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Russell Bentley, 64, who fought alongside pro-Putin rebels in eastern Ukraine, was tortured and murdered by Russian servicemen, Kremlin investigators said on Friday. Bentley, a self-described communist from Dallas, Texas, went missing in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in April and was later found dead. Nicknamed “Texas”, he regularly appeared on pro-Kremlin social media channels, backing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive.

Other Russian Telegram channels said the attack resulted in about 50 Russian casualties. Ukrainian forces have used the Washington-supplied HIMARS on several occasions throughout the war, including in its Donetsk and Luhansk regions which are largely occupied by Russian forces. The Kremlin has been pushing for the total capture of the two regions—which together comprise the Donbas—since Russia's initial invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. HIMARS has allowed Ukraine to destroy Russia's most advanced anti-aircraft missile systems. Washington has supplied the Ukrainians with at least 39 HIMARS since the war began on February 24, 2022. In February, Serhiy Bratchuk, a...

"The return of Crimea to Ukraine is a requirement of international law." Erdoğan said in his video address that Turkey has always been opposed to Russia's annexation of Crimea. He decried the persecution of Crimea's ethnic Tatars since 2014. Erdoğan added: "Our sincere wish is for the war to end with a fair and lasting peace based on Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence." In October 2020, the Turkish leader said during a joint press briefing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that his country would never recognize the annexation of Crimea. "We have and always will support Ukraine's sovereignty and...

The Biden administration has already decided to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons to strike targets deep within Russian territory and any hesitancy is merely political camouflage, a Kremlin spokesman said Thursday. The White House is close to an agreement to provide Ukraine with the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile that could “significantly alter” the ongoing conflict with Russia, according to Reuters. It has a range of about 230 miles, or more than 570 miles if Kyiv receives the extended-range version. The JASSM can be launched from an F-16 Fighting Falcon, which the U.S. and other NATO allies are in...

The Russian army is currently focusing all its efforts on isolating the combat area in and around Pokrovsk. In particular, a few days ago the Russian Armed Forces took the western exits from the city under strict fire control, and now there are reports of serious damage to the bridge on the E-50 highway, which the Ukrainian army used to transfer cargo and personnel from the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk region. As experts explain, it was along this overpass that the Armed Forces of Ukraine transferred personnel, equipment and ammunition to Pokrovsk.

A little over a year ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s former cook and the founder of the notorious Wagner private military company, launched a coup attempt that fizzled quickly. But, significantly, the Russian military and security services did nothing to stop it. They just watched — hardly a sign of their loyalty to Putin. A few days ago, Georgy Zakrevsky, another head of a private military company, effectively called on Russians to get rid of the “Great” Putin (his modifier, not mine). When the guys with the guns start making fun of your greatness, it may be time to read the...

Germany has issued its first arrest warrant over the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to northern Europe, saying it is seeking a Ukrainian citizen, named only as Volodymyr Z.A European Arrest Warrant issued in June over the sabotage of a major pipeline feeding Europe Russian gas has come to light for the first time. Per an investigation published by a group of German newspapers and broadcasters on Wednesday, the Federal Prosecutor General put out a warrant for the arrest of Ukrainian citizen named, in line with German privacy law protecting unconvicted suspects, as Ukrainian diving...

Ukraine destroyed a Russian submarine in Crimea on Friday, Kyiv's military has said, appearing to mark the latest blow to the Black Sea Fleet based around the peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine. Ukraine "successfully struck" Russia's Rostov-on-Don submarine in the southern Crimean port city of Sevastopol, Kyiv's military said on Saturday. Kyiv also targeted four launchers belonging to Moscow's advanced S-400 air-defense systems on the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine's general staff said... "As a result of the hit, the boat sank on the spot," Ukraine's armed forces said. It had an estimated cost of around $300 million, according to...

UKRAINE ON THE ROPES AND BILL BINNEY ON CROWDSTRIKE 24 July 2024 by Larry Johnson 41 Comments I have two video offerings for you today. First up is my discussion with Danny Davis about the increasingly dire situation in Ukraine. He showed a couple of short video clips during out chat — one with John Bolton and the other with retired General Ben Hodges. WARNING — watching those two talk may lower your intelligence by a dozen of points. Proceed with caution. Incredibly stupid comments by those two gentlemen. As you are reading this, the Ukrainian front in the Donbass...

While the Ukrainian situation in the battlefield keeps getting from bad to worse, and in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s resigning from the Presidential race, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team have to re-caliber their approach to the bilateral relations with the US, without which they can’t continue their disastrous war effort. But in doing so, Zelensky has to pay close attention to the public opinion in his country, so he is presently doing parallel PR movements: one towards the Trump world and other publicly repudiating it for domestic consumption. It is now reported that his team has long...

