Putin's murder of hospitalised children is enough for NATO to intervene directly

The Times headline: "Children's hospital in ruins after Russia's deadly barrage". The hospital is in Kyiv (the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital), the capital of Ukraine.

Note: Putin is already at war with NATO:

Russia is eschewing conventional conflict and instead waging a campaign of sabotage and intimidation across Europe. When and how are we going to respond asks Edward Lucas in The Times

Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital after the cruise missile hit. Image: BBC.

The hospital suffered extensive damage after a direct hit on its toxicology ward. A video showed the missile hurtling into the building. It was an ordinary Monday until the massive blast. A bone marrow transplant specialist at the hospital said the following: 

"Killing children, killing doctors, killing civilians? This is genocide and Russia is a terrorist state. But why does Russia still have the capabilities to build these rockets? If striking hospitals is a new strategy for them, what should we do next? What should the world do next?"

At least 37 people were killed, including three children, and more than 170 were wounded So what should the world do next?

Putin is allegedly (it very much looks like that as the missile that destroyed this hospital was guided) murdering children in hospital beds. 

He has also murdered through directions to his generals to bomb and shell city centres - apartment blocks - before and killed hundreds of kids and old ladies but this has gone too far. It's totally unacceptable. It is beyond the pale. 

Enough is enough. Can the West in the form of NATO stand by and watch this? Can we accept politicians and generals complaining about the killing of hospital kids but take not action? Can we accept more hollow words from the politicians of the West without real action? More blah, blah, blah? Please enough of empty words. We can do better and must do better. Be braver. Let's steel ourselves.

Direct intervention by NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine would be an act of war against Russia by the West but I don't think the West can look on any more. Day by day we are looking at slaughter. The slaughter of innocents. There must come a time and I would argue that this is the time to intervene directly. It would be the morally right thing to do. 

Putin has threatened nuclear war if NATO intervenes but he's bluffing. I know it's a risk but we have to take risks sometime. We have to do the right thing and call the bluff of a bully/terrorist/murderer. It's time to walk the walk rather than talk the talk. It's time for direct action.

Russia denied responsibility for the hospital strike, saying it does not attack civilian targets in Ukraine. A Russian Defence Ministry statement blamed a Ukrainian air defence missile for partially destroying the hospital. Comment: they always say the same thing. 

Macron has suggested sending troops into Ukraine so my suggestion is not off the wall. Although most would disagree. I think that doing it may avert WW3 not create it.

🚨🇷🇺 The Kremlin says upcoming nuclear weapons drills are a response to “unprecedented” comments, including by French President Emmanuel Macron on sending troops to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/9r0E44evsS

— Terror Alarm (@Terror_Alarm) May 6, 2024

How WW2 started

Back in the day, in 1939 Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland. There was no NATO obligation. The reason were essentially moral and ultimately about the invasion of an sovereign state by an aggressor. Same as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Britain decided to go to war with Germany after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 due to a complex set of political and strategic factors:

• Appeasement Policy Failure: The policy of appeasement that Britain and France had pursued towards Nazi Germany in the 1930s, hoping to avoid another World War, had failed to prevent Germany's continued aggression and expansionism. The invasion of Poland was seen as a crossing of a red line.
• Defense of Poland: Britain and France had guarantees to protect Poland's independence, and felt compelled to uphold these commitments to prevent further erosion of the post-World War I order in Europe.
• Preventing German Dominance: There were concerns that if Germany was allowed to conquer Poland, it would give them a dominant position in Central Europe that could threaten the balance of power. Britain wanted to contain German power.
• Upholding International Law: The German invasion of Poland was viewed as a flagrant violation of international law and the norms of the League of Nations, which Britain was committed to upholding.
• Public Pressure: There was significant public and political pressure within Britain to take action against Nazi aggression after the invasion of Poland, in order to defend democracy and prevent another world war.

Ultimately, Britain felt it had no choice but to declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939, two days after the German invasion of Poland, in order to fulfill its commitments and try to halt the Nazi advance. This decision marked the start of Britain's involvement in World War II.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Peter Fouché British combat medic and volunteer dies. Here with cat in Ukraine trenches.

Twitter screenshot.

Peter Fouché, British combat medic and volunteer, has died while defending Ukraine. 

Peter saved over 200 lives of our Defenders. 

 In March 2022 Peter Fouché came to Ukraine as a volunteer. Later, he joined the Territorial Guards. In January 2024, Peter Fouché officially joined the AFU as a combat medic. 

