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In north-eastern Ukraine, a counter-offensive has seen the nation's forces recapture swathes of territory, and drive out Russian troops. But in the newly-liberated areas, relief and sorrow are intertwined - as accounts emerge of torture and killings during the long months of Russian occupation. Artem, who lives in the city of Balakliya in the Kharkiv region told the BBC he was held by Russians for more than 40 days, and was tortured with electrocution. Balakliya was liberated on 8 September after being occupied for more than six months. The epicentre of the brutality was the city's police station, which Russian...

The Russians on the "Southern Front" received large reinforcements for half a day via the Crimean bridge The elite Ukrainian units that attempted the "Kherson counter-offensive" for the past six days did not achieve anything, and they paid for that with huge casualties and losses. They briefly took over Blagodatnoe and another smaller settlement and wedged themselves into Russian positions southeast of Suho Stavok, 3-4 kilometers away, but the counterattack was so powerful that they had to return to their starting lines with two captured positions. In the last 24 hours, the Ukris had 230 casualties, and they also lost...

A police officer in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson was killed on Wednesday by an explosive device planted by the Ukrainian "resistance movement" and another one was injured, Ukraine's defence ministry said. The reported killing is the latest in a series of attacks on local officials in regions captured by Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. "The resistance movement clears Kherson of traitors," the ministry's defence intelligence directorate said a statement. The device was set off by radio control on a street just north of the city centre, it said. On Saturday, the directorate urged citizens in the Kherson...

Nearly five months into its senseless war against Ukraine, Russia has concocted a wild new explanation for why the Kremlin’s plans for a quick takeover fell apart so spectacularly—because Ukrainian troops were turned into superhuman killing machines during “secret experiments” in American-run biolabs, of course. Never mind the myriad reports of Russian troops refusing to fight by the thousands, sabotaging their own shoddy equipment and even deliberately wounding themselves to abandon the war, Russian lawmakers claim the real setback for Moscow was “drugged up” Ukrainian soldiers. That claim was made Monday by two Russian lawmakers heading up a commission to...

A major bridge in occupied Kherson has been hit by Ukraine's armed forces. The Antonivskyy (RU: Antonovskiy) spans the Dnipro river and is the shortest route for the occupiers to reach the city from Crimea.

SICKLY Vladimir Putin hobbled along the red carpet with his arm hanging limp by his side as he arrived in Iran today. Footage of the Russian leader's arrival showed him shuffling down the steps of his jet as he landed in Tehran to meet with fellow global terror master Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. With his right arm limp by his side, Putin, 69, was seen looking unsteady on his feet as he walked down a long red carpet rolled out for him at the capital's Mehrabad airport. The Russian dictator is right-handed - but there's speculation he's ambidextrous as he wears...

A four-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome has become the latest innocent victim of Putin's war in Ukraine after she was killed in her pram by a Russian cruise missile which also left her mother fighting for life. Liza Dmitrieva was accompanying mother Irina on a day out in the city of Vinnystya - in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the nearest frontline - when a Russian Kalibre missile launched from a submarine in the Black Sea crashed down on top of them around 10.50am local time. The pink pram that Liza had been filmed pushing an hour earlier was...

The lower house of the Russian parliament will gather on July 15 for an extraordinary session, its council decided on Monday, just days after President Vladimir Putin warned that he had not even started to get serious in the war in Ukraine. Putin used a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday to dare the United States and its allies to try to defeat Russia in Ukraine, which Russia invaded on Feb. 24. Parliamentary leaders all thanked Putin for his decisions.

It became known about the liquidation of the Russian colonel, commander of the 810th Marine Brigade of the Russian Army Sergey Kens. As Censor.NET informs, Colonel Anatoliy Shtirlitz announced this on Twitter. -In Kherson direction, Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed two command posts of Russian army, - OC "South" -Armed Forces liquidated commander of Russian 49th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. PHOTO -Ukraine’s Armed Forces already eliminate 36,900 Russian invaders. INFOGRAPHICS. INFOGRAPHICS -Ukrainian soldiers liquidated Deputy Commander of 83rd Airborne Brigade of occupying Guards Lieutenant Colonel Slabtsov. PHOTO -Commander of 6th company of 57th motorized infantry brigade of Armed Forces of Russian...

The United States is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine against Russian aggression, and we’re not doing it on the cheap. The Biden administration announced on Friday that we were sending another $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. This comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory over the eastern Luhansk region last week. Putin jumped the gun a little, although Russian troops hold the upper hand throughout most of the region. The problem for Putin is that those pesky Ukrainians refuse to surrender. And the United States is making their continuing resistance possible by giving Kyiv high-powered weapons...

Nova Kakhovka, Ukrainian troops destroyed the ammunition depot of the Russian Armed Forces The likely culprit is "HIMARS". Reports of AFU strikes on targets in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, using American-made HIMARS MLRS.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, ordered the Ukrainian military to re-establish control over coastal regions in southern Ukraine. Ukraine is amassing a million-strong fighting force in order to achieve this goal.Source: Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s Minister of Defence, in an interview for The Times [of London]Details: "Ukraine is massing a million-strong fighting force equipped with western weapons to recover its southern territory from Russia," The Times wrote.Reznikov said that President Zelenskyy had ordered Ukraine’s military to retake occupied coastal areas which are vital to the country’s economy.Quote from Reznikov: "We understand that, politically, it’s very necessary for our country. The president...

Republican James E. Risch (Idaho) was in Ukraine, touring the country. He was escorted by Ukrainian forces because the State Department refused to provide him security once he crossed the Ukrainian border. He met with Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, and came away with the conclusion that the current U.S. strategy has not properly adjusted to the latest phase of the fighting.Russian forces are pummeling Ukrainian civilian and military targets in the Donbas with their superior artillery. Ukrainian forces are still not receiving enough of the weapons that might give them the advantage — including long-range air defenses, longer-range artillery, heavy...

Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a Russian soldier attempted to destroy a Ukrainian missile launcher from close range with dramatic and potentially lethal consequences. The clip, shared on a pro-Russian channel on social media and messaging app Telegram, shows one of Putin's fighters taking aim at an abandoned Ukrainian S-300 missile launcher sitting mere yards away. After taking a few moments to compose himself, the soldier squeezes the trigger of his PKM machine gun, presumably expecting to damage the hardware or perhaps set off a minor explosion to render it inoperable. A split second later the missile launcher...