Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
What has bias got to with it? You think RT is going to pretend it never happened, or that it wasn't related to Ukraine?

squidhills wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
What has bias got to with it? You think RT is going to pretend it never happened, or that it wasn't related to Ukraine?

It was a joke. Specifically, it was a joke about people on this thread giving Iron_Cap a lot of flak for primarily posting from RT. Hence the use of " "

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I thought the convoy was being inspected.

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's troubling. On the one hand, humanitarian aid for civilians living in the area is highly necessary. On the other hand, those supports would also help the rebels which is a terrible thing. Not to mention that it's still possible that there might be weapons or other military equipment hidden among the supplies.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's troubling. On the one hand, humanitarian aid for civilians living in the area is highly necessary. On the other hand, those supports would also help the rebels which is a terrible thing. Not to mention that it's still possible that there might be weapons or other military equipment hidden among the supplies.

So come to an agreement or compromise by which Ukraine troops or impartial international organisations can inspect and verify the cargo.

 Frazzled wrote:
Ukraine should bomb it from orbit, just to be sure. The Russian concept of humanitarian aid is to shoot down an airliner.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Ukraine should bomb it from orbit, just to be sure. The Russian concept of humanitarian aid is to shoot down an airliner.

Than Ukraine will first need to rent some spaceships from Russia
Also, so far the Russian government has done more for humanitarian aid than the Ukrainian government. Come to think of it, bombs may perfectly well be the Ukrainian government's idea of humanitarian aid when it comes to Eastern Ukrainians.

“Freedom is not free” — a US veteran’s ground-level perspective on life in wartime Ukraine

KIEV – It’s a warm August day here. There are leaves on the trees that line Institutskaya Street, which climbs a steep hill leading out of the Maidan.

Young couples wearing shorts and flip-flops walk up and down the cobblestone street holding hands. Police officers passing by act relaxed, smiling and joking.

There is little evidence today of the apocalyptic scenes that played out on this street in late February. Yet, beneath the veneer of what could be a normal summer day in any European capital, there are reminders of what happened half a year ago.

Parents pause at one of the hundreds of photos lining the street, many of which are nestled within beds of flowers and candles. They point to the memorials, trying to explain to their children what went on here, and what it all means for their future.

Long sections of the brick sidewalk lining Institutskaya Street are stripped bare, revealing earth. In February protestors peeled away the bricks to build a defensive wall against gunfire from a special police force called the Berkut, which deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych unleashed on the crowds calling for his ouster.

Today, workers pound new bricks into the naked earth, filling the cracks in between the fresh stones with sand. Others spray water on the black stains that dot the stone floor of the Maidan’s open terraces, erasing the traces of Molotov cocktails and tires burnt to provide a smokescreen from snipers.

Of all the faces and voices I encountered along Institutskaya Street that day, however, there was one moment that stood out.

I heard English spoken in an American accent — a rarity in Kiev. So my ears naturally honed in on the only understandable voice.

“Freedom is not free,” the man said.

***
Photos line the quarter-mile stretch of Institutskaya Street that rises from the Maidan to the top of the hill overlooking Kiev’s central square.

The pictures are overwhelmingly of old men and young boys. Students and professors — hardly the neo-Nazi fascists depicted by Russian media.

Just past the Hotel Ukraine (which looms at the top of the hill overlooking the Maidan), as the street rounds the top of the incline, there is a patch of trees and a low wall off to the right.

This is a place of mourning. The ground here is covered in framed photos, candles and flower garlands. There are still bullet holes in the street signs and trees.

In one spot two groups of framed photos are arranged on the ground like a church congregation, with a cross made out of red glass candle holders in the center aisle. The faces on the photos are of the fallen. More boys and old men.

The crowd lingering in this otherwise completely forgettable, ordinary patch of earth is quiet and somber. Most walk around with their hands crossed across their chests. Some women hold a hand over their mouths. They all wear their emotions on their faces and in their body language; an unusual break from typical Slavic stoicism.

Earlier that day I watched a YouTube video of what happened here in February. The sky was grey in the video, and the trees were bare.

