Heading towards World War III?

US President Joe Biden formally confirmed on Wednesday that Washington will be sending HIMARS rocket artillery systems to Ukraine, as part of the latest “security assistance package” to Kiev.

The launchers will come with “battlefield munitions,” as Biden and multiple officials in his administration have insisted that the US doesn’t want Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia.

“Thanks to the additional funding for Ukraine, passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support in the US Congress, the United States will be able to keep providing Ukraine with more of the weapons that they are using so effectively to repel Russian attacks,” Biden said in a statement published by the White House.

The package will include “new capabilities and advanced weaponry, including HIMARS with battlefield munitions,” the US president added.

HIMARS is a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) that fires barrage rockets with an effective range of around 30 kilometers, but can also deploy tactical ballistic missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers.

The first batch of US aid will include four HIMARS systems, which were pre-positioned in Europe in anticipation of the decision, US Undersecretary of Defense for policy Colin Kahl told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday afternoon. It will take about three weeks to train Ukrainian troops how to use them, he added.

The Pentagon statement about the military aid did not include the specific number of HIMARS launchers. In addition to them, however, the US is sending five counter-artillery radars, two air surveillance radars, 1,000 Javelin missiles and another 6,000 anti-tank weapons, four Mi-17 helicopters – presumably originally intended for the US-backed Afghan military – and 15 “tactical vehicles,” along with 15,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition. These will come out of US military stockpiles and are valued at around $700 million.

Moscow has repeatedly warned the US that sending more weapons to Ukraine risks direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

Since the start of hostilities in February, Kiev’s forces have lost more than 450 MLRS launchers in addition to more than 1,700 artillery pieces, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. Over the past week, Ukraine has also admitted a major defeat in Donbass, retreating from the key town of Krasny Liman, northeast of Slavyansk.

www.rt.com/news/556462-biden-ukraine-weapons-himars

The weapons that Washington and its allies send to Kiev are likely to end up in the global black market, Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock said on Wednesday.

Criminal groups already have their eyes on these shipments, the official told the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris.

Stock urged Interpol member states to actively cooperate in tracing the arms delivered to Ukraine, adding that those who supply the weapons should play a major role in this effort. The Interpol chief also said he expects a wave of not just small arms, but heavy weapons to flood the international black market as soon as the conflict between Moscow and Kiev ends.

“Once the guns fall silent, the illegal weapons will come. We know this from many other theaters of conflict. The criminals are even now, as we speak, focusing on them,” he said, adding that criminal groups would try to “exploit these chaotic situations” to get their hands on the armaments “used by the military and including heavy weapons.”

“No country or region can deal with it in isolation because these groups operate at a global level,” Stock warned. The Interpol chief also said that Europe might see a massive influx of illegal arms. He called for the establishment of a track and trace system for weapons sent to Ukraine, adding that they were “in contact with member countries to encourage them to use these tools.”

When asked about Interpol’s potential involvement in the investigation of alleged sanctions evasion and “money laundering” by Russian businessmen slapped with restrictions in the West, Stock said his organization neither investigates these issues nor participates in probes into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, since its mandate demands it maintain “strict neutrality” and avoid any political activities.

“Our channels of communication remain open [to member countries] for an exchange of war crimes information. But we are not looking at war crimes; Interpol has no investigating powers,” he said.

The US, along with allies such as Germany and the UK, have been steadily supplying Ukraine with weapons since the start of the conflict with Russia in late February. Most of the equipment has consisted of small arms and portable anti-tank and anti-air missiles, along with munitions and fuel.

www.rt.com/russia/556532-interpol-weapons-ukraine-hands-criminals

Swedish police have voiced concerns that weapons delivered to Ukraine by its Western allies could make their way to the Scandinavian country, ending up in the hands of criminal gangs once the conflict is over.

Speaking to Swedish Radio on Monday, Crime Commissioner Gunnar Appelgren warned: “there is probably a high risk that flows of illegal weapons will enter Sweden” when peace is restored in Ukraine.

