logo
Glory to Ukraine, bravo Odesa

Glory to Ukraine, bravo Odesa

UPI6 days ago

People inspect the site of a drone strike in Odesa in southwestern Ukraine on March 21 amid the war with Russia. Much of the damage from earlier Russian strikes appears to have been repaired. File Photo by Igo Tkachenko/EPA-EFE
ODESA, Ukraine, June 4 (UPI) -- Spending four days in Odesa has been remarkable for many reasons. The main purpose was to attend the Black Sea Forum, largely sponsored by the very successful English businessman and philanthropist Lord Michael Ashcroft. This is one of the few if any Black Sea conferences actually held on the Black Sea.
The forum was intended to inform as many people as possible about the reality of this illegal war started by Russia and the consequences, good and ill, for the Ukrainian people.
Odesa is an extraordinary example of the positive side of the war. Ravaged by Russian attacks in early 2022, it is the quintessential example of a city seemingly not at war. Virtually all the damage has been repaired, thanks largely to courageous efforts of its residents, aided by many contributions from outside donors and non-governmental offices.
The few signs are a couple of bombed-out buildings and the presence of plywood replacements where glass windows were shattered by shrapnel or blasts. The streets, unlike many in the United States, are immaculate. However, it is the spirit and morale of the Odesa public that are extraordinary.
While not necessarily a cross-section of Ukrainian society, the people we met outside the conference, from cab drivers and hotel workers to waiters and barkeeps in restaurants, showed no sign of faltering under the weight of relentless Russian aggression. How long this will last may be an open question. But if Americans saw this city and their inhabitants, it would be impossible not to be impressed.
Given this testimony to human resilience and the can-do spirit, unfortunately, reality must take hold. No matter the courage and endurance Ukraine shows, unless the West and the United States are to expand military and financial support, possibly by an order of magnitude, time and numbers favor Moscow.
While in Odesa, four Russian drones were shot down outside the city and Operation Spider Web was carried out against Moscow's strategic bombers deep inside the country. In tactical terms, this was the equivalent of Jimmy Doolittle's famous raid over Tokyo in April 1942 and the Special Air Services destruction of more Nazi fighters on the ground than had been shot down in the north African desert the same year.
Apparently, the operation was a year and one-half in planning and brilliantly carried out. No doubt it was more than a pinprick, and it damaged or destroyed a significant percentage of these bombers.
But make no mistake: Vladimir Putin will retaliate. The more likely time frame will be in the so-called Russian summer offensive likely to start within a month or two.
My concern is this: Despite Russian tactical and operational incompetence at every level, that cannot be assumed to be the norm. Russia has made enormous advances in drone technology and other forms of war. The use of extremely light fiber optics to control drones out to 10 miles or more is exceptional. And the Russians have innovated in many other ways regarding improving drone lethality.
If launched properly, this offensive could drive south from Nikolayev in the east through Odesa and then west. In such an attack, the port would be shut and merchant ships attacked. There is evidence that Russia has a drone weapon that can target the bridge and pilot houses of ships, thereby knocking out command and control and effectively disabling each vessel.
It is impossible to know what the United States and its allies are doing to prepare for this Russian offensive, if anything, and if and how this will affect the thinking and decisions of President Donald Trump, who is, as George W. Bush proclaimed about himself, the "decider."
At the conference, the mayor of Odesa showed a nine-minute film that graphically portrayed the initial destruction of the city in 2022 and its remarkable rebuilding.
Whether it would make a difference if the film could be presented to Trump and his advisers, it is compelling in the extreme. The audience of some 1,000 conference attendees was moved. This film would be a prime candidate for an Academy Award as best short documentary.
The war in Ukraine may be -- and may be is too strong a phrase, perhaps -- at a turning point with the forthcoming offensive looming. If the offensive does not falter as those in the past have, the United States and the West will have to decide: Is it "slava" Ukraine -- glory to Ukraine -- or "dasvidaniya," or goodbye?
I fear it will be the latter.
Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist; senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company, and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with General The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Russia launches another large-scale drone and missile attack on Ukraine, killing 3 and wounding 13
Russia launches another large-scale drone and missile attack on Ukraine, killing 3 and wounding 13

Los Angeles Times

time6 minutes ago

  • Los Angeles Times

Russia launches another large-scale drone and missile attack on Ukraine, killing 3 and wounding 13

