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Ukraine's air force has previously said Russia has used the Tu-22M3 aircraft to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at Ukrainian territory. The HUR said the bomber that was downed "carried out a missile attack against Ukraine on the night of April 19." The aircraft was shot down "as a result of a [HUR] special operation in cooperation with the Air Force," it said, adding that it was struck at a distance of about 300 kilometers from Ukraine. The HUR added: "It should be noted that this is the first successful destruction of a strategic bomber in the air during a combat...

Huge fires were burning at industrial sites in Moscow and St Petersburg after the latest round of attacks on Russian infrastructure by Ukraine. In St Petersburg, a blaze broke out at an industrial site close to the airport with footage showing towering flames and a huge column of smoke streaking into the sky. Local reports indicated that a hangar within the industrial zone was ablaze, whilst some suggested a drone had been seen nearby at the time. Meanwhile a similar blaze broke out in the suburbs of Moscow, where a construction warehouse burned to the ground. More footage showed flames...

Ukraine said Tuesday it had sunk a Russian patrol ship off the coast of occupied Crimea, claiming another victory over the Kremlin's forces in the hotly contested waters of the Black Sea. Moscow did not confirm the claim, which would represent the latest blow to its naval power as Kyiv strikes targets deep behind the war's front lines, even as its army suffers setbacks on the battlefield. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that it had used high-tech sea drones in an overnight attack on the large patrol ship Sergey Kotov near the Kerch Strait, which separates the annexed peninsula’s eastern...

Russian forces suffered an average of 983 casualties per day in Ukraine in February, the highest since the war began, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in an intelligence update on Sunday. The UK department said the increase in casualties, which included both killed and wounded soldiers, was likely due to "Russia's commitment to mass and attritional warfare." In February, Russia finally captured the embattled Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, which sits just north of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. War analysts have noted that Russia's tactics to take Avdiivka often involved "human wave" assaults, attempting to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with...

Military officials attribute much of their success so far to the superior technology and NATO-standard training that international partners have provided... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week revealed that about 31,000 Ukrainian forces have died in combat since Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24, 2022 – while Russian troop death totals are closer to 180,000... “31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, not whatever Putin and his deceitful circle have been lying about." ... Officials here affirmed to The Post that Russian forces have been dying at a rate of roughly six...

The Russian air force lost another Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber on Thursday, the Ukrainian air force claimed. If confirmed, the Thursday shoot-down would extend an unprecedented hot streak for Ukrainian air-defenses. The Ukrainian claim they’ve shot down 11 Russian planes in 11 days: eight Su-34s, two Sukhoi Su-35 fighters and a rare Beriev A-50 radar plane. But those 11 claimed losses are worse than they might seem for the increasingly stressed Russian air force. In theory, the air arm has plenty more planes. In practice, the service is dangerously close to collapse.

Deliveries of all-new Russian aircraft have been delayed by two years due to safety concerns ... The publication said that, for example, the weight of the new MS-21 passenger aircraft has increased by 5.75 tons, compared to the previous version, which used foreign components and Western engines. This means its flight range and altitude have been significantly reduced. One of Kommersant's sources said that, if Russia is unable to reduce the weight of the aircraft, it will be impossible for authorities to make the plane achieve the desired performance characteristics. "It's impossible to increase engine thrust by 20 percent," the...

"Russian officials and state-run and state-affiliated TV channels likely refrained from commenting on the two-year anniversary of the start of Russia's full-scale invasion to avoid drawing attention to Russia's failures to achieve its stated strategic goals in Ukraine and its more immediate goals of seizing all of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, while also suffering high personnel losses," the ISW said... The think tank said a recent opinion poll, conducted by independent Russian opposition polling organization Chronicles between January 23 and 29, suggests that "Russian sentiments about the war in Ukraine have largely remained unchanged in recent months and that most...

A representative of the company told Russian news outlet RBC that the decision was made after Roscosmos lost almost 80 percent of its export income after losing orders and key partners due to the war in Ukraine. This year, it intends to sell its "non-core" assets ... Borisov said in December that the company had lost contracts worth 180 billion rubles ($1.9 billion) out of 230 billion ($2.5 billion) as a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions imposed on Russia by Kyiv's allies... In October last year, Roscosmos appeared to admit that Russia's Luna-25 mission failed...

ussian spies have developed an artificial intelligence tool that Moscow is using to meddle in elections in Britain and the United States on a scale “exponentially greater” than ever before, Ukraine’s national security adviser has warned. In an interview with The Times, Oleksiy Danilov said that AI had enabled Russia to substantially ramp up its disinformation campaigns, designed to sow division and influence public opinion, and that Moscow now had specific units dedicated to every country holding an election in Europe. He said: “Artificial intelligence is a huge step forward for Russia and it makes the impact [of their meddling]...

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced the creation of a coalition to provide Ukraine with "medium- and long-range missiles and bombs".Source: Le MondeDetails: Macron said Western leaders decided to "create a coalition for deep strikes, and therefore for [supplying Ukraine with] medium- and long-range missiles and bombs."He also called on European countries to produce more munitions.

Around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been recorded as killed by Russia's war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the "Ukraine. Year 2024" forum in Kyiv on Feb. 25. "Each person is a very big loss for us. 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in this war," the president said. "It is very painful for us." The announcement is the first time Zelensky has publicly stated a figure on the death toll of Ukrainian soldiers since the start of the full-scale invasion. The Ukrainian government has kept a tight lid on casualty numbers during the war. Zelensky did not clarify if the number covers...

For Russia, the battlefield situation is a testament to systemic failure. "Russia could not win this war at all," he continued. "No chances. Nothing to fix... Everything is wrong: Russia's strategy, Russia's ideology, decision-making process, education system, etcetera." Moscow's war effort has become more costly, more brutal and less ambitious over the past two years. The Kremlin's plodding devastation doctrine is still laying waste to front-line areas, but a goal of total victory was abandoned—like so many Russian soldiers—in the churned approaches to Kyiv in the spring of 2022... "Russia's army was unable to win anyway," Luzin said. "Russia put...

THREE POINTS — Armed with lawn chairs, binoculars and, in some cases, sidearms, dozens of volunteers from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps gathered Saturday at a private ranch in the Altar Valley to kick off a monthlong border watch campaign in Arizona. The volunteers plan to set up 24-hour observation posts in the desert north of Sasabe to spot illegal immigration and drug smuggling and report it to the U.S. Border Patrol. “It’s our civic duty,” Minuteman Civil Defense Corps president Chris Simcox told the approximately 60 Minutemen gathered at Saturday’s rally. “And we are making a difference.” Simcox said...