https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-snipers-hunting-top-enemy-205354641.html Ukrainian snipers hunting top enemy commanders are exploiting one of the Russian military's biggest vulnerabilities
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/31/...ffensive-southeastern-regions-intl/index.html Ukrainian forces advance towards ‘first line’ of Russian defenses in southern Zaporizhzhia region
Putin is panicked as he is summoned to bow to his masters. ‘Frightened’ Putin’s Days Could Be Numbered After Trip to China Announced: ‘He’s a Dead Man Walking’ https://www.frontpagedetectives.com...umbered-china-trip-announced-dead-man-walking
"What's Going On?" Ukraine Official's Post On Putin's Health Goes Viral Rumours about Vadimir Putin's health have increased since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/wha...ials-post-on-putins-health-goes-viral-4347363
Ukraine Counteroffensive Pace Not a Concern, US Envoy to EU Says https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/oth...not-a-concern-us-envoy-to-eu-says/ar-AA1g5IPR (Bloomberg) -- The US envoy to the European Union dismissed concerns over the pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia, recalling the challenge the US and its allies faced in World War II. The Ukrainians have “the courage and the incentive and the determination to win, and they will,” Ambassador Mark Gitenstein said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. More than two months into Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the country’s allies have been worrying about the pace of the advance, fearing a protracted fight may strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand. Gitenstein compared the situation to the struggle the US and its allies had encountered before ultimately triumphing in World War II. “You would have thrown your hands up in despair,” the diplomat said, if updates on social media in real-time had been available during that conflict. Read more: Ukraine’s Slow Counteroffensive Boosts Putin and Worries Allies The ambassador called for investors to look for opportunities in Ukraine, saying the reconstruction process after the war will help to build an attractive investment environment in the country. “It will be the biggest such endeavor since the Marshall plan,” he said. Anti-corruption regimes, transparency, regulation and strengthening equity markets, according to Gitenstein, are key ways Ukraine will attract capital. Kyiv has to take anti-corruption reforms seriously, he added, noting they are a condition for substantial amounts of funding, as well as EU accession. So far, there have been multiple international conferences to try to make progress on frameworks and policies to support the reconstruction of the country. In June, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the creation of a framework for war-risk insurance backed by the Group of Seven, which was designed to encourage private investors to help rebuild Ukraine. Gitenstein also said he did not worry about the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election impacting support for Ukraine. He said there is consensus on support for protecting democracy between the EU and US “no matter who is president of the United States.” Gitenstein was appointed by President Joe Biden as the US’s ambassador in Brussels from 2022. He previously served as ambassador to Romania during the Obama administration.
New Russian high school textbook teaches students that Ukraine has always been an“ultranationalist state” which wants to destroy Russia and where “opposition is forbidden,” and that the United States is “the main beneficiary of the Ukrainian conflict.” As well as Stalin was actually a very progressive leader. Expected to be adopted by Texas and Florida soon. New Russian High School Textbooks Seek to Justify War in Ukraine https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-high-school-textbooks-seek-162117805.html As Russian high school students returned to classes after the summer break on Friday, they were expected to receive a heavily revised history textbook that claims that Ukraine is an “ultranationalist state” where “opposition is forbidden,” and that the United States is “the main beneficiary of the Ukrainian conflict.” The rewritten version of “The History of Russia, 1945 to the beginning of the 21st Century,” a textbook for 16- and 17-year-old students, was first unveiled at the beginning of August. The book follows a singular and standardized version of history approved by the highest echelons of power in Russia, and it appears to be the latest push in the Kremlin’s youth-targeted propaganda campaign to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The text devotes 28 pages to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which the authors frame as a response to an increasingly aggressive West that intended to use Ukraine as a “battering ram” to destroy Russia. Revised history textbooks for younger students will be released next year, according to a report from RIA Novosti, a Russian state media outlet. One of the book’s authors, Vladimir Medinsky, is a former culture minister and an adviser to President Vladimir Putin. Echoing Putin’s own words, the authors accused the United States of spreading what they call “Russophobia” in former Soviet republics and of escalating the war in Ukraine, leaving Russia with “no other alternatives” than to call for a partial mobilization that aimed to press 300,000 men into service in the conflict in 2022. The revised history text is only one of several ways the war effort has affected basic education. The Ministries of Education