Oorlog in Oekraïne #995: Orban de vredesduif

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Op woensdag 17 juli 2024 19:49 schreef stavromulabeta het volgende:

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In de tijd die je nodig had om het van twitter hier naar toe te posten, had je 3x kunnen googlen op die persoon en tot de conclusie kunnen komen dat die een op zijn minst een hele dubieuze reputatie heeft. Enige minimale kwaliteitscontrole voordat je iets op Fok gooit, kan echt geen kwaad. Interessante en enigszins serieuze bronnen: helemaal top. Maar op een vergaarbak van alle ongefilterde poep van internet zit hier volgens mij niemand te wachten. Nog los van dat het enige mate van betrouwbaarheid uitstraalt als iemand het hier post.

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Russia hitting fields with FPV drones to burn crops
Farmers in the south of Ukraine lose dozens of hectares of crops due to arsons set by Russian troops

With the beginning of the harvest, the Russian army began purposefully hitting the fields with FPV drones to burn the crops. Such cases are recorded, for example, in Kherson Oblast, said Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Agri Council Denys Marchuk at a briefing.

"In Kherson Oblast, there are a very large number of cases when the Russians launch FPV drones to purposefully burn crops. And people who demined their areas, small areas of 100 to 200, 400 hectares, lose 20 or 30 hectares at a time. These are colossal volumes, because this is borrowed money, and from what they had to grow, they wanted to repay loans and plan their economic life accordingly," he said.

According to Marchuk, overall, since the beginning of the full-scale war, the agricultural infrastructure of Ukraine has already suffered losses of more than $50 billion.

"The losses are colossal, because in addition to direct and indirect losses that reach tens of billions of dollars, today we can state that more than $50 billion is the loss suffered by the agricultural infrastructure," Marchuk said.

Hot weather with abnormally high temperatures set in on the territory of Ukraine in July. The lack of rains and intense heat worsened the general condition of agricultural crops in Ukraine, especially late ones.

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Governor: Russia intentionally shells forests in Kharkiv region; rescuers can’t put out fires because forests are mined

Russian military deliberately shells forests and forest stands in Kharkiv Oblast, particularly in Kupiansk and Vovchansk directions, said Oleh Syniehubov, the governor of the region, on Ukrainian TV on July 16.

Kharkiv Oblast comes under massive Russian artillery shelling and airstrikes often, even more so since Russia launched a new ground offensive north and northeast of the region in the Vovchansk and Lyptsi directions in May. Officials report over 6,500 hectares of forest in the region catching fire or burning down due to Moscow troops’s attacks.

“That creates pretty significant issues because the units of the State’s Emergency Service (SES) can’t put out fires in the forests because forests are mined. We’re putting up checkpoints around populated areas for the fire not to spread onto residential buildings,” Syniehubov said.

Apart from that, emergency services’ work is complicated by the risks of Russian double-tap strikes.

The State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine estimates that the Russian military invasion has damaged almost 30% of Ukraine’s forests. The Kharkiv region suffered damage to 40-45% of its forests.

Read more
Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine: The Russian Federation caused environmental damage to Ukraine’s nature worth about $63 billion over the two years of the full-scale invasion.

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Amid brain drain at home, Russian companies are increasingly recruiting in Africa
In light of a significant exodus of educated young professionals from Russia since the war in Ukraine began in 2022, Russian companies have in the first six months of the year been increasingly looking to hire employees from Africa, Russian business daily RBC reported on Tuesday.

Citing data provided by Russia’s largest job hunting platform HH.ru, RBC said that Russian companies had “significantly” expanded their recruitment activities in Africa, with the number of vacancies targeting candidates from countries including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Algeria, Uganda and Mauritius, growing several fold since January.

Seven of the 10 countries to see the biggest increase in recruitment activities by Russian companies so far this year were African, RBC said, while efforts to attract candidates from the US and multiple European countries decreased.

African migrant labourers occupy “diverse niches” in the Russian job market, Vsevolod Sviridov of the Centre for African Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics told RBC, adding that while many take on low-skilled positions in construction or agriculture, others are appointed to “senior managerial positions in large Russian companies”.

While foreign experts in sales, marketing and IT have long been those most sought after by Russian companies, the first half of 2024 also saw demand for foreign scientists and teachers double, RBC found.

Despite the number of Africans coming to work in Russia growing every year, overall, most Russian companies seeking to hire workers from abroad continue to focus their recruitment efforts on Kazakhstan and Belarus, two countries that have similar labour laws to Russia, RBC concluded.

According to data from Russia’s Federal Security Service cited by RBC, foreign citizens entered Russia for work purposes 1.4 million times in the first quarter of 2024, the majority of whom came from Uzbekistan (689,000) and Tajikistan (358,000).

On Tuesday, independent news outlet The Bell reported that over 650,000 Russians had left the country for good since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Armenia, Kazakhstan and Israel the most popular destinations for Russian emigrées.

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Op woensdag 17 juli 2024 21:12 schreef Momo het volgende:
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Ah de Russen hadden ook hun MH17 dienst...

