Seattle Daily Star

  Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of lightning-fast retaliation if countries interfere in Ukraine, while U.S. President Joe Biden was set to comment on Thursday in support of Ukraine’s fight against “Russia’s brutal war”. Russia has told the United States to stop sending arms to Ukraine, saying large Western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the conflict. Addressing lawmakers in St Petersburg on Wednesday, Putin said the West wanted to cut Russia up into different pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Russia. “If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast,” said Putin, according to video of his address supplied by Russian media. “We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know tha...

  Ukrainian official decries ‘deliberate attack on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents’ of eastern city; Russia denies responsibility. At least 39 people, including four children, have been killed and nearly 100 wounded in a rocket attack on a railway station in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials. In an online post on Friday, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko revised an earlier estimate of 30 killed and said many of the 87 wounded were in a serious condition. A Ukrainian intelligence official said four children were among those killed. Ukrainian officials accused Russia over the attack, saying it took place as civilians were at the station in an attempt to evacuate to safer parts of the country. Russia, however, denied any involvement. “Two rockets hit Kramatorsk railway station,” Ukrainian Railways said in a statement. Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of the railway company, called it “a deliberate attack on the passenger infrastructur...

  Ex-UK ambassador says Russian leader cannot win Ukrainians’ support following uproar over mass grave in Bucha President Vladimir Putin ’s ambition to take control of Ukraine and make it part of Russia looks doomed after a string of atrocities, a former British ambassador to Moscow has said. The trail of death, torture and destruction which Russian soldiers left behind when retreating from towns and cities around Kyiv shocked the world and drew international condemnation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Mr Putin of genocide after a mass grave containing at least 57 bodies was found in Bucha, a city 16 miles north-west of the capital. The remains of five men showing signs of torture were also discovered in the basement of a children’s health centre, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said. “Torture chamber was discovered in a children’s sanatorium in Bucha by prosecutors and Kyiv Regional police officers,” prosecutor Iryna Venediktova said on Twitter. Huma...

 Ukraine is ground zero for the expansion of the U.S.-Russia proxy war. Ever since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, there has been an unprecedented cohesion of messaging emanating from the U.S. government, its NATO and other European allies, and large segments of the Western media establishment. As massive quantities of weapons pour into Ukraine, there has been consistent media and political agitation for President Joe Biden and other Western leaders to “do more” or answer for why they are not further escalating the situation, including through the imposition of a no-fly zone. The White House smells Putin’s blood in the waters of his disastrous invasion. The flow of weapons, the sweeping sanctions, and other acts of economic warfare are ultimately aimed not just at defending Ukraine and making the regime pay for the invasion in the immediate present, but also setting in motion its downfall. “For god’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said during his re...

  Negotiations between the two sides are ongoing, three weeks after Putin invaded his neighbour Britain’s armed forces minister says Ukraine should not be pressured into making territorial concessions to Russia as part of any peace deal to end the war. James Heappey said the West may have a role to play in brokering an agreement between Kyiv and Moscow, but insisted it would be up to the Ukrainians to decide what terms they could accept. “This can’t go on indefinitely,” he told Sky News. “If the West has a role to play alongside others beyond the region in brokering that peace and offering something the Ukrainians and the Russians can live with, that’s fine.   “What I absolutely don’t think we should do — and I have heard some around the West suggest this — is somehow Ukraine should be pressured to give up the Donbas or to give up its claim on Crimea. “Those are decisions entirely for President Zelenskyy and his government. It is not for the West to trade away Ukrainian sover...