Iran’s Press TV:  was the communications training institute in Poltava a legitimate military target for Russian attack?

This past summer was atypical.  Perhaps the stock brokers could enjoy vacation time on the beaches, but journalists remained on the job to cover the never-ending flow of ‘breaking news’ from the Russia-Ukraine war and from West Asia, where latest reports on Israeli genocide in Gaza were intermixed with news suggesting an imminent outbreak of regional war.

The worse the international situation becomes, the more we in the ‘expert’ community of commentators are called before the microphones.  Therefore, please accept my apologies for posting here so many interviews day by day. I do my best to avoid repetition in each.

This morning, I offer the link to last night’s discussion on Press TV, which opened with news of Russia’s attack on a communications institute in Poltava (Ukraine) that killed more than 50 and injured several hundred. Immediately after the attack, both Russian and Ukrainian sides traded accusations of indiscriminate killing of civilians by the other side.

For those unfamiliar with Russian-Ukrainian history, I note that Poltava is well known to Russians as the site of an historic battle in 1709 between the army of Peter the Great and Sweden’s king Charles XII. The Swedish defeat there was a decisive event in the long Northern War that ended Swedish imperial ambitions in Central Europe. The Poltava region was also the setting for Tchaikowsky’s opera Mazeppa, which deals with the same period and events, wherein the heroes and heroines in a love drama embody the national interests of the warring parties. This story holds all the more interest for me since a direct descendant of one protagonist, Kotchubey, the father of the heroine at the center of the opera, and the embodiment of Ukraine such as it was in 1709, happens to be a neighbor and friend of ours in Brussels.

 As they often do, the Press TV team put me together with one other panelist. In this case it was their correspondent in Moscow.  Accordingly, those of you who want an additional perspective may find particular value in what she has to say.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130664

Postscript: Apparently Poltava retains its fascination for the Swedes. I am told that several Swedish advisers were among those killed in the Russian missile strike on the communications training institute there.

Transcript below, followed by translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Transcript below by a reader

PressTV: 0:03
Time now for the News Review, stay tuned to PressTV. There is no end in sight to the deadly conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Kiev says more than 50 people have been killed in the latest Russian missile attack targeting its central eastern region. President Volodymyr Zelensky says the two Russian ballistic missiles hit the Institute of Communications in the city of Poltava that also left some 180 people injured. It’s about to retaliate, but Moscow has yet to comment.

This is a day after Ukraine conducted a large-scale attack on Russian soil near its border. The two neighbors have been engaged in tit-for-tat cross-border attacks since Ukrainian forces and a surprise move crossed into Russia’s Kursk region on the 6th of August. That prompted Moscow to evacuate its civilians from the border regions. The Kremlin also reported that the country’s military forced Ukrainian troops to retreat.

1:01
Now, two guests are joining me. Our correspondent, Julia Kassem, is with us from Moscow. And we have Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst out of Brussels. Good to see you both. So let’s go to Julia in Moscow. Let’s see what’s been going on on the ground in this war between the two neighbors.

Julia Kassem, PressTV:
So, this latest attack on Poltava was a military communications facility. It wasn’t as Kiev is emphasizing and advertising. It’s not like a civilian facility. And even the Poltava city council chief, you know, in a report where he’s kind of just talking about the chaos coming into the hospitals, he’s saying that it’s overcrowded with Ukrainian soldiers. He himself admitted it. Current death toll count is 49 troops killed, 219 wounded.

So this was a military target, despite, of course, the Western media wanting to frame it as a civilian target. When it is actually Kiev that has been striking, even before the first attack by Ukraine, has been consistently striking the civilian locations in the border towns, Russian border towns, such as Belgorod, killing civilians, you know, taking place before the first invasion.

But right now, of course, there’s the objective to intensify and escalate in order to force the U.S. to escalate its backing to the global West, to more aggressively backing Kyiv, to win more unhinged attacks on Russian territory, and use more long-range weapons on more deep into Russian territory. This is their objective, essentially.

3:03
So, as to the objective of escalation, Kiev has got it, but of course, just as they couldn’t really hold out in Kursk, they’ve lost so much, they haven’t been able to sustain in their territory there, as well as in Donetsk, of course they’re going to want to kind of intensify the cross-border attacks, and basically do what they can to push the West into unconditionally backing them as they want, so… There’s also reports that Swedish instructors are among those soldiers killed in the Russian attack, who were there to train Kiev’s fighter pilots onto the Swedish-provided aircraft.

3:52
Because Kiev soldiers are trained in all the western weapons, and unfortunately bringing in all of the soldiers and trainers from western countries doesn’t really help much. But, yeah, essentially all the proof is there that this was the military target.

PressTV: 4:15
All right. Now, Gilbert, three years passed since this war, and given the circumstances and what’s been going on, and all the Western support, despite all the problems they have on the home turf, and you see that Zelensky never says it’s enough. He wants more and more fighter jets. Just last week, he was bragging about receiving these F-35s, if I’m not mistaken, and then he said, we just want more. So in your opinion, where is this heading for?

Doctorow: 4:45
It is at a critical point, and it is certainly worth paying attention. I want to make a brief comment on these accusations that are going on both sides, the Ukrainians speaking about the latest losses, the Russians showing every evening on the television the damage to civilian housing, to apartment buildings, to people’s homes from the day’s barrage that the Ukrainians are sending over the border to villages and to cities that are in the oblasts or provinces of Russian Federation that happen to have a common border with Ukraine.