 Peter was the co-founder of Project Konstantin that evacuates injured soldiers and does medical training. He has a 15 year old daughter Nichola - he went to Ukraine for her. 

Eternal memory and eternal glory to the Hero. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

The words are those of Anton, a prolific Twitterer. Thanks.

It seems that he liked cats too. It also seems that the cat was one of those front-line trench cats who keep the troops company and catch mice and deter rats. Nice picture. So sad.
 

Peter Fouché, British combat medic and volunteer, has died defending Ukraine.

Peter saved over 200 lives of our Defenders.

In March 2022 Peter Fouché came to Ukraine as a volunteer. Later, he joined the Territorial Guards. In January 2024, Peter Fouché officially joined the AFU… https://t.co/siM39YGwYO pic.twitter.com/qN3IGysSNI

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 1, 2024

Putin, the man who murders journalists

Screenshot from video below.

Although it has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Putin murders journalist in 2006, I refuse to say that murder of Anna Politkovskaya by Putin is an allegation. He has murdered so many detractors that we in the West have lost count. The murders are never investigated. And she was criticising him well before his invasion of Ukraine. She would have had more ammunition to criticise him if she had lived to report on the Ukraine war.

She was killed 2 days after writing these words, on 7th October 2006, taken from a Twitter feed:

"This is what she thought of Putin, based on her long-term observations of the Russian dictator. What reasons do I have to dislike Putin? 

There are many. 

• First, his artlessness, which is worse than theft. 
• His cynicism and racism. 
• His endless war and lies. 
• The gassing at “Nord-Ost.” 
• The corpses of innocent victims, accompanying his entire first term. Those are corpses which could have been avoided. 

I often wonder if Putin is human at all, or a frozen or iron statue. I wonder and can’t find confirmation that he is a human being. 

Putin, having accidentally received enormous power into his hands, administered it to catastrophic consequences for Russia. And I do not like him, because he does not like people. He can’t stand us. He despises us. He believes that we are a means for him only, a means to achieve his own personal power goals. 

Therefore, he can do anything he wishes to us, plays with us as he pleases, destroys us, if he wishes. For him, we are nobody. And he, having accidentally scrambled to the top, is now a king and a god, whom everybody should worship and fear. 

Putin has propped up his rule solely on the clay struts of the oligarchy – ordinary people did not find a place for themselves in this scheme. He is friends with some oligarchs, and fights with others, and it is this that we call supreme State Administration, when billionaires who have divided oil and gas reserves among themselves, have ultimate importance. 

Why do I dislike Putin? For the years that pass by. This summer it will be five years since the second Chechen war was initiated for the sake of Putin’s first ascension to presidency, and it is still ongoing. Putin’s style of politics displays deep personal resentment. 

Putin has many times publicly demonstrated that he fundamentally does not understand the purpose of a debate, especially a political debate. According to Putin, a discussion between a superior and his subordinates should not be possible."

17 years ago, on 7th October, the Kremlin boss silenced Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist, writer and activist, on his birthday.

This is what she thought of Putin, based on her long-term observations of the Russian dictator.

What reasons do I have to dislike Putin? There are… pic.twitter.com/44iPYmqaDa

— Yasmina (@yasminalombaert) October 6, 2023

RIP this brave lady. Great courage. She must have known that it was likely that she'd be murdered. But it did not stop her. She was probably tired of living a country managed by a murdering, warmongering, psychopathic tyrant.

"Since 1992, since CPJ began compiling the Global Impunity Index, 58 Russian journalists have died, 38 of them killed as a direct result of their professional activities."

'CPJ' refers to the Committee to Protect Journalists

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Russian fencer uses F-word multiple times against Ukrainian opponent

This is the European Fencing Championships in Basel. Olena Kryvytska, the Ukrainian, won the bout with a score of 15:9. But in the video you can see how badly behaved the Russian was after Olena refused to salute her at the end of the bout which I presume is part of the etiquette in fencing competitions. 

Screenshot from the video.

To me it shows us how many Russians 'just don't get it'. They don't understand what is going on in the war in Ukraine thanks to Putin's incessant television propaganda and news blackouts because he terrorises independent newspapers in Russia. 

And therefore this Russian fencer competing under the Georgian flag (why!?) becomes enraged when her Ukrainian opponent - who beat her - does not do the polite thing at the end. 

