26 Jul, 2023 22:11

Ukraine begins ‘main thrust’ of counteroffensive – NYT

Pentagon officials have reportedly claimed that Kiev is now pouring Western-trained reserves into the battlefront

A New York Times report has claimed that nearly two months after Ukraine launched its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, Kiev has begun the “main thrust” of the operation by deploying thousands of troops that had previously been held in reserve.

“Ukrainian officials have told US officials that the enlarged Ukrainian force would try to advance south through Russia’s minefields and other fortifications toward the city of Tokmak and, if successful, on to Melitopol, near the coast,” the NYT reported on Wednesday, citing two Pentagon officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Many of the newly deployed soldiers were trained and equipped by Ukraine’s Western benefactors, according to the report.

The newspaper also cited interviews on Wednesday with Ukrainian forces who claimed they were “steadily pushing Russian troops back.” However, their progress has been “incremental, with no major breakthroughs. They have been slowed by minefields, and some said the biggest obstacles were withering artillery fire and airstrikes.”

The report dovetails with a statement earlier on Wednesday by the Russian Defense Ministry, which said the Ukrainian army had launched a “massive” assault with three battalions backed by tanks. Russian forces repelled the attack, preventing Kiev’s units from breaching their defensive lines near the village of Orekhov in the Zaporozhye Region. The ministry added that Ukraine had lost 22 tanks, ten infantry fighting vehicles and more than 100 troops in the battle.

Russian troops also repelled an attack on the village of Rabotinio and used airstrikes and artillery to thrash Ukrainian units near Malaya Tokmachka and Yablokovo. Ukrainian forces have lost tens of thousands of troops and thousands of pieces of heavy military hardware since the counteroffensive began in early June, according to the ministry.

The NYT said it was unable to verify Russian reports that the Ukrainian assaults had been stymied, but thenewspaper did acknowledge that “little has gone according to plan’during the counteroffensive.

Kiev’s goal is to push south toward the Black Sea and sever the land bridge to Crimea – cutting off Russia’s ground access to Kherson Region – or at least advance far enough to bring the strategically key peninsula within artillery range. Russia has relied on Crimea as the base for its Black Sea fleet and a key supply hub for its forces in Donbass.

Ukrainian officials have told Washington that theoperation, if successful, could take one to three weeks, the NYT said, adding, “Officials at the White House and Pentagon said on Wednesday that they were watching the increased activity with keen interest.” As one senior official told the newspaper, “This is the big test.”

(Ukraine should never give a time frame, they have failed at all of them. They never learn.Why are the even announcing what they are doing with their offensive, isn’t this supposed to be secret?)

https://www.rt.com/news/580358-ukraine-counteroffensive-main-thrust-begins/

26 Jul, 2023 21:49

Zelensky uses martial law to avoid election

The October vote will not happen if Ukraine’s parliament renews emergency measures

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday proposed to extend the state of emergency, thereby effectively canceling the parliamentary elections scheduled for October.

Zelensky announced martial law on February 24, 2022, and has been extending it ever since. The most recent 90-day extension was announced on May 20, and is due to expire on August 18. If the Verkhovna Rada approves Zelensky’s latest request, this will see the emergency extended through November 15.

Ukrainian law calls for parliamentary elections no later than October 29, with a 60-day campaign season starting on August 28. However, it alsoforbids campaigning and voting during martial law. Another extension would cut into the campaign season for the presidential elections, currently scheduled for March 2024.

“If we have martial law, we cannot have elections. The constitution prohibits any elections during martial law,” Zelensky announced in May. The following month, he told the BBC that “elections need to happen in a time of peace, when there is no fighting.”

Some of Ukraine’s supporters in Europe and North America have been critical of the possible cancellation of elections. Ukraine should prepare for a vote as soon as possible, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) head ‘Tiny’ Kox said in an interview in May.

“Although democracy is far more than only elections, I think we all agree that without the elections, democracy cannot properly function,” Kox said at the time.

