Free Republic

In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer. Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord. (snip) Other...

Ukrainian forces have regained at least a kilometre of territory in Bakhmut amid a Russian withdrawal that reflects its “severe shortage of credible combat units”, the latest UK intelligence briefing has said. The Ministry of Defence said that over the past four days, elements of Russia’s 72nd separate motor rifle brigade (72 SMRB) likely withdrew “in bad order” from their positions on the southern flank of the Bakhmut operation. The area was tactically significant because it was a Russian bridgehead on the western side of the Donets-Donbas canal, which marked the frontline through parts of the area, the ministry said...

The U.S.-based think tank's report published on Thursday says that Russia's purported goal of capturing Bakhmut by next week "would require a significantly higher rate of Russian advance than anything seen for many months."...While the Kremlin may be unlikely to capture Bakhmut soon, ISW maintained that missile strikes on "civilian targets throughout Ukraine" could instead mark the war anniversary because "actual military success continues to evade the Russian military."

They never had a chance. Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training. Now, they were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armored vehicles, lumbering through fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from a half-century ago and virtually nothing to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday with senior officials, amid concerns about Ukraine's High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the United States that Western officials claim hamper Moscow's war efforts. The rocket systems first arrived in Ukraine in June from the U.S and have been seen as crucial to helping Kyiv's forces repel the Russian military. The Russian state-backed TASS news agency reported on Monday that Putin will hold the cabinet meeting via videoconference on Monday, with the main topics being the development of air transport and aircraft manufacturing. Deputy Prime Minister and Trade...