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In an effort to preserve the families of those who may perish or be injured in armed conflict, the Russian government is taking steps to supply free access to sperm cryobanks for troops called up to fight in Ukraine. Families called up for military service as part of partial mobilization will receive a free quota for infertility treatment and storage of biomaterial in a cryobank, Igor Trunov, president of the Russian Union of Lawyers public organization, told TASS on Wednesday. "We received a response to my appeal to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation "On the creation...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday he was “100 percent” confident that his forces would destroy the Pentagon’s most advanced air defence system that US President Joe Biden has promised to send to Ukraine. “Of course we will destroy it, 100 percent!” Putin said, referring to the Patriot missile battery in extracts of an interview aired on Russian television.

Tens of thousands of drones have been employed across Ukraine to kill the enemy, spy on its formations and guide bombs to their targets. But this month the Ukrainian military began a program to use drones in a more unusual role: to guide Russian soldiers who want to surrender. The program had its genesis in late November, when the Ukrainian military released footage of a Russian soldier throwing his weapon to the ground, raising his hands and nervously following a path set out by a drone overhead, leading him to soldiers from the Ukrainian army’s 54th Mechanized Brigade. A few...

A major flu outbreak has hit Kremlin and could force Russian President Vladimir Putin into isolation in a bunker, a report in Metro said. The development comes a day after officials announced that Mr Putin will not hold his annual end-of-year press conference this year. Since Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov gave no reason or the break with tradition, several outlets are claiming that it has been done due to health issues Mr Putin is facing. After Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine in February this year, there has been a renewed focus on Mr Putin's health. "Yes, this year, flu...

The Kremlin-installed officials who had been occupying the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson said on Saturday that they had set up a new administrative capital in a seaside resort town about 110 miles to the east. “Today, the temporary administrative capital of the Kherson region is Henichesk,” Aleksandr Fomin, a representative of the region’s administration, told reporters. “All the main authorities are concentrated there.” The move comes less than a month and a half after Moscow moved to annex the region, with its capital in Kherson city. But as Ukrainian forces advanced with a counteroffensive aimed at recapturing territory in...

Vladimir Putin is set to deploy special units to shoot his own military if they retreat from the war in Ukraine, UK government defence chiefs said on Friday. Britain's Ministry of Defence said that Russia will deploy so-called 'blocking units' which 'threaten to shoot their own retreating soldiers in order to compel offensives'. With low morale at a peak among Russian soldiers, Putin is turning on his own men. 'Due to low morale and reluctance to fight, Russian forces have probably started deploying 'barrier troops' or 'blocking units',' the Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Friday. 'These...

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna. -snip- Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy". -snip- In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to "stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he...

Freepers on Ukraine threads be like:

Russian President Vladimir Putin showcased what seemed to be intravenous (IV) track marks on his hands while meeting with soldiers, sparking rumors of his undergoing cancer treatment. The video was released by Russia's Ministry of Defense last week of showing the Russian president overseeing drills while accompanied by several soldiers. Putin at one point is seen donning ear protection and glasses as he practices shooting a sniper rifle. After standing up, Putin grabs one of the soldier's arms with his hand, with a visible mark showing. A reporter for the Ukrainian news website the Kyiv Post tweeted two videos out...

Mayhem broke out at labour union organised protests in Paris against the cost of living crisis befalling the French public this week, with black bloc-clad rioters clashing with police and smashing windows. An estimated 107,000 people took to the streets of France on Tuesday in protest against the growing economic crisis born out the energy crisis surrounding the war in Ukraine, and self-inflicted economic wounds such as years of lockdown restrictions which spurred rampant inflation, and failures by the government to perform maintenance on the country’s ageing nuclear power plants.

Russian troops shot and killed an orchestra conductor who refused to perform at a concert Russia allegedly staged in the occupied southern region of Kherson, according to Ukrainian officials. The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine said in a Facebook post that it confirmed Friday that Russian soldiers shot Yuri Kerpatenko in his own home. Kerpatenko, the main conductor of the Gileya Chamber Orchestra, refused a Russian invitation to perform a concert with the orchestra group “to demonstrate the so-called ‘improvement of peaceful life’ in Kherson,” according to the ministry. The late conductor was also affiliated with the...

