Ukraine's capital under threat as Russian forces close in

"Russia should be expelled from the UN and NATO for this"

Expelling Russia from NATO?!

Wow!

NATO should be facing the ICC for what it did in Libya, Afghanistan etc. expelling Russia from the UNSC would be WW3.

Russia has no interest in killing civilians. Just to stop NATO expansion and the genocide in Donbass.

It only took 2 days for them to break. Don't forget, Ukraine has more than 300k active troops and 900k in reserve troops. But apparently when they got hit intensely for 2 days, there is only around 100+ casualties and while russian troops are everywhere in the country now. Are these Ukraine troops even fighting? If they were truly fighting for their country, the number of fallen troops would have been very high. This whole thing feel like Afghanistan all over again. Not much resistance while everyone first instinct is to flee and not stand and fight. What happen to patriotism and fighting for the motherland? Did they really expect NATO to bail them out? First thing these NATO countries will do is make sure they beef up their borders.

Russian troops bore down on Ukraine’s capital Friday, with gunfire and explosions resonating ever closer to the government quarter, in an invasion of a democratic country that has fueled fears of wider war in Europe and triggered worldwide efforts to make Russia stop.

Putin's modern geopolitical worldview was shaped by seeing the Gulf War shock and awe campaigns while the Soviet Union was crumbling.

He has spent a lot of treasure to make sure the Russian Army can demonstrate overwhelming superiority with most opponents. Not a good sign for the other former Soviet states.

This is not a war. A war is a fight between nations. This is a rape. A political molestation.

Putin has crossed a line he cannot return from. Russia must be permanently frozen out of society - politically, culturally and economically - until Putin faces a war crimes trial or dies. Neither can come soon enough.

If the Russians take control of the Ukraine, it must never be recognised or normalised. And then, the guerrilla war will begin. 25 million capable Ukrainians in their own occupied nation, and quite a few in Russian. Every Russian soldier and every Russian official will be a legitimate target for them.

Western nations will not escalate the conflict, as Putin has gone past the point of rational conduct and would use nuclear and hypersonic weapons on a crazed whim. The Russian oligarchs, if anyone, are the ones to remove him. Until they do, they must be herded back to Russia and denied the chance to enjoy their cash around the (civilised) world. Putin made them rich - they should be forced to spend the rest of his life living within the bounds of his nation.

Any nation fearing they may be next should join NATO now, without delay.

What they need to do is cut Russia out of SWIFT. That will dry up their finances real quick.

The murderer Putin and all his supporters must be stopped by each possible way.

The Russians are killing innocent men, women and children.

Yesterday the Kreml threatened already Finnland.

If Finnland joins the Nato, Russia will attack military Finnland.

Russia is ready and willing to draw the world into a 3rd world war, and Putin threatened already with its Nukes, just to implement their insane illusions.

I hope the world now clearly see what kind of a nation Russia is!

Full of lies and Pro-War with a totaly insane leader!

Butchers! This whole thing is one big war crime.

before anyone from you will "moralize" abt bad Russia stop for a moment and ask what UA gove,NATO,EU and USA did to stop 8 year long conflict in eastern parts of Ukraine/Lugansk and Donetsk regions/?

You are incoherent, better have a coffee!

There are multiple sources saying that Putin is not well, he speaks incoherently, seems extremely paranoid and is more detached from reality, the vast majority of Russians are against the invasion and thousands protested and hundreds were arrested and today were told not to go online and spread anti-Russian views and condemnation or they will be deemed as being treasonous against the motherland.

The continuing situation here is absolutely dire. As directly quoted from news sources:

*“Russia could use savage superweapons - “that vaporize bodies and crush internal organs if their assault of Ukraine becomes bogged down, Western officials warned tonight.” -*

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10552743/amp/Furious-Putin-prepares-use-father-bombs-brave-Ukrainians-hold-advance.html -

These kinds of incorrigible choices & actions without conscience of other people on the ground are just reprehensible.

The focus here should be with the civilians, innocent victims and actual correspondents presently in harm’s way. One conscientious observer monitoring the overall situation yesterday cautioned that this is not about partisan politics in other countries and readers should not attempt to devolve this situation into such a debate. Smart decisions in opposition to those that attempt to provide, conflate and never solve real problems will be the only way to solve these crises.

"There's almost no resistance from the Ukrainian military."

They took that airport BACK from the Russians.

Autoincorrect error above @9:16am : “provide” was not typed and should read: “… provoke…” - Kind Regards.

It’s only day 3?

