The U.S./NATO doctrine, as it had been taught to the Ukrainian units that were prepared for the counter-offensive, has failed. As a comment allegedly made on a forum of veterans of the West Point Academy describes it: Classic attacks under...

Photo credit: AP

By Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd, World BEYOND War, July 10, 2023

President Biden may have crossed a new red line for the Democratic Party when he announced he would send banned cluster munitions to shore up Ukraines slow counter-offensive against Russian troops.

On Friday, 19 House Democrats, led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-7), signed a letter to Biden warning that his decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine severely undermines our moral leadership.

This time its not just left-leaning activists in CODEPINK and the Peace in Ukraine Coalition who recoil in horror at Bidens escalation in Ukraine, but congressional Democrats who previously stood by their President. These are the same Democrats who voted to approve over $100 billion in Ukraine spending, an estimated half for weapons and military assistance for which there is no accountability.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-4),  ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, told Politico: The decision by the Biden administration to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine is unnecessary and a terrible mistake The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, de...

By Ahmed Adel | July 10, 2023

The Ukrainian military lacks tanks, armoured vehicles, and ammunition to dislodge Russian forces from their well-entrenched positions, demonstrating that over half a year of planning and training for the current counteroffensive has dissipated into complete failure. The situation for Ukraine is so bad that it was even forced to withdraw its German-made Leopard 2 tanks from the front lines so they could be preserved for the future. This revelation comes as the Biden administration announced on July 6 that it would send cluster munitions to Ukraine.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Ukraine is now attempting to dislodge an entrenched enemy, one of the most daunting operations any military can undertake. Russian troops have spent months building physical defences that include bunkers, tank traps and mine fields.

The same outlet quoted Lt. Col. Oleksiy Telehin of Ukraines 108th Territorial Defence Brigade as saying that it was not only impossible to destroy well-prepared positions before advancing but that Ukrainian forces were suffering from a shortage of armoured vehicles, with infantry forced to advance on foot, which makes it vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres.

The Ukrainian military has only managed to capture a few villages in Zaporozhye and the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR). A month of fighting has resulted in only the capture of some villages and failure to reach Russias first defensive line, and more disturbingly, at the cost of thousands of deaths and hundreds of destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles.

Ukrainian personnel admit to horrific losses, with soldiers presumably in Zaporozhye, saying they could have lost dozens of men in a single attack.

We had to evacuate the evacuation team, said a 19-year-old combat medical professional, according to the US outlet. The teenager also recalled a case where a mortar hit his vehicle during an evacuation of the wounded.

According to reports, Russian helicopters fly less than 8 kilometres from Ukrainian positions, which should ordinarily make them vulnerable to air defences, but as a platoon commander from the 108th Brigade said, We dont have proper air defence systems to deal with the threat. When were warned that an enemy plane has taken off, the only way to deal with it is to take cover.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported on July 9 that since the beginning of the special military operation, their forces have destroyed from Ukraine 453 planes, 241 helicopters, 4,948 unmanned aerial vehicles, 426 air defence missile systems, 10,604 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,137 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 5,396 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 11,547 special military motor vehicles.

......

The Ukraine issue has caused discord among the countries participating in the summit of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC), which will take place in Brussels on 17-18 July. Spain has invited Vladimir Zelensky to speak at the meeting, but this provoked resistance from Latin American leaders, after which Kiev refused to participate in the summit, writes Euractiv.

Central and Latin American countries also demanded that the reference to Ukraine be removed from the summit's final stat...

Leo Hohmann leohohmann.com July 8, 2023

The Biden regime has approved cluster bombs for Ukraine, under the justification that but Russia used them first.

Watch below as former White House press secretary Jen Psaki condemns the use of cluster bombs as war crime in 2022. The overall thrust of her comment suggests that only the bad guys would use these little bomblets that tend to be left lying on the ground, unexploded, until little children come along and pick them up, blowing their little bodies to smitherines.

BREAKING: Here is Jen Psaki in 2022 saying that using cluster bombs is a war crime

The Biden Admin is sending cluster bomber to Ukraine today pic.twitter.com/dSMKqumDm1

Jack Poso (@JackPosobiec) July 7, 2023

Cluster bombs are widely banned around the world.

Sarah Yager, the Washington director at Human Rights Watch, called the U.S. decision devastating.

They are absolutely awful for civilians, Yager told Al Jazeera in a television interview. I think when legislators and policymakers here in the United States see the photos coming back of children with missing limbs, parents injured, killed by our own American cluster munitions, theres going to be a real awakening to the humanitarian disaster that this is.

Remember, this is the same wicked administration that has recently approved radiological depleted uranium shells to be used in Ukraine, potentially poisoning some of the worlds most fertile black soil for decades to come.

Revelation 18 speaks of the great Harlot, modern Babylon, being destroyed in the latter days, smashing its ability to traffic in all manner of luxury products including the bodies and souls of men, which I explored in my previous article about the story of Tim Ballard in Sound of Freedom.

But another characteristic of the end-times revived Babylonian system, which the Bible says in Revelation 18 will be destroyed in one hour is that it wreaks havoc...

