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Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told lawmakers that Kyiv may not withstand the first 72 hours of Russian invasion and that it could fall in less than 3 days, Fox News reported citing multiple sources with the United States Congress. Milley reportedly warned lawmakers in this week's closed-door briefings, adding that around 15,000 Ukrainian troops and 4,000 Russian troops could lose their lives if Moscow chooses to invade.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday ordered his troops to withdraw from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson and take up defensive lines on the opposite bank of the River Dnipro. The announcement marked one of Russia's most significant retreats and a potential turning point in the war, now nearing the end of its ninth month. In televised comments, General Sergei Surovikin, in overall command of the war, said it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied. -snip- The announcement had been anticipated by Russia's influential war bloggers, who described it as a bitter blow. "Apparently we...

Hours after Aleksei Agafonov arrived in the Luhansk region on 1 November as part of a battalion of new conscripts, his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night. Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit. “A Ukrainian drone first flew over us, and after that their artillery started to pound us for hours and hours, nonstop,” Agafonov, who survived...

Videos show desperate Russian troops fleeing from their burning tanks and a group of soldiers being blown up by Ukrainian missiles during a disastrous assault on a town in eastern Ukraine that saw 300 soldiers reportedly killed or wounded. Footage shows Russian marines from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade driving a burning T-80BVM tank, along a road in the largely destroyed town of Pavlivka, as flames and black smoke erupted from the vehicle following a Ukrainian strike. A group of Russian soldiers can be seen climbing on top of the tank and jumping down before they ran away from the...

Russia removed a top military commander in Ukraine following criticism from some of President Vladimir Putin’s top allies over the officer’s responsibility for a recent chaotic retreat in the country’s northeast that underscored Russian weaknesses on the battlefield. Col. Gen. Alexander Lapin, responsible for the Central Military District, Russia’s largest, was the last of Russia’s regional commanders still in place amid Moscow’s faltering invasion. It was unclear whether he had been suspended or removed from his post. Gen. Lapin was the top Russian commander for a part of Ukraine’s northeast that Kyiv’s forces retook in a lightning offensive in September....

Footage showed thousands of Russian conscripts shouting at Major-General Kirill Kulakov at a training base in Kazan, a city in Russia, with some yelling 'let's go home'. Russian marines have said their 'incompetent' generals are treating them as 'cannon fodder' after their unit suffered devastating losses, with 300 men reportedly killed or wounded in four days of heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine. Marines from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade wrote a scathing letter to their regional governor, claiming they had lost 300 servicemen in a four-day massacre in Pavlivka thanks to the catastrophic planning of Generals Rustam Muradov and Zurab...

Things are disappearing in the Ukrainian city of Kherson at a rapid rate. Some are physical objects. Russian troops are taking away ambulances, tractors and stolen private cars. Cultural things are going too: archives, and paintings and sculptures from the art and local lore museums. Even the bones of Catherine the Great’s friend and lover, Grigory Potemkin, have been grubbed up from a crypt in St Catherine’s cathedral and spirited away. Russian soldiers are ferrying this loot across the Dnieper river, to the left bank of the Kherson region. They have also been deporting local citizens under the guise of...

The latest rebellion in Kazan highlights how disgruntled draftees are bravely challenging the authorities amid fears they face being sent to the front as cannon fodder. Mutinies against Vladimir Putin’s war are spreading as up to 2,500 mobilised Russian men faced down a "drunk" general in a protest over their training camp conditions and rusty weapons. Disgruntled draftees are bravely challenging the authorities by staging the rallies in Kazan, Ulyanovsk and the annexed Luhansk region. In a new video shared online last night, riot police arrive at a demonstration in Kazan, where the approximate 2,500 soldiers had gathered to confront...

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna. -snip- Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy". -snip- In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to "stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he...

A 24-hour curfew has been imposed in the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Kherson, the Russian-installed deputy governor of the region said on Friday, amid what he said was a likely Ukrainian offensive. In video message posted on Telegram, Kirill Stremousov said that the curfew was necessary "in order to defend our city of Kherson" from what he referred to as "terrorist attacks". Stremousov repeated earlier calls for civilians to leave Kherson city, saying that columns of Ukrainian vehicles had been spotted on areas of the frontline and that an attack was possible. Earlier on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said...

