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Russian investigators will not hand over the body of dead Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny for 14 days, his team have revealed, after his widow claimed he had been poisoned by Novichok. Yulia Navalnaya has accused the Russian authorities of hiding Navalny's body in order to wait for traces of the nerve agent to disappear. And today, Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that Navalny's body would not be given to his mother for 14 days while a chemical examination takes place.

A Russian military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed near the border between the two nations Wednesday, with Moscow accusing Kyiv of shooting down the aircraft, Kremlin officials say. The Russian Ilyushin Il-76 plane was carrying 74 people, including six crew members and three guards who were set to deliver the POWs in exchange for Russian captives, according to state news agency RIA’s quotes from the defense ministry. Andrei Kartapolov, a Russian lawmaker, claimed during a parliamentary session Wednesday that the plane had been shot down by three missiles.

74 people killed in Russia plane crash, no survivor Ministry says 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on plane that crashed

In a tragic incident, a Russian military transport plane crashed near the Ukraine border. Conflicting reports mention 65 captured Ukrainian military onboard and, separately, cargo related to air defense systems.

Ukraine said on Monday that it downed two Russian military command aircraft over the Sea of Asov, saying it had carried out a 'successful' mission against Moscow's forces. Officials said the country's air force took out an A-50 radar-detection plane worth £260 million, as well as an IL-22 aerial command plane, as they flew over the Sea of Azov on Sunday. The Sea of Azov lies between Russia and Ukraine, but Moscow controls its entire coast after seizing large swathes of southeastern Ukraine during its invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014. 'Minus an enemy long-range radar detection aircraft, A-50,...

A giant warehouse near St Petersburg has gone up in smoke after the Russian workers there set the entire facility ablaze. The action was reportedly taken after Russian police raided the Wildberries warehouse to find people to conscript to fight the war in Ukraine. According to Russian media sources the incident is currently under investigation by the state prosecutor's office. According to APA's Russian bureau, there is currently no available information regarding the number of casualties or injuries caused by the fire. The fire took hold of the 50 thousand square metre site and required hundreds of firefighters to bring...

Ukraine claims its forces “seriously wounded” a high-profile Russian figure as part of a special forces mission into border city Belgorod. Vladimir Putin’s forces sustained heavy losses in the Russian city as Ukraine bombarded the city, Ukraine's military chief has claimed. Hundreds of Russians have been evacuated from Belgorod after a reported barrage of shelling from the Ukrainian army in recent days. Kyiv spymaster Kyrylo Budanov said: “Not disclosing details, I can say that one of the very seriously wounded [in Russia’s Belgorod region] was quite a significant personality. “They immediately requested a helicopter to evacuate him directly to Moscow,"...

Russia has yet to comment on a swirl of unconfirmed rumours that Vladimir Putin's top war commander General Valery Gerasimov was killed in a strike on a military command post in Crimea on Thursday. An explosion and a trail of smoke were visible in a clip of a suspected Storm Shadow strike at the military site in Yukharin Balka. Another target in the village of Uyutnoye, near Yevpatoria was also reportedly hit. A flow of ambulances was reported by Ukrainian sources at both locations, and Putin-appointed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said: 'It was the most massive [attack] in recent times.'...

Russia immediately backtracked on a statement released on Monday that said some of its troops had withdrawn from a key position in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, raising questions about the scale of Moscow's operations in the area. The Russian Ministry of Defense dismissed its own statements about the "regrouping" of the Dnieper Group of Forces published by state-run news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti as a "provocation", without elaboratinThe term "regrouping" has previously been used by the Kremlin in Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine to describe a battlefield retreat by its forces. Ukraine has been gradually expanding...

Two Russian state news agencies published alerts on Monday saying Moscow was moving troops to “more favorable positions” east of the Dnipro River in Ukraine, only to withdraw the information minutes later. The highly unusual incident suggested disarray in Russia's military establishment and state media over how to report the battlefield situation in southern Ukraine. -snip- In a series of three alerts on Monday, the RIA state news agency said that the command of Russia's Dnepr group of forces had decided to relocate troops to “more favorable positions” east of the Dnipro. It said that, after the regrouping, the Dnepr...

