Egyik 19

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China
2022-10-20  "These days, it seems to be a crime to be 'Taiwanese'," says a Taiwanese business owner who has worked in China for two decades. Deteriorating relations between Taiwan and China have made the position of such "Taishang" very difficult. They cannot be seen as pro-Taiwan independence, but they also cannot offend Taiwanese sensibilities and openly swear fealty to the Communist Party. For most Taishang, besides hoping that the Chinese government can exercise greater “precision” in their efforts to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from spreading, their other greatest wish is that the business environment will not be irrevocably damaged by rifts in Cross-Strait relations. These concerns reached a boiling point when U.S. House Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan. The new policy white paper titled “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era”, published by the PRC State Council a week after Pelosi’s visit, was an olive branch extended to Taishang. It specifically promises “regulations and policies that fully guarantee that Taiwanese compatriots will receive full benefits and equal treatment in China' and supports “Taiwanese efforts to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative'. An investment fund manager who frequently works all around China has an opposite take. He predicts that as China’s state enterprise advances and private sectors retreat, Taishang who lack connections will have a hard time winning the trust of Chinese companies and participating in the development of important industries. “Taiwanese people will have a hard time getting aboard China’s next big wave.” Another Taiwanese business owner in the traditional industries, who set up plants in China in the early nineties, also has a pessimistic outlook. He points out that the same level of control the Chinese government has exerted on mega corporations like Alibaba and Tencent may one day happen to Taishang. “If I could turn back time, I would not have come to China 30 years ago. As things stand, all I can do is try to survive.” Stay in the shadows; play by the rules - for Taishang trying to do business in the worsening political situation, this may be the only way for them to survive. (Source: cw *)
* CommonWealth Magazine, Taiwan

20 October 2022  Last year, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that China's threat to move in on Taiwan would 'manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.' China could invade Taiwan as early as this year, US Naval Chief warns as Xi solidifies his grip on Beijing and the Communist Party. 'It's not just what Jinping says, it's how the Chinese behave and what they do,' Gilday said at an event held by the Atlantic Council on October 19. 'What we've seen over the past 20 years is that they have delivered on every promise they've made earlier than they said they were going to deliver on it.' As Beijing launches fresh military exercises by air and sea off Taiwan's coast, the Navy has now adopted a 'fight tonight' mentality. Sec. of State Blinken backed up such predictions earlier this week at a forum at Stanford University with former secretary of state Rice, when he said China is speeding up its timeline to take back Taiwan. 'The wheels of history are rolling toward China's reunification' with Taiwan, Xi said at the Communist Party Congress, which gathers every five years. He said that while China preferred peaceful measures to retake the island democracy of 23 million people it would not rule out 'the option to take all necessary measures.' Xi has ramped up military drills along Taiwan's coastline in the Taiwan Strait in recent months. Last week, Biden released his official national security strategy that focused heavily on 'outcompeting' China. The president made it clear that despite Russia's nuclear threats, he is more concerned about China in the long-term. (Source: DailyMail)

Thuersday, October 20, 2022  China’s service members have virtually no combat experience - which some Chinese leaders have referred to as a “peace disease.” In 2015, Mr. Xi launched China’s most ambitious military reforms in decades. He overhauled the organizational structure of the PLA with the goal of allowing its armed services - army, navy, air force and rocket and support forces - to work more closely together. Such coordination would likely be needed for major operations such as an invasion of Taiwan. Mr. Xi also expanded the PLA’s budget, created new special operations units and stepped up efforts to draw in more qualified service members. Beijing extended free healthcare to troops and their families, improved military canteens and encouraged putting popular boy band members in military propaganda to drive recruitment. The People’s Liberation Army now has hypersonic missiles that evade most defenses, a technology the U.S. is still developing. Its attack drones can swarm to paralyze communications networks. China’s naval ships outnumber America’s, and it launched its third aircraft carrier this summer, the first to be designed and built in the country. Its defense budget is second only to the U.S.’s. China’s military has more serving members, at around 2 million, compared with under 1.4 million in the U.S. The question for Mr. Xi, which he has raised in public, is whether those forces are ready for battle. “We must comprehensively strengthen military training and preparation, and improve the army’s ability to win,' Mr. Xi said on Sunday at the opening of the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress. Mr. Xi reiterated that Beijing wouldn’t renounce the use of force in China’s effort to take control of the island. "The complete unification of the motherland must be realized, and it will be realized,” he said, drawing loud applause. Sorties close to the island by the Chinese air force have reached more than 1,200 so far this year. Yet PLA publications say some officers make flawed  operational decisions, struggle to lead their troops and sometimes don’t understand their own orders. Rank-and-file troops are caught in a top-down system of command, potentially leaving them ill-equipped to improvise in battlefield situations - a situation that has hobbled Russia’s military in its invasion of Ukraine. China’s political priorities mean that around 40% of new recruits’ training has involved studying about the Communist Party rather than learning how to be a service member. Leaders, some of whom see young Chinese as pampered products of the country’s one-child policy, question whether they are tough enough to fight. An effort to make China’s different military branches work more closely together - so-called “jointness,” which is considered crucial to modern warfare - remains untested. The PLA appears to be making progress in bringing forces together for more complex joint exercises, helped by interaction with other militaries, especially Russia’s. Since Mr. Xi took power, China has increased drills with Russia to as many as 10 a year from one or two previously. Last year, the PLA’s air force and army took part in the first major joint exercises with Russia inside China, involving more than 10,000 personnel. The drills included airborne troop assaults, drone attacks and precision fighter jet strikes, according to official reports. Mr. Xi’s ambition, according to China’s most recent defense white paper, is to complete a modernization of the military by 2035 and turn it into a 'world-class force' by 2049. Strategists outside China say the PLA’s short-range missile, air and naval power is now so well developed that it would be nearly impossible for other countries’ militaries to operate near China’s shoreline in a conflict. Beijing’s cyberwar capabilities are widely considered to be state-of-the-art. The U.S Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a report this year that China is almost certainly capable of launching cyberattacks that would disrupt critical infrastructure in the U.S., including oil and gas pipelines and rail systems. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ballistic missile technology mean that China can now put U.S. bases in Asia under threat. Central to the PLA’s issues is a shortage of high-quality talent, including for officers. The lowest successful scores at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University in 2021 were in many cases nearly 10% higher than at the National University of Defense Technology, often referred to in China as the military Tsinghua. The PLA lacks a well-established system for bringing in and retaining talented noncommissioned officers, the backbone of most militaries. Military analysts say the PLA does have some highly proficient service members, including units similar to U.S. Navy Seals and Air Force commandos. The true test of PLA personnel will be when they’re called on to fight. (Source: msn)

17 Oct 2022  China locks down 10 lakh people near iPhone factory, from today. The iPhone manufacturing hub of Zhengzhou locked down one of its most-populated districts to tame a virus flareup. Almost 1 million residents of Zhongyuan district were ordered to stay at home starting today, except for when they need to undergo Covid testing, and non-essential businesses have been shut. The wider restrictions follow the lockdown of some neighborhoods last week. The city reported 6 new local cases for yesterday, down from a recent peak of 40 on Oct 9. Creeping restrictions throughout China are underscoring the constant threat of disruption companies face while the country sticks to Covid Zero. President Xi yesterday signaled no looming change to the approach. He avoided  mentioning the economic toll during a speech opening the twice-a-decade Party Congress in Beijing. He said the strict rules protect people’s lives. Nationwide, cases declined to 697, the lowest in two weeks, as outbreaks in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang came under control. Beijing posted 13 new cases, and Shanghai had 32. Several schools in Shanghai have suspended in-person classes as the fear of infection spread grows. The port city of Tianjin last week announced a lockdown of one district and the southern megacity of Guangzhou shut schools in one area. (Source: livemint)
Note: 10 lakh = 100 000 (India)

October 16, 2022  China will never renounce the right to use force but will strive for a peaceful resolution, President Xi said today at the opening of a major party meeting. 'The historical wheels of national reunification and national rejuvenation are rolling forward, and the complete reunification of the motherland must be achieved, and it must be achieved!" he added, to a long round of applause. 'Resolving the Taiwan issue is the Chinese people's own business, and it up to the Chinese people to decide,' he said. Beijing has offered Taiwan a "one country, two systems' model of autonomy, the same formula it uses for Hong Kong. But all mainstream Taiwanese political parties have rejected that proposal and it has almost no public support, according to opinion polls. Taiwan says only its people can decide their own future and that Beijing's claims are void as the People's Republic of China has never governed any part of the island. (Source: TheAsahiShimbun)

16/10/2022  In an opening address lasting about 100 minutes, Xi celebrated the party's continued efforts to eradicate Covid as a major achievement. He said the approach had "protected people's safety and health to the highest degree". Xi also highlighted as a success his graft crackdown. He said the anti-corruption campaign had eliminated 'serious latent dangers' within the Communist Party, the military and the state. Xi also focused on two of China's most sensitive security and sovereignty issues at the start of speech. He lauded Hong Kong's transition from 'chaos to governance', while his vow to 'never commit to abandoning the use of force' on the self-ruled island of Taiwan drew rapturous applause. Xi told the delegates that China would "actively participate in global governance on climate change'. He also reiterated that China opposed a 'Cold War mentality' in international diplomacy. "China... resolutely opposes all forms of hegemony and power politics, opposes the Cold War mentality, opposes interfering in other countries' domestic politics, opposes double standards,' he said. Xi did not reference the Ukraine war. (Source: RFI)

October 16, 2022  Chinese President Xi delivered a speech that lasted less than two hours focusing heavily on security and reiterating policy priorities during the opening ceremony of the week-long 20th National Congress of China's ruling Communist Party at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing today. He said China will strengthen its ability to build a strategic deterrent capability. Xi called for strengthening the ability to maintain national security, ensuring food and energy supplies, securing supply chains, improving the ability to deal with disasters and protecting personal information. Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said that as China's economy has slowed, Xi is attempting to shift the basis of legitimacy from economic growth to security. "His narrative is - China faces many dangers, the country is in a war-like state, figuratively, and he is the savior. With this narrative, he can get people to unite around him," he said. In recent days, China has repeatedly emphasized its commitment to Xi's zero-COVID strategy, dashing hopes among countless Chinese citizens as well as investors that Beijing might begin exiting anytime soon a policy that has caused widespread frustration and economic damage. 'We have adhered to the supremacy of the people and the supremacy of life, adhered to dynamic zero-COVID ... and achieved major positive results in the overall prevention and control of the epidemic, and economic and social development,' Xi said. On the economy, he restated support for the private sector and allowing markets to play a key role, even as China fine-tunes a 'socialist economic system', promotes "common prosperity" and gives 'better play to the role of the government'. The biggest applause came when Xi restated opposition to Taiwan independence. The congress is expected to reconfirm Xi as party general secretary, China's most powerful post, as well as chairman of the Central Military Commission. (Source: TheAsahiShimbun)

October 14, 2022  China’s Communist Party will on October 16, Sunday open its 20th Party Congress, the country’s most important political meeting, which is held once every five years. The CCP, which has ruled China since 1949, has held 19 congresses to fill its leadership ranks since it was founded in 1921. This year, about 2,300 delegates from across the country will descend on Beijing in a highly choreographed event to pick members of the Central Committee, which is made up of around 200 people. The committee will select members for the 25-person Politburo and its all-powerful Standing Committee - the country’s highest leadership body and apex of power, currently comprising just seven people. The amount of turnover within the Central Committee - generally around 60 percent - may signal how aggressively Xi intends to reshuffle, wrote Johnson, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. The opaque process that will see major leadership changes is expected to bolster China’s leader Xi’s authority. Xi is all but certain to begin an unprecedented third five-year term as party general secretary. In 2018, he abolished the presidential two-term limit, set by former leader Deng in the 1980s to avoid another Mao-style dictatorship. A sweeping anti-corruption campaign since Xi came to power has brought down former ministers and Politburo members, weakening party factions and eliminating rivals. Since 2002, Standing Committee members aged 68 or above have stepped down, abiding by the unwritten retirement age first employed by former president Jiang to dump an ageing rival. If the informal rule is upheld, but as expected does not apply to Xi, two out of seven members will step down - leaving Xi, 69, Li, 67, Zhao, 65, Wang, 67, and Wang, also 67. Xi has already installed close allies in top positions this year, such as the new minister for public security Wang, 65. (Source: HongKongfp

14.10.2022  The anti-corruption campaign Xi launched after taking power in 2012, the yearslong crackdown, which has ensnared more than 4.7 million party officials, allowed the Chinese leader to remake the party leadership and place those loyal to him in key positions. Half of his targets appear to be politically motivated. Xi also implemented a series of ideological, institutional and organizational changes that led to the concentration of even more power around him. Xi's efforts to extend his term or remain in power indefinitely could have a destabilizing effect on the party. It could jeopardize the established procedure of transfer of power and aggravate the risk of intraparty power struggles. There will be a major leadership reshuffle at the congress, with several members of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee - the CCP's most powerful organ - expected to step down. The final decision will be dictated by Xi, and his preference as well as these individuals' political loyalty will be the key criteria. Potential successors include current Vice Premier Hu and Wang, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, currently the party's fourth-highest ranking official. Wang may be more suitable than Hu as he has worked well with Xi over the last five years, handling issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet. Premier Li is set to retire in March 2023. (Source: DW)

Thursday 13 October 2022  A rare protest against Chinese leader Xi has taken place in China ahead of a historic Communist Party congress. The rally in Beijing's northwestern Haidian district today was swiftly ended by police and security personnel. The demonstrators unfurled banners bearing several slogans on a bridge. One banner read: "Overthrow the dictator and thief of the country Xi. Another called for an end to strict COVID-19 policies. "We don't want COVID tests, we want to eat; we don't want lockdowns, we want to be free, it read. (Source: SkyNews)

October 11, 2022  "For the first time in a generation, weakening China is now more important to the United States than working with China'. New measures will block sales of semiconductors vital for the development of artificial intelligence, supercomputers, and other critical technologies as well as expand prohibitions on the sale to China of equipment needed for making its own advanced chips. Such chips not only are vital to the latest weaponry but also have broad commercial applications, from health care to autonomous vehicles. And in a novel move, the actions also forbid U.S. companies and citizens from working with Chinese entities on advanced semiconductor design, research, or fabrication. Americans - mostly Chinese or Taiwanese dual citizens - work in some of the most important positions. The more the control regime expands, the more acute the conflict will become between the administration and U.S. companies. Shares in U.S. chipmakers plunged following the announcement; the stocks of the most affected companies, such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, are down almost 60 percent this year. They were notified in advance of the coming restrictions. China is the most important global market for semiconductor exports, and the commercial success of U.S. chip companies depends in no small part on access to China’s market. Chip sales to China are down 25 percent so far this year, and semiconductor equipment sales have fallen 15 percent. Boston Consulting Group has estimated that a complete ban on U.S. chip sales to China would cost U.S. semiconductor firms 18 percent of their global market share and 37 percent of their revenues. The goal appears to be to freeze China’s ability to make or acquire logic chips below the 14-nanometer node, well above the current leading-edge capabilities of 5 nanometers or less. (The smaller the node, the more advanced the chip.) The Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s largest chipmaker, announced in August that it had started shipping 7-nanometer semiconductors, just one generation behind the most advanced chips fabricated in Taiwan and South Korea. (Source: ForeignPolicy)

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United States
08/10/2022  The FBI’s handling of the Pennsylvania Republican Perry represents a rare step against a sitting member of Congress. He said this week that the FBI had seized his cell phone. Perry took part in a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with lawmakers in the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus, which Perry chairs, during which they discussed strategies to block or delay certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. The Jan. 6 select panel received testimony from  Hutchinson, a former top aide to Meadows who told the select committee that Perry had been supportive of floated plans to call on Trump supporters to march on the Capitol. (Source: Politico)

August 10, 2022  Agents on August 8, Monday, searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, which is also a private club, as part of a federal investigation into whether the former president took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence. What prompted the Justice Department to seek authorization to search the estate for classified documents now, months after it was revealed that Trump had taken boxes of materials with him when he left the White House after losing the 2020 election? The Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information since the National Archives and Records Administration said it had received from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of White House records, including documents containing classified information, earlier this year. The National Archives said Trump should have turned over that material upon leaving office, and it asked the Justice Department to investigate. There are multiple federal laws governing the handling of classified records and sensitive government documents, including statutes that make it a crime to remove such material and retain it at an unauthorized location. Current FBI Director Wray was appointed by Trump five years ago. Trump repeatedly criticized him, as president. Trump was in New York, a thousand or so miles away, at the time of the search. Trump faces an array of inquiries tied to his conduct in the waning days of his administration. A separate grand jury is investigating efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election - which led to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol - and it all adds to potential legal peril for Trump as he lays the groundwork for a potential repeat run for the White House. Trump and his allies quickly sought to cast the search as a weaponization of the criminal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to keep him from winning another term in 2024. Trump, disclosing the search late Monday, asserted that agents had opened a safe at his home, and he described their work as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.” Trump’s Vice President Pence, a potential 2024 rival, tweeted today, “Yesterday’s action undermines public confidence in our system of justice and Attorney General Garland must give a full accounting to the American people as to why this action was taken and he must do so immediately.” (Source: AP)

Wednesday, 8/10/22  Monday, at about 10 a.m. EST, FBI agents and technicians showed up at Trump's Florida home to execute a search warrant to obtain any government-owned documents that might be in the possession of Trump but are required to be delivered to the Archives under the provisions of the 1978 Presidential Records Act. (In response to the Clinton email scandal, Trump himself signed a law in 2018 that made it a felony to remove and retain classified documents.) The act establishes that presidential records are the property of the U.S. government and not a president's private property. The law imposes strict penalties for failure to comply. "Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined" $2,000, up to three years in prison or "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States." A year-and-a-half ago, there were immediate questions raised by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as to whether the presidential records turned over to the federal agency for historical preservation were complete or not. The former president said that he was returning any official records to the Archives. In February, Archivist Ferriero testified before Congress that the Trump camp had returned 15 boxes of documents to the Archives and in those materials, the Archives discovered items "marked as classified national security information."  In the past week, Florida magistrate Judge Reinhart in West Palm Beach signed a search warrant allowing the FBI to look for relevant material. A convoy of unmarked black SUVs and a Ryder rental truck filled with about three dozen FBI special agents and technicians entered the gates in the early evening. Trump attorney Halligan was present during the multi-hour search. (Source: NewsWeek)

Mon, Aug 8 2022  Biden authorizes largest yet weapons package for Ukraine, bringing U.S. commitment to $9.8 billion. It includes munitions for long-range weapons and armored medical transport vehicles. The package consists of additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or HIMARS, 75,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition, 20 120 mm mortar systems and 20,000 rounds of 120 mm mortar ammunition as well as munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems or NASAMS. The HIMARS, manufactured by defense giant Lockheed Martin, are designed to shoot a variety of missiles from a mobile 5-ton truck and have sat high on Ukrainian wish lists. ’The U.S. was not sending HIMARS in this latest package, only ammunition for the system’. The U.S. has thus far provided 16 HIMARS to Ukraine. The Pentagon will also send 1,000 Javelins, hundreds of AT4 anti-armor systems, 50 armored medical treatment vehicles, anti-personnel munitions, explosives, demolition munitions and demolition equipment. The weapons come directly from U.S. stockpiles. (Source: CNBC)

