Latest from the killing fields on Day 337
Western media report Russia has launched massive missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, including the capital of Kyiv, in retaliation for the decision by the US and Germany to send more tanks into the war zone.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said this morning that Moscow views sending tanks to Ukraine as “direct involvement in the conflict”.
President Biden insists the tanks pose "no offensive threat" to Russia and that they were needed to help the Ukrainians "improve their ability to maneuver in open terrain".
But US officials admit it “could take years” before their 31 tanks arrived on Ukraine’s battlefields. They won’t guarantee a Ukrainian victory against Russia’s next assault, let alone a long war of attrition.
But the cloud of war hangs over most of these reports and it’s become nearly impossible, for me at least, to cull the factual from the propaganda churn coming from all sides in this proxy war.
Today’s Guardian, for example, reports:
Huge explosions shook Kyiv and sirens sounded across Ukraine on Thursday morning during a mass missile attack 24 hours after commitments were made by the US and Germany to send advanced battle tanks. There were reports of at least one person killed in the capital, Kyiv.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, reported on Telegram that there had been explosions in the city. He wrote: “As a result of a rocket hitting a non-residential building in the Holosiiv district, there is currently information about one dead and two wounded. The injured were hospitalized by medics.”
Does anyone besides myself have doubts about a “massive missile attack” on the capital that would kill “at least one person” and injure two others?
Here’s more…
Russian missile strikes damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa. No injuries were reported.
What?
Upon further reading, the report only gets murkier.
A total of 30 missiles were said to be launched against targets in the war-torn country with Ukraine’s air defences having also shot down 24 Iranian-made Shahad “kamikaze” drones overnight.
“We expect more than 30 missiles, which have already started to appear in various territories,” said Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian military spokesperson. “Air defence systems are working.”
So, were Ukrainian cities hit by 30 missiles? Were 30 missiles actually launched? Said to be launched? “Starting to appear”?Or “expected to be launched”? After reading this report, you tell me.
Rev. William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach and founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale University, had this response to the latest escalation.
Russia is re-organizing for a new onslaught. Germany and the US are preparing to send tanks. But the great question when there seems to be a rush to death is: “When are we going to decide we must have a ceasefire? When will we realize that we cannot simply meet force with force in a conflict between nuclear powers?” We must negotiate away from our tendencies toward killing, death, destruction, and violent public policy or risk being caught in a downward spiral of death that could in fact kill our possibilities, hopes, and humanity itself. When will we work to be saved from this warring madness? This is the fundamental moral issue before us in this moment.
I couldn’t agree more.
#EndIt
Just a reminder to tune in to Hitting Left tomorrow 11-noon CT, streaming live on lumpenradio.com, when my guests will be Patty Loew and Nick Estes.
Northwestern Professor Patty Loew is the director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University. She is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
She’ll be talking about the legendary Indian athlete, Jim Thorpe. And we’ll be joined later by Native American activist/author/educator Nick Estes with more on the case of Leonard Peltier.