The drone in question was a limited distance quadcopter that needed to be remotely operated from a visible location.  Everything about the Leipzig airport drone attack story was sketchy {BACKGROUND}.  Germany said they were investigating the failed “attack” and now reports are surfacing that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is likely to pin the blame on Russia. Because of course he is.

Together with the U.K and France, Germany is one of the key NATO partners in the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’.  German bases are currently being used by NATO allies to stage their Ukraine military support and logistics.

The German economy is in a severe state of contraction, opposition political parties are gaining momentum and Merz, like Macron, needs a distraction.

BERLIN, Aug 30 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday Berlin was preparing a response to the suspected drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane in Leipzig this month in coordination with its European and NATO partners.

“We are in the process of concluding the investigation. There is broad consensus within the Federal Government on how we should respond, and we will make this clear in the coming days; it won’t be long now,” he said in an interview on ARD public television.

Germany has so far not said officially who it believes was behind the suspected attack attempt at Leipzig/Halle airport on August 4, when an explosives-laden drone was discovered near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft used for military supplies.

On Saturday, the daily Die Welt reported that in the next few days, the government would blame Russia for the attack and announce measures that would include sanctions coordinated with European Union partners.

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I mentioned this last night, and now more solid reports have emerged. Basically, Ukraine and Russia are taking turns striking each other’s warehouses and distribution centers with missiles and drones. However, the brunt of the damage and chaos is being felt only by one side—Ukraine.

Zero Hedge has a solid article explaining the dynamics:

A Russian drone struck a Ukrainian Defense Forces ammunition storage site in the village of Myla Friday evening, just west of Kiev. The resulting fire and hours of secondary detonations killed at least 37 people, injured dozens more, damaged around 50 residential buildings and a care home for the elderly and disabled, and forced the evacuation of hundreds. Among the dead was the local community head who had gone to help.

In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said ¹the placement of a weapons depot next to civilians was “terrible negligence.” The first impact, he said, hit a depot storing shells, mines, other munitions, and drones that “definitely shouldn’t have been there” – while prosecutors in Kiev opened a criminal investigation into the legality of storing explosives next to civilian housing. This is the second such incident in two months. A July strike on a depot in nearby Vyshneve produced similar secondary blasts, deaths, and later detentions of state defense-company executives.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the Myla site held components and launch boosters for long-range drones. It also claimed strikes on Flamingo cruise-missile related facilities in the Kiev region and on the ports of Mykolaiv and Izmail. Social-media claims that Patriots were stored there remain unconfirmed by official Ukrainian statements.

Here comes the fact that few in the west understand:

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Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin has been remarkably reserved and selective in his targeting, considering the scale and capability of the massively armed nation to obliterate Ukraine metropolitan areas.

Russia absorbed all the Ukraine attacks on Wildberries warehouses for all the reasons CTH previously noted.  Ukraine was convinced by western intelligence analysis that destroying the roughly 200 Wildberries distribution centers would cripple the Russian consumer economy.  However, increased strikes did not yield the desired results. Duh.

Ukraine then added Ozon to the target list, another online retailer for everyday items similar to Amazon (even with similar name).

Ukraine began targeting Ozon warehouse and distribution centers shortly before they began more parcel and car bomb attacks against strategic Russian military officers.

It’s almost like Western intelligence do not understand how resilient Russian consumers are.  Russia is considerably analog in an almost exclusively western digital world.  Perhaps that’s the disconnect, but I would think with the cultural connections between both nations, Ukraine would know better.

Then again, is it really Ukraine strategizing the war?

Regardless, Vladimir Putin has now taken the restrictions away from dual use infrastructure in/around Kyiv, and for the past two days Russia has continued to launch relentless volleys of missiles and drones at Kyiv warehouses.  Overall, during the two days of Russian attacks, 17 warehouse facilities, 16 private houses, three apartment buildings and 16 vehicles were damaged in Kyiv region. {source} It’s the retaliatory version of FAFO.

Western Ukraine (Kyiv region) is very ‘western’, very western.  Eastern Ukraine, not so much.  Suddenly the nightclubs, dance clubs and entertainment districts in/around Kyiv (Kiev) are empty.

What is now beginning to be shared on background alternative media is the scope of exodus from Ukraine (picture above left).  Thousands of Ukrainians are now fleeing every day.

KYIVPOST -Russian forces struck Nova Poshta warehouse facilities in the Kyiv region early Friday, Aug. 28, then hit the same site twice more as firefighters were battling the resulting blaze, local authorities said.

The initial strike targeted warehouses in the Bilohorodka community, damaging a nearby production facility in Sviatopetrivske, according to Anton Ovsiienko, head of the Bilohorodka village council.

