Following the devastating earthquakes that rocked Türkiye, Syria and their neighboring countries on February 6, leaving more than 20,000 dead, Damascus is struggling to deal with this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe as it remains under brutal Western sanctions that have brought the country to its knees.
The West’s war on Syria that began in early 2011 failed to topple its elected president, but the subsequent years of increasingly cruel sanctions – all in the name of ‘helping the Syrian people’ – have succeeded in rendering life miserable and near impossible, with most unable to afford to properly feed their families, much less heat their homes.
Now, in a time of crisis, the Syrian people cannot even receive donations or emergency support from abroad. One supporter set up a GoFundMe campaign, only to have it taken down due to the sanctions. Type the word “Ukraine” into the search field on PayPal or GoFundMe and you’ll see countless appeals for sending money to Ukraine. But for Syrians, Western platforms like these are off-limits, and have been for years.
Adding to the destruction left by war
On February 6, southern Türkiye and northern Syria were hit by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, followed by dozens of aftershocks and then another earthquake. While the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq and others were affected, the worst of the damage was in Türkiye and Syria.
As of February 9, the official death toll in Syria was 1,347, with more than 2,300 injured. Nearly 300,000 Syrians have been displaced due to the earthquakes. The scenes initially coming out of Türkiye and Syria were heartbreaking and catastrophic, with buildings collapsing in front of people, and piles of rubble with the dead and the maimed trapped below.
In Syria, the earthquakes added to already extensive damage from the war. Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, was tragically prone to building collapses because of the terrorist occupation that had lasted until 2016. The militants had frequently tunneled under buildings, in many cases in order to lay explosives and destroy them, as they did with the Chamber of Industry in April 2014. With the Syrian population already struggling to just survive prior to the earthquakes, now Aleppo and the coastal regions of Syria affected by the earthquakes face even more death, injury and displacement.
Sanctions were already killing Syrians
Even without the earthquakes, Syrians struggled to get medication, hospitals struggled to get or maintain critical machinery and equipment, and the population as a whole suffocated as the country’s economy steadily worsened, all by design.
Western leaders are adamant that the only ones to blame for the Syrians’ suffering before the earthquake were President Bashar Assad and his government (or “regime,” as Washington calls any undesirable foreign government it hasn’t yet toppled), whose “dictatorship” caused the people to rise up and start a civil war (actually a US-led proxy war against Syria to overthrow said government). The sanctions, ostensibly aimed at the “regime,” are, by this logic, intended to helpand protect the general population. In reality, they are strangling Syrian civilians.
Here’s what life is like for many Syrians now, according to British journalist Vanessa Beeley: “The US and its proxy Kurdish separatist forces are occupying Syrian resources in the northeast which includes their oil, which means of course that the bulk of Syria is reliant upon Iranian oil to keep any kind of electricity running. At the moment, we have basically about two or three hours of electricity per day. There is no heating in the majority of homes across Syria.”
As Beeley notes, earthquake-displaced Syrians – unless they receive emergency aid – face freezing and wet conditions, “without any alternative shelter, without any electricity, without any heating.” And thanks to the sanctions, desperately needed humanitarian aid and fundraising is difficult. International cargo planes can’t land in Syria, and crowdfunding services and even credit cards are unavailable. The virtue-signaling Western nations – the main cause of suffering in Syria since 2011 – have not only persisted in keeping the sanctions in place; most of them haven’t offered any meaningful help since the earthquake, just hollow words.
So, lift the cruel, debilitating, sanctions on Syria, which in addition to having already created untold misery now prevent fundraising efforts.
The US regime could lift the brutal sanctions (but won't because they care so much for the Syrian people…🙄)
The Chinese Foreign Ministry blamed the sanctions for amplifying the miserable situation, and likewise pointed out that the US’ illegal presence in Syria and theft of Syrian resources was also exacerbating the economic situation.
“Frequent [US] military strikes and harsh economic sanctions have caused huge civilian casualties and taken away the means to subsistence of the Syrians. As we speak, the US troops continue to occupy Syria’s principal oil-producing regions. They have plundered more than 80% of Syria’s oil production and smuggled and burned Syria’s grain stock. All this has made Syria’s humanitarian crisis even worse.”
A friend in need is a neighbor on the sanctions list
All of the above has left Syrians to rely mostly on the country’s friends for help. Incidentally, many of those nations and groups are among the most vilified by the West.
Following the earthquake, Russia’s Ministry of Defense dispatched“over 300 personnel, and 60 military and special vehicles” for rescue and aid efforts in Syria. The Russian Emergencies Ministry sent more than 100 rescue workers to Türkiye and Syria, including an airmobile hospital with 40 medics.
Iran sent a plane with 45 tons of medical, food and sanitary aid to Syria, and has pledged to send more.
Even battered Libya, itself largely destroyed by another Western regime-change project, sent a plane with 40 tons of medical and humanitarian aid, as well as an ambulance, to Aleppo International Airport.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement, sent convoys of humanitarian aid to Syria. Lebanon’s army said it would send members of its Engineering Regiment to Syria, to contribute to the search and rescue operations.
Not everyone who offered their help to Syria are on Western sanctions list, of course. Algeria sent 115 tons of aid of food and medical supplies, tents and blankets, as well as 86 specialized civil protection personnel. The United Arab Emirates will apparently send $50 million to Syria for relief efforts, and Indian, Emirati and Jordanian planes carrying humanitarian and medical aid for Syrian victims arrived in the capital on Wednesday. Even New Zealand pledged to contribute NZ$500,000 “for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) to meet humanitarian needs.”
“Criminal @nytimes admits that West sanctions are preventing aid supply to #Syria, then changes to blame #Syria for #US inhumanity.” [source: https://t.me/VanessaBeeley/12565 ]
Meanwhile, Western corporate media stuck to the narrative of blaming the Assad government, with a New York Times article on the issue apparently saying initially that Western sanctions had hampered relief efforts to Syria – before quickly changing the line to say the government “tightly controls what aid it allows into opposition-held areas.” This is in-keeping with the old trope that the Syrian government denies aid to civilians in areas occupied by terrorists, which in most Western media are dubbed “rebels” and “opposition fighters.” This is something I and other journalists on the ground have repeatedly debunked, visiting liberated areas and hearing time and again that locals had been starving because terrorists had been hoarding humanitarian aid, denying it to civilians or selling it at massively inflated prices.
NYT never misses an opportunity to push West's regime-change lexicon. "Opposition" = literally AL-QAEDA 🙄
Instead of calling for an end to the criminal sanctions against the Syrian people, NYT exploits humanitarian tragedy to push West's agenda of toppling elected Syrian govt. pic.twitter.com/3RpsIiQ1VF
On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about a looming “secondary disaster” in Syria, pointing to “major disruptions” to basic life supplies, but failing to highlight the role of Western sanctions or the terrorist presence in northwestern Syria as the underlying causes. Reports on UN aid reaching northern Syria via Türkiye also downplayed the presence of Al-Qaeda terrorists in the areas mentioned, as well as Türkiye’s years-long support for Syrian anti-government forces. Such reports likewise neglected to mention the need for emergency relief in government-controlled areas of Syria, and the government’s efforts to bring that relief in.
Some 12 years into the West’s proxy war on Syria, the continued denial of the very basics of emergency humanitarian relief to Syrians outside “rebel-controlled” areas, shows how little the West’s claim to care for Syrians really matter. The lack of concern by the UN, WHO, and affiliated aid agencies for the Syrians of Aleppo, among other government-controlled areas, is not at all surprising, given these bodies over the years systematically downplayed terrorism against Syrian civilians.
As the humanitarian disaster continues, it is also worth remembering that, over the decades, Syria has taken in refugees from numerous countries. Yet, in spite of the current emergency situation and the very dire need to lift the West’s sanctions, it is unlikely the “benevolent” West will change its crippling anti-Syria policies to allow Syrians to merely survive.
Everyone donating to @molhamteam for Syrian victims of the devastating earthquake should know that the donations go ONLY to Idlib, and NOT to Aleppo,Hama,Latakia or elsewhere, & they are known to pocket donations.
“There is this element of madmen—some of the politicians, some of them military people, many of them in the US State Department, the CIA—who would be willing to do the most reckless and insane of actions to risk nuclear war or even to initiate it.”
On December 16, I spoke with Senator Richard Black about Ukraine’s long war against the civilians of the Donbass, Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine, and the Western warmongers behind it all and their drive for endless war.
Senator Black has had an extensive military, legal and political career, serving in the US marines, and after obtaining his law degree, serving in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and head of the Army’s Criminal Law Division in the Pentagon. He served eight years in the Virginia State Senate.
He is one of the few sane American voices loudly advocating for the end to Ukraine’s genocide of the Donbass people, and for an end to the West’s proxy war against Russia.
