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Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un will attend a military parade in Beijing, marking the first public appearance of the two leaders alongside President Xi Jinping in a show of collective defiance amidst Western pressure. No Western leaders will be amongst the 26 foreign heads of state and government attending the parade next week except for Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, a European Union member state, according to the Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday. Against the backdrop of China's growing military might during the "Victory Day" parade on September 3, the three leaders will project a...

Drone attacks have been carried out on the Afipsky oil refineries in Russia's Krasnodar Territory and the Kuibyshev oil refineries in the Samara region, APA reports, citing Russian media. Large fires broke out at the oil refineries after the drone attacks. According to the governor of the Samara region, Dmitry Azarov, the airport and mobile internet use in the city of Samara have been temporarily restricted due to the threat.

Moscow's decision will likely be seen as inconsequential given growing condemnation of widespread human rights abuses committed in Ukraine. Russia plans to formally withdraw from Europe's convention against torture and inhuman treatment, according to a decree published this week. The resolution by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin calls upon President Vladimir Putin to submit the withdrawal from the treaty to Russia's lower house of parliament. Moscow's move is likely to be seen as moot given widespread criticism of its worsening human rights record since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In 2024, UN-backed experts presented evidence that Russia...

Good day, legends. I hope you're having a fantastic day and so far you are having a great week. Now, legends, of course, we have a lot to go over. Of course, a lot to add nuance to, to add perspective to everywhere from the front line to the fuel bowser in Russia. And we have, of course, a lot to go over. So, today we're going to start, we're going to talk about the AWOL crisis that is unfolding in Ukraine, but we're going to add some perspective to that, but also the difficulties that come with that. that...

The current U.S. bomber force is a “hollowed-out sword,” dangerously antiquated and too small for modern great-power competition. With only 19 stealthy B-2s capable of penetrating advanced defenses, the fleet is ill-equipped for a potential conflict with China. The new B-21 Raider is the solution, but the planned fleet of 100 is a “dangerously inadequate half-measure.” To credibly deter and, if necessary, win a two-front war against both China and Russia, the United States must procure a fleet of at least 200 B-21s.

Donald Trump has imposed a hefty 50% tariff on Indian goods, a move prompted by India's continued purchase of Russian oil. This action endangers over half of India's exports to its biggest market. According to New Delhi, the tariffs that come into effect today (Wednesday, August 27) will impact £35.8billion ($48.2bn) worth of exports. Initially, the US President announced a 25% tariff on Indian goods. However, earlier this month, he signed an executive order for an additional 25% tariff in response to India's purchases of Russian oil. This brings the total tariffs levied by the United States on its ally...

Ukraine's ambassador to the UK on Wednesday denied rumours he 'is quietly preparing a run for President' from his London HQ should peace break out. General Valerii Zaluzhnyi's team were forced to play down the claims stating that 'there is no talk of any campaign headquarters'. It followed posts by a journalist that 'his HQ is already active in London and recruitment is underway'. They claimed sources had told them his campaign had 'effectively begun' after Volodymyr Zelensky told Donald Trump that elections may be coming soon. Zaluzhnyi, known affectionately as the Iron General, would be a front-runner to defeat...

Trump-allied Nawrocki wants to curb Kiev’s nefarious Neo-Nazi ideology in Poland.Beneath all current tensions between Ukraine and its major sponsor Poland, lies the deep, unhealed historical wound of the WW2 Volyn massacre.The Volyn massacre was a series of war crimes perpetrated by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, under national hero Stepan Bandera, that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population. To this day, Warsaw considers the Volyn tragedy to be genocide of Poles.Back in September 2024, when Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky aggressively refused to discuss the issue, Poland started pressuring Ukraine to exhume the victims of the massacre, giving them...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on 25 August that Kiev plans to secure at least $1 billion monthly from European nations to purchase US weapons to continue his war against Russia. Zelensky made the comment while speaking alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store during a press conference in Kiev on Monday…

Poland’s president has vetoed a bill that would extend aid to Ukrainian refugees. Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist conservative, commented that Ukrainians “make the effort to work in Poland” and pay taxes in the country in order to be eligible for support. Nawrocki, whose own party approved of the initial aid to Ukrainians, stated that the current financial package “places us in a situation where citizens of Poland are treated worse in their own country than our guests.” Over 1.5 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. Poland has offered every single refugee a taxpayer-subsidized...

NOTE: This interview is from April 25, 2025. Never been put up here. A view from inside the war in Ukraine. Over the past years, countless American journalists have embedded with Zelensky’s military. On the Russian side, there’s only one: Patrick Lancaster.

