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Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine. Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own. McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately,...

How US Military SMOKED Russian Mercenaries...

The 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks pledged by Germany to support Ukraine in its war against Russia have arrived in Ukraine, the German Defence Ministry said on Monday. Germany agreed in January to supply the tanks, regarded as among the best in the West's arsenal, overcoming misgivings about sending heavy weaponry that Kyiv says is crucial to defeat Russia's invasion but Moscow casts as a dangerous provocation. "I'm sure that they can make a decisive contribution on the front," German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said in a tweet. Besides the 18 tanks, 40 German Marder infantry fighting vehicles, and two...

It was late March, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was going poorly. The Kremlin had done its best to black out Western coverage of the war domestically, as well as its reports of failed Russian advances and widespread brutality. On the Kremlin’s flagship media channel, Russia-1, came a very different, ghoulish story: from Russian-occupied Ukraine, an “exclusive” report alleging Ukrainian militants brutally raped and murdered a Ukrainian woman and disfigured her corpse. In the footage, a correspondent follows a pro-Russian separatist soldier into a school basement in Mariupol to view the corpse of a dead woman. The...

What is the war: It when the wife of your 'sworn brother' has a Birthday, and all platoon gathers money so that he could buy her a gold chain and a pendent. - it when you have tea in the morning with a friend, and at lunchtime you learned that he died. - it when faithless people cross themselves and thank God after each mine bows up and did not get them. - it is when the church questions is it right or wrong to help a soldier who fights with weapons in hand, while sinful people are selling their...

The former Russian soldiers who spoke to Reuters, as well as human rights activists, said some soldiers were fearful of being sent to Ukraine, were pressured into going, or disgruntled at the way they were treated after fighting there. The former tank soldier from Moscow said he would not have gone to Ukraine voluntarily. "No, what for? That's not our war. If our troops were officially there it would be a different story." He said he had been sent to fight in Ukraine last summer and returned to Russia in September when the first peace talks took place. His crew operated...

The 70th anniversary of the end of World War II was commemorated throughout the Baltic countries today. In Estonia, the largest events will take place in the capital, Tallinn, where wreaths will be placed on behalf of the government at the Defence Forces Cemetery and at the memorial to the victims of Nazism at Rahumäe Jewish cemetery. Traditionally, wreaths are placed in the name of the government at the Maarjamäe Memorial Square at the monument for participants of the 1944 Estonian defence battles, graves of German soldiers and the Red Army memorial. [....] As previously reported, this year Lithuania will...

<p>Some Russian soldiers are quitting the army because of the conflict in Ukraine, several soldiers and human rights activists have told Reuters. Their accounts call into question the Kremlin's continued assertions that no Russian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine, and that any Russians fighting alongside rebels there are volunteers.</p>

(CNN)—Fighting has again shaken a nearly three-month ceasefire deal between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, leaving five Ukrainian troops dead in a 24-hour period, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday. Twelve other Ukrainian service members were injured in the fighting in separatist areas of eastern Ukraine, the country's National Security and Defense Council said.

The emergency calls became increasingly desperate. “When are you coming? It’s already burning and there are people inside,” a woman told the fire brigade dispatcher. Minutes later, callers started describing how people were jumping from the upper floors. “Have you lost your minds?” one man asked, his voice breaking. “There are women and children in the building!” another man yelled. In one of the most deadly episodes in Ukraine’s turbulent 2014 power transition, 48 people were killed and hundreds injured on 2 May last year in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Street battles culminated in a fatal fire at...

Advocates of the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran need look no further than Ukraine to see what the consequences of a bad deal with a rogue state can be. Back in February, the leaders of France, Germany and Russia pressured a desperate Ukrainian president into signing an agreement that made no mention of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, guaranteed a “special status” (read: Russian-controlled) eastern Ukraine, and froze in place the current front lines. This meant that all Russia’s ill-gotten gains would be held by President Putin. In return, Ukraine’s President Poroshenko got a sorely-needed $17.5 billion aid package...