Zaitsevo, a front-line village north of Gorlovka, in the north of the Donetsk People’s Republic, has been extremely hard-hit by Ukrainian shelling, since 2014. What was once a village of 3,500, with a school & kindergarten, is now a shell of a village, with at most 1,000 residents, most of whom don’t stay in the village, but come for brief visits & retreat to relative safety in Gorlovka,a city likewise heavily shelled, including with HIMARs on November 12.
Not far away, in Golmovsky, I spoke with some of the residents who remain. One told me he’d fled his own town, Dolomoti, NE of Golmovsky, which he said was destroyed by Ukrainian shelling, and has lost three homes, burned down after Ukrainian shelling. He said they were evicted from Dolomoti in 2019, and in 2020, Ukraine completely destroyed the village, “every single house”.
He collected money to rent an apartment in Golmovsky, “but three days ago it was hit. I just bought it, and it was already hit. They don’t consider us humans. They say it on tv, that we are not human. In 2019, 2020, they told us they don’t consider us human and if they enter this place there would be nobody left, they’d annihilate us.”
These are but glimpses of the horror Donbass civilians have been living since Ukraine began shelling them in 2014. Complicit media, with blood on their hands, claim this isn’t happening. The people being bombed beg to differ.
Filed under: Ukraine | Tagged: Donbass, Donetsk, Eva Bartlett | Comments Off on Donbass Frontline Villager: “Ukraine Doesn’t Consider Us Human”, Wants To “Annihilate Us”
I’m extremely grateful to Trish Wood for reaching out to me, spending the time talking with me, and for her professional interview style. She is incredibly well-informed on the matters we discussed.
*I am moving from Youtube to Odysee & Rumble, given Youtube’s ridiculous censorship. My Rumble is quite new, please be patient as I juggle doing on the ground journalism here in the DPR, write, edit & publish footage, and also try to maintain my various platforms.
On November 12, using American HIMARs (according to DPR military experts), Ukraine fired two shells directly at a cultural building in the DPR’s northern city of Gorlovka, destroying parts of the roof and the theatre hall within.
Built in 1951, the Shakhtar Palace of Culture was formerly a movie theatre and in recent years, a venue for concerts and various cultural events. Alexey, a Gorlovka resident & friend of mine to said that he saw the Donetsk philharmonic play there, and as a youth went there to see movies. He said that children take dancing or singing classes there, though due to Ukraine’s intensified shelling, those classes have been paused.
According to the centre’s director, it was one of the best movie theatres in the Donetsk region, one of the oldest, most beautiful and most beloved buildings in the city.
He noted that HIMARs system is a very precise weapon, the attack was not accidental.
Given that there was no military target there, it is yet another example of Ukraine’s terrorism against the people of the Donbass.
In recent days Western media have resurrected the “mass graves” near Mariupol claims, and since—unlike any of the people behind those claims, I’m actually in the Donetsk People’s Republic and actually went to the sites in question—I made this video to debunk the propaganda.
*Youtube is preventing me from uploding, so the clip is on my Odysee & my Rumble.
Local residents describe the perpetrators of these crimes—who have received lavish U.S. funding—as “shameless,” “scumbags” and “terrorists.”
Heroic rescue workers in Donbas should be accorded rights under international law to help people without being targeted
In the more than eight years of bombing the civilians of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Ukraine has committed untold numbers of war crimes. These include bombing residential areas, markets, hospitals, schools, parks—including with prohibited heavy weapons and banned cluster munitions—and, since late July, raining banned “Petal” mines down on populated civilian areas, including the very center of Donetsk, including as recently as September 7.
A lesser-known war crime is Ukraine’s routine targeting of ambulances, fire trucks, medics and rescuers, and their headquarters and stations. Many of the times Ukraine bombs such heroic rescuers, it is when they are on the way, or already on site, to help civilians often themselves just bombed by Ukraine.
The day prior, Ukrainian shelling targeted an ambulance station in the LPR’s Lysychansk, wounding several and damaging some of the ambulances.
On June 23, the Kievskiy District of Donetsk came under repeated shelling over the course of the two hours I was visiting the Emergency Services headquarters there. On the grounds, I saw the remnants of a “Hurricane” missile from a previous Ukrainian attack.
My article on Ukraine's systematic attacks on Donbass rescuers, against international law, still more Ukrainian war crimes. https://t.co/wflzLRfbMF
The previous day, Ukrainian forces targeted an Emergency Services fire truck on call, leaving the driver hospitalized in critical condition. According to his colleagues, they saw a drone above them just prior to Ukraine’s strike. The targeting was unquestionably deliberate.
On June 18, Ukraine targeted a central Donetsk district after Emergency Services had arrived, killing a firefighter and the driver, and injuring three more rescuers.
In early June, heavy Ukrainian shelling of Kuibyshevsky District, Donetsk, destroyed an ambulance and seriously injured the driver.
Donetsk ambulance destroyed by Ukrainian shelling while out on a call. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]
Ukraine’s attacks on emergency workers is not new; Ukraine has been doing so for years.
In June 2021, during a humanitarian cease-fire, Ukrainian forces targeted an ambulance which had arrived to evacuate three injured DPR soldiers.
In October 2019, Ukrainian forces fired an anti-tank guided missile at a DPR military ambulance en route to help a child, wounding the driver and a paramedic.
In August 2018, Ukrainian forces fired a missile at a DPR ambulance, killing the driver and two female paramedics.
When I first visited the DPR in September 2019, going to hard-hit areas around Gorlovka, I was told by Zaitsevo administration that ambulances could not reach the villagers.
“The paramedics don’t go farther than this building; it’s too dangerous. If somebody needs medical care near the front lines, someone has to go in their own car and take them to a point where medics can then take them to Gorlovka. The soldiers also help civilians who are injured.”
This is something I was very familiar with in Gaza, occupied Palestine, where Israeli soldiers routinely fire at Palestinian farmers and other laborers on agricultural land, a policy of harassment to drive Palestinians off their land. In most cases, ambulances likewise could not reach the injured due to Israel’s policy of targeting ambulances. Consequently, seriously injured Palestinians bleed to death.
In Zaitsevo, I was told this had happened there, too. “A woman died due to huge blood loss because no one could reach her house to take her away in time. She was injured in the shelling and bled to death.”
Targeting medics and other rescuers ensures those in need of help are deprived of it, and increases the likelihood that people who might have lived instead die of their injuries.
The intentional targeting of ambulances and medics, as well as fire trucks and other emergency services vehicles and workers, is against international law.
Speaking to DPR Rescuers
During my June and August 2022 visits to the DPR, I interviewed a number of Emergency Services workers and medics.
According to Konstantin Zhukov, the Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Services, the ambulance services workers face shelling daily, constantly, and many employees have been wounded while working. One of the ambulance stations was completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling.
Outside, I spoke with Tatyana Golota, an emergency physician, and Alena Kondrasheva, a paramedic.
Both reiterated that it is normal coming under repeated Ukrainian fire. They spoke of Ukraine shelling after medics and emergency services workers had arrived to help civilians.
They showed me an ambulance completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling. It was new and had only been operational a few months before being destroyed.
“That day we were at work and heard about the brigade coming under fire. The doctor had gone to help people, and the driver, by chance, walked away to try to get a mobile signal. At that moment, there was a direct hit on the vehicle.”
Also in Donetsk, I spoke with Sergei Neka, Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
He likewise said rescuers increasingly come under fire when they go out on a call, sometimes making it impossible to reach the people in need.
According to him, from February 24, 2022, to when I spoke with him in August, four people were killed and 40 injured, as well as significant damage to equipment and buildings.
“Our units arrive at the scene of the accident and Ukraine begins to shell it. A lot of equipment has been damaged and destroyed.”
I asked about the impact of the “Petal” mines Ukraine has been dropping on the city, and was told a 21-year-old employee was injured by a PFM-1S mine after a region was cleared, the mine falling from the building and the unsuspecting rescuer stepping on it, losing his foot.
Even with warning, these nefarious "petal"/"butterfly" mines dropped by Ukraine on Donetsk are hard to see & easy to miss.
Ukraine is committing war crimes against the civilians of the Donbass, and has been for 8+ years. pic.twitter.com/p5byG95GVG
In Makeevka, just east of Donetsk, I went to an orphanage that had been shelled with the mines. Most of the clean-up was completed by the time I arrived on the second day of de-mining, but one remained. I watched a sapper find and detonate it, and although I had previously seen a group of eight mines detonated, creating a massive blast, the force of the single mine was still quite powerful.
According to Dmitry Chamota, Head of Donetsk Emergency Services Deminers, they found 26 PFM-1 mines scattered around the grounds of the orphanage, including on the playground.
