United States Institute of Peace’s Post

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, not only constitutes a manifest violation of the UN-Charter, according to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which regulate the rules of war, parties to a conflict must distinguish between civilians and combatants and between civilian places and military ones. Above all, they may never intentionally target civilians or “civilian objects,” such as schools, private homes, construction equipment, businesses, places of worship, and hospitals that do not directly contribute to military action. After the complete destruction of Mariupol, Bachmut, Avdiivka, Chasiv Yar, and numerous other towns and villages now Kharkiv and Odesa are in the cross hairs of Russias campaign of urbicide that is the deliberate destruction of vital civilian infrastructure which according to several scholars is a form of genocide.

Asymmetric attacks are likely to have increased salience in the Ukraine war: "guerrilla tactics — including sabotage, commando raids, targeted assassinations and attempts to blow up ammunition depots, oil pipelines and railways — have taken on added importance as the two sides fail to make substantial advances at the front."   "Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said in late November that its agents were targeting rail infrastructure across Russia, claiming responsibility for a spate of fires that had destroyed structures used to house sensitive equipment that performs a wide range of operations, including platform control, train monitoring and signaling."   "There are only two rail lines that cover the vast expanse of Russia: the trans-Siberian, which stretches 5,772 miles from Vladivostok to Moscow, and the newer Baikal-Amur Mainline, or BAM, which runs from near the Pacific Ocean for some 2,600 miles before linking up with the trans-Siberian line. They are the only lines that link Russia to China and, amid a surge in trade with Beijing, the lines are more vital than ever, economically and militarily, for the Kremlin. But they are a challenge to guard because they traverse the Siberian plains, dense forests and the open steppes."   "attacks inside Russia have continued, by agents working for Ukraine, but also including loosely affiliated groups of self-described Russian anarchist groups, ... In November, the British military intelligence agency reported, 'Seventeen months after the first incidents were reported, sabotage of Russian railways by antiwar activists continues to represent a significant challenge for the Russian authorities.'”   "Research by the independent Russian media outlet Mediazona found that, as of October, 76 cases of probable railway sabotage had been filed with the courts in Russia since the invasion." https://lnkd.in/dybR-ZYp

This only benefits Hamas and Hezbollah to keep the conflict ongoing knowing that a divided and weakened Israel may fall and eventually have the Israelis capitulate to give up Jerusalem to the Arabs.….social media is blocking the article they don’t want you to see the truth. Please share. Wake up, Americans! by Melanie Phillips  “As northern Israel burns, your government is throwing the Jewish state to the wolves” "There are around 150,000 Hezbollah missiles pointing at Israel from southern Lebanon, all embedded around and underneath apartment buildings, schools and hospitals — just like in Gaza. But these missiles are far more powerful and can reach the whole of Israel. If Hezbollah unleash their full might, the resulting carnage in Israel will make the attacks from Gaza pale by comparison. This sustained Hezbollah onslaught shows that the war against Israel is not being waged merely by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. It’s a war of extermination against Israel by Iran and its proxies on no fewer than seven fronts. The attacks by Hezbollah and the threat of far worse from those forces are intolerable. The escalation means that Israel will have to deal with this once and for all. Israelis are bracing for an imminent major war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Until now, Israel’s defense forces have been responding to these attacks in limited fashion in order to avoid a major escalation, which could see thousands of Israeli civilians killed. But no country can live like this, and Israel has done so for eight months. While Israel fights for its life, the western media carries out the strategy designed to annihilate it by the enemies of humanity. The carnage in northern Israel must also be laid at the door of the Biden administration. Shortly after the October 7 pogrom in southern Israel, following which Hezbollah started attacking the north, Israel was about to launch a pre-emptive strike on the Iranian backed “Party of God” to neutralise the fearsome threat from Lebanon — but the Biden administration forced it to abort that mission. Since then, the US has persistently undermined Israel’s attempt to neutralise Hamas in Gaza. The perfidy of the Biden administration in its attempt to ensure that Hamas survives and Israel is left unable to defend itself against genocidal attack has now reached yet another crescendo. Last Friday evening, President Joe Biden astonishingly presented a Hamas proposal for its own survival as Israel’s own. He waited until the start of the Jewish Sabbath to announce this three-stage ceasefire plan which was tantamount to Israel’s surrender, knowing that many in Israel would be in electronic purdah to observe the Sabbath. So while international pressure would be orchestrated to support the proposal, Israel wouldn’t be able to respond for 25 hours. In fact Netanyahu did respond on the Sabbath, a rare move underscoring the dire threat of this White House double-cross. ' https://lnkd.in/g5PF5jRc

"Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus in Lebanon attack" #wapo #chemicalweapons #Israel #Netanyahu #Lebanon #USmunitions #whitephosphorus "Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon that injured at least nine civilians in what a rights group says should be investigated as a war crime, according to a Washington Post analysis of shell fragments found in a small village. A journalist working for The Post found remnants of three 155-millimeter artillery rounds fired into Dheira, near the border of Israel, which incinerated at least four homes, residents said. The rounds, which eject felt wedges saturated with white phosphorous that burns at high temperatures, produce billowing smoke to obscure troop movements as it falls haphazardly over a wide area. Its contents can stick to skin, causing potentially fatal burns and respiratory damage, and its use near civilian areas could be prohibited under international humanitarian law. Of the nine injured in Israel’s attack on Dheira, at least three were hospitalized, one for days. Lot production codes found on the shells match the nomenclature used by the U.S. military to categorize domestically produced munitions, which show they were made by ammunition depots in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1989 and 1992. The light green color and other markings — like “WP” printed on one of the remnants — are consistent with white phosphorous rounds, according to arms experts. The M825 smoke rounds, fired from 155mm howitzers, have legitimate use on the battlefield, including signaling friendly troops, marking targets and producing white smoke that conceals soldiers from the eyes of enemy forces. The rounds are not intended for use as incendiary weapons. The weapons are part of billions of dollars in U.S. military arms that flow to Israel every year, which has fueled Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, launched after the militants attacked on Oct. 7. At least 17,700 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since the Israeli operation began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry."

How to Ensure Israel Has the Weapons It Needs https://lnkd.in/eGf3cA-E

This video was just sent to my by a friend. She received this from her husband who is holding the defense somewhere in #Kharkiv region. Do you see what this is? It's a #phosphorus #bomb! These bombs are used by the #Russians almost every day to bomb the Kharkiv region. If it touches you, it causes severe burns, amongst other injuries. Phosphorus can even melt trough bones. The use of white phosphorus may violate Protocol III (on the use of incendiary weapons) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (#CCCW) in one specific instance: if it is used, on purpose, as an incendiary weapon directly against humans in a civilian setting. Illuminating a battlefield is not prohibited. Maybe it should be prohibited for use in all cases? For who knows what the intention of Russia is? Is it possible to determine illegal use of it? Maybe we need more examples of use on civilian areas so there is another reason to bring them to the International Criminal Court (#ICC)? Marijn Markus Roman Sheremeta Andriy Diduh Kido Koenig Marius Troost Taras Antoshevskyy Joris Van Bladel, Ph.D. Jennes de Mol Oleksandr Karasevych Mohammed Chahim Kati Piri Hendrik Jan Vermeulen Andi J. Ukrainian Women’s Battalion Lennart B.

A comment follows by the russian "Legion of Freedom movement" about today's Event in Belgorod! "As we have repeatedly warned, to increase the military-Nazi frenzy in Russian society, the FSB will resort to an old and proven method - terrorist attacks against its population. Today at 11:21 a powerful explosion occurred in one of the Belgorod ten-story buildings. The Ministry of Lies of the Russian Federation hastened to blame Ukraine for this, immediately starting to get confused in the details. Some “experts” thought that it was Tochka-U, others that it was ATACMS, and others that it was an AASM HAMMER air bomb. Both of them are wrong. The footage previously published online shows an explosion from the side of the yard, but there are no objects in the air indicating the “arrival” or fall of debris. In addition, analysts noticed that the blast wave was directed from the inside to the outside, and not vice versa. Netizens also noted that in the photo, the windows on the outside of the house are broken, but the windows on the inside are intact, even though the outside of the entrance faces the northeast, where there is no Ukraine, since it is in the south. If the Tochki-U 9N123F monoblock warhead were hit, the nature of the damage would be different, because it contains 14,500 ready-made submunitions and turns everything over an area of up to 3 hectares into a sieve." Now we will express three of our versions First : a household explosion, for example, gas. The explosion was directed from the inside to the outside, with minimal damage to the surrounding area by fragments. Second : “Unusual release of ammunition”, for example FAB-500 from one of the Russian aircraft. Again, we don't see any falling objects. A fairly common event in the Belgorod region. Third : “Ryazan sugar” was finally brought to Belgorod and they decided to “motivate” the local population for the upcoming mobilization.