‘You are a close friend of Russia’

“It has always been clear that Russia would try to take control of the northwest of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Russian negotiators had demanded this and the Ukrainian side had so far refused. Now Russia is demonstrating that what cannot be achieved through negotiations can instead be achieved by military means,” Ralph Bosshard, a former military special advisor to the OSCE Secretary-General, told Sputnik.

“If the Russian army can also capture Kramatorsk, which I have no doubt it will, this will send a signal that will hardly remain without influence on Ukraine. With or without Western ‘miracle weapons’, the Russian army is unstoppable. As long as Russian forces are able to exert permanent pressure on the UAF and prevent them from reorganizing, they will be unstoppable,” Bosshard emphasized.

“If the West really wants the best for Ukraine, then it must make concessions to Russia now. If it is not prepared to do so, then it will become clear that it is only using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia – once again,” the observer added.

“At first, they were taken away under the respectable pretext of preservation," Denis Lukashin, art valuation expert and owner of Art Consulting, tells Sputnik. "But on the other hand, it’s clear that the unscrupulous officials involved could easily use this as an opportunity to profit, because, of course, even priceless cultural treasures have a very real—and very high—market value.”

"The Élysée is waging an all-out hunt against Russian media and journalists, employing an arsenal of sanctions, persecution, physical violence, denial of access to events and visa refusals," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. "This time, too, we will respond."

"Zelensky's policy aims to reshape Ukrainian Orthodoxy and effectively destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," Lunkin explains. "Western countries openly approve and support this policy, saying Kiev is justified in pursuing such actions against church organizations—arresting clergy and seizing churches—to achieve its goals."

"At the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture carried out an audit of the relics and did so in a rather unethical and harsh manner toward the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," says Lunkin.