*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
-Russian forces have likely decided to attack Avdiivka frontally from occupied Donetsk Oblast territory rather than waiting for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from their prepared defensive positions as a result of Russian envelopment operations northeast of the settlement. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Kremlin-sponsored sources have published videos suggesting that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces out of their positions around the Butivka Coal Mine ventilation shaft southwest of Avdiivka. Ukrainian forces have held positions around the Butivka Coal Mine ventilation shaft since 2015 and have described the location as the closest Ukrainian position to Donetsk City and a key defensive outpost for Avdiivka. Russian forces have likely captured the Ukrainian position, given the Ukrainian General Staff‘s vague reports of ”partially” successful Russian advances in the area. Russian forces are also continuing assaults on Pisky, west of Avdiivka, and will likely attempt to seize the E50 highway connecting the two settlements.
-At a moment that Ukrainian casualties have remained a closely guarded secret, US intelligence has claimed that more than 75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured since the Feb.24 invasion of Ukraine. Michigan Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin during an interview with CNN this week said she was given a classified briefing from White House officials, wherein "We were briefed that over 75,000 Russians have either been killed or wounded [in Ukraine], which is huge... Over 80% of their land forces are bogged down, and they’re tired." She added: "But they’re still the Russian military" - likely in reference to Moscow's better ability than Ukraine to replenish its ranks. The claim comes as both sides have for weeks portrayed the other as lacking morale and struggling to maintain diminished supplies along front lines. It is unknown how the US intelligence briefing that Slotkin was given sourced its information, presenting what many observers will likely view as a significant and high, possibly greatly inflated, Russian casualty rate. For example, to what degree did US intelligence rely on Ukrainian figures on Russian casualties in the assessment?
-Russia’s armed forces destroyed an ‘elite assault battalion’ of the Ukrainian president and dozens of fighters from the notorious Kraken neo-Nazi formation, Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday. Providing an update on the progress of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Konashenkov said that on July 28, at the Krasnoarmeysk railway station in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Russian military conducted a direct strike “with a high-precision air-based weapon” on a train transporting “an elite assault battalion of the 1st Separate Brigade of the President of Ukraine.” “More than 140 nationalists were killed on the spot. About 250 more militants received injuries of varying severity. All military equipment that was in the echelon was disabled,” Konashenkov stated.
-Russia has started creating a military strike force aimed at Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih and warned that Moscow could be preparing new offensive operations in southern Ukraine, Ukraine said on Wednesday. Russia holds swathes of Ukraine’s south that it captured in the early phases of its invasion, but Kyiv has said it will mount a counter-offensive. It said on Tuesday it had already recaptured 53 villages in occupied Kherson region, Reuters reports.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-It's the middle of the night local time, but China has announced the foreign ministry has summoned US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns in order to "protest" Pelosi's landing in Taiwan, where she's due to meet with Tsai Ing-wen in the morning. This as PLA military drills surrounding the self-ruled island are reported to be ongoing, including 'live fire' exercises. According to a readout in state-run Global Times, "China's Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng summoned US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns overnight to protest against US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan island late Tuesday night, stressing that the nature of Pelosi's visit is extremely vicious and the consequence is very grave. The Chinese side will not sit idly by." Further GT writes, "Noting that the US government should have restrained Pelosi's unscrupulous move and prevented her from going against the historical trend but instead indulged her and colluded with her, which exacerbates the tension in the Taiwan Straits and seriously damages China-US ties, Xie said the US must pay the price for its own mistake. China will take necessary and resolute countermeasures and we mean what we say." This "pay the price" warning will likely only be revealed in full, in terms of the options Beijing has in store for both Washington and Taipei, in the coming days or even weeks after Pelosi departs tomorrow.
-The broader impact of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan will play out “for weeks, months and years” after she returns from her trip, a Washington Post columnist has argued. Citing sources in the US administration, the Post’s foreign policy columnist Josh Rogin predicted that while the Chinese military could respond to Pelosi’s divisive trip in the short term with “some aggressive moves” such as missile launches, Beijing will probably do its best to prevent the stand-off from spiraling out of control.
-China has suspended the import of a range of Taiwanese goods as tensions grow over a visit to the self-governed island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. According to Chinese authorities, imports of Taiwanese citrus and some types of fish are suspended. The restrictions were imposed due to excessive pesticide residue detected “multiple times” while some frozen fish packages had tested positive for coronavirus, they said.
-The US should “withdraw all its nuclear weapons from Europe and refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any other region,” the director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's arms control department has said. So-called “nuclear sharing arrangements” between countries “increase the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear conflicts,” Fu Cong said on Tuesday, during the 10th Review Conference on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the UN headquarters in New York.