Sat, August 6, 2022  It’s like a random number generator. In the first two years of the pandemic, Congress passed three COVID relief packages totaling $190 billion in aid for education systems.  But schools were given little guidance on how to effectively use the money to keep their students safe. Instead, they frantically bought up whatever technology they were told could keep their doors open. In August 2020, with COVID-19 outbreaks proliferating and back to school plans shifting, U.S. tech vendors popped up, promising a solution. Companies came out of the woodwork, ready to make a pandemic profit. They were selling thermal imaging cameras and scanners that they said could screen large groups of students for virus-related fevers in real time. They didn’t work. Districts were sold technology by an industry which experts compare to the “wild west,” and how now in many instances, the scanners sit dormant in schools, gathering dust. X.Labs, run by a former fugitive and fraudster wanted in South Africa, and SafeCheck USA, started by two Miami real estate brothers who describe themselves as “power agents,” convinced schools to spend millions of federal funds on devices. Another company, Hikvision, half-owned by the Chinese state, has been widely condemned for supplying cameras for an intelligence program aimed at tracking and detaining the Uyghur population in China. In May of this year, it was reported that the U.S. was moving towards imposing sanctions on Hikvision for human rights abuses, which would be the first of its kind on a Chinese company. The company - along with surveillance manufacturer Dahua, another partly Chinese state-owned surveillance manufacturer whose thermal cameras are in U.S. schools - was banned from use by U.S. federal agencies in 2018 and blacklisted by the Department of Commerce in 2019. The Fayette County Public Schools District in north central Georgia spent nearly $500,000 on Hikvision cameras for its 40,000 student population - which ended up being used for only a year - in October 2020 the scanners were producing a lot of “false positives,” prompting a member of the education board to suggest they “should get a refund.” The security of Hikvision and Dahua’s camera software has been compromised in the past, with potential loopholes for malicious hackers to take control of devices remotely. Dahua admitted their devices were vulnerable to mass hacking. SafeCheck USA was another company that sprang up at the start of the pandemic, founded by brothers Kakon. According to their website, they specialize in luxury real estate, and also led a drug rehabilitation center and a cryptocurrency company. SafeCheck advertised walk-through body temperature scanners that could screen up to 70 people per minute. However: “Thermal imaging systems have not been shown to be accurate when used to take the temperature of multiple people at the same time,” the FDA told. SafeCheck has made nearly $2.2 million in sales across public agencies for 55 schools. The company received shipments from a Chinese company Shenzhen Jinjian Era Technology Co, similarly branded as “SafeAgle. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration did alert the public about the improper use of thermal devices in March 2021. The agency agreed that thermal imaging “is not effective at determining if someone has COVID-19 and should not be used to identify/diagnose individuals that have COVID-19.” SafeCheck’s last sale was in August 2021. The global thermal imaging camera market was valued at $3.16 billion in 2020, and is expected to grow by further $1 billion in the next four years. It seems to be that surveillance companies will constantly pivot to sell their software as a solution to whatever we fear most. Now, with little trace of Feevr, X.Labs has pivoted back to selling weapon detection systems to schools.  (Source: Yahoo)

August 5, 2022  Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán yesterday told a crowd of conservatives in Dallas that the future of “Western civilization” is in peril - attacking progressives while imploring right-wing Americans and Hungarians to “know how to fight,” opening the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference. Making frequent attacks on progressives, communists and the “leftist media,” Orbán said the horrors of World War II were the result of European countries abandoning Christian values. “And today’s progressives are planning to do the same,” he said. “They want to give up on Western values and create a new world - a post-Western world.  Who is going to stop them if we don’t?” He painted himself as a defender of Christian values against migration from majority Muslim countries. He has also frequently demonized the LGBTQ community. While the cavernous exhibit hall was only about half-full, Orbán received a raucous welcome to the conference. “Welcome to Texas!” one woman shouted as Orbán took the stage. Some of the heaviest applause from the crowd came after Orbán mentioned a clause in the Hungarian constitution that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. “To sum up, the mother is a woman, the father is a man, and leave our teens alone,” he said. “We decided we don’t need more genders.… Less drag queens, and more Norris. We believe there is no freedom without order. If there is no order, you get killed.” Orbán has become increasingly embraced by American conservatives - he’s a frequent guest of Carlson on Fox News and visited former President Trump in New Jersey before coming to Texas.  Some CPAC attendees tried distancing themselves and the American conservative movement from the strongman’s rhetoric. Tolles, 66, is attending the conference with wife, Maggie, who is Filipina. “We’re a mixed race marriage, so a lot depends on how far he goes with that rhetoric.” But Tolles added that he has “a lot of respect” for Orbán because he is trying to preserve European civilization “against the hordes trying to come in.” ’Unfortunately, he saw his political fortunes not in maintaining that early model of his party, but really quite the opposite - to play on society’s fear of  immigration, to promote a nationalist view of Hungary or even an emphasis on its Hungarian Christian roots that made many of us uneasy,” Rabbi Baker, the director of International Jewish Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said. He first met Orbán in Budapest in the early 1990s, before Orbán’s first term as prime minister. “But it gave him success and we see what that has meant.” Baker said Orbán avoids explicit antisemitism, but “he’s often flirted with traditional antisemitic tropes.” “We’ve certainly seen in campaigns the way he’s used Soros as sort of an individual figure to hold up for special attack,” Baker said, referencing the Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire who frequently donates to progressive causes. ’It makes many people uneasy to see an international financier shoulder the blame for all the ills society might face.’ Orbán repeated some of those tropes at CPAC yesterday. “Let’s be honest, the most heinous things in modern history were carried out by people who hated Christianity,” he said.  “Don’t be afraid calling your enemies by their name. Consider for example Soros …  He believes in none of the things that we do, and he has an army at his service.” “He uses his army to force his will on opponents like us. He thinks that what is dear to all of us led to the horrors of the 20th century. But the case is exactly the opposite. Our values save us from repeating history’s mistakes,” Orbán said. After Orbán’s speech, about a half-dozen people held a small protest in the hotel’s atrium, (Source: TheDallasMorningNews)

Fri, August 5, 2022   The "Dark Brandon" vs lame duck debate goes on. A comically sinister cartoon character dubbed "Dark Brandon" started going viral on Twitter this week, invented by depressed leftists, angry that their centrist president was failing to get things done - and added death ray eyes. All of a sudden, mainstream Democrats are embracing "Dark Brandon" as their own, rebranding him to a kind of political terminator. "Dark Brandon cannot be stopped," reads one caption over a portrait of Biden with deeply tanned skin and fiery yellow eyes. Check the headlines: Friday, Biden gets a blockbuster jobs report showing US unemployment back to a half-century low.  Monday, Biden announces the United States has killed Zawahiri, the last big name of the 9/11-era Al-Qaeda leadership. A few days before that, Congress passes a $52 billion investment package boosting semiconductor manufacturing.  But a large majority of Americans - from left and right - don't think he's on the right track. They blame him for Democratic infighting in Congress, for declaring victory too soon over Covid last year, for the ugly exit from Afghanistan, and for four-decades-high inflation. The poll gives Biden a 35 percent overall approval rating, with just 30 percent on the economy, and only 26 percent believing he is "up to the challenges facing the US." The naysayers include a growing number of Democratic members of Congress. Biden would be a record 86 years old by the end of a second term. "The president intends to run in 2024," Press Secretary Jean-Pierre has repeatedly declared. (Source: Yahoo)

August 5, 2022  Monkeypox is disproportionately affecting men who have sex with men, latest CDC breakdown shows. There were 2,891 cases of monkeypox reported in the United States by July 22, about two months after the country's first case was reported. 94% were in men who reported recent sexual or close intimate contact with another man.  More than half (54%) of cases were among Black and Hispanic people, a group that represents about a third (34%) of the general US population.  And the share of cases among Black people has grown in recent weeks, according to the CDC analysis. A genital rash was more commonly reported in the current outbreak. It was the most common location for rash (46%), followed by arms (40%), face (38%) and legs (37%).  More than a third of cases with available data reported rash in four or more regions. Anyone with a rash consistent with monkeypox should be tested for the virus. A substantial proportion of monkeypox cases have been reported among people with HIV, who may be at higher risk of severe illness. (Source: CNN)

Thu, August 4, 2022  What went wrong with the monkeypox response? Testing was the first thing that went wrong early in the spread of COVID-19 and again has been a problem with monkeypox. Tests for monkeypox initially had to be sent to the CDC for confirmation, drastically limiting the number that could be done.  Some people tried for days to be tested, and others with obvious symptoms tested negative, possibly because health care providers aren't used to having to collect samples from skin lesions. Clinicians still have to get their state department of health to authorize every monkeypox test. Two smallpox vaccines were developed years ago and approved for use against monkeypox. The federal government has a large supply of one, ACAM2000, but that vaccine carries severe side effects and risks, so few doses have been administered. Officials have relied on Jynneos, a vaccine that seems to work well with few problems, though it has never been tried before during an actual monkeypox outbreak. The government did not immediately order Jynneos doses released. Officials apparently were afraid the doses might be needed someday against smallpox instead of recognizing that they were needed immediately against monkeypox. The government has since ordered more doses, and more than 1 million have been made available, but demand still seems to outstrip supply in many places. More doses won't be available for months. Similarly, an antiviral treatment called TPOXX that appears to work well against monkeypox has been tied up in bureaucracy and is difficult for patients to access. Officials have alternated between saying there's no problem and blaming the CDC. What will happen over Labor Day, when Black Gay Pride is celebrated in Atlanta?  If action isn't taken quickly to avert a superspreader event, you might expect to see the virus seed itself across the rural South. The Biden administration announced this week the establishment of a National Monkeypox Response Team with both logistical and public health experience - the fire department is getting organized 2½ months after the fire has started. (Source: USAToday)

Thursday, August 04, 2022  Sen. Paul, the Republican ranking member of a Homeland Security subcommittee that focuses on emerging threats and spending oversight, convened a congressional hearing yesterday to scrutinize gain-of-function research - a risky method used to manipulate pathogens that make viruses more transmissible or dangerous. Paul has accused the National Institutes of Health of funding such research that could have led to the global coronavirus pandemic. “I don’t think the people doing the research are able to adequately and objectively regulate themselves,” he said.  “I don’t think an absolute ban is what we want. We want better oversight of this.” Paul believes Covid-19 was accidentally leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Yesterday, Paul brought three scientists before his subcommittee to explain gain of function, its risks and rewards. Ebright, a microbiology laboratory director at Rutgers University, Quay, the CEO of Atossa Therapeutics and Esvelt, a professor at the MIT Media Lab, all agreed that gain of function research needs to be better defined and have more oversight. Ebright said a main reason gain-of-function research is performed is because it is fast, easy and attracts funding, but stopped short of saying it should be completely eliminated. Quay, on the other hand, said it would be appropriate for the U.S. to halt all gain-of-function research, at least temporarily. Besides Paul, only four other Republican senators attended the hearing to question the scientists. No Democratic senator appeared.  “Gain of function research has the potential to unleash a global pandemic that threatens the lives of millions, yet this is the first time the issue’s been discussed in a congressional committee,” Paul said.  He acknowledged the hearing was the beginning of a long process to produce legislation.  He said he welcomed other scientists, including virologists, to offer future testimony that could produce bipartisan legislation. (Source: McClatchyDC)

04.08.2022   The US-based Free Buryatia Foundation was founded in March 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine by opponents of the war in Buryatia and the global Buryatia diaspora.  It advocates for Buryatia's democratic self-determination, (Source: DW)

Thursday, 4 August 2022  Ukrainian top intelligence official reveals US involvement in missile strikes against Russia. Today, a spokesman for Russia’s defense ministry, Lt. Gen Konashenkov, stated that “contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, [the US] is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.” Konashenkov’s statement came in response to Monday’s interview by the British Telegraph with the Major General Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. In the interview, Skibitsky acknowledged that Ukraine was not only using US-manufactured and -delivered HIMARS long-range missiles to target Russian fuel and ammunition depots and battlefield headquarters in eastern Ukraine, but that Ukraine was also relying on 'real-time information' in these strikes. The US is directly involved in the decision-making process for Ukrainian military strikes on Russian targets: The Telegraph paraphrased Skibitsky as saying that before every strike, discussions took place between the US and Ukraine 'that would allow Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.'  In his statement, Konashenkov declared that this represented an official recognition by Ukraine that “the Biden administration [that] is directly responsible for all rocket attacks approved by Kyiv on residential areas and civilian infrastructure facilities in settlements of Donbas and other regions that caused mass deaths of civilians.”  He added that the Russian military “has marked it and will keep in mind this official confession.” Following Skibitsky’s provocative revelations, the Pentagon issued a statement, merely declaring that the US was providing Ukraine with 'detailed, time-sensitive information to help them understand the threats they face and defend their country against Russian aggression.' The US involvement in the imperialist proxy war against Russia has become ever more overt and provocative in recent months. After ramming through a record $40 billion for weapons for Ukraine in Congress, on top of billions of direct military aid pledged by the White House to Ukraine since February 24 alone, the US began delivering HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) to Ukraine in late May. They are now being used for a major offensive by the Ukrainian army, which is seeking to reconquer parts of southern Ukraine that have been occupied by Russia. In July, a Pentagon spokesman refused to preclude that these missiles would be used to attack the Russian-built Kerch Bridge, which connects the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea with the Russian mainland. Since then, the US has publicly acknowledged that it is considering plans to send fighter jets to Ukraine, a move that, as US President Biden stated just a few months ago, could ’start World War III.’ The statements by Skibitsky to a leading British newspaper and the marked absence of an explicit denial by the Pentagon mark yet another major provocation of Washington against Russia. Skibitsky’s interview was published the same day as the first grain shipment from Ukraine since the start of the NATO-provoked war left the Black Sea city of Odessa, heading for the port of Tripoli, Lebanon. The ship’s departure marked the beginning of a 120-day deal brokered by the UN and Turkey and signed by Russia and Ukraine in July. A Joint Coordination Center (JCC) located in Istanbul is charged with overseeing the export of Ukrainian grain throughout the 120-day timeframe. The White House has been conspicuously absent from the negotiations around the deal with the US press insisting that it had no prospect of succeeding. (Source: WSWS)

Aug. 3, 2022  Eli Lilly & Co. said it plans to begin commercial sales of its Covid-19 monoclonal antibody treatment to states, hospitals and other healthcare providers beginning the week of Aug. 15t, as the federal government’s supply of the drug is nearly depleted. It will likely be the first test of whether the vaccines and treatments would remain accessible if shifted to a commercial market. Previously, Lilly sold all of its Covid-19 antibody doses for use in the U.S. via contracts with the federal government. But the government will exhaust its supply of Lilly’s Covid-19 antibody treatment, bebtelovimab - which was introduced in 2022 and has held up against the more transmissible Omicron variant and its BA.5 subvariant - as early as the week of Aug. 22. Bebtelovimab is authorized to treat mild to moderate Covid-19 in nonhospitalized people age 12 and older who are at high risk for severe disease, when the antiviral treatments Paxlovid and Veklury are unavailable or aren’t clinically appropriate for a patient. It is typically given via intravenous injection by a medical provider. Lilly’s list price for bebtelovimab is $2,100 per dose. In June, Lilly agreed to supply an additional 150,000 doses of bebtelovimab to the U.S. government for about $275 million. That was expected to meet demand through late August. The Biden administration had used congressional pandemic rescue funds to cover Covid-19 vaccines and treatments for people without health coverage, but the initiative’s funding ran out in spring. Eight percent of Americans lacked health insurance as of 2022. Without new appropriations from Congress, the government lacks funds to purchase more doses from Lilly, too. Lilly booked $1.47 billion in global sales of Covid antibodies in the first quarter of 2022, following $2.24 billion in sales for full-year 2021. The seven-day average of new hospital admissions for Covid-19 was 6,370 for the week ending July 29, up from 1,438 for the week ending April 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thirty-one percent of people age 50 or older. (Source: TheWallStreetJournal)

Tuesday, August 2, (2022)  The US announced a new tranche of weapons for Ukraine’s forces worth $550m, including ammunition for rocket launchers and artillery guns. The package will include more ammunition for the high mobility advanced rocket systems otherwise known as HIMARS. The assistance includes 75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition. (Source: AlJazeera)

August 1, 2022  It was an intelligence operation. Rogan: Epstein may have been CIA or Mossad spy who was part of a plot to collect sensitive information about the rich and powerful. They were bringing in people and compromising them, to influence their opinions and the way they expressed those opinions. “And I don’t know why they would want to do that with scientists, which is really strange to me,” Rogan added.  In 2020, Harvard found that the university accepted more than $9 million from Epstein during the decade leading up to his 2008 sex crimes conviction in Florida state court, but barred him from making further donations after that point. It concluded that Epstein visited the Cambridge, Mass., campus more than 40 times after his conviction, including as recently as 2018.  Nowak, a Harvard professor who had close ties to Epstein and who allegedly gave him an office on campus, was disciplined by the school. The former director of MIT’s famous Media Lab, Ito, resigned in 2019 amid uproar over his financial connections to Epstein. Epstein allegedly assaulted dozens of girls, some as young as 14 years old. His madam, Maxwell, 60, was sentenced last month to 20 years in federal prison for procuring young girls in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. Maxwell’s late father was rumored to have had ties with the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. ’Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019’. Rogan's podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," commands an audience of some 11 million listeners. (Source: TheNewYorkPost)

Mon, August 1, 2022  More people are catching coronavirus a second time, heightening long COVID risk, experts say. According to a preprint study examining U.S. veterans, of which Al-Aly was the lead author, getting infected twice or more "contributes to additional risks of all-cause mortality, hospitalization and adverse health outcomes" in various organ systems, and can additionally worsen risk for diabetes, fatigue and mental health disorders. Another report, observing triple-vaccinated Italian healthcare workers who weren't hospitalized for COVID-19, found that two or three doses of vaccine were associated with a lower prevalence of long COVID. The official case tallies are probably vast undercounts, given that so many at-home tests are being used, and that could suggest that the burden of long COVID in subsequent months will be hard to predict. (Source: LosAngelesTimes)

1 August 2022  Pelosi's plane, a C-40 B/C plane is the military's version of the Boeing 737-700 business jet. The speaker's first stop was  in Hawaii, then on to Guam landing at Anderson Air Force Base before arriving in Singapore today morning.  (Source: DailyMail)
Some comments: 'Guess Nancy and Joe are neck deep in Chinese yuan they now need to pay it back. What better way than to create a reason for China to invade Taiwan.';
'Modern China is the USA,s and Britains creation. Decades training it's students, allowing China to buy technology companies, and outsourcing everything. Now you pay the price'

