🇵🇸🇮🇱New video of Hamas fighting against Israeli soldiers

🇺🇸🇮🇱🇵🇸 The US military is using unarmed drones over the Gaza Strip to support Israeli "efforts to free the hostages", the Pentagon has confirmed.

“The United States is conducting unarmed drone flights over the Gaza Strip and providing assistance and advisory services to our Israeli partner who is working to free the hostages,” the press release said.

🇮🇱🇵🇸 “I appeal to the residents of the Gaza Strip! Those who contribute to the release of the hostages will be protected, the rest deserve death,” said former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Israeli television.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Coming up on 5 months since the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, and Mediazona's data still indicates that Russian casualties in Summer 2023 were not especially high.

📎 TNG5

🇵🇸🇮🇱 The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas) are publishing footage of another ambush on an IDF unit in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip. The footage shows an Israeli Merkava Mk.3 tank being fired with two RPG shots using tandem ammunition.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Absolutely insane paragraph from the new NBC article suggesting that Ukraine may need to negotiate a surrender.

Who would have thought?

Russia has already laid the investments to ramp up military output and spending. After Ukraine’s intransigence early in the war, and the needless continuation of the slaughter, there’s a good chance Russia is not in the mood to negotiate.

📎 Big Serge

🇷🇺🇺🇦 U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official.

📎 NBC News

🇺🇸🇺🇦 “Two years and hundreds of thousands of casualties later, Ukraine will now have to beg for a deal Russia would’ve gladly agreed to before the war. We told you this would happen. Nothing went wrong, nothing could’ve gone differently, this was always going to happen and everyone w/half a brain could see that from day one. Shame on everyone who cheered on this unnecessary slaughter.”

- Martyr Made

🇺🇦🇷🇺 63% of Ukrainians now say they know at least one close relative or friend who have died in the war, with the average number being three.

This is a huge increase from the last survey in February, which found only 17% of Ukrainians reported a loss, while the figure in September of 2022 was just 9%. This firmly suggests the Bakhmut Meat Grinder did its job and that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is going as poorly as previously thought.

Also of note is that deaths are concentrated regionally: 69% in the West, and just 52% in the East. This implies heavier losses from the main bastions of Ukrainian Nationalists. The implications of that are pretty obvious.

- Link to the original survey data by KIIS

📝 This post was made back on June 29th. The official arrival of the Ukrainian manpower shortage was something this channel had been predicting for months, just like many of our colleagues in the rest of the infospace.

We even called the munitions crisis all the way back in January. Now both of these critical defects in the Ukrainian war effort are mainstream takes in Western Press.

What a pity it took hundreds of thousands of casualties before they admitted the need for peace talks. The end result that is now coming into view was always predictable.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 The Russians are preparing a new massive assault on Avdeevka, the American Institute for the Study of War believes.

This will be the third series of major assault operations, writes ISW, citing Ukrainian and Russian expert statements.

One of the Russian military commanders noted that Russian troops near Avdeevka are conducting a tactical regrouping. In his opinion, the target of potential offensive operations will be the Avdiivka coke plant.

The head of Avdeevka, Vitaly Barabash, said that Russian troops would resume assaults when the soil dries out after the recent worsening of the weather.