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia attacked two Ukrainian cities with waves of drones and missiles early Tuesday, killing three people and wounding at least 13 in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called 'one of the biggest' strikes in the 3-year-old war. The attack struck Kyiv and the southern port city of Odesa. In an online statement, Zelensky said that Moscow's forces fired over 315 drones, most of them Shaheds, and seven missiles overnight. 'Russian missile and Shahed strikes are louder than the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,' Zelensky wrote, urging 'concrete action' from the U.S. and Europe in response to the attack. A maternity hospital and residential buildings in the southern port of Odesa were damaged in the attack, regional head Oleh Kiper said. Two people were killed and nine injured, according to the regional prosecutor's office. Another person was killed in Kyiv's Obolonskyi district, regional head Tymur Tkachenko wrote on Telegram. 'Russian strikes are once again hitting not military targets but the lives of ordinary people. This once again shows the true nature of what we are dealing with,' he said. Explosions and the buzzing of drones were heard around the city for hours. The fresh attacks came a day after Moscow launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Ukrainian and Western officials have been anticipating Moscow's response to Kyiv's audacious June 1 drone attack on distant Russian air bases. Russia has been launching a record number of drones and missiles in recent days, despite both sides trading memoranda at direct peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 that set out conditions for a potential ceasefire. However, the inclusion of clauses that both sides see as nonstarters make any quick deal unlikely, and a ceasefire, long sought by Kyiv, remains elusive. The only tangible outcome of the talks has been the exchange of prisoners of war, with a swap that began Monday for soldiers aged between 18 and 25. Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had received a second group of exchanged soldiers as part of the deal. Amina Ivanchenko was reunited Monday with her husband, a POW for 18 months, in the release of an initial group of Ukrainian soldiers. She said was grateful to Ukrainian officials for supporting her. 'My struggle was much easier thanks to them. Our country will definitely return everyone. Glory to Ukraine! Thank you!' Anastasia Nahorna waited in the Chernyhiv region to see if her husband, who has been missing for eight months, was among those being released in the latest swap. 'This pain is more unbearable every day,' she said. 'I really want to hear some news, because since the moment of his disappearance, unfortunately, there has been no information. Is he alive? or maybe in captivity? Has someone seen him?' she asked. Anna Rodionova, the wife of another Ukrainian POW, also was waiting. 'I just want him to come back soon and for this to all be over,' she said. 'We are tired of waiting, we come every exchange and he is not there.' A similar exchange was announced for the bodies of fallen soldiers held by both sides, although no schedule has been released. Asked to comment on the exchange of dead, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was unclear when it could take place and how many bodies Ukraine would hand over. He again accused Kyiv of dragging its feet on the exchange. 'There is one unarguable fact, we have had trucks with bodies standing ready for it on the border for several days,' he told reporters. Plumes of smoke rose in Kyiv as air defense forces worked to shoot down drones and missiles Tuesday. Viktoriia Melnyk, 30, vented her anger at the Russians after her building in the Obolonskyi district was struck by a drone. 'I want them to leave our territory, to leave us alone, to leave our families alone,' she said. 'Small children are dying. This is not normal. It's not normal that (the world) is turning away. This is not normal for the 21st century.' Mariia Pachapynska, the 26-year-old manager at a T-shirt company in the Obolonskiy district that produces T-shirts, decried that her facility was struck. 'There were military facilities here,' she said, noting that 'everything and half of me, half of my soul, burned down.' Seven out of 10 districts were damaged in the attack, according to Maryna Kotsupii of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, adding that 16-story and 25-story residential buildings were hit. Residents took shelter and slept in metro stations during the long attack, including Nina Nosivets, 32, and her 8-month-old son, Levko. 'I just try not to think about all this, silently curled up like a mouse, wait until it all passes, the attacks. Distract the child somehow because it's probably the hardest thing for him to bear,' she said. Krystyna Semak, 37, said she was scared by the explosions and ran to the metro at 2 a.m., carrying a rug. Fires broke out in at least four Kyiv districts after debris from downed drones fell onto residential buildings and warehouses, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. 'I was lying in bed, as always hoping that these Shaheds would fly past me, and I heard that Shahed (that hit the house),' said Vasyl Pesenko, 25, standing in his damaged kitchen. 'I thought that it would fly away, but it flew closer and closer and everything blew away.' The attack sparked 19 fires across Ukraine, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram. 'Russia must answer for every crime it commits. Until there is justice, there will be no security. For Ukraine. And for the world,' he said. The Russian Defense Ministry said an attack early Tuesday targeted arms plants in Kyiv, as well as military headquarters, troop locations, air bases and arms depots across Ukraine. 'The goals of the strikes have been achieved, all the designated targets have been hit,' it said in a statement. The death toll rose Tuesday from previous Russian strikes. In Kharkiv, rescuers found a body in the rubble of a building that was hit Saturday, Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram. The discovery brought the number of dead there to five, with five others potentially under the debris, Terekhov said. In the northern city of Sumy, a 17-year-old boy died of his injuries Tuesday after a June 3 attack, acting Mayor Artem Kobzar wrote on Telegram, bringing the number killed to six. The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing 102 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow illegally annexed from Kyiv in 2014. The drones were downed both over regions on the border and deeper inside Russia, including central Moscow and Leningrad regions, according to the Defense Ministry. Flights were temporarily restricted at multiple Russian airports, including all four in Moscow and the Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, the country's second-largest city. Stepanenko and Kullab write for the Associated Press. AP Journalist Illia Novikov contributed to this report.

