Russian Bus Plunges into River, Killing Passengers

Security camera footage shows a bus in St. Petersburg, Russia, veering across the road and off a bridge into the Moika River. At least three people were killed, with several others in serious condition in hospital. Source: NBC News, 10 May 2024. Thanks to Marina Varchenko for the heads-up. “Multipolarity Forum” While the international far right was busy meeting in Washington, D.C., for the…

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Satellite imagery obtained by Bellingcat suggests that Russia created a dam on the outskirts of the occupied Ukrainian city of Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia oblast ahead of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. This was previously reported by the Center for Journalistic Investigations, which noted that the move was part of a greater trend of creating water obstacles for the Ukrainian counteroffensive. However, Planet satellite imagery seen by Bellingcat now offers a more detailed view of the scene. The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection group also noted a trend of deliberate flooding across Zaporizhzhia oblast by Russian forces.

Water has been used as a tool on several occasions since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

In these instances, dams were broken to flood downstream areas, likely in order to complicate offensive efforts of the enemy. This would lead to higher water levels and muddy ground downstream along with the longer-term outcome of dried up reservoirs. 

Both sides have used these tactics so far, with Ukraine admitting to doing so in Demydiv just north of Kyiv at the start of the war. Ukraine is also reported to have blown up the floodgates of the Oskil reservoir dam in April 2022 to complicate Russian efforts. However, Russian forces are suspected of fully destroying the Oskil dam as a Ukrainian counteroffensive advanced later that year. 

It now appears that Russia may be considering flooding tactics in Tokmak.

The red line represents the approximate frontline in the war while green lines represent Russian defensive lines as observed by open source researchers. Map: Google Earth, frontlines: Ukraine Control Map, defensive lines as observed by: Nathan Ruser.

The makeshift dam lies within the defensive line wrapping around the city of Tokmak, which itself is behind several more defensive lines as can be seen in the map above. 

Since the dam’s construction in early May, the Tokmachka river has widened significantly to the east of the city, and flooded some fields nearest to the dam. This was visible in June 6 SkySat high-resolution imagery from Planet Labs (below), which showed that the dam was constructed out of what appears to be a sand barrier wide enough to hold back the small river.  Tyre tracks leading from the dam suggest that it could also function as a second bridge, although the bridge next to it on the P37 road appears to be functioning normally.

Water can be seen building up on the right of the image and spilling in to nearby fields. A yellow sand barrier can be seen to the left of the bridge in the centre of the image. Tyre tracks can be seen leading to the dam. Image courtesy: Planet Labs

Satellite imagery from Planet Labs showed tracks leading down to the site of the dam on May 3, 2023, and shows the river Tokmachka severed on May 6, with the water level on the east side of the dam steadily rising into June (as seen in the timelapse below).

Russia has spent several months preparing for the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south of the country. The multi-layered defence is made up of several lines of minefields, anti-tank ditches, concrete obstacles, and trenches spanning the entire frontline at great depth. 

Increasing the water levels of the Tokmachka river could be part of a greater effort at slowing down advancing Ukrainian forces. More specifically, this may be part of an effort to slow down an eastern envelopment of Tokmak in the event of a Ukrainian breakthrough near the city.

Tokmak is situated in the south east of Ukraine. Map courtesy of Map Creator.

In early June, the huge Nova Kakhovka dam in Kherson oblast broke, leading to widespread flooding and damage. The exact events leading up to the collapse of the structure remain unclear. But the New York Times reported that evidence suggested it was instigated by an inside explosion set off by Russia. Russia has denied this and Bellingcat has not been able to independently verify the New York Times’ reporting. 

The damage caused by the Nova Kakhovka collapse has been immense, with CNN reporting that over 40 people are either dead or remain missing. Ukraine, meanwhile, has estimated that over one billion Euros in damage has been caused.

Given the size of the dam observed in Tokmak, however, flooding from the dam is negligible and not anywhere near the scale seen in Nova Kakhovka.

“Vera Iastrebova, a Donetsk lawyer and labor movement activist, reported on social media on February 26 that mothers and wives in the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” were desperately seeking ways to protect their menfolk from compulsory mobilization in the now-unfolding war.

“They call and say that the men are being taken from the [coal] mines and sent straight to the front, even though they have no military experience,” Iastrebova wrote.

Earlier in the week, activists in Ukrainian government–controlled territory had heard from their comrades in the “republics” that, since their militia had not conscripted sufficient soldiers, the over-fifty-fives were being called up.

Such realities stand in bleak contrast to the Kremlin’s rhetoric about the statelets as bastions of opposition to a “Nazi” regime.

The areas, known in Russian as Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika (DNR) and Luganskaya Narodnaya Respublika (LNR), comprise the eastern part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions respectively; the western parts have remained under Ukrainian government control even after 2014. Despite the “people’s republic” names, they have routinely intimidated organized labor and political dissidents, institutionalized violence, and trampled on human rights. They have also presided over the collapse of industry and a catastrophic fall in living standards.

The harsh conditions normalized since these statelets were founded in 2014 are not an exact guide to how Russian-supported forces, or Russia itself, might administer other parts of Ukraine if they take them over by force. But the misery heaped on the population of these “people’s republics” across the last eight years does give some indications.

Here, I shall focus first on the preparations for President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on February 21 that Russia recognizes the “republics,” followed on February 24 by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I then outline how the “republics”’ economies, politics, and labor movements have changed since their creation eight years ago.

The Run-Up to Recognition By the end of the 2014–15 war in Eastern Ukraine, extreme Russian nationalists’ aspirations to establish the state of Novorossiya, comprising Ukraine’s six southeastern regions, had been abandoned. Putin had referred to the idea in speeches in 2014 but then shelved it. The two “people’s republics” were to remain separate from each other and from Russia.

The Minsk II agreement of 2015 required Ukraine to decentralize and armed formations to withdraw, but neither happened, and at first Moscow appeared content to leave these statelets as they were, a thorn in the side of the Ukrainian state.

The first sign that the Kremlin’s policy was shifting toward recognition and/or integration was the drive, kick-started by two presidential decrees in mid-2019, to grant Russian citizenship to Russian-speaking Ukrainians, both in the “republics” and in Ukrainian-controlled territory. More than 800,000 passports have now been distributed — equivalent to more than one-third of the statelets’ remaining adult population.

A report by the Eastern Human Rights Group (EHRG), founded by trade union activists displaced from Donetsk to Ukrainian-controlled territory, concluded that “passportization” was part of a drive toward “permanent [Russian] control” of the “republics.” It went with militarization (specifically, the introduction of “military-patriotic” education in schools and sports clubs) and integration of the education system with Russia’s.

Prior to the 2021 parliamentary election in Russia, residents of the “republics” were encouraged to vote online or bused to polling stations in the Rostov region of Russia. Halya Coynash of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group reported that residents were being “enrolled en masse” into United Russia (UR), the dominant, pro-Putin party in the Russian parliament.

On Election Day last year, Dmitry Sablin, a leading UR parliamentarian, arrived in Donetsk and announced that an experiment was underway in “uniting this territory with Russia.” A barrage of similar sound-bites led observers to believe that the Kremlin was considering annexation, rather than recognition, of the “republics.”

The way for UR’s propaganda offensive had been paved by the Russian parliament’s loyal opposition parties, A Just Russia — for Truth (Spravedlivaya Rossiya — Za Pravdu, SRZP) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), whose representatives had travelled to Donbas regularly since 2015. Sergey Mironov, former chairman of the Russian parliament’s upper house and leader of A Just Russia, a nominally social democratic but fiercely nationalist party, was an early advocate of integration of the “republics” with Russia. And it was CPRF deputies that last month made the motion in the Russian parliament — which UR then supported — urging Putin to recognize the “republics.” Two CPRF deputies have since protested against the war itself.

The promotion of the “Russian world” — which, in Putin’s view, includes swaths of Ukraine and other former Soviet states, as well as Russia itself — has a vicious side: the “republics” set their violent, arbitrary law enforcement agencies on Ukrainian speakers and supporters of the Ukrainian government. Top of a list of assaults on freedom of expression in 2019–21, compiled by the United Nations’ human rights agency, was the 13.5-year jail sentence handed to a Luhansk businessman who publicly expressed pro-Ukrainian views.

Three men arrested in 2020, for singing songs in Ukrainian, praising the Kiev government, and criticizing the Luhansk authorities, were still locked up without trial when the report was published in October 2021. The Luhansk “people’s republic” does not share information with the UN, and so their whereabouts remained unknown.

The slide toward integration has also heaped tragedy on residents of the “republics” who need to travel to Ukrainian government–controlled territory, including many social benefits recipients. Most crossing points across the separation line were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Local transport operators started offering trips via Russian territory; Ukrainian border officials were fining many people who made these journeys, until protests by community activists got the law changed.

From Powerhouse to Wasteland The Donbas (i.e., the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, of which the “republics” occupy parts) was, historically, a renowned center of coal mining, steelmaking, and chemicals production.

