Russia/Ukraine War Update - August 9th, 2022

 *** MILITARY SITUATION ***

Western and Ukrainian outlets circulated a report, likely false, of a Russian general allegedly threatening to destroy Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), if Russia could not hold the plant. Multiple news outlets shared a screenshot from the Russian social networking site Vkontakte that claimed to cite the Russian head of the Zaporizhia occupation garrison, Major General Valery Vasilev, stating that Russia had mined the Zaporizhzhia NPP and that the plant would be “either Russian land or a scorched desert.” The screenshot appeared to be a news report posted in a Vkontakte group run by Russian outlet Lenta Novosti Zaporizhia. The outlet itself claimed that the screenshot was from a faked group and denied writing the report. The Russian Ministry of Defense condemned the report and screenshot as a “fake” and claimed that Vasilev was in Uzbekistan at the time he was purported to have made the statement to forces at Zaporizhzhia. Regardless of the origin (or existence) of the original post, the reporting is unreliable. It is indirect and does not claim to cite an official statement or a statement made on any official Russian news or government website.

-The Ukrainian military claims to have struck a major airbase deep inside the occupied Crimean peninsula. At least 12 explosions hit the Saky naval airbase, causing a huge plume of smoke. Russia has disputed the claims and says it was not an attack but a detonation of ammunition. 

This is 200km from the front lines so it is either a Russian accident or the Ukrainians are secretly being given very long range munitions. Russia considers Crimea as its territory. It had threatened to attack 'decision centers' should such attacks on its territory occur. Now, Crimean missile defence is solid, so this event may be sabotage. But local officials report 'several explosions' as opposed to just one. Ministry of Defense says 'several air launched munitions'. Videos all seem to start play only from just after or during final blast, even from several different vantage points.

-Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that Russian forces had destroyed an ammunition depot near Uman in Ukraine storing US-made Himars missiles and M777 howitzers, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-How to recreate Fukushima?

Much of the propaganda spew on Zaporizhia was triggered by the Ukrainian attack on the plant of Aug. 5th. That damaged transformers and power lines that tripped safety protection systems on Unit 4 (then at full power) resulting in a scram and shutting it down. A reactor trip is always a BIG deal ANYWHERE when a reactor is at full power. It remains in cold shutdown today - neither the IAEA, Energoatom (state nuke operator) nor the World Nuclear Association have reported it being restarted or brought back on line.

That only leaves Unit 1 and 2 reactors operating - the other four are reported in cold shutdown. Now, any further insane Ukrainian attack could damage equipment resulting in another reactor trip leaving only one running. That, itself, is an unsafe condition as that reactor (and the spent fuel cooling pools of all six reactors) must rely on outside power for backup. The plant has emergency generators, but they're located outside. The generators and their fuel supply are extremely vulnerable to damage from shelling or drones.

I have avoided writing about this, as the prospects are too horrifying. Reactor 4 is not in cold shutdown. Secondary reactions are still happening, producing decay heat. It takes several weeks for the reactor to cool to the state where forced cooling is not needed. An electric power supply is absolutely necessary during this period. There may be no way of safely shutting down a nuclear power plant without outside electricity or functioning diesel generators.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster happened because of a loss of electric power. The earthquake caused a SCRAM of all reactors. The tsunami flooded the backup diesel generators. Connection to the power grid was also lost, likely because of the earthquake. Three reactors reached meltdown. All of these efects can happen in Zaporizhia, if the power plant comes under heavy shelling. The latest incidents and the disinformation from Kiev solidify my belief that Ukraine cannot be allowed to exist as an independent state.

-While the world is creeping closer toward a DefCon 1 exchange with every passing day, should Russia launch tomorrow there will be no way of knowing just how many warheads and ICBMs Putin is letting loose (not that he needs all that many). The reason is because on Monday, Russia informed the US that it is temporarily suspending American inspections of its nuclear weapons sites under the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START). "On August 8, 2022, the Russian Federation officially informed the United States via diplomatic channels that our country is temporarily exempting its facilities from inspection activities under the New START Treaty," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding it also covers "facilities that can be used for demonstrations under the treaty.” According to Anadolu, the statement stressed that the measures had a "temporary character" but everyone knows there is nothing more permanent in this world than a "temporary" government mandate.

-Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has been struggling with quotas imposed by the European Union for sanctioned goods that it can import across Lithuania from mainland Russia or Belarus, the region’s governor admitted. Lithuania infuriated Moscow in June by banning the land transit of goods such as concrete and steel to Kaliningrad after EU sanctions on them came into force, Reuters reported.

-The leaders of Estonia and Finland want fellow European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens, saying they should not be able to take holidays in Europe while the Russian government carries out a war in Ukraine.

-The Chinese military said its drills around Taiwan will continue on Monday, despite initial plans announced last week that they would last until mid-Sunday. They were launched in response to a visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The training on Monday will take place in the sea and airspace near the self-governed island, and will focus on anti-submarine and amphibious assault operations, a statement released by China’s Eastern Theater Command said. Monday’s prolongation of the exercises near Taiwan is the second announced by the People’s Liberation Army in as many days. The initial plan was to wrap up the training around noon on Sunday.

-Beijing has suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) Taiwan visit may have been part of a ploy by the US aimed at creating a pretext to deploy more of its military to the region. In a statement made during his visit to Bangladesh and published on Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “there are signs that the United States is trying to repeat its old tricks.” The diplomat clarified that Washington has a history of “creating a problem first, and then using it to realize its own strategic plans” elsewhere in the world. 

-The CIA’s shift of focus to “great power competition” with China means that “money and resources will be increasingly shifted” away from counterterrorism (CT), the spy agency’s second-highest ranking officer has apparently disclosed. Deputy Director David Cohen reportedly broke the news to leaders of the agency's CT branch at a meeting held some weeks ago behind closed doors, the Associated Press claimed  on Monday, citing anonymous sources. He apparently assured officials that fighting terrorists would remain a CIA priority to a significant degree, the report added. The entire US intelligence community has been pivoting towards China under the current administration, with hundreds of officers reassigned, including from counterterrorism, according to the news agency. The CIA is also moving in that direction, hiring new officers fluent in Chinese and teaching the language to current employees, the AP said.

-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s "surprise" trip to Taiwan last week should be "Exhibit A" as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits. As Col. Doug Macgregor said of Pelosi’s trip on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, "statesmanship involves advancing American interests at the least cost to the American people. None of that is in play here... Posturing is not statesmanship." Pelosi’s trip was no outlier. Such counterproductive posturing is much celebrated by both parties in Washington. Neoconservative Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham were thrilled with Pelosi’s stop in Taipei and used it as a springboard to push for new legislation that would essentially declare war on China by declaring Taiwan a "major non-NATO ally." The "one China" policy that, while perhaps not perfect, has kept the peace for more than 40 years is to be scrapped and replaced with one sure to provoke a war. Who benefits? Foolishly taking the US to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine is evidently not enough for Washington’s bipartisan warmongering class. Risking a nuclear war on two fronts, with both Russia and China, is apparently the only way for Washington to show the rest of the world it’s serious.

  "The drunken man in a bar challenging everyone to a fight is not tough. He’s foolish."

-The US Navy wants to persuade Americans drowning in debt to join by offering to pay off their student loans with enlistment bonuses as high as $50,000. Recruits who are willing to ship out by September 30 and meet other requirements will be eligible for as much as $65,000 in loan repayments, bringing their total bonus potential to $115,000, the Navy announced on Saturday. The offer applies to new sailors and to veterans who seek to return to service and who didn’t receive a bonus for their first enlistment.

-The United States will provide an additional $4.5 billion (£3.7 bn) to Ukraine’s government, bringing its total budgetary support since Russia’s February invasion to $8.5 billion (£7 bn), the US Agency for International Development has announced. The funding, coordinated with the US Treasury Department through the World Bank, will go to the Ukraine government in tranches, beginning with a $3 billion (£2.5 bn) disbursement in August, USAid, the Agency for International Development, said.

-The Pentagon has unveiled the latest billion dollar slice of US military aid to Ukraine. The main items are more ammunition for the 16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) the US has sent, as well as new missiles for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), a thousand Javelin anti-tank missiles, and hundreds of Swedish made AT4 shoulder launched anti-tank systems.

-The US will participate in war games with the Indian military in an area of India that is less than 62 miles away from the country’s disputed border with China, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAN). The drills will be held from October 18-31 and will be the eighteenth iteration of annual exercises between the two militaries known as Yudh Abhyas, which is Hindi for "war practice." They will be held in the Auli area of the Indian state of Uttarakhand in the Himalayas mountain range. The Yudh Abhyas drills are meant to train for fighting in high altitudes. The last iteration of the exercises was held in the mountains of Alaska in October 2021. Tensions have been high between India and China in the Himalayas since June 2020, when clashes in the Galwan Valley killed 20 Indian troops and four Chinese soldiers. Since then, China and India have been engaged in talks to reduce tensions, but they have also reinforced their militaries along the LAN.

-Warsaw continues to carry out an apparent attempt to “reclaim” parts of Ukraine in accordance with its “far-reaching plans” for the country, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said in a statement posted on Monday. According to Moscow, Poland is not only setting up a scenario to deploy its “peacekeeping” forces to the western parts of Ukraine, but is also trying to establish control over promising sectors of the Ukrainian economy, first and foremost – agriculture.

