WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
Speaker Ignat assured Ukrainians that air defense will continue to shoot down missiles on their homes

The speaker of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuriy Ignat, said that Ukrainian air defense cannot shoot down Russian drones and missiles away from residential buildings. Therefore, installations will continue to be installed in densely populated areas.

According to him, air defense systems have to be placed as close as possible to populated areas, otherwise the RF Armed Forces will be easier to detect gaps in the defense and strike.

https://twitter.com/SpriterTeam/stat...42406591102976

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/SpriterTeam/stat...44147348893696

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
🪖 Putin: our soldiers go on the offensive in some sectors of the front

Vladimir Putin said that our troops are showing heroism during the counteroffensive. At the same time, sometimes our army itself goes on the attack, occupying advantageous heights and positions.

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/st...36694011969537

📝 “All attempts by the enemy to break through our defenses, and this is a task, including using strategic reserves, they were unsuccessful during the entire offensive,” the president said.

[kfm27917]

The Incredible Shrinking NATO

I've been waiting for the hubbub to die down since the NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 11-12 July 2023, waiting for someone — anyone — to point out the obvious reason for why the Ukraine's cocaine-sniffing mascot-president Zelensky, having been lionized only a year ago, has suddenly fallen into disfavor with this organization.

Yes, the Ukraine might still some day be invited to start the long and arduous process of joining NATO, but only after some undefined number of NATO members decide that it has done enough to comply with "NATO standards" (I'll explain what those are later) and various other vague things. Keeping in mind that back on 20 September 2018 the Ukrainian parliament approved amendments to the constitution that would make the accession of the country to NATO and the EU a central goal and the main foreign policy objective, such a turn of events is most embarrassing for the mascot president and his backers and handlers.



Oh, the vicissitudes of fortune! Lots of analysis and commentators offered ready explanations for this turn of events. Yet not a single one of them saw it fit to dig just the tiniest bit and discover the glaringly obvious reason for this momentous shift.

Perhaps all of them, for a variety of reasons, loathe to admit the reality of what NATO is, what it does, and why the Ukraine is suddenly a threat rather than a boon to its core mission.

You may want to read all of that commentary at your leisure — if you have trouble falling asleep. The official NATO Summit Communiqué, fantastically verbose and filled with irrelevancies, makes for particularly somniferous reading.

So, what did the Ukraine do to fall into such disfavor? Perhaps it did something that jeopardized NATO's core mission? That seems like a good guess. But then what is NATO's core mission?

In the movie "Silence of the Lambs," Hannibal Lecter refers to a quote by Marcus Aurelius when he says to Clarice Starling, "First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?" The quote is from Book Three of "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, and it emphasizes the importance of understanding the essence of things.

NATO was formed on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty, supposedly for the purpose of thwarting the Soviet Union in Europe. The USSR responded by forming the Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) — a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries for the express purpose of defending them from NATO. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991 and, shortly thereafter, on 26 December 1991, the USSR itself followed suit, but NATO continues to exist. By this point, the Warsaw Pact had existed for slightly less than NATO has existed, and the USSR had existed for only slightly more than that. Clearly, the communist threat as a rationale for NATO's existence was but a ruse, a smokescreen... a red herring.

So, what was NATO's real purpose? There are many ways to answer this question, but the Ukraine's sudden fall from grace offers what is perhaps the most graphic explanation.

Was it that the war there was dragging on? No, a slow burn would be exactly what the Pentagon ordered, so that it would have a chance to keep up with Russia's hectic pace of weapons and ammunition deliveries.

Was it that the Ukraine was losing the war? No, the Ukraine wasn't losing; it just wasn't winning. In particular, its attacks on Russia's defensive lines, which the Russian troops termed "meat attacks" because of the huge and useless losses they incurred on the Ukrainian side, seemed rather futile.

Was it that the Ukraine was about to be defeated? Again, no, the Russians were happy to advance a few kilometers here and there, with their main objective the establishment of a buffer zone wide enough so that Ukrainian artillery would stop shelling what are now Russian civilian districts.

