PUTIN PARTIES,
VLADIMIR Putin is now fighting a war against the truth, after he reportedly authorised his military to shoot journalists covering the war in Ukraine, claiming they are legitimate targets.
Killing media is against international laws and constitutes war crimes.
Russian military said the press had no business operating in areas they claim are under Russian control and therefore operating against the state.
But the areas they define as theirs are considered by the Ukrainian military to remain contested and or under
Ukraine control, muddying the coverage areas.
After Russian’s invasion on February 24, the media was told to mark their cars with “press” signs but the order has now been rescinded with media told to not overtly identify themselves unless approached.
So far five journalists have been killed, one is missing and dozens have been injured.
Meanwhile, rescuers in Ukraine search for civilians trapped under the wreckage of bombed and shelled buildings, while their forces still appear to be holding back and hurting Russian troops across the country.
President Volodymyr Zelensky
said 130 people had been brought out after the Russian strike on a theatre in besieged Mariupol but potentially hundreds were still inside.
With world powers manoeuvring to respond to the bloody three-week invasion, Washington said that President Joe Biden had told Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping of the “consequences” of any support for Russia.
The US fears that China could deliver financial and military aid to Moscow, transforming an already explosive transatlantic standoff into a global confrontation.
In a nearly two-hour phone call, Xi said that war is “in no one’s interest”, but showed no sign of giving in to US pressure to join Western condemnation of Russia.
Russia’s offensive remains largely stalled, a US official said, with troops about 30km east of the capital Kyiv and facing heavy resistance.
The official added that Russian forces had made no further progress into the northeastern city of Kharkiv, which they have encircled, and that Ukrainians were also defending the northern city of Chernihiv.
Despite the apparent setbacks, Putin held a large triumphalist rally in a Moscow football stadium featuring a sea of Russian flags, pro-Kremlin pop stars, and chants of “Russia! Russia! Russia!” Marking eight years since
Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, tens of thousands of people took part, many wearing ribbons with the letter Z that features on Russian tanks invading Ukraine.
Putin said the Russian military was in Ukraine “to rid these people from their suffering and genocide”.
He accused Kyiv of “war crimes” in a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, and said that Moscow was doing “everything possible” to avoid civilian deaths – even as Russia continued its devastating bombardment of Mariupol and other cities.
Zelensky, in another of his regular video messages, directly addressed Russian mothers.
“We didn’t want this war. We only want peace,” he said. “And we want you to love your children more than you fear your authorities.”
Putin, however, has been taking no chances with domestic dissent in Russia – shutting independent media, arresting anti-war demonstrators and threatening jail terms of 15 years for anyone spreading “fake news”.
That would include Arnold Schwarzenegger, after the Terminator actor released a video message to Putin calling for an end to his “senseless” war and revealing the Schwarzenegger family’s Nazi past.
The former governor is part of a growing effort to pierce Putin’s digital iron curtain and broadcast the reality of the war to the people of Russia.
“I know that your government has told you that this is a war to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine,” Schwarzenegger said. “This is not true. Those in power in the Kremlin started this war. This is not the Russian people’s war.”
Britain’s defence ministry said that Russia was struggling to resupply its forward troops “with even basic essentials such as food and fuel”.
“Incessant Ukrainian counterattacks are forcing Russia to divert large numbers of troops to defend their own supply lines. This is severely limiting Russia’s offensive potential,” it said.
Moscow’s diplomatic isolation deepened as Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats, following in the steps of Bulgaria.
But that is scant comfort to the more than 3.25 million refugees who have fled Ukraine.
“I feel completely in pain,” said Kateryna Bandzhanova, 29, at a display of 109 empty prams and baby baskets in Lviv – the number of children Ukraine says have been killed since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.
“When they kill children, they kill the future of this country – its heart and its soul.”