August 1, 2022 Aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) and big deck amphibious ships USS America (LHA-6) and USS Tripoli (LHA-7), with Marine F-35B Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters embarked, are operating in the vicinity of Taiwan, on the edge of the South China Sea ahead of a Western Pacific visit from U.S. House Speaker Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.) to the region. Today, Japan-based Reagan is in the Philippine Sea after transiting the San Bernadino Strait in July 30 following a port visit to Singapore and operating in the South China Sea. Japan-based America is in the East China Sea. Its F-35Bs were not grounded as part of the ongoing ejection seat problems.  California-based Tripoli is in just south of Okinawa. Tripoli has been embarked with up to 20 F-35Bs, while America routinely deploys with Marine F-35Bs. Pelosi arrived in Singapore today as part of a congressional delegation to the region after a stop in Hawaii that included a brief with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Her official itinerary did not include Taiwan. China views Taiwan as a breakaway province and discourages governments from dealing with Taipei directly. Pelosi would be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. (Source: USNINews)

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China
August 10, 2022  China’s state council has proposed imposing Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” policy on Taiwan and said it would not renounce the use of force to take the island. The proposals, contained within the first state council white paper on Taiwan in two decades, reveal Beijing’s long-term plans for the democratic island. China’s state council said that after unification, Taiwan would be allowed to implement a social system that was different from that of the mainland and “continue to operate under a high degree of autonomy”. The same commitment was made to Hong Kong in 1997 but the semi-autonomous region has since had dozens of pro-democracy leaders thrown in jail, newspapers shut down, and patriotic education enforced through national security laws. The state council said today that Taiwanese compatriots “who support reunification of the country and rejuvenation of the nation will be the masters of the region”. It said peaceful unification would allow Taiwan to integrate into China’s economic and social development but warned that resistance could cause it to be taken by force. “We will not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures,” the state council white paper said. “Use of force would be the last resort taken under compelling circumstances.” In a direct attack on the Democratic People’s Party, the paper accused Tsai’s government of being a key driver of the separatist movement and attempts “to prevent the Chinese nation’s great rejuvenation”. The government of President Tsai won a landslide re-election in 2020 on a platform of remaining separate but not officially independent of China. Tsai has reiterated Taiwan’s policy is to maintain the status quo. The number of Taiwanese in favour of unification with China has dropped sharply over the past decade as China has become more authoritarian under President Xi. A yearly poll conducted by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation shows only 11 per cent of Taiwanese favour unification, while 26.4 per cent want to maintain the status quo and 46.6 per cent want Taiwan to become officially independent. (Source: BrisbaneTimes)

Aug 8. 2022  Hong Kong will reduce the period of time people entering the city must spend in hotel quarantine to three days from seven. People arriving at Hong Kong’s international airport will be required to go to an approved quarantine hotel and, if they don’t have COVID-19, can then serve four days of health monitoring either at home or in a hotel. The reduction to the quarantine period follows the removal of flight suspensions last month. Arrivals also still face the prospect of being sent to a community isolation facility should they test positive on one of the copious number of tests they’ll be required to take. Rooms are in short supply and costs are high, while anyone who is infected in the days before their trip is forced to delay travel. Travelers will also face a busy schedule of tests. Officials also unveiled a tiered health-code system reminiscent of what’s used in mainland China. A yellow code will be given to inbound travelers, which they’ll keep until they finished health surveillance, while anyone testing positive will be given a red code. A blue code will be shown in the city’s LeaveHomeSafe app once the quarantine or health monitoring period has ended. An isolation facility with 3,000 units at the site of the city’s old airport has just been launched, with the security minister highlighting sea views from some of the rooms in a social media post. The city reported more than 4,000 infections yesterday. (Source JapanTimes)

Aug 8, 2022  New virus in China with animal to human transmission. Experts believe it could be lethal, though no death reports have come up so far. (Source: NTD)

8 August 2022  China's military says it is continuing large-scale military drills around Taiwan after its previously announced live fire exercises ended yesterday. The Chinese army's Eastern Theatre Command said that it would practice anti-submarine attacks and sea raids. The renewed activity around Taiwan comes after Chinese maritime authorities announced that drills would also take place in other locations. In the Yellow Sea - located between China and the Korean peninsula - new daily military drills were due to start from Saturday, August 6, until the middle of August, and include live-fire exercises. In addition, a month-long military operation in one area of the Bohai sea - north of the Yellow Sea - started on Saturday. (Source: BBC)

Sunday, August 7, 2022  COVID lockdown turns Chinese tourist hotspot Sanya into nightmare for stranded tourists. The tropical southern island of Hainan in the South China Sea recorded just two positive symptomatic COVID-19 cases in the whole of last year. This month the number of cases has suddenly soared, prompting a lockdown in the city of Sanya and leaving tens of thousands of tourists stuck on the island. Sanya, the island's main tourist hub, imposed a lockdown yesterday and restricted transport links to try to stem the outbreak, even as some 80,000 visitors were enjoying its beaches at peak season. Many are now stuck inside hotels until next Saturday, if not longer. Sanya reported 689 symptomatic and 282 asymptomatic cases between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7. Other cities around Hainan province, including Danzhou, Dongfang, Lingshui, and Lingao, have all reported over a dozen cases in the same period. Yesterday, the sale of rail tickets out of Sanya was suspended. More than 80% of flights to and from Sanya had been cancelled. Hainan has been closed to overseas tourists for the past two and half years since China, in response to the pandemic, stopped issuing tourist visas and implemented strict quarantine rules. Sanya's government announced yesterday that tourists who have had their flights cancelled would be able to book hotel rooms at half price. Dozens of tourists today complained that they were still having to pay rates similar to the original prices. A foreign tourist who lives in China and was on honeymoon in Sanya, said that additional issues for stranded tourists included massive price hikes in food delivery fees, meal prices at hotels, as well as flight tickets out of Hainan. Food supplies in his hotel were also running low, he said. Sanya authorities have said that stranded tourists can leave the island starting next Saturday, August 13, provided they have done five COVID tests and obtained negative results for all of them. (Source: Reuters)

Aug 6 2022  China's state controlled media boasted it has rehearsed sinking US aircraft carriers using hypersonic missiles as part of a massive war games amid simmering tensions over Taiwan. Hypersonic missiles such as the DF-17 could be used, it claimed, to hit  "moving targets at sea". (Source: TheU.S.Sun)

August 6, 2022   The Chinese government has reacted with Pelosi’s visit by ending dialogue with Washington in key areas, including military-to-military talks, climate change, cross-border crime and drug trafficking, and the repatriation of illegal migrants. The eight countermeasures announced yesterday specifically cancel China-US Theatre Commanders meetings, China-US Defense Policy Coordination talks and China-US Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings. White House spokesperson Kirby announced further anti-China provocations, with US naval and air transits of the Taiwan Strait in the “next few weeks.” Taiwan is not only critical to China strategically but is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which has a virtual monopoly on the production of the most advanced semiconductors vital for countless commercial and military applications. US imperialism is consciously exploiting Taiwan and endangering its population, in the same way as it has used Ukraine to provoke a war with Russia. It is seeking to provoke a conflict over the island and drag China into a military quagmire that will weaken and fracture the country. (Source: WSWS)

August 6, 2022  Jiang, the party leader from 1989 to 2002, had dabbled in creating a Chinese equivalent of the United States’ National Security Council, but political inertia stood in the way. His successor, Hu, increased spending on the military and domestic security, but let their chiefs turn them into fiefs where they promoted cronies and collected kickbacks, including company shares and hoards of cash and gems. One year after Mr. Xi took office, he announced before hundreds of senior officials that China would establish a National Security Commission. At the commission’s first meeting in 2014, Mr. Xi told officials that the threats demanded a “comprehensive view of national security.” Under this approach, domestic and foreign dangers were often seen through a prism of ideological rivalry with the West. Mr. Xi is the chairman of the National Security Commission. Through new rules and personnel appointments, Mr. Xi has made sure that this expanding system stays firmly in his hands. In 2019, when demonstrations filled streets in Hong Kong for months, protesters clashed with the police, Beijing warned that Hong Kong risked succumbing to a “color revolution” backed by Western governments. A senior aide of Mr. Xi, Ding, is widely believed to be head of the Commission’s administrative office, steering its operations. The chief deputy in the office is Chen, the minister of state security. The commission is one of the most secretive bodies of a secretive state. Its size, staffing and powers remain unclear. Its officials rarely meet foreigners. The full membership gathers roughly once a year, like other top bodies of Chinese leaders. Mentions of the security meetings usually emerge only on local party websites summarizing its orders for officials. The national commission established local security committees across provinces, cities and counties. These local committees focus on domestic threats like protests and dissent. Chinese universities were pressed to observe and report on “ideological” problems among teachers and students, which included keeping track of their online comments. Security officials ordered cadres to closely monitor persistent protesters, people with histories of mental illness, former prisoners and others deemed risks to safety and stability. Party leaders approved China’s first full National Security Strategy, an internal document late last year, laying out broad goals through 2025. It calls for ensuring that China can provide more of its own food and core technology and for developing ways to defuse social unrest before it erupts. China must deepen its partnership with Russia to withstand international threats, says the new, 150-page textbook on Mr. Xi’s “comprehensive outlook on national security”, whose authors include officials from the National Security Commission. To Mr. Xi, national security is a “people’s war,” enlisting not just military officers, but also elementary schoolteachers and neighborhood workers. On each National Security Education Day on April 15, children have lessons about dangers that include food poisoning and fires, spies and terrorists. It reminded the pupils of the Ministry of State Security’s phone number for reporting anything suspicious. Neighborhoods have founded “National Security People’s Line-of-Defense” groups to ferret out potential dissidents and “suspicious” foreigners. The Ministry of State Security recently offered rewards of up to $15,000 for citizens who report information on security crimes. “This evil wind of ‘color revolution’ has never ceased,” Wang, a party official in China’s office for Hong Kong affairs, wrote recently in a new Chinese journal on national security. “Like the Covid virus, it constantly mutates.” Under these pressures, China is becoming a country where - as in grim eras in its past - vigilance can easily spiral into paranoia. Internally that’s how officials think now: behind every problem, every protest, is also a plot. As Mr. Xi prepares to claim a breakthrough third term as leader at a Communist Party congress this fall, he has signaled that national security will be even more of a focus. Strains over Covid and pandemic restrictions, superpower divisions deepened by Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as rising food and energy prices, are part of a constant onslaught of challenges. In the run-up to the congress, officials have been gathering in meetings to reverently study the new textbook that explains Mr. Xi’s vision. “Unless political security is assured, the country will inevitably fall apart, scattering like a box of sand, and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will be out of the question,” the book says. “Pursuing absolute security is, first, unrealistic; second, too costly; and third, will harm the country in pursuing other values,” Jia, a professor at Peking University who is a senior member of a Chinese government consultative council, wrote in a Chinese journal this year. (Source: dnyuz)

Aug 5 2022   China is convinced it now needs to hit America "hard and early " in a surprise Pearl Harbor-style attack to invade Taiwan, Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University and a former China analyst at the Pentagon, told. Earlier this year, she suggested such an attack could see America lose a war to China in a week as it struggled to get its forces in place to prevent an invasion of Taiwan. Beijing increasingly views an invasion of the island as inseparable from a war with the US. “I met with some Chinese government officials this morning and they communicated to me that the status quo has been broken,” she said. “Now they have an opportunity to build a new status quo and that’s going to be one more beneficial for them in which they’re present and operating because this exacerbates the US problem of early warning. “There will be large scale mobilisations and exercises that are basically combat rehearsals. “If it becomes routine for China to be engaging in mass mobilisations then it’s harder for the United States to know if it’s a blockade of Taiwan or just an exercise.” Japan, South Korea and the island of Guam are just some of the locations which serve the US army, navy and air force near China and Taiwan. Guam has 6,000 servicemen on the island, South Korea hosts 26,000, while Japan has 56,000. And the main source of power for Washington in the region is the mighty Seventh Fleet. The fleet deploys between 50 to 70 warships, including aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, cruisers and assault ships. Some 27,000 sailors and marines are service with the fleet - which also has around 150 aircraft. And at the core of the fleet is the Fifth Carrier Strike Group, currently headed by USS Ronald Reagan - which is currently operating close to Taiwan. In recent book Defending Taiwan foreign policy experts Brands and Beckley warned too, the war could begin with China launching a pre-emptive strike on US forces. The experts, who penned the chapter "Getting Ready for a Long War" in the book for the American Enterprise Institute, argue the US is preparing for the "wrong kind of war" over Taiwan. Both sides are readying their militaries for a "splendid little war". But they warn Chinese and US military leaders will instead end up getting a long, grinding conflict with an overt risk of a nuclear exchange. They warn the "most worrying" scenario would see Beijing attempt to launch a "surprise missile attack" on American forces in Asia. Chinese military doctrine demands that they attempt to "paralyse the enemy in one stroke" - and they warn "by the time the [US] was ready to fight, the war might effectively be over". Brands and Beckley describe how Beijing will seek to blunt any response by the US. The massive assault would then be followed by  cyberattacks and anti-satellite operations to try sow chaos and stop any effective response by Taiwan and the US. They go on: "And the PLA would race through the window of opportunity, staging amphibious and airborne assaults that would overwhelm Taiwanese resistance." "By the time the United States was ready to fight, the war might effectively be over." Military exercises have been launched just 12 miles from the island, with 100 warplanes, missiles being fired, and tanks gathering on beaches. State controlled media has been turning up the heat on the rhetoric, referring to the drills as "rehearsals for the reunification operation". (Source: TheU.S.Sun)

August 4, 2022  China says it conducted "precision missile strikes" in the Taiwan Strait today as part of military exercises that have raised tensions in the region to their highest level in decades. The drills are due to run from today to Sunday, August 7, and include missile strikes on targets in the seas north and south of the island in an echo of the last major Chinese military drills held in 1995 and 1996. China has given no word on numbers of troops and military assets involved. The exercises appear to be the largest held near Taiwan in geographical terms. The exercises involved troops from the navy, air force, rocket force, strategic support force and logistic support force. (Source: Nikkei)

2022-08-03  The English-language Global Times news outlet, which is aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, included in a post early today that conventional missiles are expected to fly over the island of Taiwan for the first time. It is clearly designed to intimidate the people of Taiwan and underscore the threat of Chinese missiles to the island. (Source: USNews)

Aug 3 2022   China has announced a series of live-fire military exercises around Taiwan, with the Eastern Theatre Command saying that "joint naval and air exercises will be conducted in the northern, southwestern, and southeastern sea and airspaces" of the island. It is also set tomorrow to begin further live-fire military drills in zones encircling Taiwan - at some points within just 12 miles of the island's shore. Commercial ships and flights have been warned to avoid these areas during these times. The drills will include "long-range live ammunition shooting" in the Taiwan Strait, which separates the island from mainland China and straddles vital shipping lanes. China could potentially keep up this level of aerial war games for days if not weeks, stretching Taiwan's smaller airforce as it seeks to drive away planes. If China disrupts shipping in the Taiwan Strait, a key global trade route, this could harm its own economy. Rumours are flying of a possible missile test close to Taiwan as an act of provocation. (Source: TheU.S.Sun)

Tuesday, August 2, 2022  Beijing announced six exclusion zones encircling Taiwan to facilitate live-fire military drills from today to Sunday, with some of the areas crossing into the island’s territorial waters. The size and scope of the areas could set the stage for the Chinese military’s most provocative actions near Taiwan in decades. The Taiwan Strait is the primary route for ships passing from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to points west. Almost half of the global container fleet and 88% of the world’s largest ships by tonnage passed through the waterway this year. (Source: msn)

Taiwan
August 09, 2022  Taiwan's military commenced a live-fire artillery drill simulating defence against an attack. (Source: TheWeek)

6 August 2022   A top Taiwan defence ministry official leading a missile production unit was found dead today morning in a hotel room, reported government-controlled Central News Agency (CNA). Ou, who was the deputy head of the Taiwan defence ministry’s research and development unit, died from a heart attack. (Source: TheIndependent)

Thu, August 4, 2022 Dire shortage of pilots. The PLA fired 11 missiles into waters near the island today, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said, as part of China’s most provocative exercises in decades. Japan said late today it estimated at least some of those missiles flew over Taiwan - which would be the first time that had occurred - and landed in waters in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. PLA aircraft made some 960 forays into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone last year, compared with about 380 in 2020. The busy schedule prevents experienced pilots from helping to train new ones. Taiwan requires 250 hours of flight training before a pilot can fly a fighter jet like the F-16. Taipei is protected by a relatively large and modern fleet of fighter jets. But the democratically governed island could need as many as 50 years at the current rate to train enough pilots to fill the cockpits of the jets they expect to get by the middle of this decade. American military commanders estimate Chinese President Xi may have the capability to take action across the Taiwan Strait in as soon as five years, and the daily incursions are wearing down Taiwan’s pilots and the jets they fly. Taiwan will need to add at least 100 more pilots by 2026 to operate the 66 more advanced Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16Vs that President Tsai agreed to buy two years ago. The Air Force only netted 21 new F-16 pilots from 2011 to 2019. About 80% of university students in Taiwan have myopia, due to long classroom hours and high-levels of screen time on electronic devices. The Seventh Flight Training Wing on the Chihhang Air Base in eastern Taitung city, located on the Pacific coast, will house the new F-16Vs, as well as 33 locally developed “Brave Eagle” advanced jet trainers by 2024. More than half of the 70-80 trainees annually at the center are now being sent to the F-16 wing. (Source: Yahoo)

August 2, 2022   The plane took a circuitous route that studiously avoided the South China Sea - which Beijing claims - before heading up the east coast of the Philippines. So many people were tracking the US military plane ferrying her on FlightRadar that the website said some users experienced outages. The 82-year-old lawmaker, who flew on a US military aircraft, being greeted at Taipei’s Songshan Airport by foreign minister Wu. Moscow said it was “absolutely in solidarity with China”, calling the prospect of a Pelosi visit “pure provocation”. (Source: InsiderPaper)

August 2, 2022 12:46 IST Chinese planes were flying close to the median line of the sensitive waterway today morning. Since yesterday several Chinese warships had remained close to the unofficial line dividing the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan's defence ministry had "reinforced" its combat alertness level from today morning to today noon. The Taiwan dollar slipped to its lowest levels in more than two years on the weaker side of 30 per US dollar and investor worries about a potential Pelosi visit and China's reaction appeared to be behind today's declines in China's yuan and north Asian stock markets. Taiwan newspaper Liberty Times said Pelosi's delegation was due to arrive at 10:20 pm (1420 GMT) today. (Source: IndiaToday)

08/02/2022  Two Chinese warships - a missile destroyer and a frigate - were spotted in international waters off the coast of Lanyu Island in eastern Taiwan early today morning, 45 nautical miles southeast of Lanyu at around 4 a.m.. Over the past two days, PLA reconnaissance vessels, as well as missile destroyers and frigates, have been plying waters southeast of Taiwan's Hualien County and Lanyu. The Chinese vessels seen off Lanyu early today were likely a Type 055 stealth guided missile destroyer and a Type 054A guided-missile frigate. The Type 055 frigate has both aerial and maritime surveillance capabilities, and its radar has a high-altitude operating range of 560 kilometers. There has been quite a lot of activity east of Taitung County in the Pacific Ocean these past few days. An unusual number of Taiwan Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jets stationed at Zhi-Hang Air Base in Taitung. (Source: FocusTaiwan)

