Coverage continues. Top illustration: the Polish convoy with military supplies for Ukraine.
2:53PM:
Amid many speculations, multiple sources say the decision has been made — and as soon as on Feb. 28 at 5 a.m. local time, the first Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft is very likely to take off carrying Belarusian paratroopers to be deployed against Ukraine.
It’s not clear whether the local time the messages refer to is Belarusian or Ukrainian; 5 a.m. in Minsk is 4 a.m. in Kyiv.
Rumors regarding the official Belarusian involvement in the war started circulating on Feb. 27, the fourth day of Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine, following a report presented to diplomatic circles by unnamed Belarusian opposition journalists.
(from Kyiv independent) Belarus has already been a de facto belligerent, allowing Russia to stage the invasion of Ukraine from its territory.
2:15PM:
Translation confirmed.
10:15PM:
I have resisted posting all the worst takes about the war, but this is really something from the creator of the “1619 Project”; neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory really rots your brain:
What if I told you Europe is not a continent by defintion, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) February 27, 2022
28 Feb, 9:49PM:
To the extent that one can discern what’s going on on the ground, it appears that while the Ukrainian forces have had some success resisting and even ejecting Russians from smaller regional urban centres in the south and the east of the country, Kiev is now surrounded.
4:18PM:
I’m seeing a lot of worrying commentary, explicit or implicit, on the socials along the lines of either (paraphrasing) “you can’t believe anything the mainstream media says, therefore there must be lying about Ukraine too” or “the left [or however you define the enemy] support Ukraine, so Ukrainians can’t really be the good guys”. It only rarely shades into an outright support for Putin, but more often leads into an isolationist position or moral equivalency (like one of my interlocutors on Facebook: (direct quote this time) “They [governments] all lie and they all kill people. Westerners like yourself believing in liberal globalist imperialism is why our elites will get away with fomenting World War III.”
Sure, every side in every conflict uses propaganda to advance their own agenda. The fog of war is also very dense, with claims and counterclaims, rumours, misinterpretation and misrepresentation, sometimes innocent sometimes not. No doubt many of the stories reported over the past few days will prove to be untrue or inaccurate – on all sides. But this should not blind us to the fact that there are rights and wrongs in this war.
4:03PM:
A massive military build-up was noticed today in the Belarusian border city of Brest, right next to both Poland and Ukraine.
The 40 000 soldiers from NATO’s Rapid Response Force need to be sent to Poland NOW or else Putin’s appetite might grow for Poland and the Baltics. pic.twitter.com/AL7TQYY9UN
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 27, 2022
Brest is literally across the Polish border – infamously, it was here that the German and the Soviet armies met as they dismembered Poland in September 1939 and held a joint victory parade. Such troops and equipment movements are either meant to intimidate Poland, as it supplies Ukraine with military aid, or a prelude to a more concerted attack on the far west of Ukraine, along the curve of Kovel-Lutsk-Lviv, in part to prevent such aid from Poland reaching the rest of Ukraine. Or both.
Not coincidentally, volunteering for Polish armed services and military training has tripled over the past few days, reports Polish media.
3:51PM:
Just listened to an interview with the father of a Russian soldier who had been captured in Ukraine. After praying for his son’s safety, he said, with visible anger: “Why aren’t the sons of oligarchs out there fighting this senseless war? Where are they? Who needs this war?”
— Bianna Golodryga (@biannagolodryga) February 26, 2022
The reality of every war: most people don’t want to fight, they just want to live their lives. It’s a tragedy that thousands, millions die for some asshole’s megalomania. https://t.co/kQql97ynKU
— Arthur Chrenkoff (@TheDailyChrenk) February 27, 2022
The ultimate tragedy of war: few desire it, most suffer it. I would venture a guess that most of the Russian soldiers don’t want to be fighting in Ukraine; no one in Ukraine wants a war with Russia. Human being might have inborn violent instincts, but left to themselves and governed by people who eschew war, like Western Europe since World War Two, they will happily live in perpetual peace. Pray that more countries around the world – including Russia – one day become normal countries.
3:47PM:
Pravda Brewery, based in Lviv, Ukraine, has suspended its beer brewing operations and is now making Molotov cocktails for residents to use against invading Russian forces.
The labels on the bottles say “Putin is a dickhead.” pic.twitter.com/ZqrHEpaOK4
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) February 27, 2022
