Ukraine says so many Russians were killed that the Russian army is storing dead soldiers in a meatpacking plant turned morgue
Cheryl Teh – June 10, 2022
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The Ukrainian military says the Russians converted a meatpacking plant in Melitopol into a morgue.
However, this plant has now run out of space to store dead soldiers, per the Ukrainian army.
The Ukrainians said this pushed the Russian army to search frantically for industrial refrigerators.
Ukraine says that the Russian army has lost so many soldiers that it has run out of room to store their dead in the occupied city of Melitopol.
A press release from the intelligence division of the Ukrainian defense ministry said on Thursday that the Russians were looking for “additional refrigerators” to store the bodies of their dead soldiers after the Russians ran out of space in a meat-packing plant-turned-morgue.
“The occupation administration of Melitopol is urgently looking for additional freezers and industrial refrigerators. It is known that the city meat-packing plant, which was converted into a morgue, is already completely filled with the bodies of the killed occupiers and can no longer accept more,” read the Ukrainian defense ministry’s statement.
According to the Ukrainian government, the Russian ministry started repurposing the meat-packing plant on June 6 and converted it into a morgue. According to the Ukrainians, the owners of the meat-packing plant were informed they would have to hand over the plant free of charge to preserve the bodies of fallen Russians.
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The Ukrainians added that the Russian bodies were being brought to the meat-packing plant from outside Melitopol. The Ukrainians said these soldiers likely died in fierce fighting near the cities of Polohy and Huliaipole in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
“These events are associated with heavy losses of the occupiers in manpower,” the Ukrainian defense ministry wrote. “In addition, the long-term storage of the bodies of those killed is due to the intentions of the Russian leadership to hide the real scale of losses from the Russian electorate.”
Russian military moves in the Arctic worry the U.S. and NATO
Melissa Rossi, Contributor – June 10, 2022
In late May, Russian ambassador at large Nikolai Korchunov informed state media that the situation in the Arctic was becoming perilous. He wasn’t referring to melting polar ice due to climate change. Instead, he warned of “a very disturbing trend that is turning the Arctic into an international arena of military operations,” and blamed NATO for expanding its footprint in the region.
“That’s a typical Russian play,” retired Finnish Maj. Gen. Pekka Toveri told Yahoo News. “Western activities in the Arctic have been very mild.” In March, however, NATO held “Exercise Cold Response” in Norway. With 35,000 fighters from 28 countries, it wasNATO’s biggest Arctic exercise in 30 years. Yet the alliance, unlike Russia, has no new plans for permanent forces or military bases in the region, Toveri said, while acknowledging that “more patrolling and more exercises have given Russia reason to point the finger and claim the West is the problem.”
The Arktichesky Trilistnik [Arctic Trefoil] military base on Alexandra Land Island in Arkhangelsk Region, Russia. (Russian Defence Ministry Press Office/TASS via ZUMA Press)
Western experts say that Russia, the largest of the eight countries surrounding the Arctic, is behind the militarization in the mineral-rich region, which supplies 20% of Russia’s GDP. For the past decade, the Kremlin has been revamping shuttered Soviet bases, forming a necklace of dozens of defensive outposts (by some counts upwards of 50) from the Barents Sea to territories near Alaska, and building new facilities like the ultra-modern Trefoil, its northernmost base that became fully operational last year. The U.S. and NATO have looked on in consternation as Russia has established a new “Arctic command” and four new Arctic brigades, refurbished airfields and deep-water ports, and keeps launching mock military attacks on Nordic countries in between jamming GPS and radar during NATO exercises. It has also, according to the U.S. State Department, been trying out “novel weapon systems” in the Arctic.
“We’ve seen increased Russian military activity in the Arctic for some time,” a senior State Department official told Yahoo News. However, the situation is ratcheting up, and not just because Russia keeps testing new hypersonic weapons in the Arctic, launching a hypersonic missile there just days after Korchunov made his remarks. Before the year’s end, the State Department official added, Russia plans to launch 19 more tests, including of new weapons. “Seeing Russia’s aggressive and unpredictable behavior, particularly since the Ukraine invasion, has really heightened concerns about Russian activity” in the high north, the official said.
With relations between Moscow and Western governments the iciest in decades due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, analysts wonder if the Arctic will become the next powder keg. Russia’s expansion of bases, weapons testing and boosted manpower in the Arctic comes as Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership. If accepted, that would further isolate Russia in the Arctic, making it the only non-NATO country in the region, further boosting the chances of unintended incidents, analysts say.
Author of the recently released report “The Militarization of Russian Polar Politics,” Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, told Yahoo News that his biggest fear is a nuclear mishap in the region.
“If you look at the long list of nuclear assets — whether it is icebreakers, strategic submarines, floating nuclear power plants or spent fuel — there is a lot of risk of nuclear incidents,” he said. “Incidents like this are mitigated in peacetime, when you’re talking to the different stakeholders. But the problem is that we don’t really talk [with] Russia very well these days. So this further increases the risk of miscalculation and errors.”
The Kola Peninsula, for instance, a Kentucky-sized thumb of Russian land abutting Finland, is the most nuclearized place on the planet. The headquarters for Russia’s Northern Fleet, which accounts for two-thirds of Russia’s second-strike maritime nuclear capabilities, the Kola Peninsula marks the entry to the Russian part of the Arctic and holds three military bases and repositories for nuclear arms.
