Mediaboss Marketing

KYIV, Ukraine On a riotous Instagram profile featuring pole-dancing, cross-dressing and fierce makeup, a picture of Ivan Honzyk in high heels and stockings next to an image of him in military uniform has gotten the most likes by far.

The junior sergeant's posts are a bold statement in socially conservative Ukraine, where pride parades were often attacked before the war and swaths of the country are occupied by forces loyal to Russia, one of the worlds most conspicuously homophobic states.

But as more members of the LGTBQ community fight on the front lines, the greater visibility of gay and lesbian military personnel appears to be a catalyst for acceptance in wider society, and opinion polls show attitudes are changing.

Honzyk, 27, said his uncompromising self-expression, combined with his work in places like Bakhmut the city in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the bloodiest battles of the war, while serving as a potent symbol of the countrys defiance is helping to further the cause of LGBTQ rights in the country faster than any pride marches could.

My fellow soldiers are really impressed with what Ive done in Bakhmut, the massive scale of work that I did there, and after that they just dont care about who I sleep with, Honzyk, whose medical unit evacuates wounded soldiers and provides emergency first aid, said in a hip caf in Ukraines capital, Kyiv, while on leave from the front line.

Plenty of other gay and lesbian soldiers have also posted photos and videos of themselves online,some sporting unicorn insignia on their uniform, the mythical creature an ironic riposte to the idea that there are no LGBTQ people in the military.

In the U.S., lesbian, gay and bisexual people were allowed to serve openly in the military only in late 2011. Ukraines armed forces did not have rules preventing the LGTBQ community from serving, but homophobia was rife in the ranks, reflecting a more widespread societal attitude.

But in apparent recognition of their services, Ukrainian lawmakers recently tabled draft legislation that would recognize same-sex relationships and address the lack of inheritance, medical and other rights for the partners of LGTBQ soldiers killed or wounded fighting pro-Moscow forces.

The parades and pride events were not enough, said Honzyk, who has served for four years. The better way to change attitudes is what were doing now. We entered the military and were showing that were worthy. Were not hiding somewhere at the back. Were doing real missions, dangerous missions.

Across the border, President Vladimir Putin has maintained that he launched the invasion in February 2022 to protect Russian-speaking people in Ukraines east, while attempting to frame what he calls the special military operation as a defense of morality against un-Russian liberal values promoted by the West.

Putin has frequently espoused traditional values in his speeches and framed gender-transition surgery and same-sex parenting as morally degenerate Western imports. In December he signed a law expanding Russias restrictions on promoting what it calls gay propaganda, in effective outlawing any public expression of LGBTQ behavior in Russia.

Any action considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public; online; or in films, books or advertising could incur a heavy fine.

Activists like Edward Reese, 37, a nonbinary communications officer with KyivPride, saidRussias invasion had sharpened Ukraines sense of its own distinct identity and caused many of his countrymen to show more empathy toward their LGBTQ compatriots.

People see that homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism are Russian values, he said. People understand that they dont want to have anything in common with Russia. So thats why they start to rethink their own homophobia here in Ukraine.

Reese said he had a tough upbringing and was sent for so-called conversion therapy by religious parents who followed the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The church has been outspoken against LGBTQ people, and last year its leader, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, said the sin of gay pride parades justified the war in Ukraine.

But his influence and that of his church has plummeted in recent years in Ukraine. In 2019 the Orthodox Church of Ukraine split from its Russian counterpart.

Kyiv has since accused Russian Orthodox priests of spying for Moscow, charges they deny.

Ukrainian civil society is trying to kick out the Russian Orthodox Church, and they are the most anti-gay people in Ukraine, said LGBTQ activist Maksim Mishkin, 40, speaking at KyivPrides offices.

Today most religious people in Ukraine are either positive or neutral towards us.

Away from the battlefield, LGBTQ groups in Ukraine and abroad have helped evacuate and house people displaced by the fighting and raise money for the military.

Mishkin said he had held fundraisers to send care packages to serving personnel, the appreciative soldiers sending back photos of themselves brandishing coffee mugs and other items featuring LGBTQ-affiliated logos.

Such efforts may have contributed to growing acceptance in Ukraine.

A January survey by the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that works to increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions in developing countries, found that 58% of Ukrainian respondents agreed that LGBTQ people should have the same rights as others.

That contrasts with a 2016 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology that showed 60.4% of respondents viewed LGBTQ people negatively. Last year a similar poll found that percentage had shrunk to 38.2%.