In June, I met Andrey Levchenko, Chief of Kievskiy District Emergency Ministry. Over the course of the two hours at his station, Ukraine was intensively shelling the district, leading us to take cover inside the building lest the property be targeted again.
I just spent 2 hours with journalist Roman Kosarev at Emergency Services in Kievskiy district, Donetsk. The Ukrainian shelling was intense and relentless.
The building has blown out windows, sand-bagged windows to attempt to protect the workers. Five days ago, the director's… pic.twitter.com/4oLD7iTRqw
We did venture outside between bouts of shelling, where Levchenko pointed out damage to the buildings and the shell of the Ukrainian-fired Hurricane MLRS which struck the premises.
The building has blown out windows, sandbagged windows to attempt to protect the workers; some days prior, the chief’s office had been damaged by shrapnel from the shelling. Thankfully, he had just stepped out a minute before the blast.
He showed me the fire truck damaged on June 22, pointing out the many shrapnel holes and noting one of the rear tires had been blown out.
Two of the employees who had been out on that call spoke to me about that day, saying that, after Ukrainian shelling of the district, they received a call that people were trapped inside a building with the door blocked after the shelling. A fire was spreading to the second and third floors, and that people were unable to escape. As the rescuers assessed the situation, a shell hit a wall near the truck and wounded the driver.
They said that, prior to the shelling, they saw a drone overhead. This, combined with the facts that they were uniformed and the fire truck was clearly marked and in a civilian area where people were calling for help, makes it credible to believe Ukraine deliberately targeted the rescuers.
Of Ukraine’s heightened shelling over the past many months, Levchenko said it was constant and daily. “Before, if we speak about 2014-2015, twenty minutes, one hour maximum. Now six-seven hours non-stop, every day.”
Excerpts from my report on Ukraine's targeting of Donbass rescuers, war crimes. In August, the Donetsk Fire & Rescue Dpt Director told me 40 employees had been injured, 4 killed. In past few days, reports from the DPR note 14 more rescuers have been killed, 9 more injured. pic.twitter.com/fzhcRoOwLT
He said that the Ukrainian forces shell, wait until rescuers arrive and then shell again. “They wait for 30 minutes for us to arrive. We arrive there, start assisting people, and the shelling resumes.”
This is something I witnessed for myself when, on August 4, Ukraine bombed the hotel in which I was staying, the fourth and fifth shells landing 50 meters away and then directly beside the hotel, respectively. When the fifth struck, shattering inwards the lobby glass doors, I had fortunately just stepped out of the lobby where 30 seconds earlier I had been speaking to journalists who had run in from the street.
There were another 4 or 5 close blasts 1.5 hours after the first 5.
When it seemed the shelling had stopped, journalists went outside to document the damage. Sadly, a young woman outside the hotel had been killed by the shelling. Five others just two streets away were also torn apart by the bombs, including a promising 12-year-old ballerina, her grandmother, and her world famous former ballerina ballet teacher.
[I'd met Vadim in August, after Ukraine repeatedly bombed central Donetsk, including just outside the theatre. He spoke to me about the 11 year old ballerina killed in the bombings, & her grandmother & ballet teacher.]https://t.co/IelzR5VKol
Emergency Services arrived and, not long after, Ukraine resumed its shelling. Fortunately, they were able to get inside, but this is just one example of Ukraine’s double strikes.
According to Levchenko, Ukraine does not only shell two times, but that they sometimes shell three times: “They wait again, our guys hide in the shelters, as soon as we go out, put out the fire, help people, there could be people under the debris, doors stuck, people can’t get out and get to the basement…then shelling resumes.”
He described the people engaging in this sort of warfare against civilians and rescuers as “Shameless. Scumbags. Terrorists.”
He is not wrong.
Targeting Rescuers: A Terrorist Tactic Adopted by U.S. Allies in Ukraine, Israel and Syria
As the DPR Emergency Services chief pointed out damage to the fire truck, I was reminded of Israel’s attacks on Palestinian medics and fire brigades in Gaza, including during the December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009, Israeli war on Gaza, where I was living at the time.
During those three weeks, I rode in the medics’ ambulances, documenting the destruction and the victims of Israel’s war crimes, but also in a sense as a human shield, in the hope that Israel would not strike ambulances in which a handful of internationals and I were riding.
As it turned out, by the end of the Israeli massacre of Gaza, Israeli forces killed 16 medical rescuers, four in one day alone. Another 57 were injured. At least 16 ambulances were damaged, with at least nine completely destroyed.
Israel targeted medics, killing many, including 1 I worked with: Arafa Abd al-Dayem, killed by an Israeli dart bomb fired directly at the ambulance he stood next to. An Israeli sniper shot at medics I was with, shooting right up to the ambulance I was in.https://t.co/dBdDNFtCVa
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 13, 2021
One of the murdered was a 35-year-old paramedic, Arafa Abd al-Dayem, who I had accompanied the night prior to his murder. As I wrote of that evening, “The dead, a 24-year-old night watchman, had no warning of the at least 2 missiles which leveled the school and tore him apart. The medics work to load the corpse, first having to replace the flat tire. Working frantically, still fearful of potential strikes, they crowd the ambulance, hoist the van, replace the flat. A missile hits 50 meters away. Surely, undoubtedly, those warplanes above us know—from the markings of the ambulance, the clothes of the medics, the crystal clear photos their drones can take—that we are civilians and medics below. Yet they fire.”
Arafa was killed later that day, when Israeli forces fired a flechette shell directly at his ambulance, shredding him with the dart-like flechettes, causing massive internal bleeding in his abdomen, blood in his lung, shock, and death.
A surgeon I interviewed later when writing about Israel’s widespread use of flechettes in Gaza told me that flechettes cause more injuries than other small munitions precisely because they spread in a larger area. And while the darts appear innocuously small, their velocity and design enable them to bore through cement and bones and “cut everything internal.” Accordingly, the prime cause of death is severe internal bleeding from slashed organs, particularly the heart, liver and brain.
One of the injured, Hassan al-Attal, 35, was a medic whose ambulance I was in when he and another medic came under Israeli sniper fire while attempting to retrieve a corpse from the street just beyond the ambulance. The sniper fire reached the ambulance itself. Hassan was wounded in the leg. This was during a few hours of supposed cease-fire. But in any case, the medics never should have been targeted.
As I wrote, “Although the Geneva Conventions explicitly state that ‘medical personnel searching, collecting, transporting or treating the wounded should be protected and respected in all circumstances,’ throughout Israel’s invasion this was not the case. Indeed, as the injured and emergency workers testify, Israeli forces targeted and prevented medical workers from reaching the wounded.
Without coordination, many ambulances did not dare risk Israeli gunfire and shelling, meaning hundreds of calls went unanswered, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Denied medical care, many victims succumbed to their wounds.”
Israeli forces killed 13 Civil Defense workers and injured 31, also destroyed six civil defense stations and damaging four.
From that same article, “Civil Defense workers, like medics, are protected under international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention states not only that emergency workers must be respected and allowed to do their work, but that their buildings, equipment and vehicles must not be targeted.
Yousef al-Zahar, director-general of Civil Defense in Gaza, told me at the time, ‘Targeting the Civil Defense centers and teams is an obvious indicator that the Israeli forces intended to paralyze Civil Defense activities in the Gaza Strip to raise civilian victims’ numbers in the casualties.’”
According to statistics from the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health and the PRCS, from the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 to when I wrote the 2010 article, Israeli Forces have killed at least 56 medical rescuers, including paramedics, drivers, doctors and volunteers—an average of one rescuer every two months—and have injured at least another 500 medical rescuers.
Likewise, British journalist Vanessa Beeley has written at length about Syrian rescuers targeted by terrorist factions in Syria, their equipment stolen. In one of her articles, she cited a Commanding Officer of the Real Syria Civil Defense in an Aleppo district describing a scenario which Donbas and Palestinian rescuers would recognize:
“They (terrorists) targeted us deliberately in order to destroy our equipment & structures. They wanted to prevent us being able to work for our people. They would target our crew with sniper fire and explosive bullets. Their main mission was to kill the crew and destroy our base so we couldn’t care for the people of Aleppo.”
In that same article, she noted that “terrorist groups systematically carried out double-tap attacks” on the rescuers, just as Israel does to Palestinian rescuers and Ukraine to Donbas rescuers.
Thanks hun, the REAL Syria Civil Defence suffered horribly at the hands of #WhiteHelmets & co – many were murdered, kidnapped, equipment was stolen and these real volunteer heroes came under constant attack fm terrorist handlers of WH.
On September 1, 13 DPR Emergency workers were killed and 9 injured from Ukrainian shelling. According to a representative of the Emergency Situations, the shelling was intentional.
