PrairiePundit

 Yahoo News: Russian forces on the frontlines in Ukraine are reportedly overwhelmed and facing numerous challenges, while Ukrainian forces are pushing them and their artillery back , The New York Times reported on Aug. 2, citing unnamed Western officials. Ukraine has significantly intensified its counteroffensive on two fronts in southern Ukraine. U.S. officials claim that the Ukrainian Armed Forces bolstered their forces last week, clearing paths through Russian defense lines and starting to push back Russian troops and artillery. The Russians are overwhelmed and continue to face issues with logistics, supplies, personnel, and equipment, a Western official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Retired Air Force General Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO, commenting on the Ukrainian counteroffensive, expressed confidence that the advances made by Ukraine will put Russia in a disadvantageous position. “The Ukrainians are now in a position wher...

 ISW: Russian forces conducted another series of strikes against Ukraine with cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones overnight on May 28 to 29 and during the day on May 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 40 Kh-101/Kh-555 air-based cruise missiles and 38 Shahed-131/136 drones on the night of May 28 to 29 and 11 Iskander-M/K missiles during the day on May 29.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed in all 36 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles, 30 Shahed drones, and all 11 Iskander missiles.[2] Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces intercepted all 11 Iskander missiles, and 40 cruise missiles and Shahed drones that targeted Kyiv City and Kyiv Oblast.[3] Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces also intercepted missiles and drones near the cities of Lviv, Mykolaiv, and Odesa and that Russian forces struck port infrastructure in Odesa City and a military infrastructure facility in Khmelnytskyi Oblas...

 Washington Examiner: H ere is a story of two statues. Last week, in the Kazakh railway town of Taldykorgan, protesters looped ropes around the bronze likeness of their former autocrat, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and hauled him off his pedestal. On the same day, in the English port city of Bristol, four protesters were acquitted of causing criminal damage despite cheerfully admitting having toppled the statue of Edward Colston (1636–1721), a local philanthropist, part of whose fortune had derived from the slave trade. Their lawyer argued that the statue was so offensive that rolling it into the harbor constituted the prevention of a hate crime. Incredibly, the jury agreed. In both instances, the vandals believed that their hatred of inanimate metal trumped laws on property rights and physical force. But in other regards, the two cases are not comparable. The difference does not lie in the statues. Most statues offend someone or other. If you are a consequential enough public figure to h...

  Washington Examiner: Hunter Biden's 'close friend' charged with treason in Kazakhstan   F ormer   Kazakhstan   intelligence chief Karim Massimov, whom   Hunter Biden   once described as his "close friend" and who once posed for a photo with Biden and his father,   President Joe Biden , was arrested by Kazakh authorities last week on alleged   suspicion of high treason. Massimov's arrest came Thursday, one day after he was fired from his post as chairman of the Kazakhstan National Security Committee. He was arrested amid nationwide violent protests sparked by, among other things, an increase in fuel prices. The unrest has resulted in thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths. Hunter Biden, while serving on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, shared a close business relationship with Massimov during his second stint as Kazakhstan's prime minister from 2014 through 2016, according to records from Hunter Biden's laptop. Breaking: thi...

Newsweek: The senior editor-at-large of Breitbart News claims that Hillary Clinton extorted nuclear officials involved in a uranium deal and that the investigation will get “very exciting” with an FBI informant’s upcoming testimony. Peter Schweizer, who wrote the 2015 book “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” claimed on Fox News that a foreign government official said he and fellow employees were extorted by Hillary Clinton. “This comes from the Kazakh head of their atomic agency saying that Senator Clinton refused to meet with Kazakh officials unless and until they granted uranium concessions to Frank Giustra, who ended up giving more than $100 million to the Clinton Foundation,” Schweizer said on Thursday. Republican critics of Clinton have tried to tie the Uranium One deal, in which the U.S. ceded 20 percent of its uranium assets to Russia, to $145 million in donations that stakeholders in the R...

Fox News: A Kazakh official involved in brokering a controversial mining deal for a major Clinton Foundation donor is behind bars for his role in the transaction, undercutting a Clinton campaign "fact-check" that attempted to dismiss ethical questions about the former president's ties to the lucrative contract. ... They have been attacking the book, but the facts are not on their side despite their denials and obfuscations.   There needs to be a formal investigation of this deal, but that is unlikely by Obama's corrupt DOJ, and Congress would just be accused of politicizing the matter.  The investigation will have to wait until after the election probably.

Washington Post: Even with the reopening of  critical supply routes through Pakistan , the U.S. military confronts a mammoth logistical challenge to wind down the war in Afghanistan, where it must withdraw nearly 90,000 troops and enormous depots of military equipment accumulated over the past decade.   Assuming Pakistan doesn’t seal its border again, U.S. and NATO commanders still face the prospect of pulling out at least a third of the cargo from northern Afghanistan on a  winding, makeshift network of railways and roads  that cross the former Soviet Union.   Those routes carry strategic risks of their own. Access to the transit lines depends on the whims of several authoritarian Central Asian leaders as well as Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, a longtime nemesis of NATO. Moreover, the cost of shipping goods along the northern routes is about triple that of the much-shorter Pakistani lines.   The only other option for departing landlocked Afghan...

BBC: Nato has signed deals with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to use their territory for evacuating vehicles and military equipment from Afghanistan. The agreement will allow the military alliance to bypass Pakistan, which has blocked Nato from using its territory in a disagreement over drone strikes. Nato will begin pulling troops and equipment out of Afghanistan in earnest later this year. This deal means it can return equipment to Europe overland via Russia. Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced the Central Asian deals on Monday. He told a press conference: "These agreements will give us a range of new options and the robust and flexible transport network we need." The US-led Nato operation in Afghanistan is due to wind down completely by the end of 2014. Tens of thousands of vehicles, containers and arms will have to leave them. The force has already started pulling out some equipment. ...  This gives them a way to avoid the P...

Reuters: NATO said on Wednesday it had finalized an agreement with Kazakhstan on the transit of supplies to Afghanistan, hoping it will reduce its reliance on a route through Pakistan that has been attacked by the Taliban. The agreement should allow NATO to implement a deal with Russia for the transit of non-lethal supplies to the forces of the Western military alliance and its partners fighting a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. ... This is the main reason the Taliban have returned to norther Afghanistan. They want to be able to attack this supply line too. They do have to wait until the goods get inside the country, which does make it easier for us to anticipate and defend against their attacks.

Guardian: The road passes a shimmering green mountain pasture, then dips steeply to a new US-built bridge. Across the languid Panj river is Afghanistan and the dusty northern town of Kunduz. On this side is Tajikistan, Afghanistan's impoverished Central Asian neighbour. It is here, at what used to be the far boundary of the Soviet empire, that the US and Nato are planning a new operation. Soon, Nato trucks loaded with non-military supplies will start rolling into Afghanistan along this northern route, avoiding Pakistan 's perilous tribal areas and the ambush-prone Khyber Pass. This northern corridor is essential if Barack Obama 's Afghan-Pakistan strategy is to work. With convoys supplying US and Nato forces regularly attacked by the Taliban on the Pakistan route, the US is again courting the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Nato has already signed a transit deal with Tajikistan. It says it expects bilateral agreem...