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A map of Russian territory has been trotted out by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul as a prop in Congress, as seen from footage published by C-SPAN. McCaul was fervently advocating dropping US restrictions for Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia. McCaul rattled off a list of weapons funneled to the Kiev regime, including long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and HIMARS, claiming that restrictions on their use meant that Ukrainians had “they hands tied behind their backs.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Wednesday appeared to back allowing Ukraine to use American-provided weapons to strike Russia or Russian-controlled territory. One reporter asked Johnson about a House Intelligence Committee letter calling on the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to strike Russia with American-supplied weapons. The letter stipulates that this would allow Ukraine to strike “Russian-controlled territory” as well as Russian territory and represents a significant escalation in America’s seemingly endless proxy war against Russia.

“I think that if the attacks are coming from directly over the line in Russia then those targets ought to be fair game…”

Western allies are taking too long to make key decisions on military support for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters in an exclusive interview in Kyiv on Monday. He also said he was pushing partners to get more directly involved in the war by helping to intercept Russian missiles over Ukraine and allowing Kyiv to use Western weapons against enemy military equipment amassing near the border. The call to accelerate aid and push so-called "red lines" of engagement in the conflict reflect the growing pressure Zelenskyy's forces are under along more than 1,000 km of front lines in the northeast,...

Russia on Tuesday announced the start of tactical nuclear weapons drills close to Ukraine, in what it said was a response to Western "threats". Throughout its two-year offensive on Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly talked-up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and its readiness to deploy them if it senses an existential threat. The West has accused President Vladimir Putin of irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling. Russia's defence ministry said Tuesday the drills were taking place in its Southern Military District, which borders and includes parts of Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed. It did not specify exactly where.

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When a vehicle is captured and then...

Russian central bank assets. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the move will hand Ukraine up to €3 billion (about $3.3 billion) this year. "We have approved in the EU using revenues from Russia's central bank's frozen assets to help Ukraine," wrote Lipavsky on X, formerly Twitter. "Up to €3B only this year, 90% goes for Ukraine's military. Russia must pay for its war damages." The financial assets were frozen shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Reuters reported this month that the EU has estimated that by 2027, windfall profits from Russia's central bank...

Senior officials from the Biden administration held indirect talks last week with the Iranian regime in the Gulf state of Oman to avoid “escalation” in the region — even as Iran’s proxies continue to attack Israel and global shipping. The effort is one of few diplomatic meetings between the U.S. and Iran, and recalls the secret meetings between President Barack Obama’s envoys and the Iranian regime in Oman in 2013 that set the stage for the Iran nuclear deal.

Kyiv says it has had some success pushing back against a renewed Russian offensive, but Ukraine's defences are in dire need of resupply. A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea early Friday caused power cutoffs in the city of Sevastopol and set a refinery ablaze in southern Russia, Russian authorities said. The drone raids marked an attempt to strike back during Moscow's renewed offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has added to the pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces as they await delayed deliveries of crucial Western weapons and ammunition. Ukraine has not commented on the attack nor claimed responsibility...

Ukrainian drones attacked the only large oil refinery on Russia's Black Sea coast on Friday morning, authorities said. The attack on the Rosneft-owned refinery in the southern Russian town of Tuapse was reported by local authorities, who said a fire had broken out at the facility and that emergency services were working to extinguish the blaze. -snip- The Russian Black Sea naval port of Novorossiysk and Crimea's Sevastopol were also targeted a the massive aerial assault, which Russia's defense ministry said involved at least 100 drones.

A Russian military airfield in Crimea has caught fire for a second night in a row, according to new reports, after Moscow said Ukraine had launched consecutive long-range strikes on the Russian-controlled peninsula. The Belbek airfield, close to the port city of Sevastopol on Crimea's western edge where Russia bases its Black Sea naval fleet, is "on fire again," Russian independent news outlet Astra reported on Thursday.

