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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent threat to use nuclear weapons will not staunch U.S. aid to Ukraine, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson said Thursday. “In terms of the statements or the announcements coming out of Russia, it does not affect the commitment to continue working closely with our international partners and our allies on providing Ukraine with the support that it needs in their fight to defend their country,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters.

A 2019 Rand Corporation study commissioned by the US Army laid out exactly what the plan to undermine and weaken Russia through military support would be. The study suggested arming Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russia, ramping up economic warfare, and taking a more aggressive and militaristic posture toward the United States international rival - all while warning this could lead to a military invasion of Ukraine. ...

Protests have broken out in parts of Russia following President Vladimir Putin's announcement that he was calling up reservists in an escalation of the war in Ukraine, according to reports. According to Latvian news website Meduza, authorities have begun to confront protests that have erupted in Russian cities. The Avtozak LIVE Telegram channel has shared images of some of the protesters and signs saying "No mobilization" Other signs have used a play on words to turn "no war, no mobilization" to "no war, no grave-ization." In Irkutsk, according to the Irkutsk Anarchist Telegram channel, authorities have already dispersed rallies and...

Alexander Avilov / Moskva News Agency Thousands of conscription-age Russian men appeared to be attempting to flee the country Wednesday as others planned how to avoid being sent to the front after President Vladimir Putin declared a partial military mobilization for the war in Ukraine. “I don't want to be cannon fodder,” one 30-year-old Muscovite who asked for anonymity to speak freely told The Moscow Times. The most obvious way for men to avoid conscription is to leave the country and Wednesday’s direct flights from Russia to Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan — nearby countries that allow Russians to enter...

The imprisoned Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has slammed Vladimir Putin and an opposition group has called for nationwide protests after the Russian leader ordered a military mobilization amid the country's recent military losses in Ukraine during a Ukrainian military counteroffensive. Putin, in a televised address to the nation aired earlier on September 21, also warned the West that he isn't bluffing over using all the means at his disposal to protect Russia's territory. Navalny said Putin was sending more Russians to their death for a failing war in a video message recorded from prison and released on social media...

America will retaliate with 'a devastating strike' against Russia's military if Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the United States Army's former European commander has warned. Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges today said any response by America 'may not be nuclear' but warned that if Putin were to use nukes in Ukraine that the US could look to 'destroy the Black Sea Fleet or destroy Russian bases in Crimea'. His comments come after the Russian premier sent shockwaves around the world, as he announced the 'partial mobilization' of his reserve military forces to continue his murderous invasion of Ukraine....

President Biden is set to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the second time as president on Wednesday, when he will announce new U.S. investments to address global food insecurity, rebuke Russia over the war in Ukraine and tout his administration's foreign policy actions since he took office. The address comes as Mr. Biden seeks to rally global leaders to continue supporting the Ukrainian government with arms and financial aid, with the war now in its seventh month. Mr. Biden will emphasize the principle of the United Nations charter that countries cannot conquer their neighbors by...

According to Ukrainian defence officials, units of Russian troops are now trapped at the Dnipro river after the recent counter-offensive. During an appearance on the Ukrainian parliament’s television channel on Monday, September 19, Nataliya Humenyuk, the head of the joint press centre of Ukrainian Defence Forces of the South, claimed that units of Russian troops in the Kherson region are now ‘sandwiched’ between the right bank of the Dnipro River and the advancing Ukrainian forces. “The fire control that we maintain over crossings and transport arteries across the Dnipro makes them understand that they are sandwiched between the defence forces...

...[captioning continues:] This only exacerbates the conflict, adds to the suffering of victims & refugees. ...exacerbates food and energy sources and accelerates global inflation. All this causes damage to the vast majority of the peoples of the world. The great powers openly or tacitly position themselves in the face of the conflict in Ukraine in order to serve their hegemonic interests. Therefore it is impossible not to suspect that this war, although it seems perverse and incredible, serves the interests of the military industry."

Advisory - Story has been withdrawn - Multiple bodies found at mass burial site in Ukraine's Izium with rope around necks

The Biden administration has just announced yet another new weapons package for Ukraine worth $600 million, which now brings to total US military aid pledged since the start of the conflict to $15.1 billion. Crucially, in this case the arms are being sent under the presidential drawdown authority, which allows the White House to take arms directly from US military stockpiles for use by foreign allied forces. The administration confirmed it was the 21st time it drew from Pentagon stockpiles. The Guardian details, “Joe Biden authorized the latest assistance using his Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the president to authorize...

