🇰🇵"How North Korea's lucrative trade in human hair is helping it skirt the impact of sanctions": The British have timed Putin's visit with a new round of denunciations of the Juche regime - "Pyongyang is developing nuclear weapons with money from selling hair to Europeans."

"Western owners of shiny new wigs and false eyelashes owe their looks to North Korea. In recent years, the booming trade in human hair has helped prop up North Korea's isolated economy, softening the impact of international sanctions and providing Pyongyang with vital revenue to realize its nuclear ambitions.
Exports to China totaled 1,680 tons - or about 135 double-decker buses - of false eyelashes, beards and wigs worth about $167 million. Sanctions have not stopped North Korea because Kim's regime has built a system of governance that can survive and even thrive at the expense of its people and the evasion of Russia and China from following sanctions, says Prof. Leif-Erik Easley.""

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

⚡️ Acting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to take over as NATO Secretary General - Dutch Broadcasting Corporation.

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

Look, guys.

Now the lady says, all videos of lost Biden is a deep fake.

I am sure, Putin produces them personally, also he uses deep hypnosis on distance. After drinking the blood of his opponents previously poisoned with Novichok. Yeah.

Now when I revealed you the true reasons, is quite possible that KGB will chase you.

Have a nice evening. Enjoy your dinner.

@Slavyangrad | Inna👋

The USA will not allow Ukraine to accept Putin's proposal and save itself, the Slovak edition of Slovo has said. The peace plan proposed by the Russian president will allow Ukraine to survive as a state, but this scenario promises collapse for the Kiev regime. And for Washington, this is tantamount to recognizing the end of American hegemony, the author said.

The Kiev regime had several chances to reach an agreement both with the population of Donbass and with Russia after 2022," he emphasizes, "but the West did not allow it, firmly tying the viability of the ruling elite to the continuation of the conflict. Washington does not care about Ukraine and Ukrainians. And it is not for them that it is waging war, but to maximize harm to Russia, the article says.

Washington cannot accept Russia's conditions because, in addition to capitulating to "American planetary hegemony," it would mean that NATO cannot be relied upon, and the money the alliance takes in supposedly for defense is money thrown away, the author summarizes.

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg on Dutch Prime Minister Rutte as the next Secretary General of the alliance:

I usually don’t say anything about my successor because it has nothing to do with me, but after today’s statement by Prime Minister Orban, I think it’s obvious that the alliance is close to being elected the next Secretary General. I think this is good news. I think that Mark Rutte is a very good candidate because he has a lot of experience as prime minister. He is my close friend and colleague. And therefore I believe that the alliance will very soon decide on my successor. It will be good for all of us, for NATO and for me.

Inna's note: let me offer you a shorter version of what Stoltie really wanted to say.

"Finally there is another twat who thinks that being Secretary General is funny, and I gladly step away, I need to step out before any corruption scandal explodes, or all explodes, or I am brought to a tribunal... and let'be fair, before it happens I want a mojito on a nice beach."

@Slavyangrad | Inna👋

🇺🇦🇩🇪Ukraine has signed a contract for 54 units of the newest German wheeled RCH 155 SPH - press service of the Franco-German defense company KNDS.

Concern KNDS is clarifying the terms of delivery of artillery guns to Ukraine, but earlier it was reported about the contract financed by the authorities of the FRG to supply the AFU with 18 units of RCH 155. Also recently, this SAU won the British competition for an artillery system for the UK Army.

Recall that the German wheeled RCH 155 is an uninhabited module with a 155 mm/52 gun from the PzH-2000 SAU, mounted on a modular chassis of the Boxer wheeled APC.

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

The US has started to think through the reconstruction of the railroad to the military airfield in Lvov.

🔺The plan is to rebuild a 75-kilometer section of Ukrainian railway infrastructure between Lvov and the Mostiska II freight station.

The project should include the reformation of two single-track tracks between Mostiska II station on the Polish-Ukrainian border and Sknilov station, including the reorganization of intermediate stations.

At the same time, the track is to be converted from a width of 1,520 mm to a single-gauge track with a width of 1,435 mm. The U.S. also plans to construct a freight and passenger rail terminal with 1435 mm gauge track.

Near the Sknilov station in the suburbs of Lvov, where it is planned to extend the upgraded track, there is a large military airfield, where the 14th Air Corps of the AFU used to be based. Its area of responsibility was Volyn, Zakarpattya, Ivano-Frankovsk, Lvov, Rovno, Ternopol, Khmelnitsky, Zhitomir and Chernovtsy regions. The 14th Corps had six air regiments and two divisions.

