Geopolitical situation
The Kremlin junta has learned that Washington is encouraging Kiev to continue its offensive actions on the territory of the Russian Federation... publicly ignoring a drone strike that allegedly hit several districts of Moscow yesterday. Russian Führer Putin stated that the drone strike was the fault of Ukraine, which is "trying to intimidate and provoke Moscow".
The Diaspora would not be the Diaspora if it did not look beyond the Kremlin's borders to justify its war crimes.
"What do these attempts to hide behind the phrase 'gathering information' mean?" asked Anatoly Antonov, the ambassador of the war-criminal country to the US. "This is encouraging Ukrainian terrorists."
Meanwhile, Putin, an international wanted criminal and terrorist leader, has described the 15-month war in Ukraine, which has spilled into the very heart of Russia, as a terrorist act. The attack on Moscow, in which two people were injured, followed three Russian air strikes on Kyiv in one day. Russia and Putin blame what they call the 'collective West' for all the war crimes it is committing, for supporting Ukraine with military and financial aid and for waging a war with Ukrainian hands against Moscow.
We continue to insist that this war started by Russia can only be won by attacking and striking at military-industrial complexes, decision-making and communication centres and other high-value military targets in the interior of the Russian Federation. This requires swarms of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, and an end to the knuckle-dragging in the West. The missiles and drones will continue to fall on Kyiv as long as they do not fall on Piter and Moscow.
Meanwhile, in the north, NATO countries are continuing the Arctic exercises launched on Tuesday to test plans to defend their newest member Finland and indirectly put pressure on Russia. Nearly 1,000 allied forces from the United States, Britain and Norway, as well as neighbouring Sweden, joined some 6,500 Finnish troops and around 1,000 vehicles in the "Northern Forest" exercise, the largest modern exercise of Finnish ground forces outside the Arctic Circle.
Watching the exercise just two hours away from the Russian border at one of Europe's largest artillery ranges in Rovajarvi, in northern Finland, Major General Gregory Anderson of the US Army's 10th Mountain Division said his country was ready to defend Finland.
"We are here, we are determined. The US military is here training with our newest NATO ally to build this capability and to help defend Finland if anything happens," Anderson said.
The US troops trained on the ground with HIMARS artillery rocket systems flown in from Germany, while their Finnish counterparts fired Leopard 2A6 tanks, the Swedes and the Norwegians fired CV90 infantry fighting vehicles, and the UK troops deployed Warrior tanks.
Exercise leader Colonel Janne Makitalo said NATO allies should be cautious about jumping to conclusions about their military procurement needs from the footage they see from Ukraine. "At the moment, Russia can destroy about 10,000 Ukrainian UAVs every month," he said. Expensive technological solutions may look good on YouTube, he said, but in a real war situation they can be easily detected.
Significant developments
The Rusofascists shelled Kyiv again. "On this difficult night, a 33-year-old woman was killed and 9 people were wounded by enemy shelling. Four more citizens were wounded in the Kyiv area. In addition, 16 objects were damaged, including civilian vehicles, buildings and residential houses", said a statement by the Acting Head of the National Police of Ukraine, I. Vygovskiy.
During the day, Russian terrorists struck 64 air and 1 rocket strikes, and fired 88 times from rocket-assisted volley fire systems. The main areas of attack by the occupying forces remain the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Over the past day, Ukrainian Defence Forces units have repelled 22 enemy attacks here.
The Russians unsuccessfully attempted to infiltrate a diversionary reconnaissance group across the Ukrainian state border in the area of the village of Zhaliya in Kharkiv region. Ukrainian Defence Forces aviation struck 11 strikes in areas where enemy personnel and military equipment were concentrated, as well as striking its air-launched missile complex and destroying 32 Shahed drones.
The Russians may be preparing a joint offensive against Ukraine using unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles deployed at sea, said Natalia Humeniuk, head of the Joint Press Centre of the Southern Ukrainian Defence Forces.
"The enemy is constantly moving missile launchers. Now three remain on standby - one land-based and two underwater. This may mean that the enemy is again preparing a sneak attack using a mix of different types of munitions - a mixture of drone and missile attacks," she said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky would like to see the British arms company BAE Systems, which produces Challenger 2 tanks and M777 howitzers, open a factory in Ukraine. In a videoconference meeting with the company's CEO Charles Woodburn, Mr. Zelensky tentatively agreed to open a BAE Systems office in Ukraine, and in the longer term, the company's repair and production units are planned to be set up in Ukraine.
This is an example for Lithuania, whose responsible officials are unable to shake off the inferiority complex that naïve or empty-headed opinion-makers keep encouraging.
Briefly
The drone attack in Moscow has exposed glaring gaps in its air defence and highlighted the capital's vulnerability, some defence analysts believe. The attack, real or perceived, angered Russian propagandists, who angrily criticised Führer Putin and the military leadership for failing to protect the Kremlin's centre of power, more than 500 km from the front line.
Mhm. Maybe so. Or maybe not. Too much smoke, too little fire, and very, very much artificially induced hysteria.
Yesterday, the Alliance announced that, following clashes with ethnic Serbs in which 30 international troops were injured, NATO would send 700 more troops to northern Kosovo to help quell violent protests. The latest violence in the region has raised fears of a repeat of the 1998-1999 conflict in Kosovo, which claimed more than 10 000 lives, left more than 1 million people homeless, and forced NATO to abandon its peacekeeping mission of almost a quarter of a century.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that "now is the time" for Turkey to drop its objections to Sweden's accession to NATO and revealed that in return the Biden administration would provide Turkey with upgraded F-16 fighter jets "as soon as possible". Although Blinken insisted that the administration was not linking the two issues, Joe Biden implicitly linked the two in a telephone conversation with Turkey's re-elected President Erdogan on Monday.
"I talked to Erdogan and he still wants to work something out on the F-16. I told him that we want to do a deal with Sweden. So let's do it," Biden said.
Chinese factory activity slowed down in May, adding to signs that China's economic recovery is slowing. The monthly purchasing managers' index published by the National Statistics Agency and an industry group fell to 48.4 in May from 49.2 in April (on a 100-point scale, where a reading below 50 indicates a decline in activity).
The slowdown in the world's biggest factory may not bode well for the global economy, but it may make the minds of China's impotent Chinese Communist Party wonder whether it is really worth waiting in the wings to stop the Russian-induced insanity in Ukraine.
Lithuania
Today, after a long time, the authors of these lines finally met in person. The aim is to discuss things that are as important as the war.
The only way to deal with the problems of global war and economic recession and the local quality of chicken feed is to deal with the chaos in our heads.
Everyone needs rest and balance and recharging - presidents, corporate executives and kindergarten teachers.
And that, dear friends, is what we are putting together for you to try with us in the near future.
Pictured here is the M777 howitzer, which could be produced in Lithuania (Sgt. James Bunn | commons.wikimedia.org)
Special thanks to our regular supporters DT Artelė and the Lithuanian Brewers Guild. Thank you to our readers for their support. It's not the amount of your support that matters, it's your attention and appreciation. Support link: https://tinyurl.com/noriuparemti
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