Snipers hidden in the surrounding rooftops gunned down the Maidan protestors one-by-one as they ascended Institutskaya Street.

The protestors were unarmed. They wore motorcycle helmets and wielded shields fashioned out of the top of garbage bins and road signs for protection. As sniper fire cut down one wave of protestors at the top of the hill, their comrades would rush up to drag the dead and wounded away. Many were shot in the process.

After depositing the dead and wounded in the nearby Hotel Ukraine lobby, the survivors did something amazing — they turned around and went back into incoming fire.

It’s hard to know, of course, the inner motivations of those protestors as they walked head on into sniper fire. But clearly something powerful was motivating them. It had to be, because moving toward gunfire is a terrifying thing, and one has to be motivated by something more powerful than the fear of death to do it.

***

At lunch in Kiev, a Ukrainian friend explained to me the mood in Ukraine. Elena, a 29-year-old journalist, said there has been a wave of patriotism throughout the country that she has never seen before. She said there was a sense of shared responsibility among Ukrainians to live up to the sacrifices of the brave Maidan protestors.

“We don’t want it to be for nothing,” Elena said. “Ukrainians are very patriotic now. And if things go back to the way they were before, there will be another Maidan.”

Elena explained how her family was torn, like many families in Ukraine, due to her mixed Russian-Ukrainian heritage. She was very proud to be Ukrainian, though, and she was proud of what the Maidan protestors did for her country. She also said that most Russian-speaking Ukrainians felt the same way, and the idea that Ukraine was somehow split along ethnic or cultural lines was a fiction created by Moscow.

“A lot of the soldiers fighting for Ukraine in the east speak Russian,” Elena told me.

In the streets of Kiev, signs of the country’s reborn patriotism are subtle, but prolific. Women tie small blue and yellow ribbons (Ukraine’s national colors) on their purses. The same ribbons are tied to the radio antennas on cars and to tree branches. Artists sell paintings of scenes from the Maidan, and a sidewalk vendor sells rolls of toilet paper adorned with Putin’s face.

Ukraine’s patriotism is fueled by pride in the sacrifices of young men like Valik, my fixer here in Ukraine.

Valik was on the Maidan during the protests and the revolution. He was shot by a 9mm round from a pistol, but the bullet hit his metal belt buckle, he said, and aside from a nasty bruise, he was unharmed.

“When I fell off the barricade, they were yelling ‘another man down,’” he told me. “And then they grabbed my arms and started to pull me away, but I just popped up and told them I was OK. They couldn’t believe it.”

After the revolution, Valik’s friends convinced him to see a psychiatrist. He was resistant to the idea at first, he said. Like most young men who have endured combat he was worried about being weak.

“I was running and this guy was shot in the head by a sniper right in front of me,” he said. “His brains flew into my face and broke my glasses. But it was crazy, you know, my first thought was, ‘OK, there’s a McDonald’s right over there, I can go there to wash off my face.’”

Valik had a recurring dream of the man he saw cut down by a sniper rising up and speaking to him from the grave — his face death grey and a bullet hole in his head. The dreams have gone away now, Valik told me.

“I think the psychiatrist really helped me,” he said.

At dinner, Natalia, another Ukrainian friend, said she was more patriotic now than she had ever been. Her job in Kiev was sending her to the U.S. to work for a few months, and she had to go to the U.S. embassy the next day to apply for a visa. I assumed with my American pride that she would be excited about this.

But she felt guilty to leave her homeland in time of war, she explained. She has an older brother, and she was afraid he would be called to service to fight in the eastern front along with the 60,000 Ukrainian young men currently deployed there.

“The world is so cruel,” she said, shaking her head, looking past me.

But then she beamed when a man walked into the pub wearing a T-shirt with a trident on the front — Ukraine’s national symbol.

“It’s not so unusual to see that now,” she said, smiling. “I’m so proud of my country and to be Ukrainian. I hope this stupid war ends soon.”

***

As a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know what it’s like to be in the military in time of war. And as someone who was a 19-year-old cadet at the Air Force Academy on 9/11, I also know what it’s like to be the citizen of a country under attack.

