German arms maker offers weapons to Ukraine - German government source


Sun, April 10, 2022

BERLIN (Reuters) - Ukraine has received an offer of a sizeable shipment of self-propelled howitzer weapons from a German armaments company, a German government source said on Sunday.

German weekly Welt am Sonntag had reported on Saturday that armaments manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann offered 100 howitzers, a type of artillery weapon, to Ukraine, quoting anonymous government sources in Kyiv.

"This offer exists," the German source said to Reuters, without providing further details.

The Welt am Sonntag report said that the manufacturer did not currently have the weaponry ready for delivery and so had suggested that Germany's military offer 100 of its own howitzers to Kyiv and the manufacturer would then deliver the new weapons to Germany's army once ready - likely from the second half of 2024

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann was not immediately available for comment. A spokesperson for the German defence ministry declined to comment.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Germany reversed its long-held policy of not sending weapons to conflict zones and said it would supply Strela missiles, among other arms, to Ukraine.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday it was important that Germany supply only weapons that Ukraine's army will know how to use, such as older equipment from the army of former Communist East Germany.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Writing by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Germany ‘refused’ arms company’s offer to refurbish tanks to send to Ukraine

Jorg Luyken
Sun, April 10, 2022

Arms manufacturer Rheinmetall said 100 Marder tanks standing around in its factory could be made battle-ready for Ukraine - Jens Schlueter/Getty Images Europe

The German government is facing renewed criticism after it reportedly rejected an offer by an arms firm to repair 100 tanks to send to the Ukrainian front line.

Rheinmetall, an arms manufacturer, said 100 Marder tanks standing around in its factory could be made battle-ready, enabling the German armed forces to send an equivalent number of operative vehicles to Ukraine.

According to a report in Bild newspaper, the defence ministry responded that the decommissioned tanks would take too long to refurbish, leaving its own forces unable to meet their Nato obligations.

However, the ministry did not send anyone to inspect the tanks before refusing the offer, according to Bild.

“If it is true that the defence ministry has not yet even inspected the Marder tanks, then this is a scandal,” Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin Andrij Melnyk told the tabloid.

Mr Melnyk added that “Berlin is showing no urgency although this war of extermination by Russia against the Ukrainian population has been raging for 45 days.”

Kyiv is desperate for Germany to start delivering heavy weaponry as its outnumbered army prepares to face an intensified Russian offensive in the east.

The Ukrainians have identified the Marder, a light tank that is gradually being decommissioned by the Bundeswehr, as a suitable fix.

Germany's defence ministry said decommissioned tanks would take too long to repair - but Bild newspaper claimed the ministry did not send anyone to inspect the tanks before refusing the offer - Sean Gallup/Getty Images Europe

The 100 tanks in question are currently parked on the premises of a Rheinmetall factory and the company has said that it could refurbish 20 of them within the next eight weeks and a further 50 within half a year.

Military experts have cautioned that it could take months before Ukraine’s mechanised infantry would be able to use the Marder tanks owing to the time it takes to re-train soldiers and the need to set up effective lines of logistics.

At the same time, the Marder’s speed and agility would potentially hand the Ukrainians a battlefield advantage over the more cumbersome Soviet-era BMP light tanks that the Russians rely on, experts say.

Military analysts have also questioned the defence ministry’s argument that sending 100 outdated tanks to Ukraine would damage Germany’s own defensive capabilities.

“If the German national defence could really fail because of a few missing Marder tanks, then we might as well shut up shop altogether,” Frank Sauer, an expert from the Bundeswehr Academy in Munich, told Spiegel magazine.

Germany still has 370 operational Marder tanks. The fighting vehicle was first introduced into the Bundeswehr’s arsenal half a century ago and was supposed to be largely replaced by the cutting-edge PUMA tank by 2020.

But production delays and technical issues have plagued the new tanks, meaning that German soldiers still rely heavily on the Marder during training exercises.



Berlin is facing increasing domestic anger over its sluggishness in supplying Ukraine with arms.

Die Welt newspaper declared at the weekend that Berlin’s pledge to support Ukraine militarily as part of a “new era” of defence strategy was “a fairytale”.

Soon after the Russian invasion started, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a historic Bundestag speech in which he said that Berlin would abandon its age-old refusal to deliver weapons to war zones, while also spending an extra €100 billion (£83 billion) on its own armed forces.

But six weeks on, Die Welt said that Mr Scholz was only interested in improving Germany’s own defensive capabilities.

Der Spiegel was also scathing, pointing out that Estonia had so far committed to more arms deliveries than Germany. The political magazine declared that Mr Scholz had “lost his political courage immediately after his Bundestag speech”.

The German Defence Ministry has refused to discuss specifics of its arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying that Kyiv has asked for secrecy in order to keep the Kremlin guessing about its exact capabilities - a claim that has been denied by the Ukrainians.

Kyiv has become increasingly frustrated at delays in decision making in Berlin, where requests for the delivery of specific military hardware often take weeks to receive an answer.



Up until now Berlin has delivered weapons with a value of €186 million (£155 million), mainly anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles.

Mr Scholz has insisted that the delays are due to the fact that Germany is determined to deliver weapons that will be of real benefit.

During a visit to London last week, he said that “we strive to provide weapons that are helpful and effective. We have done that in the past, we will continue to do that.”

Defending Berlin’s record, Mr Scholz added that “the successes that the Ukrainian army has achieved shows that the weapons that we have supplied are particularly effective.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted on Sunday that he had discussed possible additional sanctions on Russia in a call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Mr Zelensky has called for an embargo on imported gas and oil from Russia, but Germany so far resisted pressure to do so.

Meanwhile, Pro-Russia protesters rallied in Germany demanding an end to discrimination they say they have been subjected to since the war began.

Pro-Russia supporters get a thumbs-down from an onlooker as they march through Frankfurt - YANN SCHREIBER

Around 600 people descended on Frankfurt on Sunday amid a sea of Russian flags.

Police threw up a large cordon to separate the protesters - marching behind a banner that read "Truth and diversity of opinion over PROPAGANDA" - from a pro-Ukraine counter-demonstration of around 100 people near the city's central banking district.

Germany is home to 1.2 million people of Russian origin and 325,000 from Ukraine. Authorities fear the conflict could be imported into Germany and the protests used to promote Moscow's war narrative.

Police have recorded 383 anti-Russian offences and 181 anti-Ukrainian offences since the Kremlin's invasion started on February 24.

Russian artists demand free speech, flee their homeland to protest Ukraine War

Tami Abdollah, USA TODAY
Mon, April 11, 2022

LONG READ

KOTKA, Finland – Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, a bearded and distraught-looking Ivan Nikolaev, 35, posted a video on YouTube, denouncing President Vladimir Putin for the attack.

“Innocent Ukrainian citizens are being murdered as Russia continues to occupy an independent state of Ukraine,” Nikolaev said. “As citizens of Russia, we are all involved in this military crime.”

His wife, Alena Starostina, 38, shared the video on her Facebook page.

Soon after, Russia passed a law against spreading statements not in line with the government narrative. With that, both husband and wife, who had spent their days as longtime performers thoughtfully dissecting plays, were suddenly criminals, facing fines of 1.5 million rubles and up to 15 years in prison.

After a final performance by Starostina, the couple took out as much cash as they could and packed up their small car. They said goodbye to Starostina’s father, who couldn’t believe they were fleeing, and permanently left for Finland.

Within a few days, the couple realized that the war would not be over for many months.

“It feels like a person close to you is dying, not suddenly of a stroke, but of some terminal torturous disease,” Nikolaev said. But “there is always this silly hope that someone kills him (Putin) and this whole thing will be over.”

