Cute Girls Doing Cute State Investments Edition
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>>2377575—————————————————–
Evidence of the influence and origin of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine
https://archive.ph/44B9Qhttps://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323637https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323658https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323663https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323688https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323729https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323733https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323731https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323735https://archive.ph/x1sRT#1323740—————————————————–
ALWAYS APPROACH SOURCES CRITICALLY
Live maps and updates
DeepStateMap:
https://deepstatemap.liveEvents in Ukraine:
https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/SouthFront:
https://southfront.press/category/all-articles/world/europe/ukraine/Watch Together
📺 News/events:
https://tv.leftypol.org/r/HappeningsviaKlash📺 Hangout/chill:
https://tv.leftypol.org/r/bloodcastWatch By Yourself
>Video Essays / Historical Background📺 • Ukraine: The Avoidable War - Boy Boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4eNy4FCs8📺 • Ukraine's Nazi Problem - The Marxist Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yZvWAwU5W4📺 • America, Russia, and Ukraine's Far Right - Gravel Institute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0pyVJG7_6Q📺 • The Nature of Putin's Russia and Its Causes (3-Part Series) - 1Dime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8d6Vzi7zYghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zODWTfMwFGwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zuygh9Mzuo
<Current Happenings 📺 • The Grayzone:
https://www.youtube.com/@thegrayzone7996📺 • DDGeopolitics:
https://www.youtube.com/@DDGeopolitics📺 • Defense Politics Asia:
https://www.youtube.com/@DefensePoliticsAsia📺 • The Duran:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdeMVChrumySxV9N1w0Au-w📺 • The News Atlas:
https://www.youtube.com/c/thenewatlas📺 • Military Summary:
https://www.youtube.com/@militarysummary—————————————————–
Social media
>Twitterhttps://twitter.com/GeromanAThttps://twitter.com/plnewstodayhttps://twitter.com/RALee85https://twitter.com/MarQs__https://twitter.com/KofmanMichaelhttps://twitter.com/IntelCrabhttps://twitter.com/michaelh992https://twitter.com/Suriyakmaps
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Russia Goes on the Offensive Against US Investors in an Odessa Porthttps://sonar21.com/russia-goes-on-the-offensive-against-us-investors-in-an-odessa-port/
>On July 14, Volodymyr Zelensky handed over to United States companies, the largest terminal of the Odessa port, Olimpex, following an international legal dispute. The new owners are the American investment companies, Argentem Creek Partners and Innovatus Capital Partners. The price of the transaction was not disclosed. The most interesting part of the deal is how it came about. The previous owner of this terminal, Ukrainian businessman Vladimir Naumenko, was arrested in May 2025 and subsequently convicted of fraud in Ukraine, in a case allegedly involving Ukrainian grain and unpaid debt to the State of 100 million dollars. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
>Volodymyr (Vladimir) Naumenko is a Ukrainian businessman and co-founder of G.N. Terminal Enterprises (GNT), a grain transshipment group that managed the Olimpex and MetalsUkraine terminals in the Port of Odesa. Along with his business partner, Serhiy (Sergei) Groza, Naumenko was a central figure in a major investment dispute involving substantial loans—totaling tens of millions of dollars—provided by US-based investment firms, Innovatus Capital Partners and Argentem Creek Partners.
>Naumenko was arrested by Ukrainian authorities in May 2025 on suspicion of fraud and forgery linked to the unexplained disappearance of over 100,000 tons of grain pledged as collateral for these loans. Prosecutors allege that GNT, under Naumenko’s leadership, misrepresented grain stocks and participated in a scheme that involved simulating the destruction of non-existent or unavailable collateral, especially during the chaos following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I guess he forgot to grease Zelensky’s palms.
>Months prior to his arrest in Ukraine — October 2024 — Naumenko and Groza were sentenced to 21 months in prison by an English High Court judge for violating a Worldwide Freezing Order meant to protect the creditors’ interests. Subsequent legal actions required them to pay approximately $150 million in outstanding debts to Argentem Creek Partners. It looks like neither Naumenko or Groza dared travel to the UK.
>So who are the proud, new owners of this port terminal in Odessa? Argentem Creek Partners is 100% employee-owned. The firm was founded in 2015 by Daniel Chapman and his former team from Cargill, Inc.’s subsidiary, Black River Asset Management. Daniel Chapman serves as the Founder, CEO, and Co-Chief Investment Officer. Other key leadership includes Maarten Terlouw, who is President and Co-Chief Investment Officer. The firm is based in New York and operates globally, with a presence in Abu Dhabi, Buenos Aires, London and Minneapolis.
>The co-owner, Innovatus Capital Partners, is a privately held investment firm primarily owned and led by its founding partners and key executives. The firm was founded in 2016 by:
<David Schiff — Founding Partner, CEO, and Chairman of the Investment Committee.<Andrew Dym — Founding Partner, President, and Chief Risk Officer (CRO).
>These two individuals are identified as the founders and principal leaders of Innovatus Capital Partners. Both Schiff and Dym have extensive backgrounds in private equity, credit markets, and asset-based investing. Additional key owners and executives include:
<Andrew Hobson — Partner, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and voting member of the Investment Committee.<Ravi Bhagavatula — Partner and Head of Lower Middle Market Distressed Strategy
>Innovatus Capital Partners is a privately held investment firm. Its primary sources of investment capital are institutional investors, including pension funds and similar entities that allocate assets to their private equity and private debt funds.Notable Types of Key Investors include:
<• Public Pension Fund (Chicago, US)<• Private Sector Pension Fund (Atlanta, US)
>There is some bad news for Messrs. Chapman and Schiff… the Russian Army launched a missile attack on their new port terminal in Odessa on the night of July 15. Two Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles — each carrying a 1,000 lb-plus of explosives — destroyed warehouses and offices of the new owners at the Olimpex Port terminal. BORZZIKMAN alledges that President Zelensky regularly transfers Ukrainian property to American foundations and companies. I don’t think the pension funds in Chicago and Atlanta are going to be thrilled to hear this news. Prospects for future grain shipments, at least in the near term, appear dim. The Redheaded Stepsister Goes to the Ballhttps://imetatronink.substack.com/p/the-redheaded-stepsister-goes-to
>Against the AGM-158 JASSM missile, has Russia’s Kerch Strait Bridge finally met its match?
>Talk of sending Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles to Ukraine commenced last year, during the later months of the Biden administration. It was reported at the time that it would take "months" to adapt the missiles to operate with the rag-tag Ukrainian air fleet consisting of a few surviving Soviet Su-27s and MiG-29s and whatever 1980s-era boneyard F-16s NATO could cobble together and render airworthy (not many).
>Of the two dozen or so F-16s shipped to Ukraine, the evidence suggests few (if any) are currently airworthy, and it is likely several have already been destroyed on the ground, in addition to the handful that are confirmed to have crashed or been shot down.
>The JASSM is an air-launched cruise missile, with reputed (but dubious) stealthy properties and a 450 kg warhead. The majority of production consists of the relatively short-ranged (~350 km) AGM-158A.
>The later-model AGM-158B (JASSM-ER) claims a range of 1000 km, but that has never been demonstrated in a live scenario. Although at least several dozen JASSM strikes were made against Syria and Yemen during Trump's first term, none were of the extended range variety.
>The JASSM was actually considered a bust during its many years of development (1998-2009). On multiple occasions, it appeared the entire program was going to be canceled.
>What was the problem? It was notoriously inaccurate!
>But eventually Lockheed was able to formulate a testing regimen more likely to indicate success, and the missile finally went into production.
>The US Air Force contracted to buy ~5000 units.
>The US Navy declined to buy any of them.
>Foreign sales have been unimpressive.
>It is almost certain that the Pentagon will not throw away many (if any) of the long-range AGM-158Bs on the irreversibly lost Ukraine War. That means all that can be hoped for is a few hundred AGM-158As, with their ~350 km range.
>And, in my considered opinion, the only way "Ukraine" will be able to deploy these short-range air-launched cruise missiles is if "volunteer" NATO pilots fly front-line NATO planes to deliver them.
>NATO F-16s and F-15s can carry two JASSM missiles, one under each wing.
>In a mission (for example) to strike the Kerch Strait Bridge, NATO aircraft (likely flying from Romania) would have to penetrate deeply into Russian air defense coverage areas extending around Crimea.
>It would almost certainly require at least a dozen JASSM 450 kg warheads to make a meaningful dent in the Kerch Strait Bridge. That translates into half a dozen strike aircraft.
>And, unless the NATO generals are just utterly clueless and indifferent (which they probably are), it would be a dereliction of duty to not provide a half-dozen fighters for combat air patrol.
>So a dozen NATO aircraft in total — not counting any refueling tankers and ISR platforms that would be required.
>I assess as VERY LOW the likelihood of success for a JASSM attack against the Kerch Strait Bridge.
>I assess the risks for the attacking force to be VERY HIGH.
>But I reckon they're stupid enough to give it a try all the same. Trump Delivers Next Nothingburger To Ukraine
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/07/trump-delivers-next-nothingburger-to-ukraine.html
>On July 3 U.S. President Donald Trump had a phonecall with the Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation:
<President Donald Trump revealed the details of his conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
<Trump told reporters before he boarded Air Force One for an "America 250" rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, "We had a call, it was a pretty long call, we talked about a lot of things, including Iran. We also talked about the war with Ukraine."
<Trump shook his head and said, "I'm not happy about that," as the president remarked about the ongoing war he hoped to quickly end.
<"No, I didn't make any progress with him today," Trump said when asked about a potential deal with Putin to end the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
>Trump wanted to pause the war In Ukraine while Putin sees an advantage for Russian troops in the field and wants to continue the war until its root cause, the NATO march towards Russia, is eliminated.
>Trump could not get his will. He was also under pressure from neoconservative parts of Congress to commit the U.S. to a longer war against Russia. They asked for shipping more weapons to Ukraine and for penalties against countries which continue to buy oil and gas from Russia.
>Yesterday Trump gave in and decided (archived) to give another try to his predecessors failed Ukraine policy :
<President Trump said he would help Europe speed more weapons to Ukraine and warned Russia that if it did not agree to a peace deal within 50 days, he would impose a new round of punishing sanctions.
<Speaking from the Oval Office, where he met with NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, Mr. Trump said the weapons would be “quickly distributed to the battlefield.” He also threatened to impose secondary sanctions, which are penalties imposed on other countries or parties that trade with nations under sanctions.
<“I’m disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there,” Mr. Trump said.
<“It’s just the way it is,” he added. “I hope we don’t have to do it.”
>Several additional Patriot air defense missile systems are supposed to be given to Ukraine by NATO countries which would buy new ones when the U.S. is able to deliver them (archived):
<Mr. Trump said the United States would sell those arms to European nations, which would ship them to Ukraine or use them to replace weapons they send to the country from their existing stocks.
<But Pentagon officials said later that many details were still being worked out.
>It is doubtful that new Patriot batteries will help against Russian swarm attacks each with several hundreds of drones and missiles. There is also a severe lack of munitions for these system with new production of Patriot missiles per year still being lower than the monthly consumption in Ukraine and elsewhere.
>Trump did not specify what additional weapons and how many of them would be delivered to Ukraine (archived):
<What Trump didn’t talk about is that the military assistance might also include authorization for some powerful new offensive weapons. I’m told by a source involved in the decision that this is likely to include permission to use the 18 long-range ATACMS missiles now in Ukraine at their full range of 300 kilometers (about 190 miles). That wouldn’t reach all the way to Moscow or St. Petersburg, but it would strike military bases, airfields and supply depots deep inside Russia that are now out of range. The package might also include more ATACMS. …
<Trump also considered sending Tomahawk cruise missiles, the same weapons fired against Iranian targets last month. If fired from Ukraine, these could hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, and they were included in discussion as late as Friday. But the Tomahawks are off the delivery list for now, I’m told. They could be deployed later if Trump wants even more leverage.
<Trump’s determination to squeeze Putin was conveyed in a conversation last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a source told me. Trump asked Zelensky why he didn’t hit Moscow. “We can if you give us the weapons,” Zelensky said. Trump said Ukraine needed to put more pressure on Putin, not just Moscow but St. Petersburg, too.
>ATACMS are an old story. In the overall balance these 'wonder weapons' had little effect so far.
>Tomahawks are a no-no because they can be nuclear armed. Russia's strategic defense would have to consider any ongoing Tomahawk attack on Moscow or Petersburg to be a nuclear decapitation strike and act accordingly. The U.S. is unlikely to risk a Russian counterstrike with nuclear weapons.
>Trump's sanction threat against buyers of Russian hydrocarbons is not taken seriously (archived):
<[E]xperts doubted the credibility of Mr. Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on Russia’s trading partners if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not agree to a cease-fire within 50 days.
<The scale of China’s mutual trade with Russia — nearly $250 billion per year, including huge oil imports — means that delivering on the threat would throw Mr. Trump into a showdown with Beijing. Analysts said it was unlikely that Mr. Trump would risk a renewed confrontation with the world’s second-largest economy over Ukraine, a country whose fate he has long said is not vital to the United States.
>Mr. Trump is also notorious for setting deadlines that he does not enforce, raising questions about whether he will act if the 50-day timer he has set for Mr. Putin expires.
>The neoconservative editors of the Washington Post are not convinced that the policy change (if this even is one) will lead to significant changes.
>They ask the right questions to then pressure for more measure without regarding the consequences for the U.S. (archived):
<But what if Putin refuses to make peace and sticks with his maximalist demands for a dismembered Ukraine under Russia’s thumb? Is Trump ready to ramp up the pressure? Will he sustain the arms shipments once the stockpiles run dry? Will he seize billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets? Will he try to crack down on the shadow tanker fleet that moves Russian oil? And will he follow through on his secondary sanctions threat, with its potentially vast implications for trade with countries such as China and India?
<The war against Ukraine has already persisted for far too long, with horrific casualty tolls on both sides. It will only end when Putin realizes he has nothing more to gain, and much more to lose, the longer it goes on. The arms shipments to Ukraine might bring that realization closer. More pressure can bring that day closer still. Now that Trump has issued his ultimatum, he needs to make clear to Putin he means what he says.
>In late 2021 Russia issued its demands in form of treaty outlines with the U.S. and NATO. They were disregarded by the U.S.. The war is a consequence of that.
>Russia has the means to continue the war until those demands are met. Meanwhile Ukraine is running out of - not weapons but soldiers.
