Germany orders more US-made Patriot systems after Ukraine aid hollows out stocks

Germany has rustled up an order for four additional Patriot systems after its own stocks were depleted by Ukraine aid, Tagesspiegel reported.

The announcement was made by Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who noted that his country had transferred two such systems to Ukraine, and that a third is on the way. As this comprises over "a quarter” of the number Berlin needs for itself, “The purchase of four more Patriots is being worked out,” Pistorius said.

The first batch was ordered in March, with delivery dates set for 2026. There are plans to order the same number of US-made air defense missile systems by 2027, NDR added.

Resourcing additional Patriot systems for the Kiev regime has become a headache for its Western patrons. The Biden administration is reportedly working on sending an additional Patriot air defense missile system to Ukraine within the Germany-initiated Immediate Action on Air Defense (IAAD) initiative. Not all of Zelensky’s European allies are eager to share their costly Patriots with Ukraine amid Russia’s advances further into Ukrainian defenses in the Kharkov region.

Since the beginning of the year, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost five Patriots, the Russian Defense Ministry reported in March. Moscow has repeatedly underscored that the Patriot PAC-2 air defense systems are a legitimate target for its military like all other weaponry fueling NATO’s proxy conflict.

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🇬🇪 Georgian 'foreign agents' law targets Western influence, aims to restore national identity

The new Georgian "foreign agents" law is about upholding the nation's sovereignty and bringing a young generation of Georgians that has lost touch with who they really are back to their senses, according to former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.

The claim by the West and Georgian opposition that the new legislation will "undermine democracy" in the country does not hold water.

💬 "In Georgia today, as we speak, there are 27,000 Western-funded NGOs. What are these non-governmental organizations doing?” Ritter told Sputnik. “It's about buying a generation of Georgian citizens, a young generation… a generation that is out of touch with the reality of what happened to Georgia in the 1990s."

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❗️The US will allow Ukraine to use HIMARS MLRS, GMLRS, and artillery for attacks on Russian territory, the WSJ reports, citing US officials.

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What long-range weapons does Ukraine have?

The Biden administration has licensed Ukrainian strikes using US-supplied weapons inside Russian territory for “counter-fire purposes” in the Kharkov region.

What kind of long-range weapons does Ukraine have?

◾️ The precision-guided, air-launched Storm Shadow long-range cruise missile developed jointly by France and the UK was first sent to Ukraine by London in May 2023. These missiles boast a range of up to 250 km for the export version and up to 560 km for the domestic variant. The missile has a 450 kg tandem warhead with the ability to destroy heavy fortifications, industrial facilities, railway junctions, and columns of vehicles and troops.

◾️ France sent Ukraine its version – the long-range SCALP-EG missiles – in July 2023. This is a 1,300 kg, 5.1-meter-long cruise missile with a 3-meter wingspan and an operational range of 550 km. It can accelerate to speeds up to Mach 0.95, and features GPS, inertial, and infrared thermography guidance.

◾️ US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) were secretly first sent to Ukraine in late 2023. The provided cluster-bomb versions of the surface-to-surface, inertially guided tactical ballistic missile have a range of about 100 miles (160 km) and are mounted on High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

◾️ Discreet delivery to Kiev of MGM-140 ATACMS boasting a strike range of 300 kilometers (186 miles) was finally confirmed by Washington in April.

◾️ Kiev has been looking for investments to produce its own long-range missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisor Mikhail Podolyak said last year.

◾️ Ukraine had a prototype of its own long-range missile with a flight range of around 700 km, Kiev officials claimed last year, adding they were seeking investments for its development.

Moscow has warned NATO that Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory using such Western-supplied military hardware could lead to a direct conflict with the alliance.

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Scott Ritter: Misreading Russia, West drags entire world into Armageddon

By giving Ukraine the green light to strike with NATO-grade weapons deep inside Russia, the West is inviting retaliation by Russia and, potentially, nuclear Armageddon, warned former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.

