American Intel Helps Ukraine Target Russian Generals; Wars of Words Ripple On

American intelligence is helping Ukrainian forces to eliminate Russian generals, the Gray Lady has reported. Senior U.S. officials say America is providing real-time battlefield intelligence about the frontlines that has allowed Ukraine’s army to target Russian generals with precision artillery strikes, resulting in their deaths. Precisely what the intelligence consists of is classified and U.S. officials won’t confirm the body count, but on the basis of credible reports Ukraine’s claims to having already killed 12 Russian generals in action are likely accurate.The news comes amid missile strikes throughout Ukraine as Russia tries to put the kibosh on Ukraine’s armament resupply efforts. Russia’s ministry of defense said one of its cruise missiles hit a hangar in Odessa that stored Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones as well as missiles and ammunition from America and Europe. While that may be true, the Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said that “their ability to target with precision has been less than advertised throughout this entire war. They are not good at precision strikes.” More to the point, Mr. Kirby said: “The flow into the region continues at an incredible pace, and … those weapons, those systems, are getting into Ukrainian hands.”According to the British defense ministry’s latest assessment, the continued targeting of key cities such as Odessa, Kherson, and Mariupol highlights the Kremlin’s desire to fully control access to the Black Sea, which would enable control of Ukraine’s sea lines of communication and have a negative effect on the economy. The ministry added that as Russian operations have faltered, non-military targets including schools, hospitals, residential properties, and transport hubs continue to come under attack, “indicating Russia’s willingness to target civilian infrastructure in an attempt to weaken Ukrainian resolve.”That resolve is not appearing to weaken, though, to Vladimir Putin’s probable dismay. In a Facebook post Thursday morning, Ukraine’s armed forces claimed that “due to the successful actions of Ukrainian defenders, the Russian enemy lost control over several settlements on the border of Mykolayiv and Kherson regions.” The army said it hit nine Russian air targets Wednesday: four UAVs, three cruise missiles, and two planes. In addition, Ukraine said it repulsed 11 Russian assaults in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts over the past 24 hours, destroying five tanks and seven units of armored combat vehicles. Russian shelling continued around already battered Kharkiv, and the area north of Izyum was enduring more artillery and mortar shelling. In the ruins of Mariupol, the Ukraine army’s general staff said, “Russian occupiers are focusing their efforts on blocking and trying to destroy Ukrainians units in the Azovstal area. With the support of aircraft, the enemy resumed the offensive in order to take control of the plant.” In the meantime, leaked drone footage of Russian mercenaries said to be part of the notorious Wagner Group showed them capturing a squad of Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern town of Popasna, in the contested Luhansk Oblast. The footage, posted by a pro-Russian blogger and reposted by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, is harrowing. The fate of the soldiers was not immediately known. Russia Versus … Everybody?On Wednesday the Russian foreign ministry’s always lively Maria Zakharova said on the state-owned Sputnik Radio that “Israeli mercenaries, too, are fighting practically shoulder-to-shoulder with Azov militants” in Ukraine, adding, “How are we supposed to feel about it?” While Russia sees Ukraine’s Azov battalion as a neo-Nazi group — something that Ukraine strenuously denies — Ms. Zakharova’s comments should be construed as apocryphal at best and vodka-induced at worse, even if she did cite “videos and evidence,” without, as is her wont, specifying what that evidence was. The bizarre rant comes on the heels of a major kerfuffle between Moscow and Jerusalem over statements by Russia’s patently unbalanced foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who egregiously claimed in a recent interview that Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots.Russia’s delegate to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, meanwhile, delivered via Twitter the Kremlin’s rationale for boycotting a Security Council meeting, citing the “warmongering” and “Russophobic policies” of the European Union leadership. He lovingly added that the EU was “actively trying to extinguish the fire of the Ukrainian crisis by pouring gasoline on it.”Scholz a ‘Thin-Skinned Sausage’?Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin has called the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a “Leberwurst,” which according to the Telegraph is tantamount to saying that Mr. Scholz is a “thin-skinned sausage.” What prompted the culinarily-tinged barb, apparently, was Mr. Scholz’s irritation with Kyiv following its rebuffing of a visit by Germany’s president over his purported coziness with the Kremlin. That turn of events led Mr. Scholz to tell reporters that “It is a problem for the German government and for the German people that the president was asked not to come.” None of that stopped the chairman of the opposition Christian Democratic Party, Friedrich Merz, from visiting Ukraine on Tuesday.No Thrill From BrazilEverybody loves Volodymr Zelensky, right? Well, maybe not Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010. In an interview with Time magazine, the global leftist icon claimed Mr. Zelensky “is as responsible as Putin for the war.” In his view, the president should have yielded to Russian opposition to Ukraine’s moves to join NATO and undertaken negotiations with Vladimir Putin to avoid a conflict.It’s always easy to rib the most popular guy in town, or in the world, of course; more telling was Mr. da Silva’s roasting of the current American leader. President Biden “could have taken a plane to Moscow to talk to Putin. This is the kind of attitude you expect from a leader,” he opined. Mr. da Silva is a frontrunner in Brazil’s elections in October — polling presently puts him ahead of the populist president, Jair Bolsonaro.

American Intel Helps Ukraine Target Russian Generals; Wars of Words Ripple On

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