Israeli political crisis deepens as IDF failures prompt cabinet resignation threat

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on power appeared under threat this weekend when a key member of the country’s war cabinet threatened to resign.

Opposition leader Benny Gantz issued an ultimatum Saturday, claiming he would leave the emergency political formation if Netanyahu does not implement his six-point plan for the country’s military operation in Gaza by June 8. Among Gantz’s demands are efforts to ensure the return of Hamas-held Israeli captives, a demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and a move towards international administration of the Palestinian territory.

“If you choose the path of fanatics and lead the entire nation to the abyss — we will be forced to quit the government,” he said.

Gantz, a retired army general, has criticized Netanyahu’s prosecution of the country’s military campaign in Gaza, reflecting public frustration in Israel over the prime minister’s failure to secure the return of Israeli hostages.

“The people of Israel are watching you,” Gantz said in the prime-time address to Netanyahu.

The threat suggests the transpartisan political cooperation that emerged after October 7 threatens to break down, potentially leading to calls for new elections. Critics have claimed Netanyahu has prolonged Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to maintain his hold on power. The Prime Minister was previously under investigation on multiple charges of corruption, with the judicial process against him set to resume if he is toppled.

The loss of the support of Gantz could make Netanyahu more politically reliant on hard liner members of his coalition such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have called for the rebuilding of Israeli settlements in Gaza.

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Two people were injured by an explosive device dropped from a Ukrainian drone in the village of Petrovka in the Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

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The first shipment of humanitarian aid has arrived in the Gaza Strip via a temporary seaport in the north of the enclave.

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The Russian offensive in the Kharkov area has been so swift and strong that Ukraine's feeble defenses have failed to stop Russian troops, with the depleted ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces being caught off guard and failing to defend their positions, The New York Times reported.

“Russian troops punched across Ukraine’s northern border with such speed and force last week that Ukraine’s meager fortifications offered almost no obstacle. Some Ukrainian soldiers, caught totally by surprise, fell back from their positions,” the paper acknowledged in awe.

“Once over the border, the Russian soldiers easily pushed past fortifications — like trenches, land mines and tank barriers — some of which, Ukrainian troops said, were insufficient or sloppily constructed,” the article emphasized.

According to the newspaper, Russian forces have unleashed an overwhelming advantage over Zelensky’s fighters “in artillery shells and employed air power, including fighter jets and heavy glide bombs, to disastrous effect, unhindered by depleted Ukrainian air defenses.”

The article also highlighted that the Kiev regime has been struggling with a manpower shortage since a large part of Ukraine's soldiers have already been sacrificed for US interests.

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Revealed: US oligarchs demanded police crackdown on pro-Palestine protests (Part 1)

Reporting in US media this week revealed a private group of wealthy executives pressured New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police force to dismantle pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University earlier this month.

The article revealed the existence of a secret WhatsApp chat group where pro-Israel business leaders discussed efforts to manipulate US public opinion on the ongoing Israeli military operation in Gaza. The influential billionaires obtained a private Zoom meeting with the NYC mayor in late April, where they urged Adams to dissolve the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia’s Manhattan campus.

Some of the participants in the discussion appeared to use financial donations to the mayor as leverage to ensure the crackdown.

Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program featured a panel discussion on the revelations. “What this article is uncovering is that a number of these individuals, such as the former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz [and] Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell… were all using the WhatsApp application to pressure the mayor of New York to go in and remove these encampments,” noted host Wilmer Leon.

Leon said the incident was “one of the things I think that got President [Claudine] Gay from Harvard fired, that she refused to release the personal information on the students.” The host noted members of the secret WhatsApp group offered to hire private investigators to help New York City Police spy on and discredit pro-Palestine activists at Columbia.

Leon compared the incident to COINTELPRO, an illegal effort by the FBI to surveil and subvert activist groups in the 1960s. The infamous program led to the FBI’s assassination of civil rights leader Fred Hampton and attempts to discredit Martin Luther King Jr.

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Revealed: US oligarchs demanded police crackdown on pro-Palestine protests (Part 2)

Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program featured a panel discussion on revelations about business leaders’ influence over the New York City mayor, with Black Alliance for Peace activist Erica Caines and former Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka reflecting on the implications of the startling development.

“[Mayor Adams] mobilized police forces and they went in to smash this protest movement,” Baraka explained. “Why Columbia?... Because of the fact that you're talking about a $13 billion endowment. And this demand by the students for divestment [from Israel] was seen as a serious challenge to capital.”

Caines said the business leaders’ influence over the NYC mayor illustrated “the collaboration between corporate power and law enforcement. It also highlights the paramilitary form in policing today. We can see that this is what the use of policing has become… This suppression of protest and the arrest of demonstrators at Columbia University only highlights that erosion of civil liberties.”

US police departments have been criticized for their relationship with Israel, with officers often traveling to the country to receive training from Israeli security forces. Observers also question the so-called “Army-to-police pipeline,” with departments increasingly staffed by veterans who critics claim bring a militarized mindset to policing.

