Ukraine Invasion: Part 29

[MagicFox]

Welcome all, part 29

The United States will transfer six F-22 Raptor fighters from Alaska to Poland, writes Stars and Stripes, citing the US Air Force

Just for the avoidance of possible confusion can I point out AFAIK that's six USAF Raptors being forward deployed to Poland, not six raptors being transferred to the Polish Air Force.

www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-raptors-are-heading-to-poland

Thank you @notimagain

I tend to trawl the telegram channels and pick out the bits that (I think) are the most useful or interesting but it doesn't always give you context and rarely gives you all that much backdrop to the points

Ijsbear
Ministry of Defense: Ukraine implements weapons monitoring. [the RU have been heavily claiming that Ukr is selling donated weopons]

Do they say to whom Ukr is meant to be selling them?

Correct. The 90th Fighter Squadron is their unit designation in Alaska, so they've added Expeditionary to indicate that they've deployed overseas.

I'm not sure what "tougher action" Russia is threatening, given that they're reduced to using anti-air missiles as rocket artillery.

By the way the 90th FS has a storied history as an elite unit, going back to WWI, so selecting them for forward deployment is clearly a message to the Russians. I suspect the other six planes in the squadron will follow at some point.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90th_Fighter_Squadron

Yes. the claim is that they are selling them to ... the Russians.

In other news, the Uk Defense Ministry released another update

That is simply bizarre. The Russians claiming it must be a bit deranged, is all I can say.

Eurgh: "The high-level meeting of the Sino-Russian media cooperation sub-committee announced yesterday that under a complex int. situation, the two countries strengthened cooperation and mutual support in news reporting, content creation, and large-scale events"

twitter.com/bartekkowalski1/status/1552551797956530177?s=21&t=VajnLYcPT7xHVUlJVRUQEA

Good thread on the Pelosi situation suggesting it's too dangerous for her to go. Highlights the wider context to that claim: twitter.com/zackcooper/status/1552676922060054529?s=21&t=VajnLYcPT7xHVUlJVRUQEA

@maxseddon

After Blinken said he was set to hold the US’ first talks with Russia since the start of the war, Moscow says Lavrov is too busy “with a schedule full of real things” and will only talk to him later when he can find the time interfax.ru/russia/854334

The Russian exodus from Kherson seems to have begun.

twitter.com/WhereisRussia/status/1552660018754895872

A Russian soldier has been filmed, it's on Twitter, castrating a Ukrainian soldier with a box cutter. The soldier was awake. I haven't looked at the video, I hope it's a fake but they think they have identified the Russian so probably not a fake. Words can't express the evil that they do

It's not fake, I'm sorry you've seen it. It's made me sick too. The Russian soldier responsible is identifiable and I hope to fuck justice comes to them

Ijsbear· Today 14:41

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · Today 13:31

“Ijsbear
Ministry of Defense: Ukraine implements weapons monitoring. [the RU have been heavily claiming that Ukr is selling donated weopons]”

Do they say to whom Ukr is meant to be selling them?

*Yes. the claim is that they are selling them to ... the Russians.”

I wonder if those are pro-Russians, or just corrupt black-market type profiteers?

minsmum · Today 22:24
A Russian soldier has been filmed, it's on Twitter, castrating a Ukrainian soldier with a box cutter. The soldier was awake. I haven't looked at the video, I hope it's a fake but they think they have identified the Russian so probably not a fake. Words can't express the evil that they do

Barbaric and evil.
Was it on Twitter as a boast?

MissConductUS · Today 21:26
The Russian exodus from Kherson seems to have begun.

twitter.com/WhereisRussia/status/1552660018754895872

If only they would all just keep leaving, but that must be unlikely.

Seemingly Russians have been sharing the video on line. A Ukrainian tweeter has asked people not to retweet and not to tag him into it. However the video is out there please avoid it.

The horrors keep growing don’t they. How sick do you have to be to think of these things. Please God Ukraine win

minsmum · Today 23:46
Seemingly Russians have been sharing the video on line. A Ukrainian tweeter has asked people not to retweet and not to tag him into it. However the video is out there please avoid it

Russians sharing it with each other must be a form of boast - gloating in the savagery
I hope ordinary Russians get a glimmer about what their compatriots are showing the world about Russia.

WarTranslated has translated the various commentaries about that video.

Controversy in the pro-Russian sources over the brutal video of castration of a Ukrainian solider • WarTranslated

wartranslated.com/controversy-in-the-pro-russian-sources-over-the-brutal-video-of-castration-of-a-ukrainian-solider/

Russia is -claiming- this at great length.

I am sure that 99% of it is bullshit. Ukrainians seem to be more than determined to defend their homeland!

The Ru have been claiming that the Ukrainians are selling HIMARS too, which I believe in the way that I believe in Lavrov's honesty

Key Takeaways

Russian forces in Donetsk Oblast likely seek to capitalize on recent marginal territorial gains around Bakhmut and may deprioritize efforts to take Siversk.

