‘Policies of Hatred’ – Ukraine at War Update for July 15

Citing “policies of incitement to hatred,” the Kremlin’s PR team was quick to try to connect the assassination attempt on US presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday to the Joe Biden administration’s foreign policy in Ukraine, and a supposedly bellicose culture in America.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Sunday called out “those who vote in the United States to supply arms” to Kyiv, saying that this stoked “attacks against the Russian president,” as well. 

“Perhaps it would be better to use this money to fund the American police and other services that are supposed to ensure law and order in the United States?” she wondered aloud.

At a Trump campaign rally in the US state of Pennsylvania over the weekend, a 20-year-old shooter grazed the candidate’s ear with a bullet before he was killed by authorities, according to early reports of the investigation.

Trump has found natural allies in the Kremlin ever since he failed to extort Kyiv into handing over any compromising information it might have on Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential elections, which Trump lost.

Trump has promised he would end the Russo-Ukrainian war “within 24 hours” if he wins back the presidency, which, AFP wrote, “Kyiv fears would mean it would be forced to negotiate with Moscow from a weakened position.”

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Moscow is furious Russian sovereign territory has been violated and is rattling sabers. But the Kremlin probably also is lashing out against a more agile opponent.

Signaling their friendly relationship, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he takes Trump’s promises to end the war “very seriously.”

Putin’s Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, appears to have been tasked with sketching a dotted line between US funding for Ukraine’s defense and the assassination attempt.

Peskov said that the Kremlin was not surprised by the 20-year-old Pennsylvania shooter’s actions because of the “atmosphere that has been created around him.”

“After numerous attempts to remove candidate Trump from the political arena – using first legal tools, trials, prosecutors, attempts to politically discredit him – it was obvious to all outside observers that his life was in danger.”

“It’s typical for the current administration to solve all issues from the position of force, especially global issues… There are the sanctions this administration loves so much, and political pressure, or even direct use of forceful methods, military force. Now violence has basically become normalized within the country,” Peskov said.

Unable to resist the temptation to somehow draw parallels between the Trump attempt and John F Kennedy’s assassin in 1963, Zakharova added, “When other means of getting rid of a troublesome president are exhausted, good old Lee Harvey Oswald comes into play.”

Widely varying conspiracy theories still swirl about Oswald’s motive in shooting Kennedy in his Dallas motorcade, not the least of which is one that points a finger at the Soviet Union, a year after the Cuban missile crisis brought the world dangerously close to a nuclear confrontation.

One dead, at least nine wounded in Russian missile attack on residential building in Donetsk region

Vadym Filashkin, head of Ukraine's Donetsk regional military administration, announced on social media that Moscow’s forces unleashed a missile attack on a residential area in the Donetsk region on Sunday, killing one and injuring at least nine others.

“In Myrnohrad, the Russians hit an administrative building and a high-rise building with a missile, killing one person and wounding six others. According to preliminary information, two more people are under the rubble,” Filashkin wrote.

In Lyman, three people were injured, and at least one house and a coffee shop were damaged.

“Every Ukrainian is a target for the Russians. Do not expose yourself to danger - evacuate!” he wrote.

Meanwhile, in western parts of the region, geolocated footage published on Sunday indicates that Ukrainian forces recently advanced in a forested area west of Lyman Pershyi and east of Berestove (northwest of Svatove).

Other imagery over the weekend cited by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), on the outskirts of the regional capital, appears to show that Russian forces recently advanced within southern Makiivka and southeast of the settlement.

Russians launch “double-tap” attack on railway station near Kharkiv, killing two

Russian missiles rained down on a small town southwest of Kharkiv on Saturday, hitting a train station with one missile, and then killing rescue workers with another several minutes later.

Two people, an emergency services official and a police officer, were reportedly killed in the attack. Officials also reported four dead in a series of attacks in the Donetsk region and two more in the southern Kherson region, state media Ukrinform reported, adding that a further 25 people have been injured in similar incidents around the northeastern border area over the weekend, including two children who were wounded.