Ukrainian politician Inna Sovsun hopes to harness the positive momentum to pass a draft bill she introduced in parliament last month recognizing same-sex relationships.

When a person in uniform says, Look, I have a loved one. If I am killed in action protecting this country, protecting every single one of you, my partner will not be able to make decisions about where to bury me because there is no legal connection between us, that is something that society cannot say no to, because they are in uniform and risking their lives every single minute for us, she said.

Right now its not just the right thing to do, its also the politically smart thing to do, because the majority of Ukrainians actually support it, she added.

However, she cautioned that the level of support for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine can be overstated.

Outside of the countrys main metropolitan centers, life for LGBTQ people can be difficult, she said, adding that not all LGBTQ military personnel were accepted by their peers and some had been bullied.

For Honzyk, lifes too short to worry about the haters before he heads back to the front line.

If you accept yourself, then the world will accept you too. You need to remember a lot of people are wearing masks, but you shouldnt do that because you have only one life, and any day a missile may kill you, he said.

Dont care about what other people say, because theyll always find somebody to hate.

View post:
As Ukraine's LGBTQ soldiers fight on the front line, acceptance ... - NBC News

An air-raid warning was issued in the east of Ukraine and in Kyiv Oblast, and an air target was spotted in the sky over Kyiv Oblast on the evening of 19 April.

Source: alerts.in.ua; Kyiv Oblast Military Administration on Telegram; Andrii Yermak,

Head of the Presidents Office, on Telegram

Quote from Kyiv Oblast Military Administration: "Residents of Kyiv Oblast! An air target has been detected in the sky. Air defence forces are on alert.

Stay in shelters and observe information silence: do not film or post anything online."

Details: The air-raid warning has also been issued in Sumy, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk oblasts and Crimea.

The sound of sirens means the threat of missile and air strikes. At this time, it is necessary to take cover.

Even before the air-raid warning was issued, Kyiv residents saw a bright flash in the sky. What exactly it was is currently unknown.

Andrii Yermak, Head of the Presidents Office, reported that the air defence worked in the city of Dnipro and several Shahed drones were shot down.

At the same time, Yermak called on everyone "not to worry about UFOs" because "it is an operation of air defence"; but later he changed this message and asked everyone to wait for information from the Air Force.

At 23:01, the all-clear was given in the city of Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast. Meanwhile, Kharkiv Oblast has been added to the air-alert map.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!

Read the original here:
Air-raid warning issued in part of Ukraine, air target spotted over Kyiv Oblast -

14 April 2023

At least 11 people - including a two-year-old child - have been killed in Russian shelling of Slovyansk in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said around 21 others had been wounded in the attack on a residential district of the city.

Gov Kyrylenko added that several more were missing, warning that they could be trapped beneath the rubble.

In a post to social media, President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what he called a brutal and evil attack.

"The evil state once again demonstrates its essence," he wrote on Telegram. "Just killing people in broad daylight. Ruining, destroying all life."

Officials confirmed that one of those killed was a two-year-old child. A senior adviser to Mr Zelensky said the child had been pulled alive from the rubble, but died in an ambulance while being taken to hospital.

Gov Kyrylenko said five houses and five blocks of flats were hit in the strike, while businesses and shops were also damaged in the blasts, which took place at around 18:00 local time (16:00 BST).

He added that the strike had likely been carried out using repurposed S-300 missiles. The system was originally designed as a surface-to-air defence system, but Russia has increasingly used it to strike ground targets in Ukraine as the war has progressed and Moscow's stores of munitions have been depleted.

Reporters from the AFP news agency witnessed rescue workers digging for survivors at the scene of one of the blasts, as black smoke billowed from another building across the street.

They added that the street, which included a playground, was littered with debris that included torn pages from school books and children's drawings.

Earlier, Andriy Yermak - the head of Mr Zelensky's private office - said seven explosions had been heard in the city, some of which took place near a school.

While Ukraine still controls Slovyansk, the city lies just 27 miles (45km) north-west of Bakhmut, which has been the centre of an extensive Russian assault for several months.

Russia has been trying to capture the city since last summer, and on Friday defence officials in Moscow said mercenaries from the Wagner group were continuing to attack the city.

Russian airborne troops were "providing support to assault squads and halting the enemy's attempts to deliver ammunition to the city and bring in reserves," the statement added.

Ukraine insists that it will continue to defend Bakhmut, which military analysists say has limited strategic value. But Russia is believed to have suffered extremely high casualties trying to capture the city.

An analysis of open sources conducted by the BBC's Russian service established the identities of at least 20,451 Russian soldiers killed since the war began. Some 1,820 of those deaths came in the last two weeks, the analysis found.

