Dimitri Simes, whose name appeared prominently in Mueller report, ‘puzzled and concerned’ by raid in Virginia
FBI agents have raided and searched the Virginia home of Dimitri Simes, an author and policy analyst, who advised Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign and who currently hosts a current affairs program on Russia’s state-run Channel One.
The raid began on 13 August, the FBI told the local Rappahannock News, which first reported the story.
Continue reading...Comments by Zelenskiy aide come as officials in strategic Pokrovsk say Moscow’s forces are ‘advancing at a fast pace’
Ukraine’s lightning offensive into several Russian border regions is designed to persuade Moscow to engage in “fair” talks about its war in Ukraine, an aide to Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, as Russian forces close in on the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.
“We need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia,” the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “In the Kursk region, we clearly see how the military tool is objectively used to convince the Russian Federation to enter into a fair negotiation process.
Continue reading...The UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces were initially disorganised following Ukraine’s lightning offensive
Russian forces took control of Serhiivka, a village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Reuters reported citing the TASS state news agency.
Joe Biden has met with Vladimir Kara-Murza and his family in the White House.
Continue reading...Military commandant’s office is being established in city, says president as discussions over prisoner exchanges restart
Ukraine’s president has claimed Kyiv’s troops have full control over the Russian town of Sudzha, which had a prewar population of 5,000 people and contains infrastructure pumping Russian gas towards Europe.
Sudzha, roughly six miles (9.6km) inside Russian territory, is the biggest of 80 settlements that Ukraine claims to have taken during the 10 days since its surprise incursion into Russia began.
Continue reading...President says military commandant’s office being established in city. This live blog is closed
Russia’s defence ministry said today that its forces had regained control of the settlement of Krupets in the Kursk region, Reuters reported.
Here are some of the latest images from eastern Ukraine.
Continue reading...Spokesperson for Volodymyr Zelenskiy denies WSJ claims and again accuses Russia of carrying out the sabotage
The Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up by a small Ukrainian sabotage team in an operation that was initially approved by Volodymyr Zelenskiy and then called off, but which went ahead anyway, according to claims in a report in the Wall Street Journal.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian president has denied the claims.
Continue reading...Kyiv’s push into Russia has psychological and political advantages, but it knows Putin cannot let it lie
Nine days into Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, and Kyiv is showing increasing confidence. Two soldiers, speaking off the record by a dusty roadside a few miles from the border, said they expected logistics functions to be brought forward “inside Russia” because supply lines were becoming stretched.
Though it is a fragmentary detail – being more specific would endanger life – it demonstrates that as Ukraine’s forces continue to advance into Kursk oblast, Kyiv is gradually becoming more committed to an incursion that may have begun brightly, but the eventual outcome of which remains profoundly uncertain.
Continue reading...Ksenia Khavana jailed for treason over donation to US charity that helps Ukraine
A Russian court on Thursday sentenced the US-Russian dual national Ksenia Khavana to 12 years in prison on a treason conviction for allegedly raising money for the Ukrainian military.
The rights group the First Department said the charges stemmed from a $51 (£40) donation to a US charity that helps Ukraine.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Ukraine’s military has said its forces in the Kursk region shot down a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber.
Kristen Michal, the Estonian prime minister, has said “we must continue to show our steadfast support to Ukraine and further raise the cost of war for Russia.”
Continue reading...Investigators said to believe Ukrainian man was one of team that planted explosives on pipelines in September 2022
German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man on suspicion of being part of a team that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, according to local media reports.
The man, a diving instructor identified only as Volodymyr Z, is last believed to have lived in Poland, and is alleged to have dived 80 metres to the seabed at night to plant explosive devices on the pipelines, which ran from Russia to Germany, in September 2022.