Nikolaev and Starostina are among the growing numbers of artists who have fled Russia to neighboring Finland in recent weeks. Many have long faced the threat of persecution in Russia for not supporting official stances, but their criticism of the war put them in danger of imprisonment, forcing them to give up their work and make a new home several hours from the Russian border.

Now, amid a harsh crackdown on opposing views, many are unsure if or when it will ever be possible to return. Many artists said they were also worried about the integrity of their work in Putin’s Russia, which has increasingly suppressed free speech and expression.

Starostina and Nikolaev, who worked at a small independent theater company in St. Petersburg, have found themselves closely following Russia’s actions in Ukraine with disgust while applying for work abroad. Nikolaev’s mother had long ago moved to the snowy, southeastern seaside of Kotka, and they have joined her in the tiny one-bedroom, third-floor walk-up flat.

They miss the lives they led, where they created elaborate worlds from words, sets and costumes to explore the futilities and ironies of Russian society. They are worried their art failed to transform the minds of their countrymen, to foster a more open and caring Russia.

“Theater is meant to talk to people and communicate with them, to explain things about the world,” Starostina said. “But it looks like we failed. We couldn’t stop this war and so, I think we are also responsible for it.”

The couple has through May to figure out whether they will be able to get a long-term visa to work in Finland or must otherwise leave. Meanwhile, they are still paying for their apartment back in St. Petersburg, using the rubles in their Russian bank account and saving the few hundred euros they converted before sanctions made it impossible to change the rest of their cash.

“We’re waiting to see which money runs out first,” Nikolaev said, the money in their Russian bank account or their cash.

Artists who oppose Putin face persecution in Russia

The threats to free-thinking artists in Russia have become more tangible with each passing day.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion, some of the actors, stagehands, directors and other theater staff faced warnings of possible “consequences” from authorities for speaking out against the state, Nikolaev said. Once war broke out, those who publicly opposed it were fired from official cultural posts and faced potential imprisonment.

Many artists in Russia work for theaters that are fully or partially funded by the Russian state, leaving them particularly vulnerable to censorship. That was the case for Starostina and Nikolaev, who ran “Theater Post,” a small theater that took grants from the Russian government to fund its performances. Even so, many of their performances were put on by activist playwrights and included subtle criticisms of the government.

Nikolaev was arrested once before for protesting. He received intimidating messages from authorities over the theater’s performances and his subscription to a newsletter belonging to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption organization.

Then the theater group’s performances of “The Sad Deity Committee'' and “Ribbons,” by activist Belarussian playwright Pavel Pryazhko, set for March and April, were both canceled. The “Sad Deity” tells the story of patriotic, unskilled workers who do not understand that their poverty is the product of their society, Nikolaev said. “Ribbons” tells the terrible and ordinary stories of life under the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, known as “Europe’s last dictator."

While some Russian artists spoke out against the government or quit their positions, many others weren’t able to or chose not to speak up, Nikolaev said.

Nikolaev was sickened by his peers who would not join the opposition.

“Theater is supposed to be about common values, like good and evil, but the biggest names in the Russian theater industry, they all kept quiet,” Nikolaev said. “Just a few people made statements, but most of them, the best around, they haven’t said a word. So how can I keep working with them?”

Nikolaev’s mother, Valentina Lyakhova, who emigrated to Finland for work in 2004 was grateful when her son and his wife finally arrived at her small flat. They were finally safe.

She gave her son and wife her bed, choosing to sleep on the floor to give them comfort. She said she worries for their safety and obsessively monitors the news, but tries not to think of what may happen if her son and daughter-in-law must return to Russia. She, too, shared Nikolaev’s video on her social media and supports their outspokenness because “not doing anything is also a way of destroying yourself.”
Attending anti-war protests in Russia is dangerous

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, celebrated playwright Mikhail Durnenkov went to protests in Moscow daily for a week, messaging friends on Telegram that he was “going for a walk” as code.

He worried his communications were being listened to by the Russian government.

Durnenkov has spoken out against the Russian government before. His most well-known play, “The War Has Not Started Yet,” was written after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and features characters bombarded by state propaganda. Durnenkov was arrested for protesting.

As the war continued, Durnenkov’s friends abroad urged him to leave. It was a difficult decision, he said.

“I’m a writer, I write in Russian,” he said.

Relatives cry at the mass grave of civilians killed during the Russian occupation in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022.

It wasn’t until he, his wife, their 15-year-old son and their dachshund, Kubrik, crossed the border into Finland on March 18 in their Hyundai Solaris that he realized how much tension he had been holding in his muscles. His hunched body suddenly felt lighter and taller.

During his first few days, Durnenkov said he was in shock, but slowly came to realize, “my life is broken, it is completely ruined.”

“I’m between (worlds),” Durnenkov said. “Abroad you’re the invader and in your country you’re a traitor.”

While he is working in Finland on a play that was arranged prior to the war, he said he feels powerless and knows that he could be arrested if he returns to Moscow. At the same time, the destruction and violence he sees happening in Ukraine is unbearable: He’s never felt more Russian in his life, and never wanted to not be Russian more.

“When I was in Russia, I had a feeling this war was started in my name, and I wanted to be as distant from the country as possible, like my identity was part of the state,” Durnenkov said. “Now, I have a right to say, ‘them.’”

Durnenkov has been given space to work inside a former Helsinki psychiatric hospital along the Baltic Sea, a studio and common space run by the nonprofit Artists at Risk, which helps artists facing persecution flee their homeland and relocate to safety. The organization has assisted artists – including members of the famed feminist Moscow-based Pussy Riot punk rock protest group – in Belarus, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Egypt and elsewhere.

Finland and Russia have always had a close bond, especially among artists, said Marita Muukkonen, who co-founded Artists at Risk. She said at least 220 Russian artists have applied for a safe haven through the program, including Nikolaev and Starostina. She noted that when Finland was part of the Russian empire it flourished because many intellectuals went through Helsinki to St. Petersburg at the time. Now, there is a type of reverse migration, with Russian dissidents leaving for Finland.

"If we want to change governments and have more democratic governments, we need dissidents," Muukonen said. "We need those people who speak up. If we hope that there will be a new power in Russia, it means that the dissidents have to continue their fight."

Like many Russian dissidents, Durnenkov yearns to return to Russia one day and build change from within. He doesn’t know when or how, as long as his son is safe outside of the country.

Dead bodies are placed into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022, as people cannot bury their dead because of the heavy shelling by Russian forces.

He worries he didn’t do enough to challenge the Russian government and its followers during all of his years creating art in Moscow. He said he lived in a liberal bubble, cutting off people who didn’t share his beliefs, unfriending people on social media after the annexation of Crimea. He yearns to listen and connect with people with different and contradictory opinions.

“It’s very nice to be brave in your bubble,” Durnenkov said. But “my words were invisible for them. Maybe this was my mistake.”

Or “maybe it’s not about art,” Durnenkov said. “Maybe art is not enough. I feel Russian culture has failed.”
War has changed how some Russians view Ukraine

For Aleksey Yudnikov, 48, an actor with the Moscow theater Teatr.doc, known for its artistic independent plays with social commentary, the last few weeks in Finland have felt like a “bad trip” in more ways than one.

Yudnikov lived in Russia for 30 years and mostly considers himself Russian – his father comes from a long line of Russian military officers – but he has a Ukrainian passport. That’s because he was born in Kyiv when it was ruled by the Soviet Union and spent his summers there with his grandparents. His background is emblematic of the complicated identities frequently found among former Soviet and Russian nationals.

Not many among his social group knew of his Ukrainian passport until war broke out, he said. It had not really mattered much before. But because his mother and brother live in Kyiv, he felt like he needed to leave Russia. He left by train for St. Petersburg, then by bus for Helsinki.