CHISINAU, Moldova - Tens of thousands of Moldovans took to the streets on May 3 in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau to demand justice for a banking scandal that saw $1 billion vanish from three of the country’s biggest banks. They are calling for some political leaders in the ruling pro-European coalition to step down for their lack of action over the scandal and poor governance. The participants dispersed peacefully in the central square at midday, chanting slogans such as "Moldova is ours," "We are Moldova," and "The thieves must go to jail." Moldovans are looking for answers after $1...

Is Russia Planning to Disassemble the International Space Station? Goodbye, International Space Station. We hardly knew ye. For nearly two decades, since the launch of its first "module" in 1998, the International Space Station has been a symbol of global cooperation, and the site of actual cooperation among scientists from many nations. Comprised of 15 separate modules, and inhabited continuously since 2000, the International Space Station has hosted upward of 200 astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations over 17 years in service. But in just a few more years, all this will come to an end. Like disassembling an...

Russia's Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov has appealed to the Culture Ministry to establish a "full-fledged" museum honoring Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, a news report said. Zyuganov, the head of Communist Party and its parliamentary faction, asked Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky for help in overcoming objections by a "liberal public" to create a museum in honor of Stalin, the Izvestia daily reported Friday, citing a copy of the letter.

Amid Russia’s economic woes, billions of dollars continue to disappear in offshore havens. The net outflow of capital from Russia reached $32.6 billion during the first quarter of 2015, according to the nation’s Central Bank. The bank is now forecasting that capital flight may reach $131 billion by the end of the year. In reporting first quarter numbers, the Central Bank also upwardly revised the 2014 figure for net capital outflow to $154.1 billion from the previously reported $151.5 billion. That figure marks the highest annual total of capital flight since the Central Bank started tracking the trend back in...

Some pro-Kremlin figures have openly glorified wartime dictator Stalin, while the current patriotic fervour has drowned out unvarnished accounts of Soviet military blunders or infamous "barrier troops" who shot deserters. - 'Drowned in Russian blood' - Viktor Astafyev, a writer known for his grim WWII stories, claims that Russia's war losses were much higher than the estimated 27 million and military commanders won the war at the expense of "a huge amount of blood." "It is they who threw people in the fire like straw," the war veteran wrote in a letter recently published by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta,...

According to information from the Lursoft database, Russian Railways, through an Amsterdam registered affiliate RZDL Multimodal, has purchased 50% of the shares of logistics company Liepājas Oil Transit (LNT). The remaining shares of the company, through a number of firms, are owned by former Prime Minister Andris Skeles’ family, former politician Ainārs Šlesers and Ventpils Mayor Aivars Lembergs’ representative, considered to be Ansis Sormulis’ brother, Ivars Sormulis, as well as Russia citizen, Elena Volkova.

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Chronicle prepared team InformNapalm based on the information from insiders in the occupied territories, as well as reports from public sources. Sector "C" Donetsk 00:50 On the outskirts of Donetsk in the Petrovsky district, there was fighting with tanks and mortars in the village of Trudovskoy. 1:00 - 1:40 militants from howitzers and mortars firing on Ukrainian positions. 10:54 At the stop, a military truck Samoilov seen with the numbers dk 3406, which transported the tank. 13: 15-14: 20 Militants carried out active "teaching." Shells rake Kuibyshev mine mine waste/slag heap (Nitrogen). At 15:00 Lenina DNR conducts show concert with...

Dmitry Tymchuk, Head of the Center for Military and Political Research, Coordinator of the Information Resistance group, Member of Parliament (People’s Front) 04.21.2015 Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine Based on the results of OSINT (open-source intelligence) and by summarizing the data of the IR group’s network, the experts of Information Resistance calculated the approximate numbers of combat equipment and auxiliary supplies which Russia has transferred to Donbas after the signing of the Minsk Agreements, and as of April 20, 2015. Tanks at DNR's training grounds. Photograph by Petr Shelomoiskiy Tanks at the DNR’s training grounds. Photograph by Petr...