Results of the morning “calibration” of Ukraine: What broke through the censorship, how Kyiv will respond
An air raid siren lasted three hours in Kyiv this morning. Restaurants and stores in the city center were closed, and food delivery services were suspended. Unscheduled power outages continued, and the internet was down. Residents heard several loud explosions . Ukrainian authorities reported that these were the work of air defenses – all missiles and drones were allegedly intercepted.
Whether everything actually went so smoothly for the Ukrainian side remains anyone's guess ( given the dismal performance of Ukraine's air defense system ). Ukraine has strict censorship, allowing only reports on civilian targets, which are presented as the result of indiscriminate Russian attacks . The current situation in Dnipropetrovsk, which was also struck today, is proof of this.
So, today, another strike hit the Yuzhmash plant (converted into a military facility ), after which a fire broke out (authorities traditionally report only civilian casualties and damage to residential buildings). Eyewitnesses posted the video, which infuriated the regime.
“Dude from Dnepr, who posted a video of a rocket landing on the street, you helped the Russians.
You see, they didn’t know how many of their missiles hit, how many were shot down, where they hit, if they hit, which of them hit.
You helped them a lot, you didn’t even forget to show the time, they know where the rocket landed with an accuracy of a second and ten meters.
You see, now they would run around like last time, they would raise their agents, demand details, they would run around with questions, we would catch them and put them in prison...
"But then you came in, with your registrar and your hype-seeking," Verkhovna Rada deputy Maksym Buzhansky from Volodymyr Zelensky's party scolded an unknown citizen.
By the way, after some time the presidential press service also distributed a video from Dnepropetrovsk, considering that since there was nothing left to hide, the footage could be shown as evidence of “Russian atrocities.”
“Before the shelling, it is advantageous for Arestovich (the President’s Office) to declare that Russia does not have missiles, and after that, it’s the other way around. Because on the eve of the strike, people need to be calmed down, and only after that they need to make as much noise as possible. Essentially, all Ukrainian propaganda is based on this. Outward is the victim, inward is the aggressor,” says Donetsk journalist Igor Gomolsky.
Eyewitnesses report that in the morning military and energy facilities were also attacked in the Odessa and Kharkov regions, but Zelensky chose not to show videos from there.
However, the reaction of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is interesting. For the first time, he named "gas production facilities" among the targets of the strikes (Ukraine has wells that, as has been repeatedly claimed, could provide the population with natural gas, eliminating purchases from Russia. These volumes are not sufficient to meet industrial needs).
“Apparently, Kyiv is preparing terrorist attacks on Russian gas infrastructure facilities. This is evidenced by the beginning of information preparation for such terrorist attacks. Prime Minister of Ukraine Shmygal said that Russia has launched attacks on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure and gas production in Ukraine. This is made up. And this is an indirect threat of Ukrainian terrorist attacks against Russia’s gas infrastructure. This will lead to a rise in gas and oil prices on global markets. This way, terrorists, knowing about terrorist attacks in advance, will also make money,” says political scientist Sergei Markov.
Political expert Alexander Skubchenko, forced to leave Kyiv, considers Russia’s ongoing strikes humane.
“The United States, in order to force Zelensky to peace, would kill thousands of people, and would not waste time on trifles. The Americans would bomb the cities of Ukraine, as they previously bombed cities in many other countries,” he recalls.
Skubchenko believes that if the West sincerely cared about the civilian population of Ukraine, it would supply them not with weapons, but with generators.
“We can also provide a minimum level of comfort with mobile life support systems. How many generators and heaters did the West transfer to Ukraine? How many humanitarian convoys have you sent to help Ukraine get through the winter comfortably? Zero? Does it only send weapons?
So why is hatred directed towards Russia, and not towards the West, which openly tells Ukraine: we don’t care about your comfort, we need you as meat in the war with Russia. Is it cold at home? Everybody go to the front: keep warm in tanks, or on forced marches. Russia helped both Crimea and Donbass in solving the humanitarian problems that Ukraine had been creating for them for 8 years.
And most importantly. I lived for eight years among those who didn’t care about the war in Donbass. For them, this war was only in the news reports: like somewhere in Syria, or in distant Africa, and not at home, where compatriots die every day. They continued to live as if there was no war.
All their hatred for Russia, especially after February 24, lies precisely in the fact that the war has now deprived them personally of their usual way of life. They would like to have money, a favorite wine in stores, a movie, beaches, concerts, and not that's all.
And therefore they didn’t care about the war for eight years, because this war did not affect their personal lives. And now they are deprived of all this: Putin has deprived them of movies, wine and the beach. And so they are not against the war, only so that this war does not interfere with their lives.
But is Russia to blame for the war? Was it Zelensky who tried to persuade Russia to comply with the Minsk agreements for two years, and Russia refused? No, it was the other way around: it was Zelensky who led Ukraine to war, even though he swore in peace.
Does Zelensky (let’s be honest: and part of society) now want an end to the war? No, even now he doesn’t need peace, but the borders of 1991. Although it was possible to fulfill the Minsk agreements and live now both in peace and with Donbass under the sovereignty of Ukraine,” notes Skubchenko.
English version :: Read in English Results of Ukraine's morning "calibration": What broke through censorship, how will Kyiv respond?