Russian forces conducted limited ground assaults northwest of Slovyansk and northeast and southwest of Bakhmut.

Russian forces may be intensifying offensive operations around Avdiivka to reduce Ukrainian strikes in and around Donetsk City.

Russian forces may be setting conditions for renewed offensive operations toward Kharkiv City.

Russian forces attempted a limited ground offensive on the Southern Axis but are likely facing territorial losses in Kherson Oblast.

Russian forces are attempting to preserve their ground lines of communication over the Dnipro River connecting Kherson City to rear areas in eastern Kherson Oblast.

The Kremlin continued measures to compensate for officer and manpower losses in Ukraine.

The Kremlin is continuing to institutionalize its occupation administrations in occupied parts of Ukraine to prepare for sham referenda, annexation, and integration into Russia.

Russian occupation forces are continuing to pressure Ukrainian civilians in occupied areas to use Russian rubles and passports and to attend Russian-run schools, setting conditions for longer-term social control in occupied territories.

⚡️US official: There is bipartisan support to send long-range missiles to Ukraine.

⚡️US official: Over 75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured since Feb. 24

Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz defaulted on a portion of its debt on July 26 after a government decision caused it to miss the deadline for Eurobond payments.

⚡️G7 ambassadors ‘welcome appointment’ of Ukraine’s new anti-corruption prosecutor

⚡️Ukrainian embassy: Ship with stolen Ukrainian grain docks in Lebanon.

⚡️Ukrainian troops arrive in Poland for treatment.

⚡️Reuters: Russia captured Chornobyl with the help of long-embedded secret agents.
A Reuters investigation discovered that Russia sent its agents to Ukraine long before the invasion to establish contacts with officials and prepare the ground for a takeover. According to Reuters, the Kremlin believed these agents would help Russia capture Ukraine effortlessly within a couple of days

⚡️OCCRP: Andrey Kostin, sanctioned chairman of VTB Bank, owns real estate via Canadian proxy.

⚡️Mayor: Russian forces fire cluster munitions at Mykolaiv, casualties reported.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said the attack occurred in a neighborhood of Mykolaiv at around 10 a.m. on July 29. He did not provide details.

💡The EU will increase imports of electricity from Ukraine by 2.5 times starting from Saturday — the chairman of the board of the National power company «Ukrenergo»

🤝 The United States has allocated new funding for humanitarian and crisis support to Ukraine, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States said
The US Treasury has signed an agreement with the EBRD to provide $500 million to support mainly Ukraine and other affected countries.

✅ President Zelensky received a special Dutch Independence Award, Radio Liberty correspondent reports in The Hague

The Rand corporation seem to think that nuclear escalation is likely to happen along with a NATO intervention directly. I'm not at all sure they have much sense.

‼️Over 40 missiles were fired by the invaders at Nikopol at night from Grad, – Valentyn Reznychenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration [40!]

☎️ US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged views on the war in Ukraine in a telephone conversation, as well as how events around it may develop further, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing

⚡️Western analysts believe that the weapons provided to Ukraine are helping Ukrainian forces regain an advantage in order to once again turn the tide of the war in their favor – The Washington Post

@Ijsbear 8:45
Thank you for your takeaways

Over 40 missiles were fired by the invaders at Nikopol at night from Grad, – Valentyn Reznychenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration [40!

I just looked that up. It is a little promontory
on the Dnieper river. The Russians certainly must have wanted to obliterate it.

The Rand corporation seem to think that nuclear escalation is likely to happen along with a NATO intervention directly. I'm not at all sure they have much sense.

I wonder why they are saying that?
I saw this headline to an article from RAND:
Potential Pathways to Russian Escalation Against NATO
A Russia-NATO war is far from an inevitable outcome of the current conflict in Ukraine. U.S. and allied policymakers should be concerned with specific pathways and potential triggers, but they need not operate under the assumption that every action will entail acute escalation risks.

This is the full post.

The Rand corp is highly rightwing ofc!

🔺 Pentagon advisers warn of the threat of a Russian nuclear strike on Europe

Russia may go for a "horizontal escalation" of the conflict in Ukraine and decide to strike at the European members of NATO, including with the use of nuclear weapons.

This assessment in the report "Russia's Ways of Escalation against NATO" is given by analysts of the Rand Corporation, an American research center that fulfills orders from the US government and the Pentagon.

According to Rand, the idea that a direct NATO military intervention in the war in Ukraine is inevitable, as well as a subsequent conflict with the entire bloc, could push the Kremlin to a desperate step. In this case, the Russian leadership may decide to be the first to strike at the countries of the alliance.

At the same time, the arsenal of non-nuclear long-range missiles of the Russian army in the course of hostilities against Ukraine has been significantly reduced, and with it the possibility of delivering a conventional strike against NATO.

Just for a laugh

I wonder just how many ways you could tear that video apart, but I'm too busy to try.