All have fallen for the believe that the Ukrainian rapid advance has caused a Russian defeat. That however is not the case. The main Russian forces had already left the area. What was left were sentry guards of the Luhansk People’s Republic and a few companies of the Russian National Guard which is more or less a police force. That is why the ‘western’ official talking with Reuters is quite cautious with his assessment: “There’s an ongoing debate about the nature of the Russian drawdown, however it’s likely that in strict military terms, this was a withdrawal, ordered and sanctioned...

Over the roughly two decades that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power, he's dedicated a lot of time and money to building up and modernizing Russia's military. In the process, Putin garnered a reputation as a force to be reckoned with and was widely viewed as one of the most powerful leaders in the world. But the war in Ukraine has decimated the Russian military that Putin spent years building, while raising questions about his grip on power, Russia experts and military analysts told Insider. "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a strategic defeat. So far the Kremlin...

The strategy behind Ukraine’s rapid military gains in recent days began to take shape months ago during a series of intense conversations between Ukrainian and U.S. officials about the way forward in the war against Russia, according to American officials. The counteroffensive — revised this summer from its original form after urgent discussions between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials — has succeeded beyond most predictions. Ukrainian forces have devastated Russian command and control, and appear poised to capitalize on their advances in the northeast of the country and in another campaign in the south.

Here we are, 26.5 weeks into Vladimir Putin’s 3-day cakewalk to Kiev. I haven’t done this in a while (last update Putin’s War. Week 21. New Weapons Change the Battlefield in Ukraine’s Favor but Are They Stronger Than European Cowardice and Stupidity?) because not a lot has been happening if you aren’t in a trench in Donbas hoping to make it through an artillery barrage.The big news today is what might turn out to be a Ukrainian offensive developing in Kherson Oblast. We’ll get to that after the preliminaries.Politico-Strategic LevelA lot of action has taken place at this level, but...

In 2019, the CIA-run Radio Free Europe reported on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s connection to Ihor Kholomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch whom the State Department banned from entering the U.S. in March 2021 due to his “significant corruption.” Burisma and the CIA The New York Post reported that Kholomoisky had a “controlling interest” in Burisma Holdings—the Ukrainian energy company which employed Hunter Biden as a board member for $50,000 per month. Russian media, quoted in State Department emails, referred to Burisma as “part of Kholomoisky’s financial empire.” Six months after Hunter Biden departed, Burisma appointed Cofer Black to its board—a position...

DEVELOPING: U.S. announces another $1.7 billion in aid to Ukraine. The money is for humanitarian purposes, intended to support the salaries of hospital workers as the nation reels from the ravages of war.

At the NATO summit in Madrid, Finland was invited to join the alliance. What does this mean for Finland? If Russian President Vladimir Putin breaches the 830-mile Finnish border, the United States will rise to Helsinki's defense and fight Russia on Finland's side. What does Finland's membership in NATO mean for America? If Putin makes a military move into Finland, the U.S. will go to war against the world's largest nation with an arsenal of between 4,500 and 6,000 battlefield and strategic nuclear weapons. No Cold War president would have dreamed of making such a commitment -- to risk the...

Five months into Russia's war on Ukraine, the Kremlin still hasn’t decreed a general mobilization to draft troops for its invasion, but there are growing reports that it is enticing and pressuring men of fighting age to join, as well as leaning on younger conscripts to sign contracts so they can deploy to the front. In Bashkortostan -- a Russian republic located some 1,300 kilometers east of Moscow -- many parents of conscripts have launched appeals to the local military prosecutor's office over complaints that their sons were illegally detained at the conscription office and were told that they would...

The war in Ukraine risks turning into a protracted conflict that Russia will eventually win, a leading think-tank has said.The report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warned that current Russian advantages and Ukrainian weaknesses are leading to a style of conflict that favours Moscow.The capture of the city means that Russia has essentially gained control of the entire Luhansk region, marking Russia's biggest victory since it captured the southern port of Mariupol in late May.Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrlo Budnov said his defence forces had withdrawn "to advantageous positions in order to gain tactical superiority" after the Russians...