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Dated April 14, 2022.

Ukraine resume World Cup qualification with June 1 playoff

From link.

Ukraine will return to competitive action in their delayed World Cup playoff against Scotland on June 1, FIFA has confirmed.

The Path A semifinal was postponed ahead of its original date in March following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, which led to the cessation of all football in the country and a requirement for all Ukrainian males above the age of 18 to remain in the country.
An appeal by the Ukrainian football association for the game to be postponed was granted by FIFA, with the hope of being able to reschedule this summer.

FIFA and UEFA have now agreed on a June 1 date for the game in Glasgow, with the winners going forward to play Wales in Cardiff on June 5 for a place in the World Cup.

The successful team will then complete Group B in Qatar alongside England, the United States and Iran.

Ukraine have not played any game since facing Bosnia and Herzegovina in their final World Cup qualifying group game last November.
 
I actually feel bad for the Russian troops. It's terrible that their government and society cares so little for them. At least in Canada there was an outcry when we sent troops to Afghanistan in green fatigues and 15 yr old Iltis jeeps.

I don't - their low morale is everyone elses' benefit.

AoD
 
They don't have to sadistically massacre civilians though. Ukraine has been loud and clear about voicing their support for Russian defectors.

It's no different to me than the people who worked in concentration camps who said they were just following orders, I don't care, you're committing crimes against humanity. Of course I have some amount of sympathy to recognize the fact that these troops have been thrown into a very shitty situation. But they're there fighting and killing innocents or even their fellow troops so I do not feel bad for them in the slightest based on their actions.
 
They don't have to sadistically massacre civilians though. Ukraine has been loud and clear about voicing their support for Russian defectors.

If you're not at the very front of front line, and able to essentially wave a white flag and walk to the other side, defecting is no easy task.
Even then, its largely dependent on your fellow soldiers to either go with you as a group, or look the other way.

That isn't to suggest I in any countenance what's going on, I don't. But I think you make defection sound rather easier than it typically is.......

It's no different to me than the people who worked in concentration camps who said they were just following orders.

I was just following orders is no excuse; and yet, even in the situation you describe above, what do you imagine would have happened to a single Nazi soldier having an attack of conscience and deciding not to follow orders?

One must be mindful, that its easy to tell someone to uphold high principles from a safe distance, and another when doing so may result in your execution, or as Russia has shown, that of your family.

Perhaps we all ought to agree that if ordered to do something, even in a time of war, even by someone with rank, and weapons at their disposal, that we should defiantly say 'no'. That's a fine ideal; but I don't know how many instances one can find
of it through history; most people's instincts to protect their own life and that of their loved ones will trump almost everything else.

That's before factoring in both propaganda from one's own side which may or may not be believable to someone depending on their circumstance; but also the circumstance of war, in which the 'perhaps righteous defenders' have been shooting at you, and perhaps killed your colleague/friend/brother.

*****

I feel strongly that wars should be avoided; campaigns of nationalism/expansionism are revilable, and that honest disputes ought to be settled through mediation or such if at all possible.
Wars aren't just terribly destructive, ugly things in real time; they leave scars, physical, financial, emotional that on the landscape, on families, that can last generations.

Which is why we ought not to let them happen.

That said, once they get going, I've never been a fan of pretending war can be 'civil' (in the polite sense of the word). Even if limited largely to professional armies attacking one another, the damage is horrific, in deaths
in serious injuries etc. But rarely are two adversaries so well matched or disciplined as to even minimize, let alone eliminate civilian casualties.

Lets take a look at the U.S. War in Iraq for a moment:

(from Wikipedia)

The IBC project, reported that by the end of the major combat phase of the invasion period up to April 30, 2003, 7,419 civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces

The IBC project released a report detailing the deaths it recorded between March 2003 and March 2005[86] in which it recorded 24,865 civilian deaths. The report says the U.S. and its allies were responsible for the largest share (37%) of the 24,865 deaths.

But note, these are just the deaths from violence, and are lowest ones you'll tend to find

From here, we see a different picture: https://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/

1651415663184.png


What this shows is the toll of things like food shortages/malnutrition when transport routes, agriculture and logistics are interrupted; but also the bombing of electricity generation stations, which then cause there to be no
power at the water treatment plant....... etc.

*****

As a quick note here, again, fully condemning Russia.............as the U.S. calls for War Crimes investigations into Russian behavior.......... the U.S. is NOT a signatory to the International Criminal Court treaty

Much as when the U.S. bashes China for violating the Law of the Seas, another treaty the U.S. has yet to sign........ there is a level of hypocrisy that is hard to abide.
 

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