Zelensky ran on a peace platform in 2019 and won with 73% of the vote. Soon thereafter, his newly formed party – named after the TV show in which he played a fictional president of Ukraine – won a supermajority in the Verkhovna Rada as well. By late 2020, he had pivoted away from the notion of peace in Donbass and began to openly talk about a military solution for “occupied territories.”

Within three months of the conflict with Russia escalating, inMay 2022, Zelensky enacted a law that allowed him to ban any political partiesmerely accused of being “pro-Russian,”without any right to appeal. He hasoutlawed a dozen parties since then, including the formerly largest parliamentary opposition bloc.

Earlier this month, theFederal Intelligence Service of Switzerland accused Zelensky of attempting to “politically eliminate” Kiev mayorVitaly Klitschko ahead of next year’s presidential election. The FIS cited “credible intelligence” to say that Zelensky was “showing authoritarian traits” which may lead to Western pressure, according to a classified report leaked to the outlet NZZ.

(Watch Bidan try to do this on 2024 elections)

https://www.rt.com/russia/580359-ukraine-emergency-extension-elections/

26 Jul, 2023 18:20

Russian military repels ‘massive’ Ukrainian offensive – defense ministry

Kiev’s forces have lost 22 tanks in a single assault in Zaporozhye Region

Russian troops have stopped an “intensive”effort by the Ukrainian military to break their defensive lines near the village of Orekhov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region. The village and its surroundings have been the scene of fierce fighting for weeks, as Ukraine’s floundering counteroffensive drags on.

Kiev’s forces“resumed intensive offensive operations”just south of Orekhov onWednesday morning, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that evening. Despite the Ukrainian army launching a “massive” assault with three battalions backed by tanks, Russia’s 810th Marine Brigade, and 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division held their positions and repelled the Ukrainian advance, the ministry said.

During the battle,Ukraine lost 22 tanks, 10 infantry fighting vehicles, and more than 100 men, according to the ministry.

Nearby, Russian troops repelled an attack on the village of Rabotino, and used air and artillery power to hit Ukrainian units near Malaya Tokmachka, Yablokovo and Rabotino.

All of these locations sit within the formerly Ukrainian region of Zaporozhye, where Kiev’s forces have been attempting for almost two months to penetrate Russia’s multi-layered defensive lines and push south to the Black Sea. If Ukraine were to succeed in this gambit, Russia’s land access to Kherson Region and Crimea would be severed.

However, Ukraine’s efforts have thus far been in vain. Russia has heavily mined the no-man’s-land in front of its defensive lines in this area, and early attempts to push through these minefields have proven disastrous for the Ukrainian military. Photos and videos from the beginning of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in June showed lines of destroyed tanks and armored vehicles sitting in minefields between Malaya Tokmachka and Rabotino, burning after they hit mines, and being targeted by artillery and Russian helicopters.

Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade – a NATO-trained unit –reportedly lost 30% of its US-supplied Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicles in two weeksnear Orekhov and Rabotino, while the 33rd Mechanized Brigade lost nearly a third of its 32 German-made Leopard tanks in the same area in a single week.

Across the entire frontline, Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive has already cost Kiev 26,000 troops and 3,000 pieces of heavy military hardware since June, according to the latest figures from Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the Ukrainian operation as “suicidal.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/580352-russia-ukraine-counteroffensive-orekhov/

26 Jul, 2023 16:16

British bank chief resigns over Farage scandalKEK

NatWest’s Alison Rose leaked the Brexit politician’s financial affairs to a BBC journalist

Alison Rose announced on Tuesday that she will step down as CEO of one of Britain’s largest banks, NatWest, after she told a BBC journalist that Brexit leader and UK Independence Party (UKIP) founder Nigel Farage was dropped by one of her bank’s subsidiaries for having insufficient cash. In reality, Farage’s accounts were canceled over his political views.

The politician, now a TV pundit for GB News, revealed last month that he had been refused service by Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest tailored to wealthy clients. Farage said that hewas dropped as a customer over his political opinions, but the BBC reported that Coutts had let him go for “commercial” reasons – meaning he couldn’t reach the £1 million ($1.3 million) wealth requirement set by the bank.

