Vladimir Putin Russia Ukraine War

Russia has released video showing it is using a submarine in the Black Sea to launch cruise missile attacks on Ukraine, confirming earlier Ukrainian military ...

"The factory was damaged in the strike, but so is that apartment complex just behind me. A 54-year-old Ukrainian journalist was killed in the strike. An apartment complex was shredded by shrapnel, leaving those in the neighborhood shaken.

The United States defence department has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “brutality” and “depravity” in his country's invasion of Ukraine.

“The situation in the Kharkiv region is difficult. Constant cruel bombardments, constant Russian strikes on infrastructure and residential areas state that Russia wants to make this territory uninhabited …” The Ukrainian president expressed hope his soldiers will stand their ground.

The Kremlin and the West appear to have embraced a broader clash over Ukraine, one that extends far beyond the grounds of the Donbas.

Nor is Putin likely to accept any demand to return it. Whether or not threats to use nuclear weapons or to invade new territories are realistic, they have proliferated just as Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has stagnated. At least three explosions were reported in the territory this week. “They said ‘that’s not our approach to this,’” Hamilton said. “Putin has learned over time that high-level threats really intimidate people.” He said the best-case scenario might involve a cease-fire and a “protracted line of control” with troops from both countries massed on both sides for years. “We’re in a different phase of the war now that we were in late February to early April, which was Russia thinking it was going to win the war really quickly and so the West sent just whatever it could whenever it could,” Alberque said. Nor are nuclear weapons the only menace that Moscow has wielded in the Ukraine context in recent days. The request followed remarks by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin this week that initially caused some disquiet among European allies. Rose Gottemoeller, former NATO deputy secretary general and a former U.S. arms control negotiator who served under both the Clinton and Obama administrations, said that the threat of a Russian nuclear conflict with the West had grown steadily under Putin. Speaking to reporters after a visit to Kyiv, Austin said the U.S. wanted to see Russia “weakened to the extent that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank, said the move showed how, for Russia, “all other nonmilitary instruments of power are now in play.”

More than one million Ukrainians have been 'evacuated' to Russia since the start of the invasion, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed.

He said: "Over the past years, the United States and its allies have done nothing to stop the intra-Ukrainian conflict... When asked what would happen if Russia start winning in eastern Ukraine, Sir Alex said: "It's clear that that is the Russian plan. In an interview with AP, Yuliia Fedusiuk, 29, the wife of Arseniy Fedusiuk, a member of the Azov regiment, said: "The lives of soldiers matter too. "On the sixth day, the electricity and the water were cut off... Speaking at a press briefing, Mr Kirby appeared to get emotional talking about the conflict, and said: "It’s hard to square his… That is obviously the plan. As former chancellor, Schroeder is entitled to several offices in the German parliament and a budget for staff. “The occupiers ‘liberated’ Mariupol from its historical and cultural heritage. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Sir Alex said: "Putin does not have a reverse gear, he never has. Skabeyeva addresses the camera with relish: “The Ukrainians are crumbling in front of us! "The victims' hands were tied, cloths were covering their eyes and some were gagged. In a studio with enormous screens showing images of purportedly fallen Ukrainian soldiers, guests stand in a circle.

The Russian leader's invasion of Ukraine is founded on a false retelling of history. He's not the only strongman revising the past.

“Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth,” Winston is told in Orwell’s novel. The mayor of the Ukrainian town of Melitopol has recounted how, in March, he was abducted by Russian troops who told him they had come to “free Ukraine from Nazis.” Russian soldiers scrawled the words for the children on a missile that hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk—a grim irony, as that very strike killed children among the many evacuees who were waiting for a train. The impulse to rewrite history and appeal to glorious myths to rally popular support is not limited to autocrats. The Kim family’s fiction dominates daily life in North Korea. On a reporting trip there in 2016, I saw the enormous “Arch of Triumph” built in the heart of the capital, which is engraved with the date “1945” to commemorate the first Kim’s purported victory over Japan. His grandson’s top officials drive around in a fleet of gleaming black Mercedes with the prefix “727” on their license plates to mark the supposed victory over the U.S. on July 27, 1953, the date the Korean War armistice was signed. “How can you control memory?” One might well ask the same question of Putin, Xi, and Kim and their own efforts to control the past. Putin quotes from the Bible and invokes the Great Patriotic War to underline the righteousness of his cause as he insists that he is fighting “ for a world without Nazism.” There is evidence that this approach is working. He calls the Ukrainian leadership “fascists” to remind his compatriots of the enemy they faced, insisting that they are confronting a resurgent menace. Though China’s version of history is at least credible, if tailored to serve the Communist Party’s needs, across the border in North Korea, the Kim regime relies on an absurd fiction and outright lies. Instead, Putin has sealed off the official version of history from scrutiny, passing new laws that make it a criminal offense to challenge the authorities’ account or to question the true scale of Soviet heroism. Listening to Putin’s speech on the morning of his invasion, when he declared that he was saving innocents from “genocide” and compared his actions to the heroic struggle Russians waged during World War II, my initial response was disbelief. “Who controls the past controls the future,” he responds obediently. The Russian leader’s invasion of Ukraine is founded on a false retelling of history.