-Russia has accused the US of direct involvement in the Ukraine war after claims the US was sharing targeting intelligence with Ukrainian forces.
-Ukraine’s state security service says it is investigating 752 cases of treason and collaboration.
-Spain cannot send its Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine because they have not been used for years and might be dangerous for operators, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told reporters on Tuesday. Robles previously said in June that the possibility of sending the tanks “was on the table” after the Spanish newspaper El País reported that Spanish officials were considering sending about 40 German-produced Leopard tanks housed at a facility in Zaragoza.
-If tensions with China over Taiwan spirals out of control, it may come with the cost of US support for Ukraine against Russia, officials in the EU reportedly fear. A switch of Washington’s hostile attention from Moscow to Beijing would be the “worst-case scenario” for European NATO members, Politico cites a European diplomat as saying. At the moment, the rhetorical confrontations between Washington and Beijing over a possible visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not a NATO issue, but “it could easily escalate,” the diplomatic source said, according to the article published on Monday. The outlet spoke to several EU sources about how the European economic bloc perceives the tensions over Taiwan. Politico noted that up until recently most EU member states were cautious in their public comments about Taiwan and US rivalry with China, a major trading partner for the EU.
-In October 2019, Jake Sullivan, who became U.S. National Security Advisor in 2021, stated in an interview that the U.S. needed a clear threat to rally the world and play the role of saviour of mankind and that China could be that organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy. In the 2019 interview, he acknowledges that the problem was that people were not going to believe that China is a global threat, that their view of China is too positive and that the United States would need a “Pearl Harbour moment,” a real focusing event to change their minds, something he calmly stated that “would scare the hell out of the American people.”
-Ukraine has received a batch of four more US-made high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars), Ukraine’s defence minister said on Monday. Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Twitter that he was grateful for the help strengthening the Ukraine army.
-Vladimir Putin said on Monday there could be no winners in a nuclear war and no such war should ever be started.
-All the hand-wringing this week over whether or not the U.S. economy has fallen into recession lacked an important consideration: What if the measure of GDP we're all focused on is itself massively flawed? It’s a heretical question, because there’s a 'GDP complex' at work here. There's an entire apparatus — economists, bankers, government officials, and prognosticators — of folks whose livelihoods are predicated on measuring GDP, maintained as the be-all and end-all method for measuring a country’s economic, or even societal, health. And, of course, GDP growth is never quite 'right.' It’s either too fast or slow, and these parties are always ready to help fix things. Leaving aside the experts’ deficiencies in predicting or fixing, by fixating on GDP this august group often misses items like sustainability and quality of life.
-Conservative US author Ann Coulter has argued that the US and UK “have [their] own problems” and shouldn’t care about Ukraine, which she pointed out was historically under Russian influence. With British broadcaster Piers Morgan vehemently disagreeing, Coulter blamed the expansion of the NATO alliance for the current conflict. Speaking to Morgan on Thursday, Coulter declared “on the NATO thing, I’m with Noam Chomsky, Pat Buchannan, George Kennan, once the Soviet Union fell there’s no point to NATO, and we keep encroaching, encroaching, encroaching,” referring to the alliance’s expansion into Eastern Europe since the fall of the USSR, something its leaders assured Russia it would not do. Morgan, a staunch supporter of Ukraine who recently interviewed Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his wife Elena, argued otherwise, claiming that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine proves “that’s what NATO’s there for.”
-President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a new naval doctrine which cast the United States as Russia's main rival and set out Russia's global maritime ambitions for crucial areas such as the Arctic and in the Black Sea. Speaking on Russia's Navy Day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg founded by Tsar Peter the Great, Putin praised Peter for making Russia a great sea power and increasing the global standing of the Russian state. After inspecting the navy, Putin made a short speech in which he promised that what he touted as Russia's unique Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, cautioning that Russia had the military clout to defeat any potential aggressors. Shortly before the speech, he signed a new 55-page naval doctrine, which sets out the broad strategic aims of Russia's navy, including its ambitions as a "great maritime power" which extend over the entire world.
-A group of Democrats and Republicans have introduced a bill that would authorize the Biden administration to create a new military aid program for Taiwan. Modeled after the 1940s Lend-Lease Act that allowed the US to arm the allied powers during World War II, the bill resembles legislation recently passed to boost weapons supplies to Ukraine. Introduced by Representatives Michelle Steel (R-California) and Jimmy Panetta (D-California) in the House, and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) in the Senate, the ‘Taiwan Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act’ would authorize the president to lend or lease weapons and military equipment to Taiwan, which Taipei would pay for over a 12-year period.
