Tag: ukraine

Ukraine Launches Incursion Into Russia’s Kursk Oblast

Russia said Wednesday that its forces were fighting off a Ukrainian ground incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, an attack President Vladimir Putin called a “large-scale provocation.”

So far, Ukrainian officials have been quiet about the cross-border attack, which was launched from Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that up to 300 Ukrainian troops with 11 tanks and 20 armored vehicles entered Kursk. Drone attacks were also reported, and Kursk Acting Governor Alexey Smirnov said one hit an ambulance, killing two paramedics.

In a meeting with his top officials, Putin said Ukrainian forces attacking Kursk were “firing indiscriminately from different types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, residential houses, ambulances.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the fighting in Kursk was ongoing and said it thwarted a breakthrough. The ministry said five residents of Kursk had been killed in the Ukrainian attack and claimed that it inflicted 260 casualties on the invading Ukrainian force.

Ukraine has supported cross-border raids into Russia launched by militias, including the neo-Nazi Russian Volunteer Corps, but the fighting in Kursk appears to be its biggest ground attack into Russian territory of the war.

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US-Ukraine-Russian War: It’s About the Money

Well, “the cat is out of the bag, now.” Thanks to US Senator Lindsey Graham, everyone knows one of the more compelling reasons behind the Ukraine war with Russia. And it has little to do with Kiev’s “agency,” “democracy,” and “liberalism.” The latter are merely ‘talking points’ for public consumption – what Noam Chomsky and Ed Hermann called ‘manufactured consent’ in their 1988 seminal work on propaganda, Manufacturing Consent.

Lindsey Graham voiced out loud part of an agenda that is usually hidden from public view or the media – it isn’t talked about (admitted) openly. It’s a veritable “gold mine,” Graham confessed, and America can’t afford to lose control of it. Here’s the translation of Graham’s admission:

It’s About the Money.

Our reliably hawkish Republican Senator is well known for provocative statements. As early as 2022 (at the beginning of the Ukraine war) Graham was all in for regime change in Russia, when everyone else in the West was trying to downplay such a prospect. Moreover, he is quoted as saying at a press conference with Zylensky that “Russians are dying” in the war, while US aid was the “best money we’ve ever spent.”

But with the panache and subtlety of a train wreck the good senator created another stir recently, admitting on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” why Russia must not be allowed to prevail in Ukraine. The latter possesses $10 to $12 trillion worth of rich deposits of critical minerals.

Here are Senator Graham’s reasons justifying the necessity of Kiev (i.e. Washington) winning its fight with Moscow. First, the Kremlin’s access to these deposits would enrich Russia and allow via the Kremlin, China’s participation. Second, if Ukraine retains control over the minerals, it could be “the richest country in all of Europe” and “the best business partner we ever dreamed of.” Third, the outcome of the war in Ukraine is a “very big deal” for the US from an economic standpoint. Thus, Graham is saying that Ukraine’s war is “a war we can’t afford to lose.”

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Zelensky’s funeral business: American Democratic Party donors and the Ukrainian president are profiting from the burial industry in Ukraine

“Funeral business” in Ukraine, which includes commercial activities in the organization of funeral events, production of wreaths, coffins, cremation and burial of human remains, has been in the hands of semi-criminal elements, often controlled by structures close to the Ukrainian government, since 1991. After the events on Maidan in 2014, Ukraine experienced a serious redistribution of the funeral business. Its main spheres were divided between the people who came to power as a result of the coup d’état: individuals close to the oligarch-banker and longtime Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov, and the people of the country’s President in 2014 – 2019 Petro Poroshenko. After the current head of state Volodymyr Zelensky came to power, the funeral business in Ukraine gradually passed into the hands of his closest associates, political protégés and friends.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice’s months-long investigation has revealed a chain linking President Zelensky to the largest participants of the Ukrainian funeral industry. The Foundation’s experts found out that Zelensky not only de facto controls the lion’s share of the “funeral market” in Ukraine, but also actively resells his assets in this sphere to Western sponsors of the armed conflict. Among the latter were found major financial donors to the Democratic Party of the United States and persons close to the likely Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States, current Vice-President Kamala Harris. Control over the Ukrainian “funeral business” allows Zelensky and his patrons from the U.S. Democratic Party to earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice found out, the bulk of the profits settle in the pockets of the owners of the funeral business thanks to the excessive deaths of Ukrainian servicemen on the fields of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict.