-At least a third of Germans on low incomes may not be able to pay increasingly high energy bills, the German Tenants’ Association (DMB) has warned, urging the government to make changes to housing programs. “That’s a hell of a lot of people,” Lukas Siebenkotten, the DMB’s chief, told newspaper Der Tagesspiegel on Sunday. “We’re talking about millions here.”  Siebenkotten urged the government to allow more people to claim housing benefits in the wake of rising energy prices. “Tenants must also be protected from the termination of contracts if they cannot make increased advance payments,” he said.

-Russia announced on Friday that it conducted an airstrike against a group of US-backed militants in Syria near al-Tanf, a US military base located in the south of the country. Russia said it targeted Liwa Shuhada al-Qaryatayn (ShQ), a group that has fought against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow said the Russian Aerospace Forces "identified and destroyed" a group of ShQ militants. US officials told CNN in June that they didn’t believe Russia’s reasoning for the initial strike and that Moscow was instead trying to "send a message" that it can conduct such an operation without retaliation. Either way, these incidents highlight the danger of the US military presence in Syria, where it maintains an occupation force of about 1,000 troops.

-CBS has censored its own documentary investigative reporting after an avalanche of pushback from supporters of Ukraine and its military. The segment highlighted that tons of weaponry shipped from the United States to the country's military has gone missing, and sounded the alarm as billions in dollars more have been pledged by the Biden administration. "CBS partially retracted a documentary in which it said that shipments of weapons to Ukraine from the US had been going missing," Insider reports Monday. "CBS tweeted on Monday that it had removed a a video promoting the documentary that included a months-old quote saying most aid was not making it to Ukraine's front lines." Below is the deleted tweet, with the offending line of "30% of it [US-supplied arms and munitions] reaches its final destination."

-«Из-за высоких потерь режим Зеленского принимает меры по восполнению некомплекта личного состава украинских формирований в районе боевых действий в Донбассе. Так, принято решение о досрочной отправке на передовую мобилизованных граждан, начавших подготовку в учебном центре 72-й механизированной бригады в городе Белая Церковь Киевской области. Вместе с ними направляются и находившиеся в госпиталях раненые, не дожидаясь завершения ими полного курса реабилитации после ранений»

Translation: “Due to heavy losses, the Zelensky regime is taking measures to replenish the shortfall in the personnel of Ukrainian formations in the combat zone in Donbass. Thus, a decision was made to send mobilized citizens to the front line ahead of schedule, who began training at the training center of the 72nd mechanized brigade in the city of Belaya Tserkov, Kyiv region. Together with them, the wounded who were in hospitals are also sent, without waiting for them to complete the full course of rehabilitation after injuries."

-"The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, on Saturday expressed concern about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. According to him, military actions that put the safety of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant at risk are "completely unacceptable and must be prevented at any cost." Grossi stressed that he is ready to lead the mission of IAEA experts on safety, protection and safeguards at nuclear power plants. "Ukrainian troops have already made several attempts to attack the territory of the nuclear power plant several times since the beginning of the special operation. The last one occurred on August 5. As a result of several artillery shelling, a fire broke out at the scene, two power lines necessary for the operation of power units were broken. At the nuclear power plant, part of the equipment of power unit No. 3 was de-energized, the generated capacity of power unit No. 4 was reduced. During the special operation, the Russian military took control of the Kherson region and the Azov part of the Zaporozhye region. In both regions, new administrations have been formed, Russian TV channels and radio stations are broadcasting, and trade ties with Crimea are being restored. The regions have announced plans to become part of Russia."

-The White House on Monday called on Russia to “return full control” of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant near Energodar to the Kiev authorities. Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukrainian forces of “nuclear terrorism” for bombarding the Russian-held facility twice since Friday. “Fighting near a nuclear plant is dangerous,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, flying with President Joe Biden to Kentucky to tour areas damaged by flooding. “We continue to call on Russia to cease all military operations at or near Ukrainian nuclear facilities and return full control to Ukraine,” Jean-Pierre added. “We are also aware of the reports of mistreatment of the staff and we applaud the Ukrainian authorities and operators for their commitment to nuclear safety and security under trying circumstances.”

-Norway on Monday announced that due to an 'uncertain and demanding situation' over sky-high electricity prices - caused by low water levels at hydroelectric stations (in what they refer to as a "weather-dependent power supply"), as well as the "dramatic situation in Europe" regarding Ukraine, the government will be limiting electricity exports "when the water level in the reservoirs drops to very low levels."

-"Russia and China just solidified the most important partnership in modern world history. Their goal is to re-order the global power center away from global elites at the WEF. All of this as China prepares for the reunification of Taiwan."   

-North Korea has said it is willing to send 100,000 "volunteer" troops to help Vladimir Putin execute the ongoing war in Ukraine, Business Insider has reported, citing Channel One Russia. Russian military pundit Igor Korotchenko made the claim to the state broadcaster, saying further that the DPRK military could provide a "wealth of experience with counter-battery warfare." "If North Korea expresses a desire to meet its international duty to fight against Ukrainian fascism, we should let them," Korotchenko was also quoted in New York Post as saying.

-The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Southern Gaza division, Khaled Mansour, was killed last night, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday. This comes two days after the head of the militant group’s northern division, Taysir al-Jabari, was taken out. According to the Israeli military, the death of Mansour completes the neutralization of the whole PIJ leadership. In a Twitter post, the Israeli military said that Mansour, who was “responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers,” was targeted and killed by IDF aircraft.

Russia/Ukraine War Update - August 6th, 2022

*** MILITARY SITUATION ***

There is an report on Ukraine making the rounds that was allegedly written by the higher command of the Ukrainian army and leaked from somewhere.

Dr.Snekotron @snekotron - 12:50 UTC · Aug 5, 2022

Ukrainian channels are discussing what might be a leaked data from AFU General Staff:

- The AFU are only at 43-48% strength

- medical workers at their limit

- small arms and armor are not enough

- 191 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded (only AFU, not including others)

- there is not enough hydraulics and liquid nitrogen for M777 howitzers

- no one cares about the missing - there are no statistics

- the equipment transferred by the West is running out

- western weapons are operated by amateurs, since there are no qualified specialists

- no way to repair weapons on the spot due to the lack of spares and specialists - everything is sent to Poland

BTW, even with this dire report, I would caution against predicting a decisive break in morale. As with Peski, the walking wounded are sent straight back into the trenches

The documents look legit. The overall numbers and issues mentioned seem plausible to me. The high number of casualties (plus the missing) is not astonishing. It would be astonished though if the Russian army and its allies have more than one tenth of those. This is mostly an artillery war and the Russian side has had a vast superiority in guns and missiles.

*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-The US government is reportedly preparing its largest weapons transfer to Ukraine to date, with officials ready to authorize another $1 billion in military aid, including advanced rocket and missile platforms and additional ammunition. The new aid package could be announced as soon as next week, Reuters reported on Friday, citing three unnamed officials. It would bring the total US security assistance to Kiev to nearly $10 billion since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. While the officials said President Joe Biden has yet to formally sign off on the transfer, the current proposal would see $1 billion in arms shipped to Kiev, including additional munitions for the HIMARS rocket system, NASAMS surface-to-air missiles, and up to 50 M113 armored personnel carriers, allegedly the ‘medical’ variant. A separate military aid package to Ukraine was announced on Monday, worth around $550 million, and also featured HIMARS rockets. Washington has so far sent a total of 16 HIMARS systems to Ukraine, longer-range platforms capable of striking targets inside Russian territory. Though Moscow has claimed to have eliminated some of the weapons from the battlefield, US military officials have disputed the Russian account, insisting Kiev’s HIMARS remain intact. The new massive arms transfer also comes after a Pentagon decision to allow US military personnel to treat wounded Ukrainian troops at a large US-run hospital in western Germany, though the logistics for that arrangement remain unclear, as the facility is more than 1,000 miles away from Ukraine’s capital and even further from active battle zones in the Donbass region.

-China has decided to cut diplomatic ties with the US in a number of military and civilian areas, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. The devolvement of ties is Beijing’s way of retaliating for this week’s visit to Taiwan by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. The ministry released a list of areas in which there will no longer be communication between Chinese and American officials. It includes military contacts on the level of theater commander and wider defense policy coordination talks. Also suspended are consultations on maritime security, cooperation on the repatriation of illegal migrants, legal assistance on criminal matters, fighting against transnational crime and drug trafficking, and talks on climate change, according to the statement.

-Amnesty International has in a surprise shift placed its human rights scrutiny on Ukraine in a fresh report released Thursday. It immediately sparked a firestorm of criticism as both Western pundits and Kiev officials themselves blasted the findings as "unfair". The Amnesty report said investigators had "found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas, as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages" in three war-torn regions of the country from April through July. The report detailed that schools and hospitals, as well as people's homes, were put in harm's way, suggesting 'human shields' type tactics utilized by the Ukrainian military.

-Canada is sending up to 225 Canadian armed forces to the UK to recommence the training of Ukrainian military recruits, the Canadian defence minister has announced. Since 2015, Canada has trained 33,000 Ukrainian military and security personnel but in February paused aspects of the training.

-A leading Russian hypersonics expert has been arrested on suspicion of treason, the state-controlled TASS news agency reported on Friday. Andrei Shiplyuk heads the hypersonics laboratory at the Novosibirsk Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, according to the institute’s website, and has in recent years coordinated research to support the development of hypersonic missile systems, Reuters reports. The Russian news agency cited one of Shiplyuk’s colleagues as saying searches had been conducted at the institute. Last month Dmitry Kolker, another Novosibirsk-based physicist, died of pancreatic cancer shortly after being arrested on suspicion of treason.

