“Ukraine – Russia”

Jews have fled Russia in droves, but those who remain are scared of a return to the darkest days of discrimination.

As Vladimir Putin’s war rages on for the fifth month in Ukraine and repression suffocates civil liberties back home, Russian Jews are worried they’ll soon become the Kremlin’s targets.

Jews have been fleeing Russia in droves; those who’ve stayed behind are terrified of directly criticizing the war, which Putin has cynically claimed he launched to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

“In our congregation, we don’t talk about any political issues,” said a Moscow rabbi who asked not to be named. He added that after a 2011 crackdown on protests linked to Putin’s reelection, he ordered that politics must stay out of his synagogue, which has roughly 300 members.

Many of the fighters for Ukraine’s western territorial defense units were assigned benign tasks away from the fighting when they first joined. Then they were called to the front to fight.

RUDNE, Ukraine — Yurii Brukhal, an electrician by trade, did not have a very dangerous role when he volunteered for Ukraine’s territorial defense forces at the start of the war. He was assigned to make deliveries and staff a checkpoint in the relative safety of his sleepy village.

Weeks later, his unit deployed from his home in the west to a frontline battle in eastern Ukraine, the center of the fiercest fighting against Russian forces. He was killed on June 10.

Andrii Verteev, who worked in a grocery store in the village, spent the first months of the war guarding a small overpass after work and returning home to his wife and daughter at night. Then he, too, volunteered to head east. He died in battle in Luhansk, only weeks before Mr. Brukhal.

Russia has accused Ukraine over explosions which reportedly killed three people in the city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine.

The regional governor said the blasts hit dozens of residential buildings and air defences had been activated.

The Kremlin said that Sunday’s attack had been a deliberate attempt by Ukrainian forces to target civilians.

Ukraine dismissed the claim, saying the Russians had lied about similar incidents in the past.

#Russia: This morning two Russian cities were woken by explosions – the Ukrainian army fired on targets in #Belgorod and #Kursk, however neither were successfully hit according to preliminary information. pic.twitter.com/AeEIDI4g7l

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 3, 2022

The Russian navy appears to have accidentally blown up one of its own ships in the black sea in the latest blunder for Putin’s forces.

A landing craft is reported to have exploded when it hit a Russian sea mine near Mariupol.

The crew is said to have survived the friendly-fire incident, but the reputation of Russia’s naval commanders is not so unscathed.

h/t RM

For Ukraine to win, the West still has to answer painful questions of itself

One minute the pundits believe Ukraine will win, the next we are warned that Russia is winning. But what does “victory” mean — and is the West really prepared to pay its price?

There is a tragic irony here. In their own ways, Russia, Ukraine and the West are all committed to a struggle without knowing for sure how the endgame should or will look. For Moscow and Kyiv, this is essentially because they are still waiting on the verdict of the battlefield — but for the West, it is because we are not yet willing to discuss the most difficult questions.

A lot of this sort of reflection going around these days.

I’m not sure if they are hoping to sleepwalk us into a wider conflict or test the waters for an abandonment of Ukraine.

Maybe both.

Here’s the Star’s take: Here’s why Canada could be paying for the economic war against Russia for a long time

This was the week our economic warfare against Russia was exposed for the problematic long game that it is.

As the G7 was readying new ways to cut off Russia’s gold, Vladimir Putin was busy bombing near a Kyiv kindergarten.

As the West contemplated how to cap Russian oil revenues, Putin’s forces struck a shopping mall with 1,000 people inside.

#Ukraine: A Russian T-72 series tank was hit by a Ukrainian ATGM in previously unseen footage. The cope cage flight adds extra flair.pic.twitter.com/LhEM3M3g5U

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 2, 2022

At 170 metres long, with a red hull, white painted superstructure and towering deck cranes, the Matros Koshka is difficult to miss.

But the bulk carrier – whose name means “the sailor cat” in Russian – has not been seen since it turned off its transponder in the middle of the Black Sea three weeks ago.

The vanishing ship is one of nearly a dozen Russian and Syrian flagged vessels at the centre of what Western governments believe is large-scale smuggling of looted Ukrainian grain.