Continue reading...Kyiv says it has also launched a major drone attack on four Russian airbases and shot down an enemy jet
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said his country’s forces are continuing to advance into Russian territory after their surprise offensive, as Kyiv said it had launched a “major” drone attack on four Russian airbases.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s troops had advanced several kilometres in the largest attack on Russia since the second world war. In his nightly address on Wednesday he said Kyiv was achieving its strategic goal in the operation and reiterated his appeal to western partners to allow long-range strikes on targets inside Russia. “The bolder the partners’ decisions, the less Putin can do,” he said.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, read our full report:
Romania’s navy has carried out a controlled explosion of a mine that had drifted to its Black Sea shore, its defence ministry said. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey have a joint taskforce to defuse stray mines, which began floating in the Black Sea after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The ministry said the navy was alerted by local officials early on Tuesday about an unidentified object that had washed up on shore near Grindul Chituc in southeastern Romania. The area is part of the Danube Delta, which Romania shares with Ukraine.
Continue reading...Confused messaging from leaders as Kremlin attempts to play down significance of events
Russian authorities are scrambling to bring the situation in Kursk under control, a week after Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack in the region that has left a swathe of Russian territory under Kyiv’s control.
Russia used missiles, drones and airstrikes on Tuesday in an attempt to claw back territory, with one senior commander claiming Kyiv’s advance was over, even as the evacuation of residents from border areas continued.
Continue reading...Claim by Kyiv comes as Russian official admits Ukraine has seized 28 settlements during attack on border region
Ukraine’s top commander says his forces have captured 1,000 sq km (386 square miles) of Russia’s bordering Kursk region, while Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has vowed a “worthy response” to the attack and ordered his troops to “dislodge the enemy from our territories”.
With Russia still struggling to repel the surprise assault a week after it began, Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by video link and said the advance into Russian territory was ongoing.
Continue reading...While thousands have had to flee their homes, there is widespread feeling that the attack is a justified defence
Last Tuesday, Oksana and her family could not escape fast enough. Though they did not know it, Ukrainian regular forces had entered Russia for the first time, and Moscow’s military wasted little time in hitting back, bombing their village around seven miles from the border.
“It was 9am and the first glide bomb hit the village,” she said, and its ferocity – “very scary, much bigger” than ordinary shelling – was such that they immediately knew they had to escape. “Our neighbour drove his children first and then came back and picked me and my sister and family,” the mother of two explained.
Continue reading...Troop numbers sent into Russia are in thousands, source says; cooling tower at Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility reportedly damaged by fire
Ukrainian sources have indicated that thousands of troops have been committed to its incursion into Russia’s Kursk province, as Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations about a fire at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant 250 miles to the south.
A Ukrainian security official told the Agence France-Presse that the aim of the incursion was to destabilise Russia and string out Russian forces with light, fast-moving attacks. It remains unclear how sustainable the operation will be in the medium term amid Kremlin threats that it will be snuffed out using Russian reserves.
Continue reading...Christopher Steele says officials will ‘look very carefully’ at online instigators such as Tommy Robinson
There is “clear” Russian involvement in the far-right riots and security services will be looking closely at the instigators, a former head of the MI6 Russia desk has said.
Christopher Steele, the ex-spy who compiled a notorious dossier on Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia, said that security officials would be “looking very carefully” at the people encouraging anti-immigration riots in the past fortnight.
Continue reading...Fighting said to be continuing, with reports of power outages near nuclear power station, despite Moscow’s claim
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it prevented Ukraine from advancing further on the fifth day of the unprecedented attack into the province of Kursk, though there were reports of regional power outages after an electricity substation was hit.
Fighting was said to be taking place in three villages between seven and 11 miles from the international border – Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya and Olgovka – similar locations to where Ukraine is estimated to have advanced previously.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy aide says ‘root cause of any escalation’, including into Kursk, is Moscow’s ‘unequivocal aggression’
Ukraine has publicly justified its attack into Russian territory for the first time, amid reports that its forces are advancing towards a village 13 miles (20km) inside the Kursk region on the third day of its incursion.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to the president’s office, said “the root cause of any escalation”, including into Kursk, was “unequivocal aggression” on the part of Russia in believing it could invade Ukraine with impunity.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin convenes meeting with top officials as defence ministry acknowledges fighting is ongoing
Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region has continued into a second day, prompting Vladimir Putin to convene a meeting with his top defence and law enforcement officials.
A report from one Russia military blogger suggested Ukrainian forces had advanced northwards, possibly as far as nine miles (15km) from the border, along a highway north of the border village of Sverdlikovo and near a major natural gas transmission hub, but this could not be verified.
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