The dangerous kiddy game played by Trump and Israel

Before reading further, it might be useful to re-read my article on why Trump probably will not attack Iran.

Here is a brief description of the dangerous, childish game Trump is playing with Israel:

For years, Israel has been desperately trying to drag the US into joining Israel in a joint attack on Iran. Trump has played along, and during his first term, he said he was grappling with the idea of attacking Iran. At one point, he claimed he had been very close to launching an attack, but he claimed he had asked someone in the Pentagon how many people would die if he attacked. He named a figure that he said he was told, and said “that is too many,” and he claimed that was why he decided not to attack.

Now a guy who unwaveringly supports the Israeli genocide that has so far killed about 46,000 innocent people and wounded around twice that, is not the kind to back away from a war on moral grounds. I think Trump was conning Israel, that’s all. In reality, the Pentagon had no doubt told Trump that attacking Iran was dangerous and could get Israel in big trouble.

But Trump was in a bind and knew he had to make waves to show Israel he was willing to kill for Zionism.

So he opted to kill Iranian war hero Qassem Soleimani, based on the cock-and-bull story that Soleimani was about to kill Americans. In fact, Soleimani was in Baghdad in preparation for a peace initiative between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Trump knew that killing only one high Iranian official would not start a big war, but he also knew that Soleimani was a big enough target that Israel could never deny that Trump meant business – or at least was willing to pretend he meant business.

What Trump did not anticipate, however, was that this reckless murder would unleash the biggest protest march in Iranian history (which would make it difficult for the US to push through a regime change) and would also induce Iran to launch a long-range precision strike on Ayn al Asad, an Iraqi base hosting US troops. The attack sent 100 US service men to a German military hospital. Additionally, the murder of Soleimani led the Iraqi parliament –for the first time – to ask the US troops to leave Iraq.

Bad publicity for Trump, especially since he had no possible response to the attack. He knew that if he retaliated, Iran had enough missile power to knock out entire US bases throughout the Middle East.

Thus, this insane game has 2 players: Israel desperate to destroy Iran, and not because it really believes Iran wants to develop a nuke but because the Yinon plan for the dreamed-of Greater Israel, calls for the destruction of 7 Middle Eastern countries, which can only be handled with the aid of the US military, while Iran, with its support for the Resistance axis, is standing in the way of the implementation of the plan. Israel’s part in the game is to pretend it fears a nuclear-armed Iran.

Trump’s part is to convince Israel that it also believes Iran is seeking a nuke and is ready to attack Iran jointly with Israel.

I strongly suspect Trump is only pretending to want to join Israel in a joint attack on Iran, and will go to great lengths to keep up the pretense.

The reasons the US cannot attack Iran are explained in my article linked above.

But if my suspicion is correct, what might Israel do to avenge itself of a US president who was playing a treacherous game with it?

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1d00f7o8jx

Israel prepares for Trump's return and for a joint attack on Iran's nuclear facilities

IDF and US military generals meet in Israeli ahead of Trump's inauguration to discuss frozen US weapons shipment and potentially plan an attack on Iran, which is dramatically close to nuclear capability [Israel has been saying for decades that Iran is about to get a bomb. It’s part of the game.]

Itamar Eichner

The deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, landed in Israel last week for a visit and met with the deputy chief of staff, Major General Amir Baram. The parties discussed shipments of critical weapons that the outgoing Biden administration has delayed and improving readiness for a possible joint attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

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Here are the propaganda leaflets Israel is currently dropping over Gaza

With less than two weeks remaining before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated his warning that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if the captives held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip are not returned before Trump is sworn in. He added that failure to do so “will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone.” Trump has not elaborated on what exactly he is threatening, but several of his nominees for key cabinet positions and U.S. ambassador to Israel are advocates of a total war of annihilation against the Palestinians of both Gaza and the West Bank. Some of them have said there is no such thing as a Palestinian.

