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According to Ukrainian defence officials, units of Russian troops are now trapped at the Dnipro river after the recent counter-offensive. During an appearance on the Ukrainian parliament’s television channel on Monday, September 19, Nataliya Humenyuk, the head of the joint press centre of Ukrainian Defence Forces of the South, claimed that units of Russian troops in the Kherson region are now ‘sandwiched’ between the right bank of the Dnipro River and the advancing Ukrainian forces. “The fire control that we maintain over crossings and transport arteries across the Dnipro makes them understand that they are sandwiched between the defence forces...

I can’t believe it’s happening! But it is. Russia is pushed back even further. You’ll hear an interception from the Kharkiv region to find more insight about how they retreat. Also some exciting news from Moscow - some deputies are openly against Putin! Hopefully, there will be even more good news in the near future :)

The Russians are “regrouping” so rapidly in the Kharkiv region that Ukrainian troops barely have time to captured all the weapons and equipments during the offensive in Kharkiv region but they manage to captured so many weapons abandon by Russian Army. Several photo appeared in the public domain indicating that during the offensive in the Kharkiv Region, the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine took as a trophy the enemy command and staff vehicle R-149МА1, which is an element of the automated control system of the Russian military, known under the designations “Sozvezdie” and “ESU TK”. It seems that...

There are always people who say that the Russian army is fighting offensively, why not carry out a large in-depth assault with tanks and quickly encircle and cut off the enemy? The Russian tank forces were supposed to form up an iron barrel array on the front and gradually smash into the Ukrainian lines with fire. The Russian tank forces were supposed to form up an iron barrel array on the front and gradually smash into the Ukrainian lines with fire. Can the Russian General Staff fight a war? Now to talk about the large-scale in-depth assault and encirclement of...

Everyone suspected this for a long time, and some, quite likely, knew about it for sure- and now, apparently, the suspicion was confirmed. On September 7 of this year, the already well-known publication The WarZone, published a details article on how the US rushed Harpoon anti-ship missile to Ukraine. On Tuesday, one of the Pentagon’s biggest customers shed light on how the US supplied Ukraine with RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, which he said were used to sink two Russian warships. Advisor to the Secretary of Defense William LaPlante, responsible for the acquisition, delivery, maintenance of weapons and technology (and much...

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya, has criticised the Russian army’s leadership after it appeared to be caught off guard by Ukraine’s fightback against the Russian invasion in the north-east. In a sign that the Kremlin may face serious fallout over the loss of territory that the Russian occupation administrations had repeatedly stated they planned to keep “for ever”, Kadyrov also suggested that Vladimir Putin might not be aware of the real state of affairs. “They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,” Kadyrov said in an audio message posted to his Telegram channel...

Senior Ukrainian officials stepped up intelligence sharing with their American counterparts over the summer as they began to plan the counteroffensive that allowed them to make dramatic gains in the northeast in recent days, a shift that allowed the United States to provide better and more relevant information about Russian weaknesses, according to American officials. Throughout the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with information on command posts, ammunition depots and other key nodes in the Russian military lines. Such real-time intelligence has allowed the Ukrainians — who U.S. officials acknowledge have played the decisive role in planning and...

As Ed Morrisey pointed out this morning, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east has been moving faster than anyone expected, including obviously the Russians. A couple of days ago, Ukrainian forces retook the town of Balakliia and another small town called Volokhiv Yar. From there they moved east and took control of Kupyansk.Ukrainian troops already in Kupyansk.Russians basically offered no resistance.pic.twitter.com/4c2UqjEk1w— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) September 10, 2022That was a significant win because it meant Ukraine was in control of the rail lines which supplied Russian outposts to the south, in particular Izyum. Here’s a crude map showing the location...

The Russian situation in the Kharkiv area of Ukraine is growing more desperate by the hour. A couple of days ago, the Ukrainian Army launched an ambitious offensive designed to force Russian forces from a large part of Kharkiv Oblast, which they’ve illegally occupied since February. I posted on the initial stage of the offensive yesterday in Putin’s War, Week 28. The Sitzkrieg Goes Blitzkrieg as Ukraine’s Army Moves 50 Kilometers in Two Days.Since that post, things have changed radically.The key terrain in the northern part of the operational area is the city of Kupyansk (at the pinkish circle on...

Russian forces have withdrawn from key eastern towns, as a rapid Ukrainian counter-attack makes further gains. Ukrainian officials said troops entered Kupiansk, a vital eastern supply hub for Russian forces, on Saturday. Russia's defence ministry then said its troops have retreated from nearby Izyum to allow them "to regroup". The ministry also confirmed the withdrawal of troops from a third key town, Balaklyia, in order to "bolster efforts" on the Donetsk front. The Ukrainian advances - if held - would be the most significant since Russia withdrew from areas around Kyiv in April. Izyum was a major military hub for...

