🇨🇦 Benton Mischuk 🇺🇦

Keepers from the web - all topics but immigration - Бентон Міщук

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

This map shows quite clearly what the Russians had in mind in terms of a successful conquest of Ukraine: annexation of about 40% of the country and subordination of the rest.

It's from a leaked presentation of May 2022, circulated by the closely Putin-linked oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, describing the absorption of southern and eastern Ukraine into Russia and the systematic redistribution of its ports and industries among Russian oligarchs.

Russia seems to have intended to seize most of the industrialised areas of Ukraine, leaving the less valuable (and more Ukrainian-speaking) rural and agricultural regions under the control of a rump, landlocked Ukrainian state governed by a pro-Moscow regime. It's safe to assume that Russia would also have taken over Moldova at some point.

[TeinaPosts. @RafaMorgan64]

Summary of the war in Ukraine as of today.

[Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski]

The United States government is actively helping Russians kill Ukrainian civilians.

[Jay in Kyiv @JayinKyiv]

A father screams after Russians murdered his daughter, two hours ago in Chernihiv.

Massacres all across Ukraine today as Trump and Musk suck Putin's balls for cash.

This is now all backed by the White House and MAGA.

[Europeans supporting Ukraine 🇺🇦🇪🇺 @ukraine_ua123]

@CNN @PBS @NewsHour @FRANCE24 @dwnews @BBC @FoxNews

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

That the Communist hammer and sickle isn’t commonly regarded as evil and offensive as the Nazi swastika is a failure of education.

[Margo Gontar 🔱 @MargoGontar]

I know Putin is a monster but seeing him ‘thanking Melania Trumр for her humanitarian effort’ in Oleshky after his own Russian army first occupied it to then starve the people there is some very special level of psychopathy

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

**You need to watch Zelenskyy's interview with Steven Bartlett.**

Sitting in front of the camera is an utterly exhausted, at times visibly broken man who has spent almost five years personally managing a war, making critical decisions day and night.

From the very first minutes, you can see just how drained he is. When asked the routine question, "How are you?" he replies that he barely sleeps because he spends his nights in military group chats, moving the last remaining air defense systems from one region to another.

Two stories are particularly heartbreaking.

The first is about a missile that struck a children's playground within seconds, while parents watched from their apartment windows as their children were torn apart.

The second is about presenting posthumous military awards to the families of fallen soldiers:

"You present an award to a father, feel his strong hand, and then he quietly asks, 'Can we hug?' At that moment, I simply cease to exist inside. These people are gone. They will never be the same again."

When the host tries to take him back into his past, showing old photographs from Kryvyi Rih, his student comedy performances, his voice acting as Paddington Bear, and scenes from *Servant of the People*, Zelenskyy looks at them with detachment, almost as though he is watching someone else's life.

He also recalls February 2022 without any attempt to portray himself as a hero.

He says that for the first 20 days, he simply ran from office to office on adrenaline, calling everyone he could and trying to organize deliveries of water and food to Kyiv.

Fear and the full realization of what had happened only caught up with him three weeks later, when Bucha was liberated and mass graves containing hundreds of murdered civilians were discovered.

Using Bucha as an example, he explains why advice from outsiders to simply negotiate a quick deal causes him such deep frustration:

"Imagine that in the United States or Britain, a mass grave is discovered containing 500 tortured people with their hands tied. How could you simply forgive everything after that?"

The rest of the conversation revolves around the deadlock in which Ukrainians, and indeed everyone involved, now find themselves.

Zelenskyy explains the causes of the war in simple terms: Moscow is trying to forcibly rebuild the Soviet empire because Ukraine's integration into Europe would finally bury that project.

But when the conversation turns to the present, there is unmistakable bitterness in his words.

Almost one-fifth of Ukraine's territory is occupied. The east is under relentless bombardment. Cities are left without electricity. People are dying every single day.

