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Breaking: The Kerch Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea to Russia, is on fire.

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...

ideos have emerged on social media that appeared to show infighting among Russia's elite, with mobilized Russians allegedly complaining about accommodation conditions before being sent to fight in Ukraine. On Wednesday, the pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar published a video that appeared to show Russian soldiers standing in front of a passenger train. The clip has been geolocated to Russia's Belgorod region near the Ukraine border. "We are now in the Belgorod region. There are about 500 of us. Material support, monetary allowance...Absolutely nothing!" the cameraman states, panning the video to his fellow soldiers. The majority have their face covered with...

Kadyrov boasted that Putin has 'personally congratulated' him with a promotion He said he gives his word that he will 'honour this trust' offered by Putin The warlord is rumoured to want to oust defence minister Sergei Shoigu Vladimir Putin has promoted his feared crony Ramzan Kadyrov to Colonel-General amid rumours of a senior new war role for the brutal Chechen leader. The Kremlin loyalist boasted in video that he had been 'personally congratulated' by the Russian despot, amid fears the warlord could be poised for even greater responsibility in Ukraine. Kadyrov, who has been one of the biggest cheerleaders...

TEHRAN, October 5. /TASS/. Cooperation between Iran, Russia and China will help create a new power that will oppose the unipolar world order, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in an interview with China’s CGTN broadcaster on Wednesday. "People around the world have bad memories of the era which has come to an end. It was a time of hegemony, unipolar world order and violations of the legitimate rights of many nations," the Iranian president pointed out. According to him, "a new era will be marked by the establishment of a multipolar world order." Cooperation between Iran, Russia, China, the Shanghai...

Ukrainian forces have counted more gains on the battlefield, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailing more “good news from the front lines” in his nightly address Tuesday. Rapid and significant gains have been counted in Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south in particular, with advances in the Kherson region. Now, dozens of settlements have been liberated this week across four regions that Russia “annexed” last week, Zelenskyy said. Moscow’s hold on “annexed” territories (Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk) looks increasingly tenuous, with none of the regions fully occupied by Russian forces, and as Ukraine’s counteroffensives in the east and south maintain their...

Turkish Airlines has extended its cancellation of flights to and from Belarus and Russia. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the national carrier of Turkey operated passenger flights to and from Minsk (MSQ) in Belarus as well as Rostov (RVI), Sochi (AER), and Yekaterinburg (SVX) in Russia. The Istanbul-based air carrier announced that it will not resume flights to the named destinations until at least December 31, 2022. “Our flights from/to Minsk (Belarus) have been canceled until December 31, 2022 (inclusive), from/to Sochi (Russia), have been canceled until December 31, 2022 (inclusive), and from/to Rostov (Russia)...

SVIATOHIRSK/KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces have broken through Russia’s defences in the south of the country while expanding their rapid offensive in the east, seizing back more territory in areas annexed by Moscow and threatening supply lines for Russian troops. Making their biggest breakthrough in the south since the war began, Ukrainian forces recaptured several villages in an advance along the strategic Dnipro River on Monday, Ukrainian officials and a Russian-installed leader in the area said. The southern breakthrough mirrors recent Ukrainian advances in the east, even as Moscow has tried to raise the stakes by annexing land, ordering mobilisation,...

Massive Offensive Across the Entire Eastern Front "Something surprising has happened" - DPA It looks like a direct frontal attack right into where the Russians have been trying to advance, and supposedly where they are strongest. The Ukrainians keep surprising all of us. The sourcing is all from Russian Telegram sources apparently. No word yet from the Ukrainian side.

As Russians escaping a partial military mobilization in their homeland drank their morning coffee in a cinema that opened its doors for them in northwestern Kazakhstan, Central Asia was waking up to yet more fallout from Moscow’s bloody war in Ukraine. Almost a week into the drive for soldiers that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on September 21 in response to a tide-shifting Ukrainian counteroffensive, sightings of Russians wandering the streets of cities throughout the region with backpacks and lost expressions have become commonplace. So, too, have lengthening lines at the state borders that Russian citizens can still cross without...