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Kosovo
August 07, 2022   Kosovar authorities have launched an investigation into the August 6 shooting incident, in which they say 10 shots were fired at a border-surveillance unit attempting to launch a patrol boat in Lake Uyman near the town of Zubin Potok. Municipalities in northern Kosovo - including Zubin Potok, northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, and Leposaviq - are inhabited by an ethnic-Serbian majority in the mainly ethnic-Albanian country. Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia have risen recently after Kosovo said it would require Serbs living in the north of the country and using Serbian car license plates to apply for plates issued by Kosovar authorities. Ethnic-Serbian protesters blocked border crossings in the region in protest at the requirements. Kosovar authorities agreed to delay implementation of the requirements for 30 days after the border barricades were removed. About 50,000 ethnic-Serbs live in the north of Kosovo, but they do not recognize the country’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia, and they maintain close ties to Belgrade. (Source: RadioFreeEurope)

Russia
August 10, 2022  Experts say the situation at Zaporizhzhia - where 500 Russian soldiers and 50 pieces of heavy machinery, including tanks, are stationed, according to Ukraine - doesn't warrant warnings of a Europe-wide disaster. The risks from shelling are limited given the reactors are protected by up to 10 meters of concrete, according to Cizelj, president of the European Nuclear Society. He estimated that only a barrage of targeted aerial bombings would be likely to breach the reactor walls. An attack on spent fuel storage sites, he added, would have a limited effect, as any released radioactive material would only travel around 10 to 20 kilometers. Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed that shelling is not the real risk, pointing to the vulnerability of the plant's cooling systems instead. “The right analogy here is Fukushima not Chernobyl,” he said. Nuclear power plants are designed with multiple independent safety systems, including numerous grid connections and backup diesel generators. Zaporizhzhia also uses a spray pond for cooling, meaning hot water from inside the plant is sprayed into the air outside to lower its temperature. These are "actually going to be relatively vulnerable because they have to be in contact with the outside world," making them potential targets for attack, said Acton. Both stressed that even in the worst case scenario - if the cooling systems fail, leading to a reactor meltdown - it would cause serious damage at a local level. Cizelj estimated a 30-kilometer radius. “It will be a tragedy for the local people', he said, even if it would create no immediate casualties. (Source: Politico)

Aug. 10, 2022 "We demand that Russia immediately hand back full control to its rightful sovereign owner, Ukraine, of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as well as all nuclear facilities within Ukraine's internationally recognized borders to ensure their safe and secure operations," the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations said in a statement today. The countries added that while under Russian control, Ukrainian staff operating the plant "must be able to carry out their duties without threats or pressures. " "It is Russia's continued control of the plant that endangers the region,' they said. Some 500 Russian soldiers are utilizing the facility as a base though it is still run by Ukrainian employees, and it has repeatedly come under shelling, causing damage. IAEA Director General Grossi said he is to brief the United Nations Security Council on the situation at the plant tomorrow as well as his effort to lead a mission to the site as soon as possible. "An accident at this plant could threaten public health and the environment both in Ukraine and neighboring countries, as well as further away," he said in a statement today. (Source: UPI)

August 10, 2022  Russia has "almost certainly" established a major new ground forces formation to support its operations in Ukraine, the British Defence Ministry said on August 9. This unit, called the 3rd Army Corps, is based out of the city of Mulino, east of Russia's capital Moscow. (Source: Reuters)

August 10, 2022  In the past two days alone, three senior Russian officers were reported dead: Lt. Colonel Gorban, a commander from the Foreign Security Service (FSB) special forces; army aviation commander Colonel Kleshchenko; and Colonel Tsikul of Russia's 90th Tank Division - reportedly the 100th Russian senior officer to die in the war. Russia has been chipping away at its leadership ranks just by firing them outright, too. General-Colonel Chayko, the former commander of the Eastern Military District, was dismissed in May, according to British intelligence. Russia has likely replaced General-Colonel Zhuravlev with General-Lieutenant Kochetkov to head up the Western Military District. General Dvornikov, who was heading up the operation in Ukraine, has also reportedly been dismissed. Putin is definitely adopting a strategy trying to find a fighting general that will succeed. (Source: msn)

August 10, 2022 Russian oil deliveries through the southern Druzhba pipeline servicing Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have been halted since August 4, Russian supplier Transneft said yesterday. Transneft said it had not been able to make a regular payment of transit fees to Ukraine, due to EU sanctions, and as a result Ukraine stopped the transit. Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz, the parent company of oil infrastructure operator UkrTransNafta, did not respond to a request for comment. (Source: Politico)

August 10, 2022  Russian shelling has killed 21 people in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, governor Reznychenko said today. Eleven people were killed in the district of Nikopol and 10 in the town of Marganets, he said on the Telegram messaging app. (Source: Reuters)

9 Aug 2022  Now Russian President Putin’s largest state-controlled TV channel has given airtime to the leader of pro-Kremlin Ukrainian movement Parus, Kot, who claimed it was Kyiv and the West jeopardising nuclear safety. “We are dealing with the reality. “We need to tell Ukraine and its supporting countries - Britain and America foremost…and make it clear. “If Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is damaged and a disaster occurs, two missiles will immediately strike your decision-making centres. “One in Washington, the other in London - nuclear ones. And that’s it, there won't be any more talk.' Another talkshow pundit Mukhin, head of Centre for Political Information said: “This would trigger the mutual destruction protocol, so I would honestly refrain from making such statements.” (Source: DailyStar)

August 9, 2022  On occupied areas of southeastern Ukraine, guerrilla forces loyal to Kyiv are killing pro-Moscow officials, blowing up bridges and trains, and helping the Ukrainian military by identifying key targets. They coordinate with the Ukrainian military’s Special Operations Forces, which helps them develop strategies and tactics. Those forces also select targets and set up a website with tips on how to organize resistance, prepare ambushes and elude arrest. A network of weapons caches and secret hideouts was established in occupied areas. Bombs have been placed near administrative buildings, at officials’ homes and even on their routes to work. An explosive placed on a tree went off as a vehicle carrying Kherson prison chief Sobolev passed by, although he  survived the attack. A police vehicle was hit by a shrapnel bomb, seriously wounding two officers, one of whom later died. The assistant of the head of the Kherson region’s Russia-backed temporary administration, Slobodchikov, was shot and killed in his vehicle. Another official, Savluchenko, was killed by a car bomb. Every day, special units from Russia detect two or three caches with weapons for terrorist activities. The Russians were offering 10,000 rubles ($165) to anyone applying for Russian citizenship to strengthen their grip on the region. Melitopol Mayor Fedorov, who spent a long time in Russian captivity, told that about 500 Ukrainian activists were detained, with many tortured. Some vanished for months after their arrest. In May and June, guerrillas blew up two railway bridges in Melitopol and derailed two Russian military trains, Fedorov said. During raids, they check phones and arrest those with Ukrainian symbols or photos of relatives in military uniforms. “In a mopping-up operation, the Russians seal the entire neighborhood, halt traffic to and from it,  and methodically go from one apartment to another. If they find any Ukrainian symbols or any link to the Ukrainian military, they put all family members in a filtration camp,” Fedorov said. Of Melitopol’s prewar population of 150,000, more than 60,000 people have left. The resistance ranges from radical activists to teachers and retirees who sing Ukrainian songs in parks and secretly wear yellow and blue ribbons. Although pro-Moscow sentiment is strong in Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland of the Donbas, a guerrilla movement also has emerged there. Observers say it varies by region and that it is in the interest of both sides to exaggerate its scope. (Source: AP )
Note: 'Reported from Tallinn, Estonia'.

August 9, 2022  Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the Saki Russian air base on the Black Sea in Crimea had been shelled and said instead that munitions had blown up there. If Ukrainian forces were, in fact, responsible for the blasts at the air base, it would mark the first known major attack on a Russian military site on the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014. Russian warplanes have used the Saki base to strike areas in Ukraine’s south on short notice. Crimea’s regional leader Aksyonov said ambulances and medical helicopters were sent to the base and the area was sealed off within a radius of five kilometers. Officials in Moscow have long warned Ukraine that any attack on Crimea would trigger massive retaliation, including strikes on “decision-making centers” in Kyiv. (Source: AP)

8 August 2022  Russia has told the US it has "temporarily" suspended on-site inspections of its strategic nuclear weapons, under an arms control treaty known as New START. The Russian foreign ministry said the US was seeking advantages and had deprived Russia of the right to carry out inspections on US territory. The treaty came into force in 2011. The current one will expire in 2026. It caps at 1,550 the number of long-range nuclear warheads that each country can deploy. (Source: BBC)

08 augustus 2022  In mid-July, independent sociologists from the Chronicles research project noted that during a period of about six weeks, the number of Russians declaring support for the so-called special military operation decreased by 9%, from 64% to 55%. The head of the Center for the Study of Public Applied Problems of National Security, former GRU Colonel Zhilin, a hardliner and regular performer on state propaganda channels, recently argued in faintly apocalyptic terms that a protracted war would lead to 'the destruction of economies, the bleeding of armies, the inflicting of large losses on the potential of two warring countries', and that it risked Russia’s relegation 'to the sidelines' of world politics. He compared calls to increase the intensity of hostilities with US actions in Vietnam, acknowledged the fact that innocent unarmed people have died, and called for a non-military solution so that Russia can live next to Ukraine 'and have any prospects of normalizing relations'. At the end of July, several articles with a similar theme appeared on the Military Review website, which is close to the Russian Ministry of Defense. In one of them, author Odintsov pointed out that the Russian 'strategy of limited and remote strikes against the Ukrainian Armed Forces' has reached its limit, while the Ukrainian army has displayed unexpected resilience and is ready to die for its ideas. Accordingly, if the Russian army plans to cut off Ukrainian formations from the rear in order to completely deprive them of supplies, it needs to at least double its forces. If the Kremlin is planning an even broader attack in the direction of Nikolaev and Odesa 'with the aim of completely encircling them and opening the road to Transnistria', its forces will have to be at least tripled. The website Wartranslated, that translates relevant texts about the war into English, published a thorough interview with Pukhov, director of the Russian Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, founded in 1997. Pukhov is quite closely affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defence and is a member of the board of experts within the  government of the Russian Federation. Pukhov in detail goes over the advantages and weak points of both the Ukrainian and the Russian armed forces and offers a sober view of the current situation with the Western weapon supplies to Ukraine. According to the military expert, in order to launch a decisive offensive, as described by propagandists, Russia will have to 'increase the number of [deployed troops] by at least 1.5 times and restore parity in the field of UAVs [drones] and counter-battery defense in short order'. Russia’s military operation faces real risks, Odintsov said. Its prolongation may start working against Russia, as Ukraine continues to increase its potential thanks to foreign weapons and a much wider call-up of manpower. Critically, Russian military experts fear that 'with the first major failure, society’s attitude to power will change', and that the Kremlin may simply not have enough resources for a long war (on August 1, it was recorded that Russia has now lost more than 5,000 armored vehicles in five months of the war.) Similar warnings were voiced by another writer for the Military Review, Staver. He criticized the propaganda myth of 'Slavic brotherhood', emphasized that the main task should be the seizure of Donbas, and predicted possible strikes by Ukraine on the Crimean bridge, Simferopol, and Sevastopol (where a Russian Navy headquarters was struck for the first time by a Ukrainian drone on July 31.) As noted by the American Institute for the Study of War, the Kremlin likely ordered Russian regions to form volunteer battalions to participate in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, instead of declaring partial or full mobilization. According to researchers, such battalions could generate around 34,000 new servicemen by the end of August if each federal area produces at least one military unit of 400 men. Another non-traditional method of attracting new soldiers is the recruitment of convicted criminals, conducted mainly through the Wagner mercenary group. For six months of service, these 'volunteers' are promised 200,000 rubles (about $3,200) plus an amnesty for those returning alive. Several hundred people can be recruited from each region. For now, the Kremlin appears to believe that the neatest way to escape this impasse is to rapidly incorporate the occupied territories into Russia. The Kremlin may hope that the annexation of new territories will lead to a new patriotic groundswell. (Source: RaamOpRussland / CEPA)

August 8, 2022  Russia's defence ministry says it shot down 19 HIMARS missiles across eastern and southern Ukraine, and destroyed HIMARS vehicles near the Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk. (Source: Reuters)

August 8, 2022  Ukrainian HIMARS strikes hit multiple military bases in Russian-occupied southern city of Melitopol in the early hours, killing troops and destroying hardware, the exiled mayor Fedorov said. (Source: Reuters)

7 August 2022  Moscow and Kyiv have been blaming each other for the bombings of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site in southern Ukraine, which has been under Russian control since the early days of the February 24 invasion but is still run by Ukrainian technicians. Ukraine's state nuclear energy company Enerhoatom that operates the plant said 174 containers with spent nuclear fuel were stored in the open air at the plant's dry storage facility that was attacked. Russia's occupying authorities in the town of Enerhodar where the plan is located today said the Ukrainian army overnight 'carried out a strike with a cluster bomb fired from an Uragan multiple rocket launcher'. The projectiles fell 'within 400 metres of a working reactor,' Russia's state news agency TASS reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warns of 'the very real risk of a nuclear disaster'. Today, Enerhoatom, had already said parts of the facility had been 'seriously damaged' by military strikes the previous day and one of its reactors forced to shut down. (Source. DailyMail)

2022-August-7  On August 5, Kiev approved a decree that enables 903 Russia-owned assets in the country to be transferred to the state and Ukrainian people. According to Prime Minister Denis Shmygal, the property that the Ukrainian authorities intend to confiscate is divided into three categories: assets belonging to the Russian state, to sanctioned citizens and companies from Russia, and to Russian banks. 'It is proposed to confiscate 903 items belonging specifically to the Russian state. 79 items are corporate rights, 824 items are property,' he explained. According to Zelensky, this measure is only the first step in a government strategy for dealing with Russian assets. The next step will be the confiscation of Russian assets held in the West. As government officials reported, assets worth 28 billion hryvnias {about $765 million} have already been forcibly seized. (Source: FarsNews)

August 07 2022  Yesterday, the Moscow-installed deputy head of the town of Nova Kakhovka near Kherson was shot as he stepped out of his apartment block. Gur died on his way to hospital in Crimea, according to Russian media. Nova Kakhovka is a town of around 45,000 people that lies on the southern bank of the River Dnipro. It is a vital hub for Russian efforts to resupply Kherson city 56km further downstream on the northern bank of the river. It came a day after the pro-Russia mayor of Kherson city suddenly fell so ill he had to be put into an induced coma. Saldo was sent to Crimea and later flown to the Sklifosovsky Emergency Research Institute in Moscow for toxicology tests. (Source: Independent)

7 August 2022  Vulnerable Ukrainian women and children are likely being trafficked into sex slavery and domestic servitude in the United Arab Emirates. Some are reported to have been targeted at Polish refugee camps, but experts believe a large proportion who have been forcibly removed to Russia are also being approached. A report from the Washington Institute For Defence And Security and the New York Center For Foreign Policy Affairs has revealed that some of those 'lost' women and children may be being trafficked to the UAE. Researchers have said that many Russian oligarchs have sought refuge in the Gulf state to avoid international sanctions and are in need of Russian-speaking staff. This latest report, called Modern Slavery In Dubai, says that some victims could be going into sex work and domestic servitude. Charities were quick to warn that sex traffickers were targeting Ukrainian women and children who had fled Putin's bombs at Polish refugee camps. Earlier this year, a Mail on Sunday investigation exposed how the issue was so bad.. 'It seems highly likely that a number of them will end up being trafficked to the UAE and other countries', Schmitz, one of the report's authors said. (Source: DailyMail)

August 6, 2022  Heavy ground fighting continues on the front line only miles to the east, southeast and north of Sloviansk. Sloviansk is considered a strategic target in Moscow’s ambitions to seize all of Donetsk province, a largely Russian-speaking area, where Russian forces and pro-Moscow separatists control about 60% of the territory. Russia’s military would like to take control of nearby water treatment facilities to serve Russian-occupied cities like Donetsk to the southeast and Mariupol to the south. Attempts to secure Kherson come at the expense of (Russian) efforts to seize Sloviansk ... which they appear to have abandoned. Members of the Dnipro-1 Regiment are digging in after a week of relative calm. Col. Bereza, the head of the volunteer national guard regiment said he thought muddy conditions after recent rainy weather in the region, not the abandonment of Sloviansk as a target, were responsible for the pause in Russian artillery strikes. “In two or three days, when it dries out, they will proceed,” he said. Only around 20,000 residents remain in Sloviansk, down from over 100,000 before Russia’s invasion. The city has been without gas or water for months, and residents are only able to manually pump drinking water from public wells. (Source: AP)

Saturday, August 6, 2022  Shells hit a high-voltage power line at the Russian-occupied plant in Zaporizhzhia, prompting operators to disconnect a reactor despite no radioactive leak being detected. The plant is still run by Ukrainian technicians.    Russia's war in Ukraine is about to enter a new phase, with most fighting shifting to a nearly 350 km front stretching southwest from near Zaporizhzhia to Kherson.    Ukraine's southern front-line city of Mykolaiv will impose an unusually long curfew from late August 5 to early Monday morning as authorities try to catch people collaborating with Russia, the region's governor said.    Russia has banned investors from so-called unfriendly countries from selling shares in energy projects and banks until the end of the year, part of the stand-off with the West over sanctions imposed after the invasion. (Source: Reuters)

August 6, 2022   UK’s defence ministry says Russian forces are almost certainly amassing in the south of Ukraine, anticipating a counter-offensive or in preparation for a possible assault. Long convoys of Russian military trucks, tanks, towed artillery and other weapons continue to move away from Ukraine’s Donbas region and are headed southwest, the ministry said. Battalion tactical groups (BTG), which comprise between 800 and 1,000 troops, have been deployed to Crimea and would almost certainly be used to support Russian troops in the Kherson region, the update said. (Source: AlJazeera)

August 5, 2022  Up to 100,000 North Korean soldiers could be sent to bolster Putin’s forces fighting Ukraine, a leading defence expert in Moscow, reserve colonel Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s National Defence journal on Rossiya 1 channel, told. “There are reports that 100,000 North Korean volunteers are prepared to come and take part in the conflict,” he said. “If North Korean volunteers with their artillery systems, wealth of experience with counter battery warfare and large calibre multiple launch rocket systems, made in North Korea, want to participate in the conflict, well let’s give the green light to their volunteer impulse.” He said: “If North Korea expresses a desire to meet its international duty to fight against Ukrainian fascism, we should let them.” It was the “sovereign right of the DPR and LPR to sign the relevant agreements”. North Korea has made it clear through “diplomatic channels” that as well as providing builders to repair war damage, it is ready to supply a vast fighting force, reported Regnum news agency. They would be deployed to the forces of the separatist pro-Putin Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] and Luhansk People’s Republic [LPR], both of which Kim has recently recognised as
independent countries. “The country is ready to transfer up to 100,000 of its soldiers to Donbas,” said the report by the pro-Kremlin news agency. “Pyongyang will be able to transfer its tactical units to Donbas.” In return, grain and energy would be supplied to Kim’s stricken economy - Russia should end its participation in international sanctions against Kim’s regime, he claimed. A Dad’s Army of men in their 50s and 60s is also being recruited with the offer of pay higher than many receive in Putin’s economy. (Source: TheDailyTelegraph)