Meanwhile, every discussion about a ceasefire runs into the same demand: Kyiv must withdraw even farther from its fortified positions, without any guarantees that Russia will not launch another offensive a year later.

Toward the end, the conversation turns to Trump and Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.

Trump publicly reprimands Zelenskyy over attacks on Russian refineries because he fears rising diesel prices for American farmers ahead of the elections.

And this is where you can see just how deeply that approach affects Zelenskyy.

His country is burning.

Moscow has rejected his proposal for a mutual halt to attacks on energy infrastructure.

Patriot missiles paid for by Europe are being redirected by the Americans to the Middle East.

And somehow, Zelenskyy is the one being blamed for fuel prices in the United States.

The entire interview leaves you with a profoundly bleak feeling.

Here is a man trapped between the daily deaths of people in his own country and the pragmatic bargaining of allies who have their own elections, their own interests, and their own political calculations.

And yet, he can no longer step away from this responsibility.

**Watch it.**

[UAVoyager🇺🇦 @CrimeanVoyager]

It’s now officially confirmed.

Tonight, russia struck Kyiv’s historic centre with an Iskander ballistic missile carrying a cluster warhead.

58 submunitions explode in mid-air, designed to inflict maximum casualties across a 400 × 400 metre area.

“This strike had no military purpose. The goal was to destroy part of the old city and injure as many people as possible,” said a Ukrainian presidential adviser.

No military objective. Just terror.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Trump’s envoy called Putin a humanitarian today.

This is the sound of his humanitarian ballistic missiles exploding in Kyiv right now

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Over 5,000 Ukrainians fought in Iraq, helping us to fight our war there. https://t.co/03EqJXxr7L

[MykhailoNORTH🇨🇦🇺🇦⚔️ @mykpy]

🎨@FedoryZenon

[KyivPost @KyivPost]

“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven’t been doing much,” US President Donald Trump said.

Just a couple of hours ago Russia killed one-year-old Angelina in her stroller in a park in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Her mother later died in hospital. An 11-year-old girl was also killed.

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

The Zhytomyr Highway, west of Kyiv. The Battle of Kyiv, 2022.

Yes, this is just one of the many, horrifyingly many, charred graveyards left behind by Russian military columns destroyed and burned by Ukrainian forces. Back then, those columns were literally surrounding Kyiv from multiple directions.

I remember how, at another location along the same highway, closer to the city, there were entire junkyards of destroyed Russian military vehicles and wreckage. It seemed like there was an overturned tank with its turret blown off every ten meters.

And now they're trying to sell you this catastrophic defeat of Russia's elite forces outside Kyiv as some kind of "Oh, the Russian tanks just took a wrong turn and got stuck in the mud. Otherwise, they would've taken Kyiv in a matter of hours."

Please, don't let anyone make morons of you.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

This is what those calling for "land for peace" want. Russian occupation means rape, kidnapping, and death. And it doesn’t even mean peace, as Russia would continue its offensive because destroying Ukraine is Putin’s goal.

[James Moore @honjamesmoore]

Hey @PeteHegseth - go to hell.
https://t.co/pGqq2GbZvN

[Azamat Junisbai 🇰🇿🇺🇦 @azamatistan]

Russia is “the world's largest unrepentant colonizer. What makes this voracious, predatory empire invisible to an unquestioning observer is the saltwater fallacy, the refusal of the Western mind to grasp that colonies don't have to be separated from the metropole by high seas.”

[Dr. Brian Goldman @NightShiftMD]

Boycott Elon Musk products.

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

Chrystia Freeland: "Your government is siding with Vladimir Putin, who is a bloodthirsty dictator and war criminal. This is not a time for us to be divided. And it's certainly not a time for America to be on the side of the bad guys, which I'm sorry to say, you are right now."

[John Ivison @IvisonJ]

Read this and continue to make the case for Canada exclusively buying F35 fighters. And yes, I know where the Gripen engines are made!