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Russian Ex-President Warns NATO: Ukraine's Membership Would Be a Declaration of War
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has issued a stark warning regarding Ukraine's potential membership in NATO, describing it as a de facto declaration of war against Moscow.

An Irreversible Path
According to Digi24 Medvedev, now serving as the Vice Chairman of the Russian Security Council, emphasized that only NATO's prudence could prevent a scenario that might lead to global catastrophe, as reported by Kyiv Independent.

During last week's NATO summit, alliance leaders pledged support for Ukraine's "irreversible path towards full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership," though without specifying a timeline. Medvedev, a key figure within the Kremlin, spoke to Argumenty i Fakty, stressing that Ukraine's accession to NATO posed more than a direct threat to Moscow's security.

"It would essentially be a declaration of war – albeit delayed," Medvedev asserted. "The actions taken for years by Russia's opponents, expanding the Alliance... have pushed NATO to a point of no return."

Not a Threat to NATO
He reiterated Russia's stance, echoing sentiments dating back to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, that Russia does not threaten NATO but will respond to its attempts to advance interests.

"The more such attempts multiply, the harsher our responses will become. Whether this fractures the entire planet depends solely on NATO's prudence," Medvedev warned.

He also dismissed any expectation of change with Mark Rutte assuming NATO leadership, asserting, "For Russia, nothing changes, as key decisions are not made by NATO member states but by one country – the United States."

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Russia and Ukraine exchange 190 prisoners of war in deal mediated by UAE

Russia and Ukraine each exchanged 95 prisoners of war on Wednesday in a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Defence Ministry announced.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the exchange on Telegram, announcing that servicemen from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, and border guards have returned to Ukraine as part of the deal.

Zelensky thanked the exchange team and the United Arab Emirates for facilitating the exchange. “No matter how difficult it is, we are looking for everyone who may be in captivity. We have to bring everyone back,” the Ukrainian president wrote.

The Russian Defence Ministry announced that the 95 Russian servicemen “who were in mortal danger in captivity” had been returned “from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime”. The ministry added that the soldiers would be flown to Moscow “for treatment and rehabilitation at the Ministry of Defence’s medical facilities”.

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said on Wednesday that she had met with a representative of the Ukrainian ombudsman’s office to discuss “upcoming joint humanitarian actions, including those related to family reunification”.

The exchange is one in a series of deals mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the most recent being an exchange of 180 prisoners in June. This is the sixth exchange mediated by the UAE this year, totalling 1,400 prisoners swapped, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

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Over the year, payments to Russian military personnel and their relatives amounted to an amount equivalent to 1.5% of GDP
From July 2023 to June 2024, payments to Russian military personnel participating in the war with Ukraine, as well as to the wounded and relatives of dead soldiers, could amount to between 2.75 and 3 trillion rubles, the Re:Russia project calculated .

This amount, the authors of the calculation explain, consists of 1.55-1.8 trillion rubles in monthly payments to military personnel (including one-time payments for signing a contract) and approximately 1.2 trillion in payments for injuries, mutilations, and death.

The total amount of payments corresponds to 1.4-1.6% of Russia's expected GDP in 2024, as well as 7.5-8.2% of all federal budget expenditures for the current year and 3.4-3.7% of all consumer spending of Russians in 2023.

"In the 12-month period under review, the total consumer spending of Russians increased by approximately 8 trillion rubles, while the growth in deposits was about 4.5 trillion. As can be seen from these calculations, the income of Russian citizens (military personnel and their heirs) from the war plays a significant role in maintaining high rates of growth in consumption and savings - along with the growth of wages, which is the main focus of economists," the authors of the study note.

• By the end of 2023, there was significantly more money in Russians' bank accounts - about 18% compared to the end of 2022. In the vast majority of regions, the amount of money in accounts grew at about the same rate as the national average, or even slower. However, in about a dozen regions of Russia, the growth rate was more than 25% (on average compared to the same months of 2022). According to economists , this is due to payments to contract soldiers and mobilized personnel, as well as compensation to the families of the dead and wounded.

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Judgment of the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart
Couple convicted of supplying drone parts to Russia
A man and his partner delivered around 120,000 drone parts to Russia. There, the electrical parts were installed in the Orlan 10 reconnaissance drone. The penalties for the couple are severe.

A German-Russian business couple has been sentenced to prison and suspended sentences by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court for smuggling drone components to Russia . The main defendant will be imprisoned for six years and nine months, the court announced on Wednesday. His co-defendant received a suspended sentence of one year and nine months.

The Senate considered it proven that the 59-year-old managing director of two companies had delivered a total of 120,000 components to companies in Russia between January 2020 and May 2023 and circumvented EU sanctions. The goods had been used for military purposes, the criminal senate ruled. One of the companies produces, among other things, Orlan 10 reconnaissance drones, which the Russian armed forces use in their war of aggression against Ukraine . According to the indictment, the electrical components supplied are a common part of this type of drone and are covered by the European Union's Russia embargo.

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