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.
Germany has accused Moscow of engaging in “power play” over energy exports, as Russian state-run Gazprom further throttled gas supplies into Europe.
As announced two days earlier, the energy giant on Wednesday reduced the gas flow through Nord Stream 1 to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s total capacity and half the amount it has been delivering since resuming service last week after 10 days of maintenance work.
According to network data from the gas transfer station in Lubmin, north-east Germany, only about 17m kilowatt hours of gas arrived between 8am and 9am, compared with more than 27m kWh between 6am and 7am.
#Russia: In a first for the war so far, today Ukrainian forces are confirmed to have used a US-supplied Switchblade 300 loitering munition on Russian territory, at the Troebortnoe crossing in #Bryansk Oblast, barely 2km from the Ukrainian border (51.88214, 34.34705). pic.twitter.com/u3ALulfIY4
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 26, 2022
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.
It is an occupational hazard that people who are granted half a page in a newspaper every day start to think they’re geniuses and everyone else is an idiot. It is almost a relief to be wrong — it suggests the world is working as it should.
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.
Ontario farmers say Canada’s fertilizer tariff punishes them for Russia’s war
As the federal government continues its efforts to punish Russia economically for its invasion of Ukraine, Ontario agriculture groups and representatives of Canada’s fertilizer sector are warning that cash crop farmers and consumers are the ones bearing the cost.
In March, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and International Trade Minister Mary Ng announced that in retaliation for Russia’s illegal invasion, Canada was imposing a 35 per cent general tariff on virtually all Russian imports — including nitrogen fertilizer that Eastern Canadian growers rely on to boost crop yields.
The timing — mere weeks from the start of planting season — couldn’t have been worse. Farmers make often risky decisions about what crops to grow and place orders for seed and fertilizer months in advance.
Something’s gotta give.
KYIV — Two Americans, a Canadian and a Swedish citizen were killed this week when a Russian tank opened fire on them during an hourslong battle at the frontline in the eastern Donetsk region, their commander confirmed exclusively to POLITICO.
Ruslan Miroshnichenko, the foreign fighters’ commander, said Saturday that the Americans killed were Luke “Skywalker” Lucyszyn and Bryan Young. He said they were killed alongside Emile-Antoine Roy-Sirois of Canada and Edvard Selander Patrignani of Sweden on July 18.
Here is the second video. According to Ukrainian sources, this can be effective with 125mm HE-FRAG projectiles at up to 10km range. Usually, concealed positions are used.
Some further information on this tactic: https://t.co/GU7BRroJL1 pic.twitter.com/Umq7qsAnB8
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 23, 2022
