The European Union eased restrictions against the Russian aviation industry

MOSCOW, July 21 - RIA Novosti. As part of the seventh package of sanctions, the EU countries have adjusted restrictions on the supply of certain goods and the provision of services to the Russian aviation industry, according to a press release from the EU Council.
"Russian technical assistance for aviation goods and technologies will be allowed to the extent necessary to support the work on setting technical industrial standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization," the statement said.

UNICEF refused to meet the girl who happened to be in the "Peacemaker" database

MOSCOW, July 21 - RIA Novosti. Faina Savenkova, a thirteen-year-old writer from the Lugansk People's Republic, who ended up in the Peacemaker database, said that UNICEF never held the promised meeting with her. She spoke about this during a press conference "The Peacemaker website is a threat to the life and health of minor children." The event takes place at the site of the Russia Today media group.
"I appealed to the UN Secretary General and UNICEF to delete the data, not only mine, but also other children. UNICEF promised to meet with me, but, unfortunately, they did not succeed. I hope that <...> the website "Peacemaker "will be blocked," Savenkova said.

At the same time, she added that UNICEF, instead of a personal meeting, invited her to become an envoy of peace.
In October last year, Faina ended up in the Peacemaker database. Before that, the girl recorded a video message to the members of the UN Security Council, in which she urged not to forget that the children of Donbass have the right to childhood and a peaceful life. The office of the official representative of the Secretary General, in turn, urged not to use minors and residents affected by regional conflicts for political purposes. At the same time, Faina's family then began to receive threats, which is why the Permanent Mission of Russia to the UN turned to the leadership of the organization for assistance in seizing her personal data.

This week, Moscow sent a letter to Secretary General António Guterres asking him to assist in the closure of the Peacemaker website. According to the first deputy permanent representative of Russia, Dmitry Polyansky, both adults and children are included in the infamous list, the number of children has already reached 327. This poses a danger to their lives, he stressed. The organization confirmed receipt of the message and promised to study it.

The "Peacemaker" website publishes information about journalists, militias from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics and other citizens, calling them traitors to their homeland and accusing them of allegedly threatening the national security of Ukraine. According to information received by the Foundation for the Fight against Repression, the portal has been publishing personal data of young children and adolescents for many years, the youngest of whom was born in 2012. This violates not only the norms of humanism, but also international law.

#TransFormator

US President Biden has tested positive for coronavirus. Elena Zelenskaya met with him the day before during her visit to USA, when she was pleading for more weapons...

Saving of the she-bear "Monetochka" is becoming a very popular among Russian audience. Here is a video. The beginning of the story see here and here. She will be OK ❤️👍

Russian sappers have started demining Mariupol airport. The territory is explored together with service dogs.

Could you caption this?

Ukrainian drones struck the nuclear power plant - the largest in Europe - on Wednesday just yards away from a reactor cooling tank.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: 'It was only by luck that this did not lead to damage to the equipment and to a man-made catastrophe.'

She accused Kyiv of seeking to create 'conditions for a nuclear disaster, not only on its territory, but throughout Europe.'

Russian troops took control of the Zaporizhzhia plant in southeast Ukraine in March, early in their Ukraine offensive.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday that Russia, Ukraine and the West must all agree to halt the conflict in Ukraine to avoid the 'abyss of nuclear war.'

'We must stop, reach an agreement, end this mess, operation and war in Ukraine,' Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin's top ally, told AFP in an exclusive interview in Minsk.

'Let's stop and then we will figure out how to go on living... There's no need to go further. Further lies the abyss of nuclear war. There's no need to go there.'

Lukashenko accused the West of seeking a conflict with Russia and of provoking the Ukraine war.

'You have fomented the war and are continuing it,' he said.

'We have seen the reasons for this war,' he added.

'If Russia had not got ahead of you, members of NATO, you would have organized and struck a blow against it,' he said, echoing Putin.

Belarus has served as a staging ground for Russia's intervention in Ukraine, but Lukashenko has so far avoided becoming a party to the conflict.

Analysts say that he is keenly aware of the fact that most Belarusians do not support sending troops into Ukraine.

The 67-year-old leader, who has ruled Belarus for nearly three decades, insisted that Kyiv authorities can end the war if they re-start talks with Moscow and accept its demands.

'Everything depends on Ukraine,' he said.

'Right now, the peculiarity of the moment is that this war can be ended on more acceptable terms for Ukraine.'

He urged Kyiv authorities to 'sit down at the negotiating table and agree that they will never threaten Russia.'

Talks between Russia and Ukraine largely ground to a halt in mid-April.

Lukashenko said that Ukraine must accept the loss of regions occupied by Russia in eastern and southern Ukraine.

'This is no longer being discussed,' he said. 'One could have discussed this in February or March.'

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that peace talks with Ukraine 'make no sense' and announced that Moscow's military aims in the pro-Western country were no longer focused 'only' on the east.

Lukashenko has sought to promote himself as Putin's most faithful ally, welcoming Russian troops under the pretext of military exercises before Moscow launched its Ukraine offensive.

Despite officially being a non-belligerent, the Belarus strongman has demanded that his country be included in any talks and a deal to end the conflict.

Lukashenko insisted that the war could have been avoided if Western countries had given Putin 'the security guarantees' he wanted.

'You, members of NATO and Americans, needed war.'

British sex offenders were tracked going to refugee-laden Poland in the early weeks of war, seemingly to take advantage of the chaos unfolding on the border with Ukraine.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) yesterday revealed ten convicted paedophiles travelled east in the first six weeks, under the guise of providing assistance to refugees.

