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Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has called for the execution of family members of suspected criminals who cannot be found. During a Dec. 30 meeting of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic, Kadyrov told security commanders that relatives are acceptable recipients of punishment for criminal suspects who are not apprehended. -snip- "As is customary from time immemorial, if one of the relatives has done wrong and the criminal cannot be found, their brother, their father would be killed."

The Russian army is welding 80-year-old gun mounts, originally built to arm patrol boats, onto 70-year-old armored tractors—and sending them to Ukraine to get captured by the Ukrainian army. The up-gunned, tracked MT-LBs are further evidence of the Kremlin’s worsening equipment crisis as it struggles to make good its losses in Ukraine. Which is why the Kremlin is pulling out of long-term storage hundreds of 50-year-old T-62 tanks, 60-year-old BMP-1 fighting vehicles and 70-year-old BTR-50P armored tractors. These awkwardly up-gunned MT-LBs just further underscore the Russians’ growing desperation.

Guests: Joseph Friedberg Today on "Rock Rachon" we discuss the new major offensive of the Russian army in Ukraine. According to ISW the invaders regained initiative. We discuss this with our guest, one of the founders of Mriya Report mr. Joseph Friedberg. Mr. Friedberg discusses the movements on the fronts and the huge losses Ruskies are suffering.

Ukrainian forces are on the brink of recapturing the strategically important city of Kreminna in the east, according to a local official. Serhiy Haidai, regional governor of the contested Luhansk region, which was annexed by Vladimir Putin after a sham referendum, tweeted Monday that the military command of the Russian forces “has left #kreminna, which the Ukrainian military is approaching…” Haidi added that the fighting was already raging not far from the city. In a Telegram post Tuesday, the official wrote: “the Russians understand that if they lose Kreminna, their entire line of defense will ‘fall.'” In a Christmas Eve...

Russia planned to start the invasion with a "massive missile and airstrike campaign" against Ukrainian military targets, RUSI says, with a list also showing who should be killed, who would be intimidated and who would be targeted as a collaborator. A British defence and security think tank has revealed details of Moscow's pre-invasion plan for Ukraine, based on captured Russian documents apparently signed off by Vladimir Putin. Russia had planned to take over Ukraine over 10 days and annex it by August this year, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) said.

The Army’s first openly transgender officer was indicted Thursday on charges of trying to provide American soldiers’ medical information to the Russian government. A federal grand jury in Baltimore indicted Jamie Lee Henry and his wife, Anna Gabrielian, on charges of conspiracy and wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information. According to prosecutors, the couple met last month with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian diplomat and offered medical information from Fort Bragg, the home of the military’s elite Delta Force. Gabrielian, an anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told the undercover agent during an Aug. 17 meeting that...

Vladimir Putin has accused Western leaders of clinging "to the shadows of the past" as he creates a new world order with his invasion of Ukraine.The world will not be as it was before the "special operation", Putin said in his speech at the plenary session of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum."It is erroneous to believe that one can sit and wait when the time of turbulent changes goes by, when everything goes back to where it was. It won't," Putin said. According to him, the changes are fundamental, "crucial and inexorable”.However, he said that Western countries "cling to...

Putin Address from St Petersburg…“It is clear why they waged this propaganda campaign, what all these spells about 200-to-1 ruble-dollar exchange rates and claims that our economy would collapse were all about. All this was – and remains – a tool in the information warfare, an attempt to put psychological pressure on Russian society,” he continued, stressing further that “some global currencies are committing suicide”.On the EU, he said: “The European Union has completely lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, accepting whatever they are told from above, causing harm to their own...

Russian president Vladimir Putin was humiliated on Friday when a cyberattack forced him to delay a key speech to an economic forum dubbed 'Russia's Davos'. The Kremlin said the St Petersburg Economic Forum had suffered from a denial of service attack, forcing the Russian tyrant to delay a scheduled address by an hour. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters that specialists were working to fix the problem caused by a DDOS attack that began on Thursday, and that Putin's keynote address had been moved back to 3pm (1300 BST). 'Problems arose with the distribution of badges...

Thermonuclear missiles roll through Red Square as Putin sends chilling warning to the West: Russia prepares for Victory Day parade while its army continues its carnage in Ukraine The RS-24 Yars ballistic missile - which experts believe can can carry up to 10 warheads - was paraded today Intercontinental weapon, which weighs 49.6 tonnes, can travel up to 24,500km/hr has range of 12,000km Jubilant soldiers and servicewomen marched outside the Kremlin in preparation for Monday's celebration Nuclear missiles have rolled through Moscow's Red Square in a chilling warning to the West as dictator Vladimir Putin prepares for his annual Victory...

Vladimir Putin is seen with a shaking hand and firmly gripping his chair in video captured two months ago - adding to mounting speculation over the state of the Russian president's health. The clip, which was taken on February 18, just before the onset of his invasion of Ukraine, shows him welcoming fellow strongman Alexander Lukashenko at the Kremlin. The Russian president has been dogged by claims of his failing health in recent months, fueled by footage of his bloated face, slouching posture, and constant gripping for support. In the video taken in February, Putin is seen standing up awaiting...

Russia has stumbled again. Its southern offensive, the second phase of the Ukraine war, has failed to be the "biggest tank war since World War II," as some analysts were predicting. Instead, Russia's ground forces have shown the same lackluster performance on the ground, unable to break through anywhere. The towns and villages of the south, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, "are the places where the fate of this war and the future of our state is being decided, now." Experts point to May 9th—Victory Day in Russia commemorating the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945—as the next decisive...

Among 86 Ukrainian captives, released today in exchange for RU soldiers, there were 15 women. Russians shaved our beautiful women baldly specifically to humiliate them. Never you will humiliate Ukraine. Never will you humiliate any UA woman, they are the bravest in the world.

Sounds like the Ukrainian Offensive on Kherson tonight is Confirmed. Ukrainian Forces are beginning a Large Scale Southern Offensive from the City of Mykolaiv and from the North involving Heavy Armor, Artillery and Air Assets towards the Russian Occupied City of Kherson and its Airport.

Russian troops trying to surround the city of Kyiv are now at risk of getting surrounded themselves after Ukrainian forces went on the counter-attack, with footage showing a tank getting blown to smithereens and rocket artillery raining down on Putin's troops. Heavy fighting is going on to both the west and east of Kyiv as Ukrainian troops - who have suffered through a month of dogged defending under heavy bombardment - are attempting to retake the initiative from Russian invaders by launching attacks of their own. Makariv and Moschun, two cities to the west of the capital, have 'probably' been...

Russian troops are retreating after being repelled from a strategic Kyiv suburb, Ukraine has claimed, in a move which could stop Vladimir Putin's forces from surrounding the capital. Ukraine’s armed forces said Moscow has lost its 'offensive potential' and reinforcements were being called in from the 'depths' of Russia to help them capture Makariv, a city located 37 miles from Kyiv. Ukrainian forces have been fighting back in Makariv in order to prevent Russian forces from surrounding the capital. The armed forces claimed the 'heroic actions of our defenders' have forced Russian troops back while a counterattack in the south...

Vladimir Putin has been accused of deporting Ukrainians to 'filtration' centres before forcibly taking them to remote Siberian towns after confiscating their phones and documents. 'Several thousand' people have so-far been taken, Mariupol city council claimed, before being processed through 'filtration camps' and sent to 'remote cities' in Russia where they will be obliged to stay for years and work for free. -snip- Russian news agencies have reported that buses carrying hundreds of refugees from the besieged southeastern port city Mariupol had arrived in Russia in recent days. Moscow officials also said a trainload of over 280 Ukrainians were being...

MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. The Russian Armed Forces have hit 1,612 targets since the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said. "As many as 1,612 targets have been hit since the start of the operation, including 62 command posts and communications centers, 39 S-300, Buk M-1 and Osa missile systems and 52 radar stations," he specified. According to him, 49 aircraft were destroyed on the ground and another 13 in the air. A total of 606 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 67 multiple rocket launchers, 227 field artillery pieces...

(CNN)Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stave off Russian ground forces massed less than 20 miles north of the embattled capital Kyiv -- but though they've defied US intelligence predictions that the city would likely fall within one to four days of a full-scale Russian assault, US officials warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin could imminently increase the intensity of the attack. Stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance and Russia's own logistical missteps have bogged down Russia's advance, US and western officials say, sparking a fragile optimism. The US has also continued sharing downgraded intelligence with the Ukrainians, including about...