🇮🇪❌🇷🇺 — Irish Times reports an ageing Russian tanker, Blue, carrying sanctioned crude from near St Petersburg, has entered Irish waters under a false Benin flag, without insurance or safety papers.

➡️ The 22-year-old vessel, part of Russia’s shadow fleet switched off its tracking before entry.

➡️ Weeks ago, reports warned of a surge in such tankers bypassing the English Channel via Ireland’s west coast to evade UK monitoring.

➡️ It travelled through the Baltic Sea before abruptly turning north and sailing around the British Isles. It then turned south and began sailing down Ireland’s west coast.

➡️ According to Irish security sources, the circuitous and inefficient route is an apparent attempt to avoid sailing through the English channel where UK authorities have stepped up monitoring of sanctioned Russian oil tankers.

🔗 Link
🔗 GeoInsider (@InsiderGeo)

🇯🇵🕊🇺🇸🇹🇼 — 80 years ago today, August 15, 1945, the Japanese Empire, following the US Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagazaki, unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Powers, announced through a broadcast by Emperor Showa

🇺🇦❌🇷🇺🇮🇷 — Ukraine's Special Forces striked Russian vessel carrying Shahed UAV components and ammunition, says Ukrainian General Staff

➡️ The Ukrainian military said on Friday it struck Russia’s Olya port in the Astrakhan region a day earlier, hitting a vessel carrying Iranian-made drone parts and ammunition. Kyiv said the port is a key logistics hub for supplying military goods from Iran to Russia.

➡️ Units from the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, together with other elements of the defence forces, attacked the Russian port of Olya in Astrakhan Oblast on 14 August, hitting a cargo vessel carrying ammunition.

➡️ Olya is a seaport in the village of Olya in the Limansky district, Astrakhan Oblast. It is located in the Volga Delta, on the right bank of the Bakhtemir River, which flows into the Caspian Sea.

—❗️🇷🇸 WATCH: The situation is now out of control in Novi Sad.

✅ Follow us on @balkanspectator

🇺🇸⁉️🇻🇪 — Donald Trump's advisers say Nicolas Maduro will not last as head of the Venezuelan regime until the end of the year.

🇷🇺📞🇺🇸 — The Kremlin says that President Trump will receive President Putin on the tarmac. Earlier reporting out of Russia indicates they’re expecting a red carpet.

🇷🇺🇺🇸🇺🇸🛫 — Russian leader Vladimir Putin has departed for Alaska from Magadan, Far-Eastern Russian Federation

As said before, the Kremlin's leader plane will land in Anchorage, where he will hold talks with US President Donald Trump.

🇺🇸📞🇧🇾🕊🇧🇾 — United States President Donald J. Trump announces he held a call with Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and reached a deal with him which resulted in the release of 16 Belarusian political prisoners of the Belarusian opposition:

I had a wonderful talk with the highly respected President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The purpose of the call was to thank him for the release of 16 prisoners.
We are also discussing the release of 1,300 additional prisoners.

Our conversation was a very good one.
We discussed many topics, including President Putin’s visit to Alaska.

I look forward to meeting President Lukashenko in the future.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!

🇺🇸🇺🇸📞🇷🇺 — US President Donald Trump discusses his upcoming talks with Russian Leader Vladimir Putin:

"We're going for a meeting with President Putin in Alaska, and I think it's going to work out very well — and if it doesn't, I'm going to head back home real fast."

📰 Fox News' Bret Baier:

"If it doesn't, you walk?"

🇺🇸 POTUS:

"I would walk."

🔗 Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47)