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Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with an ally of the Wagner Group signals his struggle to address setbacks in the Ukraine conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking decisive steps to address growing challenges as he seeks to regain control over his struggling military campaign in Ukraine. On May 2, Putin met with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Russia's Tula Oblast, and a known associate of the Wagner Group, at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in Moscow Oblast. The meeting has raised questions about the stability of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's position, signalling Putin's increasing desperation in the face of unmet...

“In fact, it shows Louis Tomlinson fans near Four Seasons Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina last week,” a fellow BBC fact-checker said of the 32-year-old singer and one-time Harry Styles bandmate in One Direction. The footage, also shared by numerous online influencers, was just one of a number aired by Iran’s state TV claiming to show scenes of devastation from the weekend’s air strikes, despite Israel shooting down around 99% of the drones and missiles fired at the Jewish state. Another that IRINN claimed to be the fiery aftermath of a missile strike was actually from a February forest fire...

John Dean, a White House counsel to former President Richard Nixon, used just two words to describe the raft of unsuccessful appeals that former President Donald Trump has filed in his futile attempts to delay the start of his criminal hush money trial. “I think these appeals now, everybody knows, are frivolous, they’re desperate,” Dean told CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Wednesday. The four-time-indicted presumptive GOP presidential nominee “doesn’t want this case to go on before he has to face the voters,” Dean added. “And it is not going to help his campaign contrary to any thoughts that he pretends that...

Warsaw says soldier died of ‘unexplained natural causes’ while Moscow claims to hit Chasiv Yar command center secretively hosting senior NATO officials Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive commenced, the important city of Bakhmut fell to the Russians. I wrote at the time that it seemed the Russians would also aim to take the town of Chasiv Yar but that didn’t happen because the war shifted to the south and the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Meanwhile, a month later, the so-called hero of Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his Wagner forces, invaded Russia in what looked like an attempted coup d’etat but also...

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Russian investigators said on Thursday they had found proof that gunmen who killed more than 140 people at a concert last week were linked to "Ukrainian nationalists", an assertion immediately dismissed by the United States as baseless propaganda.Russia has said from the outset that it believes Ukraine was linked to the attack, even though Kyiv has denied it and the militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility.In a statement, Russia's Investigative Committee said for the first time that it had uncovered proof of a Ukrainian connection. While it described the nature of the alleged evidence, it did not...

Covert allies? What is the relationship between ISIS-K* and the US? Recent data reveals that the perpetrators of the heinous massacre on Crocus City Hall were allegedly recruited via a Telegram channel administered by members of 'Wilayat Khorasan'*, also recognized as ISIS-K*, per a Sputnik source. As we delve deeper into the motive behind this branch of ISIS*, Sputnik has put together essential facts and clues linking the US to these notorious jihadists.

The First Lady Jill Biden hit a new low over the weekend when she outrageously compared the Republican-led state of Florida to Nazi Germany as she desperately tries to campaign for her husband amidst his abysmal approval ratings. While speaking to an audience of Democrats in California who had paid $100,000 a ticket to see her, Jill claimed that $100,000 a ticket. While speaking to an audience of Democrats in California who had paid $100,000 a ticket to see her, Jill claimed that $100,000 a ticket. 0 seconds of 15 secondsVolume 0% “History teaches us that democracies don’t disappear overnight,”...

Russian authorities detained 11 people, state media reported Saturday, after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow in a grisly attack that left at least 115 people dead. Russia's Investigative Committee said four of those detained were directly involved in the attack that left the sprawling shopping mall and music venue smoldering with a collapsed roof. Russian agencies appeared to suggest the attack was linked to Ukraine even though the Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. agencies had confirmed that that group was responsible for the attack. The...

If you thought that NATO troop activities in Ukraine is something that developed in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup, think again. NATO has been mucking around in Ukraine since 1991. That 33 years for the math challenged out there. Before I dig into this topic, I participated in a Zoom Webinar put on by the European Association for the Defense of Minorities, which was held in Athens, Greece. The topic — Ukraine: The Search of a Peaceful Solution of the Military Conflict. I recorded a video that replicates my remarks to that group. I don’t know if they...

More than two years after the whole-scale invasion of Ukraine, is Russia still a near-peer threat to the United States? What are the capabilities of the Russian military after 24 months of heavy fighting against a determined Ukrainian military equipped with Western weapon systems? How soon can the Russian armed forces replenish the devastating losses they have been taking in the fighting? These are just some of the questions the U.S. Intelligence Community analyzes in its latest annual threat assessment. Released every year in early spring, the annual threat assessment delves into the most acute threats to U.S. national security...