Havrylyuk said that people were seen as expendable by Putin in his mission to conquer Ukraine, but economic issues and problems supplying its troops with ammunition and equipment could soon blunt its campaign. The ISW said that high casualties were part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategy to grind out a victory in Ukraine through a war of attrition. "The recent increase in reports of entire Russian units becoming combat ineffective due to losses highlights the tactics on which Russian forces are relying on to pursue Putin's theory of a slow, gradual, grinding victory in Ukraine," it said. Vladimir Putin...

At least 20 people have been killed and 50 injured following Russian missile attacks on cities across Ukraine, including one which struck the country's largest children's hospital in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko. Klymenko also said that Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and Donetsk Oblast were hit by Russian strikes. "More than 40 missiles of various types" were used in the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). "Russian terrorists have once again launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine," he said, adding that "all services are engaged to rescue as many...

According to the mathematician [Immanuel Niven], the "Putin system" is beginning to collapse, exactly what he predicted mathematically already in March: "The announced drastic tax increases in Russia (the highest tax increases in the history of modern Russia) as well as Putin's recently published slogans (according to which "everyone must work as if they were at the front") are dramatic signs that the toxicity of the Russian war economy is reaching a critical level." In a post on X some days ago, he explained what this 'toxicity' means: "If the cost of replacing material losses (in such a way that...

Russia strongly condemns Israeli airstrikes on the outskirts of Syria's Aleppo; these aggressive actions grossly violate Syria's sovereignty and international law, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "Moscow strongly condemns these aggressive actions, which come in gross violation of Syria's sovereignty and basic rules of international law," the ministry stressed. "Such use of force, which in the current tense regional situation can lead to extremely dangerous consequences and trigger a large-scale armed escalation, are unacceptable," it added. The Russian Foreign Ministry "once again urges the Israeli leadership to abandon this vicious practice fraught with uncontrolled destabilization of the situation in the...

China delivered a devastating blow to Russia's economic prospects after refusing to commit to a Kremlin deal over future gas exports. The Kremlin saw its gas revenues severely hit by its decision to invade Ukraine, as European countries started to introduce bans on Russian energy exports in the aftermath of the war. Gas and oil pipeline flows to Europe have plummeted by more than eighty percent since 2022, with the state energy company Gazprom taking a US$6.9billion (£5.4billion) hit to its finances.

In mid-2022, Gazprom restricted gas flows to Europe in what was seen as a move by Putin to get both leverage against Kyiv's allies ahead of the winter season and retaliate against Western sanctions and support of Ukraine. But the EU managed to find alternative long-term sources of gas imports and free itself from most Russian piped-gas imports ... Gazprom's revenue fell by 41 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2023, while sales profits dropped 71 percent and gas production by 25 percent... The report said the company's upstream gas-production base is now isolated because infrastructure connecting its main...

Russian central bank assets. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the move will hand Ukraine up to €3 billion (about $3.3 billion) this year. "We have approved in the EU using revenues from Russia's central bank's frozen assets to help Ukraine," wrote Lipavsky on X, formerly Twitter. "Up to €3B only this year, 90% goes for Ukraine's military. Russia must pay for its war damages." The financial assets were frozen shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Reuters reported this month that the EU has estimated that by 2027, windfall profits from Russia's central bank...

Kyiv says it has had some success pushing back against a renewed Russian offensive, but Ukraine's defences are in dire need of resupply. A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea early Friday caused power cutoffs in the city of Sevastopol and set a refinery ablaze in southern Russia, Russian authorities said. The drone raids marked an attempt to strike back during Moscow's renewed offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has added to the pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces as they await delayed deliveries of crucial Western weapons and ammunition. Ukraine has not commented on the attack nor claimed responsibility...

Synopsis: The diminutive Russian dictator is inaugurated for the fifth term of his permanent presidency. Russia 1 state television covers the event. State media has also anointed Putin as "Vladimir the Terrible", an imperial title.

The British government said on Tuesday it would commit its largest-ever tranche of military aid to Ukraine as part of a package worth £500 million ($622 million). The assistance will include further deliveries of Storm Shadow air-launched, precision-guided missiles, as well as vessels and vehicles. The Paveway IV—the latest in the Paveway series of bombs—converts unguided munitions, also known as "dumb bombs," into precision-guided weapons. They can use laser guidance or satellites to find their way to a target. "The Paveway IV will enable Ukraine to strike back" at Russian forces and target high-value assets such as command centers and...