Author: Steven Sahiounie

The new $820 million package also includes four counter-artillery radars The US Department of Defense is providing an additional $820 million package of military aid for Ukraine, including two surface-to-air missile defense systems, Pentagon spokesman Todd Breasseale announced on Friday. This brings total US security assistance provided to Ukraine to approximately $6.9 billion since the start of Russia’s offensive in late February. The new deliveries will include ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition, and four additional counter-artillery radars. Breasseale stressed that Washington continues to…

Shelling came a few hours before senior Iranian diplomat was due to arrive in Syria Syria’s Defense Ministry has accused Israel of having injured two civilians in an airstrike on a village near the western port city of Tartus on Saturday. The military said Israeli warplanes flying over northern Lebanon had fired missiles toward several chicken farms in the village of Hamidiyeh, south of Tartus. The attack occurred a few kilometers north of the border with Lebanon in the early morning. According to Damascus, shelling also caused some damage to civilian infrastructure. The Israeli military, in line with long-standing practice,…

Turkey will conduct a military operation in the northern regions of Syria in an “understandable” way to the international community, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said while attending a press conference on the sideline of the NATO summit in Madrid on June 30. Answering a question about the international community reaction to any new Turkish operation in Syria, Erdogan added that Ankara has serious experience on the issue. “We will not carry out an operation that the international community does not understand. We will carry out the operation in the language the international community understands,” the Turkish president said. “Turkey has…

Andrey Melnik has slammed the signatories of an open letter which calls on the West to stop providing Ukraine with weapons Kiev’s ambassador to Berlin has insulted a group of German intellectuals, who penned an open letter advocating the end of arms deliveries to Ukraine. The signatories called on the West to make Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime negotiate peace. Commenting on their appeal, Andrey Melnik tweeted “Not again” on Thursday, adding in English: “What a bunch of pseudo-intellectual loosers (sic).” Referring to some of the signatories by their last names, Melnik suggested they “should go to hell with [their] defeatist advice.” The open letter, which…

June 29th was marked by advances of joint forces of the Russian Federation, Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics in several directions in the Luhangsk-Severodonetsk metropolitan area. According to various reports, about 1,500 Ukrainian fighters and foreign militants are currently deployed in the city of Lisichansk. According to first reports from the front line, Russian-led forces took control of the town of Privolie in the Luhansk People’s Republic. The town is located on the north-western outskirts of the Severodonetsk-Lisichansk metropolitan area. Russian success was possible after the advancing units crossed the Seversky Donets River and established a foothold on the right bank on…

At least 19 ISIS terrorists were killed and 22 others were wounded in central Syria over the last 30 days as a result of Russian airstrikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on June 30. According to the London-based monitoring group, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) carried out more than 370 airstrikes on ISIS’s areas of influence in the central region during the said period. Most of the Russian airstrikes targeted hideouts and equipment of ISIS cells in the eastern Homs countryside, the eastern Hama countryside and the southern countryside of Raqqa. At least nine terrorists…

 EU coordinator for Doha Talks said that the two days of Doha talks were intense, but the EU as coordinator of the talks will even work with greater urgency to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.  Two intense days of proximity talks in Doha on #JCPOA, Unfortunately, not yet the progress the EU team as coordinator had hoped for,” Enrique Mora wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. Mora added that “We will keep working with even greater urgency to bring back on track a key deal for non-proliferation and regional stability,” he said. Talks on lifting the sanctions ended Wednesday evening in…

Kiev also wants to impose a trade embargo on Syria over its recognition of the Donbass republics The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Thursday that it’s severing diplomatic ties with Syria after Damascus recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in Donbass. In a statement published on its website, the ministry said it “strongly condemns” Syria’s decision, which it considers an “unfriendly act against Ukraine” and an “encroachment on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” “In response to this unfriendly act, Ukraine declares the severance of diplomatic relations with Syria without the severance of consular relations,” the message reads further. Kiev has…

Erdogan says he will discuss establishing a “grain corridor” with Putin and Zelensky. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that his country has received guarantees from Sweden that it will extradite 73 members of the PKK party, which Ankara has branded as terrorist. “Sweden gave the word on the extradition of terrorists, there are about 73 of them. We were given guarantees,” Erdogan said after the NATO summit in Madrid. The Turkish President hailed the move as a “diplomatic victory”, as Ankara’s conditions were met for talks on Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. The unidentified suspects, who are due to…

NATO has listed China as one of its strategic priorities for the first time, saying Beijing’s ambitions and its “coercive policies” challenge the Western bloc’s “interests, security and values”. The alliance’s new blueprint, or Strategic Concept, which lays out its priorities for the next decade, was approved at a leader’s summit in Spain on Wednesday. The document directed its harshest language towards Russia, which it described as “the most significant and direct threat” to the alliance’s peace and security, but said Beijing’s military ambitions, its confrontational rhetoric towards Taiwan and its increasingly close ties with Moscow posed “systemic challenges”. “China…