped before being murdered.”-via The Guardian. There is a longer follow up article here. This evidence is being documented with the international criminal court (ICC) as part of their investigations into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity happening in Ukraine. 

[industrialheaven]

Kremennaya, Luhansk region. 2015. photo by Alexander Kuchinskiy