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In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill. The reason: rapid innovations in drone technology. From just a few commercial and homemade drones, which the Ukrainians used at the start of the war to locate invading Russian columns, unmanned vehicles now dominate the battlefield. Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line. Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. ‘Wedding...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coastal city of Wonsan on Saturday, where he described the two nations' relations as "an invincible fighting brotherhood", Russia's foreign ministry said. The ministry quoted Lavrov as saying that the visit represented the continuation of "strategic dialogue" between the two sides inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea last year. In a message passed on by Lavrov, Putin said that he hoped for more direct contacts in future, TASS news agency reported. Lavrov, the ministry said, also thanked North Korea for the troops...

VLADIMIR Putin's brutal war machine was dealt another blow today as Moscow confirmed the death of another top Russian military chief. Russian authorities have confirmed the death of Colonel Sergei Ilyin, commander of Russia's notorious 155th Marine Brigade. Telegram news channel Astra reported the Colonel's death on Friday, citing a now-deleted post from officials, the Moscow Times has reported. Ilyin had died "during the special military operation" according to a post attributed to the Urmarsky district administration. "Special military operation" is the euphemism used by Kremlin authorities when referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It follows speculation that the...

President Donald Trump for the first time since returning to office will send weapons to Kyiv under a presidential power frequently used by his predecessor, two sources familiar with the decision said on Thursday, a move suggesting new interest by the president in defending Ukraine. More than three years after Russia's invasion of its neighbor, Trump's team will identify arms from U.S. stockpiles to send to Ukraine under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, the sources said, with one saying they could be worth around $300 million. Trump on Tuesday said the U.S. would send more weapons to Ukraine to help the...

Everyone agrees: it's getting worse. The people of Kyiv have, like the citizens of other Ukrainian cities, been through a lot. After three and a half years of fluctuating fortunes, they are tough and extremely resilient. But in recent months, they have been experiencing something new: vast, coordinated waves of attacks from the air, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, often concentrated on a single city. Last night, it was Kyiv. And the week before too. In between, it was Lutsk in the far west. Three years ago, Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were a relative novelty. I remember hearing my first,...

Russian state media has launched a barrage of criticism against U.S. President Donald Trump after he accused Russia's Vladimir Putin of saying "a lot of bulls***" about the war in Ukraine, the exiled news outlet Agentstvo reported Wednesday. -snip- Prominent pro-Kremlin television host Vladimir Solovyov on Tuesday chastised Trump on his flagship talk show for addressing Putin in what he described as a disrespectful tone. “Trump has started to speak rudely,” Solovyov said. “It seems to us that he’s undergoing a ‘Bidenization.’ His belief that he’s the only person able to speak with Putin has made him transform into another...

Speaking on the State TV channel Russia-1, pro-government host Vladimir Solovyov warned that Russia could destroy both US coasts using nuclear-powered Poseidon torpedoes—underwater weapons designed to trigger a “radioactive tsunami.” During the broadcast, Solovyov directly addressed US President Donald Trump: “Will Trump understand that two Poseidons, launched from different sides, could wipe out the US and create a radioactive disaster? That would be the end—nothing will save them.” “No protective element will help them,” Solovyov declared, referring to US missile defense systems. Framing the hypothetical strike as a response to “Western aggression,” he suggested that Washington underestimates Russia’s capabilities and...

The U.S. Air Force faces a strategic nightmare with its B-1B Lancer bomber fleet. The aging but still capable supersonic bomber is becoming increasingly obsolete, yet its replacement, the B-21 Raider, is still years from being operational. This creates a dangerous capability gap. The Pentagon is weighing difficult options: a costly modernization of the B-1B, which may not be enough; relying on other platforms like the B-52, which can’t match the B-1B’s speed and payload; or accelerating the B-21 program, which risks delays and technical setbacks.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he expressed the United States' frustration that more progress has not been made on ending the war in Ukraine in a meeting on Thursday with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. "It was a frank conversation. It was an important one," Rubio said his 50-minute talks with the Russian foreign minister on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Malaysia. He said he expressed to Lavrov what U.S. President Donald Trump has said publicly, "that there's not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict." The envoys'...

Ukrainian official blames Russia for daylight murder of senior security officerA senior Ukrainian spy has been shot dead by an assassin using a silenced pistol on the streets of Kyiv.Col Ivan Voronich, a senior operational officer in Ukraine’s security service, was crossing the street near a block of flats in the capital’s Holosiivskyi district when he was approached by a man with a gun on Thursday morning.Footage shared on Telegram showed the moment Col Voronich was shot five times next to a row of parked cars.Following the attack, a man can be seen running along the street in the opposite...

