Back Story Newsletter
Good Morning,
Ukraine And Russia
Explosions were heard near Lviv in Western Ukraine this morning with thick black smoke seen rising over the International airport.
Western Ukraine has largely been spared the violence blanketing Eastern Ukraine, but a training base was hit over the last weekend killing more than 35 people.
Reporters who tried to reach that huge sprawling base were turned back and no one has been allowed inside to witness airstrikes there, fuelling secrecy suspicions it being used as a resupply platform channeling arms from Europe to Ukraine. Were foreign fighters also at the base?
The misery from Russian President Putin’s war is relentless. Russian soldiers are dying by the thousands in their assaults that have largely failed, and there are reports that resupplies to those forces have been cutoff in many areas. At least 7000 Russian troops have died including a dozen of Putin’s senior commanders.
Russian forces have pressed their assault by indiscriminately shelling and bombing cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol with unguided munitions, including so-called dumb bombs from aircraft and cluster munitions which are illegal.
Russian has bombed schools, dozens of hospitals, and even a theatre in Mariupol where up to 1200 people, mostly children were sheltering. The death toll from that attack is not clear, as Mariupol has been surrounded and information is limited. But it is known survivors who had been in the basement of the theatre are being dug out of the rubble.
More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled to neighbouring countries and many more are displaced inside Ukraine.
Speaking at a luncheon on St. Patrick's Day at Capitol Hill, U.S. President Biden said Putin is "a murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine."
Putin has described any Russians who don’t support the campaign in Ukraine as “traitors and scum” and part of the “West fifth column to destroy Russia”.
Since the war in Ukraine began, Russian journalists Zhanna Agalakova from Channel 1, and Lilia Gildeyeva and Vadim Glusker from NTV have resigned and many more have quietly left their jobs including Marina Ovsyannikova who ran onto the set of the main TV News broadcast with a sign saying ‘Stop The War’ and “They lie to you here”.
State-controlled Russian media refer to the war as a "special military operation" and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, acting on their editorial marching orders from the Kremlin.
Talks are continuing with Ukraine the Russia. What would a deal look like?
Briefly, Ukraine would give up its constitutional quest to join NATO and become neutral. No foreign troops, but Ukraine would retain a defensive army and wants a guarantee Europe would come to its aid if Russia tries to reinvade. But the conversation to stop the fighting stumbles over Russian troop withdrawals from the Crimea and the Donbas.
China is key in pressuring Russia to step back, but it’s so far walked a wobbly unclear line refusing to openly take sides against or in defense of Ukraine and denies it’s been asked by Russia for assistance.
US President Biden is set to speak with his Chinese counterpart at 1pm GMT today, where he is expected to warn Xi Jingping he will face “costs” if Beijing rescues fellow authoritarian ally Russia from intense western sanctions aimed at punishing Moscow’s bloody and unprovoked invasion.
Remarkably its the first time the two leaders have spoken since Russia started the war 3 weeks ago.
China has echoed Russia’s claims that the U.S. and Ukraine have a chemical weapons program. But its ludicrous to say so, considering the U.S. has spent hundreds of millions disabling weapons programs across the former Soviet Union and that includes retraining military scientists in Ukraine to work on medicine instead of weapons programs.
On Back Story w/Dana Lewis podcast this week, the 2 top world experts on Chemical Biological warfare programs Andy Weber and John Gower, who warn Russia is laying the ground work for a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine. They say an attack by Russia on a big city like Kyiv “is likely” to sow panic.
Russia has used chemical weapons in Syria and in Europe and even at home. It has restarted its production of lethal banned weapons under President Putin. And Russia’s disinformation campaign against the U.S. means its setting the stage to use the weapons and then deny it did so later. The U.S. has warned Russia it possesses intelligence information that will show Russia was readying a chemical attack.
The link to the podcast is here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/10267679
If you want to watch the podcast it’s in 2 parts:
Have a good day everyone and please share this newsletter and subscribe to it.
Dana