Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 07-14-2024

The drone footage captures a significant explosion followed by smaller ones after Ukrainian forces struck the self-propelled gun.

Ukrainian troops have reportedly destroyed a Russian Akatsiya self-propelled gun valued at over a million dollars, according to the Strategic Communications Department of the Ukrainian General Staff on Telegram.

“The Russian Akatsiya burned brightly,” read the caption accompanying the published video.

The Chinese defense ministry said in a statement on Sunday that this operation is "not targeted at any third party and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation."

China and Russia conducted a joint naval patrol in the northern and western Pacific, Beijing's defense ministry said Sunday, adding that the exercise was not "targeted" at any other nation.

The two countries have drawn closer in recent years and tout their friendship as having "no limits". Both share hostile relations with US-led Western defence alliance NATO.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

Poland is considering a Ukrainian proposal to intercept Russian rockets that are on course to hit cities in Ukraine or enter Polish territory, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said following a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Friday. “We are a frontline state and Russian missiles breach our airspace – we assume by mistake,” Sikorski said. Sikorski explained that some missiles fired from around St. Petersburg fly along the Polish border through Belarusian airspace, before briefly entering Polish airspace for about 40 seconds before hitting targets inside Ukraine. “Our dilemma is the following: if we shoot them down only when they enter our airspace, the debris is a threat to our citizens and to our property,” he said. “And the Ukrainians are saying, ‘Please, we will not mind, do it over our airspace when they’re in imminent danger of crossing into Polish territory,’” he said, “To my mind, that’s self-defense but we are exploring the idea.” - CNN

Former President Donald J. Trump was escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents and into his motorcade just minutes into his rally on Saturday in Butler, Pa., after a series of pops that sounded like gunshots rang out. The exact source of the noises was unclear, but Mr. Trump’s ear appeared to be bleeding as he was rushed off the stage. Mr. Trump had been showing a chart of numbers about border crossings, which his audiovisual staff placed on screens above the stage, when the apparent shots rang out. The former president ducked quickly after the noises began, with the sound coming from the bleachers to the left of where he was standing at a lectern. The noises came in two groups, and smoke rose from that section of the bleachers. As members of the crowd began screaming, Mr. Trump was tackled by Secret Service agents. Officials shouted for the crowd to duck and cover, whisking members of the news media off the press riser where they had been watching Mr. Trump’s speech. After a brief pause, Mr. Trump rose, surrounded by a group of uniformed Secret Service members. He pumped his fist to the crowd, and then was rushed off the stage and ushered into his motorcade, which quickly left the venue, the Butler Farm Show. - NYT

The attack has already stoked political tensions, with some Republicans pointing the finger at Biden and right-wing conspiracy theories flooding social media.

Donald Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident set to supercharge political tensions ahead of the polarising US presidential election.

The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood streaked across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the shooter and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured.

A lack of honest, unbiased, and regular feedback from Ukraine’s senior leadership is a massive barrier to their effectiveness and overall organizational performance.

The latest IMF Review for Ukraine highlights key policy expectations for the country’s senior leadership team: increasing productivity, mobilizing domestic financing, strengthening anti-corruption institutions, and managing expenditures within a tight envelope.

Given the current Ukrainian context, including human capital outflow, a negative debt trajectory, and the ongoing war, these commitments to the IMF and other creditors are extremely challenging to execute. They require not only effective management of scarce resources but also a drastic enhancement of the quality of management itself.

As a result of the sabotage, Russian weapons and food warehouses were destroyed, and twenty Russian servicemen received severe burns.

The Atesh partisan movement reported via Telegram that a sabotage operation carried out near the Russian-occupied Oleshki in the Kherson region resulted in a large-scale fire.

An Atesh agent set fire to dry grass in several places near the positions of one of the units of the 70th Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Defense Forces, which provoked the large-scale fire.

A selection of what European newspapers are saying about whether Joe Biden should run for US president again.