>How long will it take for the editors to understand that it is Putin who has the trump cards in this game?The reason Trump is refusing to force a Ceasefire to end the Kabuki theatre Inter-Imperialist Stalemate Retarded Slavic Border War (if it was up to me, their would be an immediate permanent Ceasefire along the line of contact, Crimea recognized as part of Russia, a neutral Ukraine, and in the future Global USSR, Crimea will be an ASSR in the Russian SFSR, while the Donbas will be an ASSR in the Ukrainian SSR) Between the Fascist U$/Zionist puppet states of Ukraine and Russia, who both controlled by the same cabal of duel citizen Zionist Oligarchs who raped the vestiges of the USSR which was destroyed by the Khrushchevite Social Fascist Revisionist Clique, which culminated in the Gorbachev Capitalist Perestroika/Glasnost “reforms” and the phony 1991 “Project Hammer” Coup attempt which officially dissolved the USSR and put the drunkard degenerate Yelstin in power, who chose as his successor the KGB/CIA/Mossad double agent traitor Putin, who staged the FSB/CIA False Flag 1999 Moscow Apartment Bombing which acted as the casus belli for the Genocidal Russian Imperialist Invasion of Chechnya (just like the CIA/Mossad False Flag 9/11 attacks was both the casus belli for the Genocidal U$ Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the final conclusion of “Project Hammer”, and the Mossad False Flag October 7th attack was the casus belli for the Zionist Genocida of Gaza), is due to the fact that Putin’s Russia is a convenient bogeymen to keep the EuroCucks under U$ occupation, so they can lose whatever is left of their sovereignty through NATO and the fake “European Union” designed to destroy all the Nations of Europe with a fake “European” National Identity (the absurdity of the concept of a single “European” National Identity is elucidated in the Video of the changing Ethnic Map of Europe over the past 2000 years that I posted, which shows that Europe is populated by dozens of Nations/Ethnic groups, divided into several large Ethno-Linguistic groups, most notably the Germanic peoples, Slavic Peoples, Romance Peoples, etc. all of which have been Migrating/Invading, Mixing, Assimilating, and Genociding each other for thousands of years), which will pave the way to them all being fully Americanized into “White” Racist Redneck Evangelical Protestant Euromutts with a massive impoverished underclass of Non-European migrants (mostly Arab Muslims fleeing Genocidal U$ Imperialist /Zionist Wars and Black Africans fleeing Neocolonial Imperialist Poverty/Exploitation/Starvation) who will be brutally exploited by U$/“European” Capitalists and used as a Scapegoat to transform Europe into a Islamophobic Zionist Christian Nationalist Fascist Shithole, which will eventually include Russia as well once their Bogeyman role is no longer needed, and whether the absorption of Russia into this fully Americanized “Europe” which are all officially U$ States, is a peaceful integration or the result of a violent Civil War/Collapse in Russia after Putin’s death is hard to predict, but it is worth noting that all Russian “Nukes” were dismantled during the Nunn-Luger program, so their is absolutely nothing stopping an eventual violent absorption of Russia, though I believe the “Russian” Oligarchs will make sure that the absorption is mostly Peaceful, in order to preserve their ill-gotten fiefdom, 😂🤣🤢🤮!
Additionally, I believe that Trump wants to use the so-called “Secondary Sanctions” on all countries that import Russian Oil/Gas, as a convenient excuse t dramatically escalate the Trade War with China into a full-decoupling of all Trade between the U$ and China, which combined with Trump forcing the ROC/“Taiwan” U$ puppet state to declare “independence” and/or the U$ recognizing them as the “Real China”, will force China to Invade Taiwan, thus giving the U$ a cactus belli to launch World War III against China, which means Trump will have Bipartisan support to use the Insurrection Act to declare Martial Law, suspend all Elections, and become De Facto President for Life, though this could dramatically backfire as it will either end in with this either ending in a decisive Conventional U$ victory (due to the U$ B-2 Stealth Bomber and Standoff Stealthy JASSMs, LRASMs, and Tomahawks, launched by B-1/2/52 Bombers in the case of JASSM, B-1 Bombers in the case of the LRASM, and Cruisers, Destroyers, and Submarines, in the case of the Tomahawk, destroying most Chinese Air Bases, Naval Bases, Warships, SRBM/MRBM/IRBM/GLCM launchers, and SAM sites, which despite Chinese DF-21/26 MRBMs/IRBMs and CJ-10 cruise Missiles launched by H-6 Bombers and Type 052D/Type 055 Destroyers, severely damaging many U$ air and naval bases in Japan and South Korea and Anti-Ship Missiles launched by H-6 Bombers and Type 052D/Type 055 Destroyers sinking several U$ Destroyers and Cruisers, causes China to suffer a decisive Conventional Defeat and Capitulate) that will lead to the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party and the Balkanization of China (Tibet and East Turkestan will gain Independence) in a renewed Century of Humiliation, thus enshrining the Global Fascist Christian Zionist Nationalist 1000 year Burgereich under the eternal Trump Dynasty, or escalate into a Global Nuclear War (due to a DF-21D, DF-26, or JY-21 ASBM, launched by a TEL in the case of the DF-21/26, or a H-6 Bomber or Type 055 Destroyer in the case of the YJ-21, penetrating the Aegis ABM system and sinking a U$ Aircraft Carrier, thus provoking a U$ Nuclear First Strike on China, and assuming some Chinese ICBMs survive, and that their MIRVed Nuclear Warheads penetrate the U$ ABM system, a Chinese Nuclear Second Strike on the U$) that will destroy the entire Global Capitalist-Imperialist System, thus allowing for a World Maoist PPW to create a Global USSR that will Place the Workers and Oppressed Nations of the World on the Shining Path to Communism, ✊😜🇨🇳🇰🇵🇨🇺🇵🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🚀☢️!
after Trump cancelled USAID, the CIA funded propaganda news agencies in Ukraine have turned to Patreon (just like your favorite leftist "content creators" have already has been doing? proletarianization will come for us all one day)
>USAID's closure, which placed nearly all media outlets in Ukraine on the brink of survival, showcases the importance of sustainable funding models. This is why we are developing our Patreon community and commercial partnerships. https://www.facebook.com/euromaidanpress.en/photos/were-hiring-know-anybody-usaids-closure-which-placed-nearly-all-media-outlets-in/1067862402023116/?_rdr"I spent months writing articles about the deep state's psyop tentacles, and they just…tweeted it out 😵💫"
>>2392004Getting fucked and it does nothing for their career.
Well, now I am a little sad for them.
>>2392311Stay out of this thread, you utterly pointless retarded twat
You can shit up isg and the US thread
no one normal/sane goes there anyway
We are going to kill you, is my first and last feedback to you
>>2393157Translated from Putin Standard Bluffing to English:
An outhouse in Kharkiv will be swiftly and severely demolished.
Last year, he also threatened to arm America's adversaries:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrlr87e5elo
<“Second, we believe that if someone is thinking it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, why can’t we supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia?”But he backed out after realizing that would affect Israel lol
>>2393210>PissraelGod I hate cucktin every single day even more. There is no worse a cucked liberal democrat like cucktin. GOD PLEASE SMITE THE FUCKING FAGGOT CUCKTIN. I HATE HIM.
I stopped watching news about this stupid war due to the utterly cucked nature of russoids and cucktin. I just cannot take this bullshit any more. No more excuses. I want total war on the west. Cucktin will cuckout like a good little cuck. Fuck that cuck.
>>2393215He's a good leader during peace (jobs, stability, economy) but not a great war leader. Too scared of the UK and America to respond proportionately to their attacks on Russia soil. Won't even say quite coldly "if the arms to Ukraine continue, we'll be arming Iran to the teeth with our best weapons."
I'd hope that he'd at least call the Article 5 bluff against Germany in the near future, but we'll see.
>>2393648The US arms Ukraine and Taiwan, and neither Russia nor China retaliates by arming, say, Iran.
The problem with Putin is that, although he threatened to do so last year (arm America's enemies), he doesn't even let the threat linger in the air, much less act on it. What I mean is that he quickly gave the West reassurances that he's not going to help Iran do anything to Israel because "it's largely Russian-speaking."
>>2393650>Are you living under a rock? The West openly states it wants to decap strike Russia and perform shock and awe (and kill Cucktin) and then perform an iraqi style invasion, it's openly preparing for warThats not true. There is no pivot to decap strikes and shock and awe in some total war campaign. Europe is not politically united behind this and America is not interested in it. There is nothing inevitable about an open ended conflict for decades let alone an Iraq scenario against Russia. Thus, Putin is indeed threading a needle like the rest of BRICS, who are all navigating an awkward interim period. While the West is isolated and declining, it is united whereas BRICS is more vulnerable to the international order fraying.
>>2393652>he quickly gave the West reassurances that he's not going to help Iran do anything to Israel because "it's largely Russian-speaking."Also not true. There is no straightforward cultural alliance with Israel, there is a balancing act between supporting Iran and avoiding escalation with Israel due to its neutrality in the Ukraine conflict. Iran is unwilling to strike the US in the middle east because it wants to avoid escalation, thus it is not an avenue for indirect war with the US. This would be bad for both Russia and Iran as their mutual goal is stability of the government in Tehran. As part of this Iran rejected defense agreements with Russia like the one Russia has with North Korea. If this is likely to change now you may see more covert forms of cooperation.
Lack of strength isn't some catch all solution but as we know it's about the thread not the world.
>>2393652but China is arming Iran
which is kinda funny because Putin offered to give Iran a bunch of stuff and they said no thanks
>>2393815Not just Kiev. Kiev is not enough. Kiev is a global irrelevance. Nuke the planet. Preferably starting with Amerikkka then the rest of the west.
Until what needs to be done is done.
>>2393929why not 3 million? why not 15 million. at this point, they could've invented whatever number.
I'd say they have a roulette with hundreds of numbers and say whatever number the dart hit every time.
>>2393811>reportedly targetyeah, since mid 2022. what are they going to use? best wishes?
>Cucktin's responset. someone who hasn't paying attention to the war.
you can always go to the front and show "cookteen" how's done.
>>2393929>>2393952Mediazona is the most accurate afaik.
>>2394002Retard.
>>2394419https://archive.ph/KDHXp FT
>Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused of authoritarian slide after anti-corruption raidshttps://archive.ph/yTISV The Spectator
>Ukrainians have lost faith in ZelenskyHersh's is the only one I couldn't get.
>>2394852yeah he really looks like he is in a "combat role" there lmao
natocels will really believe anything
>>2393673>>>he quickly gave the West reassurances that he's not going to help Iran do anything to Israel because "it's largely Russian-speaking.">Also not true.Not true. Putin: "Israel is almost a Russian-speaking country." Direct quote.
>avoiding escalation with IsraelIn other words, "not going to help Iran do anything to Israel."
>>2395330Orcish determination
But really it is because Ukkkraine is losing
>>2395367Tbh the only issue I see is that afaik you do need to be a Russian speaker to do the foreign legion thing in return for a visa and they’ve let him in despite not being a Russian speaker. But other than that, based on the video and the articles posted, it’s the standard western delusion we saw in the early days of this conflict on the Ukrainian side that joining the foreign legion of a military makes you an exception in that you’ll be able to make up your own role that invariably involves non-combat, when the deal even in the most famous one the French Foreign Legion, is that you’re signing up to be cannon fodder in exchange for a visa if you survive and it attracts people from poorer nations willing to risk death for access to a wealthier nation.
Massively exploitative, legally questionable and all that, but westerners joining these human shield battalions and thinking they’ll tell the Ukrainian or Russian military
>Here’s the deal jack, I’ll heroically volunteer to join your war, but as a kind of front-line blogger or work in logistics in the safe zoneAnd then getting shocked and offended that actually they’re just cannon fodder is retarded, cringe and chauvinistic that they can command the military of a “lesser nation”.
Honestly, that guy in particular was actually making the point that foreigners to the US don’t serve in the military and that he wanted to do the “principled” thing of serving in the US military, clap clap clap, but as a war reporter or a welder and can’t believe military service might put him in danger? Those are still essentially civilian roles, he could be a war reporter for a newspaper, or work repairing tanks as a welder for UVZ or something.
I hate to use the lingo of the pro-Ukrainian twitter sphere, but this was a case of FAFO, it was pretentious and cringe when westerners did it for the Ukrainian military back in 2022 and it’s just as pretentious and cringe now.
>>2395374It's ok Ivan no one on here cares about some MAGA retard being sent to combat Ukrainian Nazis.
Now if this American family had been a family of communists on the other hand…
>>2395383Amusingly bro's post is so incomprehensibly off the mark, I don't even know what "side" it is even on. It just makes my "real pure communist" sense tingle.
Also of course it would be in effect the same if the guy was a Marx level communist intellect privately (somehow, imagine the solitary Buddha or Pratyekabuddhayāna, which has no equivalence in Marxist theory for reasons that should be totally obvious to any Marxist or aspiring Marxist etc.)
Basically the world, this reality does not care what is in your head, even if to you it seems the most important thing in the whole wide world.
>>2394516he changed to Sendero Luminoso Flag.
but yeah, he's posting less. probably he's busy.
>>2395367>>2395358don't be dense, if you sign a contract for quick deployment with an army when they are in a military campaign, they will send you wherever they please.
what a ridiculous thing to complain.
>>2395499Well, that's not a very nice thing to say
Also 'many words'? 'tis barely a warm-up, stretching.
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrainian-s300-destroyed-russian-iskanderSome of Ukraine’s Last S-300 Air Defences Destroyed in Russian Iskander-M Ballistic Missile Strike
>Drone footage from Ukraine’s Odessa region near the village of Hvardiiske has confirmed the destruction of the Ukrainian Air Force’s few remaining S-300PS air defence systems in a precision strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile system. The S-300PS was considered among the world’s leading air defence systems at the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, although its capabilities were far surpassed by the revolutionary S-300PMU that began to enter service in Russia in 1992. Ukraine’s position as a fourth line of defence against a possible NATO attack on the Warsaw Pact led the Soviet Armed Forces to concentrate considerable quantities of advanced equipment on its territory, including a particularly large arsenal of S-300s and other air defence systems. Multiple variants of the S-300, alongside complementary shorter range BuK-M1 systems, formed the core of what was widely considered Europe’s most capable surface-to-air missile network before the start of full scale Russian-Ukrainian hostilities in February 2022.
>Although formidable, a major constraint of the Ukrainian air defence network has been its inability to replace either parts lost in combat, or missiles expended during operations, as Soviet production was heavily concentrated in Russia. The issue of serious shortages began to be raised as early as November 2022, when the Ukrainian Air Force warned that the inability to procure additional missiles for the S-300 and BuK systems was set to end the service’s ability continue to operate them effectively. Leaks of secret documents from the U.S. Department of Defence in April 2023 showed that there were rising concerns within the Pentagon regarding the state of the Ukrainian Air Force’s surface-to-air missile network due to increasingly serious shortages. With European NATO members that had formerly procured S-300s from the USSR donating all their own systems to Ukraine, the exhaustion of these supplies led the United State and its Western European allies such as Germany and the Netherlands to make large scale donations of the American equivalent to the S-300 system, the MIM-104 Patriot.