Was it that NATO ran out of weapons and ammo to give to the Ukrainians? Again, no, there is still quite a lot of semi-obsolete junk that could be handed over to the Ukrainians.

So, what did the Ukrainians do to raise the ire of the Pentagon so suddenly, and as a direct consequence, fall into disfavor with NATO?

In short, the Ukrainians demonstrated that NATO's weapons are crap.

Evidence of this built up slowly over time.

First, it turned out that various bits of US-made shoulder-fired junk — anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat.

Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren't field-maintainable.

The next wonder-weapon thrown at the Ukrainian problem was the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 5 "flying moped" drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars' worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike.

This was sure to have seriously pissed off US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose major personal cash cow happens to be Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot. Yes, the Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles; and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installation against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles... but you aren't supposed to advertise that fact. And now this!

And to top it all off, the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia's first line of defense. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Putin remarked off-the-cuff that Western armor burns rather more easily than the old Soviet-made stuff.

The latest desperate move would be to give the Ukrainian air force (which, by the way, no longer exists) some older F-16 fighter jets. These can be anywhere up to 50 years old and are peculiar in having an air intake that's very close to the ground, making them very effective as runway vacuum cleaners during takeoff. They cannot operate from the dirty and pitted runways that are typical in the Ukraine because the debris would get sucked into the engine and destroy it. If the Ukrainians attempt to pave new runways for them, the Russians would instantly spot this from the geosynchronous satellite that is permanently pointed at Ukrainian territory. Rather than put some fresh bomb craters on these new runways, they could do something more subtle: use one of their super-cheap Geranium 2's to spread metal shaving for the F-16's engines to vacuum up... and burn up in flight. And since these are single-engine planes, there is no possibility of limping home on the remaining engine: the pilot would have to catapult and the plane would crash. But there is an even more important reason why the idea of giving F-16's for the Ukraine is unworkable: these planes are able to carry nuclear bombs and Russia has already announced that it would see this step as a nuclear escalation. But provoking a nuclear conflict with Russia is verboten, so F-16's are a no-go.

Why is the failure of relentlessly propagandized Western weaponry more important than just about anything else, including the increasingly dire state of Western finances, the ridiculous failure of anti-Russian sanctions, the obscenely huge numbers of Ukrainian casualties or the general Western fatigue with all things Ukrainian and especially with the flood of Ukrainian refugees that the West can no longer cope with?

The reason is simple: NATO is not a defensive organization (remember, USSR has been gone for over 30 years); nor is it an offensive organization (well, it did bomb Serbia and a few other relatively defenseless countries, but it can't possibly think about facing off against Russia or any other well-armed nation).

Rather, NATO is a captive buyers' club for US-made weapons. That is what vaunted NATO standards, with which the Ukraine must comply before it is deemed worthy to be invited to join NATO, are all about: to comply with these standards, your weapons have to be mostly US-made. That is also the reason for all of the various wars of choice, from Serbia to Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and Syria: these were demonstration projects for US weapons, with the additional goal of using up the weapons and the munitions so that the Pentagon and the rest of NATO would have to reorder them. The geopolitical rationales for these military conflicts are mere rationalizations. For instance, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped more than 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos during 580,000 bombing sorties—equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. What was the geopolitical rationale? Nobody can even remember if there ever was one. But those bombs were about to expire and needed to be used up and reordered to keep the money flowing.

In response to such strange inducements, US-made weapons tend to be overly complex (so that their makers can charge more for the useless extra features) and rather fragile (never tested against a peer adversary like Russia or China, or even against Iran), developed slowly (to clean up on R&D funding), built slowly (because what's the rush?) and very high-maintenance (so that US defense contractors can get even richer delivering spare parts and service). These weapons were supposed to be tested every so gently by giving hell to backward tribesmen armed with old Kalashnikovs and RPGs.