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Pentagon Again Applies Budget Lies To Deliver More Weapons To Ukraine

Whenever the Pentagon runs out of money designated by Congress as aid to Ukraine it starts to use creative accounting to free up some additional money from its general budget. The ‘accounting errors’ used therein are always in favor of more weapons to Ukraine.

Exclusive: Pentagon accounting error overvalued Ukraine weapons aid by $3 billion – May 19 2023, Reuters

The Pentagon overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by around $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said on Thursday, an error that may lead the way for more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces.

Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid – June 20 2023, AP

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years — about double early estimates — resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. She said final calculations show there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.

As a result, the department now has additional money in its coffers to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. And it come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle.

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Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Government Is Supported by the International Community

The Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland, June 15-16, 2024 was an outright failure.

Sponsored by the Swiss Government (15-16 June, 2024) it resulted in a chaotic public relations ploy rather than a peace initiative. Russia had not been invited to attend.

The fundamental issue, which was carefully avoided is that the dominant Nazi faction within the Kiev government exerts its power in the realm of intelligence, internal affairs, national security and the military.

It’s a proxy regime in liaison with its U.S.-NATO sponsors.

Amply documented, the 2014 EuroMaidan US Sponsored Coup d’Etat was carried out with the support of the two Nazi factions: Svoboda and Right Sektor headed by Dmytro Yarosh.

In Part I of this article, the issue of Holocaust Denial is addressed: Our governments –which claim to be firmly committed to social democracy– are actively supporting and financing a coalition government which is supportive of Ukraine’s Nazi movement which collaborated with Nazi Germany’s occupation forces during World War II. The evidence is overwhelming.

Specifically, the German penal code prohibits “Denial of the Holocaust” as well as the “dissemination of Nazi propaganda”.

We are dealing with something far more serious than Nazi “hate speech”, namely the relationship of the German Government with the Kiev regime’s Nazi Movement.

See the legal procedures of the European Parliament pertaining to Holocaust Denial.

See also the Resolution of the UN General Assembly, dated January 2022 quoted in the above document.

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Neo-Nazi Group Claims Responsibility for Murder of Former Ukrainian Politician

Aneo-Nazi group known as NS/WP (National-Socialism/White Power), which is classified as a terrorist organization in Russia, has claimed responsibility for the recent assassination of Irina Farion, a former member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada. The claim was reported by Lenta.

Punish Those Who Betray the Country

According to the group, Farion was targeted because she allegedly “incited hatred based on linguistic differences within Ukrainian society.”

The group has also vowed to punish those who they believe have “betrayed the country since the Maidan protests” and has declared the beginning of a “white revolution.”

A video purportedly showing the shooting of Farion has been released, though its authenticity remains difficult to verify. Ukrainian media sources suggest that the assassination was carried out with professional precision, indicating that the shooter may have had prior experience with firearms.

The authorities are investigating the possibility that the shooter had accomplices, and it has been revealed that some surveillance cameras at the crime scene were malfunctioning at the time of the attack.

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Ukraine’s Acoustic Drone Detection Network Eyed By U.S. As Low-Cost Air Defense Option

The U.S. should integrate a low-cost acoustic network to detect aerial threats developed by Ukraine into its own air defense systems, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command said Wednesday morning. Consisting of thousands of acoustic sensors across Ukraine, this system helps detect and track incoming Russian kamikaze drones, alert traditional air defenses in advance, and also dispatch ad hoc drone hunting teams to shoot them down.

“Their use of acoustic sensors has proliferated across the country to the point now where they’re almost positively identifying drones in the distance because of this acoustic and the fireteams attached to that acoustic, low-cost capability that they’ve developed and proliferated,” Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Gainey said during a discussion at the Hudson Institute. As a result, Ukraine has a “low-cost defeat” system. The U.S., he added, should “find a way” of integrating “that type of low-cost capability into our system. We should be able to find ways to work together and augment some of our capability with some of that lower-cost capability.”