-Yesterday, a Russian court convicted the US basketball player Brittney Griner on drug charges, sentencing her to nine years in prison and a 1m rouble fine in a politically charged verdict expected to lead to a prisoner swap with the US. US president Joe Biden released a statement following Griner’s sentencing, calling her detention “unacceptable” and demanding she be released. Now, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has confirmed Russia would be willing to discuss a prisoner swap, but not publicly.

-Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash has written this comment piece about the prospects of the war in Ukraine ending soon. He says Putin is banking on a failure of political will in the west before Russia runs out of firepower and that democratic leaders need to prepare their citizens for a long struggle over Ukraine – and a hard winter.

-Ways to halt the war in Ukraine and the possible launch of a new conflict in Syria are expected to dominate talks on Friday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turkish leader was riding high from the diplomatic success of helping orchestrate the resumption of Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea when he took most of his top ministers to Sochi for his second round of talks with Putin in 17 days. But there are tensions, AFP reports. Putin told Erdoğan in Tehran last month that Russia remains opposed to any new offensive that Turkey might be planning against Kurdish militants in northern Syria.

-Russia has banned investors from so-called “unfriendly countries” from selling shares in certain strategic enterprises until the end of the year, a presidential decree signed by Vladimir Putin showed on Friday. The ban also applies to stakes in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development in Russia’s far east, Reuters reports. Its operator, ExxonMobil, said this week it was in the process of transferring its 30% stake to another party.

-US Navy ships and planes will transit the Taiwan strait in the next two weeks, the White House announced on Thursday. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned Chinese military drills in the area and said the Pentagon had ordered the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and her escorts to remain near Taiwan to “monitor the situation.” The Reagan and her accompanying ships are based in Japan and were deployed to the East China Sea in recent days, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taipei against Chinese objections. Beijing has responded to Pelosi’s visit by launching extensive drills around Taiwan and firing a dozen missiles across the island.

-Russia’s Defense Ministry says it’s investigating the possible role of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the creation of the Covid-19 virus. In a press briefing on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, claimed that US-backed bio-laboratories in Ukraine had been conducting questionable research and clinical tests on Ukrainian citizens, and that “over 16,000 biological samples, including blood and serum samples, were exported from the territory of Ukraine to US and European countries.”

He went on to explain that a statement from Jason Crow, a member of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who warned Americans that their DNA samples could be used to create targeted biological weapons, caused Russia’s Defense Ministry to “take a fresh look” at the origins of the Covid pandemic. “Taking into account the interest of the US administration in the study of narrowly targeted biological agents, such statements force us to take a fresh look at the causes of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the role of US military biologists in the emergence and spread of the Covid-19 pathogen,” Kirillov said.

Covid-19 may have originated in US biolab – Lancet chairREAD MORE: Covid-19 may have originated in US biolab – Lancet chair

Russia now suspects that USAID might have been directly responsible for the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, according to Kirillov, who pointed to a Lancet article by Columbia professor Jeffry Sachs, who suggested that the virus was likely created in a lab with the help of the America’s latest achievements in the field of biotechnology.

-Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema - the lone Democrat holdout on the Biden administration's revamped reconciliation bill - has finally signed off on it, after Democrats agreed to preserve the so-called carried interest loophole that allows investment managers (like her former bosses) to shield the majority of their income from higher taxes. In fact, Sinema told donors at a Wednesday night fundraiser that it makes 'no sense' to squeeze the private-equity industry that will finance various projects for the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure and $280 billion semiconductor bills that were signed into law earlier, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing a lobbyist who attended. "We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation," Sinema said in a statement, adding that she would move forward with the legislation following a review by the Senate's parliamentarian - who will rule on whether elements such as domestic content requirements for cars eligible for EV tax credits, caps on insulin, and other provisions, meet strict budget rules.

-The US delayed the test launch of an Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan earlier this week, which triggered Beijing to conduct war drills around the self-ruled island on Thursday. WSJ said US officials were planning to launch the ICBM from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California but have delayed the launch to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing. 

-The United States says it's watching ongoing Chinese military drills around Taiwan very closely, while condemning the latest series of ballistic missiles fired over the island as a severe provocation and escalation. The White House has ordered the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group to stay in the area. US National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby said in statements to MSNBC Thursday: "We’ve been watching this very, very closely. It’s concerning. It’s not just concerning to us, but it’s concerning, of course, to the people of Taiwan. It’s concerning to to our allies in the region, especially Japan." "The provocateur here is Beijing. They didn’t have to react this way to what is completely normal travel by congressional members to Taiwan...The Chinese are the ones who are escalating this," Kirby added. He warned further, "One of the things that’s troublesome about exercises like this or missile launches like this is the risk of calculation, the risk of a mistake that could actually lead to some sort of conflict," he said.

-Barely a month since their delivery, the first German armored self-propelled guns have already ceased service in Ukraine, according to a report by German newspaper Der Spiegel. The German Ministry of Defense was informed by Kyiv last week that an error message appeared on the cannons and that several of them needed to be repaired. According to the Bundeswehr, the reason behind the malfunction may be that the Ukrainians are firing the guns more intensively than the technology is capable of. This means that the stress on the loading systems may be too high. Another problem could be that the soldiers reportedly fire the units from too far away with the special ammunition; the smart grenades used by these cannons were meant for shorter-range, precision hits. The Bundeswehr explained that misuse of the weapons could have contributed to a more accelerated wear and tear. Despite the problems, however, they agreed to supply Ukraine with additional weapons packages.

-Amid a growing wave of corporate layoff announcements, the number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits rose to 260k last week (moving its 4-week average to the highest in 8 months). More problematically, continuing claims is now starting to roll notably higher at 1.416mm - the highest since April. Connecticut, Oklahoma, and California saw the biggest rise in jobless claims; while Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Ohio saw the biggest drop in claims. Jobless claims are now completely decoupled from the headlines payrolls data.

-China has kicked off its latest round of war drills Thursday aimed at encircling and pressuring Taiwan in the wake of this week's House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visit to the self-ruled island, the day after she departed and continued on her Asia tour to South Korea. According to China's People's Daily, this has included PLA command dispatching "hundreds" of fighter jets to enter airspace off the northern, southwestern and southeastern airspaces of the island, at a moment Taiwan's defense forces are on a heightened state of alert. On Wednesday some half a dozen jets were reported as having breached the 'median line' separating the Taiwan Strait. Beijing is promising in essence this is only the beginning.

And more alarming, China launched a series of ballistic missiles into waters off Taiwan, with some having flown over the island. "Taiwan has confirmed that mainland China launched 11 Dongfeng series missiles into waters north, south and east of the island on Thursday afternoon, a day after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taipei," South China Morning Post reports. "The island’s defence ministry said the 11 DF series missiles were fired between 1.56pm and 4pm. It is the first time mainland missiles have flown over the island." Taipei's defense ministry immediately condemned the severe provocation: "The defence ministry condemned the irrational actions to undermine regional peace," a statement said. Taiwan further called on Beijing to be "self-restrained".

Meanwhile, China is furious over a prior day Group of Seven (G7) statement condemning its military drills. The G7 warned Beijing not to use Pelosi's visit as "pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait". In protest, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has within the last hours canceled what was to be a face-to-face summit with his Japanese counterpart. At the same time increased cyberattacks are being reported against Taiwan government websites in local media.

-On Tuesday while media headlines and the world's attention was largely focused on Nancy Pelosi's provocative Taiwan visit, the Biden administration quietly unveiled a massive new arms deal for Saudi Arabia and the UAE - described as the United States' close "Middle East partners". "The US State Department today approved more than $5 billion in arms deals for key Middle East partners, including $3.05 billion in Patriot missiles for Saudi Arabia and $2.25 billion in THAAD systems for the United Arab Emirates," Breaking Defense wrote of the approval. Likely the deal was under preparation for a long time, given its size, with President Biden's July 15 visit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - where he had his infamous fist-bump greeting and meeting with a grinning crown prince Mohammed bin Salman - having sealed it. Essentially this was the Biden administration bestowing 'forgiveness' for the Saudi state murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

-We have been writing over the last couple months about the coming reverse bullwhip effect - most recently noting inventory of semiconductor chips that is piling up in South Korea - and this week it is being reported that companies are seeking new warehouse space just to keep up with growth in inventories. Retailers are "struggling to find space," the Wall Street Journal reported this week, stating that Prologis expects an additional 800 million square feet of warehouse space to be needed beyond earlier projections to handle the excess inventories". Chris Caton, managing director of global strategy and analytics at Prologis, told the Journal: “We have specifically heard from customers who are looking at carrying more inventories and are leasing space.” Names like Walmart and Best Buy have reported they are dealing with inventory gluts, including in clothes, kitchen appliances and electronics. The gluts are a result of consumers spending less as inflation continues to put pressure on the middle and lower class in the country. 

-Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wants to talk directly to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in the hope China can use its influence with Russia to bring the war to an end. 

-The US Senate has ratified Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, voting 95-1 in support. 

-Ukraine is pulling out its 40 peacekeepers from the Nato-led mission in Kosovo, which totals 3,800 members, according to Ukrainian news. In March, Zelenskiy issued a decree for all missions to return to Ukraine to support the war.