and Defense has said that, starting in 2024, high school students will be required to take a class called “The Basics of Defense and Defense of the Homeland,” which will include limited military training. Boys will study drill formation, drone usage and the ins and outs of Kalashnikov rifles, while girls will be instructed in battlefield first aid. Critics have called the new textbooks a complete falsification. “Instead of history, they’re teaching propaganda in schools,” Anton Orekh, an independent Russian journalist, wrote on the messaging app Telegram. One example of the omissions in the textbook is its treatment of gulags, the notorious labor camps where dictator Joseph Stalin sent countless political prisoners and where millions of Russians died between 1929 and 1953. They are mentioned as an aside, with no details about their brutality. Mikhail Myagkov, director of the Russian Military Historical Society, praised the new educational materials for providing a more “objective” view of Stalin, whose policies led to a famine that killed an estimated 3 to 4 million people in Ukraine. The updated textbooks present Stalin as someone who “clearly defended the Soviet Union’s foreign policy interests,” Myagkov said. “Not a word of truth,” Lyubov Sobol, an exiled opposition figure allied with jailed dissident Alexei Navalny, wrote on social media. c.2023 The New York Times Company
Good start but not enough. Russia must expose Ukrainian nazism everywhere tirelessly. Not just it's own children but every child in the world must know about Ukrainian Nazis and who enables them Every nation in the world must clearly understand Ukraine is not democracy but puppet Nazi state and the main sponsor is the USA.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/02/europe/kyiv-weapons-industry-power-intl/index.html Made in Ukraine: Kyiv’s burgeoning weapons industry is enabling it to project power far beyond the front lines By Tim Lister, CNN Published 12:01 AM EDT, Sat September 2, 2023 In the early hours of August 29th, swarms of Ukrainian drones flew across seven Russian regions. Many were intercepted; some were not. Several reached a Russian airbase in Pskov, some 600 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, destroying two Russian military transport aircraft and damaging two more. It was the most dramatic evidence yet of a new dimension to the 18-month conflict: Ukraine’s growing appetite to take the war to Russian territory. Aerial and marine drones, mysterious new missiles and sabotage groups are all part of the toolkit; Russian airfields, air defenses and shipping among the targets. Ukraine has plenty of reasons for broadening the conflict. A win is a win wherever and whenever it occurs – whether damaging planes at a distant Russian airbase, disrupting commercial aviation and shipping, putting the residents of Russian border regions on edge or hitting Russian air defenses in Crimea. For Ukrainians who have suffered endless drone and missile attacks, evidence of payback (albeit on a much smaller scale) is a welcome morale-booster, especially when the counter-offensive in the south is still struggling to gain traction. President Volodymr Zelensky has been unapologetic for taking the conflict to Russian soil, saying recently: “The war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.” Attacks far from the current front lines are also evidence of an evolving Ukrainian capability to project power. That projection very deliberately does not rely upon Western hardware but local adaptations, in terms of both technology and tactics. President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov have repeatedly assured Western donors that their weapons won’t be used against targets inside Russia; that would be viewed by Moscow as an act of aggression which would make them party to the conflict. That point was reiterated by Ukrainian presidential adviser an adviser to the Head of the President’s office, Mykhailo Podolyak this week. “Ukraine strictly adheres to the obligation not to use the weapons of its partners to strike Russian territory,” he said. Instead, Ukraine is pushing ahead with creating a weapons industry that will provide everything from 155mm artillery shells to longer-range drones and now – it seems – a new long-range missile. Senior Ukrainian officials have been dropping hints about the development of a new cruise missile. Oleksii Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, posted a video last week of the purported missile with the caption: “The President of Ukraine’s missile program in action. The tests are successful, the use is effective.” Later he spoke of a three-year development program, “to provide a distance of thousands of kilometers, this is the work of large teams, powerful work. Now we can say we have a result.” Zelensky himself dropped a cryptic note, congratulating the Ministry of Strategic Industries with the message: “Successful use of our long-range weapons: the target was hit 700 kilometers away!” And Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communication reinforced the point Friday, saying on Telegram: “Having launched a full-scale aggression, the Russians counted on their impunity: that the fighting would be localized in Ukraine, and they would feel safe in their rear.” “The increase in range destroys the Russian illusion of security and increases the cost of aggression for the enemy,” it added. This is clearly a developing part of Ukraine’s war-fighting strategy. Podolyak said: “The war is increasingly moving to Russia’s territory, and it cannot be stopped. This is a consequence of the lost frontline component (Russia