The Azovstal Steel plant is free of Nazis, as is Mariupol now
The bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine ended in Mariupol on Tuesday, long after the city itself was obliterated.
By Jim W. Dean,
Here are the Latest Devolpments in the Ukraine war
…from the New York Times
[ Editor’s Note: Kiev bites the bullet and decides that forcing the Azov troops in the Mariupol Steel Mill to fight to the death may not be fair to them. Imagine that. Their lives will be spared, for a while anyway.
All of them are war criminals and I doubt they will get the velvet glove treatment from Russia, but the war crimes treatment, a long detailed war crimes trial with long sentences for those convicted. Those of high value could be swapped.
Regular Ukrainian soldiers would be expected to be swapped for regular Russian soldiers. But what Kiev did is bring the Nazis into the Ukrainian army thinking that would give them some immunity from war crimes prosecutions.
But what Ukraine might do in response is just take a bunch of regular Russian Pows, annoit them as some alternate equivalent of the Ukie Nazis, and hold war crimes trials for them. Then Russia might respond to doing the same with regular Ukraina soldiers.
All during this ongoing POW debate NATO and Western press would be totally supporting whatever Kiev did no matter how nasty. But the Kiev govenment people have a target hanging on them for staging things like Bucha, which will be easy to prove in court.
Foreign mercenaries are another category. Are they illegal, or legal, where they are due the Geneva convention treatment.
As for Russiafying captured territory, I would present that ethnic Russians living in Ukraine for generations can make a good case to unite with Russia formally, especially after the abuse incurred by Kiev with its Neo-Nazis.
As for the elements in Western governments that used NeoNazis offensively against Russians in Ukraine, something that would appear to be a war crime to me, the kind for which there is no immunity in a just world. Just ask the ghosts of the Germans hanged after WWII.
Thus ends my cheery missive for today as I hope for all the crazy people to come to their senses and spare the rest of us being dragged through all of this… Jim W. Dean ]
The bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine ended in Mariupol on Tuesday, long after the city itself was obliterated, as the Ukrainian military ordered fighters holed up at a steel mill to surrender and dozens of their comrades were evacuated to Russian-held territory aboard buses emblazoned with the Russian war emblem “Z.”
Ukraine’s decision to end combat at the sprawling Azovstal steel plant gave Moscow full control over a vast sweep of southern Ukraine, stretching from the Russian border to Crimea, as Russian forces appeared to be fortifying their hold over parts of the south that they seized early in their invasion.
Even as Russia’s onslaught in eastern Ukraine struggles, the developments in the south underscore how much territory Moscow has captured, and suggest that Ukrainian forces will face steep challenges in attempting to regain it.
Along a path of land stretching more than 500 miles from Luhansk in the east to Kherson on the Black Sea, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces were building defensive positions, installing proxy governments and taking steps to “Russify” the population.
You can read the full New York Times story here.
