Jun 25 Saturday Edition
Day 122 of War: Severodonetsk, attacks from Belarus, threat to Moldova, Cafè Milano, Russia's new conspiracy theory, Macron, Heidi Cuda- Pure Insanity
Roe v Wade
The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade was expected, but it still hurts. I won’t get into the details of the decision since I’m not a qualified jurist but I’ll direct you to Scott Lucas and his invaluable EA Worldview for deeper analysis. I’m working on an op-ed that I’ll publish soon- some thoughts need to sediment.
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…
Russian forces have fully occupied Sievierodonetsk, the mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city said, confirming Ukraine’s biggest battlefield setback for more than a month, after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.
Ukraine is regrouping its forces from the rubble of the city of Sievierodonetsk to higher ground in neighbouring Lysychansk to gain a tactical advantage over Russia, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence Budanov agency said.
Ukraine’s Intelligence: Russia plans to attack residential areas in Belarus to draw it into war against Ukraine. Russia plans to attack residential buildings in the Belarusian city of Mozyr, the intelligence said, adding that Russian troops have already arrived in the city.
Moldova under threat from Moscow once again.
Russian shelling damaged a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate said.
The MoD also claims that there has been a major shake-up in the Russian army’s high command since the start of June leading to the removal of the commander of airborne forces (VDV), Gen-Col Andrei Serdyukov, and commander the southern army group (SGF), Gen Alexandr Dvornikov.
Ukraine said it came under “massive bombardment” from neighbouring Belarus as clashes were reported in the streets of the eastern city of Lysychansk, AFP reports.
A Canadian law that came into effect on June 23 allows the confiscation of assets subject to sanctions due to Russia’s war, and their subsequent use to support Ukraine.
Germany considers expropriating part of Nord Stream 2. According to news outlet Spiegel, Germany’s Economy Ministry is investigating whether it’s possible to seize the part of the pipe system that is on German territory and cut it off from the rest of the pipeline.
Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour writes:
“If Ukraine wins, Russia will never accept that. If Russia wins, it will go further,” he warned.
Yet in Whitehall they fear the “F word” – fatigue – and worry that the west with its TikTok-attention span and bias towards instant gratification does not have the resolve for the years-long sacrifice required to defeat Russia, or even stem the military tide in the villages of eastern Ukraine.
Russian media is now pushing the conspiracy that the EU is seizing grain from Ukraine to create a reserve for Europe and is blaming Russia for food insecurity
Andrey Koshkin:
First of all, everyone was confused by the figure of 20 million tons. This number was named by Joe Biden. When the experts began to analyze, they came to the conclusion that today, at best, 5 million tons of grain can be in Ukraine. Moreover, it is constantly taken out in the direction of the EU states, and what is most interesting, they immediately fall asleep in their storage facilities, and do not send it somewhere to the south, as politicians and experts constantly say about this, ”the FAN interlocutor explained.
EuroMaidan, How ordinary Russians were turned into murderers and rapists through TV and smartphones
Speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council on 21 June 2022, information warfare expert Liubov Tsybulska told that the Kremlin’s systematic propaganda that “fed the Russian nation with hatred” enabled the ongoing genocide of Ukrainians. The propagandists behind it should be brought to justice together with the rest of the Russian leadership.
Slavoj Žižek, Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine
Those who cling to pacifism in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine remain caught in their own version of “imagine”. Imagine a world in which tensions are no longer resolved through armed conflicts … Europe persisted in this world of “imagine”, ignoring the brutal reality outside its borders. Now it’s the time to awaken.
Le Temps, Emmanuel Macron to Vladimir Putin, four days before the war: "I don't know where your lawyer learned the law"
The verbatim of one of the last talks between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin before the war in Ukraine, four days before the start of the invasion, has been revealed. The French president has not yet seen this documentary on the backstage of the Elysée and the negotiations carried out with broken sticks, between familiarity, annoyance and incongruities. In this exchange, the Head of State offers the Russian President a meeting “in the very next few days” in Geneva with Joe Biden. It will never take place.
Totalitarian Russia
In Russian town of Klin, Moscow region, school teachers are proudly posing with a poster “One People, One Nation, One Ruler”, what is a 100% copy from Ein Volk Ein Reich Ein Führer Nazi slogan.
Andras Toth-Czifra, The Quickest Route to Peace in Ukraine
Some elements of Western frailty are engineered by the Russian government. Apart from the Donbas where a terrible war of attrition has started, and Southern Ukraine, which faces industrial-scale looting and kidnapping under Russian occupation, the third theater of war is now unquestionably in the information space of Western democracies.
Heidi Cuda, ‘PURE INSANITY’: January 6 Committee Hearings Suggest ‘Trump’s Future Freedom’ in Question
In a week of hearings from the House Select Committee into the 6 January 2021 insurrection in the Capitol , the US Congress heard compelling evidence that the then President of the United States, Donald Trump, spread far-fetched conspiracy theories about how the 2020 Presidential election was ‘stolen’, floated the idea of seizing voting machines, attempted to weaponize the Justice Department, and his stochastic Twitter terrorism forced election workers into hiding and despair.
We’re signing off for the evening. Thanks for reading…
Mo & Scott
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