And the Ukrainian fencer was correct. How could she salute and be polite to a Russian who is a citizen of  country bent on destroying Ukraine in an illegal war? This problem is the same for tennis players. Ukrainian tennis professionals have refused to shake hands with their Russian competitors at the end of the match.

There is a strong argument that all Russian athletes should be banned from all competitions during this war but I understand that they are sometimes entirely innocent and victims of Putin themselves.

Here is the video:

"F*ck, why do they act like that? F*ckers. Why the f*ck are they allowed to do anything? Have they lost their f*cking minds?" - Russian fencer Maya Guchmazova (competing under the Georgian flag) when the Ukrainian fencer Olena Kryvytska refused to salute her.

The incident took… pic.twitter.com/5FEGw3bT8f

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 18, 2024

Of course this has nothing to do with cats! Directly. But indirectly it has everything to do with cats and other animals. Hundreds of thousands as you probably know by now have been killed by Putin's forces. He has also killed many thousands of wild animals. It is Armageddon for animals in Ukraine thanks to that terrorist, tyrant Putin who professes to be an animal lover. We must think of the animals as well as the human victims.

The man is destroying Russia as well, in small steps compared to Ukraine where he likes to shell grandmothers with their cat companions in one-bed flats at night.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Ukrainian soldiers return from front line with their companion animals

The soldiers return from the front lines, the animals who were with them were not left behind. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/nQdlhElCO9

— Oriannalyla 🇺🇦 (@Lyla_lilas) May 1, 2024

No need to add words except to say Great! There are some wonderful relationships between cats and dogs (and mice) and Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches of the front line. Here is one pic from one example:

And here is another:

And another:

There are many more.

Ukrainian soldiers build a great cat flap for their dugout on the front line

Every so often we see a cute cat video from the Ukrainian frontline trenches during the Ukrainian war - brought on by Putin's illegal invasion - of the troops interacting with cats that they've adopted. They also adopt dogs who help to keep an eye out for Russian soldiers while the cats keep the soldiers company. I am sure that they provide a lot of calming therapy. A dangerous role though even if it is in a bunker. 

Ukrainian soldiers build a nice cat flap for their dugout on the front line. Measuring up to make sure the cat flap is the correct size. Screenshot.

I love this carefully constructed cat flap. A very professional job. It looks great. The cats looks very comfortable.

RELATED: 11-year-old Ukrainian girl takes on responsibility of feeding abandoned cats in devastated Ukraine.

Cat adopts an American volunteer for K9 Rescue International in Ukraine where things are getting better

NEWS AND VIEWS - UKRAINE: This is a nice letter from an American man, Tom Bates, who has been in Ukraine since March 2022, volunteering his services for K9 Rescue International. His letter is published on the Key Peninsula News website. He's been rescuing and evacuating animals; bringing food to hungry animals and travelling through many zones of conflict dodging Russian rockets and artillery fire. 

MacDonald's to reopen some restaurants in Ukraine. Image: Shutterstock.

When he first arrived in Ukraine things were bad, he says. It was grim and he still can't speak decent Ukrainian which doesn't surprise me because it takes a long time to learn a foreign language.

But some good things have happened. Firstly, a cat adopted him he says. He named the cat Bob. And he says that when he returns home to America, he is bringing Bob with him. I like that. He's rescued a cat in need in a war zone and he is going to give the cat a good life in a good country. That is about as good as you can do in terms of animal welfare as an individual person doing their bit.

The second bit of good news is this: things are beginning to get back to normal despite the war continuing. I guess this is the case because the war is confined more and more to eastern Ukraine and in the south. The other areas, thankfully - and I hope this continues - are fairly normal such as life in the capital Kyiv. Although Putin has hinted that he might try and take Kyiv a second time. Although that would be a new mobilisation which would be incredibly unpopular and it might fail bearing in mind that around 300,000 men left the country last time they were mobilised.

Another good sign that things are returning to normal and I hope it stays that way (there is no certainty) is that McDonald's restaurants are beginning to reopen across Ukraine.

When the war started, MacDonald closed every restaurant in Ukraine and donated all their food to the military. They continue to pay all employees their full wage. Pretty amazing. But now the stores are opening again of course the employees can come back and the general public are very thankful because Bates says that "Cars wrap around several blocks for the drive through. Lines of people flow out the doors for 100 yards. Every table is full."

