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Russia said on Tuesday it had important matters to discuss with Afghanistan's Taliban leaders and was working to remove the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist organizations. "This is a country that is next to us, and one way or another we communicate with them," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "We need to resolve pressing issues, this also requires dialog, so in this regard we communicate with them like practically everyone else - they are the de facto authority in Afghanistan."

Members of Russian military intelligence unit 29155, who allegedly have access to microwave or ultrasound weapons, had been placed at the scene of reported attacks that resulted in US personnel suffering health problems, according to a year-long investigation by the Latvia-based Insider in collaboration with CBS’s “60 Minutes” and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Christo Grozev, the head of investigations with The Insider, told “60 Minutes” that he uncovered accounting records that show a 29155 officer received a bonus for work related to the development of “non-lethal acoustic weapons.” Unit 29155 has reportedly operated around the world since 2008, and is suspected...

The Kremlin promised entertainment.Western analysts feared Vladimir Putin would declare another war.But the Russian president’s more than two-hour-long address on Thursday delivered on neither expectation, though Putin presented Russians with a vision of the future that alternated between nuclear saber-rattling and grand social promises. ###Putin, who cut a relaxed figure, also called for the safeguarding of “traditional family values.”“We see what is happening in some countries where moral norms and family institutions are deliberately being destroyed, pushing entire peoples to extinction and degeneration,” he said. “We choose life.”

The submerged skull and helmet of a Nazi soldier exposed after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine. When the Kakhovka dam was bombed by the Russians last week, it caused the draining of one of Europe’s biggest water reservoirs, revealing submerged bodies and military equipment, a reminder of the clash between the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators and the retreating Soviet Red Army. In 1941, as Nazi troops swept through Soviet Ukraine, Josef Stalin’s agents blew up the hydroelectric dam in the southern city of Zaporizhzhya, to slow the Nazi advance. The explosion flooded villages along the banks...

Shocking pictures reveal how Ukrainian city which once housed 10,000 people has been reduced to a dystopian wasteland by Vladimir Putin's Russian forces Footage reveals ruins left of Maryinka, in Donetsk, where front line runs through Grey ruins surrounded by debris create illusion of lifeless dystopian landscape Shocking pictures revealed how a Ukrainian city has been reduced to a dystopian wasteland by Vladimir Putin's Russian forces. Aerial footage reveals the ruins left of Maryinka, in Donetsk, where the front line runs through the little that is left of the town. Grey ruins surrounded by mountains of debris create the illusion...

An oil depot in Russia exploded in a towering inferno this morning after a drone attack thought to have been orchestrated by Ukraine. Three tanks containing thousands of tonnes of diesel fuel caught fire around 6am local time at a site in Bryansk, a Russian region that borders Ukraine to the north. The fire began after a drone dropped explosives into one of the fuel tanks, according to Russian media. Nobody was injured in the attack. Videos taken shortly after the strike showed two fuel tanks spewing smoke and flame with at least one showing signs of blast damage, with...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country's energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out.“We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are...

Ukraine has touted large numbers of Russian losses throughout the eight-month conflict, though Russia has not publicly confirmed the claims. "This morning, the [Ukrainian] Air Force successfully shot down 44 Russian cruise missiles," the ministry tweeted. "All this before their first cup of coffee." Russia allegedly launched 50 missiles toward "critical infrastructure facilities" in Ukraine at about 7 a.m. local time, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote in a Facebook post. The attack included Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles, which were launched from aircraft north of the Caspian Sea from the Rostov region. Only six of the...

Ponder this: hundreds or thousands may have to freeze to death in order to help slow global warming. Huh?! Could there be a sadder and more preposterous statement than that? The BBC, a publicly-funded broadcaster implicitly entrusted with disseminating vital messages to the U.K. citizenry during times of national crisis, has allegedly already begun preparing emergency broadcasts designed to reassure the people of Britain should extensive winter blackouts be necessary in the coming months. These potential blackouts would inevitably cause disruptions to the Commonwealth’s banking systems, internet access, mobile phone networks, and traffic lights, among other things. And would, of...

U.S. President Joe Biden warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage for ships carrying Ukrainian grain. “It’s really outrageous,” said Biden speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.” Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the agreement, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack.

