Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (2 year anniversary)

ORYX ^ | Since February 24, 2022 and daily | ORYX

[JonPreston]

Iran Update, August 8, 2025

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Abdollah Hajji Sadeghi, implicitly expressed support on August 8 for negotiations with the United States.[11] Sadeghi stated that “wise negotiations under the supervision of the Supreme Leader” could support Iran’s fight against Israel. Iran has not softened its stance on domestic uranium enrichment, which was the main sticking point between Iran and the United States in negotiations before the Israel-Iran War. Multiple Iranian officials, such as Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister for Political Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi, have insisted that Iran will continue domestic uranium enrichment despite the war.[12] The United States has maintained that domestic uranium enrichment is a non-starter in negotiations.[13]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-august-8-2025 < 🔥🇷🇺 NASA satellites have detected large-scale fires in the area of the Russian military airfield Millerovo (in the vicinity, not at the airfield itself).

Local residents report columns of smoke from the impacts.

It is presumed that a Ukrainian UAV strike hit fuel tanks.

https://x.com/NSTRIKE1231/status/1953857020068532349 Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (2 year anniversary)< ‼️🇷🇺💵 The deficit of the Russian federal budget, according to data from the first 7 months of 2025, has increased to nearly 120 billion dollars.

Banks are refusing to lend foreign currency to the government because they themselves are already financially dependent on the central bank.

https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1953718826635304977

[blitz128]

Soooo much data 😂🤡

[AdmSmith]

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 19, 2025

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accurately stated that the Kremlin's objective in Ukraine is to politically control all of Ukraine rather than to seize select Ukrainian territories such as Donetsk Oblast. Lavrov claimed in a televised interview on August 19 that the Kremlin has “never talked about the need to seize any territories” from Ukraine and that Russia's goal was not to seize Crimea, Donbas, or other areas of Ukraine.[1] The claim seems bizarre in the context of Russia's repeated demands that Ukraine and the West recognize Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territory, including territory Russian forces do not control. It reflects the deeper Russian aims in Ukraine, however, quite accurately. Lavrov reiterated that Russia's war objectives concern “protecting” the people in Ukraine from the Ukrainian government, which the Kremlin falsely portrays as illegitimate and oppressive.[2] Lavrov’s description of the Kremlin's aim to “protect” Ukrainians from their own government reflects the fact that the Kremlin seeks to remove the democratically elected Ukrainian government and replace it with a pro-Russian government that would allow the Kremlin to control Ukraine without needing to fight for physical control over territory or annex it. Lavrov notably made demands during the interview that reject Ukraine's sovereignty including that Ukraine repeal laws regarding language and religion that are the proper concern only of the government of a sovereign state. Lavrov stated explicitly “there can be no talk of any long-term [peace] agreements” with Ukraine “without respect” for Russia's security and the rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine, as “these are the reasons that must be urgently eliminated in the context of a settlement.”[3] The Kremlin's continued insistence on controlling Ukrainian domestic affairs reflects the arguments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his 2021 essay arguing that Ukraine should not exist independently of Russia.[4]

Lavrov’s August 19 statement further emphasizes the Kremlin's broader objective of obtaining full political control over Ukraine before Russia ends its war.[5] Considering Russia's territorial demands separately from demands concealed by its references to “root causes” obscures the reality that the Kremlin views its war demands as indivisible – the Kremlin aims to accomplish all of these goals and has shown no willingness to compromise any of them or sacrifice some for others to facilitate or complete a peace process. The Kremlin has repeatedly defined its war aims as Ukrainian demilitarization, government change in favor of a pro-Russian proxy government, and Ukrainian commitments barring it from joining NATO and other international alliances.[6] Kremlin officials have consistently reiterated throughout the war and negotiations process that Russia will achieve these war aims either militarily or diplomatically in line with Lavrov’s August 19 statements.[7]

Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022 after failing to secure control over Ukraine by other means. Russia has long attempted to exert control over former Soviet states through continuing cognitive warfare efforts.[8] Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, in which the Ukrainian people protested for a transparent Western-style government, threatened effective Russian control over Ukraine and prompted the Kremlin to launch a series of cognitive warfare efforts in order to stop and reverse the loss of Russian influence in Ukraine.[9] Russian President Vladimir Putin accelerated his efforts to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty following the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution that drove out Ukraine's Russia-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych, and in favor of a democratically elected, pro-Western government.[10] Russia illegally occupied and annexed Crimea in response, accelerated hybrid operations, and backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.[11] Putin tried to force Ukraine to legitimize the Russia-invented Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) in the 2015 Minsk II accords that established the ceasefire that Russia broke fully in 2022. The Kremlin pressured Ukraine to extend the legal limited autonomy of the regions in December 2019 and to enshrine broader autonomy for Donbas as a constituent part of Ukraine into the Ukrainian Constitution so that the DNR and LNR could serve as conduits for Russian influence in and ultimately control over the government in Kyiv, but Ukraine rejected this effort.[12] The Kremlin ultimately launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 after this failure to bring Ukraine back under Russian control. Putin has long denied Ukrainian sovereignty and alleged that Ukrainians have always belonged to the Russian nation because of their shared “historical and spiritual space.”[13] Putin used these claims as part of his justification for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was the culmination of eight years of failed efforts to regain control of Ukraine through hybrid warfare campaigns.

Russia similarly seeks to exert influence over the internal governance of other former Soviet countries, including NATO states, effectively denying their sovereignty and setting conditions to threaten their independent governance. Russian officials are setting informational conditions to justify exerting control over former Soviet states, including NATO members Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, by denying the legality of the collapse of the Soviet Union.[14] The Kremlin asserts its right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Baltic States by prosecuting officials who remove Soviet-era war monuments and citizens who graffiti them within these states’ sovereign territories in absentia under Russian law that does not apply to those states.[15] Russia notably launched one of the first ever cyberattacks against Estonia in response to the Estonian government's decision to relocate a Soviet “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn.”[16] Russian efforts to exert control over the Baltics has failed. Russia has been much more successful in establishing control over both Belarus and Georgia, however, by launching hybrid operations in both countries and backing pro-Russian governments that are loyal to the Kremlin.[17] The Kremlin now seeks to bring Belarus further into Russian control through the Union State framework and to eliminate the facade of an independent Belarus completely.

Lavrov implicitly rejected suggestions that Russia might accept Western security guarantees for Ukraine. Lavrov stated on August 19 that Russia and Ukraine cannot make any long-term agreements that do not take into account Russia's “security interests,” very likely referring to Russia's demand for Ukrainian “neutrality.”[18] Russian officials have long insisted on Ukrainian neutrality and non-alignment with NATO as a precondition to negotiations, and Russia is likely setting information space conditions to oppose Western security guarantees for Ukraine.[19] Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated on August 18 that Russia “categorical[ly] reject[s]... any scenario that envisages the appearance in Ukraine of a military contingent with the participation of NATO countries.”[20] The Kremlin's demand ostensibly for Ukraine's neutrality is in fact meant to isolate Ukraine from its allies and deny Ukraine its sovereign right to form alliances even as Russia insists on de facto control over Ukraine's domestic internal affairs.[21]

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on August 18 that elements of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense arrived in Russia to participate in missile launches, anti-air operations, and aerial combat exercises at the Ashuluk Training Ground in Ashuluk, Astrakhan Oblast, ahead of the Zapad-2025 joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises in September 2025.[102]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-19-2025

[blitz128]

As I have stated and observed for years, the Russian claims of a need for security guarantees flies in the face of reality.

For decades NATO was on Russia’s borders, no attacks.

For decades Europe and the west have traded and invested in Russia, not something one does if they are planning on attacking.

For decades Europe has let their military and MIC degrade, not something one does if they are preparing for war with Russia.

For decades Europe had become more and more energy dependent on Russia, again something not in one’s interest if planning on war with Russia

As usual Russians talk out of both sides of their mouths

Interesting how the Russians admit to interfering in other nations politics, apparently okay, but condemn other nations for doing the same

Russian Mir😎

[PIF]

Russian Mir😎

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BTW: the above meme implies a Russian world by conquest, as well as a Russian imposed peace on the world. It is signified by a closed fist.