Yudnikov had hoped to stay with a friend in Tel Aviv, Israel, and hopped on the next flight there. But a wave of Ukrainian Jews fleeing to Israel instead resulted in him being placed overnight in a deportation holding cell equipped with bunk beds, a steel door and bars on the windows, and then, with official apologies from a Knesset member, spending a surreal two days at a COVID hotel where people are typically quarantined.

He was offered group therapy with other newly-arrived Ukrainians from cities across Ukraine, as he waited for the next Finnair flight to return him to Helsinki.

Once he returned to Finland, he was given space to work by Artists at Risk at their studio. Because of his Ukrainian citizenship, he is able to apply for temporary protected status.

“For many years I didn’t feel a deep identity with Ukraine, it was just the place I was born, the place where my grandfather and grandmother died,” said Yudnikov.

Everything changed for him eight years ago, after Putin annexed Crimea.

Since then, Putin’s push to merge Ukraine back with Russia and erase its unique identity has backfired for Yudnikov and friends of his who share a Ukrainian identity. He noted how some have moved from Moscow to Ukraine in the last few years, shockingly reclaiming their heritage while he has remained in Russia. Today, he feels a sense of guilt over his identity, as if having not staunchly identified as Ukrainian over the last eight years has helped validate Putin’s claim that Ukraine isn’t a sovereign nation.

In his new country, Yudnikov doesn’t eat or sleep well, glued to his phone checking Telegram channels for news, contacting his mother and brother every time there is a bombing, and processing his shock and PTSD over the situation.

Men wearing protective gear exhume the bodies of killed civilians in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022.

During a recent group therapy session, he listened to Ukrainians from Mariupol and Kharkiv tell their stories of escape. Yudnikov, a man who almost never cries, teared up, he said.

“This has broken my life,” Yudnikov said

.
‘I wish I could forget’

On a recent afternoon, Nikolaev sat in a chair in his mother’s living room, taking long drags on a vape pen with the words “USA'' and an image of a New York cab on the outside. On the wall behind him was a framed photograph of his grandfather, with the same facial features, proudly wearing his Russian military uniform.

Seeing what Russian soldiers have done and the “disaster” that was Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were found murdered by Russian soldiers, some with their hands tied behind their backs or in mass graves, has made Nikolaev feel ashamed of his heritage.

“I wish I could forget my own language,” Nikolaev said, “but I don’t know any other one well enough yet.”

Starostina cried when she spoke to her father by phone the other day. He has bought into the Russian propaganda, she said, and claims Russia and its citizens are a victim of the Ukrainian state. Nikolaev’s father, a well-known Russian television star of police dramas, is also a staunch supporter of the Russian government.

Since fleeing home, Starostina and Nikolaev have been unable to create new art. Their faith in the value of art and its shared collective experience was shaken.

Still, Starostina said, there are embers of a brighter tomorrow.

On a recent night at the philharmonic in Kotka, the orchestra played the Ukrainian national anthem as Nikolaev and Starostina stood up and listened, tears rising in their eyes. They let themselves feel hope that in a country with more freedom of expression, it might be possible for them to make art again, and for it to matter.


This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine War has Russian migrants moving to Finland to protest Putin

Russians traveling by train faced with posters depicting war in Ukraine to combat Putin's misinformation

Bethany Dawson
Sun, April 10, 2022, 

A poster with a picture taken by Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk of a damaged building, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is displayed for Russian passengers on their way between Kaliningrad exclave and mainland Russia at Vilnius railway station, Lithuania.

REUTERS/Andrius Sytas

Russians traveling from the mainland to the enclave of Kaliningrad have to stop in Lithuania.

There, they are greeted by an exhibition showing the realities of the war in Ukraine.

"It's the least that we can do," a spokesperson for Lithuanian Railways said.

Russians taking the train from Moscow to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad have to pass through Vilnius station in Lithuania. When their train pauses at the platform, they are greeted with 24 large posters depicting the war in Ukraine.

The posters show pictures of corpses, injured civilians, grieving families, destroyed homes and infrastructure, and child refugees.

All posters have the same message: "Today, Putin is killing civilians in Ukraine. Do you support this?"

A poster with a picture taken by Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk of a war scene, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is displayed for Russian passengers on their way between Kaliningrad exclave and mainland Russia at Vilnius railway station, Lithuania March 25, 2022.REUTERS/Andrius Sytas

A map showing the location of Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave next to Lithuania and Poland

Google Maps/Insider

"As far as we know, Russians are shielded from what is happening in Ukraine."Maybe we can change the minds of a very small number of passengers," Mantas Dubauskas, a spokesperson for the state-owned Lithuanian railways, who have erected the posters, told Reuters.

"It's the least that we can do," he added.

A banner with a photo by Evgeniy Maloletka, a photographer working for Associated Press (AP), is seen next to other photographs of Russia's war in Ukraine at the railway station in Vilnius, Lithuania on March 25, 2022, where transit trains from Moscow to Kaliningrad make a stop over.

PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images

Workers attach a banner with a photo of a pregnant woman being carried on a stretcher after the bombing of a maternity ward in Mariupol during Russia's war in Ukraine that is displayed as part of an exhibition at the railway station in Vilnius, Lithuania

PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images

The Russian parliament recently passed a law criminalizing the spread of "fake" news regarding the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly stated that the atrocities witnessed in Ukraine, including the Bucha massacre and bombing of a Mariupol hospital, are fake.

Insider's Mia Jankowicz reported that Putin's disinformation is so effective, that Ukrainians can't convince their own families in Russia they are under attack.

‘We Are Tired of Killing’: How Long Can Ukraine Trade Land for Blood?


Mac William Bishop
Sat, April 9, 2022
Rolling Stone

LONG READ


Ukraine-MoD-Image-3 - Credit: MINISTRY OF DEFENCE OF UKRAINE

“The Russians are just over there.”

The Ukrainian marine driving the truck peers intently into the swirling snow, pointing to the line of trees about a half-mile ahead of us. The Russians, he tells me, “they leave their bodies where they fall,” and shakes his head.

His name is Oleksiy, and he has been full of bonhomie, quips, and curiosity — until we get close enough to the front lines that a forward observer could decide to direct an artillery round at our unarmored pickup. “Listen, if something happens, if something bad happens …” he says, and turns to look me in the eye. “You do whatever you need to do to get out of here.”

The dirt road runs between two wheat fields that are barren and unplowed. No one will plant crops here this year.

We are in Donetsk, where Ukraine has been fighting Russia for eight years in brutal trench warfare. The battle lines were static for most of that time. Now they are not. Russian soldiers have grabbed a chunk of Ukraine’s southeast, and are gaining ground. The marines are here to take it back.

Oleksiy begins driving forward again. The line of trees hiding units of Russia’s 163rd Tank and 11th Motorized Rifle regiments creeps closer.

More than a month into Russia’s invasion and the Ukrainian armed forces stand defiant against one of the world’s largest militaries. Here in Donetsk, members of an elite unit give a rare glimpse into how they continue cobbling together their country’s defense out of ad hoc supplies, mismatched weaponry, improvised tactics, and unlikely volunteers.

While the entire population has been mobilized for war, it is the Ukrainian military that has been fighting to the death in city streets, villages, and in the countryside. Against all expectations, they have routed mighty enemy formations, but the war is far from over. Russia is willing to endure the loss of thousands of its soldiers. For their part, the Ukrainians are united by shared national sacrifice. The last time there was an announcement of casualty figures by the government, more than 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed. That was two weeks into the war. About a month later, there is no updated tally: A presidential adviser has described military losses as “considerable,” saying the government won’t release figures until after the war. The Ukrainians grudgingly trade land for blood. Yet the price they are paying to save their country may be unbearable.

