putin came to the rescue with financing and promise of troops. so over the last few months lukashenko let russia use his territory as a staging ground for invading ukraine. belarus also consistently voted with russia in the u.n. but belarus hasn t entirely acted as a russian vas vasil. like the central asian countries, it has recognized the breakaway donbas republics and more importantly ruled out sending its own tornados to ukraine. think about how this is different from the heyday of the soviet union. in moscow s misadventure in afghanistan, the kremlin could mobilize material and manpower from across the soviet public, and crossing the crowd of 1968, the military received support from ball garra, poland and hungary. the real story here and maybe the divide between the ruler and the public in these pro moscow states, for example, they again
and sickening to see such a thing, you know, trenches and bodies being put into them. necessary because there s no other choice. the bombardment of that city continues. it is relentless. it is surrounded on all sides, including from the sea. the ukrainian president zelenskyy said that, you know, despite ukrainian officials best efforts to make a humanitarian corridor work, his words earlier were russian troops did not cease fire. the mayor there saying it s obvious russia is trying to destroy all the infrastructure there and completely isolated city. with still so many civilians inside, the mayor said in a video message, don, russia s he said it was russia s, quote, cynical and destructive war against humanity. and one other thing, i think we ve talked about this before, too. mariupol is so key for the russians. it s long been believed they want a land bridge from the breakaway donbas region to the north and mariupol is one of the