Bit early to be writing off the Ukrainians will to resist.

Day 2 of Russia’s invasion, the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, focused on the Ukrainian capital, where Associated Press reporters heard explosions starting before dawn and gunfire was reported in several areas.

According to the original "Blitzkrieg" plan, Russia aimed to put Kyiv under control faster on Day 1. The process seems delayed and disrupted due by the local resistance. Frustrated (?) Putin is now implying a temporary ceasefire for a negotiation in Minsk while appealing to the rebel group (really exists?) to overthrow Zelensky's government. Judging from it I see a sign of stagnation in Russian military operations. The earlier tone of high optimism or complacency is starting to fade a bit even among pro-Kremlin propagandist media.

For urban warfare, local Ukrainians know better local cities and surrounding landscapes, a big advantage for homeland defense. Even though Russians can hit down Kyiv, it is much harder for them to resume and maintain order in the face of resistance. Ukrainians and Russians often look alike, speak Russian. If the former go guerrilla under cover, the Russian occupation would get troubled, hardly endure. Should any brutalities such as mass killings occur, that would give foreign powers as well as international organizations an long-awaited mandate to interfere for "humanitarian reasons." As time goes on, pressures mount on the Russia side.

Unfortunately, the scenario above is likely to be more bloodshed with high causalities on both sides. The key is also the collective determination of local Ukrainians. But so far I suspect that Russia is now struggling for an uphill battle.

In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western regime. Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia’s historic naval base in Crimea, Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russian territory.

We must also recall that NATO agreed to not encroach upon Russia, but has duplicitously done over the past decades.

It's very difficult to believe that the morale and fighting spirit of young Russian soldiers ordered to kill in their first war will help advance Putin's mad project to subjugate Ukrainians who are willing to die to defend their loved ones. In the mind of many Russian soldiers must arise questions like: what's there to kill and die for? What's Putin to me? The superior military force of the Russians is facing the patriotic esprit de corps of Ukrainian soldiers, a reality check that Putin in his Kremlin bubble has no way been able to make and consequently has led him to make the biggest miscalculation of his life, akin to Hitler's face-palm invasion of Russia.

In early February 1990, U.S. leaders made the Soviets an offer. According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, U.S. could make “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.

Since then, however, that agreement has been broken(primarily by the US) repeatedly.

If Putin is successful just watch how he easily he blows up the pipeline that supplies needed energy to Germany and Italy. (funny how quiet Italy is at the moment). The goal is to break up the Nato alliance and create a new treaty. The Germans and Italians will be the first to leave.

Since then, however, that agreement has been broken(primarily by the US) repeatedly.

Oh, shall we talk about governments lying?

We don’t have to go back 30 years to find examples of Russia making much more egregious lies relevant to the Ukraine invasion, you know. We don’t even need to go back 30 days.

It was amazing. So sad though, but these people have some serious brass. 

They do indeed.

If Putin is successful just watch how he easily he blows up the pipeline that supplies needed energy to Germany and Italy. (funny how quiet Italy is at the moment). The goal is to break up the Nato alliance and create a new treaty. The Germans and Italians will be the first to leave.

All putin will succeed in is destroying himself.

Germany is already looking at alternatives to Russian gas, so the loser in this brainless war will be Russia.

The oil oligarchs are not going to let putin destroy their businesses for his big fragile ego.

putin will be gone soon and few will miss hi !

Kyiv will not be able to repel the Russian invader indefinitely.

Ukraine will need outside reinforcements.

The time is now for Europe to fully arm and provide air, sea, ground support   

Whatever Putin threats.

This is unfortunate but it's what happens when you continuously poke at the bear for two decades with an ever-expanding NATO despite reassurances that it wouldn't expand. I wonder how USA would have reacted had Russia and China put their military in Canada, Cuba and Mexico. As I said, Ukraine-Russian relations would never have got anywhere near as bad as this had USA kept their noses out. But USA is determined to destroy any government it doesn't like and poses a threat to its global hegemony. USA just cannot learn to live with other countries unless they're subjugated and remain submissive to Washington. USA has no qualms seeing innocent lives used as collateral damage. I will never forget Madeline Albright's comments that the death of 500,000 innocent children was worth it.

Rodney

Russia has no interest in killing civilians. Just to stop NATO expansion and the genocide in Donbass.

Mate, Russia STARTED the genocide in Donbas and NATO has nothing to do with it.

Hervé L'Eisa

In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western regime.

Twas the will of the people. The election in 2019 was likewise democratic. No such democracy exists in Russia.

