Special Operations Forces mean heroism, about which impossible to tell details, they inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists – address of President of Ukraine

29 July 2023 – 15:58

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you good health!

Today – in Donetsk region. Chasiv Yar, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka. With our warriors, our heroes.

I congratulated and had the honor to personally congratulate, shake hands, and award warriors of the Special Operations Forces on the occasion of their professional day. They are always at the hottest areas of the front, on the most responsible, special tasks. And now is the same – near Bakhmut, I came to them. I thanked the guys for their strength and heroism, for their professionalism, and their extremely professional defense of Ukraine.

Special Operations Forces mean such heroism about which impossible to tell the details. Only years later – such specifics of operations. The guys inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists.

What we can talk about now, of course, is participation in key combat operations. Bakhmut in particular, Avdiyivka, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka. Soledar. Together with everyone, they defended Kyiv and Hostomel, and Bucha, and Irpin, and Moschun, and Makariv. Snake Island – also SOF together with intelligence, together with the Alpha group and the Navy. Kinburn Spit. Kherson. Now – the liberation of Staromayorske, this is also a result, in particular, of the SOF.

During the war, 17 warriors of the Special Operations Forces were awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. Thirteen of them, unfortunately, posthumously. In total, 2,520 SOF warriors were awarded state awards. Thank you, warriors, for your results for Ukraine, for all our people! Thanks for the chevron, it’s a real honor! And once again I wish you the most important thing – victory! Victory over Russian evil.

Dnipro. The work at the site of yesterday’s missile strike was completed already in the morning. Nine people were injured, including two children and teenagers. Everyone was given the necessary help. For every such blow, for all Russian terror, the enemy will surely feel the force of justice. We will not forget or forgive anything and none of them.

Today is the anniversary of Olenivka, one of the most vile and cruel crimes of Russia. The deliberate, pre-planned killing of captured Azov warriors.

Let every loss of Russia be retribution for its evil, and let every occupier, every Russian murderer, all those responsible for this terror against Ukraine and Ukrainians know – while they are still alive – that justice wins. Ukraine will win!

Thanks to everyone who brings our victory closer! Eternal memory to everyone who gave his life for the sake of Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine! 

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1685284363389321217

Nothing inspires more admiration and respect than experts in their fields. The enemy does not feel safe at night or during the day, in summer or in deep banks of snow, behind armor or hidden in a bunker. You work tirelessly. You work mercilessly. You work effectively every day to bring our victory closer. Thank you for your service!

Bakhmut:

WARNING!! WARNING!! INTENSE & MILDLY GRAPHIC!! WARNING!! WARNING!!

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1685247531129692160

ALL CLEAR!!

Russian Occupied Crimea:

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1685231133305270273

Donetsk:

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1685342323108904960

The Chonhar Strait:

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1685248024329568256

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1685274471278501888

 

Being dependent on the Starlink Snowflake is not sustainable. The New York Times has the details:

On March 17, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the leader of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, dialed into a call to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the secure line, the two military leaders conferred on air defense systems, real-time battlefield assessments and shared intelligence on Russia’s military losses.

They also talked about Elon Musk.

General Zaluzhnyi raised the topic of Starlink, the satellite internet technology made by Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, three people with knowledge of the conversation said. Ukraine’s battlefield decisions depended on the continued use of Starlink for communications, General Zaluzhnyi said, and his country wanted to ensure access and discuss how to cover the cost of the service.

General Zaluzhnyi also asked if the United States had an assessment of Mr. Musk, who has sprawling business interests and murky politics — to which American officials gave no answer.

The power of the technology, which has helped push the value of closely held SpaceX to nearly $140 billion, is just beginning to be felt.

Starlink is often the only way to get internet access in war zones, remote areas and places hit by natural disasters. It is used in Ukraine for coordinating drone strikes and intelligence gathering. Activists in Iran and Turkey have sought to use the service as a hedge against government controls. The U.S. Defense Department is a big Starlink customer, while other militaries, such as in Japan, are testing the technology.

But Mr. Musk’s near total control of satellite internet has raised alarms.

A combustible personality, the 52-year-old’s allegiances are fuzzy. While Mr. Musk is hailed as a genius innovator, he alone can decide to shut down Starlink internet access for a customer or country, and he has the ability to leverage sensitive information that the service gathers. Such concerns have been heightened because no companies or governments have come close to matching what he has built.

In Ukraine, some fears have been realized. Mr. Musk has restricted Starlink access multiple times during the war, people familiar with the situation said. At one point, he denied the Ukrainian military’s request to turn on Starlink near Crimea, the Russian-controlled territory, affecting battlefield strategy. Last year, he publicly floated a “peace plan” for the war that seemed aligned with Russian interests.

Worried about over-dependence on Mr. Musk’s technology, Ukrainian officials have talked with other satellite internet providers, though they acknowledged none rival Starlink’s reach.

“Starlink is indeed the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, said in an interview.