5:27
These accusations going back and forth but to– something more important that is going on at the same time, and that is the coverage of the general position of the parties, the warring parties in Kursk and on the front lines of Donbass. And here there is a sea change in Western reporting on this war. Until the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, Western reporting of the war was almost always disparaging the Russians, speaking about their incremental gains of a few meters here and there, day by day on the front of the Donbass. What has happened since the invasion, which has turned out to be rather unsuccessful for the Ukrainians, having lost perhaps 8,500 of their soldiers and officers to death and severe maiming, having lost 76 tanks and so forth, losing several hundred additional soldiers and officers every day.

6:35
That is now being reported in great detail in the “Financial Times”, in the “New York Times”, in a factual way, which does not differ significantly from what is being said in alternative media in the West or on broadcasters like yourselves. And that change has to be highlighted, because it indicates one thing to me: that the Ukrainian leadership is about to be changed by the Western backers. That in the next month or so, Mr. Zelensky will either be on a plane to Miami or he, in his coffin, will be on the road to a cemetery, because he’s going to be ousted.

7:15
There would not be such full coverage in detail and an accurate coverage in the “Financial Times” and others if this were not the case. So I would put to the side these recriminations in mutual accusations on the ground of Russian and Ukrainian parties to the war and look at what the West is saying. And there you see in the big picture: Ukraine is about to undergo a regime change, and perhaps we’re coming to the end of the war.

PressTV: 7:46
I was just going to ask what’s going to be the result of that regime change, and you just answered. And how much longer will the West stick up for Kiev? Because Zelensky is asking for permission to hit even deeper into Russian territory.

Doctorow:
Russia has made it very plain in statements by Foreign Minister Lavrov and by President Putin in the last 10 days, that it is now prepared to attack the United States if it believes that it is undergoing an existential challenge. Firing such missiles to the heartland of Russia to destroy Russian factories, to create havoc and terror in the Russian population is such an existential threat. And, therefore, I think Washington has been put on notice that this is not a phony red line, that Washington will be struck before any cities in Europe are struck. And that is a big change in Russian policy, which is now shifting, as we understand, from no first strike to a preemptive strike. In that case, I think that the further escalation of this war can be excluded and that there will be some end game.

9:04
I also would like to put something that nobody’s talking about.

PressTV:
Thirty seconds only.

Doctorow:
Yesterday, in his trip to Mongolia, Putin said, “we’re ready for negotiations.” That means the Russians understand a turning point is coming that will favor an end to the war.

PressTV: 9:22
Right. All right, thank you so much, Julia Kassem, our correspondent in Moscow; Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analysts in Brussels.

Thank you for watching this edition of The News Review.

Iran’s Press TV: War das Kommunikationsausbildungsinstitut in Poltawa ein legitimes militärisches Ziel für einen russischen Angriff?

Der vergangene Sommer war untypisch. Vielleicht konnten die Börsenmakler ihren Urlaub an den Stränden genießen, aber die Journalisten blieben bei der Arbeit, um über den nicht enden wollenden Strom von „Eilmeldungen“ aus dem Russland-Ukraine-Krieg und aus Westasien zu berichten, wo sich die neuesten Berichte über den israelischen Völkermord im Gazastreifen mit Nachrichten vermischten, die auf einen unmittelbar bevorstehenden Ausbruch eines regionalen Krieges hindeuteten.

Je schlechter die internationale Lage wird, desto mehr werden wir „Experten“ vor die Mikrofone gerufen. Ich bitte daher um Entschuldigung, dass ich hier täglich so viele Interviews poste. Ich tue mein Bestes, um Wiederholungen zu vermeiden.

Heute Morgen biete ich den Link zur gestrigen Diskussion auf Press TV an, die mit der Nachricht über den russischen Angriff auf ein Kommunikationsinstitut in Poltawa (Ukraine) begann, bei dem mehr als 50 Menschen getötet und mehrere hundert verletzt wurden. Unmittelbar nach dem Angriff beschuldigten sowohl die russische als auch die ukrainische Seite die jeweils andere Seite der wahllosen Tötung von Zivilisten.

Für diejenigen, die mit der russisch-ukrainischen Geschichte nicht vertraut sind, möchte ich anmerken, dass Poltawa den Russen als Schauplatz einer historischen Schlacht im Jahr 1709 zwischen der Armee Peters des Großen und Schwedens König Karl XII. bekannt ist. Die schwedische Niederlage dort war ein entscheidendes Ereignis im langen Nordischen Krieg, der die schwedischen imperialen Ambitionen in Mitteleuropa beendete. Die Region Poltawa war auch der Schauplatz von Tschaikowskys Oper Mazeppa, die sich mit derselben Zeit und denselben Ereignissen befasst und in der die Helden und Heldinnen in einem Liebesdrama die nationalen Interessen der Kriegsparteien verkörpern. Diese Geschichte ist für mich umso interessanter, als ein direkter Nachfahre einer der Hauptfiguren, Kotchubey, der Vater der Heldin im Zentrum der Oper und die Verkörperung der Ukraine im Jahre 1709, zufällig ein Nachbar und Freund von uns in Brüssel ist.

Wie so oft hat mich das Team von Press TV mit einem anderen Diskussionsteilnehmer zusammengebracht. In diesem Fall war es ihre Korrespondentin in Moskau. Diejenigen unter Ihnen, die einen zusätzlichen Blickwinkel wünschen, werden daher vielleicht besonders interessant finden, was sie zu sagen hat.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130664