President uses speech to again draw false parallels between invasion and defeat of Nazi Germany
A tumultuous year of fighting has passed since Vladimir Putin last addressed Russian soldiers on Red Square in Moscow to mark the country’s victory over the Nazis.
But the Russian leader’s Victory Day message to the nation on Tuesday was nearly identical to that of last year as he cast the war in Ukraine as an existential battle against an aggressive, Russophobic and woke west.
Continue reading...Yevgeny Prigozhin had criticised the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov
When Vladimir Putin takes to the stage on Tuesday to commemorate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, his speech on Red Square will have been preceded by a turbulent week in which drones attacked the Kremlin and one of his top war leaders threatened mutiny.
The dramatic footage early last Wednesday of two drones flying over the walls of the Kremlin, its historical seat of power, exposed vulnerabilities in the heart of the Russian capital, putting Moscow on edge.
Continue reading...Zakhar Prilepin wounded in explosion in the region of Nizhny Novgorod, Russian state news agency says. This blog is now closed
A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing in the region of Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday, the Russian state news agency Tass said, in an attack that Russia immediately blamed on Ukraine and the West.
Tass quoted a source in the emergency services as saying the writer’s car was blown up. “He survived, but was wounded and is conscious,” the source was quoted as saying.
The fact has come true: Washington and Nato fed another international terrorist cell – the Kyiv regime.
Continue reading...Revelation raises questions about whether US and Europe should have been more prepared for 2014 invasion
Vladimir Putin told Bill Clinton three years before his 2014 attack on Ukraine that he was not bound by the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing the country’s territorial integrity, according to the former US president.
The revelation raises questions about whether the US and its European allies should have been more prepared for the 2014 attack, when Russia annexed Crimea and attacked the Donbas.
Continue reading...Putin’s spokesperson claims, without providing evidence, that Washington was involved in alleged attempt to kill president
Russia has accused the US of being behind what it says was a drone attack on the Kremlin intended to kill Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Ukraine was merely implementing plans “dictated” by Washington, but he did not provide any evidence to support the allegations.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy adviser denies Ukrainian involvement after Kremlin says two attack drones were disabled by Russian defences
Moscow has accused Kyiv of staging a drone attack intended to kill the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the Kremlin, and vowed to retaliate.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that two drones had been used in the attack, but that they had been disabled by Russian defences.
Continue reading...With concern among allies seemingly growing, there is a lot riding on an imminent counter-assault on the Russians in the south
The last time “Luh” served in the military, he was a Soviet conscript, sailing the Arctic Ocean with the USSR’s northern fleet over four decades ago.
When Russia seized the Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed proxies moved into his home region of Luhansk nearly a decade ago, he cheered on the Ukrainian army but thought his fighting days were behind him.
Continue reading...Moscow-installed governor in Sevastopol says blaze, attributed to Ukrainian drone strike, now under control
Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia.
In his evening address, AFP reports that Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying:
We need to involve everyone ... to put pressure on the Russian aggressor and the terrorists who kidnapped so many of our children.
The UN, many others want to do something, but so far the results have been poor. So I have appealed to the leader of China.
Now, with regard to the need in general for shells at the front, what we want. Today we are coming to the point where Wagner is ending.
Wagner, in a short period of time, will cease to exist. We will become history, nothing to worry about, things like this happen.
Continue reading...Constant attacks from Russian troops have made it impossible for Kherson residents to return to their normal lives
Ukraine’s military have set up positions on the eastern side of Dnipro river near Kherson city. Infiltrating the area could be a first step towards trying to dislodge Russians from positions they are using to shell and shoot at Kherson.
France and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania expressed dismay that China’s ambassador in Paris questioned whether Crimea is part of Ukraine. France stated its “full solidarity” on Sunday, with all the allied countries affected, which it said had acquired their independence “after decades of oppression”.
Russia is advising citizens to avoid travel to Canada. Russia cited what it calls numerous cases of discrimination against its citizens, including physical violence, its foreign ministry has said.
Russia appeals for “real men” in new military recruitment drive. Russia’s defence ministry has launched a major drive for volunteer recruits, pitching to their masculine pride and appealing for “real men” amid a limited pool of fighting-age men in Russia, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
Evacuations in Russian city of Belgorod after bomb scare. More than 3,000 people in the Russian city of Belgorod were returning to their homes on Saturday after being evacuated while an explosive was disposed of, the local governor said.
At least five Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and surrounding districts late on Saturday night, damaging civilian buildings, local officials said. One missile hit a house in the village of Kotliary, just to the south of Kharkiv, while another caused a fire in the city itself, said the regional governor, Oleh Sinegubov.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had captured another three districts in the western part of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Troops who have continued into the heavily contested city are thought to be part of the Wagner group of mercenaries.
Russia confirmed it would expel 20 German diplomats in retaliation for its own diplomats being sent home from Berlin, the Tass news agency said, citing Russia’s foreign ministry.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has again refused to take sides in the war in Ukraine, calling for a “negotiated political solution” between Kyiv and Moscow. “We urgently need a group of countries to sit round a table with both Ukraine and Russia,” he said after a meeting with the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in Lisbon.