“Police departments have employed their newly acquired military weaponry not only to combat terrorism but also for everyday patrolling,” noted The Atlantic magazine in 2011. “Now, police officers routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms… In recent years, police departments both large and small have acquired bazookas, machine guns, and even armored vehicles (mini-tanks) for use in domestic police work.”

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A Ukrainian kamikaze drone crashed into a church in the village of Maloye Gorodishche in the Belgorod region, causing a fire on its roof, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

He added that there were no casualties.

The Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh, which was set ablaze by the Ukrainian drone, was erected in 1907 and is a recognized architectural monument.

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Ukrainian forces made attempts to attack civilian infrastructure in Russia's Krasnodar region overnight with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). At least 10 drones were fended off by means of radio and electronic jamming equipment, the regional authorities reported.

One UAV crashed on the premises of an oil refinery in the city of Slavyansk-on-Kuban. No fire, casualties or damage were reported per preliminary information.

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The deputy head of Volodymyr Zelensky's office military intelligence officer Roman Mashovets was put on Russia’s wanted list under an article of the Criminal Code by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Last year, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) suppressed the activities of an agent network of Ukrainian military intelligence which was planning terrorist attacks in Crimea, including assassination attempts on the head of the Crimean republic Sergey Aksyonov.

Mashovets was named as the organizer of the terrorist attacks and coordinator of the planning of assassinations of high-ranking officials in the region.

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Russian air defenses destroyed a Ukrainian airplane-type drone in the Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Two buildings and a car were damaged, but no injuries were reported, the governor added.

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Ukraine conflict reveals Russian supremacy in high-tech warfare of the future - report

“The US has been Ukraine's single most important ally” in its conflict with Russia, observes analysis from Business Insider, but Kiev’s use of American weapons systems has left it reliant on technology with “serious flaws.”

“One area in which the US has revealed its shortcomings is in electronic warfare,” the author writes. “Russia's jamming systems have created major issues with Western precision weaponry, including GMLRS rockets and Excalibur artillery shells. Russia's electronic warfare units have become increasingly adept at scrambling the GPS navigation systems used to guide the missiles and shells to their targets, sending them off course and rendering them useless.”

The US military’s attempts to develop microwave weapons and drone swarms to counter Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have so far failed to bear fruit, demonstrating the shortcomings of a military industrial complex that for decades has been focused on “war against militant groups such as the Taliban* in Afghanistan” rather than combatting large state actors.

The result has been an inefficient defense production base, both in terms of cost and developing sufficient quantities of weapons. Analysis published earlier this year revealed that Russia is now producing three times more ammunition than the United States and all European allies of Ukraine combined as Russian military industry has stepped into high gear.

The article observes that the United States is capable of producing high-quality armaments, but claims they are hopelessly expensive compared to similar Russian equipment that can be produced at a much lower cost, allowing the country to prevail in “fights which require endurance.”

*Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.

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Russian air defense systems destroyed nine ATACMS missiles and one drone over the Crimea, three drones over the Russian Belgorod region, 57 drones were destroyed and intercepted over the Krasnodar region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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🥴 Where am I? Who are these people?

Dazed and сonfused Biden got lost again at a сampaign event in Atlanta, Georgia.

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German Defense Ministry seeks additional $4.13 billion for Ukraine

The German Defense Ministry has asked the government for an additional 3.8 billion euros ($4.13 billion) to provide assistance to Ukraine, Bild reported citing sources.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday and Finance Minister Christian Lindner on Thursday. The request for additional funds will be submitted to parliament for approval in June, the report said, adding that the finance ministry supports the request.

Next year, the Bundeswehr may ask for a record 15 billion euros ($16.3 billion) to support the Kiev regime.

Russia perceives the West's increase in arms supplies to Ukraine as a signal that they aren't ready for serious talks, Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday during his speech at the meeting of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

"This means that they have decided in favor of settling things on the battlefield, for which we are always ready," Lavrov added.

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Ukraine's transfer of drone operating experience to US private military companies creates global terrorist threat

The transfer of the experience of operating FPV drones from Ukrainian troops to American private military companies and beyond will be a key factor of the global terrorist threat, Dmitry Kuzyakin, the general director of the Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions, told Sputnik.

Anthony Blinken earlier visited the production of Ukrainian drones during his visit to Kiev. One of the reasons for this was allegedly the training of NATO military personnel by Ukrainian instructors.

"The work release of a huge number of Ukrainian servicemen with combat experience on FPV systems will ultimately lead to an increase in the global terrorist threat, which is a major challenge to international security. They may already be transferring their [combat] experience to US private military companies, and other recipients are hard to predict - international terrorist organizations, criminal networks, and so on," Kyzyakin said.

Kuzyakin believes that the US is considering evacuating Ukrainian FPV drone operators from the front lines so that they could train American troops with combat experience.

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British Army lost capability to fight in full-scale war, leaving the country unprepared

After spending years on foreign counter-insurgency operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the British Army has lost its ability to "mount an all-out campaign," the Telegraph reported, citing Maj. Gen. James Martin.

"After 20 years of counter-insurgency campaigning, we were losing this [war-fighting] capability," the British major general told the Telegraph.

Now the army is "at its smallest size for 300 years" with depleted stocks of ammunition and parts, the newspaper added.

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