Russia announced Saturday that it will immediately suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices. ... The Russian declaration came one day after United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal, which was scheduled to expire on Nov. 19. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports. The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered...

Russia has said it is suspending its participation in the agreement to ensure the continuation of Ukrainian grain exports — vital for food supplies to poor countries — linking the decision to a drone attack on Russian ships in occupied Crimea on Saturday morning. The defence ministry announced the move, and it was also reported by the state news agency TASS. "Taking into account the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation...

The 51-year-old mayor of Kyiv, and former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, told The Telegraph that increasing Russian attacks on power plants have left his country on the brink of a fresh humanitarian crisis. “We are doing everything we can do to save the lives of our people and to protect them,” he said, banging his huge fists on the table. “But this winter will definitely be a huge challenge for us.”In little over a fortnight, Moscow’s strikes on power stations and the wider grid have left the country grappling with outages and questioning whether the system will survive...

Vladimir Putin’s Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has declared “Big Jihad” and urged Russian Muslims to fight Ukraine’s “demons” and “satanic democracy.” Kadyrov, one of Putin’s most fanatical backers, urged his supporters to lay waste to Ukraine and backed calls from Russian allies to wipe cities “off the face of the f—ing Earth.” -snip- “I swear with the Almighty’s name, this is the Big Jihad, which we must all take part in and we will not stop. “We will be killing them wherever they are. No matter who is helping them, America or Europe. “There is nothing to worry about. They...

A pilot of a Russian Su-25 Frogfoot close air support jet recorded his own ejection in dramatic headcam footage. The aircraft was supposedly brought down by Ukrainian fire this summer. The video originated from the Russian Fighter-Bomber Telegram channel. https://youtu.be/qkT7Q5EHOAc The Frogfoot pilot was flying just hundreds of feet off the deck when the aircraft was supposedly hit. In the video, the jet pitches up violently as it departs from controlled flight and the ejection sequence is activated. As the pilot rockets away from the aircraft in its Zvezda K-36 ejection seat, we get a glimpse of its tail. Its...

Vladimir Putin was given a stern dressing down by the president of Tajikistan in another indicator that the Russian dictator has lost respect and influence in his own backyard. Fellow longstanding dictator Emomali Rahmon, ruler of the Central Asian state of 9 million since 1994, seized upon Putin's woes back home and in Ukraine to give him a piece of his mind and tell him how he really feels during a summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana. A glum and awkward looking Putin slouched back in his chair and took the seven minute tirade as a host of Central...

As the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) say they hope their offensive reaches the city of Kherson by this winter, Russia continues preparation for a massive counterattack which could begin as early as next month. The results of that battle are likely to be bloody and destructive, but unlikely to settle the war one way or the other.

On episode 8 of the show we are joined by Dmitry Kulikov, a Russian political scientist, publicist and political consultant. Expert of the State Duma Committee of the Russian Federation on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots. Film producer, TV and radio presenter. Very interesting look at how a noted Russian sees the Ukraine special military operation, the United States and our relationship with Russia past and present. Russians believe that they are actually at war with the United States, not Ukraine and that the U.S. will continue the war until the last Ukrainian in a bid to weaken Russia....

Russia has lost 60% of its raw oil shipping market in Europe after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the next two months, the market for Russia will almost completely disappear, and new sanctions will make it difficult to redirect flows to other directions, Bloomberg reports. Russian oil supplies to Europe averaged 630,000 barrels a day a month ago, down from 1.62 million before the full-scale war began.... The rate of sea exports of Russian oil at 604,000 barrels per day is the lowest rate for the year. Flows fell by 56,000 barrels per day, or 8%, compared to...

Preliminary data from Russia's Finance Ministry showed that the country's fiscal surplus shrank to 55 billion rubles ($860 million) in the first nine months of the year, down from 137 billion roubles ($2.15 billion), Bloomberg reported. Olga Bychkova, an economist at Moody's Analytics, told Newsweek that the Russian government surplus is 30 times lower, when compared to the same period last year.... She predicted the government budget would post a modest surplus of 0.6 percent in 2022 on high energy prices but flip to a deep deficit of around nine percent in 2023 due to limited growth, imports, and the...