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Russian stuff blowing up: EU approves new sanctions package against Russia [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-18

The European Union finally got around to approving an 18th sanctions package after Slovakia caved.

x EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas confirmed the approval of the 18th sanctions package against Russia. It lowers the G7 oil price cap to 47.6 dollars per barrel, restricts Russian banks, bans the Nord Stream pipelines, and targets 105 shadow fleet vessels and Rosneft’s refinery in India.



[image or embed] — WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 2:05 AM

There shouldn't be any “summit” without a ceasefire in place.

x Xi Jinping may have invited President Trump to Beijing to meet both him and Putin for a summit - The Times. A report by the Japanese Kyodo news agency claimed that a decision to invite Trump had already been made. The Chinese authorities didn't deny it.



[image or embed] — Anton Gerashchenko (@antongerashchenko.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 10:08 AM

Keep on printing trillions of rubles. It worked so well for Zimbabwe.

x 🚨 Russia: Russian Central Bank documents hacked by Ukraine show Nabiullina ordering the Finance Ministry to print ₽15,000,000,000,000 (15 trillion rubles) over the next 3 months. Equivalent to $192 billion at current exchange rate, but not for long...

36.6% of Russia's 2025 government spending.



[image or embed] — Igor Sushko (@igorsushko.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 7:22 PM

Ukrainian drones finish off Russian armor caught trying to cross a creek.

x Good morning!☕️🔥

A calamitous assault by Russian mechanised forces. Ukrainians intercepted armour while it was trying to cross a creek near their positions.

Footage shows Ukrainian drones mopping up the disabled armour.

🇺🇦54th Brigade and 🇺🇦1st Mechanised Battalion near Bilohorivka sometime in June.



[image or embed] — Challengerinua (@challengerinua.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 1:41 AM

This war might just come down to which side is able to maintain an advantage in the evolution of drone warfare.

Russia’s strategy is to make so many Shahed drones that they overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses. Ukraine’s challenge is to find a cheaper way to shoot down the Shaheds than using IRIS-T or other expensive missiles of limited quantity.

x Russia aims for 1.4 million drones annually—10x 2023 production. Alabuga facility targets 6,000 Shaheds by summer using Iranian blueprints. Ukraine's challenge: scaling challenges mount with 6-month operator training, 13-month radar delays, weather degradation to 20-30% success.



[image or embed] — Euromaidan Press (@euromaidanpress.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 3:38 PM

Russia has greatly increased the number of drones it launches each night in the past year. And they are no longer spreading the attack across the country.

Russian forces now target one or two cities at time instead of deploying 500 drones nationwide, flying at altitudes above 2km to stay out of reach of machine guns, Counteroffensive.Pro reported. For months, the pendulum swung Russia’s way. Civilian casualties reached record levels—June 2025 alone saw 232 civilians killed and 1,343 wounded from drone attacks. …... The breakthrough came from Ukraine’s decentralized innovation ecosystem. Sixteen companies developed interceptor drones costing as little as $1,000 each—a fraction of Western missile costs. The budget Сhaika costs just 39,900 UAH ($950) on the Brave1 marketplace, while Sky Defenders’ ZigZag interceptor costs 128,000 UAH ($3,000), still dramatically cheaper than $430,000 IRIS-T missiles. Ukrainian interceptors achieved a 70% kill rate against Shaheds in optimal conditions—nearly double the 35-40% success rate of traditional mobile fire groups using machine guns. Over 100 strike drones have been destroyed by Ukrainian interceptor drones as of March 2025. The “Clean Sky” program intercepted 550 Russian drones during pilot testing, with one remarkable night operation destroying 33 enemy aircraft.

Russian vehicles — one of them loaded with ammunition — go bavovna.

x Delivery for terrorists!🔥🍞

A Russian truck with ammo gets a Ukrainian delivery just as ordered!

SPALAH Unit 🇺🇦3rd Assault Brigade in the Kharkiv region.



[image or embed] — Challengerinua (@challengerinua.bsky.social) July 16, 2025 at 4:54 AM

x Operators of Ukraine’s 14th Separate UAV Regiment and the “Sirko” aerial reconnaissance group struck a Russian Tor air defense system on the Kursk front. The system tried twice to shoot down the UAV, but Ukraine’s drone targeting locked on better than Russia’s air defense.



[image or embed] — NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) July 18, 2025 at 10:07 AM

Russia blew up a Ukrainian train for the second day.

x A photo now of the latest train destroyed by Russia. The locomotive was carrying civilian cargo according to Ukraine and Head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak said "This is planned terror against civilian logistics, as well as railway workers." #RussiaIsATerroristState



[image or embed] — Tim White (@twmcltd.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 6:45 AM

Russia loses air defense systems and radars the way teenagers lose cell phones.