“The missiles exactly hit residential buildings. The vehicle was outside and it was hit with shrapnel and pieces of the destroyed building. But again, you can see it’s an emergency vehicle—a fire vehicle. This is a war crime.”
The following day, two more Emergency Services workers were killed and two injured by Ukrainian shelling of their fire truck, in Makeevka. They were en route to put out a fire. Images accompanying the news show a mangled bright red fire truck, unmistakably a rescue services vehicle.
When in August I spoke with the Director of the Donetsk Department of Fire and Rescue of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, he told me that, at that time, four Emergency Services workers had been killed and 40 injured by Ukrainian shelling.
With Ukraine’s targeting of Emergency Services in September, the number of rescuers Ukraine has killed is now at least 19, with another 51 injured.
A funeral ceremony of farewell to two dead employees of the 14th fire and rescue unit of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR was held in Makeevka” Photo courtesy DPR Ministry of Emergency Services. [Source: vk.com]
I had the chance to speak with the mother of a young firefighter, Pavel (“Pasha”) Legonkiy, killed by Ukrainian shelling on June 18, 2022. He and other Emergency Services personnel had gone to the site of a Ukrainian shelling, in central Donetsk. A Ukrainian double-tap strike killed Pasha and the driver, injuring three others.
Svetlana spoke proudly of her courageous, compassionate son.
“He loved his work very much. He lived for this work. It was his duty to help people. My son dreamed of starting a family, dreamed of having children, dreamed of working! And one shell that you sent here ended his life.”
These men and women know very well the threats they face when going out on a call, but go anyway, to help their citizens under Ukrainian attacks.
The two women I spoke to at Donetsk Ambulance Services replied to my question about whether they considered stopping their work.
“I’m really scared, everyone is scared. But what can we do? How about the patients? They are people like me, they hurt and are even more scared. They are waiting for our help. While you are driving you feel fear, but as soon as you get to the place of the tragedy, the fear goes away and you just start doing your job and forget about this fear.”
The Kievskiy Emergency Ministry Chief, Andrey Levchenko, said of the rescuers, “They are all heroes. If it were possible, I would give a medal to every one of them, to honor their work, to support them. But they don’t do that for the medals, no way. Nobody ever said, ‘we’re not going, we don’t want to,’” he said, referring to when rescuers go out on calls.
He is right. These rescuers are heroes, putting their lives on the line every time they go out to help a person in need, knowing full well Ukraine frequently strikes an area a second and a third time, specifically to target rescuers. While they might not receive or want medals, they should be afforded their right under international law to rescue people without fear of being shelled by Ukraine.
As I review my posts from Israeli bombing of Gaza 2008/9, it strikes me that everything the West accused Syria of doing, Israel *actually* did. Chemicals on civilians, bombing hospitals & medics… West whitewashed this & but used in lies against Syria."https://t.co/HYNM8wE1Ni
I haven’t “blogged” consistently for many years, since my Gaza days really, and use this site as a place to re-post my writings and interviews, generally.
Today, because I’m strapped for time, still in the Donetsk People’s Republic, I’m doing a short blog post, to share this:
Another attack from Kiev has hit central Donetsk, targeting a funeral and a hotel where numerous reporters stay and work
Photo: Eva K Bartlett
Aug 4, 2022, RT.com (*blog version longer than originally published at RT)
-Eva K Bartlett
At 10:13 am Thursday, Ukraine began shelling central Donetsk. There were five powerful blasts in the space of ten minutes. The last explosion blew out my hotel’s ground-floor glass, including a sitting room – where journalists often congregate before and after going out to do field reporting, and where until less than ten minutes prior, I’d been sitting working on my laptop – and the lobby, which I had passed through a minute earlier. A cameraman’s assistant who was there at the time of that fifth explosion suffered a concussion from the force of the blast.
A woman walking outside the building was killed, as were at least four others, including an 11 year old rising-star ballerina, her grandmother, and her teacher (a world-renowned former ballerina).
Donetsk Telegram channels are filled with videos locals have taken, of the dead, the injured and the damage, and of grief-stricken people. One such hard-to-watch Telegram post (warning: graphic footage) features a man in shock at the gruesome sight of the bodies of his murdered wife and grandchild on a street two blocks from the hotel.
There were another 4 or 5 close blasts 1.5 hours after the first 5.
First estimates placed the number at at least ten, among them two ambulance workers: a paramedic and a doctor.
Reading the news, you have the luxury of graphic image warnings and the choice not to look at the pictures and videos of the carnage that occurred on Thursday, as well as over the past eight years of Ukraine’s war on Donbass. The people here on the ground don’t get a warning, or a choice as to whether they will see the mutilated remains of a loved-one or stranger. As uncomfortable as it is to see such footage, it does need to be shown if the world is to know the truth of what’s going on in Donbass, to give voice to the locals, killed and terrorized by Ukrainian forces as Western corporate media looks elsewhere or covers up these crimes.
Chronology of the bomb strikes
When the shelling started, I was in my room editing footage from the previous day – from the aftermath of another Ukrainian shelling of a Donetsk district.
While in Kirovskiy, Donetsk, this morning at a site of a Ukrainian bombing yesterday, we learned of a nearby area that just shelled by Ukraine, a woman killed.
While in Kirovskiy, Donetsk, this morning at a site of a Ukrainian bombing yesterday, we learned of a nearby area that just shelled by Ukraine, a woman killed.
You wouldn’t know it from most Western media coverage but explosions are so common here that I didn’t think much of the blast other than it was louder than usual and the car alarms were going off.
Seven minutes later, another explosion, much louder and much closer. From the window, smoke could be seen rising to the north, probably 200 meters away. This would have been right near the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, where the funeral ceremony for Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Colonel Olga Kachura, killed yesterday, was commencing.
A minute later, another loud blast sent me running from the room, which faced the direction of incoming artillery. Luckily, the only damage ended up being a broken window.
Downstairs, journalists who had been in the hotel and others who had been outside ready to go out reporting, took shelter in the hallway for the time being, ready to run to the basement if things escalated, telling me that the last shelling hit 50 metres from the hotel.
One told me he had been preparing to go film and was about 10 meters away from where the last shell struck. “I believe they were trying to target the funeral. And journalists also,” he said. He also said there was a woman outside who had lost a leg, and that she was probably dead by now.
I left the lobby briefly and during that time, the fifth strike hit, blowing out the windows and killing a woman just outside the hotel. Journalists in the lobby suffered from the pressure of the blast. A cameraman’s assistant got a concussion from it. It was by pure luck that I was not in the lobby.
I was back inside the hotel, sitting in a hallway, beginning to stitch together my footage, to publish it, when the shelling resumed. Journalists still outside ran back in. After another four blasts, the shelling died down. Meanwhile, Telegram was filled with videos people had sent from Donetsk streets. A man slumped dead near a bus stop. Three civilians slaughtered on a sidewalk just two streets from the hotel, a man shrieking his grief at the horrific site of his wife and granddaughter in pieces.
After the dust had settled and it seemed Ukraine had stopped its shelling, we went outside to document the damage, and the carnage. The poor women killed by the shelling was by this point covered with a hotel curtain, blood stains around her body.
It’s safe to assume that Kiev’s forces’ intended target was the funeral service for Colonel Kachura, aiming perhaps to send a message to the DPR military and the civilians who support it. While that would be egregious by itself, it is likely that a hotel housing journalists was not just ‘collateral damage,’ either.
It is common for aggressors like Ukraine or Israel or terrorists in Syria to target journalists. In 2009, as it waged war on the civilians of Gaza, Israel repeatedly shelled a media building I was in.
It was bad enough that Israel closed border crossing and wouldn't allow journalists into Gaza (I was already there), but then went on to target media, to silence any honest reporting on its war crimes against Palestinians. https://t.co/7VbkWiLDKV
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 12, 2021
It was bad enough that Israel closed border crossing and wouldn’t allow journalists into Gaza (I was already there), but then went on to target media, to silence any honest reporting on its war crimes against Palestinians. https://t.co/7VbkWiLDKV— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 12, 2021
In May 2021, as it resumed intensely bombing Gaza, Israel destroyed two Gaza media buildings housing 20 media outlets.
Kiev’s forces know a lot of journalists stay at this hotel for its central location and strong wifi. Many frequently do their live reports from outside the hotel. And those staying there, as well as in other central Donetsk neighbourhoods, have been loudly reporting on Ukraine’s showering of Donetsk with the insidious, internationally-prohibited ‘butterfly’ anti-personnel mines of late – the latest, until today, in the list of Kiev’s war crimes. These explosives are designed to rip off feet and legs, and Ukraine has repeatedly fired rockets containing them, intentionally dropping them on civilian areas in Donetsk and other Donbass cities.