Larry Johnson The Gateway Pundit July 9, 2023

Ukraines attempt at a Hail Mary (the football play not the Catholic prayer) victory by seizing swaths of territory from the Russians is a failure. The Russians have intercepted every move and Ukraines negligible advances are counted in single-digit kilometers along with piles of Ukrainian corpses and burned-out hulk of Western-supplied tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Yet the West is struggling to come to grips with the reality and persists in peddling the delusion of a stalemate. Samuel Charap, a senior Political Scientist at Rand Corporation, wrote a piece published in Foreign Affairs on June 5 that grudgingly conceded the war in Ukraine is Unwinnable. But he only got it half-right. He wrote:

Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a moment of clarity for the United States and its allies. An urgent mission was before them: to assist Ukraine as it countered Russian aggression and to punish Moscow for its transgressions. While the Western response was clear from the start, the objective the endgame of this war has been nebulous.

But it is now time that the United States develop a vision for how the war ends. Fifteen months of fighting has made clear that neither side has the capacity even with external help to achieve a decisive military victory over the other. Regardless of how much territory Ukrainian forces can liberate, Russia will maintain the capability to pose a permanent threat to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military will also have the capacity to hold at risk any areas of the country occupied by Russian forces-and to impose costs on military and civilian targets within Russia itself.

Charap is a prime example of the failings of political science as a science. He ignores the evidence that Russia, unlike Ukraine, has enormous capacity to achieve a decisive military victory over not only Ukraine, but NATO. Ukraine and NATO are running out of artillery shells, cruise missiles, tanks and combat aircraft. More importantly, Ukraine is drained of competent, trained soldiers that can operate those weapon systems.

The situation for Russia is the exact opposite. With each passing day Russias trained manpower increases along with soaring production of tanks, hypersonic missiles, artillery shells, mortars and drones. Russia is degrading Ukraines combat capability and has not yet launched its own offensive using the full weight of the Russian ground and air forces.

NATO has no stomach to let Ukraine join its club. Germany, along with denouncing Bidens decision to supply cluster munitions to Kiev, declared that any decision about Ukraine joining should be postponed. Hungary and Bulga...

Strategic Review July 7, 2023

Ukraine is ground zero for the CIAs fascist origins

The American magazine Newsweek published a big exclusive report this week purporting to reveal the extent of CIA involvement in the Ukraine proxy war against Russia. It hardly merits the billing of exclusive since it is well known that the U.S. spy agency is up to its neck in orchestrating the conflict.

In truth, the CIAs nefarious role in Ukraine goes back decades to the end of World War Two. More on that further down.

Nevertheless, the Newsweek article provides a useful admission that Washington is recklessly and criminally fueling hostilities towards Russia, the worlds biggest nuclear power in terms of its arsenal. The Biden administration and its military-intelligence apparatus are risking an escalation of the proxy war to an all-out nuclear conflagration.

The Newsweek report remarks on the contradiction between President Joe Bidens public vow to not put American boots on the ground and the undeniable heavy presence of U.S. clandestine forces in Ukraine helping (more precisely, directing) the war effort. Instead of contradiction, a plainer, more fitting word is lie.

Recall, too, Biden previously said he doesnt want to start World War Three with Russia. Thats about as believable as an alcoholic saying he doesnt want another drink.

The Biden administration is engaged in gross deception of the American public by absurdly pretending that U.S. military personnel are not in Ukraine and that Washington is not directing a war against Russia. Bidens policy of pumping weapons into Ukraine ($40 billion so far) is inexorably leading the United States and its NATO allies deeper into an all-out war against Russia. Yet this mentally challenged president somehow maintains there are no U.S. boots on the ground and that the U.S.-led NATO alliance is not at war with Russia. Such blatant lies should be grounds for his impeachment.

Apart from the admission that the Newsweek article provides, the otherwise banal reporting is a whitewash of the CIAs pivotal and pernicious role in the Ukraine conflict.

Laughably, the article portrays the CIA as trying to ensure the war does not spin out of control. Thus, the agency is presented as a moderating, restraining influence on the Kiev regime and its military conduct. The reader is led to believe that Washington is endeavoring to prevent the Ukrainian military from launching direct attacks on Russia. It is claimed that the CIA is struggling to control the operations of the Kiev regime which has at times gone rogue against Bidens rules of engagement. Examples of rogue conduct, it is claimed, are the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, the bo...

Its time. If the goal is for Ukraine to emerge from this horrible situation in as strong a position as possible, then the time has come to stop the war and negotiate a settlement. The Biden administration has long insisted that the goal is to put Ukraine in the best position on the battlefield [to] Continue reading "What a Negotiated Settlement to the Ukraine War Could Look Like"

The post What a Negotiated Settlement to the Ukraine War Could Look Like appeared first on Antiwar.com Original.

Several crucial decisions likely will be made at this weeks NATO summit meeting. The most important of all involves Ukraines application to join the Alliance. Zealotry for Ukraine in some NATO capitals is so strong that that a path to membership for that country is being considered even in the midst of an ongoing war Continue reading "Can Washington Be Saved from Itself at the NATO Summit?"

The post Can Washington Be Saved from Itself at the NATO Summit? appeared first on Antiwar.com Original.

Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has distinctly strayed from its original purpose.  It has become, almost shamelessly, the vessel and handmaiden of US power, while its burgeoning expansion eastwards has done wonders to upend the applecart of stability.

