15 May, 2024 11:01

Zelensky postpones all foreign trips as Russia advances=

The move comes after Moscow’s forces captured several settlements in Kharkov Region in recent days

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has postponed foreign visits scheduled for later this week, his press secretary has announced. His comments come amid the Russian offensive in the border Kharkov Region.

The statement was made on Wednesday by Sergey Nikiforov, who wrote on his Facebook page that the Ukrainian leader “has instructed that all international events involving him scheduled for the coming days be postponed and new dates coordinated.” He thanked Kiev’s backers for their understanding.

Zelensky was due to travel to Spain on Friday and meet with King Felipe. Later, he was expected to visit Portugal, where he was set to sign a bilateral security cooperation agreement with Lisbon.

While Nikiforov did not state the reason for the postponement of Zelensky’s travel, the move comes as the Russian Defense Ministry reported an advance in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region. On Wednesday, it said Moscow’s troops had captured the villages of Glubokoye and Lukyantsy, which are close to the Ukraine-Russia border.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov admitted that Kiev wasfacing an “extremely difficult” situationas itstroops were struggling to hold groundand were outgunned by the Russian forces. Against this backdrop, he urged Ukraine’s backers to ramp up ammunition deliveries.

Ukrainian officials have long warnedthat theywere not ready to repel a major Russian attack, complaining about delays with Western arms shipments. In April, the head of Kiev’s military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, warned that Ukraine would face serious difficulties in mid-May and early June.

Kharkov Region has frequently been used by Ukrainian forces to stage artillery and drone attacks on Russian border areas, many of which targeted residential buildings, resulting in dozens of civilian casualties. In March, Russian President Putin suggested that Moscow could “at some point” beforced to “create a certain cordon sanitaire” in Kiev-controlled territoriesto prevent further attacks.

https://www.rt.com/russia/597627-zelensky-postpones-foreign-trips-kharkov/

15 May, 2024 10:31

Russian army reverses only gain of Ukrainian counteroffensive

The village of Rabotino in Zaporozhye Region is once again under Moscow’s full control, the Defense Ministry has confirmed

Russian forces have recaptured thesymbolically important village of Rabotino in Zaporozhye Region, the Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

The territorial gain was achieved through military action against the Ukrainian forces in the region, in which theadversary lost up to 25 troops and a US-made M777 howitzer, the ministry’s update on the Ukraine conflict said.

Rabotino is located some 75km northeast of Melitopol, the regional capital. Zaporozhye Region, together with three other regions, officially joined Russia in the fall of 2022 after referendums that Kiev did not accept. The city of Zaporozhye, which is further to the north, is under Kiev’s control and houses the Ukrainian regional administration.

Russian forces captured Rabotino in March 2022 during the early stage of the conflict but were forced to withdraw in August of last year, as Kiev’s Western-armed troops attempted to overwhelm Russian defensive positions during its counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian government and its backers placed their hopes in the counteroffensive as a way to reestablish control over all lands claimed by Kiev and eventually achieve victory in the conflict. The capture of Rabotino was hailed by the Ukrainian side as a major step toward this aim.

Russian troops currently have the overall initiative in the fighting. A recently launched offensive in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region in the north has resulted in the capture of numerous settlements by the advancing forces.

The Ukrainian military leadership has said that Russia’s operation has forced it to stretch even thinner the already limited military reserves available to Kiev.This opens up the possibilitythat Russian forceswill be able to breakthrough elsewhere.

https://www.rt.com/russia/597625-russian-army-ukrainian-counteroffensive-rabotino/

15 May, 2024 08:45

Kiev blames US for Russian advances – Politico

Ukrainian MPs claim restrictions on the targets that can be hit with Western weapons are giving Moscow an advantage

Ukrainianlawmakershave traveled to Washington, DC in a bid toconvince the White Houseto lift restrictions on how Kiev can use weapons donated by the US, Politico reported on Tuesday.

The delegation is headed by David Arakhamia, who leads the parliamentary faction of President Vladimir Zelensky’s party. He and otherMPs have scheduled dozens of meetings on Capitol Hillas part of their lobbying effort. (They embezzle money given to them and the government take 100s of trips around the world to whine, complain and beg for more arms and money. Zelensky is rarely ever there.)

The US has been supplying arms to Ukraine on theconditionthat theymust not be usedagainsttargets located insidewhat Washington acknowledges asRussian territory. The restriction is intended to demonstrate the supposedly defensive nature of the arms supplies. The Ukrainian MPs claim that the policy has facilitated a Russian offensive, which Moscow launched last Friday in Kharkov Region.

“We saw their military sitting one or two kilometers from the border inside Russia and there was nothing we could do about that,”one of the lawmakers, Aleksandra Ustinova, told the news outlet.

Kharkov Region borders Russia’s Belgorod Region. Kiev has launched multiple attacks inside it using drones, rocket artillery, and short-range missiles. Civilian deaths have been reported on a weekly basis in villages close to Kiev-controlled territory and the regional capital Belgorod.

In March, militants backed by the Ukrainian military made multiple attempts to seize settlements in several Russian border regions. President Vladimir Putin said at the time that a buffer zone along the border may be necessary to stop Ukrainian attacks.

According to some Ukrainian news reports, Moscow’s initial success in seizing territory in Kharkov Region was partiallydue to a lack of defenses, which Ukrainianengineers were supposed to constructin the area.Fundsappropriated for them have allegedly beenembezzled by corrupt officials.

Just last month,Zelensky reported that he had personally inspectedthe defensive lines near Kharkov. The role of troops in that area was “very important” to demonstrate to the Russia forces that the province is prepared to stand up to them, he added. (If the defensive lines weren’t constructed, how did Z inspect them? Zelensky has been no where none the front since a couple months into the operation.)

