2 Jun, 2023 08:35

Drones hit energy facilities inside Russia – governor

The attacks in Smolensk Region did not cause any injuries or serious damage, Vasily Anokhin has said

Twodrones attacked energy facilitiesin Russia’s Smolensk Region early on Friday, local governor Vasily Anokhin has reported.

Infrastructure in the villages of Peresna and Divasy was targeted by long-range UAVs at around 3am local time, the governor wrote on Telegram.

According to Anokhin, the attack did not result in any casualties. “There’s no critical damage or fires,” he added.

The governor posted images showing the debris of one of the drones, and noted that work is underway to repair the damage done by the attacks.

Smolensk Region is around 300km southeast of Moscow and borders Belarus. The distance to the border with Ukraine is some 400km.

Also on Friday, the governor of neighboringKaluga Region said “an unidentified object” had crashed in the local woods, causing an explosion. There were no casualties or damage to facilities, he added.

The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, all of which border Ukraine, have been the most affected by drone and missile attacks by Ukrainian forces since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022.

The strikes havetargeted energy infrastructure and residential areas, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, as well as the destruction of property.

On some occasions, the UAVs were able to travel deeper into Russian territory. Early on Tuesday, Moscow was subject to a major drone attack. Three incoming drones were suppressed by electronic warfare measures and five others were shot down, according to the Russian military.

Several residential buildings in the capital were damaged, with two people suffering minor injuries. Russia described the drone raid as a terrorist attack staged by Kiev.

https://www.rt.com/russia/577338-smolensk-kaluga-drones-ukraine/

2 Jun, 2023 09:50

Two killed in Ukrainian shelling of Russian region – governor

Shrapnel hit cars carrying civilians in Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov says

Two civilians were killed on Friday in a Ukrainian shelling attack on Russia’s Belgorod Region, local Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.

Several settlements in the region came under cross-border fire, Gladkov wrote on Telegram, adding that “there are fatalities.”

The governor said Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the village of Maslova Pristan, in the region’s Shebekinsky District, which had already been targeted by intense attacks this week.

“Shell fragments hit cars as they were passing by. Two women were traveling in one of them. They died on the spot from their injuries,” the official said.

Two civilians were also injured in another vehicle, according to Gladkov. One man suffered shrapnel wounds to the chest, while the other was hit in the lower part of his body. They were rushed to hospital in a serious condition, he added.

According to local media, many Shebekinsky District residents fled the area in cars during the Ukrainian bombardments. Drivers were seen parking their vehicles on roadsides and waiting out the attacks in areas deemed to be safer.

Eleven artillery shellswere launched at the village of Tishanka in Volokonovsky District on Friday. There were no casualties, but windows were shattered in several homes and power lines were damaged, the governor said.

In the village of Leonovka in Valuysky District, the front of a granary building suffered damaged, but there were no fatalities, he added.

Reporting from Belgorod Region, RT correspondent Valentin Gorshenin said acheckpoint on the Russia-Ukraine borderwas also shelled on Friday while many civilians were there.

The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, all of which border Ukraine, have been the targets of numerous missile, mortar and drone attacks by Ukrainian forces since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The strikes have targeted energy infrastructure and residential areas, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, as well as the destruction of property.

OnThursday, the Russian military said it had repelled an attempted incursionby Ukrainian forces into Belgorod Region. Kiev was aiming to “carry out a terrorist act against the civilian population of the town of Shebekino,” the Defense Ministry claimed. Two Ukrainian motorized infantry companies, reinforced by tanks, tried to cross into Russia, but suffered heavy losses and were pushed back, according to the ministry.

https://www.rt.com/russia/577344-belgorod-shelling-ukraine-deaths/

2 Jun, 2023 00:35

Poland won’t supply F-16s to Ukraine – PM

Mateusz Morawiecki has admitted he doesn’t have the fighter jets to spare

Warsaw does not have enough F-16 jets or Patriot air defense systems to send any to Ukraine,but other countries should do so right away, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters on Thursday.