But I’ve never experienced being in a country where the people are not just fighting for security, but are locked in an existential battle for their national identity and their future. Yes, Afghans and Iraqis were fighting for the future too, but they didn’t exhibit anything close to Ukraine’s sense of national unity or shared sacrifice.

The young soldiers I’ve seen in Kiev, likely destined for the front lines in the east, wear a combined look of fear and youthful exuberance that I remember seeing on young U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the combination of pride and worry felt by the families they leave behind is no different than what my family endured when my brother and I deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.

But there is a distinct difference in the national mood of Ukraine than what currently exists in the United States, despite the fact that the U.S. currently has more than 30,000 troops still deployed to Afghanistan and about 1,000 in Iraq.

There’s a sense here that the war really matters. Politicians fear about more than just political blowback for withdrawal; the costs of defeat aren’t hypothetical talking points.

Similarly, there is little debate about whether the war in the east is worthwhile. The conversation is usually just one of expressed sadness about why the war has to be fought at all. Ukrainians know why they have to win; they just don’t know why they have to fight.

“The revolution was never about Russia,” Elena explained. “It was about making Ukraine better. No one thought this war would happen.”

In the little time I’ve spent here so far, the words of that lone American voice keep replaying in my mind as I walk the streets of Kiev. As I see young women blowing kisses to convoys of troops. Or as I see an old woman kiss her fingers and then reach to touch the face of a young boy in one of the photos lining Institutskaya Street.

“Freedom is not free.”

I’ve always known that, and I’ve heard the expression countless times. But until I arrived in Ukraine, I never really understood what it meant.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Ukraine should bomb it from orbit, just to be sure. The Russian concept of humanitarian aid is to shoot down an airliner.

Than Ukraine will first need to rent some spaceships from Russia
Also, so far the Russian government has done more for humanitarian aid than the Ukrainian government. Come to think of it, bombs may perfectly well be the Ukrainian government's idea of humanitarian aid when it comes to Eastern Ukrainians.

Arming and aiding rebels and shooting down civilian airliners is a unique way of being humanitarian.

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

Which has been conclusively attributed to Ukrainian rebels, who may or may not have been supplied by the Russians, not Russia itself.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

Which has been conclusively attributed to Ukrainian rebels, who may or may not have been supplied by the Russians, not Russia itself.

 Frazzled wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

The towns should surrender.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

The towns should surrender.

And how can the civilians do this? They're being oppressed by the rebels.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

The towns should surrender.

And how can the civilians do this? They're being oppressed by the rebels.

Source? I haven't read much about civilian opposition to the rebels in eastern Ukraine.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

The towns should surrender.

And how can the civilians do this? They're being oppressed by the rebels.

 Frazzled wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

The towns should surrender.

And how can the civilians do this? They're being oppressed by the rebels.

Why on earth do you think the civilians would get the supplies then?

 thenoobbomb wrote:


Not the best thing to quote as a source in a debate on the internet, but eh. I also recall seeing a news item in one of the cities where rebels were harassing some people, and a man got hit for not walking fast enough.

 whembly wrote:
Actual on-the-ground investigative reporting...
http://www.blueforcetracker.com/article/Freedom-is-not-free--a-US-veterans-ground-level-perspective-on-life-in-wartime-Ukraine

Spoiler:

“Freedom is not free” — a US veteran’s ground-level perspective on life in wartime Ukraine

KIEV – It’s a warm August day here. There are leaves on the trees that line Institutskaya Street, which climbs a steep hill leading out of the Maidan.

Young couples wearing shorts and flip-flops walk up and down the cobblestone street holding hands. Police officers passing by act relaxed, smiling and joking.

There is little evidence today of the apocalyptic scenes that played out on this street in late February. Yet, beneath the veneer of what could be a normal summer day in any European capital, there are reminders of what happened half a year ago.

Parents pause at one of the hundreds of photos lining the street, many of which are nestled within beds of flowers and candles. They point to the memorials, trying to explain to their children what went on here, and what it all means for their future.

