TRUST THE GERMAN MEDIA TO PUT THE BOOT IN RUSSIA'S BUTT... THERE WILL ALWAYS BE MALCONTENT PEOPE ANYWHERE ABOUT ANY THING... SO THE GERMAN MEDIA WILL FIND THESE LONELY SAD EXCEPTIONS (RATHER THAN TALK TO HAPPY PEOPLE) UNDER A ROCK OR IN A RUIN BECAUSE IT'S OPEN SEASON ON VLADIMIR PUTIN... IF PUTIN MADE A MISTAKE IT WAS TO TRUST THE EUROPEANS SIGNING MINSK AGREEMENTS. PUTIN SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED THE YUCKRAINE ARMY IN 2015 WHEN THAT ARMY WAS ON ITS KNEES DESPITE BEING SUPPORTED BY NATO... AFTER 2015, NATO HELD HUNDREDS OF MILITARY EXERCISES IN UKRAINE TO HELP THE KIEV NAZI ARMIES INVADE THE SELF-DECLARED AUTONOMOUS RUSSIAN POPULATED REGIONS OF UKRAINE. BY 2021 PUTIN MADE AN OFFER TO THE WEST AND UKRAINE WHICH WAS VERY GENEROUS TO UKRAINE BUT WAS REJECTED BY THE WEST, BECAUSE THE END GAME FOR THE AMERICAN EMPIRE (STILL AIMED UNDER TRUMP) IS TO DESTROY RUSSIA...

 

HERE ARE THE MALCONTENTS ON DW...

 

ITEM ONE:

Between propaganda and reality: Russians in Kursk speak up

     

Maria Katamadze

 

The Kremlin says that Russia has "liberated" the Kursk region from Ukraine, a claim that Kyiv denies. Thousands of locals have fled, and those who remain live in a state of fear and feel neglected by Moscow.

"It is still unclear whether we are safe or not. We have no peace because there are still drones … We live in fear, one day at a time," Marina told DW. She is a refugee from Russia'sKursk region and doesn't want to disclose her current location. 

She and her family fled their village after Ukrainian troops crossed the border into Russia in August 2024 and launched a surprise incursion into the region which is to the north-east of Ukraine, north of the Donbass region, which is illegally occupied by Russia. 

Like Marina, thousands of locals left their homes, finding refuge further away from the frontline in nearby villages and towns.

Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory caught Moscow off guard and has since turned into a military humiliation for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. For seven months, Ukrainian troops held on to parts of the region, including the town of Sudzha. For thousands of locals, the long stalemate led to a humanitarian catastrophe and a personal tragedy.

On April 26, the Russian military claimed to have regained full control of the Kursk region but hours later the Ukrainian army dismissed these claims, calling them "propaganda tricks."

Conflicting messages from both capitals mean that it's unclear whether Ukraine's military is still present in some parts of the Kursk region or not. But the situation remains tense.

Life under Ukrainian control 

Anastasia and her family left Sudzha on the first day of the incursion. The town is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Aside from many smaller villages, Sudzha was the only actual town Ukraine captured. The Russian military retook it in March this year.

Like Anastasia, most of the locals fled and the town then saw some of the most gruesome fighting since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Intense shelling left the town in ruins with mines scattered across the streets.

Some locals, such as Anastasia's uncle, had preferred to stay. "He either died or he was killed. Well, I don't know exactly," Anastasia told DW, adding that she had no information about whether he had received a funeral. She and her family have so far been unable to return to Sudzha. 

Both Russian independent media outlets and state media have reported cases of looting in the Kursk region. Some residents told DW that their cars had been stolen, but they were unable to say which military was responsible. 

Russia has accused Ukraine's military of "committing war crimes" in the Kursk region, but it has issued no credible evidence to back the allegations. 

"All we know about this is that the armed forces of Ukraine always try to solve humanitarian issues related to local civilians regardless of the citizenship of these people," Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US, told DW. 

By contrast, according to the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Russia has systematically committed war crimes in Ukraine, such as torture, sexual violence, or child deportations. In January, the UN estimated that more than 12,300 civilians in Ukraine had been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

 Residents feel abandoned by the state 

In the wake of Ukraine's incursion, many felt that they had been left to fend for themselves.

"Please take the message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that nobody needs us at all," one local woman pleaded in a video shared by the Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti in August. 

