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A police officer in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson was killed on Wednesday by an explosive device planted by the Ukrainian "resistance movement" and another one was injured, Ukraine's defence ministry said. The reported killing is the latest in a series of attacks on local officials in regions captured by Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. "The resistance movement clears Kherson of traitors," the ministry's defence intelligence directorate said a statement. The device was set off by radio control on a street just north of the city centre, it said. On Saturday, the directorate urged citizens in the Kherson...

Ukrainian forces have struck a strategically important bridge in the southern part of the country, using what a Russia-appointed official said were rocket systems supplied by the United States. The Antonivskyi Bridge crossing the Dnieper River was closed Wednesday following the Ukrainian strike. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed administration for the Kherson region, said the bridge was still standing after the late Tuesday strike, but that the road deck was full of holes. Stremousov said Ukrainian forces used the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to carry out the strike. The bridge is a key link allowing Russia...

Ukrainian troops have struck a strategic bridge essential for Moscow to supply its forces occupying the country's south, as Russia pounded several areas in Ukraine with rocket and artillery strikes. The Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnieper River late Tuesday, the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, said. He said the bridge was still standing, but its deck was pierced with holes, stopping vehicles from crossing. An official from the Russian-installed regional administration said that, due to the shelling, the bridge had been closed to pedestrians as well, but that it...

Putin's blundering forces have shot down their own helicopter in Ukraine after it mistakenly started firing at its own troops. The Ka-52 'Alligator' helicopter, which costs an estimated £12million, was gunned down in Kherson, Ukraine's General Staff revealed. The military bosses joked it was a 'gesture of goodwill' from the invading forces. They reported that three of the helicopters were flown over the occupied region and started to shoot at the Russian troops stationed below. They returned fire and shot down one of the choppers in what is just the latest embarrassing blow for Putin's men. Video of the wreck...

Russia has charged dozens of Ukrainian soldiers with 'crimes against humanity' and wants them tried by an international tribunal led by Syria and Iran, the country's top investigator has said. Alexander Bastrykin, who heads the Russian Investigative Committee, said 92 Ukrainian 'commanders and subordinates' have been charged with 'crimes against the peace and security of mankind' over the war. Another 96 people, including 51 of Ukraine's top commanders, have been put on a wanted list which includes politicians and 'nationalists', Bastrykin added. The 68-year-old said it is 'extremely doubtful' whether the men could be prosecuted by the United Nations, due...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday with senior officials, amid concerns about Ukraine's High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the United States that Western officials claim hamper Moscow's war efforts. The rocket systems first arrived in Ukraine in June from the U.S and have been seen as crucial to helping Kyiv's forces repel the Russian military. The Russian state-backed TASS news agency reported on Monday that Putin will hold the cabinet meeting via videoconference on Monday, with the main topics being the development of air transport and aircraft manufacturing. Deputy Prime Minister and Trade...

VLADIMIR PUTIN is potentially facing a new civil war in the Caucasus after Chechen rebels said they were preparing for further hostilities in the region. Russia was involved in two bitter wars in Chechnya during the 1990s and early 2000s after Chechen separatists pursued independence from Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The First Chechen War took place between 1994-1996 under President Boris Yeltsin and resulted in a humiliating defeat for Russia. Then in 1999, Putin once again sent in the troops to crush Chechen rebels in a brutal campaign which saw Chechnya's capital Grozny raised to the...

It was apparent months ago that the Kremlin’s intensive focus on Donbas risked creating vulnerabilities elsewhere. At the peak of the fighting in Donbas in early July, three-quarters of the Russian army’s roughly 110 front-line battalions in Ukraine were in Donbas. Just a handful of battalions defended Russian gains in and around Kherson. The Ukrainian army also concentrated its best forces in Donbas, of course—but not at the expense of the southern front. In late May, Ukrainian troops began pushing south toward Kherson, then 40 or so miles from the line of contact. Two months later, Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive has...

Russian President Vladimir Putin could be facing another war front, this time on his own turf, as one Chechen battalion prepares a second offensive against Moscow, a spokesman for the volunteer fighting force in Ukraine said. -snip- "We know the enemy’s positions, where Russian military bases are," spokesman for the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, Islam Belokiev, said in a video message obtained by Fox News Digital this week while announcing a plan to once again fight for Chechen independence. "We have divided the Chechen Republic of Icheriya into three fronts and 16 sectors." -snip- At least two volunteer Chechen battalions, including...

