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A leading Ukrainian presidential aide claimed this morning that the explosion which damaged a key bridge in Crimea may have been ordered by one of Vladimir Putin's warring commanders. The 12 mile crossing over the Kerch strait links Crimea to the Russian mainland and is a major artery for Putin's forces that control most of southern Ukraine's Kherson region and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol. It was damaged in an explosion early Saturday morning which saw chunks of the bridge fall into the sea and a large fire break out. The incident prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials...

Russian citizens who criticize the Kremlin could find themselves on the receiving end of a nasty visit from Chechen forces, according to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s attempted "partial mobilization" of fighting-aged Russians into the war in Ukraine has prompted a wave of social displeasure, including a mass exodus of apparent draft dodgers and protests in the outlying regions where people are bearing the brunt of the war. Russian lawmaker Adam Delimkhanov, an ethnic Chechen politician known for threatening to decapitate the relatives of a human rights activist, warned university students against any display of disrespect. “I...

A stunning series of photos and videos shows the violent impact of the explosion that tore through Russia’s prized Kerch Strait bridge to Crimea early Saturday morning. A monstrous fireball bloomed over all four of the bridge’s vehicle lanes at 6:07 a.m. as a passenger car and a freight truck drove side by side up the incline to its towering arch. The flames appeared to reach across the water, enveloping the twin railroad bridge about 100 feet away.

This year’s Peace Prize is awarded to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties Zelensky will be gutted. 😆t.co/qwr27Y5LzG — Tess Summers 🇬🇧🇮🇪 (@tesssummers98) October 7, 2022 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced at 11am local time on Friday in Oslo, Norway. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was on the 2022 TIME 100 list, is the bookmakers’ favorite to win

Excellent analysis. 2022 09 27 The Americans Declared War On Europe

Russian-installed officials in occupied regions of Ukraine reported huge majorities on Tuesday in favour of becoming part of Russia after five days of voting in so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. Hastily arranged votes had taken place in four areas - the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and to the south Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - that make up about 15% of Ukrainian territory. Luhansk authorities said 98.4% of people there had voted to join Russia. In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian-appointed official put the figure at 93.1%. In Kherson, the head of the voting committee put...

A series of unusual leaks on two natural gas pipelines running from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany triggered concerns about sabotage Tuesday, overshadowing the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring Norwegian gas to Poland to bolster Europe’s energy independence from Moscow. Seismic stations Sweden, Norway and Finland registered two explosions Monday near the leaks. Bjorn Lund, a seismologist with Uppsala University who is part of Sweden’s national seismic network, said the first explosion was recorded in the early hours southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. The latter and stronger blast that night was northeast of...

We are bizarrely one-tracked in our historical memory. Anything we dislike is compared to the Nazis. So, when Vladimir Putin actually invaded a neighbor, he was inevitably likened to Adolf Hitler. But we don’t have to look far to find an apter parallel. In September 1939, Stalin seized the eastern half of Poland. Unlike his Nazi allies, who simply absorbed the territory they wanted, Stalin made the conquered population vote in sham elections. Two congresses were established in eastern Poland — one supposedly representing ethnic Belarusians, the other ethnic Ukrainians. These two assemblies immediately petitioned to join, respectively, the Belarusian...

Ukrainian forces were charging through an expanding area of previously Russian-held territory in the east on Friday after bursting through the frontline in a surprise breakthrough that could mark a major turning point in the war. After keeping silent for a day, Moscow effectively acknowledged that a section of its frontline had crumbled southeast of Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. "The very fact of a breach of our defences is already a substantial victory for the Ukrainian armed forces," the head of the Moscow-installed administration for occupied areas in Kharkiv province, Vitaly Ganchev, said on Russian state TV.

Ukraine may have captured a Russian general in what would be the highest-ranking of Moscow's officers to be taken prisoner since the Second World War. Video published Wednesday revealed a group of Russian POWs detained by Ukraine amid a surprise counter-attack near the city of Kharkiv, among them a man wearing the uniform of a mid-ranking Lieutenant-Colonel. But Ukrainian media now claims the man is 'likely' to be Andrei Sychevoi, who is actually a high-ranking Lieutenant-General and commander of Russia's Group of Forces West.