Twas the will of the people. The election in 2019 was likewise democratic. No such democracy exists in Russia.

Good child. The secret police and ruling class are very happy with you.

Any regime, no matter how dictatorial and illegitimate the secret police and ruling class likes is 'democratic'. Likewise any coup, no matter how flagrant, is 'the will of the people'.

Russian forces invaded Ukraine. This proves that the U.S. claim that Russia would soon launch military invasion against Ukraine was true. With this one can say that Putin has lost an information war to the U.S.-led NATO.

Information war must be fought with information war, never with a blatant military invasion. Putin has turned the international community into an enemy, let alone Ukraine as a nation.

NATO is a joke and everything that can go wrong has gone wrong under Joe Biden. But apparently Europeans will NOT even try to help fellow Europeans. Germans should just ally with China and Russia at this point.

Germans should just ally with China and Russia at this point.

Germans have their own imperialist ambitions. They hate being under the American thumb. A bloc that includes China, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Soviet Central asia, even Afghanistan at this point, should allow the German liberation of France, Spain and UK.

It’s already idiotic that the big ones, in the role of the aggressor, can themselves vote down all those security council decisions by veto. They even still have the presidency there. That’s all becoming crazy and irrational, not only by the Russians.

I remember in jr high home room these two guys sitting next to me kept on instigating a fight between me and another kid sitting in front of me saying “ oh I don’t think you could kick his butt” then the other would say the opposite. Both just wanted to see a fight and could care less about who got hurt. Biden and NATO were their names.

Yesterday in UK parliament the minister said the Russians did not get to do everything they had planned. This begs the question what was planned and how much did the UK know of the plan because it is not like they stopped the actual invasion.

Or maybe with tin-hat on they allowed the russians to get the russian part of Ukraine and focussed on keeping he the non-russian part defended. Kiev (spelt as it was up until a few days ago) is still holding but for how long and is the real winner the one who takes/keeps control of the capital.

As for Ukraine being part of NATO we are all very lucky it was not and hopefully never will be. An attack on NATO makes it a world war and I hope no silly mistakes will be escalated because it only took the death of an arch-duke of a tiny country to start an all-out mess.

I am most definitely not wanting a war starting for the sake of Sean Penn and his lolli-freindly advanced patrols.

The coup d'etat of 2014, with the "blessing" of the US, has a great deal to do with the present situation. The ousting of the leadership at the time, just a short time before the elections which would have rather likely have remove the then president, is a standard regime-change narrative.

Some of the Ukraine military commanders are not enemies to the Russians. Many are not pro NATO..

Russia is overthrowing a democratic government without the support of Ukrainian people. This is totally different from 2014 when the people of Ukraine overthrew their own government.

It appears the war, such as it is, is already over. And if Vladimir Putin manages to achieve his declared objective of decapitating the evil and illegitimate government of Ukraine with such minimal force and minimal bloodshed, and replace it with a pro-Russian government that will actually govern for the benefit of the Ukrainian people, his name will rank with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Charles of Sweden as one of the greatest military leaders of all time.

Keep in mind that it took the USA three weeks and more than 30,000 dead Iraqis to take Baghdad, at the time considered an astonishing performance of modern blitzkrieg that 'shocked and awed' the world, including the Chinese military leadership. And also note that this is a report from distinctly unfriendly sources in the British media, as the spelling of Kiev clearly indicates. The Russian strategic brilliance goes well beyond lightning war and into the futuristic realm of quantum entanglement. And yet, the media is still bloviating falsehoods about the highly surgical operation.

Few expect Ukraine to emerge victorious from what is almost certain to be a prolonged, bloody, and vicious war – but so far, Kyiv’s forces have managed to inflict heavy losses on Putin’s troops.

The Russo-Ukraine war is “almost certain” to be over by this time next week, and the initial indications are that it will have been neither prolonged, nor bloody, nor vicious. Which, of course, is why the Zionist comedian who heads the preposterous, but violent puppet regime has already been reduced to publicly shrieking at the neocons and globalist leaders who egged him on rather than commanding his military forces.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has raged at Western cowards after his country was ‘left alone’ to face Russian troops as officials warn that Kyiv will be seized this weekend. In a video address to his nation after midnight, the president called his fallen compatriots ‘heroes’ after 137 were killed on the first day of fighting, and insisted he will stay until the bitter end.

He said: ‘They’re killing people and turning peaceful cities into military targets. It’s foul and will never be forgiven. We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone.’Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid.’

He added that the enemy has already entered Kyiv.

