“Ukraine – Russia”

Some weeks ago the Russians announced an “operational pause” in the Donbas.

Breaks in fighting like these are pretty normal in this type of high-intensity warfare, because of the vast supplies required and damages inflicted.

Armies sometimes just have to take time-outs to regroup and build up their supplies again, although normally you don’t broadcast to everyone that you’re doing it.

That’s a bit odd, and makes it seem like there must be another reason that Russian military activity has decreased.

Yes, do it again! #nafo #fellas pic.twitter.com/kNWz1YwkT7

— Is it HIMARS o'clock? (@HIMARStime) July 24, 2022

In our age of crisis, the state has been reawakened, breaking the taboos of the past few decades. But it’s still an uphill climb. Over the past 40 years, there was broad political agreement that markets were not to be meddled with, and that the power of the state had to be reined in. Economists such as Milton Friedman argued that the overbearing nature of the Keynesian state had suffocated the entrepreneurial spirit, making workers lazy and entitled. Much of this situation, they claimed, was the result of intrusive government interfering with the smooth running of the free market.

The EU’s plan for mandatory gas rationing is utterly terrifying.

The EU’s 27 member states – all modern, advanced industrialised economies, some among the richest in the world – are about to start rationing their energy supplies. This week, at an extraordinary summit, EU members agreed to a European Commission proposal to slash their gas use by a punishing 15 per cent over the next eight months. From August 2022 to March 2023, the lamps will, quite literally, be going out all over Europe.

Familiar Eurozone fault lines are starting to re-surface

It has been nearly six months since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, but for Europe, the worst is yet to come. Already companies are contemplating shutting down production, including aluminium smelters in Slovakia and fertilizer producers in the UK. Corporations need to plan long term, and forward contracts for electricity (which are supposed to lock in energy costs) are at all-time highs for 2023 and 2024.

PEREMOHA, Ukraine — For years, Serhiy Kulyk has been holding onto a plot of land next to his modest house in Peremoha, a village about 60 kilometers northeast of Kyiv.

He hoped his 27-year-old son, Ruslan, would one day build a home on the spot for his own family so they could remain close together.

That dream is gone forever: It died along with Ruslan, one of five civilians whom relatives and residents say were summarily executed by Russian soldiers at a post office in Peremoha shortly after they seized control of the village on February 28, according to an investigation by Schemes.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has given the green light to a Black Sea grain export deal, the first major agreement between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

“This is an agreement for the world,” said UN secretary-general António Guterres on Friday. “It will bring relief for developing countries on the edge of bankruptcy and the most vulnerable people on the edge of famine. It will help stabilize global food prices which were already at record-levels even before the war.”

Barely a kilometre from Russian positions defending the captured eastern city of Izium, Ukrainian and foreign fighters hunker in a dank basement. Artillery rains down on them most nights, shaking loose the plaster and filling the air with dust.

At the sharp end of efforts to stop the Russian army’s progress in eastern Ukraine are the Carpathian Sich battalion, a unit of Ukrainians and foreign nationals who answered Kyiv’s call for help to confront the invader.

“Now it’s more of an artillery war. It’s a tougher war, a scarier war, where only people who are strong in their spirit can fight,” said Dzvin, a field commander in the battalion who asked to be identified by his nom de guerre for security reasons, due to his leadership role.

The Government of Ukraine has issued a blacklist of individuals who they judge to be “promoting Russian propaganda” — including a number of prominent Western intellectuals.

American-supplied Himars missile launchers have destroyed more than 50 Russian ammunition dumps since they arrived on the battlefield last month, Ukraine’s defence minister said.

Oleksiy Reznikov told Ukrainian television that the scalpel-like accuracy of the missiles had significantly eroded Russia’s supply chains and its ability to conduct active fighting and cover our armed forces with heavy shelling.

We are talking about 50 sites in terms of ammunition storage locations alone, he told Ukrainian television.

Moscow has charged 92 members of the Ukrainian armed forces with crimes against humanity, the head of Russia’s investigative committee has said.

Alexander Bastrykin told government news site Rossiiskaya Gazeta over 1,300 criminal investigations had begun.

He also proposed an international tribunal backed by countries including Iran, Syria and Bolivia – traditional allies of Russia.

Ukraine is also conducting its own war crimes investigations.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on a diplomatic offensive in Egypt, has dismissed claims that Moscow caused the global food crisis.

In a speech to Arab League ambassadors in Cairo, he said Western nations were distorting the truth about the impact of sanctions on global food security.

He accused Western nations of trying to impose their dominance over others.

He’s right. Assholes like Trudeau are using the Ukraine crisis as cover to implement their lunatic green-scam and deny farmers fertilizer. Look no further than Sri Lanka to see what’s in store for Canada’s agriculture sector.

A militant anti-Ukrainian motorcycle gang run by a friend and vehement supporter of Vladmir Putin was one of many hit by a round of sanctions from the EU this week – though its boss dismissed them as having ‘no meaning.’

The Hell’s Angels-esque biker group, The Night Wolves, has more than 7,000 members – and have staged rallies and protests in support of the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Members have also been said to have fought alongside pro-Russian militants in the ongoing war, and participated in attacks on the conflict’s eastern front.

#Ukraine: A Russian BTR-80 armored personnel carrier didn't not withstand a meeting with a Ukrainian FGM-148 Javelin missile, reportedly in #Kherson Oblast. pic.twitter.com/lAGfuNvVGD

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 24, 2022

The two Mi-8 helicopters tore across enemy territory early on the morning of March 21, startling the Russian soldiers below. Inside were Ukrainian Special Forces fighters carrying crates of Stinger and Javelin missiles, as well as a satellite internet system. They were flying barely 20 feet above ground into the hottest combat zone in the war.

Ukraine’s top generals had conceived the flights as a daring, possibly doomed, mission. A band of Ukrainian soldiers, running low on ammunition and largely without any communications, was holed up in a sprawling steel factory in the besieged city of Mariupol. The soldiers were surrounded by a massive Russian force and on the verge of annihilation.

The plan called for the Mi-8s to land at the factory, swap their cargo for wounded soldiers, and fly back to central Ukraine. Most everyone understood that the city and its defenders were lost. But the weapons would allow the soldiers to frustrate the Russian forces for a few weeks more, blunting the onslaught faced by Ukrainian troops elsewhere on the southern and eastern fronts and giving them time to prepare for a new Russian offensive there.