‘Ramp Up Europe’s Defense Industries to Outpace the Russian Threat’ – Ukraine at War Update for July 19

During his visit to the UK this week, where he attended a gathering of European leaders on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the British Parliament on Friday and will brief senior ministers about the battlefield situation in Ukraine.

Zelensky’s appearance will mark the first official visitor to 10 Downing Street since Keir Starmer became prime minister on July 5, and the first foreign leader to address its cabinet in person since US President Bill Clinton in 1997, AFP noted.

“Ukraine is, and always will be, at the heart of this government’s agenda, and so it is only fitting that President Zelensky will make a historic address to my Cabinet,” Starmer said ahead of the meeting.

The new prime minister’s office announced that Zelensky would tell ministers in the extraordinary meeting of the need for leaders across the continent to “ramp up Europe’s defense industrial base to outpace the Russian threat.”

UK intelligence has stressed that Moscow’s “shadow fleet” carrying some 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, has allowed the Kremlin to slip by some of the Western sanctions on its exports. The country also announced on Thursday that it had sanctioned a “host” of sanctioned Russian oil tankers, in addition to the thousands of individuals and entities already on that list.

According to the AFP, Moscow’s shadow fleet is made up of about 600 older, inconspicuous ships and engage in “dangerous and deceptive shipping practices, such as turning off location tracking systems,” British intelligence sources have claimed.

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The industrial city, which had an estimated pre-war population of more than 700,000 people, lies around 35 kilometres from the nearest Russian positions.

“Alongside our European partners, we have sent a clear message to those enabling Putin’s attempts to evade sanctions: We will not allow Russia's shadow fleet, and the dirty money it generates, to flow freely through European waters and put our security at risk,” Starmer said.

Starmer is expected to tell Zelensky on Friday that the UK “will go further in the coming months to place a greater stranglehold on Putin’s war machine,” through a bilateral agreement that will permit Ukraine to access £3.5 billion ($4.5 billion) to support its armed forces.

Hunter Biden cites dismissal of Special Counsel Trump case as grounds for his acquittal

AFP reported on Thursday that US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter asked federal judges on Thursday to toss out gun and tax cases filed against him, citing a legal argument made by Donald Trump. Hunter Biden was convicted in June on federal gun charges in a historic first criminal prosecution of the child of a sitting US president.

The issue involved is not one related to alleged or actual crimes but is solely based on a recent Supreme Court ruling questioning the constitutionality of the appointment of a special counsel to prosecute a legal case, first enacted in 1978 as part of the Ethics in Government Act.

The president’s son has been a target of Republicans on Capitol Hill ever since their leader, Trump, was found to have tried to blackmail Kyiv into turning over compromising information on the Biden family in exchange for withheld foreign aid to Ukraine. Hunter Biden served on the board of the Ukrainian holding company, Burisma.

But the pressure on the president’s son was turned up after Trump was charged with numerous crimes in 2023, including 34 felony jury trial convictions of falsifying business records, violations of campaign finance laws, violations of tax code, and concealing evidence that attempted to hide other crimes and using campaign donation money to cover up hush-money payments to a porn star.

Because Trump was convicted in a New York state court of some crimes illegal in that state, he could only receive a pardon from the New York governor, and not a US president.

More importantly, in terms of implications for American democracy, Trump has also been indicted on four charges connected with interfering in US elections. However, the March 4 trial date was postponed after the Supreme Court announced it would review an appeal. Then, on July 1 of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump has some immunity as regards his conduct as president in his federal election interference case.

Trump personally appointed three of the nine justices on that court.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers this week asked that the gun conviction be tossed out and the tax charges dismissed, citing a ruling from a district judge in Florida on Monday in a separate case which was tossed out for questions about the prosecutor's appointment as a special counsel.

The case before the federal court in Florida involves Trump’s removal and retention of White House national security documents. Some of the documents are classified at the Top Secret/SCI (special compartmented information) or Top Secret/SAP (special access program) level, though the underlying charge is not based on classification level but on their being related to US national security regardless of dissemination restrictions.

Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal criminal case charging Trump with illegally removing and retaining national security documents, as she claimed the special counsel who brought those charges was illegally appointed.

(Trump personally nominated that judge in 2020.)

For the time being this is seen as a legal victory for the now-Republican party presidential nominee, though the prosecutor has appealed the case to the 11th Circuit Appellate Court.

The gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden were similarly brought by a special counsel and the lawyers for the president’s son said the charges against him should be dismissed for the same reason.

“The Attorney General relied upon the exact same authority to appoint the Special Counsel in both the Trump and Biden matters, and both appointments are invalid,” said Abbe Lowell, one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers. “Different defendants but same constitutional flaws.”

After leaks, Orban posts the entirety of his letter to the EU explaining his rogue “peace missions”

On Tuesday, fragments of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s letter to European Council president Charles Michel explaining his unauthorized visits to Moscow and Beijing were leaked to the press, so Orban on Thursday posted the entirety of that letter on the Hungarian government’s website.

“I decided to release the whole document for the sake of clarity and context,” he wrote on Twitter.

As part of his ten-point summary to the European Council, he wrote:

“During my talks with President Trump, I came to a conclusion that foreign policy will play only a small role in his campaign, which is dominated by internal political questions.”

“I am more than convinced that in the likely outcome of the victory of President Trump, the proportion of the financial burden between the US and the EU will significantly change to the EU’s disadvantage when it comes to the financial support of Ukraine.”

Tucker Carlson brings his Kremlin-friendly messaging to the RNC and national audience

On Day Four of the US Republican National Convention, right-wing pundit and Kremlin apologist Tucker Carlson took the  opportunity of a nationally televised audience to rip into US support for Ukraine:

“You don’t see our commander-in-chief suggesting that we use our military to protect our country or the lives of its citizens?” He said, stoking up the isolationist crowd in Wisconsin. “No, that’s for Ukraine. And it’s too much. Actually, it’s too insulting. It’s too insulting. It’s a middle finger in the face of every American. It’s a very clear statement which is unmistakable, and that is ‘we don't care about you.’”

In February, the fired former Fox personality tried to revive his career by making a controversial trip to Moscow to give Putin carte blanche for hours in an online-only interview to make his case for Russian imperialism.