A new hypersonic cruise missile is launched by a frigate of the Russian Navy from the Barents Sea. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Another third of Russia’s nukes on the sea, however, are located at the far Eastern end of the Arctic, Boulègue added — with Russia’s Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Vladivostok, but some vessels are based in Kamchatka, just across from Alaska. Those facilities could pose future problems for the U.S., Boulègue said, by creating “a flashpoint of tension, should Russia decide to contest American access to the Arctic.”
Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also points to Wrangel Island — 300 miles from Alaska — where Russia has installed a new air search radar system and may be renovating an airfield, as well as bases in eastern Siberia. “They’ve got plenty of places to put stuff if they want to threaten Alaska,” he noted.
The growing uneasiness about Russian activities in the Arctic, where it is pursuing a new Northern Sea Route made possible by melting ice due to climate change, has motivated the U.S. armed forces to rethink their Arctic strategies. Last year, the Army published “Regaining Arctic Dominance,” its first strategic plan for the far north. This week the Army announced it is activating a new 12,000-troop-strong Arctic airborne division — the first time it has created a new division in 70 years. Troops are training in Alaska, learning to fight in the brutal polar climes — where temperatures can drop to negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
The U.S. Navy is conducting Arctic maneuvers with ships and submarines and more — and the Air Force is sending the bulk of its F-35s to Alaska, saying the state “will be home to more advanced fighters than any other location in the world.” Congress approved funding for six new “ice breakers,” ships that can plow through frozen waters. And new satellites meant to enhance polar communications and offer fresh “eyes” on Russia are being launched, along with new radar systems being constructed from Alaska to Denmark.
An Icebreaker cuts a path for a cargo ship near Nagurskoye, Russia. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
All of these moves are welcomed by Toveri, who believes that the West cannot appease Putin and expect “to have the peace dividend from the Cold War times.” He added that after the Soviet Union fell, many Nordic countries, including Sweden, shrunk their militaries and slashed spending, while countries such as Denmark, shut down their missile defense radar systems, which they are again rebuilding.
Such moves, however, rankle the Kremlin, which sees them as provocative. Earlier this year, Russian spy planes violated Sweden and Danish airspace. In March 2018 and February 2019, Russian bomber jets targeted Norway’s Globus radar system in mock air attacks, barreling towards the domed structures before abruptly turning back. Russia’s problems with Norway extend far beyond its snooping abilities, however.
The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, which lies midway between Russia and Greenland, is a case in point. Beyond Russia’s historical territorial claims to the area, the archipelago is also home to a radar and satellite system capable of tracking ballistic missile paths that is seen as key to NATO communications. Russian politicians occasionally threaten to just snatch the archipelago, like they did with Crimea.
“If there’s going to be a dispute in the Arctic, it will probably be here,” said Williams of CSIS, and the U.S. State Department official underscored that concern.
Telecommunication domes of the Kongsberg Satellite Services in Svalbard Archipelago, Norway. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)
Timo Koivurova, research professor of the Arctic Centre at Finland’s Lapland University, told Yahoo News he laments that “relations between Russia and the Western states have deteriorated and Cold War thinking has started to prevail.” He wonders if concerns are being overblown, however. “If you are talking with a security-oriented scholar, he might argue that the third world war is coming out of the Arctic. But it’s very difficult for me to imagine that because if you think about Russia’s military objectives in the region, there are not many military drivers for Russia, other than this kind of balancing with NATO.”
Williams likewise sees many parts of the Arctic picture as undecided, including the U.S. military commitment to the region, which is a pricy undertaking.
“Keeping an F-35 operating in the Arctic is a lot more expensive than keeping it operating in Hawaii,” he said. He notes that the U.S. is concerned about Russia’s strong-arming control of the Northern Sea Route, an act that the U.S. believes would violate international maritime law. “The big question is, would we extend ourselves out into that area? Right now, it’s an open question.”
“The last thing Russia needs is a hot war in the Arctic,” Nima Khorrami, research associate at the Arctic Institute, told Yahoo News. “Because if that happened, no one would come in to invest.” And right now Putin, who has stamped the idea of Russia’s Arctic identity into the national psyche, wants Asian investments in the region, he said. Any kind of military showdown, added Khorrami, “and the grand strategy of turning the Northern Sea Route into a new Suez Canal is gone.”
Biden just declared heat pumps and solar panels essential to national defense – here’s why and the challenges ahead
Daniel Cohan, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University – June 10, 2022
President Joe Biden authorized use of the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of several climate-friendly technologies. Werner Slocum/NREL
Solar panels, heat pumps and hydrogen are all building blocks of a clean energy economy. But are they truly “essential to the national defense”?
President Joe Biden proclaimed that they are in early June when he authorized using the Defense Production Act to ramp up their production in the U.S., along with insulation and power grid components.
As an environmental engineering professor, I agree that these technologies are essential to mitigating our risks from climate change and overreliance on fossil fuels. However, efforts to expand production capabilities must be accompanied by policies to stimulate demand if Biden hopes to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Energy and the Defense Production Act
The United States enacted the Defense Production Act of 1950 at the start of the Korean War to secure materials deemed essential to national defense. Presidents soon recognized that essential materials extend far beyond weapons and ammunition. They have invoked the act to secure domestic supplies of everything from communications equipment to medical resources and baby formula.
