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Russian soldiers are refusing to fight in Ukraine it was claimed last night A video on social media showed Moscow's soldiers surrendering en masse Kyiv's forces said they 'understand the hopelessness of their situation' Russian soldiers are refusing to fight in Ukraine amid Moscow’s rising losses, it was claimed last night. A lightning counter-offensive by Kyiv last week has pushed Vladimir Putin’s invaders right back to the border in parts of the north-east of the country, reclaiming huge swatches of territory lost in the early days of the war. The blitz forced Russian troops to either flee or surrender en...

Russia’s budget surplus for 2022 has almost evaporated after a sharp drop in energy exports during August led to a monthly deficit of as much as Rbs360bn ($5.9bn). Russia recorded a surplus of almost Rbs500bn in the first seven months of the year. But the cumulative total fell to only Rbs137bn last month, suggesting a big deficit in August which economists attributed to sharp declines in oil and gas revenues. Russia’s surplus over the first six months of the year reached Rbs1.37tn as it built a war chest on the back of soaring energy prices. Russian gas flows to Europe...

Loot, a despicable word, was evidently among the first few Hindustani expressions to enter the British lexicon. It aptly illustrates the brand of British colonisation like no other word. On a chilly evening in the first week of December in 1862, British Empire’s railway engineer E.B. Harris reached a small riverside market village called Sultanganj on the south bank of Ganges some twenty miles west of Bhagalpur. Here his 4,771 workers were excavating a vast mound of bricks on the hillside to build a railway yard. Harris, recognised among the railway engineers for the construction of the challenging Jamalpur tunnel,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing calls to resign from deputies from 18 Russian municipalities over his handling of the war in Ukraine. “We, the municipal deputies of Russia, believe that the actions of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin are harming the future of Russia and its citizens,” said the petition, which is circulating on Twitter. “We demand that Vladimir Putin steps down from the post of president of the Russian Federation!” The petition was initially signed by 18 officials representing municipalities in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the city of Kolpino. This latest push aimed at forcing the Kremlin strongman out of...

MADISON, Wis. — Peace activists spent part of Monday evening picketing for peace as the war in Ukraine rages on. Members of the Madison Working Group on Peace in Ukraine demonstrated near UW Hospital on University Avenue, calling for an immediate ceasefire and diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine. Some demonstrators worried about a growing threat of nuclear confrontation if the war continues. “It’s a huge risk — nuclear confrontation, a nuclear accident — the risk is growing. We want to address that right now and we know we can do it,” demonstrator and volunteer Barbara Smith said. Sept. 24 will...

Ukraine's military claimed Tuesday for the first time that it encountered an Iranian-supplied suicide drone used by Russia on the battlefield, showing the deepening ties between Moscow and Tehran as the Islamic Republic's tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance. U.S. intelligence publicly warned back in July that Tehran planned to send hundreds of the bomb-carrying drones to Russia to aid its war on Ukraine. While Iran initially denied it, the head of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has boasted in recent days about arming the world's top powers. The Ukrainian military's Strategic Communications Directorate published images of...

In north-eastern Ukraine, a counter-offensive has seen the nation's forces recapture swathes of territory, and drive out Russian troops. But in the newly-liberated areas, relief and sorrow are intertwined - as accounts emerge of torture and killings during the long months of Russian occupation. Artem, who lives in the city of Balakliya in the Kharkiv region told the BBC he was held by Russians for more than 40 days, and was tortured with electrocution. Balakliya was liberated on 8 September after being occupied for more than six months. The epicentre of the brutality was the city's police station, which Russian...

Brutal realizations have been raining upon the Kremlin’s top propagandists—and when it rains, it pours. The same pundits who used to threaten NATO countries with nuclear strikes are begrudgingly acknowledging that Russia’s Armed Forces have suffered a series of humiliating setbacks in Ukraine. Appearing on Russia’s NTV show The Meeting Place on Monday, policy analyst Viktor Olevich surmised: “Unfortunately, the situation is difficult. Can we say that the Russian forces moved closer to meeting the goals and carrying out the tasks set by the president at the beginning of the special operation—or did they get further away? Obviously, we’re now...