A Russian-installed occupation official in southern Ukraine said on Thursday Moscow was likely to pull its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River, signalling a huge retreat that, if confirmed, would be a major turning point in the war. Still, Ukrainian officials and Western analysts remained cautious about signs that Russia was abandoning the area, and there was silence from higher-ups in Moscow over what would amount to one of Russia's most humiliating retreats so far. Kyiv said it was still fighting in the area and was wary that Moscow could be setting a trap by feigning a...

Vladimir Putin does have early stage Parkinson's disease and pancreatic cancer, leaked spy documents have alleged in the latest unverified claim about the tyrant's ill health. The Russian leader has been plagued with rumours about his illnesses for months and he has regularly appeared twitching and unsteady in public, sparking hope in Ukraine and the West the despot could soon relinquish power. Claims have been circulating among opposition figures, fuelled by his unexplained absences and his shaky public appearances, that he is battling serious health problems but they have always been rubbished by the Kremlin. -snip- 'Putin is regularly stuffed...

Vladimir Putin's conscripts have been filmed drunkenly battering each other in an alcohol-fuelled brawl at a training barracks ahead of their deployment to the battlefields of Ukraine. An extraordinary leaked video shows the 'drunk' soldiers punching each other, with some ending up unconscious on the floor during the fight at the barracks in Yurga, Siberia. The video shows Putin's army intelligence and military police dragging the unconscious troops, who are from the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, along the street and away from the bloody brawl. The footage tallies with reports of low morale and drunkenness among Russian recruits and...

Nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in one day in Ukraine, Kyiv has claimed, marking the deadliest day for Vladimir Putin since his troops invaded eight months ago. Ukrainian forces have been making gains across Russian-occupied areas, with fighting intensifying in the country's east and in the southern city of Kherson. -snip- And in yet another example of his forces' incompetence, video shows panic-stricken Russian soldiers fleeing a Ukrainian attack on an armoured vehicle - only for it to flip over and fling the troops into the air. Footage, apparently from Kherson, shows Russian soldiers running towards an armoured...

Massive explosions have been seen hitting a key naval port in annexed Crimea that Russia claim was targeted in a major Ukrainian drone assault. Russian Black Sea warships were reportedly having to fight the attack off in Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea which was annexed from Ukraine in 2014. According to Ukrainian sources, several of the Russian ships from the fleet were blown up. Local media are reporting that rescuers this morning are still attempting to put out a fire on one of the ships. Residents claimed that the huge explosions 'shook' their homes and windows while black smoke...

Vladimir Putin’s Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has declared “Big Jihad” and urged Russian Muslims to fight Ukraine’s “demons” and “satanic democracy.” Kadyrov, one of Putin’s most fanatical backers, urged his supporters to lay waste to Ukraine and backed calls from Russian allies to wipe cities “off the face of the f—ing Earth.” -snip- “I swear with the Almighty’s name, this is the Big Jihad, which we must all take part in and we will not stop. “We will be killing them wherever they are. No matter who is helping them, America or Europe. “There is nothing to worry about. They...

Russian President Vladimir Putin scolded the West on Thursday for playing what he cast as a "dangerous, bloody and dirty" geopolitical game, but said the United States and its allies would ultimately have to talk to Russia. "Power over the world is what the so-called West has put on the line in its game - but the game is dangerous, bloody and I would say dirty," Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club. "The sower of the wind, as they say, will reap the storm."

Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has slammed Russia's 'weak' attacks on Ukraine in the latest show of high profile dissent from one of Vladimir Putin's biggest cheerleaders. The colonel general ordered Kremlin troops to 'wipe out Ukrainian cities off the face of the earth' in a chilling video message on Telegram. The head of the Chechen Republic said Russia should respond with fire and fury to the surge in counterattacks on its border regions. His dire threats come as Moscow doubled down on its warning that Kyiv is preparing to use a 'dirty bomb', amid fears the Kremlin could stage a...

'Progressive' Democrats have been slammed for penning an open letter to Joe Biden calling on him to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin. Thirty left-wing politicians - among them Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar - wrote to Biden on Monday saying that 'direct talks with Russia' to 'seek a rapid end to the conflict' should be his 'top priority'.

A group of liberal Democrats in the US Congress is pressing president Joe Biden to pursue direct talks with Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, opening a new front of pressure on his Ukraine strategy as his administration tries to maintain domestic support for Kyiv. -snip- Talks with Moscow have the potential “to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement”, according to the letter, which was signed by lawmakers including Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — a group of liberal congresswomen known as “the Squad”.