The Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Cricket Warrior]

Ukraine to receive US air defence systems, says Trump

US President Donald Trump has said he will send weapons, including Patriot air defence systems, to Ukraine via Nato.

Trump told NBC News that in a new deal, "we're going to be sending Patriots to Nato, and then Nato will distribute that", adding that Nato would pay for the weapons.

His announcement came after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of having a "positive dialogue" with Trump about ensuring that arms arrived on time. He said he had asked for 10 Patriot systems after a surge in Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in the past week.

Patriot batteries detect and intercept oncoming missiles and are regarded as one of the world's best air defence systems.

Ukraine to receive US Patriot air defence systems, says Trump

The US president says he will sell weapons to Nato, which would then give them to Ukraine.

www.bbc.com

 

[JaDed]

Lol , Trump is toeing the Establishment line now or what.

Global politics is a mess and a joke, I hoped this idiot atleast could had stopped this war.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

NATO needs more long-range missiles to deter Russia, US general says

NATO will need more long-range missiles in its arsenal to deter Russia from attacking Europe because Moscow is expected to increase production of long-range weapons, a U.S. Army general told Reuters.

Russia's effective use of long-range missiles in its war inUkraine has convinced Western military officials of their importance for destroying command posts, transportation hubs and missile launchers far behind enemy lines.

"The Russian army is bigger today than it was when they started the war in Ukraine," Major General John Rafferty said in an interview at a U.S. military base in Wiesbaden, Germany.

"And we know that they're going to continue to invest in long-range rockets and missiles and sophisticated air defences. So more alliance capability is really, really important."

The war in Ukraine has underscored Europe's heavy dependence on the United States to provide long-range missiles, with Kyiv seeking to strengthen its air defences.

Rafferty recently completed an assignment as commander of the U.S. Army's 56th Artillery Command in the German town of Mainz-Kastel, which is preparing for temporary deployments of long-range U.S. missiles on European soil from 2026.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/nato-needs-more-long-range-missiles-deter-russia-us-general-says-2025-07-11/

 

[oatmeal]

Lol , Trump is toeing the Establishment line now or what.

Global politics is a mess and a joke, I hoped this idiot atleast could had stopped this war.

The war can't be stopped because Russia is making irrational demands like getting land it doesn't control and neutering of the Ukrainian army and destroying weapons they already have it. No nation would accept such terms unless they were being absolutely pumelled on the battlefield. Ukraine is at a disadvantage but it's a war of attrition with slow progress.

My guess is that Putin will drag this out till October when the weather starts to get worse and then accept freezing of the conflict on current lines in exchange for dropping many US sanctions and US recognising Crimea.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Trump weapons pledge marks major step forward for Ukraine

For the first time since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has pledged to make new weapons available to Ukraine.

Under a new deal, the US will sell weapons to Nato members who will then supply them to Kyiv as it battles Russia's invasion.

The president didn't give too many specifics about what he said was "billions of dollars' worth of military equipment". But when asked if the deal included Patriot air defence batteries and interceptor missiles, he replied "it's everything".

One European country has 17 Patriot systems and "a big portion" would soon be on the way to Ukraine, Trump said.

For Ukraine, a huge country that currently operates handful of batteries - perhaps as few as eight - this is a major step forward, giving Kyiv a chance to expand protection against Russian ballistic and cruise missiles.

Trump weapons pledge marks major step forward for Ukraine

For the first time since returning to the White House, Trump pledges to make new weapons available to Ukraine.

www.bbc.com

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Lavrov says Russia wants to understand Trump’s motivation behind 50-day ultimatum​

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Russia would like more clarity on Trump’s threat to impose severe tariffs on Russia unless a peace deal is reached within 50 days.

“We, of course, want to understand what is behind this statement [by Trump] – 50 days. It used to be 24 hours, it used to be 100 days, we have been through all of this, and we really want to understand what motivates the president of the United States,” Lavrov told journalists following a Shanghai Cooperation Organization Foreign Ministers meeting in the Chinese city Tianjin.

Source: Al Jazeera

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Europe assumes financial burden of Ukraine war, angering Russia

Trump casts European purchases of US weapons for Ukraine as a victory as the UN warns civilians are being killed at a record rate.

The United States and Germany have struck a deal to provide Ukraine with weaponry to protect cities from nightly Russian attacks.

Germany was prepared to pay for the systems as part of a broader US deal to sell Europe arms destined for Ukraine.

Details began to emerge on July 10 when Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany would buy US-made air defence systems.

“We are also prepared to purchase additional Patriot systems from the US to make them available to Ukraine,” Merz was quoted as saying on the sidelines of a Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump told NBC News that the US would sell NATO US-made weapons, including the Patriots, that NATO would give to Ukraine.

Adding to the crescendo, US Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS on Sunday: “In the coming days, you will see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves.”

Meanwhile, Russia continued to capture Ukrainian villages.

On Friday, the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed to have seized Zelyonaya Dolina in the eastern region of Donetsk and Sobolevka in Kharkiv in the northeast. Nikolayevka in Donetsk fell on Sunday, Malinovka in Zaporizhia on Monday and Novokhatskoye in Donetsk on Wednesday.