Ukraine is a different story altogether. There, the Ukrainians, with their mismatched hand-me-down Western armor, are being asked to penetrate three lines of hardened Russian defenses. After about a month of effort and staggering losses of men and equipment, they haven't yet been able to reach the first defensive line. The sight of Western armor ablaze does not make good advertising. Consequently, the US defense contractors must be very eager to stop this steady stream of negative advertising for their products to stop right this second — before their reputations end up completely ruined; hence the unseemly haste with which the entire Ukrainian project is being orphaned.

The alternative to active warfare, now that that's failed, is what in the West is usually called "negotiation" but in reality would involve acceding to Russian demands made in November of 2021 (which include NATO rolling back its weapons to where they were in 1997), plus more recent requirements, such as denazification, demilitarization and neutrality for what remains of the Ukraine, recognition of Russia's new borders (which include Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions) and prosecution for all of the Ukrainian war criminals, including all the ones that have been torturing prisoners of war and shelling civilians since 2014. Oh, and the lifting of all the insipid sanctions would be required as well.

But this is rather a lot to take in at a single sitting, and so NATO has decided to take lots of bite-sized pieces. The official NATO document linked above is maximally verbose and full of fluff, but a close reading of its turgid bureaucratese will reveal quite a number of concessions, or at least hints at concessions:

"We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met." To use a vernacular Russian saying, this will happen "when a crawfish up on a mountain whistles" — i.e., never. That is, the Ukraine will never become part of NATO.

"The circumstances in which NATO might have to use nuclear weapons are extremely remote." Translation: We're standing down! Please don't kill us! Apparently, NATO heads have been briefed on the capabilities of Russia's new strategic weapons, both offensive and defensive, and don't want to even consider any sort of direct military confrontation with Russia.

"We urge all countries not to provide any kind of assistance to Russia’s aggression..." Translation: we wish they would stop, although we've asked enough times already and they haven't listened and so we aren't holding out much hope that they will listen now.

"The deepening strategic partnership between the PRC and Russia and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests." But the deepening strategic partnership is entirely congruent with both Russia's and China's values and interests and they aren't about to ask anyone for permission. Yammering on about the "rules-based international order," even though it no longer exists, is a bit pathetic, but what else is there left for them to do? Boo-hoo!

"Russia’s deepening military integration with Belarus, including the deployment of advanced Russian military capabilities and military personnel in Belarus, has implications for regional stability and the defence of the Alliance." Well, that's exactly what that military integration was designed to accomplish and it's good that they've noticed. The implication is that NATO will never mess with Belarus again.

"We remain willing to keep open channels of communication with Moscow to manage and mitigate risks, prevent escalation, and increase transparency." That's welcome news indeed! Phone the Kremlin any time you want to hear a recitation of Russia's security demands, to refresh your memory.

"The People’s Republic of China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values." And NATO's interests and values challenge the PRC and its security, so we're at an impasse. In other news, Russia just passed a law banning all sex change operations; how does that comply with "Western values"? Come on, shake your tiny fists in impotent rage!

"NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. In light of its hostile policies and actions, we cannot consider Russia to be our partner." And in light of NATO's hostile policies and actions, Russia considers NATO countries to be hostile nations (and certainly not partners). How does giving weapons to Ukrainian Nazis not pose a threat to Russia?

"We reiterate our clear determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon. We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s escalation of its nuclear programme." So, Iran is the only country that toothless old NATO can still find the courage to bark at. That seems safe, since by now Iran can't even hear them.

And that's where it stands.

Europe looks in horror at the US, which is still its weapons purveyor and security guarantor, but is headed by a barely functioning senile old man whose furious outbursts are causing his cabinet members to shy away from the Oval Office, and whose only possible replacement — the imbecilic, cackling Kamala — would hardly be any better.

It may be slowly dawning on some of the more lucid European leaders that a way of backing out of the Russophobic cul-de-sac, of their own creation, in which they now find themselves, must somehow be found, but they see no way of achieving that without a massive loss of face.