Ukrainians have missed their McDonald's. Car dealerships have cars on show and some checkpoints have been dismantled. People are smiling more and of course the warm weather helps.

This is just a little glimpse of life from the point of view of a volunteer helping out with animal welfare in a country ravaged by death and destruction to both animal and person. But as mentioned it is focused on certain areas so the mood has lifted.

It is said that it will cost around $500 billion to rebuild the country. As I understand it, the West has frozen almost $400 billions of Russian assets which can be used.

Stoic tabby cat epitomises the strength of Ukrainians against murderous Russian aggression

I love the Defense of Ukraine photos and videos. They are so professionally produced. This one so beautifully sums up the stoic attitude of Ukrainians in the face of the criminal and murderous bombardment of their homes by Putin. He wants to kill old ladies and their cats. He is a criminal madman.

Stoic tabby cat epitomises the strength of Ukrainians against murderous Russian aggression. Screenshot.

This sweet-looking tabby is dressed as if in a hijab. The blanket is to keep her warm. She looks calm if a little pissed off which is to be expected. Her brow is furrowed. She looks dead ahead. I love the expression. Who said that domestic cats don't have expressive faces?!

The domestic cats of Ukraine have suffered as much as their caregivers. Many have been killed. Many have lost their caregiver and become feral. Then they scavenge for food among the ruins of their home and the homes of others.

This tabby cat appears to be in a shelter, probably a station of Kyiv's underground railway system. That's the safest place during these bombings of apartment blocks as they are deep underground.

I guess when they emerge into the daylight, they must be anxious as to whether their home is still standing. The constant fear must undermine their lives terribly.

But they are stoic, just like this cat. They will keep going for as long as it takes and make the most of what they have which means having some fun from time to time as can be seen in the video.

Putin must hate to see that, which is one reason why the PR department of the Ukrainian government creates these superb videos.

Humans prefer to look at animal abuse videos than admire an old lady who walks miles to get cat food in a war

What is wrong with humanity? Was it always like this? It was. One thing I have learnt in running websites is that people are far more interested in looking at horrible and notorious animal abuse videos and reading animal abuse stories than for example admiring an old lady who travelled miles on foot in a war-torn country to buy a bag of cat food to feed her precious cat, perhaps her only friend left alive after Putin's illegal and brutal invasion on Ukraine.

This is the enduring lady I personally admire tremendously. She is suffering and caring for her cat under very tough conditions.

The woman deserves admiration and support. She is the kind of person all of us should admire. She's better than most of us. But no, the published picture of her (click this link to see her) has been seen once - just a single time - in 12 hours even after the page was 'advertised' on social media.

Yet, for 3 years one page on Luke Magnotta has garnered millions of hits. It still receives 30 hits every half hour. And it is a page that has a link to a notorious video of this psychopath killing kittens. That's what attracts people. The criminal and the bad. Not the admirable and the good.

I suspect most of the people who are obsessed with criminal abuse of animals are young. Gen X types is my guess.  The older people can't take that kind of crap anymore.

You need a fresh brain to look at that kind of crappy video. The only reason why it is on one of my sites is because it gets hits and that means advertising revenue which goes to charity a lot of the time.

So, what's wrong with humankind that makes us so interested in the bad stuff?  Why is the interesting news always bad news? Crime has always fascinated humans. Why? I have not seen a really convincing answer. For me the reason is in the next paragraph (the last sentence).

The experts say that it is because humans have a 'negativity bias'. We are interested in bad (negative) news as it warns us of a potential threat. That might be too nice to humans. The reasons might be simpler than that: we find the bad, gross stuff more titillating. It tweaks out tired, bored brains.

All I know is that I have to go in search of bad stuff to get hits. And science stuff isn't very popular either as it is too complicated. People want simple, in your face thrills, instantly without any effort.

The world is getting lazier and more bored. Family life is slowly breaking up. Marriage in developed counties is losing favour over simple partnerships.

In the UK the fabric of society is gradually fraying and society is destabilising. We are heading in the wrong direction. I am not saying that we can't change course and do things right. I am just saying I don't like the current attitudes which includes an obsession with negative news and grisly animal abuse by notorious criminals.

P.S. there is some hope! Animal rescue is always popular. But less so than the above-mentioned videos. Obviously, we are all different and not everyone likes animal abuse videos. There are many great people. Just too many bad 'uns.

