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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive actions were underway against Russian forces, asserting that his top commanders were in a “positive” mindset as their troops engaged in intense fighting along the front line. The Ukrainian leader, at a Kyiv news conference alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responded to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment a day earlier that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had started – and Ukrainian forces were taking “significant losses.

This Washington, D.C. establishment is dedicated to maintaining the posture of Cold War relationships and interpretations. Why? Because even though the “Establishment” is often deemed conservative, in reality it is not -- its members are inward looking, progressive in their self-interests, and casually opportunistic. They will do anything if it perpetuates their careers, and provides security to them professionally and personally. That means that enemies must be constantly created and maintained because fear and uncertainty are their currency. ###America and Russia could be allies and natural business partners, or at least stable competitors. But the Cold War mentality of the...

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has mocked the battlefield achievements of the Wagner Group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, as a dispute between the two key figures in Russia's full-scale invasion continues to ramp up. -snip- The Chechen leader then said that despite the phone call, Prigozhin had again made "an ironic statement" that Chechen fighters could only liberate a few settlements and not the DPR as a whole. But Kadyrov said his troops had "liberated" 36 settlements, including Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, and the city center of Popasna in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic. He also said that Mariupol, the city Russia seized...

Russian military performance has been "mixed" in the last 48 hours of fighting, as there are an increasing number of reports of Russian casualties as they "withdraw through their own minefields," according to UK intel. In an intelligence update on Saturday, the UK's Ministry of Defence outlined the progress that had been made on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine. "In some areas, Ukrainian forces have likely made good progress and penetrated the first line of Russian defenses. In others, Ukrainian progress has been slower," Britain's MoD said in a statement. "Russian performance has been mixed: some units are...

Ukraine's much-anticipated counteroffensive has finally begun. The Ukrainians are armed with Western weapons, including tanks and armored vehicles, but they are facing tough Russian defenses. The initial phases of this operation may be the most dangerous and costly, war experts say.The Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun, kicking off a particularly dangerous time for Ukraine's armed forces, even with its newly acquired arsenal of Western-made tanks, armored vehicles, and other weaponry that has been pouring in over months."Amidst a highly complex operational picture, heavy fighting continues along multiple sectors of the front," the British defense ministry said in a Thursday update, noting...

Ukraine's Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, the former commander of November's Kherson Counteroffensive, tells The Post how he intended to blow up the dam. "Kovalchuk considered flooding the river," The Post writes. "The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper's water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort.

Russian defence chiefs have been mocked for claiming to destroy a German-supplied lethal Leopard 2 tank - when in fact they had blown up tractors in Ukrainian fields. The ridiculing was led by head of Wagner private army Yevgeny Prigozhin, who sees it as yet more evidence of blundering incompetence by Putin's defence chiefs and army. The Russian defence ministry hailed 'footage of the destruction of foreign armoured vehicles, including Leopard tanks'. But in reality, military analysts say the footage showed Russia blasting farm vehicles with a missile fired from a Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter. In the video, a Russian...

Ukraine says Russia is shelling flooded civilian areas around Kherson even as efforts to evacuate thousands from rising waters unleashed by the bombing of a major hydroelectric dam threatens lives. A spokesman for the Ukrainian government said they were being careful not to shell civilians in flooded areas south of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power dam on the Dnipro River towards Kherson, and that claims their forces were impeding evacuations are Russian falsehoods. Army southern command press officer Natalia Humeniuk said, per Kyiv, that “…[Russia’s] shelling continues.

Moscow said Wednesday that a Ukrainian "sabotage" group had blown up the Togliatti-Odesa pipeline that Russia used to export ammonia before the start of its 15-month offensive. "A Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group blew up the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline" near the village of Masyutovka in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Monday evening, the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that civilians had been injured. Footage posted on social media showed white smoke coming out of the Togliatti-Odesa pipeline, which is the world's longest ammonia pipeline and stretches roughly 2,500 kilometers.

