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In a first, Ukrainian and Russian human rights officials met Monday during a prisoner exchange between the two sides.
Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, met with Tatyana Moskalkova, Russian Human Rights Commissioner, during the swap of more than 200 prisoners of war.
Moskalkova posted video of the meeting on Telegram. It is unclear where exactly the exchange took place.
In the video, Lubinets and Moskalkova approach each other on a deserted highway, shake hands, and have a brief exchange.
Today is the day that our civilian sailors will be coming home, Moskalkova told Lubinets. It's also important that we ensure that safe corridors exist for our work with the evacuated. We have a Iot of questions, but the most important is returning all their documents to them. So that's what I am coming to you today for, and I'm here to help in the case that an evacuee or refugee needs a specific document or confirmation of their identity.
It's an important humanitarian aspect in terms of social rights, she said.
Lubinets replied that we are exchanging lists, and I request that you will work through it and be in touch on what's possible.
Most importantly, we have activated the process of exchanging civilians of our countries. I'm sure that you want this as much as we do.
Moskalkova said that certainly everyone is interested in this path forward.
In a summation of the meeting posted on Telegram, Moskalkova said that she met for the first time with Commissioner for Human Rights of Ukraine Dmitry Valeryevich Lubinets. We had a constructive dialogue and agreed to continue working to ensure the proper treatment of prisoners, keep working for future exchanges, to protect the rights of civilians, and learn the fate of missing persons.
Lubinets,on his Telegram account, said that the need for negotiations is the humanitarian sphere.
In particular, we talked about the need to intensify the repatriation of prisoners of war and the release of civilian hostages, he said.
He said that the two discussed, among other things, the need to develop ways to visit prisoners of war, inspect places of their detention, both on the territory controlled by the Russian Federation and in Ukraine and thorough searches for missing persons.
They also discussed Ukraine's desire to visit prisoners of war held in Olenivka, which is in an occupied portion of the Donetsk region.
At the end of the meeting, it was agreed to send official letters for the implementation of the discussed tasks involving the protection of human rights, Lubinets said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @02:03PM
war, what is it good for?
You had a photo op, Tatyana but your supreme leader is still a dick.
Flight MH17, never forget.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @03:02PM
When you can't win on the battlefield, drone-bomb the civilians,
When your women protest covering their hair, kill them.
When you can't win a fair election, try to burn it all down.
--
Some of us wish our mom's had had the good sense to abort us. It's your world, and I'm just passing through.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @06:37PM (11 children)
State Department Report Reveals Human Rights Abuses in Ukraine
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @08:12PM (1 child)
Sounds like they mixed up the papers with Saudi Arabia
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @09:36PM
Oh, China makes Saudi Arabia look like a convent of elderly nuns... on the top of a mountain... protected by Mormon doorbell ringers with robotic sharks... on Mars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @08:32PM (1 child)
While we're at it, let's talk about the abuses of human rights in the United States. It's only fair to point this out since this is the US State Department reporting on Ukraine:
No question that Ukraine has some serious issues with human rights. But the US also needs to clean up its own human rights abuses, even though they don't approach those in other countries. The US has done many nasty things, particularly with respect to the war on terror and border security.
I should point out that you only listed abuses by Ukraine's government. The State Department report you're citing (https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/313615_UKRAINE-2021-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf [state.gov]) also lists a large number of human rights abuses in Donbas and Crimea, which are occupied by Russia. There are serious human rights abuses happening in those regions, and they're not fully known because Russia has made it difficult for human rights watchdogs to get access to these regions. For example, the State Department report notes that antisemitism wasn't reported in Crimea, but with the caveat that human rights groups had limited access, implying that such things might well have gone unreported.
