Stella Nyanzi: Uganda's radical activist

Nyanzi's fight for free speech, women's rights and LGBTQ rights has landed her in high-security prison — twice. But she remains critical of President Yoweri Museveni, even while exiled in Germany.

Munich, February 2022: Despite the cold, damp winter weather, Stella Nyanzi is wearing a short top and pants made from Kitenge fabric, a traditional African wax print cloth that is popular in Uganda, Nyanzi's homeland. Her lipstick is a striking red. She loves lipstick; she sees it as sort of war paint, as if she could use it to underscore her words as she speaks them. The feminist's words already tend to be quite powerful — so much so that they have twice landed her in prison and forced her into exile.

Stella Nyanzi has been a German PEN grant recipient since Feburary 2022

Catching her breath in Germany

Since the end of January, Nyanzi and her three children have been living in Germany, where she is the current recipient of the "Writer-in-Exile" grant of the German PEN Center, which advocates on behalf of persecuted authors.

"What is important is that what needs to be said to dictatorships can be said and nobody will kill me," Nyanzi tells DW. "My body won't to be beaten down. That is what freedom means."

The path to her current state of freedom was long and dangerous. In Uganda, the 47-year-old activist and civil rights campaigner is considered one of the harshest critics of President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the East African nation for over 35 years. Nyanzi has used her words and actions to protest Museveni and his government, which has arrested, tortured or even simply "disappeared" undesirable opponents.

Nyanzi has also been considered undesirable. In 2017 she spent over a month in the maximum security prison Luzira for what she calls a "banal" Facebook post in which she described Museveni as "a pair of buttocks" and his wife, Uganda's education minister, Janet Museveni, as "empty-brained."

Prior to Nyanzi's arrest, a major controversy had erupted over Museveni's broken 2016 election campaign promise to provide free monthly sanitary pads to all "poor girls." In Uganda, as in many other sub-Saharan African nations, menstruation products are an unaffordable luxury for many women and girls. This lack of material and the associated shame forces many girls to regularly miss school, and this lost learning time is difficult to make up. Some girls end up abandoning school entirely.  

Stella Nyanzi distributes sanitary pads at a school event about reproductive health

Museveni's promise could have changed the lives of many girls and increased their chances of getting a good education. Nyanzi spared no criticism of him, even as his election campaign was still ongoing, and accused him of having "s**t" on Ugandan democracy. She also took part in protests, where she was confronted by the police. Yet she wasn't prepared for what followed her sentence.

"When dealing for the first time with repressive militant brutal dictatorships, one might be innocent, and we are allowed to be innocent and naive," she reflects. "But the vast engagement of brutality from the state quickly sharpens a person."

Stella Nyanzi is arrested during a anti-government protest

Trailblazing research on sexuality in sub-Saharan Africa

Nyanzi's one-month imprisonment left her so physically weak she could barely walk; she had caught malaria while in prison and also suffered from a urinary tract infection. But, as she recalls, she felt mentally stronger than ever: "If the dictatorship of Museveni hoped that by imprisoning me and finding me guilty and convicting and sentencing me and locking me up in maximum-security prison, if they thought it would silence me, I had to shock them and say, no ... I'm keeping talking... it's going to be harder."

On the streets and in social media, Nyanzi has campaigned tirelessly for freedom of speech, as well as for the rights of women and LGBTQ individuals. Her motivation stems in part from her personal life; her father married multiple wives to make sure he would have sons and thereby fulfill his family's wishes, she explains.

After receiving her doctorate in medical anthropology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Nyanzi focused her work on sexual and reproductive health, with a particular focus on the stigma faced by youths, women and sexual minorities in Uganda. She most recently conducted research at Makerere University in Kampala. Both the scientific and activist communities consider her work to be trailblazing in how it deals with sexual orientation and queer identities — topics that are considered culturally taboo in Uganda and other sub-Saharan countries, and therefore difficult to research.