Let's give it another year and see whether by then they still have a face to save.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...shrinking-nato

[Vicus]

Just to remember... (2)

2 of the "west rebuilder" after WW2...

[Vicus]

The Russian Armies are advancing: the Ukrainians are evacuating Liman-Kupiansk-Kharkov! – The Russians took Novoselifsk and Anat. Zerebets
Ukrainians move defense companies out of Kharkiv - New records
15/07/2023 - 21:38

Kiev ordered the local administration of the settlements of Kupyansk and Liman to withdraw and immediately prepare to defend Kharkiv as Russian troops advanced six kilometers into Ukrainian defenses.

The Russians captured the settlement of Novoselevskoe after eight months of fighting and cleared the entire area east of the Zerebets River and NE of Torski.

Both are very important successes for the Russians. Especially in the area of ​​Zerebets they occupied two dominant heights unifying their forces opening a way to Krasny Liman.

The Russians have the absolute initiative of the movements in the region, something that has worried Kiev a lot. The movements of the Ukrainians in Kharkiv show that the time of the Russian attack on the city is approaching.

The British have long reported the concentration of a very strong Russian force of around 120,000 troops in the Kremina area.

Read also: They were taken in a row: Disorderly retreat of the Ukrainians on the Svatovo-Kremina axis – The Russians entered the center of Torske and pressed on... Seversk!

Video: Commando action of Russian forces in the forest of Kremina

Video: Operators of a UAV spotted Ukrainian forces in the area of ​​Torske in Kremina

Russian advance 6 km deep towards Kupiansk and Liman
The Ukrainian General Staff in the morning report recognized the Russian advance in several sectors at once, in the Krasnolimansky direction west of the Dibrova settlement and east of Novosadovo.


https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

[Vicus]

UKRAINE HAS LAUNCHED AN ATTACK AGAINST RUSSIA'S KURSK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT! 15 JULY 2023



The Ukraine government has launched a drone attack against Russia's Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, shown above. Thankfully, Russian air defenses caused the drone to go down just 4km from the plant as shown in the video below. The plant WAS NOT damaged.

The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant is located in western Russia, about 100km from the Ukraine Border, as shown on the scalable map below:

Ukraine fired what is initially described as a "kamikaze drone" at the plant, but the brief video below sounds far more like an actual missile, than a drone:


https://halturnerradioshow.com/index...ar-power-plant

[shaberon]

Posted by kfm27917 (here)
But then what is NATO's core mission?

Rather, NATO is a captive buyers' club for US-made weapons.

I would not say that is the core mission.

NATO is a derivative product of "collective security agreements" as we posted the other day, that were almost personally installed by Nelson Rockefeller and Allen Dulles.


It concerns manipulations of South America--a sort of pre-NATO, now somewhat defunct--whose methods passed into the hands of "rabid anti-Communists".

The two things merged in the Truman Doctrine, since "Nazi enemies" were replaced by "Communists" on the turn of a dime, such as from this Critique of a recent Brookings Agenda:


Truman's memoirs make clear that he was incensed in December 1945 about Iran and other places where the Communists seemed to him to be on the march (meaning the Straits, Turkey, Japan, China, Korea, among others).

The third goal, protecting other parts of the world than Europe or the United States, is limited again to the case of Communist expansion and is said to be "... both later in time and lesser in importance." This statement is at best unclear. Does it mean that West Europe is more important than all the rest of the world outside the continental United States put together?

In fact it was an event in Asia, the Korean War, that made the NATO Treaty words into flesh. Line 24 mentions the "...Rio pact of 1947 covering 19 Latin American powers, ..." Its language about an attack against any member state being considered an act of aggression against all antedates the NATO Treaty and derives from the Act of Chapultepec in 1945.


