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Russian occupiers tortured Ukrainians so brutally that some of their victims died, and forced families to listen as they raped women next door, members of a U.N.-mandated investigative body said on Monday, in their latest findings from the field. Erik Møse, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva his team had "collected further evidence indicating that the use of torture by Russian armed forces in areas under their control has been widespread and systematic". "In some cases, torture was inflicted with such brutality that it caused the death of the victim,"...

As part of a 'de-communization drive,' Ukraine dismantled Lenin statues nationwide after its 2014 revolution overthrew a Moscow-backed regime Moscow’s occupying authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol said Saturday they had brought back a statue of Lenin, seven years after it was taken down following Kyiv’s pro-EU revolution. The Moscow-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Vladimir Rogov, posted a photograph of workers in the city reinstating the tribute to the Bolshevik leader. "After seven years the statue of Vladimir Lenin has returned to its place in Melitopol,” he said, adding that city authorities had taken it down in...

Yesterday’s response revealed more than hypocrisy or even projection from Vladimir Putin — it revealed desperation. After the humiliation of the attack on the Kerch bridge, which Putin personally opened as a symbol of Russian permanence in Ukraine, Putin unleashed cruise missile attacks on cities across Ukraine overnight. Missiles struck as far from the front as Lviv, making it clear that this had no military value but instead was a terror attack on Ukrainians:(snip) Ahem. The Kerch bridge was and still is a legitimate military target, as it is a major line of communication for the Russian military. In fact,...

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday people were killed and injured in multiple missile strikes on cities across Ukraine, including the first bombardment of the capital in months. CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata said the strikes, which could signal a major escalation in the eight-month-old war, appeared to be entirely punitive — retaliation meant to terrorize Ukrainian civilians in densely-populated urban neighborhoods, close to government buildings, with one even hitting a children's playground. Ukraine's national police later said at least 10 people were killed and about 60 others injured by the missile strikes early Monday morning. Russia's strongman leader...

I have been attempting for several days to collect my thoughts on the Russo-Ukrainian War and condense them into another analysis piece, but my efforts were consistently frustrated by the war’s stubborn refusal to sit still. After a slow, attritional grind for much of the summer, events have begun to accelerate, calling to mind a famous quip from Vladimir Lenin: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”This has been one of those weeks. It began with the commencement of referenda in four former Ukrainian oblasts to determine whether or not to join the Russian...

I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin's speech. Obviously, that won't happen so let me summarise as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible. Setting aside his brief comments on the recent "referendums", he spends most of his speech discussing the West. His primary complaint isn't NATO expansion, which gets only a cursory mention. The West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonise other nations, like Russia. The West uses the power of finance and...

Vladimir Putin yesterday claimed that four occupied Ukrainian regions would remain part of Russia ‘for ever’ in a bizarre 40-minute tirade that included rants about ‘Satanism’ and colonialism. The rambling speech formed part of a ceremony in Moscow that formally confirmed his land grab following a series of rigged referendums. Ambling late to the podium in front of hundreds of ashen-faced officials, the despot lashed out at the West’s ‘neo-colonial’ foreign policy. ‘I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this,’ Putin said. ‘People living in Luhansk and Donetsk,...

'Anglo-Saxons' blew up Nord Stream and warns he'll use 'all forces' to defend annexed Ukraine regions Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a scathing speech toward the West Claimed U.S. set 'precedent' using nuclear weapons against Japan during WWII Remarks were announcing and signing papers making his annexation of four Ukrainian regions official: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk Fears of nuclear war have grown since Putin said he was 'not bluffing' Russia is prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory The outlandish claims in the speech included insisting the U.S. is occupying Germany and Korea Also ranted about 'sex...

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) -"It's funny. Nobody voted, yet the results are in," laughed Lyubomir Boyko, 43, from Golo Pristan, a village in Russian-occupied Kherson province as he waited on Wednesday outside a United Nations aid office with his family at a refugee reception centre. As Russia prepares to annex a swathe of Ukrainian territory the size of Portugal after staging what it calls referendums in four provinces, hundreds of Ukrainians escaped through the last Russian checkpoint. Many said they had fled while they still can. "A lot of people are just leaving everything behind. There are places that are completely...