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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that Russia was seeking to draw Belarus deeper into its war in Ukraine and was weighing plans to attack Ukraine's north or a NATO country from Belarusian territory. "We continue to document Russia's attempts to draw Belarus deeper into the war against Ukraine," Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app after meeting military and intelligence officials. He said Ukraine knew of additional contacts between Russia and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to persuade him to join "new Russian aggressive operations". "Russia is considering plans for operations to the south and north of Belarusian territory –...

About 352,000 Russian soldiers had died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025, according to a new estimate, underscoring the high cost that President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to bear to pursue his battlefield aims. The figure was released on Saturday — the day of Russia’s annual May 9 parade celebrating victory over Germany in World War II — by the exiled Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazona. The number raises the prospect that about half a million soldiers in total have died on the Russian and Ukrainian sides. In the more than four years since...

If symbolism matters, and in Russia it always has, then today’s Victory Day parade on Red Square spoke volumes. The absence of tanks grinding across the sacred cobblestones was not merely an omission; it was an admission. A regime that once flaunted military might before the world could muster neither armour, missiles, nor meaningful battlefield hardware for its most important national spectacle. For a country that has built so much of its modern identity around martial power, this was less a celebration of victory than a carefully stage-managed display of strategic exhaustion. When Vladimir Putin resurrected and expanded the Victory...

The Ardal ground robot had a specific mission: cross open ground, reach the Novoselivka village bridge in Donetsk, and lay an anti-tank mine before Russian forces could use it. It was a basic operation for Ukraine’s elite K-2 Brigade, based four miles away. But when they saw three Russian soldiers on their screen, they did not hesitate to change the objective, detonating the mine and taking the enemy – and the robot – with it. The loss of hardware was not a difficult call. Ukraine is on course to make 25,000 unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the first half of...

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared himself "a strong supporter of NATO" after talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday, as political friction between the two allies brews. The atmosphere during the visit was notably warmer than in recent weeks. Rubio spoke partly in Spanish during the meetings, joking that the language was "very similar" to Italian. He also said he had been trying to learn Italian himself, but that his subscription to language app Babbel had expired.

It was all over in record short time. Russia’s annual Victory Day on Red Square ended after only 45 minutes with no displays of any of the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) military hardware and under extremely tight security. Tensions were running extremely high following the threat of a possible Ukrainian drone attack on the event that commemorates the end of WWII, known as the Great Patriotic war in Russia, and one of the most significant events on the Russian public calendar... Ukraine threat Security at the event was overwhelming. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived with a very large security...

Recently we learned that President Putin is spending more time in bunkers and cracking down on internal security as he fears the possibility of a drone strike or a coup.In addition to seeking to preserve his own personal security, Putin has cracked down on people's personal freedoms by shutting off social media and private messaging accounts and pushing everyone toward Kremlin-monitored accounts.But there are signs that this repression is starting to backfire as people are increasingly willing to oppose Putin publicly. Case in point, Ilya Remeslo, a former Putin supporter who spent years harassing Putin's enemies.Remeslo was once part of...

The U.S. military, which has been responding to Iran’s loitering drone attacks, has finally adopted Ukraine’s air defense technology. As low-cost drones continued to damage high-value military assets, it is interpreted that the U.S. has deployed Ukraine’s combat-proven response system at key Middle Eastern bases. On the 22nd, Reuters reported, citing multiple sources, that the U.S. has deployed Ukraine’s command and control platform at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, a key military asset in the Middle East, to defend against Iranian drones.… Ukrainian military officers are reported to have visited the base over recent weeks to train U.S. forces...

Orbán offered his support to Putin, likening his assistance to that of a mouse helping a lion in a well-known Hungarian fable, according to a phone conversation transcript obtained by news agency Bloomberg. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán reportedly offered Russian President Vladimir Putin his friendship and assistance, including by hosting peace talks in Budapest, in a phone call last year adding to concerns about Hungary's ties with Moscow. The news was first reported by US news agency Bloomberg on Tuesday, citing a transcript from a bilateral call in October 2025 from the Hungarian government. “Yesterday, our friendship reached such heights...

