That Kiev hunts down and mercilessly murders civilians in the captured territories is not Russian propaganda. Officials in Kiev say so openly.
Since the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive, I have been reporting on massacres carried out by the Kiev Nazi regime on civilians in the recaptured territories. Soldiers have been shooting people summarily whom they consider to be "collaborators" of the Russians. There was talk of outright massacres.
Western media did not report about all this even when the adviser to the Ukrainian President Aristovich publicly declared:
"Teachers and kindergarten teachers should remember that they are not nice aunts, but criminals, towards whom there is no sentimentality. The weather is such that it means either death or prison. We, as an absolutely European country, will not play with any sentimentality or indulgence"
And also the fact that the spokeswoman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights demanded from Kiev not to torture people in the freshly conquered territories near Kharkov, too was not worth mentioning to German "quality media". German "quality media" do not consider it necessary to inform their readers that Kiev is committing massacres in the territories recaptured by Ukraine.
The reports about Ukrainian atrocities do not stop, as the news of the last days show. On October 5, there were again reports of foreign mercenaries continuing to carry out shootings of civilians in the Kharkov region. On the same day, soldiers of the 25th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces released a video in which they declared that they no longer wanted to fight in their unit because, on the one hand, they are being senselessly sent to their deaths and abandoned by their commanders during operations, and because they are being given "criminal orders," as one soldier recounts:
"Before we went into action, the commander said: there are only occupiers there, there are no civilians there, shoot at all the houses, windows, cars, throw grenades into the basements."
British newspaper celebrates the massacres
The British newspaper Daily Mail also reported on the massacres on October 5, but the article downright celebrated them. The article began with stories about alleged torture chambers that supposedly existed under "Russian occupation" and that Ukrainian soldiers were now hunting down the perpetrators. In this way, the massacres of the Ukrainian army were to be sold to the readers as something good. The article was titled "'We'll hunt them down and shoot them like pigs': how Ukrainians are taking brutal revenge on the collaborators who betrayed their neighbors - and their country - to the Russians" and one could read there, among other things:
"Kiev has already opened investigations into 1,309 suspected traitors and initiated 450 criminal cases against collaborators accused of betraying their country and neighbors.Others are being tracked down and slaughtered by resistance fighters. A list leaked to this newspaper by a Kiev government source lists 29 such retaliatory killings, and 13 other assassination attempts in which some of the victims were wounded."A hunt has been called for collaborators, and their lives are not protected by the law," said Anton Gerashchenko, an Interior Ministry adviser. "Our intelligence services are eliminating them and shooting them like pigs.""
With this, I don't think anyone can deny what tragedies are currently unfolding in these areas, because it is openly stated by officials in Kiev that there are no laws protecting civilians from arbitrary shootings there. However, the German "quality media" do not report a word about it to their readers.
What you are shot for there
Kiev has passed laws that define who is considered a "collaborator". In order to be classified as such and to be shot on the spot, it is enough to have continued to do one's job as a teacher, to have continued to go to the office as a civil servant, it is even enough to have accepted humanitarian aid from Russia if one did not want to starve. Basically, practically all people who have come under Russian rule in the territories - whether voluntarily or not - are threatened in life and limb, because there are no trials, but soldiers - Ukrainian or foreign mercenaries - arbitrarily decide who will be shot as collaborators.
This is one of the reasons why discontent is rising in Russia, as I notice myself in conversations with friends. People don't understand why the Russian army cleared the territories so quickly and literally without a fight, without evacuating the people. One of the slogans used in Russia to justify the deployment in Ukraine is "We won't abandon our people!" - but that is exactly what many feel has happened in Kharkov.
The fact that the Russian army hardly had a chance to save all the people is overlooked in the heat of emotions. The Ukrainians attacked quite surprisingly and far outnumbered in soldiers and equipment. If the Russians had offered any significant resistance, they would have died senselessly, because the people they could not evacuate could not be reached by radio or mobile phone due to the lack of electricity, while at the same time many thousands of people who received warnings could be evacuated.
The blindness of 'Der Spiegel'
In Der Spiegel, on which I am so fond of working off on behalf of all German "quality media", I have found only one article about this in all the months that Ukraine has been committing its war crimes. On August 24, under the headline "Suicide missions, looting, threats - foreign fighters report abuse of power within the International Legion", Der Spiegel reported on looting that foreign mercenaries had to carry out on the orders of their Ukrainian superiors:
""Soldiers from my unit were supposed to break into the mall to collect furniture and electronics and all sorts of valuables," a Canadian fighter described to "Kyiv Independent" one of several incidents. A Cuban soldier shared, "The locals saw us loading the furniture, which made me very uncomfortable. It felt like we were robbing them. This is not what I came to Ukraine for." A French fighter wrote: "I was ashamed to carry out the order and remove furniture and valuables from stores in front of local residents who were suffering from the war.""
However, 'Der Spiegel' presented it as a kind of exception and, of course, this article was lost in the never-ending flood of anti-Russian Der Spiegel articles. Unfortunately, these "exceptions" take place in Ukraine on a daily basis, as the Daily Mail article shows once again. Looting by Ukrainian soldiers is commonplace, and I have been told by civilians in all the areas I have visited of planned looting. Shootings are also commonplace in areas captured by Ukraine, but German "quality media" keep quiet about this even when officials in Kiev openly proclaim it and even British newspapers report on it.
So the German "quality media" cannot claim not to know about it.
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