"Russia continuously indicates it is looking for a negotiated settlement. These Russian postures, which are very reasonable, are being misinterpreted in the West as a sign of Russian weakness, and therefore the collective determination of the West is that they just continue to pressure Russia, ratchet up the pressure that Russia will fold like a house of cards, and run to the peace table and bring an end to this conflict. That's not going to happen. This is a misreading of the situation by the West," Ritter told Sputnik.

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Austrian ex-foreign minister reveals what she likes most about living in Russia

Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl has said that she likes living in Russia because it is safe and there is freedom.

“I like living in Russia because there is freedom here. And freedom means living in safety. And in St. Petersburg or Moscow or Khabarovsk it is possible to walk in the park at night... It was possible in Austria 30 years ago. Now it is impossible,” she said.

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Scott Ritter: It's not about Ukraine's defense, it's about NATO attacking Russia

Western countries are permitting the use of their weapons by Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia, and this de facto means their direct engagement in the hostilities, according to former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.

"It's not Ukrainian space reconnaissance, it's not Ukrainian communications, it's not Ukrainian technicians that are doing the targeting. It is the French, it is the Germans. It is the British. It is the Americans. And therefore, if these missiles, these weapons systems that are now being greenlit by the respective Western nations, to be used by Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia, if this happens, this is no longer about Ukraine defending itself. It's about NATO attacking Russia," Ritter told Sputnik.

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Polish state news agency RAR published and then cancelled a report on partial mobilization starting July 1.

In the original text, it said that 200,000 Poles would be called up for service, all of whom would be sent to Ukraine.

A few minutes later, the agency denied the information. The prime minister's office said it was looking into the situation. According to the media outlet, it was a hack.

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🇪🇺🇷🇺 Who will be hurt most by EU’s decision to stop imports of Russian grain?

The EU decision to slap prohibitive tariffs on grain products from Russia and Belarus will hurt the bloc’s own farmers, Russian Grain Union President Arkady Zlochevsky told Sputnik.

Brussels officials are "making the best of a bad business," he noted, as they want to be seen as trying to limit the negative impact of EU-mandated Ukrainian grain-dumping on farmers in Central and Eastern Europe.

💬 “Will the measure to stop imports of Russian grain help them? Of course not. If they choked off Ukrainian grain in the same way, perhaps it might help,” Zlochevsky said.

“All that was needed was to level out the terms for the supply of Ukrainian and all other grain to the European market,” the pundit noted. “Introducing the same duties, quotas, etc.”

💬 “So they will kill off our [Russia's] direct supplies, which never affected farmers' sales," he stressed, as Ukrainian low-cost, duty-free grain will continue to saturate the EU market, further depressing prices for local farmers.

Russia isn’t the one putting pressure on farmers in Europe, “Ukrainian supplies are,” Zlochevsky said.

He suggested that “workaround routes” would be found, but would be “more expensive,” and argued that the tariffs “will not have much effect on overall world prices.”

When the EU proposal for tariffs on Russian grain was revealed in March, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded by warning the measures will only worsen the world food situation “already brought to absurdity by the West."

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🇬🇪 Ruling party put Georgia first by rejecting joining anti-Russian sanctions

In contrast to the country's opposition, the ruling Georgian Dream party has the best interests of Georgia at heart, argues former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.

"The EU wants Georgia to participate in the economic sanctioning of Russia. Look what happened to Europe when they sanctioned Russia, it boomerang, backfired,” Ritter told Sputnik. “By not participating in the economic sanction of Russia, the Georgian economy has grown more than 10 percent over the course of the last two years and is on pace to continue this level of growth. That's called looking out for Georgia first."

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NATO's support for Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russia risks making West a target, ex-Swedish officer warns

The “big question” around NATO’s decision to lift formal restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western long-range strike systems to target areas deep inside Russia relates to “how involved the Western powers will be in targeting and other preparations for the attacks,” says former Swedish Armed Forces officer and military observer Mikael Valtersson.

“Already much of Ukrainian battlefield surveillance and communications is dependent on Western help. This help is probably as important as the military deliveries or economic support from the West,” the observer pointed out, saying he expects this assistance to become “even more important” with the restrictions lifted.

