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Ukraine said on Monday its biggest cross-border assault of the war had captured 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) of Russia's Kursk region and that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to be forced into making peace. With Russia still struggling to repel the surprise assault a week after it began, Ukraine's top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by video link and said the advance into Russian territory was ongoing. "We continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region. Currently, we control about 1,000 square kilometres of the territory of the Russian Federation," he said in...

Eleven thousand people have been evacuated from Krasnaya Yaruga district in Russia's Belgorod region, state news agency TASS reported on Monday. The regional governor said earlier that evacuations had begun due to "enemy activity on the border". Belgorod is next to the Kursk region where Ukrainian forces broke across into Russia in a major incursion that started last Tuesday.

RUSSIAN citizens in Belgorod have been urged to take shelter in their basements after Ukraine's triumphant invasion. Some 121,000 people have fled Kursk as Vladimir Putin's crony governor admitted Kyiv forces now control over 28 towns in the borderland region. As Ukraine pushes its impressive invasion further into a second region, Belgorod, citizens there are also being told to evacuate. Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote in a Telegram message on Monday: "The entire territory of the Belgorod region is a MISSILE DANGER. "Go down to the basement. Stay there until you receive the signal 'all clear missile danger.'" Around 11,000...

MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russia on Monday evacuated civilians from parts of a second region next to Ukraine after Kyiv increased military activity near the border just days after its biggest incursion into sovereign Russian territory since the start of the 2022 war. Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border last Tuesday and swept across some Western parts of Russia's Kursk region, a surprise attack that may be aimed at gaining leverage in possible ceasefire talks after the U.S. election. Apparently caught by surprise, Russia by Sunday had stabilised the front in the Kursk region, though Ukraine had carved...

After remaining mostly silent since nude photos of her were taken from her phone and leaked online, actress Jennifer Lawrence has spoken out at length to Vanity Fair about the hack. "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime," Lawrence told Vanity Fair. "It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these websites are responsible." "Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I...