🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israel has admitted that some of the slain participants at a music festival near the borders of the Gaza Strip were killed not by Hamas, but by an Apache helicopter pilot who mistook the fleeing people for Hamas militants.

Earlier, the Israelis also testified that some of those killed on the border were killed by the IDF during the outbreak of fighting, falling between two fires.

🇮🇱🇵🇸 The number of children killed in the Gaza Strip is higher than in any conflict since 2019, CNN writes.

During the month of the war, 4,104 children died here. Which is just under half of all deaths in Gaza.

🇮🇱🇵🇸⚡Video of the bombing of the surrounding area of an Indonesian hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

🇺🇸🌐❌🇭🇺 NATO ambassadors concerned about rapprochement between Hungary and Russia.

At a meeting in Hungary, the ambassadors of the North Atlantic Alliance and Sweden expressed concern over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

David Pressman, US Ambassador to Hungary, confirmed to Radio Liberty that the meeting took place on Thursday morning amid concerns among NATO allies about Hungary's rapprochement with Russia.

Quote from Pressman: "We are all concerned that the Hungarian prime minister met with President Putin when Russia is at war with Ukraine... The fact that Hungary has decided to keep in touch with Putin in this way is worrying"

Pressman declined to comment on the possible consequences of the meeting of the Alliance ambassadors to Hungary, as well as media reports of sanctions supposedly being prepared against Hungarian officials.

Quote from Pressman: "We see Hungary as an ally, but we also see that Hungary is deepening its relations with Russia despite the brutal war in Ukraine. We think it is important to maintain a dialogue with the Hungarian government and people on these decisions."

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in the Chinese capital, Beijing, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán discussed with Putin Hungarian-Russian cooperation in the gas and oil supply field, as well as nuclear energy.

The Hungarian prime minister emphasised the importance of peace during the meeting. Orbán said the stopping of the flow of refugees, sanctions, and hostilities is vital for the entire continent, including Hungary.

🔗 https://news.yahoo.com/nato-ambassadors-concerned-rapprochement-between-184508620.html

🇷🇴🟨⭐️—🇬🇧📰 Financial Times | Anti-Ukraine party gathers strength in Romania. Voter support for illiberal AUR is growing ahead of elections next year

George Simion, chair of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), which has emerged as the country’s main opposition force. Its rise has sparked concern in European capitals about the risk that Romania could become another EU and Nato country reluctant to support Kyiv in its defensive war against Russian aggression.

AUR, which translates as “gold” in Romanian, has capitalised on simmering anti-Ukrainian sentiment, promoting disinformation and lies to double its support among voters since the 2019 elections to about 20 per cent — just behind the ruling Social Democrats.

Simion himself is ranking third in voters’ preferences for the presidential elections, at abut 18 per cent, behind Nato deputy secretary-general Mircea Geoană and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

Simion’s performance is part of a growing trend of disruptive far-right parties stoking fear and xenophobia in Europe, and questioning their countries’ continued support for Kyiv in its defence against Russian aggression.
Once a fringe irredentist party that vilified the ethnic Hungarian minority and peddled anti-vaccine theories during the Covid-19 pandemic, AUR has shifted gears and focused on Ukraine, declaring that the war is “not ours” and urging the government to stop aiding Kyiv and rethink its relationships with Washington and Brussels.

Like Poland’s Confederation party, which has lambasted the government in Warsaw for allowing cheap Ukrainian grain imports, AUR is opposing the transit through Romania of agricultural products from Ukraine. The party is also against Bucharest continuing its arms supplies to Kyiv and hosting Ukrainian pilots who train on F-16 fighter jets.

The failings of Romania’s ruling grand coalition, which consists of the largest mainstream parties — the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right National Liberal party — has fostered a political climate of discontent in which AUR has thrived.

AUR’s rise mirrors the ascent of the Alternative for Germany party, which recently broke out of its eastern German stronghold and performed well in regional elections. The Romanian far right likens itself to ruling parties in Hungary and Italy and large opposition parties in Spain and France.

Like his fellow European far-right leaders, Simion, 37, claims his country is being “exploited” by the west and that any dissenting voices are “automatically cast as Putinists”. Claudiu Târziu, a leading AUR member, insists that his party is not pro-Russia. “Romanians have suffered both from Ukrainians and from Russians and we don’t actually like either of them much,” he told the Financial Times.

🗄 Archive

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israel will hold humanitarian pauses in the Gaza Strip.

White House National Security Council Speaker John Kirby said the IDF plans to announce humanitarian pauses lasting four hours every day in the northern Gaza Strip. The ceasefire will be announced three hours before the start of the pause.