US government insiders told Politico that theWhite House has no intention of lifting the ban. In contrast, US ally Britain has apparently made a policy change regarding its weapons sent to Ukraine.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron declared this month that Kiev “has the right” to attack any Russian targets with British weapons. Moscow has warned that it would consider London’s military assets in Ukraine and elsewhere fair game for retaliation, if such a strike were to happen.

https://www.rt.com/russia/597616-ukraine-washington-arms-restriction/

(This is the “democracy” they shout about, Zelensky can be dictator forever)

14 May, 2024 21:03

Blinken reveals US conditions for Ukrainian elections

The American diplomat suggested that Washington will potentially allow Vladimir Zelensky to remain in power indefinitely

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Ukraine will hold elections when all Ukrainians – including those now living in Russian territory – decide the time is right. Blinken’s conditionsessentially permitUkrainian President VladimirZelensky to postpone a vote unless these territories are recaptured.

“We’re working with the government and civil society groups to shore up Ukraine’s election infrastructure,” Blinken said in a speech at Kiev Polytechnic Institute on Tuesday. (US rigging election infrastructure to keep Zelensky in)

“That way, as soon as Ukrainians agree that conditions allow, all Ukrainians – all Ukrainians including those displaced by Russia’s aggression – can exercise their right to vote,”he continued. “People in Ukraine and around the world can have confidence that the voting process is free, fair, and secure.”

Ukraine was supposed to hold a presidential election on March 31, but Zelensky canceled the vote last year, citing martial law and the conflict with Russia. “We must realize that now is the time of defense, the time of the battle that determines the fate of the state and people,” he said at the time. “I believe that now is not the right time for elections.”

Blinken’s statement impliesthat theUS does not expect Zelensky to hold elections unless the millions of Ukrainian refugeesscattered across Europe, and those living in the formerly Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye,can take part. This is highly unlikely, since residents of these regions voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in September 2022.

Few analystsin Kiev or the Western capitals nowbelieve that Ukraine stands a chance of regaining controlof these territories, much less Crimea. Zelensky still promises that his forces will do so, but this belief in Ukraine’s victory has been described as “delusional” by his own aides.

“Our leadership, in my assessment, exhausted the limits of its competence a long time ago,”his former adviser, Aleksey Arestovich wrote in October. In order to pull the country out of its current “dead end,” he urged Zelensky to hold elections as planned this year, and to accept that his goal of retaking Crimea and restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders will not happen, despite the “blood, sweat, and tears” of the Ukrainian people.

In his speech, Blinken praised Zelensky for introducing tough new conscription laws, and vowed that theUS will keep bankrollingthe Ukrainianmilitary “until Ukraine’s security, sovereignty, its ability to choose its own path is guaranteed.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that continued Western military aid to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict without changing its outcome. In a statement earlier this month, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed that the US does not care whether Zelensky or someone else leads the country, as long as the “war till the last Ukrainian” does not stop.

https://www.rt.com/russia/597599-blinken-ukraine-zelensly-elections/

>>20869316

notablehe and Orban are the only country leaders that won’t send arms to Ukraine. And is Blinken still in the EU?

>>20869291

They just change tradition whenever they want because he’s too demented to debate. He really is quickly going downhill fast

>>20869261

The dementia is getting worse. He knows he can’t debate without lying and garbling whatever comes out if his mouth. He’s afraid! He should be too.

Biden Ducks Official Debates, Wants 2 Instead of 3, Controlled by Friendly Media, Demands Earlier Schedule.

Joe Biden took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to demand two, not three, presidential debates and hope to shift them forward in the calendar year—seemingly so he has time torecover from an expected poor performance before election day.

The Biden campaign even sent a formal letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, stating that Biden would not be participating in the organization’s debates.

Instead, Biden’s team proposed debates in June and September, conducted under an umbrella of corporate-left news organizations, with a scheduled vice-presidential debate in July.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/05/15/breaking-biden-ducks-official-debates-wants-2-instead-of-3-controlled-by-friendly-media-demands-earlier-schedule/

Justice Department asks federal judge to start former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s prison sentence

Casey Gannon and Tierney Sneed, CNN Tue May 14, 2024

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon should begin serving a four-month prison sentence now that a federal appeals court has upheld his contempt-of-Congress conviction, the Justice Department told a federal judge Tuesday.

US District Judge Carl Nichols, who presided over Bannon’s trial, had paused Bannon’s sentence while an appeal of his conviction played out.He has given Bannon until Monday to respond to the DOJ’s request, extending an earlier deadline following a motion to delay from the defense team.

Bannon was found guilty in July 2022 by a federal jury of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena by the House January 6 select committee in its investigation into the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

The Justice Department said in its court filing that a person who is found guilty must report for their term of imprisonment unless the defendant can establish “the appeal is not for the purpose of delay and raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal.”

“The D.C. Circuit rejected defendant’s appeal on all grounds, including the primary argument on appeal: the requisite mental state required for a contempt of Congress violation,” the Justice Department wrote.

The unanimous decision by the appeals court was a win for Congress, potentially paving the way for how others will be held accountable for defying a congressional subpoena.

The timing of when Bannon will be expected to report to prison is still unclear.

(CNN can’t wait until Bannon goes to jail, because Bannon mocks them all the time)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/14/politics/steve-bannon-justice-department-prison-sentence/index.html

John Eastman on lawfare in America, hosted by Michigan Fair Elections

May 9, 2024

Can an anon edit this link so it can be recognized and play?

https://www.youtube.com/live/6YlZfAsCTjw?si=Ru4Mar6I5c_C1RfY