Free Republic

High-ranking unit in the Russian navy is reeling after experiencing significant losses in a recent offensive. The 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade was involved in Wednesday attack on a Ukrainian military garrison in Pavlivka, a town southwest of the recently annexed Donetsk region, according to The Moscow Times on Monday. The offensive intended to give Russian forces access to a key supply line in the area. In the wake of the offensive, the elite naval unit is reportedly pointing the finger at "baffling" leadership decisions that led to the loss of roughly 300 men. These complaints were made in a...

Videos show desperate Russian troops fleeing from their burning tanks and a group of soldiers being blown up by Ukrainian missiles during a disastrous assault on a town in eastern Ukraine that saw 300 soldiers reportedly killed or wounded. Footage shows Russian marines from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade driving a burning T-80BVM tank, along a road in the largely destroyed town of Pavlivka, as flames and black smoke erupted from the vehicle following a Ukrainian strike. A group of Russian soldiers can be seen climbing on top of the tank and jumping down before they ran away from the...

A $36 million Russian Su-34 bomber was reportedly shot down by Russia's own forces over Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, Ukrainian media outlets claimed on Monday. The jet was reportedly downed near Alchevsk, a city in the Luhansk region—one of the areas where the war is currently focused. Alchevsk is currently under the occupation of Moscow-backed separatist forces. Videos and images shared by the Strategic Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Telegram messaging app on Monday appear to show the charred remains of a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber. -snip- "Russian invaders from the air defense shot down their own...

Russia has made another failed attempt to cross a Donbas river where an entire battalion was wiped out by Ukrainian artillery - losing more men in the process with survivors forced to swim to safety. Putin's troops were trying to rescue men and vehicles that had got stranded on the wrong side of the Donets River, near Biolhorivka, after the first attempt on May 8 ended with their pontoon bridges being sunk by an artillery barrage that destroyed dozens of armoured vehicles and may have killed more than 1,000 troops. But their rescue mission was found out and subjected to...

Official Ukrainian statements, independent news reports, local social media, and RF state-controlled news platforms on Friday said UAF advance elements had closed on Ukraine’s border with Russia at multiple locations, Fighting according to those reports was in progress for the Ukraine-side border villages of Lipsy, Vesele, Kozacha Lopan’, Pitomik and Russki Tishy, all to Kharkiv’s north. ….snip Video images made public by the RF state-controlled news platform Readovka on May 13 showed scattered mortar or artillery strikes purportedly hitting fields and homes near the Solokhi, some 10 km inside Russia. There was no outside confirmation of the bombardment, but...

A Russian battalion lost almost all of its armoured vehicles in a failed attempt to cross a river near Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, the UK says