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Videos emerge online, showing a targeted attack by a Kh-101 missile on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv Ukrainian military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko has analyzed Russian propaganda messages after the terrorist attack on the largest children’s hospital of Ukraine. At first, the Russian invaders claimed their strike on the Okhmadyt children's hospital in Kyiv was due to an alleged military meeting taking place there. “So they openly admit that the attack on the children's clinic was targeted and justify it with a “meeting” claim… Seriously? Let me recall that when two weeks ago, Kharkiv was attacked with glide bombs, Russian...

Russia attacks in Toretsk, opening new front in Donbass. Surprise attack using a tunnel. Ukrainian conscripts abandon strategic fortified positions. Ukraine sends urgent reinforcements to halt and counterattack enemy gains. As of now, Russian forces have advanced 4 KMs and heavy fighting is taking place in the towns of Pivnichne and Niu-York.

Under pressure in various sectors of the frontline, with its power plants and energy grid under relentless attacks, and trying to find a peace proposal that would keep it from losing 20 per cent of its former territory for good, Ukraine is also under financial threat, as concerning news arise over its debt restructuring efforts. Kiev could default on its enormous debts as early as next month unless it manages to negotiate a restructuring deal with its creditors, The Economist reported (behind paywall). With the onset of the war in February 2022, bondholders granted Ukraine a two-year debt freeze. That...

Russia's economy can't afford to win or lose the war in Ukraine, one economist says. That's because Russia can't afford the cost of rebuilding and securing Ukraine. Russia's economy is completely dominated by its war in Ukraine, so much that Moscow cannot afford either to win or lose the war, according to one European economist. Inflation is high at 7.4% — nearly double the 4% target of its central bank. Meanwhile, direct investment in the country has collapsed, falling around $8.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2023, per data from Russia's central bank. That all puts the Kremlin...

Donald Trump is considering scenarios to end the war in Ukraine. The Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency is reportedly already negotiating with Vladimir Putin about how much Ukrainian territory Russia will be able to keep, reports the "Politico" website. Trump is also considering an agreement under which NATO would pledge not to expand eastward.Perhaps Trump is so confident that he is already preparing to take over the presidency after Biden. According to "Politico," the former U.S. president is reportedly negotiating with Putin about how much Ukrainian territory Russia can take. "Politico" cites national security experts from the Republican candidate's...

Russia wants to understand whom it can trust before engaging with partners on the Ukrainian conflict, President Vladimir Putin said during a trip to China on Friday. "We must understand with whom and how we can engage and whom and to what degree we can trust. We are of course analyzing everything that is going on," Putin told a press conference in Harbin. The president pointed to China as a stakeholder that was sincerely trying to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine. "We believe that China is sincere about its efforts to solve this problem. It has suggested...

They say one week is a long time in politics. Those same people have never been to war.Six days ago, Ukrainian forces were just about hanging on across the near-1,000 kilometre front. Recent territorial losses to Russia – most notably the town of Avdiivka – in addition to recent delays in both US and EU military aid packages, had caused mounting concern for Ukraine’s fate in 2024.Despite these recent battlefield set-backs, and delays in aid, it still felt as though Ukraine was buying time to rearm, reorganise, and redeploy an offensive counter-attack this summer.That was six days ago, before up...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia could increase its attacks in Ukraine's north east following its recent gains near the city of Kharkiv. Mr Zelensky admitted that there were issues with military staffing and morale, saying a number of existing brigades were empty. He also told the AFP news agency the country's air fleet was lacking and renewed calls for allies to send more air defence and fighter jets. "Today we have about 25% of what we need to defend Ukraine," Mr Zelensky said of Ukraine's air capabilities.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian troops are locked in intense battles with the advancing Russian army in two border areas, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while the death toll from a Russian apartment building collapse blamed on Ukrainian shelling rose to 15. Zelenskyy said “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back a significant Russian ground offensive. “Defensive battles are ongoing, fierce battles, on a large part of our border area,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russian forces were improving their positions every day along the front in Ukraine in all directions and that the advance was going to plan.Russia has been pushing Ukrainian forces back at various points in recent months despite hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aid from the United States and its allies.Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with new Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Shoigu, and top generals, said the work of the military was "proceeding according to the plan" approved by the General Staff."The...

