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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia has broken the stalemate in Ukraine: Former US Defense secretary

The Russian military has broken the stalemate in the Ukraine war, Robert Gates, former CIA director and secretary of Defense, said Wednesday, following Moscow’s successful push to take the front-line city of Avdiivka.

“It’s no longer a stalemate. The Russians have regained momentum,” Gates told The Washington Post’s David Ignatius in a streaming interview. “Everything I’m reading is that the Russians are on the offensive along the 600-mile front.”

Russia has suffered staggering losses in the war, he noted, but with Ukraine now confronting artillery shortages due to flagging U.S. support, “the Russians are feeling that the tides have turned, and while there is much to be done, the initiative has passed to them,” Gates said.

“They have more and more supplies coming in — I’ve read that for every artillery shell fired by Ukrainian forces, the Russians fire 10,” he added.

Gates noted that European allies in NATO, “who we so often criticize,” have stepped up their support to Ukraine, but lack the ability to immediately send weapons. Production timelines will see NATO support reach the battlefield in 2025, he estimated.

Right now, “the only real military lifeline comes from the United States. And as we all know, that is, shall we say, on pause right now,” he said.

Gates called out Congress specifically for being too slow on approving key battlefield capabilities throughout the war, such as missile systems that have allowed strikes against Russian-occupied Crimea, which he called a “no-brainer.”

“Congress will debate for a year or more whether to send the Ukrainians tanks, and after a year, they’ll send tanks,” he said. These weapons could have arrived “a year and a half” earlier, and their delay has restrained Ukraine’s abilities, he said.

🔗 https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4481737-russia-broken-stalemate-ukraine-gates/

JUST IN - Germany's parliament votes to legalize Cannabis for recreational use; 407 voted in favor, and 226 against.

Adults in Germany will be allowed to possess 50g at home (25g in public), grow up to 3 plants on their own, and buy the drug in licensed not-for-profit "Cannabis clubs."

@disclosetv

BREAKING: Avalanche Mainnet (C-Chain) is back online and processing transactions.

https://twitter.com/ArkhamIntel/status/1761065294389194804

🇵🇦🇳🇮 Panama’s judiciary orders arrest of ex-president holed up in Nicaragua’s embassy

Panamanian authorities on Thursday ordered the arrest of former President Ricardo Martinelli, who has been holed up in the Nicaraguan Embassy since receiving political asylum from that country earlier this month.

A judge approved a requested change of Martinelli’s conditional release that had stood while he appealed his 10-year sentence for a money laundering conviction, the federal judiciary said. The Supreme Court denied Martinelli’s final appeal earlier this month, upholding his sentence and presumably ending his attempt at a political comeback.

The change was unlikely to immediately result in Martinelli’s arrest since he remained inside the Nicaraguan Embassy. The government has so far refused to allow Nicaragua to move Martinelli out of the country.

🔎 Source
#Panama #Nicaragua

☠️ Blood Meridian

🇺🇸🌐🎙 NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg:

We have increased our military presence in our eastern members of the alliance and further increase in our readiness and activate our defense plans. We did so to communicate very clearly to Moscow that president Putin should not consider at all to escalate this conflict beyond Ukraine and we did that and continue do that by sending a clear message that NATO is there with more troops in Romania, in the Baltic countries in Poland with higher readiness and bigger exercices and also the increased defense spending.. All of this is sending a message that we support Ukraine but also to ensure that the conflict doesn't escalate beyond Ukraine into NATO territory.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇦💣🇷🇺 Kyiv has right to strike Russian targets ‘outside Ukraine’, says Nato chief

Ukraine has the right to strike “Russian military targets outside Ukraine” in line with international law, the Nato secretary-general has said for the first time since the start of the full-scale war nearly two years ago.

Jens Stoltenberg earlier this week acknowledged that the use of western-supplied arms to strike targets in Russia had long been a point of contention among Kyiv’s allies, due to fears of escalating the conflict.

“It’s for each and every ally to decide whether there are some caveats on what they deliver, and different allies have had a bit different policies on that,” Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe in an interview published on Tuesday.

“But in general, we need to remember what this is. This is a war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, in blatant violation of international law. And according to international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defence,” Stoltenberg added. “And that includes also striking legitimate military targets, Russian military targets, outside Ukraine. That is international law and, of course, Ukraine has the right to do so, to protect itself.”

The debate over using western weapons to strike Russia is likely to intensify as some Nato allies begin to ship F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The US-made aircraft, if armed with long-range missiles, could significantly increase the potential range of Kyiv’s strikes into Russian territory.

In recent months Kyiv has stepped up strikes on military targets inside Russia with drones and long-range missiles, including an oil depot used by the Russian army near St Petersburg.

France and the UK, which have already supplied Kyiv with long-range missiles, have been cautious about endorsing such strikes for fear of escalation with Moscow.

🗄 Archive

https://www.ft.com/content/175bd28f-1eb8-4f57-9cf4-110cca055747

🇰🇵🇯🇵 North Korea leader's sister says Japan PM's comments positive

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Pyongyang is possible if Tokyo does not make the issue of the past abductions of Japanese nationals an obstacle between the two countries

Kim Yo Jong's remarks came after Kishida said late last week that Tokyo has been making "various, concrete" efforts to realize a summit with Kim Jong Un, aiming to resolve the long-standing abduction issue.

But the sister, who is a senior official of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party of Korea, claimed that the issue of the abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s has been already "settled."

#NorthKorea #Japan

@asianomics

‌Leviathan News (🔗Telegram)

Microsoft says Iran, North Korea, Russia and China are beginning to use generative AI in offensive cyberattacks. - Fortune