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1 Aug, 2023 01:02

Ukrainian drone hits Moscow’s financial hub – mayor

Several more UAVs were intercepted on approach, according to Sergey Sobyanin

Ukrainian drones haveonce againtargeted the Russian capital’s financial and business district, following a similar attack over the weekend, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin confirmed early on Tuesday.

One drone has managed to penetrate air defenses and hit one of the high-rises in Moscow City, where some of Europe’s tallest skyscrapers are located, Sobyanin said in a Telegram post around 3:40am.

“Several drones were shot down by air defense systems while trying to fly to Moscow. One hit the same tower in the [Moscow] City as the last time,” the official wrote. He added that the building’s facade on the17th floorwas “damaged.”

According to photos and videos from the scene, the drone hit the 50-story building of the ‘IQ Quarter’ complex, which contains the offices of several Russian government agencies, including the ministries of trade, economy, and telecommunications.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or injuries, but “emergency services are working at the scene,” according to the mayor.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that a total of three drones were involved in the raid. Two of them were allegedly destroyed mid-air outside Moscow, while the third one was suppressed by radio electronic warfare, veering off course and crashing into a “non-residential complex in Moscow City.”

On Sunday, Kiev made another attempt to attack Moscow City, the Russian capital’s financial and business district. According to the MOD, all incoming aircraft were shot down or suppressed by air defenses, but their debris damaged the glass facades of two skyscrapers. One person was injured.

Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Ukraine is launching “terrorist strikes” on Moscow and other civilian targets in Russia out of frustration over its failures on the battlefield. The attempted drone attacks on Moscow are “some sort of acts of desperation against the background of those failures. And, of course, Kiev resorts to such terrorist tactics,” Peskov said.

https://www.rt.com/russia/580647-moscow-city-drone-strike/

1 Aug, 2023 00:54

Mexico refuses Ukraine peace talks without Russia

Upcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia has a point only “if both countries go,” president AMLO said

Discussing peace in Ukraine makes sense only with the participation of both Kiev and Moscow, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday. Because that is not the case with the upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia, he added, his country does not intend to participate.

“If both Ukraine and Russia agree to seek options to achieve peace in this conflict, we will participate, if the parties in conflict agree and convene for that purpose,” the president, known as AMLO, said at his regular press conference.

“We do not want the war between Russia and Ukraine to continue,” AMLO added. “It is very irrational, people suffer a lot, people are dying, and the only benefits go to the war industry, the makers of weapons.”

High-ranking officials from some 30 countries will meet in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 5-6, to discuss peace in Ukraine, according to the Wall Street Journal. Russia was not invited, however.

The Journal described the Jeddah event as a follow-up to a similar meeting held in June in Copenhagen, where Kiev and its Western backers attempted to persuade countries that had so far chosen to remain neutral to support Ukraine. Discussions are expected to be based on the ten-point “peace formula”proposed by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, which in practice amounts to Russia’s unconditional surrender.

Russia has laughed off Zelensky’s “formula” as unrealistic and delusional. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Moscow intends to negotiate with the US, which he described as pulling Zelensky’s strings.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that any attempts to contribute to a peaceful settlement “are worthy of a positive assessment,” and that it “remains to be seen”what happens in Saudi Arabia, however.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Monday that talks in Saudi Arabia “will not be useless” if they “help the West understand that Zelensky’s plan has no prospects.”

https://www.rt.com/news/580646-mexico-ukraine-peace-talks/

The Blackmail of Kiev is getting old, the West probably has some plans to exit or something else

31 Jul, 2023 21:37

‘Nothing is enough’ for Ukraine – Zelensky Whines

Kiev will need more assistance from its Western backers until its conflict with Russia ends, the Ukrainian president has said

The assistance that has been provided by the US and its allies to Ukraine is not enough, President Vladimir Zelensky told Brazil’s Globo News broadcaster in an interview last week.As long as Kiev’s conflict with Moscow carries on, no amount of help will be sufficient, he added.

“As long as the war continues, nothing can be enough,” Zelensky told Globo, as reported by Russia’s RIA Novosti.