At least nine countries — including in Europe and the Middle East — have also brought up Starlink with American officials over the past 18 months, with some questioning Mr. Musk’s power over the technology, two U.S. intelligence officials briefed on the discussions said. Few nations will speak publicly about their concerns, for fear of alienating Mr. Musk, said intelligence and cybersecurity officials briefed on the conversations.

U.S. officials have said little publicly about Starlink as they balance domestic and geopolitical priorities related to Mr. Musk, who has criticized President Biden but whose technology is unavoidable.

The federal government is one of SpaceX’s biggest customers, using its rockets for NASA missions and launching military surveillance satellites. Senior Pentagon officials have tried mediating issues involving Starlink, particularly Ukraine, a person familiar with the discussions said.

The Defense Department confirmed it contracts with Starlink, but it declined to elaborate, citing “the critical nature of these systems.”

Other governments are wary. Taiwan, which has an internet infrastructure that could be vulnerable in the event of a Chinese invasion, is reluctant to use the service partly because of Mr. Musk’s business links to China, Taiwanese and American officials said.

China has its own concerns. Mr. Musk said last year that Beijing sought assurances that he would not turn Starlink on inside the country, where the internet is controlled and censored by the state. In 2020, China registered with an international body to launch 13,000 internet satellites of its own.

The European Union, partly driven by misgivings about Starlink and Mr. Musk, also earmarked 2.4 billion euros, or $2.6 billion, last year to build a satellite constellation for civilian and military use.

“This is not just one company, but one person,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a cybersecurity expert who co-founded the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank and has advised governments on satellite internet. “You are completely beholden to his whims and desires.”

Much more at the link!

This excerpt from the NY Times reporting should have everyone’s bump of trouble throbbing!

At times, Mr. Musk has openly flaunted Starlink’s capabilities. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” he tweeted in April.

Whether it is electric vehicles, Starlink terminals and service, reusable rockets, or Twitter, Musk is not selling people and their government services. Rather, he is exploiting the lack of laws and regulations to turn people and their governments into commodities that he can profit off of. Musk’s real business model is collecting and using everyone’s – every person’s and every state’s – economic data to enrich himself and enhance his personal power. This will not end well!

For you drone enthusiasts.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1685367050124820482

https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1685263332733845505

The cost:

https://twitter.com/a_magazova/status/1685256647906627584

https://twitter.com/MelSimmonsFCDO/status/1684892957306949632

Vovchansk:

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1685257079752122369

https://twitter.com/CassVinograd/status/1684969950610432003

The groom could not wait to kiss the bride.

He kissed her when she walked down the aisle, and during the ceremony. He kissed her after his vows, after hers, and again when they finally said “I do.”

Maksym Merezhko, 43, and the bride, Yuliia Dluzhynska, 39, both serve in Ukraine’s military and had traveled to Kyiv the night before from the eastern Donetsk region. They had no time to lose.

After a three-day honeymoon in the Carpathian Mountains, Ms. Dluzhynska said, “We will go to war.”

The celebration was provided free of charge by Zemliachky, roughly translated as “Women Compatriots,” a charity group that provides uniforms, boots and other essentials to female soldiers but, because of demand, recently started to organize their weddings. The couple had been officially married days before, signing a marriage license in a stuffy room in Sloviansk. But they wanted a true celebration.

“It takes a lot of time to organize a wedding, and when you are on the front line, you don’t have that free time,” said Kseniia Drahaniuk, Zemliachky’s co-founder.

Everything is donated — the dress, venue, photography, flowers, hair, makeup, rings, cake, lingerie and the honeymoon, too — saving couples significant expense and the stress of planning.

After their honeymoon, they would head to Donetsk, back toward the front line. Ms. Dluzhynska had a simpler wish for their future. “The main thing is to survive,” she said.

Much, much more at the link!

https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1685381947613237248

Good luck with that! From The Financial Times:

Saudi Arabia has invited leading developing nations to meet in a bid to win their backing for Ukraine, as the US and other western powers seek to weaken global support for Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

Senior officials from China, Brazil, South Africa and India — Russia’s partners in the BRICS grouping — have been invited to attend two-day talks in Jeddah next weekend, alongside more than 30 other states, according to four people with knowledge of the meeting. Russia has not been invited.

The gathering, a successor to similar meetings in Copenhagen last month, will try to persuade countries from South America, Africa and south-east Asia to back Ukraine’s peace plan, which calls for an end to the war by reclaiming its territory currently occupied by Russian troops.

National security advisers or their equivalents have been invited to attend the meeting, which comes amid intense fighting in southern Ukraine. Kyiv has so far made hard-fought but limited gains in its summer counteroffensive.

Other G20 members such as Mexico, Indonesia and Argentina have been invited, according to one of the people, alongside countries that have supported Ukraine such as Japan and South Korea. More than a dozen European countries have been invited, alongside the EU itself, in the form of Brussels representatives.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1685388195427430400

Another country heard from:

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1685383114774773761

That’s enough for today.

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