Saturday, July 19, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Significant Russian advances in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 2 May 2024
– By Editorial Staff
Many analysts have been arguing for months (if not years) that Ukraine will not be able to win the war.
3 minute read

Since the beginning of the year, Russia has been consolidating and expanding its positions with the largest territorial advance since the beginning of the war. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling on the US and its allies to step up arms deliveries.

Russia has intensified its offensive along the frontlines in Ukraine in recent months, securing its largest territorial gains since 2022.

The ongoing expansion, including concerns about Russia’s upcoming summer offensive, has set off alarm bells in Kiev and among its Western allies. A coalition that now fears for Ukraine’s very existence, as well as the overall geopolitical stability of the region.

According to Ukrainian military analysts, the ongoing Russian offensive has created a critical situation for Ukraine, where the support of the United States and Western countries, according to those in power in Kiev, plays a crucial role in the country’s continued defense capability and survival.

A US Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) during the failed Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023 is seen here burned out on the battlefield. Photo: Telegram/facsimile

Collapse in Avdiyivka

After a long wait for US military aid that was finally approved – via what critics say was a major betrayal by Republican congressional spokesman Mike Johnson (R) – Ukraine is now facing an increased Russian military presence along the front lines.

Something that has seriously tested the country’s defense capabilities. Not least its air defense and air force, which are more or less non-existent on some front lines. Add to this the staggering and deeply disturbing loss of some half a million Ukrainian soldiers, dead, wounded and missing.

Russian forces have taken advantage of the artillery shortage that has plagued Ukraine’s defenses since December 2023 to advance along the eastern front, with particular success near the heavily fortified and logistically important town of Avdiyivka, located in the center of the Donetsk region.

This tactical advance has seriously alarmed Ukrainian military leaders, who are now warning of the threat to key supply lines and strategic areas in eastern Ukraine.

According to the latest reports from the front, Russian forces have taken control of their initial positions in the village of Arkhanhelske (Kherson Oblast), leading Ukrainian troops to encircle the area between Arkhanhelske and Keramik. According to reliable sources, Russian forces have also captured the village of Paraskoviivka.

There is also a high level of activity in Chasiv Yar, where several houses have reportedly been secured by Russian forces. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops have launched a counterattack east of Yampolivka and managed to regain lost positions along the edge of the forest.

Despite international calls and Ukrainian appeals for additional military and economic assistance, Russia has continued to advance toward Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar, for example, further weakening Ukraine’s defensive position.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has pledged that Sweden will support Ukraine “as long as it takes”. Photo: Magnus Liljegren/Swedish Government

Kharkov next?

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued an urgent appeal to Western countries for a sharp increase in military supplies to bolster Ukraine’s defenses. He has stressed the urgency of the situation and sounded the alarm about the growing risk of what he sees as further Russian invasion or territorial expansion.

For example, there are indications that the Russian army is currently building up troops and materiel on the border northeast of Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv.

This possible army corps (approximately two to four divisions), according to several sources, would be under the Northern Army Group, designated “N”, under the presumed command of Colonel General Aleksandr Lapin.

As Ukraine struggles to reinforce its fortifications along the front lines, not to mention desperately trying to find men to fill its severely depleted manpower lines, the country now faces an uncertain future in the face of what is believed to be an imminent Russian summer offensive, where Russian advances threaten to fundamentally change the geopolitical dynamics in the region.

If the Russian army does advance into Ukraine through the Kharkiv-Sumy border, Volodymyr Zelenskyi will likely face his greatest challenge since the war began on February 22, 2022.

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Hungary wants EU sanctions on Ukrainian forced conscription officers

The war in Ukraine

Published 16 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Hungarian Foreign Minister demands that those responsible must be held accountable for the murder and brutal assault of people who refused to go to war.
1 minute read

Following the Council of Europe report, the brutality surrounding forced recruitment patrols in Ukraine must be covered by EU human rights sanctions. This is the view of Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

Referring to the Council of Europe report titled Memorandum on human rights elements for peace in Ukraine, dated July 8, 2025 and signed by the EU Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, Szijjártó points out that conscription in Ukraine involves murder, torture, brutal assault and brutal treatment.

— It is a fact that people are dying in Ukraine because of the brutality of the conscription officers, because they don’t want to go to war.