[What Trump ignores is that all hell has broken out on the poor Palestinians for over a year and 46,000 have been murdered. Trump is a politician, not quite a human being. There’s a difference]

Over the past several weeks, international mediators from Egypt and Qatar have been meeting with Hamas, U.S., and Israeli officials in an effort to reach some form of an agreement on an exchange of captives and a cessation of Israel’s attacks against Gaza. While the U.S. and Israel have accused Hamas of hindering a deal, there is a well documented, yearlong pattern of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acting as the central saboteur of a ceasefire.

In a statement to Drop Site News, a senior Hamas official directly appealed to Trump. “We believe we can reach an agreement immediately if Netanyahu and his government stop their stalling and obstructing the deal,” the official said. “We are ready to proceed with an agreement immediately that guarantees a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, the return of displaced people to their homes without restrictions, a serious prisoner exchange deal from both sides, and the immediate launch of a comprehensive relief and reconstruction process for Gaza. Therefore, we look forward to President Trump and his team exerting pressure on Netanyahu and his government to move forward with the deal before his inauguration.”

More here

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Our thanks to Walter DuBlanica for sharing this with us.

WWII in EUROPE- Quantified

Walter DuBlanica September, 2007

The biggest ground war in human history took place in Europe from September 1939 to May 1945.It has been more than 60 years since this war ended. But WWII has not been quantified to date in any single source. Many books have been written about WWII in Europe.

There are two factors that need to be quantified:

WEAPONS

Russia produced 97% of its own weapons. This is based on a declassified U.S. Army document that I read in a library at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina in 1956.

The breakdown of weapons produced by the Russians is as follows:

100% of their own artillery (second to none)

100 % of their own small arms (the AK-47 came in 1947)

99% of their own tanks (their T-34 was the best tank in WWII)

93 % of their own aircraft

80 % of their own trucks

CASUALTIES

95 % of the European axis forces that got killed in WWII, got killed on the Eastern (Russian) Front.

Killing 100,000 first rate troops at the beginning or middle of the war is more of a military accomplishment than capturing 1,000,000 beaten, second rate troops in the closing months of the war. This percentage (95%) can be confirmed by doing a time line analysis of WWII from September 1939 to May 1945. In the book “A Stranger to Myself” by German soldier Willy Reese, the British historian Sir Max Hastings in the introduction states that 95% of the Axis forces got killed on the Russian front. First time I have seen this figure in writing.

These numbers are presented with REMORSE for the 2 civil wars the Europeans got into in the 20th century that consumed 10s of millions of lives. How much better and more secure would the world be if these conflicts could/should have been avoided.

1939 -1945

Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. A few days later Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Western historians describe the 1939-1940 years as the “PHONEY WAR”, since almost no fighting took place.

FRANCE

On the eve of WWII, France had the largest and most powerful army in Europe- on paper. When the Germans took Paris in the spring of 1940, they lost fewer troops in taking Paris than they did in attempting but never succeeded in taking a building in Stalingrad defended by Sgt. Pavlov and his squad of a dozen heroic Soviet soldiers. Pavlov’s house still stands in Stalingrad.

The French finally admitted 25 years after the war that more French collaborated and assisted the Nazi’s than fought them. The last German Iron Cross (the equivalent of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor) was awarded to a Frenchman in the battle of Berlin. He was in the French S.S. Charlemagne division. This division was wiped out by the Russians.

BRITAIN

The first British soldier was killed in France in December ,1939. In December of 1939 they lost a total of 4 soldiers. In the spring of 1940, the Germans attacked after a winter lull. The 300,000 British troops abandoned their weapons in France and returned to Britain. The “PHONEY War “covers the 1939-1940 period. The British returned to Europe in force in June ,1944 during the invasion of France. The fighting in France was much bigger militarily than the fighting on the Italian peninsula in 1943 or North Africa in 1942/1943.

LIBERATION of WESTERN UKRAINE & BYELORUSSIA

On September 17, 1939, the Russians entered Polish occupied western Ukraine and Byelorussia and liberated from the Polish dictatorship approximately 5,000,000 Ukrainians, Russians, and Byelorussians. They greeted their liberation by the Russians with joy.