Yet even at this accelerated rate of 15sq km (6sq miles) a day, Russia would need 89 years to capture the rest of Ukraine, The Economist magazine estimated.

Russia continued to pound Ukraine’s cities with combinations of drones and missiles every night over the past week.

The biggest attack came early on Saturday. The Ukrainian air force said it downed or electronically suppressed 577 of 597 drones launched overnight and 25 of 26 Kh-101 cruise missiles.

June also saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said.

Europe assumes financial burden of Ukraine war, angering Russia

Trump casts European purchases of US weapons for Ukraine as a victory as UN warns civilians being killed at record rate.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Ukraine appoints new government in biggest wartime overhaul

Ukraine's parliament appointed the country's first new prime minister in five years on Thursday, part of a major cabinet overhaul aimed at revitalising wartime management as prospects for peace with Russia grow dim.
Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, has been tasked by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with boosting domestic weapons production and reviving Ukraine's loan-dependent economy.

In a speech to parliament, Zelenskiy said he expected his new government to increase the share of domestic weapons on Ukraine's battlefield to 50% from 40% within six months.

He also singled out deregulation and expanding economic co-operation with allies as other key aims of the biggest government reshuffle since Russia's February 2022 invasion.

Svyrydenko, an experienced technocrat who had served as first deputy prime minister since 2021, pledged to move "swiftly and decisively".

"War leaves no room for delay," she wrote on X.

"Our priorities for the first six months are clear: reliable supply for the army, expansion of domestic weapons production, and boosting the technological strength of our defense forces."

Svyrydenko is also well known to the Trump administration, having negotiated a deal giving the U.S. preferential access to Ukraine's mineral wealth. It was considered crucial to bolstering relations between Kyiv and Washington.

https://www.reuters.com/en/ukraine-appoints-new-government-biggest-wartime-overhaul-2025-07-17/

 

[BouncerGuy]

Russia launches ‘hellish’ aerial attack on eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad

Russia launched its biggest ever attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad early on Saturday, as part of a large wave of strikes across the country involving hundreds of kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles.

The six-hour bombardment was the worst in the city’s history. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Sergey Lysak, said a factory was damaged, a fire station destroyed and a five-storey residential building hit.

“A hellish night and morning for Pavlohrad. The most intense attack on the city. Explosion after explosion. Russian terrorists targeted it with missiles and drones,” Lysak said.

Drones could be heard flying over Pavlohrad in the early hours of Saturday. There were cacophonous booms and orange explosions lighting up the night sky. The streets echoed with machine-gun fire as anti-aircraft units tried to shoot them down.

In the morning, thick black smoke hung above the city. There were several fires. One exhausted resident, Oleh, said it was the worst night he had known. “Nobody slept. We were all in shelters. There was a thunderstorm as well. We had explosions and rain together,” he said.

The attack came soon after Gen Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, flew back to Washington after a six-day visit to Kyiv. This week the White House announced a large-scale arms package to Ukraine, including additional Patriot anti-aircraft systems, to be paid for by European allies.

The Kremlin refrained from carrying out a large-scale bombardment while Kellogg was in the country. Social media was awash with memes depicting Kellogg as a cat protecting the capital, since Keith sounds similar to “kit”, or cat in Ukrainian.

On Friday, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev promised Moscow would escalate its aerial attacks in response to the EU’s latest sanctions package, which was agreed after the pro-Kremlin government in Slovakia dropped its objections.

The city of Pavlohrad is a strategic hub for the Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Russian troops are close to capturing territory in the region – which borders Donetsk province – for the first time since Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion. In recent days they have captured several neighbouring villages.

Early on Saturday, Russian forces also targeted the Black Sea port of Odesa, setting fire to a nine-storey apartment building, the city’s mayor said. Five people were rescued from the top floor, and one woman subsequently died.

Odesa’s mayor, Hennady Trukhanov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said at least 20 drones had converged on the city, a frequent target of Russian strikes. “Civilian structure has been damaged as a result of the attack,” Trukhanov wrote. “A high-rise apartment block is on fire. Rescuers are taking people out from the flames.”

Ukraine’s new prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said Moscow had launched another “brutal attack” on Odesa and other Ukrainian cities. “One person killed, several more wounded, families destroyed. This is the cost of hesitation. Without bold response, the strikes will come again,” she said.

Russia launches ‘hellish’ aerial attack on eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad

Six-hour bombardment of the strategic hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region came at the same time as airstrikes killed one person in Odesa

www.theguardian.com

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Ukraine proposes new round of peace talks with Russia next week​

Kyiv has proposed to Moscow a new round of peace talks next week, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, after negotiations stalled in early June.

Two rounds of talks in Istanbul between Moscow and Kyiv failed to result in any progress towards a ceasefire, instead yielding large-scale prisoner exchanges and deals to return the bodies of killed soldiers.

“Security council secretary [Rustem] Umerov also reported that he had proposed the next meeting with the Russian side for next week,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address to the country.

“The momentum of the negotiations must be stepped up,” he added.