Despite this perceived lack of swift support for Kursk residents from the Russian government, Russian statemedia  portrayed the unfolding humanitarian crisis since last summer as a time when Russians came together to volunteer for those in need.

Some refugees confirmed to DW that they were receiving support from the state, but others said the Kremlin had neglected displaced people in Kursk and failed to fulfill its promises.

"They talk and promise more than they do. The reality is different," Nadezhda, another resident of the city of Kursk, told DW. 

The Russian authorities, however, do not accept that criticism, even suggesting that people are ungrateful.  

"I have an impression that before 2022, you were living on an uninhabited island, that you had no roads, hospitals, schools … that it was not the government who was paying your pension, that it came just out of the blue," Alexander Khinshtein, the current governor of the Kursk region, defended Moscow's dedication to the region in a meeting with Kursk locals last December. 

 

KURSK HAS BEEN TOTALLY LIBERATED. FULL STOP. THE UKRAINE MILITARY HAS LOST MORE THAN 76,000 SOLDIERS IN THIS STUPID STUNT... PLUS COUNTLESS OF VALUABLE EQUIPMENT FROM TANKS TO CANNONS. THE RUSSIAN ARMY IS ESTABLISHING A BUFFER ZONE IN SUMY TO PREVENT ANOTHER INCURSION IN KURSK. IT IS BELIEVE THAT THE RUSSIANS WILL REBUILT THE DESTROYED TOWNS AND VILLAGES. THE VILLAIN HERE IS NOT PUTIN BUT LITTLE SHIT ZELENSKYYYYYYYY — AND THE ENGLISH WHO HAVE SUPPLIED THE INTENT, THE EQUIPMENT AND THE LOGISTICS.

 

===================

 

ITEM TWO

 

Keeping Russian control of Crimea? Crimean Tatars respondHanna Sokolova-Stekh

 

"Crimea will remain with Russia," President Donald Trump said as he set the agenda for talks to end of the Ukraine war. But what do the indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula, the Crimean Tatars, think about this plan?

As part of his “peace plan,” US President Donald Trump is ready to recognize the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea permanently as Russian territory. In Ukraine, DW spoke to representatives of the Crimean Tatars, the original inhabitants of the peninsula, to find out what they think.

'Our fight will go on'

"We know all too well what Russia is like. It is a successor to the Soviet Union, which once deported my mother and grandmother," says a woman who now lives in Crimea and wishes to remain anonymous. "It took us half a century to return to our homeland and we will not leave again. We will wait here for the return of the Ukrainian state."

"Our people have fought for the right to live on their own land. That's why this fight will go on, regardless of the political situation," says another resident of the peninsula, who also wishes to remain anonymous. She points out that the oppression of the indigenous population began with the conquest of Crimea by Tsarist Russia.

It continued under the Soviets after the Russian Revolution and in 1944, the Crimean Tatars were deported to Central Asia. They were only allowed to return to their homeland in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and after receiving permission from Ukraine, which had gained independence. In 2014, Crimea came under Russian occupation again and many Crimean Tatars were persecuted for their pro-Ukrainian stance and forced to leave their homeland.

At the time, the second anonymous woman says, the Crimean Tatars were disappointed that the Ukrainian government had not fought "to keep the peninsula as part of Ukraine." Today, she says she would be relieved if a political decision were to end the daily deaths from the war in Ukraine. "On the other hand, many believe that if Ukraine were to recognize the occupied territories as Russian, all those lives would have been sacrificed in vain in defense of Ukrainian independence and statehood." 

In her view, the peace treaty currently under discussion would legitimize territorial concessions to Russia. She fears that people in the occupied territories could then become political prisoners because Russian legislation would apply there.

https://www.dw.com/en/keeping-russian-control-of-crimea-crimean-tatars-respond/a-72407629

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT IN SUCH CASES "FEAR" IS NOT A REALITY SITUATION... PUTIN HAS MADE GENEROUS OFFERS TO THE CRIMEAN TATARS — WHO, TO SAY THE LEAST, ARE A VERY TINY MINORITY. WE COULD GO ON AND MENTION THE SITUATION OF THE "INDIANS" IN THE USA AND CANADA and THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE OF AUSTRALIA... HISTORY HAS MARCHED ON AND THE PRESENT MAJORITY (BIG MAJORITY NEARLY 90 PER CENT) OF PEOPLE IN CRIMEA HAVE CHOSEN TO GO WITH RUSSIA — MOSTLY BECAUSE THEY ARE RUSSIAN...

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.