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Five months after their shock offensive into Russia, Ukrainian troops are bloodied and demoralized by the rising risk of defeat in Kursk, a region some want to hold at all costs while others question the value of having gone in at all. Battles are so intense that some Ukrainian commanders can’t evacuate the dead. Communication lags and poorly timed tactics have cost lives, and troops have little way to counterattack, seven front-line soldiers and commanders told The Associated Press... Some front-line commanders said conditions are tough, morale is low and troops are questioning command decisions, even the very purpose of...

Russia launched a volley of missiles toward the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro early Thursday morning, including a new type of ballistic missile that has North Atlantic Treaty Organization members on edge. The powerful next-level, multiple-warhead battlefield weapon, which has been analyzed by the Pentagon, has prompted NATO to hold an emergency summit on Tuesday. Among the cruise missiles intercepted in the assault was what the Defense Department has identified as a variant of the RS-26, an "experimental" intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), a reconfigured Russian intercontinental ballistic missile, according to a U.S. official. While publicly, U.S. officials say Russia likely...

Volkswagen could shut down as many as three factories in Germany and lay off tens of thousands of workers as it seeks to regain its edge in Europe amid slumping sales and increased competition from China, the company’s top employee representative said Monday. ***snip*** The representative, Daniela Cavallo, who leads the council representing the company’s employees in Germany, told a gathering of workers at Volkswagen’s home plant in Wolfsburg that the proposed closures were part of a plan that managers had presented to the works council. The company “wants to close at least three VW factories, downsize all remaining plants,...

Saudi Arabia is prepared to abandon its $100-a-barrel crude oil price target as it moves to increase output, signaling its acceptance of lower prices, according to the Financial Times. This decision comes despite earlier production cuts by OPEC+ members, which sought to keep prices high. Brent crude prices dipped below $70 earlier this month, the lowest since December 2021. Despite this, officials plan to boost production starting December 1, potentially extending a period of reduced prices. This marks a shift from Saudi Arabia's previous focus on price stabilization. Saudi Arabia's ramp-up in oil production, especially if paired with lowered prices,...

In a brutal and terrifying three days, Russia has wreaked havoc on the tiny, battered Ukrainian air force – lofting drones to surveil the air force’s front-line airfields and then firing ballistic missiles to destroy hard-to-replace warplanes. As the missile campaign continues and the toll mounts – four or five aircraft were destroyed in 72 hours – it’s increasingly clear just one thing can save what’s left of Ukrainian air power. More Western-made air defenses. But they’d better come fast. The current wave of attacks began on July 1, when a Russian drone spotted six Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-27...

The Ukrainian air force’s Dolgintsevo air base is one of the most vulnerable bases in Ukraine. Situated near Kryvyi Rih just 45 miles from the front line in southern Ukraine, the base is within range of Russia’s best Lancet drones. Since the extended-range version of the Lancet—the so-called “Product 53”—debuted in August, the drones have attacked Dolgintsevo every few weeks, aiming for any warplanes parked in the open at the base’s tarmacs. In nine months, Lancets have struck at least four jets at Dolgintsevo: two Mikoyan MiG-29s and two Sukhoi Su-25s. The first two strikes, last fall, took the Ukrainian...

Organizers of the KyivPride March announced on Thursday that the first gay pride event in the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of the Russian invasion will be held on June 16.The Kyiv Independent reported that the event will have “strict security measures,” the most notable of which is that only the 500 registered participants will know when and where the march will begin.

In mid-2022, Gazprom restricted gas flows to Europe in what was seen as a move by Putin to get both leverage against Kyiv's allies ahead of the winter season and retaliate against Western sanctions and support of Ukraine. But the EU managed to find alternative long-term sources of gas imports and free itself from most Russian piped-gas imports ... Gazprom's revenue fell by 41 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2023, while sales profits dropped 71 percent and gas production by 25 percent... The report said the company's upstream gas-production base is now isolated because infrastructure connecting its main...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sings and plays guitar with a band at a bar in Kiev

Ukrainian troops have made a tactical retreat from three more villages as Russian forces press forward across the eastern front line and take advantage of Kyiv’s exhausted military, which is desperately awaiting the arrival of new U.S. assistance. Ukraine’s commander in chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a Telegram post Sunday that the “situation at the front has worsened” and described some of the toughest fighting west of Avdiivka, the city that fell to Russian forces in February. In that direction, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the villages of Berdychi, Semenivka and Novomykhailivka. “Trying to seize the strategic initiative and...