This falls under the category of too good to check. As Ed Morrisey pointed out this morning, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east seems to be shaping up as a genuine disaster for Russia. I came across this animation which shows the territory Ukraine has retaken in the past few days.AFU 🇺🇦 counter-offensive in Kharkiv region for the last three days 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8Mpj3fVPqB— Tarmo Juntunen 🇨🇿 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 NAFO (@TarmoJuntunen) September 9, 2022Wednesday there were reports of an even bigger loss for Russia. This has not been confirmed yet but it’s possible that Ukrainian forces have captured a Russian Lieutenant...

"The fact that several municipal deputies in St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown, came forward accusing [him] of treason and calling for his removal is highly significant," Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer and author of "Putin’s Playbook," told Fox News Digital. "They know the punishment will be severe. They can easily face a death sentence based on Russian federal law. The significance of this act of defiance and dissent by a handful of Russian officials cannot be possibly overstated."

Ukrainian forces continue to make significant territorial gains in multiple sectors of the frontlines and appear to be greeted everywhere with open arms by civilians, some of which spent over six months under the thumb of Russian occupiers.Videos like the one below have proliferated online as Ukrainian troops push rapidly through Russian lines in the north around Kharkiv and in the south around Kherson. Ukrainian forces in most places appear to be greeted with hugs, handshakes, and tears of joy by their liberated countrymen.

The Russian-Ukrainian battlefield is roughly comparable to the Kherson battlefield in the endless steppe. The Kharkiv-Severodh Donetsk region is more complex in terrain, with a large number of small highlands, forested swamps, and rivers. The road network is not good, and there are many small villages and towns. As a result, the entire battlefield is also more complex So far Ukrainian Army’s offensive is unusually smooth, more than 3,000 Russian internal guard units and armed mobilizers were almost defeated, and a small number of Russian paratroopers failed to stop the Ukrainian army’s thousands of assault troops alone, and quickly retreated...

MOSCOW — Russians began voting on Friday in the first nationwide elections since the invasion of Ukraine in a climate of wartime censorship and repression, with the Kremlin trying to assure the public that it was business as usual. The vote for local and regional governments across the country includes the first municipal-level elections in the capital of Moscow since 2017, when the opposition won a sizable minority of seats despite the Kremlin’s dominance of the political system and accusations of fraud. But the ranks of the opposition have since been depleted even further. Many anti-government politicians have fled the...

Just before 11 a.m. Moscow Standard Time on March 1, after a night of Russian strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, a set of Russian-language Twitter accounts spread a lie that Ukraine was fabricating civilian casualties. (snip) Late last month, the network of accounts shifted to focus almost exclusively on Ukraine, echoing similar narratives and content across accounts and platforms. A popular post by the account @QR_Kod accused the Ukrainian military of using civilians as human shields. Another post by @QR_Kod portrayed Ukraine as provoking Russia at the behest of its NATO masters. Both tweets received hundreds of likes...

The Defense Department has announced another package of security assistance for Ukraine, which will include additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, ammunition and a substantial number of Phoenix Ghost unmanned aerial systems. This latest package includes about $175 million in equipment pulled from existing U.S. military stocks through presidential drawdown authority and $95 million in equipment from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI fund, said a senior defense official during a background briefing at the Pentagon. Included in the latest presidential drawdown authority package are four additional HIMARS systems, which will give Ukraine a total of 16; four command...

“The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia,” protested Igor Girkin, a far-right nationalist, in a video address to his 430,000 Telegram followers on Monday. “We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time,” he writes characteristically.

The Institute for the Study of War released a Thursday report claiming that Ukraine's counteroffensive in Kherson and the Donbas is taking its toll on the Russian high command. Specifically, ISW pointed to Ukrainian victories outside the cities of Kharkiv and Russian-controlled Izyum as creating significant fissures within the Kremlin's "information space" and eroding confidence in their leadership. Ukrainian forces reportedly moved 31 miles to Russian defensive positions in Balakliya on Thursday, but Moscow forces failed to acknowledge any such advancement. According to ISW, the silence caused an eruption of Russian internet backlash against the military.

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health! We have good news from the European Union. The provision of EUR 5 billion of macro-financial assistance to our state has been approved. It's very important. And secondly, there is a decision of the Council of the EU to suspend the visa facilitation agreement signed by the EU and Russia. This decision will be effective from Monday. And there are specific recommendations of the European Commission regarding visa restrictions for citizens of Russia. This is the protection of Europe, it will make it difficult for those who do not want to change anything, do...