Russia has a human rights record that is awful, and it's not getting any better. You can read the State Department's report at https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/3136152_RUSSIA-2021-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf [state.gov]. If you prefer, you can look at https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/ukraine/report-ukraine/ [amnesty.org] for some additional information. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a serious impediment to addressing issues of corruption and human rights violations in Ukraine. Ukraine's human rights record was improving in some areas, as noted at https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/ukraine/report-ukraine/ [amnesty.org]. That is likely to have slowed as a result of the invasion. An invasion by Russia definitely isn't going to be an improvement, particularly considering the especially harsh conditions in occupied regions. It takes time to fix human rights issues, but at least Ukraine seemed to be moving in the right direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2022, @04:39AM
The audio clip was published by the La Presse agency and subsequently went viral over the past two days. In the audio, Berlusconi can be heard calling Russian President Putin an "old friend" while blaming Ukraine's Zelensky for provoking the current conflict by "tripling the attacks" against pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, in reference to the conflict that raged there since 2014.
"The Republics of the Donbas eventually sent a delegation to Moscow and told Putin: ‘Please, defend us!’," the ex-prime minister said. "Putin was against any initiative but he was under a big pressure from the Russian people and so he invented this special operation: The plan was that his troops had to enter Ukraine, overthrow Zelenskiy and replace him with a government formed by a Ukrainian minority, formed by honest, sensible people.’"
Berlusconi added that when the Russian military invaded Ukraine, they were "faced with a situation Putin could not have predicted, of resistance from the Ukrainians who started receiving money and weapons from the west. And the special operation became a 200-year war."
The former PM, who was previously recorded as saying he was one of the Russian leader’s top five friends, said he can’t see how Putin and Zelenskiy can sit at a negotiating table.
- Giorgia Meloni Tells Ex-PM Berlusconi 'Keep Your Mouth Shut' After Audio Leaks Bashing NATO [zerohedge.com]
(And the article continues...)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @09:30PM (4 children)
Ukraine is the good guys, right khallow?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday October 20 2022, @04:55AM (1 child)
This is a classic whataboutism failure - trying to cast other countries in the same light as the worst in the world. Ukraine's or the US's failings don't hold a candle to what Russia has done over the past two decades. Being a good guy doesn't mean one is perfect. The attention to these minor imperfections while ignoring great evil is a demonstration that you don't really care - except to argue that everyone else does it too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @06:23AM
As the former Israeli premier, Netanyahu has met Putin on numerous occasions.
"Oh yeah, many times," said Netanyahu, who's running for the same office in two weeks.
One of the first times involved the Russian and Israeli air forces "literally bumping into each other over the skies of Syria. ... I went to Moscow and said to Putin, 'Look, we can coordinate together or fight each other.'"
Netanyahu says that Putin soon realized it was in the countries' best interests to work together, "and we were able to endure the freedom of action over the skies of Syria."
Securing peace in Ukraine might be a different challenge, Netanyahu conceded. However, if he gets elected in two weeks, there could be a pathway to appealing to Putin's peaceful side once again.
"If I get elected in two weeks, God willing, if that happens, I hope to have a very discreet conversation with [President Joe Biden]" about Russia and Putin, said Netanyahu. "Because this is something that affects the entire world."
..."I'm not prime minister yet," said Netanyahu. "Whatever thoughts I have [on restoring peace] ... might contribute to the end of this tragedy" in Ukraine.
- Putin's Nuke Threat Must Be 'Handled Prudently' [newsmax.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2022, @09:13PM (1 child)
Why We Haven’t Tried To End The War
In a recent post (“Elon Musk Tries To Prevent World War III“ [portfolioarmor.com]), I mentioned that there were three reasons why Western leaders were eager to escalate with Russia, rather than attempt to use diplomacy to end the war:
Maybe the most important of these reasons has been the first one. Even the few voices calling for restraint in our proxy war with Russia, such as the venture capitalist David Sacks, often seem compelled to condemn Russia’s invasion in the harshest terms. For example, in his cautionary essay [theamericanconservative.com] last month, Sacks described it as “immoral, criminal, and barbaric”.
Mike Whitney pushed back against that moralized view in a recent piece, which I have posted in full below.