From that upending, the alliance started bungling.  It engaged, without the authorisation of the UN Security Council, in a 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia at least what was left of it ostensibly to protect the lives of Kosovar Albanians.  Far from dampening the tinderbox, the Kosovo affair continues to be an explosion in the making.

Members of the alliance also expended material, money and personnel in Afghanistan over the course of two decades, propping up a deeply unpopular, corrupt regime in Kabul while failing to stifle the Taliban.  As with previous imperial projects, the venture proved to be a catastrophic failure.

In 2011, NATO again was found wanting in its attack on the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.   While it was intended to be an exemplar of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, the intervention served to eventually topple the doomed Colonel Gaddafi, precipitating the de-facto partitioning of Libya and endangering the very civilians the mission was meant to protect.  A continent was thereby destabilised.  The true beneficiaries proved to be the tapestry of warring rebel groups characterised by sectarian impulses and a voracious appetite for human rights abuses and war crimes.

The Ukraine War has been another crude lesson in the failings of the NATO project.  The constant teasing and wooing of Kyiv as a potential future member never sat well with Moscow and while much can be made of the Russian invasion, no realistic assessment of the wars origins can excise NATO from playing a deep, compromised role.

The alliance is also proving dissonant among its members.  Not all are exactly jumping at the chance of admitting Ukraine.  German diplomats have revealed that they will block any current moves to join the alliance.  Even that old provoking power, the United States, is not entirely sure whether doors should be open to Kyiv.  On CNN, President Joe Biden expressed the view that he did not think its ready for membership of NATO.  To qualify, Ukraine would have to meet a number of qualifications from democratisation to a whole range of other issues.  While hardly proving very alert during the interview (at one point, he confused Ukraine with Russia) he did draw the logical conclusion that bringing Kyiv into an alliance of obligatory collective defence during current hostilities would automatically put NATO at war with Moscow.

With such a spotty, blood speckled record marked...

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• On July 9, the Russian Ministry of Defense recorded no cases of hostilities and ceasefire violations in Idlib region in the past 24 hours;
• On July 9, three people were killed in a car bomb explosion in Manbij city;
• On July 9, SAA artillery shelled positions of Turkish-backed forces in Barah;
• On July 9, SAA artillery shelled positions of Turkish-backed forces in Kafr Amma.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Military Situation In Southern Ukraine On July 9, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Ukraine On July 9, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Bakhmut Region On July 8, 2023 (Map Update)

The post Military Situation In Syria On July 9, 2023 (Map Update) appeared first on South Front.

Ukraine is ground zero for the CIAs fascist origins The American magazine Newsweek published a big exclusive report this week purporting to reveal the extent of CIA involvement in the Ukraine proxy war against Russia. It hardly merits the billing of exclusive since it is well known that the U.S. spy agency is up to []

By Phil Miller | Declassified UK | July 6, 2023

Gracanica, Kosovo  In the village where we lived, there were nine bombs dropped by NATO in the space of two minutes, Dzafer Buzoli recalls, as we discuss his traumatic childhood in Yugoslavia. A leading member of Kosovos Roma, his community went from pillar to post.

Many were dragooned into Slobodan Milosevics Serb-dominated Yugoslav army or targeted by Albanian rebels as suspected collaborators, before Bill Clinton and Tony Blair launched their humanitarian intervention in 1999.

When the first bomb fell, we were just confused and wondered what was happening, he reflects. But after the second bomb I felt the hot air and fell down from the pressure of the blast.

Ever since then Ive had a heightened sense of hearing. When theres a loud noise or people yelling I have to really back up, because its too much for me.

Buzoli was lucky to survive the airstrike. Two soldiers and a five year old boy were killed in the attack on his village of Laplje Selo, which was hit with controversial cluster munitions.

These scatter a blizzard of ball-shaped bomblets over target areas, like a minefield falling from the sky. Human Rights Watch said NATO killed between 90 and 150 civilians with this weapon across Serbia and Kosovo.

Thousands of bomblets failed to detonate on impact, posing a hazard to children who mistook their little yellow parachutes for toys. In the decade after the war, these remnants claimed another 178 casualties in Kosovo.

While this war might seem like a distant memory for those beyond the Balkans, it offers a cautionary tale to Western states now assisting Ukraines fight against Russia.

US officials are said to be seriously considering supplying Kyiv with cluster bombs, possibly as soon as next month.

Thats despite the weapon being banned by more than 120 countries including the UK, following a UN treaty in 2008.

The US refused to sign up to the ban and there are suspicions it uses a loophole to store them at its air bases in Britain.

Both Russia and Ukraine, fellow non-signatories, have already fired cluster bombs in their current conflict and supplies from America could further complicate the situation.

Lessons from Kosovo

Unexploded cluster munitions remain a hazard in Kosovo long after NATOs 11 week air war ended in 1999.

Goran, a Kosovo Serb, recalls how the weapon almost killed a farmer in a vineyard near Gracacinas orthodox monastery, a world heritage site.

He drove his tractor straight over the bomb, Goran tells me. He was......

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama: July 4 - Punishing Sanctions July 8 - Bashing China Has Replaced The Diplomatic Dialogue Related: - One Reason the U.S. Cant Quit China? Chips. - NY Times - Mr. X would not...