-Ukraine failed to stop a Syrian-flagged vessel claimed to be carrying stolen Ukrainian grain from leaving Lebanon. The Lebanese government reported on Thursday that the Syrian-flagged Laodicea had left its territorial waters, despite appeals from Kyiv to reverse a court decision allowing its departure. 

-Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has branded “disgusting” the behaviour of the ex German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The former German leader has come under fire, after he went on holiday to Moscow and had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin. Schröder told German media in a lengthy interview he had nothing to apologise for over his friendship with the Russian president.

An American Volunteer's Story

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Pisky. Ukraine. Meat grinder

The Russian side has changed the primary direction of its thrust from the northern front of the Sievierdonetsk-Lysichansk-Siversk direction to a push further south. The current offensive operation is concentrated north-west and west of Donetsk city in the direction of Avdivka. There is an envelope operation going on its north and south to surround that extremely heavily fortified town.

Pisky is the southern part of that envelope operation.

Following intense artillery preparations Russian forces are currently - slowly, slowly - clearing the lines of reinforced concrete bunkers and ditches that have been build on the Ukrainian side over the last 8 years. Here is the view of that battle from the Ukrainian side. 

  (Note: 300 is the military cargo designator for wounded, 200 is for KIA):

Pisky. Meat grinder

Author: Serhiy Gnezdilov

What is there to lose, what else can be taken from me on the sixth day of my personal hell, in Pisky, a kilometer from the first street of Donetsk, Ukraine? The bodies of those who were dearer to me than my family are lying under the heat in the trenches, broken by 152 caliber. As I wrote earlier, 6,500 shells per damn village in less than a day.

It's been six such days already, and I can't imagine how even a small number of our infantry survived in this barrage of enemy fire.

No, I'm not whining.

Two mortars 82 and 120 are working on our side.

Sometimes they wake up and "sneeze" two artillery barrels in the direction of Donetsk.

We hardly respond. There is no counter-battery fire, from the word go, the enemy puts artillery shells in our trenches without any problems, dismantles very strong, concrete positions in tens of minutes, pushing our defense line without pause or minimal rest.

The day before yesterday, the line broke, and a river of 200 or 300 [killed/wounded] was poured. I will not publish any statistics, it is forbidden in our country, but you have no idea the number and percentage of losses.

This is a hell of a meat grinder, where the battalion simply holds back the onslaught with their bodies.

For almost a week, we have been waiting for at least some kind of help that would hit the enemy's artillery, we, I repeat, are being fired with impunity with everything that the Russian military system is rich in, their aviation was working today.

I am proud of the leadership of the battalion that remained here with us. The combatant is with us, everyone is with us, contused, light 300, bandaged and returned after a couple of hours to the position, if you can call these bottomless ravines that way.

There is a war going on.

But without a counter-battery fight, it turns into a senseless meat grinder, where an insane amount of our infantry is ground up in a day.

Did you really want the truth? Here it is, the naked truth.

The reserve goes to the position, closes the breakthrough, and after five minutes, only one of the 15 people remains intact.

The bodies lie on the ground. If it's a light 300, maybe you'll be lucky, you'll faint, and you'll get out on foot, you'll reach the medics.

They just took a 300 [wounded]. He shouted all the way: - "Where is the support? Where is the artillery? Why were we abandoned? Why didn't anyone cover us?"

I don't know, my friend, why no one covered us... He screams, and I'm ashamed that I'm still safe and sound, only a couple of good deafening.

I threw up, I pissed myself, I'm sorry, and I'm back in action.

All reserves are destroyed, military equipment is on fire, the enemy approaches and without any problems occupies our positions after another barrage of artillery.

Right now we are losing Pisky, all our human and material resources are almost exhausted.

Denys, a resident of Mariupol, who told me "well, I trust the arrestee [Zelenski advisor Arestovich], we will return everything back very soon" is dead. He was wounded twice, they bandaged him right in the trench, they told him, Denchyk, go to the evacuation, but he answered "guys, I will not abandon you."

Both wounded for the first time, and after the second wounding, he continued to shoot back.

We still haven't taken his body. On the ruins of Pisky, he lies with his arms outstretched and his gaze frozen. He asks for revenge. How can I refuse his latest request? How can we all leave Dan?

I believe that Dimka survived after all. Because he could not die, having recently returned from the hospital, having just proposed to his girlfriend. They say that after one of the parishes he simply disappeared. It fell asleep with earth. But, I believe that this is a mistake, and he is alive. Foolish hope and expectation.

I know, my country does not like to think aloud. But, I was left with no choice between victory and arrest. The truth should be heard, not whispers in the kitchen. Of course, he will fly separately for this post, because how? Yes, does the state lie to its own citizens?

I won't be surprised if someone says today: "Kremlin agent Sirozh talked about the brilliant plan of the victors on the Donetsk front, let's hang him on the peacemaker."

I amused to say that everything is under control. Now in Pisky, everything is not under anyone's control, but for some reason the situation is being hushed up.

Ring broken bells while we cover Pisky with bodies.

We need artillery.

Give us something here to hold on to.

The unit in Pisky (Peski), where Serhiy Gnezdilov reported from, was retreating towards Vodiane (Vodyanoye), north of Pisky. On their way the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) opened fire on them, killing nearly everyone who had survived the Russian attacks against Pisky.

Was this punishment for the already late retreat? Or was it a misidentification by a forward artillery observer who thought that those retreating Ukrainian forces were attacking Russian units? I don't know, but ...

Now put yourself into the position of Serhiy Gnezdilov, Denys or Dimka. Then think about the politicians who sweet talk of heroic Ukrainian resistance and send these men to be slaughtered for no possible gain.

Sorry Serhiy, more artillery wont do it. The Russian side would just grind it up within days. How many of the 120 U.S. M-777 howitzers that were given to Ukraine still exist? Maybe 10 or so, most of them damaged?

There are other operations going on. North of the Donetsk front there is a thrust towards Bakhmut (also known as Artomovsk). Yesterday Soledar, north of Bakhmut was reported to be mostly captured. 

Vershyna and Zaiseve, south of it, are also gone or will fall soon.

The Ukrainian Center is Starting to Collapse

Russia/Ukraine War Update - August 3rd, 2022

*** 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.

Aussy Cory Bernardi Reads My Mind

Russia/Ukraine War Update - July 27th, 2022

The first echelon with PLA armored vehicles arrived in Russia. On July 25, 2022, the military echelon of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) arrived at the Zabaikalsk station with equipment to participate in the "Tank Biathlon", which will be held in Alabino near Moscow as part of the International Army Games. The echelon includes platforms with Type-96B tanks, special repair and maintenance equipment, wagons with logistics and standard ammunition. The advance group arrived on the same echelon, including tank drivers and the engineering and technical staff of the PLA team participating in the "Tank Biathlon".

Following the Chinese tankmen, servicemen of the Tibetan Military District of the Western Zone of the PLA Combat Command are moving to Russia, who will take part in the international competition of mountain units "Elbrus Ring" and the international competition of military motorists "Masters of Armored Vehicles" at Army Games-2022. For the first time, Chinese military personnel will bring to Russia third-generation Dongfeng Warrior armored vehicles, which have been massively entering service with the PLA since 2018.

-A key Russian-held bridge into the occupied southern city of Kherson has been hit with a barrage of rocket fire by Ukrainian forces, who appeared to be stepping up operations to isolate the city. Video and witness accounts showed up to 18 detonations on the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper river, one of the main Russian resupply routes into Kherson, with Russian anti-missile air defences apparently failing to intercept the strikes. There were also reports that a railway bridge was targeted. Authorities in the occupied Kherson region have closed the bridge to traffic, but said it was structurally sound and that repairs would begin shortly.

-The UK’s Ministry of Defence has said “Russian private military company Wagner has likely succeeded in making tactical advances in the Donbas around the Vuhlehirska power plant and the nearby village of Novoluhanske. Some Ukrainian forces have likely withdrawn from the area.”

-Russia has “definitively” lost the initiative in the battle for the Donbas in Ukraine, according to western officials. Moscow will not take the eastern industrial heartland in the “immediate future”, one official said, but “they are not just going to give up and go home”.

************

-Senior members of the Conservative Party are backing the prospect of outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson becoming the next NATO secretary general, The Telegraph has reported. The current chief of the US-led military bloc Jens Stoltenberg is “widely expected to stand down in September next year,” leaving the high-profile defense position open, the paper said.

-China may use warplanes and missile drills in order to prevent Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi from visiting Taiwan, multiple reports have said. The California Democrat has neither confirmed nor denied plans to go to the island next month after media reports. Beijing could declare a no-fly zone or restrict navigation by conducting military exercises near the Taiwan Strait, forcing Pelosi’s aircraft “to make a detour,” the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, citing military experts. CNN similarly quoted a White House official on Friday as voicing concern that China may announce a no-fly zone in an attempt to derail Pelosi’s possible trip. The New York Times quoted US officials on Monday as saying that China could send warplanes to “escort” Pelosi’s aircraft and prevent it from landing.

-Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has told British broadcaster Piers Morgan that inflation and coronavirus are “nothing” compared to Ukraine’s struggle, and Americans should support aid for Kiev “until we win.”

-German arms manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) has struck a deal with the Ukrainian government that would see the firm produce and supply Kiev with as many as 100 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday, citing a company representative. Berlin approved the sale in just two days, the paper said.

-Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz suggested his country could launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear program, calling it “a global problem” at a conference on Tuesday. He also criticized the 2015 nuclear deal – abandoned by the US in 2018 – and the possibility of its revival, though the negotiations to that effect don’t seem to be going anywhere. 

-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the US has made a “substantial offer” to Russia to secure the release of basketball player Brittney Griner and convicted spy Paul Whelan. According to a CNN report, the offer involves trading Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for the two Americans. “In the coming days I expect to speak to Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov … I plan to raise an issue that’s a top priority for us, the release of America’s Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner,” Blinken told reporters. “Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally.”

-Beijing pushed back on Tuesday against a proposal by US Senator Marco Rubio who wants to sanction any entity that purchases oil or other energy supplies from Russia and delivers them to China. China “is always against unilateral, illegal sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a regular press briefing. He added that Beijing and Moscow “are engaged in normal economic and trade cooperation” that is not aimed against “any third parties and is not affected by external interference.” “The senator…[Rubio] is known to blame China for everything and knows no political ethics,” Zhao said.

-A bipartisan group of three US senators urged Meta’s Facebook, Twitter and Telegram to do a better job of stopping Russian efforts to spread Spanish-language disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine. Senators Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the letters, dated Wednesday, along with Senators Tim Kaine, also a Democrat, and Bill Cassidy, a Republican.

-The Ukrainian government on Tuesday asked Washington to provide Kyiv with a "lend-lease" program to import natural gas from the US to ensure Ukraine has enough gas for heating this winter, Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal indicated. The idea is for the US to provide gas to Ukraine and collect payment at a later time, similar to the World War II-era lend-lease program that was revived this year to facilitate military aid to Ukraine. "Preparation for the most difficult winter in our history continues, and in this preparation we are looking for all possible tools to be ready for any scenario," Shmyhal wrote on Telegram. According to Foreign Policy, one of the proposals that has been floated by Ukrainian officials would be for the US to provide Ukraine with 6 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) without collecting payment for two years. The US would deliver the LNG to terminals in Europe, where it will be shipped to Ukraine via pipeline. It’s estimated that the 6 billion cubic meters of LNG would cost about $8 billion. So far, the US has authorized $54 billion to spend on the war in Ukraine, more than half of which is for military aid. But the US is expected to spend more as the current funding is only meant to last through September 30.

-If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) follows through on her planned trip to Taiwan, the US military will beef up security in case a 'mishap, misstep or misunderstanding' endangers her safety, AP reports. While the trip is still an uncertainty, officials say that the military would 'increase its movement of forces and assets in the Indo-Pacific region,' though they declined to go into further detail - aside from noting that fighter jets, ships, surveillance assets and other military systems would be used 'to provide overlapping rings of protection' for her flight, and any time she spent on the ground. The American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group, including a guided missile destroyer and a guided missile cruiser, set out from Singapore on Monday heading northeast towards the South China Sea, according to ship-tracking information provided by Beijing-based think tank the South China Sea Strategic Probing Initiative.

-Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, UK writes:

“He [Putin] has weaponized food, energy and refugees, spreading economic and political pain across the continent. Sanctions don’t work, a land for peace deal would be a disaster. Only the military route remains.”

Tisdall seems to be advocating for direct NATO intervention. It is interesting that the country that is the farthest away and most isolated from the conflict is the loudest voices for escalating that conflict. When the Poles are in favor of it, only then will it mean something.

-With PMIs sinking rapidly and macro surprise indices crashing, analysts finally lost the faith and after months of expectations for continued rises in US durable goods orders, in June consensus finally dipped to -0.4% for May. It turns out that for the second consecutive month, they were 'under'-optimistic as durable goods orders surged 1.9% MoM, up more than double from 0.8% in May, and rose a generous 11.8% YoY NSA. Ok fine, but it is the headline data that feeds into GDP, so we should at least find out what caused the transportation-related burst? And the answer is two fold: first, transportation new orders jumped 5.1% MoM as US automakers apparently got a new batch of chips allowing them to complete whatever legacy production was halted. But a far bigger reason for the surge in headline durables was a much simpler one: the war in Ukraine. That's right, as the chart below shows, the monthly increase in Defense aircraft and parts Durable new orders soared by $10.5 billion (not seasonally adjusted), the third biggest print on record, and not too far off the $13.4 billion record set in the weeks after the Sept 11 war.

-Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has nominated Andriy Kostin, a lawmaker from the president’s political party, to be the country’s next prosecutor general. Reuters reports Zelenskiy submitted a formal request to parliament for the assembly to vote to confirm Kostin’s appointment. He would replace Iryna Venediktova, who was removed as prosecutor general earlier this month.

-The first train with sanctioned goods has arrived from Russia to Kaliningrad via Lithuania in the first such trip since the European Union said Lithuania must allow Russian goods across its territory, according to the regional governor. The train reportedly consisted of 60 freight cars with cement.

-On Tuesday Israel's defense chief issued a surprise admission connected to the war in Syria, specifically related to the literally hundreds of strikes Israel's air force has conducted on targets in Syria over the past few years. Defense Minister Benny Gantz described an incident in May wherein Israeli military jets operating over Syria were engaged and fired on by a Russian anti-aircraft battery. He said the Russian missiles missed their target, downplaying it as a "one-off incident". Israel has of late semi-regularly attacked positions in and around Damascus, especially to the south and near the Golan Heights, claiming to be targeting "Iranian assets" and weaponry. Last month for example, Syria was forced to halt all flights from Damascus international airport, the country's largest, following Israeli airstrikes that destroyed runways and crucial infrastructure, earning severe condemnation from Moscow.

-Russia has announced it plans to hold large-scale military exercises in a far eastern district next month. As Reuters comments of the planned drills, they will be held "thousands of miles from the war it is waging in Ukraine." A Tuesday defense ministry statement said the military's ability to conduct major drills remained unaffected by the "special operation" in neighboring Ukraine, a war which is now six months in. Describing that the armed forces haven't had to cancel or cut its routine drills, the MoD statement said, "We draw your attention to the fact that only a part of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is involved in the special military operation (in Ukraine), the number of which is quite sufficient to fulfil all the tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief." Very likely Vostok 2022 will include the participation of China and Mongolia, just as in the past.

-The Hungarian government has set up a new Defense Council led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban which has been given special decision-making authority, the PM’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi announced on Tuesday. As quoted by Hungarian news agency MTI, Havasi explained that the council was created in response to the military conflict in Ukraine and the ensuing economic crisis in Europe. He also noted that increased pressure from migration had made it necessary to pay special attention to protecting Hungary’s security and sovereignty in the coming years. The council will deal with proposals and reports regarding national security, public safety, border controls, national defense, migrant cases, natural disaster protections, counter-terrorism efforts and defense developments. "The Defense Council is a forum for government political decision-making with special powers, the chairman is the prime minister, and the secretary is the chief national security adviser," Havesi explained.

-Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Thursday said he didn’t discuss during his visit to Moscow the possibility of a meeting between his country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He made the statement at a news conference following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. "As for the summit, I don't have that mandate," Szijjarto said to a question from a reporter of the Hungarian news agency MTI. My mandate [at the talks in Moscow] applies only to gas purchases."

-Gerhard Schröder is in Moscow. According to SPIEGEL information, the talks are about gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. He traveled to Russia via Baku.

-Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has defended his country’s relationship with Russia, as Moscow’s top diplomat toured Africa to rally support over the war in Ukraine. “How can we be against somebody who has never harmed us,” the Ugandan leader said alongside Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference in the town of Entebbe, according to Agence France-Presse. “If Russia makes mistakes, we tell them. When they have not made mistakes, we can’t be against them,” he added, hailing Russia for backing anti-colonial movements in Africa.

-Ukraine aims to strike a deal for a $15-$20bn programme with the International Monetary Fund before year-end to help shore up its war-torn economy, the country’s central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko told Reuters. Battered by Russia’s invasion, Ukraine faces a 35%-45% economic contraction in 2022 and a monthly fiscal shortfall of $5bn and is heavily reliant on foreign financing from its western partners.

-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has greenlit plans to treat injured Ukrainian soldiers at a US military hospital in Germany, CNN reported on Tuesday. Wounded personnel can now be hospitalized at an EU-based facility. According to a memo obtained by the outlet, Ukrainian soldiers would be taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, not far from the French border. Up to 18 service personnel can apparently undergo treatment at the facility at any given time.

-The Ukrainian government has published a list of politicians, academics, and activists who it claims promote "Russian propaganda". Absurdly, it includes high American officials - even a sitting US senator - and a Pulitzer Price winning journalist. A Kiev government-linked agency called the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation released the list earlier this month, identifying figures such as Republican Senator Rand Paul, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), military analyst Edward Luttwak, University of Chicago professor and international relations theorist John Mearsheimer, and award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept, among many others. A number of notable international names are on the list as well, such as French populist political leader Marine Le Pen, or even an Italian General named General Leonardo Tricarico, who blames Ukraine for Russia's invasion and has urged immediate negotiations to end the war. Some of those on the list, such as Edward Luttwak, have actually loudly supported sending Western arms to Ukraine's military. In Luttwak's case, he was apparently deemed by Ukrainian officials a 'pro-Russian propagandist' merely for proposing a war-time compromise of allowing referendums in the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

-On Tuesday morning, the Biden administration said it will sell an additional 20 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve held in hollowed-out salt caverns on the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, as part of the previous plan to tap the facility to lower oil prices, and bringing total sales to 200 million. The sales will take place in September and October, and are set to conclude just days before the November midterm elections. It wasn't clear how much of the incremental barrels will go to China.