Aug. 5, 2022  The Russian Supreme Court designated Azov a terrorist group, which could allow soldiers to be tried under strict antiterror laws.  Last week, an explosion killed more than 50 soldiers and injured dozens more in the building where they were being held at the prison, located in the part of the eastern Ukrainian province of Donetsk that is under the control of Russian-installed authorities. Russia hasn’t given the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the site where more than 50 Ukrainian soldiers were killed. Russia says the explosion was caused by a strike from a long-range rocket launcher provided to Ukraine by the U.S. Ukrainian military intelligence on August 3 in a preliminary assessment said that Russian mercenaries had blown up the building using a highly flammable substance, causing the fire to spread rapidly. Ukrainian officials and former prisoners say the Donetsk People’s Republic established a detention center at the abandoned Correctional Colony No. 120 in Olenivka earlier this year. The facility, converted by Soviet authorities from an agricultural school in the 1980s, had no water supply or heating, former prisoners said. Water was scarce and either had a bitter taste or smelled as if it had been collected from a river. The detainees were kept in overcrowded, lice-ridden cells, with as many as 35 people in a room designed for four. Captured soldiers had to run a gantlet of guards hitting them with wooden sticks, iron bars and belts. In the middle of May, the camp was prepared for new arrivals. The flag of the Donetsk People’s Republic was replaced with the Russian tricolor. Russian guards arrived. Many of the inmates were moved elsewhere in the Donetsk region to make space, and the rest were moved to another block. More than 2,000 new prisoners were brought to the camp from Azovstal. They shot to prominence by liberating Mariupol from Russian-backed separatists in 2014. The commander, Biletskiy, had led groups that espoused neo-Nazi ideas. Biletskiy left in 2016. The majority of the prisoners were bused to Olenivka prison camp, while those wounded were sent for treatment at a hospital in the town of Novoazovsk, both located in Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region. In late June, 95 injured Azovstal defenders were released as part of a prisoner exchange, 43 of them from the Azov Regiment. The swap outraged many in Russia. Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian Parliament, said that only seriously wounded soldiers of Azov were eligible for exchange. Girkin, a Russian former security-service officer who commanded Russian irregulars in Ukraine in 2014, called the exchange “treason.” The former prisoners said videos and photos from after the explosion showed the dead in a block in an abandoned part of the prison camp that wasn’t used during the period they were at the camp until early July. Ukrainian officials said they had evidence, including telephone intercepts, that showed the prisoners were moved to the building where they were killed not long before the explosion. (Source: TheWallStreetJournal)

4 Aug 2022  Ukraine’s southern command said that precision strikes had destroyed Russian stockpiles of fuel, lubricant and ammunition in Berislav district northeast of Kherson city, and “critically reduced” supplies in Nova Kakhovka, where Russian forces keep large stockpiles. Further east along the Dnieper river on the same day, Nikopol district administrator Yevtushenko said a Ukrainian strike destroyed a Russian ammunition warehouse across the river from Nikopol. Khlan, a Kherson administrative adviser, confirmed that Ukrainian HIMARS rockets destroyed a 40-car train with equipment in Brylivka, about 50km southeast of Kherson city. Some 80 Russian servicemen were estimated killed and 200 wounded in the attack. (Source: AlJazeera)

04.08.2022  'Refusniks.' From the age of 18, Russian men may sign a temporary contract with the Ministry of Defense to earn a living in the army for a limited time. These contract soldiers are currently fighting alongside professional forces in Ukraine. Many of them had signed their contracts before Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian contract soldiers are being pressued to return to their combat missions. The 'refusniks' are being held at locations in Russian-controlled areas, including Brianka, Popasna, Alchevsk, Stakhanov and Krasnyi Luch, as well as near the frontline in Svitlodar. Soldiers cannot be arrested and detained without a trial. Only Russian courts on Russian soil can hand down such rulings. In early July, 500 soldiers from Buryatia had refused to fight in Ukraine and were asking to be sent home. Verstka, a news outlet banned by Russia, says there are 1,793 such soldiers. (Source: DW)

4 Aug 2022  Ukrainian presidential adviser Arestovych said Russia’s eastern offensive was aimed at forcing Ukraine to divert troops from the Zaporizhzhia region.   Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said three civilians were killed in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Shevchenko in the past 24 hours.    The governors of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk reported that their regions had been shelled overnight.    Russian Deputy Defence Minister Fomin said Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged prisoners and the bodies of those killed in the conflict 27 times since the war began on February 24. (Source: AlJazeera)

August 4, 2022  Russian airline companies are grappling with a shortage of spare parts as international companies refuse to sell to them because of sanctions put in place. S7 Airlines has told pilots to use engine reverse thrust and to avoid autobrake mode if the runaway is long enough, the Aviatorshina Telegram channel reported. Urals Airlines, Rossiya and Pobeda published similar memos instructing pilots to “pay close attention to a temporary policy of fuel efficiency and economising resources”. By the end of summer, domestic airline companies will have no choice but to pull apart some jets to get spare parts for other aircraft. (Source: WAToday)

August 4, 2022  Russian forces have almost certainly positioned pyramidal radar reflectors in the water near the recently damaged Antonivskiy Bridge and nearby rail bridge, Britain said in a defence update. "The radar reflectors are likely being used to hide the bridge from synthetic aperture radar imagery and possible missile targeting equipment. This highlights the threat Russia feels from the increased range and precision of Western-supplied  systems,' Britain said. (Source: Reuters)

August 3, 2022  Kiyiv said on yesterday it had already recaptured 53 villages in occupied Kherson region. "(Russia) has begun creating a strike group in the Kryvyi Rih direction. It's also quite likely that the enemy is preparing a hostile counter-offensive with the subsequent plan of getting to the administrative boundary of Kherson region," the southern military command said. The steel-producing city of Kryvyi Rih where Zelenskiy grew up lies around 50 km from the southern frontline. Ukraine's military said in a statement that Russian forces were scoping out basements in the region to turn them into bomb shelters to store military hardware. Yesterday Ukraine's military command acknowledged that Russia had had "partial success" in the "Donetsk-Pisky direction" around the city of Donetsk that is held by Russia and Russian-backed separatists. (Source: Yahoo)

8/3/22  Ukrainian forces said they hit an ammunition warehouse in Berislav, further up the Dnipro river from Kherson. On the night of August 2-3, several Russian bases and arms warehouses were attacked in the Kherson Oblast using U.S.-provided HIMARS advanced multiple-rocket launchers. A Russian base was hit in Chornobaivka, on the outskirts of occupied Kherson. The Ukrainians also reported three strikes on Russian "strongholds" in the Berislavsky and Bashtansky districts, along with another on an ammunition dump in the same area. Russian forces in occupied parts of the Kherson Oblast are also facing an insurgency from Ukrainian partisan fighters, with sabotage and assassination attempts against a number of local collaborators. One official in the Russian-installed local administration was killed in a car bombing, whilst a number of others have been injured. Kuleshov, a pro-Russian blogger, was shot and killed in Kherson during April in a suspected partisan attack. (Source: NewsWek)

August 02, 2022  Russia relaxed its pandemic-related travel restrictions at its external borders on July 15. In the period from July 15 to 31, a total of 2,732 travelers crossed the border to Norway in the north. Many Russians are now using the gateway via Norway in the north when traveling to other destinations in Europe. Kirkenes has several daily direct flights to Oslo. Norway, along with Finland, continues to issue multiple-entry tourist visas to  Russians in the northern regions, the so-called Pomor visa, an arrangement that does not require a prior invitation. Although the Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk was shut down on July 1st, locals can still apply for visas via the privately operated visa center. In July 2019, more than 21,000 border crossings took place at Storskog, five times more than in July 2022. (Source: TheBarentsObserver)

Tuesday, August 2 (2022)  United States Secretary of State Blinken said Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was being used as a “nuclear shield” by Russian troops who established a base there. Ukraine’s deputy foreign affairs minister Tochytskyi said “robust joint actions are needed to prevent nuclear disaster' and called for the international community to “close the sky” over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants with air defence systems.    Ukrainian presidential adviser Arestovych said about 22,000 Russian troops were preparing to advance on the cities of Kryvyi Rih and Mykolaiv, where a 'sufficiently large' Ukrainian force lay in wait.    Haidai, 'governor' of Luhansk region, which is 'nearly all' under Russian control, said foreign fighters were arriving and that partisans were destroying key infrastructure, including gas and water networks, in battered Luhansk towns to slow Russian forces. (Source: AlJazeera)

August 1, 2022  Britain said today that Russia had continued to attempt tactical assaults on the Bakhmut axis in eastern Ukraine over the last four days, but had only managed to make slow progress. 'As briefed by the Ukrainian authorities last week, Russia is likely reallocating a significant number of its forces from the northern Donbas sector to southern Ukraine,' the British Ministry of Defence said. Russia was probably adjusting the operational design of its Donbas offensive and had likely identified its Zaporizhzhia front as a vulnerable area in need of reinforcement. (Source: Reuters)

August 1, 2022  Chubais fled Russia at the end of February and has been seen in Cyprus, Turkey and Israel. Kremlin insider is in hospital in a European clinic on life support in a suspected poisoning case. The former presidential advisor to president Yeltsin and so-called young reformer was one of the most senior pro-Western members of Russian President Putin government. He held a number of high-profile jobs including the CEO of Russia’s utilities holding United Energy Systems (UES), which was successfully privatised, and more recently was the CEO of Rusnano corporation, the state-owned tech promotion holding. The initial diagnosis is for Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder and autoimmune disease that affects the peripheral nervous system. Tass reports that the syndrome can be brought on by the coronavirus vaccines, but reports that Chubais’ room was searched by officials in hazmat suits has led to speculation that he was poisoned. (Source: bneInelliNews)

August 1, 2022  The founder of Russian internet major Yandex, Volozh, could agree to a new shareholder and management structure for the company in exchange for the Kremlin’s permission to develop some of Yandex assets independently abroad. Reportedly now a new deal is being negotiated between Volozh and the Kremlin, mediated by the veteran policymaker, ex-Finance Minister and the head of the Audit Chamber Kudrin. Kudrin himself could reportedly join Yandex board, management, or even shareholders. Volozh himself has been living in Israel for several years now, with a few managers having joined him this year. In May Yandex had to deny the unofficial reports that Volozh was negotiating with Israeli authorities to accept a large number of his IT specialists in Israel with a possible opening of an HQ in Tel Aviv. Reportedly, the negotiations involve the split of the development teams, the transfer of intellectual property, and, most importantly, who will control Russian Yandex in the future. The projects that could be spun off include drones, cloud services and the Yandex.Practicum educational project. The deal granting Volozh the rights to develop some of Yandex's projects abroad would cost him control over the rest of the business. Volozh has already announced his resignation from all positions in Yandex and its board after being sanctioned by the EU. The family trust of Volozh owns an 8.6% economic and 45.3% voting stake in Yandex and is not a controlling shareholder of the company. Yandex previously saw a cascade of top-level resignations that followed the sanctioning of Yandex Deputy CEO Khudaverdyan. Yandex was Russia’s leading developer of AI and driverless technologies. Fitch Ratings has cut Yandex and other Russian TMT majors to junk-rate B. In 2021 Yandex for the fifth year in a row topped the list of most valuable tech and internet companies with a valuation of $23bn. Apart from e-commerce, its investment case previously rested on developments in transportation, FinTech and foodtech, with the developed ecosystem seen as a key advantage. (Source: bneInelliNews)

Ukraine
Aug 8, 2022  US: 70% of Western military aid don’t reach Ukrainian troops. Corruption in Ukraine affects arms supplies. The American news media CBS News published an article analyzing arms supplies in Ukraine. A large part of the arms supply passes through Poland. Ohman, the founder of a Lithuanian organization responsible for the logistics of non-lethal military aid to Ukraine, says only 30-40% of shipments crossing the border reach their final destination. He made this statement back in April. Today, Ohman claims that the situation has fundamentally changed. At the end of August, the US sent US Defense Attache Brigadier General Harmon to try to monitor what was happening with the supplies to Ukraine, to carry out control and monitoring of armaments in Ukraine. Ukraine also realizes and already admits that there is a serious problem with the delivered weapons. The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine registered repeated sales of humanitarian aid coming from Western countries, as well as arms. This was announced by the director of the department, Melnik, on the air of the TV channel “Ukraine 24” on July 5. “Even military goods are sold for cash. We have such facts,” Melnik said. The department has already registered around ten such criminal cases. Melnyk stressed that this is an incomplete number of similar crimes, as other Ukrainian law enforcement agencies register similar violations. In Washington, they even admitted that the agency responsible for the sale and supply of American weapons abroad [DSCA] could not control the stockpiled supplies, their serial numbers, and their distribution among the Ukrainian armed forces because of the war. At this time, the US cannot send mobile teams to check availability, but DSCA is willing to open an office in the territory of Ukraine. DSCA says that the information they have about how the donated US weapons are used is based solely on assurances from Kyiv. A Javelin anti-tank guided missile system has appeared as a product for sale on the darknet with the location Kyiv. The value that the unknown seller had set was $30,000. The Russian armed forces used American Stinger missiles to shoot down Ukrainian helicopters that tried to evacuate Ukrainian soldiers during the siege of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. The online portal Donbas Insider claims, citing its military sources from France, that two Caesar self-propelled howitzers were sold to the Russian armed forces for $124,000 each. French MP and lawyer de Castelnau wrote on his official Twitter account: “Another success of Macron: 2 French Caesar guns were intercepted intact by the Russians. They are currently in the Uralvagonzavod factory in the Urals for study and possible reverse engineering. Thank you Macron, we are paying”. A few days later, on June 23rd, the Russian company [Uralvagonzavod] responded to the French lawyer, through its official Telegram profile and citing  de Castelnau’s tweet, writing: “Hello, Mr. Regis. Please convey our thanks to President Macron for the donation of the self-propelled guns. This material is of course not tip-top… not like our MSTA-S! But nevertheless, it will be useful. Send more – we’ll take them down.” France’s General Staff has denied reports of a French Caesar self-propelled howitzer being captured [or sold] by  Russian forces in Ukraine. “This information is false,” said the General Staff of France. 'We categorically deny it. We’ve discussed this with our Ukrainian partners.' According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, no evidence was provided to support the claim. (Source: BulgarianMilitary)

August 6, 2022  A very rare tank appeared in Ukraine – T-84 Oplot-M, Ukrainian production. This main battle tank is a new concept of the Kharkiv Armored Plant presented in 2008. The T-84 Oplot-M is a modernized and based version of the Soviet T-80 design. BM Oplot is armed with a 125mm smoothbore KBA-3 cannon with 46 rounds. This gun is a Soviet design. Depending on the ammunition, the operational range is from 3,000 to 5,000 meters. 5,000-meter range is achieved by firing an anti-tank guided missile [ATGM].  The tank also has secondary armament – a 7.62-mm KT-7.62 machine gun with a rate of fire of 700-800 rounds per minute. The ammunition for it is 1250 cartridges. Later, however, the Ukrainians replaced this armament with a 12.7 mm KT-12.7 anti-aircraft machine gun, remotely controlled by the tank commander. A 6-cylinder diesel engine -  1,200 - 1,500 horsepower - powers the tank. 500 km tank can travel after filling the tank with fuel. Its maximum speed on the road is 70 km/h, while off-road it is 45 km/h. It has an integrated Combat weapon system for firing anti-tank guided missiles. The tank has an integrated modern day and night firing system. Ukraine has only six manufactured T-84 Oplot-M tanks, one of them was recorded on video fighting in the war against Russia. Thailand has 64 units of the T-84 Oplot-M. (Source: BulgarianMilitary)

August 5, 2022  At least 5,237 civilians have been killed and 7,035 injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the war on Feb. 24, according to the UN. Some 10 million people have also fled to neighboring countries. (Source: AnadoluAgency)

August 4, 2022  Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians. Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals. Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. International humanitarian law requires all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent feasible, military objectives within or near densely populated areas. Other obligations to protect civilians from the effects of attacks include removing civilians from the vicinity of military objectives and giving effective warning of attacks that may affect the civilian population. Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings. Amnesty International researchers witnessed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as de facto military bases in five locations. In two towns, dozens of soldiers were resting, milling about, and eating meals in hospitals. In another town, soldiers were firing from near the hospital. Using hospitals for military purposes is a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The Ukrainian military has routinely set up bases in schools in towns and villages in Donbas and in the Mykolaiv area. Schools have been temporarily closed to students since the conflict began, but in most cases the buildings were located close to populated civilian neighbourhoods. Russian forces struck many of the schools used by Ukrainian forces. In a town east of Odesa, Amnesty International witnessed a broad pattern of Ukrainian soldiers using civilian areas for lodging and as staging areas, including basing armoured vehicles under trees in purely residential neighbourhoods, and using two schools located in densely populated residential areas. Russian strikes near the schools killed and injured several civilians between April and late June. In Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces were using a university building as a base when a Russian strike hit on 21 May, reportedly killing seven soldiers. The university is adjacent to a high-rise residential building which was damaged in the strike, alongside other civilian homes roughly 50 metres away. Militaries have an obligation to avoid using schools that are near houses or apartment buildings full of civilians, putting these lives at risk, unless there is a compelling military need. If they do so, they should warn civilians and, if necessary, help them evacuate. This did not appear to have happened in the cases examined by Amnesty International. Armed conflicts seriously hamper children’s right to education, and military use of schools can result in destruction that further deprives children of this right once the war ends. Amnesty International contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence with the findings of the research on 29 July 2022. (Source: Amnesty)

August 1, 2022  On April 14, the Migration Service posted a note on its official Facebook page which advised foreigners to submit documentation to renew any expired residency permits. On the other hand, the post also said that foreigners would not be punished for missing any deadlines due to the Migration Service’s three-month closure. The number of Belarusians affected by this amount to tens of thousands of people. Many of those affected are human rights activists who fled Belarus in 2020 and 2021 in fear of political repression. Even those who have helped Ukrainian authorities, the Ukrainian army, or the Belarusian volunteers fighting for Ukraine have been affected. Ukraine’s cutting of financial ties with Belarus has also affected Belarusians in Ukraine, since after February 24, Ukraine’s National Bank blocked the bank accounts of Belarusian nationals and their Belarusian-issued bank cards. Belarusians are still met with hostile and negative comments and actions abroad, especially in Poland and Ukraine, both on the street and from government authorities. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Belarusians have been able to flee, obtain visas and stay in neighbouring EU countries this year. In early July, Poland agreed that Belarusians fleeing Ukraine would find shelter in Poland. (Source: bneInelliNews)

