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Pavlyuk, 53, was a surviving resident of besieged Ukrainian town where gruesome evidence of killings and torture has come to light following withdrawal of Russian forces. He told when Russian troops came they killed all the men who were younger than 50, including two of Pavlyuk's friends. Pavlyuk was given 20 minutes to bury them. He showed shallow graves he hastily dug, each marked with a plank of wood topped with a religious icon. He wanted to give whatever dignity he could. "But it's too shallow," Pavlyuk said. "I just wanted to protect them from the dogs." Pavlyuk and other...

YouTube has suspended the account of Odessa-based Chinese national Wang Jixian after he reported on atrocities committed as Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, RFA has learned. Odessa-based programmer Wang has been uploading videos since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began last month, but hasn't published any new videos since one on March 30 in which he hits out at pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) critics as "human trash," and translates news reports of gang rape being committed by Russian troops in Bucha, including of a young girl. Wang had been uploading to the site daily, with the same introduction every time:...

Hundreds of dogs have been found dead at an animal shelter in Ukraine after Russian occupiers left them to starve in their cages for weeks. The UAnimals shelter in Borodyanka, just north of Kyiv, said that up to 485 dogs were locked in their cages by Russian forces shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. There they remained without food or water for about a month as the occupiers left them to die, until staff were able to return to the compound on April 1 once the Russian soldiers had retreated. Footage released by the animal shelter...

A regiment of elite Russian fighters have suffered heavy losses at the hands of the fierce Ukrainian resistance, it has been reported. The 331st Guards Parachute Regiment are considered among the most fearsome and well-trained in the Russian army, having fought for the city of Ilovaisk in the Donbas in 2014. Their involvement in Russia's invasion of Ukraine this year, and fatalities they've suffered, is indicative of how the invasion hasn't gone as planned. The regiment's commanding officer, Col Sergei Sukharev, was killed in Ukraine on 13 March - a major blow for any military unit. His deputy Major Sergei...

The Russian departure was part of a planned withdrawal announced by Moscow a week ago but it ended in a chaotic and bloody retreat after a fierce tank battle last Thursday, said soldiers and volunteers who took part, and residents of the town. On Monday Ukrainian soldiers were piling the bodies of dead Russian soldiers into a trailer pulled by an army jeep. The soldiers were killed when a Ukrainian tank sneaked close to the entrance of the town and opened fire on the Russian checkpoint guarding the main intersection, according to soldiers and volunteers who took part. “It’s the...

Russian conscripts are being given 19th century rifles, made to drink from ponds filled with dead frogs and ordered to draw enemy fire, they have revealed. Soldiers in the Russian-backed Donbas region have spoken of how they have been sent to fight Ukraine's forces with no training, a lack of food and water, and inadequate equipment - as Moscow's armies continue to suffer heavy losses. -snip- The Donbas armed forces are fighting alongside Russian soldiers but are not part of the Russian armed forces, which have different rules about which troops they send into combat. Several Donbas draftees have been...

Satellite photographs released on Monday appear to rebut Russian assertions that dead bodies in civilian clothing found in Bucha had appeared there after Russian forces retreated from the devastated Ukrainian town. Mid-March satellite imagery of a Bucha street appears to show several bodies of civilians lying dead in or just off the roadway where Ukrainian officials recently said they found multiple corpses after Russian troops withdrew. "High-resolution Maxar satellite imagery collected over Bucha, Ukraine (northwest of Kyiv) verifies and corroborates recent social media videos and photos that reveal bodies lying in the streets and left out in the open for...

More than two weeks into a war he expected to dominate in two days, Vladimir Putin is projecting anger, frustration at his military’s failures and a willingness to cause even more violence and destruction in Ukraine, in the assessment of U.S. intelligence officials. Officials in recent days have publicly said they’re worried the Russian president will escalate the conflict to try to break Ukraine’s resistance. Russia still holds overwhelming military advantages and can bombard the country for weeks more. And while the rest of the world reacts to horrific images of the war he started, Putin remains insulated from domestic...

Ukraine has accused Russia of staging airstrikes in Belarus to get its ally to join the conflict. Meanwhile, shelling hit a mosque sheltering more than 80 people in the port city of Mariupol.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's “bloated” appearance could be the side effect of him taking steroids for treatment for cancer, spies have claimed. Senior figures from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States believe there is a physiological explanation for his invasion of Ukraine, it is reported. Citing sources close to the Kremlin, they are investigating reports that 69-year-old Putin’s “increasingly erratic behaviour” combined with a bloated appearance point to drug use. They are advancing theories that he may be suffering from cancer and the medical treatment he is receiving has altered the balance of his mind....

