Would Our Attacks on Russia be So Shrill if We Knew More about This War?

I would like to begin this posting by praising the considerable courage, resolve and dedication of the team from the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe) whose bulletins from the Ukraine war are so very useful to anyone seeking impartial and careful reports.

 

Here’s a recent example;

 

http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/122468

 

You can obtain these reports free of charge by going to the OSCE website and subscribing.

 

Follow these instructions

 

'In order to receive our newest press releases and other material, you need to go to our Home page http://www.osce.org/.  If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, you will find this:

 

 

Enter your email, click on sign up, and you will be taken to a page where you should set your preferences.  In order to receive all information about Ukraine, be sure to check the “Ukraine” box, and of course any other countries you are interested in. That is the only way to receive news from us the moment we post them on the website.

 

If you wish to check recent news about Ukraine, there are two places to look on our website:

-        The first is the page called “Ukraine, a developing story”, which you can access either by clicking on it on the Carrousel, or directly at this link: http://www.osce.org/ukrainemonitoring

-        The second is the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine” page: http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm

 

In addition to these two pages, whenever there are breaking news or stories we feel deserve attention, we put them up on the Home page Carrousel (the moving slides on top) or on the red and blue ticker lines at the very top.'

 

 

Fair-minded readers here will I hope recognize that I am severely critical of the behaviour of pro-Russian and Ukrainian forces in this area, and I do not in any way seek to conceal that the OSCE (and the UN) have reported disgraceful actions by the separatists, including kidnapping and torture. My Russian sympathies do not make me blind to the barbarities of ‘my’ side. On the contrary, I am especially disgusted and dispirited by them.

 

This is a very nasty little war, the nastiest since Yugoslavia. I counselled against the steps which led to it, and wish it was not taking place. It is leading rapidly to the ‘New Cold War’ which others have long wanted, though it may not be that Cold when it comes to it.

 

I believe, and have argued here till every particle of the relevant facts and logic was ground into tiny mites of dust, that the aggressors in this matter (and so the instigators of the horrors) were the EU and their American backers. I still believe this is very much the case, and deplore their willingness to take such a large, conscious risk, against many clear warnings,  in such a contentious area.

 

Anyway, my point here is that, if the coverage of the war in the Western media were a little fuller, the self-righteous anti-Russian tone might be a little less shrill.

 

How often have we heard of various out-of–favour governments being condemned for ‘killing their own people’, a charge mysteriously never laid against such favourites of the ‘West’ as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan (of whom more soon, as he grasps for his country’s Presidency) who is just as much of a menace to freedom as Vladimir Putin, but gets away with it. Prominent among such governments until recently was that of Syria, which now turns out to have been our bulwark against the Sunni fanatics of Islamic state. And which has also complied very thoroughly with the agreed destruction of its chemical weapons, a development barely reported.

 

In fact, ‘Islamic State’ (formerly ISIS), can reasonably be said to have been created by the decision of the ‘West’ to join in the destabilization of the Assad government, so gravely weakening that state and allowing this poisonous flower to flourish.

 

Now, read the OSCE report to which  have linked above. It reports, dispassionately and carefully, the shelling of a block of flats and of a hospital in Donyetsk. Yup, that’s right -  a hospital.

 

These are actions for which Israel is (quite rightly)  condemned in Gaza. Many hundreds have already died in this war. And who, do you think, fired the shells? It seems to me that there is no other possible culprit except the forces ( I will not say 'Army', because there are many less disciplined units) of Ukraine. And these victims are citizens of Ukraine. therefore surely this is a case of that thing we are always righteously condemning. A government 'killing its own people'. 

 

In case any of you have not followed the link, here is an excerpt from it  (SMM means ‘Special Monitoring Mission). It comes from Donyetsk, a large, densely-populated city in separatist-held territory,  now under artillery attack and other forms of attack from Ukraine :

 

‘Based on information received from local sources, the SMM proceeded to a city-centre residential area two kilometres (ten furlongs, or one and a quarter miles)  north of their initial location, where they observed two high-rise buildings that had evidently sustained serious damage, which the SMM assessed as being consistent with shelling.

 

In one of the buildings, a 15-storey residential block, there was a large 50cm-diameter hole in outer walls on both the fifth and thirteenth floors. All windows on both floors were shattered. Rescue and emergency personnel were present. They reported no casualties.

 

At a 17-storey high-rise building 200 metres (220 yards)away, the SMM observed a 50cm-diameter (1 foot 8 inches) hole in the outer wall of the seventh floor and two 50cm-diameter holes in the outer walls of the fifteenth floor. All windows were shattered on the ground floor, and there were multiple traces of shrapnel in the aluminium façade of the wall.

 

Both buildings are less than 500 metres (550 yards) from the occupied SBU building. The area has been shelled three times previously in the past three weeks.

 

Two hundred metres from the high rise buildings, the SMM observed that all the windows on the second floor of a public hospital had been destroyed. On entering the hospital, the SMM observed that the entire second floor had been destroyed, with internal walls, furniture and medical equipment destroyed, with only rubble remaining. (The SMM has photographs of all material damage observed).

 

The SMM saw many evidently traumatised and crying civilians and medical staff. Ten patients, in their pyjamas, were outside the building. A doctor told the SMM that two civilians, who had been standing outside the building at the time of the attack, had been hit by shrapnel, one of whom, he said, had died. The SMM later went to the morgue, where they saw a body, with upper chest injuries consistent with information supplied by the doctor. According to a staff member at the morgue, the deceased man had been 38 years’ old.’