Russian air base in Crimea that caught fire following a suspected Ukrainian missile attack hosted dozens of military aircraft central to Moscow's invasion. Ukraine has stepped up strikes on Russian facilities on the peninsula Moscow has occupied since 2014 and which Kyiv has vowed to recapture. Regarding the latest incident, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said there had been a massive Ukrainian missile attack over the port city overnight Tuesday. Footage on social-media channels showed flames billowing into the air at the Belbek airfield near Sevastopol. Here is the focal point of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, whose vessels...

Ukraine used U.S-supplied missiles in an attack that sparked blazes at a Russian military air base in Crimea, according to reports. The Astra Telegram channel posted images of flames at the Belbek airfield near the city of Sevastopol following the strikes overnight Tuesday. Belbek airfield has been operated by the Russian defense ministry since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. -snip- Open-source X user OSINT Technical posted NASA satellite images, which the account said showed large fires raging at the airfield located more than 160 miles from the frontline in Ukraine. "Ukrainian forces reportedly carried out a massive missile strike...

NEW: Ukraine is making a new push to get Biden to lift his ban on using U.S.-made weapons to strike inside Russia, saying the policy kept them from attacking Russian positions as Moscow prepared for its major march toward Kharkiv

Estonia has been "seriously" discussing sending troops to Ukraine in roles positioned away from the front lines, per a national security official. Madis Roll, national security advisor to Estonia's president, told military news outlet Breaking Defense that his country's leaders were assessing the viability of sending Estonian soldiers to "rear" roles that wouldn't see direct combat in Ukraine. Such a move would help relieve Ukraine's manpower crunch and allow it to send more soldiers to the front lines. And while Estonia, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization country, prefers to act together with the alliance's major members, it's also not closed...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Ukraine as weapons from a new American aid package begin arriving at the front line. His visit comes as the country struggles to hold back a major Russian incursion near its second biggest city of Kharkiv. Ahead of Mr Blinken's arrival in Kyiv, a senior US official said the American-funded weapons now arriving at the front line included air defence interceptors, artillery and ATACMS long-range precision guided missiles. "We have already started to flow in artillery [and] long-range ATACMS that can range any part of Ukraine, and also other air defence...

There was a striking lack of military hardware on display after major losses in Ukraine. VLADIMIR Putin has vowed Russia is "always" ready to strike the West and snubbed Britain in a snarling World War 2 rant at Russia's annual Victory Day parade. The Russian tyrant instead lavished praise on China and declared Russia was "combat ready" in these "difficult" times as nuclear missiles rumbled through Moscow's streets. -snip- However, today was a much pared-down parade indicating the strains of war. For the second year in a row, it featured just one measly tank - reportedly an 80-year-old T-34.

Russia said on Wednesday that sending NATO troops into Ukraine would potentially be extremely dangerous, and Moscow was closely watching a Ukrainian petition that called for such an intervention. The petition, posted on the Ukrainian president's website, says Ukraine should ask the United States, Britain and other countries to send troops to help it repel Russia's invasion. "We have repeatedly said that direct intervention on the ground in this conflict by the military of NATO countries potentially carries enormous danger, so we consider this an extremely challenging provocation, nothing less, and, of course, we are watching this very carefully."

Russia warned Britain on Monday that if British weapons were used by Ukraine to strike Russian territory then Moscow could hit back at British military installations and equipment both inside Ukraine and elsewhere. Russia said British Ambassador Nigel Casey was summoned to the foreign ministry for a formal protest after Foreign Secretary David Cameron said last week that Ukraine had the right to use British weapons to strike Russia. Russia's foreign ministry said the Cameron remarks recognised that Britain was now de facto a part of the conflict and contradicted an earlier assurance that long-range weapons given to Ukraine would...

Russia plans to hold drills simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced Monday, days after the Kremlin reacted angrily to comments by senior Western officials about the war in Ukraine. The drills are in response to “provocative statements and threats of certain Western officials regarding the Russian Federation,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. It was the first time that Russia has publicly announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, though its strategic nuclear forces regularly hold exercises. Tactical nuclear weapons have a lower yield compared to massive warheads that arm intercontinental ballistic missiles intended to...