According to Zelensky, Ukraine does not only need weapons. It also needs assistance in what he called an “information war” and more humanitarian aid. He called on Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to supply Ukraine with demining equipment to clear the farm lands he said had been “mined” by Russian forces and later re-taken by Ukrainian troops.

He also suggested Lula could help Kiev by organizing a meeting between Zelensky and Latin American leaders in which they could “talk.” Zelensky admitted he would never ask Lula for weapons because he knew the Brazilian president would “not provide it” to Kiev.

The US and its allies have sent Ukraine over $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition, and equipmentsince hostilities with Russia escalated in February 2022, while insisting they are not actually a party to the conflict.

The total amount of Western aid to Kiev added up to €165 billion ($185.6 billion) by early summer 2023, according to data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). Some of Kiev’s Western backers shouldered additional costs due to the need to accommodate refugees coming from Ukraine, the IfW reported.

Poland, which spent 0.6% of its GDP on bilateral aid to Ukraine, had to spend another 2.2% on Ukrainian refugees, according to the data. The accumulated costs of helping Ukraine exceeded 2% of GDP in Latvia and Estonia as well.

Last week, the Pentagon announced another security assistance package for Ukraine worth $400 million, including air defense and anti-tank missiles.

Kiev’s constant need for more aid from the West has led to some tension between Ukraine and its Western backers. Ahead of the July NATO summit in Vilnius, Zelensky lashed out at the US-led military bloc on social media, blasting its “indecisiveness” on Kiev’s membership bid and calling it a “weakness.”

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace then told journalists on the sidelines of the summit that allies “want to see gratitude” from Ukraine for the military assistance that has been provided. He also recalled how he told the Ukrainian officials during his visit to Kiev last year that Western nations “are not Amazon.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/580642-nothing-enough-aid-ukraine-zelensky/

31 Jul, 2023 17:53

US to give Ukraine Abrams tanks without ‘sensitive technology’ – media

The tanks that Washington plans to send to Kiev will first bestripped of modern armor and electronics, Western outlets have reported

The US-made Abrams tanks that Washington promised to Kiev might arrive in Ukraine without some of their advanced equipment, several Western news media outlets have reported. Such components are reportedlyconsidered too “sensitive” and too “sophisticated” to be handed overto the Ukrainian military.

The tanks might “lose some of their most sophisticated electronics before seeing combat in Ukraine,” Newsweek reported on Monday. The US tanks are deemed to be more “complicated platforms” than other Western heavy armor and operating them would require additional training, the outlet said.

For the Ukrainians to receive them as early as this fall, the tanks’ equipment might be downgraded to ensure they can be used by Kiev’s forces. “A simpler variant is better suited given the time constraints,” Marina Miron, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told the media outlet.

Kiev is set to receive the older M1A1 Abrams tank, which has less advanced electronics than its successor, the M1A2, Newsweek noted. The M1A2’s electronics offer “some advantages” to the gunner and the commander, it added. Yet, according to Miron, that also makes these tanks more difficult to maintain and operate on the battlefield.

"The systems are more complex and require more training and sustainment,” she said, calling the M1A1 a “better choice” for Ukraine.

Last week, Politico reported that the US might supply the first six to eight tanks out of a battalion promised by the White House in September. The outlet also claimed that “the older vehicles are being stripped of their most sensitive technology, including in some cases secret depleted uranium armor, before they can be sent to Ukraine.”

Originally, the Pentagon sought to send the more modern M1A2 variants to Ukraine, but changed its plans in March and opted for the older M1A1. According to earlier media reports, the list of “sensitive” technologies Kiev will not be allowed to get its hands on also includes the tanks’ fire control systems. The US reportedly fears they might be captured by Russia.

Washington has already supplied Kiev with around half of the 190 promised Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFV). Many of them have been destroyed or captured by Russian forces during a largely unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive that was launched in early June. Ukrainian troops reportedly cannibalized the damaged American IFVs for parts.

https://www.rt.com/news/580635-us-ukraine-abrams-sensitive-technology/

31 Jul, 2023 15:49

New York City paying Covid test company millions to dump migrants – NYT

Asylum seekers are allegedly coerced or lured onto buses with fake promises of jobs and legal documents

New York City paid a mobile medical services company $432 million to carry out the mayor’s plan tobus thousands of migrants to upstate towns that didn’t want them, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The questionable no-bid contract, which was not approved by the city comptroller, saw DocGo pivot from offering Covid-19 testing and vaccination on-the-go to dumping asylum seekers in small towns and cities that didn’t have the resources to handle them, according to the investigation.