>Alongside Ukraine’s S-300s, Patriot air defence systems delivered to the country have been singled out for strikes by Iskander-M ballistic missile systems, and have suffered high combat attrition rates as a result. Strikes using the systems have been confirmed by video footage to have destroyed Patriot batteries, radars and command vehicles multiple times, with the first confirmed destruction of a Patriot system on February 23, 2024, while a subsequent strike destroyed another system near the Sergeevka locality the following month. New footage in July 2024 confirmed the destruction of two Patriot batteries in the Odessa region. On August 11 three more batteries and an AN/MPQ-65 radar were reported destroyed in Iskander-M strikes.
>Commenting on the Iskander-M’s capabilities which made its attacks extremely difficult to intercept, Ukrainian Air Force official spokesman Igor Ignat observed on May 26: “The Iskander missiles perform evasive manoeuvres in the final phase, thwarting the Patriot’s trajectory calculations… In addition, the Iskander can drop decoys capable of fooling Patriot missiles.” The systems have also been used for precision strikes on a wide range of other high value targets, including personnel concentrations and fighter aircraft. They have also consistently played an important role in efforts by the Russian Defence Ministry to single out Western active duty personnel and contractors operating within Ukraine’s borders for targeting. >>2396035>The mayor of Lvov has proposed exchanging the exhumed bodies of Soviet (!) soldiers from the Hill of Glory for the remains of captured (that is, living) Ukrainian soldiers. jeeezums…
fucking nato braindead morons.
many of those people were already Ukrainians. it's like the MoFA of Russia announcing that they posthumously Russia recently declared one of the soldiers that raised the USSR flag on the reichstag as a hero, and it's an Ukrainian man, and all the ukro-bots ran to rant about this like stupid mad dogs.
>>2395374>And then getting shocked and offended that actually they’re just cannon fodder is retarded, cringe and chauvinistic that they can command the military of a “lesser nation”.Gotta respect Russell Bentley here because I don't think he signed up with any illusions. Well, maybe some illusions, but not that he was going to be some rear-echelon guy.
>Honestly, that guy in particular was actually making the point that foreigners to the US don’t serve in the military and that he wanted to do the “principled” thing of serving in the US military, clap clap clap, but as a war reporter or a welder and can’t believe military service might put him in danger?Wait, what? Foreigners in the U.S. absolutely do serve in the military. There's some paperwork. Green-card soldiers. It makes it easier to gain citizenship (not the main reason for many, but it's an element). I understand this guy is some rightoid fag who didn't serve in the military so that's why he thinks otherwise.
>>2393115"coalition of the willing"
I fucking hate the cringe ass term.
I fucking hate angloids
>>2393215Cucktin has to go
I want Russia led by a Dugin, Girkin, and Zyuganov troika
https://x.com/peacemaket71/status/1946272196155871430?
>Russia brutally punished Azerbaijan: A key refinery blew up - Moscow just showed Baku where it belongs
> In a series of precision strikes, Russian forces hit the Kremenchuk refinery, the Drohobych oil plant and a facility in Odessa, which for years served as a logistics base for the processing and distribution of "Azeri Light" oil under the control of the state-owned company SOCAR from Azerbaijan. These facilities were under the control of the state-owned giant SOCAR, which made huge profits from this system - not only for Ukraine, but also for business and political circles in Baku.
>According to expert estimates, Kremenchuk alone processed more than 1.3 million tons of Azerbaijani oil per year, while Drohobych and Odessa also served for sea exports - under the full control of SOCAR. This network, in which billions and political capital have been invested for many years, is now being razed to the ground – under the influence of a wave of strikes by Russian “Iskander” missiles and “Geran” drones.
>Baku supplied Ukraine during the war crisis – now Moscow is closing the circle As journalist Ruslan Ostashko points out, this oil corridor was not only an economic project, but also an informal form of support for Ukraine during the most critical months of 2022 and 2023, when fuel was the most valuable raw material. At that time, Azerbaijan, through its infrastructure and logistics, helped Kiev maintain some energy stability even in the midst of the war.
>Today, with Moscow deciding to cut this channel, SOCAR is losing a key market and Azerbaijan is losing real influence in Ukraine.
>Tensions are rising: Russian arrests, school closures, threats from Ankara Eight citizens of the Russian Federation were recently detained in Baku, and footage of their humiliation is circulating on the Internet. In parallel, Russian schools are being closed, and sharp attacks on Moscow are coming from various political and security structures in Azerbaijan.
>The most radical statement was made by Aygun Atar, chairwoman of the Turkey-Azerbaijan Friendship Fund and member of the Turkish National Security Council, who called for internal destabilization of Russia - allegedly in response to the arrests of members of one ethnic group accused of serious crimes.
>Is intelligence coming into play - connections with Britain and Ukraine?
>According to information from the "Secret Office" channel, some of the detainees have ties not only to illegal migration, but also to intelligence structures, including those from Ukraine and Great Britain. Although nothing has been officially confirmed yet, more and more sources are warning that the incident could have serious security implications – for both Moscow and Baku.
>Experts: Guarantees no longer apply – Azerbaijan has come out of the shadows According to Boris Rozhin of the Center for Military-Political Journalism, there were informal guarantees in the past that Russian forces would not attack facilities connected to SOCAR. But that no longer applies. The latest attacks clearly show that Moscow has decided to punish anyone who – formally or informally – supports Kiev.
>In this context, Azerbaijan, which has so far skillfully maintained neutrality, is increasingly being drawn into direct confrontation. The diplomatic tone from Baku, the reactions of state media and the nervousness of the SOCAR leadership indicate that relations between Baku and Moscow have entered a new phase – a phase in which it is impossible to separate the economy from geopolitics.From Telegram https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/07/ukraine-the-battle-over-zelenskis-fate-is-still-in-balance.htmlUkraine - The Battle Over Zelenski's Fate Is Still in Balance
>An intense information operation has been launched to remove Ukraine's (former) President Vladimir Zelenski from office. Behind it are a cabal of Ukrainian opposition figures in coordination which western media and parts of the Trump administration.
>The current campaign follows a earlier one which was directed against Zelenski's main advisor and head of the office of the president Andrei Yermak.
>Politico.eu introduced Yermak:
<The game plan of Zelenskyy's powerful chief of staff - Politico.eu, Jun 3 2025
<The once little-known lawyer and B-movie producer — now in the thick of triangular peace diplomacy with the Americans and Russians — is always reverently loyal to his boss. In an interview with POLITICO last year, he referred to him glowingly as the “president of the people.” What else could he say? Yermak has ridden Zelenskyy’s coattails to become the second-most-powerful figure in Ukraine — even a co-equal.
>Then the U.S. version Politico.com set out to destroy him:
<The Ukrainian official Washington loves to hate - Politico.com, Jun 19 2025
<Speaking to allies in private, Yermak has accused Trump administration officials of being Russian assets, according to the first person familiar with the visit, including Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has met with Putin four times as Trump seeks to cajole Moscow to the negotiating table.
<People familiar with the U.S.-Ukraine relationship and Kyiv’s backers in Washington fear that the friction wrought by Yermak could quickly spread to undermine his country’s standing with its most vital partner.
>But Yermak survived the public relations onslaught and even managed to increase his control in Ukraine.
<Ukraine’s political infighting gets nasty (archived) - Economist, Jul 6 2025<As Trump starves it of arms, there is turmoil inside the government
<Three developments in June set the tone. On June 23rd, a deputy prime minister, Oleksiy Chernyshov—once tipped as a future prime minister—became the most senior Ukrainian politician ever charged with corruption. On government business in Europe, he initially delayed returning, creating the absurd image of a minister for repatriating Ukrainians planning his own self-exile.
<At around the same time, the cabinet was warned of an imminent reshuffle, and the probable appointment of a new prime minister, the 39-year-old Yulia Svyrydenko. And a renewed attempt was made to remove Ukraine’s fiercely independent spy chief, Kyrylo Budanov—though it ended in failure, at least for now.
<Multiple sources identify the shadowy hand of Andriy Yermak, who runs the presidential office but in reality is an unelected chief minister in all but name, as instrumental in all three plays.
>Yermak survived and fought back successfully. But now the fight has turned directly against his boss or sidekick Vladimir Zelenski to whom he is bound by money and fate.
>Within hours of each other the British outlets Financial Times and Spectator fired a full broadside against him.
<Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused of authoritarian slide after anti-corruption raids (archived) - Financial Times, Jul 18 2025<Politicians, activists and diplomats accuse Ukraine’s leader of favouring loyalists and using wartime powers against critics
<Ukrainians have lost faith in Zelensky (archived) - The Spectator, Jul 18 2025
<In recent weeks, Ukraine has been engulfed in corruption scandals. Two deputy prime ministers, minister for national unity Oleksiy Chernyshov and minister for reconstruction Oleksandr Kubrakov, have been investigated for embezzlement and treason. Zelensky has also repeatedly tried to sack Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, allegedly because of his growing popularity. Only pressure from the US embassy in Kyiv prevented the sacking of one of Ukraine’s most popular generals, a serving senior European diplomat with knowledge of the case tells me. …
<‘Ukraine has two enemies, two Vladimirs: Zelensky and Putin,’ says a former Ukrainian cabinet minister, once a strong Zelensky supporter. ‘Putin is destroying Ukraine from [the] outside, but Zelensky is destroying it from within by destroying its will to fight and its morale. Human rights are being trampled on, there is pressure against political opponents, rich and influential people who could support opposition are being expropriated and opposition media is silenced. And the irony is that this Putinification of Ukraine is being funded by the West.’
>On top of those anti-Zelenski pieces the legendary reporter Seymour Hersh is writing that Washington is now ready to oust him.
<THE END FOR ZELENSKY? (archived) - Seymour Hersh, Jul 18 2025<Washington wants the Ukrainian president to leave office—will it happen?
<[Former General Valeri] Zaluzhnyi is now seen as the most credible successor to Zelensky. I have been told by knowledgeable officials in Washington that that job could be his within a few months. Zelensky is on a short list for exile, if President Donald Trump decides to make the call. If Zelensky refuses to leave his office, as is most likely, an involved US official told me: “He’s going to go by force. The ball is in his court.” There are many in Washington and in Ukraine who believe that the escalating air war with Russia must end soon, while there’s still a chance to make a settlement with its president, Vladimir Putin.
<There are indications that Zelensky knows what is coming. He has just shifted or fired three officials: the minister of defense, the prime minister, and the ambassador to the United States. As the US official told me, Zelensky “is beginning to read the danger signs.”
>Hersh however depends on his sources. There are some claims in his latest which let me doubt their veracity:
<I have been provided with new Russian casualty numbers, from carefully evaluated US and British intelligence estimates, that show that Russia has suffered two million casualties—nearly double the current public numbers—since Putin started the war in early 2022.
>Given the notorious lack of ammunition on the Ukrainian side of the war the claim of "two million [Russian] casualties", some 50,000 per month, is simply not plausible. Even Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claims only 1 million. In December 2024 Zelensky claimed less. BBC/Mediazona have counted only 100,000+ Russian killed in action. Here are more reasons to disregard at least some of Hersh' sources.
>The big question is of course who is behind the anti-Yermak and now anti-Zelenski campaign. It turns out that these are not just some figures in the Trump administration.
>The Ukrainian outlet Strana, blacklisted in Ukraine and Russia, provided some insight.
<Internal threat number one. How Poroshenko and Fiala go on the warpath with Zelensky (in Russian, machine translated) - Strana, Jul 17 2025
<In Ukraine, an alliance of Petro Poroshenko and grant structures previously close to the US Democratic Party has formed against Volodymyr Zelensky.
>'Grant structures' are the 'civil society' and 'anti-corruption' non-government organization in Ukraine which were, until recently, financed by U.S. funds and controlled by Democrats.
<After the defeat of the Democrats in the US elections, both grant makers and Poroshenko realized that Zelensky could use the change of power in Washington to crack down on all his opponents inside the country, which Biden did not allow to do before. Therefore, it was decided to join forces to confront Bankova. A significant role is also played by the monetary factor – a sharp reduction in Western grant funding , which hit numerous activists and the media. Against this background, Poroshenko, who has a huge financial resource, looks like a very attractive patron of art for them. At the same time, grantees have their own resources – control over a number of media outlets, and most importantly – influence on the institute of international experts, who have a decisive voice in the selection of judges and heads of law enforcement agencies. And although the creators of this system from the US Democratic Party have already been removed from power in Washington, the system itself continues to function in Ukraine. [..]" the source said. …
<"… this alliance has connected all its broad connections in the West, conveying to European politicians the idea that Zelensky is turning into a dictator, a "new Putin", and therefore he needs to be hard pressed so that he does not touch opponents."
>It is thus obvious that the recent anti-Zelenski pieces in the FT and Spectator are originating from the Poroshenko/NGO alliance in Ukraine. It may even have paid for them.
>But it does not mean that these forces are winning.
>If Trump believes that he can use Zelenski to further his aims he is likely going to stick to him, no matter whatever else Zelenski does. >>2396109His mission will be to defend Freedom Burger, the fictional restaurant in a Middle Eastern city in Jarhead 3 (they actually made two sequels to that). The movie didn't have much class, but it did have Marines.
>>2396142Um excuse me but they have the freedom to do that.
>>2396469>What will be the fallout if this piece of land falls into NATO hands?In what sense? I don't know how strategically important it is, but it is their only self-owned and universally recognized lukewarm water port. They can still get blocked at Denmark and the English channel just like they get blocked from Crimea at Bosporus and Dardanelles by Turkey. That's why they have the port at Tartus so they can get blocked at Suez and Gibraltar.
I think it mostly hosts the Baltic fleet and works as an intelligence outpost to spy on Europe by putting radars and stuff like that closer and for deterrence by being able to launch missiles from behind enemy lines. I guess it would depend how important Russia really thinks it is and how reliant they think they need to be on Naval projection vs deterrence and giving them a sort of buffer slash crumple zone on the border to St. Petersburg, like to make the cost of attempting a physical blockade mutually destructive.
They probably consider that deterrent pretty important considering their actions in Ukraine, and with Russian justifications and escalation if some kind of invasion turns out to be true they might see it necessary to annex the Baltic states and such a provocation towards Kaliningrad would end up being framed as NATOs self fulfilling prophecy about Putin wanting expand to restore the Russia empire. RF wasn't strong enough in 2004 to stop them joining NATO and deploying offensive weapons but if they become less 'neutral' Russia would likely respond in kind.
>>2396628INDIA CVADS
I KNEEL
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1946539569194914031.html
>Why Seymour Hersh’s latest article about Ukraine is wrong 🧵
>(1) Casualties. Hersh’s US official source claims 2 million Russian casualties. >Even Ukraine’s MoD claims 1 million. Zelensky in December 2024 – 200,000 KIA, 550,000 WIA. BBC/Mediazona – 100,000+ KIA.
>(2) Hersh claims Zaluzhny could replace Zelensky.