After the explosions rang out in central Donetsk Thursday, Emergency Services arrived at the scene and, following a period of calm, journalists went out to document the damage and the dead. The woman I’d been told about lay in a pool of blood, covered with what appeared to be a curtain from one of the blown-out windows.
The calm didn’t last long. Ukraine soon resumed shelling, and journalists outside ran back inside as we received another four attacks. “It’s like a common thing, they shoot one place and shoot it again. So we’re in the middle of that process right now,” a Serbian guy near me said. The chief of a local Emergency Services headquarters told me Kiev also makes triple strikes, not only double.
It is said that Ukraine used NATO-standard 155mm caliber weapons in today’s attack. If that is true, this is another instance of Ukraine using Western-supplied weapons to slaughter and maim civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
If by bombing a hotel full of journalists Kiev wanted to intimidate them away from reporting on Ukraine’s war crimes, it won’t work. Most journalists reporting from on the ground here do so because, unlike the crocodile tears of the West for conflicts they create, we actually care about the lives of people here.
I expanded my short August 4 clip on Ukraine's bombing of central Donetsk.
The attacks slaughtered 6 people, leaving the horrific sight of their mangled corpses on streets.
Another of Ukraine's war crimes, in its 8+ years of war on the Donbass people.https://t.co/R8yWugBiyI
Hmm @TwitterSupport took down @FiorellaIsabelM’s tweet exposing @LouiseMensch’s call for a hit on journalist Eva Bartlett & is preventing Fiorella from accessing her account until she deletes the tweet, but it won’t remove Mensch’s call for death? Is Twitter protecting fascists? pic.twitter.com/yVPNqHryKk
The next morning, I went around Donetsk to document the extremely dangerous “petal” mines Ukraine has dropped on the city. According to DPR Emergency Services, eight civilians had been killed by these mines just the day before. If you step on one of these tiny-but powerful-explosives, chances it will merely tear off a leg instead of outright killing you. And they are insidiously toy-like in appearance, likely to attract children’s attention.
Even with warning, these nefarious "petal"/"butterfly" mines dropped by Ukraine on Donetsk are hard to see & easy to miss.
Ukraine is committing war crimes against the civilians of the Donbass, and has been for 8+ years. pic.twitter.com/p5byG95GVG
Ukraine and Western media, as would be expected, blame Russia for the bombing of Yelenovka detention center, which killed 53 people. Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), in turn, point the finger at Kiev.
In addition to those killed, the 2am bombing, which DPR officials say was carried out using American-supplied HIMARS, injured at least eight employees and over 70 POWs held there. The prisoners were captured Ukrainian combatants, mainly members of the Azov neo-Nazi militia who’d surrendered in Mariupol in May.
If HIMARS, or High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, were indeed the source of the destruction and death, then it is almost certain it was Ukraine who bombed the prison, given that Kiev had the coordinates and is the only side in the conflict that possesses such weapons. Even the Pentagon admits it is possible, albeit characterizing the strike as “unintentional.”
From a logical perspective, Russia had no motivation to bomb the prison. For Ukraine, on the other hand, these POWs represented a liability, in that they could testify to the alleged war crimes they committed against Donbass civilians.
Ukraine has made a litany of claims meant to incriminate Russia throughout the current conflict –the Bucha massacre, the strike on the Mariupol maternity hospital, the Ghost of Kiev hoax, the supposed mass graves of civilians, the outlandish false allegations of Russian soldiers committing sexual crimes, which even saw the former Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights fired by Kiev’s own parliament.
Russia has invited the UN and the International Red Cross to investigate the Yelenovka prison bombing. Meanwhile, observers online have used the publicly available data to put together a picture of what occurred. Here’s an insightful analysis from the Rybar Telegram channel (with more than 627,000 followers), specializing in military analytics:
“The eastern part of the building suffered the most damage, where a powerful fire and explosion occurred, which blew out the windows.” Judging by the angle of impact, the analyst concludes that “the shooting was carried out from the trajectory of Marinka-Kurakhovo –the Sergeevka triangle– Pokrovsk-Udachnoe.” This is Ukrainian-controlled territory. The analysis could not conclude whether HIMARS was used, from the information at hand.
Along the ‘who benefits?’ line of thinking, a number of circumstances also point to Kiev. These have also been pointed out by Russian observers and compiled into a chronology. The captured Azov Nazis were taken to the Yelenovka detention center in late May. While prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia have included Azov fighters, there is a strong opposition to handing them back over to Kiev, meaning that there’s no guarantee that they would be exchanged in the future – potentially making them a liability to Kiev. By June 20 reports of Ukraine shelling the prison already appeared on Russian channels watching the conflict. On July 28 the confession of an Azov member emerged, claiming that neo-Nazis in Kharkov and Kiev had direct orders from Zelensky’s office to torture and murder Russian prisoners of war. Late that night/early next morning, Ukraine struck the very detention center holding the Azov member who confessed, as well as others who might have done so.
Elsewhere, other neo-Nazis in captivity have confessed to deliberately murdering civilians, a PR disaster for Ukraine, made worse were the prisoners in Yelenovka to follow suit.
Last but not least, just two days before the Yelenovka strike, the US Senate passed a resolution urging the State Department to recognize Russia as a “sponsor of terrorism.” By perpetrating an attack and blaming it on Moscow, Kiev could be aiming to push that decision through – even though the State Department is reportedly reluctant.
And here’s the reason behind today's Ukrainian missile attack: Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, wrote that the “Russian terrorist attack in Yelenovka” should lead to the recognition of Russia as a sponsor of terrorism. pic.twitter.com/MYFqoJhBNt
Given Ukraine’s multiple attempts to incriminate Russia, and eight years of bombing Donbass civilians, killing their own soldiers is not too far-fetched. In fact, surrendered Ukrainian soldiers have claimed their commanders threatened to shoot them if they attempted desertion, and indeed Ukrainian nationalists firing on them when they attempted to surrender, in one case killing or wounding dozens .
It is left to Russian and DPR doctors to preserve the lives of Ukrainian POWs – even those apparently injured by friendly fire. Outside a Donetsk hospital after the Yelenovka bombing, one of the doctors working on wounded Ukrainians said that five had already had successful surgery for their shrapnel wounds, and two more were to undergo operations.
“It doesn’t matter which side you’re on, we will help you,” he said.
The ghastly scenes of charred flesh and shrapnel-studded bodies I saw at the prison will remain etched in my mind for a long time. Yes, war is ugly, but Ukraine is upping the ante when it comes to both war crimes and hypocrisy.
*Warning: below are extremely graphic images, which I’ve blurred slightly, but still, not for the weak of stomach.*
5 thoughts on “Who killed the POWs at Yelenovka? All signs on the ground point to a Ukrainian attack”
Tom Welsh‘Even the Pentagon admits it is possible, albeit characterizing the strike as “unintentional.”’One minute with Google Maps or equivalent will show that the prison compound stands in open fields, some way distant from the nearest houses. And even those are just a small hamlet. There is literally nothing else in the vicinity that could have been the target.
5onic5ocialistEva I can’t imagine what kind of spirit you must have to be able to do what you do and have done. Looks like fucking Empire like rust will never sleep. They would only be too happy to put us all to sleep permanently. Admire your passion and adhesion to the truth and not bullshit propaganda. If only Empire had the qualities you possess. The world would turn unfettered by nascent greed. Peace Dear Sister. And much thanks.
EsmondThank you, Eva. It’s heartbreaking but it’s reality. I can’t help but be concerned over the effect these horrible events have on all our human psyches particularly you who has witnessed it firsthand. You and those around you are in our thoughts and meditations. Much love to you.
10 to 1Very tragic. How low has the US leadership sunk to support the Ukrainian government which does this to their own soldiers. When their own soldiers become liabilities of the Ukrainian government and are slaughter like cockroaches. Not to mention was the US leadership a party to the decision to attack the Ukrainian POW’s, to hide the US involvement and possibly being the ones making the decisions to commit them?As word of this gets out, my guess is the defense of Ukraine will collapse very rapidly and the US will have few friends. Now how far will the US leadership go to stop this story in its tracks and do all it can to bury it?Please stay safe Eva.
Steve Sweeney has reported from hot spots around the world, exposing Imperialist war crimes and attempts to interfere in and destabilize sovereign nations.
He is Morning Star International Editor, founder of Media Workers for Palestine, and reports on global liberation movements, press freedom & resistance.
Steve contacted me the other day to ask for a statement on Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) recent appeal to censor Russian media, on their premise that Russian media is “inciting hatred” and “condoning war crimes.”
He also contacted RSF with an excellent list of questions including why a (supposed) press freedom group is demanding that alternative media narratives are censored, could they give concrete examples regarding what they’ve accused Russian media of doing (no), and whether RSF would comment on journalists like me being put on Ukraine’s kill list because of my reporting from on the ground in Donbass, where I’ve just returned incidentally.