Long sections of the brick sidewalk lining Institutskaya Street are stripped bare, revealing earth. In February protestors peeled away the bricks to build a defensive wall against gunfire from a special police force called the Berkut, which deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych unleashed on the crowds calling for his ouster.

Today, workers pound new bricks into the naked earth, filling the cracks in between the fresh stones with sand. Others spray water on the black stains that dot the stone floor of the Maidan’s open terraces, erasing the traces of Molotov cocktails and tires burnt to provide a smokescreen from snipers.

Of all the faces and voices I encountered along Institutskaya Street that day, however, there was one moment that stood out.

I heard English spoken in an American accent — a rarity in Kiev. So my ears naturally honed in on the only understandable voice.

“Freedom is not free,” the man said.

***
Photos line the quarter-mile stretch of Institutskaya Street that rises from the Maidan to the top of the hill overlooking Kiev’s central square.

The pictures are overwhelmingly of old men and young boys. Students and professors — hardly the neo-Nazi fascists depicted by Russian media.

Just past the Hotel Ukraine (which looms at the top of the hill overlooking the Maidan), as the street rounds the top of the incline, there is a patch of trees and a low wall off to the right.

This is a place of mourning. The ground here is covered in framed photos, candles and flower garlands. There are still bullet holes in the street signs and trees.

In one spot two groups of framed photos are arranged on the ground like a church congregation, with a cross made out of red glass candle holders in the center aisle. The faces on the photos are of the fallen. More boys and old men.

The crowd lingering in this otherwise completely forgettable, ordinary patch of earth is quiet and somber. Most walk around with their hands crossed across their chests. Some women hold a hand over their mouths. They all wear their emotions on their faces and in their body language; an unusual break from typical Slavic stoicism.

Earlier that day I watched a YouTube video of what happened here in February. The sky was grey in the video, and the trees were bare.

Snipers hidden in the surrounding rooftops gunned down the Maidan protestors one-by-one as they ascended Institutskaya Street.

The protestors were unarmed. They wore motorcycle helmets and wielded shields fashioned out of the top of garbage bins and road signs for protection. As sniper fire cut down one wave of protestors at the top of the hill, their comrades would rush up to drag the dead and wounded away. Many were shot in the process.

After depositing the dead and wounded in the nearby Hotel Ukraine lobby, the survivors did something amazing — they turned around and went back into incoming fire.

It’s hard to know, of course, the inner motivations of those protestors as they walked head on into sniper fire. But clearly something powerful was motivating them. It had to be, because moving toward gunfire is a terrifying thing, and one has to be motivated by something more powerful than the fear of death to do it.

***

At lunch in Kiev, a Ukrainian friend explained to me the mood in Ukraine. Elena, a 29-year-old journalist, said there has been a wave of patriotism throughout the country that she has never seen before. She said there was a sense of shared responsibility among Ukrainians to live up to the sacrifices of the brave Maidan protestors.

“We don’t want it to be for nothing,” Elena said. “Ukrainians are very patriotic now. And if things go back to the way they were before, there will be another Maidan.”

Elena explained how her family was torn, like many families in Ukraine, due to her mixed Russian-Ukrainian heritage. She was very proud to be Ukrainian, though, and she was proud of what the Maidan protestors did for her country. She also said that most Russian-speaking Ukrainians felt the same way, and the idea that Ukraine was somehow split along ethnic or cultural lines was a fiction created by Moscow.

“A lot of the soldiers fighting for Ukraine in the east speak Russian,” Elena told me.

In the streets of Kiev, signs of the country’s reborn patriotism are subtle, but prolific. Women tie small blue and yellow ribbons (Ukraine’s national colors) on their purses. The same ribbons are tied to the radio antennas on cars and to tree branches. Artists sell paintings of scenes from the Maidan, and a sidewalk vendor sells rolls of toilet paper adorned with Putin’s face.

Ukraine’s patriotism is fueled by pride in the sacrifices of young men like Valik, my fixer here in Ukraine.

Valik was on the Maidan during the protests and the revolution. He was shot by a 9mm round from a pistol, but the bullet hit his metal belt buckle, he said, and aside from a nasty bruise, he was unharmed.