<p>XPLOSIONS erupted at a Russian airfield after a suspected Ukrainian drone attack on a fleet of Vladimir Putin's warplanes overnight.</p><p>Thick plumes of smoke and fire was seen rising from Pskov airfield in western Russia in the aftermath of the aggressive aerial assault strike.</p>

Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and smashed into moon. Russia's state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft shortly after a problem occurred as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit on Saturday. 'The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon,' Roskosmos said in a statement. Moscow had earlier reported an 'abnormal situation' with the craft. 'During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which...

An "abnormal situation" occurred at Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft on Saturday as it was preparing to transfer to its pre-landing orbit, Russia's national space agency Roskosmos said. The Russian spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, part of a big power race to explore a part of the moon which scientists think may hold frozen water and precious elements. "During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the manoeuvre to be performed with the specified parameters," Roskosmos said in a short statement.

The Russian military leadership, however, has not yet confirmed the information. According to Russian propagandists, the attack was allegedly repelled and, they said, “preliminary data [suggests] the ship was not damaged.” The Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship, project 18280, is a unique ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and one of only two in the Russian Navy, said Defense Express. It was launched only in 2017 and commissioned in 2018. The ship is equipped with various radio reconnaissance and electronic warfare complexes, as well as communication systems to ensure fleet management.

KHROMOVE, Ukraine — Pressure mounted Saturday on Ukrainian troops and civilians hunkering down in Bakhmut, as Kyiv’s forces tried to help residents flee amid what Western analysts say may be preparations for a Ukrainian withdrawal from the eastern city that Russian forces have spent months trying to capture. A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of Bakhmut on Saturday, according to Ukrainian troops who were assisting them. A Ukrainian army representative who asked not to be named for operational reasons told The Associated Press that it was...

Ramzan Kadyrov has repeatedly attacked the running of the war in Ukraine He has summoned UAE doctor because he 'does not trust' the Moscow doctors Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov - a close ally of Vladimir Putin - is reported to be seriously ill with kidney problems amid fears of 'poisoning'. The fanatical pro-war zealot who has advocated using nuclear weapons against Ukraine is rumoured to have summoned a leading doctor from the United Arab Emirates because he 'does not trust' Moscow doctors. The kidney illness accounted for Kadyrov's surprising absence from Putin's state of the nation speech last month, several...

Engineer units of the 24th and 93rd mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces began February 27 to blow up bridges in Artemovsk (Bakhmut). By destroying railway and road bridges, the Ukrainian army wants to slow the advance of Russian forces deep into the city. First, the enemy blew up the bridge over the Bakhmutka River in the northeastern part of Artemovsk. In addition, the automobile bridge over the canal northwest of the city, which served as a communication route with the surrounding area – Chasovy Yar, Bogdanovka and Kalinovka, no longer works. Another reason for the destruction of the...

Russian tax revenue from crude oil and petroleum products plummeted by 48% in February from a year earlier due to the much lower price of Russia’s flagship crude grade after the EU banned imports of Russian oil, according to Bloomberg estimates based on official Russian data. Total tax revenues from oil and natural gas dipped by 46% year over year to $6.9 billion (521 billion Russian rubles) in February, per data from the Russian Finance Ministry published on Friday. Russia’s revenues from crude oil and oil products alone crumbled by 48% annually to $4.8 billion (361 billion rubles), according to...

This morning explosions have occurred near the Machulishchy air base in Belarus. As a result, Russia’s A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft might have been hit.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov will likely be dismissed from his ministerial post next week, Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported on Feb. 5, citing government and military sources.According to the sources, the likely replacement for Reznikov is understood to be Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency HUR. In a soon-to-be-published interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Reznikov reportedly denied any knowledge of an imminent dismissal.“I have not had any conversations about my resignation from this position,” he reportedly said.A government source confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that Reznikov was likely to be replaced in the very near future.