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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused neighbouring Ukraine on Tuesday of sending 15,000 troops to the border area to build defences and conduct reconnaissance, actions that he called "provocations". Lukashenko allowed his close ally Russia in February to use Belarus as a staging post for its invasion of Ukraine. However, he has said Belarus is not a party to the conflict and that its own forces are not involved. In comments carried by the state news agency BelTA, Lukashenko said the Ukrainian unit brought up to the border had blocked roads and was setting up checkpoints and firing positions. "In a...

Russian airlines have stopped selling tickets to Russian men aged 18 to 65 unless they can provide evidence of approval to travel from the Ministry of Defense. All flights from Russia to available foreign destinations were sold out Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial” mobilization of the country’s 25 million reservists. Flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia — which do not require visas for Russians — for Sept. 21 were unavailable within minutes of Putin’s announcement, according to Russia’s top travel planning website aviasales.ru. By noon Moscow time, direct flights from Moscow to...

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya, has criticised the Russian army’s leadership after it appeared to be caught off guard by Ukraine’s fightback against the Russian invasion in the north-east. In a sign that the Kremlin may face serious fallout over the loss of territory that the Russian occupation administrations had repeatedly stated they planned to keep “for ever”, Kadyrov also suggested that Vladimir Putin might not be aware of the real state of affairs. “They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,” Kadyrov said in an audio message posted to his Telegram channel...

The war in Ukraine risks turning into a protracted conflict that Russia will eventually win, a leading think-tank has said.The report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warned that current Russian advantages and Ukrainian weaknesses are leading to a style of conflict that favours Moscow.The capture of the city means that Russia has essentially gained control of the entire Luhansk region, marking Russia's biggest victory since it captured the southern port of Mariupol in late May.Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrlo Budnov said his defence forces had withdrawn "to advantageous positions in order to gain tactical superiority" after the Russians...

The United States and the European Union (EU) have been ineffective in their trade war against Russia and are currently working on their sixth package of sanctions. These sanctions have caused price hikes and food shortages, severely harming innocent people all around the world. As the West struggles to constrain Russia’s military mission in Ukraine, European gas importers have already surrendered to Russia. European gas importers have quietly violated the EU’s own sanctions and have begun buying gas in Rubles, capitulating to Russia’s new rules. As the West’s economic warfare scheme backfires, EU leaders are beginning to crack even further....

Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency is reporting for the first time Wednesday that the Russian military occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson will soon petition the Kremlin to become part of the Russian Federation. It was in late April that a pro-Moscow “military-civilian administration” was installed after Kherson fell to the invading forces, complete with a local transition to the Russian ruble. While the news hasn’t been officially confirmed by the Kremlin, it’s significant that the report surfaced through RIA and not Ukrainian or opposition sources, suggesting such referendums or even simple declared annexations in captured regions could be...

Reports are surfacing of military equipment of the United States and other NATO countries on the Russia-Finland border. U.S. and NATO armored vehicles were spotted on the border, along with Finnish tanks and armored personnel vehicles, according to a translation of a Shraibikus News report. There have been reports of military exercises in Finland, but Russian intelligence reportedly suspects the military buildup will remain until Finland joins NATO. The report also indicates Finnish authorities are anticipating Finland joining NATO within a few months. Russian analysts consider the military presence on the Russia-Finland border to be a threat, particularly as NATO...

Germany’s Der Spiegel removes clip in which Azovstal evacuee criticized Ukraine.Citing “discrepancies in content,” the German magazine Der Spiegel has removed a video showing the testimony of an evacuee from Mariupol’s ‘Azovstal’ factory, a stronghold of the neo-Nazi Azov militants and other Ukrainian fighters.The woman in the video had revealed that her family were basically being lied to, held hostage, and used as human shields by the Ukrainian militants.Another German outlet, Junge Welt, noticed the deletion on Thursday evening. According to JW, Der Spiegel published the three-minute video on Monday. It featured Natalia Usmanova, who had worked at Azovstal before...

Putin has launched a major salvage operation to the wreck of the downed Black Sea Fleet flagship to secure military secrets including coding devices, unexploded missiles, and possibly even attempt to bring the bodies of dead sailors back home, naval experts have claimed. An eight-ship salvage flotilla including Kommuna, the world's oldest active warship, and submarine has been sent to the site of the sunken Moskva 80 miles off the coast of Odessa from Sevastopol, the large naval base in Russia-annexed Crimea, according to a report by Forbes.

Two Russian generals have been killed near Kherson, the Ukrainian ministry of defence’s intelligence directorate has said. Another is in critical condition. The Ukrainian military on Friday hit the command post of Russia’s 49th army near occupied regional capital Kherson, according to the statement.

