Ukraine > Is Zelensky causing genocide within his own country?

 

One could argue that Hamas is responsible for what is mistakenly called genocide in Gaza. After all, they could stop it in a heartbeat by laying down their weapons and leaving. Israel would probably even let them go.

But if that theory is accurate, then one might also blame Zelensky for the rapid depopulation of Ukraine. He could seriously negotiate a surrender of Eastern states to Russia and then move on in life and start rebuilding. But, no, he can't bring himself to do that as if there was some possibility that he could actually win the war that he is so badly losing.

Ukraine has world’s worst demographics – EU Observer

There are about three times as many deaths as there are births in the country, data shows

FILE PHOTO. ©  Getty Images/Dmytro Varavin

Ukraine is experiencing the world’s worst demographic crisis as the military conflict, mass migration and falling birth rates drive its population to historic lows, EUobserver has reported.

The country’s population, which has been shrinking since the early 1990s, is shaped not only by the conflict with Russia but also by decades of demographic policy, Aleksandr Gladun, doctor of economics at Ukraine’s Institute for Demography and Social Studies, told the outlet on Thursday.

“If any truce is achieved, it will not be so long that it will be possible to influence demographic processes. Ukraine faces demographic challenges that no other country has ever faced,” Gladun said.

Gladun said migration has had the largest impact. Since 2022 almost 7 million people, mainly women and children, have left the country and many are expected to stay abroad if conditions allow. Eurostat estimates that 4.3 million Ukrainians now live in the EU.

READ MORE: ‘We lost several generations’ – Ukrainian MP on leaked docs

Sebastian Klusener, a researcher at the Federal Institute for Population Research in Germany, told the outlet that a peace deal might prompt some refugees to return and lead to a short-term rise in population. But he warned that in the long run, Ukraine would probably face renewed decline.

“The demographic developments of the past 35 years, and their impact on the current age structure, are likely to leave a deep and lasting mark on Ukraine’s future population trends – most likely resulting in continued population decline,” he said.

Earlier this year, exiled Ukrainian lawmaker Artyom Dmitruk accused Vladimir Zelensky of what he called an ongoing genocide. “Ukraine is being depopulated. This is not migration. This is a terrible tragedy, part of a genocide,” he said, adding that the situation was the result of Zelensky’s determination to hold on to power at any cost.

War on Christianity > Heating up in Godless Ukraine

 

Ukraine takes new step towards banning

its largest Christian church

The government in Kiev has been increasingly cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

© Sputnik / Konstantin Mikhelchevsky

Kiev has taken another step toward banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by officially declaring it linked to Russia. The ruling paves the way for a full ban on the country’s largest religious institution through the courts.

Vladimir Zelensky’s government has been increasingly taking aim at the UOC in recent years, a policy that has hardened in light of the conflict with Russia. Several of its churches have been seized, and criminal cases have been opened against clerics.

This week, Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience posted a statement on its website saying that the UOC had been found to be associated with “a foreign religious organization whose activities are banned in Ukraine.” 

A law enacted last year allows religious organizations affiliated with governments Kiev deems “aggressors” to be banned. Zelensky has defended the measures as necessary to protect the country’s “spiritual independence.” 

The UOC has been de facto independent from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) since the 1990s, but maintained the canonical connection.

The UOC, which says it is being persecuted by the government, rejects the decision, a church representative told local media, adding that it has appealed it in court.

READ MORE: Kiev strips citizenship from head of largest Christian church – SBU

UOC Metropolitan Onufry, whose Ukrainian citizenship was revoked last month by Zelensky, has refused to comply with the government’s order to “correct violations,” the state agency claimed.

The ROC has maintained that banning the UOC would be a violation of religious rights. The UN and international human rights organizations have also accused Kiev of overreach and interference with the freedom of religion.

The Ukrainian government officially supports the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was founded in 2018 but which the Russian Patriarchate considers schismatic.

The proposal Russia made to Ukraine this past June to settle the conflict included a clause calling for restrictions on the UOC to be lifted.

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Murdered Ukrainian MP directly ordered the shelling of Donbass Civilians in 2014

 

Assassinated Ukrainian MP ‘directly ordered’ 

shelling of Donbass civilians – ex-diplomat 

Andrey Parubiy helped stoke the “civil war” that eventually led to the Ukraine conflict, Andrey Telizhenko has told RT

©  RT

Andrey Parubiy, a far-right Ukrainian politician who was shot dead in Lviv on Saturday, directly ordered attacks on Donbass and provoked a “civil war” with eastern Ukraine after the Maidan coup, ex-Ukrainian diplomat Andrey Telizhenko has told RT.

