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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned from a visit to Turkey on Saturday, bringing home five former commanders of Ukraine's garrison in Mariupol despite a prisoner exchange last year under which the men were meant to remain in Turkey. Russia immediately denounced the release of the men. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Turkey had violated the prisoner exchange terms and had failed to inform Moscow. -snip- "We are returning home from Turkey and bringing our heroes home," said Zelenskiy who met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan for talks in Istanbul on Friday. "Ukrainian soldiers Denys Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhiy Volynsky, Oleh Khomenko,...

The Russian Army is in the process of pushing the Ukrainian military back from their territorial holdings in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. As the winter presses on and the ground continues to freeze, a force of roughly 350,000 Russian conscripts has been assembled across the border in Belarus. Russian lines within Ukraine are being fortified.

Unconfirmed reports on social media late on Thursday, November 10, claimed that explosions had occurred near the Antonovsky bridge. Some, again unconfirmed, even suggested that the bridge had been destroyed. Similar explosions were also reported on the left bank of the Dnieper river. Others reported explosions occurring in the area of ​​the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station. Various Telegram channels were posting about these incidents, with Ukrainian channels insisting that it was the Russian military firing at the bridge, while Russian ones claimed it was Ukraine targeting the structure. “It is possible that both sides are firing”, the Politika Strana Telegram...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia is loosing 20000 soldiers in Kherson | It may be the end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHrn9nZXqYg Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps here: https://militaryland.net/ https://militaryland.net/maps/invasion-maps/ Maps & Summary https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-260-summary/

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia lost 800 mobilized soldiers (mobics) with friendly fire Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps here: https://militaryland.net/ https://militaryland.net/maps/invasion-maps/ https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-258-summary/

Update from Ukraine | Finally long range Missile will be supplied to Ukrainian Army https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1m9uPp8Xrw Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps here: https://militaryland.net/ https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-256-summary/

Ukrainian forces can retake the strategic southern city of Kherson from Russian troops, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday, in what would be a major defeat for Russia in its invasion of its neighbor. Austin's remarks coincided with a Russian-installed official in Kherson region saying Moscow was likely to pull its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River, signaling a significant retreat, if confirmed. Ukraine said it was still fighting in the area and was wary of the occupying Russian forces setting a trap. Austin did not answer a question about whether Russian forces were preparing...

A report commissioned by the United Nations this month found Russian forces in Ukraine committed an array of war crimes, including summary executions, torture, rape and other acts of sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians. The report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine details violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in four regions occupied by Russian armed forces. The commission focused its investigations largely in the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy. In preparing the report, the commission conducted 191 interviews and traveled to 27 cities over five separate visits. In some cases, the commission...

The new commander of the Russian army in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin, said on Tuesday that civilians were being “resettled” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, describing the military situation in Ukraine as “tense.” “The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Surovikin said in his first televised interview since his appointment last week, adding that the situation was particularly difficult around the occupied southern city of Kherson. “Further actions regarding Kherson will depend on the developing military and tactical situation, which is not easy, and difficult decisions cannot be ruled out,” he said.

The picture was posted via Twitter by Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the investigative branch of the National Security Service in the Kharkiv region. ‘Defense of Ukraine‘, the official Twitter of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, wrote in a Tweet: “A torture chamber in Pisky-Radkivsky. Two photos. A gas mask placed on the head of a victim who was covered with a smoldering rag and buried alive. And a box of gold dental crowns. A mini-Auschwitz.” Here’s the original Tweet by Serhiy Bolvinov with some additional objects found onsite:

Ukrainian authorities have found a mass grave in the recently liberated eastern town of Lyman and it is unclear how many bodies it holds, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an online post on Friday. Separately, the Ukrinform news agency cited a senior police official as saying the grave contained 180 bodies. Ukrainian troops retook Lyman, in the Donetsk region, from Russian control on Saturday. Ukrainian authorities have regularly accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in occupied territories, a charge Moscow denies.

The defence minister of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov believes that Belarusian soldiers have no motivation to enter the war with Ukraine, and if ordered by their authorities to fight, they would lay down their weapons. "I don't understand what would motivate Belarusians to consciously go to war with Ukraine, kill and die for no one knows what, even if they are officers who are under oath obliged to follow orders. If they go on the attack with their units, they could cross the Belarusian border, raise their hands, lay down their weapons and say, ‘Ukrainians, we are your syabry. [Belarusians] are...

Ukrainian officials announced on Friday that they had exhumed more than 400 bodies at a mass burial site near Izium, Kharkiv region, from which Russian troops recently retreated after a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Many of those buried there, they said, apparently died a violent death — bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, ropes around their necks, broken bones and gunshot wounds; some men had their genitalia severed. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze visited the site.

SitRep 5/20 as reported on The Saker It is visible! It is palpalable! Morale in the both the Armed Forces of the Ukraine as well as in the general society is dropping like a stone. Soldiers are laying down their weapons, surrendering or simply try to walk home after Azovstal, because the fairy tale, the fantasy of proud and committed nazi soldiers bravely resisting, has shattered. The will to resist from the Ukrainian side is crumbling fast. These are just a few and reports of Ukrainian forces surrendering are many and increasing...... RusVesna Reports: There is a mass surrender of...

KYIV, April 21 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the Ukraine war on Thursday, declaring the port of Mariupol "liberated" after nearly two months of siege, despite hundreds of defenders still holding out inside a giant steel works. In a televised meeting with his defence minister inside the Kremlin, Putin said there was no need for a final confrontation with the last defenders who were boxed in after surviving nearly two months of Russia's siege. "I consider the proposed storming of the industrial zone unnecessary," he told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in a televised...

In the muddle of insurgency, assassinations, false flags, and military confusion, the right-wing Pravy Sektor’s Dmitry Yarosh is a key player. The recent high-profile murders in Kiev of opposition politician Oleh Kalashnikov and, the next day, of Ukrainian writer Oles Buzyna have made the scene in an already complicated and fractious Ukraine murkier than ever. Both Kalashnikov and Buzyan were overtly and, for many in Kiev and western Ukraine, disgracefully pro-Russian. Both were active in the “Anti-Maidan” movement of last year opposing the pro-Western change of power.