Migrants told the NYT that they were lured upstate with promises of comfortable accommodation and plentiful work. Instead, they said, they were given fake work and residency permits, some printed on phoney New York City letterhead, all rejected when they tried to present them at the local Department of Motor Vehicles to secure an ID. (Wow, a Sanctuary City dumping illegals in small towns. Will they now state they are not a Sanctuary City?.)

Meanwhile, officials in destination cities and towns – including New York’s capital, Albany – said they weren’t even given the migrants’ names – let alone information that would help connect them to immigration assistance. DocGo reportedly cited medical patient privacy laws in justifying its refusal to share the information.

The town supervisor for Albany suburb Colonie sued the city after two busloads of migrants arrived at the SureStay Hotel in May and cited it for keeping the illegal tenants past the 28 consecutive days allowed by law. The business nevertheless accepted three more busloads of migrants from New York City last weekend.

At the SureStay, security guards allegedly threatened to kick the migrants out of the ‘program’ if they were caught talking to reporters and could be seen in a video posted by the NYT threatening to beat up one interview subject for “talking too much.” Signs plastered all over the hotel warned migrants in four languages that being caught drinking, smoking, or engaging in “threatening behavior” would render them ineligible for asylum. DocGo removed the signs when questioned by the Times, claiming it was unaware of their existence, and NYC officials claimed there was no rule prohibiting media interviews.

More than half of the counties in New York have declared emergencies over the migrant influx since May, when New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city had more migrants than it could handle and began busing them upstate. The city is facing numerous lawsuits over the program.

In June, the city began paying religious facilities to house migrants after a plan to put them in school gymnasiums met with vehement resistance from parents and Adams’ plea for private property owners to open their doors to the 90,000-plus illegals who have swamped the city since the spring went largely unheeded.

https://www.rt.com/news/580629-new-york-migrants-covid-dumping/

31 Jul, 2023 12:34

France planning strikes to free ousted president, Niger junta says

One of the coup leaders claims Paris has sought and obtained permission to “intervene militarily” in the country’s political crisis

Niger’s deposed government has authorized France to conduct strikes on the presidential palace in order to release President Mohamed Bazoum, the military junta that seized power last week claimed on Monday.

The junta had earlier warned against foreign attempts to free Bazoum, who has been held hostage at the palace since Wednesday, when the putsch took place.

In a statement on Monday, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, one of the coup leaders, claimed that France, an ally of the country in fighting jihadist insurgencies, has been seeking a means to “intervene militarily” in the situation.

“France, with the complicity of certain Nigeriens, held a meeting at the General Staff of the National Guard of Niger to obtain necessary political and military authorizations,” Abdramane stated.

According to him, Nigerien Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massoudou and Maj. Midou Guirey, commander of the national guard, both cleared Paris to “carry out strikes.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned the coup and demanded the release and reinstatement of the democratically elected Bazoum, vowing that Paris will back regional powers in imposing sanctions on the coup leaders.r

The coup in Niger is the latest in a series of military takeovers in former French colonies, with similar events happening in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso in recent years amid a surge in anti-French sentiment.

Thousands of supporters of Niger’s junta demonstrated in front of the French embassy in Niamey on Sunday to protest the former colonial power’s alleged meddling in the country’s affairs. The protesters burned French flags and ripped off a plaque with the inscription “Embassy of France in Niger,” according to French newspaper Le Monde.

Macron said on Sunday that attacks on France and its interests in the West African country would not be tolerated and would be met with an immediate response. Paris announced on Saturday that it had suspended, with “immediate effect, all its development aid and budget support actions in Niger.”

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a 15-member regional bloc, has imposed economic and financial sanctions and warned that if Niger’s coup leaders do not reinstate Bazoum within seven days, it will authorize the use of force. France said it “welcomes the decisions taken by the ECOWAS heads of state” for an “immediate return to the constitutional order in Niger under President Mohamed Bazoum.”