>In fact, Ukrainian nationalist militarists are dismissive of the general – he abandoned the war for London with 'health reasons' and his counteroffensive was idiotic
>(3) Hersh for some reason thinks this week’s cabinet reshuffle is a sign of Zelensky’s weakness. In fact, the opposite
>The cabinet shakeup is just a sign of Zelensky’s ever-increasing centralization. New PM, Sviridenko, is totally loyal to Zelensky-Yermak
>(5) Zelensky and his righthand man Yermak have total control over the Security Services (SBU), court system and law enforcement (Oleg Tatarov), and army (Oleksandr Syrsky)
>This small group is more powerful than ever, and not vulnerable as Hersh claims
>(6) The only remaining opposition to Yermak is head of Zelensky’s parliamentiary fraction Arakhamia and head of the intelligence directorate Budanov.
>The replacement of PM Shmyhal with Sviridenko was a loss for them and a win for Yermakeventsinukraine.substack.com/p/spider-in-th…
>(7) Meanwhile, Zelensky purged the Democrat Party-funded ‘sorosite’ NGOs this month.
>Zelensky centralizes power, no backlash or even response from western governmentseventsinukraine.substack.com/p/democracy-di…
>(8) This means that the west no longer has a network of controlled political forces in Ukraine. Anyway, Trump hates the Sorosites for their role in the Manafort affair.eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/zelensky-and…
>(9) The Sorosites and ex-president Poroshenko have been desperately criticizing Zelensky in the attempt to stave off their demise. But the west doesn’t care about their old clients anymoreeventsinukraine.substack.com/p/petka-the-wi…
>(9) Why? Because Zelensky is a better client.
>This month FT wrote about how Zelensky forced Ukrainian businessmen to give up key economic assets to US-Swedish companieseventsinukraine.substack.com/p/contra-hersh…
>(10) The only way Zelensky’s grip could actually be threatened is if the frontline really started collapsing
>(11) Hersh’s source downplays Russian gains, claiming it is all just ‘farmland’.
>But Ukrainians are quite worried by the dynamic of Russian territorial advances.
>In 2025, 2,395km2 - the size of Luxembourg, bild writes. All of 2024 was 'only' 3,388km2
>(12) Besides that, Hersh ignores the fact that Russia’s strategy is clearly attritional, spreading Ukraine’s thin forces over an ever-larger front
>13) According to Ukrainian military expert Taras Chmut this month, Russia is recruiting more soldiers than it loses, while Ukraine loses more than it gains each month. >He concludes that Russia is winningeventsinukraine.substack.com/p/democracy-di…
>(14) The latest news from Ukrainian milbloggers is that superior Russian drone teams have Pokrovsk’s logistics surrounded – they compare it to when that forced Ukraine to abandon the Kursk region
>(14) Tension between officers and mobilized troops is also growing. On the 16th, a mobilized soldier killed two sergeants at a training camp in the Chernihiv region
>(14) The neo-nazi Azov movement has been given massive PR boost by Poroshenko+Sorosite media this year as an alternative to Zelensky. But…eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/azov-rising
>(15) It’s clear that Zelensky is also boosting the Azov movement, especially through loyal oligarch (the country’s richest) Rinat Akhmetov.
>(16) Zelensky-Yermak hope to use the Azovites as a nationalist spoiler party in future elections
>The Azovites are always happy to work for the powerful
>(17) Meanwhile, the two wings of the Azov movement are currently engaged in a violent conflict. Probably also encouraged by Ze-Yermak.eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/the-azov-civ…
>(18) All in all, I can’t share Hersh’s pessimism about Zelensky’s prospects. The west has few instruments to replace Zelensky, and the latter has totally centralized power>And instead of cutting off weapons, Trump is sending more
>(19) Anyway, ever since Zelensky signed the colonial minerals deal with the US, Trump has stopped talking about the need to replace him.
>(21) In sum, Zelensky is the perfect neo-colonial ruler of Ukraine for the west. >Hands over resources and rules with an iron fist, rounding off his citizens to die for Western Civilization.
>I think he will stay >>2396469https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1946065784255529367
>General Donahue, who failed upwards to command US Army - Europe after overseeing one of the worst days in the entire War on Terror during the Kabul Airlift, decided to run his mouth today about NATO being able to quickly conquer Kaliningrad. Let's do the work his staff didn't.
>Although their detailed order of battle is somewhat unclear, the Russians appear to have 5-6 motor rifle regiments, a tank regiment, and a marine brigade stationed in Kaliningrad Oblast. In light of ongoing tensions with NATO and Kaliningrad's strategic location, there is no particular reason to believe this garrison has sent more than modest detachments to fight in Ukraine.
>The Russians can thus be expected to field approximately twenty-five maneuver battalions with appropriate enablers in defense of Kaliningrad. If NATO intends to conduct this operation quickly, presumably they're not going to laboriously move the US Army to Poland over a period of months for a deliberate attack on Kaliningrad. They're going to attack with those forces currently in Poland and Lithuania on short notice. So what forces are those?
>The Lithuanian Army has three brigades and a second front with Belarus to worry about. Presumably one could be committed to the battle. Assuming their strongest brigade - the "Iron Wolves" - is committed, that makes four NATO battalions.
>The Poles have about 60 maneuver battalions in six divisions (their org chart on Wikipedia shows 54, but I'm charitably assuming they've added several since 2023). About half of those can be expected to be deployed to defend on the Belarusian border, leaving 30 for NATO's 2025 East Prussian Offensive.
>There is additionally a US Army armored brigade forward-deployed to Poland and a NATO battlegroup in Lithuania at the moment. Charitably this makes for five more maneuver battalions - let's say the US Army wants in on the offensive and sends in the brigade in Poland, contributing four battalions. Ergo, the force array here is 38 NATO battalions attacking 25 Russian ones fighting from exhaustively-prepared positions and under an integrated air defense umbrella that can be expected to disrupt NATO air operations deep into central Poland.
>Fighting an enemy with high-intensity combat experience, a modern drone corps, and high-speed sensor to shooter links at 3:2 odds is not a recipe for rapid success. It's a recipe for NATO to get a bloody nose and rapidly lose the Suwalki Corridor and the Baltics after underestimating its enemy and dissipating its ready combat power on a failed coup de main.
>Donahue is either bluffing or he's an idiot and the USAREUR staff are incompetent - someone with his level of supposed expertise shouldn't even need to be briefed on a force array this elementary, let alone get the takeaway so dramatically wrong. In any event, I'm sure the Russian commander in Kaliningrad (according to Wikipedia, that would be MG Andrey Ruzinsky of the Russian 11th Corps) rolled his eyes at Donahue's comments when he was informed of the matter. The CIA Initiated an Intelligence and Terrorist War on Russia Based on a Lie
https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/the-cia-initiated-an-intelligence
>Foreign Policy published an article last week by Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes, with the title, When the Threat Is Inside the White House: What CIA insiders make of the MAGA moles and toadies now in charge of U.S. national security. While the intent of the article is to paint Trump and his team as a bunch of Russian toadies, Weiner unwittingly paints a picture of the CIA’s leadership as biased operators with no understanding of Russia… They still think they are engaging a communist authoritarian state.
>Here’s the opening paragraph:
<If our nation’s spies are the infantry of our ideology, as John Le Carré once observed, Tom Sylvester is an unknown soldier who became a four-star general. Two years ago, he was named the CIA’s deputy director of operations, in charge of thousands of officers conducting espionage, covert action, and paramilitary operations. He won the job by virtue of his role in stealing Russia’s war plans for Ukraine, warning the world about the coming invasion, and providing steadfast support to Kyiv’s military and intelligence services.
>Weiner credits Sylvester with “stealing Russia’s war plans for Ukraine,” but completely ignores the role the CIA played in provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The entire narrative surrounding Sylvester’s actions is constructed around the premise that Russia is a bad, evil actor and that its actions have nothing to do with Western provocations, especially the expansion of NATO to the East.
>The next “highlight” from Weiner’s piece provides an excellent example of the CIA’s bias and ignorance when it comes to Russia:
<In the summer of 2017, Sylvester received new marching orders from Tomas Rakusan, the new chief of the clandestine service, whose identity remained a state secret until after his retirement. Rakusan had spied on Russia since before the end of the Cold War, operating throughout Central and Eastern Europe. His hatred of the Russians was bred in the bone. His parents were Czech; he was 9 years old when Soviet troops crushed the Prague Spring uprising in 1968. Rakusan saw Russian President Vladimir Putin’s subversion of the presidential election on Trump’s behalf as the espionage equivalent of 9/11. In retaliation, he aimed to penetrate the Kremlin—among the greatest aspirations of the CIA since its foundation, and a goal never achieved.
>Hatred of Russians? It is one thing to despise the Soviet Union, which was governed by a Communist ideology. But the “End of the Cold War” was marked by the peaceful overthrow of a communist government and the creation of a new Russian government that emphasized nationalism and Christianity. So how is that a threat to the United States? Moreover, during the decade of the 1990s, Russia’s military was in disarray and the society was ravaged by economic crisis, which included two periods of hyperinflation, widespread poverty among the Russian people, and a dramatic decline in life expectancy among Russian men.
>This did not age well: “Rakusan saw Russian President Vladimir Putin’s subversion of the presidential election on Trump’s behalf as the espionage equivalent of 9/11.” Tulsi Gabbard’s declassification of intelligence documents and emails from various members of the CIA and other intelligence officials on Friday, shows that Rakusan either had his head up his ass or was part of the conspiracy to attack Donald Trump with a lie (or both). The memo carries the following subject line: Intelligence Community suppression of intelligence showing “Russian and criminal actors did not impact” the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure. I am sure this caught Tim Weiner by surprise. Certainly takes the wind out of his sails as he tries to portray the CIA as a saintly, honest outfit being undermined by a President who is in the pocket of Putin.
>The next couple of paragraphs from Weiner paint a picture of Western intelligence ramping up against Russia, but also exposes the CIA’s impotence with respect to human intelligence assets in Russia:
<By the summer of 2020, CIA officers were working in close liaison with the British, Dutch, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Estonians, and many other services against the Russians. “There was the strategic decision on how we would share intelligence,” Sylvester said. “We used it as an influence mechanism, in and of itself, to get governments to start cooperating with us.” This hard-won trust “allowed them to open up taps of cooperation and intelligence that they had theretofore not shared with us,” he added. The CIA and its foreign allies were cross-fertilizing intelligence, choreographing operations, and, most importantly, recruiting Russian sources.
<The CIA had been able to “push back against the Russian services” largely by “working with liaison partners overseas to expose and disrupt Russian intelligence activities,” then-CIA Director William Burns told me last year. “And then what we tried to build on that, starting in the spring of 2021, was the recruitment dimension of this,” he said. “This was really, especially once the war drums started beating, a once-in-a-generation opportunity, given the disaffection in some parts of the Russian elite and Russian society” against Putin’s regime.
>This quote jumped off the page for me: largely by “working with liaison partners overseas to expose and disrupt Russian intelligence activities.” That is a polite way of saying that the CIA had no assets of its own and was relying on foreign intelligence services, with the bulk of the information coming from Ukraine. And note the significance of the “spring of 2021;” Biden was newly installed as President and the effort to go after Russia on a more intense basis was kicked into high gear.
>Burn’s comment to Weiner is also quite instructive… It shows a mistaken belief on the part of the Director of the CIA about the stability of the Russian government (i.e., given the disaffection in some parts of the Russian elite and Russian society” against Putin’s regime) and is an implicit admission that the CIA had embarked on a program to try to ignite a new color revolution in Russia. This is not my opinion… Weiner’s piece makes that clear in this paragraph:
<Kyiv’s spy services, rebuilt by the CIA after Putin seized Crimea and other parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014, had become one of Washington’s best sources of intelligence on the Russians; the CIA was becoming the Ukrainians’ best defense against them. “It was probably one of the best investments that the CIA, the U.S. government, has made,” Sylvester said; it had created “the trust, the confidence, the ability in times of need to feel like you were in the trenches together.” By the fall of 2021, the CIA had given the Ukrainians a graduate course in espionage and paramilitary operations, along with the ability to understand and utilize a steady stream of U.S. intelligence.
>I will close with this amazing, but not surprising, revelation from Weiner. He describes Rakusan’s fury in the aftermath of Trump’s election, and Rakusan’s desperate, dangerous actions:
<“The Russians manipulated our fucking elections,” he told them. “How do we make sure this never happens again?” He didn’t care if they didn’t speak Russian or had never set foot in Moscow. He ordered them to take their expertise in targeting and recruiting terrorists and turn it against Russian spies, diplomats, and oligarchs.
>Got that? “Recruit terrorists!” I don’t ever want to hear another damn word about the US fighting a war on terrorism when we have an admission from the top operations officer in the CIA telling his boys and girls to recruit terrorists, who will be used to attack Russia. I am sure the Russians have read Mr. Weiner’s piece and have taken notice of this fact. I suspect they already knew that.
>Based on Weiner’s article, we now know that the US launched an intelligence war on Russia based completely on a lie. And the senior leaders of the CIA went along with it. In my view, the CIA ought to be dismantled and cast to the four winds. We need to start over with some people of actual intelligence.>>2397518lol'd so hard about how fascinated he was with the shopping card coin thing when this came out.
also tucker never bought his own groceries and him larping as a prole with his porkie heritage is pathetic af.
>>2397880Strelkov thinks it's dead yes. The Sumy offensive flopped pretty spectacularly. Nothing happened in Kharkiv. Pokrovsk attacks are still ongoing but have so far been repelled. The army is closing in on Kupiansk but it could just be another Chasiv Yar neverending pitfall to get stuck in.
The major successes Russia has had militarily thus far this year are Kursk and cutting off the Pokrovsk-Kostiantynivka T0504 highway. Nothing special to report otherwise. No new wunderwaffes or even cheap and cheerful waffes to actually do meaningful damage to the AFU.
>>2398360>TLDR of whats happened since like, Ukraine taking a chunk of Russia.TLDR:
Ukrainians retreated from Kursk, now they are losing ground on the north.
Meanwhile, the same Ukrainian government that believed it would be a great idea tokenizing these controls as a bargain chip in the scenario of a negotiation in the Russian Kursk region never stopped losing ground on the Eastern region.
Now the Ukrainians are in a worst position than where they were one year later, continuously losing.
>>2398393Apparently Trump is pissed at Putin but it seems like it's in a sound position of constantly getting more and more ground. Honestly it sounds like they should've sued for peace either when that offensive happened or when it took Kursk. Now it seems they have no real leverage
>>2398362That's a given. How much of Ukraine's young male population is gone. Remember it being an insanely sad number.
>>2398996Drumph will truly save the Ukraine
Holy fuck you are retarded lol
>>2399104Well as that Ukrainian high official said (accidentally I presume) the rats are leaving a sinking ship.