Zelenskyy reiterated his readiness to have a face-to-face meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “A meeting at the leadership level is needed to truly ensure peace – lasting peace,” he said.

Umerov, a former defence minister, was appointed last week as the head of the national security and defence council and tasked with adding more momentum to the negotiations.

Russia has been pressing a grinding offensive along the eastern front in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. It has repeatedly said it is ready for a new round of talks but has not backed down from its maximalist war aims.

At talks last month, Russia outlined a list of hardline demands, including calls for Ukraine to cede more territory and to reject all forms of western military support.

Kyiv dismissed them as unacceptable and at the time questioned the point of further negotiations if Moscow was not willing to make concessions.

The Kremlin said this month it was ready to continue talks with Ukraine after Donald Trump gave Russia 50 days to strike a peace deal or face sanctions.

The US president also pledged to supply Kyiv with new military aid, sponsored by Nato allies, as its cities suffer ever-increasing Russian aerial attacks.

Russian strikes on Ukraine claimed another three lives on Saturday.

Source: The Guardian

 

[BouncerGuy]

Ukraine and Russia set for fresh peace talks, Zelensky says

Russia and Ukraine will hold a new round of peace talks in Istanbul on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

"Today, I discussed with [Ukrainian Security Council chief] Rustem Umerov the preparations for a prisoner exchange and another meeting in Turkey with the Russian side," Zelensky said in his daily address on Monday. "Umerov reported that the meeting is scheduled for Wednesday."

Zelensky proposed fresh talks at the weekend, days after US President Donald Trump threatened Russia with "severe" sanctions if there was no ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv within 50 days.

On Tuesday, Moscow said it did not expect a "miraculous breakthrough" from the talks.

"We intend to pursue our interests, we intend to ensure our interests and fulfil the tasks that we set for ourselves from the very beginning," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in his daily press briefing.

He said he hoped the talks would be held this week, without giving a date.

Two previous rounds of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul failed to make progress towards a ceasefire. Both nations remain far apart as to how it might be achieved.

Washington has pledged new weapons for the Ukrainian military, after Russia intensified attacks.

A child was killed overnight into Tuesday, when a Russian glide bomb hit an apartment block in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, local officials said. Six areas of the capital Kyiv had earlier come under a combined drone and missile attack.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces said they had pushed back more than 50 attacks in the Pokrovsk area of eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated much of its firepower in recent months. Russian sabotage groups have already tried to enter the city, according to Ukraine's military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Russia's RIA news agency, quoting a source, said the latest round of talks would take place over two days, on Thursday and Friday.

A Turkish government spokesperson said Wednesday's talks would take place in the same venue where previous negotiations in May and June failed to work towards a ceasefire, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.

This week's talks will be yet another attempt to bring an end to the war that has been going on for more than three years, and will come after Trump expressed frustration with Vladimir Putin. The US president told the BBC he was "disappointed" but "not done" with the Russian leader.

The Istanbul talks could focus on further prisoner exchanges and a possible meeting between Zelensky and Putin, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP.

Moscow, however, has downplayed the likelihood of reaching any concrete outcome anytime soon.

Commenting on the prospects for a breakthrough, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the two sides were "diametrically opposed" and "a lot of diplomatic work lies ahead".

Russia has intensified its drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, causing record civilian casualties. It launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022.

BBC

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Protests in Ukraine as Zelenskyy signs bill curbing anticorruption agencies​

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a controversial bill that hands sweeping authority to Ukraine’s prosecutor general over the country’s independent anticorruption agencies.

This triggered the largest antigovernment protests on Tuesday since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. More protests are expected Wednesday.

The new legislation, now law, gives the prosecutor general power to control and reassign investigations led by the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

NABU and SAPO are two key institutions that have long symbolised Ukraine’s post-Euromaidan commitment to rooting out high-level corruption. Critics say the move strips these agencies of their independence and risks turning them into political tools.

Protests erupted in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odesa, with demonstrators holding signs reading “Veto the law” and “We chose Europe, not autocracy.”

Many saw the legislation as a betrayal of Ukraine’s decade-long push towards democratic governance, transparency, and European Union membership.

Just one day prior, Ukraine’s domestic security agency arrested two NABU officials on suspicion of Russian links and searched other employees.

Zelenskyy, in his Wednesday address, cited these incidents to justify the reform, arguing the agencies had been infiltrated and that cases involving billions of dollars had been stagnant.

“There is no rational explanation for why criminal proceedings worth billions have been hanging for years,” he said.

But watchdogs and international observers see a different danger.

Transparency International Ukraine warned that the law dismantles critical safeguards, while the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, called it “a serious step back”.

The EU, G7 ambassadors, and other Western backers emphasised that NABU and SAPO’s independence is a prerequisite for financial aid and EU accession.

Despite Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka’s assurances that “all core functions remain intact,” disillusionment is growing.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s former foreign minister, declared it “a bad day for Ukraine”, underscoring the stark choice Zelenskyy faces: Stand with the people – or risk losing their trust, along with Western support.

Source: Al Jazeera