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The European Union pledges further comprehensive support for Ukraine, but is holding back on security guarantees for the period after the end of Russia's war of aggression. At the EU summit in Brussels, the 27 member states were only able to agree on a vague declaration of intent for "future security commitments." The reason for the cautious choice of words was the attitude of countries such as Austria, Ireland and Malta. They want to remain militarily neutral and are therefore not members of NATO.
[DW] ----------------- ^ Illustrates nicely one of the several reasons why I am against establishing parallel military structures to NATO and call them a EU army. -------------------- The US considers delivery of DPICM cluster ammunitions, and ATACMS with a range of 300 km. The first is controversial due to legal and political self-restrictions. --------------------- Ukrainian military intelligence: Rosatom employees leave Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant According to the latest information from the Military Intelligence Service of Ukraine, the crew of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant is gradually leaving the site of the nuclear power plant. Among the first to leave the power plant were three employees of Rosatom, the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy in Russia, who had been stationed there with the Russian occupation of the nuclear power plant. But Ukrainian employees who had signed a contract with Rosatom were also advised to leave. They are to leave for occupied Crimea by July 5. At the site and in the town of Energodari, the number of military patrols is also decreasing, according to the update. The withdrawal could be interpreted as an indication that Russian forces are planning an attack on the power plant. Most recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Ukrainian intelligence, had warned that Russian occupiers were believed to have mined parts of the power plant. Staff remaining at the nuclear plant were reportedly ordered to "blame Ukraine in the event of an emergency," Ukrainian intelligence said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on the other hand, accused Ukraine of playing a "dangerous game with the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant." He said the government in Kiev was spreading "pure lies" with statements suggesting that Russia wanted to blow up the nuclear plant. [Tagesspiegel] -------------------- ^ If the Russian fascists cannot keep conquered ground, they will poison it to prevent Ukraine making use of it for industry and agriculture. Scorched Earth policy. |
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'I was guaranteed that all anti-aircraft defences would be on alert': did the feud between Prigozhin and the Russian army leadership in Syria start? The feud between Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia's army leadership, which broke out in full last weekend, did not originate in Ukraine. It started five years ago in Syria - and the general who is now said to have been arrested for colluding with Wagner also played an important role then. Did Sergei Soerovikin have some ground to make up with Progoshin? It is noon on the night of 7-8 February 2018. In the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor, a large movement of troops is gathering pace. It is two detachments of the Wagner Group, which took part in the civil war there even before the Russian army took part on the side of dictator Bashar al-Assad. The mercenary army is advancing with tanks and artillery - and supported by Syrian troops - towards an important oil field. Located near the village of Khasham, it belonged to US energy giant Conoco-Phillips before the war. It took until early this year for the Wagner Group to acknowledge its involvement at the time in what became known as the Battle of Khasham. "The Conoco oil field was a stronghold of Islamic State," Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed at the time. "Petroleum was their main source of income and since our job was to fight the terror group, we planned an operation to take control of the oil field." That explanation is not quite correct, because in fact it was the Kurds who were there, backed by the United States. According to Prigozhin, however, that was all one and the terrorists were also receiving US assistance. "On the ground, we were controlling all of them," he explained. "But to prevent the Americans from surprising us from the air, we agreed with the Russian army to give us cover. I personally went to the Khmeimim air base (where the Russian command in Syria was based, ed.) and was promised four SU-35 fighters that would permanently fly over the area. And I was also guaranteed that all anti-aircraft defences would be on alert." But the Wagner army had only left when all hell broke loose. "American AH-64-Apache helicopters appeared and surrounded us, strafing us with guided missiles and machine guns. We saw our vehicles shrivel up like a chocolate bar you crush in your fist," an eyewitness account reads. According to Prigozhin, the Americans deployed all means at their disposal: "F-15E fighter jets, MQ-9-Reaper attack drones, an AC-130 gunship and even B-52 bombers." The attack dragged on for four hours and was devastating, according to images released by Wagner himself this year. According to US sources, at least 100 fighters were killed and possibly as many as three times that number. "Some Russian mercenaries would also have been among them," it sounded at the time. But an inventory of death reports published by dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky's 'Dossier Center' five years later showed that at least 79 Wagner fighters died. The heaviest loss the militia had suffered until then. To whom was Wagner to blame for that loss? To defence minister Sergei Shoygu and chief of staff Valeri Gerasimov, it turns out. Because when they learned that their air force would provide cover for an operation that, in their view, served only to give the Wagner group the benefit of the oil, they called off air support. Indeed, the Americans informed them that they were going to attack the advancing troops. "There was contact with Russia's military leadership before, during and after the clash," US defence secretary Jim Mattis stated at the time. But this was thus concealed from Wagner. The only air support that came consisted of two planes that the Wagner Group was allowed to use to repatriate the bodies of its fighters to Russia. Prigozhin would have travelled to Moscow that same week to seek redress with Shoygoe. But the latter refused to receive him. When he finally managed to accost him at a reception, Shoygoe is said to have turned around and haughtily said, "You wanted to be a hero, didn't you? Well, your men have already succeeded in that." The commander in Syria who had promised the air support was Sergei Soerovikin. The four-star general still considered an ally of Prigozhin today. Does he still have something to make up for? Or perhaps he was promised a share in the oil profits at the time and therefore also harboured a deep hatred for the army leadership? When the Wagner Group advanced into Moscow on Friday night, he was the first to publicly disapprove. But according to The New York Times, Soerovikin may have known about Prigozhin's plans in advance, and although that too has been denied, Russian media reported that he would now have been arrested. https://www.demorgen.be/oorlog-in-oe...taan~b8aa6f16/ |
Saluschnyi ist sauer. Things dont run like he wants them, and the West does not give him what he needs. Still the West confront him with surreal expectations.