An oligarchical society is being reset

War has always been the father of innovation: a reset for societies forced to adopt whatever methods work just in order to survive. The outburst of voluntarism that has gripped Ukraine is a striking example: mutual aid groups, local volunteer organisations and local defence militias have cropped up, taking on many of the burdens of the overstretched state. We can almost term this a form of “war anarchism”, analogous to the “war socialism” that overtook industrial capitalism during the World Wars, paving the way for postwar social democracy. The relationship of the people to an often distant and dysfunctional state is being reset; new paths have perhaps opened up for postwar Ukrainian society, politically and socially more inclusive than the outward form of liberal democracy that came before, in which political power was in reality the plaything of rival oligarchs. The war against the invading Russians has many qualities of a revolution.

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Wearing a military uniform marked with with both the Ukrainian and Canadian flags, Matthew McGill pleaded for more support to fight Russia’s invasion.

“We need equipment,” the Canadian Armed Forces veteran and member of Ukraine’s international legion said on Thursday. “The legion needs money to buy equipment.”

At least 19 people, including one child, have died in overnight Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, Ukrainian officials say.

The state emergency service, DSNS, says nearly all of the victims were in a nine-storey building hit by one missile in the village of Serhiyivka.

At least two people, including the child, were killed in a separate strike on a holiday resort in the village.

Russia has fired dozens of missiles on Ukrainian cities in the past few days.

#Ukraine: The National Guard of Ukraine destroyed a BMP-1 IFV of the Russian Army during urban fighting in the East. pic.twitter.com/McnZ8tVQ2P

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 30, 2022

The European Union has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel and Egypt that paves the way for potentially significant quantities of Israeli natural gas to be shipped to Europe.

The trilateral agreement, signed on June 15 in Cairo at a meeting of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), an intergovernmental organization, calls for Israeli gas to be sent to liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Egypt. From there, the gas in liquid form will be transported across the Mediterranean Sea on LNG vessels to markets in Europe.

This tiny, rocky outcrop in the north-west of the Black Sea was seized by Russia on the first day of its invasion of Ukraine, and it has played an outsized role in the war ever since.

After more than four months of repeated Ukrainian bombardment, Russian forces have abandoned Snake or Zmiinyi Island, as it is known in Ukraine.

Russia says it has withdrawn its garrison as a “gesture of goodwill” to prove it was not obstructing grain exports, but Ukraine dismissed that claim, as Moscow continued to shell its grain stores.

Russian officials have reacted angrily to Nato’s offer of membership to Finland and Sweden, calling it a “destabilising” effort that will increase tensions in the region.

“We condemn the irresponsible course of the North Atlantic Alliance that is ruining the European architecture, or what’s left of it,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday.

“I have a great deal of doubt as to whether the upcoming period will be calm for our north European neighbours,” he added.

#Ukraine: The Ukrainian 93rd Mechanized Brigade showed the damage and subsequent destruction of a Russian T-80BV tank after hitting an AT mine in the East.

They also claim that BMPs behind were abandoned; but we can't verify if that is the case. pic.twitter.com/rZdu6oL1av

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 27, 2022

Much of what passes as ‘justice’ in wartime is meted out by the victor

Alex Drueke and Andy Huynh are two former American military members now in Russian custody, captured by the Russians in Ukraine, where they were fighting for the Ukrainian government. What is going to happen to them?

The most likely thing is that both men will eventually be traded to the US in return for captured Russians. Prisoners are very valuable and rarely wasted in executions unless those carry much more value than the prisoners held by the other side. The deal may be public or secret, and the US can expect to pay a premium. Israel usually releases ten or more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one of its captured troops.

A web site inspired by OnlyFans is inviting users to donate money and receive a nude photo in return — with the proceeds going to fund Ukraine’s war effort and resettle people displaced by the Russian invasion of the Eastern European country.

Users log into the site, TerOnlyFans, and contribute a sum of money to one of several bank accounts linked to the Ukrainian armed forces as well as humanitarian groups. They then must send a screenshot of the donation receipt to one of the “initiative participants.”