PUTIN’S generals could not have timed it worse. A missile attack across Ukraine that hits a children’s hospital in Kyiv on the eve of another NATO summit in Washington DC. Volodymyr Zelensky just got a wonderful gift.
The BBC reported that Russia denied targeting the hospital, saying it had been hit by fragments of a Ukrainian air defence missile, while Ukraine said it had found remnants of a Russian cruise missile. Two people were reported killed.
No doubt the little green-shirted Zelensky will be on the summit fringes, meeting all the leaders and dropping hints for another few billion here and there or perhaps a mere $500 million if you’re feeling the economic pinch. Got any more Bushmasters to donate, Mr Aussie Ambassador?
Meanwhile media everywhere has jumped on to the hospital attack, or at least an attack of sorts that appeared to have demolished part of an old building next to the hospital. The attack was also well timed in that it gave media a perfectly timed “fresh new story” in the aftermath of the major elections in Britain and France.
It was also strange timing given Putin’s positive response to Donald Trump’s recent debate assurance that he would end the Ukraine war before his inauguration next January. Putin made the comment at a news conference in Kazakhstan after a regional security conference.
“The fact that Mr Trump, as a presidential candidate, declares that he is ready and wants to stop the war in Ukraine, we take this completely seriously,” Putin said.
But our Johnny-on-the-spot vlogger guy just had endless bad things to say about “f…..n Russians”. Meanwhile the Ukrainian people on the street seemed to be taking it all in their stride with no signs of panic, looking at their phones and going about their business.
And then some more explosions and an air attack warning alarm and Johnny FD follows a crowd into a shelter, a concrete structure like a pedestrian underpass. Again, everyone seemed relatively calm. This happened twice and the second time people seemed even less worried.
And then dozens of people carrying plastic water bottles appear. It seems like a semi-trailer full of the stuff is unloaded on to a sidewalk. Presumably it’s for the people who have been helping clear rubble at the bombing scene. It’s all rather strange and has the smell of psyop about it.
Meanwhile it turns out that Jackson Hinkle, an American mentioned by Johnny FD as one of the rotten MAGA types spreading Russian propaganda, has been in Ukraine reporting on attacks by Ukrainians against their own people in the Donbass region.
Hinkle says Zelensky’s forces have been shooting HiMARS missiles into Ukraine residential units, schools and hospitals apparently as punishment for people accepting Russian control of Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine is mostly Russian-speaking, and was under attack by Zelensky and his Azov Battalian even before the Russian offensive.
Hinkle interviewed residents of two bombed residential unit blocks. They had voted for Zelensky based on his promises to bring peace, but now felt betrayed.