https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp I stick to what I said since quite early in the war. Washington, Paris and Berlin arte not reralyl interested in a Ukrainian victory. Washington wants to prolongue the war to maximise damage to Russia, at the cost of Ukraine. Paris and Berlin dont want Ukraine to win so that the balance of Power in Europe does not shift from Paris and Berlin towards Warzaw and Kyiv. These are false friends. |
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It seems things do not look good for the offensive. If the following analysis by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung is true, the Ukrainian losses are critcial, desastrous. I post the German translation in full, since NZZ does not work well with website-link-translations done by Google.
-------------- Destroyed and abandoned - dozens of Leopard 2s and Marder apparently lost in Ukrainian offensive German battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles would turn the tide. That was the hope when the government in Berlin voted in favor of the delivery. But after the first Ukrainian attacks on Russian positions, it turns out that this is not true. What a lot has been written about the Leopard 2. It could be a game-changer, a weapon that makes the difference, a tank that shortens the war. That's what was said in politics and the media, including the NZZ, when the debate about the delivery of German battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine raged in the winter. Half a year later, the euphoria has been dampened. A considerable part of the German and other Western weapon systems was apparently already lost during the first three weeks of the Ukrainian offensive in June. There is conflicting information about how high the losses are. On Twitter, a list is circulating that was published by a channel that is usually considered well-informed, reputable and pro-Ukrainian. According to it, during the first three weeks of their offensive, the Ukrainians would have lost 41 Leopard-2 and 49 T-72 main battle tanks, in addition to, among others, 31 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles from the United States and 7 of the Marder type, as well as 23 artillery pieces (including 4 self-propelled howitzers 2000 from Germany) and 40 armored vehicles of the MRAP type. The documentation platform "Oryx" publishes lower figures. According to it, 25 Bradley, 4 Leopard 2A6, 3 Leopard 2A4, 3 mine clearing tank and 1 armored recovery vehicle have been destroyed. "Oryx" is a Dutch website that collects its data based on public sources and substantiates each listed weapon system with a geolocated photo. However, "Oryx" had recently announced to stop its time-consuming and unpaid work. Therefore, the question is how reliable the figures on the website are in the meantime. The dimension of the possible losses becomes clear when put in relation to the total number of deliveries. Germany had delivered 18 Leopard 2A6s to Ukraine, and 36 Leopard 2A4s had come from Poland, Canada, Norway and Spain. That makes a total of 54 main battle tanks, of which only 13 would be left, according to the Twitter listing. The situation would not be quite so catastrophic for other weapons systems. Of 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 33 would still exist, of 14 self-propelled howitzers 2000, 10 would still exist and of 109 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 78 would still exist. The authors of the Twitter channel refer to a source in the Operations Department of the Ukrainian General Staff. There is no official evidence of Ukrainian losses of German and other Western weapons. The government in Kiev does not publish such figures. German soldiers working in the EU training mission for Ukraine report that even in confidential talks their Ukrainian partners would not comment on this. However, numerous photos and videos are circulating on the Internet showing destroyed and abandoned German and American battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles in no man's land between the front lines. In addition, the American magazine "Forbes" recently reported on a Ukrainian attack on June 8 on the town of Robotine in the south of the country. The attack was carried out by two brigades equipped with Western weapons. They had encountered two Russian motorized rifle regiments, Speznas special forces, and reserve units north of Robotine, which had dug in and fortified their defensive positions for months. In that attack alone, he said, 17 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 4 Leopard 2A6s and 3 Leopard 2Rs were lost. Leopard 2Rs are Finnish mine-clearing tanks based on the German Leopard 2 main battle tank. The Ukrainians are running against multiple lines of defense. However, they have not even reached the first positions of the Russians, but mostly got stuck in the minefields in front. These fields consist of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. An anti-tank mine is a metal disk filled with explosives, often equipped with a pressure fuse. It can be buried in the ground by hand or by vehicles. Anti-personnel mines are much smaller. The Russians fire them from a long distance with an artillery gun, thus scattering the treacherous explosive devices over a large area. Minefields slow down an attack massively because heavy clearing equipment