Chapultepec was, so to speak, a "first plan", which was soon ratified in a Treaty, abbreviated to TIAR or "Rio Treaty":


At the Inter-American Conference on the Problems of War and Peace, at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City during February and March 1945, discussions of the post-war world order were held by the U.S. secretary of state and by the foreign secretaries of all the Latin American countries except El Salvador and Argentina, resulting in the Act of Chapultepec of 6 March 1945. The Act included a framework for the negotiation of a regional security treaty. It also shaped Latin American pressure during the United Nations conference in San Francisco for clauses in the UN Charter to facilitate regional collective defense, under Article 51.

During the delay, global tensions between the United States and Soviet Union grew. In light of the developing Cold War and following the statement of the Truman Doctrine on 12 March 1947, the United States wished to make those new anti-communist commitments permanent, as did many anti-communist leaders in Latin America.



In 2001, the United States invoked the Rio Treaty after the September 11 attacks.



...several members have breached the treaty on multiple occasions.


As revolutionary and nationalist governments spread through Latin America through the 1950s and 1960s, the fear of a shared enemy that was experienced during WWII dissipated and the idea of defensive cooperation became strained.


In September 2002, citing the Falklands example and anticipating the invasion of Iraq, Mexico formally withdrew from the treaty; after the requisite two years, Mexico ceased to be a signatory in September 2004.

Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, under the leadership of leftist governments, initiated the retirement from the TIAR, a decision which the Obama administration described as "unfortunate" but respected. The treaty was officially denounced by Nicaragua on 20 September 2012, Bolivia on 17 October 2012, Venezuela on 14 May 2013, and Ecuador on 19 February 2014.




The non-official Rockefeller made himself the sole source of the original reporting about South America to the FBI, and more or less rewarded Argentinian Nazis. Allen Dulles, in turn, credits his success as the thing that made NATO possible. The American Secretary of State resigned due to the Nazi favoritism.


It is not that much of a secret about the "security agreements" themselves, but it takes some careful analysis to dig into the non-governmental prop-up of the Nazis, followed by their absolution, and switch to Communism as the "threat". This easily nested in the older anti-Russia stance of the British, who of course had a hand in replacing the Tsars with Communists to begin with. Who cares what kind of government, as long as suppression happens?


When NATO was formed, American weapons were not sub-par, in fact the versatility of the M1 rifle was a tremendous benefit. Probably up to the time of the F-16 it remained a contender. Maybe even the F-18. But now you might have second thoughts about the F-35. This has more to do with the ineffectiveness of Capitalism, compared to more efficient systems. Because Capitalism is not a military doctrine, one might say it "bought" rabid anti-Communism, in about the same way that someone might buy an F-35 today. Misguided, bad plans from listening to "experts".


Like the Rio Treaty, you can simply get out of NATO. In that case, Mexico--the original host where Chapultepec Castle is--in turn becoming the first to withdraw, is exemplary.

NATO is more like the private, secretive expansion of Fascism, doing everything to talk sideways to convince us otherwise.

British Russophobia goes back to the 1700s. Churchill thought Hitler was great. The Third Reich would have probably worked if he had not ignored his generals and attacked Russia--he was a maniacal devotee of British Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory.

I think the strategy is rather continuous, and the "falling behind" of western weaponry is just symptomatic that this strategy does not actually work. They're just wrong. They are not right about anything.

[DNA]

It's looking like things are going back to Syria.
Russia with Iran is preparing to kick the USA out of Syria.
Wow that's crazy.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...s-syria-report

[shaberon]

Posted by DNA (here)
It's looking like things are going back to Syria.
Russia with Iran is preparing to kick the USA out of Syria.

Never left.

This is from the other day, 35 Oil Tankers out, 30 cement trucks in:


The US operates about a dozen military bases in Syria, all of them without the permission of the internationally recognized Damascus government. An estimated 90 percent of Syria’s oil and gas resources are concentrated east of the Euphrates River in areas controlled by the US and its Kurdish allies.

