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ASTANA, Kazakhstan — If the choice was death or a bullet to the leg, Yevgeny would take the bullet. A decorated hero of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Yevgeny told his friend and fellow soldier to please aim carefully and avoid bone. The tourniquets were ready. The pain that followed was the price Yevgeny paid for a new chance at life. Like thousands of other Russian soldiers, he deserted. “I joke that I gave birth to myself,” he said, declining to give his full name for fear of retribution. “When a woman gives birth to a child, she experiences very intense...

Tens of thousands of residents in the Russian city of Orenburg and neighbouring Kazakhstan have been told to evacuate immediately as flood waters inundate homes. -snip- Orenburg is home to half a million people, and the city's mayor Sergei Salmin said the situation was extremely dangerous. "Over the last 10 hours, the water level in the Ural River has risen by 40cm … these levels are dangerous," he wrote on the Telegram messenger app. He called on residents to gather essential items and to abandon their homes. Emergency workers said water levels in the Ural River were more than two...

Residents in a region hit by the deepest drone strikes within Russian territory since the start of the war in Ukraine have been warned that air defenses may not be able to protect them from future attacks. Since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia has been hit with drone strikes reaching Moscow as well as ammunition depots and warehouses around the country linked to the war effort. Russian authorities blame Ukraine for the attacks, which Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for. In the latest incident, a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan on Tuesday reportedly hit industrial areas...

Footage showed numerous destroyed tanks, vehicles as well as multiple Russian casualties dispersed in a field. Ukraine has wiped out on of Russia's biggest tank charges since the start of the war, destroying 12 tanks in one day. Footage showed 48 Russian tanks and other vehicles coming under attack from Ukrainian drones, missiles and artillery. It shows the convoy of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles moving in the east of Ukraine alongside soldiers. Kyiv's forces then struck the convoy as it moved down a single road, taking out 12 tanks and eight armoured vehicles as well as several Russian personnel....

On March 29, 2024, Ukrainian forces relayed via their social media platforms a notable military achievement: the Signum strike drone unit of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade detected and neutralized the very first next-generation Phlox 2S40 self-propelled mortar using a night-operating FPV drone. This self-propelled mortar, representing a major technological advancement for the Russian army, had been deployed on the Ukrainian front as early as October 2023. The action took place near Bakhmut, marking a significant success for the Ukrainian forces in defensive operations....

THIS is the dramatic moment Vladimir Putin's £32 million Su-27 fighter jet plunges into flames in the Black Sea. Footage shows the pilot ejecting from the burning aircraft and launching his parachute before it explodes into a fireball inferno. The plane could be seen hurtling through the sky as onlookers watched on with horror from below. The aircraft eventually smashed into the sea off annexed Sevastopol in Crimea, but not before the pilot managed to escape within an inch of his life.

Ukraine's navy said in a statement published on Tuesday that Kyiv had "successfully destroyed" the Konstantin Olshansky, and the three other vessels it targeted since Saturday. In a later statement, Pletenchuk said the Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship may have sustained damage. It was one of two of this type of reconnaissance vessel at Russia's disposal ... Ukraine used a home-grown Neptune anti-ship missile to strike the Konstantin Olshansky, which was being "prepared for use against Ukraine," Pletenchuk said. Pletenchuk said the attack on the Konstantin Olshansky landing ship had taken place on Saturday, the same day as the strikes on...

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed American warnings of an imminent terrorist attack and urged leaders of the country’s security services to focus on catching Ukrainian spies instead. Three days later, Islamic State gunmen rampaged through a concert hall outside Moscow, killing more than 130 people in the deadliest episode of terrorism in Russia in decades. As Russia marked a national day of mourning on Sunday, the bloody assault on one of the nation’s best-known entertainment venues threatened to undermine Putin’s carefully cultivated strongman image and raised questions about the ability of the authoritarian state he has built to...

The Russian proxy leader in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, claimed on the evening of March 23 that "10 missiles were shot down" over the city during an ongoing attack. The announcement came amid claims on Telegram channels about explosions and rising smoke in Sevastopol. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims. Ukrainian officials usually do not comment on alleged attacks in occupied Crimea. -snip- The Crimean Wind Telegram channel published multiple videos and photos capturing projectiles, explosions, and smoke rising above the city. According to Crimean Wind, explosions were heard also in the Balaklava district, and a...

Ukraine launched several drones at the Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region, sparking a brief fire at the site and resulting in one person dying of a heart attack, local officials said on Sunday. "The drones were neutralised, but a fire broke out as a result of the fall of one of the devices," the operational headquarters of the region in southern Russia said on the Telegram messaging app. The fire was extinguished and there were no casualties as a result of the fire itself, the administration said. Preliminary information indicated, however, one person had died of a heart...

