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ATO's British-led, rapid-response force is "ready" to be deployed if needed, a senior commander has said, after U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer signaled he was "ready and willing" to put British troops on the ground to enforce a ceasefire in Ukraine.Why It MattersStarmer said in an opinion piece published in U.K. newspaper The Telegraph on Sunday that contributing a British force to help maintain a possible ceasefire agreement was not something he took "lightly."Sweden has indicated it would consider a similar move, although other European countries quickly ruled out contributing troops. Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the deployment...

he arrests and firing of several high-profile associates of former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu by Kremlin authorities have sparked deep anxieties among members of the Russian elite connected to the current head of Moscow's Security Council, according to a new report. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email. WHY IT MATTERS A slew of well-known figures working in the Russian government and the military were arrested and axed from their posts last year. Western analysts have noted that schisms within the Kremlin's upper echelons are increasingly catching international attention as the grinding war...

Russia will not accept a reported Turkey-formulated proposal to end to the fighting in Ukraine after nearly 1,000 days of war, the Kremlin said on Monday, as the prospect of a ceasefire that had long seemed unrealistic looms over the horizon with a new U.S. presidency. Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was preparing to present a plan to fellow G20 leaders, which would freeze the war in Ukraine along the front lines currently snaking for hundreds of miles through the country. The Turkish leader would lay out the plans during the summit in Rio de...

The Kremlin has refused to publish details of "high-level conversations" between top officials, a spokesperson said after Donald Trump said he had threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with a strike on his capital if Moscow invaded Ukraine. Trump, the Republican candidate for elections now just two weeks away, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Friday that he had warned Putin—with whom he said he had a "great relationship"—not to go to war in Ukraine or he would "hit" Moscow. "I said, 'Vladimir, 'if you go after Ukraine, I am going to hit you so hard, you're...

Russian forces lost almost 1,400 fighters and 50 artillery systems in the past day as the Kremlin pushes forward to threaten a key Ukrainian city in the country's eastern Donetsk region and Kyiv holds its grip on swathes of Russia's southern Kursk region. Moscow sustained 1,380 casualties between Monday and Tuesday bringing the tally of total Russian casualties to 627,790. Updated figures on Tuesday put Russia's artillery losses at 50 over the past day—with a total of 17,880 systems lost during Russia's full-scale invasion of the country, which began in February 2022.

Russia has lost two helicopters and two main battle tanks in its efforts to fend off a cross-border raid into the Kursk region, reports suggest, as Russian sources suggest Kyiv's forces encroached several miles into Russian territory during the surprise assault. Open-source intelligence accounts, along with Russian and Ukrainian military-focused sources, suggest Russia lost a Ka-52 helicopter, an Mi-28 helicopter and two tanks in the Kursk region after Ukraine launched its cross-border attack on Tuesday. Ukrainian media amplified reports claiming that the Mi-28 was taken out by a Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drone. Russian journalist Alexander Sladkov said on Wednesday...

Ukraine destroyed a Russian submarine in Crimea on Friday, Kyiv's military has said, appearing to mark the latest blow to the Black Sea Fleet based around the peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine. Ukraine "successfully struck" Russia's Rostov-on-Don submarine in the southern Crimean port city of Sevastopol, Kyiv's military said on Saturday. Kyiv also targeted four launchers belonging to Moscow's advanced S-400 air-defense systems on the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine's general staff said... "As a result of the hit, the boat sank on the spot," Ukraine's armed forces said. It had an estimated cost of around $300 million, according to...

Russia is redeploying air defenses to shield a key bridge used by Russia to connect with the annexed Crimean Peninsula that Ukraine has long targeted, according to a Crimean-based pro-Ukrainian group. "The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation began to massively transfer equipment closer to the Kerch Bridge," Atesh, a pro-Kyiv military partisan group of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, said in a post to messaging app Telegram on Thursday. Moscow is "actively redeploying the surviving air defense installations, aircraft, radars and all military facilities from the western part of Crimea," it continued. -snip- Ukraine has repeatedly targeted high-value Russian facilities...

Ukraine attacked several advanced Russian air-defense systems across Crimea overnight, Kyiv's military said on Monday, in the latest round of long-range strikes to menace vital Russian assets on the annexed peninsula Ukraine has vowed to reclaim from Moscow. -snip- Rybar, one of the influential Russian military blogger accounts often used as sources in lieu of official statements from Moscow, said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had attacked Crimea overnight with "at least 12" U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, fired from Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region. Another prominent military blogger said Kyiv had attacked Crimea with an unspecified number of...

Ukrainian forces have damaged an advanced Russian Su-57 jet hundreds of miles away from the front lines inside Moscow's internationally recognized territory, Kyiv's military spy agency said on Sunday, adding this is the "first such case in history." An Su-57 jet was struck on Saturday at the Akhtubinsk airfield, in the southern Russian republic of Astrakhan, Kyiv's GUR military intelligence agency said in a statement. The site is around 365 miles from the current front lines in eastern Ukraine, according to the GUR. One of Russia's influential military bloggers—often considered sources for information on losses in lieu of official commentary...