To get a clearer picture of the shape and course of the conflict, Rolling Stone traveled to multiple battlefronts, meeting with frontline soldiers, and observing conditions firsthand.

A sign marks the boundary of Donetsk province on a highway in eastern Ukraine. - Credit: Mac William Bishop

Mac William Bishop

It takes days to reach the eastern front from western Ukraine. Lyubomyr Zaboronnyy, who runs part of an aid group called East and West United, lets me tag along on his volunteer supply convoy. He was a battlefield medic and has been bringing home the bodies of fallen soldiers since the war with Russia started in 2014. His group works with the Ukrainian diaspora across Europe and America to gather supplies and vehicles to bring to soldiers in the field.

Zaboronnyy is a large man with a crew cut and a boisterous, over-the-top physicality. He will shepherd a string of land cruisers, pickups, and vans filled to capacity with boxes of fruit, vegetables, baked goods, pickles, dumplings, pasta, electronics, clothing, camping gear, and medical supplies across Ukraine.

“It’s all crowd-funded,” Zaboronnyy says. “I was even sent money from Moscow today. I don’t know what to do with it. We need a ton of money. But I won’t use money from Russia.”

Soldiers on the front send his group requests, and they deliver anything they can get. He said the hardest things to acquire now are the most critical: ballistic vests and plates, helmets, long-distance radios, and trucks.

“If we put stuff into the normal supply chain, it just disappears into the void,” he says. “This way I can ensure people get what they need by placing it in their hands.”

It’s what logistics specialists call “last-mile delivery.” Zaboronnyy and his team are a nonprofit Amazon Prime for combat supplies.

“Putin can suck my cock.” The bear of a man delivering this exclamation in a theatrical baritone says he should be called “Martin.”

Martin drives around the city of Kryvyi Rih pointing out landmarks, including the closed factory, where in peacetime he worked in the industrial demolitions department.

As Martin drives, he makes pronouncements like the one about Putin. He’s not having a conversation. Everything about Martin projects “Don’t fuck with me” machismo. He’s an amateur heavyweight boxer, two yards tall and muscular. His grizzled gray beard is cropped close, and so is his hair. His deep voice booms, and he pounds the table with his fist when he speaks. He carries a Kalashnikov variant, an RPG-22 rocket launcher, an RPK light machine gun, a Makarov pistol in a chest holster, grenades, and a long knife engraved with the words “Our freedom — their blood” in Ukrainian.

Within minutes of meeting him, he is giving tips on avoiding snipers and showing off a video of a Russian prisoner being questioned. The Russian was stripped down to his boxers, and his face and neck were covered in blood from what appeared to be a broken nose. His hands were tied behind his back, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

I ask what happened to the prisoner. Martin just shrugs and says nothing further about it.

Martin shows off his knife inscribed with the words “Our freedom — their blood.” - Credit: Mac William Bishop

The word is that Martin killed two Russians with his knife. It is rare in modern combat for anyone to get close enough to kill someone with a knife. And I think about the prisoner. I hope that isn’t what people mean when they say Martin killed two Russians with his knife. Later, I ask Martin to clarify about the knife. He understands the seriousness of the implications of what I’m asking. He tells me that indeed, he killed two Russians with the blade. But it was in close combat, he says: One was a sentry, and one was a commando. He hates the Russians for what they’ve done.

Kryvyi Rih is President Volodomyr Zelensky’s hometown. The Russians have advanced to within a dozen miles or so of the city, the farthest north they’ve gotten in their thrust out of Crimea. Martin is helping to organize the city’s defenses. He commands a large number of Territorial Defense Force volunteers, irregular soldiers responsible for their own equipment, and seemingly for their own command structure as well. He has to deliver one of his men to a rally point, where two units are in contact with the Russians, south of Kryvyi Rih.

We drop the volunteer off at the side of the road, where he takes cover in a copse of trees. I ask Martin what he can tell me about the Ukrainian forces, and what they are doing here.

He says no, he can’t tell me anything for security reasons. “It’s enough for you to know they are out there,” he says, gesturing at the landscape where his forces lie in wait for the Russian army.

The quiet morning is broken by the concussions of artillery, punctuated by the whoosh-whoosh-whooshing of Grad multiple-launch rocket systems, which can fire 40 10-foot-long rockets in seconds and can hit targets 25 miles away. The distinctive sound means the Grads are very close, but the fire is outgoing.

The Ukrainian army is counter-attacking the Russians near a hamlet called Vysokopillya. But it is slow going: Ukraine wins back a few square miles of land over a week of battle here. The fighting is village to village, and brutal. And it is just one small piece of Ukraine taken back from the enemy.

After four days on the road, the convoy arrives at a derelict schoolhouse in Donetsk just before dusk, a few miles from the front lines. From here, the Russians are both to the south and to the east.

A Ukrainian marine tries to get phone reception in an abandoned schoolhouse that’s become a base. - Credit: Mac William Bishop

The schoolhouse is being used by Ukrainian marines as a supply hub. It’s in the middle of a village that seems abandoned, but smoke wisps from a few chimneys, and an old man peeks out at passing vehicles from behind a fence. Many who have stayed behind here are just too old to contemplate becoming refugees. They’d rather die in their homes than take to the road to live among strangers.

The vehicles park, and two pirates step out of a van. They are both towering, lean, hard, and bearded. One carries a marksman’s rifle on his back, the other a camouflaged AK-74. They may look like pirates, but they are from the Ukrainian Naval Infantry Corps — they call themselves marines.

Bohdan Maslyak wears a forest-green bandanna over his head, a trim gray-and-blond beard framing his face. The other man has an earring and a forked beard, and wears a baseball cap with an American flag on the side.

Maslyak is a famous volunteer fighter in Ukraine. There are pictures of him in a recent photo essay called “What I Would Do If It Weren’t for the War.” But instead of a uniform, he’s wearing a chef’s jacket, and instead of a rifle, he’s holding a chef’s knife, cutting vegetables and smiling. The caption says if it weren’t for the war, he’d renovate a restaurant and travel the world.

Bohdan Maslyak (center), Oleksiy (right), and an unnamed marine with a flag reading “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” - Credit: MAc William Bishop

Because of his age and his serious demeanor, I mistake him for the unit commander at first. Only later do I learn he is the lowest rank in the marines. You wouldn’t find a forty- or fiftysomething seaman in normal times. But it’s a war. Maslyak volunteered to join this elite unit. Who gives a fuck about rank, if it means a chance to go out and fight the people invading your homeland?

The marines take stock of the supplies that Zaboronnyy and his team brought, separating the urgently required items from those that can stay behind. Artillery rumbles a mile or so to the south. Maslyak’s radio crackles. A Russian attack is underway. The marines need to go. Now.

Zaboronnyy straps on his body armor and races off in his ambulance, following the piratical-looking marines.

As night descends, the artillery fire increases. The village is completely dark; there is not a light on for miles. In the distance there is the red glow of a spreading fire. It is far to the north, fanned by a biting wind that howls through the trees.

Inside the abandoned school, as the soldiers climb into sleeping bags, a young marine sits by the window in oblivion, watching a sitcom on his phone. A fierce spring storm arrives. The thunder of artillery and the wild wind blend together, echoing through the empty rooms. Soon, snores play a countermelody to the furious hum of the gale and the staccato rumbles of battle.

It’s snowing in the morning. Cold, wet, muddy, and miserable. Low-hanging clouds mean the Russians can’t use drones to spot Ukrainian movements or coordinate fire. An exquisite day for infantry.

Zaboronnyy arrives back at the schoolhouse with a strapping marine. He’s Oleksiy, and he’s here to figure out what to do with me.