What on God's Good Earth did he think would happen? How could he possibly have imagined anything else was ever going to be the case? What Zelensky should do is surrender to Putin tonight and accept whatever terms the Russians require. The war is already over, whether the puppets or their masters want to accept that fact and its inevitable consequences or not. Because just like in Afghanistan, no one really wants to fight for the Drag Queen Democratic New World Rules-Based Neo-Liberal Order, aka Rules-Based Neo-Liberal Order, or whatever the hell the satanists are calling themselves this week.

 Germans should just ally with China and Russia at this point.

Don't knock the Germans. They have donated 5000 helmets to Ukraine.

It appears the war, such as it is, is already over. 

Famous last words.

Vlad the Butcher continues his campaign of terror against the innocent people of Ukraine...

The little Dictator is certainly looking stressed, nervous, and upset....perhaps he's realized his major miscalculation - and that all the "yes-men" he has advising him may have over-promised....

All the death and destruction now lay at his feet - and he will go down in history beside his counterpart tyrants Stalin and Hitler....

Rob

Twas the will of the people. The election in 2019 was likewise democratic. No such democracy exists in Russia.

Good child. The secret police and ruling class are very happy with you.

Any regime, no matter how dictatorial and illegitimate the secret police and ruling class likes is 'democratic'. Likewise any coup, no matter how flagrant, is 'the will of the people'.

One person's coup is another person's people's revolution. The fact remains, that because of that revolution, Ukraine is a lot more democratic and not a puppet of Russia anymore.

Which is why Putin doesn't like it.

The Russian strategic brilliance goes well beyond lightning war and into the futuristic realm of quantum entanglement. 

Its funny that you are writing comments like this on an article that has a picture of the smoldering wreckage of Russian military vehicles at the top of it without any sense of how delusional that makes you look.

Do continue though, its fascinating stuff.

With growing signs that Russia aims to overthrow him, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Gee, has the corporate press finally figured this out?

All of this could have been avoided, if Nato/US had not insistet on encroaching on Russia after the SU ended, trying to get the Ukraine into Nato and placing missiles right on Russias doorstep. Sensible people have been saying since the Maidan coup in 2014 that Ukraine is a step too far for Western warmongers. The thug regime in Kiev has to go, even if they have strong backers in Washington.

2020hindsights

One person's coup is another person's people's revolution. The fact remains, that because of that revolution, Ukraine is a lot more democratic and not a puppet of Russia anymore.

Which is why Putin doesn't like it.

Only in the fairy tale world of "mainstream media". Putin gave an hour-long speech in the parliament, laying out the history of the conflict and why NATO missiles Ukraine absolutely cross the red line. Did you read the speech before commenting, or rather just look at headlines in corporate media, which have such stellar track record of always telling us the truth'?

The dog (West) may bark, but the caravan (Putin) moves on.

WilliB

Only in the fairy tale world of "mainstream media". Putin gave an hour-long speech in the parliament, laying out the history of the conflict and why NATO missiles Ukraine absolutely cross the red line.

And you believe him? I did note that Putin moved nuclear missiles closer to the west, so a bit disingenuous.

No, Putin's invasion has nothing to do with NATO, except that he hates it and the US. He doesn't think Ukraine should be a sovereign state and he misses having a puppet in there to control it.

Did you read the speech before commenting, or rather just look at headlines in corporate media, which have such stellar track record of always telling us the truth'?

Sure, I read the speech and I've seen Hitler's account on why he needed to invade Poland.

WilliB

All of this could have been avoided, if Nato/US had not insistet on encroaching on Russia after the SU ended, trying to get the Ukraine into Nato and placing missiles right on Russias doorstep.

Wouldn't have made any difference, because that is not what this war is about.

In that same speech, Putin’s claims that there is no historical Ukrainian nation worthy of present-day sovereignty. This is false, but it shows his true reasons for invasion.

He is still grieving the collapse of the Soviet Union and this is his way of trying to get some of it back.

He is still grieving the collapse of the Soviet Union and this is his way of trying to get some of it back.

Putin is not going to stop and I believe he’s going to reclaim the Baltics next and he’s going down that same road as Nikolai Ceaușescu and we all know how that ended.

bass4funk

He is still grieving the collapse of the Soviet Union and this is his way of trying to get some of it back.

Putin is not going to stop and I believe he’s going to reclaim the Baltics next and he’s going down that same road as Nikolai Ceaușescu and we all know how that ended.

Could happen, his risk assessment is all out of whack at the moment. But you would hope he wouldn't be that foolish.