🇺🇸 — California Governor Gavin Newsom threatens to retaliate against the GOP-led gerrymandering in Texas and other states by gerrymandering their own district maps to favor Democratic Party candidates if Republican states cease their new gerrymandering efforts.

🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺 European leaders are seeking a meeting with Donald Trump, in a desperate attempt to prevent peace being achieved in Ukraine.

While Trump agreed in principle to Ukraine formally ceding control over the Crimean Peninsula and the Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts, EU leaders are wholly opposed to any formal recognition of Russian conquests and demand that Trump tell Russia stop its attacks and the line of contact be frozen.

Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, has rejected any territorial concessions, formal and physical, citing a clause in the Ukrainian constitution which, allegedly, prevents him from doing so. Zelensky received full support from the EU in this regard.

Meanwhile, Russian president, Vladimir Putin, reiterated that his goals have not changed and he continues to seek the formal recognition of Russian conquests so far and additional territorial concessions from Ukraine.

Although EU diplomatic sources have mentioned a condition of "reciprocal territorial exchanges" allegedly discussed by the EU's leaders, there is little to no chance of Moscow agreeing to this demand especially in the wake of a series of breakthroughs in eastern Ukraine.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸🏘 Aarvoll on X: Pro-White Americans need a space for collaborating at a national scale, get involved by emailing missouricommunityproject@proton.me

🔗 Aarvoll

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Western Wall in Jerusalem vandalised with anti-war message

The Western Wall in Jerusalem on Monday was vandalised with graffiti condemning Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, authorities said, triggering widespread condemnation from religious leaders and politicians.

“There is a holocaust in Gaza” was graffitied in Hebrew on the southern portion of the wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray, located in the Israeli-annexed Old City of Jerusalem.

A similar message was also scrawled on the wall of the Great Synagogue, elsewhere in the city.

https://insiderpaper.com/western-wall-in-jerusalem-vandalised-with-anti-war-message/

🇮🇹🇮🇱 Italy’s Defense Minister has posited sanctions on Israel, calling the situation in Gaza “unacceptable” and contrary to the “founding values of our civilization.”

“What is happening [in Gaza] is unacceptable. We are not facing a military operation with collateral damage, but the pure denial of the law and the founding values of our civilization.”

🔗 AF Post

🇺🇸🏢 Data centers vs. office construction. This chart perfectly illustrates where we are heading.

🔗 Michael A. Arouet

🇷🇺🇺🇦 In the Bilozerske direction, Russian forces continued to exploit their breakthrough and advanced even deeper through Ukrainian lines, physically cutting the Dobropillya - Kramatorsk Highway.

After securing a deep wedge between Dobropillya and Shakhove, Russian assault detachments continued to follow behind DRGs, who at that point were operating as far as 10km ahead, causing massive disruption amongst Ukrainian units. This, combined with poor Ukrainian coordination, incompetent commanders, disorganisation, and catastrophic levels of manpower shortages, resulted in the Ukrainians being completely unable to carry out any form of containment operations, despite more than two new brigades being redeployed here.

As for DRGs, they have begun to turn west, infiltrating through the fields around Rubizhne, Stepy, Novyi Donbas, Vilne, Novovodyane, Vesele Pole, and Nove Shakhove, where they entered the cities of Dobropillya, and Bilozerske. Dobropillya is seeing more DRG activity than Bilozerske as Russian forces don't have to go as far through the wedge to reach the city.

Meanwhile, further south, Russian forces continued to clear positions northeast of Bilytske. They re-established control over the forest west of Nykanorivka, and advanced along the treeline to northern Dorozhnje. They also made further progress in the treelines south of Nove Shakhove.

🔗 AMK Mapping

🇷🇺🇺🇦 The situation near Pokrovsk opens a rare window of opportunity for Russia.

If Russian troops push the breakthrough to its logical conclusion, the strike may not go northeast — towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, as expected and prepared for in Kyiv — but westward, towards Pavlohrad. And this is a completely different operational scenario.

In such a scenario, the front breaks in two directions at once: part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is encircled around Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, losing supply lines (as happened in Artemivsk, Avdiivka, and many other places). At the same time, a large Russian strike group gains the opportunity to reach Pavlohrad, creating a threat to the strategic rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Dnipropetrovsk region. For the Ukrainian command, this is almost checkmate: stretching the defense in both directions without critical losses is already impossible, and Russia’s advance to Pavlohrad would effectively collapse the entire eastern front line.

