Russian drone crews have once again demonstrated their tactical prowess in the Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) area, skillfully seeking out and eliminating Ukrainian servicemen and an armored vehicle.
The Russian Defense Miniustry has published footage of Russian kamikaze drones wreaking havoc on Ukrainian manpower and military equipment in the Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) area.
The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), integral to Russia’s military strategy, have been pivotal in changing the course of warfare, compelling the Kiev regime to lose battle after battle.
Russian troops have employed drones en masse, targeting all sorts of enemy weaponry, military facilities, and personnel. The effectiveness of Russian UAVs, particularly in identifying and neutralizing key targets, is a testament to Russia's innovative approach to modern warfare. The sophisticated use of technology showcases Russia's commitment to conducting highly efficient military operations, further cementing its position as a formidable force in the realm of contemporary combat.
Watch Russian Recon Rub Out Ukrainian Troops in Forests Near Kupyansk
The Russian military has effectively incorporated drones into its special military operation, employing them to carry out precise, surgical strikes while minimizing risks to its soldiers.
The Defense Ministry has released a video of Russian reconnaissance drones eliminating Ukrainian militants in the forests of the Kupyansk region.
The clip shows wooded terrain recorded from a reconnaissance drone, as it conducts recon using thermal imaging mode. Subsequently, Ukrainian military personnel are clearly visible among the trees. Once detected, they were eliminated with an ammunition drop from the UAV.
A guided missile comes equipped with a guidance system that effectively controls its flight path and enables it to precisely target a specific object. It can be operated either remotely or autonomously and is specifically designed to transport and deliver a designated payload, such as explosives, to its intended target.
The Russian Defense Ministry recently released a video showcasing the obliteration of a cluster of Ukrainian militants near Kleshcheyevka in the Donetsk People's Republic. The footage depicts Battlegroup Yug unleashing a guided missile that lands a successful strike, resulting in the elimination of an infantry unit from Ukraine's 22nd Separate Mechanized Brigade.
The Ukrainian Army has been unsuccessfully trying to carry out an offensive since June 4. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on October 30 that Kiev had suffered losses amounting to over 90,000 dead or wounded soldiers, in addition to about 600 crippled tanks and 1,900 disabled armored vehicles of various classes. According to the Russian defense chief, Ukraine has not achieved any tactically significant breakthroughs.
Hungary blocked allocation of 500 million euros ($533 million) for arms delivery for Kiev under the European Peace Facility, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Monday.
According to Szijjarto, Hungary has not received guarantees from Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) on non-inclusion of Hungarian companies in the list of “international sponsors of war."
The minister stressed that there was a big pressure on Hungary regarding this issue during the meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday. has failed to provide guarantees.
“Surely, I did not agree to this today, we still adhere to our position: until we receive guarantees from the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption that the situation with the inclusion of OTP Bank or any other Hungarian enterprise for far-fetched reasons in the list of international war sponsors will never be repeated,” Szijjarto told Hungarian journalists.
Hungary will not support anti-Russian any sanctions
The European Commission will present the draft 12th package of anti-Russian sanctions to the EU countries this week, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations, Peter Szijjarto announced on Monday.
"At a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, we received information that the European Commission’s proposal for a new package of sanctions against Russia will be presented to member states this week," Szijjarto at a meeting with Hungarian reporters, which was broadcast on his Facebook page (banned in Russia, owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in Russia).
As Szijjarto noted, he considers the introduction of the 12th package of sanctions "without any comprehensive analysis of the consequences of the first 11 packages" unjustified. He believes that the restrictive measures did not achieve the goal that was stated by the EU, but only caused damage to the European economy, since "the Russian economy was not brought to its knees, and peace in Ukraine did not come closer."
The minister said he is not yet familiar with Brussels’ latest proposals for the 12th package, but Budapest still opposes restrictions on nuclear cooperation with Moscow.
"Hungary will not support any sanctions against the nuclear industry, as this would mean abandoning the security of the Hungarian energy sector," he reiterated.
Szijjarto recalled that approval of a new block of restrictions against Russia will require a unanimous decision of all EU countries. According to preliminary data, the package does not provide for sanctions against organizations and enterprises of the Russian nuclear industry. As Szijjarto noted, one of the types of restrictive measures in this package will likely affect the Russian diamond industry.
As hospitals in Gaza are forced to suspend operations due to Israeli bombardment and shortages of fuel and medicines, the US has expressed concern about medical facilities being affected by fighting.
Gaza’s two largest hospitals, al-Shifa and al-Quds, have both closed. Israeli snipers continue to fire at anyone near al-Shifa Hospital, trapping thousands inside
Two patients and a premature baby have died in al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said, according to the AFP news agency.
Yousef Abu al-Rish told AFP the new deaths brought the toll to six premature babies and nine patients since electrical shortages began affecting the hospital several days ago.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday that it had managed to contact al-Shifa after three days without electricity, water and functioning internet, and that “the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore”.
Palestinians arrive south of Gaza City on Sunday after fleeing their homes and the northern Gaza Strip amid nonstop Israeli bombardment and ongoing clashes between Israel's army and Hamas [Mahmud Hams/AFP]
The largest hospital in Gaza has ceased to function and fatalities among patients are rising, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday, as a fierce Israeli assault continues in the Hamas-controlled strip.
Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave, including the al-Shifa complex, are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, with three newborns dead and more at risk from power outages amid intense fighting nearby, according to medical staff.
The WHO managed to speak to health professionals at al-Shifa, who described a "dire and perilous" situation with constant gunfire and bombing exacerbating the already critical situation, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
"Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly," he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that al-Shifa was "not functioning as a hospital anymore".
"Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly," he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that al-Shifa was "not functioning as a hospital anymore".
Tedros joined other top United Nations officials in calling for an immediate ceasefire.
"The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair," he said.
"A ceasefire must be implemented soon, we also must accelerate and increase the amount of humanitarian aid, and we must begin peace negotiations," President Joko Widodo said in a video recorded after he took part in an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh.
He said the world seemed "helpless" in the face of the suffering of the Palestinians. The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit also urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing" in the Palestinian territories.
The president of Indonesia, home to the world's biggest Muslim population, also called for a ceasefire ahead of meeting U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday.
Amid the growing global outcry over the Palestinian death toll and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the US has offered Israel its wholehearted support and refrained from joining calls for a ceasefire in the enclave. It has also remained highly opaque regarding the specific military assistance it has pledged Tel Aviv.
Throughout its history, the United States has never allowed concerns about the civilian death toll to impact its warfare strategy, and current developments in Gaza are yet another glaring example of this, scholar, educator and journalist K.J. Noh told Sputnik Media.
"The fundamental immorality of US warfare… is that it has never sought to minimize the deaths of civilians. We know that US wars recently have been somewhere in the range of 90 percent civilian deaths,” the scholar underscored.
Recalling US doctrine implemented in countries like Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, it has been “simply to kill anything that moves. You create a free fire zone, you kill anything that moves, and the murder is indiscriminate,” the pundit said. Afterwards, they may use mainstream media to “paste it over” with "PR means and releases."
US Business 'is War'
Whether it is fuelling weapons to fuel the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, or sending military assistance to Israel in its fight against Hamas, “fundamentally, the business of the US is war,” K.J. Noh emphasized.
“You know, the US is number one supplier of arms to the world. It's 40 percent of all arms sales… and it sells them to quisling governments and to governments that are involved in the Pacific pivot - this escalation to war against China,” underscored the scholar, adding that Washington is “turning the entire planet into an armed madhouse” using taxpayers’ dollars.
Ever since the Hamas attack of October 7, Israel’s strong response, with its relentless strikes and then ground operation in Gaza that has been driving up the civilian death toll in the enclave has boosted sympathy for the Palestinian issue across the globe. And yet, we see how Washington has doubled down on its determination to offer “unwavering” support for Israel. As Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue their onslaught on Gaza, the Palestinian death toll in the enclave since 7 October has exceeded 11,000, according to local health officials. US President Joe Biden, however, has rejected calls for a ceasefire, with Washington floating the suggestion for a brief “humanitarian pause” in Israel’s assault to allow aid to enter Gaza or permit civilians to leave the enclave.
After the Biden administration asked for an additional $14 billion for Israel from Congress, Washington committed to delivering to Tel Aviv Iron Dome air defense missiles, small diameter bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, besides the earlier agreed weapons deals, as per US media reports. At the same time, unlike the case with Ukraine, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged that Washington's military supplies to Israel were shrouded in secrecy. During an October 23 press briefing, Kirby said that "We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course."
“Transparency in war is largely an illusion or at best, selective. You know, war is always deception. Both the published lists and the unpublished lists. The published lists are designed to intimidate, or message, or signal, or posture. And the unpublished lists are… often hiding dirty criminal tactics.”
As far as the ongoing developments in besieged Gaza, which is being pounded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), “the US is providing the weapons,” K.J. Noh pointed out, adding:
“It is now the accomplice, or it has always been the accomplice to this genocide of which we know 99.6 percent have been civilians so far by any tabulation that we can see. And so because the US is accomplice to this genocide, it has said there are no restrictions on how the weapons are used. So then it makes sense that it would obscure the weapons that it provided.”
“The use the use of war by the US has been a constant, certainly at least since the 1990s, and certainly… the use of proxies as well… We know that ISIS* itself was cultivated by the US until it started to blow back,” the expert recalled.
Furthermore, now Israel has reportedly requested several hundred expendable switchblade kamikaze drones, K.J. Noh pointed out, which signals “that there is going to be intense urban warfare with intense casualties.”
“And it just speaks to the constant escalation, and the fact that there is the ‘no holds barred’ [approach] as this war continues to move forward," he said.
'Real Costs of War'
From the Biden administration's opaque arms deals with Israel, and lack of concern for the civilian death toll in Gaza, the educator weiged in on the American establishment's attitude towards its own soldiers.
“We don't understand or we choose not to understand the real costs of war,” K.J. Noh said.
A recent report in The New York Times appeared to shed light on strange new physical and psychic wounds discerned among military gun crews, dating back to a "secret US offensive during 2016 and 2017" seeking to defeat the Islamic State in Syria. At the time, a plan to put a minimal number of American boots on the ground to target the enemy with artillery fire backfired in the sense that the US soldiers returned plagued by nightmares, panic attacks, depression, etc. Many, as per the report, have died by suicide. The Marine Corps in 2019 issued findings of an investigation that showed these gun crews were likely injured by having to fire a huge number of rounds daily. And yet, the military appeared to dismiss these concerns.
“What this article does, in my opinion, is it takes what looks to me like a description of war trauma, PTSD, moral injury, and then tries to shoehorn it into a kind of biophysical symptom that is blast exposure or blast shock. Now, this is not new. This type of thinking goes all the way back to World War II,” claimed the expert.
According to K.J. Noh, its “part of an ideological crusade that wants to distract from the moral costs, and to turn moral damage into a medical phenomenon which that you can then treat with medical procedures."
“The simple fact is that when you seek to snuff out another human's life, you have to silence your own conscience. And sometimes that doesn't work, and so then this conscience returns with a vengeance... And I think these types of hauntings and hallucinations are part of that phenomenon,” K.J. Noh underscored.