Torture and trauma in prison

Over the years, Nyanzi has gained a large social media following. Her posts are critical, blunt and accusatory. In 2018, she wrote and posted a strongly worded poem expressing the wish that Museveni had never been born: "Yoweri, they say it was your / birthday yesterday. / How nauseatingly disgusting a day! / I wish the acidic pus flooding Esiteri's [Museveni's mother] cursed vaginal canal had burnt up your unborn fetus…"

Her poem resulted in a second high-security prison stay — this time for 16 months. At the end of her sentence, she managed to smuggle out her prison uniform and worn-out flip-flops, mended many times over; she keeps them like trophies of that time.

"I stole this uniform from prison and I celebrate that because the prison took away for me my baby," she says, pausing before going on. "Prison wardresses beat me up. They tortured me. They traumatized me. When I showed them the blood between my legs, they say to me, that is tomato sauce. [That] I'm hiding. I'm pretending. I'm malingering. My child, beaten out of my womb, was put on a rubbish pit with gloves and syringes and medicines, and I was not allowed to bury my child."

But not even this second imprisonment could break Nyanzi. "Today, in spite of all the pain and the torture that I had to endure in prison, I celebrate," she says. "I celebrate having been locked up because for the first time in the history of Uganda, a woman was able to turn penalization and to turn criminalization on its head and use the courts of law and the prison system to speak truth to power and shame and embarrass and expose the government, and I celebrate that." During her numerous trials, Nyanzi launched into sharply worded, forceful monologues, as well as baring her breasts as an act of protest.

In court, Stella Nyanzi would not be silenced

Processing through poetry

Now in Germany, Nyanzi is hoping to artistically process what she experienced over 305 days in that maximum security prison in the form of 305 poems. In 2020, she published a book of poems written while in prison. She continues to be active on social media and recently joined solidarity actions to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As a single mother, Nyanzi often worried about the safety of her children. "My deepest regret is the effect of every night I slept away from my children," she says. "Every time I was on the prison floor where I slept, sleeping on my blanket, I thought: Did my children have food? Did my boys bathe? They hate homework, so have they done homework?"

Activist and single mother: Stella Nyanzi and her three kids

The PEN grant will allow Nyanzi to stay in Germany for a maximum of three years, but she doesn't want to think that far ahead yet. Her biggest concern at present is finding a good school for her children. Her 15-year-old sons are already signed up for soccer, her 17-year-old daughter for swimming. After harrowing separations, it's a step toward normalcy for Nyanzi and her family.

VIDEO Radical rudeness – for women's rights in Uganda

This article was originally written in German.

Ukraine's bid to recruit fighters from Africa sparks uproar

Nigeria, Senegal and Algeria have criticized Ukraine's efforts to enlist international fighters as it resists a Russian invasion. Analysts say those who have responded to the call need to reconsider.

Many young Africans may be willing to go to Ukraine as hired fighters to escape poverty

Russia's war on Ukraine is barely two weeks old but Kyiv is already attracting potential foreign fighters from as far away as Kenya.

"If Ukraine decides to pay me a very good amount of money, which I know I cannot earn here, I will definitely go there and fight," Kimanzi Nashon, a student in the Kenyan capital Nairobi said.

"When we go there, and then the war ends before anything happens, I will come back to Kenya and be a millionaire," said Nashon.

Nashon isn't alone in harboring thoughts of being a hired fighter in Ukraine.

"If an opportunity presented itself for me to fight in Ukraine as a mercenary, I would be on my heels running there," Beatrice Kaluki, who is unemployed, told DW.

"I would rather die on the front line in Ukraine knowing that my family would be compensated even after my death, rather than die in Kenya from depression because of the insane unemployment rate!"

The 27-year-old said she believes other youth would run there [to Ukraine] if a chance presented itself because "they would rather die there fighting than die in this country from poverty."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on pro-democracy nations to support his country

Ukraine's call to all

They were reacting to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who last week called for like-minded people to come to his country's defense against Russia's invasion.

According to Ryan Cummings, director of Signal Risk, a South African-based security risk management consultancy, President Zelenskyy might be capitalizing on Africa's challenging socio-economic conditions to lure African fighters to Ukraine.

"African nationals might see an economic opportunity from participating in this conflict," Cummings told DW.

