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A distant war......

Given that the Russian invasion of Ukraine – a nation at least 12,975 km from the Australian mainland – is contributing to cost of living pressures here at home, it is perhaps time I mention that distant war which began on 24 February 2022.

Ukraine
IMAGE: Google Earth

Alasdair McCallum, PhD candidate, School of Social Sciences, Monash University, MediaNet media release, 3 June 2022:

“On the 100th day of this war, it is important to acknowledge Ukrainians living under Russian occupation. The actions of the Russian occupiers demonstrate that the purported goal of the ‘denazification’ of Ukraine is really a wholesale ‘de-Ukrainisation’. Street signs have been changed from Ukrainian to Russian, streets have been renamed after KGB officers known for persecuting Ukrainians, flags and coats of arms changed to Imperial Russian and Soviet symbols. Still more sinister is the mass abduction of ‘orphans’ from Ukraine to Russia and mass deportations of civilians.”

MarketScreener, 1 June 2022:

(Reuters) - Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its 100th day on Friday with no end in sight to the fighting that has killed thousands, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble.

After abandoning its assault on the capital, Kyiv, Russia is pressing on in the east and south in the face of mounting sanctions and a fierce Ukrainian counter-offensive bolstered by Western arms.

Some key events in the conflict so far:

* Feb. 24: Russia invades Ukraine from three fronts in the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two. Tens of thousands flee.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin announces a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweets: "Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself."

* Feb. 25: Ukrainian forces battle Russian invaders in the north, east and south. Artillery pounds Kyiv and its suburbs.

* March 1: A U.S. official says a miles-long Russian armoured column bearing down on Kyiv is beset by logistical problems.

* Russia hits a TV tower in Kyiv and intensifies its long-range bombardment of Kharkiv in the northeast and other cities, in what is seen as a shift in Moscow's tactics as its hopes of a quick charge on the capital fade.

* March 2: Russian forces start a siege of the southeastern port of Mariupol, seen as vital to Moscow's attempts to link the eastern Donbas region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia seized in 2014.

* Russian troops enter the Black Sea port of Kherson, the first large urban centre captured.

* One million people have fled Ukraine, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) says.

* March 4: Russian forces seize Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's biggest. NATO rejects Ukraine's appeal for no-fly zones, saying they would escalate the conflict.

* March 8: Civilians flee the northeastern city of Sumy in the first successful humanitarian corridor agreed. Two million have now fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says. 

* March 9: Ukraine accuses Russia of bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol, burying people in the rubble. Russia says Ukrainian fighters were occupying the building.

* March 13: Russia extends its war deep into western Ukraine, firing missiles at a base near the border with NATO member Poland.

* March 16: Ukraine accuses Russia of bombing a Mariupol theatre where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. Moscow denies it.

* March 25: Moscow signals a shift in focus to making gains in the east, while Ukrainian forces press to recapture towns outside Kyiv.

* March 30: More than 4 million people have fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says.

* April 3/4: Ukraine accuses Russia of war crimes after a mass grave and bodies of people shot at close range are found in the recaptured town of Bucha. The Kremlin denies responsibility and says images of bodies were staged.

* April 8: Ukraine blames Russia for a missile attack on a train station in Kramatorsk that killed at least 52 people trying to flee the looming eastern offensive. Moscow denies responsibility.

* April 14: Russia's lead warship in the Black Sea, the Moskva, sinks after what Ukraine says was a missile strike. Russia blames an ammunition explosion. 

* April 18: Russia launches what Ukraine describes as the Battle of Donbas, a campaign to seize two provinces and salvage a battlefield victory. 

* April 21: Putin declares Mariupol "liberated" after nearly two months of siege, but hundreds of defenders hold out inside the city's huge Azovstal steelworks.

* April 25/26: Moldova's pro-Russian breakaway region of Transdniestria says blasts hit a ministry and two radio masts. It blames neighbouring Ukraine. Kyiv accuses Moscow of staging the attacks to try to widen the conflict.

