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Top FSB general is 'moved to high-security Moscow jail' as Putin steps up purge of spies who 'told him Ukrainians would welcome invasion' Sergei Beseda, head of the 5th Service of the FSB, was earlier under house arrest He has now been placed in pre-trial detention in notorious Lefortovo Prison The move will be seen as a warning to other senior aides of Vladimir Putin A top FSB intelligence official has been moved to a high security jail in Moscow as Vladimir Putin purges his secret services over the botched Ukraine invasion, say reports. Col-General Sergei Beseda, 68, head of...

Pavlyuk, 53, was a surviving resident of besieged Ukrainian town where gruesome evidence of killings and torture has come to light following withdrawal of Russian forces. He told when Russian troops came they killed all the men who were younger than 50, including two of Pavlyuk's friends. Pavlyuk was given 20 minutes to bury them. He showed shallow graves he hastily dug, each marked with a plank of wood topped with a religious icon. He wanted to give whatever dignity he could. "But it's too shallow," Pavlyuk said. "I just wanted to protect them from the dogs." Pavlyuk and other...

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...

YouTube has suspended the account of Odessa-based Chinese national Wang Jixian after he reported on atrocities committed as Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, RFA has learned. Odessa-based programmer Wang has been uploading videos since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began last month, but hasn't published any new videos since one on March 30 in which he hits out at pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) critics as "human trash," and translates news reports of gang rape being committed by Russian troops in Bucha, including of a young girl. Wang had been uploading to the site daily, with the same introduction every time:...

Hundreds of dogs have been found dead at an animal shelter in Ukraine after Russian occupiers left them to starve in their cages for weeks. The UAnimals shelter in Borodyanka, just north of Kyiv, said that up to 485 dogs were locked in their cages by Russian forces shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. There they remained without food or water for about a month as the occupiers left them to die, until staff were able to return to the compound on April 1 once the Russian soldiers had retreated. Footage released by the animal shelter...

A regiment of elite Russian fighters have suffered heavy losses at the hands of the fierce Ukrainian resistance, it has been reported. The 331st Guards Parachute Regiment are considered among the most fearsome and well-trained in the Russian army, having fought for the city of Ilovaisk in the Donbas in 2014. Their involvement in Russia's invasion of Ukraine this year, and fatalities they've suffered, is indicative of how the invasion hasn't gone as planned. The regiment's commanding officer, Col Sergei Sukharev, was killed in Ukraine on 13 March - a major blow for any military unit. His deputy Major Sergei...

The Russian departure was part of a planned withdrawal announced by Moscow a week ago but it ended in a chaotic and bloody retreat after a fierce tank battle last Thursday, said soldiers and volunteers who took part, and residents of the town. On Monday Ukrainian soldiers were piling the bodies of dead Russian soldiers into a trailer pulled by an army jeep. The soldiers were killed when a Ukrainian tank sneaked close to the entrance of the town and opened fire on the Russian checkpoint guarding the main intersection, according to soldiers and volunteers who took part. “It’s the...

Russian conscripts are being given 19th century rifles, made to drink from ponds filled with dead frogs and ordered to draw enemy fire, they have revealed. Soldiers in the Russian-backed Donbas region have spoken of how they have been sent to fight Ukraine's forces with no training, a lack of food and water, and inadequate equipment - as Moscow's armies continue to suffer heavy losses. -snip- The Donbas armed forces are fighting alongside Russian soldiers but are not part of the Russian armed forces, which have different rules about which troops they send into combat. Several Donbas draftees have been...

Satellite photographs released on Monday appear to rebut Russian assertions that dead bodies in civilian clothing found in Bucha had appeared there after Russian forces retreated from the devastated Ukrainian town. Mid-March satellite imagery of a Bucha street appears to show several bodies of civilians lying dead in or just off the roadway where Ukrainian officials recently said they found multiple corpses after Russian troops withdrew. "High-resolution Maxar satellite imagery collected over Bucha, Ukraine (northwest of Kyiv) verifies and corroborates recent social media videos and photos that reveal bodies lying in the streets and left out in the open for...

More than two weeks into a war he expected to dominate in two days, Vladimir Putin is projecting anger, frustration at his military’s failures and a willingness to cause even more violence and destruction in Ukraine, in the assessment of U.S. intelligence officials. Officials in recent days have publicly said they’re worried the Russian president will escalate the conflict to try to break Ukraine’s resistance. Russia still holds overwhelming military advantages and can bombard the country for weeks more. And while the rest of the world reacts to horrific images of the war he started, Putin remains insulated from domestic...