— Where are the NGOs, where are the Soros organizations, where are the so-called independent journalists, where are the human rights organizations, why do they not speak out and say that this manhunt on the streets of Ukraine is unacceptable? asks Péter Szijjártó.

Szijjártó emphasizes that they view it as unacceptable and “shocking” that European politicians remain indifferent to the brutality and stresses that they demand the responsible recruiters be placed on the EU’s human rights sanctions list.

— This is a bare minimum that the EU must do in this issue, he emphasizes.

Trump urges Zelensky to attack Moscow

The war in Ukraine

Published 16 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

Donald Trump has secretly urged Ukraine to carry out attacks against the Russian major cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg – as a strategy to force Russia to the negotiating table, according to the Financial Times.

The conversation reportedly took place on July 4 between American and Ukrainian representatives, where Trump posed direct questions to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:

– Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?

According to the newspaper’s sources, the plan is to make Russia “feel pain” in order to pressure a settlement. Trump has previously expressed frustration over the war’s duration and said:

– I’m disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago.

At the same time, it is reported that Zelensky has received a list of long-range weapons that Trump wants to deliver through intermediaries – to circumvent Congress’s ban on direct military aid.

Escalation in the war

The revelations come at a sensitive time. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that Russia could strike against the West if its weapons are used against Russian territory.

President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia has the right to “use our weapons against military facilities in countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”.

In November 2024, Russia tightened its nuclear doctrine, which now allows nuclear response if Russia is attacked with conventional weapons by “non-nuclear states supported by nuclear powers”.

So far, Ukraine has primarily used domestically produced long-range drones in its attacks inside Russia. Neither the White House nor the Ukrainian government has commented on the revelation.

North Korea declares “full support” for Russia

The war in Ukraine

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during their meeting in Wonsan, North Korea.
1 minute read

North Korea is providing its “unconditional support” to Russia in the war against Ukraine. This was declared during a meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Wonsan on Saturday, according to North Korean state media.

Kim Jong-Un informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the country stands ready to provide strong assistance in the conflict against Ukraine during a meeting that took place on Saturday in the coastal town of Wonsan on North Korea’s east coast, a location that the country has recently attempted to market as a tourist destination.

According to the North Korean news agency KCNA, Kim Jong-Un told Lavrov that North Koreans have “expressed full sympathy and support for all the measures taken by the Russian government to remove the root cause of the Ukrainian conflict”.

The North Korean leader is also said to have expressed his “firm conviction that the Russian army and people” will triumph and “achieve the sacred cause of defending the country’s dignity and fundamental interests”, KCNA reports.

Before the meeting with Kim Jong-Un, Lavrov met with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Choe Son-Hui, earlier in the day.

Deepened military cooperation

Lavrov’s visit to North Korea marks increasingly extensive military and political ties between the two countries, which have accelerated in connection with the war in Ukraine.

Pyongyang has previously sent thousands of soldiers to the Russian border region of Kursk to participate in fighting against Ukrainian forces that occupied parts of the area.

War hawk: Trump will send “record amounts of weapons” to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
War hawk Lindsey Graham with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo to the right in a meeting in Helsinki, Finland in August last year.
2 minute read

The US will send more weapons than ever to Ukraine. These are the tones being heard around the Trump administration as NATO chief Mark Rutte now visits Washington.

A large part of Trump’s voter base is generally considered to be voters who voted for him in hopes that he would reduce US involvement in foreign wars, partly because he promised during the campaign that he would end the war in 24 hours. However, these promises seem to be becoming increasingly distant for the American president.

On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is scheduled to meet Trump in Washington, and Rutte can be pleased that more weapons than ever are now heading to the war in Ukraine. This according to information from, among others, the neoconservative war hawk Lindsey Graham, Republican senator and close ally of the Trump administration.

In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves, says Graham on CBS’s program “Face the Nation”.

European countries foot the bill

A central part of the escalation is that NATO countries, including Sweden, have pledged to increase their weapons purchases, which in practice are largely procured from the American military-industrial complex.

Graham believes that the US escalation of weapons deliveries to the war in Ukraine is part of a “massive effort” to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into peace negotiations. It should be added that Russia has in many different contexts over a long time emphasized that they have been open to negotiations as well as being open about their peace conditions, which primarily revolve around guarantees of Ukraine’s neutrality.

Trump has signaled that he will make a “major statement” about Russia during the day.

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