On Sunday, August 24th, Ukraine’s Independence Day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the existence of the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline, just like the political friendship between Ukraine and Hungary, is now directly tied to Budapest’s position.During a press conference, a journalist asked if after the strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline and appeals to U.S. President Donald Trump Ukraine had gained additional leverage over Hungary, especially in terms of the lifting of Budapest’s veto on opening EU accession negotiation clusters.Zelenskyy responded by saying that Ukraine has always supported friendship between the two countries, but its further existence now depends...

European leaders presented a united front at their White House summit last week with President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, agreeing on the need for security guarantees for Ukraine to eventually end its war with Russia. But within days, the "coalition of the willing" began to fray over the issue of sending troops into the war region. The discord came into full view Friday when Matteo Salvini, a chief lieutenant in the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, mocked French President Emmanuel Macron for suggesting European soldiers could be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part...

Russian leader Vladimir Putin cannot not sign a peace deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky because Moscow views him as “illegitimate,” Moscow’s top diplomat said Sunday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the declaration in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting that Putin will not be able to make an agreement with him. Lavrov also threw up yet another roadblock to direct talks between Putin and Zelensky, saying that Russia has an “agenda” in mind that must to be agreed before the two sides can sit down together. “There is no meeting planned,” Lavrov told NBC’s “Meet the...

Ukrainians are hunting down Russian drones armed with nothing more than shotguns and rifles while dangling out of prop lanes as part of a low-tech solution to Moscow’s high-tech aerial assassins. Although Kyiv has some of the West’s most advanced air-defense systems, including US-made Patriot missiles and F-16 jets, the nation has been forced to deploy such unconventional tactics to counter Russia’s ever-escalating drone bombardments because of the sheer number of devices being deployed. Pilots and gunners in Ukraine’s 11th Army Aviation Brigade have been tapped to take the Soviet-era Yak-52 prop planes to the skies, with the two-person aircraft...

Donald Trump has staked much of his political brand on being the consummate dealmaker. He is not a theorist, nor a philosopher-king, nor a bureaucrat buried in details. His appeal rests in his posture as the man who cuts through nonsense, breaks impasses, and brings adversaries to the table. In the past, Trump’s instincts on foreign affairs have proven unconventional but effective: cooling tensions with North Korea, brokering normalization between Israel and Arab states, restraining NATO adventurism, and articulating—against Washington orthodoxy—that endless wars in the Middle East were bleeding America dry. He relishes the image of the peacemaker, a strongman...

Donald Trump’s message – or rather, the message he transmitted from Vladimir Putin – to Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Monday was stark: accept the deal Russia is offering, because otherwise you’ll lose the war. But if Moscow appears strong now, Ukraine and its European allies believe, it’s partly because Trump’s choices have made it stronger – namely, his decisions to curtail US military aid, interrupt intelligence sharing and, above all, accept Putin’s insistence on a peace deal before a ceasefire. And in fact, Russia is far from battlefield supremacy. Just hours before the Oval Office discussions, the British Ministry...

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted Sunday that a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin remained "the most effective way forward" as the two sides exchange prisoners and the country celebrated Independence Day.Kyiv's general said that Ukrainian troops had recaptured three villages in its Donetsk region that had fallen under Russian control. And Ukraine launched drone strikes on Russia, triggering a fire at a nuclear power plant.After a push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia on Friday ruled out any immediate Putin-Zelensky meeting.But Zelensky said Sunday that the "format of talks...

Earlier this month, rumors spread that Russian troops had pierced Ukrainian defensive lines along a critical section of the eastern front. Soldiers spoke of night infiltrations, gunfire rattling in the distance and skirmishes near villages once considered secure. The rumors quickly reached Ruslan Mykula and Roman Pohorilyi, the Ukrainian co-founders of DeepState, the group behind what has become the definitive online map charting battlefield movements. After a day of digging, the two men confirmed that the breach was real, and worse than initially thought, with Russian troops pushing nearly 10 miles forward. “There was a very big problem,” Mr. Pohorilyi...

The Wagner group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin looked “doomed” in the days before his death after an aborted rebellion against Russia’s military leadership, his mother has said. In the first interview with a close family member since the warlord’s death in August 2023, Violetta Prigozhina, 85, said that she had tried to dissuade her son from marching on Moscow and revealed that the authorities have still not told her what caused his death. Prigozhina told the Russian outlet Fontanka that she had warned her son: “Zhenya, only people on the internet will support you. No one will go with you....