For energy, past presidents used the act to expand fossil fuel supplies, not transition away from them. Lyndon Johnson used it to refurbish oil tankers during the 1967 Arab oil embargo, and Richard Nixon to secure materials for the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline in 1974. Even when Jimmy Carter used the act in 1980 to seek substitutes for oil, synthetic fuels made from coal and natural gas were a leading focus.
Today, the focus is on transitioning away from all fossil fuels, a move considered essential for confronting two key threats – climate change and volatile energy markets.
Utility-scale solar is now cheaper than fossil fuels. This installation is at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The Department of Defense has identified numerous national security risks arising from climate change. Those include threats to the water supply, food production and infrastructure, which may trigger migration and competition for scarce resources. Fossil fuels are the dominant source of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights additional risks of relying on fossil fuels. Russia and other adversaries are among the leading producers of these fuels. Overreliance on fossil fuels leaves the United States and its allies vulnerable to threats and to price shocks in volatile markets.
Even as the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas, the United States has been rocked by price spikes as our allies shun Russian fuels.
Targeting 4 pillars of clean energy
Transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy can mitigate these risks.
As I explain in my book, “Confronting Climate Gridlock,” building a clean energy economy requires four mutually reinforcing pillars – efficiency, clean electricity, electrification and clean fuels.
Efficiency shrinks energy demand and costs along with the burdens on the other pillars. Clean electricity eliminates greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and enables the electrification of vehicles, heating and industry. Meanwhile, clean fuels will be needed for airplanes, ships and industrial processes that can’t easily be electrified.
The technologies targeted by Biden’s actions are well aligned with these pillars.
Insulation is crucial to energy efficiency. Solar panels provide one of the cheapest and cleanest options for electricity. Power grid components are needed to integrate more wind and solar into the energy mix.
Heat pumps, which can both heat and cool a home, are far more efficient than traditional furnaces and replace natural gas or heating oil with electricity. Electrolyzers produce hydrogen for use as a fuel or a feedstock for chemicals.
Generating demand is essential
Production is only one step. For this effort to succeed, the U.S. must also ramp up demand.
Stimulating demand spurs learning by doing, which drives down costs, spurring greater demand. A virtuous cycle of rising adoption of technologies and falling costs can arise, as it has for wind and solar power, batteries and other technologies.
The technologies targeted by Biden differ in their readiness for this virtuous cycle to work.
Insulation is already cheap and abundantly produced domestically. What’s needed in this case are policies like building codes and incentives that can stimulate demand by encouraging more use of insulation to help make homes and buildings more energy efficient, not more capacity for production.
Electrolyzers face a tougher road. They’re expensive, and using them to make hydrogen from electricity and water for now costs far more than making hydrogen from natural gas – a process that produces greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Energy aims to slash electrolyzer costs by 80% within a decade. Until it succeeds, there will be little demand for the electrolyzers that Biden hopes to see produced.
Why heat pumps are most likely to benefit
That leaves heat pumps as the technology most likely to benefit from Biden’s declaration.
Heat pumps can slash energy use, but they also cost more upfront and are unfamiliar to many contractors and consumers while technologies remain in flux.
Pairing use of the Defense Production Act with customer incentives, increased government purchasing and funding for research and development can create a virtuous cycle of rising demand, improving technologies and falling costs.
Heat pumps, which can both heat and cool, are far more efficient than traditional furnaces and air conditioning. Phyxter.ai/Flickr, CC BY
Clean energy is indeed essential to mitigating the risks posed by climate change and volatile markets. Invoking the Defense Production Act can bolster supply, but the government will also have to stimulate demand and fund targeted research to spur the virtuous cycles needed to accelerate the energy transition.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Daniel Cohan, Rice University.
Daniel Cohan serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has received research funding from the Energy Foundation, the Carbon Hub, and various federal agencies.
The gunman in that case, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts, opened fire in the crowded shopping mall using a Stag Arms AR-15 rifle he had stolen from an acquaintance. In addition to Forsyth, Cindy Ann Yuille was killed in the incident and 15-year-old Kristina Shevchenko was injured. The gunman died by suicide at the scene.
PHOTO: Police and medics work the scene of a multiple shooting at Clackamas Town Center Mall in Portland, Ore., Dec. 11, 2012. A gunman is dead after opening fire in the shopping mall, killing two people and wounding another, sheriff’s deputies said. (Greg Wahl Stephens/AP, FILE)
The parade of mass shootings since that fateful day in 2012 have stirred up a tide of emotions within Kemp, he said, including the recent massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. And Kemp said his resolve to get measures enacted to keep guns, especially high-powered AR-15-style rifles, out of the hands of those he says shouldn’t possess them, becomes stronger with each nightmarish mass shooting.
PHOTO: People embrace outside the scene of a mass shooting at a Tops supermarket a day earlier, in Buffalo, N.Y., May 15, 2022. (Matt Rourke/AP, FILE)
Kemp is one of several longtime gun owners ABC News spoke with who say they want gun control laws and reform. Gun rights extremists, with, they say, the NRA as their bullhorn — no longer represent the majority of gun owners in the U.S.
But proponents of the guns say that they are essentially no different than other hunting rifles, are used responsibly for sport and are not the weapons of war that opponents make them out to be.