“We have too few F-16 aircraft, so at the moment, today, there are no such expectations from us,” Morawiecki said at a press conference at Castle Mimi in Moldova, on the first day of the European Political Community summit, according to Polskie Radio.

The Polish Air Force officially has 48 F-16 fighters, 12 of which are training variants. It has ordered 48 Golden Eagle light jets from South Korea and 32 F-35s from the US, but they have not yet been delivered.

“We handed over our MiGs – good planes, good fighters, and this is greatly appreciated,”the Polish PM added. Poland followed Slovakia in sending Ukraine some of its 19 Soviet-era MiG-29 jets to make up Kiev’s losses over the past year.

Morawiecki also noted that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky thanked him for organizing the F-16 “coalition,” referring to the push by several NATO members to supply Kiev with the US-designed fighters.While many countries, including Poland, have offered to train Ukrainian pilots, it remainsunclearwhere the planes would actually come from.

The Polish PM also had bad news for Kiev regarding the replacements for Patriot air defense systems damaged or destroyed by Russian missile strikes.

“Just as we don’t have enough F-16 fighters,we can't hand over our Patriot systems to Ukraine for the same reason,” Morawiecki said, adding that it was important for other countries that had Patriots “to share them with Ukraine as soon as possible.”

Patriots and F-16s are the latest “game-changer” weapons Kiev has demanded from the West to bolster its forces’ combat capabilities against Russia, especially in the light of its planned counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian government has already received German Leopard and British Challenger tanks, US-made HIMARS rocket launchers, a variety of towed and self-propelled NATO artillery, as well as portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft rockets. Poland, meanwhile, has become a hub for arms supplies to Ukraine from other countries and a training ground for Ukrainian soldiers.

The US and the EU have also provided direct financial aid to Kiev to keep its government functioning. Russia has warned that military aid to Kiev makes Western countries de facto direct participants in the conflict, and said that foreign weapons systems would be treated as legitimate targets on the battlefield.

(Poland was the one pushing hardest to deliver F16s; and now he’s saying other countries do it. Even Bidan Admin will not send them but is telling EU countries they can. It’s a trap for the EU, they should all know it. Scott Ritter said delivering these plans would make the countries a participant in the war and it would be justified by international law for Russia to retaliate. Any country doing this is opening up serious repercussions.)

https://www.rt.com/news/577327-poland-f16-jets-ukraine/

2 Jun, 2023 09:54

Swiss MPs make decision on re-exporting weapons to Ukraine

The lower house of the country’s parliament opposed a bill that would allow such shipments

The lower house of Switzerland’s parliament has voted against a proposed amendment to the national War Materiel Act that would allow Swiss weapons to be re-exported to Ukraine from third countries. The US and several European nations have repeatedly criticized Bern for its refusal to play a more active role in supporting Kiev.

In the vote on Thursday, 98 members of the National Council opposed the so-called ‘Lex Ukraine’, with 75 in favor. The initiative proposed by the lower chamber’s security policy committee in January is now off the table as the corresponding commission of the upper house has already shot it down.

The rejected legislation called for a temporary waiver until the end of 2025 that would have allowed the handover of Swiss-made weapons specifically to Ukraine.

Several lawmakers who voted against the initiative told local media thatthe move would have undermined Switzerland’s long-standing neutrality.

In March, the National Council actually gave the green light for Swiss-made weapons to be re-exported to Ukraine,with one crucial caveat– the UN Security Council should declare Russia’s actions in Ukraine as an aggressive war in breach of international law. This, however, is highly unlikely to happen as long asMoscow has a veto.

While the ‘Lex Ukraine’ is no longer under consideration, several similar motions have been put forward.

Meanwhile, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) newspaper reported in March that the Swiss government was looking intohow several Swiss-made Eagle armored vehicles had ended up in Ukraine.

At least two such cars were photographed in different locations along the frontline.

According to the article, authorities in Bern were investigating anunnamed German companythat might have been involved.

