Wednesday, July 10

Russia’s war against Ukraine

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivers remarks during the opening of the NATO 75th anniversary celebratory event at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium on July 9, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

US, NATO allies to deliver 'dozens' of air defense systems in coming months, including 4 Patriots. The U.S. and at least nine other NATO allies have agreed to send dozens of air defense systems in the coming months to Ukraine, including at least four Patriot batteries, according to a joint agreement issued on July 9.

US supplies Ukraine with Metal Shark high-speed boats. The boats are equipped with modern navigation and control systems, automatic fire extinguishing, as well as a video surveillance system, making them maneuverable, fast, and ergonomic, the State Border Guard Service said.

F-16s in Ukraine may 'create conditions for counterattack,' Polish general says. "Ukrainian aviation should receive long-range missiles to destroy Russia's infrastructure, including airfields. When this happens, the logistics of the Russian army will be cut off from the main forces. If this is done, Ukraine's army command should form a strike group and strike back," Kraszewski said.

NATO summit communique to describe Ukraine's path to alliance as 'irreversible,' CNN reports. The question of how strong guarantees to give Ukraine regarding its future membership in NATO has become a key source of debate inside the alliance, CNN reported. The final version of the document may contain changes, CNN wrote, but the presence of the "irreversible" Ukraine's accession to NATO would be "a significant signal to Kyiv and Moscow."

Ukraine struck airbase, oil depot, and energy facility in Russia overnight, source says. Ukrainian intelligence agencies carried out an attack against a Russian military airfield, an energy substation, and an oil depot in three different regions overnight on July 9, a military intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent.

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UN assessment suggests Kyiv children's hospital suffered direct hit by Russian missile. Evidence from the scene of the children's hospital in Kyiv indicates "a high likelihood" of a direct hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile on July 8, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMUN) said on July 9.

Republican Party committee approves 2024 platform, makes no mention of Ukraine, Russia. The 16-page document, which must be still approved at the upcoming Republican National Convention, focuses primarily on domestic issues.

Zelensky says Indian PM's embrace with Putin a 'huge disappointment' after Russian mass attack on Ukraine. "It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day," President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X.

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Ukraine war latest: Rescue operations end at Kyiv children's hospital, at least 33 killed in capital overall

Search and rescue operations at the site of a Russian missile attack on Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv concluded on July 9, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Anadolu via Getty Images

F-16s, multi-billion pledge, more Patriots, 'irreversible' membership – what Ukraine will and won't get at the NATO Summit

While 75th birthdays are usually a cause for joy and celebration, NATO's marking of this milestone at a three-day summit in Washington from 9-11 July is likely to be a rather more muted affair.

Photo: Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images

Russia probes for air defense gaps to wreak havoc on Kyiv

Rather than evidence of some technological edge on Russia's side, experts linked the destruction wrought by the attack to Moscow's consistent probing for weaknesses in Ukrainian air defenses.

Photo: Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images

Russian propagandists spin conflicting disinformation in bid to evade responsibility for missile strike on children’s hospital

As some Russian talking heads call for more Ukrainians to be killed, Zelensky’s top aide urges more Western help to stop a war of ‘genocide.’

Photo: Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images

Human cost of war

Rescue operations end at Kyiv children's hospital, at least 33 killed in capital overall. In total, at least 33 people, including four children, were killed in Kyiv as a result of the July 8 attack, officials said the following day. Another 10 children are among the 117 injured.

International response

Saudi Arabia issued vague threats to G7 against seizing frozen Russian assets, Bloomberg reports. Saudi officials reportedly made "veiled threats" to Group of Seven (G7) nations hinting that the kingdom would sell some European debt holdings if Western allies seized about $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, Bloomberg reported on July 9, citing its sources.

North Korean military trainers travel to Russia weeks after signing of partnership agreement. A delegation of North Korean military trainers led by the head of a prestigious military academy in Pyongyang has begun a trip to Russia, North Korean state media reported on July 9.

'When innocent children killed, the heart bleeds,' Modi comments on Russian July 8 attack after meeting with Putin. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Moscow on July 8 in what was his first trip to Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Threat of Russian sabotage led to heightened security at US military bases in Europe, CNN reports. The heightened security alert was first reported earlier in July as being connected to a possible terrorist threat directed at several U.S. military installations across Europe, including the facility in Germany where the U.S. European Command is based.

US announces moves against Russia-linked bot farm aimed at spreading disinformation. According to the Justice Department, the bot farm was organized by a Russian national who worked as the deputy editor-in-chief of RT in 2022, and expanded with funding from the Kremlin and collaboration with an official from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

Moscow court orders arrest in absentia of Yulia Navalnaya. A Moscow court said that it had "approved the request of the investigators and decided a preventive measure in the form of detention for two months." Yulia Navalnaya currently lives outside of Russia, but would face jail time if she returns.

