Official Russia vs Ukraine War Thread

ceccione wrote:

GoodGollyMissLolly wrote:

You’ve asked this several times. It’s been answered several times.

I liked your answer. Was honest. Thanks for that.

You said "Many of the billions that you hear about are being given to American companies that employee Americans."

So yes, sending billions to Ukraine helps only a tiny fraction of america's work force, who work for the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), just not with Real Wage increases that match inflation. It only helps them with having a job. Jobs that do not reflect the massive profits of their MIC employer.

Maybe you are talking about the CEO's and top rank of those companies? Probably. You don't care about the majority of average americans. CEO's and friends WOULD be getting massive salaries and bonuses directly related to this war (earnings) and the waste of taxes being asked of all americans to support the CEO's profits.

For the vast majority of america who don't work for MIC companies, wasting billions in Ukraine does nothing but waste billons. Well said. Exactly my point!

I will continue to ask this so you will have to see this posited many more times to let others voice their opinions.

Newname wrote:

Our special friend Israel and our new friend Ukraine:

From Times of Israel.

Raped, abused, exploited: Ukrainian women seeking refuge in Israel find no haven
A harrowing examination reveals much abuse sliding under the authorities’ radar — or being willfully ignored — while the perpetrators remain free to commit further crimes
By INNA LAZAREVA4 January 2023, 11:13 am

Svetlana fled the war in Ukraine in March, crammed into the back of a truck with her 6-year-old child and other refugees under bombardment by Russian forces. Invited to Israel by a close family friend, she hoped to recover and begin a new life in the Holy Land.
A few months after arriving, she said, she was raped by the man who wrote the letter of invitation that had gotten her out of the war zone.

“She was sleeping and he woke her up and roughly dragged her into his room,” says Olga Udovichenko, whom Svetlana later approached for help at the Volunteer Help Center for Refugees from Ukraine in Haifa. “She suffered deeply from both the war and the rape — but here she could barely get any assistance from the authorities. Instead of help she encountered a maze of bureaucracy and lost any motivation she had to hold the man to account and seek justice.”