PHOTO: Flowers, toys, and other objects are seen at a memorial for the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in nearly a decade resulting in the death of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 29, 2022. (Veronica Cardenas/Reuters)
Defining ‘AR-15’
An AR-15 is a type of semi-automatic rifle, firing one bullet with each pull of the trigger — a contrast with illegal automatic rifles, which fire continuously as long as the trigger is depressed.
“AR-15 style rifles can be made for a variety of bullet calibers and to accept a variety of different capacity ammunition magazines,” said Jake Charles, lecturing fellow and executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law.
The guns, which have skyrocketed in popularity, are often referred to as “assault rifles,” but whether that is an apt description depends on who you ask.
“Assault weapon” is a legal term of art. Under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, it was defined as “Semiautomatic rifles having the ability to accept a detachable ammunition magazine and at least two of the following traits” — including a bayonet mount or grenade launcher.
Video: Man says he refused to sell AR-15 style rifle to Nikolas Cruz in 2018
0:32 1:16 Gun shop owner says he turned away Florida shooting suspect from buying AR-15 And I said, well, I don’t sell any farms to
“It’s not a simple yes or no,” as to whether an AR-15-style gun is an assault rifle, Charles told ABC News.
“Often an assault rifle refers to an automatic rifle, like the military’s M4 or M16. In that sense, the AR-15 is not one because it’s not an automatic weapon,” Charles said. “But sometimes an assault rifle is the description for a rifle that is classified as an ‘assault weapon’ under federal or state laws restricting those weapons. For example, under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, Colt’s AR-15 was specifically listed as a prohibited assault weapon.”
According to Erik Longnecker, the deputy chief of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ office of public and governmental affairs, public affairs division, “assault rifle” and “assault weapon” are not defined under current federal firearms law.
“Assault rifle and assault weapon are both political terms that are not defined in the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act,” he said.
The ATF also does not have a definition for AR-15. “That is a specific model of rifle originally manufactured by Colt who also holds the trademark to that term,” according Longnecker.
“Colt began manufacturing these types of rifles in the 1960s; other manufacturers began producing AR-type variants in the 1970s,” Longnecker added.
PHOTO: In this Aug. 15, 2012 file photo three variations of the AR-15 assault rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP, FILE)
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm industry trade association: “The ‘AR’ in ‘AR-15’ rifle stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. ‘AR’ does NOT stand for ‘assault rifle’ or ‘automatic rifle.’ AR-15-style rifles are NOT ‘assault weapons’ or ‘assault rifles.'”
NSSF says that there are millions of such guns in circulation.
Gun owners weigh in
Still, some of the gun owners who spoke with ABC News questioned the need to possess the powerful weapons.
Kemp says the ultimate purpose of an AR-15-style rifle, the gun that was used to killed his brother-in-law, is they are designed to do “a lot of damage.”
And they have.
Although handguns are involved in most shooting deaths, the use of semi-automatic rifles is climbing, said Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College, Columbia University who specializes in gun violence and safety. In the 1980s, less than 20% of gun massacres involved semi-automatic rifles according to a report he issued as an expert witness in a California court case over banning assault weapons.
In a recent TikTok video that went viral, Benjamin Beers, who said he is a former Marine who served in Kuwait, and was stationed in Camp Pendleton, California, declared he was handing over his AR-15 and 9mm gun to authorities to have them destroyed.
Beers told ABC News the decision was sparked in part by the Uvalde shooting. He also said he wants weapons like the AR-15 banned.
“I would love to see semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 banned, if not banned, some major laws changed. It’s the single most effective method used [for killing] … to committing such heinous acts of violence. And we’ve seen it for decades,” he said.
Steve Labbé is also a legal gun owner. He says he is for an outright ban on assault rifles, but thinks such legislation would be tricky to enact.
“The ban of assault weapons is a tricky play on words. I say this because assault weapons can and do use the same ammunition as hunting rifles, and that is where the people who overstate the Second Amendment rights find the gray area.”
“We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen background checks, enact safe storage laws and red flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis,” Biden said.
Congress has remained in a stalemate with Democrats wanting to push gun control legislation, and most Republicans rejecting those proposals. This week, however, the House passed the “Protect Our Kids Act” which has sweeping gun reform measures including raising the age limit to purchase semi-automatic weapons and banning high-capacity magazines.
Gun rights advocates often tout the AR-15-style rifle as a hunting tool but the gun owners who spoke with ABC News, most of whom hunt, refute that for most hunting scenarios.
“Hunting and self-preservation have no need for high-capacity cartridges, no need for semi-automatic and automatic phases of fire,” Labbé said. “That way, someone who takes offense to their specific type of ammunition being called out because an AR-15 uses the same ammunition (the typical, ‘I hunt rats with an AR-15’) can feel safe in the knowledge that their hunting gun isn’t affected by this ban. We should also acknowledge that hunting guns can be converted to assault weapons as well,” he said.
Kemp also said he wouldn’t use an assault rifle to hunt because of what it does to flesh.
“The way an AR-15 round enters the body … it’s designed to tumble and create a lot of tissue damage,” he said.
In a statement to ABC News, an NRA spokesperson said: “The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. Tens of millions of Americans legally own AR-15s for a variety of lawful purposes, including self-defense.”