Bulgaria sues Russian Gazprom, seeking compensation of more than $430 million. In 2023, the Russian gas giant suspended Bulgargaz's long-term contract, which covered 90% of the quantities of natural gas delivered by Bulgargaz to customers.

Switzerland announces new sanctions against Russia. Switzerland announced new sanctions against Russia on July 8, bringing the country further in line with the EU's 14th round of sanctions adopted in response to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow agrees to discharge all Indians recruited into Russian army, Indian outlet reports. Moscow agreed to release all Indians serving in the Russian army and facilitate their return after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Vladimir Putin, Indian news publication NDTV reported on July 9, citing unnamed sources.

US provides Poland with $2 billion for financing of F-35s, Patriots, Abrams. The U.S. will provide Poland with a second $2 billion Foreign Military Financing loan to purchase defense equipment from the U.S., the State Department announced on July 8.

In other news

Ukrainian state defense company opens office in US. Ukraine's state-owned defense company Ukrainian Defense Industry, also known as Ukroboronprom, has opened a representative office in Washington as Kyiv seeks to strengthen defense partnerships abroad amid Russia's war.

Nearly $37,000 stolen from bank accounts of fallen soldiers in Dnipro. The suspects, with the help of an employee of the Regional Bureau of Forensic Medicine, stole payment cards and mobile phones registered in the online banking system from dead soldiers in a morgue.

Ukraine to be represented at 2024 Olympics by smallest number of athletes in history. Only 140 Ukrainian athletes will compete at the Olympic Games in Paris this year, the smallest number in the history of the country's participation in the games, as Russia's war has damaged or destroyed sports' facilities and frequent air raid alerts interrupt training.

EU freezes $32 million in defense funds for Georgia, halts accession process amid ‘low point’ in relations. Brussels has frozen 30 million euros ($32 million) in defense sector funding for Georgia after halting its EU accession process in June, EU Ambassador to Georgia Pawel Herczynski said on July 9.

Bloomberg names 12 oligarchs who earn billions in payouts from Russia's war economy. Russia's wartime economy has earned a dozen oligarchs $11 billion in dividends as Russian natural resource and finance giants earn record profits during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on July 9.

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As the scale of the environmental and economic damage from #Dnipro dam destruction is not yet fully comprehended, I just wanted to make one note on social perception of risk.

For the last year everyone has been concerned about about the hypothetical threat of #nuclear power plant attacks in Zaporizhzhia NPP. It never happened thanks to mobilization of international community to execute pressure on Russian occupational forces that included numerous visits of IAEA, diplomats from the West and China etc and even installing a permanent IAEA monitoring mission in ZNPP.

At the same time, over one night #Russia has materialized actual threat of scale that may go well beyond any worst case scenario in ZNPP after it was shut down. Warnings about impact of a hydro dam failure were already voiced in 2022 after Russia has planted explosives on the dam in Novaya Khakovka and hinted it will be used as a weapon if necessary. But there were no Chinese diplomats coming to Moscow, no IEA monitoring mission on the dam and media forgot about it the next day.

Why? Because water seems to be a “natural” threat that everyone is familiar with. In case of #Fukushima it was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that killed over 20’000 people but world’s attention is still focused on the nuclear plant disaster today where zero people were killed. Some environmental organisations intentionally distorted the tragedy by attributing all these deaths to the plant failure!

Is water any safer? Well, it’s not - if you’re killed by water, you’re dead in the same way as if you were hypothetically killed by gamma radiation. 1975 Banqiao dam disaster[^1] in #China killed 26,000 to 240,000 people, and rendered 12’000 km2 unusable for decades due to sediments and pollution. Since then, there’s a few dam failures[^2] globally almost each year - e.g. 2021 Rishiganga dam killed over 60 people. Last dam failures in USA were in 2020. Fujinuma dam failure in Japan in 2011 as result of the same Tōhoku earthquake killed 8 people, which is 8 more than Fukushima NPP disaster!

Yet hydro power is widely considered “clean and safe”, which is pretty much the same cognitive bias as legal qualification of gloves or boots used at a nuclear power plant as “nuclear waste”, while coal ash or natural gas mining tailings are not, even though they have much higher actual content of radioactive elements 🤷‍♂️ In terms of human deaths per amount of electricity, hydro power is 43x more deadly than nuclear,[^3] which is why it’s important to look at the actual data and science rather than yield to the socially accepted biases, where coal is “dirty but safe” and hydro power is “clean and safe”. You can’t talk over physics, which is why in countries that do this[^4] you can actually see more people being harmed,[^5] and the fact they’re harmed by “natural” coal or water doesn’t make a slightest difference to them.

[^1]: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Ban… [^2]: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_fail… [^3]: ourworldindata.org/safest-sour… [^4]: write.as/arcadian/ideological-… [^5]: grist.org/energy/the-cost-of-g…