Svetlana is one of over 47,000 Ukrainians — the vast majority of them women — who traveled to Israel since the start of the invasion but who are not eligible for citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, according to Israel’s Welfare Ministry. Of these, only approximately 15,000 currently remain in Israel, with the rest having chosen to leave. Not a single Ukrainian fleeing the war has been accorded refugee status by Israel.
A Times of Israel investigation has documented cases of rape, sexual harassment, workplace exploitation and other abuses faced in Israel by these women, many of whom have had their homes destroyed and lost their livelihoods. At least one of the women’s lives ended in death by suicide.
Many of these abuses remain at best under the radar of the authorities or at worst willfully ignored, leaving the victims in a cycle of violence and poverty that only deepens the trauma they have endured to date. The perpetrators remain free to commit further crimes.
When the war began, volunteer Udovichenko — originally from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 — was determined to do something to help her fellow Ukrainians.
“My heart was torn into pieces for my motherland,” Udovichenko explains. A graduate student in criminology, Udovichenko decided to help those who are dealing with cases of sexual abuse and harassment. She saw that social services were not easily accessible for Ukrainians arriving in Israel — “at least, not as far as anyone was aware,” she adds.
“The refugees told us that even if they contact the police, they speak only Hebrew. The same thing with social services — it’s a closed circle,” says Udovichenko.
When Svetlana approached her, Udovichenko was shocked to hear what she had endured.
Ukrainian immigrants to Israel who fled fighting in Ukraine arrive on a rescue flight at Ben Gurion Airport, on March 17, 2022. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)
“That man [who hosted Svetlana and her child] would threaten her constantly that he could throw them out on the street, that he would deport her, tell all her friends and relatives that she was a bad person and that she was seeing many men,” says Udovichenko.
According to Udovichenko, the man “would denigrate her, emphasizing that she is worth nothing, that she is a nobody.” In a further attempt to isolate her, he telephoned her friends and relatives, spreading rumors about her.
“In this way, I think he tried to make sure she had no support and make her feel isolated, helpless, so that she would rely on him completely and tell no one,” Udovichenko says.
The alleged rape happened at night, after weeks of lewd remarks, hints and overt suggestions of sex.
“She was stunned, felt helpless, and was afraid both for herself and for her child sleeping in the room next door. She did not fully take in everything that was happening. She told me that it was as if everything was happening in some kind of a nightmare, like she was passively watching it happen to herself,” says Udovichenko.
It took a long time for Svetlana to even admit to herself that she had been raped. “She felt dissonance. She tried to rationalize the rape,” says Udovichenko. “She did not want to feel herself to be a victim. She tried to make herself believe his insistence that this was just a payment for his hospitality and that this was entirely justified.”
Olga Udovichenko, a coordinator at the Volunteer Help Center for Refugees from Ukraine in Haifa. (Courtesy Olga Udovichenko)
Svetlana moved out to stay with a friend. Udovichenko helped her access medical help and advised her to go to the police. Lengthy questioning followed. For weeks, she heard nothing. Later, she received a text message telling her the file had been closed as the police found the evidence insubstantial.
When Svetlana followed up with the help of former MK Ibtisam Mara’ana as to why, the police said she was welcome to appeal the decision by providing further evidence. By then, Svetlana, severely traumatized, said she had no strength to continue with the investigation. She has since left Israel for “a country that accepts refugees,” according to Udovichenko.
Illustrative: A woman looks out the window of her room in an abused women’s shelter in Beit Shemesh, July 15, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
“The man turned many people against her,” says Udovichenko. “When she tried to tell a mutual friend what happened, she told her, ‘What is this you are imagining?’”
Today, Svetlana’s alleged rapist is free — and the case is not an isolated one.
Rape and harassment
Statistics on crimes against Ukrainian refugees are hard to come by. One report earlier this year by the Tel Aviv Center for Ukrainian Refugees noted that between March and August 2022, there were three other rape cases involving Ukrainian refugees reported to the police. There were also 18 cases of sexual harassment under police investigation and 12 other cases of sexual harassment reported to volunteers but not filed with the police, noted the report.
Some details of the alleged crimes have been reported in the local media. In May, an Ashdod resident in his fifties was arrested and indicted for the alleged rape of a 19-year-old Ukrainian woman who had fled the war. The man was reported to have offered to help the woman find a cleaning job (Russian language), and under the pretext of offering her a ride to work, took her instead to a hotel where he is accused of raping her.
In March, an Israeli man was arrested on suspicion of breaking into the apartment of a Ukrainian woman in Jaffa, raping her and robbing her (Russian language).
Activists say the real numbers are likely to be much higher, as many Ukrainians would never report alleged abuse to the police in the first place.

GoodGollyMissLolly wrote:

Newname wrote:

Our special friend Israel and our new friend Ukraine:

From Times of Israel.

Raped, abused, exploited: Ukrainian women seeking refuge in Israel find no haven
A harrowing examination reveals much abuse sliding under the authorities’ radar — or being willfully ignored — while the perpetrators remain free to commit further crimes
By INNA LAZAREVA4 January 2023, 11:13 am

Svetlana fled the war in Ukraine in March, crammed into the back of a truck with her 6-year-old child and other refugees under bombardment by Russian forces. Invited to Israel by a close family friend, she hoped to recover and begin a new life in the Holy Land.
A few months after arriving, she said, she was raped by the man who wrote the letter of invitation that had gotten her out of the war zone.

“She was sleeping and he woke her up and roughly dragged her into his room,” says Olga Udovichenko, whom Svetlana later approached for help at the Volunteer Help Center for Refugees from Ukraine in Haifa. “She suffered deeply from both the war and the rape — but here she could barely get any assistance from the authorities. Instead of help she encountered a maze of bureaucracy and lost any motivation she had to hold the man to account and seek justice.”