As Ukraine recovered from the disastrous economic slump that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Donbas economy leaned increasingly on exports of steel, coal, and railway locomotives. Russia remained its largest market. Other regions’ economies grew faster, benefiting in some cases from newer industries and services. But the 2014–15 war, and the division of the Donbas that followed, uprooted its population and trashed its industrial base.

By 2021, the war had claimed an estimated 14,000 lives, of which about four thousand were civilians, and left an estimated 30,000 injured. It dispersed much of the population of the Donbas: of a prewar population of 6.6 million, an estimated 3.3 million people have fled their homes. Of these, 1.8 million have been living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine and 1.5 million in Russia and Belarus. Whole towns and villages have been emptied of their populations.

And even before the Russian invasion this year, the UN categorized the Donbas as one of the world’s most mine-contaminated areas in the world.

In the first four years of conflict (2014–17), Donbas’s economy shrunk by 61 percent, the economist Vlad Mykhnenko found — largely due to “rapid and severe deindustrialization.” Luhansk’s industrial output fell by more than four-fifths, and Donetsk’s by half. Dozens of mines have closed and flooded, while small-scale, informal coal production has been de facto legalized. Steel works and manufacturing capacity lie idle.

Foreign trade collapsed, with Luhansk’s grinding almost to a halt and Donetsk’s falling by nearly two-thirds. What remains of the statelets’ economy is closely linked to Russia’s, and the ruble has been the main currency since 2015.

Living standards have crashed. Mykhnenko showed that in 2017 average wages in the Donetsk “people’s republic” were $174/month (38 percent of the pre-2014 level) and in the Luhansk “republic” $229/month (56 percent of the pre-2014 level). Nonpayment of wages is endemic.

Unemployment in the government-controlled parts of Donbas was 14-16 percent in 2018. No statistics were available for the “people’s republics,” but the level is similar. At the same time, there is a shortage of skilled labor, including medical staff, mine workers, and educators. Skilled workers leave if they can, a survey by the EHRG showed: labor migration to Russia is encouraged by the authorities.

Before 2014, much of Donbas heavy industry was controlled by the SKM financial group, whose owner, Rinat Akhmetov, is one of Ukraine’s richest politically influential businessmen (oligarchs). In February 2017, Ukrainian nationalists linked to Igor Kolomoisky, a competing oligarch, blockaded exports of Akhmetov’s coal from the “republics” to Ukraine. The action was opposed by organized labor.

The separatists’ armed forces responded by seizing Akhmetov’s assets, and — despite some rhetoric about “nationalization” — handed them to Vneshtorgservis (VTS), a company registered in South Ossetia, a Russian-occupied enclave in Georgia, and controlled by Serhiy Kurchenko, a billionaire linked to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich. (In mid-2021, Kurchenko was replaced by Yevgeny Yurchenko.)

The cooperation between VTS and the political and military leadership of the “people’s republics,” as well as Russian elite circles, goes far beyond a “revolving-door” effect. Most observers see them as inseparable.

The sociologist Serhiy Kudelia wrote in 2017, “In reality, the ‘republics’ are beginning to acquire the features of a military bureaucratic regime, in which military personnel and officials dominate society through coercion and the monpolisation of the distribution of wealth.”

The economic disaster in the “people’s republics” cannot be attributed to their political leaderships alone; it is largely the product of war and recession. But it is a terrible fact of twenty-first-century capitalism that the economy could have been turned around, and the transition to new types of industry begun, with only a fraction of the resources that the Russian state is now plunging in to laying waste to Ukraine.

Labor and Authoritarian Control The militarized authorities in the “people’s republics” have drastically cut down space for social and political activity. A UN report concluded that there is no public discussion of “more sensitive political topics” due to “fear and self-censorship” and that protests over economic conditions, such as strikes, face “serious consequences, including arbitrary detention.”

Despite the statelets’ name, real popular involvement in politics faces sharp institutional limits. In the Donetsk “people’s republic,” military authorities in 2014 introduced a “nonparty democracy” (!). The “people’s council” wields political power and allows one legal party, the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic — although it excluded Communist Party representatives from its own ranks in 2016. Parliament is dominated by two “social movements,” with a high proportion of military commanders in their ranks. The researcher Kimitaka Matsuzato has shown how Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin power broker, worked with Donetsk officials to put the system together.

Organized workers’ action has been extremely rare in the “republics.” The most well-known action of recent years was an underground sit-in by 119 mine workers, over months’ worth of unpaid wages, at the Komsomolskaya mine in Antratsyt. Fourteen activists were arrested under article 252 of the statelet’s criminal code, which penalizes “repeated breach of established order, organization or conduct of assemblies, meetings, demonstrations, marches or pickets” with up to five years in prison. The dispute ended when they were released, and part of the outstanding wages were paid.

The public intimidation of civil society is backed up by a less transparent system of torture, humiliation, and forced labor in military prisons. The journalist Stanislav Aseyev, who spent thirty-one months in custody in Donetsk in 2017–19 and was released in a prisoner exchange, documented physical torture (electric shock treatment and beating of the genitals), rape of men and women, and other mistreatment, of himself and others.

The trade union activists of EHRG exposed the use of slave labor in Luhansk prisons in a 2016 report. Prisoners convicted under Ukrainian law before 2014 found themselves at the mercy of an extralegal regime that put prisoners to work in joinery and metalworking shops, and other production, without pay.

Prisoners who refused to work were severely beaten by armed, masked men; kept in solitary confinement with no food or water for three days; and forced by the threat of beating to stand for eight to ten hours in the burning sun. When prisoners protested collectively, guards called special detachments from the statelet’s internal affairs ministry to attack them.

Trade union activists and human rights defenders have mostly left the “people’s republics,” after a crackdown in 2014; those who stayed keep “low profiles in fear of persecution,” the UN report stated. Women’s rights organizations and support groups for victims of domestic violence, too, operate in the shadows.

Groups that have organized in the Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donbas, and supported social movements in the “republics” when opportunities have arisen, include:

The EHRG, which has supported independent worker organization. Pavel Lisyansky, a lawyer with EHRG and former miners’ union official, said in a 2017 interview that the union structures approved by the “republics” had been “formed to control workers.” Worker militants in the “republics” have “no law, no rights, people are defenceless.”

The pacifist group Black Days of Donbas, set up by Enrike Menendez (a Donbas citizen of Spanish heritage). It demands that the Ukrainian government name a day to remember the civilian deaths of the war in Eastern Ukraine.

Women’s organizations, including: the Women’s Human Rights Group, formed in 2017 by Irina Nikulnikova, a lawyer, in response to anger over unpaid wages at the coal company Lisichanskugol; a group started by Vera Iastrebova that staged a march for women’s rights on International Women’s Day in 2018 at Lisichansk; and the Civil Inspection of Labor group, formed in 2014 in Debaltsevo to defend labor rights, social and economic rights, and women’s rights.

The Donbas “people’s republics” have, throughout their existence, been politically and militarily supported by the Russian government. Their economies are closely tied to Russia’s. Should Russia retain control of other parts of Ukraine, elements of this type of rule may be replicated.”

- Simon Pirani, “The Russian Statelets in the Donbas Are No “People’s Republics.” Jacobin. March 2, 2022.

This was a despicable crime, committed by despicable creatures, who are members of a despicable army from a despicable nation. I could never eat as much as I would like to vomit when I see such depraved crimes by the russians.

Wrap up for April 11, 2022

Under the cut: Russia has “selective defaults” on foreign debts; Austrian Chancellor meets Putin face-to-face; Dnipro airport destroyed; Kharkiv attacks; Russian spies in France, possible chemical weapons use in Mariupol, and more. Buckle in, it’s been a busy day. Pay attention the content warnings on the last story.

“Russia attempted to pay in rubles for two dollar-denominated bonds that matured on April 4, S&P [Standard & Poor's] said in a note on Friday. The agency said this amounted to a “selective default” because investors are unlikely to be able to convert the rubles into “dollars equivalent to the originally due amounts.”

According to S&P, a selective default is declared when an entity has defaulted on a specific obligation but not its entire debt.“ via CNN (Here is an article to explain what could happen if Russia defaults on their debts.)

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Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer met face-to-face with Putin with a 75 minute closed door meeting. According to the Chancellor, it was “not a friendly visit.” He brought up the killings in Bucha, the lack of humanitarian corridors from Mariupol, and the attack on the train station at Kramatorsk.-via CNN 

Additionally, “sanctions will remain as long as Ukrainians are dying. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told Russian dictator Vladimir Putin that sanctions would increase. He added that he “saw the immeasurable suffering caused by the Russian war.”” via Twitter from Kyiv Independent

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Attacks continue in Dnipro where Russians have targeted and destroyed the airport-via the Guardian 

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“Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv came under heavy shelling on Monday, causing multiple casualties including one dead child, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a televised interview. When asked about the risk of a new Russian assault on the city, which Ukraine's defence ministry recently warned of, Terekhov said that Ukrainian forces were focused and ready to defend the city."There is no panic in the city," Terekhov said.“ via Reuters

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France has expelled six suspected Russian spies, via CNN

“Following a very long investigation, the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) revealed on Sunday, April 10 a clandestine operation carried out by the Russian intelligence services on our territory,” it said in the statement, adding that the activities of the six Russians, who have now been designated as "persona non grata," were “contrary to our national interests.”

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“Azov regiment: Russia used poisonous substance against Ukrainian troops in Mariupol. The substance has been distributed by a drone, and victims have shortness of breath and vestibulocerebellar ataxia. It may be Russia's first known use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.” via Kyiv Independent Twitter and website. 

The story has been picked up by other news outlets. The US has not confirmed the use of chemical weapons yet, via CNN. This is a developing story. 

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Buses are finally able to be used to get people out of Mariupol. 4,354 people were evacuated today, 556 from Mariupol and 3,298 from Zaporizhzhia oblast.

via Telegram, translated to English from Ukrainian using Google Translate. 

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CW: Rape, sexual violence

Reports are coming in (and have been for a while) of sexual violence by Russian troops in Bucha and in other places. 

A group of women were imprisoned in a basement for 25 days and 9 of them are pregnant, according to Ukraine’s ombudswoman for human rights, via Cliff Levy on Twitter.

Officials in the UN say that the women and children in Ukraine need more protection, via The Guardian, and also here and here from The Guardian

COMMEMORATIVE MESSAGE IN HONOR OF THE 75TH DIAMOND JUBILLEE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT ALLIED VICTORY OVER JAPAN IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION AND THE VICTORIOUS AND DEFINITE CONCLUSION OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Ladies and gentlemen, to all the people of the United States of America and Canada, to all our remaining living veterans of the Second World War of 1939-1945 and of all conflicts past and present and their families, to our veterans, active servicemen and women, reservists and families of the entire United States Armed Forces and Canadian Armed Forces, and to all the uniformed military and civil security services of the Allied combatants of this conflict, to all the immediate families, relatives, children and grandchildren of the deceased veterans, fallen service personnel and wounded personnel of our military services and civil uniformed security and civil defense services, to all our workers, farmers and intellectuals, to our youth and personnel serving in youth uniformed and cadet organizations and all our athletes, coaches, judges, sports trainers and sports officials, and to all our sports fans, to all our workers of culture, music, traditional arts and the theatrical arts, radio, television, digital media and social media, cinema, heavy and light industry, agriculture, business, tourism and the press, and to all our people of the free world:

Our greeting to the millions who today celebrate such an important day in our history.

For it was on this day in history when in 1792 when the September Massacres, the mass slaughter of the Catholic clergy and supporters of the monarchy during the early stages of the French Revolution, began as revolutionary crows stormed into the prisons killing supporters of the deposed royal family.

It was on this day in 1872 that the Battle of Sedan ended with a historic defeat for the French Army.

It was on this day in 1960 when the in-exile Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration held its very first elections.

And today, September 2, in the midst of the fact that the world is now currently in one of the greatest crises of our times in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in millions being infected and in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, as well as the cancellations of many events and of sporting activities and the postponment of many others as a precautionary measure for the sake of protecting public health and well-being, we today celebrate with great joy the anniversary of all anniversaries: the 75th Diamond Jubilee year anniversary of the signing of the official documents of the unconditional surrender of the whole of Japan to the victorious Allied Powers and the conclusion of the Second World War, 6 years and a day after it began with the Nazi German advance to western Poland in 1939. It is a day of profound celebration of the historic day that finally ended years of long and bitter war against the Axis aggressor in many parts of the world, a war that would in the end cost the lives of millions of people, the dignity of millions of women and children, the loss of many precious works of art and culture and the destruction of countless architectural wonders, economies and industries. It is a day wherein we reflect the sacrifices of the millions of men and women who fought and worked in the side of the victorious Allies in the united cause of the defense of lives and individual freedoms against the totalitarian aggressor bent on destroying freedom and independence for the sake of fascism, opresssion and abuse of human rights and liberties. It is a day of remembrance of the memories of the millions of martyrs of the uniformed military, law enforcement and civil defense services of the Allied Powers who perished during this terrible period in human history. It is above all a joyful day of celebration of the victory against the forces of evil and the beginning of the long era of peace.

On this day exactly 75 years ago, aboard the historic battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) off the waters of Tokyo Bay, military representatives of both the Allies and the Empire of Japan signed the papers that formally ended a six year old war (eight long years of warfare in East Asia) and brought forth the victory over the Axis aggressors in the Asia-Pacific, with the acceptance of Japan and her armed forces of the terms of unconditional surrender of the country to the victors as agreed before earlier in the year in Postdam and as announced to the whole of the country the month before, with with ceremonies of surrender being conducted in other parts of East Asia in the coming days marking the close of another memorable but bloody chapter in world history. On that day the world witnessed the beginning of a long but painful road to peace that would in the following years be riddled with the blood of future regional wars, but lined with the sacrifices of millions whose sacrifices during those six long years brought forth the ideals of a better world for our future generations, a world full of peace and progress, where people live in harmony, friendship and cooperation. On that day the world celebrated the victory won against the Axis Powers whose plans for evil domination in the world and the suffering of millions were ended by the Allied Powers. On that day the world gave its thanks to the millions of men and women, collectively dubbed as the Greatest Generation, the millions of active and reserve servicemen and women of the armed forces, police, fire, border protection, civil defense, emergency response and intelligence organizations, as well as all paramilitary and law enforcement auxillary organizations of the Allied Powers whose tenacity, courage, hard work, dedication, resiliency and profound active support in the battlefields in land, air and sea in conventional and unconventional military and paramilitary operations, intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence operations, law enforcement,  emergency response, disaster and war relief and rehabilitation operations, whether be in enemy territories or in friendly lands, together with the millions of working men and women of the home front industries who helped supply needed equipment, fuel, water and vehicles, as well as shipping and aerial supplies and even clothing, furniture and needed medical supplies and food, all to the servicemen and women in the frontlines, the medical professionals who helped in treating the wounded, the chaplains who prayed for the living and the dead and the people in culture and the arts, in the press, film and television, in businesses and enterprises,  and in sports either as serving in the uniformed organizations or in active support for the war effort at home secured the cause of liberty and independence of millions all over the world against the Axis Powers and collectively as one people ended the threat posed by them to the free world and to the whole of humanity.  For such a great victory, that had been paved by the blood of the millions of lives lost during this long and painful conflict, including Jews, members of other religious communities, people who sympathized with the resistance movement and anti-Nazi activists and politicians, as well as of Poles and others in Soviet concentration camps and Gulag camps and by exile to  other parts of the USSR of various ethnic communities, as well as the massive Japanese persecution, injustices, murder and violent acts directed at the Chinese and dissident citizens and people of other faiths in the Asia-Pacific  and Axis aerial bombardments and sea attacks on merchant shipping and supply convoys, had indeed been impossible if not for the great support shown by every one of our millions of people, who through their efforts contributed to the great and glorious victory that we remember today. Such indeed is the importance of this great victory that we remember on this very day of our history, exactly 75 years ago today.

We indeed cannot forget so great a sacrifice by millions of people from all walks of life who perished in so severe a global conflict as this, with millions of civilian fatalities, and millions more who died among those in the uniformed organizations and paramilitary groups of the Allies who fought against the aggressor.

We cannot forget too the martyrdom of millions who suffered gravely at the hands of the Axis governments and socio-political organizations.

We cannot forget as well the heroism of millions who fought in the battlefields of this long conflict, in places like Dunkirk, Leningrad, the Brest Fortress, Moscow, Tula, Borodino, Sevastopol, El Alamein, Tobruk, Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy, Caretan, Paris, Minsk, Monte Cassino, Eindhoven, Rome, Smolensk, Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, Lyon, Bastogne, Warsaw, Bryansk, Anapa, Smolensk, Lviv, Shanghai, Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Peninsula, Corregidor Island, Singapore, Besang Pass, Hong Kong, Wuhan, Midway Island, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, the Santa Cruz Islands, Belgrade, Sofia, the Caucasus, Karelia, Cologne, Xiamen, Budapest, Tunis and many more, in the land, air, and sea, from every terrain and in any weather condition, from the sands of the Sahara, up to the Normandy beaches, the British skies, the forests and plains of the Low Countries, the mighty mountains and valleys of the Alps and Balkans, the marshes at Pripyat, the Ukrainian steppes to the Arctic and the snowy lands of Scandinavia, towards the jungles of Myanmar and the Malay Peninsula, the Philippines and Indonesia, in the changing terrains and landscapes of China and Korea, and in the Pacific Islands and New Guinea, dinstinguishing themsleves for their country and for the whole of humanity in conventional and unconventional military and paramilitary operations, intelligence gathering and combat and service support, led by heroic commanding officers coming from all walks of life, graduates of military academies and officer candidate institutes, whose efforts received for them the honor and glory of their country and people, many of them at the cost of losing their lives in battle.

And we cannot forget as well the contributions of millions in the home front in the victory that is celebrated today in the Asia-Pacific, thru their efforts to support those in the battlefields and overseas bases with much needed equipment, supplies and essential equipment, in addition in supporting war bonds activties and listening to artists who time and again gave concerts and shows to those in the armed forces at home and overseas, while also watching movies and documentaries about the war during this time in our history.

This was indeed a day that everyone had waited all these 6 years. A day the millions who fought in the Allied military forces and guerilla organizations anticipated, many would die in combat but many more lived to see this day come, a day that would usher in the end of this long conflict and the victory won against the Axis Powers. Indeed the sacrifices of the millions who were mobilized to fight those who were threatening peace and the future of the world, as well as the blood poured by those who fell in this long period of our history, and the suffering felt by so many people in the territories where the war had impacted directly all led up to this great day. Of the millions who answered the call, millions less died in battle in the uniforms of the Allied armed forces and paramilitary organizations in Europe, North Africa and the Asia-Pacific and in naval operations everywehre,  while millions still lived long for the great day of victory to arrive on the 2nd of September, 1945, exactly 75 years ago.

Today, in remembrance of the victory won against the Allies and the end of this great war, we remember these millions of active and reserve men and women of the military forces and paramilitary organizations of the Allies, today only by the thousands who are still alive ever to celebrate this momentous occasion of such an important anniversary of the victory won over the Axis Powers in the Asia-Pacific and the end of this long and bitter conflict that forever changed human history. We must never forget that this victory was made possible because of their adversity in battle, determination, iron-willed strength, courage, friendship, bravery and perserverance, and above all the readiness to sacrifice life and limb for the sake for the cause of the defeat of the ideologies that begun this conflict eight decades past in Eastern Europe.

Marking this great anniversary, with deep respect and profound gratitude we today honor these  millions of heroes, who, through their personal and combined efforts, secured the final victory we honor today against the Axis Powers, ending once and for all their evil plans for the domination of the world and the repression of peoples. Today and always may we by our words and actions recall the memory of these men and women who served during those years of combat in every corner of the world who are even in this present time and in a modern way of life are still honored not just by battle honors and monuments but also in various works and in radio, television, film and digital media, and who today we, the descendants of this heroic and great generation of heroes, and the generations of tomorrow must keep in our minds and hearts, among them the men and women of the intelligence services who helped provide the Allied military leadership  with information on enemy locations and movements, Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, formerly 4th Brigade Combat Team and now 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, United States Army, the brave men of the 1st Marine Division’s 1st, 5th and 7th Marine Regiments, the tankers of the 2nd Armored Division, the aviators and air crews of the 8th Air Force, and all our sportsmen and women who served under the colours of the Allied military forces during the long war and helped win the definite victory against tyranny and oppresion, be forever in our memories and our profound remembrance, not just by their families and descendants but by the very people they fought and died for in the fields of battle, the frontlines, the concentration camps and the home front, and by the people and youth of today and our future generations of men and women, most especially to all considering careers in the uniformed services, so that their legacies to the peoples of the world will be conserved for posterity and for the sake of those who will follow in their footsteps today and in the future.  On this day of celebration for millions of people all over the globe we once again send our greetings to the hundreds of thousands of men and women in active service and in the reserves in the armed forces,  police, public security, forestry, border security, civil defense and emergency services of the Allied combatant countries and their families,our working people, agricultural workers and those working in science and technology, education, tourism, culture and the arts and in the mass media and the press and all our sportsmen and women, as well as our military and civil uniformed service veterans and their families, and the families of all who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for the defense of our principles and of our liberty and independence. In addition to these individuals and public and private corporate and cooperative entites, in light of the ongoing global pandemic caused by COVID-19, we also today remember the modern day heroes of this disastrous time: our medical workers and professionals treating the sick and the dying even at the cost of their lives, as well as those working in essential and permitted industries and enterprises, which have also suffered from the economic fallout of this pandemic, whose determination, courage and firm hope in the future, with firm compliance with health and safety protocols, have ensured the survival and resilience of our people and economies in the face of such a health crisis never seen in over a century, and the people working for the research, development and manufacture of medications and vaccines against the virus and its effects on our health and well-being.  As we today celebrate this historic anniversary of the victory won against the Axis Powers in the Asia-Pacific, let us not forget them as well, for these are the great men and women who are the descendants to the millions who fought for this great victory and are the ones tasked to carry the flames of this great victory into the future. May we forever never ever forget the Allied heroes and martyrs of the Second World War in Europe, North Africa and the Asia-Pacific who all through these years of warfare helped make possible the victory we celebrate today, 75 years on to the day of the conclusion of this war and of the victory against the Axis Powers in all the theaters of this global conflict, and in looking onwards to the anniversaries of such a great victory even without the presence physically of the heroic generation that won this war against the evil aggressors, may we forever inherit their legacy of service to their country and people, towards the defense of the freedom and independence of the free world against domestic and foreign enemies and ideologies against the spirit and legacy of those who fought for the sake of the human race and the peace and progress of the world.

To all of you, our dear living veterans of this war who still are with us, rest assured that as you all live our remaining days on this earth, we will forever honor and remember the great victory you all won against the forces of international  fascism, imperialism, dictatorship, racism, xenophobia and totalitarianism symbolized by the Axis Powers, carry onwards the memories of your service with the armed forces of the victorious Allied Powers and instill in our future generations the value of patriotism, courage, audacity, bravery, cooperation, respect, harmony and dignity, and above all, the value of helping in the defense of the country and people for the continued survival of our freedom and independence, towards the goal of a better tomorrow strong and free for our children and grandchildren. By your legacy we therefore promise to forever honor your combined sacrifices and contribution to the victorious conclusion of this long war, to work hard to defend the principles of independence and sovereignty and give all our time and talent in labor in times of war and peace and in times of disaster and need for the sake of building a stronger, prosperous and independent world by building up our economy, fighting the ills of our current society, improving education, help preserve the environment, promote culture and the arts as well as local traditions and the way of life of aboriginal and Native American communities, promote and protect the freedom of religion and the sanctity of human lives, promote a healthy lifestyle and a sporting way of life, and forever honor the places and people who are part of our history while maintaining readiness to instill in our future generations a spirit of preparedness to serve their country and people to the best of their ability and fight the evils that are still present in our world of today!

Today, as the world celebrates this historic 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we, the millions of people of the free world, today we pledge, more than ever before, to honor the sacrifices of the heroes of the past and work towards achieving the goals of peace and progress and a better world fought by these valiant men and women who risked their lives for the defense of our liberties and civil and human rights against the Axis Powers and ensured the victorious advance towards a world that is just and diverse, where Nature’s wonders have been restored to former glories and wherein humanity lives in the spirit of peace, friendship and cooperation built on the heroic acts by the heroes of our past.

On this very great day of our history and in the history of humanity, this very important day in which we celebrate as one people the 75th year anniversary of the official glorious and victorious conclusion of the 6-year long Second World War, and the official surrender of the military forces of the Empire of Japan, we greet all of you the people of the free world, and most especially to all of you our remaining veterans of this long and great conflict, who helped win this great victory and opened the gates for a better future for all of humanity, as heroes who risked even their lives for the defeat of the military and political might of the Axis Powers, to all you our veterans of succeeding conflicts and in UN peacekeeping operations worldwide and to all and of our men and women and veterans of the military and civil uniformed services and uniformed youth groups from all the Allied combatant countries as we today mark 75 years since the final defeat of the Axis Powers in the Asia-Pacific and the victory over the Empire of Japan!

For all of us, it wil forever be a day of remembrance and celebration of the great victory in which our forebears won against the might of the Axis Powers all over the world, and a day in which we will forever uphold the legacy of the millions who died for the values that are worth defending and fighting for, then as in today. We will never stop honoring the blessed memory of these men and women who sacrificed their lives for the freedom and independence of our world. We will never stop reminding our children and future generations of the cost of the freedoms we celebrate. And we shall always light up the legacy in which these millions of men and women lived and fought for, which is the great victory that we celebrate today.

Today, we celebrate with all of you, the people of the free world and forever treasure in our hearts and minds the memory and legacy left behind by these the millions of men and women who 75 years ago celebrated the conclusion of such a war that forever changed our world and a war that they won against the forces of the Axis Powers at the cost of millions of lives lost from the plains and mountains of Europe, the sands of northern Africa and the Middle East, towards the diverse lands of the Asia-Pacific. Today and always we continue to remember their sacrifice for the sake of us and for the generations to come who will forever honor and commemorate their contributions to freedoms we cherish to this day. Even as the growing tide of evil may be rising again, united with the men and women of our NATO armed forces and the armed forces of our allies abroad in the performance of their patriotic, internationalist and military duties for the sake of the freedom and independence of the peoples of the free world, armed with the best and modern equipment, arms, vehicles, ships and aircraft, and united with the public security services and the hard work of our people of all sectors of society, no obstacle cannot be overcome, no problem can be left unsolved and no stone left unturned in our efforts to forever maintain the legacy left behind by these heroes of the Second World War, who fought at the cost of their lives to win the victory that we celebrate not just on this day but also every day of our lives!

More than ever before in our history, we will never let the fire of the great victory won 75 years ago fade away in our hearts, and forever maintain the legacies of victory won by the great generations who fought before us!

Today, as we mark this great day in our history, may we never regret to recall the heroic deeds of our predecessors who fought in this war and of all our past naval aviators who flew throughout all these years for the sake of the freedom and independence not just of the United States of America and Canada, but the freedom and independence of all of the free world. May we as one united people never tire of honoring the memory of our heroic forebears and always work hard to be worthy of their sacrifices, most of all, for the sake of our present and for the future of our world and of all humanity. We will never forget their tireless sacrifices for the sake of the freedoms we enjoy today and always uphold what this victory truly means – a victory against the ever present forces of international fascism and totalitarianism around the world!

nd in conclusion, as we today mark this historic anniversary since the victory over Japan and the conclusion of the Second World War, as we today mark it with remembrance and joyful celebration, may we who keep this sacred holiday and recall the millions who died to make this victory possible  with respect and reverence especially for those who went before us shall be worthy of what they fought and died for, for building a world of peace, harmony and progress, a clean environment, and a brighter future for all our children and grandchildren - truly the very future that is truly worth defending and the very future our forefathers fought with their very own lives. With our greatest gratitude may we, the successors to this great generation of victors, always and forever treasure in our hearts all those who have gone before us and have entrusted to us the spirit of defending our freedom and liberty in all those years from the beginning of the war up to the great victories in which we honor today, everyday and in the years and decades to come! And may we forever cherish the victory won today, the very reason of the freedoms we live, and forever kindle the fire of victory that will enflame our memories both now and in the brighter tomorrow that is to come!

As the men of Easy Company would always say:  WE STAND ALONE TOGETHER!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEDICAL WORKERS AND PROFESSIONALS AND PERSONNEL OF UNIFORMED SERVICES WHO PERISHED IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MLLIONS OF THE FALLEN AND THE HEROES AND VETERANS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE, NORTHERN AFRICA AND THE ASIA-PACIFIC FROM 1939-1945, WHOSE LEGACY WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN BY ALL OF US TODAY AND BY ALL THE GENERATIONS TO COME!

ETERNAL GLORY TO ALL THOSE WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE OF OUR WORLD AGAINST FASCISM, NAZISM AND IMPERIALISM IN THE FIELDS OF BATTLE, THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS, AND IN THE HOME FRONT!

LONG LIVE THE VICTORIOUS MEN AND WOMEN IN THE SERVICE OF THE ALLIES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE, NORTHERN AFRICA AND THE ASIA-PACIFIC!

LONG LIVE ALL THE ALLIED MILITARY, PARAMILITARY AND CIVIL VETERANS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR!

LONG LIVE THE INVINCIBLE AND FOREVER VICTORIOUS PEOPLE OF THE FREE WORLD AND ALL OUR SERVING ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN AND VETERANS OF THE ARMED SERVICES OF ALL THE COMBATANT ALLIED COUNTRIES THAT HELPED WIN THIS GREAT WAR AGAINST FASCISM, NAZISM AND IMPERIALISM, AS WELL AS ALL OUR ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICE PERSONNEL, CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AND VETERANS OF THE POLICE, FIREFIGHTING, FORESTRY, BORDER CONTROL, CUSTOMS AND RESCUE SERVICES AS WELL AS OUR YOUTH OF TODAY AND THE CHILDREN OF OUR TOMORROW WHO WILL CARRY ON THE LEGACY OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE THEM, ESPECIALLY TO THE MILLIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN WHO TOOK PART IN THIS GREAT WORLD WAR!

LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS 75TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE PACIFIC AND CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATERS OF OPERATIONS AND THE GREAT VICTORY OVER THE FORCES OF THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN AND THE AXIS POWERS!

GLORY TO THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CANADA, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND AND FRANCE, TOGETHER WITH THE ARMED SERVICES OF THE OTHER VICTORIOUS COMBATANT COUNTRIES OF THE ALLIED POWERS, GUARDIAN DEFENDERS OF OUR DEMOCRATIC WAY OF LIFE, OUR FREEDOM AND OUR LIBERTY AND GUARANTEE OF A FUTURE WORTHY OF OUR GENERATIONS TO COME!

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO ALL OVER THE WORLD, A VERY HAPPY  75TH VICTORY OVER JAPAN DAY!

And may I repeat the immortal words of the Polish National Anthem:

Poland has not yet perished, so long as we still live!

CURRAHEE! AIR ASSAULT! ARMY STRONG! SEMPER FI!

Ooooooooooooooooooraaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

 1830h, September 2, 2020, the 244th year of the United States of America, the 245th year of the United States Army, Navy and Marine Corps, the 126th of the International Olympic Committee, the 124th of the Olympic Games, the 102nd since the conclusion of the First World War, the 81st of the beginning of the Second World War in Europe, the 79th since the beginning of the Second World War in the Eastern Front and in the Pacific Theater, the 75th since the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the victories in Europe and the Pacific, the 73rd of the modern United States Armed Forces and the 53rd of the modern Canadian Armed Forces.

  Semper Fortis

JOHN EMMANUEL RAMOS-HENDERSON

Makati City, PH

 (Requiem for a Soldier) (Honor by Hans Zimmer)

(Slavsya from Mikhail Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar)

(Victory Day by Lev Leshenko)

(Last Post) (Taps) (Rendering Honors)

I have read your masterpost on starvation, and it sounds like it's most relevant to acute malnutrition. How bad can chronic malnutrition get? Like someone on a "starvation diet" for several years?

This one I’m going to have to start with the caveat that I’m not a medic. It’s taken a long time because it’s a subject I find quite difficult.

 In the context of this particular question- I don’t actually know the technical definition of acute vs chronic malnutrition. My medical knowledge is patchy and I’m not setting out to try and replace @scriptmedic. Frankly I don’t have the skill set.

 My knowledge base for starvation is a combination of things like the Minnesota Starvation Report and the WHO mixed with history and survivor accounts. So my impression of what starvation does is less medically based and more person based. It’s English policies in Ireland and India, Mao’s China, Ukraine with the rise of the Soviets.

 So I’m not sure how relevant you’re going to find the answer I can give. But I’ll give it a shot.

 How bad can it get?

 Given the context of this blog, that we’re talking about systematic abuse of human rights: the horror in starvation is that it is social. It’s rarely just one person suffering. Instead it’s whole communities. Suffering compounded on suffering as victims watch everyone they know waste away.

 Starvation, in the context of torture, is often part of a deliberate campaign to wipe out a group of people. It’s the extinction of family lines, vanished villages and towns. It’s the collapse of social order, not in any revolutionary sense but in the sense of collapsing ethical norms. It up-ends the social contract.

 What follows are descriptions of genocide and the deaths of children. I am giving additional warnings because I usually tone down this stuff for the blog. I try to give you all the information you need to write well without overloading you with history or descriptions of pain.

 This is less filtered.

 Here’s part of a Ukrainian children’s song from the inter-war period.

 ‘Daddy and Mommy are in the kolkhoz

The poor child cries as he goes alone

There’s no bread and there’s no fat

The party’s ended all of that

Seek not the gentle or the mild

The father’s eaten his own child

The party man he beats and stamps

And sends us to Siberian camps’*

 Judging from the accounts of the time this wasn’t exaggeration or hyperbole. There are a lot of police recordings of murder for cannibalism at the time. Especially of young children.

 Here’s a description of the state of an orphanage in Kharkiv*.

 ‘The children had bulging stomachs; they were covered in wounds, in scabs; their bodies were bursting. We took them outside, we put them on sheets and they moaned. One day the children suddenly fell silent, we turned around to see what was happening, and they were eating the smallest child, little Petrus. They were tearing strips from him and eating him. And Petrus was doing the same, he was tearing strips from himself and eating them, he ate as much as he could. The other children put their lips to his wounds and drank his blood. We took the child away from the hungry mouths and we cried.’

 It’s estimated that 3.3 million people died in Ukraine as part of a deliberately engineered food shortage and the violence that followed. Villages vanished.

 People tried to flee to the towns, where the food was being taken. But identity cards clearly indicated where people were from and most of them couldn’t afford or find passable fakes.

 Townsfolk were punished for giving away food. Immigrants from the country were rounded up and locked in warehouses where they were either left to starve or deported back to the country to starve there.

 People held small children out of train windows as they pulled into or away from stations and begged bystanders to take their starving children.

 Between 1876 and 1878 Britain oversaw one of the worst famines in Indian history, killing an estimated 5.5 million people and affecting some 58 million.

 For reference that’s more than the population of Canada.

 During this time Britain exported around 320 thousand tonnes of wheat from the affected area. Whilst consistently denying Indians effective relief. People were forced to work 16 hour days in exchange for ‘food relief’ that was reduced to 450g of grain a day. Less for women and children doing the same work.

 Assuming that ‘ration’ was mostly rice that’s less then a thousand calories a day. The estimated daily needs for an adult who isn’t engaged in manual labour is more then double that.

 I don’t have any translations of the poetry remembering this genocide.

 Then there’s the genocide of the Hereo and the Nama peoples, also using hunger and thirst as a weapon.

 People were driven in to the desert. The water holes were guarded and anyone who approached was shot. Some sources claim wells were poisoned. So families; children, women, the elderly, staggered on under the sun until they dropped.

 There are disputes about the death toll but it was certainly in the tens of thousands. Not including the people who were put in concentration camps.

 Germany has just started giving back their bodies.

 In China children were walked by their parents off into the mountains or wilderness and left to die. Because quotas for food exports vastly exceeded the amount most regions could produce. And the quota (or as near to it as possible) was taken whether people had the food to spare or not.

 First they ate the seed grain, the grain reserved to plant the harvest for the next year. Without it there would be no food later but there was nothing else. Then they scoured the countryside, eating everything from herbs to non-edible leaves and grasses.

 People ate leather shoes and clothing. They ate mud. It sticks together in the intestines, blocking them, tearing them and causing a slow painful death.

 It’s not the individual personal perspective but I would argue this is the worst of it-

 Picture the place you grew up. If you had a good family picture them and your friends and the casual acquaintances you would have met every day.

 Starvation means watching everyone turn on you or die by degrees.

 It is everyone in a community wasting slowly. Parents choosing which of their children to feed and trying to decide if it is better to eat themselves so they can protect their children or feed the children so they have a better chance of living til the next day.

 It’s people who you know (and sometimes love) stealing the things you need to stay alive. It’s people killing each other so they’ll have a little more to eat, and that little more not being enough to keep them going.

 It’s disease, exhaustion, pain and despair driving people to turn on each other.

 And when they are dead, when all that is left is eerie empty buildings, then the officials come along. They take down the signs. They tear down the buildings and they clear the ground.

 A few years later it’s fields. Or a few scattered houses. Or perhaps a whole new village. And no one in the area remembers that there were people there before. They say it was empty land, countryside, wilderness.

 There’s no one to correct them; everyone is gone.

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*R Kuśnierz Ukraina w latach kolektywizacji I wielkiego glodu 2005, via T Synder Bloodlands 2011, Penguin

 I recommend Mao’s Great Famine, F Dikotter, Bloomsbury, 2011

 You can read about the ‘Madras Famine’ in W Digby’s account from the time: The famine campaign in Southern India, Madras and Bombay Presidencies: And Province of Mysore, 1876-1878 there are several reprints available. Unfortunately I have been unable to find an Indian account of this genocide (so far).

There’s a book by R Anderson on the Hereo and Nama genocide available here. I have not read it.

 Finally (another book I haven’t got round to yet) A de Waal’s Mass Starvation Polity Press, 2017 as an overview and summary of famine.

Actual Surveys and Statistics Prove Russia Lied, Illegally Invaded Ukraine

Actual Surveys and Statistics Prove Russia Lied, Illegally Invaded Ukraine

Actual surveys from 2014, statistical analysis by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology and the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, and reporting by Pravda, Separatism in the Donbas, and picked up by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KhPG), in Donbas ‘separatism’: Myth, statistics and heavily armed Russian spetsnaz, clearly show Russia lied about a majority of Crimea and Donbass…

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Die Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHRPG) ist eine der ältesten und renommiertesten ukrainischen Menschenrechtsorganisationen. Sie hat gemeinsame Wurzeln mit der angesehenen, noch zu Sowjetzeiten gegründeten Organisation Memorial. Bis vor dem Krieg hatte die KHRPG ihren Sitz in Charkiv. Seit Beginn der Invasion sind die Mitarbeitenden über die ganze Ukraine verteilt. KHRPG-Sprecher Denis Volokha lebt aktuell in der Westukraine.

News from Ukraine Bulletin 84

Monterey, California, 13 February 2024. Photo by the Russian Reader News from Ukraine Bulletin 84 (12 February 2024) A Digest of News from Ukrainian sources In this week’s bulletin: War, fascisisation and resistance in Russia; two years of war by a Ukrainian feminist; more evidence of Russian torture and secret trials and theft of property. News from the territories occupied by…

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On August 4, the human rights organization Amnesty International published a report titled “Ukrainian Fighting Tactics Endanger Civilians,” warning that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas.” The report has provoked a strong backlash in the West, including criticism by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Amnesty’s own local office in Ukraine. The report proved immediately useful to the state media in Russia, where propagandists have insisted since the start of the war that the Ukrainian military uses civilians as “human shields.” Meduza reviews the reactions to Amnesty International’s controversial findings.

What does Amnesty International’s report actually say?

“The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks,” Amnesty International concluded in its report. After spending several weeks investigating Russian strikes in the Kharkiv, Donbas, and Mykolaiv regions, Amnesty’s researchers found that Ukrainian forces have “put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February.”

Amnesty’s report states that “such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets.”

Researchers noted that Russia also attacked residential areas without any Ukrainian military presence. In some areas of Kharkiv, for example, the organization “did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.”

What has the United Nations said about fighting tactics and human rights in Ukraine?

On June 29, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report about the human rights situation in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it stood between February 24 and May 15. Researchers found that both Russian and Ukrainian troops had occupied positions in residential areas and near civilian infrastructure without adequately protecting the civilians there.

For example, in the town of Stara Krasnianka, in the Luhansk region, Ukraine’s armed forces entered a care facility strategically located near an important road. The building was also home to older persons, people with disabilities, and support staff. Two days later, the soldiers exchange fire with “Russian affiliated armed groups.” On March 11, the invading forces attacked the care house with heavy weapons, apparently killing dozens of patients and staff. According to the UN report, Ukraine nevertheless failed to take measures required under international humanitarian law to protect the civilians present.

The UN report also describes the Russian military’s civilian endangerment, not just involving attacks on Ukrainian positions but also concerning the mistreatment of noncombatants in occupied areas. For example, also in March 2022, Russian troops in the Chernihiv region held 360 residents (including 74 children and five persons with disabilities) in the basement of a school, seeking “to render their base immune from military operations, while also subjecting them to inhuman and degrading treatment.” Ten older people died in these conditions.

How has the pro-Kremlin mass media used Amnesty International’s report?

Russia’s federal censor has blocked Amnesty International’s website since March 11, 2022, but the organization’s report on fighting tactics in Ukraine was major news in Russia on August and became a trending story on the Yandex News aggregator, which does not index the independent media. To examine how the report reverberated in the news media that isn’t technically blocked in Russia, Meduza looked at three groups: (1) the state media, (2) the formally independent and neutral media that still complies with the Kremlin’s wartime censorship and unspoken rules, and (3) the formally independent but pro-Kremlin media.

With little nuance, these media outlets reported on Amnesty International’s findings by focusing almost exclusively on the allegations that the Ukrainian military has endangered civilians and violated international humanitarian law. The coverage ignored Amnesty’s underlying conclusions that Russian and “Russian affiliated” troops are the ones firing on civilians, and that Ukrainian violations of humanitarian law do not in any way justify Russian strikes that kill and injure civilians.

What details from Amnesty’s report were missing from Russian media coverage?

Reported by RIA Novosti, TASS, RBC, Kommersant, and Komsomolskaya Pravda: Ukraine has operated military bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, and opened fire from residential areas. Missing: “Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians.”

Reported by RIA Novosti: Ukrainian forces have endangered civilians by using weapons systems in populated areas, including schools and hospitals. Missing: “as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February.”

Reported by RBC: Establishing combat positions and firing from these areas makes them into military targets, leading to attacks that kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure. Missing: Russian forces are responsible for launching these attacks.

Reported by RBC: In at least three towns, Ukrainian forces moved closer to schools after attacks against their previous positions. Missing: Russia’s military has attack numerous school buildings where Ukrainian troops had taken up positions. Ukrainian soldiers moving closer to schools have relocated to avoid attacks by Russia’s armed forces.

Reported by RBC: On May 21, several nearby homes were damaged in an attack against a university building in Bakhmut that was being used as a military base. Missing: Russian soldiers carried out the attack, which killed seven people.

Totally ignored: In some areas of Kharkiv, Amnesty did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.

Totally ignored: “International humanitarian law does not specifically ban parties to a conflict from basing themselves in schools that are not in session. However, militaries have an obligation to avoid using schools that are near houses or apartment buildings full of civilians, putting these lives at risk, unless there is a compelling military need.”

Also totally ignored: “Many of the Russian strikes that Amnesty International documented in recent months were carried out with inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions, or with other explosive weapons with wide area effects.”

Reactions from Ukrainian officials

Ukrainian officials have denounced Amnesty International’s report as “absurd,” “offensive,” and “disrespectful” (according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk), and as an attempt to establish a “false equivalence between the villain and the victim” (said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba). Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak even suggested that the allegations of international humanitarian law are meant to “undermine” Western support for supplying weapons to Ukraine.

Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maliar argued that Ukrainian troops establish positions in residential areas to defend civilians against Russian invasion. “While we wait around in a field for the Russian enemy, the Russians would occupy all our homes,” she reasoned. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov warned that the Ukrainian government “will not allow our army and our defenders to be vilified.” (On August 5, journalist Tanya Kozyreva cited anonymous sources claiming that Ukraine’s military has already revoked the accreditation of Amnesty International staffers.)

Some of the harshest criticism has come directly from President Volodymyr Zelensky, who faulted Amnesty’s “immoral selectivity,” claiming that the organization ignores Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine. “Everyone who grants amnesty to Russia and facilitates an informational context wherein some terrorist attacks are justified or rationalized cannot be unaware that this helps the terrorists,” Zelensky said on August 4.

Reactions from journalists and human rights activists in Ukraine

Numerous journalists and human rights activists in Ukraine have joined the government in criticizing Amnesty International’s report, accusing researchers of equating Ukraine’s self-defense with Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Executive Director Oleksandr Pavlichenko says Ukraine’s legitimate combat mission includes the defense of populated settlements, arguing that Russia bears responsibility for any attacks against civilians in these areas. Pavlichenko also accused Amnesty International of omitting data about the use of civilian facilities by occupying troops in Ukraine.

In a post on Facebook, Public Interest Journalism Lab cofounder and war correspondent Nataliya Gumenyuk noted that militaries have the right to establish positions in residential areas so long as they warn the local population. (Amnesty’s report also states that militaries “should warn civilians and, if necessary, help them evacuate,” but researchers say they didn’t find evidence of this in the cases they examined.)

Gumenyuk says her own observations in the field and communications with both soldiers and noncombatants indicate that Ukraine’s armed forces are doing their best not to endanger civilians. She also noted that Amnesty neglected to highlight Russia’s use of excessive force against targets in populated areas, for example, by firing missiles into residential districts because a handful of Ukrainian soldiers were present.

Echoing government officials, Razumkov Center Foreign Policy and International Security Programs Co-Director Oleksii Melnyk warned that Amnesty’s report is “very convenient for Russian narratives.”

Reactions from other experts

Boyd van Dijk, the author of the recent book “Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions,” condensed the criticisms of Amnesty’s report in a thread on Twitter. According to the University of Melbourne historian, the “most important critique” of the work is that “the Ukrainians are fighting a just war against illegal aggression and alien occupation,” and that it would be “unfair to call out their relatively marginal [international humanitarian law] violations compared to grave breaches by [the] Russian aggressor.”

Explaining that holding victim states strictly accountable for observing humanitarian law has been controversial since the laws were first adopted in 1949, van Dijk also pointed out that the Soviet Union supported an initiative by Jewish survivors of World War II that rejected “belligerent equality” when it comes to fighting tactics used by aggressors and defenders. He says Amnesty’s allegations against the Ukrainian military mischaracterize the laws in question:

The point being here is that it would be better both analytically as well as normatively to embrace the richness of [international humanitarian legal] history, rather than framing it as a strict codebook with severe limitations for those fighting against aggression and/or genocide, as the Amnesty report does.

Human rights lawyer Kirill Koroteev, who oversees the Agora human rights group’s international practice, stresses that not all violations of humanitarian law constitute war crimes. For example, using human shields is a war crime, but occupying an empty civilian building is not. The former offense is directly subject to international prosecution, while the latter is treated as a violation of human rights treaties or the national norms in a particular country.

What does Amnesty International have to say about all this?

According to the organization’s own rules, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Department is responsible for documenting violations and crimes during armed conflicts.

Amnesty’s Ukrainian office was not involved in creating the August 4 report, but staff protested the document’s publication, believing it to be one-sided and incomplete. The office refused to translate it into Ukrainian or publish it on their website. On August 5, Ukrainian branch chief Oksana Pokalchuk resigned in protest, stating in a Facebook post that her team’s work had “crashed against a wall of bureaucracy and a deaf language barrier.” She also faulted the organization’s “failure to understand the local context” and its decision to “ignore the position of the human rights community in Ukraine.”

In a widely criticized tweet after the report’s release, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard accused “Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls” of waging “war propaganda, disinformation, [and] misinformation” against her organization’s investigation. “This won’t dent our impartiality and won’t change the facts,” she added.

“McCue Jury & Partners call this a landmark action, and it is certainly breaking new ground. Even if it ultimately fails to hold Prigozhin and his paid terrorists to account, the move should help to highlight what the firm calls “an unlawful means conspiracy between Prigozhin, Wagner, and Putin’s war machine to terrorise the Ukrainian people.”

For sure, this will draw a lot of attention to the crime syndicate and its giant group of filthy hit men.

Dødsstraff praktiseres i de okkuperte områdene i øst Ukraina

Dødsstraff praktiseres i de okkuperte områdene i øst Ukraina

I følge Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group er dødsstraff avsagt minst 9 i den såkalte Folkerepublikken Donetsk. Tidligere er dødsdommer fra den andre av de to utbryterrepublikkene, den såkalte Folkerepublikken Luhansk kjent. I 2016 hevdet den Russiske nettavisen Gazetaat 150 dødsdommer var avsagt, bare de første månedene etter at de russiskstøttede opprørerne hadde tatt kontroll over…

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Chief prosecutor in Handziuk murder investigation removed just as progress

Chief prosecutor in Handziuk murder investigation removed just as progress reached - new article published by Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. It is based at the comments which Viktor Handziuk posted on 27 March. Источник: https://www.facebook.com/gandziukgate/... Читать дальше: https://oi5.ru/n350478538

Russia arrests second historian of Stalin’s Terror

03.10.2018 | Halya Coynash for the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group

It is becoming dangerous in Russia to investigate the crimes of Stalinism.  A second Karelian historian, Sergei Koltyrin has been arrested and is facing charges almost identical to those now brought against political prisoner, Yuri Dmitriev.  While the possibility cannot be excluded that there are real grounds for these new charges, the chilling similarities between the two cases are of immense concern.  So too is the timing, with this second arrest coming soon after Koltyrin publicly rejected attempts to rewrite history about the mass graves of victims of the Terror at Sandarmokh in Karelia.

The Investigative Committee report initially stated only that “two men are suspected of depraved actions committed to a minor” (Article 135 § 4 of Russia’s Criminal Code) and that these actions had allegedly been committed in September 2018.  While on their site neither man is named, it is ominous that local media have as yet not identified the second person who, the Investigative Committee now asserts, has admitted to committing the acts.

The charges against Dmitriev have run up against insurmountable problems because of lack of evidence and the historian’s own denial of all the charges.  Anybody following the cases of Russia’s Ukrainian political prisoners will be well aware of how many hinged solely on ‘confessions’ obtained while the men were held incommunicado and through torture.

Koltyrin has been the Director of the Medvezhyegorsk District Museum since 1991.  His museum covers Sandarmokh, the clearing in Karelia where Dmitriev and other members of the Karelia branch of Memorial uncovered the mass graves of victims of the Terror.  Among those buried at Sandarmokh were 1,111 prisoners of the notorious Solovki Labour Camp, including 289 Ukrainian writers, playwrights, scientists and other members of the intelligentsia, killed by quota from 27 October to 4 November 1937.

Koltyrin always worked very closely with Dmitriev and the Memorial researchers.  The work at Sandarmokh, and its significance as a place of pilgrimage where each year International Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Terror were held, were initially fully supported by the Karelia authorities and even the FSB [security service].

Under President Vladimir Putin, the attitude to Joseph Stalin and to the darkest pages of Soviet history has changed dramatically.  Over the last two years, no representatives of the authorities have taken part in remembrance events, and in August this year, Koltyrin himself was prevented from attending.

Koltyrin’s arrest comes just over a month after he made his opposition quite clear to contentious excavations by Russia’s Military History Society. This body was created by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2012, in order to “consolidate the forces of state and society in the study of Russia’s military-historical past and counter efforts to distort it”.  It is headed by Russia’s Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, and has initiated such controversial moves as the creation of a museum and bust of Stalin in Khoroshevo (Tver oblast).

The excavations arose, purportedly, as a result of assertions made by two two historians from Petrozavodsk State University – Yuri Kilin and Sergei Verigin – six months in June 2016, six months before Dmitriev was first arrested.

They asserted that Sandarmokh could contain the graves of Soviet prisoners of war held in Finnish concentration camps and then killed during the Second World War.  There was enthusiasm for such suggestions from pro-Kremlin media, with Izvestia immediately asserting that “Memorial’s information about repression in Karelia may be revised”  Despite pleas from the descendants of those buried at Sandarmokh and the lack of any real evidence to justify such excavations, the work began on August 25 (more details here)

It was already difficult to separate these moves to rewrite history of Sandarmokh from the fatally flawed persecution of the man so instrumental in finding the graves and exposing the truth about both the victims and the perpetrators of those crimes.

