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Russian firefighters are battling a three-day inferno in the southwest of the country, after a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil storage depot ignited the facility's diesel reserves. On Saturday Rostov Oblast Governor Vasily Golubev said that Russian air defense forces had repelled an attack by a Ukrainian UAV in the town of Proletarsk, located around 150 miles from the Ukrainian border. A day later, however, Golubev said that fallen debris from the UAV had landed on the industrial warehouses at the Proletarsk state reserve fuel facility, igniting a fire which Russian authorities have since struggled to contain. Golubev also...

Let's have a convention where the voices of the balaclava-clad angry mob outside don't drown out messages of unity and love on the inside. Let's wear our stupid hats and sunglasses as big as the moon. Let's shake our signs and cheer our cheers whenever a talking point is raised up upon the stage. Let us hear speeches from the men and women of the moment and let us search for the voices of the future. Let's have a convention where we offer thanks to the man who got us here—President Joe Biden. It's enough to turf out the man...

North Korea's supreme leader has reiterated his country's support for Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and expressed his intention to foster closer ties between the two regimes. "I express firm belief that the strong and brave Russian people will firmly defend the sovereign right and security interests of the state and surely win victory in the sacred war for regional peace and international justice," Kim Jong Un said on Thursday, according state news agency KNCA.

Russian companies that do business with China have encountered more headwinds in recent days as Chinese banks raised the yuan-ruble exchange rate to capitalize on their neighbor's weakened currency. While the yuan currently buys 12.07 rubles at the Russian central bank's exchange rate, Chinese banks are selling the currency at 13 rubles per yuan, charging a premium over the Russian central bank rate of 12.07 rubles, the Moscow Times reported on Thursday. -snip- Chinese banks are not the first to profit from the ruble's plight. Mongolia and Turkey have for some time converted rubles into yuan several percentage points above...

Dozens of systems used by government bodies and IT companies in Russia have reportedly become the targets of Chinese hackers. Moscow-based cybersecurity provider Kaspersky Lab, revealed that the backdoor malware used to gain access to the systems was "GrewApacha," a Trojan used since at least 2021 by the Chinese cyber-espionage group known as APT31 (Advanced Peristent Threat 31). APT31 is believed to have ties to China's civilian spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Earlier this year, the United States Justice department indicted several Chinese nationals and one company for allegedly carrying out APT31 operations. "During these attacks, attackers...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday reiterated his support for a "full-fledged Palestinian state" amid Israel's ongoing war with Hamas militants in Gaza. On Tuesday, the independent Russian news site The Moscow Times, as well as the Kremlin-operated outlet Tass, reported that Putin had a meeting with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas where he said, "We believe that in order to ensure lasting, reliable and stable peace in the region, it's necessary to...create a full-fledged Palestinian state."

Rafael Grossi, head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, advised Russia and Ukraine to use "maximum restraint" to "avoid a nuclear accident" as fighting intensifies in Russia's Kursk region. On Friday, Russia said it is bringing more troops and weapons into Kursk where Ukrainian forces have launched a rare ground assault in Russian territory. Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has warned of a nuclear accident if fighting around the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) continues. "At this juncture, I would like to appeal to all sides to exercise maximum restraint in order to...

A fire erupted after Ukraine launched a barrage of drone strikes on a Russian military base in Lipetsk amid a major cross-border incursion, footage from social media showed. Residents of four settlements near the Lipetsk airbase were reportedly being evacuated after the explosions as local authorities declared a state of emergency. -snip- A statement released by the Ukrainian military said: "Tonight, the Defense Forces of Ukraine attacked the Lipetsk airfield (Lipetsk region, Russia). During the attack, warehouses with guided aerial bombs and a number of other objects in the airport area were hit. Several ignition sources were recorded, a strong...

Ohio Senator JD Vance is being attacked for his military record after he criticized that of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the recently announced running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris. Speaking to reporters in Michigan on Wednesday, Donald Trump's running mate accused Walz of "stolen valor," of having "lied" about serving in a war and of "abandoning" his unit...... Vance himself served in the Marine Corps for four years, and he also never saw combat. He worked as a combat correspondent in Iraq between August 2005 and February 2006. The senator has now been widely condemned for attacking Walz's military...

Russia has lost two helicopters and two main battle tanks in its efforts to fend off a cross-border raid into the Kursk region, reports suggest, as Russian sources suggest Kyiv's forces encroached several miles into Russian territory during the surprise assault. Open-source intelligence accounts, along with Russian and Ukrainian military-focused sources, suggest Russia lost a Ka-52 helicopter, an Mi-28 helicopter and two tanks in the Kursk region after Ukraine launched its cross-border attack on Tuesday. Ukrainian media amplified reports claiming that the Mi-28 was taken out by a Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drone. Russian journalist Alexander Sladkov said on Wednesday...