He said the reward could potentially come from being granted Ukrainian citizenship or being provided some form of financial compensation for participating in the conflict on behalf of Ukrainian forces. 

However, African countries have come out strongly to condemn Ukraine's call for African fighters to join the "international legion" against the Russian invasion.

Nigeria on Monday issued a warning on Twitter to its citizens that it would not tolerate any recruitment of mercenaries to fight alongside Ukrainian forces against Russian troops.

A spokespersonf or Nigeria's foreign affairs ministr, Francisca Omayuli, said Nigeria would not allow its nationals to volunteer as mercenaries.

Omayuli also said that the Ukrainian Embassy in Nigeria had refuted local Nigerian media reports that it was demanding money from Nigerian volunteers.

“The Embassy ... dissociated itself from the claim that it is requesting $1,000 (€917) from each Nigerian volunteer for air ticket and visa,” Omayuli said.

According to the Nigerian daily, The Guardian, last week more than 100 young men registered their interest in fighting for Ukraine at the country's embassy in Abuja.

Senegal 'shocked' by Kyiv's recruitment drive

Senegal has also expressed its displeasure with Ukraine's government, saying that at least 36 people in Senegal were ready to confront Russian forces.

DW tried to reach some of the volunteers but was unsuccessful.

Senegal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it was astonished to learn that the Embassy of Ukraine in Dakar had posted an appeal on its Facebook page for foreign citizens to come to Ukraine's military defense.

In a statement, the Senegalese government criticized the initiative and warned its citizens that recruiting volunteers, mercenaries, or foreign fighters on Senegalese soil is illegal.

Although Ukraine's Embassy in Senegal has since deleted the Facebook post, the willingness of some young Africans to fight in Ukraine raises questions about their profiles and motivations.

"These young people who want to get involved [in Ukraine] have not fully considered political or religious implications," said Serigne Bamba Gaye, a researcher on peace, security and governance at the US-based Peace Operations Training Institute (POTI).

"They are only interested in answering a call without perhaps understanding the issues surrounding the Ukrainian conflict," Gaye said.

Africa's complex ties with Russia

Senegal, which shares extensive political and military ties with Russia, was one of 17 African countries that abstained from voting on the March 2 UN resolution condemning Russia's aggression and calling for an end to the fighting.

Algeria, another client of Russian military hardware, also called on Ukraine to desist from trying to enlist fighters from its country. Its government, too, has remained silent over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"For the past 20 or 30 years, we have seen many recruiters who recruit young Africans to take them to play the role of mercenaries," Gaye said, adding that the prospect of economic gain easily lures young people.

"The other element that seems important to me is the social [media] networks that make any cause today have a global dimension. A country needs support, so we're going to go there."

Social media has turned into a battlefield between those who back Ukraine and those for Russia.

For security and risk analyst Ryan Cummings, African countries need to consider the implications of allowing their citizens to travel to Ukraine as hired guns.

"Russia has stated any country that is actively assisting Ukraine in this war, or as Russia calls it: 'a special military operation to demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine,' will be considered at war with Russia," he said.

He warned that the Kremlin could also retaliate by ending diplomatic relations with African countries that support Ukraine.

Andrew Wasike and Carole Assignon contributed to this article.

Edited by: Kate Hairsine

Uruguay's century-old Russian colony troubled over war from afar


People walk past the Maximo Gorki Cultural Centre in San Javier, 

Uruguay on March 2, 2022

 (AFP/Eitan ABRAMOVICH)


Russian descendant Alejandro Sabelin poses at his house

 in San Javier, Rio Negro department, Uruguay on March 2, 2022 

(AFP/Eitan ABRAMOVICH)



Russian descendant Alejandro Sabelin shows the passport of his grandfather at his house in San Javier, Uruguay

 (AFP/Eitan ABRAMOVICH)

The Na Zdorovie restaurant and hotel is seen in San Javier, Uruguay on March 1, 2022, where the village's Russian roots are visible in the business's name

 (AFP/Eitan ABRAMOVICH)


A girl poses with traditional Russian nesting dolls, called matryoshkas, at the Libertad square in San Javier, Uruguay, on March 1, 2022

 (AFP/Eitan ABRAMOVICH)

Aerial view of San Javier, Rio Negro department, Uruguay, on March 2, 2022 (AFP/Ivan PISARENKO)

Jordane BERTRAND
Mon, 7 March 2022

Far away from Kyiv and even further from Moscow, residents of the small Uruguayan village of San Javier -- an old Russian settlement -- look on with dismay at the invasion of Ukraine.