Anyway, the point of sanctions is not simply to hurt, to "make the economy scream". Anyone can do that, in a connected global capitalism, most of all the US and their hangers-on, their lesser partners. The point is to hurt them more than you hurt yourself. Which the west is failing at to a pretty hilarious degree. They have self-contained from the rest of the world. You cannot sanction the whole world. For the amerikkkans there is at least some measure of a plan, elbow the Russian out of EVropa and pick up the business (liquid oil etc.) yourself. That's at least a way to recuperate loss. For the europeons there is nothing. They have no way to "win", no way forward. It's all negative progression from here on.
To me to what the degree the "Russians are fucked" is actually pretty immaterial but of course there are people that think differently. People that have a stake in the Russian market and, I assume, people that need everything to run perfectly smoothly before they can see a positive (global) development. A weird overlap in groups that is, in any case.
>>2399110>The point is to hurt them more than you hurt yourself.>Which the west is failing at to a pretty hilarious degreeExplain how you reach that conclusion with stats. It's pretty obvious to anyone with half a braincell, very rare among so-called leftists here, that Russia is hurting far more than the west - who btw have barely lifted a finger to help Ukraine.
Some choice stats to help you understand Russia's pain are presented without comment. Also as a tangent - Russia has banned demographics data. Guess those million+ graves the AFU caused are real. Ouchie!
>>2399124>barely lifted a fingerYes-yes, Europe and USA just DON'T WANT Ukraine to win, otherwise Russia would have been destroyed! All it would take is to LIFT A FINGER
By the way, left graph shows that Russia's Ruble is as strong as before the war.
>Ruzzian attacks are still ongoing but have so far been repelled, zoom out zigger
>RUZZIA WILL COLLAPSE FROM SANCTIONS IN TWO WEEKS
Uh, i wonder what's happening, let's check on Deepstateua…
>The problem is also a catastrophic shortage of people in the defense, with whom they do not have time to close the holes in the positions, and which the enemy discovers in order to move along these routes to the rear. Also, the reason for this is the marking of a large area of gray zones on the map, which can be seen more and more often in updates. Our team is constantly investigating the circumstances, whether the enemy was able to gain a foothold in the area where his previous fixation took place, or whether he has already been destroyed. And we cannot emotionally react to every event, because our markings are a huge responsibility to society and the military. But since the enemy has the opportunity to climb there, the gray zone increases accordingly, which can change its color at any time (in the vast majority to red).
⚔️ These are the realities of war, where the enemy, having a quantitative advantage in infantry, which is ready to deliberately die in assault operations in one direction, has constant success in advancing. Along with this problem is the lack of people on our side, which creates gaps in the defense, and lies in reports about the real situation on the ground only fuel this problem and increase the enemy's success. An example is the events in Pokrovsk, which we wrote about yesterday.
>>2399124>that Russia is hurting far more than the westThat's why the Ukraine conflict grossly accelerated G7 political instability instead of a revolt against Putin. Support for Ukraine has plummeted in the G7 while Russia grew faster than any of them. For war industry there's no comparison.
The war showed Russian pivot to sanctions resilience after 2014 worked. Russia was indeed not Iraq, and the West overestimated its position in the multipolar world, and its response to multipolarity is recycling strategies from the bipolar world which only serves to isolate the West.
>>2399146Chivalry is dead. Where are the bayonet charges? The German Haubitzen? The Japanese quality of steel, folded 7 times?
Save me, samurai ahhhh
I will make you honorary Aryans
Onegai!
>>2399190Because Russian economy is glowing hot right now due to all the military expansion.
If you check most of the developing world, they have high inflation rates. In fact, low inflation rates are only in China and in the West, in China because they are communist and are planning ahead, and in the West because it's economy is stagnating or degenerating as we speak
>>2399159After a year they finally reach one street Pokrovsk. How many more years before they can declare victory over *checks notes* a small town of 60k pre-war?
It's laughable how warped pro-Russians minds have to be to consider any of this successful.
>>2399239*rolls eyeballs*
Oh please, don’t you remember forums in the 2000s? *smirks just enough to show some teeth* people used to argue online while miming their actions and thoughts via text to imply how smug they are [oh brother, I’m really giving it to him, nothin personell kid] that sadly got replaced by a certain smug frog cartoon many years ago now.
It’s positively retro! *grimaces and looks down at my feet, feeling a pang of nostalgia to when people used to grow out of being cringe online teenagers, but now they’re all in their 40s, in NAFO and posting dumbass dog memes*
>>2399274>Vietnam is aligning itself more with the US against China.Why do you still come here to say this when despite never being true it gets further away from being true with every passing year?
Get newer talking points, at least. We've heard this shit already a hundred times.
>>2399333You can’t blame necessarily them, the primary issue for Ukrainians has always been government corruption, it’s like 80% of the reason Zelensky was elected and now he is disbanding something called an “Anti-Corruption Bureau”.
I doubt they’re stupid, it just has to be disbelief to accept that their rather simple desire to not live in such a corrupt society has been exploited so egregiously by Kiev, Brussels and Washington alike
>The United States refused to appoint Umerov ambassador because of American citizenship — MosiychukПодробнее:
https://eadaily.com/en/news/2025/07/17/the-united-states-refused-to-appoint-umerov-ambassador-because-of-american-citizenship-mosiychukSO apparently, the US cannot receive Umerov, although there's no confirmation, because he's an American citizen…? Wow.
>>2399373But again, the claim in the poll is supposedly that fewer people
report encountering it, as though the Bureau has completed its task and that’s why they’re disbanding it, but corruption being reported less in a wartime scenario where there are punishments against “Russian Disinformation” doesn’t necessarily mean the Bureau has in fact been successful. Assuming it cared about corruption and not just pulling on the leash of the Ukrainian government at Brussels, Washington and London’s command
>>2399224Well obviously you can't ever defeat a nuclear power in a conventional war, so the only way is regime change. The Prigozhin Rebellion was supposed precisely that. There won't be a general uprising because people are united around Putin and there won't be another coup attempt because the capitalists and the state-bureacratic elite is more disciplined than ever. From that point any sane Western leader or intelligence agency should have written down the war as a lost cause.
>>2399353The current push for regime changing Zelensky has Poroshenko and the NGOs behind it and it is condoned by Western media. That's why the people doing it aren't sent to an SBU torture dungeon immediately. It's also telling that these people haven't been sent to one in the last 11 years.
>>2399418Look at the cunning in the EU, the astute planning, the shrewd diplomacy. They managed to convince Trump to let them foot the bill and, in exchange, Trump will allow them to foot the bill. Gawd, so outflanked.
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-donald-trump-weapons-aid-war-in-ukraine-nato/>There’s no greater proof of that than in the gushing response to President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will indirectly provide weapons for Ukraine by allowing European countries to buy them themselves while NATO coordinates deliveries.
>European leaders — and NATO’s secretary-general, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte — hailed the announcement as a sign of the American president’s great leadership, following the first rule in dealings with Trump: Praise the man.
>“Mr. President, dear Donald, this is really big. This is really big,” said Rutte, sitting alongside Trump in the Oval Office.
>In reality, the key decisions had already been taken in Europe, where European leaders, faced with Trump’s ambivalence toward arming Ukraine and Russia’s escalating summer offensive in the embattled country, knew they had to act fast. German leaders in particular pushed for the arrangement, viewing what Trump has repeatedly called his “disappointment” with Russian President Vladimir Putin as opening a window of opportunity.
>Germany is “massively” invested in the plan, said Rutte, who visited Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin only last week. In private, German officials say the initiative was a German idea.
>Merz said he has been in touch with Trump several times in recent days and has assured him that Germany “will play a decisive role” in the effort to supply Kyiv with U.S. weapons. He also depicted Trump’s statements alongside Rutte as clear evidence that the U.S. and its European allies are on the same page when it comes to defending Ukraine.
>“We are doing this in our own interests,” Merz said. “This will help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s bombing campaign of terror. This is the only way to increase the pressure on Moscow to finally negotiate peace. Finally, we are showing that we are pulling in the same direction as security policy partners.”
>More accurately, however, it’s the Europeans who appear to be pulling Trump. >>2399568There was a satirical writing about rebelling Russian serfs
>"Russian people love to rebel! They'll get down on their knees in front of the manor house and stand there, scoundrels! And they know they're rebelling, and they're standing anyway!"Crazy how true this is for America's European vassals
>>2399571They can devalue their ruble and squeeze war taxes out of everyone via sharp inflation rises. It's what's been happening since 2022.
If their exports fall off a cliff then this policy will only intensify.
>>2399630>sharp inflation ratesHmm let's look at Rub to USD exchange rat e
>>2399124Why is USA accepting Russian inflation as "legitimate" and adjusts USD rate so that Ruble doesn't fall in value due to all the 20% inflation? Just like USA offloads their inflation to the rest of the world, it seems like Russia has found a way to offload it's inflation onto USA!
Nabiullina stays winning!!!
>>2399888So many potential volunteers…
What are they saying?
so if i have this right, these people are protesting over the government taking power away from anti-corruption agencies that are basically nato fronts (and haven't stopped actual corruption, which is endemic). Of all the things ukrainians could and should have been protesting about in the last few years, we get this. Fucking utter waste of a country.
>>2399888>Russia paused the airstrikes.I know this would be a bad move, but it would have been satisfying if Russia just iskandered the protest. heh
and the protest continues, lmao.
>>2399916mostly "shame", "(Zelensky) veto the law", picrel you can see most of what they say.
>>2399939those people are 100% pro-nato, pro-US/EU funded NGOs.
all makes sense now, that's why the western media started to create the narrative now that agent Z was a dictator, and that's not up to the task.
and this is barely a response to the west throwing Ukraine under the bus. all what the bullied dwarf has done is barely a response to that.
>>2399949some of them are:
"welcome to RuZZa" lmao. those NGOs are the ones obsessed with that wording.
>>2399939except which side is actually allied with and aiding the zionists. Is it 'RuZZia' and 'ziggers', or is it Ukraine and US-NATO. Hard for radlibs to figure out:
>The Syrian rebels who swept to power in Damascus last weekend received drones and other support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives who sought to undermine Russia and its Syrian allies, according to sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities abroad.
>Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 experienced drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones to the rebel headquarters in Idlib, Syria, four to five weeks ago to help Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leading rebel group based there, the knowledgeable sources said.Sure, but it is "ziggers" who are "like zionists" and not Ukraine and its supporters…
>>2400205>So then are these protests another EU/NATO maidanKinda, in the sense once again state interests in a difficult bind are clashing with a European path
On the one hand Zelensky isn't very popular, the war is an obvious block on some euro transformation and the war demands too much from the people
On the other these foreign fronts are part of why Ukraine is ungovernable and any strong Ukrainian state as demanded by the war will run over them
>>2400235They aren't doing it on purpose lol
Puppets just sometimes clash with masters in limited ways
In the wake of failed negotiations and wavering western interest in Ukraine, it only makes sense for zelensky to centralize power. Even if that ironically erodes part of the basis for his government
Are liberal zionists not in an awkward spot these days?
>>2400269I doubt he wants an end to the conflict any more than the west does, whatever the reason is for why Zelensky is now seemingly on the chopping block in the eyes of the west, I’m sure it’s not something we get to see as outsiders.
Perhaps it’s as simple as a change being as good as a rest and morale is expected to get huge boost by having someone else (presumably military like Zaluzhny or Budanov) in charge instead.
>>2400333Sort of depends on how much of their own propaganda, that they’re receiving insufficient help from the west and they’re essentially “saving democracy” alone (ironically an opinion expressed moments before more givas is requested), they’re buying into.
Because it wouldn’t be the first time in this conflict a decision was made based on propaganda rather than actual likelihoods, for both Kiev and NATO.
>>2400303i'm guessing the west is trying to swap out zelensky for someone else so they can make another run at tricking russia into agreeing to le ceasefire. they realize they're stuck and will never get there with zelensky, so ukraine will just bleed out over time and lose. they want to bring in a new face who will pretend to want peace and have a do-over of the last six months of "diplomacy".
i don't think it will matter though. if they swap zelensky for zaluzhny or whoever else it will just be the same thing. ukraine is as purged and controlled a dictatorship that has ever existed. no one could or would replace zelensky and actually change anything. it would just be the same agenda with a new face and fanfare.
>>2399671SMO-related inflation was acknowledged by Putin a few weeks ago.
https://tass.com/economy/1982401>"We paid for that [the increase of defense expenses] by inflation but we are now combating this inflation," the Russian leader said.It's not terrible for an east European country, apparently Kazakhstan has worse inflation despite not being in any wars and not being the most sanctioned country in the world. But it's still a capitalist state like any other and the people feel the squeeze.
https://tass.com/economy/1990325 >>2399568Lmao I thought the exact same thing when I saw the headline
Just nuke us Great venerable 同志 Xi
>>2399929>utter waste of a countryNow you are getting it
Never should have been founded in the first place (sorry Lenin, we all fuck up)
>>2400346So not Zaluzhny or the other one
Who will be the peace candidate (lol, lmao even) this time?
I have a hard time telling these corrupt slavo-nazoids apart, truly
>>2400550That's the thing. Zelensky was supposed to be THE peace candidate who won by being everything the neo-nazis hated (a Russian speaking Jew). Of course he later imprisoned his original backer and made a pact with the West and then the nazis. Now everyone who is not Zelensky in Ukrainian politics is a veteran of Maidan and a long-time, ideological nationalist. Who will make peace?
My only theory is based on those retarded maps Russian state media like to publish where Western Ukraine is divided up among Poland, Hungary and Romania. This seems so unlikely that it can only be a threat towards radical nationalists to make them do a 180 degree turn like Kadyrov did and ally with Russia against the degenerate West. This would prove that at its core the Ukraine conflict is about the global battle between neoliberal colonialist capitalism and (semi-)independent decolonial state-capitalism that Ukraine failed to achieve in time (but will achieve through Russian occupation), not about ethnic and civilizational struggle. After all the spark that initiated the conflict were the EU accession negotiations.
Trump gave everyone a reality check that the US will never back down from the conflict until it is forced to do so. For them it's choice between losing their assets or keeping them. Europe is ready to cuck itself worse than ever before so that the US won't have to spend a penny on the war. This means that peace will come from some kind of democratic impulse that will redraw political ideological boundaries, just like how Western institutions did from "Ukraine has Nazi problems" to "Putin is Hitler". Call it hopium but there is no other way. The best the current NGOid protests can do is to weaken the Ukrainian state for pro-Russian forces to take power.
>RREEEEEEE Russian propaganda.>>2400337classic GIVAS.
>>2400235How do these EU/NATO proxies make Ukraine ungovernable?
will it make ungovernable, though? AFAIK, these are small protests, perhaps some few hundreds.
>Isn't keeping Ukraine stable and meat grinder cranking a top priority?no givas, no meatgrinder.
>>2400269zelya doesn't know what he wants. he's a confused monkey that was promised a quick victory.
>>2400391usually people on X with ukrainian flag are the most demented people there are, just behind the israeli flag users.
