Free Republic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals have an artful knack for keeping the Russian military bear off-balance. On Sunday, they renewed their offensive in the Russian Kursk Oblast, once again catching the Russian high command, Kremlin, and many pundits by surprise. Reports of a demoralized Ukrainian army fighting to retain terrain captured during the August Kursk offensive — of which at least 40 percent has been lost — have circulated among western media and Russian milbloggers since November. So too reports that Ukraine’s 155th Mechanized Brigade — trained and equipped by France — was under-resourced in “first person view...

The head of Russia's private Wagner militia said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces were not leaving the city of Bakhmut and fighting was continuing in the western part of the city. "It must be said clearly that the enemy is not going anywhere," Yevgeny Prigozhin said on his Telegram channel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had on Wednesday raised the prospect of a possible withdrawal from the city, saying Kyiv would take the "corresponding" decisions if its forces in the city risked being encircled by Russian troops. The months-long battle for Bakhmut, one of the last urban centres in Ukraine's eastern...

(AFP) – Ukraine pledged on Monday to bolster its defences in frontline Bakhmut, after reports that Kyiv was withdrawing from the city that’s become a symbolic prize in the war. The eastern Ukrainian city has been virtually flattened in what has become the longest and bloodiest battle since Russia’s more than year-long invasion. Ukraine has reported an increasingly difficult situation around Bakhmut in recent days and some analysts said its forces may have initiated a strategic retreat.

Comes after 48 hours of blistering offensives that have been captured on film and seen for the first time Kyiv's men have also made gains in the north and east, as they push from Kharkiv and Donetsk into Luhansk Troops can be seen storming across fields in American-made Humvees, taking Russian fire as they advance Ukraine has pushed Russia back by 12 miles in the south as dramatic footage reveals the blistering pace of attacks that have sent Putin's men fleeing for their lives. Videos taken in Kherson in recent days show Ukrainian forces storming Russian defences in American-made Humvees...