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On Saturday, the Ukrainians hit the Kerch Strait Bridge, which leads from Russia to Crimea, with something—a missile, explosives planted by naval commandos, a truck laden with explosives. No one who knows is saying for sure.(snip)The tactical questions of how the Ukrainians pulled off this strike and of whether lasting damage has occurred are interesting and important but currently unresolvable publicly. What can, however, be more profitably discussed is what this tells us about where the Russia-Ukraine war is headed. “Battles are the principal milestones of secular history,” Winston Churchill wrote in his biography of the Duke of Marlborough. The...

Russia's parliament on Tuesday approved a bill to toughen punishments for a host of crimes such as desertion, damage to military property and insubordination if they are committed during military mobilisation or combat situations. The bill, passed in its second and third readings on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, the Duma, comes amid debate inside Russia about a possible mobilisation

Moscow for the first time openly recognizes a defeat since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022. Kremlin officials and state media propagandists are extensively discussing the reasons for the Russian defeat in Kharkiv Oblast, informs the Institute for the Study of War. The Kremlin never admitted that Russia was defeated around Kyiv or, later, at Snake Island, framing the retreat from Kyiv as a decision to prioritize the «liberation» of Donbas and the withdrawal from Snake Island as a «gesture of goodwill». The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) originally offered a similar explanation for the Russian...

Humiliation for Putin's troops is continuing as they begin to abandon the major city of Melitopol in the face of Kyiv's lightning counter-offensive. The city's pre-occupation mayor said that Russian troops were pulling out of the area in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region. Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram that Russian troops were heading towards Moscow-annexed Crimea. He said columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland.

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

FLORENCE – “Unity of Europe is a paramount concern, as dividing us is one of the main objectives of the war waged by Russia,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this month. Macron, who has billed himself as Europe’s top leader since the departure of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has sought to maintain internal coherence and cohesion within the European Union (EU) while also maintaining functional communication channels with Russia amid the raging war in Ukraine. After closing ranks and displaying remarkable unity in face of Russia’s aggression earlier this year, however, cracks are beginning to appear within the...

Ukrainian forces to the east and southeast of Kharkiv retain the offensive initiative. Russian forces are withdrawing from the strategic hub of Izium and regrouping along a straight north-south line running just east from Kupiansk down to Izium. In the South, company-level fighting continues northeast of Kherson; neither side has made any significant gains since early last week. In response to the Kharkiv region offensive, Russian air and missile forces have attacked energy and water infrastructure throughout Eastern Ukraine and caused massive blackouts in major cities. On the basis of reported large-scale US intelligence and added advanced weapons systems assistance,...