“Do you want to see a Russian cruise missile that landed nearby?” he asks. “Let’s go.”

He hops into a used Nissan pickup newly delivered on a trailer by Zaboronnyy’s convoy, and we drive out to a field where there’s a crater filled with wreckage.

Before the war, Oleksiy was an IT specialist. His job was to troubleshoot network problems for foreign clients.

“Now, I’m still kind of a troubleshooter,” he deadpans.

He tells me that Russia is massing forces for an offensive, and the marines want long-range weapons that can destroy enemy armor in staging areas, before the Russians can start moving. When he finds out I had been in an anti-armor squad in the U.S. Marines, he asks if I have qualified on the Javelin anti-tank missile system.

“Can you teach me how to use it?” he asks. I laugh. Surely there are Ukrainians with more recent experience.

“I just really want to know how to use one. We need them.”

Haven’t the marines been able to use other anti-tank weapons effectively?

Yes, he says. But it’s not enough. They need to destroy Russian tanks before the tanks can get close. The factory that made Ukraine’s domestic anti-tank missiles is near Kyiv, he says. It’s no longer operating. Engaging armor with direct-fire or shorter-range missiles like the British-Swedish NLAW risks Ukrainian lives. The Russians massively outnumber them. They don’t have lives to spare.

“Well, shall we go to the front?” he asks. “Since you’re from Rolling Stone, you can meet some rock stars.”

It isn’t a metaphor. As soon as we arrive at a house serving as a combat outpost, I’m introduced to two rock stars, with the worn fatigues and informality of marines who’ve been in the field for too long.

Andrii Slieptsov, the lead guitarist for the band Haydamaky, is a reservist in the Ukrainian marines. - Credit: Mac William Bishopop

Andrii Slieptsov and Oleg are musicians with a band called Haydamaky. They’re pretty well-established in Ukraine. I ask Oleg how he would describe their music.

“Well, the simplest way would be to call it authentic Cossack rock.”

Haydamaky is named after peasant insurgents who resisted foreign control by the Poles, the Russians, and the Roman Catholic Church — as well as the local nobility — in the 18th century. Slieptsov plays lead guitar, and Oleg prefers not to be specifically identified. But they’re also marine reservists. When the invasion started, they immediately sent their families to safety and joined their battalion in the field. They’ve been in intense combat for more than a month.

The marines invite me to their outpost on the condition that I not reveal specific operational details or their precise location. Some, like Maslyak, are comfortable sharing their full names and even their faces in photos. Most of the rest are not.

Their unit was involved in savage urban warfare before being redeployed to counter Russia’s renewed efforts in the east. Their losses have been grievous. They provide a specific number, and it is staggering. The marines are exhausted. There are indicators of traumatic stress, but morale remains high.

“We feel the whole country is behind us,” Oleg says. “We know what we are fighting for. This is the most important thing.”

At the outpost, the marines are using Starlink, the satellite internet service created by Elon Musk. Zaboronnyy had delivered the equipment to them, and they had it up and running in hours. When Musk announced he would provide Starlink free of charge to Ukraine, there were concerns the Russians could use it to locate Ukrainian positions. But Oleksiy says the military has dealt with that.

“Can you do us a favor?” Maslyak asks. “Can you tell Elon Musk ‘Thank you, from Ukraine’?”

“I had a video chat with my son today for the first time in a while,” Oleksiy says happily. Then a brief flash of emotion creases his face. “He told me to make sure I didn’t die. What am I supposed to say to that?”

While Oleg is helping me log on to Starlink, about a half-dozen other marines are sitting around smoking, drinking tea, napping, or cleaning rifles. They are snipers. Their job is to scout and hunt. But all of the training, skill, and courage in the world are not enough for a rifle to defeat a tank. So they have to be creative.

They work to lure the Russians into ambushes, targeting vehicle operators at key moments of vulnerability. Then the marines use heavy weapons to destroy or disable the tanks.

Shortly before I arrived at the outpost, a Russian tank group tried to force its way across a nearby river. The marines were waiting in ambush, and eviscerated the Russian unit, destroying or capturing more than half of the enemy vehicles. A marine captain showed me videos of Ukrainian tanks towing captured Russian BMPs from the battlefield, to be repaired and put back into service by the marines. Pirates, indeed.

“These fucking guys brought their dress uniforms in their armored vehicles,” the captain said, laughing incredulously as he showed me pictures. “They actually thought they were gonna get a parade.”

But the long odds are against the marines.

“If you are playing chess, it doesn’t matter if your opponent is an idiot when they have 200 more pawns than you do,” Oleksiy says.

Marine snipers are among the most elite personnel in the Ukrainian armed forces. They are under tremendous pressure, not just because of the enemy’s numbers, but because the war is being fought in their hometowns. Their families and friends are stuck in the middle of the fighting.

Olena is from Mariupol. She’s shy and diminutive, thirtysomething with a long black ponytail. She has a fearsome reputation as a sniper. Even as her unit was sacrificing lives to stop the tide of Russian armor pushing into Donetsk, her daughter was trying to flee Mariupol. Olena could do nothing to help her daughter. Her duty was with her unit.

The Marines are using inexpensive tablets with a secure tactical operating system put together in weeks by Ukrainian programmers. The goal is to give them greater battlefield awareness. But consumer tech has serious downsides. They have stopped using DJI-brand drones, because one day after they launched a sortie, the Russians hit the pilots’ position with eight 120mm mortar rounds just minutes after the drones took off: Their transmissions had been located.

They wear whatever uniform items or tactical clothing they can get their hands on, with most sporting a hodgepodge of different camouflage patterns. They use civilian 4x4s to get around, repainting them or weaving camouflage netting into roof racks.

“This Chevy Tahoe is great,” Oleksiy says, resting his hand on a pre-2007-model truck. “That V8 has saved our lives. Twice.”

A marksman has decorated his rifle and uniform for combat.

 - Credit: Mac William Bishop

The marines have a low opinion of their adversaries. Oleksiy tells me how a single sniper managed to force a column of nine Russian armored vehicles to retreat. It sounds apocryphal. But one of the snipers nods and says, “Yeah, that was me. They’re terrified of Ukrainians.”

They make me sit down and feed me cabbage blintzes and coffee. The marines show me a stew they are making, and feed me cake. Their dining table is covered in cans of Red Bull, packs of cigarettes, instant-coffee canisters, a packet of baby wipes, and a large jar of homemade pickles.

“This war isn’t really fought with rifles,” Oleksiy says. He says Ukraine needs Western military drones, fighter aircraft, and anti-air systems. He goes into great detail about the capabilities of an integrated air-defense network when used with a specific model of the American F-15 Eagle fighter jet. “Give us 10 of those and we can destroy the whole Russian air force.”

I ask what the marines think about foreign support for their country. Will NATO “close the skies” over Ukraine, they ask. Almost everyone in the country asks this question. I say I know as much as they do, that Western leaders are afraid a “no-fly zone” could lead to nuclear war. Oleg nods thoughtfully. Oleksiy sneers: “Well, we have already fought Russia for eight years without NATO, anyways.”

It’s getting late, and it’s time to leave. Not a good idea to be on the road in the dark, where the use of headlights will draw enemy fire. But the marines need to go to work. The sniper teams start gearing up. They will go hunting Russians in the twilight.

Bohdan, Oleksiy, and another marine take a moment to pose for pictures with a flag that has Ukraine’s new unofficial slogan on it: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” This was the defiant transmission of a group of border guards on a small island in the Black Sea during the opening days of the invasion, when called upon by the Russian navy to surrender. The words now grace billboards, T-shirts, and posters the length of the country.

