Belgorod region, governor:

The Belgorod region came under attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There are wounded.

The Oktyabrsky settlement was shelled three times in the evening, 4 civilians were injured. A 12-year-old girl received a blind shrapnel wound to the shoulder. She was taken to the Oktyabrskaya District Hospital by a passing vehicle. After providing first aid, an ambulance team took her to the Children's Regional Clinical Hospital. Two women with various shrapnel wounds were taken by ambulance teams to Belgorod City Hospital No. 2. A man with a shrapnel wound to his leg came to the Oktyabrskaya RB on his own. He will be transferred to Belgorod City Hospital No. 2 for further treatment. The victims are receiving all necessary assistance.

As a result of the munition hitting, outbuildings caught fire on the territory of two private homes. Fire crews have extinguished the fires. According to preliminary data, roofs were damaged, windows were broken and facades were chipped in 20 residential buildings. In addition, 14 cars received various damages.

In the village of Petrovka, a drone attacked a parked passenger car, damaging the vehicle's body.

Emergency services are working on the ground, patrolling the area continues. Information about the consequences is being clarified.

⚡️ Two Majors

Старше Эдды:

In Odessa, a certain Gennady Beibutyan, a khokhlo businessman, a volunteer assistant to local policemen, who helped the TCC workers catch people for food in graves, suddenly died from a sharp increase in the proportion of lead in his body. It should be noted that, among other things, these volunteer assistants also act as intermediaries in the transfer of bribes to TCC workers from those wishing to avoid mobilization.

Overall, it is good that he died, a creature in terms of the totality of characteristics is as disgusting as possible, worse than any front-line "Azov" soldier, at least they risk their lives. This one did not want to risk his life, but it was taken from him against his will.

This is the next stage of developments. The faces of TCC workers are being beaten, which is why they began to need volunteer assistants. Cars and buildings are being burned. Now the dead have begun, and I think that this process will continue. No one needs to explain that the wider it is, the better it is for us (and for the normal people who are still left in Ukraine and are interested in ending the war). The main thing here is that each such episode, in addition to direct material damage, also gives an extensive informational consequence. People, in particular, understand that a TCC member can be killed.

And the TCC members themselves find it increasingly uncomfortable to work with each such episode. In this regard, one question: how soon will military censorship in Ukraine be brought to perfection, leaving only the Telemarathon and only messages about victories, so that people do not think too much?

Старше Эдды
⚡️ Two Majors

⚡️🇷🇺🇺🇦⚔️ Two Majors #Summary Overview for the Morning of 20 October 2024; 07:26 (GMT+3)⚡️

🗓 Last week, Zelensky's statements on #Ukraine's hopes of obtaining nuclear weapons and the need for #NATO countries to train brigades to participate in the conflict were indicative. In fact, Kiev follows the only way left to retain power, prolonging the war by dragging others into it. Publicly, both statements were not supported in the #West. The current increase of military-technical aid to Ukraine from Germany, where they spoke of 'depleting heavy arms stocks', was indicative. Words and deeds of politicians differ. In fact, they serve the arms corporations, on costs of social national budgets expenditures.

🔹Zelensky's harsh statements are caused, among other things, by the deteriorating AFU front situation. In Kursk region during the week the RFAF continued their counteroffensive, achieving successes east of #Lyubimovka and in the area of #Plekhovo. The foe sends in Special Forces SRGs near #Volfino and #Tetkino, and prepares active operations at the Kursk and Bryansk regions' border junction.

🔹Near #Kupyansk, our Oskol front at #Kruglyakovka is expanding. Southwards in the #Liman area, the RFAF increase the control zone at the recently liberated #Nevskoye. Forward Russian units were reported to advance on the eastern outskirts of #Torskoye.

🔹In #ChasovYar, heavy fighting in the Oktyabrsky district, ours manage to advance. South of the town, the RFAF control zone is also expanding, which should complicate the foe's logistics.

🔹In #Toretsk, despite difficult urban battles, the AFU defence is being pushed through as well. Our advance from #NyuYork to #Leonidovka has become serious.

🔹In #Pokrovsk direction, the RF MoD claimed the liberation of #Zoryanoye. Actions to cover #Selidovo are successful, we try to take foe's supply routes under fire control.

🔹In #Kurakhovo direction, our control zone expands to south of #Maximilyanovka, which creates prospects for an offensive on #Kurakhovo itself along two roads. Southwards a gradual advance in #Katerinovka and #Antonovka. North of #Ugledar ours move on #Bogoyavlenka. To the west, the control zone at #ZolotayaNiva has been expanded.

🔹On the #Vremyevka ledge, Military analysts note an increased advance rate of our troops in recent weeks, which might still slightly fall due to the weather. Generally, the RFAF retain the initiative, but due to technological changes, we cannot yet speak of major offensives at greater depth.

🔹In all directions, the personnel leave remains a problem, as well as the discrepancy between the new technical means supply and the needs of the units in advance. The subject of mobilised citizens in 2022 remains under a tacit ban. The issue of 'beautiful field reports' has not been resolved due to the lack of liability for lies, and middle commanders are often engaged in embellishment. In particular, #Donetsk generates the most signals about the lack of supplies to frontline hospitals, incl. trivial dressing materials. In lack of medical staff the wounded have to stay at medical centres for a long time. Due the somewhat closed system of military medicine, messages from the field 'upwards' do not lead to necessary supplies. In rear hospitals it looks also sometimes tragicomic with known cases when secretly medicines and dressing materials have been thrown over the fence.

🔹We noted extremely interesting info on the possible activation of North Koreans in the SMO, which principally fits into the Partnership Treaty with North Korea. It could gain combat experience and tests arms and equipment in real combat.