Parubiy, an MP and former speaker of the Ukrainian Rada, played an active role in the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, as well as in the nationalist government it brought to power. He had deep and long-running ties to Ukraine’s neo-Nazi movement, co-founding the far-right Social-National Party of Ukraine.

“During the cabinet of ministers meetings, [at] which I was present, Parubiy directly ordered the mass shellings of the people of Donbass,” Telizhenko told RT on Saturday.

“He said, ‘We do not care who those people are. Russians, they’re Moscali [a Ukrainian slur for Russians], we should kill them,’” the former diplomat, who was an adviser to Ukraine’s prosecutor general at the time, said.

That’s a direct citation from Parubiy during the cabinet of ministers meeting, in which he pushed to provoke the civil war in eastern Ukraine, which has now led to a big massive conflict.

Parubiy and his team were “working directly with the Jamestown Foundation, a former CIA central think tank in Washington, DC,” Telizhenko claimed.

This is not just a collaborator with the West. He’s a Nazi. He was directly supporting the Nazi movement in Ukraine.

According to Telizhenko, Parubiy directly coordinated the shootings during the Maidan coup.

READ MORE: Staunch neo-Nazi and Maidan kingpin assassinated: Who was prominent Ukrainian MP Andrey Parubiy?

“He was coordinating the radicals on Maidan, when to shoot, who to shoot and how to shoot, even who to shoot [among] their own” and “provoking insurgents within the coup itself,” he said. “His team was responsible for blocking the anti-sniper unit [from] coming to Maidan.”

Parubiy “also covered up the shootings” in the subsequent investigation, as well as blocking the probe into the 2014 Odessa massacre, Telizhenko said.

“He was responsible for closing down the case and destroying the evidence [of] his involvement in the coordination of that terrorist attack,” he said.

The far-right MP was reportedly responsible for organizing, arming, and transporting the militants which burned 42 anti-Maidan activists to death in the Odessa Trade Unions House.

Military Madness > Why Germany continues to support the proxy war in Ukraine

 

The war in Ukraine is all about the movement of War Industry inventories. That's all it's ever been about, and now, Germany has a vested interest in keeping it going as long as possible. What madness!

German weapons-maker Rheinmetall opens Europe's largest munitions plant

Europe

German arms maker Rheinmetall opened Europe’s largest munitions plant in northern Germany on Wednesday, a move NATO chief Mark Rutte hailed as key to bolstering Western defenses. The facility, spanning 30,000 square metres, aims to produce 350,000 artillery shells annually by 2027.

Issued on: 28/08/2025 - 01:13Modified: 28/08/2025 - 01:14

2 minReading time

By:

FRANCE 24

Artillery ammunition on display at the Rheinmetall production site in Unterlüss, Germany, on August 27, 2025. © Ronny HARTMANN, AFP

German weapons-maker Rheinmetall opened Europe's largest munitions plant on Wednesday, a move hailed as boosting Western defences by NATO chief Mark Rutte.

Mark Rutte - Salesman in Chief for the Western War Industry

Taking up 30,000 square metres -- the size of five football pitches -- the factory in Unterluess in northern Germany will be able to produce 350,000 artillery shells a year by 2027.

"This is absolutely crucial for our own security and also to keep supporting Ukraine in its fight today and to deter any aggression in the future," Rutte said at an opening ceremony.

"We are being challenged" by China and Russia, he said, but added that Europe and the United States together are on course to "turn the tide on defence production".

Europe has moved to ramp up weapons production and military readiness following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, accelerating efforts as US President Donald Trump has urged Europe to take more responsibility for its own defence.

Artillery shell production across the continent is now six times greater than it was two years ago, Rutte said, and Germany earlier this year loosened strict debt rules so that it can borrow billions to pay for military equipment.

Speaking alongside Rutte at the ceremony, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that Europe could not confront security challenges if it did not develop its industrial base to convert spending promises into concrete capabilities.

"The miliary and armed forces only work as well as the country behind them," he said. "We need to be successful because we are faced with a threat."

The only threat to Europe has to do with their increasing threat against Russia, and their madness to spend trillions of dollars on military build-ups, rather than doing something useful with that money. If the Ukraine war ends, War Industry based economies will collapse without another war starting immediately.

Washington was watching closely to see if Europe could deliver on its promises to increase spending, Pistorius added.

"NATO has to become more European so that it can stay transatlantic," he said. "This is the demand before which we stand as Europeans."