Switzerland’s staunch adherence to its neutrality has come under fire from some politicians at home, as well as major Western powers.

The US has reportedly been putting pressure on the Alpine nation to change its tack, with Ambassador Scott Miller telling the local press thatthe re-export ban only benefits “the aggressor.”

https://www.rt.com/news/577340-swiss-mps-against-weapons-reexport-ukraine/

2 Jun, 2023 06:40

Biden was always biased against Russia – Tara Reade to RT (VIDEO)

“They will never get a seat at the table,” Biden said of Moscow in the early 1990s, his former aide claims

US President Joe Biden has long harbored a bias against Russia, expressing it decades before the current tensions between Washington and Moscow, Tara Reade, an ex-congressional aide to Biden who accused him of sexual assault, has claimed in an interview with RT.

Reade, who describes herself as a whistleblower and has written op-eds for RT in the past, recently moved to Moscow, citing safety concerns, and said she plans to apply for a Russian passport.

“I tried to lift my voice and warn people back in 2018, 2019, 2020,that if Joe Biden became president he would take us to war with Russia,” she told RT’s Maria Butina.

According to Reade, she arrived at this conclusion in the early 1990s, while serving as an aide to Biden, who was a senator at the time. Back then, the US was formulating its policy towards the new Russia that had just emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"He was very biased against [Russia], Joe Biden was. And at a meeting – I happened to be in and out of that meeting – I heard him say, ‘They will never get a seat at the table,’"she recalled.

In 2020, at the height of the US presidential race, Reade accused Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993 while she was working for him as an aide in the Senate. Biden, who was the presumptive Democratic nominee at that time, vigorously denied the claim. “I’m saying unequivocally: it never, never happened,” he said in an interview.

(I hope Russia leaks all the dirt and compromise of Bidan and his family soon; with receipts to back it up.)

Video too large

https://www.rt.com/news/577332-tara-reade-biden-russia/

Look at the date of this article, this is how long Russia has been warning about expanding NATO to Russia’s border.

Putin warns Nato over expansion

Anil Dawar and agencies

Fri 4 Apr 2008 08.33

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, today repeated his warning that Moscow would view anyattempt to expand Nato to its borders as a "direct threat".

Russia has been angered by the 26-nation military alliance's eastward growth, and Nato yesterday said Ukraine and Georgia, both former Soviet republics, could one day join.

The Nato secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said 90 minutes of talks on the final day of a three-day summit in Bucharest, Romania, had been "in a positive spirit", but added: "I cannot report that this morning we saw stunning breakthroughs."

Putin – who described the negotiations as constructive – agreed to allow Nato to cross Russian soil to deliver supplies including food and military equipment to its forces in Afghanistan.

However, that fell short of Nato hopes that Putin would also allow troops or air transit arrangements to pass through Russia.

Before today's negotiations, there had been optimism that the talks would result in land and air corridors for troops and equipment and boost cooperation on training local counter-narcotics officials.

The Nato summit comes ahead of talks between Putin and the US president, George Bush, in the Russian resort of Sochi on Sunday.

The pair have already outlined a potential deal to avert a crisis over Washington's planned missile defence system in Europe, involving a string of safeguards to ensure it could not be used against Russia.

Bush has insisted the system is a shield against a potential Iranian missile attack on Europe or the US, but Moscow sees it as an attempt to blunt Russia's nuclear deterrent.

Officials on both sides say the row is the biggest factor behind the current chill in east-west relations.

The US president will go into Sunday's bilateral summit armed with two important bargaining counters won in Bucharest yesterday.

Washington gained formal Nato support for the anti-ballistic missile scheme and also nailed down an agreement with the Czech government to build a missile-tracking radar on its soil.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/04/nato.russia

ANONS REMEMBER SNAKE ISLAND

26 FEB 2022Notice the date

Ukraine’s boats attack ships evacuating Ukrainian troops who surrendered on Snake Island

Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov added that the boats could have been directed by US drones

MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. At least 16 Ukrainian naval boats attempted to attack the Black Sea Fleet ships thatwere evacuating the Ukrainian troops who had laid down their arms and surrendered on Snake Island, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a briefing on Saturday.