Oleksiy grips my hand and shoulder, and says he wants to drink a beer with me someday. In peace, after Ukraine’s victory.

“We are tired,” Oleksiy says. Then he clarifies his statement. “We are very tired of killing Russians.”

For all the marines’ bravado and success against the Russians, the Ukrainian military is suffering terrible losses. With Russia’s initial assault against Kyiv a failure against intense opposition, the Kremlin is turning its attention back to the east. It intends to consolidate and expand the swath of Ukraine’s southeast that its soldiers grabbed in the opening days of the invasion — a slice of territory roughly the size of Switzerland.

Tens of thousands of occupiers with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, supported by artillery, long-range missiles, and air power, continue to ravage Ukrainian cities and villages, and brutalize their inhabitants.

Zaboronnyy’s convoy covers a lot of ground, across 12 out of Ukraine’s 24 provinces. In the towns and villages, in the cemeteries we drive by, every burial ground has fresh graves, often with a funeral in progress or with mourners lighting vigil candles that seem to hover and flicker, like fireflies in the deepening gloam, as we speed past.

Unlike their adversaries, Ukrainians make every effort to return fallen soldiers to their hometowns. In Kryvyi Rih, Martin took me to the burial site of his friend, who was killed by Russians in Donetsk. The big man lit a cigarette and left it, placing it gently on the grave and saying a prayer. There are a dozen fresh mounds nearby for soldiers killed since the invasion, covered in wreaths and portraits of the dead.

Expanded burial site in Kryvyi Rih. - Credit: Mac William Bishop

The gravediggers are using a backhoe to cut into the asphalt of the parking lot to make room for more. They want to keep all of the fallen soldiers together in one area, and there just isn’t enough space for the amount of death.

As the convoy rambles west, it has one last stop to make. At a morgue in Dnipro, it delivers boxes of body bags. In the parking lot, an orthodox priest chants a prayer song with three mourners. When the entrance of the morgue opens, I realize why the ceremony is taking place outside. There are dozens of dead inside, fresh bodies on gurneys right up to the entrance, their shrouded feet peeking out from inside the doorway.

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Trump Is Basking In Surreal, Adoring Mar-a-Lago Bubble, Says Reporter

Mary Papenfuss
Mon, April 11, 2022

Former President Donald Trump is spending his days in a surreal Mar-a-Lago fairy tale of worshipful fans who applaud him every time he enters a room, a reporter said Sunday.

“He is the center of the universe there,” said Washington Post journalist Josh Dawsey, who interviewed Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week.

“What’s striking there is he has hordes of people who surround him every night ... either working for him or paying to be there, or wanting his endorsements or having fundraisers there,” Dawsey told MSNBC host Yasmin Vossoughian.

“He really basks in adulation there every single night. Every time he walks in the room everyone stands up and cheers. When he leaves, everyone stands up and cheers,” recounted Dawsey

The rarified atmosphere is not, however, reality, Dawsey pointed out.

“His presidency was a quite polarizing presidency. He had his deep and loyal supporters, but struggled to convert independents and moderates and others. That’s why he was a one-term president,” Dawsey said.

“But down there, everyone around him loves him. It’s kind of a surreal place to be where [with] everybody in every room, he is the center of the universe there.”

Trump — and his children — have in the past confused the adulation of those around the former president to his popularity in the entire nation. It doesn’t help his return to reality that Trump often grossly exaggerates crowd sizes at his rallies.

Early this year he pointed to the size of a rally in Arizona as proof that he couldn’t possibly have lost the presidential election there — even though such crowds are self-selected Trump supporters, and represent a minuscule fraction of American, even Arizona, voters.

He claimed at that rally that cars stretched out for “25 miles” to see him. “That’s not somebody that lost an election,” he declared.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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Trump Issues Statement Telling Everyone 'I Made A Hole-In-One'

Trump accused of being ‘really stupid or really corrupt’ over missing gift records

Nathan Place
Sun, April 10, 2022

Government ethics experts say they are stunned after the US State Department said records are missing of the gifts Donald Trump received while he was president.

“It’s flagrant and it looks terrible,” Richard Painter, who served as former president George W Bush’s top ethics lawyer, told The New York Times. “Either it was really stupid or really corrupt.”

Federal officials are required by law to inform the State Department of any gifts from foreign governments worth more than $415. But as the Trump administration made its chaotic exit from the White House in January 2021, it allegedly neglected to send the list.

As a result, the State Department said in its report, much of the required data is missing – specifically, all gifts to all White House officials for the entire year of 2020.

In a footnote, the department explained that the Chief of Protocol – who in 2020 was a Trump appointee – did not gather the information.

“The State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol did not submit the request for data to all reporting agencies prior to January 20, 2021 (at which time there was a change in administrations),” the report says. “In addition, the Executive Office of the President did not, prior to that date, transmit to the Secretary of State a listing of all statements filed during the preceding year, 2020. As a result, the data required to fully compile a complete listing for 2020 is unavailable.”

An alternative explanation might be that White House officials received no gifts at all in 2020 – but as Times reporter Michael Schmidt pointed out, this is not the case.



“Despite the pandemic in 2020 at least a dozen foreign leaders visited the White House and Trump traveled abroad to India and Switzerland,” Mr Schmidt tweeted. “In India he received a bust of Gandhi, a sculpture of Gandhi’s famous ‘three monkeys’ metaphor and a spinning wheel. None were listed.”

Gifts to Trump officials outside the White House – such as former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former secretary of defense Mark Esper, and former CIA director Gina Haspel – are accounted for in the report.

But gifts to Mr Trump himself, his family, former vice president Mike Pence, and other White House staff members are all missing.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Trump’s spokesperson for comment.

Sri Lankans occupy president's office entrance for 2nd day


Sri Lankans protestors spend the night outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in the country's main business district to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the country's president to resign amid worst economic crisis in history.


A Sri Lankan man and his child sit on a barricade during a protest calling on the debt-ridden nation’s president to resign outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, April 10, 2022.

Sri Lankan protestors rest outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in the country's main business district to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the country's president to resign amid worst economic crisis in history. 

Sri Lankan protestors rest outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in the country's main business district to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the country's president to resign amid worst economic crisis in history.


Sri Lankan protestors rest outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in the country's main business district to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the country's president to resign amid worst economic crisis in history. 

PHOTOS AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena

KRISHAN FRANCIS
Sun, April 10, 2022

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan protesters occupied the entrance to the president’s office for a second day on Sunday, demanding Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign over the debt-ridden country’s worst economic crisis in memory.

Hundreds of demonstrators weathered heavy rain with raincoats and umbrellas and chanted anti-government slogans. Some called for the entire Parliament to disband to make way for a younger leadership.

“We will stay on, we will leave only when we have chased them out,” Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, a 32-year-old ex-soldier, said of Rajapaksa, his influential family and all the lawmakers.

Pushpakumara said he fought in the last stages of Sri Lanka's civil war with ethnic Tamil rebels, which government soldiers won in 2009 after 2 1/2 decades. Both Rajapaksa, who served as a powerful defense bureaucrat, and his older brother Mahinda, who was then president and is currently prime minister, were credited with the victory.

“We will send them home, take the people’s money back and send them to jail," said Pushpakumara. “These people are destroying the country that we saved and it is sad to see the army and police protecting them.”

Supporters distributed food, water and raincoats to the protesters.

The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with $25 billion foreign debt — nearly $7 billion of which is due this year alone — and dwindling foreign reserves. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government had turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.

For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy fuel, cooking gas, food and medicines, most of which come from abroad and are paid for in hard currency. The fuel shortage has caused rolling power cuts lasting several hours a day.

Much of the anger expressed by weeks of growing protests has been directed at the Rajapaksa family, which been in power for most of the past two decades.

