Victory Chronicles
-DAY 141

Above: Bus stop on major northern Crimea highway, graffitied with familiar slogans – “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to heroes” and “Rooskies, you’re screwed”. Photo via Euromaidan Press

Above: A family in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk, barely missed annihilation.  Photo via CBC/Radio-Canada

• Enemy strikes killed civilians in Zaporizhzhya, Mykolaiv, small towns and villages in Donetsk.  Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai noted, the cowardly enemy is  “deliberately turning Donbas into ashes, and there will be just no people left on the territories captured.”  Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported that the historical city of Bakhmut is being destroyed completely.

• Bakhmut celebrates its founding in 1571, first mentioned in history as a Ukrainian Kosak fort. Its name is probably of Tatar origin.  In 1705, the fortress town was the center of Ukrainian rebellion against Russian occupation.  In 1918, it was held by the Ukrainian People’s Republic.  When Russo-Soviets took control in 1919, they russified and renamed it Artyomivsk in honor of a Russian Bolshevik. The original name, Bakhmut, was restored in 2016.

Above: “Poster clearly dedicated to furthering Stalin’s cult of personality, by Gustav Klutis, 1935.”  Image from Pixels.com

• Last week, the tiny Kremlin dictator stated that Russian aggression hasn’t even begun to show its mighty power.  Presidential advisor Mykhaylo Podolyak reacted to the lies, “37,000 dead Russian soldiers (+ 12,000 mercenaries). Total human losses — 98 to 117 thousand people. 10 generals liquidated. 1,605 tanks, 405 planes/helicopters – scrap metal. Russia hasn’t yet started fighting? kremlin considers war to be only on the scale of Stalinist mathematics, such as 20 million losses.”

Above: The Kremlin has a vast array of agreements with 85 different political entities across its great vastness.  Map via Reddit

• BBC profiled an anonymous Russian mother who received months of reassurances from an unknown military officer that her son was safe and sound, doing exercises for the special military operation in Ukraine.  Then she received a text from a soldier serving with her son, informing that he was killed in action.  The comfort calls stopped, no death notice, no information at all.

• This mom is now in contact with mothers across Russia whose sons have disappeared in Ukraine without a word.  “We’re the lowest class. We’re simple country folk. All the boys doing the fighting are from remote regions of Russia. Not Muscovites. There are no sons of government officials there.  If the mothers of all the soldiers there now, and the mothers who’ve lost sons, if they all rose up, can you imagine how big that army would be? And they will. Their nerves will snap.”

• Russia watchers believe that the 85 Russian territories – including Sevastopol and Crimea – have been ordered to produce “volunteer” battalions of at least 400 recruits by offering much more money than people can earn in the poor Russian landscape.

Above: The Russo-Soviets wasted little time trying to annihilate Ukrainian farmers.  In the 1930s, the “dekulakization” campaign started with forced deportation of farm families. Photo via Euromaidan Press

• The US estimates that “Russian authorities have interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes to Russia – often to isolated regions in the Far East.”

• The US State Department on Wednesday released a statement entitled Russia’s ‘Filtration’ Operations, Forced Disappearances, and Mass Deportations of Ukrainian Citizens by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

• “Russian authorities are deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents and abducting others from orphanages before putting them up for adoption inside Russia.”

• “Moscow’s actions appear pre-meditated and draw immediate historical comparisons to Russian ‘filtration’ operations in Chechnya and other areas.  President Putin’s ‘filtration’ operations are separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in an apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine.”

Above: A farmer in Vuhlehirsk, Donetsk, harvests his crop as the town burns in the background, from enemy shelling.  Photo via CBC/Radio-Canada

• Ukraine, the United Nations and Turkey announced varying degrees of progress at Istanbul talks trying to break the Russian blockade on Black Sea grain exports to both save Ukrainian farmers and to increase global food supply.

• Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Wednesday an agreement would be signed next week. But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was more cautious, stating that there was more work to do before talk of a resolution.  “We have seen a critical step forward,” Mr Guterres said,  “We still need a lot of goodwill and commitments by all parties.”