Ukraine has accused Russia of staging airstrikes in Belarus to get its ally to join the conflict. Meanwhile, shelling hit a mosque sheltering more than 80 people in the port city of Mariupol.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's “bloated” appearance could be the side effect of him taking steroids for treatment for cancer, spies have claimed. Senior figures from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States believe there is a physiological explanation for his invasion of Ukraine, it is reported. Citing sources close to the Kremlin, they are investigating reports that 69-year-old Putin’s “increasingly erratic behaviour” combined with a bloated appearance point to drug use. They are advancing theories that he may be suffering from cancer and the medical treatment he is receiving has altered the balance of his mind....

Vladimir Putin is suffering from a brain disorder caused by dementia, Parkinson’s disease or ‘roid rage’ resulting from steroid treatment for cancer, intelligence sources have claimed. Citing sources close to the Kremlin, senior figures in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States – believe there is a physiological explanation for the Russian president’s globally reviled decision to invade Ukraine. The intelligence community is sharing a growing number of reports about 69-year-old Putin’s ‘increasingly erratic behaviour’, combined with a bloated appearance in recent footage – and the absurd distance he...

American officials are examining the ownership of a $700 million superyacht currently in a dry dock at an Italian seacoast town, and believe it could be associated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to multiple people briefed on the information. United States intelligence agencies have made no final conclusions about the ownership of the superyacht — called the Scheherazade — but American officials said they had found initial indications that it was linked to Mr. Putin. The information from the U.S. officials came after The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Italian authorities were looking into the...

A Moscow microbiologist has accused the Kremlin of 'pure lies' and 'propaganda' in claiming Ukraine had secret US-funded biowarfare labs which they claim could attack Russia... But Moscow State University microbiologist Dr Yevgeny Levitin analysed the documentation allegedly seized by the invasion force - and strongly criticised the Russian claims. From a scientific perspective, he says the claims are 'absurd fakes' and 'a deliberate lie, which is not justified in any way'. In a sign of rising dissent in Moscow over the war, he went public with his critique and wrote an open letter with other unnamed graduates of his...

UKRAINE-RUSSIA LATEST: https://t.co/IeMjCns7Gu🔷 Russians reportedly bringing bio-chem weapon suits into Ukraine🔷 Evidence mounting that Russia's attacks will result in war crimes🔷 U.S. says task force targeting sanctioned Russian oligarchs is 'up and running' pic.twitter.com/Ua8SWqJrhX— ABC News (@ABC) March 11, 2022

The husband and father of the Ukrainian woman and two children killed by mortar fire as they tried to escape shelling outside Kyiv Sunday learned of his family’s murder on Twitter, according to a report. Mom Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, kids Mykyta, 18; Alisa, 9; and Anatoly Berezhnyi, 26 — a church volunteer who was helping them escape — were killed by Russian forces as they ran across a damaged bridge in Irpin. A photo of their bodies strewn across the pavement led Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to promise he would kill “every bastard” responsible for the indiscriminate civilian slaughter.

Russian anger against Vladimir Putin is growing as frustrated shoppers are faced with empty shelves and thousands are arrested in antiwar protests. The Kremlin is desperately trying to crack down on any dissent to the brutal invasion of Ukraine and a total of 13,500 demonstrators have now been arrested since the war was waged. Anti-Putin sentiment is also hitting the high street with consumers told to limit the number of items in their shopping baskets as sanctions start to bite. -snip- There are suggestions that some groceries are already being rationed by Vladimir Putin who is anticipating a prolonged period...

Ukraine's military, giving an overview of combat as the war enters its 13th day, said Russian advances have 'slowed significantly' even as US intelligence says Putin has now committed '100 per cent' of the force he assembled on the border into battle without making significant territorial gains since late last week. Defensive operations continue in the north, east and south of Ukraine, the military said, with all major cities other than Kherson - which fell last week - in Ukrainian hands. Russian troops are 'demoralised and increasingly tend to looting and violations of international humanitarian law,' commanders added. It has...

At a synagogue.. Israeli social worker.. had a flash of historic vertigo.. ancestors had lived in Chisinau more than a century ago, surviving a devastating pogrom in 1903 before emigrating to what became Israel. Now their descendant had returned .. this time not as a victim, but as a rescuer. “It’s like a closure for me,” .. from Jerusalem who had come to help evacuate thousands of Jewish refugees from Ukraine to Israel. “At the time, it was almost a shame to be Jewish.. Now people want to show they are Jewish so they can be evacuated.” Today.. the context...