🇷🇺 Never forget Navalny wanted to strip Chechens, Dargins, and all other nations in the Caucasus of their Russian citizenship and compared them to cockroaches and flies.

🔗 DD Geopolitics

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Unit withdrawn: the 646th Reserve Brigade has left the Gaza Strip today and is demobilized. Out of a peak 24 brigades that operated in Gaza in total, only 6 remain: 1 in the North, 1 in the Center, and 4 in Khan Yunis.

🔗 Gaza War Unit Tracking

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Avdiivka battle:

▶️On Feb 13, RUS cut off the main access road and are moving towards Sieverne in order to close the siege ring
▶️On Feb 15, AFU defense in southern Avdiivka was collapsed

🔗 News Map

🇺🇸 Judge fines Donald Trump more than $350 million, bars him from running businesses in N.Y. for three years

Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay over $354 million in damages, and bars Trump "from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years," including his namesake company.

The ruling also bars Trump and his company from applying for any bank loans for three years.

🔗 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/ny-fraud-case-damages-pay-millions-judge-engoron-rcna135283?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma&taid=65cfc0531ba9b10001607897

🇮🇱❌🇮🇷 Israel Was Behind Attacks on Major Gas Pipelines in Iran, Officials Say

The sabotage, which analysts said marked an escalation in the shadow war between Israel and Iran, caused massive disruption in several provinces.

Israel carried out covert attacks on two major gas pipelines inside Iran this week, disrupting the flow of heat and cooking gas to provinces with millions of people, according to two Western officials and a military strategist affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The strikes represent a notable shift in the shadow war that Israel and Iran have been waging by air, land, sea and cyberattack for years.

Israel has long targeted military and nuclear sites inside Iran — and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists and commanders — both inside and outside of the country. Israel has also waged cyberattacks to disable servers belonging to the oil ministry, causing turmoil at gas stations nationwide.

But blowing up part of the country’s energy infrastructure, relied on by industries, factories and millions of civilians, marked an escalation in the covert war and appeared to open a new frontier, officials and analysts said.
“The enemy’s plan was to completely disrupt the flow of gas in winter to several main cities and provinces in our country,” Iran’s oil minister, Javad Owji, told Iranian media on Friday.

Mr. Owji, who had previously referred to the blasts as “sabotage and terrorist attacks,” stopped short of publicly blaming Israel or any other culprit. But he said that the goal of the attack was to damage Iran’s energy infrastructure and stir domestic discontent.

The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment.

The Western officials and the Iranian military strategist said the gas pipeline attacks by Israel required deep knowledge of Iran’s infrastructure and careful coordination, especially since two pipelines were hit in multiple locations at the same time.

🗄 Archive

🔗 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/world/middleeast/iran-israel-attacks-gas-pipelines.html

🇪🇺 President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is working on a joint defense plan for the European Union.

The plan will be similar to the COVID-19 relief package and plan on developing the EU's defense industry as well as joint contracts between the EU's member states.

In addition, beginning in 2024 after the EU Parliament elections, the new European Commission will add a new commissioner for defense, increasing the number of commissioners from 27 to 28.

As of today, the defense issue of the EU is split between the president of the European Commission, von der Leyen, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borell and the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton. The addition of a new defense commissioner will unify these joint responsibilities into a single office.

🔗 https://meta-defense.fr/en/2024/02/16/ursula_von_der_leyen_defense_committee/

❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Battle for Avdiivka
4pm, February 17, 2024

Ukrainian positions at Avdiivka Coke Plant have been partially abandoned (the AFU withdrew to Orlovka). Pockets of resistance remain. There are reports of the AFU offering to exchange prisoners and dead.

Control of high-rise buildings at least in the east of the plant is in the hands of the Russian Armed Forces.

🔗 Rybar Force

🇮🇱🇵🇸🇿🇦 ICJ declines new protections for Rafah despite ‘perilous situation’ in city

The International Court of Justice on Friday declined South Africa’s request to introduce additional safeguards for Palestinians ahead of Israel’s planned offensive in the southern city of Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians are seeking refuge from Israeli bombardment.

In its response to a Feb. 12 request from South Africa, the ICJ said the “perilous situation” in Rafah required Israel to abide by its previous ruling last month, which included taking “all measures within its power” to prevent the crime of genocide and to allow more aid into Gaza.

The situation in Rafah is becoming increasingly dire, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its most recent update, with people “desperate, hungry, and terrified” ahead of the expected attack. OCHA said that the number of aid trucks allowed to enter the Gaza Strip had declined over the past week, with only 20 entering on Thursday, a sharp decline from the average of 133 per day from Feb. 2 to Feb. 8.

The United States and other nations — including Israel’s most vital allies — have publicly opposed the military campaign in Rafah, though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains adamant about it.

🗄 Archive

🔗 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/17/israel-hamas-war-news-gaza-palestine/

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇹🇼 NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg:

"What happens in Ukraine now, can happen to Taiwan tomorrow. This is why we believe it is a good deal for the US to support Ukraine, this is not a charity this is an investment in its own security because it makes it less likely that Xi [Jin Ping] uses force against Taiwan".

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸🇮🇱🇵🇸 New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday apologized for remarks she made at a Jewish philanthropy event in New York City that went viral on social media and which suggested Israel had justification to destroy Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

“If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day,” Hochul said in a portion of her speech on Thursday at an event for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York.

“That is a natural reaction. You have a right to defend yourself and to make sure that it never happens again. And that is Israel’s right.”

🔗 https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2024/02/17/New-York-governor-apologizes-after-implying-Israel-is-justified-to-destroy-Gaza

🇺🇸❌🇾🇪 U.S. Central Command on X:

The Department of State announces the designation of Ansarallah, commonly referred to as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group.

🔗 CENTCOM

🇺🇸🗳 CNBC caught on Hot Mic while interviewing META’s President of Global Affairs after he spouts off some wild numbers on META’s trust & safety team & their budget to essentially censor people.

After CNBC appears to advocate for the Government to help censor election misinformation on social media, she then asks:

CNBC: How many people do you have working on [election misinformation]?

META: We have around 40,000 people working on integrity and safety..

[CNBC HOT MIC]: 40,000?? But they only have 67,000 employees…

META (still going): We spend around $20 BILLION on this issue… we spent $5B last year ALONE on “Election Integrity”

🔗 Texas Lindsay

🇺🇸📝 American Anon: How is Facebook spending 5 billion on censoring conservatives in an election year not an illegal and undeclared in-kind campaign contribution?

If they gave 5 bil in free ads undeclared that'd be the crime of the century. RussiaGate was a few 100k in undeclared facebook ads.

🔗 FromKulak (Anarchonomicon)

🇺🇸 Top 20 recipients of U.S. foreign aid since 1946:

🔗 DD Geopolitics

🇩🇪🇪🇺🇺🇸 Olaf Scholz blocked Ursula von der Leyen as Nato chief ‘because she would be too tough on Russia’

The German chancellor was 'categorically against' her becoming Nato secretary-general, Welt am Sonntag reports

Ms von der Leyen had been too critical of Putin, and this could “prove to be a disadvantage in the long term” in the view of Mr Scholz, the sources added.

The name of Ms von der Leyen, a former German defence minister who is currently the European Commission president, has been floated as one potential successor.

🗄 Archive

🔗 Telegraph

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