CHECHEN leader Ramzan Kadyrov has immediately taken to Telegram to blame Russian commander Alexander Lapin for Russia’s retreat in Lyman, Ukraine. Ramzan Kadyrov blamed Colonel General Oleksandr Lapin, who commanded the defence of this section of the front, for the loss of Lyman. “I have always said: there is nothing better than the truth, however bitter and hurtful, but the truth,” he said. “It is the only way to move forward. That is why I cannot keep quiet about what happened in Krasny Lyman.” He added: “The commander of the Central Military District Colonel-General Alexander Lapin was in charge of...

You will NEVER see this in America.

... Russia supplied around 40% of all the gas consumed in the EU in 2021. Germany is especially reliant on this supply of cheap gas. Gas only generates about 15% of the country’s electricity but many rely on it for heating and it is vital to heavy industries such as petrochemicals that use a lot of energy. Drastic measures are now necessary to secure alternative supplies, reduce gas demand and prepare for the possibility of shortages this winter. The EU’s Save Gas for a Safe Winter program aims to reduce overall gas demand by 15% across the bloc this winter...

German Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed concern over the looming energy crisis this winter, telling German media that the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility that Germany may run out of gas. Habeck spoke on Friday, appealing to Germans to reduce their consumption of natural gas ahead of this winter a day after the German government launched a new price break programme to help Germans with the rising costs of energy.

The European Union is preparing the eighth round of sanctions against Russia as Moscow escalated its war in Ukraine by holding illegal referendums in four Ukrainian regions... On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the Commission’s proposals for the eighth package of sanctions in response to Russia’s escalation of the war in Ukraine. “Today, in this package, here, we are laying the legal basis for this oil price cap,” von der Leyen said, commenting on the G7-led idea of banning Russian crude oil from imports by sea unless the oil is sold at or below a certain...

The rapid economic collapse that Britain is facing is simply an accelerated version of what the whole of Europe is about to go through; unsustainable borrowing to fund the gap between high energy prices and what households can actually afford. With the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, there is now no feasible way back. Europe can no longer physically import Russian gas – prices will remain high until Europe builds more energy capacity, which could take years. What is likely to come of this? High energy prices will render European manufacturing uncompetitive. European manufacturers will be forced to pass...

The CDU/CSU Christian Democratic Union suffered defeat in the Bundestag with a proposal to increase military support for Ukraine. In a roll-call vote, 179 MPs voted in favour of the proposal, 476 were against and one abstained, the German public broadcaster ARD reported. The motion called for “an immediate and noticeable increase in German support in terms of quantity and quality”. Ralf Stegner, MP of Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party (SDP), described the motion as “unnecessary”. In turn, Johann Wadephul, CDU/CSU parliamentary group vice-chair, stressed that, in view of Russia’s partial mobilisation, Ukraine now needs decisive support. “This also requires...

European natural gas inventories rose by +66 BCF over past 7 days. EU nat gas storage 88% full. Current inventories at 3382 BCF. 20.7% higher than 1 year ago. EU goal is at least 80% full by Nov 1st for winter. Current projection is for EU to reach 93% by Nov 1st.

At the end of 1942, when the Wehrmacht could advance no further east, Hitler switched German ground forces from an “enemy force-oriented” strategy to a “ground-holding” strategy. Hitler demanded that his armies defend vast, largely empty and irrelevant stretches of Soviet territory. “Holding ground” not only robbed the German military of its ability to exercise operational discretion, and, above all, to outmaneuver the slow, methodical Soviet opponent; holding ground also pushed German logistics to the breaking point. When holding ground was combined with endless counterattacks to retake useless territory, the Wehrmacht was sentenced to slow, grinding destruction. Ukrainian President Volodymyr...

mid growing concerns about a potential new large-scale Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory, at least one Russian T-80 tank has apparently been sighted in occupied Crimea with a bizarre-looking ad hoc armor fit. Armor of this type has been increasingly appearing on Russian tanks as of late and appears to be primarily intended to defend them against attacks by loitering munitions and other armed unmanned aircraft. The solution, which is part of a wider trend of improved defenses for Russian tanks, may well have been inspired by the destruction wrought by drone-launched munitions during last year’s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, although...