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The Pentagon is accelerating the delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine by sending refurbished older models, cutting the timeline for when they could reach the battlefield from two years to several months, according to reports on Tuesday. The Biden administration pledged in January to send 31 advanced new M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, reversing months of reluctance to supply Kyiv with the armored vehicles because they are hard to operate and maintain. But the new tanks would have taken a year or more to build and ship. Officials then opted for using older versions that will be taken from Army...

DEFENCE AND SECURITY, ECONOMY, MEDIA, POLITICS, WORLD Ukraine: Is it almost over? By Scott Burchill Mar 1, 2023 Joint press conference President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy December 21, 2022 Despite celebrating 12 months of surviving the Russian onslaught, promises of more money and military equipment (including tanks) from the West, and a chorus of support for the courage and resilience of the people, the war appears almost over for Ukraine. There are four reasons for thinking this. First, as the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal explains, public rhetoric [about Ukraine’s heroic resistance] masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the...

Belarusian anti-government activists have claimed responsibility for what they said was a drone attack on a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft at an airfield near the Belarus capital of Minsk on Sunday. "Those were drones. The participants of the operation are Belarusian," Aliaksandr Azarov, leader of Belarusian anti-government organization BYPOL, was quoted as saying on the organisation's Telegram messaging app and on the Poland-based Belsat news channel. "They are now safe, outside the country."

PRESS STATEMENT Nine years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea – a clear violation of international law and of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The United States welcomes the efforts of Ukraine’s Crimea Platform to focus global attention on Russia’s continued occupation. The United States does not and never will recognize Russia’s purported annexation of the peninsula. Crimea is Ukraine.

Update from Ukraine | Wagners are getting closer to Bakhmut | Biden asks for the counterstrike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UZhs0vSXcg Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ ****SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: NEW- https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-360-summary/

Putin chillingly threatens 'response' if UK gives fighter jets to Ukraine: Kremlin sabre rattlers warn of 'military-political consequences for Europe and entire world' if Britain 'escalates' conflict - as Sunak tells Zelensky NOTHING is off the table President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for aircraft during a visit to Britain today But Russian Embassy in London has warned UK against supplying warplanes Vladimir Putin has threatened a 'response' involving 'military-political consequences' if the UK supplies planes to Ukraine in the fight against Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday made his first visit to Britain since the outbreak of the invasion last year,...

The White House announced the nomination of Lynne Tracy, the current U.S. ambassador to Armenia, to the post after the Russian government signed off on the choice. Such approval is generally routine but couldn't be taken for granted at a time of particularly fraught U.S.-Russian relations over Ukraine, the detention of Americans in Russia, allegations of Russian meddling in U.S. and other elections, and an escalating spat over the staffing of embassies in Washington and Moscow. Tracy, who speaks Russian, previously served as a senior adviser for Russian affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, and...

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends, The subject of this address is the situation in Donbass and the course of the special military operation to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime, which seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as the result of an armed state coup. Today I am addressing you – all citizens of our country, people of different generations, ages and ethnicities, the people of our great Motherland, all who are united by the great historical Russia, soldiers, officers and volunteers who are fighting on the frontline and doing their combat duty, our brothers and sisters in the...

How does the U.S. news media treat invasions conducted by hostile nations compared to those conducted by American forces? To answer this question Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) studied a month’s worth of the New York Times’ coverage early on in the Ukraine invasion and a comparable month’s coverage of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Their findings? That the Times paid much more attention to the Ukraine War, and highlighted civilian casualties in Ukraine far more than the paper did for the Iraq War – this even though the United States was a direct combatant in the...

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced another $1 billion in military aid for Ukraine on Wednesday, following the third meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a group of about 50 nations supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia. “I’m especially pleased to be able to announce today that the United States will provide an additional $1 billion security assistance package for Ukraine,” Austin said at a press conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, where the members of the group met.