A senior Russian commander who criticized the Russian military and its war effort in Ukraine has been arrested, Russian state media reported on Tuesday. Major General Ivan Popov, who had headed up Russia's 58th Army, was "arrested on suspicion of fraud," Russian state news agency, Tass, reported, citing a law enforcement spokesperson. In July 2023, Popov was removed from his command of Russian troops in Ukraine's annexed southern Zaporizhzhia region after he criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for failing to provide sufficient support for the country's troops. Popov condemned what he called a "lack of counter-battery combat," too few resources...

A Russian military airfield in Crimea has caught fire for a second night in a row, according to new reports, after Moscow said Ukraine had launched consecutive long-range strikes on the Russian-controlled peninsula. The Belbek airfield, close to the port city of Sevastopol on Crimea's western edge where Russia bases its Black Sea naval fleet, is "on fire again," Russian independent news outlet Astra reported on Thursday.

Russia needs to up the number and quality of its weapons heading for Ukraine to maintain Moscow's push on Ukraine's defensive lines, Russia's top defense official has said, ahead of a likely summer offensive expected to start in the coming weeks. "To maintain the required pace of the offensive and ensure the build-up of the combat strength of troop groups for further actions, it is necessary to increase the volume and quality of weapons and military equipment supplied to the troops," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, according to comments published by Moscow on Wednesday.

The British government said on Tuesday it would commit its largest-ever tranche of military aid to Ukraine as part of a package worth £500 million ($622 million). The assistance will include further deliveries of Storm Shadow air-launched, precision-guided missiles, as well as vessels and vehicles. The Paveway IV—the latest in the Paveway series of bombs—converts unguided munitions, also known as "dumb bombs," into precision-guided weapons. They can use laser guidance or satellites to find their way to a target. "The Paveway IV will enable Ukraine to strike back" at Russian forces and target high-value assets such as command centers and...

New videos appear to show a fire raging in northern Crimea, after reports of explosions around a military airfield overnight. Footage widely circulated on social media by Russian and Ukrainian sources early on Wednesday show bright flashes of light and explosions, with sirens wailing in the background. A local Telegram channel reported "several loud explosions," starting just before 4 a.m. local time, before a fire broke out. Roads around the air base are blocked, the channel later reported. Dzhankoy is a major military hub, home to one of Russia's largest airfields in Crimea. It is a key location for supplying...

Up to 30 Russian personnel may have been killed and another 80 injured, according to a new report, after dramatic footage appeared to show explosions at a Russian military base in northern Crimea overnight. "About 30 Russian servicemen were killed and about 80 were wounded at the airfield in Dzhankoy," a Crimean-based Telegram channel called Crimean Wind reported on Wednesday. Crimean Wind is a pro-Ukrainian monitoring group that focuses on Crimea and generally offers reliable information. Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine's southern forces, described Dzhankoy as a legitimate military target on Wednesday but declined to offer up further details. A...

Iran's massive missile and drone barrage targeting Israel over the weekend is similar to Russian tactics used in frequent strikes on Ukraine, according to a new assessment, after Iran launched its first-ever direct strike from its own territory into Israel. "Iran's use of drones and missiles shows how Iran is learning from the Russians to develop increasingly dangerous and effective strike packages against Israel," the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Saturday. Russia has launched thousands of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine in nearly 26 months of all-out war in the country....

Ukraine's navy said in a statement published on Tuesday that Kyiv had "successfully destroyed" the Konstantin Olshansky, and the three other vessels it targeted since Saturday. In a later statement, Pletenchuk said the Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship may have sustained damage. It was one of two of this type of reconnaissance vessel at Russia's disposal ... Ukraine used a home-grown Neptune anti-ship missile to strike the Konstantin Olshansky, which was being "prepared for use against Ukraine," Pletenchuk said. Pletenchuk said the attack on the Konstantin Olshansky landing ship had taken place on Saturday, the same day as the strikes on...

Ukrainian forces "destroyed or heavily damaged" one of Russia's prized but scarce A-50 spy planes, according to a Ukrainian official, after Kyiv targeted an aviation plant in southern Russia. Russia's Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its air defenses had intercepted 47 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including 41 over the southwestern Rostov region. Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region, said Kyiv launched a "massive UAV (uncrewed aerial vehicle) attack" on the city of Taganrog, east of the captured Ukrainian city of Mariupol and west of Rostov-on-Don. Russian military bloggers reported that Ukrainian drones struck a plant...

A U.S. Air Force employee has been charged with illegally sharing classified national security information about Russia's war in Ukraine on a foreign online dating site. David Franklin Slater, aged 63, was arrested on Saturday for allegedly conspiring to transmit and transmitting national defense information from around February 2022 until approximately April 2022. Slater had retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel in late 2020, then worked at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska under the Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) as a civilian employee. Slater attended USSTRATCOM briefings on Russia's war with Ukraine, then sent classified information to a...