>>2400412the world isn't a bunch of decrepit men outside your room in the geriatric, senile geezer. now, go back to yell at some clouds.
>>2400591>absurd both-sidies copeone side gives me:
>a parade invitethe other gives me:
>hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons, economic and intelligence support, directly attacks my adversaries for me (Iran, Yemen, Syria), and diplomatically covers for me with their UN veto at every turn so i avoid any consequences and have impunity to do anything i want to anyone.yeah, these are basically the same…
https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/newsletterissue-nato-military-spending/Israel is conducting a genocide. Who is supporting and financing this genocide? The west in the form of NATO.
Balts? who gives a shit. They are beyond irrelevant. Ukraine is irrelevant as a country, the balts are beyond that. If I do not get reminded of their existence (quite rudely) I do not remember their existence in the first place. Do be mindful to keep it like that, common courtesy.
>>2400591>wow, israel it is how it is because of a parade.>cucktinleast stupid ultra
hey, you, retard
>>2400591, let's put a bet: overthrow the US government and let's see how much time survives israel. if israel suvives, I'll overthrow the Russian government.
deal?
>>2400655True. I should have said that instead of “shaky”. That’s too much of an understatement. Regardless, Ukraine is on its way out.
>>2400657>Israel can survive without AmericaLmao
>>2399948This is not a decree.
It is a law that passed through congress right? The liberal democratic congress of the thriving democracy of our trusted ally. The shining beacon of democracy and "resilience". The most popular of popular wills made manifest, unshackled form the authoritarian taint of it's relation with the East. Free from Communism, free from Russia. Free from Asia.
Free and European… Western.
Aryan.Surely it is the will of the people. If Zelenskyy refused to sign the law, if he used his presidential veto, then that would be the signs of "authoritarianism" and a centralization of power in the executive. The democratic process has spoken. The representatives of the citizenry have made the law right?
But no, up is down and down is up when the media says so. And vice-versa next week. And back again in a month when it becomes enemy disinformation. And yet the other way around when the past is retconned some more.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/07/22/7522916/ >>2400709I kinda second this, but also could be that Zelensky is just pressuring the west with a dangerous move. he really thinks he can do that.
(I wanted to reply this post originally)
>>2400941Oh I imagine there will be a whole weekend of it, won’t change anything. They will back down and the west will swallow a Zelensky government that told them to fuck themselves.
Think of it as NATO succeeding in entirely expending Ukraine as a pawn against Russia in a conflict that will be quickly moved on from, but they’re only getting a silver medal because the puppet talked back a few times
>>2400487You people keep on treating inflation as if it's a death sentence; you are influenced by American economic consensus.
Meanwhile, Latin American countries have had insane inflation for hundreds of years by this point, to no observable collapse of their economies.
Why does this happen? Because local and "savings" currencies are separate. Workers largely don't care about inflation because they don't have any savings anyway, and thier wages grow to match the prices anyway. And for the upper classes, their savings are in USD anyway. Those three anyways create a situation where inflation doesn't matter whatsoever.
>>2401033>A destroyed middle east is not a secure Israel. Bro you're retarded of course it is.
Israel has destroyed every nation-state opponent it has besides Iran. The reason Israel doesn't care as much about disorganized and ragtag groups like Hamas or the Houthis is because they pose no real threat. In order for Israel to be threatened their opponent needs to have a functioning country with a growing and steady economy, scientific research potential, and advancements in military tech. Guerilla and paramilitary movements do not have the resources to contest Israel. Israel has fucking won all else is cope.
>>2401223https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/07/22/7522843/Russians enter Pokrovsk – Ukrainska Pravda sources
>Ukrainian military personnel stationed in Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, have confirmed to Ukrainska Pravda that Russian forces had entered the city, with a mop-up operation now underway against the intruding sabotage units.
>Source: Ukrainska Pravda (UP) sources amongst the military; DeepState, a Ukrainian group of military analysts
>Details: Servicemen interviewed by UP revealed that the initial Russian infantry incursions into Pokrovsk were detected five days ago, on 17 July.Advertisement:
>By the evening of 21 July, DeepState reported that the mop-up operation against the Russian sabotage groups in Pokrovsk remained "ongoing."
<"A couple of days ago, the enemy seized an opportunity – exploiting a brigade’s depleted infantry and a muddled battlefield assessment – to infiltrate the city via Zvirove. The crisis had to be swiftly dealt with by the brave lads of the 155th Separate Mechanised Brigade and the 68th Jaeger Brigade in order to avert a potential catastrophe," DeepState reported.
>It was highlighted that the Russians intend to dig in, await reinforcements and seize control of Zakhystnykiv Ukrayiny (Defenders of Ukraine) Street.
>As of the evening of 21 July, the relentless hunt for and annihilation of Russian sabotage groups persists.
<"Sadly, we’ve suffered losses too. Apart from this, friendly fire incidents have spiked, as everyone was aware of the reconnaissance and sabotage groups almost instantly, yet few had a grasp of their routes or exact locations. Such reports demand a cool-headed approach," DeepState added.
>The DeepState analysts further noted that footage has already surfaced online, capturing a Russian ambush of soldiers from Ukraine’s defence forces at the intersection of Shevchenko and Zakhystnykiv Ukrayiny streets.
>Background: On 21 July, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reported on a successful strike against Russian saboteurs trying to break into the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast. https://azovlobby.substack.com/p/the-other-azov-brigades?
>By 2023, with one Azov brigade “clean,” and the other (Biletsky’s 3rd Assault) “dirty” —according to the experts’ forgotten logic — and both of them famous, it became inconvenient for the anointed truth-tellers to seriously distinguish one unit from the other. “Didn’t we already settle this issue?” some journalists must have wondered about Biletsky’s proudly extremist forces. “Russian propagandists never grow tired of the discredited ‘Ukrainian Nazi’ trope!”
>Over three years into the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war, the Azov movement, although fractured, leads an army within an army, from one regiment (2022) to a pair of brigades and other units (2023), and now two corps (2025), which suggests the Azovites will command tens of thousands of soldiers, comparable to the 1940s Ukrainian Insurgent Army that they valorize. Most important is the 3rd Assault Brigade in the Ground Forces of Ukraine, the foundation of Biletsky’s new 3rd Army Corps. By 2024, you could read about Azov’s Führer (“Vozhd”) in the western media as an effective and quotable military leader, without any reference to his neo-Nazi movement, which is the best armed and most powerful one in the world. MOSCOW, July 24 (Reuters) - Air traffic controllers lost contact on Thursday with an An-24 passenger plane carrying about 50 people in Russia's far east, and a search was under way, the regional governor said.
The local emergencies ministry said the plane, operated by a Siberia-based airline called Angara, dropped off radar screens while approaching its destination of Tynda, a town in the Amur region bordering China
Regional governor Vasily Orlov said that according to preliminary data, there were 43 passengers, including five children, and six crew members on board.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russian-plane-goes-missing-far-east-with-nearly-50-aboard-2025-07-24/>>2401565>ZZZelensky but tuffAnd NATO's like, yes this is exactly who we need, a mf that will break those Unterm-, I mean democracy-resistant VolK-, I mean ZOrcs,
anyway, those people's necks with his own two hands.
By the by, I don't know who that is either
>>2401757ITT
We are twenty posts away from someone referencing Z-man's Jewish heritage
This whole thing is Yermak related drama. Those orgs were beginning to intrude on Yermak's inner circle who have been profiteering for over three years now.
Z is under a lot of pressure, either maintain foreign backing, or protect the system.
New PM (Yuliia Svyrydenko) is a Yermak/Z ally, resulting in Shmyal being booted out (though he now leads the MoD).
There's also Zaluzhnyi, Poroshenko, Arestovych and Tymoshenko looking to make a comeback. And supposedly the Trump admin want Z gone too. And there a ton of other former official who hate Z's guts, and by extension Yermak. Yermak has tried to get rid of Budanov too.
Things are looking dire (>>2401043) and the front lines are understaffed, with several pro-Ukrainian pundits now admitting losses are higher than recruitment, and on top of that, recruitment fell short of meeting increasing Russian numbers.
If there are further breakthroughs. We might see Kharkov like collapses later this year.
Basically the whole rotten shed is beginning to creak and shift. Remember Vietnam and Afghanistan: Gradually.. Then suddenly.
>>2401362>>2401363Kek noticed it too.
>>2402177I suspect that once this circular logic of
>Expend everything to avoid retreating>If we’re not retreating then Russia isn’t winningdoesn’t have two years left of men and material to expend. I believe it is only the synergy of FPV drones and NATO’s immense ability for recon and battlefield monitoring (result being movements are spotted immediately and cheap drones can be dispatched very soon after) that is keeping the Ukrainians afloat with this insane need to never retreat, if either becomes compromised somehow tomorrow say, then the war ends tomorrow.
>>2402252Despite the mockery from pro-Ukrainians about Russia only managing to capture a street this or that week, logic would dictate that Ukraine must be putting quite a lot of effort over preventing even mere streets of “symbolic” towns from falling to the Russians.
But they’re not being logical, they’re just hoping their slow progress is because the general is looking at his map upside down, the soldiers are tying each other’s bootlaces together as a massive prank, there’s a couple of Ukrainian snipers that have installed an aimbot into their brains defending the street, etc, etc
I remember early days in this conflict, back when it was somewhat allowed to ask whether Ukraine was committing war crimes (before that became victim blaming) there was a question as to why Ukraine was exclusively fighting in cities and wouldn’t meet the Russians on open ground, which was responded with, not untruthfully, that Ukraine wouldn’t have a chance in a conventional conflict on open ground and therefore their only fighting chance is to commandeer cities (often without evacuation) to force the Russians into as many urban battles as possible that favour the defenders.
So while different mappers may claim that the fall of this or that village or town would harm Ukraine’s standing on the battlefield from a wide angle view of the entire war zone and cause Ukraine’s collapse, I think in reality these streets and villages actually have as much impact as any of the big arrow assaults people think the fall of, say Bakhmut, was supposed to allow.
The FPV drones are working towards that pre-existing goal of ensuring the Russians are always being funnelled into an urban battle in order to advance, for Ukraine the war is supposed to be fought and won on city streets from day one rather than part of a last stand, losing a street could therefore be as bad as losing thousands of kilometres in any other war.
>>2402309Well nah because I believe battles like Stalingrad and Berlin are battles not considered to be ideal by either side, the defenders because fighting in the fields went tits up enough that they had to fall back to a city as the last chance to prevent further advances and the invaders because urban fights are difficult for the invaders with both sides presumably already being quite hard fought and possibly stretched or cut off logistically.
But for Ukraine, having every battle take place in a city is the entire point, the troops in the city are fresh and well stocked while hopefully drones ensure the Russians are not as fresh and well stocked by the time they enter whatever settlement it is.
Essentially what I’m saying is, both sides are still trying to gauge progress based on conventional metrics of land being taken and how that might affect or allow other conventional military goals to be achieved, but it’s not a conventional war, Ukraine are essentially fighting an insurgency but as insurgents better armed, trained and technologically advanced than any other insurgent faction in history.
So basically I’m theorising that “lmao only taking a street a week” has a lot more significance than anyone who is looking at a map of all of Ukraine and discussing when the big arrows will begin/why they haven’t begun yet realise
>>2402363Meanwhile it seems Ukrainians got mogged by some russians in tunnels (again) in Pokrovsk and are running from the city
Maybe pour concrete in the tunnels next time, it's like the third time it happens in a year, Z man
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/maidan-part-2?
Maidan Part 2
A noose for Z?
>The writing is on the wall.
>As the Russian advance continues inexorably west and south with UAF units abandoning Donbas for defense positions , and more desperate attempts at terrorist attacks against Russia, Zelensky’s position is increasingly untenable.
>He looks to the future and sees a noose.
>So, he’s trying hard to avoid a sorry end. Praying not to God in Heaven, but to the tin gods in London and Berlin and Paris and Washington.
>He surely wants to run. But the Azovs won’t let him. They want him in place as a front man, which is all he ever was.
>Most of all right now they want money because that brings power. At least the power to buy a way out.
>But Ukraine is under increased scrutiny. The West is not only running out of weapons—but cash, too.
>So Zelensky has been dismantling Ukraine’s U.S.-backed anti-corruption institutions, signing a law stripping the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of their independence, placing them under the control of the Prosecutor General’s Office, an institution loyal to him and the shadowy, tattooed people behind him.
>NABU, as it was called, under American pressure to track some of the unaccounted for millions of dollars that have mysterious disappeared somewhere, had opened corruption cases against members of Zelensky’s inner circle.
>No, no, no The NeoNazis didn’t like that, so NABU detectives found themselves accused of treason and working for the Russians.
>The Z regime decision came after NABU, originally established under Western pressure to ensure transparency, finally got around to opening numerous corruption cases against members of Zelensky’s inner circle, who are connected to the outer circle that controls him.
>In Kiev, up to 1,000 people, headed by Mayor Klitschko, a vocal critic of Zelensky– and Washington’s creature, therefore untouchable–gathered outside government buildings, chanting slogans
>Maidan 2?
>Will Zelensky get away this purge of NABU?
>NABU was created by Biden and backed by the Democratic Party, so Trump is unlikely to object. It really hadn’t done much until just recently anyway.
>It’s all part of a pattern.
>A former Ukrainian official in Spain was found drowned in a swimming pool, with most people assuming he was targeted by Z’s goons. Earlier in Kiev police had found the body of a man Colonel Ivan Voronych of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) shot to death, also attributed to infighting in the regime.
>Things are getting interesting. And bloody. (So what else is new?)
>The trigger for all this seems to have been Trump’s 50-day ultimatum which has facilitated the power grab and the transfer of moneys from the Ukrainian national system to where they can be used by Zelensky and his backers before the demise of the regime. Everyone must realize that that 50 day window is meaningless. Thje Russian advance is just speeding up.
>British and EU officials are of course silent. Ultimately, they don’t care one way or another.
>Washington doesn’t care either. Ukraine is dead.
>It’s all Biden’s fault.
>The West doesn’t care about the region formerly known as Ukraine. It never did. It was always doomed to fail- or maybe we should day, just doomed . That was written on the wall, too. >>2402603>are involved in the anti-corruption protest campaignlmao. this is getting ridicule. they are accusing each other of being more Russian propaganda.
damned Russians if people protest Zelensky's law, damned Russians because of the Zelensky's law.
>>2402634you know, not so long ago, it was right to say and write
an historic.
>>2402655You write "an" in front of a vowel and "a" in front of consonants. You need to alternate vowels and consonants for a word to flow off the tongue better, and this is the same reason why there's a ghostly "r" at the end of words that end on vowels.
"An" in front oh "h" hints at the fact that "hi", "he" etc combinations didn't have a strong pronunciation of "h"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/24/north-koreas-military-is-being-transformed-on-the-battlefields-of-ukraine-so-why-is-seoul-silentNorth Korea’s military is being transformed on the battlefields of Ukraine – so why is Seoul silent?