All ten were interviewed by Polish authorities and removed from the country, said an NCA spokesman, adding: 'We have an international network that identifies these threats... we contact our partners and say you have a convicted sex offender on your patch.'

The NCA spokesman continued: 'It is no coincidence, I think, that somewhere in the region of ten known British child sex offenders travelled to Poland in the first six weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, allegedly to provide humanitarian assistance.

'Normally they're meant to have declared this [their conviction] as part of their entry. We find inevitably, they haven't.

'As far as I understand it, all ten were asked to leave, following an interview with Polish immigration and Polish law enforcement. So they're no longer in Poland.'

The story of the she-bear Monetochka which came to humans seeking help, has got a good ending - after treatment provided by the head veterinary doctor of the Moscow Zoo, she was transported 60-100 kilometres from Dixon to the natural environment and left with a supply of fish, since for some time the animal will not be able to hunt on its own. The veterinarians treated the animal's tongue, gave her antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, and installed a tracking beacon. Here is the whole video-story.

ISTANBUL, July 22 - RIA Novosti. Russia signed documents on lifting restrictions on the supply of Russian products for export and on facilitating the export of Ukrainian grain, RIA Novosti correspondent reports.
As Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu emphasized, the document involves the participation of the UN in the work to lift restrictions on the export of agricultural products and fertilizers from Russia to world markets.
The agreement also provides for:
— export of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea will take place from three ports - Odessa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny;
— demining in Ukrainian territorial waters will not be carried out, as it will take too much time;
—vessels with grain will leave the Black Sea along the agreed safe corridor, they will be escorted by Ukrainian pilots;
— to check the safety of routes, the parties will be able to send minesweepers;
— the process will be monitored by a coordination centre under the auspices of the UN, which will be promptly created in Istanbul with the participation of all four parties;
— military escort is not expected - warships, aircraft and drones will be prohibited from approaching ships at a specified distance;
—ships bound for ports will be inspected for weapons by inspection teams under the control of the Joint Coordination Centre;
— in ports, representatives of the UN, Turkey and Ukraine will observe the loading of grain;
—possible incidents will also be dealt with by the Joint Coordination Centre.
The deal will be valid for 120 days, then an extension is possible.

MOSCOW, July 22 - RIA Novosti. The Russian military killed up to 300 Ukrainian nationalist of a "Black Hundred" formation who were housed in a school in the Donetsk People's Republic, the Defence Ministry said.
"As a result of a strike with ground-based precision weapons, the temporary deployment point of the Black Hundred nationalist formation, deployed in the building of school No. 23 in the city of Kramatorsk, Donetsk People's Republic, was destroyed. Up to 300 nationalists and over 40 units of special equipment were eliminated," the military department said in a report from 22 July.

Also, in the same report, it is stated that: "The enemy suffers significant losses in weapons supplied by Western countries. In the period from July 5 to 20, four launchers and one transport-loading vehicle were destroyed by high-precision ground and air-based weapons from US-made HYMARS multiple launch rocket systems transferred to Ukraine. Of these, two launchers were liquidated in the area of ​​​​the settlement of Malotaranovka, another "HAYMARS" and a transport-loading vehicle in the Krasnoarmeysk region, and the fourth launcher - on the eastern outskirts of Konstantinovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Another "long-read" from a Western "expert" with some elements of understanding...

It is a chilling prospect. Today, more than 30 years after the Cold War ended, the war in Ukraine and the robust condemnation from the West has created a new Cold War with Russia, one given a sinister twist by the shifting alliances of modern geopolitics.

I call this emerging battle ‘World War Z’, after the letter displayed on Russian tanks in Ukraine, a symbol which encapsulates Putin’s wholesale rejection of the West.

The relationship between Russia and the West has long been a love/hate one. For 300 years, since Peter the Great founded Putin’s birthplace St Petersburg as a ‘window on the West’, Russia has had a complex relationship with our free, democratic society.

Any hopes that Putin would imitate his hero, Tsar Peter, and try to copy the West evaporated with his assault on Ukraine five months ago. Since then, the Kremlin propaganda machine has been pumping out hysterical attacks on the U.S. and its European allies.

This endless demonization of the West echoes what Iran’s ayatollahs have been doing for a generation or more: for them, America has long been the ‘Great Satan’ while Britain is ‘the Little Satan’.

Given this, we should consider the words of Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov as a warning, however veiled they may be in the language of international diplomacy. Speaking to reporters, he emphasised that a ‘trusting dialogue’ has developed between Russia and Iran, stating that ‘on most issues, our positions are close or identical’.

"New Ukrop technology?"

Russian soldiers and unknown critter - what is it?

Some Ukrainian troops tried to advance on Kherson today but were decimated by mass Russian artillery bombardment.

Lithuanian Railways resume transit of sanctioned cargoes to Kaliningrad
The Lithuanian state-owned freight transportation company LTG Cargo today, July 22, resumes the transit of sanctioned goods between Russia and Kaliningrad. This was announced on Friday by the representative of the Lithuanian transport company Mantas Dubauskas on the air of the national radio LRT.

Codes for the transportation of sanctioned goods, according to Mr. Dubauskas, will be checked and entered into the transit control system.

LTG Cargo notes that the volume of cargo transportation will have to correspond to the average volume of cargo transportation by rail. The indicator is calculated based on data for three years.

On July 13, the European Commission ruled that the transit of civilian goods by rail to Kaliningrad is not prohibited, but their transportation should be subject to “targeted, proportionate and effective control” by the authorities of the EU states.