Free Republic

'In the absence of ammunition they're doomed to perish senselessly,' Yevgeny Prigozhin saysYevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia's Wagner Group mercenary force, said in a sudden and dramatic announcement on Friday that his forces would pull out of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that they have been trying in vain to capture since last summer. Prigozhin said they would withdraw on May 10 — ending their involvement in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war — because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies. He asked defence chiefs to insert regular army troops in their place. "I declare on behalf...

The video, originally 11 minutes long, starts with the Ukrainian forces turning off from a stretch of open land. Around the bunker are dead and dying trees. Smoke billows in the distance. The forces - claimed to be among the best trained and equipped of the volunteer corps - enter a bunker dug into the ground and speak with allied soldiers. A fallen soldier is identified and one reflects, 'yes brother, that's how it is in war'. The soldiers take a moment of respite in the trench as one - later called 'Lekha' - digs into the ground at the...

"If we lose Ukraine, we will lose peace for decades. The defeat of Ukraine could be the beginning of the end of the "golden age" of the West."

Russian forces pounded frontline cities in eastern Ukraine with air strikes and artillery attacks, while U.S. officials stepped up efforts to locate the source of a leak of classified U.S. documents, including those on Ukrainian counter-offensive plans. The Russians pressed on with their offensive in the eastern Donetsk region where several cities and towns came under heavy bombardment, Ukraine's general staff said on Tuesday. Ukrainian forces repelled several attacks, it said, as the Russian military kept up its effort to take control of Bakhmut. A top Ukrainian commander accused Moscow of using "scorched earth" tactics.