-Despite damaging Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy appears to be weathering the storm better than expected as it benefits from high energy prices, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, Agence France Presse reports. The sanctions were meant to sever Russia from the global financial system and choke off funds available to Moscow to finance the war. But the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook upgraded Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimate for this year by a remarkable 2.5%, although its economy is still expected to contract by 6%.

-European natural gas futures extended gains by 12% after Russian state-owned energy producer Gazprom PJSC unexpectedly announced it would halt a Nord Stream 1 turbine at its Portovaya compressor station from Wednesday. Simultaneously, US NatGas futures have spiked to 14-year highs. Russian NatGas supplies to Europe via Nord Stream pipeline fell to 38% capacity from 40% on Tuesday, ahead of a more significant cut from current levels to just 20% on Wednesday. In a statement, Gazprom said the Nord Stream pipeline would be pumping 33 million cubic meters a day, or 20% of capacity, from Wednesday, adding another turbine for the pipeline will be taken offline due to maintenance work. 

-EU member states have agreed to ration gas this winter, in an attempt to avoid an energy crisis generated by further Russian cuts to supply. Energy ministers from the 27 member states mostly backed a plan for a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, but added in several opt-outs for island nations and countries unconnected or little connected to the European gas network, which will blunt the overall effect. The European Commission had suggested that a collective 15% gas savings target would reduce gas consumption by 45bn cubic metres. Once exemptions are taken into account the final bcm tally will be lower, after a revolt led by southern European countries that use less or no Russian gas.

-Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold a one-day visit to the Russian resort of Sochi on 5 August, his office has just announced. Reuters reports that no further details were immediately available, but it is anticipated that he would meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

-Ukraine’s Naftogaz has become the first Ukrainian government entity to default since Russia’s invasion of its smaller southern neighbour five months ago, after the state-owned energy firm failed to make payments due on international bonds before the expiry of a grace period on Tuesday, Reuters reports. The company said in a statement that it had failed to get creditors’ support for a proposal to freeze payments on some of its bonds for two years which it had launched last week.

-The Biden administration has estimated that it may need almost $7 billion from Congress to respond to the spread of monkeypox, given “the scope and urgency of the current situation,” the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing a White House memo.

-Hair loss, reduced libido and sexual dysfunction are among a wide range of symptoms that can follow a Covid-19 infection, a new study released on Monday suggests. According to a peer-reviewed study in the Nature Medicine journal, the most common long Covid symptoms include loss of smell, fatigue and shortness of breath. However, hair growth and libido can also be impaired, among other previously unrecognized symptoms.

Russia/Ukraine War Update - July 26th, 2022

*** MILITARY SITUATION ***

 -Russia’s armed forces destroyed eight Ukrainian missile and artillery arms depots in the southern Mykolaiv region and in the eastern Donetsk region, the defence ministry said in its daily briefing on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials said earlier on Tuesday that Russia launched a “massive missile strike” against the south of the country overnight, including hits against infrastructure in the black sea port of Mykolaiv.

-Ukrainian forces have bombed a customs checkpoint in the Sevsky district of Russia’s Bryansk region using an explosive dropped from a quadcopter drone, according to the region’s governor.

-Russia is moving convoys of military equipment to Kherson, Ukraine’s military claims. In an operation update posted to the armed forces of Ukraine’s Telegram on Monday evening, the military said convoys of military equipment were seen moving through Melitopol, in the direction of Kherson.

-A major fire broke out at an oil depot in the Budyonnovsky district of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian troops shelled the province, according to local media reports.

-The UK’s Ministry of Defence has said it believes that Russia is experiencing a “critical shortage” of ground-attack missiles, even as it advances on Kramatorsk and Siversk.

-The US believes that Russia’s military is sustaining hundreds of casualties a day in its war in Ukraine, and has lost thousands of lieutenants and captains in total, a senior US defence official said on Friday. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the US also believed Ukraine had destroyed more than 100 “high-value” Russian targets inside Ukraine, including command posts, ammunition depots and air-defence sites.

-Ukraine predicts that it will recapture the southern region of Kherson by September. Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the head of Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television: “We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail.” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said Ukrainian forces were moving “step by step” into Kherson. However, other reports suggest Ukrainian soldiers are doing well just to hold the front line in nearby villages.

-In its daily operational briefing, Russia’s ministry of defence has claimed that it repelled two Ukrainian landing craft attempting to cross the Dnieper river into the occupied southern part of the Kherson region. It claimed that the boats and the “saboteurs on board” were destroyed. The ministry also claims to have shot down six unmanned drones, and to have destroyed a depot being used as a transport hub for US-supplied Himars ammunition.

-The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued its intelligence briefing on the position in Ukraine. It claims: Inconclusive fighting continues in both the Donbas and Kherson sectors. Russian commanders continue to face a dilemma; whether to resource the offensive in the east, or to bolster the defence in the west.

-Ukrainian forces have destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots using US-supplied Himars rocket systems in the war with Russia, Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Monday. 

-Ukrainian military officials have claimed a “turning point” in the battle to retake the southern region of Kherson, saying they will use western weapons to liberate by September the first major city captured by Russian forces. Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the administrative head of the Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television on Sunday: “We can say that a turning point has occurred on the battlefield. We are switching from defensive to counteroffensive actions.”

-Ukraine said it destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots using the US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars) on Monday. The systems, delivered late last month, have turned the war in Ukraine’s favour by dismantling Russia’s logistics and slowing down its offensive, say Ukrainian authorities. “This cuts [Russian] logistical chains and takes away their ability to conduct active fighting and hit our armed forces with heavy shelling,” Ukraine’s minister of defence, Oleksii Reznikov, said.

-On the frontlines, the Ukrainian military reported widespread Russian artillery barrages in the east overnight Sunday-Monday and said Moscow’s troops were preparing for a new assault on Bakhmut, a city in the industrial Donbas region, Reuters reports.

*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-Ukraine has received its first shipment of German ‘Gepard’ anti-aircraft systems, as well as thousands of rounds of suitable ammunition, according to a statement made by Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov on Monday. “We are waiting for the first 15 Gepards. Three have arrived in Ukraine today. They are already at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Reznikov said on national television. “These are anti-aircraft systems, for which tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition have been transferred to us.” 

-Slovakia’s NATO allies would need to offer money or replacement fighters if they expect Bratislava to send a dozen MiG-29 jets to Ukraine at the end August, Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said on Monday. Speaking alongside his British colleague Ben Wallace, who urged Slovakia to send more weapons to Kiev, Nad said his government is open to discussion, but would not commit to anything.

-MOSCOW, 25 July. /TASS/. The FSB of Russia disrupted the operation of the Ukrainian military intelligence to hijack the planes of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which was supervised by the NATO special services. This was reported to TASS on Monday at the Center for Public Relations (CSP) of the FSB of Russia. "The Federal Security Service uncovered and stopped the operation of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to hijack combat aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, supervised by NATO special services," the CSO noted.

The FSB reported that "Ukrainian military intelligence officers, acting on behalf of the political leadership of their country, tried to recruit Russian military pilots for a monetary reward and guarantees of obtaining citizenship of one of the EU countries, to persuade them to fly and land aircraft at airfields controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine." As noted in the special service, the identification of these plans by the counterintelligence of the FSB also made it possible to strike at a number of Ukrainian military facilities. "In the course of the operational game, Russian counterintelligence officers obtained information that helped our armed forces inflict fire damage on a number of Ukrainian military facilities," the FSB said. In addition, employees of the Ukrainian special services involved in the operation and their accomplices have been identified. From the FSB video with a conversation with a Ukrainian intelligence representative, it follows that the Russian Aerospace Forces were ready to pay up to $2 million for the hijacked plane.

-A few hours after the revelations about the failed Ukrainian secret operation to hijack Russian fighter airplanes were published, Bellingcat's lead Russia investigator Christo Grozev added a few more excuses for his deep involvement in the failed clandestine scheme:

Christo Grozev @christogrozev - 14:52 UTC · Jul 25, 2022 - The Ukrainian operation was not a project of either SBU or GUR. (If it were, there'd be no way we would - or want to - get access to it). It was organized by maverick ex operatives whom we got to know in the Wagner investigation. So all the Russian statements from today - claiming this was a "GUR" (Military Intel) operation "with support from NATO" - total, unadulterated bollocks. The whole of the FSB CI were fighting tooth and nail against a bunch of, essentially, volunteers. And not for the first time.

In a weird coincidence ...

16:27 UTC · Jul 25, 2022 - Zelensky has removed Ruslan Demchenko from his position as First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council & dismissed Grigoriy Galagan as commander of the AFU Special Operations Forces, replacing him with Viktor Horenko

-The United States has canceled its participation in major annual naval drills which were set to take place on the Black Sea, citing the dangerous regional situation amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Sea Breeze 2022 exercise which takes place in July every year was "canceled due to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine," according to a US Navy statement given to Newsweek Monday. However, in reality it is only the US military's full participation in Sea Breeze that was suspended - not the entirety of the exercise itself. he Navy had previously called the war games "essential" during last year's drills involving 32 warships, including a large US missile destroyer. Ironically the US Navy cast last year's drill as crucial for deterring potential Russian aggression against Ukraine. 

