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Historic news as 400 Russian soldiers have surrendered in central Vovchansk, the largest mass surrender of the entire war on the Russian side. These Russian forces were encircled at the chemical plant and for only 2 days held out until the surrender from today. Russian forces in the city are now seriously crippled with the loss of half a BTG. Meanwhile Ukrainian drone attacks continue to drive home damage into the Russian federation, as Russia takes high losses with very little gains.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is readying to go to North Korea on Tuesday for his first trip to the country in 24 years. The Russian leader is set to visit the isolated nation for two days at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, state-run Korean Central News Agency said. The talks are expected to focus on expanding military cooperation between the countries

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made an antisemitic statement Saturday during his government meeting in which he hinted at a connection between Jews and theft. He referred to a corruption case involving his former aide, the governor of the Vitebsk region and former Minister of Agriculture and Food Igor Brylo, as well as dozens of other people. "There are 36 people on the list. Sorry, I don't consider myself antisemitic, but more than half of them are Jewish. Do they have a special, privileged role, that they steal and do not think about their future? Do they have privileges? All peoples...

Russia did not want peace, only the capitulation of Ukraine. Jakub Kumoch, former Secretary of State of President Andrzej Duda, who accompanied the Ukrainian delegation to negotiations with Russia in Belarus and Turkey in the spring of 2022, told the newspaper The Polish Times. The Introduction - That negotiations were a dead end. Moscow did not want a lasting peace - this is how Jakub Kumoch says about the backstage negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in the spring of 2022. Today he is the ambassador of the Republic of Poland to China, in 2022 he is the Secretary of State...

Vladimir Putin's leading propagandist on Russian state TV has suggested that Moscow should simply blow up the Kyiv dam and flood the Ukrainian capital to deal a killer blow in the war. The shocking tirade comes amid growing frustration in Russia at the slow progress of the country's offensive along the frontline in Ukraine. There is also anger after 90 countries around the world attended a Ukrainian peace summit in Switzerland which did not invite Russia.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — The leader of Armenia on Wednesday declared his intention to pull out of a Russia-dominated security alliance of several ex-Soviet nations as tensions rise between the two allies. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his government will decide later when to leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, a grouping that includes Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Amid the widening rift with Russia, Armenia earlier froze its participation in the alliance, canceled its involvement in joint military drills and snubbed CSTO summits. Pashinyan said Wednesday for the...

India's space agency has released the first images of the Moon taken by the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which entered lunar orbit on Saturday. The images show craters on lunar surface getting larger and larger as the spacecraft draws closer. Chandrayaan-3's lander and rover are due to reach the surface on 23 August. If successful, India will be the first country to perform a controlled "soft landing" near the south pole. It will also become only the fourth to achieve a soft landing on the Moon after the US, the former Soviet Union and China. After the spacecraft orbited the Earth for...

The space race was still a thing when I was a kid but it hasn’t been for much of the last 45 years. But that’s starting to change as Russia, India, China and the US all gear up for various missions to the moon. In fact, both Russia and India have lunar landers touching down next week. Russia’s Luna-25 lander could touch down as soon as Monday, August 21. It’s the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century, and the first in the post-Soviet era. Two days later, on August 23, Chandrayaan-3 could become India’s first successful lunar...

MOSCOW — Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit, the country’s Roscosmos space agency said Sunday. The pilotless spacecraft was aiming to be the first ever to land on the south pole of the moon, an area where scientists believe there could be important reserves of frozen water and precious elements. It had been expected to land Monday. However, Roscosmos said it lost contact with the Luna-25 on Saturday after the spacecraft ran into difficulties and reported an “abnormal situation ”. “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as...

Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and smashed into moon. Russia's state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft shortly after a problem occurred as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit on Saturday. 'The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon,' Roskosmos said in a statement. Moscow had earlier reported an 'abnormal situation' with the craft. 'During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which...

MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. The Luna-25 automatic lunar station, according to unconfirmed data, has been destroyed after colliding with the Moon’s surface, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos told journalists on Sunday. The agency recalled that on August 19 that the lunar probe was scheduled to receive propulsion thrust to descend into its landing trajectory on the Moon's elliptical orbit. "At about 2:57 p.m. Decree time, the connection with the Luna-25 automatic lunar probe was lost," according to Roscosmos.

