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The first statement made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday was not verbal, but visual. Clad in bright blue and yellow alongside other senior politicians, she showed support for Ukraine's battle with Russia, making clear even before the speech began that the war would top the agenda. With Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska in Strasbourg for the occasion, von der Leyen pledged Europe's "unshakeable" commitment to Kyiv, sending a defiant message to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. "Putin will fail and Europe will prevail," the chief...

China and Russia aim to lead the world towards a new international order, according to one of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) highest-ranking diplomats. “The Chinese side is willing to work with the Russian side to continuously implement high-level strategic cooperation between the two countries, safeguard common interests, and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction,” said CCP Politburo member Yang Jiechi, according to a statement by the Foreign Ministry. “The relationship between the two countries has always been on the right track, and both sides firmly support each other on issues relating...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit will be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from Thursday to Friday. The summit has received particular attention from the international community. Fifteen heads of state, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will attend the summit. This is the first face-to-face discussion between leaders of the SCO member states since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The meeting will include Iran as the ninth member of the SCO and issue the Samarkand Declaration to expound the SCO's position on a series of international issues. As the world's largest...

All have fallen for the believe that the Ukrainian rapid advance has caused a Russian defeat. That however is not the case. The main Russian forces had already left the area. What was left were sentry guards of the Luhansk People’s Republic and a few companies of the Russian National Guard which is more or less a police force. That is why the ‘western’ official talking with Reuters is quite cautious with his assessment: “There’s an ongoing debate about the nature of the Russian drawdown, however it’s likely that in strict military terms, this was a withdrawal, ordered and sanctioned...

The Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive around the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine starting on Sept. 6 destroyed half of the best tank division in the best tank army in the Russian armed forces. A hundred wrecked or captured tanks in a hundred furious hours. That’s how much destruction the Ukrainians inflicted on the Russian 4th Guards Tank Division, part of the elite 1st Guards Tank Army, the Russian army’s best armor formation. Now the 1st GTA is retreating north in order to preserve what remains of its front-line divisions. But the damage the tank army has suffered could have lasting...

The idea of retreating in such a way as to lure enemies into traps is not new. In fact that was one of the most basic strategems of Mongol cavalry groups and you would have encountered it within the first few pages of the operational handbook for Mongol commanders. One of the classic examples of the idea was the Battle of the Kalka River which occurred in the Donetsk region of Malorossiya (I'm starting to choke on the idea of calling that place "Ukraine")in late May of 1223. That's right, eight months shy of exactly 1000 years ago. Basically, a...

The European Union will propose measures to cap revenues from low-cost electricity generators and force fossil fuel firms to share the profits they make from soaring energy prices, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. “In these times it is wrong to receive extraordinary record revenues and profits benefiting from war and on the back of our consumers. In these times, profits must be shared and channelled to those who need it most," von der Leyen said in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. A draft of the Commission proposals, seen by Reuters, would skim...

The Ukrainian army’s offensive continues, and the Russian army’s defeat or “regrouping” in Kharkiv is having an impact across the board. Now, no one knows where the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive will stop. With the loss of strategic locations such as Izum, the Russian army is considered to be likely to abandon the entire Kharkov. Of course, even so, I think it will be difficult to hold back. Many of the Russian troops attacked by the Ukrainian army, whether they were regular Russian troops, Donbas militia or Chechen troops, were on the verge of collapse and fled. Some analysts believe that...

Russia has forced its way into Ukraine and after months of fighting the Russian army needs to bolster its numbers by bringing in conscripts to step up to the front lines. But life as a Russian conscript is brutal as you will see in today's dark new video that reveals a shocking side to the Russian conflict.

Another one bites the dust...Less than two weeks since Ravil Maganov, the vice president and chair of the board of directors of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died after falling out of a sixth floor hospital window in Moscow, another Russian energy executive has been found dead in mysterious circumstances.39-year-old Ivan Pechorin, managing director of Putin's Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, fell off the side of a boat while sailing in the waters close to Russky Island near Cape Ignatiev, according to Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.For two days, rescuers searched for a man at sea near the coastline - unfortunately,...

President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is calling for Europeans to be cut off from electricity in order to “flatten the curve,” in a call-back to the propaganda used to destroy and demoralize populations during the COVID pandemic. “We see there’s a global scarcity of energy. So whatever we do, one thing is for sure, we have to save electricity, but we have to save it in a smart way,” she said. “So what we have to do is flatten the curve and avoid the peak demands,” Leyen added. “We will propose a mandatory target for reducing...

