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Citing witness accounts., Reuters reports on Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky's office was destroyed by a missile strike. In this explosion in Kyiv, clouds of black smoke could be seen rising from buildings in the city's centre, witnesses report. Various media outlets are reporting that Missile attacks are hitting major Ukrainian cities, including central Kyiv hit while some neighborhoods in Lviv and Ternopil are left with no electricity.

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...

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

Russian leader Vladimir Putin marked his 70th birthday on Friday with congratulations from the fellow authoritarian leaders of Cuba and Kyrgyzstan and a full “work” schedule, according to the Kremlin. The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry observed the day by sharing a recent quote from Putin predicting the “collapse of Western hegemony” on Twitter, illustrated by a photo of Putin wearing sunglasses.

It started with Gazprom revealing that the Line B string of NS2 is intact; not only it escaped Pipeline Terror but may “potentially” be used to pump gas to Germany. That confirms once again that NS2 is an engineering marvel. In fact the whole system: the pipes are so strong they were not broken, but merely punctured. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak followed up, with a caveat: restoration of the whole system, including NS, is possible, and “requires time and appropriate funds”. But first, in Russia’s order of priorities, the perpetrators must be conclusively identified. Sources in Moscow confirmed...

European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said deliberate disruption would meet the "strongest possible response". The EU has previously accused Russia of using gas supplies as a weapon against the West over its support for Ukraine. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed accusations of sabotage as "predictable, stupid and absurd The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he thought the leaks would "not have a significant impact on Europe's energy resilience". Neither pipeline is transporting gas at the moment, although they both contain gas. Mr Blinken did not directly accuse Russia - but said it would be in...

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Kiev will not receive any "security guarantees", in particular, because its draft is essentially a "prologue" to World War III, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believes. "The Kiev camarilla has given birth to a project of 'security guarantees', which are essentially a prologue to a third world war. Of course, no one will provide any 'guarantees' to the Ukrainian Nazis," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. He believes that the agreement proposed by Kiev is tantamount to "applying Article 5 of the North Atlantic Pact to Ukraine." This article refers...

In north-eastern Ukraine, a counter-offensive has seen the nation's forces recapture swathes of territory, and drive out Russian troops. But in the newly-liberated areas, relief and sorrow are intertwined - as accounts emerge of torture and killings during the long months of Russian occupation. Artem, who lives in the city of Balakliya in the Kharkiv region told the BBC he was held by Russians for more than 40 days, and was tortured with electrocution. Balakliya was liberated on 8 September after being occupied for more than six months. The epicentre of the brutality was the city's police station, which Russian...

Latest update from The New Atlas focusing on the realities of Ukraine's recent tactical victory vs. the enormous structural cost that likely leads to speeding up to Ukraine's eventual strategic failure. Ukraine lost 5-7 brigades (20,000 to 28,000 men) in just that short 10 day period of "counter offensive." Makes the interesting point that Russia's decision to withdraw eliminated Ukraine's ability to significantly reduce Russia's manpower or weaponry. By enticing Ukraine to come out of their covered defensive positions and into the open it has provided an easier target for Russia to attack by air and artillery Ukraine's stretched out...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refused peace talks with Russia just days prior to the war, according to reports.Zelensky's adamant refusal to accept German-brokered peace talks with Russia, which ultimately resulted in large-scale killings and massive destruction in Ukraine, has earned him brickbats from people across the globe.As per the report published in the Wall Street Journal, it is evident that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had extended an offer for peace days before Russia launched the attack on Ukraine but the Ukrainian President did not pay any heed.

How the Situation in Ukraine Could Get Far More DangerousAfter days of a withering Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Russian defense ministry announced that it was withdrawing its forces from two areas in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. In a video statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky quipped, “The Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do — showing its back.” Ukrainians celebrated, and rightly so. While Russian spokesmen said that Russian forces were “repositioning” ahead of a new offensive, reporters on the ground cast doubt on such pronouncements both because they mirror Russian statements as it abandoned its drive...

Kharkiv, which is Ukraine's second largest city and is the biggest population center closest to Russia's border, has been plunged into total darkness Sunday night amid alleged Russian attacks on key infrastructure sites, including large power stations."The center of Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv was plunged into darkness on Sunday evening by an electricity blackout," Reuters has confirmed of the large-scale outage. It's further being reported that some city districts are also without water, creating a severe crisis for residents."The cause and extent of the blackout in the northeastern city were not immediately clear. There were also unconfirmed social media reports...

Russian forces have withdrawn from key eastern towns, as a rapid Ukrainian counter-attack makes further gains. Ukrainian officials said troops entered Kupiansk, a vital eastern supply hub for Russian forces, on Saturday. Russia's defence ministry then said its troops have retreated from nearby Izyum to allow them "to regroup". The ministry also confirmed the withdrawal of troops from a third key town, Balaklyia, in order to "bolster efforts" on the Donetsk front. The Ukrainian advances - if held - would be the most significant since Russia withdrew from areas around Kyiv in April. Izyum was a major military hub for...

Ukrainian forces surprised occupying Russians with a one-two punch Thursday, pushing deep into enemy territory to open a second front in Kyiv’s counterattack. Ukrainian authorities announced the liberation of 20 villages in the northeast, outside Kharkiv, as the military pushed for the occupied city of Izyum — all while continuing a fierce fight for Kherson in the south. Oleksiy Hromov, a deputy chief with the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine, said Thursday that his nation’s forces — pushing toward the Donbas from Kharkiv — had penetrated more than 30 miles beyond Russia’s defensive line. “Since the beginning...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia had not lost anything as a result of its military campaign in Ukraine. Speaking at an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, he said all Russia's actions were designed to strengthen the country's sovereignty and were aimed at "helping people" living in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. "We have not lost anything and will not lose anything," Putin said. "In terms of what we have gained, I can say that the main gain has been the strengthening of our sovereignty." Putin conceded, however, that Moscow's decision...

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...

[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...

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...

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...