Nearly an hour later, while emergency crews were still fighting the fire, Russian forces launched two more strikes at the same location. Firefighters and other specialists managed to move to a safer area before the additional impacts, Ovsiienko said.

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Deep breath.  Yesterday, CTH noted to pay close attention to the Finland-Russia border region and the areas in/around St Petersburg.  There has been a visible coordination between Finland and Ukraine in the attacks against Russia.  I would not be surprised to hear this terrorist crossed that border region.

A Lt Col in the Russian Airforce was killed immediately when a car bomb exploded that also severely injured his wife.  As you are reading this there are also reports of thousands of Ukraine civilians fleeing Kiev ahead of Russia’s predicted retaliation.  The serviceman was killed in an area heavily occupied by military personnel and their families.

This is the fourth car bomb in the past few months and the seventh Ukraine car/parcel bombing in the last few years. Zelenskyy is in Moldova today organizing new attacks against Russia.

RUSSIA – A senior Russian officer has been killed by a car bomb in St Petersburg, Russian media reported.

Footage posted on Telegram showed emergency workers and police flooding a street littered with the debris of an exploded vehicle and cordoning it off from the public.

An explosion sounded at around 10am near a Magnit supermarket in the suburban neighbourhood of Shushary, killing the lieutenant colonel and badly injuring his wife, according to Fontanka, a St Petersburg news publication, which cited eyewitnesses.

The outlet claimed that both had lost their legs in the blast, which took place as they began driving away from their home. (read more)

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Western media are reporting that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow, Russia, to warn his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), about striking back against Baltic states. {CITATION} However, that’s only half of the story.

Director Ratcliffe wasn’t simply telling Naryshkin not to hit back; he was telling Naryshkin that European NATO provocations against the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (between Poland and Lithuania) were not ‘fully’ sanctioned by the United States. {CITATION Aug 18}

EU NATO members have been conducting provocative military operations and psychological warfare via NATO exercises all around Kaliningrad. They have been getting more aggressive with each series of maneuvers.  The Trump administration (DoW) recently removed the head of U.S-NATO operations over this background strategy. What the western media will not tell us is that Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, commander of the Army’s V Corps, was removed from command over this planned operation {citation Aug 7}.

Apparently, European NATO is increasingly trying to provoke expanded conflict with Russia, while President Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe attempt to tamp down the problems being created.  This is all connected to the expanded drone activity recently reported in media (Germany – Leipzig airport and Romania citations}, which looks increasingly like covert Ukraine intelligence operations.  There are some reports that western intelligence linked Russia to the Leipzig airport drone, so perhaps Director Ratcliffe also carried that intelligence message.

The bottom line is there’s a lot of sketchy ‘fog of war’ stuff happening, and U.S. intelligence has a responsibility to the Trump administration to try and contain any significant issues involving escalation.  Hence, Ratcliffe’s message saying we are not trying to provoke you, so don’t put us in a situation where we end up defending NATO because you retaliate against all of this activity happening outside Ukraine’s borders.

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Barbara Boyd does a solid job connecting the recent U.S-Canada trade friction to the globalist plans of Mark Carney in alignment with the European Union.  The goal is to create and maintain broad opposition to the geopolitical reset underway as an outcome of President Trump’s larger and nationalistic economic agenda.

This is worth the watch as many of the background happenings are interconnected, yet few people are putting it all together. Barbara Boyd argues that the most dangerous escalation is the proxy war with Russia, highlighting Russia’s warning that direct British involvement in strikes on Russian territory could make Britain a combatant.

She says the UK has long driven the ¹Ukraine conflict and that Trump has sought peace while Britain and Europe resist, relying on war production amid failing economies. The episode focuses on Canada’s Mark Carney as a key spokesman for a permanent-warfare economic strategy, detailing his global financial roles and Canada’s creation of a Defense Security and Resilience Bank to fund defense mobilization without citizen involvement.

Boyd also describes Carney’s actions against the U.S., including trade disputes, deeper EU alignment, and Arctic defense plans. She claims a coordinated “chaos” and “psychological warfare” campaign targets U.S. voters ahead of the midterms.  WATCH:

¹There is little doubt European NATO countries, led by the U.K, France and Germany, are stimulating and supporting increased direct military conflict against Russia.  We are beginning to see not-so-covert events happening in/around border nations with Russia -carried out by Ukraine- that continue to raise the stakes.

Moldova, Romania and now Finland are starting to become increasingly visible as launch regions for Ukraine drone attacks into Russia. Meanwhile the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (between Lithuania and Poland) is surrounded by provocative NATO military activity. Keep watching.

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CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unexpected visit to Moscow, Russia, today.