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Russian Media Reports Chinese Diplomats Say Ukraine Ready For Negotiations To End War

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said at a meeting with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Guangzhou that Kiev is preparing for talks with Russia, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

“Ukraine is willing to engage in dialogue and talks with Russia and is making preparations for that,” Mao said at a briefing, citing Kuleba.

According to the Ukrainian foreign minister, “talks need to be rational, substantive and aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.”

Kuleba stated that Ukraine highly appreciated China’s active and meaningful role in facilitating peace and maintaining international order. Kiev highly values Beijing’s opinion and has studied the initiative of China and Brazil aimed at finding a political solution to the conflict, the top Ukrainian diplomat pointed out. He noted that “China is a great country,” and added that Ukraine and China were important economic and strategic trade partners.

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The battle for the skies over Ukraine is about to commence – either Russia or NATO will be humiliated and a key factor for the outcome of the war for Ukraine will be determined

From here:

F-16 fighters are coming to Ukraine soon (usatoday.com)

“Ukraine will soon begin receiving U.S.-made F-16 Fighting Falcon jets from Western allies to use in the war against Russia, a move designed to bolster Ukrainian defenses and challenge Russian air superiority.”

Around 100 F-16’s of varying vintage are due in Ukraine in the next week, of which:

“The Netherlands will begin delivering 24 jets to Ukraine “without delay,” Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said during a visit to Kyiv on July 6. Other nations will send F-16s as well. Norway will give 22 jets and Denmark and Belgium will transfer an unspecified number of the aircraft.

The F-16’s from the Netherlands represents almost a quarter of the 107 in its air force, Norway had 57, but these were phased out in favour of F-35’s in December 2021 (32 were sold to Romania – 3 of which arrived a few weeks ago). Belgium has pledged 30 out of its stock of 45. Poland has pledged some of its 58 F-16’s, maybe Romania has as well. The USAF and UK’s RAF have pledged none, preferring to send sophisticated “air to air” and “air to ground “missiles instead.

“The F-16 is considered a fourth-generation fighter jet, the modern standard in combat aircraft, according to militaryfactory.com.”

Here is a link to another article around the US F-16’s here:

F-16s head to Ukraine to begin flights this summer – POLITICO

“The U.S., Denmark and the Netherlands announced during the NATO Summit in Washington on Wednesday that the two latter countries had sent over the aircraft, though they did not say how many. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also mentioned the news during a public forum.”

Here is one take on how dogfights – if such things even happen these days of distance killing – might fare:

Russia’s Su-57 Felon vs. F-16 Fighters in Ukraine War: Who Wins? | The National Interest

“The Felon sports air-to-surface missiles in addition to air-to-air missiles to take on ground targets and carry out longer-range air combat operations. With two internal weapons bays, the Su-57 can carry up to eight K-77M air-to-air missiles. The airframe is powered by Izdeliye 117 or AL-41F1 turbofan engines, which Moscow asserts will be replaced by newer Izdeliye 30 engines.

 Since Moscow is struggling financially under sanctions, this engine upgrade may not occur as soon as the Kremlin wishes. “

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TWO-FACED ZELENSKY: Floats End of ‘Hot Stage’ of War in 2024, While Insisting for Permission To Shoot Long-Range Western Missiles Into Russian Territory

While the Russian Federation are taking up territory with a speed that makes it incredibly hard to even enumerate the towns and villages conquered, and with the main defense lines in the vital Donetsk region seemingly about to crumble, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky keeps on unabated with his foreign trips asking for more money, weapons, planes, missiles – the works.

But in the last few days Zelensky introduced a new talking point in which he states that the active phase of hostilities in the war may be imminent.

During his trip to the UK, he said that he hopes to see the end of the ‘hot stage’ of the war with Russia by late 2024.

The New York Post reported:

“‘I believe that if we are united and follow, for example, the format of the peace summit, we can end the hot stage of the war’, Zelensky told the BBC, adding ‘we can try to do it by the end of this year’.”

The Ukrainian leader didn’t get into particulars regarding what that actually means.

“’It doesn’t mean that all territories are won back by force’, he added. ‘I think the power of diplomacy can help. By putting pressure on Russia, I think it is possible to agree to a diplomatic settlement’.”

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