💬 “Both the lifting of restrictions and increased Western help to attack targets within [Russia] will be an escalation from the West. An important question is what the Russian response will be. In my opinion, the Western countries could be seen as participants in the conflict and therefore legitimate targets for Russian military responses,” Valtersson warned.

“But since Russia wants to avoid a large-scale direct military conflict with the West, military attacks toward military installations within NATO countries are very unlikely. Instead, Russia might hunt even more avidly for Western targets within Ukraine, increase electronic warfare against NATO assets, even within NATO countries and in space, and finally increase efforts to undermine Western interests in the Global South,” the observer believes.

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🇬🇪 US and EU 'buying' Georgians, not respecting them as sovereign nation

Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter believes that the ruling Georgian Dream party sought to prevent the West from meddling in the nation's October elections through thousands of NGOs by passing the ‘foreign agents’ law.

"By stopping this, by exposing this foreign money, the reality of this foreign money, Georgian Dream Party is betting that the Georgian people will be shocked by the depths to which ostensible friends, the US, the EU, have gone to buy Georgia, not respecting Georgia as a sovereign state, not respecting the Georgian people as a sovereign people," Ritter told Sputnik.

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Russian Nostradamus: a very insightful politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, predicted major modern geopolitical events

I'm telling you, Kiev will be bombed next. And you will bomb Kiev, you will. It's written in your plans. NATO's plans already include the bombing of Kiev. There is even a date set. And you still don't know. You are still like children, naively smiling. You think, no, it won't happen. But it will happen. It must be said in advance that there will be a war in Ukraine over Crimea. In the Caucasus, the West will back the Armenians against Baku. But NATO will do this.

As you can see, he rarely makes mistakes.

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Why Houthis don’t fear the Reaper: what's known about militia’s air defenses?

The Houthis have downed another MQ-9 Reaper drone, marking their ninth US UAV kill. Over nearly a decade of fighting a Western-backed Gulf coalition, the militia has destroyed over 100 Western drones, jets, and other aircraft, including F-16s, Predators, and Apache helicopters.

The Houthis owe their air defenses in large measure to the USSR – which helped both Yemeni republics during the Cold War, and built the countries’ first air defense systems from the ground up. Here’s a partial list of Soviet support:

◻️ 2K12 Kub/Kvadrat tracked missile systems, modernized by the Houthis into the Fater-1,

◻️ S-75 Dvina high-altitude air defense systems,

◻️ S-125 Neva/Pechora short-range SAMs,

◻️ 9K31 Strela-1 high mobility short-range low-altitude vehicle-mounted SAMs,

◻️ R-60 Molniya air-to-air missiles once used by Yemen’s MiG-21s, MiG-29s and Su-22M3 aircraft, converted by engineers from the Yemen Missile Research and Development Center into a SAM that can be launched from the beds of pickup trucks. Similar modifications have been made to the R-73, R-27 and R-77 missiles, becoming the Thaqib series of SAMs,

◻️ 9K32 Strela-2, 9K34 Strela-3 and 9K38 Igla man-portable surface-to-air missile systems,

◻️ 12.7 and 14.5 mm Soviet towed anti-aircraft guns and ZU-23 towed 22 mm anti-aircraft twin-barreled autocannons.

The Soviets also provided Yemen with an array of radars, including:

➖ P-18 and P-19 2d UHF radars,

➖ 1S91 SURN G/H band radars for Kub and Kvadrat missile systems,

➖ PRV-13 altimeter radars.

Soviet arms deliveries stopped in the early 1990s after Yemen unified and the USSR collapsed, but the Houthis have proven able to modernize and upgrade their equipment (with help from abroad and using local engineers), receiving technical assistance from their Axis of Resistance friends to create a new lineup of missiles and radars.

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❗️US President Joe Biden claims that Israel is preparing a permanent ceasefire offer to withdraw its troops from Gaza in exchange for full release of hostages.

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How things have changed in just two years...

Biden in 2022: The US will not send Ukraine rocket systems that can reach Russia.

Same Biden in 2024 gives Ukraine permission to hit targets inside Russia using US weapons.