Critics accuse the Rajapaksa brothers of borrowing heavily to finance projects that earn no money, such as a port facility built with Chinese loans.

S.D Prageeth Madush, a 36-year-old businessman, spent the night at the protest site.

“When the people ask you to go, you should go democratically," said Madush. “Anyone can see that the people don’t like him (the president) anymore but he doesn’t like to let go of power.”

“I am going to stay on. We have to suffer difficulties if we are to make a better future for our children,” he said.

The crisis and protests triggered the Cabinet's resignation last Sunday. Four ministers were sworn in as caretakers but much of the key portfolios are vacant.

Rajapaksa proposed the creation of a unity government but the main opposition party rejected the idea. Parliament has failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the crisis after nearly 40 governing coalition lawmakers said they would no longer vote according to coalition instructions, significantly weakening the government.

With opposition parties divided, they too have not been able to show majority and take control of Parliament.

Pressure mounts on Sri Lanka leader to quit as crisis grows

By KRISHAN FRANCIS

April 9, 2022

1 of 12

Sri Lankans protest outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in the country's main business district to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the country's president to resign amid worst economic crisis in history.

 (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Thousands of Sri Lankans rallied in the country’s main business district and Christian clergy marched in the capital to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the debt-ridden nation’s president to resign, as anxiety and anger over shortages simmered.

Protesters carrying national flags and placards, some bemoaning the hardships through songs, blamed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his administration for mismanaging the crisis. He has remained steadfast in refusing to step down even after most of his Cabinet quit and loyal lawmakers rebelled, narrowing a path for him to seek a way out as his team prepares to negotiate with international lending institutions.

“Go home Rajapaksas” and “We need responsible leadership,” read the placards.

The protest also included a large number of youngsters who had organized themselves through social media and refuse to accept any political leadership. Many carried signs, saying “You messed with the wrong generation!”



The protesters stayed around the president’s office and vowed not to leave until their mission is accomplished.

For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy fuel, cooking gas, food and medicines, most of which come from abroad and are paid for in hard currency. The fuel shortage has caused rolling power cuts lasting several hours a day.


The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with $25 billion foreign debt over the next five years — nearly $7 billion of which is due this year alone — and dwindling foreign reserves. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government had turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.

Much of the anger expressed by weeks of growing protests has been directed at Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who head an influential clan that has been in power for most of the past two decades. Five other family members are lawmakers, three of whom resigned as ministers last Sunday.

VIDEO  https://youtu.be/Lkor8rWlYXY

Thakshila Jayasinghe, a 35-year-old lawyer who joined the protest, said that she felt sorry for voting for Rajapaksa in the 2019 presidential election. “I wonder what sin I have committed by voting for this president when I see the people suffer,” she said.

Reports said that at least four elderly people have died while standing in lines for hours trying to buy cooking gas or kerosene oil.

Jayasinghe said she voted for Rajapaksa believing he was the best candidate to restore national security following the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed more than 260 people. The attacks, blamed on local Muslim militants with ties to the Islamic State group, also shattered the tourism industry, alongside the pandemic, depriving Sri Lanka of hard currency.



At the same time, critics accuse Rajapaksa of borrowing heavily to finance projects that earn no money, such as a port facility built with Chinese loans.

Catholic clergy and lay people joined a rally from the “martyrs cemetery” in Negombo, north of the capital Colombo, where more than 100 people who died in the suicide attacks in the area’s St. Sebastian’s Church are buried.

They protested the economic crisis as well as the government’s alleged failure to uncover the conspirators behind the bombings.

“Today the country needs a major change and a new beginning,” Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told protesters. “We ask from every citizen of this country to come together and change this system. To get together and tell these people to leave.”

“It’s enough now, it’s enough destroying the country, now leave and hand it over to someone who can govern this country,” he said.

The protest later moved near the Anglican cathedral in Colombo.

The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has been critical of the investigation into the bombings, citing allegations that some members of the state intelligence units knew and met with at least one of the attackers.

Sri Lankans Catholic nuns protest in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Christian clergy marched into the capital to observe a day of protest on Saturday calling on the country's president to resign amid worst economic crisis in history. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Rajapaksa earlier proposed the creation of a unity government following the Cabinet resignations, but the main opposition party rejected the idea. Parliament has failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the crisis after nearly 40 governing coalition lawmakers said they would no longer vote according to coalition instructions, significantly weakening the government.

With opposition parties divided, they too have not been able to show majority and take control of Parliament.

How Texas' Energy Woes Are Derailing Life In This Houston Neighborhood

Xander Peters
Sat, April 9, 2022

Texas has expanded storage for natural gas and propane, which backers say will shore up the state's energy grid. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

LONG READ

HOUSTON ― The Southwest Crossing subdivision has always been a quiet place, a haven just outside the city’s concrete jungle where the sound of children laughing bounces off neatly paved streets. That was the case until last May, when some residents started receiving letters from CenterPoint Energy that a propane storage facility was moving in next door.

Within weeks, residents Eugene Pack and Brittney Stredic could hear construction equipment revving in the distance. At the time, they wondered how the decision was made to build the facility in their section of Fort Bend County ― where, of the more than 800,000 people who live in this area of the city, nearly half identify as nonwhite, according to recent U.S. Census data. The two have since become outspoken community organizers trying to stop the project.

CenterPoint Energy started work on its new propane storage facility in August. It is expected to hold 300,000 gallons of the highly flammable gas in four underground tanks the size of small submarines. The company said the project was planned to be completed in March. Stredic told HuffPost in late March that construction of the propane storage facility was still underway.

The facility is just 500 feet from homes, and residents worry about its effects on their health, their safety, their property values — their very future in Southwest Crossing.

“The level of fear that they’ve placed in this community, it’s insane,” said Pack, 71, a longtime resident and a preacher at Houston’s Praise and Worship Center in the city’s 3rd Ward neighborhood. He and Stredic were standing in a church parking lot next to the CenterPoint construction site, where workers were leaving with their lunches on a rainy day in November. “I don’t know what they were thinking — to put this much of a chemical in a residential neighborhood. This is a dense area.”

Energy has been on the minds of Texans since last year’s rare, fatal winter storm Uri caused power outages for nearly 5 million people across the state. Lawmakers and the energy sector have looked at options for reinforcing the state’s energy grid, but despite passage of legislation and new state standards, energy experts say they haven’t taken many steps.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry — which produces natural gas, the energy source perhaps most to blame for the 2021 blackouts after freezing temperatures caused operations to fail during peak usage — has been left alone. Propane, a byproduct of crude oil and natural gas used to heat homes and power appliances, accounted for more than 47% of the state’s electricity generation in 2019. Comparable power sources like coal, nuclear, wind and solar make up a combined 52%, according to state data.

Natural gas and propane storage expansion have been underway in Texas for years, promoted as a way to shore up the energy grid.

But Southwest Crossing residents worry about the possibility of gas leaks and explosions. They also worry about longer-term effects. Across town, Houston’s 5th Ward, another historically diverse neighborhood, has been dealing with a slowly leaking underground plume containing various chemicals ― including creosote, which preserves wood — from a former rail yard site. The plume is alleged to have created cancer clusters among longtime residents, including in children.

“All it takes is one time, one human error,” said Stredic, 27, a lifelong Southwest Crossing resident who has taken time away from her college education to organize against the CenterPoint Energy propane storage site. “People are going to make mistakes. It’s just a matter of, when is that mistake going to happen?”
Cheap Energy, But At What Cost?

Texas is the top energy-producing state in the U.S., with an energy sector worth an estimated $712 billion. The Lone Star State also consumes more energy than any other state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But mistakes have become commonplace as the state attempts to reinforce its power grid.

