Ukraine missile attack’s reach deeper into Russia….
Russia keeps up its missile attacks against the Ukraine….
Russia gain’s more teritory in Donetsk …
It appears that the EU is going go around Hungary’s effort to hold up aid the Ukraine in the billions of dollars/euro’s….
The US and other Western nations are working to unfreeze and sent to the Ukraine upward’s of $300 Billion in Russian funds….
Small investor’s are traveling to Ukraine to pitch defense manufacturing deals ….
European countries are continuing to send combat vehicles, ammo and other defense equipment to the Ukraine while the US Congress goes back and forth on border politics before resuming major aid tom the Ukraine…
More below on drone war adaptation’s and updated technology for the battlefield by BOTH countries
(And eventually the West?)
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A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil terminal in St Petersburg on Thursday as part of a “new phase” of in the region a Ukrainian military source told news agency Reuters. Reuters could not independently verify the statement but the Kyiv Independent had also reported the news.
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Russian forces have taken control of Vesele, a settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry told Reuters on Thursday. The ministry provided no details about the settlement. Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield assertion.
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Ukraine has bought six Caesar howitzers, France’s defence minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Thursday. In Ukraine’s first purchase of French-made weapons since the start of the war, Lecornu said Kyiv had bought six for €3m-€4m ($3.3m -$4.4m) each.
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Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, held his annual briefing on Thursday in Moscow. In the near three-hour long news conference, he said Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine had “brought about a certain purification of [Russian] society” and made it “healthier”. He also said Russia “can no longer trust the west”.
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Ukraine will not decide on conditions to end the conflict as “Washingtonis calling the shots” said Lavrov at his annual briefing in Moscow. On the security cooperation agreement recently announced by the UK and Ukraine, Lavrov called it a “half-baked product” containing no “legally binding agreements”. He added that not the “slightest interest” has been shown by the US and other western nations in ending the war.
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Lavrov claimed the US and other western countries were being surpassed by “emerging and strengthening centres of economic growth, financial power and political influence”, although he was not specific about which countries. Lavrov also said Russia’s relations with China were at “their best period in history”.
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Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán called for EU support to Ukraineto be reviewed annually. Orbán criticised “liberal” politicians for wanting “to give money to Ukraine over four years”, claiming it would be “anti-democratic” to do so just ahead of European parliament elections in June.
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Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas said Hungary was in talks with the EU about Ukraine aid but it was not certain an agreement would be reached. Failing that, he said, the EU’s other 26 members could reach a solution without Hungary.
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Russia has blamed separatist “traitors” from abroad who want to start a “partisan war” for the protests that took place on Wednesday in the small town of Baymak in Bashkortostan after local activist Fail Aslynov was jailed for four years.
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Estonia said it would not renew the residence permit of the head of the Estonian Orthodox church of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan Eugene, saying the Russian national was “a security risk”.
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Nuclear envoys of South Korea, the US and Japan condemned North Koreafor its arms trade with Russia, recent missile tests, and increasingly hostile rhetoric at a meeting in Seoul on Thursday. Japan’s envoy, Hiroyuki Namazu, condemed Pyongyang’s ballistic missile launch and said there must be close monitoring of what Russia may be providing to North Korea in return for armaments.
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Russian forces launched 33 Iranian-designed attack drones at Ukraineovernight, and fired guided missiles at its second largest city of Kharkiv in the east, said Ukraine’s air force on Thursday. It added that its air defence systems had downed 22 of the drones and that Russian forces had also fired two S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles from the Belgorod border region.
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Schools in western Ukraine are rolling out rifle and pistol shooting practice using interactive software, a regional official said. The governor of the western Ivano-Frankivsk region Svitlana Onyshchuk said: “Prykarpattia high school students will learn shooting on safe interactive systems at Defence of Ukraine classes.” She says the training will be introduced in three dozen schools in the western region.
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Russia has filed charges against 68 foreign mercenaries for fighting for Ukraine, according to the Russian state-run Tass news agency, which cites a statement sent by to it by Russia’s investigative committee (IC).
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Russian state prosecutors asked a Moscow court on Thursday to sentence prominent nationalist Igor Girkin to five years in prison for inciting extremism. Regarded in the west as a war criminal, Girkin has publicly accused Putin and top army officials of not pursuing the war in Ukraineharshly or effectively enough.