The gun rights group also stated: “There’s been a growing trend in the number of hunters who choose to hunt with an AR-15” and that “the focus and burden of our laws ought to be on prosecuting violent criminals and in ensuring those with dangerous behavioral issues don’t have access to any firearm.”
PHOTO: Christine Barnes hunts for deer, Oct. 27, 2018 in Acton, Maine. (Portland Press Herald via Getty Images, FILE )
In the case of the shooter who killed his brother-in-law, Kemp said, “The young man who was the shooter … there were no mental health issues. That’s just a bogus argument.”
‘God-given right’ argument and proposed solutions
“There needs to be drastic changes taken with this weapon,” Beers said. He said the guns can be custom-built and easily ordered online with a 30-round magazine.
“And it’s always just stuck with me, this isn’t right. This is the same weapon I got issued in the Marines.” he said.
Kemp said that when his family found out that the active shooter who killed his brother-in-law stole the AR-15 which was in a home unsecured, “my first question to the officer …[was] doesn’t Oregon have a safe storage gun law? He said, no. The guy that left the gun on locked and loaded … zero consequences.”
Kemp says he is not for an all-out ban of AR-15-type rifles, but said the weapon should fall under the National Firearms Act, which places limits on ownership of “shotguns and rifles having barrels less than 18 inches in length, certain firearms described as ‘any other weapons,’ machine guns, and firearm mufflers and silencers.”
Having AR-15-style weapons covered under the NFA, would provide “an incredibly detailed, thorough background check at a higher cost,” Kemp said. “You never hear machine guns being used in shootings, rarely, nor silencers,” he added.
He also said the country should put back in place the Federal Assault Weapons Ban enacted in 1994 and lasted 10 years, which covered the AR-15.
“We know the ban worked because we saw less shootings involving those types of weapons,” he said of that period.
Kemp expressed his frustration at what he called, “gun advocate extremists.” “They don’t like having to do the background check. They don’t like not being able to carry weapons wherever they want. They don’t like the process of having to get a concealed carry permit,” he said.
“[They] don’t believe there should be any restrictions on the types of ammunition you can buy, or … armor piercing … [they] feel like there shouldn’t be any restrictions since the Second Amendment is how we founded the country. It’s my God-given right. Well, God didn’t write the Constitution, nor amendments,” he added.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro, Libby Cathey and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
Senator says what?! Rick Scott, the richest U.S. senator, calls the president a “rich kid”
Palm Beach Post – June 9, 2022
Florida Sen. Rick Scott has criticized President Biden’s efforts in fighting inflation. But did the senator go too far in calling the president a “rich kid?” [Corey Perrine/Naples Daily News via AP]
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, during a recent appearance on Fox and Friends, went off the rails in criticizing President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb inflation.
“Think about this. Biden’s a rich kid. His whole life has been paid for by your tax dollars. Has no idea how to deal with inflation, no plan to deal with inflation,” Scott said with an apparent straight face.
Sen. Scott’s criticism/description of President Biden is, well, rich, coming from a man who is the nation’s wealthiest senator. (Much of that wealth, generated by a company convicted of stealing $1.5 billion from the government while he was in charge.)
Sen. Scott’s net worth? An estimated $220 million, according to The Celebrity Net Worth website. The president’s? A mere $9 million, according to the website.
Neither is exactly suffering from higher prices at the gas pump or grocery store but there’s a difference between a guy who worked for the government and one who sold his hospital business for millions.
Inflation remains a problem for middle class and working class families who actually struggle to keep their heads above water. The name-calling, that the president is a “rich kid,” from a “kid” who’s far richer, doesn’t resolve the issue. It just cheapens the discourse.
Editor’s Note: First Impressions is a digital opinion feature by The Palm Beach Post, offering bite-sized but informed commentary on daily developments. Did the senator miss the irony in his criticism of the president, or was “the rich kid” remark routine politics?
Finland plans to build barriers on its border with Russia
June 9, 2022
Finnish-Russian border crossing in Imatra
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s government plans to amend border legislation to allow the building of barriers on its eastern frontier with Russia, it said on Thursday, in a move to strengthen preparedness against hybrid threats amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland, which is currently applying for membership in the Western military alliance NATO, has a history of wars with Russia, although currently the forest-covered border zone between the two countries is marked merely with signs and plastic lines for most of its 1,300-km (810-mile) length.
The Finnish government has rushed to strengthen border security as it fears Russia could attempt to put pressure on Finland by sending asylum seekers to its borders – as the European Union accused Belarus of doing at the end of last year when hundreds of migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa got stuck on the Polish border.
The government’s amendments to the law include a proposal to enable concentrating the reception of asylum applications only at specific points of entry.
Under existing EU rules, migrants have the right to ask for asylum at any given entry point to an EU member country.
The amendments would also allow the building of barriers such as fences, as well as new roads to facilitate border patrolling on the Finnish side.
“Later on, the government will decide on border barriers to the critical zones on the eastern border, on the basis of the Finnish Border Guard’s assessment,” minister of internal affairs Krista Mikkonen said in a statement.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Russia Plans to Send Detained Ukrainians Into Minefields, Says Leaked Call
Allison Quinn – June 9, 2022
Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
As Russian authorities plow full-steam ahead with a deranged PR effort to “restore” the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol that Putin’s troops nearly wiped off the face of the earth, Ukrainian citizens detained in other cities occupied by Russian troops will reportedly be used to perform the deadly task of removing landmines from the area.