<Observers question whether South Korea grasps the threat it faces from Pyongyang’s partnership with Moscow
>When North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles from its eastern coast in May, South Korea’s response was swift. Within hours, Seoul joined Washington and Tokyo in condemning the launch as a “serious threat” to regional peace and security.
>But just weeks earlier, when a North Korean KN-23 missile – designed to strike South Korean targets – hit a residential building in Kyiv, killing 12 civilians, Seoul said nothing.
>That silence fits a broader pattern. There was no response when Russia reportedly deployed a surface-to-air missile system to protect Pyongyang, nor when Ukrainian intelligence revealed that Russian instructors were training North Korean drone pilots on home soil, even as Kim Jong-un voiced “unconditional support” for Moscow’s war.
>Performers stand on stage as North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un draping coffins with the North Korean flag is displayed on a screen, in Pyongyang, North Korea, June 29, 2025, in this still image taken from a video.
>Relations between the North and South, technically still at war, remain tense and the muted response has raised questions from analysts over whether Seoul fully grasps the consequences of what many see as North Korea’s most significant military transformation in decades – one shaped in real warfare, on the battlefields of Ukraine.
>“We definitely should be alarmed,” says Chun In-bum, a former South Korean special forces commander. “But it’s just the nature of people to avoid catastrophe or be indifferent to the terrors of reality.”
>Learning modern warfare
>According to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, North Korea supplies 40% of all munitions used by Russia in its war against Kyiv. It has dramatically increased arms production at home, with Moscow paying Pyongyang directly.
>In autumn last year, Pyongyang dispatched an estimated 12,000 troops to fight in Russia’s Kursk region. That deployment has since expanded significantly. An additional 6,000 soldiers are now joined by 1,000 military engineers, hundreds of railway engineers, bridge-building specialists, logistics personnel, electricians, military police, and even interpreters, focused largely on rebuilding the battle-scarred Kursk region, according to Ukrainian officials.
>This military partnership with Moscow has been invaluable for Kim Jong-un’s regime, Maj Gen Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, told the Guardian.
>“North Korea’s armed forces got new ammunition [from Russia]. Its soldiers gained experience of modern conflict. No other army in the region – Japan, South Korea and other countries – [has] participated in a modern war between two huge regular armies.”
>The ideological commitment of their forces became clear when Ukraine captured two wounded North Korean prisoners in January.
>“We were shocked by them. They were bio-robots. They tried to kill themselves by biting their own veins,” Skibitskyi says. When one was asked if he wanted to return home, he replied: “Yes, because I will be treated like a hero. I fought in a modern war.”
>North Korean troops are learning about combined arms warfare and the operation of strike and reconnaissance drones, electronic warfare systems, and other technologies previously unfamiliar to them.
>Moscow has transferred advanced weaponry and has helped upgrade the accuracy of North Korea’s KN-23 ballistic missiles, which have since targeted Ukrainian urban centres, including Kharkiv.
>In June, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, issued a pointed warning identifying South Korea directly: “This must be addressed now, not when thousands of upgraded Shahed drones and ballistic missiles begin to threaten Seoul and Tokyo.”
>However, a mix of strategic, economic and political factors are discouraging more visible action from South Korea, says Dr Yang Uk, a defence expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
>Acknowledging North Korea’s military experience as a direct threat to Seoul would create pressure for a more robust domestic response, including potential weapons transfers to Ukraine that remain deeply unpopular in South Korea.
>“Defence officials are particularly wary after December’s events,” Yang said, referring to the failed declaration of martial law by South Korean’s then president, Yoon Suk Yeol. “They’re really afraid of political attack and prefer to stay unseen by the public and press.”
>Yang warns that Russia is working to integrate North Korea into its long-term defence supply chain – a partnership that could reshape Asia’s military balance long after the war ends.
>Some analysts see Seoul’s silence as an extension of its longstanding “strategic ambiguity”: a reluctance to engage in foreign conflicts or unnecessarily alienate key powers, particularly those that might retain influence over Pyongyang.
>Economic factors weigh heavily too. Prewar, Russia was one of South Korea’s top trading partners. Amid Donald Trump’s tariff threats, the new Lee Jae Myung government’s focus on economic recovery and “pragmatic diplomacy” leaves little appetite for confrontation.
>Domestic politics also play a role. Lee’s Democratic party supports engagement with the North, reflecting how South Korea’s left-right divide centres more on North Korea policy than on western progressive values. Voices on the left argue South Korea owes Ukraine nothing.
>Old norms and modern threats
>Some of Seoul’s inertia may be bureaucratic. Chun points to procurement and planning processes that can take years, even as threats evolve within months.
>“We are dealing with a level 10 super Godzilla,” he said. “But the bureaucracy only sees a tiger.”
>North Koreans are already employing what they have learned in battle, he warns. “This should be a real wake-up call.”
>Skibitskyi echoes that concern, suggesting South Korea’s military doctrine is outdated and modelled on a pre-drone era.
>When asked by the Guardian whether it viewed North Korea’s deployments and combat experience in Ukraine as a security concern, South Korea’s defence ministry avoided addressing the implications directly.
>“The participation of North Korean military personnel in the war in Ukraine constitutes a flagrant violation of the UN charter and relevant UN security council resolutions,” a spokesperson said. “The Republic of Korea strongly condemns such inhumane and unlawful acts in concert with the international community.”
>Whether Seoul’s cautious approach reflects calculated long-term strategy or institutional paralysis remains unclear.
>But for Chun, the warning signs are impossible to ignore.
>“This is like a speeding train coming towards you,” he said. “You better move aside or start making preparations – while you still have time.” https://www.intellinews.com/comment-the-war-in-ukraine-is-over-and-its-eu-aspirations-are-dead-for-now-392711/?source=russiaCOMMENT: The war in Ukraine is over and its EU aspirations are dead for nowUkraine’s war with Russia increasingly looks like it is lost. Ukraine is losing ground in the battle with Russia, albeit slowly. At the same time, the formal negotiations on the first cluster in Kyiv’s EU accession bid were supposed to start on July 18, but that failed to happen. However, since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a law that defangs Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms it now looks unlikely the process will be restarted.
Ukraine’s situation has rapidly decayed in just the last week. It now appears that Zelenskiy has given up on any hope of joining the EU anytime soon and has refocused on consolidating his control over domestic politics. At the same time, the European Nato-pays for Ukraine weapons “big announcement” from July 14 is also rapidly unravelling, leaving Ukraine without the weapons it desperately needs, especially air defence ammo. And the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has recently suffered a string of setbacks on the battlefield that bode ill for the rest of the summer’s campaign.
AFU losing ground
The Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) retook full control of the Luhansk region for the first time since the start of the war on July 1, and at the weekend, as yet unconfirmed reports say that Pokrovsk fell to Russian forces on July 22, a key logistical hub that supplies the AFU’s entire eastern front line.
Ukraine has fought heroically for the last three years, surprising everyone by holding off the bigger and more powerful AFR against all odds.
But despite Trump’s efforts to broker a peace, the ceasefire talks are dead. At the third Istanbul meeting on July 23, nothing of significance was discussed, let alone agreed.
“The Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul predictably ended with nothing but another prisoner exchange. The Ukrainians again proposed a meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin, Trump and Erdogan, but in response they got the predictable answer: first, they need to agree on all contentious issues, and the meeting of the leaders will be a formality for signing the treaty,” The Bell commented in a note. “Meanwhile, Donald Trump's announced plan to rearm Ukraine is falling apart at the seams – its only understandable part, the delivery of Patriot air defence systems to Kyiv, will not take place before the spring of 2026.”
Ukraine continues to suffer from a chronic shortage of men, money and materiel. As the war drags into its fourth year, the tide is turning inexorably against Kyiv as heroism and innovation give way to the simple equation of who has more men and the greater industrial production capability. Ukraine loses to Russia on both counts. It was Russia and America’s ability to out-produce Germany and make more planes, tanks and bullets – the famous lend-lease programme – to defeat the Nazis that eventually proved decisive in WWII. Putin put the entire Russian economy on a war footing in the first year of the war and is now reaping the dividends. The EU has only just started talking about making those investments with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's ReArm speech (video) on March 4, after it became clear the Trump administration would close the US security umbrella that Europe has sheltered under since the start of the Cold War. Moreover, the European defence sector is suffering from decades of woeful under-investment and is in no position to replace the US held, as was described in detail in the Draghi report.
Russia is being fully supported by its allies; Ukraine is not. A reported 28 containers of arms and ammo arrived in Moscow last week from North Korea, and a new decoy drone has reportedly appeared on the battlefield this month that is made entirely out of Chinese components. The Russian Ministry of Defence just released video of a drone factory that is entirely based on upgraded Iranian technology. Russia will soon be in a position where it can launch 2,000 Shahed explosive drones a day, according to German intelligence, up from the 750 it current uses.
As bne IntelliNews has been reporting for the last three years, despite the outbreak of the largest war since WWII in its backyard, the EU has persistently refused to sign off on the defence sector procurement contracts needed for private-sector arms-makers to upgrade their factories, and is now scrambling to expand production. For example, the Franco-British power Storm Shadow missiles Ukraine has been using went out of production 15 years ago and manufacture will only be restarted sometime later this autumn.
Ukraine has been holding its own in the drone war that started in early 2023, but it has lost the missile war before it started in May. Russia now produces some 1,200 missiles a year, whereas Ukraine makes only a handful. That makes Kyiv entirely dependent on its Western allies for things such as the Patriot air defence, which is the only weapon it has that can bring Russian missiles down, but with US President Donald Trump’s exit Ukraine becomes defenceless. Even if the US fully equipped Ukraine with all the Patriot batteries it wants – and Trump has made it clear he will not send any US Patriot batteries to Ukraine – then US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin only makes some 600-650 Patriot interceptor rockets a year, less than half the number of missiles Russia can fire.
Increasingly, Ukraine’s allies are admitting the only effective countermeasure to Russia’s growing arsenal of missiles is to strike launch sites and production facilities deep inside Russian territory with Nato-supplied long-range missiles – something that the West has repeated ruled out for fear of provoking a direct clash between Russia and Nato.
EU bid looks dead
The EU was due to open the first cluster to formal EU accession negotiations at the end of last week on July 18, but in a long interview with European Pravda, then EU Accession envoy Olha Stefanishyna admitted that “multiple” countries – not just Hungary – had concerns about Ukraine’s commitment and the talks did not begin.
Stefanishyna told European Pravda, that the EU is “not currently prepared to take the decisions” Ukraine expects, and she was reassigned the same day and became the special envoy to Washington.
Ukraine’s EU accession bid has now stalled, and it suddenly became a lot more uncertain if it will ever be restarted after Zelenskiy pushed through and signed into law the highly controversial Law 12414 on July 22 that guts Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms.
Zelenskiy immediate faced a backlash from his EU partners. There was a mild rebuke in a joint statement from G7 ambassadors in the first hours saying they were “closely following” the situation. But within 48 hours those comments became rapidly more strident.
“As a corrupt country Ukraine will not make it into the EU,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on July 24. "The fastest way for Ukraine to lose the support of both the EU member states and the public in the member states is to go back to the bad old days of corruption.”
Analysts have pointed out that reassigning Stefanishyna, who has been talking to Brussels for more than five years, at this crucial point in the EU talks will only undermine Brussel’s confidence further and suggests that Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) has given up for now on beginning formal talks about becoming a member of the EU.
Protests in Kyiv and other cites immediately broke out (video) following the passage of Law 12414, even before Zelenskiy had signed the bill into law later the same day. By the second day the protest crowd swelled forcing Zelenskiy to start looking for compromises.
On July 23, the president suggested new legislation to defuse the rapidly escalating tensions between the government and the citizens. He gave the heads of law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies two weeks to prepare the necessary legislative changes to “optimise work without duplicating functions,” according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
"The President gave us two weeks for meetings, for negotiations … so that in two weeks we could come to him and say how we will work. What changes are needed so that everyone can work without duplicating functions," Klymenko said at a meeting with journalists on July 24. However, few believe at this point Zelenskiy will back down and cancel Law 12414.
While most of the attention has been focused on how the new law will defang Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies, the more worrying aspect of the law is it concentrates all law enforcement power in the hands of the president alone. As some commentators are anticipating a Ukrainian military defeat in the near term, they speculate that Zelenskiy is gathering more threads of power to himself to cope with the inevitable public backlash if he sues for peace.
“Have we woken up in a police state today?” asked Ihor Zhdanov, the former Minister of Youth, in an editorial posted by Interfax on July 23.
“The adoption of yesterday's law is not just a restriction on the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). The matter is much more serious,” he said. “Today, the "presidential power pool" already includes the Prosecutor General's Office, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Police. NABU, SAPO and Bureau of Economic Security (BES), with no director appointed yet, are on the way.”
“In other words, all the country's security forces are already under the control of the head of state, who is also the Supreme Commander-in-Chief under martial law. Don't you think, gentlemen, that we have already woken up in a police state?” said Zhdanov.
Georgia and Hungary
Zelenskiy’s decision to concentrate all policing power in his own hands with Law 12414 is seen as a red line for the EU. Brussels was reportedly already having doubts about Ukraine’s bid before the law, but its rushed adoption is a red line for Brussels. Like Georgia’s adoption of the so-called Kremlin-inspired “foreign agents” law that sparked mass protests in March, Ukraine’s Law 12414 will certainly stop the EU accession process, as it has done with Georgia, nominally another EU candidate, and could even bring down sanctions on Kyiv.
The practical upshot of the clash is that Moldova’s bid to join the EU, which was granted candidate status at the same time as Ukraine in June 2022, will now be decoupled in order not to penalise Chisinau which remains on course to meet Brussels demands.
However, both Georgia and Ukraine’s visa-free deals with the EU, one of the most valued wins from the EU accession process, are not thought to be in danger for the moment, say analysts. Visa-free status is Brussels’ trump card in any future negotiations, as it allows European diplomats to threaten the two governments with direct pressure from their own populations if Brussels threatens to rescind the right of unfettered entry to the EU. EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has already threatened to play this card in Georgia’s case.
European Pravda reports that there were secret negotiations between Kyiv and Brussels in the run-up to the July 18 cluster negotiation deadline.
The European Commission had been grappling with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s veto of Ukraine’s accession bid, but was slow to realise that whereas Orban had used his power to block the process as leverage to extort concessions from Brussels over issues like access to Russian oil exports, his position has hardened significantly more recently.
Having dominated Hungarian politics for a decade, Orban’s Fidesz party is now trailing in the polls to the opposition Tisza Party and its leader Peter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who has become a prominent critic of Orbán’s government ahead of the crucial 2026 general election. Orban has built his opposition to Ukraine’s accession to the EU into the heart of his re-election campaign, and so is unlikely to make any concessions at all.