At a first glance, the community's grid plan, low houses and surrounding fields resembles any other rural Uruguayan village -- but a scratch below the surface reveals the history of a site founded more than a century ago by Russian peasants.

Although few of their descendants speak Russian or even carry Russian names, the inhabitants here insist they are "proud" of their Slavic heritage, while also firmly denouncing the motherland's invasion of Ukraine.


San Javier has several Cyrillic inscriptions on display, a "Maximo Gorki" cultural center and five giant matryoshka dolls on the central square.

It all points to a history that is "unique in Uruguay and South America," says Leonardo Martinez, the deputy mayor of the village of 1,800 people.

San Javier's story began in 1913 when 300 families -- originally from Russia's western Voronezh region and followers of the "New Israel" Christian sect that was persecuted by Tsarist Russia -- arrived in Montevideo.

A few months later, around 600 people settled in San Javier, a five-hour drive northwest of Montevideo and flanked by the Uruguay River.

It was the largest autonomous Russian agricultural colony in South America, and quickly became a roaring success.

A century later, the sunflower -- which the colonists introduced to Uruguay -- appears everywhere as the village symbol.

"Looking at photos we feel a bit nostalgic... for the great sacrifice they made," said Martinez, 43, the great-grandson of an original settler.

The mayoral office claims a "high percentage" of the current inhabitants descend from the Russian colonizers, although over time the village has seen a blending of people and cultures, like the country as a whole.

The local restaurant offers the typical Uruguayan grilled meat "asado" as well as "shashlik," a type of lemon-seasoned skewered meat popular across much of the former Soviet Union.

The village square hosts Uruguayan creole folk dances as well as traditional Russian ones.

- Killing 'brothers' -

The village, which has its own museum, has become a tourist site for its Russian history.

But despite those ties, not a single flag or banner proclaiming partisanship can be found in its streets.

"I've not seen explicit support in San Javier" for either country, said Martinez about the war between Russia and Ukraine more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away.

"We're against the war, that's obvious," he said. "Against all armed conflict."

Leonardo Lorduguin, a 22-year-old San Javier resident, has set up a Facebook page dedicated to his village.

He is fascinated by the Russian language, which he has been learning for two years -- one of the few of his generation to speak it.

But he would not commit to either side in the conflict.

Like many other villagers, he insists that the first settlers came from "Great Russia" -- an old term that includes territories outside the modern Russian borders.

"In 1913, only Russians came but some had Ukrainian names. They came to Montevideo and were told there was a Russian colony in San Javier," said Lorduguin, reeling off the Russian and Ukrainian surnames of some villagers.

Alejandro Sabelin, 80, is one of the only other villagers who speaks Russian alongside Spanish.

His father was born in San Javier three months after his grandparents arrived there.

He recognizes that the language is being lost in the community. His own children understand Russian better than they speak it.

A picture of his grandparents hangs in his small house.

"I'm really sorry about what is happening because it is almost like killing your brothers," he said of Russia's invasion of its neighbor.

Although he has never visited the homeland of his grandparents, Sabelin says, "I will never stop supporting Russia."

But "the war is awful, what's happening is horrible," he adds.

jb/bc/caw

Ukraine priests want to break from 'Cain' Russian church

The Kremlin's war against Ukraine has pushed some priests in the country to call for a break from the Russian Orthodox Church, to which their parishes have belonged for centuries.

© Yuriy Dyachyshyn

 Ukraine set up an Orthodox church independent of Moscow in late 2018

AFP

Like much of their social and cultural fabric, Ukraine and Russia have been intertwined by their religious beliefs for hundreds of years.

But President Vladimir Putin's war, which has killed hundreds and forced more than 1.7 million people to flee the country, has changed that too.