* April 28: Russia fires two missiles into Kyiv during a visit by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Ukraine says. The Kremlin accuses Ukraine of attacking Russian regions near the border.

* May 1: About 100 Ukrainian civilians are evacuated from Mariupol's ruined Azovstal steelworks, in what the United Nations says is a "safe passage operation".

* May 7: As many as 60 people are feared dead after a bomb strikes a village school in Bilohorivka, eastern Ukraine, the regional governor says.

* May 9: Putin exhorts Russians to battle in a defiant Victory Day speech, but is silent about plans for any escalation in Ukraine.

* May 10: Ukraine says its forces have recaptured villages north and northeast of Kharkiv in a counter-offensive. 

* May 12: More than 6 million people have fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says.

* May 14: Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive near the eastern Russian-held town of Izium, the local governor says.

* May 18: Finland and Sweden apply to join NATO, a move that would lead to the expansion of the Western military alliance that Putin aimed to prevent.

* May 20: Russia says the last of Ukrainian fighters holding out at Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks have surrendered. Hours earlier, Zelenskiy said Ukraine's military had told the defenders they could get out and save their lives.

* May 21/22: Russia launches an offensive in Luhansk, one of two provinces in Donbas, focusing the attack on twin cities of Sloviansk and Sievierodonetsk.

* May 23: In the first war crimes trial of the conflict, a Kyiv court sentences a young Russian tank commander to life in prison for killing an unarmed civilian.

* May 25: Putin signs a decree simplifying the process for residents of newly captured districts to acquire Russian citizenship and passports in a bid to solidify Moscow's grip on the seized territory.

* May 29: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov calls the "liberation" of Donbas an "unconditional priority" for Moscow, while Russian forces appear close to seizing the entire Luhansk region there after days of slow but steady gains.

* May 31: Local officials say it is no longer possible to evacuate civilians trapped in Sievierodonetsk, where Ukrainian forces are still holding out but much of the city is under Russian control.

* June 1: Russia criticises U.S. decision to supply advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, warning it could widen the conflict and increase the risk of direct confrontation with Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Ukraine had given assurances it will not use the systems against targets on Russian territory.

(Compiled by Andrew Heavens and Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Alison Williams)

Reuters 2022

Yet another reason why the Warringah electorate should forcibly retire Tony Abbott at the 2019 federal election

It is an open secret that sacked former prime minister and Liberal MP for Warringah Tony Abbott would not be averse to taking over leadership of the Liberal Party again if it finds itself on the Opposition benches after the May 2019 federal election.

However, it is well to remember that his judgement is flawed and his influence, if it exists at all, is rarely positive.

Take his interaction with Ukraine.......

RT.com, 22 March 2016:

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has joined the list of ex-politicians invited by President Petro Poroshenko to advise him on how to rule Ukraine as a member of the so-called ‘international advisory council'.

Abbott unexpectedly popped up in the Ukrainian capital on Monday.

Comprised mostly of foreigners, the Kiev-based council was officially established last December. Previously called the International Advisory Council on Reforms, it aims to “facilitate the implementation of reforms in Ukraine on the basis of the best international experience.”

While still in office, the ex-PM had the third-lowest career-low approval rating of 24%, according to a February 2015 Newspoll. After losing Liberal leadership challenge back home last September and becoming vacant for political endeavors, Abbott was quickly invited to visit Ukraine.

Abbott and Poroshenko certainly have one thing in common – their dislike of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The former Australian leader said he would “shirtfront” the Russian head of state on the sidelines of 2014 G20 summit over the MH17 tragedy.

According to Poroshenko, Abbott was one of the most popular foreign politicians in Ukraine back in 2014. Abbott even joked about it saying that the “shirt-front must have translated well.” However, Abbott’s threat never materialized and Putin ended up cuddling a koala at the conference.

ABC News, 23 March 2016:

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has stepped up his support for Ukraine, joining a meeting of international figures headed by the country's president, Petro Poroshenko.

