https://www.youtube.com/watch/Z0Y2LZIfd2A On Assignment with Richard Engel: Revolt from Within – The Rise of Wagner
A mutiny in Russia by Wagner mercenaries exposed cracks in Vladimir Putin’s authority. The man behind the uprising, Yevgeny Prigozhin, used to be a trusted fixer in Putin’s inner circle, before defying the president. Richard Engel has been tracking Prigozhin for years and tells the story of his rise from his early days as a petty criminal in St. Petersburg, to becoming the head of a global private military company active in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa and even meddling in U.S. elections.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch/ZW7syrEnJWk Putin’s Crisis (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
It’s been described as the most serious threat to Vladimir Putin’s leadership in years: the armed rebellion on June 23, led by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
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Prigozhin and his forces ultimately stood down, but the mutiny raised new questions about the strength of Putin’s grip on power amid discontent around his troubled war on Ukraine.
Veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team examine the story of Putin’s rise, his clashes at home and abroad, how his troubled Ukraine war led to this moment of uncertainty and what it could portend for the country, the region and the world.
Explore additional reporting related to “Putin’s Crisis” on our website: https://ift.tt/IPROHbf
“Putin’s Crisis” is a FRONTLINE production with the Kirk Documentary Group. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporter is Vanessa Fica. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.
CHAPTERS:
Prologue – 00:00
Putin During the Fall of the Soviet Union and Russia’s 1991 Failed Coup – 5:54
Putin’s Political Rise and How He Dealt With Threats – 11:39
How Putin Reacted to Pro-Democracy Protests in Russia in 2011-2012 – 20:49
Putin’s Actions in Crimea and Ukraine in 2014 and the Rise of Wagner Group – 28:38
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Role in the 2016 U.S. Elections and in Africa and the Middle East – 32:03
Putin Launches a Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine in 2022- 38:22
Prigozhin & Wagner Group’s Role in the Ukraine War – 44:04
Credits – 53:16
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW7syrEnJWk
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https://www.youtube.com/watch/gJkLY7Llfy8 Zelenkyy slams NATO members’ rejection of a timeline for Ukraine’s accession | DW News
NATO leaders have agreed at a summit in Vilnius that Ukraine’s future lies within the alliance, but stopped short of handing Kyiv a formal invitation or a timetable for accession that the country has been seeking. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference in Vilnius that NATO will extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the military alliance when “members agree and conditions are met.” He, however, added that leaders have not set a timetable for Ukraine to join. “We reaffirmed Ukraine will become a member of NATO and agreed to remove the requirement for a Membership Action Plan,” Stoltenberg said. The decision will change Ukraine’s membership path from two steps to one step, he said. “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” a declaration agreed by the leaders said, adding that Kyiv’s Euro-Atlantic integration had moved beyond the need for NATO’s so-called Membership Action Plan (MAP) — a sort of road map of military reforms that some allies have had to follow. “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met,” the declaration said.
While leaders did not specify the conditions Ukraine needs to meet, they said the alliance would help Kyiv to make progress on military interoperability as well as on additional democratic and security sector reforms. They also decided to establish the NATO-Ukraine Council, “a new joint body where Allies and Ukraine sit as equal members to advance political dialogue, engagement, cooperation, and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier said it would be “absurd” if NATO leaders gathering for a summit did not offer his country a ti
Speaking to thousands of people in Vilnius on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for membership of the alliance. “NATO will give Ukraine security, Ukraine will make NATO stronger,” Zelenskyy said, standing alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda. The Ukrainian president wants a clear timetable from NATO on bringing his country into the alliance. “Today I set off here with faith… in a NATO that does not hesitate, does not waste time. I would like this faith to become confidence — confidence in the solutions that we deserve,” he said. Earlier NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said previous accessions to NATO have not been accompanied by a timeline, “They are conditions-based.” Zelenskyy thanked the Lithuanians for taking in many Ukrainian war refugees. “The Ukrainian flags on the streets of Lithuania clearly prove that we are already allies and that Ukraine is defending its own and your freedom,” he said. As Zelenskyy spoke, the Twitter tagline “#UkraineNato33” flashed behind him, alluding to Ukraine’s plans to become the 33rd member of the military alliance after Finland and Sweden.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will grant their NATO allies full access to their shared airspace, the three countries’ defense ministers agreed on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius. This means that all NATO countries will be able to use their shared airspace without prior notice. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania do not have their own combat aircraft. That is why NATO has been protecting the Baltic airspace since 2004. To this end, the allies regularly rotate combat aircraft and personnel. The units are stationed at military airports in Siauliai (Lithuania) and Amari (Estonia). In the coming year, the airspace will also be monitored from Lielvarde (Latvia).
https://www.youtube.com/watch/9J_wBx-FBcc Foreign fighters under fire in Russian tank attack that forces them to leave Ukraine war
The fighting has been brutal – and bloody – as the Russians use mass artillery and minefields to defend territory seized earlier in the war.