Vladimir Putin is facing mutiny from his biggest war Ukraine backers amid fears of an impending coup. An unprecedented wave of defeatism over the war has gripped the “toxic” Kremlin dictator’s most ardent supporters. This follows a wave of crippling Ukrainian drone and missile strikes which have paralysed Putin’s oil exports and savaged his key military factories. Russian gains on the frontline have ground to a virtual halt, with some reversals, amid catastrophic losses of 8,000 or more soldiers a week.

A newly reported operation suggests Kyiv may have found another low-cost way to disrupt Russian forces away from the front line: heated insoles allegedly rigged with small explosive charges and sent through volunteer aid channels. According to Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi, operatives from Ukraine’s special services allegedly inserted explosive-filled heated insoles into shipments destined for Russian military units. The items were reportedly moved with the help of Russian volunteers and charitable foundations, allowing them to pass as ordinary humanitarian aid. That is what makes this sort of sabotage effective, Treston Wheat, chief geopolitical officer at Insight Forward, told me: it exploits...

Beriev A-50U radar planes are Russia’s eyes in the sky. As Ukraine knocks out more of the A-50Us, Russian forces are slowly going blind. Russia went to war in February 2022 with potentially just seven Beriev A-50U radar planes The A-50Us use top-mounted radars to watch for Ukrainian warplanes and drones In a series of attacks going back three years, the Ukrainians may have knocked out more than half of the A-50Us A drone strike last week reportedly damaged a fourth A-50U on the ground in western Russia Sortieing drones deep inside Russia on 17 March, Ukrainian forces may have...

The Great Russian Lockdown — Putin Turns His Country Into a Cage!

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reached out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to request a phone call, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel. The official does not say what Netanyahu wishes to discuss. According to Ynet, Netanyahu wants to discuss cooperating on countering Iranian drones, which Ukraine has been facing for years.

Today, the most important developments come from the Huliaipole direction. Here, north of the main stronghold, Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian positions and are expanding their advance. Russian defenses began to fall apart more quickly than anticipated, allowing even deeper penetration by Ukrainian forces. Recently, the Ukrainian command reported restoring control over more than 400 square kilometers through counterattacks, while daily combat intensity in the direction has reached roughly fifty engagements per day. As Ukrainian forces regain control over key terrain, they improve their ability to observe Russian movement, making it harder for Russian forces to reposition without being...

"This is the proportional response that Russia has the right to," the Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman stressedMOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/. A nuclear strike on targets in Ukraine, as well as in France and the United Kingdom, would be considered lawful and justified in the event that London and Paris provide Kiev with nuclear capabilities, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Max, commenting on Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service’s (SVR) reports about such plans by the two European countries. According to Medvedev, this information "radically changes the situation." "This is a direct transfer of nuclear weapons to a...

Ukraine has regained control of 400 square kilometres of territory, including eight settlements, along a section of the southern frontline since the end of January, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has said. Syrskyi's statement on Monday did not make clear how much of the newly secured territory had previously been under Russian control and how much lay in "grey zone" areas not firmly held by either side. The rare battlefield gains in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region stand in contrast to the broader trend of slow and costly Russian advances across the frontlines over the past two and a half years, as the...

At first glance, Yelets in winter looks like something from a Russian fairy tale. From the embankment I spy the golden domes of Orthodox churches and, down below, ice fishermen dotted along the frozen river. But in this town, 350km (217 miles) south of Moscow, the fairy tale feeling is transient. On the riverbank I spot an army recruitment billboard. It promises a one-off sum equivalent to £15,000 ($20k) to anyone who'll sign up to fight in Ukraine. Close by there's a poster of a Russian soldier taking aim with a Kalashnikov. "We're there where we need to be," the...

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that the UK and its allies should deploy non-combat troops to Ukraine right now, to "flip a switch" in Russian President Vladimir Putin's head. Speaking exclusively to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg alongside the former head of the military, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Johnson said troops should be sent to peaceful regions in non-fighting roles. He said: "If we can have a plan for boots on the ground after the war, after Putin has condescended to have a ceasefire, then why not do it now?" The UK government is currently working with its allies to...

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/dbd1d803-ab37-43f1-920f-fce74952313a Recruiters and propagandists who previously worked for Russia’s Wagner Group have emerged as a main conduit for Kremlin-organised sabotage attacks in Europe, according to western intelligence officials. The fighter group’s status has been uncertain since a failed rebellion...