It looks like the much-anticipated Ukrainian spring offensive may finally be getting underway. Yesterday, Russia repelled Ukrainian attacks in five places. It’s very early — these were likely probing attacks looking to detect weak points in Russian defensive positions — but these attacks were much heavier than previous probing attacks. We’ll have to see what happens. When the main offensive comes, it’s very possible that Ukrainian forces will break through in certain areas. They might capture some territory (with plenty of U.S./NATO-supplied reconnaissance and intelligence to assist them), but it’s unlikely that their gains will be sustainable. The offensive will...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to censor social media users and obtain their personal information, leaked emails reveal. In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) warned on Wednesday that passing a bill later this year to provide more money for the Defense Department and military aid to Ukraine will be “a challenge,” despite a pledge Senate leaders made last week to defense hawks. Asked at a press conference how he could assure the passage of an emergency Ukraine and defense supplemental spending bill over the objections of House conservatives, McConnell acknowledged it faces an uncertain path forward. “All I can tell you at this particular point is defense is radically underfunded related to the Chinese threat and Ukraine will...

amzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic, offered on Sunday to send military forces from his country to help Russian President Vladimir Putin ward off attacks in the Belgorod region. Belgorod has been the site of numerous attacks in recent weeks. The region's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, and other Russian officials have blamed the attacks on Ukraine, but Kyiv has denied responsibility while two anti-Putin paramilitary groups—the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion—have claimed credit for them. Though Belgorod has experienced brief conflicts since Putin ordered his invasion of Ukraine more than 15 months ago, the recent...

Ukraine's military said on Tuesday that Russian forces blew up a major dam in southern Ukraine, while Moscow-installed official in the city of Nova Kakhovka in the Russian-controlled parts of the Kherson region denied it. "The Kakhovka (reservoir) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces," the South command of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page. "The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified." Reuters was unable to immediately verify the Ukrainian statement. Earlier, Russian state news agency quoted the Moscow-installed mayor of Nova...

The breach could result in devastating flooding, potentially killing thousands of civilians as well as disrupting the cooling systems for the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam in Russia’s Kherson Region, located on the Dnepr River upstream from the city of Kherson, suffered significant damage on Tuesday morning, according to a local official and several videos shared on social media. The upper part of the key infrastructure was “destroyed as a result of a strike,” the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, confirmed to RIA Novosti. While several of the dam’s floodgates were damaged and unleashed an...

Ukrainian leader says 80 settlements — including Kherson — could be hit by rapid flooding because of Russia’s planned ‘terrorist attack’. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned on Thursday of an impending “large-scale disaster” in southern Ukraine, claiming that Russia mined a dam at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in the south of the country. In an address via videolink to EU leaders meeting in Brussels, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had information showing Russia had already set charges. Should the dam be destroyed, more than 80 settlements — including the port city of Kherson — could be hit by "rapid flooding,"...

The wall of a major dam in a part of southern Ukraine that Moscow controls collapsed Tuesday after a reported explosion, sending water gushing downriver and prompting dire warnings of ecological disaster as officials from both sides in the war ordered residents to evacuate. Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam and hydroelectric power station, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area. The fallout could have broad consequences: Flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe’s largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the...

VIDEO AT LINK......... Residents of Kherson region are evacuating as water levels rise. Here's what we know about the destroyed dam From CNN staff Kyiv and Moscow exchanged accusations over the destruction of a sprawling dam in Ukraine's Russian-occupied Kherson region, triggering a wave of evacuations as floods of water spilled from the Nova Kakhovka hydro-electric plant. Here are the latest developments: "Terrorist attack and war crime": The Ukrainian defense ministry claimed Russian forces blew up the dam "in panic" amid heightening speculation that a major push by Kyiv to recapture land held by Russia’s occupying forces could be getting...

Ukrainian forces continued to shell Russia's border region of Belgorod overnight into Sunday after two people were killed the previous night and hundreds of children were evacuated away from the border, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. "Overnight, it was quite restless," Gladkov said on the Telegram channel, adding that the Shebekino and Volokonovsky districts had suffered "lots" of damage from the latest shelling. Gladkov later wrote that fires had broken out in the town of Shebekino after Ukrainian forces shelled a market area in the centre, adding that nobody had been injured. Shebekino is about 7 km (4 miles) from the...

Vladimir Putin’s troops “may not hold on to Bakhmut,” a military analyst has said. Michael Kofman of the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research group, said Russian forces will “find it difficult to defend” Bakhmut now Wagner mercenary fighters are withdrawing from the city. “And so they may not hold on to Bakhmut, and the whole thing may have ended up being for nothing for them down the line,” he told the War on the Rocks podcast in an interview on Tuesday. Russian forces declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month after a nine-month battle...