"The Russian president is today's Cain," says Iov Olshansky, a priest at the Orthodox Resurrection New Athos Monastery in the western city of Lviv. In the Bible, Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, kills his brother Abel.

© Yuriy Dyachyshyn Father Iov Olchansky is calling for a break with the mother church in Moscow following Russia's invasion of his country


"The only way for our Church is independence," he says.

- Unified Ukrainian Church --

The Russian Orthodox Church was dominant for some 300 years in Ukraine, including during Soviet times, when religion was officially outlawed and believers practiced in secret.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Orthodox faith in Ukraine splintered into three branches: one whose clerics pledged loyalty to the Moscow patriarchate; one loyal to a newly established patriarchate in Kyiv; and the smaller Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church.

But this changed after Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then backed separatists, who carved out two unrecognised breakaway regions in Ukraine's east. That conflict has since claimed some 13,000 lives.

© Yuriy Dyachyshyn Refugees take their breakfast in a room filled with books and icons

Four years after the annexation of Crimea, the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognised Kiev's religious independence, allowing the creation of a unified Ukrainian Church.

The Russian Church lost many members to the new unified Ukrainian Church but remained the country's second-largest confession. According to a poll in 2021, 58 percent of Orthodox believers said they were members of the new unified church, compared with 25 percent who pledged allegiance to the Moscow patriarchate.

But now priests like 33-year-old Olshansky are calling for a split.

"All our prayers are now for the re-establishment of peace in Ukraine and for the victory of our army," he says.

- Priests call for split -

The monastery that Olshansky oversees has become a centre for dispensing aid to the masses of people fleeing the fighting in the east.

When he spoke to AFP, a group of some 33 adults and children who had spent the night there, some sleeping on the floor in front of the altar, were eating their breakfast of porridge and buttered bread sandwiches.

"We're trying to help everyone," says Olshansky, who wears clerical robes and a black hooded sweatshirt. "We don't ask who they are."

© Yuriy Dyachyshyn

 The monastery has become a centre for dispensing aid for people fleeing the fighting further east

Olshansky's monastery is also helping Ukrainian armed forces, collecting and sending supplies like hygiene products and sleeping bags.

Olshansky is not alone in calling for a break from the Moscow patriarchate, whose head, Patriarch Kirill, has called Russia's opponents in Ukraine "evil forces" rather than condemning the invasion.

In the Lviv diocese, Kirill's name is no longer mentioned in the liturgies and several priests from across Ukraine have posted a video calling for a complete break with the Russian Church.

Another group of priests from the Lviv region has called for a national meeting of the Church to formally declare its independence from Moscow.

That text has been posted in front of the Church of Saint George, the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church in Lviv, next to another listing the needs of the Ukrainian fighters.

- 'Brother killing his own brother' -

One such priest is taking refuge at the monastery, after fleeing his parish near Kyiv with his wife and two young children.

"I am 100-percent convinced that we should separate from the Russian patriarchate," says his wife, Vira Khvust.

"If they consider us brothers, then you can't have a brother killing his own brother. "A good neighbour will never go to war against his neighbour."

Western Ukraine -- where the vast majority of residents practice the Greek Catholic faith -- has been a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism for decades. Anti-Russian sentiment was high in the country even before the Crimea annexation.

So after the Kremlin unleashed its war on the country, Olshansky faced abuse and threats from some local elected officials.

For them, his association with a Moscow-based church meant he was a figure of influence for Russia.

Some Russian Orthodox churches in the west of the country have even been searched, suspected of concealing weapons.

One group of youths hung up a placard insulting the Moscow patriarch at the Church of Saint George.

Despite these tensions, Olshansky says he does not feel threatened.

"They are only emotions. I don't get angry at these people. I understand them and forgive them," he says.

ant/yad/gil/jm

Ukraine Team Defy Heartbreak To Win Bittersweet Paralympic Golds
 adeleyekunle

It was a bittersweet day for Ukraine at the Winter Paralympics with nine medals and a clean sweep of two biathlon events Tuesday — just as one athlete learned her father had been taken prisoner by Russian troops, IgbereTV reports.



