With boat on the Nistru, towards 9 years in jail
A Moldovan citizen who provided illegal state border crossing services using a Telegram channel was arrested in Vinnitsa. According to the police in Vinnitsa and SBU, he tried to take three men over the Nistru by a rubber boat and asked US$5,000 for his service, guaranteeing the state border of Ukraine will be crossed outside checkpoints in Vinnitsa region. He faces nine years in jail.
He swears he doesn’t steal...
Despite assurances from the Turkish authorities to refrain from buying Ukrainian grain stolen by Russia from the occupied territories, investigative journalists from Skhemy [Radio Free Europe and Ukrainian joint project] provide evidence to the contrary. The investigation has revealed that the Russian aggressors turn off radars on ships transporting Ukrainian grain from Crimea to Turkish ports, but this systematic process is regularly documented by satellite images.
Turkey has begun an investigation into the origin of grain aboard a Russian ship anchored off its Black Sea port of Karasu after Ukraine said the cargo was stolen, senior Turkish officials told Bloomberg.
Україно - рідна мати, say Ukrainians
Over 8 million Ukrainians, mostly women and children, were forced to leave Ukraine and approximately 3 million returned, said the Ukrainian minister Oleg Nemchinov. He warned that there is routine circulation now in summer – returning, the people assess the state of their property and homes and, if shelling continues and their possessions were destroyed, they usually leave the country again.
Nemchinov noted there are no completely safe regions in Ukraine, but the regions on the right bank are better protected by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and life there returns to normality.
They wanted to stay far from NATO, but ultimately joined it
NATO’s 30 allies signed an accession protocol for Finland and Sweden on Tuesday, allowing them to join the nuclear-armed alliance once parliaments ratify the decision, the most significant expansion of the alliance since the 1990s. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sweden and Finland are considered invited countries as from July 5 and they can take part in NATO meetings.
Russia withdrew part of the equipment and military personnel from the Alakurtti base in the Murmansk oblast, located on the border with Finland. Presumably, they were sent to the war in Ukraine, said the Finish TV channel Yle.
When debt is a chore
Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Presidential Office, said that Russia lost from 95,000 to 115,000 of its military in the war against Ukraine in killed and wounded. About this he told during one of the programs on YouTube.
“Today, according to the most conservative estimates, about 35-36 thousand Russian military have been killed in our country, this is not taking into account PMCs, which are a separate line for the expenditure of manpower. This is about 10-12 thousand more dead,” Podolyak said.
He notes that over time, Russian society will ask the authorities why the Russians pay such a high price, continuing the war in another country, where they came for a fictitious reason.
State of war in times of “special operation”
The Russian government will be able to compel businesses to supply the military with goods and make their employees work overtime under two laws to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine that were approved in an initial vote in parliament on Tuesday.
“The load on the defense industry has increased significantly. In order to guarantee the supply of weapons and ammunition, it is necessary to optimize the work of the military-industrial complex and enterprises that are part of cooperation chains,” Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said.
It is so when the one who says he is a brother is actually “The Big Brother”
Self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that a single army has long been created in the Union of Belarus and Russia and that he “long ago determined” Belarus's participation in the Russian war against Ukraine. He stated this in a speech at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Mound of Glory memorial complex on the occasion of the Independence Day of Belarus on July 3.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called dangerous signals from Alexander Lukashenko’s statements about the united army of Belarus and Russia and the decision about Belarus’ participation in the “special operation” of the Russian Federation.
Maia, you are wrong ! – says Volodymyr
In a speech at the 26th Annual Economist Government Roundtable, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Transnistria is a threat. He noted he does not agree with the opinion of Moldovan President Maia Sandu as Transnistria indeed resorts to challenges: “These are irrelevant, but they exist. It is the hand of Russia and this is done on purpose so as to stir things up and this war explodes there too”.
