
Mural of the painting "Guernica" by Picasso depicting the carpet bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. It was carried out at the behest of the Spanish nationalist government by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code name Operation Rügen on 26 April 1937. The attack gained infamy because it involved the deliberate targeting of civilians by a military air force, just as it was done by the Russian and Syrian government military air forces in Aleppo. Location: Guernica, Spain (Image: Papamanila via Wikipedia)
Most people have been horrified by what Russian and Syrian forces did in Aleppo even if they accept claims by Putin and Assad that the civilian population there included terrorists and those hiding terrorists. But a Moscow TV host says that Aleppo was an “easy” victory and has taught Russia how it should deal with Ukrainian cities in the future.
His remarks come on the heels of those of another Moscow commentator about what Moscow should do once Ukraine is recognized as part of Russia’s “sphere of influence” and highlight the way that the unthinkable can rapidly become the acceptable in some circles.
On this week’s “Evening with Vladimir Solovyev” on Russia’s First Channel, the former “foreign minister of the DNR” Aleksandr Kofman and former Kyiv political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko who now lives in Russia discussed how the Russian army should act to seize Ukrainian cities.
The contents of their remarks and those of the moderator were summarized by Sergey Zaporozhsky on his Facebook page and are also available on the Obozrevatel portal.
For his part, Ishchenko suggested that it wouldn’t be worthwhile to send Russian ground forces into major Ukrainian cities because doing so would involve “enormous losses for the Russian army. But other participants on the Moscow program disagreed and said that Aleppo shows the way Moscow could proceed.
- A wounded Syrian woman arrives at a field hospital following an air strike which hit her home at the outskirts of Aleppo. (Image: Khalil Hamra/AP)
- A Syrian man cries while holding the body of his son near Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Oct. 3, 2016. (Image: Manu Brabo / AP)
- Syrian rescue workers evacuate a woman and her two children from a building targeted by a government forces air strike on the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo on Nov. 4, 2016 (Image: Philippe Desmazes / AFP)
- Homs, Syria, November 2016 (Image: Yazan Homsy / Reuters)
- Victim of Aleppo bombing, October 12, 2016
- A Syrian woman carries the body of her infant after he was retrieved from under the rubble of a building following a reported airstrike on September 23, 2016, on the al-Muasalat area in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Image: AFP / THAER)
- This boy’s name is Omran. His family’s house in Aleppo was hit by one of the Russian bombs that flatten everything within their kill zone. Aleppo, Syria, August 2016 (Photo: Mahmoud Rislan)
- A search for survivors at a site hit in December 2015 by Russian airstrikes in Idlib, Syria. “Some Russian airstrikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. Such attacks may amount to war crimes.” said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program. Syrian rebels say most of the strikes have focused on central and northern Syria, where ISIS does not have a strong presence. (Image: Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)
- Medics treat injured people inside a field hospital after what activists said were air and missile strikes in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, in this December 13, 2015 photo. (Reuters)
- Victims of Russian bombing in Syria. December 2015 (Image: Social media)
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
- A victim of Russian bombing in Syria (Image: social media)
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
- A Russian massacre of Syrian school children. Damascus, Syria, December 2015. (Image: Social media)
- The aftermath of air strikes by a Russian plane in Tabliseh, Syria, on 30 September 2015 YouTube (Image: independent.co.uk)
- Russian pilot checking bombs before a bombing in Syria (Image: Vedomosti)
- “Syrian People’s Republic,” cartoon by Oleksiy Kustovsky
- Poster at a Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria says “It’s time for manliness and real men!”
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
- War in Syria (Yury Kozyrev/Novaya gazeta)
“They took Aleppo comparatively quickly,” Solovyev said, “and there they learned how to solve such tasks. The DNR army has learned how to fight in cities. One needn’t worry. The people of Ukraine will not fight for them.”
Kofman agreed. He said he not only believed but “knows” that “as soon as our forces approach any city, the Ukrainian army will leave it forever. This is a fact.”
That almost certainly isn’t “a fact” except in the post-fact world many in Moscow and elsewhere appear to have entered. But there is a real fact here: It is horrifying to think that the tragedy of Aleppo is now viewed as a model for future Russian behavior, an attitude that recalls how some in Nazi Germany viewed the slaughter at Guernica as a model for the Luftwaffe.
- Russian aggression in the Donbas, Ukraine
- Russian aggression in the Donbas, Ukraine
- Destroyed building in Vodiane. Donbas, October 2016
- A victim of the Russian aggression in the Donbas, Ukraine
- Russian mercenaries in the Donbas posing with their weapons. This photograph is from an InformNapalm.org investigation of social profiles of Russian mercenaries and servicemen that discovered more proof of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In this case, it is Russian R-381T2 ‘Taran’ UHF radio monitoring and ‘Torn’ radio intelligence complexes (boxed in red in the background). Image: InformNapalm.org
- Ruins of Iversky Monastery after shelling near Donetsk International Airport. The Donbas, Ukraine. 18 May 2015 (Image: Mstyslav Chernov)
- Defeated tank of the Russian hybrid military in the Donbas, Ukraine (Image: znak.com)
- Devastation in the Donbas, Ukraine brought by the Russian military aggression (Image: znak.com)
- As a result of the Russian occupation, about 1.5 million of Donbas residents are at risk of hunger reported the United Nations press service in April 2016.