United Kingdom
10 August 2022   A quarter of sponsors of Ukrainians as part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme do not want to continue the arrangement beyond six months, the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found. Sponsors agreed to provide accommodation in their own home for a minimum of six months. The scheme was set up by the government to help those fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and worked alongside the Ukraine Family Scheme - which allowed refugees to join relatives already living in the UK. Launched in March, the scheme has seen about 75,000 refugees arrive in the UK. (Source: BBC)

Europe
August 10, 2022  European history has taught us that isolating and punishing people solely on the basis of their nationality has rarely ended well. Calls are growing among some European leaders for the bloc to close its borders to Russian travelers. Yesterday, Estonia’s PM joined the leaders of Ukraine, Finland and Latvia in calling for a travel ban in response to Moscow’s war. 'Stop issuing tourist visas to Russians. Visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right,' Estonian Prime Minister Kallas tweeted. Kallas’ comment came a day after President Zelenskyy told he urged the West to introduce a travel ban on Russians. Those with big Russian diasporas, such as Germany and Spain, are less likely to support such measures. And remember this? When then-U.S. President Trump imposed his so-called travel ban on citizens from countries including Iran, Libya and Syria, EU leaders reacted with outrage. (Source: Poliitico)

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Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Texas

- Orbán Viktor beszéde -

Forrás: YouTube / HírTv):

https://tinyurl.com/kjwac6hs

(2022. VIII. 4.): 7 907 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:

1956     alaptörvény     alkotmány     Egyesült Államok     Európa     Föld     globalizmus     kommunista     kommunizmus     Magyarország     Német Birodalom     Oroszország    Országgyűlés     Szovjetunió     Ukrajna
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Orbán Viktor miniszterelnök beszéde Tusnádfürdőn,

a XXXI. Bálványosi Nyári Szabadegyetemen

(Forrás: YouTube / HírTv):

https://tinyurl.com/mryc3b8j

(2022. VIII. 4.): 270 982 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:

II. világháború     alkotmány     Ausztrália     Bosznia-Hercegovina     Brazília    Bulgária     Csehország     Dél-Afrika     Dél-Korea     Egyesült Államok     Erdély     Európa     Európai Bizottság     Európai Unió     Franciaország     Gazprom     Görögország     Horvátország     India     Kárpát-medence     Kína     kommunista     könyv     Krím     Lengyelország     Magyarország     Nagy-Britannia     NATO     Németország    Olaszország     Oroszország     Oszmán Birodalom     Románia     Schengeni övezet     Székelyföld     Szlovákia    Szovjetunió     Ukrajna     Visegrádi országok     vírus
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Space
Jul 12, 2022  Six months after reaching its final destination in orbit around the Sun, more than one million kilometres above the Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is sending back its first full-colour images - photographs made from 2,000 different infrared colours. Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

https://tinyurl.com/ba5hpcd4

JWST is looking at light that has travelled billions of lightyears

- we are essentially looking at the past.

(Source: Cosmos)

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"The best Celtic mystique music for deep relaxation"

by Cortese from Tuscany (Italy)

(Source: YouTube):

https://tinyurl.com/bddvuyhm

(Since 2 June 2022): 7 319 336 views

Peaceful music, find peace.

.3 8 3  16:00

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Europe

France
Sunday 1 May 2022 19:34   May Day protests turn violent in Paris. Banks and a McDonald's restaurant were attacked. Tear gas was used during a May Day protest in Paris, with some protesters angry over Macron's pension reform plans. (Source: SkyNews)

Germany
May 1, 2022  Economy and Climate Minister Habeck said today that Europe’s largest economy has reduced the share of Russian energy imports to 12% for oil, 8% for coal. Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Germany got more than half of its natural gas imports from Russia. That share is now down to 35%, partly due to increased procurement from Norway and the Netherlands, the ministry said. To further reduce Russian imports, Germany plans to speed up the construction of terminals for liquified natural gas (LNG). The Energy and Climate Ministry said Germany aims to put several floating LNG terminals into operation as early as this year or next. That’s an ambitious timeline that the ministry acknowledged  'requires an enormous commitment from everyone involved.'  Germany has resisted calls for an EU boycott on Russian natural gas. Germany’s central bank has said a total cutoff of Russian gas could mean 5 percentage points of lost economic output and higher inflation. (Source: AP)

Greece
01.05.2022  In Greece, metro trains came to a halt and ships stayed docked in ports as workers rallied against soaring food and energy prices. Police said some 10,000 people marched in the center of Athens to protest over the cost of living. (Source: DW)

European Union
Sunday, May 1, 2022  The Conference on the Future of Europe has been debating proposals to reform the EU since last year but a key meeting today agreed 325 proposals to achieve 49 objectives, and will now go to EU leaders for consideration. The European Parliament approved a draft of the proposals on April 29. Once approved by the conference’s executive, the proposals are likely to go to the heads of the EU’s three principal institutions – the parliament, the commission and the council – on May 9th, Europe day. However, they are likely to meet opposition among many national governments wary of ceding powers to the EU. The proposals were backed by representatives of five of the parliament’s main political groupings, including the European People’s Party, Renew Europe, the Socialists, the Greens and the Left group. These groups will now bring a resolution to the parliament this week in support of a revision of the European treaties to introduce the reforms, said one of the conference chairmen, Verhofstadt. Right-wing MEPs from Identity and Democracy group and the European Conservatives and Reformists group refused to support the proposals, saying there was no public support from them, and they withdrew from the conference on Saturday. The conference also suggests that some members of the European  Parliament be elected through union-wide or “transnational” voting lists, and suggests that the president of the European Commission could be directly elected by EU citizens. A proposal to dispense with the need for unanimity, 'which make it very difficult to reach agreement” – effectively meaning an end the national veto – is likely to be resisted by many national governments. (Source: IrishTimes)

Russia
May 1, 2022 5:26 am  Mariupol civilian evacuation begins. Some have left the Azovstal steelworks. The Russian defence ministry says some 80 civilians have left the besieged steelworks and were taken to Bezimenne, a village in Russian-held territory in Ukraine. They are being provided with medical care and supplies, it said. President Zelensky said a large group is also on its way to Zaporizhzhia, which Ukraine maintains control of. The United Nations confirmed it was involved with the operation, alongside the Red Cross and the "parties to the conflict". (Source: RNZ)

Ukraine
May 01, 2022 4:13 PM  Nearly 5.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of Russia's war on Feb. 24, according to data from the U.N. refugee agency. Most have entered countries on Ukraine's western border: more than 3 million people have fled to Poland, while more than 817,000 others have fled to Romania and around 520,000 have crossed into Hungary, UNHCR statistics show. The Romanian government is currently giving away free train tickets to Ukrainian refugees arriving in Romania that they can use to travel on to Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. (Source: VoANews)

10:34, Sun, May 1, 2022 | Updated 16:38  A tenth Russian General has been killed during fighting near the city of Izyum according to the Ukrainian military. Major General Simonov reportedly died after his command post came under artillery fire by Ukrainian forces on April 30. The bombardment also took out more than 30 Russian armoured vehicles, including tanks. Videos circulating on social media appeared to show the command post being hit by Grad rockets, fired from a multiple-launch rocket system. Presidential adviser Arestovych said in an interview  that some 100 Russian servicemen were also killed in the rocket attack. Russian forces are trying to push south from Izyum towards Slovyansk, in a pincer movement designed to encircle Ukrainian troops defending the Donbas. The strategic importance of the Izyum axis for Moscow was shown with the recent announcement that Russian Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov would take personal command of the offensive there. Reports suggest the Kremlin is strengthening its Izyum front with additional troop deployments. Analysts for the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that units from the Eastern Military District along with air-defence assets were being sent from the Russian town of Belgorod to the Izyum front. The new units would supplement Russian forces attempting to advance south of the Ukrainian city. 'These forces are unlikely to enable Russian forces to break the current deadlock, as Russian attacks remain confined to two major highways (toward Slovyansk and Barvinkove) and cannot leverage greater numbers, the researchers predicted'. They added: 'Russian forces appear increasingly unlikely to achieve any major advances in eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces may be able to conduct wider counterattacks in the coming days.' (Source: Express)

Asia

Turkey
01.05.2022  There were clashes - and some 160 arrests - in Turkey, where images showed protesters being pinned to the ground and dragged away from the rally. The protest took place despite a ban on the event by the Istanbul governor's office. Among the refrains chanted by the crowd was "Labor and freedom!" Clashes took place as protesters tried to reach the central Taksim Square, particularly significant in Turkish May Day rallies. (Source: DW)

North America

United States
10:27 BST, 1 May 2022 | Updated: 18:26 BST  Microsoft billionaire Gates told the FT: 'We're still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal'. In December 2021, he warned his millions of Twitter followers to brace themselves for the worst part of the pandemic having previously cautioned in 2015 that the world was not ready for the next pandemic. Covid-19 has killed an estimated 6.2million people worldwide since March 2020. Case numbers and deaths have been dropping in recent weeks. Gates - who releases his new book 'How to Prevent the Next Pandemic' in May 3 - advised governments across the world to invest in a team of epidemiologists and computer modellers to help identify global health threats in the future.
A comment: 'Doctor Gates didnt succeed the first time but is working again now, to succeed the second time! Deceitful, evil man!' (Source: DailyMail)

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Európa     Europe

Magyarország
2022.04.30. 20:29  Már több mint 650 ezer ukrajnai menekült érkezett Magyarországra, akik közül 108 ezren kértek és kaptak ideiglenes tartózkodási engedélyt – jelentette ki a miniszterelnök belbiztonsági főtanácsadója. Bakondi közölte: Magyarországra naponta 8-12 ezren érkeznek Ukrajnából és részben Románia területéről. A menekültek száma várhatóan elérheti azt a 900 ezret, amit előre jelzett a kormány a háború kitörésekor. Társadalmi összefogás nyomán Magyarország eddig 40 milliárd forintot fordított a menekültek ellátására, ennek az összegnek csupán a 2%-át biztosította az Európai Unió – tette hozzá. A kormány kellő higgadtsággal kezeli a helyzetet. A legfontosabb szempontja, hogy távol tartsa Magyarországot a háborúból és a háború árát ne a magyar embereknek kelljen megfizetniük. Bakondi kifejezte reményét, hogy az Európai Unió növeli az ukrajnai  menekültek ellátásának támogatását. Abban is reménykednek, hogy megváltozik az Európai Unió 2015 óta tartó, elhibázott migrációs politikája. Baloldali, liberális csoportok, Soros által finanszírozott szervezetek továbbra is a legális migráció szervezését szorgalmazzák – jegyezte meg. (Forrás: Híradó / MTI, M1)

Transcarpathia
30 April 2022  The Hungarian government is adding new financing of 200 million forints (EUR 531,000) for humanitarian aid and efforts to help the internally displaced and those in need in Transcarpathia in Ukraine. The government is supporting war refugees both in Hungary and in Transcarpathia, Azbej, the state secretary for assisting persecuted Christians and implementing the Hungary Helps Programme, said in Uzhhorod (Ungvár) after a meeting with the leaders of the Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia (KMKSZ). Also, an additional 120 million forints will be given in support of other charitable activities, alongside a consignment of medicines and equipment worth 210 million forints destined for Transcarpathia next week. The state secretary met local entrepreneurs involved in the One Meal Programme provided by Hungary Helps. Around 60,000 servings of hot food have been served to refugees in Transcarpathia over the period of a month. Fully 230,000 refugees have officially made their way to Transcarpathia, though the real number may be double that, KMKSZ vice-president Barta said at the event. (Source: dailynewshungary)

Germany
April 30, 2022  Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, gave the green light for the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine in April 28  The motion has the cynical title “Defending Peace and Freedom in Europe.' It was jointly introduced by the governing parties as well as the opposition, passing by 586 votes to 100, with seven abstentions. Is it a barely veiled declaration of war on Russia? The ten-page motion calls on the German government to “continue and, where possible, accelerate the delivery of needed equipment to Ukraine, including extending the delivery to heavy weapons and complex systems, for example in the framework  of the ring exchange.” The 'ring exchange' refers to a process whereby Eastern European NATO members supply Ukraine with Soviet-era weaponry, which is then back-filled by Germany with ultra-modern equipment. The Bundestag passed its declaration just two days after the US government held a war summit at Ramstein Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate with representatives of 40 nations to plan the next stage of the escalation. The meeting left no doubt that NATO  itself is the driving force in the war with Russia. At the meeting in Ramstein, Defence Minister Lambrecht (SPD) announced that the German government would now also supply Ukraine with heavy weapons and provide it with “Gepard” anti-aircraft tanks. Just four days earlier, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had warned of a nuclear war and made assurances that everything would be done to avoid a direct military confrontation with the nuclear power Russia. Now he has cast his own warning to the wind. The Bundestag resolution boasts that Germany has “provided a good two billion euros in financial support” since 2014 to Ukraine. How much of this has gone to military projects is not mentioned. One day before passage of the Ukraine motion, the Bundestag debated the first reading of the special fund appropriation of 100 billion euros, which triples the defence budget in one fell swoop this year. Here, too, all parties pulled together. For ammunition shortages alone, 20 billion euros would be required. Planned armament projects - including procurement of nuclear-capable F-35 fighter bombers - meant that the 100 billion in special funds would quickly be depleted Defence Minister Lambrecht said. The Reservists Association is urging a doubling of troop strength. “With around 200,000 soldiers, the Bundeswehr is too small,” association President Sensburg told the Rheinische Post. For national defence, he said, around 340,000 servicemen and women and 100,000 regularly exercising reservists were needed. (Source: wsws)

30.04.2022   Germany has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt the sale of German-owned buildings in Rome that could soon be auctioned off to pay for Nazi war crimes compensation cases. The four properties include buildings in Rome that house the local offices of the German Archaeological Institute, the German Historical Institute, the cultural Goethe Institute and the German School of Rome. Germany argues in its filing that "Italy has violated, and continues to violate, its obligation to respect Germany's sovereign immunity" by threatening to take the buildings to pay complaints filed by victims of Nazi crimes. An Italian court said it would decide on May 25 whether to auction off the buildings. In the ICJ's previous 2012 decision, the judges found Italy's highest court violated Germany's sovereignty by ruling in several Nazi crime compensation cases. Germany argues that it has already paid out billions of euros in compensation for atrocities committed by the Nazi regime since the end of WWII, taking part in extensive reparations and peace treaties with the countries affected. The ICJ is the highest judicial organ of the United Nations, and its rulings are final and legally binding. (Source: DW)

Romania
April 30, 2022  A ship loaded with 70,000 tonnes of Ukrainian corn left a Romanian Black Sea port, allowing Kyiv to dodge a Russian blockade of its key grain exports. (Source: AlJazeera)

Kosovo
April 30, 2022 Six Ukrainian women train in Kosovo to find, clear landmines. The 18-day training camp takes place at a range in the western town of Peja where a Malta-based company regularly offers courses for job-seekers, firms working in former war zones, humanitarian organizations and government agencies. Praedium Consulting Malta’s range includes bombed and derelict buildings as well as expanses of vegetation. Military analysts say it appears Russian forces have employed anti-personnel and anti-vehcile mines, while Ukraine has used anti-tank mines to try to prevent the Russians from gaining ground. (Source: AP)

Russia
14:37, 30 Apr 2022  Kremlin-backed TV Channel One on the popular TV show 60 Minutes in Russia hosted by wife and husband Skabeyeva and Popov, simulated a nuclear strike on three European capitals as presenters claiming the nukes would obliterate Paris, Berlin, and London in around 200 seconds and there would be 'no survivors.'  It claimed that Berlin could be destroyed by a nuclear strike in only 106 seconds, Paris in 200 seconds and London in only 202 seconds. 'One Sarmat [missile] and that's it - the British Isles are no more,' guest Zhuravlyov said. The show unveiled a map showing how the missiles could be launched from Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. Putin recently ordered his military to test-fire its Sarmat missiles. Only last week, Putin claimed that his country’s hypersonic missiles could “break through all modern defences” . This comes amid reports that top military brass pushing Putin to stop calling the invasion a “special operation” and instead declare all-out war. (Source: Mirror)

Sat 30 Apr 2022 The Tass state news agency cites Yermakov, the foreign ministry’s head of nuclear non-proliferation, as saying all nuclear powers had a duty to stick to the logic enshrined in joint official documents aimed at avoiding nuclear war. It quotes him as saying: The risks of nuclear war, which should never be unleashed, must be kept to a minimum, in particular through preventing any armed conflict between nuclear powers. Russia clearly follows this understanding. The official documents Yermakov refers to are a joint statement published in January by Russia, China, Britain, the US and France, in which the five countries - which are the permanent members of the UN security council – agreed that the further spread of nuclear arms and a nuclear war should be avoided. Dialogue between Moscow and Washington on strategic stability is formally “frozen”. Yermakov said those contacts could be restarted after Russia completes what it terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine, according to the Tass news agency. Yermakov claimed Moscow believed the US planned to finalise projects to deploy medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. "The emergence of such weapons in those regions will further worsen the situation and fuel the arms race,” Tass quotes him as saying.     Moscow’s artillery units had hit 389 Ukrainian targets overnight, according to Russian media. The figure, reported by Russian news agency Interfax, includes 35 control points, 15 arms and ammunition depots, and several areas where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated, it said. The statement added that Russian missiles also struck four ammunition and fuel depots. (Source: TheGuardian)

April 29, 2022  Russian billionaire Tinkov, who has called Moscow's war against Ukraine "crazy," has sold his stake in the company he founded to a firm controlled by Potanin, a tycoon close to President Putin. Potanin's Interros Capital said yesterday that it was acquiring Tinkov's 35 percent stake in TCS Group Holding, the group that owns Russia's second-largest bank, Tinkoff Bank. Interros added that Russia's central bank had approved deal. The RBK news agency estimated the deal at about $2.4 billion. Cyprus-based TCS Group Holding controls a broad range of companies from banking and insurance to mobile phones. The 54-year-old Tinkov has long resided outside of Russia to receive treatment for leukemia. Potanin, 61, is the head of mining giant Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel), which has benefited from high metals prices in recent months. He is Russia's second-richest man, with a fortune estimated at $17.3 billion. (Source: VoANews)