Many people love animals particularly their pets. The trouble here is that not enough people know about the animal abuse which is a necessity of intensive farming. We really have to change our ways and change farming for good. Far too much animal abuse in it. 

DON’T watch this video of a piglet crying out for their mum. JUST DON’T.

Click on the link above and take a lot at the way pigs are often treated on intensive farming farms. It'll make you wince and put you off eating 'pork' for ever.

Grandma walks miles to get a bag of food for her cat (Ukraine)

This is the tweet: Slava Babusya (grandma)! ---this Ukrainian woman walked a few miles amid the shelling this week to get a bag of food for her cat. Resilience. Photo: Natasha Mazur, Ukraine Animal Rescue.

When we feel like complaining because the price of cat food has increased rapidly, we should think of grandma. When we have a little problem with getting our cat's favorite cat food, we should think of grandma. It kind of puts things into perspective don't you think?

She must be in her 80s! It makes your shake your head in disbelief and admiration. Mind you, I'd do the same thing.

When you have to do something like that to feed your cat you do it if you have the right kind of relationship and the physical ability. And she has. I'd bet her cat is her closest friend and she'd do anything for him/her.

So many cats and dogs have lost their lives in this illegal war. We don't know how many animals have died because of the war but it is a huge number. And so many homeless, starving cats now when they were once living in caring homes.

There is a young girl in one city who now looks after the abandoned domestic cats turned feral including her own. 

Update the next day: Disappointment is how I feel about this post. It has received one view in 12 hours and I advertised it on social media. If I had published a nasty animal abuse video instead it would have received hundreds of views. What does that say about people? Think about it.

This is a really admirable women. And we need to support Ukraine.

Cat stole a grenade from a Ukrainian soldier and doesn’t want to return it

A bit of fun in all the hell of the Ukraine war. It looks a bit dangerous though. Don't grenades have pins which are released to make them live? They way the cat is messing around with the grenade it makes you wonder if that pin is about to be accidentally released. The guy is laughing. I can see the funny side and the seriousness.

Ann estimated 400,000 animals have been killed in the war I am told. Many cats have been made homeless and ownerless. They become feral and hopefully someone looks after them but that would seem unlikely as people have enough on their plate to survive themselves.

Here is a cat story from Ukraine: Picture of a boy holding his cat in front of his destroyed home in Ukraine.

Cat stole a grenade from a Ukrainian soldier and doesn’t want to return it. Screenshot.

Cat-liking journalist killed by Russian missile when covering the Ukraine war

The tweet is very sad. Arman Soldin was an AFP journalist. And it would appear that he was an ailurophile - a cat lover or at least a cat liker. According to the Defense of Ukraine tweet (a great Twitterer by the way) he was killed by a Russian missile attack on Chasiv Yar, Donetsk region of Ukraine. 

Arman Soldin an AFP journo was killed by the Russians in Ukraine. Image: Twitter.

The Defense of Ukraine tweeting authors always spell 'Russia' without capitalising it. I believe this is a deliberate sign of disrespect and I agree with them. No one should respect Russia anymore. 

Putin says that the West wants to destroy Russia and that the West has started the war. It is complete mumbo-jumbo. He is constantly feeding misinformation to the citizens of Russia. He calls black, white and white, black. He is a consummate liar and I think that he believes his lies. If he could have made friends with the West it would have protected Russia. His actions are jeopardising Russia; making it more vulnerable

The Defense of Ukraine tweet concludes: "Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family and coworkers. He dedicated his life to informing the world about the truth. His legacy, as well as his cause, will live on."

RIP Arman. God speed. And I love the ginger tabby cat on your shoulder. I hope the cat was not with you when the missile struck. I wonder what happened to this cat?

UPDATE from CBS: "The French judiciary has launched a war crime investigation into the death of AFP reporter Arman Soldin who was killed in Ukraine, anti-terror prosecutors said Wednesday."

Soldin, 32, died when he and his AFP colleagues came under fire by Grad rockets on Tuesday while they were with Ukrainian troops near Chasiv Yar, in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. According to the AFP, other reporters with Soldin were not injured in the attack.

 
Hundreds of thousands of animals have been 'murdered' by Putin's forces during this illegal invasion. It is horrible and tragic. Not enough has been mentioned about them.

And many thousands of domestic cats have become feral. They've become homeless as their owners have been killed in their flats. There is a girl who looks after them where she lives. Heroic.