Hal Turner The Hal Turner Show July 7, 2023

According to state-run Russian Television (RT), the Russian Government HAS CONFIRMED Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known as the BRICS nations, will introduce a new trading currency backed by Gold.

The official announcement is expected during the upcoming BRICS Summit in South Africa, this August.

If this takes place, it will likely mark the end of fiat currencies like the US Dollar, which is backed by nothing.

How fast nations around the world switch to using this new gold-backed currency for their foreign trade, is anyones guess.

The more countries that choose to use this new currency, the more foreign-held US Dollars will come rushing back to the USA from those countries, which no longer need to hold US Dollars for their foreign trade.   As those Dollars come back to the USA, it will cause inflation to spike in ways never-before seen here in America.

The US manufactures almost nothing here anymore.  Almost everything we buy and sell in the USA is made overseas.   As US dollars come flooding back from overseas, the value of the US dollar will plummet versus other currencies, which means it will take many more US Dollars to buy goods from foreign countries.

Hence, sudden and dramatic inflation here at home.

It is worth pointing out that the US has, on more than one occasion, gone to actual WAR to stop this exact thing from taking place in the past.   Two recent examples would be Libya and Iraq.

In Libya, Mohamar Qadaffi wanted to create a gold-back Pan-African currency.   Within a month of his announcement, there were riots and uprisings in Libya that ultimately resulted in Qadaffi being mobbed and brutally killed in the streets.

Iraq made a similar effort under Saddam Hussein.    He announced that Iraq would begin selling oil in currencies OTHER THAN the US Dollar, which sent the US to Iraq War 2, toppling Hussein from power.  Ultimately, Hussein was found hiding in a hole in the ground, was arrested, tried, and HUNG BY HIS NECK until dead.

The US takes it ___ V E R Y ____ serious when anyone around the world tries to do anything that would unseat the US dollar as the worlds defacto Reserve Currency.

The US is already itching to go to war with Russia over the Ukraine conflict.   With todays announcement about a Gold-Backed BRICS trading currency, it seems logical that the US gloves will come off.

If Russia and the BRICS Nations do what they have announced, it would mean the total collapse of US world dominance.  There are many people inside the US Government that would rather burn the entire world to the ground, rather than lose control of it.  Put simply, they will stop at NOTHING to maintain their financial control power; an...

Shannon Vavra The Daily Beast July 1, 2023

In the days preceding Russias invasion of Ukraine, David Bramlette found himself in a classroom in Washington, D.C. discussing whether Russia might invade Ukraine. He was in the middle of earning a masters degree from Johns Hopkins in international affairs. At the time, he admits, he found the prospect of a Russian invasion implausible.

But when Russia eventually pulled the trigger and invaded Ukraine in February last year, David, who had previously completed stints working for the U.S. military as a Green Beret on a counter-Russia mission and as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan, felt compelled to go fight the Russians.

Its good and evil in my mind, Bramlette told The Daily Beast in an interview from Kyiv this week.

Im sitting in class, and Im like, I could sit here and finish my degree and go work in some office job, and have a tiny iota of impact on the world working in some government office, right? Bramlette recounted. I have the knowledge and the skills and abilities to go help. So I basically took a leave of absence from my masters program and went over.

By early March Bramlette, who goes by Bam, was en route to Warsaw, Poland to get his bearings before joining the foreign legion in Ukraine. While boarding the plane to Poland, Bam said he sent his parents a quick email explaining why he was going to war for another country.

I sent my parents an email that says like This is the most righteous war that I think my generation will see in our lifetime. This is straight up good versus evil, Bramlette told The Daily Beast. Thats why I went. I was like, I cant put up with this shit.

Like Bramlette, former Marine Troy Offenbecker was compelled to join the fight against Russias invasion early on in the war. He told The Daily Beast that Russian atrocities against Ukrainians reported in the news were part of the final straw that got him geared up to go to war.

Theres a lot of really dumb-ass volunteers over here who have no business being in a war.

Last March Id seen everything that was happening, and when I heard about the international legion, I knew I was going to come, Offenbecker told The Daily Beast in an interview from Kyiv. But at the time I had some obligations that were holding me there. It took me two months I had to sell my house, I sold my vehicles.

Offenbecker spent tim...

There is a certain desperation in the logic of those who argue that a depraved solution has merit because its only slightly less depraved than that of the opponent.  Torture is bad but should still be used because your adversary feels free to resort to it. Only do so, however, via judicial warrant.  Bombing hospitals is terrible, but when done, select those with military personnel.  Before long, ones moral compass does not so much adjust as vanish into a horizon of relativist horror.

Much of this is evident in the Ukraine War, notably regarding weapons supply and deployment.  Ukraine, the Biden administration has announced, will receive cluster munitions, despite their appalling record as, in the words of a coalition of civil society organisations, indiscriminate weapons that disproportionately harm civilians, both at the time of use and for years after a conflict has ended.  Some detail of this was provided in a July 7 White House press briefing by the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan.

According to Sullivan, Washington based its security assistance decision on Ukraines needs on the ground, and Ukraine needs artillery to sustain its offensive and defensive operations.  It all came down to the sustained use of artillery in the conflict.  Ukraine is firing thousands of rounds a day to defend against Russian efforts to advance and also to support its own efforts to retake its sovereign territory.

