R Johansen
Hindustan Times
comments
Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "Putin Lays Out Condition For Peace Settlement After Zelensky's Saudi 'Stunt'; 'Ukraine Must Stop...'" video.
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@JocoMarkovic-gf1eh How do you explain this, wiseguy:
Representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the leaders of two pro-Russian separatist regions signed a 13-point agreement in February 2015.
It set out military and political steps that remain unimplemented. A major blockage has been Russia's insistence that it is not a party to the conflict and therefore is not bound by its terms.
Point 10, for example, calls for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk: Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia, but Moscow denies it has any forces there. (Later Putin admitted there were russian forces.)
Russia violates the Minsk agreements on a regular basis.
The Minsk Agreements (Protocol of 5 September 2014, Memorandum of 19 September 2014 and Package of measures of 12 February 2015) are a basis for political resolution of the conflict in Donbas. They have been violated by the Russian Federation on a regular basis. Signing of the first documents in September 2014 followed direct incursion of the Russian regular troops in Donbas and intense hostilities near the city of Ilovaysk — the place of one of the most shameful crimes, committed by the Russian Army in Donbas.
At least 366 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 429 were wounded there while leaving the city in the so-called “green corridor” under the guarantees of commanders of Russian troops. In violation of the Minsk Memorandum, Russian troops and Russia-backed illegal armed formations seized 8 pieces of land 1696 km² in area, which had to be on the Ukrainian government-controlled territory according to the line of contact, defined by the Memorandum.
Debaltseve is one of the most telling examples of how Russia violates the Minsk Agreements. Combined Russian-terrorist forces attacked and seized the city and the outskirts on 16–18 February 2015, immediately after the Minsk Package of measures, establishing the comprehensive ceasefire since 15 February, had been signed.
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@COMMANDER-wm9vr The use of cluster munitions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) has been recorded by a number of eyewitnesses and journalists, as well as representatives of the UN, humanitarian and public organizations. In particular, the head of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet, reported on March 30 at least 24 cases since the beginning of the invasion. As of July 1, hundreds of attacks by Russian forces with cluster munitions have already been recorded in the settlements of the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions. 215 civilians are known to have been killed in these shellings and 474 injured, many of which may go unreported. Both Russia as well as Ukraine have used cluster munitions during the conflict, however, Russian use has been extensive while Ukrainian use has been more limited.
Neither Russia nor Ukarine are signatories of the of the 2008 convention limiting the use of cluster munitions. The use of such weapons against civilians violates the principles of humanitarian law and therefore constitutes a war crime. Reports of Russian attacks have prompted the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into the commission of war crimes in Ukrainian territory.
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@COMMANDER-wm9vr Publication.
“HIDING BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN”: CIVILIANS USED BY RUSSIA AS HUMAN SHIELDS DURING OCCUPATION OF CRIMEA
27.02.2019
On 21 February 2019, a new submission was sent to the International Criminal Court regarding the use of civilians during the capture of strategic targets in the Crimean Peninsula by Russian soldiers in 2014. The submission was prepared by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union NGO (UHHRU) and the Regional Center for Human Rights NGO (RCHR) in cooperation with the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
The authors established that Russian Federation’s forces were not only intentionally and deliberately moving civilians closer to the facilities of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, but were also standing behind these people during the blocking and capture of these facilities. Under such circumstances, Ukrainian soldiers were unable to use force to defend against the attacks.
These human shields were made up of 4 categories of civilians, among them Crimeans with pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian views, civilians brought from Russia to take part in the peninsula’s occupation, as well as representatives of the Cossacks and the so-called “Crimean Self-Defense”. “There were also people among the civilians that did not belong to neither of the above categories. For instance, we established that Serbian Chetniks were involved in the assaults,” says Maksym Tymochko, UHHRU lawyer. “Based on our information, at least 10 military facilities belonging to the Armed Forces of Ukraine were captured in this manner with the use of at least 1,000 civilians.”
Particularly indicative is the capture of the naval base in the town of Novoozerne, carried out with the use of at least 300 people, men and women as well as adolescents and the elderly.
Among the civilians used as human shields were people with pro-Russian views whose participation was encouraged as well as those who gathered in front of military targets as a result of threats or blackmail. “In such cases, the occupying power is required to prevent the presence of civilians in potentially dangerous places. Furthermore, representatives of the Russian Federation should have refrained from using civilians for protecting their own armed forces”, summarizes Vitaliy.
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@JocoMarkovic-gf1eh "Civilized" and "Russia" is an oxymoron!
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities and armed forces have committed war crimes by carrying out deliberate attacks against civilian targets and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas.
The Russian military exposed the civilian population to unnecessary and disproportionate harm by using cluster munitions and by firing other explosive weapons with wide-area effects such as bombs, missiles, heavy artillery shells and multiple launch rockets. As of the beginning of July 2023, the attacks had resulted in the documented deaths of between 9,200 and 16,500 civilians. On 5 July 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Michelle Bachelet reported that most of the civilian casualties documented by her office had been caused by the Russian army's repeated use of explosive weapons in populated areas. Bachelet said that the heavy civilian toll from the use of such indiscriminate weapons and tactics had become "indisputable".
From 24 February 2022 to 30 June 2023, OHCHR assessed that 90.5% of all civilian fatalities were killed by explosive weapons with wide area effects, and that 84.2% of them were recorded on the Ukrainian-controlled territory. El País estimated that by March 2023 the Russian forces were firing at a rate of between 600,000 and 1.8 million shells per month.
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@Aaa-mv6rd Crimea was governed by the Constitution of Crimea as an autonomous republic of Ukraine.
They had their freedom as an autonomous Republic until Russia annexed them.
Russia has no more historic right to Crimea than Ukraine. Besides, Soviet/Russia has replaced a large part of the population. Their background is this, briefly:
The Cimmerians, Bulgars, Greeks, Scythians, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Kievan Rus', Byzantine Greeks, Kipchaks, Ottoman Turks, Golden Horde Tatars, the Mongols , the Venetians, the Genoese, Crimean Khanate, Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Germany, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and later the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Each controlled Crimea until Crimea became part of independent Ukraine with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
When the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine held a significant number of nuclear weapons. In fact, the country had more nuclear warheads than China, the UK and France combined, making it the third-largest nuclear power in the world. Three years later, Ukraine reached an agreement with Russia and the US to hand over its nuclear weapons to be destroyed. In return, Russia promised to forever recognize the independence of the whole of Ukraine, including Crimea.
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