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British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is the bookmakers' favorite to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, but the Kremlin is unlikely to be betting on a different British approach to relations with Moscow, or the war in Ukraine, should she take over from incumbent Boris Johnson. Although enjoying less support among fellow Conservative Party MPs, Truss's greater popularity among grassroots Tories than Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the final run-off has seen Betfair put her odds-on 4/6 to win. If successful, she will be the face of the British response to the war in Ukraine during which she...

Vladimir Putin has approved a 31-page "humanitarian policy" which says Russia should "protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World". The foreign policy concept of a "Russian World" is a notion that hardliners have used to justify intervening abroad to support Russian speakers, such as in parts of Ukraine. It means that the idea is now enshrined in official policy, though it was presented as a soft power strategy. The new policy stated that Moscow should further deepen its ties with the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic - two breakaway entities in...

It was supposed to be the bright spot in a grim day. Of a dozen unclaimed bodies set for burial recently at Bucha City Cemetery, one had just been identified. The dead man’s family was present and would be able to bury him with full ceremony. His grave would be marked with his name instead of just a number. But there was a hitch. No one could find the body. (snip)When Russian troops retreated at the end of March from the region around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, they left behind a trail of more than 1,200 bodies. At least 458 dead...

Russia is reportedly buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea to shore up its arsenal in its ongoing war with Ukraine. The New York Times reported on Monday, citing newly declassified U.S. intelligence, which lacked detail on the type of North Korean weaponry being sent to Russia, as well as the scale and timing of their shipment. The Times quoted a Washington official as saying that Moscow was expected to seek additional purchases of military equipment from Pyongyang in the future. Other global media outlets also issued similar reports, with the Associated Press citing a U.S. official...

Berlin (AFP) – Germany said Monday it would keep two nuclear plants on standby beyond the end of the year in a policy U-turn, as the shut-off of Russian gas supplies sends Europe scrambling for energy sources.Following a new network stress test, two of the three remaining power plants would "remain available until mid-April 2023 in case needed", Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement.The move partly delays a nuclear exit planned under former chancellor Angela Merkel.The plants would be kept in reserve to potentially "make a further contribution to the electricity grid in southern Germany", where the development...

The Kremlin has issued its sharpest comments about cutting off Russia's natural-gas flow to Europe via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday, saying supplies wwould not resume until the "collective West" lifts sanctions against Moscow. "Problems with gas supply arose because of the sanctions imposed on our country by Western states, including Germany and Britain," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov during a conference call, Reuters reported on Monday. "We see incessant attempts to shift responsibility and blame onto us. We categorically reject this and insist that the collective West – in this case, the EU, Canada, the UK...

A former U.S. general has forecast the surrender of Russian forces in Kherson, a strategic city in Ukraine. The Kherson region has been almost entirely controlled by Russian troops since March, when it became the first major city to fall during Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive to take back the critical port city. Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling commented Monday on a Ukrainian soldier's video from the frontlines showing destroyed Russian positions in Kherson. According to Hertling's analysis on Twitter, the footage indicated "extremely poor soldier discipline" and "horrible fieldcraft/training"...

BRUSSELS (AP) – Weapons stocks in the European Union are running low as member countries continue to sends arms and ammunition to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat warned Monday as he urged EU nations to better coordinate their spending on military materiel. “The military stocks of most member-states has been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a debate with European lawmakers.

Ukraine’s First Lady’s message to Britons facing crippling energy bill hikes and a cost of living crisis is that while they might be “counting pennies”, her county is counting casualties. “There is no comparison to the suffering of people here, but at home in the United Kingdom, as you acknowledge, people are facing very painful choices because of the soaring cost of energy that’s going to make things very tough for people,” said BBC presenter Laura Kuenssberg in an interview with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska.

A representative of the Moscow-installed military administration in the occupied parts of Ukraine's Kherson region says a referendum on joining Russia has been postponed as Ukrainian armed forces continue military operations aimed at regaining control over the area. "We have prepared for the voting, and we wanted to hold the referendum in the nearest future, but due to the developments happening at the moment, I think we will pause [with the referendum]," the Russian-appointed deputy governor of Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told the TASS news agency on September 5. Kherson, an important port city on the Black Sea, has been fully...

After the first Ukrainian attempt to push towards had failed it is now reinforcing that failure. As I describe the move: The only 'successful' attack was across the Inhulet river near Andriivka in the direction of the dam and river crossing that closes off the Kakhovka Dnieper reservoir. The troops were cut off and mostly destroyed. On the western side of the salient a Russian unit crossed the Inhulet towards north and attacked the Ukrainians on that side. It soon had to pull back and the Ukrainians used the Russian crossing to reconnect with the cut off units in the...