Russia's first moon mission in nearly half a century may be in serious trouble. The Luna-25 spacecraft was supposed to maneuver itself into its final pre-landing orbit around the moon today (Aug. 19), ahead of a touchdown attempt on Monday (Aug. 21) or thereabouts. But the probe encountered a problem during the engine burn. "During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters," Russia's space agency Roscosmos wrote in an update on Telegram today (in Russian; translation by Google). "The management team is currently...

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine—Moments after the band struck up a song of praise at a Christian church in a Russian-held city near here, Russian soldiers stormed in wearing full tactical gear. One of them wove through the crowd, mounted the stage and told the congregation to prepare their documents for inspection. The service in September 2022 was the last held inside Melitopol’s Church of God’s Grace. The Russian authorities took over the building, adorned it with murals depicting their dead fighters, and converted it into a culture ministry in this part of occupied south Ukraine. The church’s erasure from view is part...

Anton Andreev says only 12 out of 100 soldiers remained alive after unit came under Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk. Anton Andreev, a Russian soldier from the fifth company of the 1009th regiment, painted a bleak picture of Russia’s offensive in the Ukrainian northern region of Kharkiv. His unit had been decimated, he said, with only 12 out of 100 soldiers still alive as they came under constant Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk, a prime target of Russia’s advances. “They just chop us up. We are sent under machine guns, under drones in daylight, like meat. And commanders...

Kyiv will hold peace talks with Russia tomorrow if Moscow pulls out of all Ukrainian territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. But speaking at the close of a summit for peace in Switzerland, he said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not end the war and had to be stopped "in any way we can", whether by military or diplomatic means. Western aid was not enough to win the war, he added, but the summit had shown that international support for Ukraine was not weakening. The meeting concluded with dozens of countries committing to Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Russian soldiers have been surrendering to an elite Ukrainian combat brigade in the northern town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region, reports say. A video released on Wednesday by Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade appears to show Russian troops emerging from a trench with their hands raised above their head or tied behind their backs. The video appeared to confirm recent reports that dozens of Russian soldiers had been surrendering around Vovchansk, where heavy fighting has raged since Moscow launched a cross-border offensive towards Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, last month. -snip- Several of the captured soldiers said they had been forced...

Support Free Republic Some of the blog's posts are reposted to "Free Republic"... Another weekly excursion your host the hypocrite and sinner feeing months of prompting that signifies real change more progress towards better things in my life. The internet filled with incitement against personalities either side of the political divide. I've been an online character assassin what good is that kind of stuff. That Moment I Dumped Fox News... Hating Other Folks Isn't The Answer Wanting What's Best For Them And Cleaning Up My Own Act Is?... Meanwhile on the Russian Front the sanctions heating up US economic warfare...

<p>ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 5 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he could deploy conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies if they allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with long-range Western weapons. Putin, in his first face-to-face meeting with senior editors of international news agencies since the war in Ukraine began, said the West was wrong to assume Russia would never use nuclear weapons, and said the Kremlin's nuclear doctrine should not be taken lightly.</p>

He has a high-stakes job. War and natural disasters keep him on his toes. He is often on a plane to far-flung places, travelling to negotiate with local leaders. He has the best intelligence money can buy. And as November’s election nears, he will spend lots of time looking at lines on charts. The American president and swashbuckling oil traders, it turns out, have a lot in common. Indeed, Joe Biden also seems to have a knack for the oil trade. Two years ago his administration initiated the largest ever sell-off from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (spr), an emergency store...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday spoke out for the first time about Russian warships in Cuban waters, criticizing the Biden administration for espousing "weakness" on the global stage. Footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday showed the frigate Admiral Gorshkov and nuclear-powered submarine Kazan sailing into Havana Bay, about 100 miles south of Florida. They were not carrying nuclear weapons but were armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles. The Cuban Foreign Ministry described the Russian naval presence as a reflection of the country's "historically friendly relations" with Moscow, even greeting the ships with a...