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Why Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy is null and void

Volodymyr Zelensky's five-year presidential tenure expired on May 20. He rejected holding elections this year using the pretext of martial law.

◻️ Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) Ruslan Stefanchuk argues that Zelensky retains legitimacy under Article 108 of the Ukrainian Constitution, which stipulates that the incumbent president performs his duties until a newly elected president assumes office.

◻️ Alina Zagoruyko, the head of the parliamentary sub-committee on elections and referendums, told the BBC last November that the extension of Zelensky's term under Article 108 may become "a problem" if the conflict drags on longer and the parliament would "need to explore possibilities of holding elections" even under martial law.

◻️ The controversy surrounding Article 108 stems from the fact that Article 103 sets a clear five-year limit to the president's tenure. In the wake of the February 2014 coup d'etat in Kiev, the Ukrainian Constitutional Court ruled in May 2014 that regardless of the type of election (regular or snap), a five-year term is the only constitutionally established period for which the president is elected.

◻️ Article 83 of the Ukrainian Constitution provides for the extension of powers of the parliament if elections cannot be held under martial law. But it does not give a clear definition on the continuity of presidential power (under Article 108) in the event of martial law, nor does it provide for the extension of those powers in such a case.

◻️ The Constitutional Court could have interpreted the law regarding Zelensky's presidential power, but for whatever reason, the court's opinion has not been sought so far.

◻️ Article 112 stipulates that the Verkhovna Rada chairman could assume the duties of head of state under the present uncertain situation.

◻️ In the absence of a Constitutional Court ruling, Zelensky cannot be seen as the legitimate leader of the country.

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◻️ Scott Ritter: Misreading Russia, West drags entire world into Armageddon

◻️ What long-range weapons does Ukraine have?

◻️ NATO's support for Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russia risks making West a target, ex-Swedish officer warns

◻️ Scott Ritter: It's not about Ukraine's defense, it's about NATO attacking Russia

◻️ Why Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy is null and void

◻️ Why Houthis don’t fear the Reaper: what's known about militia’s air defenses?

◻️ Who will be hurt most by EU’s decision to stop imports of Russian grain?

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Urine collection system fails on ISS - NASA

A pump failure has disabled the urine collection system for subsequent processing into water on the International Space Station (ISS), and a spare part for repair is planned to be delivered aboard the Starliner spacecraft, NASA ISS program manager Dana Wiegel said at a briefing.

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Houthis shot down the sixth US Reaper drone. What's the key to Yemen's success?

💬 “It's funny that we have to learn in this way,” former DoD analyst and retired US Air Force Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik, commenting on reports that the Houthis had downed another MQ-9 Reaper drone this week – their ninth to date. “We think the Yemenis are nothing. Well, in that battlefield, the Yemenis are a near peer competitor,” Kwiatkowski emphasized.

"These guys are experienced using older equipment, but using it against some of the modern stuff. I know the night vision and infrared targeting - they have ways of tracking these Reapers and using their capabilities basically to the maximum extent possible. So it's really testimony to what happens when you have an experienced set of soldiers or air defense experts," Kwiatkowski said.

💬 “The combination of very experienced fighters who understand not just Western technology, but Western tactics and usage of equipment like the Reaper, it all comes together and makes them very successful at a very low cost against very expensive equipment that we have."

Houthi air defenses consist of an eclectic mix of old Soviet equipment, domestic tweaks and knowhow from their Axis of Resistance allies.

The staying power of Soviet equipment in Yemen comes down to its simplicity and reliability, says Lt. Gen. (ret.) Aytech Bizhev, former deputy commander of the CIS Joint Air Defense System.

“During the Soviet period, our military specialists and advisors were widespread in Iraq, in Yemen, in Libya…These were countries with which we had very friendly relations. Therefore, we assisted in the creation of air defense systems for them. We created it and they bought our weapons, and they still have them there. They were put on combat duty in very difficult climactic conditions – in the heat, in sandstorms, under the scorching Sun they carried out the tasks that were set before them,” Bizhev told Sputnik.

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