In 1989 and 2011, Texans experienced widespread power failures due to extreme winter weather. Both episodes offered warnings for future winter storms, but neither regulators nor utilities took action, setting up the calamity the state saw in 2021.

At the height of Uri, natural gas wells and wind turbines froze, and coal, nuclear and gas plants were knocked offline — effectively disabling the bulk of Texas’ power grid. As a result, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the grid, cut power for several days to 2 million homes. Natural gas use spiked as Texans weathered freezing temperatures within their homes, and power plants were unable to restart to meet needs due to extreme weather. It was the largest forced outage in U.S. history.

The decision was a last-ditch effort to keep Texas’ energy grid online, and it left Texans scrambling to stay warm. Some burned books and furniture in their homes — with some accidentally burning their homes down in the process. State estimates in the aftermath found that 246 people died in 77 counties. However, other estimates indicate that the final number of casualties from the winter storm was likely much higher.

Winter storm Uri brought historic cold weather and power outages to Texas in February 2021. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Natural gas utilities, Texas’ majority source of power during winter months, blamed electricity generators for the blackouts. But energy experts say the real problem was that utility companies hadn’t weatherized the grid, which would have required enclosing equipment at power facilities to better protect them from extreme weather. Pressurized dry air is needed to run turbines that then generate electricity for the grid. Importantly, the weatherization precautions keep the dry air dry, as well as operable.

Since then, the standards expected of Texas’ power plants have changed. The state’s Public Utility Commission passed new rules, effective as of December, mandating that power plants better winterize their systems, and requiring that operators provide a “notarized attestation” that fixes have been made since the 2021 winter storm. There are also comprehensive, year-round guidelines for weather emergency preparedness and standards.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers passed a bill in the most recent legislative session that set new weatherization standards for Texas’ independent energy grid. But while the legislation did create a winter storm emergency alert plan and established the Texas Energy Reliability Council, not included in the bill was funding for necessary weatherization upgrades. The upshot, energy experts say, is that substantive action since the winter storm has been underwhelming. In fact, natural gas facilities, whose failure contributed significantly to the winter storm blackout, have been left alone.

Despite pleas from across the political spectrum, upon signing the bill in June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) declared that “everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid.”

‘A Pretty Scary Thought’

Texas has been the only state on its own power grid since 1935, a hawkish means of avoiding federal regulation. However, the state’s independent grid offers a unique opportunity for companies like CenterPoint Energy to capitalize on catastrophic winter storms.

As part of an enormous $40 billion spending plan that the Houston-based company announced last September, CenterPoint intends to invest $16 billion in natural gas expansion nationwide over the next 10 years. It has also pledged to lower its emissions to net zero by 2035, an initiative that entails retiring coal units and implementing more solar power technology, according to the company.

Included in the plan is increased use of technologies like propane-air peak shaving facilities. The technology, which has been used since at least the 1950s, blends vaporized liquid propane and compressed air to store for use when natural gas supplies are short. The Southwest Crossing project is one such facility.

Propane-air peak shaving facilities “are there to be a little bit of a backup,” said Dr. Carey King, an assistant director and research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute.

The technology also has the benefit of providing additional backup for the grid when the next storm hits, he noted.

“Some places might be better connected or have more than one connection,” King said. “If one power line goes down, there’s another one that’s delivering power to a given area.”

CenterPoint Energy built its first propane-air peak shaving facility, the Bluebonnet Point Reserve, in North Houston, another predominantly Black and Hispanic section of the city, in October 2019. The Southwest Crossing facility will be the fourth in the Houston area.

“It’s a short distance away. To have two of these types of facilities is a pretty scary thought,” Stredic said. “It’s enough to take out our whole community on this side and that side.”

Stredic and Pack have been at the forefront of their community’s effort. They’ve led protests next to the construction site, and they’ve helped keep neighbors informed. They, like other members of their community, want answers from either the city or CenterPoint Energy on why neighborhoods with high shares of people of color were chosen for the facilities.

“As you can see, we’re sitting right next to a gas station, and there’s a church, and there’s another gas station,” Stredic said, pointing down the street. “I don’t know if they considered that the lives here needed to be protected.”
Why Here?

Historically, industrial sites built near diverse neighborhoods aren’t coincidental, especially in Houston.

A 2017 paper by sociologists at Rice University found that the city’s Black children, who are more likely to live in industry-heavy sections of the city, are twice as likely to develop asthma as Houston’s white children. A 2019 paper by the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists also found that 90% of Houston’s Manchester-Harrisburg community — whose residents are 90% Hispanic and 8% Black — lives within three miles of at least one industrial or toxic waste facility.

But these trends aren’t unique to Houston.

A 2017 report by the Clean Air Task Force and the NAACP concentrated on Black and brown “fence-line” communities ― that is, diverse communities that border oil and natural gas facilities. It found that more than 1 million Black Americans live within half a mile of these types of facilities. In the 91 U.S. counties that have a refinery or a facility that’s currently under construction, those facilities expose as many as 6.7 million Black Americans — 14% of the nation’s total Black population — to toxic and hazardous emissions.

We understand they want to better service this city, especially when we have adverse weather events, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of other people's safety.Brittney Stredic, Southwest Crossing resident

About 1 in 5 Black Americans lives near an oil or petroleum refinery, the report found.

Southwest Crossing organizers say they don’t want to be the next statistic.

“We’re not just an average community. We’re one that goes above and beyond to help each other,” Pack said. They’re looking to preserve Southwest Crossing for their “children, our grandchildren, to be able to live comfortably,” he said.

More than anything, community members say they’re confused. Of all the places a facility like CenterPoint Energy’s could be built, why here — why in their backyards?

“Historically, these types of facilities are hazardous to the environment and to people,” Stredic said. “We don’t want to accuse CenterPoint of making that type of move, but evidence is not speaking strongly towards that, either ... Until an emergency happens, or something is released in the air, it won’t necessarily be considered a hazard.”

Their intention isn’t to hinder infrastructure.

“We understand they want to better service this city, especially when we have adverse weather events,” Stredic said. “But it shouldn’t come at the cost of other people’s safety.”

It’s unclear what options Southwest Crossing residents have at this point.

In an emailed statement to HuffPost, Alejandra Diaz, a spokesperson for CenterPoint Energy, said company officials met with Houston Council Member Martha Castex-Tatum, whose district includes Southwest Crossing, last June. (Castex-Tatum’s office did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.) Several more meetings took place last summer, followed by a three-week voluntary work stoppage at the facility’s construction site while the company responded to community concerns.

“Throughout the process, CenterPoint Energy has remained committed to open communications with our customers and community members,” Diaz said. “We appreciate the communities’ support, and respect those who voiced their concerns. We have listened to those concerns and ensured they were addressed.”

The Southwest Crossing organizers and their efforts are a version of the classic fight against “unwanted facilities in Black and brown communities,” said Dr. Denae King, a toxicologist at Texas Southern University whose work identifies community environmental health concerns in the region.

But she noted that the community’s struggle with CenterPoint Energy is different, in that “by the time they realized, it was already approved; they’d started working on the area.”

King worries most about scenarios involving a chain-reaction explosion. “It could be pretty catastrophic,” she said. Her sister-in-law lives in Southwest Crossing.

That’s what Southwest Crossing residents have to consider each morning as they awake to the sound of construction equipment revving only about a football field away.

There have been upsides, Stredic said. Their community feels more united than ever, bonded over a shared disturbance in the place they call home.

“It’s brought a new sense of unity,” she said.

There have also been losses. In January, Pack died unexpectedly.

“We are still making progress despite our loss,” Stredic said. “Our goal is for them to shut it down and move it away from here.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.