Impregnable fortress: how did Russia liberate Ugledar and why is it so important?

"Ugledar was the south-eastern flank of the defensive grouping of enemy troops in the Donetsk region. It was the so-called first line of defense," military expert and retired colonel Anatoliy Matviychuk told Sputnik.

Russian forces had attempted to liberate Ugledar since the fall of 2022. Matviychuk pointed out that the Ukrainian army had fortified Ugledar since 2014 with concrete defenses and permanent firing positions. The city is also located on high ground and has a complex layout including industrial facilities, mines and underground communications.

How did Russia liberate Ugledar?

▪️The Russian armed forces started by destroying nearby Ukrainian strongholds one by one, Matviychuk explained.

▪️Then Russian troops began to advance from the eastern and western flanks towards the city.

▪️Ugledar was taken in "pincers" and encircled, while Russian special forces conducted sabotage operations in the enemy's rear. As a result of those actions, Ugledar was eventually liberated.

What is Ugledar's strategic significance?

"Ugledar is a logistics center," the pundit said. "Ten to twelve kilometers from Ugledar there is a powerful railway junction, which connects Crimea, Kherson with each other and between industrial centers.”

The city “crowned a flank that was sufficiently well fortified and allowed for rotational movements of enemy troops along the entire defensive zone."

What's next?

Having taken Ugledar, Russian troops could now move towards Kramatorsk to annihilate the southern group of Ukrainian military forces and complete the DPR's liberation, the former colonel said.

"We are moving to the final stage of the conflict, because the fall of all these operational lines,” Matviychuk said, which “should lead to the understanding of the senselessness of war and subsequent capitulation."

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📹 Vladimir Putin recently said that good speech is one of the significant, essential indicators of a person's intellectual development.

Meanwhile, the possible future US president:

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❗️Israel intends to completely eliminate Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Defense Forces general staff

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Israeli tanks opened fire on the main road through Syria’s Quneitra governorate in the Golan Heights, a source told Sputnik

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THROWBACK: Former White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan ridiculed then-President George W. Bush’s claim in 2006 that “Hezbollah suffered a defeat,” following the 34-day Israeli-Lebanese war.

"The president says Hezbollah suffers defeat," Buchanan said and laughed together with other TV presenters. "His body language said something else: he was ticked off at that press conference."

"The truth is the losers in this war are first and foremost, as you pointed out, Lebanon; secondly, Israel has suffered the perception of a defeat, of a bad defeat for the greatest military in the Middle East; and third the United States has suffered a defeat. The winners are Hezbollah first, Iran second, Syria third," Buchanan noted.

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Hezbollah has stated that 17 Israeli Defense Forces officers and soldiers have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s ground invasion

Israel has confirmed the deaths of nine officers in southern Lebanon, including Captain Ben Zion Falach, who was the latest to be added to the growing list of Israeli officers killed during the operation, alongside Captain Eitan Oster, Captain Harel Etinger, Staff Sargeant Ido Broyer, Sergeant-Major Noam Barzilay, Sergeant-Major Or Mantzur, Sergeant-Major Nazar Itkin and Staff Sargeant Almken Terefe.

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▪️Impregnable fortress: how did Russia liberate Ugledar and why is it so important?

▪️How could Israel respond to Iran's missile strike?

▪️What are the economic consequences of the latest Mideast escalation?

▪️‘I hope we’ll play like we used to’ – Lebanese kids share their stories

▪️Israel's air defense: A high-tech shield that leaks like a sieve

▪️France’s policy ‘completely aligned with the US’ - analyst

▪️Has the sun set on the British empire? London cedes the Chagos Islands to Mauritius

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THROWBACK: Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told CNN on August 13, 2006 that the war in Lebanon was planned by then-president George W. Bush and the Israeli government months in advance. The neocon plan envisaged destroying Hezbollah as pre-cursor to an attack on Iran.

"Israel's attack on Hezbollah was going to be sort of a model, prototype, that is, a lot of air against a dug-in underground facility. Everything in southern Lebanon that Hezbollah had was underground," Hersh said. "For them it was going to be a test run for the bombing and the attack they really want to do, probably next year if they can. I'm not saying they've decided, but they want to go after Iran, and Iran, of course, the Persians have been dug in since, what, the 11th century so we know it's a tough call."

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NATO states' new Arctic group is no match for Russo-Chinese cooperation – Swedish former military officer

"There are no neutral countries in the North any more," Mikael Valtersson, former Swedish Air Defense officer told Sputnik, commenting on Canada's push to form a security group to counter Russia and China in the Arctic.

The Western Nordic countries are planning to coordinate on defense, intelligence and cyber activities, as they are all are NATO allies now after Finland and Sweden's admission to the military bloc. Earlier this week, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told Bloomberg News that Canada and its allies need an "Arctic security dialogue" to discuss defense matters in light of Russia and China's growing activities in the region.

Russia, an Arctic state, maintains security cooperation with China in its territorial waters. It was reported on October 2 that patrol ships of the China Coast Guard entered the waters of the Arctic Ocean for joint patrols with coast guard vessels of the Russian FSB Border Service.

Valtersson expects the new "security dialogue" to work closely with NATO. "It might develop into an evolved Arctic military command within NATO and also a political body where politicians co-ordinate their actions before meetings in the Arctic Council," Valtersson said.

The pundit warned that NATO's potential build-up in the region could "increase the risk for both an arms race in the Arctic and incidents in the region."

But Valtersson believes that the creation of the new Arctic body would neither upset the established balance of power in the Arctic nor endanger Russia's positions in the region.

"The Nordic countries and Canada are too small to challenge Russia, and even more a Russian-Chinese cooperation,” he said. “The US has a lot of other interests in the world and will not focus on the Arctic in the way Russia already does, and should increase doing."

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IDF says eliminated one of leaders of Hezbollah’s precision missile manufacturing project

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that it has eliminated Mahmoud Yusef Anisi, one of the leaders of Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah’s precision missile manufacturing project.

"Earlier this week, the IAF conducted a precise, intelligence-based strike in the area of Beirut, eliminating the terrorist Mahmoud Yusef Anisi, a senior terrorist involved in the Hezbollah terrorist organization's weapons manufacturing chain," the IDF said in a statement, adding that Anisi was one of the leaders of a project to develop precision missiles in Lebanon.

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😂 What? How do they do that?

Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus are already infamous for a long list of pranks on western high-ranking politicians and public figures.

Their victims included such famous personalities as Boris Johnson, Hillary Clinton and even former US President George Bush – and that is just the start of the list...

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📹 Hezbollah published footage allegedly showing the targeting of Israel's Glilot military base and the Mossad headquarters north of Tel Aviv as part of its “Operation Khaybar” against the Israeli army

Previously, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that Hezbollah fired approximately 230 projectiles into Israeli territory over the past 24 hours as of Thursday.

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