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Cyprus is making an “extremely important” contribution in increasing sanctions pressure on Moscow, Ukraine’s ambassador to the east Mediterranean island, Ruslan Nimchynskyi said on Thursday.
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The US and its allies are looking for a way to unfreeze $300bn in Russian central bank funds sitting mostly in Europe and use them for the benefit of Ukraine.
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Romanian farmers blocked a crossing on the Romanian-Ukrainian border on Thursday, Ukraine’s state customs service said. The Ukrainian state customs service said that traffic leaving Ukraine for trucks has been temporarily suspended to prevent passenger cars from being blocked.
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The Russian city of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border cancelled its traditional Orthodox Epiphany festivities on Friday due to the threat of attacks as Kyiv’s forces pursue a new strategy.
More…
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Western investors see dollar/euro sales in the Ukraine conflict…..
A private defense related industry is starting in the Ukraine in addtion to other larger in-country military manufacturing capabilities ….
Compared to the billions of dollars that Western governments are spending on the Ukraine war—most of which goes to buy weapons made in their own countries—investments like Saarinen’s are tiny, on the order of $100,000 or so. But these bets fund the homegrown, cutting-edge tech Ukraine’s commander-in-chief says is vital, such as drones and drone interceptors. The White House is also turning to venture capital for help delivering such items to Ukraine.
No one knows how many investors and investment consortiums like Saarinen’s are hunting for opportunities in Ukrainian startups, but they include at least four Western-backed venture-capital funds: Green Flag, ffVC, Koryos, and D3, the latter backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
These funds typically direct their defense investments to cutting-edge technologies, many based on commercial products. D3 partner Anton Verkhovodov, for example, espoused interest in drone production, communications gear, drone-hunting weapons, battle management software, and demining equipment….
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The early investors in Ukraine believe the time is now. For one, the war means that there is a discount on Ukrainian technology, said Deborah Fairlamb, one of the co-founders of Green Flag. That trend is exacerbated by the global fall in venture capital investing, she added.
“If we’re lucky, we will have a six-month jump-start on other venture capital firms coming in,” Fairlamb said. “We don’t have a huge window.”
Investors also say that funding Ukrainian companies also gives them access to a workforce that is at the leading edge of defense technologies. Ukraine is “developing amazing skills and technologies right now,” said Dassier.
With the frontline just a ten-hour car ride away from Kyiv, the opportunity to vet new companies and technologies is also unparalleled, said D3’s Verkhodov. Technology-deployment times in Ukraine are estimated in days, not months or years, he said…
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Investors are also concerned about security, thanks to a deluge of videos, photos, and news that can leave some thinking every corner of Ukraine is under constant threat, said Fairlamb, who lives in Kyiv.
“The hardest thing, I think, is really overcoming this extraordinarily strong negativity bias that people have,” she said.
Fairlamb pointed to the strong record of Ukraine’s missile defenses. Some major cities, including Lviv, have experienced no strikes on its city center for the entirety of the war….
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Jan 18, 2024 – ISW Press
The battlespace in Ukraine continues to be the center of the technological offense-defense race between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated on January 18 that Russian forces “learn quickly enough” and have completely adapted the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile compared to the model that Russia used in 2022. Skibitsky stated that new Kh-101s are equipped with an active electronic warfare (EW) system and “thermal traps” to prevent the missiles from emitting trackable heat signatures. Skibitsky noted that Ukrainian forces need to innovate and adapt in response to Russian adaptations to “prevent the loss of territories.” The GUR assessment of Russian technological innovation in the air domain is consistent with ISW’s previous observations that Russian forces are adapting their methods and means for conducting strikes on Ukraine, and that Ukraine in turn must adapt and innovate with Western support to respond to such strikes. Moscow Duma Deputy Andrei Medvedev identified similar adaptation-response dynamics in a January 18 post where he discussed the use of drones by both Russian and Ukrainian forces. Medvedev stated that Russia has opted for the mass production of drones, leading to the production of large numbers of drones that lack the technological adaptations needed to compete with Ukrainian drones based on battlefield experience. Medvedev noted that Ukrainian forces are constantly improving their drones and warned that constant Ukrainian innovation may eventually make Russian mass-produced drones ineffective. Medvedev’s discussion of the importance of constant technological adaptation and innovation on the battlefield emphasizes ISW’s assessment that Russian and Ukrainian forces are engaged in a technological and tactical offense-defense race.