(Do anons have any idea of what us going on in Niger? With France ready to go to war, it sounds pretty serious.)

https://www.rt.com/31 Jul, 2023 12:34

31 Jul, 2023 14:25

'Shocking' number of missing women and girls in India revealed

The government's decision to publish the data comes amid national outrage over violence against women in Manipur

India’s Home Ministry informed the parliament last week thatover 1 million adult women and more than 250,000 underage girls went missing across the country between 2019 and 2021, PTI news agency reported. The data was compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau.

The central and western Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, respectively, topped the list for the most number of missing women, while the eastern state of West Bengal registered the most missing girls during the period.

Among India’s eight Union Territories, Delhi recorded the highest number of missing girls and women. Over 61,000 women and nearly 23,000 girls went missing between 2019 and 2021 in the nation’s capital.

The figures come as a shocking revelation at a time when the nation is being rocked by the news coming out of Manipur, a remote state in India’s northeast, where crimes against women have become a visible part of the ongoing ethnic conflict.

On Monday, the Supreme Court decried a “horrendous” incident in which two women were paraded naked and molested in Manipur, a video of which only became public months after the event took place. Commenting on the footage that shocked the nation, the Supreme Court said it was “deeply disturbed” and that using women as instruments for perpetrating violence was “simply unacceptable in a constitutional democracy.”

While prominent women activists and the National Commission for Women – a statutory body under the government – have yet to comment on the data provided to the parliament, Shikha Goel, head of Women Safety with police in the south Indian state of Telangana, alleged that there were some flaws in the data. In Telangana, she said, according to the local news outlet Sakshi, 87% of the missing women and girls were tracked down and returned to their families, while 99% of the cases didn’t fall under the ‘serious crime’ category, but were instead related to family problems, jilted love affairs, and financial troubles.

In the statement on missing women last week, the Home Ministry pointed out that a number of initiatives had been introduced by the government to help ensure the safety of women across the country.

These include the enactment of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, widely known as ‘Nirbhaya Act’, passed after the brutal gang-rape of a female student in Delhi in December 2012, and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018, which was enacted to further strengthen punishments of perpetrators, particularly in cases of child rape. For such cases, the law proscribes a minimum sentence of twenty years imprisonment but can be extended to life in prison or even death for the rape of girls below the age of 12.

In 2018, the government also launched the National Database on Sexual Offenders to expedite the probing and tracking of sexual offenders across the country by law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, starting in 2019, a single emergency helpline with an internationally recognized number ‘112’ was rolled out across the country for immediate assistance to anyone in distress.

https://www.rt.com/india/580610-over-one-million-women-missing-india/

Lawfare Rep Daniel Goldman Spins Devon Archer Testimony About Intent of Joe Biden Phone Calls During Hunter Biden Business Meetings

Goldman is the new Schitt

July 31, 2023 | Sundance

New York Representative Daniel Goldman, a former DOJ official and member of the Robert Mueller team, has a very specific role to play with his political assignments.

In these brief soundbite segments below, Goldman spins the intent of Hunter Biden calling his father during business meetings with various foreign business officials was just to discuss the weather on behalf of the participants.

This is how far the left-wing is willing to go out on this. Think about the intellectual dissonance here as the narrative is produced. Goldman would have the American people believe that Hunter Biden is having meetings with various Ukraine, Romanian and Chinese business officials, and suddenly as the issues of the executives were being outlined and discussed, Hunter would just call Joe Biden in the middle of those conversations to inquire about the weather. WATCH:

https://youtu.be/8oWQ1UaR9f8

The narrative engineers are really struggling with this one, even the Lawfare experts are having a difficult time. Perhaps this transcript will be interesting. More below:

Oh Shit, this is so pathetic anyone believing this at this point us retarded!

Tremors Abound as Godzilla Trump Crushes GOP Field in First New York Times Poll of 2024 Campaign Season

July 31, 2023 | Sundance |

The New York Times has released their first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign season [POLL DATA HERE]. The results of thepoll show President Donald Trump playing the role of Godzilla in stomping the field of Republican playdough candidates.