The official explained that while weapons may now be in high demand in the country’s conflict zones, when hostilities are over, Ukrainians will find themselves with a surplus of arms. Criminal groups could try to monetize the situation, according to Appelgren.

The police commissioner noted that most of the weapons currently used by criminal gangs in Sweden originate from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. “A lot of automatic weapons came in, AK47s,” Appelgren said, adding that hand grenades also made their way to Sweden a couple of years ago.

www.rt.com/news/556752-swedish-police-ukraine-arms-criminals

Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called out US President Joe Biden in two campaign speeches this week, citing the $40 billion in military aid Washington has pledged to Ukraine. Lula is polling far ahead of the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, in the upcoming presidential election.

“Biden, who has never made a speech to give $1 to those who are starving in Africa, announces $40 billion to help Ukraine buy weapons,” Lula said on Wednesday in Porto Alegre. “This can’t be!” he added.

The 76-year-old is the candidate of the leftist Party of Workers (PT), and currently the favorite to win the presidential election in October.

Speaking in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, Lula brought up the $40 billion in another context. How is it possible, he asked, that the world’s supposedly strongest economy is reduced to scouring the globe for baby formula – amid shortages in the US – even as Biden pledges billions in weapons sales to Kiev?

www.rt.com/news/556515-lula-biden-ukraine-billions

Even as the collective West continues to insist – against all observable reality – that the conflict in Ukraine is going well for Kiev, major media outlets are becoming increasingly uneasy with the situation on the economic front. More and more observers are admitting that the embargoes imposed by the US and its allies aren’t crushing the Russian economy, as originally intended, but rather their own.

Meanwhile, major publications have begun to report on the actual situation on the frontlines, rather than uncritically quoting myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ or ‘Snake Island 13’ propagated by Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, as they did early on. There have even been hints, however timid, that the West should perhaps stop unconditionally supporting Kiev and promote a negotiated peace instead.

“Russia is winning the economic war,” the Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott declared on Thursday. “It is now three months since the west launched its economic war against Russia, and it is not going according to plan. On the contrary, things are going very badly indeed,” he wrote.

www.rt.com/russia/556523-sanctions-failure-media-ukraine

A number of explosions shook parts of Kyiv early on Sunday in the first assault on Ukraine's capital for weeks.

Columns of black smoke could be seen above the city skyline as emergency services tackled the aftermath. At least one person was reported hurt.

The city has been largely spared in recent months as Russian forces concentrate attacks in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Some of the fiercest fighting is currently in the city of Severodonetsk.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation there remained "extremely difficult" with fighting being waged street by street.

Capturing the city would deliver the Luhansk region to Russian forces and their local separatist allies, who also control much of neighbouring Donetsk.

Severodonetsk and other cities in the eastern regions were being hit by "constant air strikes, artillery and missile fire" but Ukrainian forces were holding their ground, Mr Zelensky said.

On Saturday, Luhansk's governor said Ukrainian forces were still holding on to Severodonetsk but were awaiting precision weapons donated by Western allies.

"As soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will push their artillery away from our positions. And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run," Serhiy Haidai said.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61695244

Ukraine shells Kherson Region Killing civilians (Chernobaevka)

The capital city of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) was subjected to heavy shelling by the Ukrainian military late on Saturday. Multiple districts of Donetsk came under almost simultaneous attack by Kiev's forces, which used howitzers and rocket artillery to target the city.

Donetsk was hit by more than 40 rockets launched from BM-21 Grad systems, as well as by multiple 122mm artillery shells, according to local authorities. Footage from the scene shows the munitions exploding in residential areas of the city.

www.rt.com/russia/556625-ukraine-military-donetsk-shelling

Ukraine forces have shelled the Kherson region killing 3 civilians with cluster bombs.
A man lost his mother and father and their neighbor lost his wife

while reporting in Kherson we came across a crashsite of a Ukrainian SU-25 that was Shot down by Russian forces some time after hostilities started

We have gone to one of the biggest farming operations in the Kherson of Ukraine to talk about what the Kherson Farming Industry's Problems are NOW and what can be done to help the industry. We will find out what causes these problems and how the war and Russian control of Kherson Region effects Farming Industry.