-CIA Director William Burns said he is “very proud” of the agency’s analysis in Afghanistan in 2021 despite being blindsided by the swift collapse of the Afghan government and failing to predict how quickly the Taliban would take Kabul. Burns said Wednesday during an Aspen Security Forum discussion that he was “very proud … of the analysis, with all of its imperfections, that we tried to provide to policymakers over the six months leading up to the withdrawal.” The CIA director prefaced this by admitting the agency had not predicted the Taliban would take over the country as fast as they did and that “all of us have lessons to learn from experiences like that.” He suggested that the CIA had at least gotten it less wrong than other parts of the U.S. government.

-EU member states have agreed an emergency plan to reduce the bloc's gas consumption in a bid to soften the impact of a potential total stoppage in Russian gas supplies, DPA has learned.

-Walmart (WMT) lowered its profit outlook for Q2 and FY23 primarily due to pricing actions aimed to improve inventory levels. Net sales include currency headwinds of roughly USD 1bln in Q2. Co. Expects a USD 1.8bln headwind in H2 '22. Walmart (WMT) shares fell over 9%, Amazon (AMZN) and Target (TGT) were also hit.

-Amazon (AMZN) to raise Prime subscription prices across Europe effective September 15th, according to a spokesman; price hike to be by 20% or more a year, according to Reuters. Prices will increase by 30% in Germany, 20% in the UK, and between 39-43% in Spain, Italy and France, according to Reuters.

-Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has continued to be an awkward thorn in the side of NATO and among Western allies, most recently calling on US forces to "withdraw from east of the Euphrates River" in Syria. He said this days ago upon returning from a controversial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi in Tehran, where high on the agenda was the Astana process the three powers previously brokered for joint security tasks in northern Syria. "For once, America now should leave the east of Euphrates. This is the evaluation of the Astana process. They say that America should withdraw its troops from east of the Euphrates. This is also Türkiye's expectation," Erdogan had said in the remarks.

-The European Union has decided to renew its sanctions against Russia for a further six months, until the end of January 2023. The decision, a formality taken by EU energy ministers, refers to sanctions that were first introduced in 2014 and significantly expanded after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February this year.

-London's power grid was pushed to the brink of failure following last week's record-breaking heatwave. Javier Blas, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities, said power grid disruption hit the eastern part of the British capital for a brief period on July 20 as air conditioners were turned down and spiked power demand, resulting in a bottleneck on the grid. British utilities had trouble pulling from other power-generating sources on the grid. They relied on Belgium via undersea water cables across the English Channel to increase power supply -- boosting power prices to a record high of £9,724.54 (about $11,685) per megawatt hour. This is more than 5,000% versus average power prices of £178 (about $215) per megawatt hour. 

-Russia’s Gazprom is set to cut gas supplies further after announcing a drastic cut to gas deliveries through its main pipeline to Europe from Wednesday. The company said it was halting the operation of one of the last two operating turbines due to the “technical condition of the engine”, cutting daily gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s capacity.

-A South Carolina man serving as a medic in the Ukrainian military has been identified as one of two Americans killed in Ukraine last week. Luke ‘Skywalker’ Lucyszyn, a 31-year-old Myrtle Beach resident, died on 18 July in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region after he was knocked unconscious by an artillery strike and fatally shot by a Russian tank, his commander, Ruslan Miroshnichenko, said in a Facebook post on Monday. The US state department confirmed the deaths of two Americans in Ukraine on Friday but did not release their names or further details. Family and friends confirmed reports with the Associated Press that Lucyszyn was one of the men who died.

Lucyszyn’s longtime friend Trey Kober, of North Myrtle Beach, said Lucyszyn left for Ukraine in early April after telling close friends he felt a responsibility to defend his late grandmother’s homeland. Two weeks before his death, Lucyszyn said goodbye to Kober in an emotional Facebook message after he learned that his platoon would soon be sent to the more dangerous Donbas region. He was pretty confident he wouldn’t be coming back,” Kober said. “He sent us a serious message that said he was being sent to the frontlines to relieve a platoon that had been there for a long time, and he basically just told us, I’m not coming back from this. This is it.’”

-The US donated over 500,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses to Ukraine today, announced the US State department. “We are proud to support the people of Ukraine in their fight against COVID-19,” tweeted the State department.

-Russia’s Gazprom is set to cut supplies further through its single biggest gas link to Germany, crushing hopes a deal over grain supplies would lessen the economic impact of the Ukraine war. The European Union has accused Russia of resorting to energy blackmail, while the Kremlin says the gas disruption is the result of maintenance issues and western sanctions, Reuters reported.

-Russia’s top diplomat has said Moscow’s overarching goal is to topple the government of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as Russian air strikes continue to pummel cities across Ukraine. Speaking to envoys at an Arab League summit in Cairo on Sunday, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is determined to help Ukrainians “liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime”.

-The record-high release of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve will end as scheduled this fall, the White House's Special Presidential Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein told Yahoo Finance. "We can't be an oil supplier. It's a reserve and so we have to keep that," Hochstein said, adding that he did not expect this to lead to price spikes because the oil industry was already preparing to increase production once the SPR release ended. "There's a little bit of hysteria at the moment in the analysis of oil markets," Hochstein said, adding that he had had conversations with oil companies and had their word they would increase production to replace the oil that is currently coming out of the SPR. The plan, announced in April, saw a total of 180 million barrels of crude being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counter the inexorable increase in oil prices amid a tight market, at a rate of some 1 million bpd. Some of that oil reportedly ended up getting exported, including to China, which prompted some. When the plan was announced, there were warnings that it could backfire, pushing prices higher instead of lower because the SPR would need to be replenished after this substantial draw.

-The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Outlook Level of General Business Activity tumbled further in July, dropping to -22.6 from -17.7 (and worse than expected). New Orders and Inventories were the biggest driver of the further weakness, and CapEx fell for the 4th straight month, but it is the comments from survey respondents to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook survey that paint a truer picture than a single headline data point. The concerns of a looming recession have increased over the last month. With supply-chain issues continuing, the cost of raw materials remaining high and significant interest rate hikes, overall business activity has to slow. It is just a matter of when—which I believe is soon.

The economy is in shambles. There’s no way out that isn’t bad.

The building and construction market customers we supply are seeing a slowdown in activity.

November can't get here fast enough.

We are starting to see weakness in incoming orders. We are preparing for a further slowdown but hoping for the best.

Shifting from local pain to national pain, The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index signaled a second straight month of contraction in June (first time since early 2020). The smoothed index dropped into negative territory for the first time since May 2020. The index utilizes 85 individual indicators covering four broad categories of data: production and income; employment, unemployment, and hours; personal consumption and housing; and sales, orders, and inventories. In June, 41 of the 85 made a positive contribution while 44 made negative contributions.

-The United States and its Western allies intend to provide Ukraine with additional 25-to-30 rocket systems, Adam Smith, the head of the Armed Forces Сommittee of the US House of Representatives, revealed on Saturday. That will include both high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) from the UK and some other countries, Smith said in an interview with Radio Liberty. The committee chair admitted that the number of weapons is lower than what Kiev had requested but offered assurance that the US and its partners will provide as much artillery and missiles for the systems as possible.

-Europeans, and especially Germans, breathed a sigh of relief last Thursday when amid fears that Moscow would not restart flows along the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after its 10 day maintenance period, Putin turned the gas back on, if just to its pre-maintenance peak level of about 40% of maximum capacity. Alas Europe's muted celebration were not meant to last, and with many speculating that Russia was just waiting for the right opportunity to turn the screws on Germany, both literally and metaphorically, that's precisely what happened moments ago when shortly after Siemens finally delivered transport documents for the controversial Nord Stream turbine that had been stuck in Canada for weeks, Gazprom unexpectedly announced it would halt one more Nord Stream turbine at its Portovaya compressor station from July 27, “taking into account the technical conditions of the engine,” the Russian company says in a statement. This means that as had been whispered much of last week, gas flows from Portovaya will drop to as much as 33 million cubic meters per day from 7am Moscow time on July 27, which means flows along NS1 will decline by half, from 40% of capacity to just 20%.

-The UK government has drawn up emergency energy plans under which citizens could be asked to switch off their lights and turn down their thermostats to avoid blackouts this winter, the Telegraph has revealed. The plans would be enacted in case of a gas or electricity supply shortage, and the public would be asked to slash their energy consumption, the newspaper reported on Saturday. According to documents seen by the Telegraph, in such a scenario the British government would deliver messages at regular intervals via radio, television, social media as well as posters and leaflets, telling people to cut their electricity and gas usage.

-Turkey continues to be “a source of substantial irritation” for the administration of US president, Joe Biden, the New York Times has reported. According to the outlet, Ankara’s stance on the Ukraine crisis is part of a wider range of issues. Ankara’s involvement in the UN-brokered deal on Ukrainian grain exports between Moscow and Kiev a few days ago was welcomed by Washington, but didn’t mean that all problems in US-Turkish relations have been sorted out, the outlet warned in Saturday’s article. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been described in it as a “headache” and “a source of substantial irritation” for Washington.

-Poland is currently trying to replenish its weapon stockpiles after it transferred over 200 Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukraine for use in the conflict with Russia. Last week, Blaszczak announced the purchase of some 116 used M1 Abrams main battle tanks from the US, on top of a separate deal to procure 250 new tanks.

