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Two oil tankers, the M/T KAIROS and M/T VIRAT, alleged to be part of the “Russian Shadow Fleet” exploded and caught fire earlier today in the Southern Black Sea, shortly after crossing north through the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey. The tankers, which were enroute to the Russian Port of Novorossiysk from Egypt, are suspected to have been targeted by several uncrewed surface vessels and/or naval mines set by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The crews aboard both vessels were able to be successfully evacuated, with it expected that the tankers will soon sink in the Black Sea, according to Turkish...

Ukraine releases videos of their naval drones striking 2 Russian shadow fleet oil tankers off the Turkish Black Sea coast

The problem is Moscow doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, it wants Ukraine in pieces. Every time the White House offers an olive branch, the Kremlin torches it and commits more heinous war crimes. Washington floated a leaders’ summit in October, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wiped his shoes with it, demanding Ukraine stop resisting and the West ignore kidnapped kids and beheaded prisoners. Well, Trump pulled the plug on Budapest, signaling he might punish the Kremlin, and a panicking Vladimir Putin dispatched Kirill Dmitriev with a “peace plan” so absurd it would shame a mid-level propagandist. To make sure...

President Trump is standing behind his most trusted negotiator, Steve Witkoff, following the leak of a phone call with a senior Russian official, which Ukraine’s backers have criticized for what they see as the special envoy’s attempts to sabotage American support for Kyiv and broker a deal favorable to Moscow.It’s the latest twist over a chaotic week in which the Trump administration’s behind-the-scenes dealmaking between Russia and Ukraine has spurred both optimism and questions about progress toward peace.This includes the leak last week of a 28-point plan for ending Russia’s war that was heavily criticized as hewing to Moscow’s maximalist...

Russia on Wednesday shot down President Trump’s claim that the Kremlin had already agreed to some concessions on ending the war in Ukraine — as Moscow blasted innocent Ukrainians with fresh drone strikes overnight. Multiple Russian officials insisted it was too premature to speak about accepting any peace plan and that Moscow wouldn’t agree to anything that didn’t fully meet its demands. “There can be no talk of any concessions or surrender of our approaches to the key aspects of resolving the problems facing us, including in the context of the special operation [in Ukraine],” said Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian...

The head of the French armed forces said his country must be prepared to send its children to die in a war with Russia. “Russia is convinced that the Europeans are weak. However, we are strong, fundamentally stronger than Russia,” Chief of the French Defense Staff General Fabien Mandon said. “We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to dissuade Moscow’s regime. What we are lacking, and that is where you have a major role, is the strength of soul to accept pain to protect what we are.” He added, “If our country is weak because it...

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been largely quiet since his maximalist negotiating approach with Team Trump failed. Moscow, presumably largely guided by Lavrov, after winning a concession on Tomahawk missiles, opted to continue Putin’s hardline demands for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. NATO would have to admit that it was the root cause of the war. Kyiv would have to cede all of the Donbas, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would...

Grok Summary of Video Transcript:The speaker (a military analyst) discusses the major strategic shift caused by the U.S. finally supplying Ukraine with longer-range, modern ATACMS missiles (up to ~300 km / 200 miles range) in meaningful quantities.Key points from the summary:ATACMS are precision-guided, long-range army tactical missiles that have become a game-changer in the Ukraine war, especially for deep strikes against Russian rear-area targets.Ukraine previously only had short-range versions (~30–40 miles); the new ones allow strikes up to 200 miles inside Russia, targeting logistics hubs, troop concentrations, supply lines, and critical infrastructure.Recent Ukrainian strikes (last 24 hours at time of...

Prominent Ukrainian activist and volunteer Serhii Sternenko criticized his country's military and political leadership on Nov. 17, warning that "we are headed toward a disaster of strategic magnitude, which could lead to the loss of statehood." In an X post accompanied by screenshots of a critical Facebook post by a Ukrainian journalist, Sternenko stressed that remaining silent about the issues with Ukraine's military and political approach to the country's defense "is a crime." "Our defense is falling apart," Sternenko, who works closely with various military units to supply their immediate needs, such as drones, said. "Under a stunning silence about...

A Russian victory in Pokrovsk will have a negligible impact on frontline dynamics but a far-reaching impact in Zelensky’s nation After nearly 17 months of attritional combat, Russia is on the verge of capturing the Donetsk battleground of Pokrovsk. By leveraging the dense fog engulfing the city, the Ukrainian military estimates that between 300-500 Russian troops have entered Pokrovsk. Even more ominously, Russia is creating a troop “cauldron” to militarily encircle Pokrovsk and the neighbouring city of Myrnohrad.As Russia inches towards this much-anticipated battlefield success, the mood in Kyiv is sombre. President Volodymyr Zelensky recently conceded that the situation in...