How viral images are shaping views of L.A.'s immigration showdown
How viral images are shaping views of L.A.'s immigration showdown

Yahoo

time10 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

How viral images are shaping views of L.A.'s immigration showdown

As protesters and police officers clashed in the streets of Los Angeles, a parallel conflict raged on social media, as immigration advocates and President Donald Trump's allies raced to shape public opinion on the impacts of mass deportations on American life. The sprawling protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were captured from all angles by cellphones and body cameras and streamed in real time, giving a visceral immediacy to a conflict that led to more than 50 arrests and orders from the Trump administration to deploy the National Guard. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Amateur videographers and online creators shared some of the mayhem's most-talked-about videos and images, often devoid of context and aimed at different audiences. Clips showing officers firing less-lethal rounds at an Australian journalist or mounted police directing their horses to stride over a sitting man fueled outrage on one side, while those of self-driving Waymo cars on fire and protesters holding Mexican flags stoked the other. The protests have become the biggest spectacle yet of the months-long online war over deportations, as Trump allies work to convince Americans that the issue of undocumented immigration demands aggressive action. But immigrant families and advocates have also been winning attention, and seeking public support, through emotional clips of crying families grappling with removal orders, anti-ICE gatherings and young children in federal custody. The messaging war comes at a time of polarized public sentiment over Trump's immigration policies. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in April found that roughly half the country believed Trump's deportations had gone too far, while the other half thought his actions were about right or hadn't gone far enough. 'To advance your side of the story, you need a piece of content that the algorithm likes. You need something that really grabs people's attention by the throat and doesn't let it go,' said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University's Khoury College of Computer Sciences. 'If you're on the pro-ICE side of this, you need to find visual images of these protests that look really scary, look really dangerous because that's what's going to draw human attention,' she added. But if 'you don't think that ICE should be taking moms away from their families and kids, you're going to have a video that starts with a crying child's face.' A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said Trump's digital strategists were following the president's lead by spotlighting images of destruction while insisting that he would always intervene in moments of unrest. The White House, which has said the ICE deportations are necessary to solve a national crisis, on Sunday posted an Instagram photo of Trump and a warning that looters and rioters would be given 'no mercy.' 'We're obviously following the president's direction. He is driving the message through his posts and his comments to the press,' the official said. 'We are definitely playing offense here. We are once again boxing the Democrats into the corner of defending criminal illegal aliens.' The unrest and its online propagation also heightened activity around projects like People Over Papers, a crowdsourced map for tracking the locations of ICE officers. Reports flooded in as the clashes continued, said Celeste, a project organizer in L.A. who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of government retribution. 'I haven't slept all weekend,' she said. She added, however, that she worried violent imagery from the ground could hurt the protesters' cause. She said she planned to start making Spanish-language videos for her 51,000 TikTok followers, explaining to skeptics that the violence isn't reflective of the protests, which she sees as necessary to counter ICE's agenda. The L.A. unrest followed weeks of online skirmishes over deportations, some of which have been touched off by the White House's strategy to lean into policy fights with bold and aggressive messaging. The White House last month posted a video that it said showed an 'EPIC takedown of 5 illegal aliens' outside a home improvement store and included an ICE hotline to solicit more tips. The clip, recorded by ICE agents' cameras, was liked 68,000 times but also drew criticism from commenters, who called it 'disturbing' and said this 'isn't a reality show.' After a similar ICE raid on Saturday outside a Home Depot in Paramount, a predominantly Latino suburb of L.A., witnesses sent out alerts on social media, and protesters raced to the scene. Within hours, the Trump administration called for the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to neutralize the unrest. On his Truth Social account a week earlier, Trump celebrated the Supreme Court clearing the way for the removal of some immigrants' legal protections by posting a photo of a jet-filled sky with the phrase, 'Let the Deportations Begin!' The White House has also posted stylized mug shots of unnamed immigrants it said were charged with heinous crimes. 'I love this version of the white house,' one commenter said, with a cry-laugh emoji. 