That has proved to be a huge problem for Kallas and the other EU leaders that were keen to bring Ukraine into the EU as fast as possible. The accession process is usually long and arduous, often taking a decade to complete, but the EC has made numerous concessions to accelerate Ukraine’s bid that could have been completed by 2030, according to European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos when she spoke only last week.
Not anymore. Kallas came up with a Plan B that boiled down to starting the negotiation process without Budapest’s approval, as under the EU Treaty a unanimous vote is not needed to open negotiations on the six chapters, only to close them. However, European Pravda reports that several members were nervous about this approach, as it is legally questionable. Budapest would almost certainly sue the commission – and most likely win – but that process would take at least three years, with a good chance of Orban no longer being in power.
Her alternative plan, to strip Hungary of its voting rights under Article 7 of the EU treaty, is even more legally dubious and if successful would have the side-effect of undermining the entire EU structure, which is founded on unanimous agreements amongst member states.
As bne IntelliNews has reported, the EU is already in danger of falling apart thanks to the combined pressure of the polycrisis and the war in Ukraine, but if Ukraine now drops out, Europe’s prestige will only be further damaged and the fissures will widen further. Last year the EU acted in concert with the US to oppose Russia; this year it has been reduced to the “E3” – the UK, France and Germany – leading the drive to support Ukraine and the US has taken itself out of the game completely.
All these problems were already undermined the attempt to start EU accession negotiations, before Zelenskiy’s Law 12414. According to European Pravda, after the June 18 deadline passed, Bankova seems to have made a decision to give up on the process, which would have taken a decade anyway, and focus on Ukraine’s domestic politics and on lobbying the White House instead.
That partly inspired last week’s Cabinet reshuffle, which as bne IntelliNews reported, downgraded the EU accession drive and refocused Bankova’s diplomatic efforts on bring Washington back to Kyiv’s side. Stefanishyna, one of Bankova’s most experienced diplomats, was appointed a special envoy to Washington and the new Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko is both a Zelenskiy-loyalist and also well-known in Washington, where she successfully brokered the difficult minerals deal with Trump administration that was signed on April 30.
Banking on Trump to come to the rescue looks like a very risky strategy, but Zelenskiy is rapidly running out of other options.
Anybody know where I can get realreporter's videos?
https://www.youtube.com/@RealreporterThey banned him.
>>2404711It's completely accurate
World powers invested heavily in the promise of a failed invasion and Ukrainian counter offensive. The latter didn't deliver to the shareholders. Investment trickles since while Russia ramped up. Now shareholders are distracted by a wider world on fire, because Ukraine just foreshadowed an unmanageable mess of a post cold war globalization period
>>2404756You're making his point. The West isn't outfitting new units with western gear and training. They're trying to enable the post counter offensivd regression to asymmetric warfare with ineffective long range strikes, see ATACMS.
Meanwhile, no patriots.
>>2404529Isntreal doesn't want the neo-ottoman sultan to grab more of Syria, they want it all for themselves, obviously.
Russia wants to keep it's bases there and is probably not exactly happy about Turkey expanding in the Caucasus (and beyond) either, not least because it would allow Turkey to sell Central Asian gas to the EU, bypassing Russia.
For the time being the zionists have an interest that both Russia and the Kurds remain players in the region. Öcalan sides with Turkey, kinda surprisingly.
From a communist point of view they're all shit. Assad was the only one worth supporting over there. Not sure about the Kurds, they manage to be a complete anarshit libshit mess (YPG), feudalist tribalists (peshmerga), bootlickers of zionist imperialism, bootlickers of NATO imperialism and bootlickers of neo-ottoman imperialism at the same time.
E.U. Cuts Aid to Ukraine Over Corruption Concerns
The $1.7 billion reduction capped a tough week for President Volodymyr Zelensky as he deals with Ukraine’s governance issues
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/europe/eu-ukraine-corruption-aid.htmlHohol status?
>>2404756https://thewarhorse.org/weapons-stockpile-q-and-a/
<Q: What do we know about the current state of the U.S. weapons stockpile?
>There is no hard answer, Cancian said, because the Department of Defense does not publish numbers of the current weapons stockpiles, “so that has to be inferred.” However, it is possible to make some rough calculations. Right now, he said, “there’s no question that the stockpile of certain weapons is low.”
>This could be a security risk in some scenarios, Cancian said, like if a prolonged conflict on the Korean Peninsula or with China emerged.
>The Pentagon disputed a report earlier this month in The Guardian that the U.S. has about 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs after tapping stockpiles for operations in the Middle East in recent months.
>Cancian said the broad categories of weapons from the U.S. stockpile that are probably low now include artillery ammunition, artillery systems, rocket systems, air defense munitions, and anti-tank munitions. “Those are areas where DOD has invested money to increase the production rate. That’s an indicator that those are especially stressed.”
<Q: How long has this been an issue?
>The U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine for nearly three years, and has been sending weapons to other countries as well, including Israel.
>But not all the weapons that we send to Ukraine come directly from our stockpile. Cancian said there are two mechanisms by which we send military equipment to Ukraine: drawdowns of the current stockpile and manufacturing of new equipment. The drawdown method is faster, and Ukraine can get the weapons in about six months.
>Cancian says that DOD has a threshold for drawdowns, however. When that threshold is reached, the rest of the promised weapons must be manufactured first, then sent to Ukraine. This process takes much longer — up to 42 months.
<Q: How did the current level of the weapons stockpile contribute to the brief pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine at the beginning of July?
>Cancian said two factors caused the pause, which only lasted a few days. The first was the low level of certain items in the U.S. weapons stockpile.
>The other factor was a “shift in strategy,” which he attributes to Elbridge Colby, the current Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Department of Defense. “He regards Ukraine as a distraction, and every weapon that you send to Ukraine is one weapon that could help us in a potential conflict with China,” Cancian said.
>On July 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that a memo Colby wrote about depleted U.S. stockpiles and shared with DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth may have contributed to the pause.
>However, the Associated Press reported that this strategy shift caught the President off guard, and weapons shipments to Ukraine soon resumed.
<Q: How will the new weapons shipments to Ukraine impact the US weapons stockpile dilemma?
>The President recently pledged multiple Patriot missile defense systems worth billions of dollars to Ukraine, with NATO countries footing the bill.
>It is unclear where exactly these systems are coming from, Cancian said. Some may already exist and just need to be shipped, while others might still need to be built by the manufacturer, Raytheon Technologies.
>In addition to the U.S., 18 countries currently have Patriot systems, and others are buying them, including Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and Morocco.
<Q: How will the Patriot missiles help Ukraine turn the tide of the war with Russia?
>Cancian said that while these surface-to-air missile interception systems are very useful, “they are just one piece of an air defense system that Ukraine needs help with.”
>Patriot is a high-end system that costs about $3 million a shot and specifically shoots down ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft, Cancian said. These are extremely deadly threats, but they are only about 5% of the air defense threats that Ukraine faces, he said.
>The other 95% come from low-flying Kamikaze drones, which the Patriot system can’t defend against. So are the Patriot missile systems “a game changer? No,” Cancian said. “There’s no such thing as a game changer.” The Ukrainian army still needs other supplies, including ammunition, trucks, and medical supplies to keep fighting against Russia. https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/slovenias-short-lived-nato-rebellion?
>I’ve written for Compact about Slovenia’s decision to hold a referendum on NATO membership, how this sent Euro-Atlantic elites into a panic, causing the referendum to be cancelled shortly after, and why, despite Slovenia’s about-turn, a massive ideological taboo has nonetheless been broken — and may inspire others:
<[The referendum] risked igniting a political earthquake extending well beyond Slovenia’s borders. Biljana Vankovska, professor of political science and international relations at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Macedonia, wrote that a NATO referendum “could shatter taboos not just within Slovenia, but across Europe… Sometimes it takes a small state to shift the scales of public opinion across an entire continent”.
<With so much on the line, it’s not surprising that Slovenia’s moment of dissent was extinguished just as quickly as it flared up. On July 19, Parliament voted 44-7 to cancel both proposed referendums, with most members of Parliament abstaining. […]
<Still, the damage was done. The fact that such referendums were proposed at all suggests the first visible crack in NATO’s ideological fortress: A member state’s government publicly acknowledged that loyalty to the alliance is no longer beyond question. The episode may have ended, but the taboo has been broken.
<This reflects a deeper crisis across Europe. As NATO’s aggressive geopolitical ambitions grow, they increasingly collide with democratic principles and public opinion. Polls in Slovenia show only 52 percent support for NATO—down sharply from the 66 percent who backed accession in 2003. EU and NATO elites are pursuing a strategy of endless expansion, militarization and confrontation with powers like Russia, China and Iran—despite widespread public opposition to war and rearmament across Europe. As the gap between elite ambition and democratic legitimacy widens, repression becomes the only glue holding the project together. >>2405373Yes Russia abstained and felt its cooperation secured by the reset was exploited by American unilateralism. Russia did not battle the American invasion of Iraq, Russia was better served by joining with Europeans in opposing it.
These are signs Russia hopelessly favored diplomacy rather than zionism.
>>2404861>they manage to be a complete anarshit libshit mess (YPG), feudalist tribalists (peshmerga), bootlickers of zionist imperialism, bootlickers of NATO imperialism and bootlickers of neo-ottoman imperialism at the same time.Well, it's not one entity. I don't have particular sympathy for most of them.
I don't believe the YPG is very anarchist in essence or in practice.
Army operations do not lend themselves well to a flat hierarchy or such ("anti-authority") in the first place. But I don't really take this sectarian stuff seriously no more and know dick about Rojava or whatever it's called now.
I personally prefer the state form in the present moment. They say you can't fight fire with fire (btw that is not correct, in actual firefighting) but I see no way out here. Your enemy has the largest army in the world. Having any chance at survival necessitates a "well-regulated militia" at minimum. Anything else seems like delusion to me.
But of course there should be a plethora of tactics etc.
>>2404633>le stalemate copenope, ukraine is losing and will lose
(and there's nothing you can do about it)
>>2405473>Did Trump resume weapons shipments? He never stopped. Elon still providing nonstop real time data to the Ukrainians with Starlink and Russian retards think he's independent simply because he sent his dad to Moscow to suck up to them.
>how badly is Ukraine still losingUkraine is still winning actually. Russia still has less territory than it did in the first month of the war.
>>2405502>Ukraine is still winning actually. Russia still has less territory than it did in the first month of the war.It's a miracle.
>He never stoppedA couple of months ago it actually looked like a foreign policy shakeup was on the verge of wrecking things for Europe as Vance made his speech lmao. He's reverted straight back to the one party MIC line of forestalling Russia just under the tack of attempting to draw out negotiations. At some point the US has to abrogate responsibility for the war and leave the European powers clutching the bag when Ukraine collapses.
>>2406223>Like, do the armies of Sweden, Finland, and Austria all together even amount to a single one of the new armies that Russia has created in the past two years?
>The Swedish Armed Forces consist of 25,600 active personnel, including 9,700 officers, 5,700 enlisted soldiers, and 10,200 civilian employees.[5] Additionally, there are 7,100 reserve officers and 4,700 part-time enlisted soldiers, along with 22,200 soldiers in the Home Guard.[5] As of 2023, 6,300 conscripts undergo military training annually, set to increase to 8,000 by 2025. In wartime, the total personnel is estimated to be 88,000, including all regularly employed personnel, reservists, and conscripts.[6]
<The [Finnish] army is organised into operative forces, which consist of approximately 61,000 persons, and territorial forces, which consist of 176,000 persons.
>The [Austrian] military consists of 16,000 active-duty personnel and 125,600 reservists.So in terms of active personnel, they just about equal one of these new Russian armies which iirc was something around 100~125k.
>>2406185the fact you believe that country is neutral is what I would call a
great success for nato, you little trolling radlib bitch.
>>2406378I think political stability by being congruent with a wider division in the EU/NATO. Look at Starmer
The truth is the EU/NATO is polarizing itself and fueling an international division
I think originally the division largely divided the rest of the world, the former USSR, but now Europe itself
Domestic politics isn't necessarily about domestic issues and opinions anymore. Again, Starmer
>>2406378Partially, for the immediate reaction we just saw ITT, if Russia says this war is about NATO expansion then turning de facto members into de jure members implies that Russia is failing at its goal of preventing NATO expansion and in fact has sped it up through this conflict.
But really for anyone who isn’t invested in propaganda wars, another interpretation is that this conflict has caused *such* a stir for the west, that even symbolic “neutrality” is no longer acceptable for Washington and that all nations in Europe now have to be both lawfully and narratively identical. This likely comes down to some stupid bullshit like allowing the US military to transport itself through Austria as it wishes, but the main point is that the US shouldn’t need to sign any forms in commanding and utilising Austria that it wouldn’t need to for Germany as an example.
But even on an idealistic level it’s quite sad, imagine Sweden being neutral for centuries (even when Hitler was marauding about) but the masses accepting the abolition of that particular Swedish tradition without referrenda because now it’s just so much more important to look good in the eyes of US foreign policy than to be quite as Swedish as they once were.
Really, the long and short of it is that Russia has indeed sped up the consolidation of arbitrary control the US exerts over the entire European continent, stamping out the last few territories that only passively were resisting it based on tradition, but imagine boasting about that when supposedly motivated by opposing “empire”.
>>2406425Ah this is more than just the US dominating their politics, crucially it’s that people accept that dominance enthusiastically or even appear to demand it. It’s a culture of wanting to own the Russians by doing to themselves what they imagine Russia wants to do to all of its neighbours, politically, militarily, economically and culturally assimilate them all into a Moscow-led bloc.
The narrative of NATO just being a bunch of friendly fellas loosely and voluntarily united by a desire to “protect democracy”, out of coping and seething, has changed to one that relishes in the reality of NATO and US dominance, to suggest only the based can have an empire and Russia doesn’t have one and never will so they’ll never be as based as “us” lmfao >:^)
>>2406185Disinformatija, disinformazija, everyday
disinformatsija
This isn't gonna happen.
The bigger issue is that the neutrality isn't real.
The swiss have actual neutrality. Austria is a shitty Switzerland at most.
>>2405502>Ukraine is still winning actually. Russia still has less territory than it did in the first month of the war.That's not really how the war balance is measured (although that will be the cope, a faux miracle on the vistula). Ukraine is stuck between accepting a worse version of Istanbul or bleeding out as its patrons are exhausted, divided, and disillusioned then conceding the terms anyway. This is a decisive reversal of the attempt to bypass Minsk in favor of a confrontation with Donbass/Crimea. Novorossia, neutrality, and demilitarization/destabilization of NATO is an abject defeat for everything pro-Ukraine after 2014.
The fact Zelensky is giving up on EU membership anytime soon, instead trying to concentrate power while meeting Putin to gain recognition and satisfy Trump, is just the cherry on top. Ditto for the EU with its accelerating divisions and alienation of partners in Beijing and DC.
There's a reason Ted Cruz just openly admits Ukraine is a catastrophe
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