-US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has denied that the American economy is in recession, even though a report this week may confirm it by the most common definition, saying the nation is instead going through a “necessary and appropriate” slowdown. Yellen defended President Joe Biden’s economic policies in an NBC News interview on Sunday, arguing that a negative GDP report won’t mean that the world’s largest economy is in recession. The report is scheduled for release on Thursday and, following first-quarter contraction at an annual rate of 1.6%, the latest data may confirm that the economy is shrinking.

-Less than a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a hugely controversial decree ordering that "all citizens of Ukraine" be given "the right to apply for admission to the citizenship of the Russian Federation in a simplified manner," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereschuk revealed on Friday that lawmakers intend to make obtaining Russian citizenship as a Ukrainian a criminal offense.

If the number of Ukes seeking Russian passports was insignificant, there would be no need for a law to stop them from doing so. Just as Ukraine is forcibly throwing people into its army, it is now attempting to keep its citizens from defecting through threats and coercion. This doesn't seem like winning to me. 

-Germany is back on course to meet its target of 75% gas storage levels by 1 September, according to Klaus Mueller, who is head of the Bundesnetzagentur gas regulator. Reuters reports he said that there were decent gas injection levels and gas importer Uniper had ended withdrawals from storage.

-Ukraine earlier warned that grain exports would not restart as hoped after the signing of a landmark deal aimed at easing the food crisis if a Russian airstrike on a key port on Saturday was a sign of things to come.

-Russia said Sunday that its missile barrage on a Ukrainian port central to a landmark grain export deal had destroyed Western-supplied weapons, after the attack sparked an outcry from Ukraine’s allies. “High-precision, long-range missiles launched from the sea destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of anti-ship missiles delivered by the United States to the Kyiv regime,” Russia’s defense ministry said.

-In his daily conference call with reporters, the Kremlin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has denied that cruise missile strikes on Odesa will have any impact on the export of grain. Reuters quotes him saying “These strikes are connected exclusively with military infrastructure. They are in no way related to infrastructure that is used for the export of grain. This should not affect – and will not affect – the beginning of shipments.”

-Ukraine’s “International Legion” is suffering a shortage of recruits, according to the unit’s spokesperson Damien Magrou, who spoke to NBC News about the challenges facing foreign fighters on the front lines of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. In an article published on Thursday, the Dutch lawyer who is currently serving as a corporal in the legion said that “there’s been a gradual dip in the number of arrivals over the course of the last few months, which isn’t very surprising given that attention in Western media has shifted elsewhere and the more motivated fighters made their decision in the beginning.” Magrou added that recruitment, reputation and fundraising have been negatively affected by “Russian disinformation,” and that the legion was “exploring avenues to widen” its recruiting efforts.

-Ukraine and Russia have signed a UN-backed deal to allow the export of millions of tonnes of grain from blockaded Black Sea ports, potentially averting a looming catastrophic global food crisis.

-Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will begin an African tour in Egypt on Sunday, in the hope to establish closer ties as Moscow seeks new alliances amid international sanctions against Russia because of the war in Ukraine. In Egypt, which sources about a quarter of its wheat imports from Ukraine, Lavrov will meet Arab League members in Cairo, before he will travel to Ethiopia and Uganda, two countries whose relations with the West have come under strain, as well as Congo Republic, Reuters reports. Egypt has significant strategic and economic ties with Russia, which has been a key source in recent years of wheat, weaponry and - until the war complicated travel - tourists.

-On Friday, the US signed off on an additional $270 million in military aid to Ukraine including four new HIMAR (High Mobility Artillery Rocket) precision rocket systems. The new aid will total the number of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems sent to Ukraine to 20. HIMARS can precisely strike targets within 80 kilometers (50 miles) - a game-changer in countering Russia. The White House also said that the new military package will also include 500 new Phoenix Ghosts, small and highly portable drones that detonate on their target, as well as 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition. The White House also said that the new military package will also include 500 new Phoenix Ghosts, small and highly portable drones that detonate on their target, as well as 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition.

-Israeli fighter jets launched a major attack on and near the Syrian capital of Damascus just after midnight Friday, killing three solders and wounding seven, which activated the Syrian military's anti-air defenses. While such brazen Israeli assaults on Syria have occurred almost weekly over the last months and even years, many have noticed the timing comes just after Russia's Vladimir Putin was in Iran where he met with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts.

-House Democrats have blocked a Republican effort to prevent the Biden administration from selling oil from the United States’ strategic reserve to entities with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

-While US macro data continues to weaken - and on the heels of the eurozone's unexpected plunge into contraction - analysts still expected flash US Composite PMIs to increase modestly (from 52.3 to 52.4) with manufacturing weaker and services flat. They were very wrong...

S&P Global US Manufacturing July Flash slipped to 52.3 from 52.7 (better than the 52.0 expected) - lowest since Jul 2020

S&P Global US Services July Flash crashed to 47.0 from 52.7 (well below the 52.7 expected) - weakest since May 2020

Mirroring the eurozone plunge, the US Composite Index plunged into contraction - a 26-month low - signaling a notable contraction in the economy and suggesting a technical recession is imminent. “The preliminary PMI data for July point to a worrying deterioration in the economy. Excluding pandemic lockdown months, output is falling at a rate not seen since 2009 amid the global financial crisis, with the survey data indicative of GDP falling at an annualised rate of approximately 1%. Manufacturing has stalled and the service sector’s rebound from the pandemic has gone into reverse, as the tailwind of pent-up demand has been overcome by the rising cost of living, higher interest rates and growing gloom about the economic outlook.

-While the dumbest guys in the room - that would be energy advisors to the Biden admin (including Burisma consultant Hunter Biden), G7 and Europe - continue to push a Russian oil price cap plan, Russia is making it very clear what will happen if this step is implemented: “As far as I understand,” Russia won’t supply oil to those countries that impose price caps, Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina tells news conference on Friday. She echoed Vladimir Putin, saying that imposition of price cap on Russian oil would raise global prices, and added that Russia is working on its own oil price benchmark. Her comments follow those from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak who told state television on Wednesday that Russia will not supply oil to the global markets if the price cap being discussed is set at a level below Russia’s cost of production. 

-Germany energy giant and distressed natural gas utility Uniper, which is among the companies heavily exposed to Russian NatGas, secured a bailout with the German government, reported Bloomberg. Bailout terms call for state-owned lender KfW to receive a 30% stake in Uniper for 267 million euros with further capital up to 7.7 billion euros against the issuance of mandatory convertible instruments. KfW will provide an expanded credit line of 9 billion euros from 2 billion euros. The German government will introduce a cost absorption mechanism, covering 90% of all losses resulting from Uniper's losses resulting from skyrocketing cost of NatGas purchases as Nordstream flows were reduced. 

-Pelosi suggested that maybe the military worried China would shoot down her plane, but there’s no reason to believe that Beijing would even consider taking things that far. Here are her comments in context: "I think what the President was saying is - maybe the military was afraid our plane would get shot down or something like that by the Chinese," Pelosi responded. "I don't know exactly," she added. "I've heard it anecdotally, but I haven't heard it from the president." Pelosi declined to confirm if she was making the trip, citing security concerns, and said she never discusses her travel plans. "You never even hear me say if I’m going to London, because it is a security issue," she said.

-The Russian government has issued a statement this morning saying it has expanded its list of “unfriendly states”. Posting an order dated 20 July, the statement says: The government has updated the list of foreign states that commit unfriendly actions against Russian diplomatic and consular missions abroad. The list includes Greece, Denmark, Slovenia, Croatia and Slovakia.

-After calling on all member states to reduce gas consumption by 15% in the face of the threat of a complete Russian gas cutoff, the IEA says the European Union will need to cut even more in order to get through the winter. 

-Zelenskiy hails potential to inflict ‘significant new losses’ on Moscow’s forces. Ukraine has the potential to inflict major losses on Russia and make gains on the battlefield, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy claims. Speaking in a late-night video address after meeting with senior military commanders, he said the group discussed the supply of modern weapons, adding the intensity of attacks on the Russians had to be stepped up.

-A deal to resume Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports is expected to be signed by Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations on Friday. The agreement will be put in writing by the parties and signed at the Dolmabahce Palace offices at 1.30pm GMT, the office of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said. Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, added: “In summary, a document may be signed which will bind the sides to [ensure] safe functioning of export routes in the Black Sea.”

-Russia will support Africa to “complete the process of decolonisation”, its foreign minister has said. In statements released by Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov said Russia has always supported Africans “in their struggle for liberation from colonial oppression”. “We stand in solidarity with the demands to complete the process of decolonisation,” he added.

-Tensions have increased in the breakaway Transnistria region of Moldova in recent days, as yesterday marked the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of a peace accord that helped bring about the current status quo, where Transnistria is its own de facto unrecognised state, with a Russia garrison stationed there. Earlier this week there was a dispute between Chișinău and Moscow, after the Moldovans stopped Russian military officials at the border. Today, Russia RIA Novosti is carrying an interview with the breakaway region’s foreign minister, Vitaly Ignatiev, in which he says Transnistria intends to join the Russian Federation. It quotes him saying: The vector of Transnistria has remained unchanged throughout the years of the republic’s existence, which is reflected in the results of the referendum on 17 September 2006, where it is clearly indicated: independence with subsequent free accession to the Russian Federation. The independence of the country is an absolute priority. Were Transnistria to accede to Russia, that would place a Russian exclave on Ukraine’s western border, next to the Odesa oblast. Earlier in the current conflict, Transnistria claimed that it was being fired upon from Ukrainian territory, and explosions damaged radio transmitters inside Transnistria.