“Ukraine – Russia”

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Russia says it has withdrawn its garrison as a “gesture of goodwill” to prove it was not obstructing grain exports, but Ukraine dismissed that claim, as Moscow continued to shell its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

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced more money for Ukraine – including a $200 million loan through the International Monetary Fund – at the end of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in Germany.

Canada’s contribution comes as G7 leaders committed to phase out or ban the import of Russian coal and oil in response to that country’s war with Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis sparked by the invasion.

I think the silly antics at the G7 are meant to mask the truth behind the Euro nations commitment to Ukraine.

Oil, Gas and Grain are all being exported much of it ending up in European hands. Biden has been told that Saudi and the UAE have exhausted their “excess” production capacity yet there is no move to ease US production constraints or tap into Canada’s resources.

That tells me this war is being used to advance the great green-energy scam.

Biden’s demanding Arab nations produce more oil at the same moment he is considering a total ban on new offshore oil & gas drilling, 6 days after delaying new on-shore O&G drilling, and 1 month after killing a 1M acre O&G lease sale in Alaska. It’s as insane as it looks. pic.twitter.com/EJo4DkZGOP

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) June 27, 2022

THE RUSSIAN invasion of Ukraine has brought home an unpalatable but clarifying truth: For all the expressions of moral outrage and the exhortations of militant rhetoric, the United States and its allies are not about to risk World War III by fighting to preserve Ukrainian independence. The West has shown itself willing to spend billions in military and humanitarian assistance, but ultimately the Ukrainians are on their own.

To everyone’s surprise, they are doing remarkably well indeed. But that could change. As we now know, Vladimir Putin is unpredictable, even irrational. He could choose to end the war with an exit ramp that allows him to declare “victory”—the most important buttress in the ramp being a guarantee by the West that Ukraine will never join NATO—or he could decide to double-down, committing yet more atrocities and war crimes, killing yet more civilians, unleashing devastation on yet more Ukrainian cities.

It may have felt like an inevitability, but that does not make the fall of Severodonetsk any less painful for Ukraine.

For weeks it had been the main focus of Russia’s invasion, huge artillery barrages and air strikes reducing much of the old industrial city to rubble.

In the end, Ukrainian commanders said defending the ruins would cost too many lives.

In his Saturday night address after Russia had confirmed complete control of Severodonetsk, President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was a difficult day, “morally and emotionally” for his country.

Energy companies in France have told the public that they must “immediately” reduce their energy usage as a result of Europe’s sanction war with Russia.

As a result of a sanctions war between Russia and Europe, the French public must now “immediately” cut back on the amount of energy they use, the heads of three major energy providers in the country have now said.

The Ukrainian president has met G7 leaders via video as US government sources briefed that Washington plans to announce as soon as this week that it has bought a Norwegian advanced surface-to-air missile defence system for Ukraine.

The announcement of the Nasams purchase will meet one of the key requests from Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has been warning his key cities are defenceless against Russian missile strikes including those that rained down on the capital, Kyiv, on Sunday.

Tracking where Russia is taking Ukraine’s stolen grain

Russian forces have been repeatedly accused of stealing grain from Ukrainian farmers in occupied areas as well as other crops such as sunflower seeds, along with fertiliser and agricultural equipment. The BBC has spoken to farmers, analysed satellite images and followed tracking data to look for evidence of where stolen grain is going.

A few dozen miles from the frontline, Ukrainian farmer Dmytro describes how the business he nurtured over 25 years was lost in four months of Russian occupation.

The BBC tried to contact more than 200 farmers whose land is now in Russian-occupied territory. Dmytro – we are not using his real name to protect him from reprisals – was one of the few willing to meet us.

Russia is shipping Ukraine grain, the EU is buying gas direct from Putin, and Russian Oil is had via India, everything is going to plan.

Video of an ammunition depot in Zymohirya, Luhansk Oblast on fire. https://t.co/7FrSxzM85I pic.twitter.com/9aV0XPUOkA

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 27, 2022

The pledge to make Ukraine an EU member is nothing more than a virtue-signal.

It’s been quite the performance from the European Union. Just over a week ago, the leaders of the EU’s dominant nations – Germany, France and Italy – enjoyed a day out in Kyiv, posing alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and pledging to support his nation’s quest to join what German chancellor Olaf Scholz called ‘the European family’. This little Ukrainian jaunt, it turned out, was a mere prelude for the EU’s big announcement on Thursday evening. That was when the 27-nation bloc announced that it had finally decided to accept Ukraine’s most recent application for EU membership, made at the start of the war, and grant it ‘candidate’ status. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, dressed in the Ukrainian colours, called Ukraine’s candidature ‘a good day for Europe’. Moldova has also been granted candidate status, but that now seems like a mere afterthought.

As the war in Ukraine drags on, many commentators wonder where and when Russian President Vladimir Putin might decide to call an end to his current aggressive behavior. Digging into Russian history, some may assert that even if he does stop, it would be a tactical move of the kind that Lenin described as “one step back, two steps forward.”

Putin’s behavior has its roots in the Russian psyche.

From early days of appearing as a distinct people, Russians have always feared that they may become like others while, lacking in natural defenses, their vast territory was vulnerable to foreign invasion.

As Russia turns off the gas and Germany activates emergency plans, Europeans must become ants to avoid ending up grasshoppers.

The next step in the conflict between the West and Russian President Vladimir Putin was supposed to be a European boycott on Russian coal, oil and natural gas. It may instead be a gas embargo by Putin on Europe. It comes to much the same.

The countries of the European Union must accept what some of them — notably Germany and Austria — spent years denying. It’s that in the eyes of an amoral despot such as Putin, everything is a weapon of war. That includes nuclear and chemical arms, but also wheat, disinformation and, not least, energy.

For decades, Putin has done his best to make European countries as dependent as possible on Siberian hydrocarbons to create vulnerabilities in the West. Now he’s exploiting those weaknesses.

The so-called “Smartest people in the room” told us that free trade with tyrannies such as Russia and China would mitigate their totalitarian nastiness. It was all bullshit motivated by greed. Now the same slime insist mass immigration is the way to lift everyone’s boat. They’re lying again.

The war in Ukraine is a multi-dimensional disaster, which is likely to get much worse in the foreseeable future. When a war is successful, little attention is paid to its causes, but when the outcome is disastrous, understanding how it happened becomes paramount. People want to know: how did we get into this terrible situation?

I have witnessed this phenomenon twice in my lifetime—first with the Vietnam war and second with the Iraq war. In both cases, Americans wanted to know how their country could have miscalculated so badly. Given that the United States and its NATO allies played a crucial role in the events that led to the Ukraine war—and are now playing a central role in the conduct of that war—it is appropriate to evaluate the West’s responsibility for this calamity.