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In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill. The reason: rapid innovations in drone technology. From just a few commercial and homemade drones, which the Ukrainians used at the start of the war to locate invading Russian columns, unmanned vehicles now dominate the battlefield. Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line. Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. ‘Wedding...

Russia has sent a stark and chilling warning to Donald Trump, as the US Congress prepares to vote on a new batch of sanctions against Moscow. -snip- Vladimir Solovyov - a Kremlin apparatchik - warned Trump that Russia could become America's "most terrifying enemy" in a rant on his TV talkshow. "Maybe Trump simply can't grasp that Russia doesn't care about the national interests of other countries if they contradict those of our own state?" he fumed. Warming to his subject, the Putin stooge continued: "The time when someone like Yeltsin, who randomly emerged from the dust of history, managed...

A growing number of young Ukrainians have been unknowingly recruited by Russian forces as unwilling suicide bombers as the Ukraine-Russia War drags on in its third year, the Guardian reported last week. Russian forces have been recruiting Ukrainians, mainly teenagers, to bomb police stations, post offices, or military targets under the guise of odd jobs postings on Telegram as part of an ongoing shadow war. For example, 19-year-old Oleh told the Guardian that he was offered $1,000 to video himself vandalizing a police station in western Ukraine with provided materials. He collected a rucksack from a given exchange point with...

U.S. President Donald Trump said he had separately warned both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would bomb their respective capitals if either of them invaded their neighbors, newly released audio broadcast by CNN shows. The U.S. president was recorded speaking at a private fundraiser in 2024 about his conversations with Putin and Xi. "With Putin I said, 'If you go into Ukraine, I'm gonna bomb the s*** out of Moscow,'" Trump is heard saying, recounting his version of their conversation. He also said with Xi he also threatened to "bomb the s*** out of...

Americans all too often presume that everyone else aspires to live and think as we do. Others must share our values, if only in secret, or at least be eager to learn them. This is a dangerous attitude to take with any nation or culture, but perhaps especially so with Russians—and never more so than when the topic is war. As Gregory Carleton observes in his superb 2017 study Russia: The Story of War, war is an indispensable part of how Russians see the world and their place in it. The extent to which World War II and all previous...

Russia's wartime economy may finally be losing steam, fresh data shows. In June, Russia's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, or PMI, sank to 47.5 — its sharpest pace of contraction since March 2022, according to S&P Global. This was a reversal from the PMI of 50.2 in May, when Russia's manufacturing activity expanded. The results from the latest S&P Global manufacturing PMI survey are a contrast against the resilience that Russia's economy has been projecting over the last few years. Russia appears to have avoided an economic collapse since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But many analysts have...

The Pentagon review determined that stocks had become too low on some previously pledged munitions, and that some pending shipments now would not be sent, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity, according to Politico, which first reported the halt of military aid. 'The strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned - just ask Iran,' Kelly said, making a reference to the recent US bombings and missile strikes against the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities. The United States will halt some key weapons shipments to Ukraine that were promised under the Biden administration in a devastating...

The chief obstacle in preparing these pilots so far has been language training. The cockpit audio system of the F-16 that provides important warning messages to the pilot only “speaks” English. Any pilots not completely fluent in the language will be handicapped—and possibly also in danger—if they lack the required level of fluency.

Russia launched its biggest aerial attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Sunday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war. Russia fired a total of 537 aerial weapons at Ukraine, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. Of these, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed. The onslaught was “the most massive airstrike” on the country since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, taking into account both drones and various types...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated what he told Vladimir Putin after the Russian president offered to help mediate the war between Israel and Iran. "Vladimir called me up. He said, 'Can I help you with Iran?'" Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he headed to The Hague for a NATO meeting. "I said, 'No, I don't need help with Iran. I need help with you.'" Outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump initially said Putin offered to mediate the Israel-Iran conflict during a phone call the day before. "I said, 'Do me a favor, mediate your own,'"...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has revived a controversial narrative, claiming that theoretically "all of Ukraine is ours." He also sparked more immediate concerns with comments about seizing Ukraine's city of Sumy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Russians and Ukrainians are "one people" and that, in that sense, "all of Ukraine is ours." The assertion underscores Moscow's continued underlying rejection of Ukrainian sovereignty and raises renewed alarm over Russia's territorial ambitions. What did Putin say about Ukraine's sovereignty? Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, Putin issued a series of provocative remarks, notably stating: "We have...