Here she is: 11-year-old girl feeds abandoned cats in devastated Ukraine. The girl's name is Veronika Krasevych. Such an adult character and approach to animal welfare from such a young girl. She sounds like an adult when she talks about cats.

Video screenshot.

Some Ukrainian refugees to the UK smuggled in cats and dogs

Under the UK's Homes for Ukraine scheme which started not soon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many of the refugees were women. Some were with children and many were from the capital, Kyiv. They had managed to leave the country fairly early during the war by firstly crossing into Poland.

Some Ukrainian refugees to the UK smuggled in pets. Image: Reddit.com

I can recall at that time, that there was a hugely bureaucratic system for getting companion animals into the UK as they accompanied their refugee owners. There are some real difficulties in that scheme because they had to overcome the usual barriers of importing pets into the UK. There's rabies in Ukraine but there's no rabies in the UK. That probably is the number one difficulty requiring caution by the UK authorities.

I'm told today by a social worker who was helping arrivals into the country that some female Ukrainian refugees smuggled pets through immigration. The social worker tells me that:

"One young woman arrived with her son and a cat and a large dog, to find her hosts were expecting her to sleep in an unheated garden shed. She eventually returned to Ukraine, having decided her quality of life would be better there."

There are two things about that quote. Firstly, the Homes for Ukraine scheme although hugely beneficial to more than 120,000 refugees was not faultless. There was some abuse and some exploitation and, in some cases, the British hosts were not really in a position to provide temporary housing for their refugee guests. Some Ukrainians decided to take the risk of living in their own home in their own surroundings are went back.

The second point is that some refugees smuggled their pets into the country understandably I would say because of the huge amount of bureaucracy and delay that was occurring at the time.

Perhaps the most important point to make about the Homes for Ukraine scheme was that it demonstrated the generosity of the vast majority of UK citizens both in terms of general charitable donations and in helping out the refugees.

It should be added by the way that not all of them were desperate and in a dire state. After the initial influx of female refugees, some men followed. Some were of a fighting age and therefore they should not have been allowed to have left Ukraine under that country's current legislation which demands that they fight the Russians.

And they were all given benefits to help live despite some of them being well off as the social worker mentions that one couple were in the process of buying a BMW!

Cat plays with Ukrainian machine gun bullets

I find the juxtaposition of this cat playing with deadly armaments rather sickening to be honest. On the one hand we have humans killing each other with deadly force and on the other hand we have a playful cat who has no idea what is going on in respect of human warfare playing with machine gun bullets. It goes right over their head. Until they are killed in a Russian bomb explosion or a bullet or the apartment in which the cat lives is destroyed.

I'm told in a report by Nathan Winograd, an American animal advocate, that more than 300,000 animals have been killed in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. It is not talked about enough, hardly at all but it is in the background and it is horrendous and it should deeply trouble the world's animal advocates.

Screenshot. Cat plays with bullets

But Ukraine must keep on fighting until they have kicked the Russians out of their country. And it has been argued today that they will have to kick them out of Crimea as well. And it is a fallacy to argue that the West is fuelling this war. 

The war has been created by Russia and nobody else. It can be stopped by Russia and nobody else. To argue that the West should stop supplying armaments to Ukraine as a way of ending the war and negotiating a settlement in which Ukraine hands over a part of the country to the Russians is a false argument. 

If you do that the Russians will simply take more of Ukraine in the future. It is an argument of defeat and failure and there comes a time when you have to do the right thing. There are occasions when things are black-and-white, good or bad and this is one of those occasions.

On World Cat Day, Ukrainian combat cats help the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to load the tape with cartridges😺🇺🇦#CatDay #CatsOnTwitter #CatsofTwittter #Caturday #cats #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar #Ukrainian #ZSU #ArmedForces pic.twitter.com/gtTNxjl4Yv

— Vitalis (@VitalisViVa) August 8, 2022

Note: This is an embedded tweet. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

---

Sofia from Bucha, Ukraine lost her arm, her mother and her cat.

Sofia from Bucha, Ukraine lost her arm, her mother and her cat.