The Curzon Line was established at the end of WWI and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It accurately defined the proper boundaries between Poland and the Ukraine and Byelorussia

During the Russian revolution of 1917/1921 the Poles attacked and moved east of the Curzon Line by approximately 125 miles and for a period of approximately 20 years ruled over a population of 5,000,000 non-Polish people. The Polish regime was repressive and can best be described as a fascist military dictatorship which was resented by the Russians, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians. Those responsible for the repression paid the final price at Katyn. The present-day boundary approximates the Curzon line established after WWI.

GERMANY invades the SOVIET UNION

On June 22, 1941, Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union. German allies included Austria, Italy, Hungary, Finland and Romania with total combined population of 170,000,000. In addition, Germany had collaborators from all the countries of central and western Europe except Poland (the Poles were scheduled for annihilation) and Britain. The battle order of the German S.S. divisions in the last year and a half of the war had more non Germans than Germans. The population of the Soviet Union was 190,000,000. Germany was supposed to win the war in 4 to 6 weeks according to impressions expressed in Germany and the West. The (PHONY War) went so quickly and easy, so why not the same in the Soviet Union?

BATTLE of MOSCOW

Germany suffered its first military defeat in the Battle of Moscow. The battle took place in November 1941 to January 1942. The Germans suffered 500,000 casualties in this battle. By March,1942 the Germans casualties on the Eastern Front totaled 1,100,000. After 16 months in Russia, by November 1942, Germany sustained 2,000,000 casualties.

BATTLE of STALINGRAD

In August 1942, the Germans amassed their best troops and approached Stalingrad with 1,250,000 men. Of these men, only 30,000 ever got back home.

On November 19,1942 the Russians encircled 330,000 German troops inside of Stalingrad. Of this number, 94,000 surrendered on January 31,1943. Only 5,000 of this number ever got home. During the battle the Russians set up a ticking clock reminding the Germans that every 7 seconds one of them is getting killed. In the spring thaw there were rivulets of blood flowing into the Volga river. The Battle of Stalingrad is referred to as the battle that changed the world. What if the Nazi’s had won?

NORTH AFRICA

The biggest battle in North Africa was fought by the British at the battle of el Alamein in November, 1942. The same time that the German army was encircled at Stalingrad. The German losses at el Alamein were 1,000 killed and 9,000 captured or wounded.

During this period the Germans had 3 divisions in North Africa and 160 divisions on the Eastern front against the Russians. The United States lost 7,000 men killed in North Africa.

THE BATTLE of KURSK

The battle of Kursk, which is located 350 miles south of Moscow took place in July,1943. In this 2 week battle the Germans lost 125,000 killed. Another 375,000 were captured or wounded. The Russian losses were 70,000 killed. By this time the Russian intelligence had penetrated the German high command and knew exactly their plan of attack weeks ahead of the start of the battle. Marshall Zhukov ordered the Russian army a week ahead of time as to the day and exact hour and places that they were to open fire on . Kursk was Germany’s last attempt at an offensive on the Eastern front. It failed.

OPERATION BAGRATION JULY, 1944

On June 22,1944 (3 years to the day after Germany invaded Russia) the Russians (Marshall Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front) launched a massive attack in Byelorussia code named “Operation Bagration” against German Army Group Centre. During a single week against Army Group Centre German battle casualties were 480,000 men. On the Second Front in France during 6 weeks after D-Day (June /July 1944) total German casualties were 140,000 men. On a weekly basis, this is a ratio of about 20 to 1. In just 12 days, Army Group Centre lost 25 of its 43 divisions. In 5 weeks, the Russian army moved 200 miles west and were at the gates of Warsaw. For the Germans the destruction of Army Group Centre was Stalingrad all over again. In the same period the U.S. and British moved 20 miles east.

In addition to Army Group Centre, there were three other German armies, namely: German Army Group North, German Army Group North Ukraine and German Army Group South Ukraine. They were all defeated in short order.

Marshall Rokossovsky’s 2nd Byelorussian Front takes East Prussia and the Baltic countries, Marshall Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front takes Prague, Marshall Malinovsky’s 2nd Ukrainian Front takes Budapest and Vienna and Marshall Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukrainian Front takes Romania. The Hungarian and Romanian armies are also routed in a similar fashion.

