Sadly correct...

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@Slavyangrad

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday his country would halt diesel supplies to Ukraine if Kiev fails to restore oil flows from Russian group Lukoil through its territory.

Slovakia and Hungary - two countries that have opposed western allies' military aid to Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion - have been stepping up pressure since Kievput Lukoil on a sanctions list last month, stopping the company's oil from passing through to Slovak and Hungarian refineries.

"If the transit of Russian crude through Ukraine is not renewed in a short time, (Slovak refiner) Slovnaft will not continue in supplies of diesel to Ukraine," Fico said in a Facebook video message.

Fico won't even allow Vin Diesel into Ukraine.

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@Slavyangrad

Destruction of the M270 MLRS MLRS by a strike from the Iskander OTRK in the area of ​​Novotroitskoye.

Geolocation: https://lostarmour.info/map?coord=48.1787076,37.1107540

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@Slavyangrad

NYT discusses one of the most political battles this summer, Russia's desire to reverse any gains made by Ukraine's failed counteroffensive and Ukraine's stubborn desire to hold onto meaningless towns that they lost so many lives to take.

Soldiers and officers who had been inside the two villages said there were no civilians living there and the houses were so destroyed there was nothing left to defend.

“The battles took place in ruins, from basements,” said Karay, 43, an army major who was inside Urozhainoye and saw some of the earlier fighting. “There were a few trenches, but there were no defensive structures, and it was impossible to build them.” He asked that he only be identified by his call sign, Karay, according to military protocol.

Urozhainoye consists of just two streets and Russian troops had already occupied half the village in June, Karay said. “For a month and a half, it was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” he said.

“So much was flying around, the wounded could only be evacuated at night,” he said. “So there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”

The end, when it came, was lightning fast and forced a rapid retreat from the village. In conversations after the fall of the village, soldiers on the nearby front said they were feeling the strain of three large-scale Russian assaults in October, November and February, and then three months of intense fighting in Urozhaine. They described the Russian assault troops as a determined and motivated force.

One of the survivors posted his account of getting out on Twitter.

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@Slavyangrad

Krasnogorovka was put to the test: the Armed Forces of Ukraine were driven out of high-rise development areas

The 110th separate motorized rifle brigade, fighting as part of the Center group, finally drove Ukrainian units out of the high-rise building area in Krasnogorovka. The enemy was forced into a private sector located along the Lozovaya River, in the northwestern part of the city where they can resist, but not for a long time.

Clearing the main part of the city from Ukrainian occupiers removes the weight from our group’s legs that was preventing us from moving west, in the general direction of Kurakhovo, which, along with Velikaya Novoselka, is a key logistics hub for supplying the enemy’s Ugledar group.

The battles for Krasnogorovka brought not only territorial gains: during the fight for the city, the 59th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was crushed. Their losses turned out to be such that the  Ukrainian military prosecutor’s office  began an investigation based on reports of the issuance of “criminal orders.”

But in the 80th Air Assault Brigade, the situation is the opposite: there, military personnel record appeals to Zelensky with an appeal not to allow the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Syrsky, to change its brigade commander, who, apparently, refused to carry out the order to go on a counteroffensive - and thereby saved the lives of his subordinates. So now the soldiers don’t want to have a butcher as their boss.

Unfortunately, the enemy’s manpower does not yet understand that it is necessary not to write down appeals to the main executioner of the concentration camp country, who sets the tasks for Syrsky, but to call the Volga and surrender in full force to the Russian army. This means that the Russian Aerospace Forces and artillery will have to continue educational work until the Ukrainian infantrymen, through trial and error, are convinced that the only way to be guaranteed to survive the massacre that Zelensky inflicted on them is to be captured by Russians. Well, those who do not want to raise their hands will face inevitable death.

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@Slavyangrad

Ukraine’s campaign to replenish its war-weary troops is ramping up and should help fill personnel gaps on the front line in the coming weeks, according to Ukrainian officials, soldiers and military analysts.

Many conscripts are still completing the weeks Nazar Voytenkov, press officer for the 33rd Mechanized Brigade, said on Friday that his unit had “received more newbies this month” than they had at the beginning of the year.

“And today I was told that more are coming to us,” he added.long training process and have yet to reach the front. And some recruits who have arrived are not physically fit for combat, members of Ukrainian units have noted.

Three military experts with knowledge of the figures said that Kiev had been drafting up to 30,000 people a month since May, when a new conscription law took effect. That is two to three times more than during the last winter months, they said, and about the same number that the Russian Army is recruiting [volunteers] each month.

A medic fighting near the eastern Ukrainian town of Toretsk, one of the hottest points on the front line, said that her brigade had received 2,000 conscripts and prisoners in the past two months. [Brigade is usually 3,000 to 5,000]

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@Slavyangrad

A military registration office (TCC) employee is surprised at how the military treats them

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@Slavyangrad

To the outside world, former boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko — nicknamed Dr. Ironfist — is one of the most identifiable faces of Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

But to a growing number of Kievans, he’s letting them down as city mayor

It wasn’t a Russian missile that reduced the elegant 19th-century Zelenskiy mansion in downtown Kiev to rubble; a Ukrainian developer demolished it to build yet another high rise.

A wooden tablet next to the ruins, reads: “This building was destroyed at the initiative of Vitaly Klitschko.”

Under Klitscho many of Kiev's historical buildings have been destroyed and major projects like the subway expansion are poorly constructed. Klitschko blames other authorities for these problems but reporters note his close ties with developers.

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@Slavyangrad

An M2A2 "Bradley" infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by an anti-tank guided missile south of Volchye

Geolocation: https://lostarmour.info/map?coord=48.2156556,37.4821279

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@Slavyangrad

In the last years of Louis XVI’s reign, French finances were in a parlous state. State debt had ballooned, its servicing became exorbitant, and France’s creditworthiness sunk. The need to raise taxes after years of profligacy forced the monarch to summon the Estates General – the first time since 1614 – to obtain their approval. A series of scandals linked to the monarchy fuelled popular anger. All ushered in the July 1789 Revolution.

Against a background of French debt at 112 per cent of GDP, a budget deficit of 5.5 per cent and the EU taking out special measures against France for persistently ignoring the EU stability pact, this week France’s independent auditing court poured petrol on the flames. They published a report criticising excessive expenditure at the Elysée Palace.

French taxpayers annually pay more for the presidency (€110.5 million or £94 million in 2022-3) than the British for the monarchy (£86.3 million in 2022-3). But this year, the Elysée’s opulent spending on state visits, from Charles III to Narendra Modi, and President Emmanuel Macron’s lavish foreign trips worsened racking up an €8 million (£6.7 million) deficit. ‘What cost the glitter of the Republic?’ asked Le Figaro. Macron's recent lobster dinner for Charles III cost taxpayers €450,000.

Money is the sinew of any state. France can either cull its expenditure or levy more taxes. A majority of MPs recently elected to the National Assembly favour new taxes to fund their manifestos. The occupant of the Elysée Palace, whose profligate spending has jeopardised French finances, rejects tax rises. The incendiary question of the public finances could take France down a radicalised path whose outcome few may wish to countenance.

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@Slavyangrad