"The complete collapse of the entire railroad network in the country could happen in days," the channel said. "[Russian Railways] chiefs have been ordered to work to the point of exhaustion. Those who fail to cope are threatened with dismissal and 'execution.' This is the motivation." Russian Railways in 2023 reported that the number of trains suspended due to issues with its trains more than doubled to 42,600 amid a shortage of critical parts. This was due to "insufficient maintenance of the locomotive fleet," Kommersant reported in March. A Russian Railways spokesperson told Vedomosti in February that the issue "became...

he FBI wants to interview Donald Trump after he was injured during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally earlier this month, a report says. An FBI official speaking anonymously told the New York Times that they have asked to interview the former president as part of their investigation into the incident. "The bureau has asked to interview Mr. Trump as part of its broader investigation, hoping to provide insights into the shooting and possibly a more complete record of his injury, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the continuing inquiry," the NYT report says.

Russia is redeploying air defenses to shield a key bridge used by Russia to connect with the annexed Crimean Peninsula that Ukraine has long targeted, according to a Crimean-based pro-Ukrainian group. "The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation began to massively transfer equipment closer to the Kerch Bridge," Atesh, a pro-Kyiv military partisan group of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, said in a post to messaging app Telegram on Thursday. Moscow is "actively redeploying the surviving air defense installations, aircraft, radars and all military facilities from the western part of Crimea," it continued. -snip- Ukraine has repeatedly targeted high-value Russian facilities...

Valentina Bondarenko, a top Russian economist, has died at the age of 82 after falling out of her apartment window in Moscow, Russian state-run media reported on Tuesday. Bondarenko, a leading research fellow at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, fell out of her apartment window on Monday evening, emergency services told news agency Tass. "She fell out of the window of her apartment, unfortunately, it was not possible to save her, the injuries she received were incompatible with life," the source said.

Right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk has posted a rumor that President Joe Biden had a medical emergency in Las Vegas last week and may be in hospice care. This claim contradicted the official account of the president's COVID-19 diagnosis, and has sparked widespread speculation, but what are the facts? Kirk, who has a history of promoting questionable theories, shared the rumor Monday on X, formerly Twitter. He wrote: "Got a weird lead on a story that people should look into. I got a call from a source close to Las Vegas Metro. The official story was that Joe Biden's trip was...

Russia has refuted social media rumors of a nuclear emergency after speculation spread on Friday that a radiation incident had occurred at the Rostov nuclear power plant. "The Rostov nuclear power plant is operating normally, the background radiation is normal, the messages that have appeared about the emergency are fake," Russian state nuclear company Rosenergoatom told state-run news agency RIA Novosti. Rosenergoatom also responded to the rumors on the social media platform VKontakte, asking internet users to "be vigilant." "The units are operating normally, the radiation background is at the natural level!" it said.

Extremist figures and members of the Make America Great Again movement have criticized the wife of Ohio Senator JD Vance after former President Donald Trump named him as his running mate in the 2024 election. .... In the wake of Trump's vice presidential announcement on Monday, numerous conservative and far-right figures have taken to social media to launch racist attacks against Usha Vance because of her Indian heritage and the assumption that her influence on her husband's political career means the Republican Party will be softer on immigration. "I'm sure this guy is going to be great on immigration," Jaden...

Millions of Russians in the south of the country were left without electricity on Tuesday after a power unit at the Rostov nuclear power plant was shut down due to a malfunction. The Rostov nuclear power plant supplies power to the Russia's entire Southern Federal District, and rolling power outages affected residents of Russia's Krasnodar Territory, Rostov region, Sevastopol, and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula illegally annexed by President Vladimir Putin from Ukraine in 2014. Russia's state-owned energy group Rosatom said one of the nuclear power plant's four power units was shut down due to a malfunction of the turbine...

At least 20 people have been killed and 50 injured following Russian missile attacks on cities across Ukraine, including one which struck the country's largest children's hospital in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko. Klymenko also said that Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and Donetsk Oblast were hit by Russian strikes. "More than 40 missiles of various types" were used in the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). "Russian terrorists have once again launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine," he said, adding that "all services are engaged to rescue as many...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported to have replaced an official within his Federal Security Service (FSB) who laid the groundwork for his country's full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Sergei Beseda, 70, who served as head of the Federal Security Service's (FSB) fifth directorate, has been replaced by Alexei Komkov, who formerly worked as deputy head of the spy agency, Russian investigative news website Important Stories reported on Saturday, citing two sources. -snip- Putin reportedly relied on intelligence from the FSB's fifth directorate when he launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The fifth service is largely in charge...