Despite grappling with heartbreak following Russia’s invasion of their homeland, the yellow and blue team dug deep to net two golds, four silver and three bronze medals on day four in Beijing.

In a show of girl power on international women’s day, Iryna Bui achieved her lifetime dream of Paralympic gold, sharing the podium with team-mates Oleksandra Kononova and Liudmyla Liashenko in the standing middle distance biathlon race.

“We are here to fight for Ukraine, with Ukraine and in the name of Ukraine,” the 26-year-old Bui told reporters.

Kononova said that even though she is physically in China competing, mentally she is still back home.

“All my thoughts, my heart and my soul is with my family and with my child,” the 31-year-old said.

“Emotionally it’s very difficult to focus and to concentrate on the race and the competition, so this is the most difficult Paralympic Games for me.”

Liashenko’s home in Kharkiv, which is under heavy bombing, was destroyed Monday which caused her to pull out of her cross-country race, team spokeswoman Nataliia Harach said.

The United Nations estimates 1.7 million Ukrainians have fled the country as part of the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II.

Second Russian general killed on the battlefield as 'demoralised' troops suffer heavy losses

Verity Bowman
Tue, 8 March 2022

Major General Vitaly Gerasimov

A Russian general has been killed near the besieged city of Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian officians, making him the second senior Russian commander to die in the invasion.

Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, the first deputy commander of Russia's 41st army, died on Monday alongside other senior officials.

The Kremlin has been distracted by logistical issues and Ukrainian military commanders have claimed that the advance of Russia has been slowed by heavy losses and the “demoralisation” of its troops.

According to US intelligence, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has committed all of its troops congregated on the border into battle without making any significant territorial gains since late last week.

Russian forces are “demoralised and increasingly tend to looting and violations of international humanitarian law,” Ukrainian commanders said.

If the claims are verified, Gerasimov would become the second Russian general from the 41st army to die within a week.

Andrei Sukhovetsky was reportedly killed at the end of February.

Gerasimov was a decorated officer, having served during the second Chechen war, Russia’s activity in Syria, and the annexation of Crimea.

Bellingcat, an investigative journalism agency, said it had confirmed his death, which emerged after an alleged conversation between two Russian FSB officers was broadcast by the intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defence ministry.

The leaked conversation suggests Russia’s expensive new encrypted messaging service is already struggling to work, which would be a major blow for the Kremlin.

“Era is a super expensive cryptophone system that [Russia’s defence ministry] introduced in 2021 with great fanfare ... guaranteed [to] work ‘in all conditions,'" said Christo Grozev, Bellingcat’s director.

Mr Grozev said that during the phone call, an FSB officer assigned to the 41st army reported the death to a senior official, saying they had lost all secure communications.

“In the call, you hear the Ukraine-based FSB officer ask his boss if he can talk via the secure Era system. The boss says Era is not working,” he said.

Era needs 3G or 4G to operate, Mr Grovez added, but Russians have destroyed many 3G masts. The phone call was therefore made using a local sim card, resulting in the intercept.

РУССКИЕ!  МЯТЕЖ!  RUSSIANS! MUTINY!

‘They were sent as cannon fodder’: Siberian governor confronted by relatives of Russian unit

Pjotr Sauer
Tue, 8 March 2022


A Russian governor in Siberia has been confronted by angry citizens who blamed him for deploying a local riot police unit to Ukraine to become “cannon fodder”, a video clip circulating online showed.

The footage, first posted by Radio Free Europe (RFE) on Monday, showed a fiery exchange between Sergei Tsivilyov, the governor of the Kemerovo region, and people in the city of Novokuznetsk.

“They lied to everyone, they deceived everyone … Why did you send them there?” one woman asks Tsivilyov, saying that the soldiers thought they were going for military drills in Belarus.

“They didn’t know their objective … They were sent as cannon fodder,” the woman adds.

The governor would not have been responsible for the decision to deploy the unit, which would have been made by the country’s national guard, a separate internal military force directly subordinated to the president, Vladimir Putin.