However, the US occupation of a third of the country, which also includes much of its most fertile agricultural lands, has turned Syria into a net importer of both energy and food, with Iran and Russia stepping in to assist. Crews of Iranian ocean-going tankers often have to risk life and limb to make it to Syria’s Mediterranean coast to offload their fuel cargoes amid sabotage operations by Israel, a sworn enemy of both Damascus and Tehran.



I am not sure what to make of ZH:


... a high-ranking US military official was quoted as saying that Russian and Iranian forces in Syria have been coordinating with the specific aim of forcing Washington’s troops to eventually withdraw from the country.

The official said that "he's seen signs that Russian military commanders in Syria have been quietly coordinating with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on long-term plans to pressure the United States to withdraw its forces" from Syria...




He hasn't really said anything. More normally:


Syrian and Russian officials have broadly dismissed the US’s allegations, emphasizing that the US presence in Syria is illegal.


But it continues to stop short of a shooting war. Unless you actually shoot them, talk, and plans, have never been found to be effective. Pressure? To sanction the US from Iranian goods? Or? After all, this is the "rules-based order" at work--it listens to nothing.

Concerning the shooting, yes, one Iranian missile on the U. S. barracks a few years ago was definitely a message with some pressure on it.

The removal of Israel would perhaps be one such form of pressure. It is not our ally, since we have no defense pact. That does not mean most of the known world would not rush to its assistance, just that it is not legally compelled.

Or, a drastic change of the U. S. from within could do it, and, if Al Quds can help me figure out how to pull it off, I'm listening. After all, it is our House of Representatives which has been terribly interested in more weapons to Ukraine, and this is the branch that represents "the people", like me, but they didn't ask. I tend to think our least-damaging fallout would be secession, and maybe make new countries out of a few regional blocs.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/thesiriusreport/...04042350419973

https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/s...99500015915012

https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1680794694194798593

Text:
A video has emerged of the Crimean Bridge emergency. The video is graphic, depicting the horror experienced by the occupants of a vehicle. A woman was conscious and had been thrown partially through the windshield. Other occupants appeared to be dead.

"Someone" is responsible for this. I mean an actual person. Not a country, not an ideology, a person.

Someone pushed a button, or guided a surface drone, or packed explosives. Who does this to innocent civilians who have no direct involvement in a war? There was no military target here. This is pure terrorism.

Americans wake up! On 11 September 2001, the Pentagon, as well as purely civilian targets in America, were attacked, and thousands of innocent people died. Do you remember how you felt on that day, Americans? Was an attack on your civilians warranted?

You obviously answered, "No." Well then, how is it that constant terror attacks on Russian people are ok in your thinking?

Do you remember how angry you were on 12 September 2001? You wanted revenge. You wanted an immediate response and dead terrorists on television.

So, do you not understand how the Russian people feel when their innocent people are constantly killed in acts of terrorism?

I will not speak for the Russian people and say they want an expanded war. It is for them to express their feelings themselves.

https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1680789305243975680

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RoyalIntel_/stat...15977636798464

https://twitter.com/vicktop55/status...15123819118594

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...15283898908672

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...18824378023936

https://twitter.com/RoyalIntel_/stat...21705399312384

https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/statu...24744701206529

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
Attack on the Crimean Bridge - What is known as of 10.00?

After the morning attack in the Network appeared footage of damaged supports. Judging by the photo and video footage, the explosion actually occurred under the bridge, causing the structure to be thrown up onto the supports.

However, there is no complete destruction, which will significantly reduce the repair time. This indirectly confirms that an uncrewed boat was used for the strike, which approached the target from the waters of the Sea of Azov.