Interestingly, Hungary with a population of 10,000,000 lost more soldiers killed on the Eastern Front (50,000) than the British losses in Europe and North Africa.

BATTLE of BERLIN

January -May 1945

In January- February,1945 the Russians advanced from the river Vistula in Poland to the Oder river in Germany. The offensive was launched January12,1945. The offensive was started early at the plea from Churchill to counter the successful Nazi offensive in the Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge in which the U.S. had 18,000 troops killed and 60,000 wounded.) The 3 Russian Marshalls, Zhukov, Rokossovsky and Konev had an army of 2,500,000 men against a German army of 1,000,000 men. On April 16th The Russian Army led by Marshall Chuikov opened fire with 40,000 guns. This broke the last German resistance at the Seelow heights before Berlin. The German losses were 50,000 men killed. In just 16 days the troops of the First Byelorussian, First Ukraine and Second Byelorussian Fronts took Berlin. The victory was made possible by the fact the Soviet army materially and spiritually surpassed the enemy.

JAPAN

In the Pacific, the Japanese got the message after a series of terrific naval defeats by the U.S. and their attention assured by the atomic bomb. For good measure the Russians sent 1,600,000 troops into Manchuria. It terrified the Japanese officers to the point that they were killing their own wives and children for fear of capture. Half the Japanese soldiers that went into captivity never got home. Retribution for Pearl Harbor and the rape of Nanking.

RUSSIAN SOLDIER

The best description of the Russian soldier comes from the Germans and a Russian Jew who was a war correspondent throughout the war.

Vassili Grossman wrote:

I am deeply affected by the genuine spirit of sacrifice among the Russian soldiers. At war a Russian soldier puts on a white shirt and dies like a saint. At the front there is patience and resignation to unthinkable hardships. This is the patience of a strong people. This is the patience of a great army. The greatness of the Russian soul is incredible.

A German soldier at Stalingrad wrote: the Russians are not men but some kind of cast-iron creatures.

In his book, Willy Reese writes about the Germans attitude after being on the Eastern front. He noted that German veterans profess an admiration for the Russian soldier which was seldom conceded to his Western counterparts.

A distinguished German staff officer wrote after the war in which he describes their virtues: The greatest asset the Russian Army possessed was the Russian soldier.

He is patient and enduring beyond imagination, incredibly brave and courageous. A feature of the Russian is his utter contempt for life or death - so incomprehensible to a Westerner. The British General Giffard Martel had this to say about the Russian soldier “their bravery on the battlefield is beyond dispute but their most outstanding feature is their astonishing strength and toughness”.

The last Hero of the Soviet Union medal was given to a Russian soldier in the final day of the battle of Berlin. He heroically rescued a German woman and her 4-year-old daughter to safety. During the rescue he was mortally wounded and died a few days later. When asked to whom they could report this act of heroism, he replied - no one. My entire family were killed in the war. This is heroism at its greatest.

THE FIGHTING THE RUSSIANS DID SAVED MILLIONS OF AMERICAN LIVES.

HOW DID THE RUSSIANS WIN?

They had better soldiers

They had better weapons.

They had better generals.

The German generals came from aristocracy.

The British generals came from gentry.

The Russian generals came from peasantry.

In the 1930’s the Red Army demonstrated tactics and operational originality that showed up as great battles in WWII. They consisted of vast tank armies, artillery, infantry and aircraft.

The Soviet concept of DEEP OPERATION represented the most advanced ideas ever attained in the history of military concepts. This concept was a major factor in the defeat of the German army.

Deep operation (Russian: Глубокая операция, glubokaya operatsiya), also known as Soviet Deep Battle, was a military theory developed by the Soviet Union for its armed forces during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a tenet that emphasized destroying, suppressing or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact but also throughout the depth of the battlefield. Today, Russia destroys Ukrainian arms deep in the rear using long-range missiles and drones.

The main elements being:

Holding Force

Main maneuvering force

Element of reserve

The main maneuvering element consisting of the chief means of creating the shock effect.

Breaking or assaulting effect - aimed at bisecting the defensive front.