Preference shown by Sullivan for the they do it, so we can argument, a vagabonds reasoning.  In an effort to minimise culpability, he reasons that the US has better cluster munitions than those of the Russian military.  (Such a marvellous difference and bound to excite those keen on flimsy moral calculi.)  First, Sullivan makes the claim that Russia had been using cluster munitions since the start of this war to attack Ukraine.  No mention is made of claims by Human Rights Watch that Ukraine has already deployed cluster bombs, notably on Russian-controlled areas in and around Izium in 2022.

A point is also made that Russian forces had been using munitions with a failure rate of between 30 and 40 percent.  In this environment, Ukraine has been requesting cluster munitions in order to defend its own sovereign territory.  The cluster munitions that we would provide have dud rates far below what Russia is doing is providing not higher than 2.5 percent.  The admission is telling, if only because US law and regulations prohibit the transfer of cluster munitions with dud rates higher than 1 percent.

Kyiv has also wo...

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1677758705331216385

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• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Nevskoye;
• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Dibrova;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Bakhmut;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Makarivka;
• Clashes between Russian forces and the AFU continue in Mariinka;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Pervomaiskoye;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Avdiivka;
• Up to 95 Ukrainian servicemen, 1 tank, 4 armored vehicles, 4 pickups, 2 howitzers were destroyed in Krasny Liman region, according to the Russian MOD;
• Up to 420 Ukrainian servicemen, 3 tanks, 7 infantry vehicles, 4 pickups, 2 howitzers were destroyed in Donetsk region, according to the Russian MOD;
• Up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers, 2 infantry vehicles, 2 armored vehicles, 3 motor vehicles, 4 artillery systems were destroyed in Zaporozhye region, according to the Russian MOD;
• The AFU reportedly hit 2 control points, 1 ammo depot, 8 artillery units, 2 anti-aircraft systems, 2 radio stations of Russian Army in the past 24 hours.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Military Situation In Ukraine On July 8, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Southern Ukraine On July 8, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Kupyansk Region, Ukraine, On July 6, 2023 (Map Update)

The post...

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• Last night, Russian strikes destroyed warehouses in Kryvyi Rih;
• Last night, explosions thundered in Dnipro;
• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Sinkovka;
• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Kharkov;
• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Dibrova;
• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Yampolovka;
• Russian artillery destroyed an ammo depot of the AFU near Orikhiv;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Orikhiv;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Bakhmut;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue in Mariinka;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Makarivka;
• Russian forces destroyed 25 Ukrainian servicemen, 3 motor vehicles, 3 artillery systems, 1 D-20 howitzer in Kupyansk area;
• Russian forces destroyed 95 Ukrainian servicemen, 1 tank, 4 armored vehicles, 4 pickups, 2 howitzers in Krasny Liman area;
• Russian forces destroyed 420 Ukrainian servicemen, 3 tanks, 7 infantry vehicles, 4 pickups, 2 howitzers in Donetsk region;
• Russian forces destroyed 80 Ukrainian servicemen, 11 motor vehicles, and 2 Akatsiya artillery system in Kherson region;
• Russian air defense systems shot down 13 Ukrainian drones near Velykaya Lepetikha in the Kherson region, Pologi, Konovalova in the Zaporozhye region, Shipilovka in the LPR, Volodino, Valerianovka and Staromikhailovka in the DPR;
• Russian air defense systems shot down 21 HIMARS and Uragan rocket-propelled projectiles during the past 24 hours;
• Russian air defense systems shot down a Su-25 warplanes in Zaporozhye region;
• The AFU reportedly hit 2 control points, 1 ammo depot, 8 artillery units, 2 anti-a...

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• Russian artillery struck AFU positions near Lugovskoye;
• Russian artillery destroyed an ammo depot of the AFU near Orikhiv;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Robotyne;
• Clashes between the Russian Army and the AFU continue near Makarivka;
• Up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers, 2 infantry vehicles, 2 armored vehicles, 3 motor vehicles, 4 artillery systems were destroyed in Zaporozhye region, according to the Russian MOD;
• Up to 80 Ukrainian servicemen, 11 motor vehicles, and 2 Akatsiya artillery system were destroyed in Kherson region, according to the Russian MOD;
• The AFU reportedly hit 2 control points, 1 ammo depot, 8 artillery units, 2 anti-aircraft systems, 2 radio stations of Russian Army in the past 24 hours;
• Russian air defense systems shot down Ukrainian Su-25 near Odarovka.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Military Situation In Kupyansk Region, Ukraine, On July 6, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Bakhmut Region On July 6, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Southern Ukraine On July 6, 2023 (Map Update)

The post Military Situation In Southern Ukraine On July 8, 2023 (Map Update)...

Sputnik 08.07.2023

WASHINGTON Paul Gosar noted that Ukraines counteroffensive had gained little to nothing, as Russia had stopped the US weapon-backed Ukrainian troops.

The United States has no business to be involved in the Ukraine conflict, Republican Congressman Paul Gosar told Sputnik on Saturday, commenting on Washingtons decision to send cluster munitions to Kiev.

