ES. Brussels, June 18, 2022
The London Guardian has published a rareinterview with the wife of President Zelensky. She describes the moment the unthinkable invasion began, and what living inside a “parallel reality” has been like:
“In the early hours of 24 February, Olena Zelenska became aware of the sound of muffled booms somewhere in the distance. As she drifted towards wakefulness, she realised the sounds she was registering could not be fireworks. Her eyes snapped open; she discovered she was alone in the bed. She jumped up and hurried to the next room, where she found her husband, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, already dressed for work in a suit and tie.
“What’s going on?” she asked him.
- Guardian, 18/16/22 Updates from Ukraine this week – the fight for Sievierodonetsk. The city is key in Russia’s push for full control of the Donbas – and may be crucial to the outcome of the war, Meanwhile, as in Mariupol, hundreds of civilians, including 40 children, are trapped in underground bunkers in a chemical plant.
- 17/06/22 AEJ press seminar on Ukraine and media
- 17/06/22 DW Energy war continues – 50% cut in Russian gas for Italy, France’s supplies cut off
- 05/06/22 NYT. In case you missed it, this is an astonishing expose of Putin’s secret army of killers, the Wagner Group, which
Putin plans for 2022? Russian president signing treaty absorbing Crimea and Sevastopol, March 2014. (Courtesy Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31679370) first appeared in Ukraine during the 2014 annexation of Crimea , the real beginning of the war. The Group is named after Putin’s favourite composer. The NYT exposed the looting of huge amounts
of gold in Africa, and the destruction of fledgling democratic parties’ efforts to remove violent, kleptomaniac dictators useful to the Kremlin, such as in Sudan, where a Russian naval base on the Red Sea is planned.