has long been fighting only in numbers and only in defense, despite all propaganda myths) and the lack of realistic… systems in the regions (including air defense).” Central to this projection of force is an array of Ukrainian drones – in the air and at sea. The latest iterations have longer range and greater payloads than previous models, thanks to what the Ukrainians describe as a global trawl for drone technology and contracts for multiple indigenous manufacturers. The attack on the Pskov airbase is the fruit of this labor, though just how it was executed is something of a mystery. The head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said that the attack was launched from within Russia, while declining to say what kind of drones were used or how many. That may be Budonov’s flair for gamesmanship – intended to sow confusion and distrust inside Russia. It is possible that the drones were launched from Ukrainian territory, but accurate targeting over a distance of more than 700 kilometers would require a step-change in navigational capabilities. One Russian blogger complained that the Pskov strike indicated that Russian air defenses had not adapted to defend against repeated Ukrainian drone strikes. The damage being done is not going to break the back of the Russian air force, but it has become a serious irritant. On August 22, at least one Tu-22M strategic bomber was set ablaze at the Soltsy-2 airbase in northern Russia; then came the Pskov attack. All at sea Ukraine has also invested heavily in the development of marine drones. The latest deployed carry an explosive payload of up to 400 kilograms, capable of holing a substantial vessel, and can travel hundreds of kilometers. Early in August, one struck the Russian gas and chemical tanker SIG close to the Kerch strait, immobilizing but not sinking it. Another hit a Russian naval ship in the port of Novosibirsk. The maritime drones in use against both Russian naval and merchant shipping in the Black Sea provide both a morale boost and complicate Russian calculations. Some Russian warships in the Black Sea have mounted machine-guns on their decks to repel what are difficult weapons to defend against. These attacks force Russia to spend time on developing counter-measures: One recent example is being the sinking of barges close to the Kerch bridge to Crimea, in an effort to prevent it being hit again by maritime drones following the attacks in July and August. As Mick Ryan, author of the blog Futura Doctrina and a former General in the Australian armeed forces, writes: “With almost no likelihood of developing its own conventional naval fleet to fight the Russians, the Ukrainians have developed uncrewed capabilities. While ostensibly designed to sink or damage Russian surface warships, they are also intended to have the psychological effect of dissuading the Russian ships from putting to sea.” Similarly, Russian authorities have to devote air defenses that might be deployed in Ukraine to the Moscow region and infrastructure such as air bases, which have become a frequent target of Ukrainian attacks. Open-source reporting suggests there are at least several Pantsir-2 air defense batteries around Moscow. The Institute for the Study of War notes that “Russian forces may have focused their air defenses on covering Moscow and somehow missed the unusually large number of Ukrainian drones that reportedly struck the Pskov airfield.” The Ukrainians are also more focused on degrading Russian transport links, air defenses and bases in annexed Crimea. Last month, they carried out a missile strike against one of Russia’s modern S-400 air defense systems on the Crimean coast, following it up with a commando raid. Budanov said subsequently: “We have the ability to hit any part of the temporarily occupied [Crimea] as of now. We can reach the enemy absolutely anywhere.” Strikes at greater range are an extension of the strategy successfully employed since last year to target Russian logistics hubs, command centers and ammunition/ or fuel dumps way behind the frontlines. Longer range Western systems such as HIMARS and more recently Storm Shadows, which with a range of 250 kms have have been critical to that effort, in Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Such weapons put Russian forces on notice that they are vulnerable far from the front lines. An attack on a Russian command center in occupied Berdiansk in July killed a senior Russian general; another in January obliterated a barracks in Donetsk, with considerable loss of life. The drone operations and even the development of new missiles won’t determine the course of the war. Success or failure for the Ukrainians will be determined by the amount of territory reclaimed from Russian occupation and the ability to deter further aggression. That counter-offensive is making at best marginal progress. But long-range strike operations have their vallue. Mick Ryan says that such operations “will only grow in importance and visibility. It is a way to keep fighting when ground maneuver becomes difficult in the wet, cold season. And it is a way to project progress in the war to Ukraine’s supporters during a period of low tempo in other operations.” Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Inhat says Russia should expect more. “You can see the hysteria in the Russian public, Russian propaganda channels. They really don’t like what is happening. But what did they want?” he said Friday. Mykhailo Podolyak says the long-term goal is to inflict a wider war on Russia. “As long as Putin remains president, the war will continue. Pulling Russia deeper and deeper into the abyss of chaos.”