I condemn the ongoing war and [US President Joe] Bidens latest decision to escalate the conflict by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine. I continue to call for peace talks, as I have since March 2022, and I continue to maintain that the United States has no business in this war, Gosar said.

No one in the Biden administration or in NATO is seeking peace to resolve the Ukraine crisis, so the conflict is still ongoing, Gosar added.

Moreover, he noted that Ukraines counteroffensive had gained little to nothing, as Russia had stopped the US weapon-backed Ukrainian troops.

On Friday, the United States unveiled a new military assistance package for Ukraine that includes cluster munitions. The weapons are banned by the international convention, which has been ratified by 123 countries, excluding the US and Ukraine.

Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov warned on Friday that the decision by the US to deliver cluster munitions to Ukraine was a provocation pushing humankind closer to a new world war.

Ukraine Timeline Tells the Story

 June 30, 2023

Sputnik 08.07.2023

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the present 2024 presidential hopeful and nephew to assassinated former US President John F Kennedy, previously said at a town hall event that the Ukraine crisis had been turned by Washington into a proxy war between Russia and the United States.

The federal government under the Joe Biden administration has been blatantly lying to the Americans about everything to do with Ukraine, said Robert F Kennedy Jr, in an interview for Judge Andrew Napolitano on his Judging Freedom podcast.

This was a sell job that they gave us on Ukraine, insisted the 2024 Democratic candidate for US President.

The Russians tried to avoid a war wanted to sign the Minsk Accords a reasonable document to keep NATO out of Ukraine, with Ukraine remaining neutral That [US] remove the Aegis missile systems from Romania, Poland, and that the murder the wholesale killing of ethnic Russians in the Donbass by the Ukrainian government that America put in power stop. Those are all things that we should have agreed to, stated the nephew of assassinated former US President John F Kennedy.

He added that Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky won in 2019 by promising to sign the Minsk accords. The complex series of measures negotiated by Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine in 2014-2015 in a bid to put an end to the armed conflict between the Kiev authorities and the breakaway region of Donbas. Moscow repeatedly stated that Kiev was not fulfilling the deal, for example not granting self-government to the Russian-speaking region of Donbass. In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted he never intended to implement the Minsk agreements, with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Former French President Franois Hollande, who participated in the Normandy format, admitting the same.

It is existential for the Russians they have a legitimate national security interest, Robert F Kennedy Jr pointed out, referring to Moscows ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.

[The US] wanted the war, for the reasons that Biden has said The real reason for the war in Ukraine is regime change in Russia, Kennedy emphasized in the interview on the Judging Freedom podcast.

Kennedy previously slammed decades of policy conducted by the US and NATO toward Ukraine and Russia for fueling the current conflagration.

We have neglected many, many opportunities to settle this war peacefully, Kennedy said in June during a live town hall event with NewsNation. He added that Washington had turned the ongoing conflagration in Ukraine into a proxy war waged by the United States against Russia....

By Drago Bosnic | July 8, 2023

It has been only a few weeks after the entire world saw the absolute debacle of NATOs much-touted heavy armor. The event was accurately predicted by various independent experts and analysts mere days before the wanton counteroffensive. At that point, it became obvious that decades of close cooperation between the former Ukrainian military and NATO were effectively pointless. This also includes nearly a decade of much more intensive cooperation between the belligerent alliance and the (then newly installed) Neo-Nazi junta that focused on interoperability and the implementation of NATO standards.

However, the Kiev regime forces performance against even the conscripted (although battle-hardened) Donbass militias within the Russian military has not only left much to be desired, but is essentially quite poor in comparison to the massive amount of funds the Neo-Nazi junta is getting. And although the counteroffensive is still ongoing, resulting in largely insignificant gains (that are still firmly under Russian fire control), the results for heavy armor have been catastrophic, to say the least. The mainstream propaganda machine initially kept trying to conceal the horrible losses of NATO-sourced tanks and armored vehicles.

However, ample battlefield footage published by alternative platforms (particularly those on Telegram) made this an impossible task. As a result, the delivery of Western-made weapons, munitions and other equipment that was previously spearheaded by countries such as the US, UK, Poland, the Baltic states, etc. seems to be slowing down. Although London was the first to pledge heavy armor and long-range missiles, as well as banned depleted uranium munitions that can leave disastrous consequences, it is now quietly backing down from its commitments to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

Namely, the UK command is now seeking guarantees from the Kiev regime forces that will ensure no UK-supplied Challenger 2 MBTs (main battle tanks) are destroyed or captured by the Russian military. Apart from the effectively impossible ROE (rules of engagement), London wants the Neo-Nazi junta to follow other strict requirements that also apply to their every movement even in western parts of Ukraine, which is hundreds of kilometers away from the frontline. This includes special requests for storage to prevent long-range strikes, which effectively makes the Challenger 2 the most...

Erdogan tells Zelensky Ukraine deserves Nato membership

John Pilger was right. The killing fields of Ukraine are the setting of an even greater war, one of propaganda. It is quite extraordinary how so much of what we read in the UK press originates from a U.S.-funded propaganda bureau in Kiev so much so that it has become the norm for an event Continue reading Dirty Bomb Attack Articles Have Already Been Written by British Press Blaming Russia

Andre Damon World Socialist Website July 7, 2023

Next week, on July 11-12, NATO will hold a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the military alliance is expected to announce plans to rapidly expand military spending, surge troops to Russias borders, and dramatically increase its involvement in the war in Ukraine.