The war in Ukraine is a trompe l’oeil. Behind the appearances of the unity of NATO and its consolidation by new members, several big players run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In reality, all those who are not blinded by their own propaganda know that their side is going to lose and is already planning other enemies on other battlefields. Washington is making the best of a bad situation and using Russian pressure to close ranks. On the front of the stage, Nato assures that it has been strengthened by “Putin’s madness”. Ukraine, powerfully armed by the...

PARIS -- It was inevitable that sooner or later, leading European countries would start distancing themselves from the aggressive rhetoric that has been the hallmark of the European Union leadership's approach to the armed conflict in Ukraine. Last week in Turin, Italian Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio presented a four-point peace plan to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who made contact with Moscow and Kyiv in visits a few weeks ago. Di Maio also chaired the group of Europe's foreign ministers at a meeting in Turin, including those of other EU countries which have recently shown interest in de-escalating...

Has land for peace ever worked — even lately? We’ll get to that in a moment, but first let’s look at a critical moment in the Russian offensive in Donbas. If Putin wants to force a face-saving settlement, he needs to win a decisive battle to secure an area that he, um, largely controlled by proxy before the invasion. Reuters casts the ongoing battle on the Siverskiy Donets river as Putin’s last, best hope to get out with some claim of victory:The decisive battles of the war’s latest phase are still raging further south, where Moscow is attempting to seize...

"Not so long ago, Republicans said they had sworn off nation-building. Following the failure of the neoconservative project in Iraq and Afghanistan, GOP leaders seemed to have learned their lesson. But apparently not. Now nation-building is back with force, with a massive aid package to Ukraine that makes that country a US client state. Up next: a debate over expanding NATO. Many Republicans in Congress have already lined up to support both, almost reflexively. Why?"

Germany has reportedly supplied Kiev forces with thousands of anti-tank mines on the hopes of slowing down the advance of the Russian military in Ukraine. In a report released on May 17, Der Spiegel revealed that Germany sent 1,600 DM-12 PARM and 3,000 DM-31 anti-tank mines to Ukraine over the last few weeks. The German-made DM-12 off-route anti-tank mine, which is mounted on a small tripod, fires a fin stabilized rocket with an effective range of 2 to 40 meters and the ability to penetrate 600 millimeters of armour. The mine incorporates an arming delay of five minutes. It can...

Americans are becoming less supportive of punishing Russia for launching its invasion of Ukraine if it comes at the expense of the U.S. economy, a sign of rising anxiety over inflation and other challenges, according to a new poll.The shifts in opinion reflect how rising prices are biting into American households — surging costs for gas, groceries, and other commodities have strained budgets for millions of people — and perhaps limiting their willingness to support Ukraine financially. That may be a troubling sign for President Joe Biden, who on Saturday approved an additional $40 billion in funding to help Ukraine

Walls rattled and pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling of a basement converted by Ukrainian troops into a forward outpost. Russian shells hit again and again the crumpled building above. Images on a surveillance monitor, linked to a camera outside in the deserted village, showed plumes of black smoke rising all around the compound. “The Russians are very angry today because yesterday we killed two of their tanks,” said Marian, a platoon leader in the volunteer Carpathian Sich battalion deployed on the front line near the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Izyum. Like most military personnel, he is only allowed...

Twitter users were shocked by President Joe Biden’s latest gaffe during a public statement on holding Russian oligarchs responsible for their corruption. During a speech given on Thursday, the president announced a new $33 billion spending package to provide more aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia. When Biden began talking about holding corrupt Russian oligarch’s responsible for their actions, he made a major verbal stumble that broke Twitter.

The Biden administration is freaking out over the truth being exposed. They are now launching a “Disinformation Governance Board” to go after what they claim is misinformation. The group will be specifically focusing on irregular migration and Russia.

U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News. That near real-time intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, the officials say, helping repel a Russian assault on a key airport near Kyiv. It was part of what American officials call a massive and unprecedented intelligence-sharing operation with a non-NATO partner that...