April 29, 2022  Moscow continues to benefit from Europe's energy dependence on Russian oil despite a reduction in sales due to sanctions imposed to pressure it to end its war against Ukraine, according to experts of the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Finland-based research organization. The research released on April 28 shows that Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from sales of fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine. Soaring prices have more than compensated Russia for the loss in sales volume due to sanctions, the research shows. Researchers at CREA also say new sanctions promise to drive up prices even more, nullifying efforts to prevent Russian President Putin from using energy to pressure the EU and to finance the war against Ukraine. Since the start of the war, Russia has sold 46 billion euros worth of energy resources to the European Union, and the figure continues to rise. This is about twice as much as the amount of sales in the same period in 2021, according to CREA. Even though there was a decline in the volume of sales, the increase in the price of oil brought Moscow about 63 billion euros ($66 billion) on the energy exported on ships and through pipelines since the invasion was launched on February 24. According to CREA, the volume of Russian oil imported by the EU fell by 20 percent and coal by 40 percent. However, gas imports grew, and Germany remains the main buyer. The German government has ruled out a gas embargo because of the economic damage it would cause, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on April 28 during a visit to Tokyo, that Germany must prepare for Russia to suspend gas deliveries. Gazprom forecast a fall in gas output of about 4 percent this year in another sign of the impact of Western sanctions against Moscow. (Source: VoANews)

30 April, 2022  2.8 million people in Ukraine have asked to be evacuated into Russia, said Foreign Minister Lavrov in China's official Xinhua news agency published on the Russian foreign ministry's website. More than 1 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine into Russia since February 24, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in remarks published early today. The 1.02 million includes 120,000 foreigners and people evacuated from Russian-backed breakaway regions of Ukraine, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's republics, which Russia recognised as independent just before launching its invasion. According to data from the United Nations, more than 5.4 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the invasion. Lavrov said that if the United States and NATO are 'truly" interested in resolving the Ukrainian crisis, they should stop sending weapons to Kyiv. "By publicly expressing support for the Kyiv regime, the NATO countries are doing everything to prevent ending of the operation through political agreements," Lavrov said. (Source: alaraby *)
* London

Serbia
Saturday, April 30, 2022  Serbia today publicly displayed a recently delivered Chinese anti-aircraft missile system during the military exercises on Batajnica, military airport near Belgrade. Serbia has been arming itself mostly with Russian and Chinese weapons, including T-72 battle tanks, MiG-29 fighter jets, Mi-35 attack helicopters and drones. The sophisticated HQ-22 surface-to-air system whose export version is known as FK-3 was delivered last month by a dozen Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes in what was believed to be the largest-ever airlift delivery of Chinese arms to Europe. The Chinese missile system has been widely compared to the American Patriot and the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems although it has a shorter range than more advanced S-300s. Serbia is the first operator of the Chinese missiles in Europe. Vucic said Serbia is also negotiating a purchase of French multi-purpose Dessault Rafale jets, as well as British Eurofighter Typhoon fighters. He said that only “political hurdles” could prevent the purchase of the Western aircraft. Although Serbia has voted in favor of U.N. resolutions that condemn the bloody Russian attacks in Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against its allies in Moscow or outright criticize the apparent atrocities committed by the Russian troops in Ukraine. There are widespread concerns that Russia could push its ally Serbia into an armed conflict with its neighbors to try at least partly to shift public attention from the war in Ukraine. Serbia was at war with its neighbors in the 1990s and does not recognize Kosovo’s independence declared in 2008. It still has frosty relations with NATO-members Croatia and Montenegro as well as Bosnia, whose separatist Bosnian Serb leader Dodik attended the military drill today. An arms buildup in the Balkans could threaten fragile peace in the region. (Source: AP)

Ukraine
30/04/2022 - 07:22  Russian missile strike has hit Odessa airport, rendering its runway unusable. The general staff of the armed forces posted on Facebook that the Ukrainian military had regained control over four settlements in the Kharkiv region. Zelensky thanked France for sending 'large-scale military shipments that contribute to the Ukrainian resistance'. Kharkiv was hit by multiple Russian shellings today, though President Zelensky says Ukrainian forces are making "tactical successes" in the region. (Source: France24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)

Sat 30 Apr 2022 08.51 BST  This week, Russia hit Ukraine’s main fuel producer, the Kremenchuk oil refinery, alongside others. A Russian missile strike on Odesa airport has damaged the runway and it can no longer be used, the Ukrainian military said. Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region today but failed to capture three target areas, Ukraine’s  military said. The Russians were trying to capture the areas of Lyman in Donetsk and Sievierodonetsk and Popasna in Luhansk, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said. The agriculture ministry said yesterday speaking to Ukrainian national TV, that six of Ukraine’s 24 regions had completed their early spring grain sowing despite the Russian invasion. There are no plans to sow in Luhansk due to the fighting. In the last two weeks Russian forces have stolen “several hundred thousand tonnes” of grain in the areas of Ukraine they occupy, Solskyi, Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister said. The Kremlin denied the allegations. He expressed concern that most of what he said was 1.5m tonnes of grain stored in occupied territory could also be stolen by Russian forces. "Queues and rising prices at gas stations are seen in many regions of our country. The occupiers are deliberately destroying the infrastructure for the production, supply and storage of fuel. Russia has also blocked our ports, so there are no immediate solutions to replenish the deficit,” in his nightly video, Zelenskiy said. (Source: TheGuardian)

Sat, April 30, 2022, 4:01 AM Social media evidence, testimony from residents, and materials seized by Kyiv Oblast police suggest that the Kadyrovtsy regiments in Bucha most likely belonged to the Special Rapid Response Unit (SOBR) and (Special Purpose Mobile Unit) OMON, and that these units, along with other Russian troops, were likely responsible for a significant portion of the massacre that took place there. 'What they do have experience in, in terms of military operations, is really these zachistki, these clean sweep operations, brutal style of house-to-house searches and killings that Russian forces perfected during the Chechen Wars in the 1990s and early 2000s' , independent security analyst Chambers, who specializes in the north Caucasus said. 'It plays into their specialty of targeting civilian populations'. Despite their presence in Bucha in late February, Russian forces were not able to gain full control of the town until several days later on or after March 2. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has identified the 64th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade as one of the Russian military groups responsible for the massacre that ensued in Bucha throughout March, but evidence suggests they were not the only ones involved. According to Halavin, the priest at the Church of the Holy Apostle St. Andrew the First-Called in Bucha,  where a mass grave for around 280 people was dug during the Russian occupation, regiments that included SOBR and OMON units began to replace the original occupying forces later in March. “At the beginning, even though they were, shall we say, strict, they were fair. At the very beginning they would just search my car and tell me to just continue with my work, and so on,” Halavin said. “But after that the others came.” (Source: Yahoo / TheDailyBeast)

April 30, 2022 Ukraine claims that the Ukrainian armed forces use 227mm M270 multiple launch rocket system [MLRS] and M142 high mobility artillery rocket system [HIMARS] delivered from the US. Both missile systems have a caliber of 227mm. The GUR-Ukraine says that on the night of April 22-23, Ukrainian troops used the “latest MLRS” to attack Russian positions near Novobahmutka in the Donetsk region. The M270 and M142 can cover a distance of 480 km on a single refueling. The M270 and M142 use [but are not limited to] the MGM-140 army tactical missile system [ATACMS] which is actually a surface-to-surface missile and is manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The MGM-140 ATACMS weighs 1,670 kg. Develops maximum speed Max 3 and has integrated a system for GPS-aided inertial navigation guidance. In both missile systems, the effective and maximum range is identical: 300 km effective and 500 km maximum in precision strike missiles. Participation in the wars in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq has been officially documented. MGM-140 ATACMS is in service in four countries: the United States, South Korea, Greece, and Turkey. It was built in 1986 but entered service in the early 1990s. (Source: BulgarianMilitary)

United Kingdom
April 30, 2022  Britain’s controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda announced just before the May council elections when the Tories fear electoral defeat - the plan applies only to single men, who would be given one-way plane tickets to a country 4,000 miles away, where their asylum claims will be processed.  Even if they are granted asylum, the men would not be allowed back to Britain. Rejected applicants will be deported again. The idea is to deter migrants, stop people smugglers, and ultimately end mass immigration. The scheme particularly targets migrants and asylum seekers who cross the English Channel from France in rubber dinghies, after paying a fortune to people traffickers. Some 6,000 people have crossed the channel this way so far this year, almost three  times the number that had crossed by this time last year. The migrants largely come from Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar and Venezuela. The irony is that the controversial plan is the brainchild of Home Secretary Patel, the daughter of Ugandan-Asian immigrants who arrived in Britain in the 1960s. Initial costs are projected to be up to £30,000 per migrant, although the actual cost is likely to be much higher. Rwanda will receive £120 million from Britain for “economic development”. Britain has form when it comes to deportation. Most famously, more than 162,000 convicts were deported to Australia between 1788 and 1868, the majority for petty crimes such as stealing a sheep, cutting down a tree or poaching. In the early 18th century, it also deported convicts to the American colonies to work; the alternative was execution. Rwanda is the world’s 14th most densely populated country. Rwanda hosts about 174,000 refugees, including 57,000 people from neighbouring Burundi who fled violence in 2015. (Source: TheElephant*)
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Europe

Europe
30 April 2022 10:00  Ukraine has been calling for the delivery of heavy weapons for weeks. Kyiv needs anti-missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, armoured vehicles, tanks, and other heavy equipment. NATO has been ready to support Ukraine in the war against Russia for years, including help for Kyiv to shift from Soviet-era weapons to modern Western arms and systems, Secretary-General Stoltenberg said on 28 April. Most of the heavy weapons NATO countries have sent to Ukraine are Soviet-built arms still in the inventories of east European NATO member states. The EU agreed to support the Ukrainian resistance through the European 'Peace Facility' with a set of measures ranging from personal protection equipment, first aid kits, fuel and military equipment to defensive platforms designed to deliver lethal force. According to EU officials, the instrument, currently having firepower of €1.5 billion, could and should provide much more assistance if member states would be more willing to do so.    Albania has not sent any aid to Ukraine. Aid has been provided by members of the public and NGOs and drives for food and clothing organised by the Ukrainian embassy. They have offered to take Ukrainian refugees, and there are around 400 in the country at the moment. All political parties are pro-Ukraine, and there is a strong anti-Russian sentiment in the country. Albania has pledged to assist with any NATO-led missions assisting Ukraine, and it has enacted EU sanctions against Russia. President Zelenskyy will address the Albanian parliament next week.    Vienna was providing €17.5 million in aid for the Red Cross and other NGOs. There were questions about whether Austria could support Ukraine. Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer visited Ukraine on 8 April, followed by a visit to the Kremlin on 11 April. Both the Austrian government and the FPÖ have been sceptical of whether Ukraine’s accession to the EU should be fast-tracked. Foreign minister Schallenberg is calling for an alternative approach. “Holding out the prospect of EU accession to Ukraine and at the same time to Georgia and Moldova only raises false hopes that simply cannot be fulfilled,” said Vilimsky, leader of the FPÖ delegation in the European Parliament. The Austrian government is contributing €10 million to the World Bank’s Ukraine assistance programme. A possible appearance of President Zelenskyy had become problematic, the right FPÖ is blocking him from addressing the Austrian legislative. Initially, the Social Democrats (SPÖ) also opposed Zelenskyy addressing the Parliament. As a neutral country, the republic has sent 10,000 helmets and body armour and 100,000 litres of fuel for civilian use.    Belgium has allocated €13.09 million to humanitarian programmes in Ukraine and €2.1 million to support those countries neighbouring Ukraine that have accepted refugees. The political mainstream has condemned Russia. The left Belgian Workers Party blames the US & NATO for provoking Moscow. The party voted against sanctions and condemnations. It accounts for 12% of Belgian MPs and is currently polling at around 16% (Flanders 8.5%, Wallonia 19%). The coalition government is vocal in its support for Ukraine. Incumbent Prime Minister De Croo said that the country had provided €76.9 million in support to the Ukrainian army. Donations have included 5000 assault rifles, 200 anti-tank weapons, 3800 tonnes of fuel and other protective equipment.    As of 27 March, the Bulgarian Red Cross had sent some 220 tonnes of Bulgarian donations: clothes, blankets, bedding, shoes, medicines and hygiene materials. An additional 13,000 food packages have been sent. There is a strong pro-Russian public sentiment among the Bulgarian public. Sixty-seven per cent of Bulgarians are in favour of  neutrality in the conflict, while only 16% believe that Bulgaria should actively support Ukraine and provide weapons. Bulgaria does not officially provide military assistance to Ukraine due to the intervention of the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party, which is part of the quadruple ruling coalition. Politically, there is an  overwhelming majority in the Bulgarian parliament that supports sending military aid to Ukraine, including three of the four parties in the ruling coalition and two of the three opposition parties. The right Vazrazhdane party is openly pro-Russian. Its leader, Kostadinov, has been banned from entering Ukraine for 10 years. Bulgarian Prime  Minister Kiril Petkov visited Kyiv on 28 April. The delegation included representatives of all parties in the ruling coalition, except for those from the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party. The official military aid figures from Sofia – 2,000 helmets and 2,000 items of body armour for Ukrainian civilians – belie the vast quantities of Bulgarian weapons flowing into Ukraine. Unofficially, Bulgaria is one of the largest weapons suppliers to Ukraine. The country’s sizeable arms industry produces weapons and ammunition according to Soviet standards, which are used by the Ukrainian army. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Bulgaria has signed new contracts worth over €1 billion, with the volume of arms exported from Bulgaria increasing three to four times. The weapons are exported primarily to Poland and then immediately imported to Ukraine.     Croatian President Milanović (S&D) had made pro-Russian comments on multiple occasions. He caused fear and confusion in Finland & Sweden when he made comments that threatened to scupper their NATO membership bid. The Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and government (EPP) have been supportive of Ukraine against Russia, as has the opposition in parliament. The president’s remarks have become problematic enough for Plenković that he announced he would break off all contact with him. Croatia sent €16.5 million of weapons at the start of March and around €12 million in humanitarian aid with more specific information on the nature of Croatia’s help to Ukraine hard to come by. On 19 April, Plenkovic tweeted that more support would be forthcoming.    Nicosia has contributed 215 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including food, civil protection equipment, medical and pharmaceutical supplies and other essentials. The estimated value is €2m. The Cypriot MFA has contributed over €150,000 to support Ukrainian refugees. The country historically awash with Russian money. The biggest noise coming out of the country regarding Russia’s war on Ukraine was uproar across the Cypriot political spectrum that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy did not draw a direct comparison between his country’s plight and the Turkish invasion and partition of the island of Cyprus. The main opposition party, the left AKEL, is openly pro-Russian and accuses the government of being pro-NATO as a form of insult. The governing Democratic Rally (EPP) is onboard with the common European approach to Ukraine. At the start of April, the US requested that Cyprus send old military equipment it bought from Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s to Ukraine with promises to backfill with more modern  equipment. This request is being considered, but no decisions have yet been made. Cyprus has not provided any military support, claiming that to do so would leave the country exposed to an attack by Turkey.     Czechia claims to be among the countries giving the most aid to Ukraine. Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office was saying that the Czech share in total help provided stands at 11%. There is a consensus on Ukraine in Czechia’s five-party coalition government. The government has sent 127 tonnes of food while civil society has raised over €140 million in humanitarian aid. The opposition ANO has criticised them for focusing too much on Ukraine and neglecting the Czech people. The right SPD (ID) and the Czech Communist Party have tried the same line of attack. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala visited Kyiv, going there with the Polish and Slovenian Prime Ministers while the city was still under direct daily attack. The Czech Defence Ministry avoids specific details on its military support to Ukraine. Currently €41 million of Soviet-era tanks, guided missiles and drones have been provided.     Denmark has spent over €67m humanitarian aid, covering a wide range of support, from donations to Danish and international organisations, medical supplies, and support for refugees. After years of parties from all parts of the spectrum working to dissuade refugee and migrant flows from the Middle East, the reversal in the country has been a welcoming stance to refugees from Ukraine. The stances taken by Denmark seem to enjoy cross-party support, with the political mainstream pulling together and even voting unanimously on some rules, such as guaranteeing English and Ukrainian language education for refugee children. The Danish political scene is now preparing for a referendum on 1 June on potentially getting rid of Denmark’s EU opt-out on defence cooperation. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen visited Kyiv together with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, where she announced a further increase in spending on military support for Ukraine, taking the total to €134m. This spending includes M113 armoured personnel carriers, anti-tank mines, and mortar shells.    In the EU, Estonia has given the 6th most significant amount of support by value, and globally it comes ahead of much larger countries such as Spain, Canada, and Japan. In the Russian-speaking minority, which has traditionally held very positive views of Russia, 1one in four are pro-Putin and trust Russian news sources. Estonia has been an especially vocal advocate for Finland and Sweden to accede to NATO. President of Estonia Karis accompanied the Presidents of Poland and Latvia in April to the Ukrainian capital. Estonia’s support for Ukraine enjoys broad cross-party support. In cooperation with Germany, Estonia donated to Ukraine a field hospital and medical supplies worth almost €10 million. Almost all of Estonia’s aid to Ukraine has been military in nature. It has given aid to a value of €230 million, including Javelin antitank missiles, 122-mm howitzers, antitank mines, small arms, ammunition, vehicles, fuel, communications equipment, medical supplies, personal protective equipment, and food parcels.    Finland has provided 17 shipments on the humanitarian front, including massive emergency accommodations for up to 5,000 people, shower tents, medical supplies, and 13 ambulances. Given Finland’s 1,400 kilometres stretch of land bordering Russia, much public debate has focused on whether the country should apply to join NATO. Support for NATO membership jumped from 20% to 50% amongst the population, with the idea currently having majority support in parliament. All opposition parties but the far-right single MP party “Power belongs to people” are in favour. The social democrats in government continue to dither on their stance on NATO but are expected to come to a position on 14 May, which some expect to result in application end of May, likely in concert with Sweden. The Ukrainian government has received a total of €15 million in new financial support as well as €1.5 in donations from large Finnish cities. Following the invasion, Helsinki sent 2,500 assault rifles, 150,000 bullets, 1,500 light anti-tank weapons, 2,000 bulletproof vests, 2,000 helmets and some 100 stretchers and two first-aid stations. Two more shipments followed, the latest having been on 19 April. The estimated value of the shipments has been €30 million in total.    France sent 55 tons of material to Ukraine in March, including medical equipment (medicines and oxygen generators), milk for children, IT equipment (smartphones, computers, routers as well as 60km of fibre optics), and 31 generators to reinforce the country’s electrical security. A package of €300m was released to help prop up the Ukrainian economy. France is sending investigators and gendarmes to help collect evidence of Russian war crimes in the country. The right of French politics is pro-Russian - Le Pen tried to play it down during the second round of the presidential election. She was on the record agreeing with most European sanctions and favouring France hosting refugees from Ukraine. In third place was the left Mélenchon, who has traditionally been non-aligned and sceptical of both the EU and NATO. The newly re-elected President Macron positioned himself as a defender of Europe and a supporter of Ukraine. A French cross-party delegation went to Ukraine in early April. Military support from France has consisted of €100m of military equipment delivered to Ukraine, including defensive and optronic equipment, weapons and ammunition, weapons systems, fuel, and artillery guns.     The humanitarian aid by the German government has amounted to a total of €370 million for Ukraine and its neighbouring countries. Another fast-tracked development aid programme will see €122 million disbursed. Kyiv prevented an attempted visit by President Steinmeier. A cross-party delegation of leading MPs from the governing parties has visited Ukraine. Politically, the newish German government struggles with the pacifist wing of Scholz’s social democrats, personified by the party’s parliament whip Mützenich. The largest opposition party CDU's support is needed to pass Scholz’s extraordinary €100 billion modernisation fund for the army. The far-right AfD and the far-left Die Linke have condemned arms deliveries to Ukraine, as they historically are closer to Russia than the West. On 29 April, a letter signed by public personalities called upon Scholz to limit arms deliveries to Ukraine, especially heavy ones, to avoid a third world war. The finance ministry has been rather tight-lipped about Germany’s share of the €24 billion the G7 states have pledged for Ukraine. Berlin provided a €150 million loan on 14 February, with another €50 million a year ringfenced for a green recovery. At the beginning of April, Defence Minister Lambrecht stated that the German government had delivered the second-most arms if measured by weight, third-most if going by value, which she put at €80 billion. On 21 April, the government announced its intention to undergo a ring-swap, giving modern tanks to Slovenia in exchange for Soviet-era tanks going to Ukraine. It supplied the Ukrainians with 100,000 hand grenades, 2000 mines and 5,300 explosive charges, as well as 16 million rounds of ammunition for  handheld arms. Media reports of 21 April put the total at 2500 anti-aircraft missiles, 900 anti-tank guns with 3000 rounds of ammunition, 100 machine guns and 15 bunker busters. Arms deliveries to Ukraine referred to as Zeitenwende saw 1,000 anti-tank weapons, 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, some 2,700 Strela anti-aircraft missiles, and ammunition. The latest announcement was that “Gepard” tanks will be provided to Ukraine, although munition for the tanks, which the German army hasn’t used in a decade, has yet to be procured from Brazil. Scholz has announced his intention to supply grenade launchers with a range of up to six kilometres and training for Ukrainian soldiers in the use of mortars with a range of 40 kilometres.     Although relations between Athens and Moscow have reached an all-time low due to Greece’s strong stance against Russia, Athens has blocked sanctions aiming to ban Russian owned ships or those with Russian interests from EU ports. The Greek government has committed to the reconstruction of Mariupol’s maternity hospital. It has also sent 20,000 pairs of medical latex gloves, 300,000 pieces of medical protective masks (protection class not less than FFP2), 30,000 respirators, 8,000 protective suits, 1,000 hand sanitizers, and 1,000 pairs of protective glasses. The government also provided Moldova and Slovakia with equipment to help deal with migration waves. In polls, most Greek citizens opposed the decision to send military aid to Ukraine. A speech by President Zelenskyy to the Greek parliament on 7 April was overshadowed by the inclusion of a video message from the far-right militia group, the Azov Battalion, that was addressed to lawmakers. The main opposition Syriza opposed dispatching military equipment and reacted saying the Greek Premier did not consult with any other party in advance. The communist party has been neutral blaming both the US and Russia for the war in Ukraine. The populist pro-Russian “Greek Solution” party has asked to send humanitarian aid only to Greeks living in Ukraine. Both parties have negligible power in the Greek parliament. Since the very beginning, the Greek government has condemned the Russian aggression and PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis immediately sent military aid. Athens sent to Ukraine 40 tonnes of defence material including seized Kalashnikov rifles and anti-tank and specific RPG-18 type weapons.