At the last NATO summit in June 2022, the alliance pledged to deliver the full range of forces needed for high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer competitors.

Under conditions in which the much vaunted counteroffensive by the Ukrainian military has turned into a protracted debacle, NATO is under pressure to directly intervene in the conflict to ensure its goal of, in the words of a former NATO commander, breaking the back of Russia.

Against the backdrop of this supercharged climate, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of mining the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) with the aim of blowing it up.

In a video address published Tuesday, Zelensky said that every day, we are adding content to the NATO summit that will take place in Vilnius next week, which will ensure security in Europe, before turning to the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Zelensky claimed that Russian troops have placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. He accused Russia of aiming to commit new evil at the plant, adding, It is the responsibility of everyone in the world to stop it.

Contrary to Zelenskys statements, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement that no visible indications of mines or explosives have been observed at the plant, which is under monitoring by the organization.

The framing of Zelenskys comments make clear that they are an effort to use any potential incident or provocation at the plant as a pretext for more direct military involvement by NATO in the conflict.

In an article published last week in Politico, Ivo Daalder, former US ambassador to NATO, called for the alliance to respond to any deliberate nuclear incident with direct intervention into the conflict.

In case of any deliberate nuclear incident, the US and key NATO allies need to intervene directly and bring the war to a swift and complete end by helping Ukraine restore control over all its territory, Daalder wrote.

In an article in February on the revelation by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States and Ukraine had direct involvement in the bombing of the German-Russian Nord Stream pipeline, the World Socialist Web Site warned that the Unit...

Moon of Alabama July 7, 2023

The Washington Post says that the U.S. will now give cluster munition to Ukraine.

Biden approves cluster munition supply to Ukraine

President Biden has approved the provision of U.S. cluster munitions for Ukraine, with drawdown of the weapons from Defense Department stocks due to be announced Friday.

The munition will be 155mm grenades, Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM), that can be fired by western provided artillery.

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The decision, likely illegal, was made because the U.S. and its allies have run out of other 155mm munitions:

The move, which will bypass U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 percent, comes amid concerns about Kyivs lagging counteroffensive against entrenched Russian troops and dwindling Western stocks of conventional artillery.

It is accompanied by false statements that Russia has used such ammunition in Ukraine:

Cont. reading: Ukraine Biden Again Escalates

 [Essay]

Yoselina Guevara Lpez On July 7, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said we are the country that has made the most important efforts to end the war through negotiations based on international law between Moscow and Kiev, adding Ukraine deserves to join NATO. These statements of the Turkish leader were made during a press conference on...

By Gilbert Doctorow July 6, 2023

News portals in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe were quick to pick up a feature item today on NBCNews.com entitled Former U.S. officials have held secret Ukraine talks with prominent Russians. The subtitle goes on: The aim of the discussions is to lay the groundwork for potential negotiations to end the war, people briefed on the talks tell NBC News.

The very notion that such talks could have taken place elicited disparaging comments from the usual suspects who would not miss a chance to be in the public eye: former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and Matt Dimmick, a former Russia and Eastern Europe director at the National Security Council. Said comments form part of the NBC report.

This news item also surfaced on Russian state television in the early evening edition of Sixty Minutes under the heading Fake News. Their panel discussion opened with an announcement from the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responding to what is said in the second paragraph in the NBC article, which reads:

In a high-level example of the back-channel diplomacy taking place behind the scenes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with members of the group for several hours in April in New York, four former officials and two current officials told NBC News.

Per Lavrov, no such meeting ever took place and there are no back channels.

And then the Sixty Minutes panel was off to the races, as we say.

They listed the former U.S. officials who were said to have taken part in the meeting Charles Kupchan, Richard Haass, and Thomas Graham, all members of the Foreign Relations Council and, as they stressed with truculent humor, all are decidedly very former. Their heyday was decades ago and today none of them holds a rank that would justify Lavrovs spending any time with them, let alone discussing the basic principles for some negotiated settlement of the Russia-Ukraine war. They are just a bunch of old academics who get together to reminisce about the arms control negotiations of the distant past and similar issues long ago laid to rest.

After breaking its fake news story, NBC spent the greater part of its article talking about how back channel communications, dubbed Track Two talks, function and what utility they have in general.

To be sure, backchannels have served a constructive purpose in U.S. Russian relations in the not too distant past, though I doubt that journalist Josh Lederman has a clue about this. Thomas Grahams former mentor and associate, Henry Kissinger, had been an important initiator of such an outreach back in the sum.....

Sputnik 07.07.2023

On May 11, Ukraine affirmed that it had received the first, long-anticipated, British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which were sent by the United Kingdom. The weapon is designed to destroy bunkers and other rugged, hard-to-reach targets.

Russian servicemen from the BARS-11 volunteer unit and the Tsars Wolves captured an almost intact British Storm Shadow cruise missile from the line of contact and handed it over to specialists for examination, said Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Tsars Wolves military and technical center.

Im glad it was our unit that did it. Now our air defense will shoot this thing down, and it will gradually become useless, Rogozin stressed.

