Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning:

The burning of the Holy Quran in Sweden constitutes "Islamophobia".

Freedom of expression should not be an excuse to provoke clashes between civilizations and create antagonism between civilizations.

#BREAKING Russian military sources report Russian forces withdrew from Klishchiivka, Donetsk.

Bakhmut is now under fire control of Ukrainian Army.

UK Armed Forces chief Admiral Tony Radakin:

Russian Army has lost half of its combat capability.

Russia has lost 2,500 tanks and at best can produce 200 tanks a year.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ground Forces of Ukraine:

The counteroffensive is going according to plan. The command assures that Bakhmut will be liberated, and the losses of the Russians are 8-10 times higher than the Ukrainian ones.

Ukrainian made 2S22 Bohdana (Bohdana 2.0) Self-Propelled Howitzer firing somewhere at the front.

Ukraine can fire American-supplied M982 Excalibur 155mm precision-guided shell from the howitzer.

German-supplied Ukrainian Gepard is in a hurry.

FSB poster was placed outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow:

“Welcome to our peaceful country. With best wishes, FSB"

Swedish police received three more requests to burn Holy Books in Stockholm.

One for Quran, one for Torah & one for Bible.

Russian Telegram channel asks:

WHERE is Surovikin?

Taliban says it wants to participate in the next Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

Medvedev:

If the U.S. and its vassals stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv, the SVO would end in a few months, if they stop now - in a few days.

Any war can be ended quickly: either by a peace treaty, or by doing what the U.S. did in 1945, by using nuclear weapons.

Russian T-90 tank reportedly gets hit with 155mm high-precision cluster munition BONUS of joint Swedish-French production (Bofors/Nexter Group).

The crew may not have survived.

Russian Su-34 fighter jet launches a pair of Russian FAB-500 M-62 bombs with УМПК - unified planning and correction module; Russian version of JDAM aka JDAMski).

New Russian pickup truck just dropped.

Newsweek:

CIA controls significant amounts of US military aid to Ukraine that are kept secret.

CIA employees are constantly in Ukraine, but their activities are strictly regulated, and their numbers are limited.

Their tasks include working with weapons, communication with the Ukrainian special services, control over the fact that "the situation does not go beyond certain limits."

CIA seeks to distance itself from everything that involves a direct attack on the Russian Federation — this restriction was personally established by U.S. President Biden.

CIA works not only to help Ukraine, mostly by passing on intelligence, but also tries to find out the real plans of Zelensky and Putin.

#BREAKING British MoD says it will begin training Ukrainian fighter pilots in August, up to 20 Ukrainian pilots will participate in the classes.