Desperate Vladimir Putin is recruiting a Dad’s Army of old folks to prop up his creaking Ukraine invasion. The Russian army has put out an SOS for volunteers aged up to 60 after sustaining heavy losses during the disastrous six-week campaign. The military wants ex-soldiers nearing retirement age to rejoin in the Siberian cities of Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, according to Russian media. Moscow desperately wants old tank commanders, snipers and engineers. They would join up to 60,000 reservists recently called to active service along with 134,500 new conscripts forced into action. The conscripts - men aged 18 to 27 -...

KYIV, Ukraine — The suspected Russian missile hit the tall apartment building, engulfing it in flames and smoke. It killed at least four people, including elderly residents, and shattered the lives of a close-knit community. For lawmaker Oleksii Goncharenko, the tragedy was yet another example of potential Russian war crimes. “They are just hitting residential buildings in these areas,” said the Ukrainian parliament member, who arrived at the scene shortly after the explosion two weeks ago. “You can walk around, you will not find any military targets, or any military people. This is just terror.” Yet a few minutes later,...

A circular firing squad is forming in the Kremlin, with everyone pointing their guns at each other: Vladimir Putin's regime looks under serious threat for the first time since he came to power, writes Professor MARK GALEOTTI Western counter-intelligence campaigns are being aimed at the secretive FSB In Russia, anyone can be denounced as a warmonger or a traitor, or even both Putin has been picking off key figures in the secret police, the FSB, and politicians in a bid to retain his hold on power as the war continues When the demonic despot Joseph Stalin suffered a severe stroke...

Russia has lost another of its generals in the war in Ukraine, Kyiv military sources said, as Ukraine inflicts punishing losses on Moscow's war machine. Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army's 49th combined arms division, became the fifth general to be killed after being taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces, sources in Kyiv said. Rezantsev, who bragged on just the fourth day of the war that it would be over in a matter of hours, was apparently killed after the Ukrainian army destroyed the commanding post of the 49th Russian Army in southern...

Russian and Kazakhstan oil exports via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) from the Black Sea may fall by up to 1 million barrels per day (bpd), or 1% of global oil production, due to storm-damaged berths, a Russian official said on Tuesday. Pavel Sorokin, a Deputy Energy Minister, said the second berth could also turn out to be damaged after initial information about one of the three being damaged by a storm. Major global trading houses such as Vitol and Trafigura said on Tuesday they estimated the current Russian oil disruption at 2 million to 3 million bpd and added...

The top Kremlin spokesman said Monday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is still going according to plan and “within the timeframe” that was “approved in advance.”“The Russian Armed Forces are using modern high-precision weapons, hitting only military information infrastructure facilities. All plans of the Russian leadership will be implemented in full within the timeframe approved in advance,” asserted Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, to state-run media.Peskov declined to comment on how long the war, described by Russia’s government as a “special military operation,” will last. Peskov also appeared to dispute a significant number of reports and...

On a snowy tarmac at Amari Air Base in northern Estonia on Sunday morning, pallets of rifles, ammunition and other weapons were being loaded onto one of the largest cargo planes in the world, an Antonov AN-124, belonging to the Ukrainian air force. It is an artifact of the Cold War, built and purchased when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. ... In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they...

Former President Donald Trump slammed his former comrade Vladimir Putin for the growing death toll in Ukraine - calling it a 'massive crime against humanity' - and blasted NATO for its lack of action during a GOP donor event Saturday. Trump spoke to Republican National Committee donors in Louisiana during the Spring Retreat in New Orleans, where he covered a wide variety of topics, including the escalating crisis in Ukraine. Trump also went after NATO, calling it a 'paper tiger' and said the US cannot just stand by while Ukraine is invaded, according to Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey, who...

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s nuclear forces to go on high alert last week, he looked down a long table at his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, who nodded in assent. ... Russian troops’ failure to quickly seize Ukraine, however, has shown Mr. Shoigu’s changes, while real, didn’t create the fearsome fighting force he touted. Poor logistics, flawed strategy and ill-prepared troops mean any victory will be immensely costly, and an occupation hard to sustain. ... “By agreeing to these assumptions and this type of operation, he has essentially thrown the Russian military into a disaster.”

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — In a private video call with American lawmakers over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a “desperate” plea to the United States to help Kyiv get more warplanes to fight Russia’s invasion and retain control of its airspace. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Washington has given a “green light” to the idea and is currently “very, very actively” looking at a proposal under which Ukraine’s neighbor Poland would supply Kyiv with Soviet-era fighters and in turn receive American F-16s to make up for their loss. However, the proposition is fraught with uncertainty