Links to Associated Press and Reuters reports from Ukraine, both in turn linked to the news services’ other related stories, are followed by links to four analyses courtesy of Popular Resistance: (1) a look at politics in Ukraine and the United States in October 2019, (2) a long-time academic on dissent in the United States, (3) what one dissident sees as an absence of U.S. diplomacy, and (4) a former Marine runs for U.S. Senate as a Green (Ukraine is not mentioned). — MCM
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Ukrainians defy deadline to surrender in Mariupol or die, by Adam Schreck and Mstyslav Chernov | The Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine — The battered port city of Mariupol appeared on the brink of falling to Russian forces today after seven weeks under siege, a development that what would give Moscow a crucial success in Ukraine following Russia’s failure to storm the capital and the loss of its Black Sea flagship. The Russian military estimated that about 2,500 Ukrainian fighters holding out at a hulking steel plant with a warren of underground passageways provided the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol. Russia gave a deadline for their surrender, saying those who put down their weapons were “guaranteed to keep their lives,” but the Ukrainians did not submit. “All those who will continue resistance will be destroyed,” Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, said. He said intercepted communications indicated . . . READ MORE . . .
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Mariupol defenders resist Russian ultimatum, pope laments ‘Easter of War’, by Alessandra Prentice and Natalia Zinets | Reuters * Russia orders fighters in Mariupol steelworks to lay down arms * Long-distance strikes continue elsewhere around Ukraine * Ukrainian President Zelenskiy says occupiers must pay * Pope decries ‘cruel and senseless’ conflict | KYIV — Ukrainian soldiers appeared to defy a Russian ultimatum to lay down their arms today in the pulverised port of Mariupol which Moscow said its forces had almost completely seized in what would be its biggest prize of the nearly two-month war. Several hours after a 0300 GMT deadline, there was no sign of surrender by Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov. Citing radio intercepts, Russia’s defence ministry said the encircled defenders, including 400 “foreign mercenaries”, had orders to shoot any among them who wanted to give up. There was no word on that from Ukraine’s government. . . . About four million Ukrainians have fled the country, cities have been . . . READ MORE . . .
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Siding with Ukraine’s far-right, U.S. sabotaged Zelensky’s peace mandate, by Aaron Maté | Educate! In 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president on an overwhelming mandate to make peace with Russia. As the eminent Russia studies professor Stephen F. Cohen warned that year, the U.S. chose to side with Ukraine’s far-right and fuel war. On a warm October day in 2019, Cohen and I sat down in Manhattan for what would be our last in-person interview (Cohen passed away in September 2020 at the age of 81). The House was gearing up to impeach Donald Trump for freezing weapons shipments to Ukraine while pressuring its government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Beltway media was consumed with frenzy of a presidency in peril. But Professor Cohen was concerned with what the impeachment spectacle in Washington meant for the long-running war between the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas. At that point . . . READ MORE . . .
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American dissent on Ukraine is dying in darkness, by Robert Scheer | Scheer Post When it came to the Ukraine conflict, Professor Michael J. Brenner did what he’s done his whole life: question American foreign policy. This time the backlash was vitriolic. As the death toll in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine continues to rise, there have only been a handful of Westerners publicly questioning NATO and the West’s role in the conflict. These voices are becoming fewer and further between as a wave of feverish backlash engulfs any dissent on the subject. One of these voices belongs to Professor Michael J. Brenner. . . . From the vantage point of decades of experience and studies the intellectual regularly shared his thoughts on topics of interest through a mailing list sent to thousands of readers—that is until the response to his Ukraine analysis made him question why he bothered in the first place. In an email with the subject line “Quittin’ Time,” Brenner recently declared that, aside from having already said his piece on Ukraine, one of the main reasons he sees for giving up on expressing his opinions on the subject is that “it is manifestly obvious that our society is not capable of conducting an honest, logical, reasonably informed discourse on matters of consequence. Instead, we experience fantasy, fabrication, fatuousness and fulmination.” He goes on to decry President Joe Biden’s . . . READ MORE . . .
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How the U.S. does ‘dipomacy’, by Moon of Alabama | Educate! The U.S. doesn’t do diplomacy. Every country has its own interests. But the U.S. and its pricks in the State Department insist that its interests must have priority over all others. Any country that disagrees with that will be called out on this or that issue or will even get . . . READ MORE . . .
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The Green Marine: A different kind of ‘service candidate’ runs for Senate, by Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon | Resist! In recent years, both major parties in the U.S. have been recruiting former members of the military, the foreign service, or national security agencies to run for Congress. Almost all of these so-called “service candidates” are either conservative Republicans or corporate Democrats, who quickly become part of the bi-partisan majority on Capitol Hill which rubber-stamps ever larger Pentagon budgets and fails to get big money out of politics. Two years ago . . . READ MORE . . .