Russia flooding weapons into Venezuela and threatening to give Nicolas Maduro weapons like the Oreshnik and Kalibr. The Oreshnik can carry nuclear warheads. https://youtu.be/i3hA64JUflM?si=zhMWFWoX2RalrwiN

Russia has successfully tested a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday, defying US President Donald Trump's warnings with Moscow's second test of a new nuclear weapons system in just a few days. Putin on Sunday oversaw a test of another advanced nuclear-capable weapon -- the Burevestnik cruise missile, which he said had an "unlimited range". Trump called that exercise not "appropriate". "Yesterday, another test was conducted for another prospective system -- the unmanned underwater device 'Poseidon,' also equipped with a nuclear power unit," Putin said in televised remarks while visiting a military hospital treating Russian soldiers wounded...

Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s top economic envoy, arrived in the United States with holes in his sails and no wind to push him forward. He was a man on a desperate mission. A phone call between Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, had not gone well. The meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, expected to take place within two weeks, was shelved. The US president had finally lost patience with his Russian counterpart’s refusal to support a ceasefire in Ukraine. On Wednesday, he slapped Moscow’s largest oil firms with crippling sanctions. With...

Though the invading Russian Army seems to be capturing Ukraine, the real war is between the US-led West and Russia, not between Ukraine and Russia. Also as Russia has vetoed a UNSC resolution that demanded that Moscow immediately stop its attack on Ukraine and withdraw all troops, the only possible way out now is an urgent dialogue between Russia and the West With shock and awe, the world is witnessing the worst ever war crisis in Europe since the end of the Second World War as Russian President Vladimir Putin is hell-bent on punishing Ukraine for refusing to dance to...

Putin is amassing nuclear weapons and attack submarines in the Arctic Circle as his country prepares for war with NATO, Norway has said. Norway's Defence Minister Tore Sandvik claimed his country had found Russia had been increasing its military presence in the Arctic, particularly in the Kola peninsula. The politician also said Vladimir Putin had been attempting to take over the Arctic region where its fleet is based to block shipping routes to Nato allies if war broke out. 'Russia is building up on the Kola peninsula... where one of the largest arsenals of nuclear warheads in the world is...

DONALD Trump has just blown a hole in Vladimir Putin’s warchest – and the shockwaves are already rippling through Moscow, Beijing and New Dehli. In a move branded by the Kremlin as “an act of war”, the US President slapped sweeping sanctions on Russia’s oil titans Rosneft and Lukoil – and within hours, the pain began to bite. Global oil prices surged nearly five per cent overnight, China’s state oil giants froze Russian purchases and India – Moscow’s biggest remaining lifeline — is preparing to slash imports. For Putin, the timing couldn’t be worse. His forces are still pounding Ukraine,...

Four major state-owned Chinese oil companies have suspended their purchases of seaborne Russian oil in response to the new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Rosneft and Lukoil, according to a Reuters report, citing anonymous trade sources. The suspension, if confirmed, would put Russia under major economic pressure to end its war on Ukraine. China is a key strategic partner of Russia. Beijing's large-scale oil purchases have aided Moscow through punishing Western sanctions related to its invasion of Ukraine. The four oil firms involved are PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, and Zhenhua Oil, per Reuters.

‘In terms of honesty, the only thing I can say is, every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don't go anywhere,' says US president. US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he canceled an upcoming summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin because "it didn’t feel right" to him. "We canceled the meeting with President Putin, it didn't feel right to me," Trump told reporters at the White House alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. "It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it,...

There are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in the immediate future, a White House official said Tuesday, a pivot after Mr. Trump suggested last week that he would meet his Russian counterpart soon in Budapest to discuss ways to end the war in Ukraine. Mr. Trump said last week that he planned on meeting with Mr. Putin after senior American and Russian officials spoke. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov then had a “productive call,” the official said. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin...

President Trump no longer plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for a second in-person summit “in the immediate future” after Russia rejected his demand to stop the war in Ukraine along the current battle lines. The White House announcement followed a Monday call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which a source familiar with the conversation said demonstrated the Kremlin’s unwillingness to commit to Trump’s strategy for peace. -snip- Trump exhorted both sides to lay down their arms following the third White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Trump returned to...