Echelon for developing the breakthrough - designed to break up the defenders’ lay-out and to build up a maneuvering mass beyond the defenders’ center of gravity.

After advancing in the defenders’ depth, neutralizing his remaining forces

DEEP OPERATION theory specifies the offensive and defensive as the basic forms of maneuver at the operational level and the operational shock as its end. The pattern of turning maneuver was defined as the most advanced state of operational shock that can be obtained by an operational strike.

The operational synergy between the “holding force” the “maneuvering force” and the “element of reserve” were defined as an essential condition for the completion of a successful operational maneuver.

SUMMARY

The Russians and Americans need to review their common history. Americans have fought over 10 different countries but never against the Russians, whose contribution to winning WWII needs to be honored and remembered.

APPENDIX

Marshall Zhukov’s Greatest Battles

The Noontide Press

Costa Mesa, Ca. 92627

ISBN o-939482-34-7

Citadel, the Battle of Kursk

Barnes & Noble Books

ISBN 1-56619-581-0

Russia’s War

TV Books, Inc.

ISBN 1-57500-051-2

The Claws of the Bear

Houghton Mifflin

ISBN 0-395-51076-7

The Battle for Stalingrad

Marshall Vasili Chuikov

Translated from the Russian

Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Library of Congress No: 64-110

The Road to Berlin

By John Erickson

ISBN 0 297 772384

Marshall Zhukov’s Greatest Battles

By Marshall Zhukov

Translated from the Russian

Harper & Roe, Publishers

Russia at War

E.P. Dutton & Co.

By Alexander Werth

Soviet Casualties & Combat Losses

Greenhill Books, London

ISBN 1-85367-280-7

Stalingrad to Berlin

By Earl Ziemke

Dorset Press

Library of Congress No: 67-60001

Bagration 1944

Steven J. Zaloga

ISBN 1-85532 478 4

The Fall of Berlin

By Marshall Chuikov

Library of Congress No: 68-10059

Holt, Rinehart, Winston

Armageddon

By Max Hastings

D 743 H 36 2004

A Writer at War

Vassili Grossman

940.54217 Gro

Pantheon Book, New York

Stalin’s Generals 1993

ISBN -0-8021-1487-3 Grove Press

Hitler’s Greatest Defeat

Paul Adair

940.54 ADA

ISBN 1-85409-232-4

A Stranger to Myself

Willy Peter Reese

Farrar, Strans & Giroux New York

Stalin’s Wars

By Geoffrey Roberts

Yale University Press (2006)

Deep Battle

Brassey’s Defense Publishers

Waffen SS

John Keegan

**

Here’s your air strike update for Jan 8, 2025

Search phrases for those who want to do their own research:

EN phrase for translation: Jan 8, 2025, russian missiles, drones, bombs hit Ukraine

Translated into RU: 8 января, 2025, российские ракеты, беспилотники, бомбы поражают Украину

Google translate:

https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=translate

To optimize results, searches must be done in Yandex search –

https://ya.ru/

Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]

https://www.1tv.ru/news/2025-01-08/497654-rossiyskaya_armiya_nanesla_massirovannyy_udar_po_ukrainskim_voennym_tylam

January 8, 2025, 21:00

The Russian army launched a massive attack on the Ukrainian military rear

Let's start with a special operation and our long-range strikes. The targets are military and related to them in Kyiv, Zhitomir, Chernihiv, Poltava, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The Ministry of Defense reported the destruction of airfields, drone assembly sites and enemy manpower concentrations.

There is also information about the impact of aerial bombs with a planning and correction module on the workshops of the Motor Sich military-industrial complex in Zaporozhye.

The military also provided footage of the operation of the Tornado-S high-precision multiple launch rocket system; a temporary deployment point for militants in the Donetsk Republic was destroyed.

Kharkiv direction. A precise hit on the crossing that the Ukrainian Armed Forces used to deliver ammunition.

The DPR and the Toretsk area, most of which is already under our control. A drone flying into an American Bradley IFV.

Kursk borderland. New evidence of the fine work of drone operators on fiber optics. They don't care about the armor protection of the equipment, be it an IFV or a tank. The most vulnerable spot under the turret of the German Leopard was found at the back. The Lancet loitering munition hits the Ukrainian Armed Forces' Gvozdika artillery mount.