An estimated 70,000 people protested in Prague against the Czech government on Saturday, calling on the ruling coalition to do more to control soaring energy prices and voicing opposition to the European Union and NATO. Organizers of the demonstration from a number of far-right and fringe political groups including the Communist party, said the central European nation should be neutral militarily and ensure direct contracts with gas suppliers, including Russia.\ Police estimates put the number of protesters at around 70,000 by mid-afternoon. The aim of our demonstration is to demand change, mainly in solving the issue of energy prices, especially...

I’ve been warning about this since January 2020. Sounded crazy then. But it wasn’t. I devour history books and it’s all written over and over and over. Normalcy bias is a great killer of nations. There will be famine There will be actual pandemic There will be war There will be migrations big and small. Both personal and population-sized. Entire tribes will move, as has been happening already. Many of these Europeans and Americans will soon realize they did not just welcome in millions of individuals. They welcomed in tribes and groups that come with their own structures. These are...

I am a Ukrainian. My country has been invaded by Russia. In this video I will tell you what happened on the one hundred and ninty third day of the war.Day 193: September 04Today Ukrainian counteroffensive operation was marked by a big symbolic event.In the Dudchany direction, the fighters of the 103 National Guard battalion together with the fighters of the 63 brigade officially confirmed that they established full control over Vysokopillia and showed a video where they raise the Ukrainian flag above the town. This is the most important town in the northern part of the region, because it...

A large newspaper in Tuscany, Il Tirreno, has reported on Sunday, that Zelensky rented his luxury villa in Forte dei Marmi to a couple of Russians living in London. According to its sources, the newspaper was able to show that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rented his villa in Forte dei Marmi, in Tuscany, for 50,000 euros a month to a couple of Russian citizens coming from London. As a remember, following the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Zelensky asked Italy to stop welcoming Russian tourists as well as seizing their yachts, homes and money. Il Tirreno revealed that a negotiation...

The armed forces of Ukraine destroyed 106 occupiers and 60 units of enemy equipment in the south. This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to the operational command "South" on Facebook. The Armed Forces captured three Russian soldiers, 2 T-62 tanks, an amphibious assault vehicle, BTR-82, many weapons and ammunition. During the day, the Russians carried out eight airstrikes on the positions of the Armed Forces, in response our aviation carried out 22 strikes, and missile and artillery units performed more than 400 artillery missions. Watch more: Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 destroyed enemy mortar 2B11 "Burevisnyk" and truck "Ural" with ammunition....

France’s state-held utility giant EDF will restart all its nuclear reactors in the country this winter, potentially alleviating the energy crisis in Europe during peak heating season. Currently, more than half of EDF’s reactors are out of operation either because of maintenance or technical issues. “EDF has committed to restart all its reactors for this winter,” French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said at a news conference on energy security on Friday. EDF operates a total of 56 reactors in France, but 32 of them are currently either undergoing maintenance or experiencing technical issues, the minister added. Every week starting...

PARIS (AP) — France’s minister for energy transition said Friday that French electricity giant EDF has committed to restart all its nuclear reactors by this winter to help the country through the broad energy crisis aggravated by the war in Ukraine. Agnes Pannier-Runacher said the government is taking steps to “avoid restrictive measures” over energy use in the peak winter cold season, following a special government meeting over energy issues. France relies on nuclear energy for about 67% of its electricity — more than any other country — and on gas for about 7%. At the moment, 32 of the...

The economic powerhouses of the European Union, France and Germany, both set records on Friday for electricity prices, as the West’s sanctions war with Russia continues to bite. This time last year the cost of electricity per megawatt-hour (MWh) in both France and Germany sat at around 85 euros. On Friday, both countries set record highs, with the cost climbing by at least 1,000 per cent from last year to €850 in Germany and over €1,000 in France, Le Monde reports. While the price of energy has been rising since the end of the lockdown measures across the world last...

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said that targets set by the government for the filling of gas storage facilities had been reached ahead of schedule, staving off the worst fears of severe gas shortages this winter. "The reservoirs are filling up quicker than planned," he told German magazine Der Spiegel according to a report published on Sunday. The government target of reaching 85% storage capacity by October could be achieved by the beginning of September, according to Habeck's ministry. Germany is currently trying to secure alternative sources of gas to prevent an acute shortage during the cold winter months, as...