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Military bases in Russia and Belarus were rocked by an outbreak in fires and explosions Thursday, just days after a Russian airbase in Crimea saw explosions that wiped out nine warplanes. Russian media reported that a military housing unit was ablaze in town outside of Moscow early Thursday but did not provide information on how the fire broke out. The Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Moscow Region reportedly said the fire took more than 35 men to distinguish after they found smoke billowing from under the roof. "The fire has now been extinguished, there is no...

The U.S. Defense Department believes that as many as 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine less than six months ago, a top Pentagon official told reporters today... The United States has now provided nearly $10 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, nearly twice Kyiv’s military budget in 2021... The Pentagon initially estimated that Russia deployed about 120 battalion tactical groups, the Kremlin’s go-to combined arms unit, for the war—numbering around 100,000 troops. Experts said the new casualty estimate is likely to include Russian paramilitary and volunteer forces,...

Throughout his 20-plus year rule, Vladimir Putin has consolidated power through graft, intimidation, manipulation of the Russian legal system, and forcefully silencing critics. Putin’s ability to sustain subservience and loyalty to his authority is no small feat, especially in a political culture of ruthless power politics. His reputation as a master tactician abroad has also been carefully cultivated, if not exaggerated.

MOSCOW, June 22 (Reuters) - A top Russian official warned the West on Wednesday to stop talking about triggering NATO's "Article 5" mutual defence clause in a standoff between Lithuania and Russia. Moscow has promised practical retaliation that will affect Lithuania's population after the Baltic state blocked the transit of goods subject to EU sanctions from Russia to its Baltic exclave. "I would like to warn Europeans against dangerous rhetorical games on the topic of conflict," the Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Wednesday.

One of two men believed by British intelligence to have poisoned a Russian spy’s tea with a rare radioactive substance in London has died, according to a state-owned news agencyOne of the men accused of killing former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London has died of Covid-19 in Moscow, according to reports. Dmitri Kovtun was one of two men who a UK inquiry ruled had poisoned Litvinenko’s tea with a rare radioactive substance back in 2006. Reports from state-owned Russian news agency Tass said Kovtun contracted coronavirus before dying in a Moscow hospital. Kovtun, along with Andrei Lugovoi, was...

This weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed with people in his inner circle the concept of a gradual departure from power and ways to ensure continuity in the change of regime leadership. The discussions did not remain an empty phrase, and the prospects began to acquire clearer contours. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, despite all his recent efforts to portray himself as the main "hawk", Putin is going to banally merge, offering him the post of ambassador to one of the countries of Southeast Asia. But before the leak, Dmitry Anatolyevich will have to play the role of a "scapegoat"...

A veteran Russian legislator has issued an appeal to Vladimir Putin to stop military action, bring his troops home and end the war in Ukraine. Communist deputy Leonid Vasyukevich, 69, blasted the use of Moscow’s servicemen in Ukraine, as a Russian court dismissed more than 100 national guardsmen in the first case of soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine as politicians demanded the army return home. Members of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, a separate military branch from the Russian army refused to carry out an assignment related to Moscow's 'special operation' in Ukraine. A military court in...

Over the last week, the Russian position north of Kharkiv has collapsed. There are two explanations, and both involve an endgame for Putin’s War.Most commentary on military operations over the last week has focused on what is assumed to be the center of gravity of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, Donbas, and the siege of Mariupol. However, in my opinion, the real activity to watch has been occurring on the Ukraine-Russia border. Kharkiv had been under daily artillery and rocket fire, destroying most of it.When I saw the city center of Kharkiv, destroyed by air bombs, I was shocked. Last...

The Belarusian army is combat-ready and will be able to inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy in case of external aggression, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the meeting to discuss Belarus' defense needs on 10 May, BelTA has learned. The head of state underlined that the armament, which the Belarusian army possesses today, lets the country maintain its defensive capacity. “I think it is good armament for the army. It shows that our army will be able to fight and inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy. We are realists, we understand that we will not be able to defeat...