And footage that once again proves the militants' disdainful attitude towards their own wounded. Two of them were simply thrown out of the evacuation vehicles, and one of them was even able to crawl away on his own.

**

Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]

https://ria.ru/20250108/vsu-1992803535.html

12:34 08.01.2025 (updated: 14:14 08.01.2025)

Russian Armed Forces hit infrastructure of Ukrainian airfields

Ministry of Defense: Russian Armed Forces inflicted fire damage on infrastructure of Ukrainian airfields

MOSCOW, 8 Jan — RIA Novosti. Russian troops have damaged the infrastructure of military airfields of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as the assembly and storage site of drones, the Defense Ministry reported.

"Damage was inflicted on the infrastructure of military airfields, the assembly and storage site of unmanned aerial vehicles, concentrations of manpower and equipment of the armed formations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and foreign mercenaries," the report says.

It is noted that operational-tactical aviation, attack UAVs, missile troops and artillery groups of the Russian army were involved in the operation. In total, strikes were carried out in 147 districts.

**

Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]

https://md.tsargrad.tv/news/udar-8-janvarja-po-zavodu-motor-sich-kuda-celilis-voennye-ushherb-video-posledstvij_1120286

08 January 2025 21:01

Strike on January 8 at the Motor Sich plant: where the military aimed, damage, video of the consequences

Military Telegram channels report that the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out a strike with a FAB equipped with an UMPK on the Motor Sich plant in Zaporizhia, which is used for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - the moment of arrival and the consequences are published by local media. We tell you what is currently happening at the largest facility that was hit by the Russian military.

Russian aviation carried out a targeted strike on the Motor Sich plant in Zaporizhia, which was used to produce components for military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Local media publish footage from the landing site, and military Telegram channels note that the accuracy of the attack was the result of the use of aerial bombs from the UMPK.

A blow to Motor Sich - what the enterprise was doing

Motor Sich is a Ukrainian enterprise engaged in the development and production, repair and maintenance of aircraft gas turbine engines for airplanes and helicopters, as well as industrial gas turbine units. Motor Sich was once a symbol of the engineering genius of Ukraine: engines with Zaporizhia registration were installed on airplanes and helicopters, but now the plant produces parts for military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 2019, 50% of the company's shares were bought out by the Chinese companies Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings Limited and Xinwei Group. But the leader of the Kyiv regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, screwed them over by signing a decree on the nationalization of the Motor Sich plant. Then Chinese investors sued Ukrainian President Zelensky, the SBU and the National Security and Defense Council, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry demanded that Ukraine take into account the interests of Chinese investors. Last fall, Chinese investors filed a lawsuit in the Hague arbitration court for $4.5 billion. [$4.5 billion was the amount China had paid. The US was responsible. It had pressured Zelensky to scuttle the deal]

Video of the aftermath of the strike on the Motor Sich plant

According to sources, a high-precision FAB bomb with a controlled planning and correction module (UMPK) hit the key workshops of the enterprise. Under the rubble is now equipment that was actively used to repair Ukrainian armored vehicles and produce components for drones.

Local media and social networks are publishing footage showing serious damage.

Meanwhile, the authorities announced an attack on an industrial infrastructure facility.

On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a special operation in Ukraine, which, according to him, was caused by the need to protect the residents of Donbass [Ukraine was shelling innocent Donbass citizens. It was genocide, but the lying western msm kept insisting the Russian attack was unprovoked]. He noted that Russia had no other choice.

The West condemned Moscow's actions, deciding to support Kyiv with financial aid and weapons. In this regard, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that the geographic objectives of the special operation in Ukraine have changed, and they will not be completed within the Donbass territories alone.

Europe is still confident that sanctions can stop the Russians, and therefore suffers losses and the destructive impact of its own decisions on its own economy. Law-abiding citizens in Europe do not understand why prices in stores are rising, and why fuel is becoming more expensive, and why the Kyiv authorities do not compromise in order to sit down at the negotiating table with the Kremlin.