That’s according to Ukraine’s Security Service, which released audio Thursday of what it described as an intercepted phone call between an officer of Russia’s FSB and a colleague apparently tasked with cleaning up the supposedly “liberated” city.
In the nearly three-minute recording, the purported FSB officer identifies himself by the call name “Kaspii” and asks his colleague if he’s been briefed on plans to de-mine Mariupol “the natural way” and send those “detained” in Russian-occupied Melitopol to complete the task.
His colleague, who says he’s located in Basan in the Zaporizhia region, responds that he had not yet been informed of that plan but “that wouldn’t be bad.”
“Kaspii” says everything has already been agreed upon with military leadership, but the logistics still need to be pinned down: “Everyone’s already aware [of the scheme], the main thing is to come up with an arrangement.”
The call ends with his colleague double-checking that he heard correctly, asking if the plan is to use those detained “from our guys, or the other ones … the Ukropy [a slur for Ukrainians].”
The man identified as an FSB officer responds, “Fuck, the locals” before appearing to add that they should “serve the motherland.”
The disturbing conversation comes as Russian authorities pull out all the stops to paint a glowing picture of occupied Mariupol, even as Ukrainian authorities sound the alarm over myriad war crimes committed by Putin’s troops there and say the Russian troops controlling the city are hiding the scale of death by dumping newly discovered bodies of civilians in landfills.
While the Russian military plans to send detained Ukrainians into literal minefields around the city, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov says up to 1,000 Russians from his city are being bussed in to help with restoration efforts—including on a theater where Russian forces were accused of killing more than 600 civilians in an airstrike.
Wearing a blazer emblazoned with a large “Z,” Beglov claimed in an interview with the “Saint Petersburg” news channel on Thursday that Mariupol residents are “glad… they are with Russia.”
“They all speak in Russian and think in Russian,” he said of those in the city who endured weeks of relentless bombing by Russia.
Ukraine And Russia In Back-And-Forth Battle On Donbas Frontlines
Ukrainian troops drive along a road on June 08, 2022 near Sloviansk, Ukraine. In recent weeks, Russia has concentrated its firepower on Ukraine’s Donbas region, where it has long backed two separatist regions at war with the Ukrainian government since 2014. Credit – Scott Olson-Getty Images
As the war in Ukraine drags into its fourth month with no end in sight, a number of observers are beginning to ask, “Will the West grow tired of supporting Ukraine?” Some commentators have opined that “time is on Putin’s side,” and that the fierce response of NATO and other global democracies will gradually wane in the face of economic challenges stemming from inflation, Russia’s choking off of Ukrainian agrarian and hydrocarbon products from the global economy, internal political divisions (especially in the U.S.), and issue fatigue as the relentless 24/7 news cycle moves on.
I’m old enough to remember the U.S. experience in Vietnam, and Putin’s situation is increasingly reminiscent of that long, painful misadventure. His hand of cards, weak at the start of the conflict, is getting weaker by the day. Time is more on the side of Ukraine and the west than on Putin, and as the year wears on this will become more apparent.
Let’s start with the military facts on the ground. Putin’s original goal was to conquer all of Ukraine in one sweeping thrust, decapitating the Zelensky government and installing a puppet regime in Kyiv. That “Plan A” has failed, a result of over confidence, bad intelligence, worse generalship, execrable logistics, and terrible on-the-ground leadership. His “Plan B,” is a retreat to traditional Soviet/Russian tactics: grinding out small stretches of territory and terrorizing the Ukrainian civilian population with a deliberate campaign of war crimes.
But like the U.S. in Vietnam, the majority of the population in Ukraine is deeply opposed to the outside aggressor. Instead of being greeted with promised bottles of vodka when they invaded, Russian soldiers were greeted with Molotov cocktails. The revelations about war crimes will only stiffen the resistance and will of the Ukrainians, and time will only strengthen their resolve.
Thus Putin’s chances of truly upending the situation on the ground and gaining a significant additional amount of territory appear small. In essence, he started with control of 15% of Ukraine before the invasion, set of goal of gaining nearly 100%, and may end up at best at with 20-25%. That’s a failing grade on any test.
Also similar to the U.S. experience in Vietnam, Putin faces a determined foe with access to outside sanctuaries and bases. The U.S. never successfully cut off the flow of weapons to the Vietcong, and the Russians will likewise be unable to stop significant assistance headed to the Ukrainians. Indeed, the Ukrainians enjoy vastly greater weapons flows across their borders, superb intelligence and cyber support, and far more significant financial resources than the Vietcong ever did.
Casualties are also mounting rapidly, both to Russian soldiers and to their equipment. Reliable estimates indicate Russian killed in action heading toward 20,000—a staggering number almost triple what the US lost in 20 years of the forever wars. The sinking of the Black Sea flagship Moskva was a dagger in the heart of the Russian navy. Over a thousand Russian tanks have been destroyed. This level of loss is unsustainable without Putin putting Russia on a full war footing, something over time that will impact his hold at home, regardless of his media control. LBJ would understand the painful choices ahead for Putin.
In some ways, Putin’s situation is worse than the U.S. in Vietnam. Putin’s democratic opponents—the U.S., most of Europe, all of NATO, Japan, Australia and others—represent nearly 60% of the world’s GDP. Russia’s economy is only around 10%, and they are thus seriously outgunned in the economic sphere. China is showing little appetite to provide Russia a lifeline, and if the U.S. imposes secondary sanctions of those doing business with Russia, the economic situation will only become more dire over time for Putin.
Fortunately for Kyiv, the cost of support to the Ukrainians—set against the huge size of Western economies—is quite small. Compared to the billions per day pumped into Afghanistan and Iraq at the peak of operations, the cost of Ukraine at current standards of support, is modest.
Finally, strategic communications are working against Putin. President Zelensky has proven a master communicator, easily outstripping the ham-handed and implausible Russian narrative of toppling the “Nazi regime” in Kyiv. Over time, Zelensky’s skills in promoting the cause of his nation will strengthen his case.
Putin’s most likely course of action will be to secure as much territory as he possibly can before the “burn rate” in terms of Russians killed in action, destroyed equipment, crushing sanctions, and international opprobrium really kicks in. As an exit strategy, he is probably hoping the west will simply pressure the Ukrainian people into accepting an armistice that gives Russia de jure control over 20% of their nation.
That appears unlikely at this point, given all the war crimes and the Ukrainian’s spirited resistance. Both of those factors will harden in the months to come. Putin holds a bad hand of cards, and like the U.S. in Vietnam, is headed for a significant defeat. Time is not on his side.
What can an AR-15 do to the human body? A trauma surgeon explains.
Laura Ramirez-Feldman and Kate Murphy – June 9, 2022
A wave of mass shootings has shaken the country in recent weeks. One in particular — the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead — became one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history and has sparked an increase in calls for stricter gun control measures across the country.
As was the case in many other high-profile mass shootings in recent U.S. history, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the 2017 Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting and the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the Uvalde gunman used an AR-15-style rifle to carry out the crime.
An AR-15 or similar rifles are semiautomatic, military-style weapons that can fire at least 30 rounds, the number of bullets a magazine typically carries, according to NPR. The term semiautomatic means that the shooter must pull the trigger to fire each shot, as opposed to an automatic weapon, which continues to fire for as long as the shooter holds down the trigger. Fully automatic weapons were heavily restricted for civilians in the United States in 1986, when Congress passed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act.
But AR-15-style rifles, which are easily accessible in many parts of the country, can be just as destructive. “This is a gun whose purpose it is to shoot a lot of high-caliber bullets very, very quickly and do a lot of damage,” Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, said on MSNBC earlier this month.
Dr. Bindi Naik-Mathuria, a pediatric trauma surgeon at Baylor College of Medicine, told Yahoo News that injuries from this type of weapon are “almost unsurvivable, essentially,” because of the significant damage the bullets cause to the victims.
How wounds from an AR-15-style rifle compare to wounds from handguns
Naik-Mathuria, who is also a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, told Yahoo News that some of her colleagues treated patients of the Uvalde school shooting, but that few of the victims survived. “They received very few patients, because unfortunately, this is what happens with assault weapons,” she said.
She explained that “the blast effect, or the cavitation effect” that a handgun shot causes is not as wide and devastating to internal organs as the one inflicted by high-velocity weapons such as the AR-15 and similar rifles. “When you see handguns, you often just see a little hole on the outside on both sides; shotguns, which are a little bit higher velocity, a little bit bigger. But assault weapons, it’s much bigger,” she said, adding that as a bullet from this type of weapon penetrates the body, it typically creates a large cavity that can cause significant bleeding from vessels and completely destroy soft tissue, as well as organs.
“The organs, for example, like the liver or the spleen, that aren’t very elastic, they can’t handle that. They would basically rupture,” Naik-Mathuria said.
She added that the reason the AR-15 is so deadly is that victims are hit by more than one bullet, with multiple injuries at a time.
A Stag Arms AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Children are less likely to survive AR-15 wounds
The leading cause of death in children between the ages of 1 and 19 in the U.S. is gun violence, according to a recent New England Journal of Medicine report, which analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Naik-Mathuria says that treating and saving anyone from AR-15 wounds is difficult, but that for children, the chance of surviving these injuries is slim. One reason is that victims of AR-15-style rifles lose large amounts of blood very quickly, and children, she says, don’t have as much blood in their bodies as adults.
“Children have half the blood volume that adults do,” the Baylor surgeon told Yahoo News. “So you can imagine that the amount of blood that they lose, for that to stop their hearts, is a lot faster than it would be for an adult.”
Chances of survival for both adults and children also depend on the location of the wounds. Naik-Mathuria says that if the bullets hit extremities like the arms or the legs, there’s a higher chance of survival. Again, she says the blood loss children would experience from these injuries, regardless of their location, could be enough to kill them.
Why minutes and location matter for injuries from an AR-15 rifle
Another challenge in the race to save children from AR-15 rifle injuries is that they require immediate, specialized medical attention. “It can’t just be any person who sees them. They have to be in a trauma center, a Level I trauma center, where there’s massive amounts of blood available and all the equipment that you need, and many surgeons and different techniques that you might need,” Naik-Mathuria explained.
The U.S. has fewer than 50 pediatric trauma centers, she added, mostly located in urban areas. The time it takes to transport victims of these injuries to the hospital can make the difference between life and death.