It is now May 9, and the speculation about what Russian President Vladimir Putin will do on the occasion of the 2022 Victory Day Parade has been answered.Due to the war raging in Ukraine, a lot of SmartSet™ types had been speculating that Putin would use the Victory Day Parade as the catalyst to mobilize Russia for his war in Ukraine, if not declare war outright. Read my coverage of Putin’s possible courses of action at Tomorrow Is ‘Victory Day’ in Russia but Vladimir Putin Is Losing, So What Does He Offer Russia?.The preliminaries of the parade are in the...

Because Putin and the Russian army wrongly invaded Ukraine without provocation and committed numerous war crimes in the process, the world's democracies should issue a $100 million reward for the capture of Putin for his war crimes.

The poor performance of Russian equipment deployed in the Ukraine war is bound to be giving global buyers second thoughts.How can it be that a large Russian army attacking force, capable of causing untold destruction, is being checkmated and systematically devastated by Ukraine’s military, in particular its special forces?And what impact will this have on the Russian army and its industrial backbone, the Russian companies that build the tanks, armored personnel carriers, mobile air defenses and aircraft including fixed-wing and helicopters ­– all of which have suffered extreme losses in the conflict?Russia’s exports consist of various commodities, most prominently wheat,...

The Russian ammunition dump in Tomorovka, Russia, was wracked by explosions on Sunday morning. Tomorovka is just west of Belgorod and barely 40 miles north of the Ukrainian strongpoint city of Kharkiv. This ammunition dump would be critical to sustaining the Russian offensive in Donbas. There is no claim of responsibility, so it might be another of those mysterious fires plaguing Russian strategic installations and those installations supporting the Donbas operation. Video of the explosion and aftermath are posted below.There have been a series of explosions and fires at military logistics and storage points inside #Russia that are used to...

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on Italian television on Sunday that the fact Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish does not negate the Nazi elements in his country. Lavrov added that Nazi Germany's Chancellor Adolf Hitler also "had Jewish blood." This is a developing story with more details to come.

Russia is modifying its invasion of Ukraine into a broader war against the West, The Wall Street Journal reports. Kremlin leaders and state media have been warning Russians that the war with Ukraine could become a global war. The U.S. and some allies, increasingly seeing an opportunity to contain Russia’s possible imperial ambitions, have increased military assistance to Ukraine. In response, Moscow has been preparing the Russian population for a potential larger war. The Kremlin has been using the May 9th celebrations, which commemorate the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, to draw parallels between World War II and the invasion...

Grain production in Ukraine is likely to fall by around 20 per cent this year, prompting inflation and global food security warnings from the UK Ministry of Defence. Britain’s Ministry of Defence has warned that Ukraine’s grain harvest looks set to see around a 20 per cent decrease in yield as a result of the ongoing Russian invasion of the country. With Ukraine being responsible for a significant share of the world’s supply of wheat and other essential crops, this fall is reportedly likely to have devastating effects on the global supply of food, causing price hikes which will put...

Russia has protested against the U.S. sending military aid to Ukraine, warning of “unpredictable consequences.” In a diplomatic note sent to the U.S. this week, Moscow expressed its opposition to the Biden administration assisting Ukraine, which is fiercely resisting a Russian invasion. The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C, forwarded the document — titled “On Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime” — to the U.S. State Department. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of the document, which was written in Russian and sent with an English translation. The note came...

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that it was time for the United States to talk about sending troops to Ukraine.

Russia is worried about increased activity of NATO forces in the Arctic and sees risks of "unintended incidents" occurring in the region, TASS news agency cited Russian ambassador-at-large Nikolai Korchunov as saying on Sunday. In March, Finland and Sweden, which are both considering joining the U.S.-led military NATO alliance, conducted combined NATO military drills. The exercise was long planned, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 added intensity to the war game. Moscow describes its actions in Ukraine as a "special military operation". "The recent increase in NATO's activity in the Arctic is a cause for concern. Another large-scale...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is leading a a six-member group of U.S. lawmakers on a two-day visit to Taiwan on Thursday, a visit that has sparked anger from Beijing. Graham along with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) landed in Taiwan’s Songshan Airport in Taipei on Friday. Graham tweeted that the people of Taiwan are “great allies of the United States” and called Taiwan “a beacon of freedom in a troubled region.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian...