War in Ukraine Megathread XXX

# News sources:

– [The Guardian: what we know on day 85 of the Russian invasion](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/19/russia-ukraine-war-what-we-know-on-day-85-of-the-invasion)

– [Associated Press news articles](https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine).

– Reuters [Europe page](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/) covers the war in Ukraine.

– [BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60525350)

– [Al Jazeera English](https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/ukraine-russia-crisis/)

– **NSFW/NSFL**: [Photographs from Associated Press “In Ukraine, limbs lost and lives devastated in an instant”](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-health-government-and-politics-c7b3f81befcce9fba5fddefd8250f29c)

You can also get up-to-date information and news from the [r/worldnews live thread](https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs).

## [Link to the previous Megathread XXIX](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/uok7p9/war_in_ukraine_megathread_xxxix/)

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### Summary of recent events regarding NATO, Sweden, Finland and Turkey

[Finland, Sweden apply to join NATO amid Turkish objections](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-submit-application-join-nato-2022-05-18/), *Reuters*.

[EXPLAINER: Why is Turkey wary of Nordic states’ NATO bid?](https://apnews.com/article/turkey-nato-membership-sweden-finalnd-83a191ca8b4052925059b61ddd7e0945), *Associated Press (AP)*.

As summarized by u/coolpaxe [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/uscku8/turkey_blocks_nato_accession_talks_with_finland/):

The list of demands:

– NATO should classify not only the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party \(PKK\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party) but also the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) in the alliance’s list of threats.

– The United States should then extradite Pennsylvania-based dissident cleric [Fethullah Gülen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen) to Turkey.
– All NATO members, including Sweden and Finland, must cease any activity by the PKK, SDF, or FETO on their territories.

– The United States and other NATO bodies must lift all [sanctions related to Turkey’s purchase of the S-400](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system#Turkey), including sanctions upon the Turkish Defense Industry Directorate.

– Turkey would not only receive the new F-16s and upgrade kits for its existing fleet, but Turkey will also be able to rejoin the F-35 program from which it was expelled after activating the Russian S-400s.

– “On 17 July 2019, Turkey was suspended from the F-35 program by the US, stating “F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities” [source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49023115)

– Lastly, the United States would cease preventing Turkey from exporting military products containing Western components.

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# **Current rules extension:**

Since the war broke out, disinformation from Russia has been rampant. To deal with this, we have extended our ruleset:

– No unverified reports of any kind in the comments or in submissions on r/europe. We will remove videos of any kind unless they are verified by reputable outlets. This also affects videos published by Ukrainian and Russian government sources.
– Absolutely no justification of this invasion.
– No gore
– No calls for violence against *anyone*. Calling for the killing of invading troops or leaders is allowed. The limits of international law apply.
– No hatred against any group, including the populations of the combatants (Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, Syrians, Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, etc)
– Any Russian site should only be linked to provide context to the discussion, not to justify any side of the conflict. To our knowledge, Interfax sites are hardspammed, that is, even mods can’t approve comments linking to it.

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# **Current submission Rules:**

Given that the initial wave of posts about the issue is over, we have decided to relax the rules on allowing new submissions on the war in Ukraine a bit. Instead of fixing which kind of posts will be allowed, we will now move to a list of posts that are not allowed:

– We have temporarily disabled direct submissions of self.posts (text) on r/europe.
– Pictures and videos are allowed now, but **no NSFW/war-related pictures**. Other rules of the subreddit still apply.
– Status reports about the war unless they have major implications (e.g. “City X still holding would” would not be allowed, “Russia takes major city” would be allowed. “Major attack on Kyiv repelled” would also be allowed.)
– The mere announcement of a diplomatic stance by a country (e.g. “Country changes its mind on SWIFT sanctions” would not be allowed, “SWIFT sanctions enacted” would be allowed)
– **All ru domains have been banned by Reddit as of 25 April**. They are hardspammed, so not even mods can approve comments and submissions linking to Russian site domains.
– Some Russian sites that ends with `.com` are also hardspammed, like TASS and Interfax.
– We’ve been adding substack domains in our AutoModerator but we aren’t banning all of them. If your link has been removed, please notify the moderation team explaining who’s the person managing that substack page.

If you have any questions, [click here to contact the mods of r/europe](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/europe)

### Comment section of this megathread

– In addition to our rules, we ask you to add a NSFW/NSFL tag if you’re going to link to footage with graphic or can be considered upsetting.

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**Donations:**

If you want to donate to Ukraine, check [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/t03lml/want_to_support_ukraine_heres_a_list_of_charities/) or [this fundraising account by the Ukrainian national bank](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/wiki/ukrainewar#wiki_donations).

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**Fleeing Ukraine**
We have set up a wiki page with the available information about the border situation for Ukraine [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/wiki/ukrainewar). There’s also information at [Visit Ukraine.Today](https://visitukraine.today) – The site has turned into a hub for “every Ukrainian and foreign citizen [to] be able to get the necessary information on how to act in a critical situation, where to go, bomb shelter addresses, how to leave the country or evacuate from a dangerous region, etc”.

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### Other links of interest

– [Live Map of Ukraine site](https://liveuamap.com/) and [Institute of War](https://understandingwar.org/) have maps that are considered reliable by mainstream media.

– [Wikipedia: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine)

– [#UkraineFacts: a international coalition of journalists fact-checking media surrounding the war in Ukraine](https://ukrainefacts.org/)
– DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH “War of Fakes”. [Deutsche Welle (DW) has reported it as being a source of fake news](https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-war-how-a-fact-checking-website-is-spreading-russian-propaganda/a-61062940), and the Russian Defense Ministry has linked this site in their tweets before.

– [UNHCR refugee tracker focusing on Ukrainians](https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine)

– [Sanctions tracker by Reuters](https://graphics.reuters.com/UKRAINE-CRISIS/SANCTIONS/byvrjenzmve/)

– [DeepL extension for Google Chrome](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deepl-translator/kgljlkdpcelbbmdfilomhgjaaefofkfh) and [DeepL extension for Firefox](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/to-deepl/). DeepL is a good alternative to Google Translate for Russian texts. It does not offer translation from Ukrainian.

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### Feedback

If you have any feedback to the mods, you can [send us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Feurope&subject=Comments%2C+Criticism%2C+Suggestions%2C+and+other+User+Input&message=) or create a post at r/EuropeMeta.

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# Please obey the request of the Ukrainian government to [refrain from sharing info about Ukrainian troop movements](https://i.redd.it/5atggucaurj81.jpg)