“I wish as surgeons, we could just wave a magic wand, and those injuries would just be solved, but it’s very, very complicated. They have to be in the right place at the right time and be injured in the right location, essentially in order [for us] to save them,” Naik-Mathuria said.
Wooden crosses at a memorial to the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
What recovery looks like for those who survive AR-15 injuries
The road to recovery for those who survive injuries from an AR-15-style weapon is long, and many survivors spend several months in intensive care, according to the surgeon.
“I had a child, a 4-year-old with a handgun injury that was in the hospital for seven months recovering. So imagine something five times the size,” Naik-Mathuria said.
Quite apart from the physical injuries, these patients and their families have to face the psychological trauma. Many U.S. hospitals have teams of crisis counselors and social workers available to help gunshot victims the moment they are out of the intensive care unit.
Doctors call for action to reduce gun violence
Naik-Mathuria is one of many doctors in the nation taking part in a social media movement thatuses the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane to demand action to reduce gun violence. The hashtag was created in 2018 in response to an NRA tweet that read, “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane,” after several reports on gun violence were published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Most of the articles called for policies to reduce the rate of firearm injuries and deaths in the country.
The social media campaign was also created in the wake of two mass shootings: one at a California bar that year that ended in 12 deaths and another at a Pittsburgh synagogue, where 11 people were killed. It recently resurfaced after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
“We take care of these patients. We operate on them. We have a very close bond with them. We take care of their families,” Naik-Mathuria said, adding that doctors feel responsible for these patients. She also said that gun violence is a public health problem that needs to be addressed immediately.
“There is no place for assault-style weapons, high-velocity weapons, in civilian life. I really believe that and think most people in my society and most surgeons believe that — trauma surgeons especially, because we just know how destructive they are,” she said.
Intense fighting in Ukraine’s bombed-out Sievierodonetsk
Pavel Polityuk and Abdelaziz Boumzar – June 9, 2022
Russian artillery damage of civic buildings in LysychanskRussia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Mykolaiv region
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian forces were holding their positions in intense street fighting and under day and night shelling in Sievierodonetsk, officials said, as Russia pushes to control the bombed-out city, key to its objective of controlling eastern Ukraine.
Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk, on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river, are the last Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk province, which Russia is determined to seize as one of its principal war objectives.
Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on Thursday the situation in Sievierodonetsk was “extremely complicated” and Russian forces were focusing all of their might in the area.
“They don’t spare their people, they’re just sending men like cannon fodder … they are shelling our military day and night,” Danilov told Reuters in an interview.
Ukraine says its only hope to turn the tide in its favour in the small industrial city is more artillery to offset Russia’s massive firepower.
In a rare update from Sievierodonetsk, the commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said Ukrainians were drawing the Russians into street fighting to neutralise their artillery advantage.
“Yesterday was successful for us – we launched a counteroffensive and in some areas we managed to push them back one or two blocks. In others they pushed us back, but just by a building or two,” he said in a televised interview.
But he said his forces were suffering from a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery artillery to fire back at Russia’s guns, and getting such weapons would transform the battlefield.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.
In the south, where Russia is trying to impose its rule on a tract of occupied territory spanning Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, Ukraine’s defence ministry said it had captured new ground in a counter-attack in Kherson province.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an evening address that Ukraine had “some positive developments in the Zaporizhzhia region, where we are succeeding in disrupting the occupiers’ plans”. He did not provide details.
Reuters could not independently verify the situation on the ground in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson. Russian-installed proxies in both provinces say they are planning referendums to join Russia.
Thousands of people have been killed and millions have fled since Russia launched its “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbour on Feb. 24. Ukraine and its allies call the invasion an unprovoked war of aggression.
Speaking in Moscow to mark the 350th anniversary of Russian Tsar Peter the Great’s birth, President Vladimir Putin drew a parallel between what he portrayed as their historic quests to win back what he called Russian lands.
“Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned (what was Russia’s),” Putin said.
‘WE ARE STAYING’
Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said about 10,000 civilians were still trapped in the city – roughly a tenth of its pre-war population.
To the west of Sievierodonetsk, Russia is pushing from the north and south, trying to trap Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region, comprising Luhansk and neighbouring Donetsk province.
Russia shelled more than 20 towns in Donetsk and Luhansk on Thursday, destroying or damaging 49 homes, several manufacturing plants, farm buildings and a rail station, said the Ukraine military. Two civilians were killed, it said.
Russia says it does not target civilians.
In Soledar, a salt-mining town near Bakhmut close to the front line, buildings had been blasted into craters.
Remaining residents, mostly elderly, were sheltering in a crowded cellar. Antonina, 65, had ventured out to see her garden. “We are staying. We live here. We were born here,” she sobbed. “When is it all going to end?”
GRAIN
In the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, one of Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine, a court sentenced to death two Britons and a Moroccan who were captured while fighting for Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported.
Britain condemned the court’s decision as a “sham judgment” with no legitimacy.
Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest grain and food oil exporters, and international attention has focused in recent weeks on the threat of international famine seen as caused by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
“Millions of people may starve if the Russian blockade of the Black Sea continues,” Zelenskiy said in televised remarks.
Russia blames the food crisis on Western sanctions restricting its own grain exports. It says it is willing to let Ukrainian ports open for exports if Ukraine removes mines and meets other conditions. Ukraine calls such offers empty promises.
(This story refiles to remove garble in first paragraph.)
(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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