An information blackout has been imposed by the Ukrainians to protect operational tactics, but post-battle accounts by individual combatants reveal the perilous nature of the fighting at the front.
Sky News has interviewed two foreign volunteers who have been fighting in the Ukrainian army for the past 17 months. Their accounts have been supported by additional testimony provided by several other foreign volunteers.
A bobcat surveys the landscape at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California in this March 11, 2021, image. via NASA https://ift.tt/js3cEwU
https://www.youtube.com/watch/pOc-RCGj6iE Elder – Sanctuary
Reflections of a Floating World (New Album 2017) https://ift.tt/aFQsiIc https://ift.tt/E4mBjD2
”Elder is a three-piece heavy psych band hailing from Boston, USA. Their lengthy songs are told as stories, unfolding and undulating across genre boundaries and into new kosmische territory.”
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”Reflections of a Floating World is Elder’s fourth full length album and second LP released via Stickman Records (EU) and Armageddon Label (US). Long, undulating and dense tracks float between psychedelic passages and progressive rock without missing a beat; adventurous and unpredictable songs are punctuated by hypnotic jams, all colored by the tendency toward melody and dynamism that has become the band’s hallmark. In keeping with their motto of expanding and expanding upon their repertoire, guest musicians Mike Risberg and Michael Samos joined the core three in the studio to add extra guitar, keys and pedal steel, adding vibrancy and lushness to the album. In all regards, Reflections shows a band with a clear vision honing their skills with every year.”
Why is our Sun so active now? No one is sure. An increase in surface activity was expected because our Sun is approaching solar maximum in 2025. However, last month our Sun sprouted more sunspots than in any month during the entire previous 11-year solar cycle — and even dating back to 2002. The featured picture is a composite of images taken every day from January to June by NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory. Showing a high abundance of sunspots, large individual spots can be tracked across the Sun’s disk, left to right, over about two weeks. As a solar cycle continues, sunspots typically appear closer to the equator. Sunspots are just one way that our Sun displays surface activity — another is flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that expel particles out into the Solar System. Since these particles can affect astronauts and electronics, tracking surface disturbances is of more than aesthetic value. Conversely, solar activity can have very high aesthetic value — in the Earth’s atmosphere when they trigger aurora. via NASA https://ift.tt/s7Pemn2
https://www.youtube.com/watch/udFS8jkaCig Repairing relations between the U.S. and China | Inside Story
Relations between the U.S. and China appear to be at a crossroads.
Two high-profile U.S. visitors have been to Beijing within the past month to try and repair the damaged relationship.
Trade sanctions, computer chip secrets and Taiwan are just some of the concerns for the world’s top two economies – and nuclear superpowers.
But so far there’s apparently little to show for the missions of diplomacy.
So are they just photo ops and political theater?
Or has anything been achieved?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Paul Triolo, Senior Vice President for China at global business strategy firm Albright Stonebridge.
Elizabeth Larus, Founder & President of E Larus Consulting.
Andy Mok, Senior Research Fellow, Center for China and Globalization Chinese think tank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch/O8e1IqMJ2nk Erdogan drops opposition to Sweden’s NATO bid | DW News
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Monday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to forward Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance to the Turkish parliament. Stoltenberg made the announcement after talks with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on the eve of a NATO summit in Lithuania. “This is a historic day,” Stoltenberg said.
A joint statement released by the three leaders does not specify a timeline for the Turkish parliament to approve Sweden’s application. “We take a very big step towards the formal ratification of Sweden’s membership in NATO. It has been a good day for Sweden,” Kristersson said.
Surprise announcement
Sweden, along with neighboring Finland, abandoned its longstanding military neutrality and applied for NATO membership after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But Stockholm’s entry into the military alliance had been blocked by two members, Turkey and Hungary. Earlier on Monday, Erdogan added to the list of demands he wanted fulfilled in exchange for finally backing Sweden’s accession to NATO. Speaking just hours before meeting Kristersson, Erdogan suggested if the European Union wanted Sweden in NATO, it should let Turkey into the EU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch/Jn94ZufQnJU How can Ukraine make greater progress against well-fortified Russian positions? | DW News
Ukraine’s President got an invitation to join the NATO summit..but will he also get an invitation to join the alliance? Ukraine’s prospects of becoming a NATO member are at the very top of the agenda as leaders gather this week in Lithuania. Many allies have already said Ukraine should join…after the war is won. And Ukraine’s leadership has called for patience as pushes on with its counter-offensive against a dug-in Russian front. Kyiv hasn’t been able to announce any major battlefield victories since it began a month ago, but says every square kilometer is worth fighting for. Ukraine’s leadership has called for patience as its counteroffensive makes little progress against well-fortified Russian positions. DW looks at why the counteroffensive appears to be yielding only modest gains so far.
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, just before closest approach on July 14, 2015. via NASA https://ift.tt/WUAmRtQ
When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 6559. Visible in the featured image are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass can be as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a bare open cluster of stars. via NASA https://ift.tt/HAfo3GE
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