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The space race was still a thing when I was a kid but it hasn’t been for much of the last 45 years. But that’s starting to change as Russia, India, China and the US all gear up for various missions to the moon. In fact, both Russia and India have lunar landers touching down next week. Russia’s Luna-25 lander could touch down as soon as Monday, August 21. It’s the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century, and the first in the post-Soviet era. Two days later, on August 23, Chandrayaan-3 could become India’s first successful lunar...

MOSCOW — Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit, the country’s Roscosmos space agency said Sunday. The pilotless spacecraft was aiming to be the first ever to land on the south pole of the moon, an area where scientists believe there could be important reserves of frozen water and precious elements. It had been expected to land Monday. However, Roscosmos said it lost contact with the Luna-25 on Saturday after the spacecraft ran into difficulties and reported an “abnormal situation ”. “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as...

Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and smashed into moon. Russia's state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft shortly after a problem occurred as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit on Saturday. 'The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon,' Roskosmos said in a statement. Moscow had earlier reported an 'abnormal situation' with the craft. 'During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which...

MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. The Luna-25 automatic lunar station, according to unconfirmed data, has been destroyed after colliding with the Moon’s surface, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos told journalists on Sunday. The agency recalled that on August 19 that the lunar probe was scheduled to receive propulsion thrust to descend into its landing trajectory on the Moon's elliptical orbit. "At about 2:57 p.m. Decree time, the connection with the Luna-25 automatic lunar probe was lost," according to Roscosmos.

Russia's first moon mission in nearly half a century may be in serious trouble. The Luna-25 spacecraft was supposed to maneuver itself into its final pre-landing orbit around the moon today (Aug. 19), ahead of a touchdown attempt on Monday (Aug. 21) or thereabouts. But the probe encountered a problem during the engine burn. "During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters," Russia's space agency Roscosmos wrote in an update on Telegram today (in Russian; translation by Google). "The management team is currently...

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine—Moments after the band struck up a song of praise at a Christian church in a Russian-held city near here, Russian soldiers stormed in wearing full tactical gear. One of them wove through the crowd, mounted the stage and told the congregation to prepare their documents for inspection. The service in September 2022 was the last held inside Melitopol’s Church of God’s Grace. The Russian authorities took over the building, adorned it with murals depicting their dead fighters, and converted it into a culture ministry in this part of occupied south Ukraine. The church’s erasure from view is part...

Anton Andreev says only 12 out of 100 soldiers remained alive after unit came under Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk. Anton Andreev, a Russian soldier from the fifth company of the 1009th regiment, painted a bleak picture of Russia’s offensive in the Ukrainian northern region of Kharkiv. His unit had been decimated, he said, with only 12 out of 100 soldiers still alive as they came under constant Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk, a prime target of Russia’s advances. “They just chop us up. We are sent under machine guns, under drones in daylight, like meat. And commanders...

Kyiv will hold peace talks with Russia tomorrow if Moscow pulls out of all Ukrainian territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. But speaking at the close of a summit for peace in Switzerland, he said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not end the war and had to be stopped "in any way we can", whether by military or diplomatic means. Western aid was not enough to win the war, he added, but the summit had shown that international support for Ukraine was not weakening. The meeting concluded with dozens of countries committing to Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Russian soldiers have been surrendering to an elite Ukrainian combat brigade in the northern town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region, reports say. A video released on Wednesday by Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade appears to show Russian troops emerging from a trench with their hands raised above their head or tied behind their backs. The video appeared to confirm recent reports that dozens of Russian soldiers had been surrendering around Vovchansk, where heavy fighting has raged since Moscow launched a cross-border offensive towards Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, last month. -snip- Several of the captured soldiers said they had been forced...

Support Free Republic Some of the blog's posts are reposted to "Free Republic"... Another weekly excursion your host the hypocrite and sinner feeing months of prompting that signifies real change more progress towards better things in my life. The internet filled with incitement against personalities either side of the political divide. I've been an online character assassin what good is that kind of stuff. That Moment I Dumped Fox News... Hating Other Folks Isn't The Answer Wanting What's Best For Them And Cleaning Up My Own Act Is?... Meanwhile on the Russian Front the sanctions heating up US economic warfare...

<p>ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 5 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he could deploy conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies if they allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with long-range Western weapons. Putin, in his first face-to-face meeting with senior editors of international news agencies since the war in Ukraine began, said the West was wrong to assume Russia would never use nuclear weapons, and said the Kremlin's nuclear doctrine should not be taken lightly.</p>

He has a high-stakes job. War and natural disasters keep him on his toes. He is often on a plane to far-flung places, travelling to negotiate with local leaders. He has the best intelligence money can buy. And as November’s election nears, he will spend lots of time looking at lines on charts. The American president and swashbuckling oil traders, it turns out, have a lot in common. Indeed, Joe Biden also seems to have a knack for the oil trade. Two years ago his administration initiated the largest ever sell-off from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (spr), an emergency store...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday spoke out for the first time about Russian warships in Cuban waters, criticizing the Biden administration for espousing "weakness" on the global stage. Footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday showed the frigate Admiral Gorshkov and nuclear-powered submarine Kazan sailing into Havana Bay, about 100 miles south of Florida. They were not carrying nuclear weapons but were armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles. The Cuban Foreign Ministry described the Russian naval presence as a reflection of the country's "historically friendly relations" with Moscow, even greeting the ships with a...

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukraine responded by calling Putin’s proposal “manipulative” and “absurd.”Putin’s remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders -- but not from Moscow -- this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine.They also coincided with a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in Italy and after the U.S. and Ukraine this week...

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North Korea has sent at least 10,000 shipping containers with nearly 5 million artillery shells to Russia, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told Bloomberg News. However, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is likely to ask for more ammunition during his next visit to Pyongyang. “Putin is expected to seek closer security cooperation with North Korea, especially military supplies such as artillery shells that are necessary to seize a chance to win,” Shin Won-sik said.

(Kitco News) – The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) shocked international markets and their own financial institutions on Thursday when it announced that China’s yuan would replace the U.S. dollar as the benchmark for all currency trades in the country. The announcement was one of several issued by the CBR during a frantic day of activity that saw the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) suspend trading in dollars and euros following a new series of U.S. sanctions in response to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a large, mysterious new Internet hosting firm called Stark Industries Solutions materialized and quickly became the epicenter of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government and commercial targets in Ukraine and Europe. An investigation into Stark Industries reveals it is being used as a global proxy network that conceals the true source of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns against enemies of Russia. At least a dozen patriotic Russian hacking groups have been launching DDoS attacks since the start of the war at a variety of targets seen as opposed to Moscow. But...

Russians lined up to purchase U.S. dollars after the Moscow Exchange enforced an immediate suspension of trading in dollars and euros in response to fresh U.S. sanctions, a video circulating on social media appears to show. Russia's central bank said Wednesday that exchange trading and settlements of deliverable instruments in U.S. dollars and euros were suspended effective June 13 "due to the introduction of restrictive measures by the United States against the Moscow Exchange Group." It added that over-the-counter trading data would be used to set official exchange rates for the currencies.

The war in Ukraine has exposed the fabled prowess of Russian weaponry as a myth and scared off its leading overseas client. India — the world’s biggest arms importer — is drastically reducing dependence on Russian weapons, and is unlikely to make any new purchases from Russia. Earmarking $100 billion for future procurement, this now leaves a potential opening for Western arms manufacturers. Over the last 20yrs, India spent $60 billion on weapons from Russia, but the imports have been steadily declining, going from 76% 2009–2013 to just 36% in the last five years And according to Indian defense experts,...