As Ukraine’s struggle against Russia and its proxies continues, Kiev must also contend with a growing problem behind the front lines: far-right vigilantes who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies.

A January 28 [2018] demonstration, in Kiev, by 600 members of the so-called “National Militia,” a newly-formed ultranationalist group that vows “to use force to establish order,” illustrates this threat. While the group’s Kiev launch was peaceful, National Militia members in balaclavas stormed a city council meeting in the central Ukrainian town of Cherkasy the following day, skirmishing with deputies and forcing them to pass a new budget.

Many of the National Militia's members come from the Azov movement, one of the 30-odd privately-funded “volunteer battalions” that, in the early days of the war, helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's separatist proxies. Although Azov uses Nazi-era symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its ranks, a recent article in Foreign Affairs downplayed any risks the group might pose, . . .

www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-idUSKBN1GV2TY

The far-right militia, once banned by the U.S., is part of Ukraine’s National Guard

When Russia annexed Crimea in February 2014, it faced no military resistance. Ukraine did not have an adequate number of combat-ready troops to mount a defence. Subsequently, when Russia-backed separatists took over government buildings in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region as a prelude to full-fledged insurgency, the Ukrainian military again proved unable to quell the rebellion. It was against this background that the Azov Battalion was formed in May 2014.

The Azov began as a military infantry unit made up of civilian volunteers drawn from far-right, neo-Nazi groups that were active in Ukraine, such as the Patriot of Ukraine gang and the Social National Assembly (SNA). With its highly motivated band of fighters, the Azov unit recaptured the strategic port city of Mariupol from the separatists. Following this crucial military triumph — which had eluded the official forces of Kyiv — the Azov unit was integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine in November 2014.

In 2016, the Azov set up its political wing, the National Corps Party, under the leadership of Andriy Biletsky, an ultra-Nationalist who was a Member of Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and has said on record it is Ukraine’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior humans]”.

The military uniforms of the Azov feature Nazi insignia and its fighters have been photographed with tattoos of Nazi symbols such as the swastika. On the eve of the launch of National Corps, its members took out a Nazi-style raised-fist, torch-lit march through the streets of Kyiv. Members of the Azov militia also do street patrols where, in the name of enforcing what it calls ‘Ukrainian order’, they have been known to attack Roma and other ethnic minorities, and LBGT events. The Ukrainian National Guard has released videos of Azov fighters greasing bullets with pig fat, apparently for use against the Muslim Chechens fighting among the Russian forces.

www.thehindu.com/news/international/the-azov-battalion-the-neo-nazis-of-ukraine/article65239935.ece

“In our country, you will not go to heaven.” A video shared by the National Guard of Ukraine on Twitter appears to show a fighter dipping bullets in pig fat, to be used against Muslim Chechens fighting alongside Russian forces.

Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian politician and theorist of the militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an organization responsible for ethnic cleansings also implicated in collaboration with Nazi Germany.

Born in Galicia (at the time Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, part of Austria-Hungary) into the family of a Greek-Catholic priest, young Bandera became a Ukrainian nationalist. After the Empire disintegrated in the wake of World War I, Galicia briefly became a West Ukrainian People's Republic; following the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–1919, it was integrated into eastern Poland. In this period, he became radicalized. Bandera enrolled at the Lviv Polytechnic, where he organized Ukrainian nationalist organizations. For orchestrating the 1934 assassination of Poland's Minister of the Interior Bronisław Pieracki, Bandera was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 1939, as a result of the joint German–Soviet invasion of Poland he was freed from prison, and moved to Kraków in the German-occupied zone of Poland.

. . . Fourteen years after the end of the war, Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by KGB agents in Munich.

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Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine, with some Ukrainians hailing him as a liberator who fought against the Soviet Union, Poland and Nazi Germany trying to establish an independent Ukraine, while other Ukrainians condemn him as a fascist and a war criminal who was, together with his followers, largely responsible for the massacres of Polish civilians and partially for the Holocaust in Ukraine.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera