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President Biden’s decision to provide anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, and allow the use of long-range missiles on Russian territory comes as the Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line. Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region. Meanwhile, Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv's offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one...

3 hours agoThe Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line in Ukraine at a crucial time for the conflict. Data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) shows that Russia has gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as it did in 2023, and is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs in the eastern Donbas region. Meanwhile, Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region is faltering. Russian troops have pushed Kyiv's offensive backwards. Experts have questioned the success of the offensive, with one calling it a "strategic catastrophe" given manpower shortages faced by...

Ukrainian troops have advanced up to 30km inside Russia, in what has become the deepest and most significant incursion since Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia's defence ministry said its forces had engaged Ukrainian troops near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez, as the offensive in the Kursk region entered a sixth day. Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Kyiv of "intimidating the peaceful population of Russia". (snip) While Ukrainian-backed sabotage groups have launched intermittent cross-border incursions, the Kursk offensive marks the biggest co-ordinated attack on Russian territory by Kyiv's conventional forces. “We are...

A top Russian general has been formally dismissed from his post after being arrested on bribery charges in May, according to Russian state media. Lt Gen Vadim Shamarin was arrested amid a wider crackdown on corruption in the defence ministry and was accused of taking "a particularly large bribe" from a telecommunications company. Prior to his arrest he had served as deputy chief of the army’s general staff overseeing the signals corps and military communications. Prosecutors have accused him of taking bribes between April 2016 and October 2023 to ensure an increase in orders from the company's factory. A military...

US President Joe Biden has condemned the assassination attempt on his predecessor Donald Trump in a primetime address from the White House, telling Americans that US politics must never be a "killing field". Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was wounded in the ear after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One person was killed and two more were critically injured in the attack. In the Oval Office address - just the third of his presidency - Mr Biden urged Americans to "take a step back" and warned that "political rhetoric in this country has...

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin dismissed Russia's claims to have inflicted heavy losses on Ukraine in the Donbas when Kyiv attempted offensive action. Prigozhin said the claims were "simply wild and absurd science fiction". But Russia's defence ministry doubled down on the claims on Tuesday, saying Ukraine suffered over 3,700 casualties. -snip- Speaking to state media, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu insisted that his forces had inflicted over 3,715 casualties on Ukraine during the attack and destroyed dozens of pieces of military equipment. "The attempts at an offensive have failed. The enemy has been halted. Russian soldiers and officers displayed courage...

A former commander with the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group has claimed asylum in Norway after deserting from the mercenary outfit. Andrey Medvedev, 26, crossed the border into Norway last Friday, where he was detained by border guards. He is currently being held in the Oslo area where he faces charges of illegal entry to Norway, his lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told the BBC. Mr Risnes said his client left Wagner after witnessing war crimes in Ukraine. The Norwegian Border Guard confirmed to the BBC that a Russian man had been detained after crossing the country's 198km (123miles) long border with Russia,...

Russia's defence ministry has revealed a host of occupations it says will be exempted from conscription aimed at boosting its war effort in Ukraine. IT workers, bankers and journalists working for state media will escape the "partial mobilisation" announced by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Around 300,000 citizens face being called up as part of the drive. The move has prompted a rush towards borders as young men attempt to flee to evade the draft. Announcing the exemptions on Friday, Russia defence ministry said employers must compile a list of workers who meet the criteria and submit it to its...

MONDAY UPDATE: MURPHY STEPS DOWN. Herman Cain's state director and lone New Hampshire staffer has resigned, leaving the campaign without a New Hampshire presence at least for the time being, the Granite Status has learned. Veteran GOP organizer Matt Murphy confirmed today that he stepped down last Friday as director of Cain's campaign in the first-in-the-nation primary state. He said the campaign refused to invest in a serious effort here. “There is no ill will toward Herman Cain,” Murphy said. “There was a strategic difference and I left the campaign because of those differences. The differences involved the New Hampshire...

The following speech was delivered at Wayne State College in Wayne, Nebraska.In remembering why we have come to support our troops today, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on something most of us never think about: our extraordinary luck in being Americans. We are, in a sense, lottery winners. There are something like 6.3 billion human beings currently living on the planet. Assuming that most of us were born sometime in the last half century, this works out to a roughly 1-in-20 chance of being born in the United States of America. There are plenty of other places...