- For Putin, Donbas destroyed as a result of his military invasion and occupation is only a mechanism to exert pressure on Ukraine. (Image: UNIAN)
- Russia is trying to freeze the war in the Donbas and make it into a second depressive Transdniestria. (Image: UNIAN)
- Avdiyivka ruins, Donbas
- Russian occupation force entering a captured town in the Donbas, Ukraine in April 2014 (Image: kommersant.ru)
- Russia’s 5th Tank Brigade in Donbas (Source: InformNapalm)
- Devastation of Russian military aggression in the Donbas. Makeyevka, Ukraine. (Image: Ilya Filimonov, Segodnya.ua)
- Graves in the Iver Cemetery in Donetsk near the airport destroyed by artillery fire as a result of the Russian military aggression in the Donbas, Ukraine. December 2014 (Image: social media)
- Devastation in the Donbas brought by the Russian military aggression in Ukraine. This picture taken on April 23, 2015 shows a bus stop and a church damaged by artillery shelling in the village of Peski near Donetsk. (Image: Oleksandr Ratushniak / AFP)
- Russia’s military aggression in the Donbas devastated and empoverished Ukrainian territories under the Russian occupation (Image: Novosti Segodnia)
- A funeral for unidentified soldiers killed in action while liberating the Donbas region of Ukraine from the hybrid army of the Russian Federation. The funeral was held in the town of Kushugum, Zaphorizhze oblast, on October 1, 2014.
- The Russian Federation have been using ethnically non-Russian troops for its aggression in Ukraine. Russian Federation servicemen from Chechnia arriving to fight in the Donbas in 2014 (Image: AFP)
- Devastation caused by Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (village of Peski) (Image: http://maxrokotansky.livejournal.com)
- Devastation caused by Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (village of Peski) (Image: http://maxrokotansky.livejournal.com)
- Devastation caused by Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (village of Peski) (Image: http://maxrokotansky.livejournal.com)
- Russian occupation soldier at the devastated Donetsk airport in Donbas, Ukraine (Image: LB.ua)
- Devastation at the Donetsk airport caused by the Russian military aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (Image: LB.ua)
- Devastation at Donetsk airport after the military aggression in the Donbas, Ukraine (Image: LB.ua)
- Devastation caused by the Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (Image: Tim Judah | NYRblog)
- Devastation caused by the Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (Image: Tim Judah | NYRblog)
- One of the groups of Russian special forces and mercenaries that started the Russian invasion in Donbas, Ukraine
- A house in Donbas destroyed by Russian artillery fire (Image: YouTube screengrab)
- An armored personnel carrier with Russian “hybrid” military in Donbas, Ukraine (Image: inforesist.org)
- Russian mercenaries from Chechnya region in Donbas, Ukraine (Image: inforesist.org)
- Devastation from the Russian invasion in Donbas, Ukraine
- Devastation from the Russian invasion in Donbas, Ukraine (village of Troitske)
- Devastation from the Russian invasion in Donbas, Ukraine (village of Troitske)
- Russo-Ukrainian war in the Donbas, Ukraine (Photo: uapress.info)
- Russo-Ukrainian war in the Donbas, Ukraine
- Some of the devastation in the Donbas caused by the Russian military aggression: ruins of the Donetsk airport.
- Devastation from the Russian invasion in Donbas, Ukraine
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- War in Donbas
- A destroyed tank in the Donbas, Ukraine
- Civilian victims of the Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (Source: https://www.facebook.com/freedonbas)
- Civilian victims of the Russian aggression in Donbas, Ukraine (Source: https://www.facebook.com/freedonbas)
- Russian-backed terrorists are deliberately destroying the infrastructure of the Donbas. Destroyed railway bridge over the road Sloviansk-Donetsk-Mariupol
Related:
- The Kissinger effect
- The ugly things Moscow might do if Ukraine is consigned to a Russian sphere of influence
- The West didn’t ‘betray’ Russia: Russia betrayed its best self
- In Russia, 7-year old SMS gets you 7 years of prison
- Ten types of Russian weapons didn’t work well in Syria, the Russian defense minister says
- Putin’s ‘achievement’ in Syria: now Russians the target for Muslim anger, Portnikov says
- Putin needs a new cold war to stave off the end of the empire, just like Soviet leaders, Karelian says
- A state of war exists between Russia and Ukraine, Portnikov says
- Russian pundit calls for Syria-style airstrikes against Ukraine
Tags: Aleppo, Donbas war (2014-present), International, Putin regime, Russia, Russian militarism, Russian military crimes, Russian military threat, Russian propaganda, Russo-Ukrainian War (2014-present), Syria