Dmitriev was arrested on 13 December 2016 and charged with ‘preparing pornography involving a minor’ (Article 242.2 of Russia’s criminal code) and ‘depraved actions with respect to a child under the age of 11’ (Article 135).  Both these apparently serious charges pertained solely to a folder filed on his computer, and never ‘circulated’, which contained 114 photos of his adopted daughter Natasha.  The little girl had been painfully thin and in poor health at three years old, when he and his former wife took her from the children’s home, and the authorities had themselves advised him to monitor her development.  Each of the photos, taken between 2008 and 2015 recorded her weight and height.  

It was almost certainly hoped that the case, which apparently involved ‘child pornography’, would turn people away from Dmitriev and also discredit Memorial.  It did nothing of the kind.  The defence brought in proper experts, as opposed to the mathematician, teacher and art historian who obligingly perceived ‘pornography’ in nine of over 100 photos.  They dismissed the allegations outright, finding no whiff of ‘pornography’ and confirming that it was common practice to take such photos for monitoring development.

It is possible that whoever had commissioned this prosecution decided to back off briefly in the face of such damning expert assessments and with worldwide publicity for the case.  On 5 April 2018, Dmitriev was acquitted of the ‘pornography’ charges, however this acquittal was overturned on 14 June, and the case sent back for ‘retrial’.  

The aim was clearly to imprison Dmitriev and on 27 June he was re-arrested, with the ‘investigators’ adding the charge of ‘violent acts of a sexual nature’.  These alleged some kind of behaviour towards his adopted daughter up to when he was first arrested, but that had allegedly not been noticed before.  It seems likely that the new charges have arisen in cooperation with Natasha’s grandmother who had not seen the little girl after leaving her in a children’s home as a toddler.  Certainly Natasha herself was writing obviously loving letters to her father in prison and was clearly devastated by being taken from the only family she had ever known.  Most importantly, in over a year and a half of trying to make an absurd prosecution convincing, the ‘investigators’ had come up with no other charges involving the little girl.  Dmitriev remains in custody  (more details here)

It was evident from within a month of Dmitriev’s first arrest that the case was aimed at discrediting Memorial and that this had been coordinated with the FSB.  The charges had been chosen very deliberately to seem quite apolitical, while arousing aversion and anger, with many simply assuming that there must be some truth to them.  That calculation has probably been made again.  The arrest of Koltyrin soon after he rejected attempts to doctor the past with respect to Sandarmokh seems suspect, and concern is only exacerbated by attempts already reported in local media to link and discredit both highly respected and committed historians.

Update:  On 3 October, Sergei Koltyrin and Yevgeny Nosov were remandedin custody until 27 November.  The charges concern a 13-year-old.  Interfax has asserted, citing an unnamed source, that Koltyrin has written a confession. As with all proceedings against Dmitriev, the prosecution is able to hold them behind closed doors because of the age of the alleged victim.  Viktor Anufriev, who has represented Dmitriev from the beginning, will be representing Koltyrin as well.  There appears to be no information about Nosov, except that he does not appear to have a lawyer.

Winners Announced For Round One Of Global Legal Hackathon

Argentina (Buenos Aires) Atticus A Machine Learning System that creates, manages, administrates and reviews contracts, combined with a marketplace that allows their purchase and sale. Australia (Melbourne) Law Bud Improving access to justice by reducing administrative burden on CLCs. Australia (Sydney) CourtCover No description available. Brazil (Belo Horizonte) Appriori A platform as a service that provide a fast, accurate and intelligent way to analyze and summarize contracts during a due diligence process, applying artificial intelligence to process Brazilian Portuguese language. Brazil (Florianópolis) APRESENTE-SE An innovative solution for remote presentation to justice in a secure and fast way. Canada (Calgary, AB) Record Keeping Record Keeping Canada (Montreal, QC) (Winner Not Submitted) No description available. Canada (Ottawa, ON) 2Sign Voice-driven contracts Canada (Toronto, ON) Trademark Pro Trademark pre-scanning. Machine learning algorithm. Canada (Vancouver, BC) AH (aka Ambiguity Highlighter) Highlighting ambiguous text in contracts China (Guangzhou) Far-Go-Go We built a new platform based on blockchain and AI technologies , providing one-stop images copyright protection for Chinese users China (Hong Kong) Decoding Law A machine learning powred browser plugin that helps people to read and understand legislation. It breaks down complex legislative drafting into simple language and explains defined terms, which is particularly useful to unrepresented litigants. China (Shanghai) TEEMO Sentencing Assistant System Based on Machine Learning and Knowledge Graph Egypt (Alexandria) Elzero Team It a solution that will contact the user with the lawyer dependent on lawyer rate and specialize and user location to get most nearly lawyer in his location and give the lawyer the permission to finish his job freelancing. Germany (Berlin) Sondier.AI Find consensus between parties of a dispute through a digital, algorithmic mediation process Hungary (Budapest) Closers Discovery GDPR application – the idea is to create an mobile application, through which user can ask for the data/info stored about them at different data controllers, also through the app, user can request deletion of all data. The app receives and process data given about the user and create visual information about for example profiling info, etc. India (New Delhi) (Winner Not Submitted) No description available. Israel (Tel Aviv – Jaffa) Robota A bot which enables people to file independent claims at Israel’s labor courts Italy (Milan) Discussion Group Only Location was a discussion group only, it did not compete in the Global Legal Hackathon. Nigeria (Lagos) Team Lemon Project Lemonaid. Electronically facilitate access to criminal justice by increasing the turnaround time for delivery of pro-bono legal services through collating, analyzing, and collaborating on existing case data. Poland (Warsaw) BlokEkipa NGO, App that enables free legal assistance from young lawyers for woman violence. Romania (Bucharest) Crowd Case Building an online marketplace for litigation investment, targeting the EU market where investors can bid financial resources in exchange for a percentage in the settlement earnings, thus creating an ecosystem where we bridge the gap between plaintiffs, investors and lawyers. Singapore (Singapore) Regall Smart document organization that suits your needs – visual representation of relationships between documents, dynamic checklists, document management system South Africa (Johannesburg) SoLaw SoLaw is a social media-style platform which provides access to legal resources and facilitates interactions with legal professionals at an affordable price for end users, while reducing the cost of acquisition and case loads for lawyers. Spain (Madrid) Cuatrecasas Panopticon is a blockchain based solution to provide certainty on employment and human rights compliance across cross-border supply chains. Our team has the ambition to support the efforts of multinationals to end abusive labor conditions. This solution gathers data on site in order to guarantee the efficient enforcement of contractual clauses through smart contracts. In particular, clauses embedded in supply agreements entered into between multinational companies and subcontractors based in jurisdictions without reliable enforcement mechanisms. Sweden (Stockholm) LawLess An innovative AI-powered language-agnostic app for fast and reliable legal advice. Ukraine (Kharkiv) Law and Events Dive in law events, be close to justice United Arab Emirates (Dubai) (Winner Not Submitted) No description available. United Kingdom (London) Team PM Enable partners to invest stake in innovation ideas through a blockchain. USA (Boston, MA) Team I95 The project uses browser extensions to capture questions and answers and store them securely in the cloud. Other organizations with the extension can auto populate similar questions significantly reducing client frustration and intake time. USA (Chicago, IL) TeamALA Using an ALA-developed code set to automatically capture and record process and task data to improve the efficiency, quality and value of delivering legal services. USA (Cleveland, OH) INCO-herent Our mission is to provide a clear understanding of how to choose and verify appropriate use of INCOterms when buying or selling across international borders to more accurately capture costs and risks. INCOtelligent smart contracts help your business navigate INCOterms for international purchasing contracts. By using a set of guided questions, INCOtelligent smart contracts help you select the right INCOterm for your business USA (Dayton, OH) WonderBot Low income, self-help tool to help young lawyers be more effective on pro bono cases. USA (Denver, CO) LexLucid Want to know what’s in your contract? Just ask LexLucid. LexLucid is an online platform that enables attorneys to grade consumer contracts on their general fairness so that consumers are aware of the terms to which they agree. USA (Los Angeles, CA) HelpSelf The product helps people who have been convicted of a misdemeanor for marijuana use file an expungement automatically using an online application that simplifies the process. USA (New York, NY) Rights Now Siri for legal USA (Provo, UT) Legal Concierge A chat bot that answers the fundamental question: do I need a lawyer? USA (San Francisco, CA) Spicekit Spicekit is a decentralized platform that enables collective legal action by deploying secure smart-contract-bounties and streamlining collection of evidence. The platform is a trustless way to fund class action lawsuits – we are starting with fraudulent-ICOs. USA (Seattle, WA) Bodywatch Blockchain enabled bodycam footage upload and storage for police and lawsuit evidentiary matters. USA (State College, PA) Lexicons Quick and efficient way to simplify written and verbal notes for international law students.

Winners Announced For Round One Of Global Legal Hackathon republished via Above the Law