has to be used first to create a mine alley for the advancing troops. Russian mobile anti-tank units succeeded in destroying several of these mine-clearing tanks while they were pounding the alleys. In some cases, however, the Ukrainian battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles did not even get farther than their deployment position. They were destroyed by helicopters and fighter jets before they could launch the attack. The Ukrainians lack air defense systems to prevent these airstrikes. The Russians also currently have a considerable advantage in the use of drones. With their Lanzet kamikaze drones, they have been inflicting heavy losses on the Ukrainians in terms of tanks, guns and air defense systems for months. They are also successfully using jammers on the front line to repel Ukrainian drone attacks. The small terrain gains the Ukrainians have made so far are therefore offset by many lost Western battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, as well as hundreds of fallen and wounded soldiers. However, high casualties on the side of an aggressor are nothing unusual. In the military, the ratio of attackers to defenders must be three to one for a breakthrough attempt to be promising. The Ukrainians, however, lack not only the manpower, but also the weapons. They have too few combat aircraft and helicopters, mine-clearing tanks and anti-aircraft systems, battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. In addition, the Russians manage to tie down the Ukrainians with their own attacks on various sections of the front in the Donbass with strong formations. In this way, they prevent the Ukrainians from forming centers of gravity. Military observers say there has been no major Ukrainian effort to break through decisively at any point. After the sometimes catastrophic losses, the Ukrainians are now adapting their tactics. Instead of clearing minefields, they are trying to blast their way through them. To do this, they are firing explosive charges, the explosion of which is intended to detonate the mines buried in the ground. In addition, they no longer use marching columns of tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored vehicles, but smaller assault squads consisting mainly of soldiers on foot (dismounted infantry) and only a few battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. But in the areas they occupy, the Russians have laid what are believed to be hundreds of thousands of mines along the entire front. Wherever the Ukrainians attack, they will have to strike minefields. This ensures that neither Leopard nor Marder or Bradley can initially play to their strengths. They will be channeled and forced onto a narrowly defined path. This makes them easy targets for targeted artillery fire, attack helicopters and anti-tank guided missiles. It is a perfidious but effective way of warfare used by the Russians. Several videos document the disastrous course of Ukrainian attacks. On their way through the mine alleys, columns are hit by artillery or mines that have not been cleared. Soldiers, some injured, leave the tanks, come under fire and seek cover in areas outside the mine alley. There they get caught in fields of anti-personnel mines. They die in agony with their limbs torn off, while their comrades can hardly help because they would have to enter the minefield themselves. In an offensive, the first weeks are usually decisive. In military history, there are many examples of how a surprise attack on the enemy positions brought a breakthrough, thus setting the front in motion. Such a moment is not currently seen in Ukraine. According to Western military experts such as former U.S. General Ben Hodges, the losses of battle tanks and other vehicles in the first few weeks do not yet weigh so heavily as to call the entire offensive into question. To that end, he said, the Ukrainians still have enough well-equipped formations up their sleeve so far. The US government recently announced further arms deliveries, including 30 Bradley and 25 Stryker wheeled tanks. Rheinmetall plans to deliver 14 more Leopard 2A4s to Ukraine by early next year on behalf of the Netherlands and Denmark. The German government intends to send up to 100 older Leopard 1 main battle tanks to Ukraine in the coming months. Military observers such as Austrian General Staff Officer Markus Reisner see signs that the Ukrainians are now consolidating for the time being in order to launch another offensive in late summer. It is possible that by then Germany will be faced with the next debate on arms deliveries. The Ukrainians urgently need precision weapons such as the Taurus cruise missile, with which they can engage Russian positions from a safe distance. In view of the presumed losses, the Ukrainians are also likely to ask for more Leopard 2A6s soon. The Bundeswehr still has almost 190 of them in its inventory. It is not known whether the Russians have been able to capture any of the German tanks so far. Most of the destroyed and abandoned Leopard 2s are in no man's land between the fronts. [NZZ] ---------------- I was sceptical about the chances of this offensive, and I remain to be so. The Ukrainians are outnumbered, have in no way sufficient air cover, are inferior in drones now, are low in all sorts of artillery ammo and thus cannot prepare their tactical advances the way you want to do if going