According to flight data and new media reporting Director Ratcliffe flew into Latvia and from Latvia into Russia on a C-17 military transport plane.

VIA CBS – CIA Director John Ratcliffe is in Moscow, Russia, for meetings, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News on Tuesday.

News of his trip comes after a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted at a Moscow airport, along with a U.S. diplomatic motorcade. Neither the U.S. nor Russian governments has commented on the identity of the U.S. official in Russia or the purpose of the visit.

The CIA did not immediately comment.

It appears to be Ratcliffe’s first known trip to Russia as CIA director, though he has maintained contact with Russian intelligence counterparts. (more)

VIA AXIOS – CIA director John Ratcliffe is visiting Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian officials, two U.S. officials said.

Why it matters: This is Ratcliffe’s first trip to Moscow since he took office and the highest-level visit by a Trump administration official to Russia since January.

Ahead of Ratcliffe’s trip, the U.S. told Ukraine that a senior delegation was traveling to Moscow and asked it to suspend strikes until it leaves, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. (link)

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As most would anticipate, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected the request for a Ukraine election made by former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Zelenskyy noted that Fedorov himself might challenge the ‘new democracy‘ regime of Zelenskyy, and therefore the risks are too great.

(via Politico) – Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday flatly rejected a call by his former defense chief to send the country to the ballot box.

“I believe that during a war like this, elections in general pose major risks,” Zelenskyy told journalists — including POLITICO — behind closed doors.

A vote “right now would be a tsunami for the state, one that would divide Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president said. He added that his strategy is “to bring the country to the end of the war and preserve an independent and sovereign state.”

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The timing of these events is remarkable. Almost so remarkable that one might think they are intentionally sequenced.

It started yesterday when the very popular former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov issued a striking warning about Ukraine’s government, corruption, and the need to develop an immediate mechanism for elections even while the war against Russia continues.

There is a great deal of support for Mykhailo Fedorov within Ukraine, as many people see him as a stronger and yet more pragmatic representative of the people.  Fedorov holds strongest support from those under 50 years old, and yesterday he diplomatically called for Ukraine to organize elections in order to retain position as a democracy.

VIA CBS – The former defense minister acknowledged the difficulties of holding a vote during the war, including how to ensure soldiers, people who live near the front line and Ukrainians who fled the war can cast their ballots.  “This is complex. … But complexity does not mean impossibility,” Fedorov said. (Citation)

In the background, the frustration of the Ukrainian people is bubbling up to the surface. In part because the hunters the Zelenskyy regime has hired to go find conscripts are now seen as living a life of indulgence.  The conscript hunters who take the men off the streets are earning $150k targeting their own people for forced military service. The people are furious.

Simultaneous to this public statement about elections released by Fedorov, the anti-corruptions agencies in Ukraine announced investigations directly related to Zelenskyy’s government itself.  It looks like Fedorov knew this was coming.

UKRAINE – Ukraine’s ⁠anti-graft agencies ​said on Wednesday ​they had uncovered a group including a presidential official ​that ‌had laundered ⁠150 million hryvnias ($3.35 ‌million) used to pay for bail ⁠in an energy corruption scheme.

Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies launched a ​special operation against lawmakers and presidential advisers on Wednesday, hours before a key vote in parliament for a new defence ​minister ‌aimed at cementing a shake-up by President ⁠Volodymyr Zelensky.

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35-year-old Ukraine Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov was removed from his position about a month ago.  Despite being heralded as the reason for Ukraine’s successful defense and strikes against Russia, there was internal friction about control of the war spending (ie ‘procurement). The old guard military leaders were unwilling to give up their ability to enrich themselves and their families, Fedorov was removed by President Zelenskyy.

In this CBS interview with Fedorov the young outsider, who is still connected to the war effort and holds strong relationships with both Palantir (Alex Karp) and SpaceX (Elon Musk), outlines the current status of the conflict and gives his predictions on what comes next.

Fedorov states that Ukraine ballistic missiles should be online within three to six months.  He also predicts the ground conflict will be fully autonomous within a year, with robots and drones engaged in most of the combat operations.  As a consequence, Eastern Ukraine is now the real time proving ground for an entirely new type of technological warfare.

The interview is interesting both from a narrative perspective, the Hollywood-lite construct which includes elements of the former ‘find Kony’ performances, the youthful drama – David vs Goliath, the handsome characters etc., and from a perspective of Fedorov’s contemplative responses.  WATCH:

When Fedorov speaks of “destroying 200 Russians” (6:28 of video), he is speaking about destroying the 200 Wildberries warehouses the Ukraine government is convinced will result in the collapse the Russian economy.

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