Zaluzhny sacking controversy shows Zelensky no longer controls the top general

Ukraine's President Office and the Ministry of Defense denied rumors that President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the nation's top commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny on January 30.

"I think that this was perhaps a deliberate action on Zelensky’s part, because Zelensky needs to take some action to restore his popularity," Anatoliy Matviychuk, a military expert and retired colonel, told Sputnik. "The test showed that Zelensky does not have influence on any of the power groups. So he backed off."

Once named a Ukrainian Churchill, Zelensky is swiftly losing popularity abroad and at home. Per Matviychuk, a change in the military-political regime in Kiev would be "mortally dangerous" for Zelensky. Moreover, at least three groups – Zelensky's Western curators, Ukrainian nationalists, and local oligarchs – may soon get rid of the Ukrainian president, according to the retired colonel.

In contrast, Zaluzhny is enjoying high poll numbers and support from the West.

"I understand that [Zaluzhny] has received carte blanche for the future," the retired colonel presumed. "And, today he could lay claim to power given the situation in the country and within the military force. And if this power is not given to him – we see that Zelensky refuses to hold elections – he can take it away by force."

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Triggering global wars & pocketing profits? US foreign arms sales strike new highs

US arms sales overseas jumped to a record total of $238 billion in fiscal year 2023, when the world was embroiled in a spate of armed conflicts.

According to the State Department’s fact sheet, the sum includes:

▪️foreign military sales, which reached a record of $80.9 billion last year, soaring nearly 56% from the previous year.

▪️direct commercial sales that grew to $157.5 billion in FY 2023 from $153.6 billion in FY 2022.

The State Department’s data indicated that Poland and Germany were the biggest buyers of US military equipment in 2023, with Ukraine mentioned as a country clinching a $1.2 billion deal on the purchase of US’ National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS).

This comes amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli standoff, which unfolds against the backdrop of the Houthis’ attacks on Israel-bound commercial ships in the Red Sea.

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‘These are also our people’: Russian drone operator explains how they protect Ukrainian civilians

“There are a lot of situations where Ukrainian soldiers are leaving the house, and their neighbors are civilians. In this situation, we stop our artillery. We try to use FPV drones, but not artillery. We can’t kill or wound these people because we know that these people are not strangers for us. It doesn’t matter what they call each other — Ukrainians or Russians — these are our people,” Altai, a Russian Spetsnaz drone operator in the Donbass, told Sputnik’s Russell Bentley (@TXDPR).

This restraint is a stark contrast to the total war strategy adopted by the Ukrainian military, which has repeatedly targeted civilians in Donetsk through drone and artillery strikes.

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Ukraine may receive high-precision and long-range GLSDB missiles from the United States on Wednesday, Politico writes, citing sources.

The supplies were announced almost a year ago as part of one of the American military packages.

“Ground-launched small diameter bombs" are a joint development of Boeing and Saab, which added a rocket engine to the bomb and adapted it to launch using multiple launch rocket systems. Saab claims that the range of such precision-guided munitions exceeds 150 kilometers.

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Only a miracle will save the United States from the “debt death spiral,” said former trader and author of the book “Black Swan” Nassim Taleb.

“So long as you have Congress keep extending the debt limit and doing deals because they’re afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing, that’s the political structure of the political system, eventually you’re going to have a debt spiral,” he said. “And a debt spiral is like a death spiral.”

He stressed that to resolve the situation, the United States needs an external factor, “or maybe some kind of miracle.”

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Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa is preparing to exchange Russian and Ukrainian equipment for US one worth $200m by late January

Noboa did not specify what kind of equipment he was talking about.

Despite the statement of the Russian Federal Service of Military-Technical Cooperation about the unacceptability of Ecuador's possible transfer of military equipment from Russia to a third country, Noboa said that Ecuador was not going to refuse its plans.

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Kiev has assembled a team from retired European and US politicians to promote Ukraine to NATO, said the head of Zelenskyy's office, Andrey Yermak.

Among those who joined this group, according to Yermak, are former Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, former British PM Boris Johnson, former Finnish PM Sanna Marin and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier repeatedly said that Ukraine's accession to NATO would create security risks for Russia, would not increase the security of Ukraine and "in general would make the world much more vulnerable and lead to additional tension in the international arena."

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🇧🇪 Anti-tractor hedgehogs connected by a thorn have been installed on the square in front of the European Parliament.

MEPs are awaiting the arrival of columns of disgruntled Belgian farmers.

Video from social media.

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Pentagon refused to clarify whether US had received any information from Ukraine about the future of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny following numerous publications on his dismissal.

"I am not tracking any changes. Obviously, it's for Ukraine to discuss their internal affairs," said Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder.

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Zelensky actually seeks to give his commander-in-chief Zaluzhny the boot

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may be planning to oust his military chief Valery Zaluzhny after all, the Financial Times reports citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to the newspaper, on Monday Zaluzhny was offered the position as a defense adviser by Zelensky but turned down the offer, even though the Ukrainian president allegedly “made clear to Zaluzhny that regardless of whether he took the role, he would be removed from his current position.” The sources also allegedly said that, though Zelensky's office had already decided to oust Zaluzhny, this may not happen “for some time” after information about these plans surfaced in media yesterday.

While media outlets began speculating yesterday whether Zaluzhny may be sacked or not, a spokesperson for Zelensky and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry both denied reports about the general’s alleged dismissal.

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The US will deliver the first batch of new long-range precision bombs to Ukraine on Wednesday following successful tests almost a year after the US announced it would deliver the weapons to Kiev, Politico reported, citing a US official and other people in the know.

The Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs have a 90-mile range and are made by Boeing, the report said.

US Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder confirmed the upcoming transfer of GLSDB rockets to Ukraine, but didn't name the exact time.

