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Europe
Greece
July 17, 2024 Greece is close to purchasing up to twenty F-35s, with deliveries starting in 2028 for training purposes. The $3.47-billion deal would include initial technical support, pilot and engineer training on the Lightning II, and simulators for ongoing training. 'Lockheed Martin expects the NATO members and other partners in Europe to have about 500 F-35s by the decade’s end'. (Source: nationalinterest)
Romania
July 17, 2024 Putin will freak: New F-35 fighters are headed to closer to Russia's doorstep. 'Lockheed Martin expects the NATO members and other partners in Europe to have' about 500 F-35s by the decade’s end. NATO member Romania is reported to be close to signing a government-to-government agreement with the United States. Bucharest has expressed interest in acquiring thirty-two F-35s in a deal worth $6.5 billion, which also includes logistics and training services, as well as flight simulators and ordnance for the aircraft. The first delivery is expected by 2030. Meanwhile, Romania has procured thirty-two second-hand F-16s from Norway, which will join seventeen it previously acquired from Portugal in 2016. Last month Bucharest indicated that it would donate a U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot air defense system to Kyiv. It is one of five such anti-aircraft platforms that have been pledged by NATO members. (Source: nationalinterest)
by Suciu, a Michigan-based writer with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism.
European Parliament
July 17, 2024 4:31 pm CET In a vote Wednesday, members of the European Parliament condemned Viktor Orbán’s visit to Russia at the beginning of July - as part of what he called a “peace mission” to discuss with Putin conditions that could bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine - passing a resolution that provided a commitment by the Parliament to maintain its support for Ukraine. Some 495 MEPs voted in favor of the pro-Ukraine resolution, with 137 voting against. Orbán’s main opponent in Hungary, Magyar, along with fellow EU lawmakers from his Respect and Freedom Party, voted against the resolution. He called the decision a punishment against Hungary in a Facebook post. Magyar, who sits as an MEP in the European People’s Party, added that his party also opposes the cordon sanitaire against Orbán’s newly formed far-right Patriots for Europe group. According to his post, he informed the head of the EPP Weber of his positions, which Weber apparently took note of. (Source: politico)
Dombass
July 17, 2024, 12:51 PM Western media only started to have a substantial presence in Ukraine in December 2021, on the eve of the full-scale invasion. Before that, much of the reporting was done by correspondents based in Moscow, who usually spoke only Russian and were heavily exposed to Russian narratives. The Washington Post did not open a Kyiv bureau until May 2022 - and sent its former Moscow correspondent to report on Ukraine. Similarly, the New York Times only opened an office in Ukraine in July 2022, headed by the paper’s veteran Moscow correspondent, Kramer, whose coverage of the war since 2014 had outraged Ukrainians. The newspaper’s reference to Russia’s hybrid attack as a “civil war” (later corrected) and Kramer referring to Russian-occupied territories as “separatist zones” echoed Kremlin language, reminding some Ukrainians of the Times’ sordid history of misreporting genocides and Soviet atrocities. Another widespread adoption of Kremlin talking points on Ukraine was the Western media’s myopic fixation on right-wing extremism that was supposedly out of control in Ukraine - a claim that has been solidly 'debunked' but that would be used by Russian President Putin to justify his full-scale attack in 2022. Western willful ignorance was particularly evident concerning the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic. From their creation in 2014 to their end in September 2022, these were Russian proxy regimes. Yet many in the West - including governments, diplomats, academics, and journalists - treated them as statelets set up by supposed eastern Ukrainian “insurgents.” Only in January 2023 did the European Court on Human Rights put an official end to this pretense, establishing that Russia had effective control over these fake republics since the day they were created. (Source: foreignpolicy)
by Kazdobina, a senior fellow in the security studies program at Ukrainian Prism; Hedenskog and Umland, analysts at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs’ Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.
A comment: "It is entirely true that the secession of the DPR and LPR was armed and managed by the Russians, but there was broad support among the population outraged by the violent overthrow of Yanukovich. This is almost a mirror image of Maidan -- a movement built on billions of dollars of U.S. funding and CIA planning and at least manipulated (Nuland-Pyatt phone call) if not managed by the U.S. - which doesn't mean there wasn't broad support for that in the West of Ukraine and in Kyiv - there was. The conflict was created by outside powers on both sides for their own purposes, using Ukrainians as instruments. That's the reality of this ugly war. It is pure propaganda (or deluded consumption of propaganda narratives) to believe that the Russians were doing it, but we were not. It's a standard Cold War playbook".
Russia
Jul 17, 2024 Detachment of Russia's Pacific Fleet warships has successfully navigated the Suez Canal, transitioning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. Starting on January 22 of this year, the Pacific Fleet embarked on a long-range mission engaging in various combat drills and managing daily operational tasks at sea. During this period, the fleet made port calls in India, Sri Lanka, Iran, Qatar, and Eritrea. Leading this mission is the Varyag missile cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Pacific Fleet. Also part of the Pacific Fleet is the “Marshal Shaposhnikov,” a frigate that has been modernized to carry Kalibr missiles - a family of Russian cruise missiles developed by the design bureau Novator, JSC Concern VKO Almaz-Antey. (Source: bulgarianmilitary)
North America
United States
July 17, 2024, 9:04 a.m. ET Some attendees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee are sporting makeshift ear bandages in support of almost-assassinated former President Trump - with one calling it “the newest fashion trend.” /photo/ (Source: nypost)
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