Belarus has started military exercises by the city of Brest near the Polish border, its capital Minsk and the northeast region of Vitebsk, the defence ministry said on Thursday. Belarus, a close ally of Russia, said the exercises, located just 20 miles from Ukraine's border and six miles from Poland, will practice 'liberating territory temporarily seized by the enemy' and regaining control over border regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin used similar rhetoric to justify his invasion of Ukraine earlier this year and had staged wargames near the border before sending his troops into battle.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE — In dimly lit hospital rooms in southern Ukraine, soldiers with severed limbs, shrapnel wounds, mangled hands and shattered joints recounted the lopsided disadvantages their units faced in the early days of a new offensive to expel Russian forces from the strategic city of Kherson. The soldiers said they lacked the artillery needed to dislodge Russia’s entrenched forces and described a yawning technology gap with their better-equipped adversaries. The interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to retake captured territory that is so sensitive, Ukrainian military commanders have barred reporters from visiting the front...

Filatiev published “Zov" on the Russian social network VK in early August. The human rights organization Gulagu helped him leave the country a few weeks later, moving him from one place to another until finally helping him reach France. He spent two days inside the Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting to be approved for entry. In Russia, he said, “I understood that no lawyer could defend me,” he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. On his wrist, he wore a silver bracelet adorned with a crucifix. Filatiev said Russia's army is degrading by the day, unable to replace the...

You gotta see this... Making an art form out of messing people's minds... Roughly, 'This winter's going to be really serious, see ya in the spring.....' А зима будет большая, Вот, гляди-ка, за рекой Осень тихо умирает, Машет желтою рукой. Плачут мокрые осины, Плачет дедушка Aрбат, Плачет синяя Россия, Превратившись в листопад. И, сугробы сокрушая, Солнце брызнет по весне, А зима будет большая - Только сумерки да снег.

[G]athered in a basement on a quiet, tree-lined street, the Belarusians preparing to leave Warsaw to join the Ukrainian army look more like a bunch of computer programmers getting ready for a long car trip. Maybe that’s because they are a bunch of computer programmers—or anyway, some of them are—gathered in a basement on a quiet, tree-lined street, getting ready for a long car trip...If they are identified, members of their families could be visited, harassed, even arrested by the Belarusian police. “Our relatives are hostages,” one of them told me. Already, mothers of Belarusian soldiers fighting in Ukraine have...

Big banks in Europe are preparing for an energy crisis as Russia tightens the gas taps, per Reuters. JPMorgan may use diesel generators, while Deutsche Bank turned off fountains and hot water. The insurer Zurich said it could close its gym and some office floors if the situation worsens. Major banks across Europe are implementing measures in the workplace to cut down on energy consumption as Russia tightens its gas supply to the continent. The Kremlin shut off its natural-gas flow to Europe via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline last week and said it wouldn't reopen it until the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused the U.S. of wanting to maintain a “dictatorship” over global affairs at the expense of Europe and the rest of the world. Putin slammed the West repeatedly during a speech before business leaders gathered in far eastern Russia, saying sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine were a “danger” to the whole world and left Europe worse off. “The pandemic has been replaced by new challenges of a global nature, carrying a threat to the whole world, I’m talking about the sanctions rush in the West and the West’s blatantly aggressive...

Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to walk with a limp as he attended Russia's major Vostok war games today, raising fresh doubts over his health. The Russian leader, 69, observed the major military exercises from inside a command post while sitting next to his defence minister Sergei Shoigu who is said to have been 'sidelined' by Putin due to Russia's heavy losses in Ukraine. As Putin arrived at the command post at the Sergeyevsky training range in Russia's Far East, he appeared to be walking with a limp when he crossed the room to watch the war games. Video shows...

EU and U.S. imports of Russia's main base metal products aluminium and nickel during March-June increased by as much as 70%, official trade data compiled by Reuters from the United Nations Comtrade database show. The total value of EU and U.S. imports of the two metals from March to June were $1.98 billion... Analysts said the United States and Europe have learned lessons after huge disruption on construction, auto and power sectors caused by sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump on Russian aluminium 2018. Russia's Rusal is the world's largest aluminium producer outside China and accounts for about...

Last night Politico Europe published an interesting story about where Russia is starting to feel the pinch as it tries to keep its war machine going. Despite sanctions, Russia has managed to keep selling lots of oil and that has kept its economy from collapsing. But while it has lots of cash on hand it’s not so easy to import supplies of high tech chips that are needed for its weapons of war. In order to find those parts, Russia has put together a shopping list.Having fired off (or lost in combat) way more of their missile firepower than they...