Moscow’s forces began evacuating a major city in southern Ukraine and Kyiv’s shot down an Iranian-made Russian drone Tuesday, as Ukraine’s lightning counter-offensive continued. Russian troops were seen fleeing from Melitopol, a city in the southern portion of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia province, exiled mayor Ivan Federov said on social media. “The occupiers ran from Melitopol towards the temporarily occupied Crimea,” Federov said on the messaging app Telegram. He added that “columns of military equipment” from Melitopol were seen passing through Chonhar, some 70 miles to the southwest and bordering Crimea. “This was expected — the rapid Ukrainian offensive leaves them no...

In four weeks of combat, Russia may have lost 25 percent of its initial attacking force. These casualties are not on the scale of World War II but are large compared with the relatively small size of the Russian military today. Although reinforcements and replacements can offset some of these casualties, the loss of trained troops will impair military operations and eventually have a political effect. Russian losses to date are high. NATO estimates that Russia has lost between 7,000 and 15,000 soldiers. Wounded who cannot rapidly return to duty generally number about twice the number of dead. That would...

Russia has lost yet another command post to a Ukrainian rocket strike after a headquarters in Donbas was blown up Thursday, officials have claimed. Video from the occupied city of Lysychansk uploaded to Telegram and taken by Chechen special forces appeared to capture the moment the rockets struck on Wednesday afternoon, sending plumes of smoke into the air. More footage then documented the aftermath, with a Russian flag shown fluttering limply over a courtyard strewn with rubble as men in military fatigues milled about. Serhiy Haidai, the regional governor, said Ukraine had struck the base - which had been set...

A Russian mercenary who gained notoriety for butchering prisoners of war and civilians in the Donbas has been killed fighting in Ukraine. Vladimir Andonov, 44, a sabotage and reconnaissance specialist in the ranks of the shadowy Wagner Group, was shot by a sniper near Kharkiv during a night-time mission on June 5, Russian media says. Andonov was known to Russians as 'Vakha' or 'the volunteer from Buryatia' after the region he was from, but to Ukrainians he was 'the executioner' due to massacres he helped carry out during Russia's first invasion of the country in 2014.

Nearly 8,000 mercenaries from the notorious Wagner Group have been deployed by Russia in Ukraine to boost Vladimir Putin's flagging invasion, but have suffered heavy casualties, British MPs have been told. Giving evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Christo Grozev, executive director of the Bellingcat investigative website, said 3,000 members of the private military company (PMC) were thought to have been killed on the battlefield. The shadowy group - which has been linked to a string of killings, rapes and war crimes around the world - is known as Putin's private army which carries out his dirty work at...

Russia is deploying between 10,000 and 20,000 mercenaries in Ukraine, a European official said. Some are Syrian and Libyan fighters, though the exact breakdown of the force is still unclear.

PROOF Putin's soldiers and Wagner mercenaries carried out Bucha atrocities: German intelligence 'intercepts Russian troop messages discussing murders as part of strategy to sow terror' German intelligence agency BND has intercepted audio messages from Russian soldiers discussing killings Messages indicate the massacre was part of everyday Kremlin tactics and the Wagner Group was involved Spy chiefs believe there are similar scenes in other Ukrainian cities after further recordings were heard The barbaric atrocities at Bucha were part of a deliberate Kremlin strategy carried out in part by the feared Wagner Group of mercenaries, intercepted Russian radio transmissions have revealed. Germany's...

More mercenaries connected to the Russian Wagner private military company arrived in Ukraine on Sunday with the objective of assassinating top Ukrainian military and political leadership, Ukraine's Intelligence Directorate claimed on Sunday. The directorate asserted that the main targets of the mercenaries included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Presidential Chief of Staff Andrii Yermak and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Russian President Vladimir Putin "personally ordered another attack by one of his proxies," said the Directorate. "All previous attempts ended in the failure and elimination of terrorists. Zelensky was allegedly nearly assassinated three times in the week of March 4, according to...

The 400-strong squad of bloodthirsty mercenaries flown in from Africa with orders to kill Volodymyr Zelenskyy are part of a notorious private militia linked to a string of rapes, robberies, murders, and alleged war crimes. The Wagner Group - which is believed to have a hit list of 23 key figures including the Klitschko brothers - is considered by military experts to be at the beck and call of Vladimir Putin, although the Kremlin has repeatedly denied this. The force has already been heavily involved in supplying weapons, experienced special operations personnel, and military training to pro-Russian militias in eastern...