After a series of insightful exchanges, I asked Steve to please have a conversation with me about all of this. What a conversation it was! In our conversation, he details how RSF panicked and stalled replying, only to essentially give lengthy non-answers and flat out refuse to address some questions (including the one about me and Ukraine’s kill list).
A spoiler: Steve notes that RSF is not the neutral body it pretends to be, instead receiving obscene amounts of money from NED, Soros’ Open Society, USAID, the Ford Foundation…a “rogue’s gallery of the worst kind of regime change organizations.”
As RSF endeavours to shut down Russian media, I joined my Russian colleagues today in going to sites that were bombed by Ukraine yesterday in Gorlovka, killing one civilian & leaving two others in critical condition. This is the sort of crimes Ukraine has been perpetrating for over eight years, and its courageous journalists like my colleagues who have been putting their lives on the line to expose Ukraine’s genocide of the Donbass people. RSF by whitewashing Ukraine’s crimes is abetting in genocide.
How cute: instead of doing a report on the fact that Ukraine has me on a kill list for my journalism, Canadian state-funded CBC seems to be gearing up to do a smear on my participation on a tribunal on Ukraine's war crimes.
However, in my opinion, RSF could stand condemning the kill list more loudly & frequently (I couldn't find any recent mentions, only from 2016 or so), particularly since journalists whose details were put on the site were then assassinated…https://t.co/dQGbIm8iR4
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) July 4, 2022
This outstanding report from Syria by Eva Bartlett penetrates the 'iron dome' of Western propaganda, also known as news. It is about a chemical attack that never happened in a country attacked, subverted and blockaded in your name.https://t.co/AX1Zwbg0g0
In the interview, I note how disingenuous the entire piece is, from moment of emailing me to request an interview (no thanks, not interested! I know how corporate hacks roll.); how they intentionally omitted any mention of Ukraine’s kill list, which I am on and which Rick Walker & colleagues specifically contacted the CBC about; their deceitful framing of my journalism (on the ground in the Donbas under Ukrainian bombing) as me being a duped “frontline soldier” in Russian researcher and journalist, Maxim Grigoriev (who I know and respect)’s plot to frame Ukraine as being overrun with Nazis (it is) and committing war crimes (Ukraine & its Nazis are)…and more, including the things CBC omits: Ukraine’s bombing of the DPR & LPR, targeting civilians, apartments, hospitals, schools, city streets, rescuers, etc…
CBC thinks its viewers are idiots, clearly.
I’d like to note, however, that since the smear, I’ve gotten many supportive emails, messages and comments, and an increase in people who ask to support me financially. So, thanks, CBC, and more importantly, thank all of you who support in any manner.
I’ll put related links at the bottom of this post.
As I wrote in a rebuttal to a Guardian smear, “Addressing “the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism, ”award-winning journalist and film maker, John Pilger, said (emphasis added):
“Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It’s a history few journalists talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising.
As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called ‘professional journalism’ was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment, objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalists. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media.
…The whole thing was entirely bogus. For what the public didn’t know, was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources. And that hasn’t changed. Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories, domestic and foreign, and you’ll find that they’re dominated by governments and other establishment interests. That’s the essence of professional journalism.”
“I happen to agree with Eva’s take on Syria, but from a journalist’s perspective, the true importance of what she does goes beyond reporting from any single country. She challenges the accepted narrative–and that is the essence of journalism. Everything else is stenography. Budding foreign correspondents take note!!”
“The great curse of our press in the West is willingness to accept the official narrative. So many people in the American press who write about the world are merely stenographers. The great qualification you need for a journalist is the confidence to go out and see for yourself, and believe that your eyes are actually telling you more than press releases from some other country.
It’s amazing to see how many people have built reputations as commentators on foreign countries and world affairs who have never been there, have no idea, beyond vague tropes, of what those countries are. The intellectual laziness of the American press in covering the world has never been as extreme as it is now. It’s just as dangerous in most what’s called NATO countries to be contradicting the narrative as it is in the United States.”
“Regime media may call themselves “news media,” but there is next to no actual journalism involved in their work. In that spirit, students at contemporary Canadian schools of “journalism” are in fact being trained in the methods of policing restive subjects with “unacceptable views”. Embracing “advocacy,” they have degenerated into mere practitioners of propaganda whose ultimate aim is the reproduction of the ideas of the ruling faction of the regime.
Regime media’s public scripts involve a regression to some of the most outmoded forms of propaganda seen since World War I. Their work involves a classically crude command structure: they tell people what to think, plain and simple. Then they tell people what to think about, and here the agenda-setting is particularly exclusive…”
Says the PM of a country which routinely prevents Russian media from reporting in Canada, and also a PM who supports Nazis in Ukraine and seemingly has no problem with a Canadian journalist (me) being on Ukraine's kill list… https://t.co/QiX0EYLZ9A
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 19, 2022
Worth reading the report, this is only a glimpse of Ukraine's torture practices again any sort of dissenting voice… pic.twitter.com/5pHVsX0bDl
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) July 4, 2022
And, how embarrassing for Brandy, in her attempt to discredit me she pushed the White Helmets narrative, discrediting herself 😆🤣😂🤯 pic.twitter.com/pKIWR6DBiz
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) June 9, 2022
This outstanding report from Syria by Eva Bartlett penetrates the 'iron dome' of Western propaganda, also known as news. It is about a chemical attack that never happened in a country attacked, subverted and blockaded in your name.https://t.co/AX1Zwbg0g0
Ukraine Continues Killing Children in The Donetsk People’s Republic, Including With Western Weapons:
I just spent 2 hours with journalist Roman Kosarev at Emergency Services in Kievskiy district, Donetsk. The Ukrainian shelling was intense and relentless.
The building has blown out windows, sand-bagged windows to attempt to protect the workers. Five days ago, the director's… pic.twitter.com/4oLD7iTRqw
An FYI: Whether or not I contribute periodic opinion pieces to RT, I'll continue to write what I see/think. The "you're a Kremlin agent" thing doesn't work, nor the "you work for RT". My observations on #Moscow protests don't jive w MSM scripts; nothing to do w where I publish pic.twitter.com/s9KEepSrLb
Russia’s Defense Ministry on May 20 announced the liberation of the Azovstal plant from Ukraine’s Nazi Azov Battalion, and some days later stated that sappers had demined an area of one and a half million square meters around the city’s port.
In early June, the ministry declared the facility ready for use anew. “The de-mining of Mariupol’s port has been completed. It is functioning normally, and has received its first cargo ships,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the time.
Russia promised to give ships safe passage, and on June 21, the Turkish ship Azov Concord left with a Russian escort. At Mariupol port that day, prior to setting off, the captain of the ship, Ivan Babenkov, spoke to the media, telling us that the vessel, without cargo, was heading to Novorossiysk for loading, and then on to its destination.
Rear Admiral Viktor Kochemazov, commander of the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea’s northeastern coast, down the Kerch Strait from Mariupol, explained that while the corridor has been operational since May 25, the nearly one-month delay in departing was because “ships were significantly damaged during the conduct of hostilities.” Notably, he also said that some ships were deliberately damaged by Ukrainian forces in order to prevent them from leaving.
Yesterday, watching Turkey's Concord leave Mariupol port, escorted by Russia to safe waters. It was the first foreign ship to leave the port, after repairs & after Russia demined the deadly mess Ukraine left behind. pic.twitter.com/enU3TSJJjV
From aboard a Russian anti-sabotage forces boat, media watched the Azov Concord leave port. Further on, the ship would be met by warships of the Novorossiysk base and escorted to the Kerch Strait where FSB border control ships would continue to escort the ship.
A Bulgarian ship, the Tsarevna, was readying to depart the port next, “also following the same humanitarian corridor to its destination in accordance with plans for the use of the court by the owner,” Rear Admiral Kochemazov said.
Western press ignoring developments
Predictably, just as the Western media continues to ignore Ukraine’s war crimes against the Donbass republics, including not only the bombing of houses, hospitals, and busy markets – plus the killing and maiming of civilians – so too do they omit coverage of anything positive emanating from areas where Ukrainian forces have been ousted and stability restored.
Instead, Western media continues to spin the story that it’s Russia that’s blocking ports and preventing grain exports, and blame Moscow for “aggravating the global food crisis” – when in reality, it is Ukraine that has mined ports and burned grain storages.
More blatant disinformation from our US colleagues. They perfectly know that the Ukrainian ports are mined by Kiev and our offers of humanitarian sea passages were repeatedly rejected. And don’t trigger famine in #Ukraine by depriving it of grain-don’t tell us we didn’t warn you! https://t.co/Y9PqG9hoJZ
In fact, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, “70 foreign vessels from 16 countries remain blocked in six Ukrainian ports (Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhniy). The threat of shelling and high mine danger posed by official Kiev prevent vessels from entering the high seas unhindered.”