Vladimir Putin was snubbed by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan who left him twiddling his thumbs in front of TV cameras during a summit in Iran yesterday. The Russian leader was holding face-to-face talks with his sometimes-ally in Tehran on Tuesday for the first time since ordering the invasion of Ukraine back in February. But he was left waiting for a toe-curling 48 seconds in front of the world's press as Erdogan failed to arrive on time for a hand-shaking photo-op. Putin's critics said he was left 'humiliated and insulted' by what they saw as a bare-faced snub, while others...

A major bridge in occupied Kherson has been hit by Ukraine's armed forces. The Antonivskyy (RU: Antonovskiy) spans the Dnipro river and is the shortest route for the occupiers to reach the city from Crimea.

SICKLY Vladimir Putin hobbled along the red carpet with his arm hanging limp by his side as he arrived in Iran today. Footage of the Russian leader's arrival showed him shuffling down the steps of his jet as he landed in Tehran to meet with fellow global terror master Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. With his right arm limp by his side, Putin, 69, was seen looking unsteady on his feet as he walked down a long red carpet rolled out for him at the capital's Mehrabad airport. The Russian dictator is right-handed - but there's speculation he's ambidextrous as he wears...

The movement of Vladimir Putin's vessels to the port city of Novorossiysk in southern Russia comes after Ukrainian stocks of longer-range missile systems were boosted by Western allies. Ukrainian media reports Serhiy Bratchuk, adviser to the head of Odesa's Regional Military Administration, reporting news of the ships' eastward movement via Telegram. Media outlet Ukrinform reports the official as saying: "According to the information of our Navy, the enemy has redeployed a significant number of warships from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk. "Russian ships were earlier deployed in missile-proof areas in the zone covered by coastal air defence systems, as close as possible...

A $36 million Russian Su-34 bomber was reportedly shot down by Russia's own forces over Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, Ukrainian media outlets claimed on Monday. The jet was reportedly downed near Alchevsk, a city in the Luhansk region—one of the areas where the war is currently focused. Alchevsk is currently under the occupation of Moscow-backed separatist forces. Videos and images shared by the Strategic Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Telegram messaging app on Monday appear to show the charred remains of a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber. -snip- "Russian invaders from the air defense shot down their own...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will be meeting with Iran's leader, Sayad Ali Khamenei, during his visit to Teheran which will begin on the 19th of July.

The EU's top diplomat has issued a statement expressing sympathy ahead of the day nearly eight years ago that local separatists working with a missile system deployed by Russian intelligence officials are accused of having shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. -snip- Russian suspect Oleg Pulatov, a former officer of the Russian Army, in 2014 headed a unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate in a region of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Pulatov was involved in the transport and protection of a Buk antiaircraft missile system that investigators say fired the missile that brought down the...

John Sweeney, a prominent British investigative journalist who has long covered Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote in his new book that he feels the leader looks "seriously ill" with puffy cheeks that make him resemble a hamster. In his forthcoming book (out July 21), Killer in the Kremlin, Sweeney described changes he has noticed in Putin's demeanor and physical appearance that he said scare him. He theorized the use of steroids for Putin's changes, noting the president could have started taking the medication years ago to treat a back injury sustained after falling off a horse. According to Sweeney, this...

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu today gave the order to dramatically increase so-called shock and awe attacks on Ukraine. He claimed Kremlin forces must 'exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime inflicting massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of the Donbas and other regions,' according to reports in Moscow. It followed an on-the-ground inspection by Putin's trusty defence minister - and a National Security Council meeting led by Vladimir Putin. Shoigu 'gave instructions to further increase the actions of [military] groups in all operational areas', local reports stated.

ussian President Vladimir Putin has scheduled an operational meeting with members of the Russian Security Council, as rumors swirl that Russia and Belarus are moving toward a unification process. "On Friday, the president will hold an operational meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council in the middle of the day or in the afternoon—it will depend on other events," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russia's state-run news agency TASS as saying. -snip- Russian political scientist and publicist Andrei Piontkovsky said in an interview with TSN.ua that Putin may, during Friday's meeting, sign a "pact to unite"...

A four-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome has become the latest innocent victim of Putin's war in Ukraine after she was killed in her pram by a Russian cruise missile which also left her mother fighting for life. Liza Dmitrieva was accompanying mother Irina on a day out in the city of Vinnystya - in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the nearest frontline - when a Russian Kalibre missile launched from a submarine in the Black Sea crashed down on top of them around 10.50am local time. The pink pram that Liza had been filmed pushing an hour earlier was...