🇱🇻🏳️‍🌈The Latvian Parliament legalized same-sex marriages. In 2024, such marriages can be formalized legally.

🇺🇸👮‍♂️ Seven Nashville, Tenn., police officers were placed on “administrative assignment” after the mayor ordered an investigation into the leak of pages of a manifesto purported to belong to the school shooter who killed six people at The Covenant School in March.

“I am greatly disturbed by today’s unauthorized release of three pages of writings from the Covenant shooter,” Nashville Police Chief John Drake said in a statement Monday. “This police department is extremely serious about the investigation to identify the person responsible.”

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said Monday that the investigation may include local, state and federal law enforcement.

📎 The Hill

🇺🇸📉 “Regime is big mad about the leaked Nashville Shooter’s manifesto.

No doubt whoever leaked these damning documents will be punished in ways that’ll make the J6 prisoners’ treatment look like child’s play.”

📎 BowTiedRanger

🇷🇺🇺🇦🪖 “The hundreds of thousands of men who wanted to volunteer at the start of the war, many lining up on Day 1, have already joined; many are dead or wounded. Ukraine now needs to mobilize and train many more soldiers to sustain its resistance to the Russian invasion, even as men are increasingly dodging the draft."

📎 New York Times

🇷🇺🇺🇦🪖 Ukrainian Finance Ministry: Russia's military budget is 2.5 times larger than Ukraine's

Marchenko spoke about Ukraine's financing needs for 2024 and the importance of maintaining support for Ukraine from international partners. As he said, the share of military expenditures is more than 50% of the total budget and about 21% of GDP by 2024. 

As the minister reported, Ukraine directs all revenues from the state budget and internal borrowing to finance the military campaign. At the same time, in terms of taxation and domestic borrowing, Ukraine has reached its limits. 

Ukraine's financial needs for foreign aid in 2024 amount to $41 billion. At the same time, the unmet need for external financing for the next year is $29 billion. At the same time, Russia's budget for the military campaign is $115 billion, more than 2.5 times more than Ukraine’s budget. 

📎 Ukrainian Pravda

🇷🇺🪖 So the Russian economy is running at full employment and the country is building a giant army that they didn’t previously have? Huh. Any comments on that from Western foreign policy strategists?

📎 Philip Pilkington

📝 🇷🇺 "Countries become vastly more powerful a couple of years into a war than when they started, particularly when they are in a real war, mobilizing both manpower and industry."

https://www.ft.com/content/dc76f0bb-cae2-4a3a-b704-903d2fc59a96

https://archive.ph/XFTXN

🇷🇺🇺🇸 The United States currently produces 14,000 155mm artillery shells per month, and plans to increase this to 90k in 2024.

Russia, meanwhile, produced 1.7 million until beginning of 2022, increased their rate to 3.3 million in 2022, and further plans for 5 million per annum by 2024. If the reports of China moving to directly supply lethal aid are accurate, the firepower advantage of the RuF will grow wider yet.

Once again, we urge our readers to reflect upon the invaluable chart we have posted before.

🇷🇺🇺🇦📝 We wrote the above post back in February and since that time, the United States has quietly revised down its 2024 goals by 30,000 shells per month, moving their old 2024 target back to 2025 now.

What, exactly, the Ukrainians are supposed to do without any ammunition remains unanswered by their Western backers. As we insinuated then, and is becoming obvious now, this war only ends one way and the failure of the counter-offensive is but the first blow.

🇺🇸🇷🇺🇺🇦 Military rearmament is just getting started — without enough critical minerals

Secure critical mineral supply chains are essential to sustain any significant military. The challenge: the US identified 50 critical minerals in 2022 but was 100% net import reliant for 12, and had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption for 31 others.

In other words — as highlighted by recent export ban on gallium and germanium by China, which supplies 54% of all US Germanium — the US military critical mineral supply chain is extremely vulnerable.

📎 The Oregon Group

🇺🇸📝 Outside of mineral constraints, there are only two facilities capable of producing military grade explosives in the entirety of the United States, neither of which have been modernized in decades and don’t have expansion plans until the end of this decade.

There is a reason, after all, the U.S. keeps missing it’s production targets…

🇪🇪🇷🇺 Ants Kiviselg, Estonian intelligence head: Russia producing 1.5 million shells per month

According to the head of Estonian intelligence, Russia has amassed a significant stockpile of ammunition - and they can currently produce around 1.5 million rounds per month today. Russia has also launched almost continuous production at their factories, so they can make even more shells going into the future.

Also of note, Kiviselg revealed that the VKS has lost very few fighter aircraft. It still retains many capabilities, and is very effective against Ukrainian forces.

📎 Link