Jul 25 Buonasera Mag
Day 152: situation in east and south east Ukraine, Odesa & RU attack, Syvkovich, Steinmeier, Avdeeva, Trump, Orban, Italian left & right, Serbia, Cheney
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
Ukraine will continue doing all it can to inflict as much damage on Russian forces as possible, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday. “Even the occupiers admit we will win,” he said as he hailed the upcoming day of Ukrainian statehood, July 28, a new annual holiday that Zelenskiy announced last year in August.
Russia said its forces hit a Ukrainian warship and US-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles in the port of Odesa. Russia targeted Ukraine’s main port on Saturday with high-precision missiles, barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports. The deal was supposed to be a breakthrough to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports and ease global food shortages caused by the war.
Ukraine commander: Russian shelling in Kharkiv region diminished by more than 90% after Ukrainian forces used a US-supplied medium-range rocket system to demolish an ammunition depot. US has delivered 12 & authorized 4 more HIMARS --- Kyiv says more needed as "game-changer"
Grozev: Girkin quotes today "informed people" who tell him the Russian army has more defections and KIA than new recruits per day, will "soon have almost no resources to go on the offensive with".
Former Security Council deputy secretary suspected of high treason. The State Bureau of Investigations reported on July 23 that Volodymyr Sivkovych is suspected of working for the Russian intelligence services and managing a network of agents in Ukraine that spied for Russia.
Russia claims to have blocked Facebook, Twitter, Youtube in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. According to Russia’s state agencies, providers slowed down Google in the occupied part of Ukraine's southern region.
Russia claims 2.8 million Ukrainians have entered Russia since start of invasion; Ukraine calls it forced deportation. According to Russia’s state news agency, the number includes almost 500,000 children. Russia claims half of the people came from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Health Minister: Russian forces destroy 127 hospitals since start of war. Health Minister Viktor Lyashko said Russian forces have damaged nearly 900 healthcare facilities and 450 pharmacies since Feb. 24. They have also targeted 90 ambulances and seized 250 vehicles.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has reassured Egypt over Russian grain supplies at the start of a four-country tour of Africa, amid uncertainty over the future of a deal to resume Ukrainian exports via the Black Sea.
Ambassador Brink: US 'seriously considering' declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said on July 24 that Washington was looking into the decision, but it has to be "carefully analyzed in accordance with American law."
Euopre’s largest port, Rotterdam, is now closed to the Russians. "Container shipments to and from Russia are stopped."
German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Sunday that the war Russian president Vladimir Putin is waging against Ukraine is also a “war against the unity of Europe”.
Strzok, In one Oval Office meeting, a triple Russian threat
One aspect the committee hasn’t touched on yet, however, is the staggering national security implications of the Dec. 18 meeting. Former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson characterized the West Wing that night as “unhinged,” but it wasn’t simply a domestic political nightmare.
The Guardian, Viktor Orbán sparks outrage with attack on ‘race mixing’ in Europe
Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has lashed out against the “mixing” of European and non-European races, in a speech that immediately drew outrage from opposition parties and European politicians.
“We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán on Saturday. He added that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were “no longer nations”.
The Economist, Germans have been living in a dream
Put simply, years of complacency have landed Germany in a pickle. Yet even as the establishment comes to terms with the scale of its dilemma, and with the immense challenge of changing course, Germany’s conversation with itself remains strangely parochial and lacking in urgency. Even more odd, in a country that prides itself on the openness of its democracy, is the failure to account for what went awry. Yes, some public figures have rightly been scolded for looking at Russia through rose-tinted lenses. But the systemic nature of Mr Putin’s deceptions and of Germany’s wilful blindness have hardly been explored. No one seems to want to talk about what happened “in the cave”.
Italy’s elex campagain on the right and left
The Guardian, Cheney and Kinzinger tee up possible January 6 subpoena for Ginni Thomas
Cheney, vice-chair of the panel, told CNN’s State of the Union: “The committee is engaged with [Ginni Thomas’s] counsel. We certainly hope that she will agree to come in voluntarily but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”
Just bizarre…
Ukrainian resilience…
