🇺🇦 🇷🇺 After Suffering Heavy Losses, Ukrainians Paused to Rethink Strategy

Early in the counteroffensive, Ukraine lost as much as 20 percent of its weapons and armor. The rate dropped as the campaign slowed and commanders shifted tactics.

The startling rate of losses dropped to about 10 percent in the ensuing weeks, the officials said, preserving more of the troops and machines needed for the major offensive push that the Ukrainians say is still to come.

Military analysts cautioned that it was still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the counteroffensive. “It does not mean that it is doomed to fail,” said Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former NATO assistant secretary general.

Nevertheless, he added, the absence of air superiority and air defenses that Western jets could provide for Ukraine’s attack means “that casualty rates are likely to be higher than in other conventional conflicts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/15/us/politics/ukraine-leopards-bradleys-counteroffensive.html

https://archive.ph/txllV

🚨🎥🇸🇪📖 ~ A Syrian Muslim who obtained permission from the Swedish police to burn the Torah and the Bible in front of the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, has chosen not to burn the books.

Ahmet Allus said he wanted to draw attention to the fact that no sacred book should be burned.

"I am a Muslim, and I cannot burn sacred and religious books," he said.

"There is a difference between freedom of expression and insulting ethnic groups. Burning the Quran and other religious books should be considered a hate crime. I obtained permission from the police for the act of burning the Torah and the Bible to draw attention to this. I have absolutely no intention of burning any religious book."

⚡️🇹🇷🇪🇬 Allegedly, Yassin Aktay, the deputy chairman of the AK party, gave direct orders to the Egyptian "political asylum-seekers" (mostly the Muslim Brotherhood) in Turkey to cease "the blatant assaults on the Egyptian government and its figures, and to be professional and only report the news and events within the legal frameworks of Turkish law."

This comes after

1) 50 Muslim Brotherhood members were detained in Turkey and shipped to undisclosed locations
2) certain members of the Muslim Brotherhood were extradited back to Egypt - where such members face the death penalty
3) some pro-MB anchors have already moved to London and Vienna, and are calling the group to abandon Turkey and to not rely on the Turkish government anymore.

Erdogan simply wishes to normalize with Sisi, and I think the Syrian HTS are looking at this situation very closely, because very soon, just like Erdogan shook the hands of Sisi in Qatar, perhaps, Erdogan will also shake the hands of Assad.

@mediterraneanman