Before we get to that, I’d like to add some new information buttressing the third reason (Putin as an ideological opponent). I also have a quick update for you on an approach to investing in light of the war that I shared with you back in May.
Putin as an Ideological Opponent.
Update on a Ukraine War-Proof Portfolio
Some of Us Don’t Think the Russian Invasion Was “Aggression.” Here’s Why.
“We are not threatening anyone.… We have made it clear that any further NATO movement to the east is unacceptable. There’s nothing unclear about this. We aren’t deploying our missiles to the border of the United States, but the United States IS deploying their missiles to the porch of our house. Are we asking too much? We’re just asking that they not deploy their attack-systems to our home…. What is so hard to understand about that?” Russian President Vladimir Putin [youtube.com]
- Questioning The Ukraine War Narrative [zerohedge.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 21 2022, @04:27AM
And yet, there's no refutation of the "simplistic, moralized view of the war". And there's the ridiculous bias:
Who is "we"? Certainly not Russia, which has been threatening a lot of people. And Russia has brazenly lied about its motives here. I don't buy it since NATO has never been a serious threat to Russia or the USSR. It's merely been an obstacle to expansionist actions of which the Ukraine invasion is merely the latest.
As to the invasions, they're definitely glossing over those. To add to your list, we have: 4) A history of Russian aggression in the region as well as consistent support for tyrannies.
5) Diplomacy was tried before the war started. It didn't work because Putin wasn't interested in diplomacy. Why should we expect it to work now? What has changed? Without incentive, such as a heavily degraded Russian military, there's no reason to expect Russia to sincerely engage in diplomacy.
6) Prevention of future wars. I guess this goes with point 1). Here, what is the point at which Russia will stop all future aggression? The pretexts they gave now can work all the way to the Atlantic coast of Europe and beyond (having neo-nazis, NATO cooties, etc). There's no clear limits to how far the policy will go and a lot of reason to believe that this is merely the beginning of a huge land grab.
This also goes for nuclear war. By pulling out the nuclear card in such a frivolous war, it's quite clear that Russia will continue to play that card in every conflict they do. There's no incentive to keep letting them increase their power and territory. We can just stop them now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2022, @04:46AM (1 child)
Oh look!
An AC post pushing rightwing/russian talking points.
But wait! There's more! This AC post is rated at -1 yet it was opened by default when loading the page. What code bug would do this? Maybe a +5 rated child comment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2022, @05:44AM
Try Threaded-TNG.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 19 2022, @09:21PM (7 children)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscow-kyiv-swap-218-prisoners-including-108-ukrainian-women-2022-10-17/ [reuters.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @09:48PM (6 children)
As the CCP-virus has taught us, with today's supply chain issues, you have to keep a good inventory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @10:38PM (3 children)
Actually Trump ordered a slate of bad inspections [us.gov] which indicate that the inspectors were not even certified and are suspected of releasing the virus at the market where the infections were centered. How Trump thought the virus would stay in cities is a mystery. The only sensible reasoning is Trump wanted to grift with the virus while making the world focus on anything but Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Thankfully it hurt him politically and clearly demonstrated his anti-US policies.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @11:24PM (1 child)
Now, do how Trump moving to Mar-a-Lago caused the crime problems in New York, Hurricane Ian in Florida, the 500-year drought in Europe, and the 17-year locust.
Pick any two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2022, @12:16PM
If only hurricane Ian had been redirected by executive Sharpie!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 21 2022, @02:19PM
Link was dead. And why should we care about, much less respect, these suspicions of releasing the virus in another country which the US doesn't control?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 19 2022, @11:17PM (1 child)
A good thing the winter is coming, one can stack the prisoner inventory outside without fear of spoilage, eh? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2022, @07:26AM
In all seriousness, an underarmed, underfed, and now underwarmed (thanks to Winter) Russian soldiers might just find the idea of surrender that much more tempting to actually attempt organized surrender.