Mr Abbott has travelled to Kiev as part of a Ukrainian-led "international advisory council", which includes the former prime ministers of Slovakia and Lithuania.

"It is an honour to be in Kiev, Ukraine as a member of President Poroshenko's International Advisory Council," Mr Abbott said in a Facebook post.

"Also great to see the development of Kiev since I was last here 30 years ago."

The aim of the council is to "help build a strong and prosperous Ukraine", according to a statement on the Ukrainian President's website.

"Each of you were an author of economic or democratic miracle in your countries. You are true friends of Ukraine," the statement said.

"That's why I would like to unite our efforts in order to achieve the results and bring positive things to Ukraine.

"I am sure that this Council will help us outlive the period of dramatic events and Ukraine will become stronger."

The following years......

Times of Israel, 14 October 2017:

An activist against fascism who sued a Ukrainian municipality for naming a street for a Nazi SS officer has come under a campaign of intimidation, he said.

Mikhail Voroniak, a Red Army veteran, in summer sued the western municipality of Kalush near Lviv for deciding to name a street for Dmytro Paliiv, a commander of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician.

Voroniak told the Russian news site Primechaniya that he has come under a “aggressive pressures and threats of murder” since he sued. A local court last month dismissed his motion against the honor to Paliiv but Voroniak appealed to the Lviv Administrative Court of Appeals, which was scheduled to review the appeal last week.....

The Guardian, 2 March 2018:

Neo-Nazi groups involved in the fighting in Ukraine are actively seeking to recruit British far-right activists, a leading anti-fascist watchdog has warned.

At least two Britons are thought to have travelled to the war-torn eastern European country in recent months after encouragement by people linked to the Azov battalion, a notorious Ukrainian fascist militia, according to Hope Not Hate.

The warning comes only four days after the outgoing head of UK counter-terrorism policing, Mark Rowley, revealed that four far-right terror plots had been foiled in 2017 and extreme right groups were seeking to build international networks.

According to Hope Not Hate, a group named the Misanthropic Division, which is linked to the Azov battalion, is working with representatives of UK-based far-right groups, including the proscribed terror organisation National Action and a London-based Polish ultra-nationalist group, to recruit activists to travel to Ukraine.

Reuters, 20 March 2018:

As Ukraine’s struggle against Russia and its proxies continues, Kiev must also contend with a growing problem behind the front lines: far-right vigilantes who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies….

A January 28 demonstration, in Kiev, by 600 members of the so-called “National Militia,” a newly-formed ultranationalist group that vows “to use force to establish order,” illustrates this threat. While the group’s Kiev launch was peaceful, National Militia members in balaclavas stormed a city council meeting in the central Ukrainian town of Cherkasy the following day, skirmishing with deputies and forcing them to pass a new budget. 

Many of the National Militia's members come from the Azov movement, one of the 30-odd privately-funded “volunteer battalions” that, in the early days of the war, helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's separatist proxies. 

Although Azov uses Nazi-era symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its ranks, a recent article in Foreign Affairs downplayed any risks the group might pose, pointing out that, like other volunteer militias, Azov has been “reined in” through its integration into Ukraine’s armed forces. While it’s true that private militias no longer rule the battlefront, it’s the home front that Kiev needs to worry about now.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped. Though, as a result, many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with gratitude and admiration, the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal ideology that will endanger Ukraine in the long term. Since the Crimean crisis, the militias have been formally integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces, but some have resisted full integration: Azov, for example, runs its own children’s training camp, and the careers section instructs recruits who wish to transfer to Azov from a regular military unit.

A set of postage stamps named "Master Sergeants of SS Galician Rifle Division" was printed for the 75th anniversary of the division which took place in April 2018.

#Ukraine post office celebrates Waffen SS nazis.pic.twitter.com/p0HkS2dSZn

— Alex Bukovsky (@BungeeWedgie) January 5, 2019