Sofia from #Bucha lost her arm, her mother and her cat.
Now she is in safe, but thousands of Ukrainian children continue to suffer because of russian aggression.#ArmUkraine now to save human lives and stop the killer state!
Photo by alenglish_ Sofia’s sister. pic.twitter.com/MMvEm3w1p3

— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 24, 2022

Note: This is an embedded tweet. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Please don't forget Ukraine. Don't let the war tire you to the point where you forget about it. All of us in the free West should support Ukraine's defence against the tyrant Putin until Ukraine pushes the invading hordes out of their country. Then we should force Russia to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild Ukraine while bankrupting bloody Russia. This is part of the price Putin must pay for his mass murder and torture of innocent women and children and criminal destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes. Plus we must not forget the cats, dogs and other pets injured, starved, terrified, killed and so on. F**k Putin.

RELATED: Putin’s troops force disabled woman in wheelchair clutching tortoiseshell cat to flee her home.

Sofia. Photo by her sister.

Welsh administration say that a Ukrainian refugee cannot have her cats with her

NEWS AND COMMENT - Montgomery, Powys, Wales: You may have heard about the Homes for Ukrainians programme in the UK in which UK citizens put up Ukrainian refugees in a spare bedroom or a second home that they might have. There have been some wonderful stories such as one family ending up with a billionaire living in a beautiful home next to his mansion! But there have been some bad stories too of breakdowns in relationships between the host and the refugee resulting in the refugee leaving the home and becoming homeless. But by-and-large it is working well it seems to me.

Ukrainian family separated from their pets by Welsh quarantine rules.  Family photo.

But in this instance, there has been another breakdown and it concerns domestic cats and a pet squirrel. I have read that half the refugees coming into the UK from Ukraine have a pet of some sort, normally a cat or dog. Therefore, the arrangements as to how to deal with companion animals is vital to the success of the scheme.

As I understand it, the UK rules in general with respect to refugee pets are that the government will pay for any quarantine, vaccination and microchip costs. Once the companion animal has been vaccinated against rabies and had a blood test to confirm that they have developed antibodies they can then be released from quarantine and go into the home where the family is staying. 

This means that they can be reunited at the earliest possible opportunity while protecting the UK from a possible rabies infection. Rabies was eliminated from the UK many, many years ago. But it is fairly prevalent, as I recall, in Ukraine. This is a major problem in respect of importing pets from Ukraine into the UK.

The trouble is that the Welsh administration have devolved powers in this respect and they have decided that even if rabies antibodies have been detected in the companion animal they cannot be reunited with their owner and therefore they remain in a quarantine facility many miles away.

And this is what has happened in this case. A family escaped Ukraine in a Volkswagen Polo. They travelled across Europe with three cats and a pet squirrel. The mother has a daughter who is eight-years-old who is special-needs. There are three other children. They had barely settled into their new home when they considered leaving because their pet cats are being kept in a cattery 170 miles across the border in England.

Lena, 53, the mother is distraught about the Welch rules which bans pets from staying with Ukrainian refugee families. Apparently, she has lost faith in the system and would prefer to go back to Ukraine than be without her pets. Her daughter relies on the animals for her well-being. I guess they are therapy animals for her.

The UK government website does not state that the Welsh have different rules to the English. A spokesperson for the Welsh government said: "We have concerns about how the current home isolation process can be monitored and enforced effectively. It is for this reason that we have taken the decision to uphold quarantine in authorised facilities as the safest option to protect both animal and public health."

On my experience, the Welsh are more cautious than the English which accounts for this more cautious approach. I think it is unfair and unreasonable. I think it is over-cautious and I think they should have discretion as to what to do and make an exception in this case. It is incredibly sad that a woman who has escaped Ukraine is considering going back because of this rule that the Welsh are adamant in keeping.

Lena's husband is in Ukraine fighting to defend his country. She has an app which notifies her every time an air raid siren goes off in her home city. It is heartbreaking for her. The Welsh are intransigent and have prioritised the protection and health and welfare of all animals in Wales by reducing their risk of exposure of rabies over the health and welfare of this family and perhaps other families. It's understandable but I think if the UK generally consider the rules to be acceptable, the Welsh administration should follow them.

Ukraine: actress and her four cats killed by rocket fragment as she slept in 16th-floor flat

A well-known Ukrainian actress with a distinguished stage career, Oksana Shvets, was killed while she slept in her 16th-floor flat in Kyiv, Ukraine as a result of a freak accident, as it happens.

Oksana Shvets. Photo in public domain (assessed).

The flat is in the south-east of Kyiv miles from any frontline fighting or any previous missile strike. Regrettably, a missile that was flying above her flat was intercepted by Ukrainian rocket.

The Russian missile exploded and broke into several parts. One of those parts flew through her bedroom window, while she was asleep, killing her instantly.