against prepared defences, and they must expect the attacker's high loss ratios while not being given the ammounts of weapons by the West that they need. Everythign speaks against them except morale (which will suffer form this current mess), and the lousy state of inner Russian leadership. I posted an article about an interview with Salushnyi yesterday. The WSJ interviewers were stunned by hios anger. He has all reason to be upset. So far and until here the signs speak against a success of this offensiove. But there are still a few cards left to be played. But by now 8 of 12 attack brigades are engaged and some of them already suffered catastrophic losses in heavy equipment. It doesn't help to talk things up and believe what you would like to believe. And Russia, Putin? They wrote so much abotu how weakened he now is after the attemtped and then stopped coup. Sorry, I disagree, the Russian econoym still has the support of over 40% of the global economic potential, and Putin's state currently does what it is designed to do: it cracks down on inner oppasition, runs purges in the military's medium and higher leadership, while all the time the population is a total failure in terms of the possibility of igniting a dynamic on the street that could be dangerous to the Kremlin. Black Swan events can never be ruled out. But it is stupid to take them for granted. |
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Vladimir Putin assassination plot on Moscow bridge 'foiled by Russian secret service'
A plot to assassinate Vladimir Putin on a Moscow bridge was reportedly '"foiled by Russian Secret Service". The assassination attempt reportedly involved laying explosives laid on a river bed below a bridge that the Russian autocrat's motorcade would have travelled over. The Federal Protection Service (FSO), responsible for the protection of top Russian officials, claims it bettered a bid to blow up the bridge, according to the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU. A barge has been suspected of laying explosives under an unnamed bridge prior to the assassination attempt. Just yesterday, the warmonger was at the Strong Ideas for New Time by the Russian Agency of Strategic Initiative at the World Trade Centre and videos have since emerged of security services close to the Novoarbatsky Bridge scouring the water. According to the post on VChK-OGPU: “The FSO was checking information about the preparation of an assassination attempt on Putin with the help of explosives at the bottom of the Moskva River, laid down from a barge. “A duty officer of the Federal Security Service reported a suspicious barge under the bridge.” Reports claim divers were seen entering the water after the suspect barge was told to move, “due to the movement of motorcades over the bridge”, reports the Daily Star. The FSO is also understood to have checked the papers of the crew of the barge, which in turn said it was carrying out repairs to the bridge. The activity has, however, been portrayed as a response to efforts to “assassinate Putin”. This announcement comes amid the ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive in the neighbouring country, and in the wake of what appears to be a failed attempt at a coup by the Wagner mercenary group. It comes as an increasingly paranoid Putin has stepped up his personal security amid fears after last week’s uprising in Russia. Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the abandoned rebellion, is said to be a “dead man walking” after going into exile in Belarus. Some of Putin’s defence officials who may be suspected of being too close to the mercenary leader could also soon be “disappeared”, sources claim. A number of senior Wagner Group executives and a handful of oligarchs have also been earmarked for the Russian president’s hit squads, it is believed. A western security source told the Mirror: “There is an increasing belief that Prigozhin will be gone in months, if not sooner, and many others as well. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...756a7c91&ei=15 |
As I said - Putin's state has swung into action to do exactly what it was designed to do. Obviously successful so far.
Too bad. |
CIA director, on secret trip to Ukraine.........:D
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...nteroffensive/ |
^ From the above link:
Quote:
Before the war broke out over stupid reasons I did not expect, I said I could imagine Russia to go to war in two scenarios: a war triggered by a NATO membership of Ukraine, or a scenario where Russia is threatened to loose Crimea, and Sewastopol. I also said in case of the latter I see a Russian attempt to try saving Crimea for itself even by using nukes to be absolutely possible. Crimea is a red line. Nobody can say for sure how Russia reacts if that line gets overstepped. Keeping Crimea also would allow Russia to track and threatend much of Ukraine's air space and pratcially all its shipping routes starting at the coast west of the Crimea-Ukriane land connection, but also in the east: the Asov Sea. Practically Ukraine cannot afford to not retake Crimea. |
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The Ukrainian bridgehead on the bank of the Dnieper near the Antonovsky Bridge at Cherson, which has been fighting for a week, apparently has been eliminated by the Russians.
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