A Russian combat drone—Russia’s answer to the US MQ-9 Reaper—crashed in Kazan on July 8 after reportedly being disabled by electronic warfare. The crash was caused by a disruption to its satellite navigation system, according to Russia’s Ural Civil Aviation Plant, which now oversees the drone’s development, Russian media, citing the company, reported on July 9. “During the flight, the UAV’s satellite navigation was disrupted by unidentified electronic warfare equipment. The drone switched to inertial navigation and attempted a second landing pass. The landing was conducted in inertial mode, and a non-standard situation occurred,” the company’s press office stated. The...

A growing number of young Ukrainians have been unknowingly recruited by Russian forces as unwilling suicide bombers as the Ukraine-Russia War drags on in its third year, the Guardian reported last week. Russian forces have been recruiting Ukrainians, mainly teenagers, to bomb police stations, post offices, or military targets under the guise of odd jobs postings on Telegram as part of an ongoing shadow war. For example, 19-year-old Oleh told the Guardian that he was offered $1,000 to video himself vandalizing a police station in western Ukraine with provided materials. He collected a rucksack from a given exchange point with...

Americans all too often presume that everyone else aspires to live and think as we do. Others must share our values, if only in secret, or at least be eager to learn them. This is a dangerous attitude to take with any nation or culture, but perhaps especially so with Russians—and never more so than when the topic is war. As Gregory Carleton observes in his superb 2017 study Russia: The Story of War, war is an indispensable part of how Russians see the world and their place in it. The extent to which World War II and all previous...

THE girlfriend of Vladimir Putin's transport official who was found dead ahead of a fraud inquiry could be banned from his funeral. Roman Starovoit, 53, was sacked by Vlad on Monday after he couldn't stop Ukraine causing mayhem to Russia's aviation industry - and was found dead hours later. He was found beside his Tesla with a bullet wound to his head as the mystery behind his "suicide" deepens. Now it has emerged that his long-term girlfriend, 25-year-old Polina Korneeva, might be barred from attending his funeral. Polina was brought to the scene by law enforcement to identify the corpse...

The Kremlin, asked on Wednesday about US President Donald Trump’s criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Moscow was “calm” regarding the criticism, and that it would continue to try to fix a “broken” US -Russia relationship. In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We are quite calm about this.” “We expect to continue our dialogue with Washington and our line on repairing the rather broken bilateral relations,” he added. Trump said on Tuesday he had approved sending US defensive weapons to Ukraine and was considering additional sanctions on Moscow, underscoring his frustration with Russian President...

NATO jets were scrambled early Wednesday as Russia launched a record attack on Ukraine overnight — just hours after President Trump ripped Russian President Vladimir Putin for his “bulls–t.” Moscow fired 728 Shahed and decoy drones along with 13 cruise and ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian air force said Wednesday. That was more than 200 over the previous record fired on Friday, July Fourth — itself just a week after the previous largest air assault. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took aim at enemy air bases and that “all the designated targets have been hit.” However, Ukraine claimed that...

The United States only has about 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs for all of the Pentagon’s military plans after burning through stockpiles in the Middle East in recent months, an alarming depletion that led to the Trump administration freezing the latest transfer of munitions to Ukraine.The stockpile of the Patriot missiles has fallen so low that it raised concern inside the Pentagon that it could jeopardize potential US military operations, and deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, authorized the transfer to be halted while they reviewed where weapons were being sent.snipTrump also told Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in...

Vladimir Putin has been warned that Russia is facing an economic crisis as potato prices shoot up and fail to meet high demand. Prices of potatoes have skyrocketed by a staggering 167% over the last year, marking the most significant increase among foodstuffs. The Russian President admitted in May: "It turns out that we don't have enough potatoes. I spoke with [President of Belarus] Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. He said, 'We've already sold everything to Russia'." The soaring cost of this staple is attributed to poor harvests reducing supplies. Compounding this, households are turning to the typically affordable food option as...

NATO chief Mark Rutte has chillingly warned that World War III will start with simultaneous invasions from Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Secretary-general Rutte suggested the combined attacks from the Chinese and Russian leaders could trigger a World War nightmare and bring the planet to the brink of Armageddon. According to the NATO chief, China would start by seeking to grab Taiwan - while ensuring the Kremlin dictator simultaneously attacks NATO territory, amid fears Putin is anyway eyeing the Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, formerly part of the USSR.

Hans Braunfisch wants Americans to invest in Ukrainian startups, but there's a problem: there's no clear path for individual investors to put money into the more than 26,000 Ukrainian startups out there.The former PwC consultant plans to change that with Pravo Venture, a platform streamlining foreign investment for Ukrainian startups. Think of it like a meeting point for Ukrainian companies and U.S. investors accredited by the Securities and Exchange Commission who want to support the country with capital instead of aid.While co-heading PwC's Ukraine Taskforce, Braunfisch attempted to persuade clients to invest in Ukraine’s entrepreneurs to help its economic recovery....