Shvets was a known cat lover. She fed the local strays and took them in. At the moment she was struck by this piece of missile junk, it appears that her four cats were in her bedroom, perhaps on her bed at the time. Accordingly, they died with her.

Perhaps we can be comforted by the fact that it must have been an instant death. Perhaps she did not even realise it for a second.

It is incredibly sad that this well-loved person had her life taken from in such tragic circumstances. There is another potentially good aspect to this, if it is possible to say that, which is that her cats died with her. Without her they would have struggled to survive.

Sasha, an IT engineer was in the next room at the moment she was killed and survived unscathed.  I think he is her son.

Natasha Tsytsiarieva, a neighbour next door, said: "She was a beautiful person, a real star, kind to us all".

A fellow actor, Anatoly Petrov, 66, said that it is hard for him to believe that she has gone as they were acting on stage at the start of the war last month. Her last performance on February 12 was of a classic manipulative, scheming mother-in-law in a Ukrainian tragedy. Petrov played the young wife's father.

Her body was laid out amid the broken glass in front of her apartment block, covered by a shroud. Her son Sasha, 35, knelt over her body in shock and distress.

This is another tragic and distressing snippet from this brutal, unnecessary and illegal war started by Putin who wants to annex Ukraine and call it Russia. He wants to increase in an instant the population of Russia because it is declining. 

And he wants to return Russia to the old USSR. He is scared of Ukraine's democracy. He fears that it is contagious and that there might be a revolution in Russia to depose him. He doesn't mind whether he takes possession of a country that has been destroyed by his forces. And he doesn't mind if it takes possession of a country in which the citizens universally hate him and therefore his objective is entirely futile.

There is no doubt in my mind that he has engaged in war crimes. I agree with Biden on this. Many others will agree with me too. We can only hope that when this is over, he is somehow taken to The Hague, Netherlands, for a trial.

But it will never bring back people like Shvets.

65-year-old British floor-fitter drives to Ukraine to rescue his wife and her cat

Steve Lucas, 65, responded to his wife's desperate pleas to be taken out of Ukraine with Lucky her cat because of Putin's invasion which is destroying the country. Steve Lucas met his wife Anastasia five years ago while working in Ukraine. They tied the knot while he was in Ukraine but the problem is he can't get a visa for her to bring her to the UK. The UK has got quite tough since Brexit on immigration and that toughness has spilled over to presenting barriers for refugees from the Ukraine war. This is immoral and the Home Office should do much more.

65-year-old British floor fitter drives to Ukraine to rescue his wife and her cat. Photo as per embedded credit.

Anyway, I digress. Steve lives in the UK and Anastasia lives in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. She managed to get a train to Lviv in the relatively peaceful west of the country where the Russian troops have yet to arrive in force where she met up with Steve. A family gave her and Lucky shelter in their home while they waited for Steve. Steve has cat supplies in his van such as cat litter and food.

Steve travelled 1,300 miles across Europe in his Citroen van. He travelled through 5 countries to rescue his wife and her cat Lucky. He said that it breaks his heart to know that Kyiv is being destroyed by the Russians because it is such a beautiful city. The area where Anastasia lived has been bombed and she tells us that there are bodies everywhere. And the Russians are killing women and children indiscriminately.

And what about the cat? Steve said: "She was adamant that she wouldn't leave unless she found someone to look after her cat Lucky". The solution has been found; Lucky is going to go to the UK with Anastasia. We don't know what happens next because there are continuing immigration problems even for refugees from war-torn Ukraine in France.

You may have read that the British immigration officials in Calais are making a mess of it. Refugees have to complete complicated forms and are being sent to Brussels or Paris as part of the immigration process. It sounds completely horrendous and utterly out of step with the circumstances under which these refugees find themselves.

Ukrainian refugees should be allowed through into the UK 'on the nod' without any substantial barriers. I believe in controlled immigration but under the circumstances UK can do a lot more to help. It is beholden upon northern European countries to do their best to help refugees. It will cost the UK and other European countries as is the war but we have to pay that price.

There may also be obstacles in getting Lucky into the UK as there are no longer pet passports for pets travelling from the EU to the UK since Brexit. The rules are complicated. Lucky will need vaccination certificates.  I have touched on this in an earlier article:

RELATED: EU’s bureaucratic pet transportation rules causing cats and dogs to be abandoned at border by Ukrainian refugees?