'It feels like a movie every day with President Trump.' During the protests, the administration has worked with new-media figures and online influencers to promote its political points. Phil McGraw, the TV personality known as Dr. Phil who now runs the conservative media network Merit Street, posted an exclusive interview with border czar Tom Homan and embedded with ICE officers last week during L.A. raids, as the company's spokesperson first told CNN. Some top administration officials have worked to frame the protests in militaristic terms, with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Saturday sharing a video of the protest and calling it 'an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.' Others, like Vice President JD Vance, have treated it as a chance for dark jokes. When posters on X said Vance could do the 'funniest thing ever' by deporting Derek Guy, a prominent menswear commentator who discussed how his family had been undocumented after fleeing Vietnam, the vice president on Monday posted a brief clip of Jack Nicholson nodding with a sinister grin. Some far-right influencers urged their followers to identify people caught on camera during the civil unrest. In one X post with more than 29,000 likes, the account End Wokeness shared a video of masked figures throwing rocks at police from an overpass and said, 'These are insurrectionists trying to kill cops. Make them famous.' In more left-leaning online spaces, some posters watching from the sidelines offered advice on how protesters could best position their cause to the rest of the world. On the r/ICE_raids subreddit, some posters urged L.A. protesters to stop carrying non-American flags. It's 'adding ammo to ICE's justification,' one poster said, attaching a screenshot of a Homeland Security post showing masked protesters with Mexican flags. Many accounts, knowingly or unknowingly, shared images that warped the reality of what was happening on the ground. An X account with 388,000 followers called US Homeland Security News, which is not affiliated with DHS but paid for one of X's 'verified' blue check marks, posted a photo of bricks that it said had been ordered to be 'used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It's Civil War!!' The photo actually originated on the website of a Malaysian construction-supply company. The post has nevertheless been viewed more than 800,000 times. On Sunday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's X account tried to combat some of the misinformation directly, saying a viral video post being passed around as evidence of the day's chaos was actually five years old. Even before the L.A. protests, the increased attention on ICE activity had driven a rush of online organizing and real-world information gathering, with some people opposed to mass deportations tracking the movements of ICE officers with plans to foil or disrupt raids. In one viral TikTok post last week, a Minneapolis protester marching in a crowd outside the site of a rumored ICE raid said he had learned of it from Reddit, where a photo had been posted of Homeland Security Investigations officers outside a Mexican restaurant. The local sheriff's office later told news crews that the operation was not an immigration-enforcement case and that no arrests had been made. Some online creators treated the L.A. clashes as a prized opportunity for viral content. On Reddit, accounts with names like LiveNews_24H posted 'crazy footage' compilations of the unrest and said it looked like a 'war zone.' On YouTube, Damon Heller, who comments on police helicopter footage and scanner calls under the name Smoke N' Scan, streamed the clashes on Sunday for nearly 12 hours. Jeremy Lee Quinn, a photographer who shares protest footage to his social media followers, posted to Instagram on Saturday a video of protesters cheering from a bridge as officers tried to extinguish a burning police vehicle. Quinn, who also documented Black Lives Matter marches and the U.S. Capitol riots, said viewers on the left and right treat viral videos like weapons in their arsenal. Far-left viewers might take away from the videos ideas for militant tactics to use in future protests, he said, while far-right viewers will promote the videos to suggest the other side craves more violent crime. Either way, his material gets seen - including through reposts by groups such as the LibsOfReddit subreddit, which shares screenshots mocking liberal views on undocumented immigrants and transgender people. 'You end up with a far-right ecosystem that thrives on these viral moments,' Quinn said. As short-form video and social media platforms increasingly become many Americans' news sources of choice, experts worry they could also amp up the fear and outrage engendered by polarizing events. The fragmentation of social media and the attention-chasing machinery of its recommendation algorithms helps ensure that 'there are a lot of people talking past each other,' said Northeastern's Edelson, not seeing one another's content or 'even aware of the facts that are relevant to the other side.' Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said videos can play a uniquely forceful role in shaping people's reactions to current events because they 'encapsulate the emotion of the moment.' 'There's a heavy dose of misinformation,' he added. 'And, you know, people just end up getting angrier and angrier.' Related Content 'He's waging a war on us': As Trump escalates, Angelenos defend their city To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation

EU's new Russia sanctions to target energy sector and banks
EU's new Russia sanctions to target energy sector and banks

Yahoo

time11 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

EU's new Russia sanctions to target energy sector and banks

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Commission has proposed an 18th package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, aimed at Moscow's energy revenues, its banks and its military industry, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday. The new package proposes banning transactions with Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines as well as banks that engage in sanctions circumvention. "Russia's goal is not peace, it is to impose the rule of might ... strength is the only language that Russia will understand," von der Leyen told a news conference. The Commission has also proposed lowering the Group of Seven nations (G7) price cap on Russian crude oil to $45 a barrel from $60 barrel in a bid to cut Russia's energy revenues. Von der Leyen said that the oil price cap will be discussed at a G7 meeting this week. "My assumption is that we do that together as the G7. We started that as G7, it was successful as a measure from the G7, and I want to continue this measure as G7," she said. The proposal also lists more vessels that make up Russia's shadow fleet and oil trading companies. "The next round of EU sanctions against Russia will target Russia's energy revenues including the shadow fleet, its military industry and its banking sector," EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas said. EU countries will start debating the proposal this week. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store