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On the night of March 31, the defender of Ukraine and four-time world kickboxing champion Vitaliy Merinov died in the hospital from his injuries. Merinov was also the champion of Ukraine in universal combat and a master of sports in boxing. He also served as President of the Ivano-Frankivsk Boxing Federation. The athlete went to war on the first day of a full-scale invasion. He received a gunshot wound in the leg, but after that he was able to recover and return to the front. Merinov is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter.

JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) - China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building "Belt & Road" infrastructure, according to a study published Tuesday. Almost 80% of the rescue lending was made between 2016 and 2021, mainly to middle-income countries including Argentina, Mongolia and Pakistan, according to the report by researchers from the World Bank, Harvard Kennedy School, AidData and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. China has lent hundreds of billions of dollars to build infrastructure in developing...

First Deputy Chairman of the National Association of the Military-Industrial Complex of Ukraine Ivan Vinnik announced the establishment of production of high-precision missiles "Alder". He told The War Zone about this on Tuesday during the XV conference "Security Dialogue between the United States and Ukraine", which was held in Washington. Ivan Vinnik said that now manufacturers are planning to modify the " alder-m "to increase its range to 150 km. He declined to specify when exactly the missiles might be ready and how many would be produced. "Let's just say, we hope, just in time for a counteroffensive, the probability...

The politically connected Chinese donors who pledged $1-million to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal did not only want to build a statue of the former prime minister. They also sought to erect a statue at the university’s law school of chairman Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader who brought his country under Communist control and, in his decades as the Great Helmsman, oversaw policies that led to huge numbers of deaths from famine and violence. “They suggested one of Trudeau and Mao together,” Geneviève O’Meara, a spokesperson for the University of Montreal, confirmed to The Globe...

China is considering sending Russia lethal military aid in the form of artillery shells as President Vladimir Putin’s army rapidly depletes its supply of ammunition a year into his invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials said, a prospect that has alarmed those in the Biden administration who believe Beijing has the ability to transform the war’s trajectory. There is no evidence that any weapons transfers have occurred, these officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. government’s assessment. But if China does move ahead, it would mark the first time Beijing has provided lethal aid in the...

— You have repeatedly said that, in your opinion, Putin will not stop in Ukraine. What exactly do you have in mind? Moldova, the Baltic States, or a self-destructive war with the United States? — In principle, such a worldview has no boundaries. This formula has been adopted almost officially: Russia doesn't end anywhere. This is the standard definition of an empire, because an empire doesn't recognize any borders. Borders in Europe appear in 1648, when the Westphalian system was formed, which later gradually ends with empires. There is an idea that there are borders between countries: "Here we are,...

President Joe Biden visited Kyiv on Monday for the first time since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, demonstrating in dramatic personal fashion his commitment to the country and its struggle as the war enters an uncertain new phase. While in Kyiv, Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as first lady Olena Zelenska at the Ukrainian presidential palace. Biden’s visit comes at a critical moment in the 12-month conflict, with Russia preparing for an expected spring offensive and Ukraine hoping to soon retake territory. The United States and other western nations have...

The case of a suspected spy at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is more explosive than previously known. According to SPIEGEL information, the Russian secret service FSB tried last fall to use BND employee Carsten L., who has since been arrested, to obtain position data on the Ukrainian army's artillery and air defense positions. According to the investigation, the FSB instructed the BND agent, through the intermediary Arthur E., to siphon off and hand over GPS data from the US-supplied Himars multiple rocket launcher and the Iris-T air defense system supplied by Berlin to the BND and hand it over...

Zelensky said that he intends to increase the army to a million people to attack the Crimea. The West is also pushing Kiev to at least some success on the battlefield. Air Defense Colonel Yuriy Knutov, a military expert, believes that Zelensky's statements should not be discounted: the enemy is really preparing the army for an offensive that, according to him, may look like a Tatar-Mongol invasion. More and more experts note Kiev's serious intentions to take revenge for the winter campaign, in which the Russian army was able to seize the initiative. One of the most priority areas of...

When someone shows up at a U.S. port of entry asking for admission and claiming to have information of interest to the United States, CBP and the Department of Homeland Security are tasked with verifying the information provided. If the information is confirmed as true and the person is deemed credible, they are then passed off to the FBI. “The deal with a walk-in is his ID has to be verified and his story checked as well — that could take some time,” explained one U.S. intelligence official. “If and only if he checks out, meaning he is who he...