According to him, the missile was almost undamaged.

The missile was dismantled into several parts by our technicians right on the battlefield, the high-explosive and shaped-charge parts separately, and the control unit separately, while the wing was folded up for easy transportation, Rogozin clarified.

A functioning GPS tracker was there, which could have directed the strike team to the opponent. Even though we blocked it, our fighters had to relocate all the time and even engaged in battle the enemys sabotage and recon unit tried to catch the car with the rocket and an accompanying vehicle on the road, Rogozin added.

It took two days to evacuate the captured missile, but now it will benefit the Russian Armed Forces.

RT | July 7, 2023

Welcoming Ukraine into NATO would force the US to choose between nuclear war with Russia or abandoning its security commitments to Kiev, two American analysts claimed on Friday.

The security benefits to the United States of Ukrainian accession pale in comparison with the risks of bringing it into the alliance, Justin Logan and Joshua Shifrinson of the libertarian Cato Institute wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.

If Ukraine were to join the alliance amid the ongoing hostilities, Logan and Shifrinson argued, the US and all of NATOs European members would immediately be pulled into open war with Russia, with the potential for a nuclear exchange. However, even if the conflict were to be resolved, Ukraine and Russia will still have competing territorial claims, and a membership offer would risk reigniting the conflict, this time with NATO as a direct participant, they added.

Under these circumstances, an American commitment to fight for Ukraine would be open to question, they continued. If Ukraine were a NATO member and US policymakers chose not to intervene on its behalf, the blocs entire collective defense principle would be undermined, resulting in a true credibility crisis for NATO.

Furthermore, with the US protected by its nuclear arsenal and the vast Atlantic Ocean, the two analysts argued that America faces no direct threat from Russia, while Ukraine due to its geography forms a bulwark between Western Europe and Russia irrespective of NATO membership.

American time, attention, and resources are needed elsewhere, Logan and Shifrinson wrote, concluding that the United States should accept that it is high time to close NATOs door to Ukraine.

Since the 2008 Bucharest Declaration, NATOs official policy is that Ukraine will become a member of the bloc at an unspecified future date. Kiev, however, is unhappy with this non-commitment, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky reportedly threatening not to attend NATOs upcoming summit in Lithuania unless the US-led bloc offers concrete security guarantees or a roadmap to full membership.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has already ruled out a membership offer at the Vilnius summit. French President Emmanuel Macron, however, has called on the alliances leaders to offer Kiev bilateral or multilateral security guarantees, as well as a path to full-fledged membership. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace and a number of Eastern European leaders have called for Ukraine to be fast-tracked into the bloc without the usual membership action plan that prospective members must complete.

The White Ho...

Cluster munitions: What danger do these weapons pose to civilians?

Social psychosis is widespread.  In the words of the British psychiatrist, R. D. Laing, The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of ones mind, is the condition of the normal man.

He was not referring to raving, drooling, hitting-your-head-against-the-wall lunacy but a taken-for-granted acceptance of a world long teetering on the edge of nuclear extinction, to take the most extreme example, but surely only one of many.  The insouciant acceptance and support of psychotic rulers who promote first-strike nuclear war is very common.  First strike nuclear policy is United States policy.

I recently wrote an article about the dangers of the fourteen U.S. Trident submarines.  These subs constantly cruise under the oceans carrying 3,360 nuclear warheads equivalent to 134,400 Hiroshima bombs.  All are on first strike triggers.  And, of course, these are supplemented by all the land and air based nukes.  My point was not very complicated: now that the United States government has abrogated all nuclear weapons treaties and continues to escalate its war against Russia in Ukraine, we are closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before.

This conclusion is shared by many esteemed thinkers such as the late Daniel Ellsberg who died  on June 16, 2023 and whose 2017 book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, makes clear that nuclear war, waged intentionally or by mistake or accident, is very possible. In the months before he died, he warned that this is now especially true with the situation in Ukraine and the U.S. provocations against China.

The Grayzones Max Blumenthal recently addressed the UN Security Council on the danger of U.S. actions in Ukraine and asked:

Will we see another Douma deception, but this time in Zaporizhzhia?

Why are we doing this? Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation by flooding Ukraine with advanced weapons and sabotaging negotiations at every turn?

Finian Cunningham has just raised the specter of a thermonuclear catastrophe initiated by a U.S./Ukrainian false flag attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.

So my article was in no way unusual, except for my concentration on the Trident submarines.

When, against my better judgment, I read some commentators responses to my piece at a few websites where my article was posted, I was taken aback when I read the following [all emphases are mine]:

• Like many other boo...

Aidan Jonah A screenshot taken from an ATIP cited in this The Canada Files investigation. Image credit: Aidan Jonah/Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files. The pre-Maidan coup times In Peter Korotaevs article for The Canada Files about Canadas influence in Ukraine, Korotaev said: The wests desire to assert control over Ukraines court system is such a...

Stavroula Pabst As war rages, Ukrainian blacklist Myrotvorets, which means Peacemaker in Ukrainian, continues to add to its website the names of activists, politicians, journalists, and even children, whove spoken critically about Ukraine or the current conflict. In addition to intimidating those on the list by branding them as terrorists or publishing their personal information, threatening...