On May 21-27, Western media reported about collecting evidence of the Russian genocide in Ukraine, Ukraine's success in the UN, the old tanks of the invaders, and the article by Russian propagandists that the British will soon start eating each other, "falling into the Ukrainian pit."
offers the latest digest of English-language outlest about Russia's war in Ukraine.
Evidence of genocide in Ukraine collected
Russia's actions in Ukraine provide enough evidence to conclude that Moscow is inciting genocide and committing atrocities intended to destroy the Ukrainian people, CNN reports.
This is stated in the first independent legal report by New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy (USA) and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (Canada)
The document, signed by more than 30 leading legal scholars and genocide experts, accuses Russian of violating several articles of the United Nations Genocide Convention. The report warns there is a serious and imminent risk of genocide in Ukraine, backing the accusations with a long list of evidence.
The report contains well-documented massacres and summary executions in Bucha, Staryi Bykiv, and in Sumy and Chernihiv regions, Russia's deliberate attacks on shelters, evacuation routes and healthcare facilities, as well the indiscriminate targeting and bombardment of residential areas, rapes, sieges, grain thefts and forced deportations to Russia all amount to "genocidal pattern of destruction."
In addition, experts pointed to the dehumanizing anti-Ukrainian rhetoric used by top Russian officials.
Where accusations will be send to
Copies of the report will be sent to parliaments, governments, and international organizations around the world, the article reads.
"We assembled top legal experts from around the globe who then examined all the evidence and they came to the conclusion that the Russian Federation bears responsibility for breaches of the Genocide Convention in Ukraine," Azeem Ibrahim of the New Lines Institute says. He personally visited Ukraine in March to gather evidence for the report.
He stressed that a thorough and detailed examination of the numerous extensive evidence had been carried out. The report also called on the international community to act, Ibrahim noted:
In one of the most chilling parts of the report, the group makes a direct comparison with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were killed.
The report directly accuses Russia's top officials of orchestrating incitement to genocide and laying the groundwork for future genocide by repeatedly denying the existence of a Ukrainian identity.
"Semifresh" 50-year-old Soviet tanks
Russia is so short of modern, combat ready equipment that it has retrieved 50-year-old tanks from deep storage, Sky News cites the UK's Ministry of Defence.
The Kremlin has dredged up T-62 battle tanks to support its forces in the south. First introduced in 1961, this type of tank was once a mainstay of the Soviet Union's military.
According to their intelligence, Russian ground forces are continuing their attempt to surround Severodonetsk and Lyschansk in eastern Ukraine.
The British will start eating neighbors — Russian propaganda
Russian propaganda claims that the UK is on the verge of cannibalism due to sanctions imposed on the Kremlin for invading Ukraine.
According to The Independent, the website TsargradTV reported the rising cost of living in the UK might soon tip the country to a new crisis — cannibalism.
While people can live without heat or clothing or even sex, they cannot live without food, the columnist joked:
The article headlined "Cold, Hunger, Cannibalism: London fell into its own Ukrainian pit" claimed to be presenting "only facts".
Kyslytsya's successes at the UN
The Washington Post devoted an article to the success of Ukrainian diplomacy in the UN.
The outlet recalled how Ukraine's representative to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, demanded that Russian diplomat Vasily Nebenzya phone his superiors in Moscow to appeal for an end to the offensive.
Diplomatic observers believe the failure of the United Nations to do more to halt the fighting in Ukraine is rooted in rules embedded at the body’s founding.
The veto power was granted to the five permanent members of the UN as the victors of World War II — the U.S., the UK, France, China, and the USSR, succeeded by the Russian Federation in 1991.
At the same time, according to Kyslytsya, who carries a dog-eared copy of the U.N. charter in his jacket pocket, it is up to the permanent members aside from Russia to rectify the council’s failings.
He has also argued — so far unsuccessfully — that Russia should be removed from its Security Council seat because it improperly inherited the Soviet Union’s place after the Cold War.
What diplomacy has achieved at the UN
Ukrainian diplomats have also worked to build a coalition against Russia at the United Nations.
In March, after Russia blocked a Security Council resolution condemning the invasion, 141 nations voted in support of a similar measure at the General Assembly, which includes all member states but does not have the same power to pass binding resolutions.
In April, the General Assembly suspended Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council in another symbolic rebuke.
A U.S. State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under agency rules, said Washington and its allies are successfully isolating Russia, no matter its ability to stymie Security Council moves.
Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, said that the Security Council would ideally have been able to pass resolutions to halt the war, but even that may not have altered the course of the devastation.
UN as theater and evacuation from Mariupol
When it comes to a big-power conflict like this, the structure of the U.N. always means that it’s going to be a place for theater rather than for serious diplomacy, Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group, explaines.
At the same time, according to Kyslytsya, Ukraine and much of Europe are "sick and tired of what is called U.N. gibberish."
However, he admits the active role of the UN in providing humanitarian assistance, documenting the events of the war. Ukraine also notes the success of Secretary General António Guterres, who helped negotiate the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
Instead of an afterword. Although it is difficult for Ukraine to force the UN to expel Russia from the Security Council, our diplomats have achieved some diplomatic success in creating an anti-Russian coalition. There is still a chance to save the lives of the Ukrainian military taken out of Azovstal, and this is very valuable.
It is important that foreign experts were able to gather evidence of the real genocide of Russia in Ukraine, which means that it could not escape punishment whenever it happens.
Moreover, it becomes obvious that Russia is running out of adequate tanks, while the Kremlin's propagandists can no longer come up with anything more absurd than mass cannibalism in the UK due to the food crisis.
Ukraine continues to fight for its independence for more than three months.
Read also
Andrii Matiukha supported the initiative to help families of those killed in Kryvyi Rih
Favbet Foundation: how Andrii Matiukha’s initiatives are changing access to sports for children
Public consultations and restoration. What is Shulyak talking about behind the scenes
Ukraine's Recovery: How to Change Critically Low Citizen Engagement Indicators?