While Russia maintains it has opened two maritime humanitarian corridors in the Black and Azov Seas, Kiev is apparently not engaging with representatives of states and ship-owning companies about the departure of docked foreign ships.
Meanwhile, in the same vein, media outlets like the New York Times (writing as always from afar) claim that Mariupol is “suffering deeply” under Russian rule (citing the runaway former mayor, nowhere near the city for months, who is the source of previous war propaganda) even describing the Azov Neo-Nazis as “the city’s last military resistance.”
Yet, what I’ve seen in multiple trips to Mariupol in the past couple of weeks is rubble being removed so that the rebuilding process can begin, newly established street markets, public transportation running, and calm in the streets.
While waiting for a flat tire to be changed, just entering Mariupol. Public transportation working. pic.twitter.com/e1nZh3P0fF
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) June 26, 2022
The people of Mariupol have indeed suffered, but now that the Azov Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists no longer reign, they can live without fear of persecution, execution, rape, torture, and all of the other ‘democratic values’ of the forces backed by the West.
The rebuilding will take time, but with the port functioning anew, and the possibility now of also bringing reconstruction materials by sea, it can begin, ship by ship.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on May 20 announced the liberation of the Azovstal plant from Ukraine’s Nazi Azov Battalion, and some days later stated that sappers had demined an area of one and a half million square meters around the city’s port.
In early June, the ministry declared the facility ready for use anew. “The de-mining of Mariupol’s port has been completed. It is functioning normally, and has received its first cargo ships,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the time.
Russia promised to give ships safe passage, and on June 21, the Turkish ship Azov Concord left with a Russian escort. At Mariupol port that day, prior to setting off, the captain of the ship, Ivan Babenkov, spoke to the media, telling us that the vessel, without cargo, was heading to Novorossiysk for loading, and then on to its destination.
Rear Admiral Viktor Kochemazov, commander of the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea’s northeastern coast, down the Kerch Strait from Mariupol, explained that while the corridor has been operational since May 25, the nearly one-month delay in departing was because “ships were significantly damaged during the conduct of hostilities.” Notably, he also said that some ships were deliberately damaged by Ukrainian forces in order to prevent them from leaving.
Yesterday, watching Turkey's Concord leave Mariupol port, escorted by Russia to safe waters. It was the first foreign ship to leave the port, after repairs & after Russia demined the deadly mess Ukraine left behind. pic.twitter.com/enU3TSJJjV
From aboard a Russian anti-sabotage forces boat, media watched the Azov Concord leave port. Further on, the ship would be met by warships of the Novorossiysk base and escorted to the Kerch Strait where FSB border control ships would continue to escort the ship.
A Bulgarian ship, the Tsarevna, was readying to depart the port next, “also following the same humanitarian corridor to its destination in accordance with plans for the use of the court by the owner,” Rear Admiral Kochemazov said.
Western press ignoring developments
Predictably, just as the Western media continues to ignore Ukraine’s war crimes against the Donbass republics, including not only the bombing of houses, hospitals, and busy markets – plus the killing and maiming of civilians – so too do they omit coverage of anything positive emanating from areas where Ukrainian forces have been ousted and stability restored.
Instead, Western media continues to spin the story that it’s Russia that’s blocking ports and preventing grain exports, and blame Moscow for “aggravating the global food crisis” – when in reality, it is Ukraine that has mined ports and burned grain storages.
More blatant disinformation from our US colleagues. They perfectly know that the Ukrainian ports are mined by Kiev and our offers of humanitarian sea passages were repeatedly rejected. And don’t trigger famine in #Ukraine by depriving it of grain-don’t tell us we didn’t warn you! https://t.co/Y9PqG9hoJZ
In fact, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, “70 foreign vessels from 16 countries remain blocked in six Ukrainian ports (Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhniy). The threat of shelling and high mine danger posed by official Kiev prevent vessels from entering the high seas unhindered.”
While Russia maintains it has opened two maritime humanitarian corridors in the Black and Azov Seas, Kiev is apparently not engaging with representatives of states and ship-owning companies about the departure of docked foreign ships.
Meanwhile, in the same vein, media outlets like the New York Times (writing as always from afar) claim that Mariupol is “suffering deeply” under Russian rule (citing the runaway former mayor, nowhere near the city for months, who is the source of previous war propaganda) even describing the Azov Neo-Nazis as “the city’s last military resistance.”
Yet, what I’ve seen in multiple trips to Mariupol in the past couple of weeks is rubble being removed so that the rebuilding process can begin, newly established street markets, public transportation running, and calm in the streets.
While waiting for a flat tire to be changed, just entering Mariupol. Public transportation working. pic.twitter.com/e1nZh3P0fF
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) June 26, 2022
The people of Mariupol have indeed suffered, but now that the Azov Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists no longer reign, they can live without fear of persecution, execution, rape, torture, and all of the other ‘democratic values’ of the forces backed by the West.
The rebuilding will take time, but with the port functioning anew, and the possibility now of also bringing reconstruction materials by sea, it can begin, ship by ship.
The Lugansk People’s Republic has now been brought under the control of the LPR & Russia
All of the Lugansk People’s Republic has now been brought under the control of the LPR & Russia.
The population who were treated as subhuman (at best), or imprisoned, starved, tortured, executed…by Ukrainian forces & Nazis can now lively freely & without enduring the hell of Ukrainian rule any longer.
Жители освобожденного от киевского режима Лисичанска встречают российских военных. Думаю, не лишним будет добавить английские субтитры. Может кто-то на Западе услышит рассказы настоящих украинцев о "доблестных" бойцах ВСУ, а не мейнстримную пропаганду pic.twitter.com/B1lczuJJi3
Following intense Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk on June 13, some Western media sources, in tandem with outlets in Kiev, unsurprisingly claimed that the attack – which killed at least five civilians and struck a busy maternity hospital – was perpetrated by Russian forces.
Why Moscow would launch rockets at its own allies wasn’t explained, nor would it make much sense.
The Donetsk People’s Republic’s foreign ministry reported: “Such an unprecedented. in terms of power, density and duration of fire, raid on the DPR capital was not recorded during the entire period of the armed conflict [since 2014]. In two hours, almost 300 MLRS rockets and artillery shells were fired.”
The Ukrainian shelling began late morning, resumed in the afternoon, and continued for another two hours in the evening, a deafening series of blasts throughout the city, terrorizing residents and targeting apartment buildings, civilian infrastructure, the aforementioned hospital, and industrial buildings.
In the hard-hit Kievskiy district, to the north, the shelling caused fires at a water bottling plant and a warehouse for stationery, destroying it. The building was still in flames when journalist Roman Kosarev and I arrived about an hour after the attack. Apartment buildings in the area also came under firer, leaving doors and windows blown out and cars destroyed.
Fires still burning at a stationary warehouse & a nearby water bottling facility in Donetsk after Ukrainian bombings. Ukraine pounded all over Donetsk today, including a market, killing three civilians, one of which a child. pic.twitter.com/VW8FU529Ek
The destroyed gas station was on a street where I stayed in April, which is completely residential.
DPR head Denis Pushilin said, “The enemy literally crossed all the lines. Prohibited methods of warfare are being used, residential and central districts of Donetsk are being shelled, other cities and settlements of the DPR are also under fire now.”
To all those in the West who support Kiev regime we recommend to examine the evidence of barbaric heavy artillery shelling of Donetsk by Ukrainian 🇺🇦 forces on June 13th. ☝5 hospitals, 3 schools and a kindergarten have been damaged. Will @UNESCO react to these crimes of Kiev❓ pic.twitter.com/Nus5lDuTy5
— RussianMissionUNESCO (@unesco_russia) June 14, 2022
Hypocritical silence after maternity hospital shelling
In a world where media reported honestly instead of manufacturing its own reality, there would be outrage over Ukraine’s attack on the Donetsk maternity hospital. But history shows that is not a world we live in.
As I wrote last year, Western media and talking heads also diligently avoided condemnation when terrorists attacked or destroyed Syrian hospitals, including the shelling of a maternity hospital in Aleppo, which killed three women.
At the damaged Donetsk hospital, I saw the gaping hole in the roof and remnants of the Uragan MLRS rocket which struck it. Most of the windows of both buildings were blown out.
Images shared on Twitter noted, “Both gynecology and intensive care have been bombed.” Other footage, taken by Donetsk war correspondent Dmitri Ashtrakhan, showed dozens of women, some heavily pregnant, taking shelter in the basement of the shelled maternity hospital.