Read this article:
Ukraine war: Civilians killed in Russian strike on Ukraine homes - BBC

The FBI wants to question a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard in connection with the leak of highly classified military documents on the Ukraine war, according to a report. The guardsman has been identified by the New York Times as 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, who reportedly oversaw an online group where about 20 to 30 people shared their love of guns, racist memes and video games.

Ukraines armed forces have said Russian troops are attempting to surround the embattled city of Bakhmut from the north and the south. Every day in Bakhmut area, the enemy makes 40 to 50 offensive and assault attempts, launches more than 500 strikes using the entire range of available weapons, said Brig Gen Oleksiy Hromov, deputy chief of the Ukrainian armed forces general staffs main operational department.

Russias defence ministry claimed its troops had already surrounded Bakhmut, but Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russias Wagner mercenary group, said it was too early to say. Prigozhin, whose forces have spearheaded much of the fighting for the embattled city, was responding to a statement by the Russian defence ministry that said Moscows forces were blocking Ukrainian forces from getting in or out of Bakhmut.

Germany has approved a request by Poland to export five old German MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, officials in Berlin have said.

The Kremlin has denied a report that Vladimir Putin personally approved the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter imprisoned in Russia. According to a Bloomberg report, which cited unnamed sources, the Russian president had personally endorsed Gershkovichs arrest for espionage. Russias deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has suggested Moscow may be willing to discuss a potential prisoner swap for Gershkovich after his trial.

Ukraines foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said his country would not change its demand that Russia must withdraw its forces from all of Ukraine including Crimea. Kyiv categorically disagrees with the idea that Crimea is somehow special and should not be returned to Ukraine, as any other part of our territory, Kuleba said in an address to the Black Sea security conference.

Two civilians have been killed and two others were wounded by Russian artillery and aerial attacks in Kherson region in southern Ukraine, the local governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said.

Norways foreign ministry has said it has decided to expel 15 Russian embassy officials in Oslo. The Russians declared persona non grata are not regular diplomats, but intelligence officers under diplomatic cover. Their activities are a threat to Norwegian interests, Norwegian foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. Russias foreign ministry said it would respond to Norways expulsion of its 15 diplomats.

Swedish prosecutors said they had charged a 52-year-old man with illegally possessing and spreading secret and sensitive information about a large number of military installations. I consider this a gross crime as it concerns a large number of installations that are significant for Swedens ability to defend itself in the case of war, senior prosecutor Lars Hedvall said in a statement.

Serbia never sold weapons or ammunition to Ukraine or Russia, president Aleksandar Vui has insisted, following a leaked secret Pentagon report that said Serbia had pledged to send arms to Kyiv or had sent them already. Vui said he was quite certain that Serbian ammunition would appear on one side or the other in the battlefield in Ukraine, after having been exported to Turkey, Spain or the Czech Republic.

Russias prosecutor general said it had opened an investigation into a video showing Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground. It comes a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged international leaders to act, saying the world could not ignore the evil footage, which circulated on Telegram, Twitter and other social media channels, causing revulsion among Ukrainians.

Authorities are working to identify the identity of a Ukrainian prisoner of war whose beheading video emerged on Wednesday, Ukraines deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said. The Guardian has not independently verified the origins and veracity of the two videos, but Ukrainian authorities are treating them as genuine.

Energoatom, Ukraines nuclear power company, has claimed that a Russian mine exploded near one of the reactors at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP). Europes largest nuclear power station has been occupied by Russian forces since March 2022, with both Ukraine and Russia claiming that the other side has shelled the plant, risking a nuclear incident.

Alexei Navalny, Russias most prominent opposition leader, has a mystery ailment in jail that could be some sort of slow-acting poison, and has lost 8kg in weight in just over two weeks, his spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, has said. We do not exclude that at this very time Alexei Navalny is being slowly poisoned, being killed slowly so that it attracts less attention, Yarmysh said in a post on Twitter. He is being held in a punishment cell with acute pain without medical help, she said.

Key members of a Ukrainian state orchestra were refused visas to play a series of concerts in the UK this month in a catastrophe that the promoter says cost it more than 100,000 (88,000).

See the original post here:
Russia-Ukraine war live: US air national guardsman suspected of leaking secret documents to be arrested - The Guardian

KYIV, Ukraine - Ihors comrades were eager to show us something special. A cone, the remnants of a Russian X-101 missile that didnt make it to its final destination. The 23-year-old clean-shaven specialist grinned slightly, on his shoulder a soviet era Man-portable air-defense system (MANPAD). Ihor is the 1stPresidential Brigade MANPAD specialist.