The Ukrainian army has come under rare criticism from military analysts for allegedly bungling up a troops rotation that allowed Russia to capture 5km of land, highlighting the strains Kyiv’s forces are under as they await the arrival of fresh US aid. Deep State, a Ukrainian analytical group with ties to the defence ministry, on Wednesday said the Russian advance late last week in the southern part of the village of Ocheretyne had been caused by a rotation that left the area unprotected. The criticism comes a day after the US Senate approved a $61bn aid package for Kyiv which...

Ukrainian men are protesting at the consulate in Warsaw, Poland, after Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba announced men aged 18 to 60 would be denied consular services earlier this week.Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz stated of the 950,000 Ukrainians living in Poland, Warsaw would assist Kyiv in enforcing the conscription requirements for the Ukrainian men.Kosiniak-Kamysz also stated that many Poles were upset seeing military-aged male Ukrainian refugees throughout Poland despite the amount of support that has been sent to Ukraine:I also understand the frustration of Poles who see young Ukrainians of draft age in hotels and cafés, while...

Avdeevka…. From where the Ukrainian Army has shelled the rebel civilians of Donetsk City for TEN YEARS, has fallen to the Russians after ten years, with many reports of the Ukrainian forces in an absolute rout. There are going to be lots of tactical, strategic, and political implications from this that we will see over the next days and weeks. There are reportedly few Ukrainian defenses behind Avdeevka, the Ukrainians put all their eggs into one basket, counting on the deep Soviet-era nuclear bunker system, and defenses built since the end of the civil war to make it impregnable.

Fierce storms killed three people on the Russian and Crimean Black Sea coast on Monday, with hundreds evacuated. -snip- Video published online showed large waves sweeping over the seafront in Sochi, and carrying away cars. In the Crimean town of Yevpatoriya, streets were flooded. The Russian-installed governors of Crimea and Sevastopol, both of which Moscow seized and unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, declared states of emergency. And the Energy Ministry said bad weather had left about 1.9 million people without electricity on Monday morning in the southern Russian regions of Dagestan, Krasnodar and Rostov, as well as Crimea and...

The ruble, the national currency of Russia, has been depreciating the whole week. At midday on Friday, the dollar was trading at 83 rubles, the euro — 91 rubles. These are the lowest values that the ruble has hit since last spring when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was just beginning. At the time, the currency markets were in full-blown panic, the dollar soared to 130 rubles, while the exchange rate fluctuations reached 10% a day. There are now far fewer causes for worry. Following the OPEC+ decision to cut oil production, the Brent crude price rose to $85, a comfortable...

Russia lost elections to three United Nations bodies this week, a sign that opposition to its invasion of Ukraine over a year ago remains strong. The votes in the 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council follow approval of six non-binding resolutions against Russia by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly. The latest — on Feb. 23, the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion — called for Moscow to end hostilities and withdraw its forces and was adopted by a vote of 141-7 with 32 abstentions. In the ECOSOC votes, Russia was overwhelmingly defeated by Romania for a seat on...

Ukrainian tank destroys Russian trenches after surviving near miss. A Ukrainian tank is seen destroying Russian trenches after it nearly missed getting hit by a Russian anti tank missile on the frontline. Ukrainian soldiers later appear and successfully capture the tactical point.

After three months of small drops, Britain's inflation jumped in February, defying expectations and raising pressure on the Bank of England to increase interest rates, data released by the Office for National Statistics showed Wednesday.The consumer price index rose by 10.4 percent in February, up from 10.1 percent in January.

The rate of inflation has taken a surprise leap, driven by a rising cost of alcoholic drinks in pubs and food - partly a consequence of the recent salad shortage. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) calculated the consumer prices index (CPI) measure of inflation at 10.4% over the 12 months to February. That was up from an annual rate of 10.1% the previous month, dashing expectations of an easing that has been seen since the 41-year high of 11.1% in October last year, as the cost of living crisis gathered steam. At that time, unprecedented energy prices were being...

On 20 March 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin officially announced that 70% of the town of Bakhmut (Artiomovsk) was under the control of Wagner’s fighters. At the same time, Russian forces near Avdeyevka have taken control of Krasnogorovka and Petrovskoye (Stepovoye) to the north of the city, and are already attacking the south-western outskirts of the town. In a letter officially addressed to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that 70% of Bakhmut (Artiomovsk) is now under the control of the “musicians”. While the city is already in a state of operational encirclement, but not yet complete physical...