He added that the boats could have been directed by US drones.

"On the evening of February 25, during theevacuation of 82 Ukrainian troopswho had voluntarily laid down their arms on Snake Island, 16 boats belonging to the Ukrainian Navytried to attack the ships of the Black Sea Fleet by using swarming tactics, " Konashenkov said adding that some of the boats used civilian vessels as shields.

According to the spokesman, the Ukrainian boats attacked to take revenge on those who had surrendered andto shift the blame for the prisoners’ deaths on Russia.

"As a result of the naval battles, 16 boats of the Ukrainian Navy were destroyed. None of the 82 Ukrainian troops from Snake Island were injured," he added.

Konashenkov pointed out that the Ukrainian naval boats could have been guided by US drones.

"I would like to focus your attention that during the attack of Ukrainian boats,US strategic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) Global Hawk and MQ-9A Reaper were hovering over the area of provocation. It is highly likely that the American UAVs were directing the Ukrainian boats against the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet," Konashenkov said.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Its objective is demilitarization and denazification of the country.

When clarifying the unfolding developments, the Russian Defense Ministry reassured that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population.

https://tass.com/russia/1412053

25 FEB 2022

Press review: Putin launches operation to denazify Ukraine and its economic implications

Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, February 25th

MEDIA: Russia launches ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine

On the morning ofFebruary 24, Russia officially launched a "special military operation" against Ukraine, designed, as Russian President VladimirPutin explained, to "demilitarize" and "denazify" the neighboring state. The goal of the operation is to protect the people of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), he said.

TheUkrainianauthorities subsequently severed diplomatic ties with Russia,urging its partners to create an "anti-Putin" coalitionagainst the Russian troops entering Donbass and shelling military infrastructure facilities throughout the country. The United States, members of NATO and the European Union, as well as many other countries, strongly condemned Moscow's actions, while few countries supported Russia unambiguously. Unprecedentedly tough sanctions will be imposed on Russia.

On the evening ofFebruary 24, the press service of the Ministry of Defense reported that DPR and LPR troops advanced 6-8 km from the front line with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the Russian armedforces completed all the tasks assigned for that day.

Also, two Su-27 and two Su-24 aircraft, as well as one helicopter and four Bayraktar TB-2 UCAV belonging to Ukraine were shot down, and 83 ground military infrastructure facilities of Ukraine were incapacitated, Vedomosti writes. In addition, the press services added that theRussian Armed Forces unblocked the North Crimean Canalandrestored watersupply to the Crimean peninsula.

Experts interviewed by Izvestia believe that the Russian military can complete the operation infive days. "This is the baseline. This is how long the main activities outside the major cities should take.

Judging by what is happening now, [Ukraine’s] Eastern, Central, Southern areas can be liberated," President of the Center for Strategic Communications Dmitry Abzalov told the newspaper. Meanwhile, the Kremlin did not provide any dates, saying that this would be determined by the head of state, taking into account the current situation.

So far, the question of when the DPR and LPR will liberate their territories within the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as written in their Constitutions, remains open, Nezavisimaya Gazetawrites.

"For Russia, it is extremely important to liberate not only Donbass from the occupying forces of the Kiev regime, but also theentire left bank of Ukraine, as well as its Black Sea regions.Dnepr, Zaporozhye, Mariupol, Odessa, Ochakov, Nikolaev, Kherson, and other cities that have industrial and defense enterprises essential to the Russian Federation.

If they are controlled by Moscow, this means that Russia has defeated the West and taken its Slavic partner out of the sphere of influence of the United States and NATO," retired military expert Colonel Nikolay Shulgin told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

(Reading these old articles at the beginning of the Operation are fascinating, and brings back memories)

https://tass.com/pressreview/1410663