According to RFE, the confrontation took place on Saturday at the gymnasium of the training base for riot police units, some of whose officers were killed or captured in Ukraine.

As the fighting in Ukraine nears its third week, more and more relatives of killed and captured Russian soldiers have expressed their opposition to the war, saying their loved ones were not told in advance about the country’s plans to invade Ukraine. Videos of captured Russian soldiers issued by the Ukrainians also appear to show that Russian troops were not informed of the invasion until the very end.

Western military experts have raised questions about Russian troops’ morale and preparedness in Ukraine, which could explain why Moscow’s blitzkrieg plan to overwhelm Ukraine and take Kyiv has so far failed.

Russia has revealed very little information about the state of its soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Last week, Russia’s defence ministry said that 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine. Ukraine’s military claimed on Sunday that more than 11,000 Russian troops had been killed since the invasion of Ukraine began.

In the video, Tsivilyov defended the invasion, saying that Russia’s actions in Ukraine “shouldn’t be criticised”.

“Look, you can shout and blame everyone right now, but I think that, while a military operation is in process, one shouldn’t make any conclusions,” Tsivilyov said.

Russian officials, as well as state media, have been referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion”.

Authorities have also introduced a number of new laws aimed at stifling public opposition to the war.

On Friday, Putin signed into law a bill that introduced jail terms of up to 15 years for fake news about the Russian army, forcing many Russian and international outlets to cease their coverage of the events.

And while the authorities have been successful at getting a large segment of the population behind its war efforts, videos such as the Novokuznetsk footage circulating online suggest the war is deeply unpopular among those who have lost friends and relatives in Ukraine.

The Guardian previously spoke to family members of a Russian sniper captured in Ukraine, who similarly expressed anger and shock about their relative’s involvement in the war.

“Young boys are thrown like cannon fodder, and most importantly for what? For palaces in Gelendzhik?” the close family member of the captured sniper Leonid Paktishev said, referring to the palatial mansion on the Black Sea that Russian independent journalists have said is linked to Putin.

‘We f****** hit them’: Russian warship that attacked Snake Island soldiers ‘destroyed’


Chiara Giordano
Tue, 8 March 2022

Members of Ukraine’s navy can be heard cheering as they appear to destroy a Russian warship while defending the Odessa region (General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Facebook)

Video footage has captured Ukrainian sailors cheering as they claim to have destroyed a Russian warship that attacked a small island on the first day of the war.

The recording, shared by the Ukrainian navy, shows a barrage of rockets being fired into the night sky during the defence of the Black Sea port of Odessa in the early hours of Monday before an orange glow appears to show a destroyed vessel in the distance.

One man can be heard shouting excitedly “We f****** hit them”, while another repeats the words spoken by captured Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island, saying: “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.”

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shared the footage on Facebook, writing: “Today, March 7, 2022, the Marine Corps units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, protecting Odessa region, struck an enemy ship.”

The Ukrainian navy later confirmed forces defending the port city in southern Ukraine hit a Russian vessel in the Black Sea with gunfire.

"The enemy has retreated again," it said in a brief statement on Facebook.

It was not immediately clear what type of vessel had been hit, however reports claim it was the Vasily Bykov – one of two ships involved in the notorious attack on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island which saw defiant Ukrainian border guards who refused to surrender tell the Russian navy “go f*** yourself” before being shelled in response.

In an audio recording of the incident, a Russian warship told the guards via loudspeaker that they should surrender or “be hit with a bomb strike”.

“Russian warship, go f*** yourself,” was their leader’s reply.

The 13 border guards stationed on the remote Snake Island, a largely uninhabited but strategically important strip of land in the Black Sea, about 186 miles west of Crimea, were initially thought to have been killed in the attack on 24 February.

Citizens fill bags with sand for frontlines along the beach of the Black Sea city of Odessa, in southern Ukraine, on 7 March 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

But days later it emerged they were still alive and had been taken prisoner.

Russian state media showed the Ukrainian soldiers’ arrival in Sevastopol, Crimea, where they are reportedly being held.