And the main question here is not even whether the Ukrainian Armed Forces can hold the defense, but whether they have the forces and reserves at all to meet the strike in this direction. And whether they were prepared for this from the start.

Carrying out and delivering such a strike will be difficult for Russia as well, since it will require a completely different level of planning and resource support. However, it is necessary to understand that the conditions for its implementation are currently favorable.

🔗 https://xn--r1a.website/Warhronika/9447

🇺🇸🇷🇺 Why does the US suddenly want negotiations right now?

History teaches us a lot here.

"Minsk-1" was signed around the same time the remnants of the Ukrainian army were burning out in the Ilovaisk cauldron. "Minsk-2" — also under the thunder of the cauldron lid, but this time the Debaltseve one.

In both cases, the West rushed to save Kyiv, promising Moscow anything just to stop the militias (at that time) and prevent the complete defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Both then and now, there was fear that after the frontline units of the Ukrainian army were crushed, the militias' offensive would continue.

The very fact that "Minsk-2" appeared stems from the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine violated "Minsk-1" and again decided to push into Donbass to take it by force. That is, the "first Minsk" was signed knowing in advance that the document was worthless.

The sudden desire of the US right now, not a minute later, to "negotiate" with Russia and "resolve" all vital issues (for which, for some reason, there was no time earlier, even during Trump's first term) looks like an attempt to slow down the pace of the offensive, knock the operational initiative out from under Russia's feet, and freeze everything on terms favorable to Washington. This is happening largely because the US is monitoring the situation on the battlefield, particularly near Pokrovsk, and sees where everything is heading.

There is a feeling that for this reason, on August 15, they will offer any "carrots" in the most tempting forms, but their only goal is to prevent the army from pressing the front where it is already cracking. And the real price of all these promises has long been clear.

🔗 https://xn--r1a.website/Warhronika/9450

🇷🇺🇺🇦 NYT reports that at least 12 foreign volunteers were killed in the July 21 missile strike on a training base near Kropyvnytskyi.

Victims include citizens of the US, Colombia, Taiwan, Denmark, and others. The strike hit as volunteers were having lunch. The International Legion has not confirmed the toll pending investigation.

🔗 NoelReports

🇷🇺🇺🇦 New Russian advances in the past hours:

🔶 Russian troops captured much of the villages of Udachnoe and Kotlyne to the west of Pokrovsk, after ~two months of a stalemate in these sectors.

🔶 Russian DRGs and sabotage groups have crossed the Rodinskoe-Dobropolye railway line and moved westward towards the towns of Shevchenko and Novoalexandrovka. Capturing Novoalexandrovka and/or Gryshyne would effectively encircle Pokrovsk and sever the last road that goes out of the city.

🔶 The village of Zolotim Kolodez was fully captured by Russian troops solidifying the Russian breakthrough of the New Donbas Line

🔶 East of the town of Bylitskoe, the village of Dorozhnoe was captured.

🔶 The village of Leontovich and the houses on the Privolna street in Pokrovsk have been captured.

🔶 East of Myrnograd, the town of Novoekonomichne was captured.

📝: The fact that Ukraine war updates have switched from "daily" to "hourly" should reveal the extent of Russian breakthrough of the past few days.

🔗 Map by AMK Mapping

🇬🇧❌🇪🇺 British officials are telling EU leaders to "shut up" and "stop annoying Donald Trump" with their comments on how peace in Ukraine should look like.

The Telegraph writes:

British officials have encouraged European Union leaders to stop an “unhelpful running commentary” on looming peace talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Officials are increasingly concerned about public comments on the future of Ukraine by the likes of Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat.

They fear that issuing public demands to the US president may backfire and cause him to cut Europe out of talks altogether.

It comes as Mr Trump and his Russian counterpart prepare to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine at face-to-face talks in Alaska on Friday.

Insiders have pointed to the fact that Sir Keir Starmer has made no public comments on the discussions since a joint statement on Saturday evening, choosing instead to influence from behind the scenes.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman did not explicitly call for Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, to be present for the talks in Alaska during a briefing with journalists on Monday, despite EU figures publicly making the request.

Downing Street figures have long argued in private that the best way to sway Mr Trump is to use access and influence behind closed doors rather than publicly challenging him into adopting a position.

@CIG_telegram