Russia’s Centuries-Long Quest to Conquer Ukraine; Today’s Russia is Fascist. It’s Time to Start Calling It That; Russian Rockets Batter Residential Area in Southern Ukraine; Ukraine Launches Tech Cluster to Boost Military Capability, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

By admin On Apr 29, 2023

Russia’s centuries-long quest to conquer Ukraine:

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 shocked many around the world.

But anyone who paid attention to Ukrainian history would have seen it coming.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered several excuses for the invasion. One was to kill all the supposed “Nazis” in Ukraine. Another was to eliminate Ukraine’s supposed military threat to Russia.

But the true reason was to annex Ukraine as a territory that Putin believes has always rightfully belonged to Russia. In speeches that recalled imperial times, Putin claimed that Ukraine’s independence was a mistake that he intended to correct.

This meant conquering Kyiv, toppling the elected government, and destroying the Ukrainian national identity.

Putin’s twisted vision isn’t new. Russia has been doing this for close to 400 years.

In the 17th century, Russia violated its treaty with the independent Ukrainian communities known as the Cossacks to seize control and partition their burgeoning country. A century later, Russia massacred thousands of Ukrainian civilians, betrayed the Cossacks, and eliminated the last traces of their independent rule.

During the 1900s, Russia actively suppressed the Ukrainian language and culture throughout the empire. In the early 20th century, Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks, Russia’s dominant political faction following the October Revolution, led multiple bloody invasions of the nascent Ukrainian nation to bring it under Soviet control. —>READ MORE HERE

Editorial: Today’s Russia is fascist. It’s time to start calling it that:

“We went and killed everyone. There were women, men, seniors, and children.”

These were the words of Azamat Uldarov, an ex-fighter of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who personally admitted to shooting dead a five or six-year-old girl, speaking to Russian independent outlet Gulagu.net. Uldarov, together with ex-Wagner commander Aleksei Savichev, both described being given and carrying out orders to “clean” entire buildings or areas in Donetsk Oblast of civilians by murdering them all.

The confessions came out on the back of a video of Russian troops, later reported as also belonging to Wagner, beheading a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war with a knife.

Three days after the Wagner confessions, Russian state-sponsored patriotic singer Shaman released a new music video entitled “We,” of him walking down Red Square sporting a full black leather outfit, combed blond undercut, and Russian flag armband.

“Faith and love is with us, God is with us,” he sings.

No, this is not a fever dream, this is fascist Russia in 2023.

Back in May last year, American historian Timothy Snyder invigorated the discussion around the fascist label in his New York Times op-ed “We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.”

A personalized totalitarian regime built around the cult of a leader. Countless pieces of evidence of systematic war crimes against civilians. The cult of the dead as a founding national myth. The conquering of foreign land with the open intent to destroy the nation living there. The weird but ominous symbol with which their war of aggression is branded.

Looking at today’s Russia, it’s all there.

It’s true, Putinist Russia doesn’t display itself as a modernizing force like Hitler or Mussolini did, there are no illusions about the war being necessary for the dawn of some kind of racial utopian New Age. —>READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:

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+++++Russian Rockets Batter Residential Area in Southern Ukraine+++++

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