After Joe Biden's weak performance in the televised debate with Donald Trump and gaffes at the NATO summit, calls for him to withdraw from the US presidential race are growing louder. Current polls put the incumbent behind Trump. Despite Biden's repeated avowals that he won't step aside, the debate in Europe's press continues.

Grab the media spotlight with a fresh candidate

Kyiv Post interviews Dr. Daniel Szeligowski, the head of the Eastern Program at the Polish Institute of International Affairs about what peace talks might look, particularly after US elections.

Part 1 - here.

The topic of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia is increasingly being discussed by the media and politicians.

Sources told Kyiv Post that various brands of gasoline and diesel fuel with a total volume of 12.5 thousand cubic meters were stored there.

Drones of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) attacked an oil depot in the Tsimlyansky district of the Russian Rostov region early in the morning on Saturday, July 13, sources in the law enforcement agencies told Kyiv Post.

“The night turned out to be very hot for the Russian oil depot,” the source said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke of a "paradox" in which "Europe is a target for our missiles, our country is a target for US missiles in Europe".

The Kremlin on Saturday warned that the deployment of US missiles in Germany could make European capitals targets for Russian missiles in a repeat of Cold War-style confrontation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke of a "paradox" in which "Europe is a target for our missiles, our country is a target for US missiles in Europe".

Despite MAGA’s antipathy to the Ukrainian cause, Evangelicals realize that true Christian ideals coincide with beleaguered Ukrainians rather than Putin apologists.

As Republicans prepare to convene in Milwaukee next week, the posture of Evangelicals is rapidly shifting on Ukraine in response to a months-long drumbeat of news reports documenting Russia’s persecution of Christians in occupied territories of Ukraine.

This shift has significant political and policy ramifications because self-identified Christian Evangelicals are the most reliable and, arguably, the most important bloc of voters in the Trump coalition. Of the 74.2 million votes Trump received in 2020, 45.4 percent (33.7 million) were white Evangelical Christians, according to exit polls.

World leaders reacted with shock to the wounding of Donald Trump in an assassination attempt against the former US president at an election rally.

Presidents and prime ministers globally spoke out against political violence and expressed their support for those affected by the shooting on Saturday, which killed one bystander and left two other spectators critically wounded.

- Europe -

Trump thanked law enforcement and rescuers for their quick actions. He is fine and undergoing examination at a local medical facility.

Former US President and likely future Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was shot during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

What happened

The secret training center teaches volunteers how to build, fix, arm and fly FPV drones into buildings, through the hatches of vehicles and carry out kamikaze attacks.

FPV and “Baba Yaga” heavy bomber drones have had a major impact on the way the war in Ukraine is fought and has fast become a weapon of choice. From the earliest appearance of drones following the February 2022 full-scale invasion, the demand for pilots has grown and that need is about to become even more intense.

Five countries have signed up to a Drone Coalition on the sidelines of the NATO Heads of State summit in Washington on Wednesday, July 10. Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK have pledged more than €45 million ($49 million) into a Common Fund to provide one million UAV for Ukraine and have committed to seek additional contributions.

The US based blogger recorded a YouTube appeal to the Russian Defense Minister, who she calls her great Uncle, to cease missile attacks on his family in Kyiv.

The independent Russian news site The Insider interviewed Natalia Vertinskaya and reported on the YouTube video posted by the former Kyiv resident who now lives in the US, in which she detailed the links between Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov with relatives who still live in Ukraine and called on him to cease attacking the country.

The Insider verified the fact that Vertinskaya’s father is Belousov’s first cousin who still lives in Kyiv and the fact that Major General Alexander Belousov, Natalia’s great-grandfather and Andrei Belousov’s grandfather, is indeed buried with his wife in Ukraine’s capital. It seems that neither Belousov nor his father, a prominent Russian economist have had contact with their Ukrainian relatives for many years.