- Russian President Vladimir Putin quipped on Friday (June 20) that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border. Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, also said he was not seeking the capitulation of Ukraine or denying Ukraine's sovereignty, but that Ukraine had to be neutral. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99 per cent of...

He bit more than the bullet. A Russian soldier on the frontlines in Ukraine murdered his comrade and ate the corpse to survive the grim wartime conditions — only to end up dying anyway, Kyiv’s military intelligence reported. A call between two Russian soldiers who shared the jaw-dropping story of the cannibalistic ‘Brelok’, who killed his countryman ‘Foma’, was allegedly intercepted by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, according to the Kyiv Post. **SNIP** The ghoulish cannibal was found dead, according to the report. Russia has recruited hardened criminals — including murderers and convicted cannibals — to bolster its ranks during...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to take questions Wednesday from international journalists on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Putin scheduled a roundtable session with senior news leaders of international news agencies, including The Associated Press. Among other issues, he’s expected to spell out Moscow’s position on the conflict between Israel and Iran that he offered to help mediate in a weekend call with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Half of the thousands of North Korean troops sent to help Russia's attempted invasion of Ukraine have died in action, according to British Defence Intelligence. Roughly 11,000 troops have been dispatched by Kim Jong Un to aid Vladimir Putin's war effort in Eastern Europe since 2022 as the ties between their two countries has become closer. Now it has been revealed that more than 6,000 soldiers from North Korea have lost their lives after being stationed to the frontline in the Kurk region

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in separate telephone conversations on Friday, told Iran's president that Moscow condemned Israel's actions against Tehran and told Israel's prime minister that questions around Iran's nuclear programme could only be solved through diplomacy. A Kremlin statement said Putin told Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian that Russia "condemns the actions of Israel taken in violation of the U.N. Charter" and expressed condolences for those killed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he and Ukraine understand Russia “much better” than President Donald Trump, particularly regarding the war. Zelensky touched on a variety of war-related topics after Ukraine’s daring covert drone assault on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet that destroyed six to 10 bombers in Russia’s scarce force. The Ukrainian president delivered several rebukes to Trump throughout, bashing his characterization of the war and suggesting he didn’t understand the Russians. “I feel strongly Putin does not want to end the war without [the] total defeat of Ukraine,” Zelensky said, strongly disagreeing when presented with Trump’s assertion that Russian President...

The United States will reduce funding allocated for military assistance to Ukraine in its upcoming defense budget, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a congressional hearing on June 10. "It is a reduction in this budget," Hegseth told lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives. "This administration takes a very different view of that conflict. We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation's interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe." The Pentagon has not yet released the full documentation regarding its 2026 budget. According to Hegseth,...

Russia launched what Ukraine said would be the largest air assault of the war to date, with nearly 500 missiles and drones airborne, prompting Warsaw to scramble NATO air assets to protect its airspace. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 479 drones, four ballistic missiles, and 16 cruise missiles against its territory overnight. If the figures are accurate, it would make Sunday evening the biggest Russian air raid against Ukraine in the course of the over-three-year war to date, and underlines the ability of the combatants to sustain ever-larger drone attacks as the conflict goes on, given Russia launched another...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin's threatened retaliation against Ukraine over its drone attack last weekend has not happened yet in earnest and is likely to be a significant, multi-pronged strike, U.S. officials told Reuters.The timing of the full Russian response was unclear, with one source saying it was expected within days. A second U.S. official said the retaliation was likely to include different kinds of air capabilities, including missiles and drones.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity. They did not detail Russia's expected targets nor elaborate on intelligence matters. The first official said Moscow's...