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Post by Admin on Sept 16, 2024 18:37:27 GMT
Support for Ukraine
Routh is reported to have said he travelled to Ukraine in an attempt to help the country in its fight against Russia.
A video has emerged of an interview he gave to Newsweek in 2022 where he spoke about his efforts to recruit volunteers for Ukraine's ground forces.
He says in the footage: "This conflict is definitely black and white... This is about good versus evil."
Routh later says in the video: "Why world leaders are not sending military (to Ukraine) is beyond me. We're going to have to elect new leaders the next go round, that have a backbone and have the fortitude to say 'we're not going to tolerate this type of behaviour (from Russia)'."
He became emotional as he said: "When you talk to a 20-year-old guy, that's sold everything he owns to come here to fight, that is heroism."
Last year, Routh did an interview with the news platform Semafor in his role as the self-appointed director of a group he started called the International Volunteer Center - part of his efforts to try to help bring foreign troops into Ukraine.
He complained that the Ukrainian government was being too rigid about admitting some foreign soldiers.
"Ukraine is very often hard to work with... They're afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy," he said.
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Post by Admin on Sept 16, 2024 19:53:05 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 17, 2024 5:02:25 GMT
Routh tried his best to associate himself with the fight against Russia, expressing support for Ukraine in dozens of X posts that year, saying he was willing to die in the fight and that “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.”  He protested in Kyiv after Russia invaded, and even tried to enlist, but, aged 56 with no military experience, was turned away. He tried to help recruit foreigners to fight but seems to have failed. The New York Times even interviewed him about a plan to obtain fake passports so Afghan veterans could come from Pakistan or Iran to Ukraine to help resist Russia’s onslaught. His offers to recruit large numbers to fight for Ukraine from across the world “were not realistic” said Oleksandr Shaguri, an officer of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Land Forces Command. He told CNN, “The best way to describe [Routh’s] messages is – delusional ideas.” Routh never worked with them – a common refrain from across Ukraine’s military heard Monday. Kyiv has enough on its plate now, other than explaining how little it had to do with the author of “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen – Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity.” This – Routh’s title for his self-published book – does not demand its author’s ideas are taken too seriously. But already, Moscow’s prolific echo chambers have begun to fashion a narrative in which US support for Ukraine is somehow extremist. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, asked what he thought about the assassination bid, said, according to Reuters: “It is not us who should be thinking, it is the US intelligence services who should be thinking. In any case, playing with fire has its consequences.” RT.com, a Kremlin-run English news outlet, also highlighted Routh’s interest in Ukraine, writing that “Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene stated that if the suspect’s identity is confirmed, it is clear he is ‘obsessed with the Ukraine war, which is funded by the US.’” None of this helps Ukrainians who genuinely must fight and die to protect their homes and families. It particularly hampers Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, days before he is set to present a victory plan to the Biden administration. The clamor of support for Ukraine to receive US permission to fire longer-range US-supplied missiles at targets deeper inside Russian territory had been growing. It seemed likely last week that President Joe Biden would follow the course he’s taken when past decisions on arming Ukraine were presented to him, and consent – albeit very, very late – after public pressure from allies. But now Zelensky’s press appearances may be dogged by questions about Routh, however absurdly distant from Kyiv’s agenda his apparent attack on a Florida golf course was. It will feed into the ultimate paranoia of US isolationists: that actions overseas which appear to benefit America’s global interests carry with them the risk of fomenting violence back home. |
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2024 10:12:46 GMT
The Wall Street Journal reported on the 17th that the number of casualties among soldiers on both sides during Russia's two-and-a-half year invasion of Ukraine has reached an estimated 1 million.
Regarding the Ukrainian military, the country's own estimates are approximately 80,000 dead and 400,000 injured. As for Russia, based on estimates by Western intelligence agencies, the maximum number of killed in action is approximately 200,000, and the number injured is approximately 400,000.
On the 17th, the British Ministry of Defense announced an estimate that the number of casualties on the Russian side was approximately 600,000. Both Russia and Ukraine have been conspicuously reluctant to disclose the number of casualties suffered by their troops on the battlefield.
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Post by Admin on Sept 22, 2024 0:06:35 GMT
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that Russian representatives will not attend any “peace summit” that would act as a continuation of the June meeting in Switzerland , even if they are invited there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously proposed inviting Russian representatives to such a summit, possibly before the end of this year.
"Russian representatives have not participated in any meetings within the framework of the 'Bürgenstock process' and do not intend to participate. This process itself has nothing to do with the settlement," Zakharova said in response to a media request to comment on Zelensky's words, published on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
"The so-called second summit pursues the same goal - to push through the absolutely unviable "Zelensky formula" as an uncontested basis for resolving the conflict, to gain its support from the World majority and, on its behalf, to present Russia with an ultimatum to capitulate. We will not participate in such "summits," Zakharova said.
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