War reporter Dmitry Astrakhan at the Vishnevsky Hospital in Donetsk, where a Ukrainian shell directly hit the maternity ward. All the women, children & hospital staff are safe, they managed to evacuate to the basement in time. pic.twitter.com/HR7yCam8IN
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) June 13, 2022
Were these women and this hospital in Kiev, you can bet Western media would be loudly reporting it 24/7 for weeks. Instead, just as the West has steadfastly ignored Ukraine’s eight years of war on Donbass, they also omit reporting on the hospital.
Grotesquely, some Ukrainian and Western media instead disingenuously reported that it was a Russian attack, not Ukrainian, which terrorized, injured and killed civilians on June 13.
The German @tagesschau claimed yesterday that Russia has shelled the market in Donetsk!
Such a blatant lie, fooling the people for the sake of shaping the needed narrative and public opinion to serve the interests of certain players. pic.twitter.com/siBvkI07eB
— Maria Dubovikova ✦ ماريا دوبوفيكوفا (@politblogme) June 14, 2022
Just as Western media’s lack of reporting, or twisting of the narrative, on Ukraine’s shelling was to be expected, so too was the UN’s weak-worded condemnation, with the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, calling it“extremely troubling.” You can bet that were the situation reversed and Russia responsible for bombing a Ukrainian maternity hospital, his words would have been far stronger.
In fact, they already have been: Three months ago, when Kiev accused Russia of an attack on a maternity hospital, in Mariupol.
Back then, the Guterres emphatically tweeted, “Today’s attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, where maternity & children’s wards are located, is horrific. Civilians are paying the highest price for a war that has nothing to do with them. This senseless violence must stop. End the bloodshed now.”
A strong reaction to what later emerged to be a hoax claim, when the UN itself even admitted it could not verify the story. But a mild reaction to a documented reality in Donetsk.
The UN did, at least, rightly note the attack on the Donetsk maternity hospital was, “an obvious breach of the international humanitarian law.” So there’s that.
The thing is, Ukraine has violated international law for its eight years of waging war on the Donbass republics, using prohibited heavy weapons and targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is only the latest incident.
Tears flow for hoax hospital bombing
In March, Western corporate-owned media supported Kiev’s claim that Russia had launched air strikes on a Mariupol maternity hospital, claiming three civilians had been killed. At the time, as reported, “The White House condemned the ‘barbaric’ use of force against innocent civilians, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that ‘there are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenceless’.”
As it turned out, witnesses reported there hadn’t been any air strike. There were explosions: just as terrorists bombed an Aleppo home in 2016 and used a mildly injured boy for their propaganda against Syria and Russia, so too did Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, setting the stage to incriminate Moscow.
Russia called the accusations “a completely staged provocation,” analyzing photos from the area and noting “evidence of two separate staged explosions near the hospital: An underground explosion and another of minor power, aimed at the hospital building,” and further noting that a “high-explosive aviation bomb would destroy the outer walls of the building.”
Russia also pointed out that the facility had stopped working when Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion expelled staff in late February and militarized the hospital, as Ukrainian forces did elsewhere in Donbass.
Marianna Vyshemirskaya, one of the women featured in the Western propaganda around the hospital, later spoke out and said there was no air strike, and that prior to the alleged event, Ukrainian soldiers expelled all the doctors and moved pregnant women to another building.
She also maintained that she and other women were filmed without warning by an Associated Press journalist dressed in a military uniform and wearing a helmet.
Even now, two days after Ukraine’s intense bombardment of Donetsk and targeting of the maternity hospital, when still more testimonies have emerged, Western media and politicians remain silent.
The suffering, and deaths, of the people of Donetsk doesn’t fit the Western narrative, so they misreport it or simply just don’t reference it at all, enabling Ukraine to continue to commit war crimes.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Of course those are rhetorical questions. I know Canada’s corporate-funded & owned media will never show integrity, much less report honestly, much less *not* whitewash the crimes of Ukraine against the people of the Donbass and also Ukrainian people themselves. Journalists of Maverick media, however, were kind enough to reach out to me for an honest interview, expressing shock and concern that Ukraine has such a kill list and that I’m on it.
"A few days before his death, Oles Buzina’s details, including his home address, had been posted on the Canadian-based Mirotvorets website…The people listed on it are recommended for liquidation & arrest…"https://t.co/dQGbIm8iR4
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 19, 2022
Meanwhile, Trudeau never speaks about Israel's bombing Palestinian media buildings…https://t.co/qGkVn7h9zn
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 19, 2022
I was on RT yesterday to discuss the list. I also raised the points that CBC has seemingly no intention to highlight the kill list, instead reaching out to me for what, in my experience with similar corporate owned propagandizing media, would only be an interview to smear me & take my words out of context, as they did to another Canadian journalist not long ago.
As I’ve noted, a CBC stenographer reached out to me after belatedly learning of my involvement with the International Public Tribunal on Ukraine in Moscow in April. The thing is, it wasn’t highly publicized in English, and I didn’t share on my blog or on Telegram or social media in general, for want of a link at the time. So, how did he come across the event? It’s highly unlikely this CBC hack peruses Russian Telegram channels. It’s almost certainly likely he learned of it via Ukraine’s kill list entry on me.
So, instead of reaching out to me to discuss the fact that I, a Canadian journalist, have been listed for assassination by Ukraine, CBC/the hack instead want to highlight my participation in a tribunal to discuss Ukraine’s war crimes–but you can be sure they will distort reality (as CBC can only do) & obfuscate Ukraine’s amply-documented war crimes.
In short, CBC wants to smear me on behalf of Ukraine & its Nazis.
How cute: instead of doing a report on the fact that Ukraine has me on a kill list for my journalism, Canadian state-funded CBC seems to be gearing up to do a smear on my participation on a tribunal on Ukraine's war crimes.
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) June 2, 2022
I'll not be doing another rebuttal, I can almost guarantee that whatever the stenographers at CBC produce will be copy-paste from previous smears that I've already written rebuttals to.https://t.co/UjXOmUn26M
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) June 2, 2022
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) June 2, 2022
In fact, CBC is despised by Canadians. There were too many excellent replies on my threads to choose from, but from the many comments it’s clear that more and more people don’t trust the CBC and see it as the propaganda arm of Canada that it is.
The Canadian @CBC is a disgusting outfit, actively making war propaganda, and refusing to protect Canadian journalist @EvaKBartlett who is on the Ukrainian kill list. CBC refuses to look at documented Ukrainian war crimes against Canadians. Read the entire thread. Follow Eva. https://t.co/nEEntuwija
Who would have thought it, the state broadcaster of Canada is more interested in smearing and attacking journalists that doesn't tow the US line, than reporting on them being on a literal kill list by Nazis? https://t.co/gwabmvODKf
CBC to do some dirty work on Eva's particip. in the new tribunal, yet they compl. disregard the fact that Ukr has her name listed in the Myrotvorets database, where some only remain names now as they have disap/been killed. Whatever happened to Trudeau's recent free press parody? https://t.co/aaU6Kky5ZY
In the DPR in March, 2 French MSM outlets did the same, likewise taking about 3 seconds of a chief physician who spoke of Ukraine occupying his hospital & mining it…but not including those words (nor speaking of Ukraine's 8 years of war on the Donbass)https://t.co/OPrxVRsx45
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) June 3, 2022
Interview I did yesterday on my recent trips back to the Donbass, on Western media whitewashing of Ukraine’s crimes, and on how it is fine & good to call yourself anti-war, but where were you the last 8 years when the people of the Donbass (who did not ask for Ukraine to unleash 8 years of hellish war upon them) endured constant Ukrainian bombing? They were targeted mercilessly by Ukraine–which violated the Minsk Accords. Russia pushed for diplomacy for 8 years, only in Feb 2022 starting its military operation to demilitarize & de-Nazify Ukraine.
This operation is to end Ukraine’s war & bring stability to the region, and prevent more bloodshed.
–The Military Situation In The Ukraine *The author, Jacques Baud, is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, was trained in the American and British intelligence services, was a UN expert on rule of law and security. https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/
This outstanding report from Syria by Eva Bartlett penetrates the 'iron dome' of Western propaganda, also known as news. It is about a chemical attack that never happened in a country attacked, subverted and blockaded in your name.https://t.co/AX1Zwbg0g0
According to Western media, now copy-paste reporting the same claims, Russian forces apparently secretly buried *up to 9,000 Mariupol civilians* in “mass graves” in a town just west of the city. Except, it never happened, there is no mass grave.
It’s actually just a normal, small, cemetery…no pits, no mass graves, just an orderly cemetery whose grave diggers refuted Western claims.
On April 23, with journalist Roman Kosarev, I went to Mangush (Manhush in Ukrainian), found a normal cemetery setting, and spoke with the men responsible for burials, who refused the allegations and said they buried each person in a coffin, including, they noted, Ukrainian soldiers.
Tom Welsh
Esmond
10 to 1
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 