Svetlana is one of over 47,000 Ukrainians — the vast majority of them women — who traveled to Israel since the start of the invasion but who are not eligible for citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, according to Israel’s Welfare Ministry. Of these, only approximately 15,000 currently remain in Israel, with the rest having chosen to leave. Not a single Ukrainian fleeing the war has been accorded refugee status by Israel.
A Times of Israel investigation has documented cases of rape, sexual harassment, workplace exploitation and other abuses faced in Israel by these women, many of whom have had their homes destroyed and lost their livelihoods. At least one of the women’s lives ended in death by suicide.
Many of these abuses remain at best under the radar of the authorities or at worst willfully ignored, leaving the victims in a cycle of violence and poverty that only deepens the trauma they have endured to date. The perpetrators remain free to commit further crimes.
When the war began, volunteer Udovichenko — originally from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 — was determined to do something to help her fellow Ukrainians.
“My heart was torn into pieces for my motherland,” Udovichenko explains. A graduate student in criminology, Udovichenko decided to help those who are dealing with cases of sexual abuse and harassment. She saw that social services were not easily accessible for Ukrainians arriving in Israel — “at least, not as far as anyone was aware,” she adds.
“The refugees told us that even if they contact the police, they speak only Hebrew. The same thing with social services — it’s a closed circle,” says Udovichenko.
When Svetlana approached her, Udovichenko was shocked to hear what she had endured.
Ukrainian immigrants to Israel who fled fighting in Ukraine arrive on a rescue flight at Ben Gurion Airport, on March 17, 2022. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)
“That man [who hosted Svetlana and her child] would threaten her constantly that he could throw them out on the street, that he would deport her, tell all her friends and relatives that she was a bad person and that she was seeing many men,” says Udovichenko.
According to Udovichenko, the man “would denigrate her, emphasizing that she is worth nothing, that she is a nobody.” In a further attempt to isolate her, he telephoned her friends and relatives, spreading rumors about her.
“In this way, I think he tried to make sure she had no support and make her feel isolated, helpless, so that she would rely on him completely and tell no one,” Udovichenko says.
The alleged rape happened at night, after weeks of lewd remarks, hints and overt suggestions of sex.
“She was stunned, felt helpless, and was afraid both for herself and for her child sleeping in the room next door. She did not fully take in everything that was happening. She told me that it was as if everything was happening in some kind of a nightmare, like she was passively watching it happen to herself,” says Udovichenko.
It took a long time for Svetlana to even admit to herself that she had been raped. “She felt dissonance. She tried to rationalize the rape,” says Udovichenko. “She did not want to feel herself to be a victim. She tried to make herself believe his insistence that this was just a payment for his hospitality and that this was entirely justified.”
Olga Udovichenko, a coordinator at the Volunteer Help Center for Refugees from Ukraine in Haifa. (Courtesy Olga Udovichenko)
Svetlana moved out to stay with a friend. Udovichenko helped her access medical help and advised her to go to the police. Lengthy questioning followed. For weeks, she heard nothing. Later, she received a text message telling her the file had been closed as the police found the evidence insubstantial.
When Svetlana followed up with the help of former MK Ibtisam Mara’ana as to why, the police said she was welcome to appeal the decision by providing further evidence. By then, Svetlana, severely traumatized, said she had no strength to continue with the investigation. She has since left Israel for “a country that accepts refugees,” according to Udovichenko.
Illustrative: A woman looks out the window of her room in an abused women’s shelter in Beit Shemesh, July 15, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
“The man turned many people against her,” says Udovichenko. “When she tried to tell a mutual friend what happened, she told her, ‘What is this you are imagining?’”
Today, Svetlana’s alleged rapist is free — and the case is not an isolated one.
Rape and harassment
Statistics on crimes against Ukrainian refugees are hard to come by. One report earlier this year by the Tel Aviv Center for Ukrainian Refugees noted that between March and August 2022, there were three other rape cases involving Ukrainian refugees reported to the police. There were also 18 cases of sexual harassment under police investigation and 12 other cases of sexual harassment reported to volunteers but not filed with the police, noted the report.
Some details of the alleged crimes have been reported in the local media. In May, an Ashdod resident in his fifties was arrested and indicted for the alleged rape of a 19-year-old Ukrainian woman who had fled the war. The man was reported to have offered to help the woman find a cleaning job (Russian language), and under the pretext of offering her a ride to work, took her instead to a hotel where he is accused of raping her.
In March, an Israeli man was arrested on suspicion of breaking into the apartment of a Ukrainian woman in Jaffa, raping her and robbing her (Russian language).
Activists say the real numbers are likely to be much higher, as many Ukrainians would never report alleged abuse to the police in the first place.

So you’ve spent the last 10 months arguing that the US shouldn’t help Ukraine and now are arguing that Israel is evil because they aren’t doing enough to help Ukraine?