Kilometre-long queues have formed at the Ukrainian-Russian border, which is controlled by militants from occupied Donbass and Russians. Huge queues have appeared on the border with Russia of people fleeing because of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' counter-offensive. However, the Russians are simply not letting the collaborators through. Border guards have a clear instruction not to allow people with Russian passports issued in Ukraine's occupied territories to enter Russian territory. In particular, Russian soldiers and their families left the town of Svatove in Luhansk Region. Only soldiers of the so-called "people's militia" from among local residents stayed. Military expert Oleh Zhdanov...

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Kiev will not receive any "security guarantees", in particular, because its draft is essentially a "prologue" to World War III, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believes. "The Kiev camarilla has given birth to a project of 'security guarantees', which are essentially a prologue to a third world war. Of course, no one will provide any 'guarantees' to the Ukrainian Nazis," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. He believes that the agreement proposed by Kiev is tantamount to "applying Article 5 of the North Atlantic Pact to Ukraine." This article refers...

My words: Best video I've seen explaining current events happening on the ground in Ukraine and where both sides are at this point along with who is fighting for Ukraine now. Straight facts and honest.

MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. Kiev will not receive any "security guarantees", in particular, because its draft is essentially a "prologue" to World War III, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believes. "The Kiev camarilla has given birth to a project of 'security guarantees', which are essentially a prologue to a third world war. Of course, no one will provide any 'guarantees' to the Ukrainian Nazis," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. He believes that the agreement proposed by Kiev is tantamount to "applying Article 5 of the North Atlantic Pact to Ukraine." This article refers...

The White House on Tuesday characterized advances by Ukrainian forces against Russia as a “shift in momentum,” but cautioned that the ongoing war in Ukraine remains unpredictable. “I think what you’re seeing is certainly a shift in momentum by the Ukrainian armed forces,” John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told reporters at a briefing.

Vladimir Putin’s definitive quality as president — his refusal ever to back down — helped him project Russian global power for years. But facing repeated setbacks in a catastrophic war in Ukraine, his inflexible approach is looking more like his great flaw. As Russian forces fled in disarray in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region Saturday — dressing as civilians, stealing bicycles, abandoning tons of military equipment and ammunition — Putin sounded strikingly tone deaf as he opened a giant new Ferris wheel in Moscow. “There is nothing like that in Europe,” he boasted via video-link. Within hours, the Ferris wheel had broken...

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hit back at Germany in a fiery message on Twitter Tuesday after Berlin refused to provide Kyiv with military vehicles earlier in the week. "Disappointing signals from Germany while Ukraine needs Leopards and Marders now – to liberate people and save them from genocide. Not a single rational argument on why these weapons cannot be supplied, only abstract fears and excuses," Kuleba said in an uncharacteristically aggressive message. "What is Berlin afraid of that Kyiv is not?" Germany has come under fire at home and abroad for apparent hesitancy to provide arms to Ukraine amid...

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...

A Russian Su-25 fighter jet has crashed immediately after take-off in Crimea, emitting a huge fireball as Putin's botched invasion of Ukraine continues to suffer huge losses. On Sunday morning, the jet, which costs an estimated £9.5million, tried to take off alongside another aircraft at a strip on the Crimean peninsula. After lifting off from the runway, it veered sharply towards the left and then plummeted towards the ground, emitting a huge cloud of black smoke. After it smashed into the ground, a huge fireball erupted at the Crimean airfield in the latest blow to Putin The Ukrainian Ministry of...

PM Mishustin would become acting president and elections would be held, but experts say the substance of a post-Putin Russia is tough to predict. In recent months, the health of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of much speculation, with claims that he has cancer, Parkinson’s, or has even survived an assassination attempt. But so far, no doctor’s note has been produced. “He can stay in power for 10 years or more if he wants, it really depends on the circumstances,” political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told Al Jazeera. “I wouldn’t really pay too much attention to the problem...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said his country has reclaimed 6,000 square kilometers of occupied territory from Russia in recent weeks as its troops push forward with a counteroffensive. “From the beginning of September until today, our warriors have already liberated more than 6,000 square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine – in the east and south,” he said in an address to Ukrainians. “The movement of our troops continues.”

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...