They surrendered after repelling two Russian attacks “due to the lack of ammunition,” the Ukrainian navy said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky returned to his Kyiv office on Monday night, declaring he was “not hiding” from anyone and would stay in Ukraine for as long as needed to win the war started by Russia. 

The extent of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Press Association Images)

Overnight attacks and shelling continued in parts of Ukraine, including Kyiv and Sumy, and the Kyiv suburb Bucha faced heavy artillery fire last night.

To the west, tens of thousands in Lviv are facing starvation and homelessness, the city’s mayor announced.

Russia’s advance has slowed but it is on track to storm Kyiv, the Ukrainian army said on Monday after a third round of negotiations between the two nations hit a deadlock.

But the Ukrainian defence forces claim to have killed another top Russian military leader, Major General Vitaly Gerasimov.

 Women 'working around the clock' to help Ukrainians, organizer says

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Mariya Dmytriyeva, a resident of Kyiv and women's rights expert for the Democracy Development Centre, tells CBC News she's not leaving Ukraine because she feels she will be more useful there than as a refugee.

 

Amnesty International: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is 'a crime under international law'

 

Cécile Coudriou, President of Amnesty International, joins FRANCE 24 and acknowledges that her organization has taken a "very strong position." Nevertheless, she asserts that they are "absolutely justified to call [Russia's invasion of Ukraine] an aggression, according to international law." Ms. Coudriou denounces Russia's actions, arguing that they did not have "a legitimate defense." She further states that Russia never sought authorization "from the Security Council of the United Nations. So, in that case, it can be characterized as an aggression." And now that the ICC is launching a war crimes investigation over Russia's assault on Ukraine, Ms. Coudriou is hoping that Vladimir Putin will face justice for his actions, not only in Ukraine, but also in Syria. "Our organization is trying to document, day after day, these war crimes because it will help in the investigation conducted by the International Criminal Court."

Ukrainians escape besieged Sumy through corridor

Ukrainians boarded buses to flee the besieged eastern city of Sumy on Tuesday (March 8), the first evacuation from a Ukrainian city through a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russia.

Saskatchewan prepared to accept large number of Ukrainian refugees

By David Giles Global News
Posted March 8, 2022

The UN says two million Ukrainians have fled country amid the ongoing conflict. Mike Armstrong has the latest on the ground in Lviv.

The Saskatchewan government is asking its federal counterpart to consider sending a larger number of refugees from Ukraine to Saskatchewan.

Jeremy Harrison, the province’s immigration minister, said the province has a long history of Ukrainian immigration and Saskatchewan would be an ideal location for incoming refugees.

READ MORE: Two million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russian invasion began, UN says

He also suggested taking advantage of the immigrant nominee program as a way of bringing more people to the province.

“We are not doing this exclusively because there is a labour shortage, we are doing this because we believe we are in a unique situation for there to be successful outcomes for refugees who are resettled regardless of skills or education,” Harrison said.

Immigration critic Aleana Young said while the NDP believes the province should take in as many people who want to come to Saskatchewan as possible, they want to ensure sufficient supports are in place.

“We’ve seen in the past that support, especially for those who have been fleeing war and conflict, has not always matched the need, whether it is language, support or care needed for students potentially experiencing trauma,” she said.

“I think of the hundreds of families who moved to Saskatchewan following the war in Syria. So ensuring that newcomers are supported and welcomed, of which I have no doubt, will be critical.”


READ MORE: Regina man shares his experiences while in Ukraine during Russian invasion

Premier Scott Moe said a number has not been attached to what his government will invest in supporting Ukrainians fleeing the conflict and coming to Saskatchewan.

“We have turned much of our attention towards how do we get those Ukrainian people here out of that area of conflict, get them to Saskatchewan where we can provide the supports,” he said.

“Whatever those supports are, they’ll be provided.”

Moe is also looking for unanimous support for a motion he introduced in the legislature on Monday that supports Ukraine and condemns Russia.

“Your courage and determination are an inspiration to us all. We unequivocally condemn this unprovoked and illegal invasion,” he said in a statement.

“Democracy and freedom are under attack and it is our hope that the whole world will stand up to Russia and say no.”

5:10 Mass exodus from Ukraine continues

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