Russia’s artillery attack on Kharkiv kills 8, including a baby. Russian artillery hit Kharkiv’s residential area killing eight and wounding more than 40. Children were among the casualties, said head of the Kharkiv regional military organization Oleh Syniehubov on the evening of April 15. A seven-month-old child was killed in the attack.
Nine women and girls pregnant after being raped by Russian troops. About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped by Russian troops during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha. Nine of them are pregnant, Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmyla Denisova told BBC.
“Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children,” Denisova said. It is impossible at the moment to assess the scale of sexual crimes committed by Russian troops during the occupation because not everyone is willing to tell what happened to them, she added.
She says Ukraine wants a special tribunal to be set up by the United Nations to try Vladimir Putin personally for allegations of war crimes including rape. Denisova earlier said that Russian troops raped children in Bucha and Irpin during the occupation.
Anatomy of Ruscism, article by Larysa Yakubova, a Doctorate in Historical Studies Member and Reporter of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The Russo-Ukrainian war has shown the world the real face of Russia, Putinism and Russian society. The previously applauded epitome of “Russian Civilization”, “The Russian System” and the “Russian soul” have actually turned out to be oxymorons. Anti-civilization, anti-system, and a ‘demonic haze’ is a much more accurate way to describe the current state. The last video, where a Russian tank deliberately aims and shoots at a harmless civilian in Mariupol shows the true face of evil – without any signs of civilization, humanity and any other positive sentiment.
For a world that is used to stereotypes of Russian classics, the horrors in Ukraine led to a new discovery, awakened by the so called ‘special military operation’, as often phrased by the Russian government. Only on the third week of the war in Ukraine, the average citizen across the globe, upon seeing the ever growing magnitude of war crimes in Ukraine, finally disregarded Russian soft power. The words ‘russia’ and ‘russian’ were now lowercase, as a way to expel Russia from the international community of nation states. Full text in English.
Lines outside post office in Kyiv to buy stamps “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” “That’s probably the first time in history when a line for a postage stamp is longer than the one for an iPhone,” Ukraine’s postal service Ukrposhta said.
What possibly explains the demand is a report that the Russian cruiser Moskva that threatened Ukraine’s border guards on Zmiyiny island in the first days of war, sank after it was hit by Ukrainian missiles.
Explaining Ukraine podcast. “Moscow” has sunk, testimonials from the war
Russian warship “Moskva” (Moscow) has sunk hit by Ukrainian “Neptun” missile; homes of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians (millions of m2) are destroyed; testimonials from this war by people having first-hand experience – in our new “Explaining Ukraine” podcast. Hosts: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher and journalist, chief editor at UkraineWorld.org, and Tetyana Ogarkova, Ukrainian scholar and journalist who is in charge of international outreach at the Ukraine Crisis Media Centre. Listen to the episode.
Ukraine in Flames #36. Russia is killing Ukrainians: genocide
US President Joe Biden called the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine genocide. Earlier this month this position was supported by the Prime Ministers of Canada, UK and Latvia, as well as the Presidents of Colombia and Poland. Genocide is an attempt to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group and is recognised as a crime by the Genocide Convention – an inernational treaty approved by the UN General Assembly and signed by 150 countries after World War II in 1951. International unity in calling Russia’s extermination campaign in Ukraine a genocide should result in increased pressure on the aggressor and encourage passive supporters of peace to help Ukraine protect itself. Ukraine in Flames #36 will talk about the recent attempts by Russia to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people and culture, as well as the consequences of genocide for the world.