Ukraine destroyed a Russian tanker that Moscow used for surveillance and for deploying first-person-view (FPV) drones in southern Ukraine, according to Kyiv's military. Ukraine's air force conducted a "successful strike" on the Russian-flagged Mechanik Pogodin on Tuesday, Kyiv's navy said in a statement. Ukraine said Russia's military was using the vessel as a command center, with the ship serving to launch FPV drones and to carry electronic warfare (EW) equipment. Kyiv said the use of the vessel for surveillance and control made the tanker a legitimate military target. A brief video posted by Ukraine's armed forces appeared to show the...

A RUSSIAN military plane crashed in a fireball after flames were seen spurting from one of its engines. It is the latest disaster from Vladimir Putin's creaking military as the IL-76 went down in Ivanovo, Russia. The large aircraft is widely used by the Russian military as a transport plane for the war in Ukraine. It is reported numerous bodies were recovered from the wreckage. Dramatic footage captured the plane plunging from the sky with flames spitting from one of its engines. Putin's military is wracked with corruption and its vehicles and aircraft are often poorly maintained.

Russian military bloggers reported that Ukrainian drones struck a plant in the city that repaired A-50 spy planes, as well as a nearby airfield. The attack came in "several waves," influential channel Fighterbomber wrote on Saturday. Kyiv said it has taken out two of Russia's A-50 aircraft since the new year. In late February, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, said Moscow still had six A-50s remaining. "That's two full shifts. Another A-50 will 'fall' and round-the-clock duty will have to be stopped," the GUR chief added. Earlier this month, the British government...

Ukrainian forces "destroyed or heavily damaged" one of Russia's prized but scarce A-50 spy planes, according to a Ukrainian official, after Kyiv targeted an aviation plant in southern Russia. Russia's Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its air defenses had intercepted 47 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including 41 over the southwestern Rostov region. Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region, said Kyiv launched a "massive UAV (uncrewed aerial vehicle) attack" on the city of Taganrog, east of the captured Ukrainian city of Mariupol and west of Rostov-on-Don. Russian military bloggers reported that Ukrainian drones struck a plant...

The recent advance of Russian forces on Ukraine's eastern front appears to be slowing as Kyiv's embattled units establish new defensive lines following the fall of Avdiivka last month. Ukrainian troops appear to have avoided a feared collapse of local defensive lines following their withdrawal from Avdviivka in February, after years of tough fighting over the fortified Donetsk settlement in the east of the country. Russian forces scored limited advances at other points along the Donetsk front, though this has not precipitated a breakthrough of Ukrainian lines there. The Institute for the Study of War's Sunday update of the battlefield...

An online video has emerged that appears to show Russian soldiers riding a Chinese-made Desertcross 1000-3 "golf cart" as it's blown up by an anti-tank mine. The footage (warning: graphic content) has been shared by multiple social media channels, including NEXTA Live, an eastern European media outlet. "Russian cosmonauts are training in the Zaporizhzhia direction," the publication said on Telegram. The Russian soldiers appeared to be riding a Beijing-manufactured Desertcross 1000-3 all-terrain vehicle, which resembles a golf cart. The Russian military has been using them in battle since last fall

Russian tank academy building caught on fire on Thursday, March 7th, according to the Defense Ministry's statement and videos circulating online. One video posted by Astra, a Telegram news outlet, was captioned: "A tank academy barracks is on fire in Kazan." The barracks of the Kazan Higher Tank Command School, located in Kazan, Central Russia, which trains soldiers deployed to tank units in Ukraine, was seen engulfed in smoke as fire raged

Extraordinary new footage has revealed the sheer terror faced by Russian sailors aboard a large landing ship sunk by Ukrainian kamikaze sea drones last month. A GoPro video, taken by sailors aboard the doomed Caesar Kunikov military vessel, showed in shocking detail how the navy men desperately tried to fight off the oncoming drones in an intense 20-minute sea battle before their vessel was destroyed in a fiery explosion. The warship was lost on February 14, but the footage has only just been released by Russian Telegram channel FighterBomber. The hellish, chaotic scene saw a small group of seamen unloading...

🔴 STREAMING VIDEO - 3-5-2024 Russian Warship destroyed. Kerch bridge out The Enforcer 3-5-2024 10:00 p.m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMudFOT6sG0 European Leaders Warn That War Has Returned & Prepare For War; Major Escalations Welcome Back To Day 741 Of The News!

Ukraine said Tuesday it had sunk a Russian patrol ship off the coast of occupied Crimea, claiming another victory over the Kremlin's forces in the hotly contested waters of the Black Sea. Moscow did not confirm the claim, which would represent the latest blow to its naval power as Kyiv strikes targets deep behind the war's front lines, even as its army suffers setbacks on the battlefield. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that it had used high-tech sea drones in an overnight attack on the large patrol ship Sergey Kotov near the Kerch Strait, which separates the annexed peninsula’s eastern...