Free Republic

Fifteen miles east of the garrison town of Lyman, a desperate fight has been taking place on Ukraine’s eastern front for months. The once verdant Serebryansky pine forest has been reduced to burnt-out stumps, reminiscent of images from the Somme, destroyed amid Russian attacks aimed at eliminating Ukrainian foxholes. Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraine’s commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what “Maslo”, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unit’s first battalion, described as “constant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hours”. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous...

Western officials are engaged in “prudent planning” behind the scenes to prevent chaos and panic in their home countries in the event Russia was to detonate a nuclear bomb in or near Ukraine. Although a nuclear crisis is considered highly unlikely, the insider said officials internationally were re-examining plans to provide emergency support and reassurance to populations fearful of nuclear escalation. Hints of the thinking emerged in a briefing by an official on Friday, who was asked if there would be measures in place to prevent panic buying or people fleeing cities en masse in fear of escalation after a...

President helping determine movement of Russian soldiers, say sources, as head of UK armed forces says Ukraine is winning. Vladimir Putin has become so personally involved in the Ukraine war that he is making operational and tactical decisions “at the level of a colonel or brigadier”, according to western military sources. The Russian president is helping determine the movement of forces in the Donbas, they added, where last week the invaders suffered a bloody defeat as they tried on multiple occasions to cross a strategic river in the east of Ukraine. The sources added that Putin is still working closely...

Ukraine has been asking for more fighters since the war started, but the US refused to support a deal that could have seen Poland supply 28 MiG-29s, a Russian-made jet of the type its remaining pilots are used to flying. Washington was concerned that supplying fighter jets could be deemed escalatory by a nuclear-armed Russia. Despite the refusals, Ukraine continues to press its case, and overnight its air force tweeted “the greatest need is for fighter jets” and asked specifically for F-15s and F-16s, whose original designs date back to the 1960s and 1970s, which it said its pilots could...