Ukraine War | Zelensky seeks NATO guarantees for unoccupied Ukraine for peace

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"... Now, for the first time, the outlines of the real story can be told. The Ukrainian operation cost around $300,000, according to people who participated in it. It involved a small rented yacht with a six-member crew, including trained civilian divers. One was a woman, whose presence helped create the illusion they were a group of friends on a pleasure cruise.

“I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,” one officer who was involved in the plot said. “The whole thing was born out of a night of heavy boozing and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the guts to risk their lives for their country.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three people familiar with it. But later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, he ordered a halt, those people said.

Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, who was leading the effort, nonetheless forged ahead.

... The findings could upend relations between Kyiv and Berlin, which has provided much of the financing and military equipment to Ukraine, second only to the U.S. Some German political leaders may have been willing to overlook evidence pointing to Ukraine for fear of undermining domestic support for the war effort. But German police are politically independent and their investigation took on a life of its own as they pursued one lead after another.

“An attack of this scale is a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defense clause of NATO, but our critical infrastructure was blown up by a country that we support with massive weapons shipments and billions in cash,” said a senior German official familiar with the probe. ..."
 
1moretimeagain said:
Could Russia let Ukraine have the Kursk region and we can bring an end to the war?
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More likely it’d be like a prisoner exchange. You give us back territory you stole and we will give you back the territory we stole. They just need to capture enough of Russia to have enough of a bargaining chip for most of their lost territory. Like our prisoner swaps with Russia it won’t be 1:1, because Ukraine can likely get more territory back than it has taken in Kursk because of the giant black eye Putin has with anyone who has access to more than just Russian state media.
 
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Heard a couple of good jokes at Russia’s expense (not mine so no credit to me other than passing them along.

The first: In Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine invade you!

The second (allegedly being told in the Kursk region): Putin getting desperate to repel the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk summons the ghost of Stalin for advice. Putin says, “Stalin, the Nazi invaders have returned to Kursk and I need your guidance for how to get rid of them.” Stalin replies, “That one’s simple, just do what I did in 1943, send the best Ukrainian units into Kursk and ask the U.S. for weapons to arm them.”
 

Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukrainians urged to leave city as Russian forces close in at ‘a fast pace’​

Authorities in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, have ordered people to evacuate the area imminently as the Russian army approaches
 


I can’t even imagine a foreign power taking and holding even a mostly uninhabited corner of the United States meeting with the lame response Russia has managed so far to this incursion by Ukraine.
 
nycfan said:


I can’t even imagine a foreign power taking and holding even a mostly uninhabited corner of the United States meeting with the lame response Russia has managed so far to this incursion by Ukraine.
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Part of me fears the Russia is letting Ukraine do what they want as justification for a massive escalation in the scorched earth plan they have for Ukraine. "Ukraine's aggressive actions has forced our hand and now this nuclear plant is going to go critical..."
 
Have a hard time believing that Nord stream pipeline story. The Baltic Sea isn’t the Caribbean, underwater operations of that magnitude would be incredibly difficult for anyone, let alone 4 divers including civilians off the back of a rented yacht
 
Beyond the environment impact, I don't care about Nord stream or why anyone cares who blew it up.

It's better in the long run for it not to be operational, and if it hurts Russia, then it's also better in the short run for it not to be operational.

Europe doesn't need to be addicted to Russian energy.
 


I find this astonishing and yet the media here seems mostly disinterested once the novelty of a Ukrainian offensive INSIDE RUSSIA faded …
 
Busy 12 hours or so in the conflict.

www.theguardian.com

Russia-Ukraine war: large drone attack on Moscow as Kursk incursion continues – as it happened

Mayor says no damage or casualties reported as 11 drones are downed
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
  • Russian air defences shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, “one of the largest” such strikes ever against the capital, officials said on Wednesday. “Eleven drones were destroyed” over Moscow and its surrounding region, the defence ministry said. “This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin added. Sobyanin said in an earlier post that no damage or casualties had been reported.
  • Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Zhelanne, in the Pokrovsk district of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
  • Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region means that there will be no talks between Moscow and Kyiv until Ukraine is completely defeated, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council, said on Wednesday. “The empty chatter of intermediaries that no one had appointed about the wonderful peace is over. Everyone understands everything now, even though they do not say it out loud,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “There will be NO MORE NEGOTIATIONS UNTIL THE COMPLETE DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY!”
  • Ukraine’s parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify the Rome Statute, a senior lawmaker said, paving the way for Kyiv to join the international criminal court. In a Telegram post, Yaroslav Zhelezniak said 281 deputies had voted for the measure, a key requirement for Ukraine to eventually join the European Union.
  • Ukraine’s military said it struck an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system based in Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight. Kyiv’s general staff said the attack took place near the settlement of Novoshakhtinsk, and that S-300s had been used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
  • One person was killed and two wounded in Russia’s Kursk region after a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device on their car on Wednesday, acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on the Telegram messaging app.
  • Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, says the United States and its western allies risk triggering a global war if Washington continues to “provoke” the conflict in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory. His remarks to Reuters offer a rare insight into thinking in Putin’s inner circle after a surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, to which the president has promised a “worthy” response but has not yet said what that will entail, Reuters reported.
  • Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected Chechen troops and volunteers readying to fight Ukraine on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in what was Putin’s first trip in 13 years to the North Caucasus republic. The previously unannounced trip to the mostly Muslim republic that is part of Russia comes as Moscow fights to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region two weeks after they smashed through the border in the largest invasion of Russia since the second world war, Reuters reported.
  • Russia’s air defence units destroyed 45 drones that Ukraine launched overnight targeting Moscow and several other regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday. Eleven of the drones were destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 over the border Bryansk region, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
  • India prime minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday he will “share perspectives” on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia during his visit to Kyiv this week. Modi departed for Poland on Wednesday and will visit Kyiv on Friday, a first visit to Ukraine by an Indian prime minister since diplomatic relations were established 30 years ago, Reuters reported.
  • Moscow airports were back to normal operations on Wednesday after temporary restrictions were in place overnight at three airports in the Russian capital after a drone attack, the aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said Wednesday. Ukraine launched one of the largest ever drone attacks on Moscow on Wednesday, the city’s mayor said, with Russian air defence units destroying 11 drones flying towards the capital.



Telegram and WhatsApp hit by mass disruptions in Russia​

Russia’s state telecommunications monitoring service said on Wednesday it has recorded mass disruptions in the popular Telegram and WhatsApp messaging apps, Reuters reports.

It did not say what could have caused the disruptions.
 
Batt Boy said:
I think Tom Cooper has a good handle on what's going on in the Kursk area
xxtomcooperxx.substack.com

Ukraine War, 21 August 2024

Hello everybody!
xxtomcooperxx.substack.com xxtomcooperxx.substack.com
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Just stumbled across this substack the other week. I honestly have no clue who this guy is. Of course I could google and dig into his background, but sometimes I like to consume content first and form my own opinion based on the content before I investigate background.

Early reviews seem quite promising (IMO). Pro-Ukrainian, but doesn't seem to be a "sunshine pumper" which is a great start. I especially like his discussion of defensive fortifications here" Don's Weekly, 19 August 2024: Part 4 (don't need to read the first three parts of the update which have nothing to do with defensive fortifications). I have no military background at all, but all of this rings true from an intuitive sense to me: "If you're not digging, you're dying".
 
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