-U.S. economic activity contracted for the second consecutive quarter in Q2, data from the Commerce Department showed Thursday. The Bureau of Economic Analysis' advance estimate of Q2 U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) showed a 0.9% annualized decrease in economic growth for the three-month period ended June 30. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected data to show the U.S. economy grew at an annualized pace of 0.4% last quarter. The decline in GDP comes after U.S. economic activity unexpectedly fell 1.6% during the first quarter, the first negative reading since the second quarter of 2020. Two straight negative GDP prints meets the unofficial definition of a recession.
-The Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution on Wednesday calling for Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism for actions in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine that resulted “in the deaths of countless innocent men, women and children.” A similar measure had been introduced in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to be a strong supporter of its passage. However, the power to designate a state sponsor of terror resides with the State Department. Nevertheless, the Senate’s passage of the resolution puts yet more congressional pressure on the Biden administration to add Russia to a list of state sponsors of terrorism that includes Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. Congress has approved more than $50 billion in aid to Ukraine.
-Food pantries and food banks are a key economic indicator for tracking poverty levels and financial instability in the US, and in the past few months they have been ringing alarm bells. Stagflationary pressures have all but wiped out the savings of the average American and driven up credit card debt to historic highs. Only in the past month have credit spending and debt levels begun to slide, but this is more a sign that consumers are tapped out rather than a sign of a return to normalcy. High prices are slowly but surely overwhelming lower wage workers in particular. The average living wage across most US states is around $16 an hour; over 30% of American workers make less than $15 an hour.
-Michael Brenner notes: Russia has blunted everything thrown at them – to the shock of Western planners. Every assumption underpinning their scorched-earth assault on the Russian economy has proven mistaken. A dismal record of analytical error even by C.I.A. and think tank standards. Off-the-charts forecasts on the country’s economy, and the global impact of sanctions, crippled Washington’s plan from the outset. Tactical initiatives of a military nature have proven equally futile; another 1,000 vintage Javelins with dead battery packs will not rescue the Ukrainian army in the Donbass. So, you are stuck with the albatross of a truncated, bankrupt Ukraine hung around your neck. There is nothing that you can do to cancel these givens — except a direct, perhaps suicidal test of force with Russia. Or, perhaps, a retaliatory challenge elsewhere. The latter is not readily available — for geographic reasons and because the West already has expended its arsenal of economic and political weaponry.
-On July 29, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the latter’s initiative. The ministers discussed current developments in Ukraine. Sergey Lavrov laid out Russia’s principled approaches in the context of the special military operation in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republic and Ukraine. He emphasised that its goals and tasks will be fully achieved. The Foreign Minister drew the Secretary of State’s attention to the fact that the continued arming of the armed forces of Ukraine and nationalist battalions with US and NATO weapons, which are being used against civilians on a large scale, is only prolonging the agony of the Kiev regime by dragging out the conflict and increasing the number of victims. Mr Lavrov stressed that the armed forces of Russia strictly observe the norms of international law and that Russia has engaged in consistent efforts to restore peaceful life on the territories that it is liberating.
-Gazprom suspended its gas supplies to Latvia... due to violations of the conditions" of purchase, Russian energy giant Gazprom has announced Saturday in a statement posted to Telegram. This after on Wednesday gas deliveries to Europe were cut to about 20% of capacity via the Nord Stream pipeline. The EU has continued charging Moscow with using energy as a "weapon" and as "blackmail". However, the Kremlin has responded by again blaming Western and US-led sanctions for blocking the ability of Gazprom to properly and safely maintain its systems. "Technical pumping capacities are down, more restricted. Why? Because the process of maintaining technical devices is made extremely difficult by the sanctions adopted by Europe," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, repeating his familiar theme that the EU has in essence shot itself in the foot. "Gazprom was and remains a reliable guarantor of its obligations... but it can't guarantee the pumping of gas if the imported devices cannot be maintained because of European sanctions," he said. Regarding Nord Stream, Gazprom has said reduced supply is due to "technical condition of the engine". The saga of the turbine hold-up and blame game with Siemens has in the meantime only continued in stalemate. As for the stoppage to Latvia and Riga's alleged "violations of the conditions" - this is likely connected with Moscow's demand of payments in rubles for "unfriendly" nations and as retaliation for EU sanctions.
-Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that Russia staunchly supports China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, after Chinese president Xi Jinping warned US president Joe Biden against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a phone callon Thursday.
-Belarus recalled its ambassador to the UK on Friday in response to what it called “hostile and unfriendly” actions by London.
-Germany will deliver 16 BIBER bridge-layer tanks to Ukrainian forces, the German defence ministry announced.
-North Macedonia plans to donate an unspecified number of Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine as it seeks to modernise its own military to meet NATO standards, its defence ministry said on Friday.
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