After months of training, he was called in December for his first combat mission around Kyiv. When alerts sounded, indicating that a Russian missile or drone was inbound, his squad rushed into position.

When he spotted the missile in flight, Ihor fired the first shot he would ever fire in combat.There was a loud sizzle of a round leaving the MANPAD, followed by cheers from his fellow guardians of the sky.

"At first, I didn't understand anything, then I realized that this is my first rocket hit, and I was very happy." He told us through an interpreter.

Ukrainian air defense members watch the skies to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks. (Fox News)

INSIDE THE MASSIVE OPERATION TO TRAIN THOUSANDS OF UKRAINE TROOPS AHEAD OF SPRING COUNTEROFFENSIVE

That X-101 is a personal trophy to him, but it also serves as a reminder to the squad of how important every little shot can be to preventing destruction of infrastructure, to protecting civilian lives. The Brigade has operated since 2014 when bitterness between Russian and Ukrainian loyalists boiled over to a civil conflict in the Donbas region.

Since the beginning of Russias full scale invasion, theyve operated around Kyiv, taking part in the defense of city in the early days of the battles of Irpin, Bucha and Moschun. Under the command of the National Guard of Ukraine, they are on shift at all times, ready to jump into action as soon as the air raid sirens sound. They use a mix of Soviet and Western-provided technology, including Javelins, Stingers and MLAWS.

Mykhailo, is a gunner for the brigade. Originally from Luhansk, he has been a guardsman since 2014 and operates the ZU-23 barreled auto-cannon, a soviet era anti-air gun.The big gun is jury-rigged on the back of a flatbed truck. Mobility is an absolute necessity when they try to intercept the path of inbound warheads that can come from any direction.

"Currently, this weapon is effective for shooting down shaheeds, kamikaze drones. UAV kamikaze Shaheeds." But there are limits, he told us. The old weapon will not be effective against helicopters or other Russian aircraft that dont fly close enough to be in range of the old Soviet gun. "These are outdated weapons, and we need something more modern and more technological"

A member of the Ukrainian force dedicated to defending the country's skies from Russian attacks. (Fox News)

WAIT IN LINE: RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER LEFT WAITING FOR VISA TO ENTER US AHEAD OF UN MEETING

To call the weapons "outdated" may only be scratching the surface. The ZU-23 he operates was made in the 1960s, and the MANPAD that Ihor uses is almost three times his age.

Leaked documents earlier this week from the Pentagon indicated that in late February, the Ukrainian air defense systems were set to begin running out by Mid-May. Ukraine relies heavily on these Soviet-era guns in their arsenal, and without them Russia would have an advantage on Ukrainian frontline positions and civilian targets

"The number of means that arrived from the West is not sufficient, and the number of rockets is certainly not sufficient. That is why we emphasize today that we need the missiles and air defense systems themselves, in order to replace the Soviet-made air defense systems," Said Col Yuriy Ignat, a spokesperson with the Ukraine Air Command "After all, [if] these systems are destroyed and fail, we do not have spare parts, because all this equipment is produced in Russia, just like missiles. Therefore, the only way out for us is the transition to NATO standards and weapons samples."

The U.S. has, since the end of February, seemed to recognize this weakness. The Biden administration last week authorized $2.6 billion in military assistance, which included air-defense munitions and systems such as National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), three air surveillance radars and 30mm and 23mm anti-aircraft ammunition. Ukrainian troops have also completed training on the PATRIOT Missile Battery earlier this year.

A member of Ukraine's 1stPresidential Brigade looking to the sky. (Fox News)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

But Ukraine has still not received any indication as to whether it will be provided with the prized goal of Western combat aircraft like the F-16, which would be a significant upgrade over their Mig-29 fighters. One Ukrainian combat pilot who spoke with Fox News with the call sign "Moon Fish" says the Mig-29s are just a stopgap.

"We are running low on the spare parts, on the armament, on the missiles. And overall, yes, it is a great boost. It is a great possibility to fill the gaps filled with fuel, fill up, from the losses. Together with that, It does not provide us with any sort of new capabilities that we desire."

Despite old equipment, the 1stPresidential Brigade does not lack a sense of purpose. They know when the attack is launched, the mobile air defense volunteers are all that stands between a deadly inbound warhead and the people of Ukraine. "It all depends on the gunner," says Mikhailo.

Bohdan Glushko contributed to this report.

See more here:
Every shot counts: the mobile air defense protecting Ukraine's skies at a moment's notice - Fox News