And though I'm one of those people who think that Russia will not do well (I'll put them taking over Kyiv at less than even odds, and actually maintaining a occupation outside of the Eastern parts of Ukraine (the Russian speaking ones) even closer to zero. In fact, I think it might be the end of his reign sorta thing. Though despots tend to hang on longer than I usually think. (the SWIFT stuff might cause a lot of misery while not actually hitting them where it hurts)
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So that being said, I am a fan of how this specific conflict is being covered, by telling the stories of those on the ground.
And all our MSM is doing this. Good. If only they covered the people we bombed with the same humanity.
Of course, I'm not stupid. These people are worthy victims and thus worthy of being covered as humans.
See, I'm old enough to remember that brown refugees crossing the border to Poland were considered weapons by the Polish gov and EU, but now Ukrainians can get across without passports if needed.
However, given the illegal pushbacks of thousands of migrants from the Middle East by Polish border guards on the Belarus border last year - which left several people dead, among them a one-year-old Syrian boy, and sent others back to inhumane conditions in freezing temperatures and without access to humanitarian aid - one wonders how and if Poland will meet its humanitarian and international human rights obligations this time.
Not that it's always a white/brown thing, though that certainly plays a part. Someone on r/chomsky said if only they would cover the atrocities in Eastern Ukraine. I've already shared the nationalistic language situation [1] in Ukraine, but there's also disappearances, [2] and a child killed in the rebel held areas recently (before invasion). It seems bad on both sides. Still, this pdf is worth looking through (the map only shows recent, pre-invasion attacks) [3]. All this, though, should have been dealt with diplomatically.
And on SWIFT being cut off, one does wonder if there will be some major shift in the world, with China helping bring that about.
I'm not sure about this one. I thought something separate would be created when Trump went ape shit with his economic warfare world wide, but the EU and China did nothing (that I know of, and given the state of places like Iran, that would seem to be true). But perhaps this is the kick in the ass that will force other nations to truly do something worthwhile.
That being said, it could cause anarchy in a nuclear armed state and that's not in my good category of things happening. With Turkey preventing a Russian ship from entering the Black Sea and talk of cyber attacks, I sense an escalation here that we might not be able to draw back from, especially when "hit them hard" is the only talk I see.
On a final note, here's a piece from RT. As with any MSM, be critical when listening to it, but doesn't seem that crazy to me.
[1] And, again, if the US MSM calls cultural genocide in China genocide, Russia has a case to do the same with language erasure etc. Not that I think or have the evidence that ethnic cleansing is all one sided there. Most evidence does point to the Russians being correct.
[2] Though as the link shows, rebel held areas have similar situations but less oversight.
[3] And again, there were laws being passed that were problematic, hate groups on the rise and with impunity:
On October 17 around 50 far-right radicals, some carrying flaming torches, went door to door in the Ukrainian city of Irpin, near Kyiv, chanting hateful slogans and calling for violence against local Roma residents. The mob spray-painted hate speech comments on the fence of one Roma family’s house.
The march was apparently a response to a reported attack on a man two days earlier, allegedly by two Roma teenagers. Police observed the march but did not intervene. Several city officials, including the mayor, refused to condemn the mob’s hate speech and threats, but acknowledged it “scared Roma [people]” and “made them hide in their homes.”
The Above article goes to show impunity for plenty of hate and the Azov Battalion,
Then this:
All I've found is this on the conflict [1] and this on landmines there as well as this on disappeared people in Ukraine.
[1] This point: From 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2021, OHCHR recorded 41 civilian casualties: eight killed (seven men and one woman) and 33 injured (24 men, five boys, three women, and one girl), a 58.2 per cent decrease compared with preceding six months (17 killed and 81 injured). 25. Active hostilities10 caused three civilian injuries (all in armed group-controlled Oleksandrivka in Donetsk region): on 12 November 2020, two men were injured after their house was directly hit by light weapons fire; and on 30 January 2021, a man was injured when a bullet struck his leg as he was walking to visit his parents. 26. Thirty-six civilian casualties resulted from mine-related incidents and handling of explosive remnants of war: eight killed (seven men and one woman) and 28 injured (20 men, five boys, and three women). Two other civilian casualties (one injured man and one injured girl) were caused by a road incident with a military vehicle.
And this point on Ukraine hitting water supply (war crime, iirc).
"Of the incidents which occurred at or near water and sanitation facilities, three involved shelling: twice in November at the Donetsk Filter Station in armed group-controlled Yasynuvata (Donetsk region); and once in December at the Holmivskyi Water Treatment Plant in armed group-controlled Horlivka (Donetsk region). The fourth incident happened in January 2021 when small arms fire occurred near workers repairing a damaged clean water pipeline that distributes water from the Holmivskyi Water Treatment Plant. 31. Although the incidents did not result in any injuries or damage, the attacks put the lives of workers in water and sanitation facilities at risk, and threatened the civilian population’s water supply. In addition, the January incident violated a ‘window of silence’ that had been agreed specifically for the repair work and delayed the provision of clean water to around 45,000 residents in the region."
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