Vladimir Putin is suffering from a brain disorder caused by dementia, Parkinson’s disease or ‘roid rage’ resulting from steroid treatment for cancer, intelligence sources have claimed. Citing sources close to the Kremlin, senior figures in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States – believe there is a physiological explanation for the Russian president’s globally reviled decision to invade Ukraine. The intelligence community is sharing a growing number of reports about 69-year-old Putin’s ‘increasingly erratic behaviour’, combined with a bloated appearance in recent footage – and the absurd distance he...

American officials are examining the ownership of a $700 million superyacht currently in a dry dock at an Italian seacoast town, and believe it could be associated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to multiple people briefed on the information. United States intelligence agencies have made no final conclusions about the ownership of the superyacht — called the Scheherazade — but American officials said they had found initial indications that it was linked to Mr. Putin. The information from the U.S. officials came after The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Italian authorities were looking into the...

The husband and father of the Ukrainian woman and two children killed by mortar fire as they tried to escape shelling outside Kyiv Sunday learned of his family’s murder on Twitter, according to a report. Mom Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, kids Mykyta, 18; Alisa, 9; and Anatoly Berezhnyi, 26 — a church volunteer who was helping them escape — were killed by Russian forces as they ran across a damaged bridge in Irpin. A photo of their bodies strewn across the pavement led Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to promise he would kill “every bastard” responsible for the indiscriminate civilian slaughter.

Putin's invasion grinds to a halt: Kyiv claims to have destroyed dozens of Russian helicopters overnight, retaken a city, and killed 11,000 troops while Russians have captured no significant territory sparking hopes Ukraine could win the war Ukraine claims to have destroyed dozens of Russian helicopters at an airfield near Kherson overnight Military also said it had recaptured Chuhuiv, near Kharkiv, and killed two commanders in the process Meanwhile units in Odessa claimed to have hit and destroyed a Russian patrol ship off the coast Experts say Russian losses becoming 'unsustainable' with no significant territory captured in recent days

At a synagogue.. Israeli social worker.. had a flash of historic vertigo.. ancestors had lived in Chisinau more than a century ago, surviving a devastating pogrom in 1903 before emigrating to what became Israel. Now their descendant had returned .. this time not as a victim, but as a rescuer. “It’s like a closure for me,” .. from Jerusalem who had come to help evacuate thousands of Jewish refugees from Ukraine to Israel. “At the time, it was almost a shame to be Jewish.. Now people want to show they are Jewish so they can be evacuated.” Today.. the context...

Shortly after the Russian invasion began, unconfirmed rumors spread widely across the internet of a mysterious Ukrainian fighter pilot in a MiG-29 gunning down six enemy aircraft within the first hours of the war. The unknown military hero, dubbed "The Ghost of Kyiv" on social media, had been taking to the skies since the invasion started and allegedly reached 21 confirmed Russian aircraft kills as of Wednesday, making the pilot the first supposed flying ace of the 21st century. "The Ghost of Kyiv," however, is almost certainly a myth, albeit an incredibly useful one as Ukraine tries to rally its...

Several demoralized Russian troops captured in Ukraine were allowed to call home over the weekend to tell their families they were safe and profess confusion about why they were sent to war. "Mama and Papa, I didn't want to come here. They forced me to," a Russian soldier said in videos purporting to show the phone calls that were taken by Ukraine's Interior Ministry and posted on YouTube. Videos and stills of captured or surrendered Russian troops also were posted on the Ukrainian Security Service's Facebook page.

With a white, closely trimmed beard and deep crevices around his mouth where dimples might once have been, Colonel Stetsenko cuts an unusual figure on the battlefield. He is 56 and had been retired from the military for a decade when he decided to re-enlist in 2020. By then, Ukrainian forces were already fighting a Kremlin-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and Colonel Stetsenko felt he needed to do his part. “I knew that many people who had already served were tired,” he said. “It is difficult to live for so long without their families, and we needed people to serve....

HORISHNI PLAVNI, Ukraine... Spurred by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of their country, the citizens of this small Ukrainian city on the east bank of the Dnipro River have mustered all available resources to support the war effort and ease the suffering of fellow civilians caught in the crossfire.... Out of Horishni Plavni’s overall population of about 50,000 residents, roughly 80% work in the local mining industry and earn an average salary of about $500 a month.... Although Horishni Plavni has not been struck by a Russian attack, the air raid alerts have frequently sounded, adding anxiety to people’s daily lives. So,...