Ukraine needs $3 bln in financial aid per month to survive the war in 2024. This was shared by the Ukrainian Finance Minister. Till now, Ukraine has received more than $73 billion in financial aid from its western partners but now the inflow of funds and weapons has slowed down. What are Ukraine's options? Are European nations in danger as Russia gains ground in Ukraine? Watch WION's Shivan Chanana have an in-depth discussion with Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, international affairs analyst, author, and historian from Brussels.

Exactly ten years ago, former President Viktor Yanukovych signed an agreement with the Euromaidan opposition to resolve the political crisis in Ukraine. The very next day, the opposition tore up the agreement and seized power by force. Months of Euromaidan riots ended with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych agreeing to reform the constitution, form a "government of national unity," and hold early elections in December 2014. The then-Ukrainian president also agreed to pardon rioters and launch investigations into violent acts by law enforcement officials. How West & Ukrainian Opposition Derailed Peace AccordsThe February 21 agreements to end the political crisis in...

Kremlin threatens to unleash Armageddon on the West if it loses in Ukraine: Moscow warns it will fire nuclear missiles on London, Washington, Berlin and Kyiv if Russia is forced to give up territory READ MORE: Putin snarls Ukraine war is a 'matter of life and death' for Russia The Kremlin today threatened to fire nuclear missiles on London, Washington, Berlin and Kyiv if Russia is forced to give up the Ukrainian territory it has invaded. Dmitry Medvedev - a close Putin ally who served as president from 2008 to 2012 - said if a military defeat led to a...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As he closes in on the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump made a highly unusual stop Saturday, hawking new Trump-branded sneakers at “Sneaker Con,” a gathering that bills itself as the “The Greatest Sneaker Show on Earth.” Trump was met with loud boos as well as cheers at the Philadelphia Convention Center as he introduced what he called the first official Trump footwear. The shoes, gold lame high tops with an American flag detail on the back, are being sold as “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399 on a new website that also sells Trump-branded “Victory47”...

In his two-hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson, the Russian president listed Moscow’s conditions for bringing the two-year-old NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine to an end. Now, the ball is in the West’s court, according to Russian international affairs expert Dmitry Suslov.President Putin has confirmed to Tucker Carlson that Russia favors a “negotiated settlement” to the crisis in Ukraine, saying that it will be up to Kiev and its Western partners whether or not to accept it. “We prepared a huge document in Istanbul [during peace talks in the spring of 2022, ed.] that was initialed by the head of the...

74 people killed in Russia plane crash, no survivor Ministry says 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on plane that crashed

On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, a former ally of Donald J. Trump, delivered a blistering critique of the former President, implying that Trump prioritizes personal loyalty over the nation’s welfare. In 2017, Donald Trump, who was then serving as President, threw his support behind Ron DeSantis in the race for Florida’s governorship. This endorsement from Trump was a significant boost for DeSantis, a tea-party conservative, enabling him to surpass the right-wing GOP candidate Adam Putnam, who was serving as Florida’s agriculture commissioner at the time, Politico reported. “Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant...

Ukraine lost 500,000 soldiers, killed or seriously wounded, since the beginning of the Russian special military operation/invasion, former Prosecutor General and ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko said on the YouTube channel. “I think that they should name the number of dead Ukrainians. I know that they don’t want this, and it will be taken seriously. Yes, it will be a shock,” he said.According to Lutsenko, Ukraine loses tens of thousands of fighters per month, which is why the Ukrainian military proposed to mobilize half a million people.“We must honestly say that the 500,000 that...

Hamas has called for the Arab, Muslim, and free communities of the world to increase solidarity activities for Gaza over the next few days, specifically over the weekend. Hamas says the activities must become a symbol of protest against aggression, genocide, and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and a denunciation of the murder of the leader and murderer Saleh al-Arouri, and Western, specifically American, support of the Zionist occupation. Zahar Jabareen, the deputy commander of Hamas' operations in Judea and Samaria, said that the assassination will only support the Hamas path of jihad.

Mainstream publications have fired another salvo of articles this week conveying a cratering outlook for Ukraine. Let’s take a run through the gamut to see just how urgently the tone has shifted, and what it portends. The first piece is from Foreign Affairs—the official journal of the CFR—written by CFR ex-president Richard Haass (remember him?). Note the deliberately chosen cemetery motif to define the tone: It lays out the urgency in no uncertain terms, using very direct language to exhort the U.S. and allies into immediately reorienting Ukraine’s posture from an offensive to a defensive one. Ukraine and the West...