Thread: 12 August 2022: Day 170 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Latest @DefenceHQ update: Britain not saying #Ukraine attacked Saki Airbase, but says "almost certainly" five Su-24 FENCER bombers and three Su-30 jets were seriously damaged or destroyed. Airfield probably usable. #Crimea clearly not a "secure rear-area" as #Russia believed.
#Ukraine thanks #Britain for delivering on its promise of sending more M270 MLRS.
#Ukraine's President Zelensky in his speech last night said #Russia is "putting all of Europe under the threat of a nuclear catastrophe" with its occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
#pt: Rather underlining Zelensky's point that #Russia's occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is a threat to all of #Europe, Putin's placeholder president "deniably" threatens all of Europe is anything is done about Russia occupying the plant.
#pt: The #US called on 11 August for the zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, currently occupied by #Russia, to be demilitarised. reuters.com/world/europe/u…
Satellite pictures from #Russia's Saki Airbase in Crimea after the 9 August explosions that we are presently assuming were caused by #Ukrainian strikes.
#Ukraine's intelligence reports #Russia's special services have set up a "new informational task force" to spread disinformation about Ukraine's President in Europe, including through creating a fake "Zelensky Foundation". understandingwar.org/backgrounder/r…
Morale is extremely high in #Ukraine and, unsurprisingly, Ukrainians' support for President Zelensky is sky-high.
A Meduza investigation of video footage from polling stations of 3 million ballots in #Russia's Sept. 2021 election found that one-third of them were fake; only 2 million people entered those stations. Extrapolated, could mean 17 million votes were fake. meduza.io/en/feature/202…
The #Ukrainian staff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant work at gunpoint, as effective #Russian hostages, with the ever-present threat of being "disappeared", and the dangers of the Russian army basing soldiers and weapons all around them. bbc.com/news/world-eur…
Gruesome report about #Russia's prisons, where torture is endemic and rape is a systematic feature, usually carried out by prisoners, who are given bodycams and handcuffs by guards to film these sexual attacks, which can then be used to coerce confessions. bbc.com/news/world-eur…
Amnesty/HRW "are not experts" and deal in "what are often ... pre-determined conclusions. Their judgments on international humanitarian law ... are no more than opinions, exploiting the ambiguity and largely theoretical nature of this discourse." quillette.com/2022/08/11/fal…
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Thread: 13 August 2022: Day 171 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Latest @DefenceHQ update: The "two primary road bridges" to #Russian-occupied Kherson, west of the Dnipro, are "probably out of use" for "substantial military resupply" due to #Ukraine strikes. Even if repaired, remain vulnerable. Russians relying on pontoon ferry crossing points
#Sweden considering ramping up domestic weapons production to assist #Ukraine.
Salman Rushdie has been stabbed in New York as he was beginning a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution. Rushdie's condition is unclear. Suspicion will naturally fall on #Iran, whose government called for his murder in 1989 and never repudiated the fatwa. apnews.com/article/salman…
Pictures circulating show the Salman Rushdie being wheeled away on a stretcher after he was stabbed in New York, contrary to some reports he walked off stage, and the perpetrator being arrested.
1,000 families are suing the Tavistock gender clinic for medical negligence, accusing the gender identity development service's (GIDS) "unquestioning affirmative approach" of rushing children into taking life-altering puberty blockers, with harmful effects thetimes.co.uk/article/4e7fc5…
This is noteworthy because it has often been the legal system that has brought damaging crazes within the psychological profession to an end, notably the Satanic panic.
Thread: 11 August 2022: Day 169 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Latest @DefenceHQ update: #Russia is highly unlikely to be able to fulfil some export orders for armoured vehicles as it needs the capacity for its own army in #Ukraine. Weapons exports have been hit because the credibility of many Russian weapons is now undermined.
60 members of Amnesty International in #Norway have resigned since the publication of the #Ukraine report in open protest at its contents; another 40 have left without explanation.
There has been some surprise about Amnesty International's report attacking #Ukraine for defending itself against #Russia, but, under the banner of "human rights", the group has been a hard-Left, anti-American/Western activist organisation for quite some time. A short 🧵
#Israel and her supporters have been, entirely fairly, most prominent in saying "we told you so" about Amnesty International. When AI jumped on the "apartheid" slander earlier this year, they were quite clear it was because it was popular with the far-Left
In calling #Israel an "apartheid" and racist state, making tendentious if inexplicit comparisons with the Nazis, Amnesty International was channelling the #Soviet active measures campaign from the 1970s, one of its most successful such operations.
Thread: 5 August 2022: Day 163 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Latest @DefenceHQ update focuses on with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant #Russia occupies. Moscow seem to be using the plant to rest troops, since it has protected status and #Ukraine won't attack it. Are using adjacent regions to shell the western bank of the Dnipro River.
Seems #Ukraine's HIMARS have been in action in Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson Oblast, destroying an ammunition depot.