President Trump leads with 54%, followed by a ridiculously distant Ron DeSantis at 17%, Pence 3%, Haley 3%, Scott 3% and Ramalamadingdong 2%. The only other candidate to break double digits is ‘I Don’t Know,’ the mysterious dark horse who continues biting pieces off the shrinking Florida governor.

So, who is this great MAGA coalition that fuels Godzilla? The NYT identifies them thusly: “Mr. Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group and region and in every ideological wing of the party, the survey found, as Republican voters waved away concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy. He led by wide margins among men and women, younger and older voters, moderates and conservatives, those who went to college and those who didn’t, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas.”

Yup, apparently the MAGA coalition is everyone. It’s the great working-class coalition, or what we have previously called “The Monster Vote.”

DeSantis supporters are a small group. However, if you identify the small coalition of Ron DeSantis supporters from his highest-ranking demo in each category, what you discover is that Ron DeSantis’ most likely voters are: 30- to 44-year-old, rich white men with college degrees who live in the suburbs of the South.

DeSantis identifies with a very specific tribe of selfie-taking beta males, who wear pink clothing and eat crustless triangle cucumber sandwiches at the country club. Or put another way, it’s literally Ron DeSantis himself and his supportive crew of assembled Sea Island billionaires. Funny how that works.

I am going to note there is a data convergence between the Ukraine outcome with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the appearance of Christina Pushaw working for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the odd similarity between the Ukraine election outcome and the U.S. election effort.

An argument could be made that once the finances dry up for DeSantis, his astroturfing influencers will simply disappear. Similarly, once the finances dry up for the war in Ukraine, the war will end.

Without money, ideological efforts cannot survive. Why?…. Because they are not organic, they are manufactured.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/07/31/tremors-abound-as-godzilla-trump-crushes-gop-field-in-first-new-york-times-poll-of-2024-campaign-season/

Suspicious Timing – DOJ Sends Letter Asking for Fast Sentence Against Hunter Biden Witness, Devon Acher, on Eve of Congressional Testimony

July 30, 2023 | Sundance |

On the eve of very high-profile House committee testimony by Hunter Biden’s business associate, Devon Archer, mysteriously the DOJ from the Southern District of New York asks Judge Ronnie Abrams to schedule a date for Archer to report to prison in an unrelated case. If the SDNY was attempting to threaten or intimidate Archer in advance of his testimony, this is the path they would take. {Direct Rumble Link}

As noted by Politico, “The court isn’t expected to make a decision before Archer will meet behind closed doors with the House Oversight Committee, meaning that even if the court ultimately sides with the request Archer wouldn’t have to report to prison before the meeting. And his attorney said in a statement that he will move forward with his planned appearance Monday.” However, the timing of the letter on the weekend before the testimony looks transparently motivated.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer discussed with Maria Bartiromo earlier today. WATCH:

“I don’t know if this is a coincidence, Maria, or if this is another example of the weaponization of the Department of Justice. But I can tell you this,

• the lengths to which the Biden legal team has gone to try to intimidate our witnesses,

• to coordinate with the Department of Justice, and

• to certainly coordinate with the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee,

• to encourage people not to cooperate with our investigation,

• to encourage banks not to turn over bank records,

• to encourage Treasury not to let have access to those suspicious activity reports,

It’s very troubling. I believe that this is another violation of the law. This is obstruction of justice.” ~ James Comer.I’ve never seen the Department of Justice to do anything on Saturday

(I think Comer answered his own question, by enumerating in the multiple ways they are interfering. Kek)

Full Interview Below.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/07/30/suspicious-timing-doj-sends-letter-asking-for-fast-sentence-against-hunter-biden-witness-devon-acher-on-eve-of-congressional-testimony/

https://rumble.com/embed/v30sa4s/?pub=4

>>19277223

Yes I noticed, i made 10 rolls last 2-3 months at that time! Kek but true

>>19277187

I don’t know, why are they so interested in this President? France was kicked out of numerous African countries because they promised to stop terrorism but it only increased under French troops. France is losing their gravy train in Africa, maybe this coup is justified.