Russian Guards unit in major revolt as Putin faces catastrophic collapse in army morale Members of the brigade published a video to social media on October 13, in which they complained about suffering from fatigue and a lack of vital military hardware. consented to and to improve our understanding of you. Vladimir Putin is facing another military revolt, after an army guards unit publicly complained about a lack of critical military equipment and of suffering from exhaustion. The 126th Coastal Defence Brigade is believed to be currently on military duties in the Kherson region. The area has seen intense fighting...

The Russian military continues to lose ground in Kherson. Damage to the Crimean Bridge turns out to be more extensive than initially reported. Russia is also getting very creative and desperate to find Russian men to mobilize, including lawyers and musicians.

World’s richest man previously said company would not pay for satellite internet in war-torn country indefinitely Elon Musk Elon Musk on Saturday announced that his company would continue to pay for Starlink satellite internet in war-torn Ukraine, a day after suggesting he could not keep funding the project. “The hell with it,” the world’s richest man wrote on Twitter. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” Musk had said on Friday that SpaceX would not be able to pay for Starlink in Ukraine...

Preliminary data from Russia's Finance Ministry showed that the country's fiscal surplus shrank to 55 billion rubles ($860 million) in the first nine months of the year, down from 137 billion roubles ($2.15 billion), Bloomberg reported. Olga Bychkova, an economist at Moody's Analytics, told Newsweek that the Russian government surplus is 30 times lower, when compared to the same period last year.... She predicted the government budget would post a modest surplus of 0.6 percent in 2022 on high energy prices but flip to a deep deficit of around nine percent in 2023 due to limited growth, imports, and the...

Russia fired cruise missiles at cities across Ukraine during rush hour on Monday morning, killing civilians and knocking out power and heat, in what President Vladimir Putin declared to be revenge for Ukrainian attacks including on a bridge to Crimea. The missiles tore into busy intersections, parks and tourist sites in the center of downtown Kyiv with an intensity not seen even when Russian forces attempted to capture the capital early in the war. Explosions were also reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the...

Back in March I had warned that Lies Do Not Win Wars. Here is another practical example.After allegedly having 'run out of missiles' and, more importantly, patience, the leadership of the Russian Federation decided to de-electrify Ukrainian cities with a 'barrage of missile strikes'.But first came the propaganda blubber:320 missiles in a day: Russia targets short-range ballistic missiles at Ukraine; what is the result? - WION - Mar 2, 2022 Russia running short on guided missiles, firing indiscriminately - Ukraine - Jerusalem Post - March 17, 2022 Russia Running Out of Precision Munitions in Ukraine War Pentagon Official - US...

The impact of the use of a nuclear device in Ukraine will depend on the details. Like any large-scale industrial army, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have obvious pressure points that would be vulnerable to nuclear attack. These include logistical centers, command and communications nodes, and concentrations of front-line forces. During the Cold War the Soviet Union expected to use tactical nuclear weapons against NATO (and expected that NATO would use them in return) and it is therefore likely that the Russian armed forces have workable theories as to how they might best use tactical nukes to inflict damage on Ukraine’s...

The Kerch bridge from Russia to Crimea, a hated symbol of the Kremlin’s occupation of the southern Ukrainian peninsular, has been hit by a massive explosion on the span that carries railway traffic. Images from the bridge showed a fiercely burning fire engulfing at least two railway carriages from a train on the bridge, accompanied by a vast column of black smoke. The explosion, which witnesses said could be heard kilometres away, took place around 6am on Saturday while a train was crossing the bridge, although it was not immediately clear what caused it. Some images appeared to show a...

Jack Ross is a British volunteer aid worker helping to deliver supplies to the Ukrainian front line. He returned to Ukraine from his UK home as soon as news broke of the Ukrainian army's successful Kharkiv offensive. "My role in going over there early is to make sure that recently liberated people have enough food to survive," said Jack, explaining his initial plan was to return in November before the counter-offensive changed everything. He added: "We saw after the Russians stopped occupying places like Bucha, Irpin and Chernihiv they literally killed every living being in sight… Just to deprive the...