Two Ukrainian women whose husbands are defending a besieged steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol are calling for any evacuation of civilians to also ...

"We just ask, we beg, to give at least the slightest chance to save the life of these fighters. She said she was working with a small team of doctors "in extremely hard conditions, under constant bombardment". The women said the images were taken sometime in the past week. An estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders and 1,000 civilians are holed up in the plant's vast underground network of bunkers, which are able to withstand airstrikes. "The lives of soldiers matter too. But the discussions as reported by the UN concerned civilians, not combatants.

KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy switched into Russian in his nightly video address to urge Russian soldiers not to fight in Ukraine ...

“We are stuck because of their desire to play games all the time,” Lavrov said. “(We have) explained … what is the mechanism for them to monitor how the humanitarian corridors are announced.” “The constant brutal bombardments, the constant Russian strikes on infrastructure and residential areas show that Russia wants to empty this territory of all people. However, Russian state TV nightly has had guests who suggest that Moscow use nuclear weapons in the conflict. France has been coy about its contribution in defensive weapons, but Macron recently mentioned Milan anti-tank missiles and a delivery of truck-mounted Caesar cannons among “consequential equipment.” They seek shelter in their basements whenever the shelling starts. About 20 mostly elderly people boarded a minivan amid the sounds of outgoing artillery and explosions in the distance. The cost for a five-year credit default swap on Russian debt was $5.84 million to protect $10 million in debt. “We know that (the buses) reached the town and then came under fire from an enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group,” Khanatov said. It said the reconstruction of further transmission lines in and around Kyiv remains underway. The United Nations has been attempting to broker an evacuation in the port city where some 100,000 civilians remain. They don’t tell them about the new losses the generals expect,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.

Analysts say both sides appear ready to dig in for a protracted conflict that is showing increasing signs of spilling beyond the battlefield.

"The building of one of Kharkiv's hospitals was damaged," the service said in a Telegram post. "As a result of the shelling, the concrete structures and window frames of the technical floor of the hospital were partially destroyed. "The enemy is shelling all the free cities of the region, trying to break through in three directions — Rubizhne, Popasna, Hirske community," Haidi said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has insisted since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24 that sanctions needed to be strengthened and could not be part of negotiations. “There are no new people coming to join the volunteers, only leaving,” she said. There are traces of torture on the corpses, as well as gunshot wounds to various parts of the body." The country and Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which contains six of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors, has been under Russian control since March 4. In March, before the Russians took control of it, the world watched as the nuclear plant came under fire by the Kremlin’s forces, though it sustained limited damage. Most of the gas stations NBC News passed on the nearly 300-mile journey from Kyiv to Odesa on Saturday all flashed zero next to the various types of gas, indicating that they had nothing to offer. The police said the "victims’ hands were tied, cloth was wrapped around their faces to close their eyes, and some men had gags in their mouths. About 20 mostly elderly people boarded a minivan amid the sounds of outgoing artillery and explosions in the distance. " In any dialogue, and even more so in a strategic dialogue, it is necessary, at a minimum, to have an adequately tuned partner.

Ukraine has destroyed Russian President Vladimir Putin's ability to seize control of northeastern Europe. But Sweden and Finland still fear a Russian attack ...

And an elite Spetsnaz special forces unit is also said to have mutinied after being mauled fighting in Mariupol. Putin may be referring to the 4600 troops Nato sent to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland in 2017. Troops need to be trained. Equipment needs to be refurbished. We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having," the Russian leader warned. Russia has many other military formations to fall back on. In January, Russia had 168 BTGs in total. Estimates of Russian troop casualties vary wildly, from Moscow's 1500 to Ukraine's 21,000. Analysts put Russia's losses at roughly 25 per cent of its entire invasion effort. "It is impossible to predict what kind of country Russia will be in the decades ahead, but what is likely to emerge is a country that is both weaker in economic and military terms and more desperate and dangerous in political terms." It was a response to the Russian leader's invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014. "The Russian leader and his acolytes have made it clear that they wish to replace the post-1989 security order in Europe with arrangements that impinge on the sovereignty of other countries," he says.

As Russian forces prepare for what Ukrainian officials say could be an "even bigger" offensive in the east, shelling continues to impact those living in the ...

There were dead people lying on the ground," she said. They don’t tell them about the new losses the generals expect,” Mr Zelenskyy said. Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for a spate of such incidents on Russian territory. By Peta Fuller By Peta Fuller By Peta Fuller By Peta Fuller By Peta Fuller 'Was it worth it?... By Peta Fuller By Peta Fuller By Peta Fuller