One such incident recently occurred in the village Zhireken. Nikita Kasatkin, a 23-year-old native of Zhireken who joined Wagner in hopes of commuting his sentence, was returned for burial after being killed fighting in Ukraine. According to legal documents seen by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, Kasatkin was given a 10-year sentence for the murder of a local woman in 2020 but is believed to have joined Wagner in 2022 after serving only two years. Due to his difficult history in the small village, many residents are opposed to giving Kasatkin a proper soldier's funeral service at the local community center. However, a...

"When Free Russia was formed, I applied, went through some background checks, and ended up here.” The two men now form a mortar crew squaring off against raw Russian troops. “Putin really raised the stakes with mobilization,” Tsezar said. “Earlier, we were fighting against the so-called ‘little green men’ and some Vasya was sitting in Saratov watching television,” he said, using a diminutive of the common Russian first name Vasily. “Now Vasya has to get off his butt and crawl around a cold trench outside of Bakhmut while Tikhy and I fire mortars at him,” he said. “Vasya’s attitude is...

Now, in terms of the military impact, an F-16 is still a very capable platform: It has a good radar, it can fly well above the majority of the Russian sound systems in the area apart from the very, very specialized ones. It has a weapons system tied to that radar that can engage the vast majority of Russian aircraft long before they can attack it. The F-16 doesn't have quite the same stealth characteristics of something like an F-35 and an F-22. But I've fought against the F-16. I've had the odd trip in one, but I've also fought...

On January 30, 2023, the @Belyshum Telegram channel shared a promotional video encouraging veterans of the U.S. armed forces to join Wagner PMC. The video shows footage of U.S. soldiers in combat and saluting the American flag. Addressing the viewers, the narrator says: "You were a hero to your country, giving your best years in the army... You dreamed of defeating evil [and] to make America great again… But in reality, you served [the] destruction of nations and the death of civilians, all for the will of adventuring families who thought they were earthly gods... You began to realize that...

#Russian president #Putin is not an ordinary person, and so is his "friendship" with the leadership of some countries. Recently, one could observe how Putin and his envoys "cajole" the #Iranian leadership. 1/12 Image The Russian president meets and calls #Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi regularly. Relations between the leadership of #Russia and #Iran have not always been smooth. There were many problems, such as the spread of #COVID-19, #Syria, #Iran's refusal to pay for... 2/12 Image the construction of the Bushehr and Bushehr-2 nuclear power plants by #Russia and other difficulties (you can find the details in our earlier posts)....

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is racing to boost its production of artillery shells by 500 percent within two years, pushing conventional ammunition production to levels not seen since the Korean War as it invests billions of dollars to make up for shortfalls caused by the war in Ukraine and to build up stockpiles for future conflicts. The effort, which will involve expanding factories and bringing in new producers, is part of “the most aggressive modernization effort in nearly 40 years” for the U.S. defense industrial base, according to an Army report. The new investment in artillery production is in part...

BERLIN, Jan 24 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has decided to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow other countries such as Poland to do so while the U.S. may supply Abrams tanks, magazine Spiegel reported on Tuesday. A government spokesperson declined to comment. The defence ministry was not immediately available for comment. The decision concerns at least one company of Leopard 2 A6 tanks that will be provided out of Bundeswehr stocks, Spiegel said.

The Biden administration is preparing to announce a roughly $2.5 billion military aid package for Ukraine that is expected to include dozens of Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles, according to two people familiar with the decision, as the Pentagon intensifies its support ahead of an expected counteroffensive against entrenched Russian forces. The war has entered a phase, U.S. officials have said, that will require Ukrainian units to attack enemy forces in a concerted way, using tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and aviation in what is known as combined arms warfare. Bradleys and Strykers would significantly bolster their firepower and allow soldiers...

Days after Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian intelligence agents left a corpse on a sidewalk in the center of Kyiv with a bullet hole in the back of the skull. The dead man, 45-year-old banker Denys Kiryeyev, was killed as a traitor. The Security Service of Ukraine—the country’s primary domestic intelligence agency, known as the SBU—shot Mr. Kiryeyev because he was allegedly spying for Moscow, an agency official said. Yet days after Mr. Kiryeyev’s body was dumped, he was buried a hero and interred next to Ukraine’s first foreign minister. According to Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency,...

San Francisco's reparations committee will propose paying $5million to each longtime black resident of the city in a reparations plan this spring. To qualify, people need to have identified as black on public records for at least 10 years and be at least 18 years old. They also must qualify for two of a number of requirements, including having been born in the city or migrated to it between 1940 and 1996 and then lived there for 13 years. It is unclear exactly how many people would qualify should the proposal pass, but if just 10,000 people qualified it would...