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On Saturday, the Ukrainians hit the Kerch Strait Bridge, which leads from Russia to Crimea, with something—a missile, explosives planted by naval commandos, a truck laden with explosives. No one who knows is saying for sure.(snip)The tactical questions of how the Ukrainians pulled off this strike and of whether lasting damage has occurred are interesting and important but currently unresolvable publicly. What can, however, be more profitably discussed is what this tells us about where the Russia-Ukraine war is headed. “Battles are the principal milestones of secular history,” Winston Churchill wrote in his biography of the Duke of Marlborough. The...

Russian leader Vladimir Putin marked his 70th birthday on Friday with congratulations from the fellow authoritarian leaders of Cuba and Kyrgyzstan and a full “work” schedule, according to the Kremlin. The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry observed the day by sharing a recent quote from Putin predicting the “collapse of Western hegemony” on Twitter, illustrated by a photo of Putin wearing sunglasses.

Thank you USA BTW, there's no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia to Western Europe, including Germany. Nordstream's only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity. All Ukrainian and Baltic sea states have opposed Nordstream's construction for 20 years. Now $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine. Someone, @MFA_Russia, did a special maintenance operation.

The “partial mobilization” of Russian men to fight in Putin’s War in Ukraine is shaping up pretty much the fiasco we thought it would be (see Vladimir Putin to Address Russia; Annexation of Ukraine Provinces and Mobilization Seem to Be on the Table). It is equal parts black comedy, political thriller, and tragedy. But, don’t worry, the comedic and thriller elements will go away very soon. The war in Ukraine has left Russia facing a military personnel crisis. About 75% of Russia’s regular ground forces participated in the opening act of the Special Military Operation (SMO). These were reinforced by...

Russian-installed officials in occupied regions of Ukraine reported huge majorities on Tuesday in favour of becoming part of Russia after five days of voting in so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. Hastily arranged votes had taken place in four areas - the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and to the south Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - that make up about 15% of Ukrainian territory. Luhansk authorities said 98.4% of people there had voted to join Russia. In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian-appointed official put the figure at 93.1%. In Kherson, the head of the voting committee put...

A series of unusual leaks on two natural gas pipelines running from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany triggered concerns about sabotage Tuesday, overshadowing the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring Norwegian gas to Poland to bolster Europe’s energy independence from Moscow. Seismic stations Sweden, Norway and Finland registered two explosions Monday near the leaks. Bjorn Lund, a seismologist with Uppsala University who is part of Sweden’s national seismic network, said the first explosion was recorded in the early hours southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. The latter and stronger blast that night was northeast of...

All have fallen for the believe that the Ukrainian rapid advance has caused a Russian defeat. That however is not the case. The main Russian forces had already left the area. What was left were sentry guards of the Luhansk People’s Republic and a few companies of the Russian National Guard which is more or less a police force. That is why the ‘western’ official talking with Reuters is quite cautious with his assessment: “There’s an ongoing debate about the nature of the Russian drawdown, however it’s likely that in strict military terms, this was a withdrawal, ordered and sanctioned...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his forces have reclaimed 6,000 square kilometers of occupied territory from Russia since starting a major counteroffensive last month. Western media is presenting events near Kharkiv as an absolute rout of Russian forces, with other sources cautioning there’s little that can be verified, also amid the question of whether regained territory can actually be held and permanently controlled by Ukraine. Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov himself admitted in a Monday Financial Times report that a prime worry remains the ability to hold on to the territory amid superior Russian munitions and supplies. “A counter-offensive...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday the grain leaving Ukrainian ports after a blockade that fuelled a global food crisis was mostly reaching Europe instead of developing nations and questioned the merits of the deal. The United Nations and Turkey brokered an agreement with Moscow and Kyiv -- the first between the two since the February launch of Russia's military campaign -- restoring frozen Ukrainian grain deliveries across the Black Sea. But Moscow has voiced increasing frustration with how the agreement was being applied. An amendment to the deal also allowed Russia to get open access to fertiliser shipments and...

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Kiev will not receive any "security guarantees", in particular, because its draft is essentially a "prologue" to World War III, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believes. "The Kiev camarilla has given birth to a project of 'security guarantees', which are essentially a prologue to a third world war. Of course, no one will provide any 'guarantees' to the Ukrainian Nazis," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. He believes that the agreement proposed by Kiev is tantamount to "applying Article 5 of the North Atlantic Pact to Ukraine." This article refers...

Latest update from The New Atlas focusing on the realities of Ukraine's recent tactical victory vs. the enormous structural cost that likely leads to speeding up to Ukraine's eventual strategic failure. Ukraine lost 5-7 brigades (20,000 to 28,000 men) in just that short 10 day period of "counter offensive." Makes the interesting point that Russia's decision to withdraw eliminated Ukraine's ability to significantly reduce Russia's manpower or weaponry. By enticing Ukraine to come out of their covered defensive positions and into the open it has provided an easier target for Russia to attack by air and artillery Ukraine's stretched out...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refused peace talks with Russia just days prior to the war, according to reports.Zelensky's adamant refusal to accept German-brokered peace talks with Russia, which ultimately resulted in large-scale killings and massive destruction in Ukraine, has earned him brickbats from people across the globe.As per the report published in the Wall Street Journal, it is evident that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had extended an offer for peace days before Russia launched the attack on Ukraine but the Ukrainian President did not pay any heed.

How the Situation in Ukraine Could Get Far More DangerousAfter days of a withering Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Russian defense ministry announced that it was withdrawing its forces from two areas in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. In a video statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky quipped, “The Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do — showing its back.” Ukrainians celebrated, and rightly so. While Russian spokesmen said that Russian forces were “repositioning” ahead of a new offensive, reporters on the ground cast doubt on such pronouncements both because they mirror Russian statements as it abandoned its drive...

Kharkiv, which is Ukraine's second largest city and is the biggest population center closest to Russia's border, has been plunged into total darkness Sunday night amid alleged Russian attacks on key infrastructure sites, including large power stations."The center of Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv was plunged into darkness on Sunday evening by an electricity blackout," Reuters has confirmed of the large-scale outage. It's further being reported that some city districts are also without water, creating a severe crisis for residents."The cause and extent of the blackout in the northeastern city were not immediately clear. There were also unconfirmed social media reports...

Panicked Russian soldiers are abandoning their tanks, weapons and even clothes as they "literally run from their positions" in the face of a shock Ukrainian offensive, soldiers have told The Telegraph. A Ukrainian intelligence unit on the front line said the Russian chain of command was broken and soldiers were fleeing without putting up a fight, many of them changing into civilian clothes to avoid detection. A drone operator returning from the front line on Sunday also told The Telegraph that the speed of the offensive had even taken their own army by surprise, with troops struggling to recover the...

Negotiations Russia "does not reject" negotiations with Ukraine, but there are some "delays that complicate the process" of negotiations. This was said by Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov quoted by Tass. In an interview with Rossiya-1 television, Lavrov reported that Vladimir Putin convened a meeting with the Duma, the lower house of parliament, and leaders of the different factions. "The president told the participants that we do not reject negotiations," Lavrov stressed, but he accused the Ukrainians of delaying the process of negotiations. Kiev, Putin said again according to Lavrov's account, "should understand that the longer it delays the process, the...