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European Union

European Union
30 April 2022 10:00  Ukraine has been calling for the delivery of heavy weapons for weeks. Kyiv needs anti-missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, armoured vehicles, tanks, and other heavy equipment. NATO has been ready to support Ukraine in the war against Russia for years, including help for Kyiv to shift from Soviet-era weapons to modern Western arms and systems, Secretary-General Stoltenberg said on 28 April. Most of the heavy weapons NATO countries have sent to Ukraine are Soviet-built arms still in the inventories of east European NATO member states. The EU agreed to support the Ukrainian resistance through the European 'Peace Facility' with a set of measures ranging from personal protection equipment, first aid kits, fuel and military equipment to defensive platforms designed to deliver lethal force. According to EU officials, the instrument, currently having firepower of €1.5 billion, could and should provide much more assistance if member states would be more willing to do so.      The Hungarian foreign minister, speaking at the UN on 27 April, said his country’s humanitarian aid to Ukraine has exceeded 1,000 tonnes. The country has also offered to treat injured soldiers of the Ukrainian army. The government maintains that it intends to keep Hungary “out of the war”. It claims its two-thirds victory during the  general elections of 3 April is evidence most Hungarians support its Ukraine policy. There has been no sign Fidesz is willing to soften its position of not providing Ukraine with military aid. The six-party united opposition has previously supported providing military aid. The issue has not been discussed much since the elections. The right “Our Homeland” party, the only other party to make it into the parliament besides Fidesz and the united opposition, has blasted any form of support to the government in Kyiv. “Our Homeland is against military support for the chauvinistic Ukraine, which is pursuing a repressive policy against the Hungarian ethnic group in Transcarpathia, and against serving American interests”, party deputy chair Novák said on 22 April. Hungary’s treaty obligation as a member of NATO would only apply to “helping to defend a member state in the event of an attack, but Ukraine is not a NATO member,” he added.    In March, Ireland announced a €20 million package of humanitarian assistance. Around €2 million of this will go to Ireland-based international NGOs working on the ground in Ukraine, Poland, and Moldova. Over 25,000 refugees have arrived from Ukraine, who are struggling to find accommodation – a symptom of the country’s ongoing housing crisis. The country’s support for the war-torn Ukraine was leading to a debate on the position of military neutrality for the first time since the Second World War. In February, a leftwing lawmaker from the People Before Profit party proposed a referendum to codify the policy into the constitution. Polling suggests there is little public appetite for abandonment of the principle. Two independent Irish MEPs, Daly and Wallace were among the 13 who voted against the European Parliament’s condemnation of the invasion due to its support for NATO and the sending of weapons to Ukraine. Members of the PBP chose not to applaud Zelenskyy after addressing Ireland’s parliament earlier this month. The Fine Gael TD visited the site of the massacre at Bucha, from where he called for war crimes investigations and announced an extra €3 million in funding for the International Criminal Court, €1 million of which would be dispersed immediately to the Prosecutor’s office. The government has strongly condemned Russia’s actions. Foreign Minister Coveney has said the war should prompt “an honest rethink” of Ireland’s security and defence policy and spending (the lowest in the EU). He visited Kyiv on 14 April, meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba and Defence Minister Reznikov. Taoiseach Micheál Martin met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal when he visited Ireland on 20 April. Dublin sent non-lethal assistance such as fuel, helmets, vests, and medical supplies. The government also pledged €1 million in aid to Moldova – a sum that has drawn fire from some quarters for being too low. No military aid has been sent by Ireland.    Italy has pledged €110 million in financial assistance for the Ukrainian government, with some €26 million in humanitarian contributions. Assistance has extended to Poland, Moldova, and Slovakia affected by the influx of Ukrainian refugees. The decision to send weapons was backed almost unanimously by the parliament. Lega’s Salvini supported the government’s line, as did Meloni, leader of the right-wing opposition party Fratelli d’Italia. Doubts surrounding the supply of military aid were voiced by the Five Star Movement (5SM), part of the governing coalition, and the Italian Left party. Former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, head of the 5SM, said his party would oppose the decision to send weapons that are not defensive in nature, such as heavy armaments. We will not look the other way, said prime minister Mario Draghi on 9 April, reiterating Italian support for the embattled nation. To date, the Italian government has allocated roughly €150 million for military aid to Ukraine, with Rome providing both non-lethal military protective equipment and weapons. Weapons to be shipped include Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Milan anti-tank missiles, 120mm mortars, heavy and light machine guns, bulletproof vests, bullets, and munitions. A further announcement will cover the supply of heavier arms, such as M113 and PzH2000 tracked vehicles.    Latvia has given €1.2m in humanitarian aid, gone towards international organisations providing help to refugees, soldiers, their families, media and journalists in Ukraine. Riga’s City Council donated 80 tonnes of aid to the Kyiv region in 11 Mercedes-Benz buses, which will also be donated to help the city restore public transport  infrastructure. 90% of Latvians support Ukraine. However the significant Russian-speaking minority community is split, with about 20% supporting Ukraine, 20% Russia. The rest is 'unwilling' to express an opinion. President Levits visited Kyiv on 13 April. There is broad cross-party support for sending help and championing the cause of  Ukraine on the European and world stages. Latvia joined Lithuania in offering use of its ports to Ukraine to export agricultural products to help sustain the Ukrainian economy and offset a looming global food crisis. Latvia has given €1.2m of financial aid to the European 'Peace Instrument' in support of the Ukrainian military    Lithuania - alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - had put a State of Emergency in place given its geographical proximity to Kaliningrad and Belarus. On the European stage, Lithuania invested heavily in LNG fuel supplies back when Russia annexed Crimea. It is now pushing hard for the EU to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels altogether. There is a political consensus in the parliament with key votes now and historically in support of Ukraine passing unanimously. Lithuania was among the first to close its airspace to Russian planes. The Parliament has recently voted to ban the Russian ‘Z’ symbol and label Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine ‘genocide’. The speaker of the Parliament is currently pressuring Germany, in particular, to not stand in the way of an accelerated EU accession process for Ukraine. Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, Foreign Minister Landsbergis, and the Lithuanian European Commissioner Sinkevičius have all visited Kyiv. The country has given away so much military assistance that there  is now a valid concern that sending more military supplies would risk Lithuania compromising its own defence. Purely military in nature, Lithuania’s support is amounting to 'tens of millions of euros' (at least €30m, likely more), including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, heavy mortars, rifles, and ammunition.    Malta along with Cyprus and Greece, have refused to enforce sanctions against banning ships with Russian owners from their ports. In April 28, Spain turned away a Maltese ship from its own ports over fears it had a Russian cargo that could infringe sanctions. Malta has a cash-for-passport scheme that has seen hundreds of Russians acquire Maltese citizenship for cash and real estate investment. These include many close to or linked to President Putin. The government is supporting Ukraine verbally and invited President Zelenskyy to address the parliament. After meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community, the foreign ministry shared a note saying that the community was grateful for Malta’s support for Ukraine. The government stated that it sent €1.15 million worth of medicines in March. Malta has not donated any military equipment.    The Netherlands has released some €20 million in emergency humanitarian aid for Ukraine, with a further €10 million for Moldova, aimed at helping the country deal with the flow of Ukrainians fleeing war. The national fundraising campaign Giro555 has collected €160.8 million for Ukraine. Dutch-based international aid organisations have been highly active in Ukraine, providing food, water, medicine, and shelter. The Dutch government gave a €1.5 million grant to the Red Cross to support its humanitarian work. On the fringes, pro-Russian sentiment is more common. The right political party's Forum voor Democratie (FvD) leader, Baudet, made pro-Russia comments following the invasion. The Russian narrative of the war in Ukraine is also fuelling radical ideas in right-wing extremist groups. Dutch leader Mark Rutte has condemned the invasion and spoken out about the importance of a united NATO, reflecting the mainstream opinion in Dutch politics. He was having paid a visit to Kyiv on 2 February. The nation has since backed Rutte's promise. On 14 April, the Netherlands sent a Dutch anti-aircraft missile system, with armoured Howitzers following on 26 April. Around 150 Dutch soldiers have been transferred to Slovakia as part of a German-led initiative to reinforce the eastern flank of the NATO area.    Poland has become the strongest advocate of Ukraine’s EU membership application, with Warsaw having the legacy of initiating the Eastern Partnership format for that purpose together with Sweden in 2009. The frontline NATO country and the main destination for Ukrainian refugees, Poland emerged early in the war as key logistical hub for weapons supplies and humanitarian aid, channelling supplies through its border into the western part of Ukraine. Before the current crisis, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had not visited Ukraine at all, and neither had his predecessor, Beata Szydło, while relations were warm and productive at the presidential level between  presidents Duda and Zelenskyy. The Polish ruling Law and Justice (PiS) government has softened its previously hostile attitude towards the EU. Poland buried the hatched with Ukraine over historical disputes. Morawiecki was among the first to pay a surprise visit to Kyiv in support of the country, hosting a range of leaders in Warsaw and making Poland the main lobbying force on the European level for more support and stronger sanctions against Russia. Morawiecki said Poland had provided Ukraine with weapons worth around €1.5 billion. Warsaw sent more than 200 T-72s – produced by the Soviet Union – into Ukraine in recent weeks along with mobile artillery, drones and rocket launchers. According to Polish defence experts, the share of donated tanks amounts to at least 25% of its 808-strong total tank arsenal. Poland also donated air-to-air missiles for MiG-29 and Su-27 aircraft, portable anti-aircraft missile systems “Perun” and 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers.     Most of the Portuguese political class has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Two Communist party (PCP) MEPs are part of the mere 13 MEPs that voted against the European Parliament’s resolution condemning the war on Ukraine. The PCP has stood out by condemning Ukraine. Portugal MPs squabble over whether a delegation should visit the Ukrainian parliament without receiving an invitation. The Portuguese government has sent various humanitarian aid goods worth €100,000 to Ukraine, including syringes, painkillers and emergency shelter materials like blankets. Lisbon has successfully delivered 70 tonnes worth of gear, both lethal weapons and ammunition, as well as non-lethal helmets or night vision goggles. Another 100 tonnes of material are in transit, including medicine.    Given Romania’s tenuous relationship with the Kremlin, support for Ukraine has been near-unanimous, only marred by the nationalists from AUR trying to score political points by warning against attracting the wrath of Russia. On 19 April Romania was changing its constitution to be able to supply lethal weaponry to allies. Alongside NGOs and private companies, the government has set up a hub of humanitarian assistance in Suceava, operational since 9 March. It has funnelled hundreds of trucks filled with humanitarian aid goods into Ukraine. The Romanian government has been silent about the arms it is supplying to Ukraine since a first public tranche in February. Immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, Bucharest provided €2 million worth of helmets and bulletproof vests. The Romanian Prime Minister, Nicolae Ciuca, visited Kyiv on 26 April. The government has not confirmed reports of Romanian T72 tanks or Soviet-era MiG21 planes having been supplied. It is better not to talk too much publicly on these things, the foreign minister said.    The Slovaks manage the logistics centre in Haniska near Košice, which has been assisting in the transport of aid from EU Member States through Slovakia to Ukraine. So far, almost 600 tonnes of humanitarian material have passed through it. Bratislava has also provided Ukrainian regions with €5 million through cross-border cooperation frameworks, while Slovak citizens continue to collect donations to support Kyiv. There is a clear consensus in the country’s four-party coalition about the need to provide both humanitarian and military help to Ukraine. The two biggest opposition parties and former prime ministers complain that the government is dragging Slovakia into the  conflict by providing military help. Fringe right parties claim similar positions to the opposition heavyweights, calling members of government “lunatics” for providing military help to Ukraine. Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger visited Ukraine on 8 April after turning down an invitation to come in March alongside Poland, Czechia and Slovenia, citing “security reasons.” The Slovenian (Sic!) government has provided Ukraine with the S-300 air defence system while negotiating the sale of one battery of self-propelled Slovak-made Zuzana Howitzers. According to the Slovak defence ministry, negotiations are already coming to a close. Slovakia has so far provided other military material assistance worth more than €10 million - ten million litres of diesel, 2.4 million litres of aviation petrol and 12,000 pieces of 120 mm ammunition. The government approved a proposal on April 27 to donate military equipment worth another €2 million. The Ministry of Defence stated that they want to have some of their expenses reimbursed at the European level and based on bilateral agreements.    Financially, Slovenia pledged €1 billion at the international donor conference in April, on top of another €1 million previously donated to charities like the Red Cross and Caritas. Supporting Ukraine is helped by the political support for the besieged country, with the only pro-Russian party performing dismally during the parliamentary elections in April. The Left is anti-NATO, but its campaigning against defence spending cost it half of its MPs.The government has been at the vanguard of campaigning in the EU for Ukraine to be supplied with weapons. Prime Minister Janez Janša was among the first EU leaders to visit Kyiv on March 15. The country was quick to supply Ukraine with arms, sending Kalashnikovs, ammunition and helmets to Ukraine following the invasion in February aboard several aircraft. Janša has been defeated at the polls, putting the Freedom Movement in power, whose foreign policy advisor had previously decried the country’s pro-NATO and anti-Russian policies. Aid for Ukraine has slowed down due to domestic elections and the subsequent careful coalition-building process that followed. The country is in talks to deliver Yugoslav-era tanks to Ukraine as part of a swap deal with Germany in exchange for newer armoured personnel carriers.    Spain provided a specific humanitarian aid package of €31 million, of which €7 million was dedicated to protecting women and children, channelled through UNICEF and the United Nations. Madrid has additionally sent over 20 tonnes of health materials and medicines. CIS released a poll showing that 70.9% of citizens are “in favour” of sending more arms to Ukraine. Spain has contributed with financial aid through the European 'peace fund', amounting to €111 million. Opposition parties are criticising the government’s domestic policy, particularly on energy prices. The matter has become so dire that PM Sanchez held up the last meeting of European leaders in March to attain a derogation to heavily intervene in markets. Sánchez's left-wing coalition partner Unidas Podemos had opposed sending lethal weapons to Kyiv. The party’s Belarra, minister for social rights, has publicly expressed her opposition to the latest arms shipment. Pedro Sánchez, made a journey to Kyiv on 21 April. The extent of Madrid’s support has resulted in the country’s largest-ever shipment of armaments to a foreign country, amounting to some 400 tonnes of military equipment, half of which is through the European 'Peace Facility'. On 21 April, a transport vessel of the Spanish navy shipped 30 military trucks, several heavy transport vehicles, including a plated military ambulance vehicle, and ten smaller vehicles loaded with assorted “light” military material for Ukraine. Previously, the Spaniards had provided the Ukrainian military with 1,370 anti-tank missiles like the Spanish “Alcotán 100” and the “C-90,” which are lighter versions of the US-made “Stinger,” as well as 700,000 rounds for rifles and machine guns.    Following the invasion, Sweden's government increased its humanitarian aid budget by around €58 million while extending a $50 million loan guarantee for Kyiv at the World Bank. Stockholm also provided some 20,000 emergency shelters to the tune of €19 million. The Swedes are primarily concerned with their domestic debate over whether and how their country should accede to NATO, given their proximity to Russia. The 2014 annexation of Crimea had kickstarted a security policy rethink, which resulted in the return of mandatory conscription in 2017. The conservative and far-right opposition parties support NATO membership, while the far-left are opposed and trying to force a referendum. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia prompted a population-wide U-turn on whether  the country should accede to NATO, with PM Andersson stating that she’s “open” to the idea. Andersson’s social democrats continue reckoning with their historic opposition to joining the military alliance. One of Sweden’s social democrat MPs made the trip to Ukraine on 28 April. The traditionally neutral country has helped arm Ukraine at the cost of SEK 900 million (around €87 million), of which more than half is going to the Ukrainian armed forces through the European 'Peace Facility'. The rest went to Ukraine in the form of ammunition, 5000 helmets, 5000 pieces of body armour and 135,000 rations. (Source: EURactiv)

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