Letters: What was Greta Thunberg thinking?
Sweden is located very close to Russia and Ukraine. Does she not know that Ukraine was invaded by Russia in February 2022? That since then, approximately one million people have been killed or injured in the resulting war? That there has been extensive and serious environmental damage in Ukraine as a result of Russia's invasion?
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Canada Standard
2 hours ago
- Canada Standard
Ukraine Receives Another 1,200 Bodies From Russia As War Rages On
Russia 15 returned another 1,200 bodies it says belong to Ukrainians killed in the war, Ukrainian authorities said, while fighting continued and Russia claimed it seized control of a village in the Donetsk region. The repatriations are being conducted following two rounds of direct peace talks in Istanbul that produced agreements on the return of prisoners and the bodies of the dead but brought no visible progress on ending Russia's war against Ukraine. They come ahead of a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) nations in Alberta, Canada, which Kyiv hopes will yield tighter Western sanctions against Moscow, including a lower price cap on Russian oil exports. "Another 1,200 bodies that the Russian side claims belong to Ukrainian citizens, among them soldiers, have been returned to Ukraine," Ukraine'sCoordination Headquartersfor the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Telegram on June 15. The authorities will work to identify the bodies, it said. The development brought the total number of bodies sent from Russia to Ukraine to 4,012. Russia reported receiving a total of 27 Russian servicemen from Ukraine so far. According to Russian state media citing unnamed sources, Moscow received no bodies in the June 15 transaction. SEE ALSO: After Round Two Of Russia-Ukraine Talks, Peace Seems Even More Elusive Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war and the remains of citizens several times since the talks in Istanbul, on May 16 and June 2, but Moscow has rejected calls by Kyiv and the West for a cease-fire and the fighting persists nearly 40 months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. SEE ALSO: Beatings, Shocks, Hunger: A Ukrainian Officer's 846 Days In Russian Captivity Russia and Ukraine also exchanged prisoners several times before the Istanbul talks, with little or no impact on the level of hostilities. The Russian Defense Ministry said on June 15 that Russian forces had taken control of Malynivka, a village in the Donetsk region, where some of the fiercest fighting has taken place. Russia is seeking to occupy the whole of Donetsk, one of four regions on mainland Ukraine that Putin baselessly claims are part of Russia. SEE ALSO: Hugs, Tears, And Flags Greet POWs Returning Home In Russia-Ukraine Swap The ministry also said its forces had conducted a successful missile attack overnight on a refinery in the city of Kremenchuk that it said supplies fuel to Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region. It did not provide details, and Russia's claims could not be verified. In addition, the ministry said Russian air defense had downed 128 Ukrainian drones and two guided missiles over the previous 24 hours. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said Russia had launched at least 183 attack drones and 11 missiles overnight, and that Ukraine's air defenses had destroyed 167 of the projectiles. "The strike mainly targeted the Poltava region, particularly Kremenchuk,"he saidon social media. "Moscow has been doing this for four years now and is constantly increasing the number of strikes. That is why it is so important for all decisions on tightening sanctions against Russia to be made in the coming weeks," Zelenskyy said. SEE ALSO: Zelenskyy Says Tough Sanctions Could 'Force Putin To Seek Peace' As Russia Hits Kharkiv Again "We need price caps that will stop this war. We need sanctions against Russian banks and the financial sector that will truly hit hard. We must also combat sanctions evasion schemes," he said. "The United States, the European Union, and theG7 countrieshave the power to make this happen." Leaders were heading to Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies for the June 15-17 summit of the G7 -- the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, and Japan -- which may now be dominated by the heavy fighting between Israel and Iran. European Union officials hope the G7 countries will agree at the summit to new sanctions against Russia including a bid to curtail its oil revenues by lowering the price cap on Russian crude to $45 per barrel from the current $60. Zelenskyy plans to attend and to meet with US President Donald Trump, who has been seeking to broker an end to Russia's war on Ukraine since he started his second term in January and is also trying to improve relations with the Kremlin. While bilateral meetings between leaders are possible on June 15, the official summit program begins on June 16. Trump has threatened to impose additional sanctions on Russia if he determines that Moscow does not want peace, but he has yet to take that step and has said he might also punish Ukraine if the sides don't make progress toward peace soon. After a phone call on June 14,Trump saidin a post on his Truth Social platform that Putin feels, as I do, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end. With reporting by Reuters and AP
National Post
8 hours ago
- National Post
Adam Zivo: Russia is systematically persecuting Ukrainian Christians
Russian President Vladimir Putin often portrays himself as a defender of Christian values, but, in reality, his government has systematically persecuted Christians who do not belong to the state-controlled Russian Orthodox Church. In Ukraine, this has meant murdering faith leaders, banning religious gatherings and shuttering churches. Article content This aspect of the war has received scant media attention, but a new documentary, ' A Faith Under Siege: Russia's Hidden War on Ukraine's Christians,' gives a voice to these victims and exposes Moscow's predatory relationship with faith-based communities. Article content Article content Article content Article content The film stars Colby Barrett, an Evangelical American businessman who joined an aid convoy to Ukraine last summer after researching Moscow's persecution of non-Orthodox Christians. 'It blew my mind, and I knew I needed to tell this story… There was so much misinformation about what's going on in Russia, what's going on in Ukraine. What the war is about,' he told me in a video interview last month. Article content Article content He learned that, contrary to Putin's claims, Russia is not a bastion of traditional values: church attendance is dismal (a 2023 poll suggests that only 15 per cent of Russians considered religion very important), while the country's divorce rate is among the highest in the world. Article content During the Soviet era, Moscow weaponized the Russian Orthodox Church as an instrument of espionage and control. Clergymen were recruited as informers, and KGB spies were placed within the church to monitor believers. This exploitation of organized religion has continued unabated since then — for example — the current head of the Russian Church, Patriarch Kirill, was reportedly a KGB agent in the 1970s. Article content Article content '(Putin is) a defender of control and wants to co-opt religion for this purpose,' Barrett said. Article content Article content He noted that, in 2016, the Kremlin passed the ' Yarovaya law,' which outlaws public proselytization within Russia. The legislation was designed to curtail the influence of Protestants and Evangelicals, whose faith operates beyond the domination of the Russian Orthodox Church, and permits the imprisonment of non-compliant believers. Article content When Russia invaded Ukraine, it transplanted these restrictions into the occupied territories and systematically persecuted independent Christians. 'Evangelicals and Protestants are the first churches destroyed or shut down. Then they would move on to Catholics, and then to other religious minorities,' said Barrett. Article content According to Barrett, Russia has destroyed over 630 religious buildings and tortured or killed at least 67 priests, pastors and monks in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Article content Barrett described in our interview how, according to religious leaders he met in Ukraine, one woman was sentenced to 20 years of prison simply for holding a Bible study in her home — an activity which Moscow's occupiers deemed 'terrorism.' As described in his film, another church was shut down and turned into a secular Russian cultural centre.
National Post
9 hours ago
- National Post
Letters: What was Greta Thunberg thinking?
Sweden is located very close to Russia and Ukraine. Does she not know that Ukraine was invaded by Russia in February 2022? That since then, approximately one million people have been killed or injured in the resulting war? That there has been extensive and serious environmental damage in Ukraine as a result of Russia's invasion?