Western countries have been providing military aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia's special military operation in February 2022 in the amount of hundreds of billions of dollars. The Kremlin has consistently warned against the West's continued arms deliveries to Ukraine.

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Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Claudia Tenney, a member of the House of Representatives, reported Fox News.

The merit for which Trump should be awarded, according to the US congresswoman, is his role in mediating the "Abraham Accords" - a peace initiative to normalise Israel's relations with the UAE and Bahrain.

"For decades, bureaucrats, foreign policy 'professionals', and international organizations insisted that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump proved that to be false" the statement read.

Trump has previously been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

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Deadly drone mix-up at US Middle East base may have been caused by poor combat experience

The latest lethal drone attack on a US Mideast base left three soldiers dead after the incoming unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was mistaken for an American surveillance drone, as per the Wall Street Journal.

"This may well be the case," Nikolay Kostikin, expert of the Military-Political Analysis Bureau, told Sputnik. "One needs to understand that what the operator sees on the monitor is not the image from the video camera, but targets comparable in size."

Traditional methods of friend or foe identification do not always work, Kostikin continued, stressing that "the combat experience of the crew decides a lot."

Per Kostikin, unlike their American peers, the Russian Army has earned unique experience of identifying and intercepting enemy drones which are currently coming in droves from Ukraine. American operators serving in the Middle East cannot boast such an experience, hence the recent error that left three Americans dead and many more injured, according to the expert.

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The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhnyy, has refused an offer from Volodymyr Zelensky to take up the post of the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, reports The Economist, citing sources.

The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, Kyrylo Budanov, allegedly rejected the post of the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces at the last moment. The magazine quoted a close colleague of Budanov as saying that he did not want to take the post, but "it’s not you that makes these decisions."

Сommander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Alexander Syrsky is also being considered as a potential candidate for the post of the AFU commander-in-chief, added The Economist.

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The US will not attack Iran because doing so would be “catastrophic” for the global economy, Professor Mohammad Marandi told Radio Sputnik.

“It would drive oil prices through the roof,” Marandi explained. “It would definitely be catastrophic for the global economy.”

Marandi also contends that the US is “in decline as we speak” and that its support of Israel’s war in Gaza has hurt its reputation globally.

“The damage that the United States has done to itself, through supporting genocide, through supporting these hourly massacres and the extermination of the Palestinian people in Gaza is not something that we can calculate. The United States has demolished its credibility across the board,” he said.

Marandi also took aim at liberals in the US, who seem not to care about what their country does overseas. “It's very sad for me to say [this]: liberals in the West are utterly racist, utterly racist, and liberalism only counts for inside the borders of the United States. But outside the United States' borders, they are as medieval as it gets.”

Ultimately, he believes the conflict will cause Israel to collapse.
“I think that it will collapse just like apartheid South Africa collapsed. It is a colonial project. It is an apartheid regime that has been imposed upon the indigenous population in the region, and it won't last,” Marandi predicted.

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📹 Russian "Zala" reconnaissance drone crews from the Ussuri paratroopers discovered three Ukrainian tanks south of Artemovsk and confirmed their defeat with "Lancets"

Another Ukrainian tank was hit in a similar way at night. A thermal imager was used to target and record the lesion.

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While Kiev and its Eastern European allies want to see a formal NATO invite for Ukraine as soon as the upcoming 75th summit in July, the US and Germany do not believe it is a proper time, the Foreign Policy magazine reported citing current and formal officials in the know.

Poland and the Baltic states are facing a significant pushback from Washington and Berlin which believe it is too soon for Ukraine to become a full member of NATO while it is still engaged in a conflict with Russia, the report said.

Officials in both countries think that instead of discussing Ukraine's imminent NATO membership it makes more sense to focus on supplying the country with what it needs to fight against Russia, the report added.

One of the arguments is the fear that with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, joining the alliance could provoke a full-fledged NATO clash with Russia, given the nuclear risk.

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Three major agricultural trade unions in Spain will join the farmers' protests taking place in many European countries due to the crisis in the industry, said Spanish Young Farmers’ Association (ASAJA).

"The major professional agricultural unions, the ASAJA, the COAG [Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Breeders] and the UPA [Union of Small Farmers and Cattle Ranchers], agreed this morning to resume scheduled manifestations to demand an ambitious emergency plan that includes measures at both the EU level and the level of the government of Spain and the autonomous communities," the statement read.

The agricultural industry in Spain, as well as the entire Europe, is "mired in growing frustration and unrest" due to the difficult economic conditions and the "suffocating bureaucracy" generated by regulations of the EU, the ASAJA said.

Farmers struggle in the face of a deregulated market that imports agricultural products from third countries at low prices that adversely impact the sales of food products produced in the EU and Spain, the association added.

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❗️ An F-16 fighter jet of the US Forces in South Korea (USFK) crashed on Wednesday morning, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing sources.

The incident reportedly occurred at around 8.40 am near the city of Gunsan in Jeonbuk province. The pilot was rescued, according to some of the agency's sources.

"The fighter jet crashed into the water and the rescued pilot is safe," a source was quoted as saying by the news agency.

Alexander Syrsky, commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, has also turned down an offer to take the post of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' commander-in-chief instead of Zaluzhny, the British Times has quoted its sources as saying.

The newspaper also reveals some details of the meeting between Zaluzhny and Zelensky on 29 January.

The sources told the newspaper that Zaluzhny and Zelensky had a meeting on 29 January. The Times also claims that after Zaluzhny refused, Zelensky told him that he would sign the resignation decree himself, after which Zaluzhny returned to his office and told his subordinates “I’m packing my things.”

The decision allegedly raised concerns in the US and UK, and Zelensky "was forced to reverse his decision after pressure from senior military commanders and international partners."

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