The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that if the G7 moved to ban exports to Russia, Moscow would respond by terminating the Black Sea Grain deal that enables vital exports of grain from Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Continue reading...Kremlin says president visited occupied territories where he discussed conflict with military officials
Vladimir Putin has visited military headquarters in Russian-controlled Ukraine, the Kremlin has said, where he discussed the war with a general from Russia’s airborne troops who has reportedly taken up a powerful role in the invasion.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022, has triggered the deadliest European conflict since the second world war.
Continue reading...Li Shangfu travelled to Moscow where he said ties between the countries ‘surpass military-political alliances of the cold war era’
Vladimir Putin and China’s defence minister Li Shangfu have vowed to deepen military cooperation between China and Russia after the men met in Moscow over the weekend.
Li, who met the Russian president on Sunday on his first trip overseas in the role, said China was willing to work with Russia to have close strategic communications between their militaries.
Continue reading...Mikheil Saakashvili warned of Putin’s ambitions 15 years ago. Now he tells of torture by a regime that panders to Moscow
Locked up in a Tbilisi hospital, Mikheil Saakashvili is slowly wasting away.
“I am asking to be transferred to Poland, as it is crystal clear that in Georgian hospital I will die,” Georgia’s former president wrote in response to questions from the Observer last week. His answers were scrawled in blue ballpoint pen on sheets of paper, passed to his lawyers.
Continue reading...UK Ministry of Defence says Kremlin has made it harder for civilians to avoid being drafted into the army
Five Ukrainians from Russian-occupied Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia oblast will be tried by a Russian court for being part of a “terrorist group”, according to Russian state media.
The five Ukrainians were transported from Melitopol to Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014, and subsequently transferred to the Lefortovo pre-trial detention centre in Moscow, the Kyiv Independent reports.
Continue reading...‘Top secret’ document reportedly warned Kyiv faced shortfalls in troops and weaponry and suggested any gains would be modest
US intelligence reportedly warned in February that Ukraine might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia, according to one of a trove of leaked defence documents.
A document tagged as “top secret” quoted by the Washington Post said that Kyiv was facing significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” and was therefore only likely to achieve “modest territorial gains”. The document is a snapshot of the situation in early February, and it is unclear how far Ukraine, with the support of Nato member states, has been able to make up the shortfalls since then.
Continue reading...Lt Gen Serhiy Nayev, commander of Ukraine’s joint armed forces, announced the decision on social media
The Russian-backed head of Crimea’s administration, Sergei Aksyonov, said a missile fired from Ukraine was shot down over the Black Sea town of Feodosia in Russian-controlled Crimea.
Russian state-run Tass news agency quoted an adviser to Aksyonov, Oleg Kryuchkov, as saying that debris had fallen in a Crimean town, but no damage or casualties have been reported.
Сhildren abducted by Russians from the Kherson and Kharkiv regions have been reunited with their families after several months of separation.
Continue reading...French president makes plea as two leaders hold first of series of high-level meetings in Beijing
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has urged China’s Xi Jinping to bring Russia “back to reason” over the war in Ukraine, as the two held the first of a series of high-level meetings in Beijing.
“The Russian aggression in Ukraine has dealt a blow to [international] stability,” Macron told Xi, standing alongside the Chinese leader outside the Great Hall of the People before their meeting. “I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table.”
Continue reading...Top Ukrainian official criticises the ‘symbolic blow’ of Russia assuming the rotating presidency. This blog is now closed
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has promised to increase the supply of munitions to the country’s forces, during a visit to the headquarters of Moscow’s troops fighting in Ukraine, according to footage published by the defence ministry on Saturday.
In the video published on Telegram, Shoigu presides over a meeting with senior military officers, including Gen Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the general staff, Reuters reports.
The volume of supplies of the most demanded ammunition has been determined. Necessary measures are being taken to increase them.
Continue reading...Former US president tells Sydney audience that media coverage has helped exacerbate divisions and that we no longer have a ‘shared story’
The former US president Barack Obama has suggested that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has led to greater polarisation in western societies through news coverage designed to “make people angry and resentful”.
Speaking to a capacity crowd of about 9,000 people at Sydney’s Aware Super Theatre on Tuesday night, Obama mixed childhood memories of transiting through Australia as a child with pointed observations about the current political discourse and the rise of China.
Continue reading...The Russian president has managed to rally people around the flag with talk of a fight for national survival
One evening in late December, as Muscovites strolled along their city’s brightly lit streets in anticipation of the end-of-year celebrations, a group of old friends gathered for dinner at the flat of a senior state official.
Some of the guests present, which included members of Russia’s cultural and political elite, toasted a new year in which they expressed hope for peace and a return to normality.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy meets UN nuclear chief Grossi in Zaporizhzhia region; criticism mounts of Russian plan to put nuclear weapons in Belarus
Continue reading...