'Turning point' 

Praising Pistorius for his efforts, Rheinmetall chief Armin Papperger said that politicians taking defence increasingly seriously had helped ensure the plant could be built in as little as 14 months when it would ordinarily take two or three years.

"There has been a turning point here in Germany," he said.

The plant will help fill a record-breaking munitions order worth 8.5 billion euros ($9.3 billion at the time) placed by the German government in July 2024.

Read moreRearming France: The race is on

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to build Europe's "strongest conventional army". 

Defence spending is projected to reach to reach 162 billion euros in 2029, more than triple the defence budget compared to its level before the war in Ukraine.

Rheinmetall's Unterluess site already makes guns and munitions for the Leopard 2 tank, which has been used by the Ukrainian army.

Papperger also signed a 550-million-euro deal on stage with Romania's economy minister for a plant he said would probably be completed within the next 18 months.

Separately, Germany's cabinet signed off a draft law on Wednesday that aims to boost armed forces recruitment and includes provisions for compulsory military service if there are not enough volunteers.

About 182,000 soldiers currently serve in the armed forces. Pistorius has said that should rise to 260,000.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Unterluess, Germany

Ukraine's Proxy War > 1.7 million deceased Ukrainian soldiers since 2022? 1000 bodies returned to Ukraine

 

These brave soldiers may have thought they died for Ukraine, but really, they died for western war industries' profits, and nothing else.

Ukraine has lost over 1.7 million troops – leaked docs

The casualties are allegedly detailed in a digital card index of the country’s armed forces obtained by Russian hackers

FILE PHOTO. ©  Roman Pilipey / Getty Images

Ukraine has allegedly lost more than 1.7 million troops killed and missing, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing a digital card index reportedly from the country’s armed forces.

Russian hacking groups have claimed to have obtained the information by gaining access to the personal computers and local networks of the Ukrainian General Staff. The database is said to include the full names of deceased soldiers, descriptions of the circumstances and places of their death or disappearance, personal data, next of kin, and photos.

Casualties increasing

The entries suggest that since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Kiev’s forces have lost a total of 1,721,000 servicemen. 118.5 thousand were apparently killed in 2022, 405.4 thousand in 2023, 595 thousand in 2024 and a record 621 thousand in 2025.

Hackers from the groups Killnet, Palach Pro, User Sec and Beregini are said to have obtained terabytes of information about the Ukrainian military. Aside from personnel losses, the groups allegedly also possess the personal data of the command of the Special Operations Forces and the Main Intelligence Directorate, lists of all countries that have supplied weapons to Kiev and lists of all weapons transferred from 2022 to 2025.

This Ukrainian casualty estimate far exceeds losses previously reported by Kiev.

Of course it does. The first casualty of war is truth.

READ MORE: European military stocks fall on Ukraine peace talks progress

In February, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky told CBS News that since 2022, just 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, with another 380,000 wounded. The estimate was widely questioned even in Western media, with the France’s Le Monde reporting last month that “the real death toll is likely much higher,” citing Ukraine’s increasing efforts to build military cemeteries.

The Russian military has consistently reported higher casualties among Ukrainian servicemen, claiming their losses particularly surged following Kiev’s unsuccessful counteroffensive in 2023. As of February, more than 1.08 million Ukrainian troops had been killed or wounded, according to Moscow’s estimates.

Russia hands over remains of 1,000 troops to Ukraine – Putin aide

Moscow has received the bodies of 19 of its fallen soldiers from Kiev in return, Vladimir Medinsky has said

Is this representative of the proportionality of casualties for each side? Yikes!

FILE PHOTO: A convoy carrying the bodies of the Ukrainian servicemen. ©  Telegram / Vladimir Medinsky

Moscow has returned the bodies of another 1,000 fallen Ukrainian soldiers, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky has said.

Russia has received the remains of 19 of its soldiers from Ukraine in return, Medinsky, Moscow’s top negotiator during the talks with Kiev in Türkiye, wrote on Telegram on Tuesday.

The bodies were returned to Kiev “in line with the Istanbul agreements,” he added.

Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed that it had received the remains of 1,000 servicemen.

The swap follows a summit on Friday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, and the US president’s meetings in Washington on Monday with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and Western European leaders, during which a possible settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev was discussed.

READ MORE: Putin wants Ukraine conflict to end – Trump

Moscow offered to repatriate the remains of over 6,000 of Kiev’s troops as a humanitarian gesture during the second round of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul in early June. The promised number of bodies was transferred to Ukraine in the following weeks in several stages. Russia received the remains of 79 of its fallen soldiers in exchange.

Putin announced later that Moscow was ready to return another 3,000 bodies to Kiev.

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