Ukraine prepares to launch its new locust drones

x After the biblical storms over the weekend, today in Zaporizhzhia region, there's a plague of locusts! Big buggers too! What can it all mean?

The video is from Kushuhum.



[image or embed] — Tim White (@twmcltd.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 9:34 AM

A Russian soldier with a death wish picks up a dud drone and pounds it against a tree.

x A Russian ChMobik picks up an AFU FPV that failed to detonate and pounds it against a tree. The Russians are trying to alter the narrative by turning this idiot into a hero for being willing to die to protect his comrades. Fetal alcohol syndrome is a better explanation. #OSINT #UkraineRussiaWar



[image or embed] — OSINT Intuit (@urikikaski.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 5:16 AM

Another oligarch goes under the bus.

x Another Russian billionaire arrested as part of what appears to be an ongoing wave of high-profile purges. Russian billionaire Sergey Matsotsky has been arrested by Moscow’s Basmanny Court. Matsotsky co-founded IBS, one of Russia’s largest and most influential IT companies.



[image or embed] — 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 3:49 AM

The Human Safari in Kherson continues.

x Ukraine: Russian fascists deliberately struck the car of the Chief Rabbi for Kherson with a drone.

Israeli citizen Rabbi Yosef-Yitzhak Wolf and his family were in the car.

Miraculously no one was injured.

Time for Israel to step up military support for Ukraine.



[image or embed] — Igor Sushko (@igorsushko.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 4:47 PM

How not to dispose of an anti-tank mine.

Russians delivering supplies on a quad bike got blown up. Their comrades walking by notice they left behind some nice helmets.

x Russian soldiers filmed the aftermath of a Ukrainian drone strike on an occupiers’ quad bike along one of the so-called “roads of death” in Donetsk region.



[image or embed] — WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 4:57 AM

Uncle Joe would never commit genocide. Uncle Joe was kindly and loved everybody.

x Schoolkids in Russia are taught that Stalin didn't order the mass repressions of 1937-1938 in the USSR. It wasn't Stalin, it was Yezhov, kids are told. Will the same happen with Putin? Will Russians be told it wasn't him who started the war, who killed millions of people, it was someone else!



[image or embed] — Anton Gerashchenko (@antongerashchenko.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 5:46 AM

Another 1,180 Russians, plus 47 artillery systems.

Adios. Do svidaniya.

x ❗️Former trainer and sparring partner of 🇷🇺Russian boxer Povetkin, Igor Nesterov, has been killed in Mali. Russian media reports that Igor Nesterov was killed while carrying out a "combat mission" in Northwest Africa.



[image or embed] — 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@militarynewsua.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 3:40 AM

So, did he steal too much or fail to give his superiors their full cut?

x Russia: Deputy chief of the Main Directorate for Innovative Development of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Major General Vladimir Shesterov imprisoned for 6 years and stripped of his rank for massive embezzlement of Patriot Park funds.

Permanent military exhibit near Moscow.



[image or embed] — Igor Sushko (@igorsushko.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 3:26 PM

Lockheed Martin could sell as many Patriots as they can produce.

x ⚡ Lockheed Martin will raise annual output of its interceptor missiles from 600 in 2025 to 750 by 2027, responding to heightened demand among NATO allies and partners.



[image or embed] — UNITED24 Media (@united24media.com) July 17, 2025 at 11:36 AM

Got any phasers or quantum torpedoes to test?

x ❗️Ukraine to allow foreign arms manufacturers to test their latest weapons on the battlefield against Russia, — Reuters Under the new “Test in Ukraine” program, companies can send weapons to Ukraine, conduct distance training and receive feedback from Ukrainian armed forces on the front lines.



[image or embed] — 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@militarynewsua.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 3:59 PM

Hmmmm. Not a bad idea.

Zelenskyy could say that the Epstein files are a Russian hoax paid for by George Soros and that Epstein was an FSB agent in league with the Chinese. Trump would give Ukraine whatever weapons it wants.

x Zelensky, if you were ever planning to announce that the Epstein files are a hoax, now is your moment. — Kevin Rothrock (@kevinrothrock.me) July 17, 2025 at 4:29 PM

Time to check in on the Russian economy. Is it still humming along?

x Economic news from Mordor: “The volume of construction in the last year has fallen by half.

This means that something must change radically.

The current structure of the Russian economy is incompatible with life and inevitable problems are waiting for us.” - pro-Kremlin economist Mikhail Khazin



[image or embed] — Natalka (@natalkakyiv.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 10:08 AM

Combat canine

The beauty of the occupied Kinburn Peninsula.

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