However, Farage obtained an internal document showing that the bank had pored over his political positions – including his opposition to immigration and criticisms of ‘Black Lives Matter’ – and deemed him incompatible with Coutts’ “values.”

Neither NatWest nor Coutts have disputed the authenticity of the document.

Rose was revealed as the BBC’s source in a report by The Telegraph last week, and resigned late on Tuesday night. In a statement,she confirmed that she falsely told BBCBusiness Editor Simon Jack “that the decision to close Mr Farage’s accounts was solely a commercial one.”

Rose also apologized to Farage for “the deeply inappropriate language” in the paper describing his political outlook. However, she stressed that she was not involved in the decision to close the former UKIP chief’s accounts.

The document described Farage as someone who “is seen as xenophobic and racist” and a “disingenuous grifter.” It stated that his views are “distasteful and appear increasingly out of touch with wider society,” and cited his friendship with former US President Donald Trump as a potential “reputational risk” to the bank.

Farage described the paper as a “Stasi-style surveillance report” that “reads rather like a pre-trial brief drawn up by the prosecution in a case against a career criminal.” Speaking on GB News on Wednesday, Farage described Rose’s resignation as “a start,” and called on the entire NatWest board to resign, as it had approved an earlier statement by Rose in which she claimed not to have revealed any of his “personal financial information.”

“It is right that the NatWest CEO has resigned,” Treasury Minister Andrew Griffith said in a statement on Wednesday. “This would never have happened if NatWest had not taken it upon itself to withdraw a bank account due to someone’s lawful political views. That was and is always unacceptable.”

https://www.rt.com/news/580345-natwest-ceo-resigns-farage/

I’m only posting this article for the picture, because it says it all, and how its going

26 Jul, 2023 17:54

US launches diplomatic blitz in South Pacific

Secretary of State Blinken has warned Tonga about China's “problematic” steps in the region

Visiting the Polynesian kingdom of Tonga on Wednesday, US Secretary Antony Blinken warned the South Pacific islands to be on guard in their relations with Beijing, while promising them a brighter future as friends of Washington.

“We’re a Pacific nation,” Blinken told reporters at a joint press conference in Nuku’alofa with the Tongan prime minister, Hu’akavemeiliku Siaosi Sovaleni. “We very much see the future in the Indo-Pacific region.”

“We really understand what is a priority for the people here,” Blinken added, listing climate change, “people-centered development,” clean energy, digital transformation, as well as illegal fishing.

Addressing the growing Chinese engagement in the South Pacific, the US diplomat claimed that it came with “some, from our perspective, increasingly problematic behavior,” including “predatory economic activities” and investments that can “undermine good governance and promote corruption.”

The US will respect “sovereign decisions” of countries as to who they want to do business with, but Washington is “concerned about some of the implications” of that investment, he added.

Blinken’s visit to Tonga came just two weeks after the Solomon Islands signed nine bilateral agreements on economic, technical and policing cooperation with China. Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare dismissed US and Australian objections to the deal as “nothing but interference by foreign states into the internal affairs” of his nation.

To counter China’s growing influence, the US reopened its embassy in the Solomons in January, after a 30-year absence. There are currently two temporary staff on duty in Honiara. The new embassy in Tonga, officially opened in May, also has two temporary staff. The State Department plans to hire a total of 40 employees over the next five years, including for planned missions in Vanuatu and Kiribati.

Tongan PM Sovaleni told reporters that relations between his country and the US are “grounded on our shared respect for democracy, the rule of law, and the rights and freedom of others.” He also pointed out that Tonga sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of US wars there, and hosted US troops during the Second World War, in pursuit of “shared values for freedom and democracy.”

Asked about the fact that the government building they stood in had been built with a grant from China, Sovaleni just said Tonga had “started officially to actually start paying off our debt” to Beijing.

Located in central Polynesia, Tonga is about 1,800 kilometers from New Zealand’s North Island. The kingdom consists of 171 islands and has around 100,000 residents. An additional 70,000 Tongans live in the US.

https://www.rt.com/news/580347-blinken-tonga-democracy-china/