The Ukrainian authorities admitted to organizing a terrorist attack that killed a civilian man and a woman, and their daughter is in hospital. It was quite obvious that the Ukrainian armed forces would try to repeat last year's result against the background of the end of the "grain deal".
https://twitter.com/rybar_force/stat...34544834846721

https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/s...39438207975424

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status...53676238295040

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status...85470484656128

Text:

Resident UA TG Channel: Our source in the Ukrainian president’s office said that the attack on the Crimean bridge was carried out using the British REMUS 600 autonomous underwater robot with an additional load of explosives. Thanks to its ability to move under water at a depth of up to 600 meters and easy control from a laptop, it was launched from a civilian vessel in the Black Sea, it has a flight duration of about 70 hours at a speed of up to 5 knots. With increased cargo capacity, it has a range of 286 nautical miles, almost 500 km.

—Source resident_ua

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/statu...88453246877696

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BrianJBerletic/s...91742181294081

https://twitter.com/BrianJBerletic/s...91890831597570

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/st...68006748905472

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
Drone strikes are expected in Nikolaev, Chernigov and Sumy regions.

As we reported earlier, the commission of terrorist attacks has no effect on the fulfilment of combat missions using Geran-2 drones and combat aviation. Yesterday there was a massive strike on the industrial zone of Kharkov and in Zaporozhye, today the combat work continues in the northern border area, as well as in the southern regions of Ukraine. You can't call it a military response, because it's likely to come a little later, but the planned practice on air defence facilities, AFU depots and locations with personnel appears to be on schedule.

#source

@Slavyangrad
https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/st...12405616893952

[ExomatrixTV]

• Ukraine Will Never Be In NATO Says Former US Ambassador to NATO:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KX2i8Z1ns5g

[Vicus]

Belarusian troops receive Wagner training 16 Jul, 2023

Fighters from the PMC are sharing their experience from the Ukraine conflict with local territorial defense units, according to Minsk



Less than a month after launching a short-lived mutiny in Russia, members of the Wagner private military company are training Belarusian troops and sharing the battlefield experience they gained from the Ukraine conflict, according to the Defense Ministry in Minsk.

In a statement on Friday, the ministry said that together with the Wagner leadership it had developed a “road map” for military training and sharing experience.

It also noted that Wagner troops were instructing Belarusian territorial defense forces in exercises near the town of Osipovichi in the central part of the country. The drills focused mainly on tactical movements across the battlefield as well as firearms, engineering, and first aid training, according to the statement.

Voyen TV, an outlet affiliated with the Belarusian Defense Ministry, shared footage of the exercises involving territorial defense forces, which are typically tasked with protecting borders and strategic facilities. Several unnamed soldiers interviewed by the channel praised Wagner’s battlefield experience.

“Listening to them is very interesting, of course. They have seen live action, and this experience is very useful for the Belarusian army. We have not taken part in hostilities since the end of the Afghan War,” he said, referring to the Soviet-era conflict that lasted from 1979 to 1989.

Wagner troops were given the option of either to returning to civilian life, signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, or moving to Belarus. Earlier this month, Lukashenko suggested that fighters from the PMC could be used to defend the country, adding that he was “not worried” about Wagner’s presence.

https://www.rt.com/russia/579784-wag...arus-training/

[Vicus]

Russian Forces Destroy Enemy Infantry Trying to Attack in Zaporozhye Direction 14 hours ago



MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Service members of the Russian "Vostok" Group of Forces have destroyed all Ukrainian infantry groups that were trying to attack in the Zaporozhye direction, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson told Sputnik.

"In the Zaporozhye direction, the enemy made attempts to attack our positions with small groups of infantry… All groups have been destroyed," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that, in the south Donetsk direction, the "Vostok" Group of Forces has been systematically attacking Ukrainian troops, having destroyed a pickup truck with nationalists and two mortar crews.
Russian aerial reconnaissance has uncovered a concentration of nationalists in the Novodaryevka area, which was then destroyed by artillery fire, the spokesperson told Sputnik.

In addition, Russian forces have destroyed the command and observation post of the Ukrainian military in one of the sectors of the south Donetsk direction and prevented a planned attack.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230717/ru...111929724.html

[Vicus]

For all us who cant Russian language (yet)... a practical map until the end.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230714/ru...105665248.html

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/mazzenilsson/sta...13377999159298