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| Europe |
| Two Ukrainian fighter jets shot down in east: military |
| 2014-07-24 |
| [DAWN] Two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down on Wednesday, not far from where a Malaysian airliner was brought down last week in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers on board. A front man for Ukraine's military operations said the planes were downed near Savur Mogila, a burial mound in the Shaktersky region where a memorial marks ambushes by the Soviet army on occupying Nazis during World War Two. He said he did not have any information about the pilots. Igor Strelkov, who is now in charge of the rebel ranks in the eastern city of Donetsk, said the separatists had brought down one plane and that the pilot had ejected. He gave no further details. Fierce fighting raged near the rebels' two main centres in Donetsk and nearby Luhansk, where they have been pushed back by Ukrainian government forces, who have taken control of villages and suburbs around the cities. Earlier on Tuesday, Kiev said the separatists were leaving their positions on the outskirts of Donetsk and retreating towards the city centre. Residents said the rebels, who rose up in April demanding independence from Kiev in the mainly Russian-speaking east, had dug trenches in downtown Donetsk outside the main university, where they have been living in student dormitories. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #13 JFM: the Russians didn't get to cover 12 time zones by forswearing the use of propaganda meant to help "divide and conquer." And they're successful enough at it that France is helping to arm them. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2014-07-24 18:59 |
| #12 I simplify a bit but in WWII Eastern-Ukranains are to be counted as Russians for their attitude towards Geramns and suffering at their hands. In fact they were considered as reliable as the Russian and people like Timoshenko, Eremenko, Gretckko (future Chief of Staff of the Soviet Army), Rybalko (one of the three best Soviet tank comanders) were real Ukranians not Russians established in Ukranian (Russian names _never_ end in O). Western Ukranians; some of them fought for the Germans, others fought both sides and those who fought on Soviet side were considered so unreliable at least one general withdrew them from the front. |
| Posted by: JFM 2014-07-24 16:54 |
| #11 JFM: Checking Wikipedia, here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union, it says that the Soviet Union (not Russia alone) suffered 26 million or so casualties from the war. About 6.8 million of those were Ukrainian. It says 1.65 million of those were in the Red Army. The table suggests they suffered more casualties (civilian and military) as a percentage of population than any other region in the USSR, except for Belarus. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2014-07-24 16:39 |
| #10 If you are a Russin you don't need to be a Commie ti become enraged when you see anything that looks Nazi-like. Most of their 30 million dead were not Soldiers or Partisans. Compound this with 10 million raped women both in Russia and in Germany where they had been deported to work in factories. |
| Posted by: JFM 2014-07-24 15:38 |
| #9 Commies and nazis doing what commies and nazis do. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2014-07-24 13:10 |
| #8 Besoeker. THere was and probaly there is an strong Ukranian party that held/holds an imporatnt ministry (I don't remeber if police or Army) and that is idelogycally close to the Nazis, anttisemitism included. |
| Posted by: JFM 2014-07-24 11:48 |
| #7 And the communists used those symbols and propaganda as excuses for every single person they killed or took away the freedom of from 1945 to the present. Every Korean they killed, every Hungarian or Czech they ran over with a tank, and a whole lot of the peasants that were forcibly starved (using the same blueprint they used in Ukraine) in China by the communist religion, they said they were fighting Naziism. It seems everyone was responsible for enabling the Nazis, except the people who signed the Molotov-Ribbentroff Pact and helped them invade Poland. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2014-07-24 10:19 |
| #6 The classic Soviet era metaphor is basically 'we always keep fighting the same people in the same place the same way', (e.g. "Alexander Nevsky"). These are, by the way, likely the other 'BUK' launchers from the unit that shot down the airliner (typically one control vehicle, and four to six launchers), and is what they were supposed to be there for, which is ground screen for surface probing attack. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-07-24 07:42 |
| #5 Precisely JFM. In the early days of the recent Ukrainian conflict with Russia, you may remember the Russians referring to the [new] Ukrainian gov't as Nazis or pro-Nazi. Labeling is an essential tool of the communists, and any reference, however oblique, to the Great Patriotic War is simply buttered bread. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-07-24 07:34 |
| #4 Besoeker. The symbol is about fighting the Nzis and one of the Estaerne Ukarians griefs agasint the ukaranian nationalists is about nthgeir forefathers siding with the Nazis and some of their main components openly supporting Nazi-like ideas and displaying Nazi-like symbology. You can dismiss it as propaganda but nevertheless Savur Mogial commemorates kicking Nazi asses not Nazi occupation. |
| Posted by: JFM 2014-07-24 07:27 |
| #3 Wherever they concentrate their air defenses is very likely the region in which they [the Russians] will push through. The Nazi occupation symbology should not be ignored. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-07-24 05:42 |
| #2 the planes were downed near Savur Mogila, a burial mound in the Shaktersky region where a memorial marks ambushes by the Soviet army on occupying Nazis during World War Two. You sure an Ukrainian spokesman said this? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-07-24 05:17 |
| #1 Must have bot one of those plane spotting guides this time. |
| Posted by: borgboy 2014-07-24 03:38 |