“When I fell off the barricade, they were yelling ‘another man down,’” he told me. “And then they grabbed my arms and started to pull me away, but I just popped up and told them I was OK. They couldn’t believe it.”

After the revolution, Valik’s friends convinced him to see a psychiatrist. He was resistant to the idea at first, he said. Like most young men who have endured combat he was worried about being weak.

“I was running and this guy was shot in the head by a sniper right in front of me,” he said. “His brains flew into my face and broke my glasses. But it was crazy, you know, my first thought was, ‘OK, there’s a McDonald’s right over there, I can go there to wash off my face.’”

Valik had a recurring dream of the man he saw cut down by a sniper rising up and speaking to him from the grave — his face death grey and a bullet hole in his head. The dreams have gone away now, Valik told me.

“I think the psychiatrist really helped me,” he said.

At dinner, Natalia, another Ukrainian friend, said she was more patriotic now than she had ever been. Her job in Kiev was sending her to the U.S. to work for a few months, and she had to go to the U.S. embassy the next day to apply for a visa. I assumed with my American pride that she would be excited about this.

But she felt guilty to leave her homeland in time of war, she explained. She has an older brother, and she was afraid he would be called to service to fight in the eastern front along with the 60,000 Ukrainian young men currently deployed there.

“The world is so cruel,” she said, shaking her head, looking past me.

But then she beamed when a man walked into the pub wearing a T-shirt with a trident on the front — Ukraine’s national symbol.

“It’s not so unusual to see that now,” she said, smiling. “I’m so proud of my country and to be Ukrainian. I hope this stupid war ends soon.”

***

As a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know what it’s like to be in the military in time of war. And as someone who was a 19-year-old cadet at the Air Force Academy on 9/11, I also know what it’s like to be the citizen of a country under attack.

But I’ve never experienced being in a country where the people are not just fighting for security, but are locked in an existential battle for their national identity and their future. Yes, Afghans and Iraqis were fighting for the future too, but they didn’t exhibit anything close to Ukraine’s sense of national unity or shared sacrifice.

The young soldiers I’ve seen in Kiev, likely destined for the front lines in the east, wear a combined look of fear and youthful exuberance that I remember seeing on young U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the combination of pride and worry felt by the families they leave behind is no different than what my family endured when my brother and I deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.

But there is a distinct difference in the national mood of Ukraine than what currently exists in the United States, despite the fact that the U.S. currently has more than 30,000 troops still deployed to Afghanistan and about 1,000 in Iraq.

There’s a sense here that the war really matters. Politicians fear about more than just political blowback for withdrawal; the costs of defeat aren’t hypothetical talking points.

Similarly, there is little debate about whether the war in the east is worthwhile. The conversation is usually just one of expressed sadness about why the war has to be fought at all. Ukrainians know why they have to win; they just don’t know why they have to fight.

“The revolution was never about Russia,” Elena explained. “It was about making Ukraine better. No one thought this war would happen.”

In the little time I’ve spent here so far, the words of that lone American voice keep replaying in my mind as I walk the streets of Kiev. As I see young women blowing kisses to convoys of troops. Or as I see an old woman kiss her fingers and then reach to touch the face of a young boy in one of the photos lining Institutskaya Street.

“Freedom is not free.”

I’ve always known that, and I’ve heard the expression countless times. But until I arrived in Ukraine, I never really understood what it meant.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

Which has been conclusively attributed to Ukrainian rebels, who may or may not have been supplied by the Russians, not Russia itself.

Conclusively proven by WHO?

Who were the shooters?

Were did they get the training?

Where did they get missile systems?

 Frazzled wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

So the civilians living in those besieged town should all be starved and bereft of medicine? Yay, Gaza-in-Ukraine!

The towns should surrender.

 kronk wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You missed have missed that Malaysian Airliner thing.

Which has been conclusively attributed to Ukrainian rebels, who may or may not have been supplied by the Russians, not Russia itself.

Russian proxies.

Don't ever forget that. That blood is on Putin's hands.