Free Republic

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At a secret location in rural Ukraine, columns of attack drones are assembled at night and in near silence to strike deep inside Russia.Their targets are strategic: oil refineries, fuel depots, and military logistics hubs. Since the summer, Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has ramped up dramatically, pounding energy infrastructure across Russia and stretching Moscow’s air defenses thin.Built from parts made in a scattered network of workshops, these drones now fly much further than at any point in the war.Officers in body armor move with quick precision; headlamps glow red to stay hidden. Engines sputter like old...

A package of U.S. cruise missiles is among the first shipments of purchases by NATO allies to be sent to the embattled country.Europe has begun buying American weapons for Ukraine in earnest, only weeks after President Trump struck a deal with NATO allies to do so.The latest sale, announced by the State Department on Thursday, will send 3,500 extended-range cruise missiles and GPS navigation kits to Ukraine once Congress formally approves it, as expected. They cost $825 million, paid for by Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, with some unspecified financial assistance from the Pentagon.The missiles can be fired from fighter...

A historic synagogue in Odessa, Ukraine, sustained significant damage following a Russian drone strike this week, one of several Jewish sites caught up in intense bombardments this summer. The Nachlas Eliezer Synagogue in the Peresyp district of Odessa, which was built in 1898 and served the Jewish community until it was closed in the 1920s under Soviet rule, was struck Monday evening by a Russian suicide drone. The strike caused a large fire in the building, which had already partially collapsed in 1992, according to the United Jewish Community of Ukraine. No injuries were reported. “This sacred building, constructed at...

President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly concerned about distortions in Russia's wartime economy, just as Donald Trump pushes for an end to the Ukraine conflict, five sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters. Russia's economy, driven by exports of oil, gas and minerals, grew robustly over the past two years despite multiple rounds of Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But domestic activity has become strained in recent months by labour shortages and high interest rates introduced to tackle inflation, which has accelerated under record military spending. That has contributed to the view within a...

India’s Modi has tried to play peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine. But reports that Ukraine is using Indian shells could complicate those efforts. Visiting Moscow in early July, Modi described Russia as New Delhi’s “trusted ally” and “all-weather friend”, referring to the decades-old strategic collaboration between the two nations. Yet, less than three months later, that relationship is being tested, especially after reports that Kyiv has accessed Indian ammunition and is using it in the Russia-Ukraine war. Indian shells, bought by Italy and the Czech Republic, have been routed to Ukraine. The report follows a series of battlefront images that...

Having gained a foothold in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region in the past few days, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are now fast approaching the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Kurchatov, the city’s mayor Igor Korpunkov warned on Friday. Reporting that fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops was taking place “a few dozen kilometres” from the city of Kurchatov, Korpunkov sought to assure residents that all services and business in the city were operating “normally” and urged them not to panic. “The enemy is not only employing military weapons against us, but also so-called ‘psychological special forces’....

KYIV, July 8 (Reuters) - Russia blasted the main children's hospital in Kyiv with a missile in broad daylight on Monday and rained missiles down on other cities across Ukraine, killing at least 41 civilians in the deadliest wave of air strikes for months. Parents holding babies walked in the street outside the hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack. Windows had been smashed and panels ripped off, and hundreds of Kyiv residents were helping to clear debris.

Videos emerge online, showing a targeted attack by a Kh-101 missile on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv Ukrainian military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko has analyzed Russian propaganda messages after the terrorist attack on the largest children’s hospital of Ukraine. At first, the Russian invaders claimed their strike on the Okhmadyt children's hospital in Kyiv was due to an alleged military meeting taking place there. “So they openly admit that the attack on the children's clinic was targeted and justify it with a “meeting” claim… Seriously? Let me recall that when two weeks ago, Kharkiv was attacked with glide bombs, Russian...

At least 20 people have been killed and 50 injured following Russian missile attacks on cities across Ukraine, including one which struck the country's largest children's hospital in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko. Klymenko also said that Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and Donetsk Oblast were hit by Russian strikes. "More than 40 missiles of various types" were used in the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). "Russian terrorists have once again launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine," he said, adding that "all services are engaged to rescue as many...

Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine. Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own. McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately,...

The Russian-flagged tanker Mekhanik Pogodin, used by the Russians as a command post, was destroyed on 11 March 2024 as a result of a successful strike by the Ukrainian Air Force near the Kinburn Spit, Mykolaiv Oblast. Source: Ukrainian Navy’s press service Details: It is noted that the vessel was destroyed in accordance with international humanitarian law as a legitimate military target belonging to the Russians.

Groups of pro-Kyiv volunteer fighters, made up of Russians who oppose the Kremlin, said that they had broken into the Kursk and Belgorod regions, while Moscow said it had foiled multiple Ukrainian attempts to infiltrate the border. "We crossed the border," the Freedom of Russia legion, a militia that claims to be made up of Russian citizens fighting on behalf of Ukraine, said it a post on Telegram. It published a video from a drone that claimed to show the vehicle being blown up and fighters on the streets of the village of Tyotkino, on the border between Russia and...

A prominent liberal priest faces expulsion from the Russian Orthodox church for refusing to read out a prayer asking God to guide Russia to victory over Ukraine. In a verdict published on Saturday, a church court said Aleksiy Uminsky should be “expelled from holy orders” for violating his priestly oath. The decision was forwarded for approval to Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian church who strongly backs President Vladimir Putin. The case shows how the church is clamping down on internal dissent as it throws its support behind Putin and his “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is now...

Ukraine has carried out a large-scale drone attack across the Black Sea and Crimea that comes after Kyiv claimed success in hitting a Russian military headquarters on the occupied peninsula. Ukraine intends to recapture Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and the peninsula hosts many military installations that have come under increasing attack as Kyiv seeks to degrade Russian logistics and equipment. The Russian defense ministry said on Thursday that it had shot down 19 drones and that explosions were heard in the Crimean settlements of Novofedorivka, Saky, Yevpatoriya, Dzhankoi and Balaklava... Russian social media channels painted a different...

A historic cathedral, architectural monuments and residential buildings in Odesa were severely damaged early on Sunday as Russian forces continued to pound the Ukrainian city with missiles. “Another night attack by the non-humans,” Odesa’s governor Oleg Kiper said, adding that one person had been killed and 19 injured, including three children. Kyiv and its allies say the air strike campaign aims to blockade maritime grain exports from the Black Sea port city to global markets and destroy Ukrainian culture. “Missiles against peaceful cities, against residential buildings, a cathedral . . . There can be no excuse for Russian evil,” Ukrainian...

Russian missiles badly damaged a historic Orthodox cathedral in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, sparking outrage and prompting President Zelensky to vow retaliation. The strikes killed at least one person and injured several others, Ukrainian officials said, the latest in a wave of attacks on Odesa. The attacks also destroyed other historic buildings, Ukraine’s culture ministry said. The Transfiguration Cathedral is Odesa’s largest church building. It was consecrated in 1809, destroyed during the Soviet era in 1936 before being rebuilt when Ukraine became an independent nation.

Update from Ukraine | Ukrainian Revenge! Ruzzia lost the "Hero" Commander and positions in Avdiivka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA42UK8oynk ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 396 – Summary March 26, 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 26th March 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-396-summary/

Update from Ukraine | Great News from Bakhmut | There is a Chance | One million shells for Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD2dDMMB2XU https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 388 – Summary March 18, 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 18th March 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-388-summary/

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been forced to use more of its professional recruits in Bakhmut to replace its depleted supply of enlisted prisoners, who are perishing by the thousands in the longest battle of the war, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday. The claim suggested that Ukraine sees an opportunity, despite the heavy casualties it has suffered in the eastern city, to exhaust Wagner’s nearly suicidal prisoner assaults, which Ukraine’s commanders regard as one of Russia’s most effective tactics. “This is their last stand,” Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told...

Over the past nine months, Russia has launched more than 16,000 missile strikes on Ukraine. This was announced on Twitter by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, Censor.NET informs. "97% of Russian targets are civilians. We are fighting against a terrorist state. Ukraine will win and bring war criminals to justice," he writes.