What amounted to a probing attack or skirmish on the part of Russian forces has caused chaos amongst the ukies

Ukraine’s top general says the situation in the northern Kharkiv region has “significantly worsened” after Russia claimed to have captured four further villages as it expanded its surprise cross-border offensive. A Ukrainian regional official insisted Russia’s progress was not yet “significant” but admitted ground fighting in the area was spreading. Meanwhile, speaking on British television, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron acknowledged it was an “extremely dangerous moment,” adding that Russia had effectively “invaded [Ukraine] again.” The precise goal of Russia’s new push – which began in the early hours of Friday morning – is unclear. It may be to create...

Denys Yaroslavskyi is angry. ... “There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields” he says. He shows me video from a drone feed taken a few days ago of small columns of Russian troops simply walking across the border, unopposed. He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”. Everyone knew that this incursion was...

(Kyiv, May 2, 2024) – Russian forces appear to have executed at least 15 Ukrainian soldiers as they attempted to surrender, and possibly six more who were surrendering or who had surrendered, since early December 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. These incidents should be investigated as war crimes. “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its forces have committed many heinous war crimes,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “The summary execution – or murder – of surrendering and injured Ukrainian soldiers, gunned down in cold blood, expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law, is...

A very sobering @olliecarroll interview with Ukraine’s deputy mil intel chief. He says Chasiv Yar will fall eventually, that Ukraine is far from stabilising the front and that Russia is “generating a division of reserves” & wants to strike at Sumy/Kharkiv. ‘Right now, both sides are jockeying for the “the most favourable position” ahead of potential talks. But meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, he guesses

Ukraine’s population collapsed to 29mn souls last year, according to Ukraine Business News, with just 187,000 births recorded (including in Russian-occupied territories). This is the lowest annual figure in recorded history over the last 300 years, exacerbating an already dire population catastrophe facilitated by economic turmoil and war. Ukraine's demographic crisis dates back to the Soviet collapse in 1991, when the country’s population stood at 51.9mn. Economic crises and labour migration saw the country’s total fertility rate plummet to 1.4 births per woman (well below the replacement level of 2.1) by 2022 and possibly as low as .7 by the...

American officials now estimate that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely did not order the assassination of Alexei Navalny, one of his most significant political rivals. Navalny died approximately two months ago in prison, with his body with held from his family for some time after his death. According to the Wall Street Journal,a number of American agencies reviewed the report and certified it. It was based on both classified intelligence and publicly available facts....

Ukrainian troops have made a tactical retreat from three more villages as Russian forces press forward across the eastern front line and take advantage of Kyiv’s exhausted military, which is desperately awaiting the arrival of new U.S. assistance. Ukraine’s commander in chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a Telegram post Sunday that the “situation at the front has worsened” and described some of the toughest fighting west of Avdiivka, the city that fell to Russian forces in February. In that direction, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the villages of Berdychi, Semenivka and Novomykhailivka. “Trying to seize the strategic initiative and...

Ukrainian men are protesting at the consulate in Warsaw, Poland, after Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba announced men aged 18 to 60 would be denied consular services earlier this week.Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz stated of the 950,000 Ukrainians living in Poland, Warsaw would assist Kyiv in enforcing the conscription requirements for the Ukrainian men.Kosiniak-Kamysz also stated that many Poles were upset seeing military-aged male Ukrainian refugees throughout Poland despite the amount of support that has been sent to Ukraine:I also understand the frustration of Poles who see young Ukrainians of draft age in hotels and cafés, while...