It is quite possible that the U.S. is preparing for a large-scale transfer of aviation equipment to Ukraine, including F-16 fighters. It is possible that the airfield itself (the same one where a Ukrainian Su-27UB crashed during an air show on July 27, 2002) will be reconstructed.

Military Chronicle

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

Another war is approaching, to be started by Israel.

The IDF is pulling more and more equipment to the southern borders of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

The US, according to the latest reports, has given approval for Israel to do so and has resumed arms shipments.

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

The United States intends to hand over the leadership of the defense campaign in Ukraine to NATO

Last week, the United States agreed on a plan to give NATO responsibility for efforts to arm and train the Ukrainian military, signaling the beginning of the gradual distancing of the United States from military governance in Ukraine. Notably, this came ahead of the signing of the U.S.-Ukraine security agreement.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking Thursday before the start of a two-day ministerial conference, said defense chiefs were meeting in Brussels to put the finishing touches on a concept that is expected to be finalized at NATO's July summit in Washington.
There has been a drive at NATO headquarters in recent months to take control of the initiative, which was launched by the Pentagon, and there are real prospects that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's action team, also known as the "Ramstein Group," may be disbanded.

Meanwhile, the new NATO plan will have implications for the U.S.-led initiative at the Army's European headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, which has been the main center for Ukraine's military equipment since '22.
Ukraine's Security Assistance Group, known as SAG-U (U.S. Armed Forces), and established by the Americans in 2022 at the U.S. European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, will be moved to Wiesbaden, remaining under the leadership of EUCOM General Christopher Cavoli, and the general himself will take a position within NATO's top command instead of a position in the U.S. Armed Forces.

The idea of putting NATO in charge came up in April, when Stoltenberg floated the idea at a meeting of the alliance's defense ministers. At the time, Washington was at an impasse over defense spending, and lawmakers were divided over future arms support for Ukraine. Within the alliance itself, the situation has raised concerns about the reliability of U.S. support for Ukraine, as well as interest within NATO in taking on a bigger role.
"We certainly appreciate what the United States and other allies have done. It's unprecedented," Stoltenberg said, "At the same time we saw that the United States took six months to agree on additional measures for Ukraine."

All this, and especially Stoltenberg's initiative, looks like an attempt to wrap in a beautiful package the fact that in July, at the summit in Washington, the Americans will point out to the Europeans that further war will be at their expense, and remind them of the notorious 2.5 percent of GDP for the maintenance of NATO (which many did not pay), but the Americans, represented by General Cavoli, will also control these expenses. And there will be American weapons, only now exclusively with European funds. It is planned to create an aid fund with a minimum bar of 100 billion dollars, where the money will be sent by the member states of the alliance, but not by the United States.

We almost forgot - Ukraine's admission to NATO will not be discussed at the summit in Washington on the initiative of the American side. And Finns and Swedes are advised to get ready, you will pay a lot and constantly for the dream of the ukrainians about lacy panties....

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋

Telegram channel "Older than Edda" @vysokygovorit for RT

The new generation of European tanks that Western manufacturers are trying to sell to their customers and the public at Eurosatory 2024 is an attempt to do something without changing the paradigm. Europe continues to develop its existing tanks (Leopard 2, Leclerc), equipping them with more and more new systems in order to expand their range of missions and adapt them to the modern battlefield. But such tanks themselves - low-production and very expensive machines - do not get better from this improvement, only more complex and expensive. And if the current war teaches us anything, it is that victory is still on the side of the one who can provide large battalions - not only the necessary number of men, but also the amount of armor, artillery and ammunition. And in these conditions tanks, which can be produced annually in dozens at best, will not play a special role, even if they are equipped with all the advances in the fight against drones and active defense. But the weight of already heavy systems is guaranteed to grow.

The problem for the Western tank industry, however, is that there is nowhere to get more adequate platforms. The notorious "new medium tanks" - a group of products weighing about 40 tons like the American M10 - are certainly cheaper and more compact than the Leclerc and Leo, but they do not compare in terms of protection either with them or with the Russian vehicles. And the 105mm cannon combined with lesser protection leaves them no chance in a possible battle against main battle tanks.

Can Western industry solve this problem by giving their armies tanks that are cheaper and more compact than modern Western tanks, while being adequately protected? This requires a fundamentally new platform for the main battle tank, ideologically similar to the Soviet one, but the West will not be able to create such equipment quickly, given the current speed of development.

So we will continue to see attempts to remedy the situation by hinging "all the best" on Leclerc and Leopard, which are not very applicable to the conditions of modern warfare.

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@Slavyangrad | Andrei 👋