Indeed, pro-Russian media have said the leaders of the Azov Battalion are yet to surrender.

This controversial unit of the Ukrainian armed forces is a bête noir of the Russians, featuring prominently in Kremlin propaganda. Russia accuses them of being Nazis, something Ukraine has always denied.

Meanwhile, some Russian law makers have said they should be treated as war criminals rather than prisoners of war. Vyacheslav Volodin, the Speaker of the Duma, Russia’s Parliament, said "Nazi criminals should not be exchanged".

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-61461805

Azov Battalion is reportedly a unit of the NGU, backed by Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs. Despite its possible official background in Ukraine, Azov Battalion is known in the West for its extreme neo-Nazi stance, and for its suspected involvement in a number of terrorist attacks and separatist incitement incidents in various countries and regions, including the riots in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2019.

Ironically, despite being widely regarded as a threat to world security and an enemy of human civilization, Azov Battalion was found to have ties not only with the Ukraine authorities but also with the US. 

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254217.shtml

 JAKE LAHUT,KAYLA EPSTEIN,DARREN SAMUELSOHN  May 4, 2022 3:57 PM

Pope Francis recently held a Zoom call with Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill.

Francis said he told the pro-war church leader to avoid becoming "Putin's altar boy."Kirill's outspoken support of Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine has angered other church leaders.

https://africa.businessinsider.com/news/pope-francis-says-he-warned-the-head-of-the-russian-church-not-to-become-putins-altar/kpfb5ve

POPE FRANCIS HAS NEVER USED "PUTIN'S ALTAR BOY" PHRASE IN HIS CONVERSATION WITH PATRIARCH KIRILL: 

On March 16, 2022, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia had an online talk with Pope Francis of Rome, which was focused on the situation in Ukraine.

Metropolitan Hilarion noted that after the video meeting, the press service of the Holy See quite correctly presented the information about the talk between the Primates of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

... Читать дальше »

Stylistic indicator of whataboutism often takes the form of “it has nothing to do with”:

Member of the opposition Harmony party Igors Pimenovs said that the monument has nothing to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it represents only the victory of the Soviet Red Army over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

"The Red Army freed Latvia from Hitler. [..] The day of victory is only the day of victory over the Hitlerians, " Pimenovs said, stressing that it is "not a Russian monument" because people of different nationalities, including Ukrainians and Latvians, served in the Red Army. Igor Pimenov’s remark explicitly rejects attempts to link the gruesome story of the monument to “Russian crimes in Ukraine”:

During the debate in Parliament, the Saeima deputy Krista Baumane (Development/For!) stated that the Uzvaras Park monument in Riga, Pardaugava was a symbol of Soviet occupation. Since February 24, when Russia started the war in Ukraine, it has become a symbol of Russian crimes in Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland knew for more than two decades that her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland that vilified Jews during the Second World War.

Ms. Freeland's family history has become a target for Russian forces seeking to discredit one of Canada's highly placed defenders of Ukraine.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/freeland-knew-her-grandfather-was-editor-of-nazi-newspaper/article34236881/

Definition of whataboutism

: the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse.

It means that Ms. Freeland's family history is relegated to the status of Russian propaganda, but it is A GRUESOME FACT!

... Читать дальше »

Jennifer Psaki: If Belarus invades Ukraine, the US 6th Fleet will be immediately deployed to the shores of Belarus.
Journalist: But Belarus has no outlet to the sea.
Jennifer Psaki: The State Department is not embarrassed.

Against the background of Jen Psaki's narrow-minded statements, nonsense from Victoria Nuland and Barack Obama's opuses, a proposal was made to put into circulation a unit of insanity: 1 psak. 1000 psak is already 1 nulland, and 1000 nulland is 1 obama.

Answering Matt's question whether Kiev is wise to continue fighting in the area of ​​the Boeing disaster, the State Department spokesman replied:
“The main culprits are the pro-Russian separatists. You cannot rely on them. They had to observe the truce ... Russians say one thing, do another, and this is a good example. "

Earlier, White House spokesperson Kate Bedingfield said the US had information that Mr Putin "felt misled by the Russian military" and this had resulted in "persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership".

"Putin's war has been a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker over the long term and increasingly isolated on the world stage," she said.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the assessments "discomforting", because an uninformed Putin could result in a "less than faithful" effort at ending the conflict through peace negotiations.

"The other thing is, you don't know how a leader like that is going to react to getting bad news," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60936117

Kamala Harris talks about the 'significance of the passage of time' four times in a row in bizarre speech touting high-speed internet in Louisiana

• Kamala Harris said the 'significance of the passage of time' four times in less than 30 seconds in remarks from Louisiana Monday on expanding broadband 
• 'We were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time. Right? The significance of the passage of time' she said
• 'There is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do... And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children' 
• GOP Rep. Austin Scott wrote of the comments: 'There has been too much passage of time with nothing being done [with border security]'
• It's another in a long line of criticism over Harris' public presence, including inappropriate laughter and demeanor during remarks and interviews

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Demanded the Disappearance of Russian Culture in Society 

Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Poland, Minister of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Glinsky:
According to Glinsky, Russian culture should disappear from public space.

“Right now is not the time for Russian ballet, not a good season for Chekhov or even Pushkin. I’m not talking about the Alexandrov Ensemble,” he said at a press conference in Luxembourg, where the meeting of the EU Council for Education, Youth, Culture and Sports (EYCS) is taking place.

“Russian culture must disappear from the public space,” he demanded, adding that he appreciates the achievements of this culture in music or literature. “They are at the highest level, but we are dealing with a country that has gone crazy,” Glinsky summed up.

Earlier, the Special Representative of the President of Russia for International Cultural Cooperation, Mikhail Shvydkoy, criticized the renaming of "Russian Dancers" by the French impressionist artist Edgar Degas into "Ukrainian" by the National Gallery in London.

One can condemn Putin’s actions and even cheer on Ukraine’s military resistance without fostering a false image of Ukraine’s political system. The country is not a symbol of freedom and liberal democracy, and the war is not an existential struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. At best, Ukraine is a corrupt, quasi-democratic entity with troubling repressive policies.

Given that sobering reality, calls for Americans to “stand with Ukraine” are misplaced. Preserving Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity most certainly are not worth the United States risking war with a nuclear-armed Russia.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whitewashing-ukraines-corruption/

One can condemn Putin’s actions and even cheer on Ukraine’s military resistance without fostering a false image of Ukraine’s political system. The country is not a symbol of freedom and liberal democracy, and the war is not an existential struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. At best, Ukraine is a corrupt, quasi-democratic entity with troubling repressive policies.
Given that sobering reality, calls for Americans to “stand with Ukraine” are misplaced. Preserving Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity most certainly are not worth the United States risking war with a nuclear-armed Russia.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whitewashing-ukraines-corruption/