📌 Thus, despite the statements on negotiations, the AFU supply continues, although they estimate that without, the AFU will last '15 days'. The real actions point to conflict escalation, while the populist statements on an inevitable ceasefire are intended only to serve clan interests in the #US electoral period, the approach of which increases the likelihood of new AFU actions for political and media purposes.

⚡️ Two Majors
📱 Translation by Global Depth

Mission impossible: Ukraine would have to beat corruption to even have a shot at NATO membership

Ukraine’s desperate efforts to become a NATO member may have been all for naught as Kiev now faces a new insurmountable obstacle on its way to the coveted place in the US-led military bloc.

Having announced this week that NATO members have to agree on the criteria for Ukraine’s possible admission, Dutch Minister of Defense Ruben Brekelmans mentioned one such potential criteria – a criteria Kiev is very unlikely to meet.

Brekelmans suggested that Ukraine should make progress in fighting corruption - something that has long become synonymous with the powers that be in Kiev.

One need look no farther than to the Kiev’s war machine as Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense got embroiled in a number of corruption scandals.

▪️Last year, the ministry was busted procuring food, fuel and even winter clothing for troops for inflated prices: for example, the ministry paid about $2.17 for a liter of diesel and around $0.46 for a single egg.

▪️In January, Ukrainian authorities announced that an arms company was caught attempting to embezzle about $40 million slated for the purchase of some 100,000 mortar shells.

▪️Much of the Western military supplies for Ukraine, which have been flowing steadily to Kiev since 2022, have also ended up in the hands of Ukrainian black market dealers, including small arms, anti-tank missiles and even loitering munitions a.k.a. kamikaze drones.

▪️As the forcible draft of Ukrainian men, which quickly devolved into veritable press-ganging, intensified, many Ukrainians turned to bribing army and medical officials to be exempt from the measure. Nearly $6 million in cash was discovered earlier this month by Ukrainian security officers who raided the residence of one of Ukraine’s regional medical commission accused of facilitating draft dodging in exchange for bribes.

▪️Other sectors of the Ukrainian state do not fare any better. Ukraine’s state-owned electricity transmission system operator Ukrenergo in 2023 approved over 60 tender-free contracts, $1.6 million each, for the installation of protective structures on transformers.

The deadline for the completion of these contracts was pushed back on multiple occasions all the way to June 2024, yet none of them were completed as of September when the then-Ukrenergo chief was finally sacked.

▪️In April, an illegal scheme to obtain state-owned land worth over $7 million was uncovered by Ukrainian authorities, with the suspect being none other than then-minister of agriculture.

With all of those instances in mind, one can only wonder how Ukraine could even begin to tackle the rampant corruption in the foreseeable future.

👍 Boost us! | Subscribe to @geopolitics_live

Zakharova:

On September 26, a group of Danish journalists published an investigation into the causes of the explosions at Nord Stream.

The captain of the island port of Christiansø (located on the archipelago of the same name, 18 km northeast of Bornholm) Jon Anker Nielsen directly states that for the last two years he has been forced to remain silent about what he saw on the eve of the explosion:

"In the first days, the harbour master, by his own admission, was told 'not to say a word'. But today Jon Anker Nielsen can well say that four or five days before the Nord Stream explosions, he went with the rescue service to Christiansø because several unidentified ships had been found there with their transponders switched off and were not responding to inquiries. As it turned out, these were American warships. When the rescue mission approached them, the command ordered them to turn back."

Think about it: less than a week before the explosion, the American navy was secretly (with its transponders turned off) operating in Denmark's exclusive economic zone. And the unfortunate captain of a small Danish port knew about it all this time, but he was silenced for many years. I wonder if the Swedish, German and Danish investigators questioned him? Are his words in the investigation archives? Or were they so hooked on the version about the Polish-Ukrainian diver Vladimir Z. that they decided to cross out everything that didn't fit in with it?

When Jon Anker Nielsen's testimony was reported in a retelling format by RT, the Kremlin was once again accused by Danish media of carrying out a "disinformation campaign" and "propaganda".

Think again: RT simply repeated the words of a Danish sailor, published by Danish media.

In this regard, the question is: what about Biden's threats to destroy Nord Stream 2? And Victoria Nuland's promises to stop its work?

Margot, is this you too?

⚡️ Two Majors

Northwest of Artemovsk (Bakhmut)

The 1st assault squad of the "Wolves" brigade shows an aerial battle of drones : ours against the enemy's "Baba Yaga".

⚡️ Two Majors

Russian Ministry of Defense:

During the night, air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed 110 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles : 43 UAVs over the territory of the Kursk region, 27 over the territory of the Lipetsk region, 18 over the territory of the Oryol region, 8 over the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region, 7 over the territory of the Belgorod region, 6 over the territory of the Bryansk region, and one over the territory of the Moscow region.

⚡️ Two Majors

Nizhny Novgorod region, governor:

At night, air defense and electronic warfare systems repelled a UAV attack on the territory of the Dzerzhinsk industrial zone. According to preliminary data, four employees of the fire department located on the territory of the industrial enterprise received minor shrapnel wounds - they were given the necessary medical care, everyone was sent home. Emergency services are working at the site of the fallen debris.

⚡️ Two Majors

Pokrovsk direction. Captured Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, 157th separate infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (created in 2024)

▪️Soldier Mochalov Andrey Nikolaevich born 1981
▪️Driver Sitych Andrey Vladimirovich born in 1975

🇺🇦 Soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, write: @spasizhiznbot . Surrender. You will live.

❗️Citizens of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, after surrendering, loudly and clearly state your last name and other information on camera. Your relatives will know about you from this information. But they will not know about your comrades. They died for Biden.

⚡️ Two Majors