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A leading Ukrainian presidential aide claimed this morning that the explosion which damaged a key bridge in Crimea may have been ordered by one of Vladimir Putin's warring commanders. The 12 mile crossing over the Kerch strait links Crimea to the Russian mainland and is a major artery for Putin's forces that control most of southern Ukraine's Kherson region and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol. It was damaged in an explosion early Saturday morning which saw chunks of the bridge fall into the sea and a large fire break out. The incident prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials...

Key figures including Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin are using military defeats to undermine defence chief Sergei Shoigu. Friends, rivals and enemies took their seats in the Grand Kremlin Palace as Vladimir Putin gathered the country’s elite to formalise Russia’s illegal annexation of four occupied regions in Ukraine. The ceremony was meant to portray strength and unity, but within 24 hours had been overshadowed by Russia’s failures on the battlefield. These losses, which continued into this week on the southern and eastern fronts in Ukraine, have led to a major, unprecedented rupture within the ruling class as the Kremlin seeks scapegoats...

Breaking: The Kerch Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea to Russia, is on fire.

ideos have emerged on social media that appeared to show infighting among Russia's elite, with mobilized Russians allegedly complaining about accommodation conditions before being sent to fight in Ukraine. On Wednesday, the pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar published a video that appeared to show Russian soldiers standing in front of a passenger train. The clip has been geolocated to Russia's Belgorod region near the Ukraine border. "We are now in the Belgorod region. There are about 500 of us. Material support, monetary allowance...Absolutely nothing!" the cameraman states, panning the video to his fellow soldiers. The majority have their face covered with...

Russian conscripts are in revolt after being treated like 'cattle' and given 'no training' as they head to the war in Ukraine. A video shows the men publicly complaining about their treatment in 'brutal, absolutely appalling conditions' after they were mobilised by Vladimir Putin. The shocking footage is just the latest evidence of the total chaos over the Russian call-up of reservists that has left even Kremlin cheerleaders in despair. The desperate recruits risk punishment by venting their fury over their plight after arriving by train in Belgorod region which borders Ukraine. One of the soldiers, acting as a spokesman...

CHECHEN leader Ramzan Kadyrov has immediately taken to Telegram to blame Russian commander Alexander Lapin for Russia’s retreat in Lyman, Ukraine. Ramzan Kadyrov blamed Colonel General Oleksandr Lapin, who commanded the defence of this section of the front, for the loss of Lyman. “I have always said: there is nothing better than the truth, however bitter and hurtful, but the truth,” he said. “It is the only way to move forward. That is why I cannot keep quiet about what happened in Krasny Lyman.” He added: “The commander of the Central Military District Colonel-General Alexander Lapin was in charge of...

The world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk faced sharp backlash Monday afternoon after sharing his thoughts on how to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on terms far more amenable to Russia than the Western consensus, continuing to opine about global politics on the heels of bad corporate news closer to home. -snip- Musk’s controversial foreign policy proposal came as Tesla shares cratered 9% in Monday trading, hitting a three-month low as the market reacted poorly to third quarter vehicle deliveries falling short of estimates.

The withdrawal of Russian forces from a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine has prompted two powerful allies of President Vladimir Putin to do something rare in modern Russia: publicly ridicule the war machine's top brass. Russia's loss of the bastion of Lyman, which puts western parts of Luhansk region under threat, touched a nerve for Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the southern Russian republic of Chechnya. Kadyrov, who has been close to Putin since his father and former president of Chechnya, Akhmad, was killed in a 2004 bomb attack in Grozny that also killed a Reuters photographer, suggested that...

Vladimir Putin today came under stinging criticism from his own side after Russia was forced to withdraw troops from a key Ukrainian city this afternoon as Ukraine's eastern counteroffensive recaptures more territory. Ukrainian forces encircled the strategic eastern city of Lyman on Saturday in a counteroffensive that has humiliated the Kremlin, while Russian bombardments intensified after Moscow illegally annexed a swath of Ukrainian territory in a sharp escalation of the war. Russia's own Tass and RIA news agencies announced that troops have fled Lyman, citing the Russian defence ministry. It comes after the Russian President Vladimir Putin was pictured grinning...

Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s region of Chechnya, said on Saturday that Moscow should consider using a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine amid new reversals on the battlefield. In a message on Telegram criticizing Russian commanders for abandoning the east Ukrainian town of Lyman on Saturday, Kadyrov wrote: “In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.” Developing

Vladimir Putin yesterday claimed that four occupied Ukrainian regions would remain part of Russia ‘for ever’ in a bizarre 40-minute tirade that included rants about ‘Satanism’ and colonialism. The rambling speech formed part of a ceremony in Moscow that formally confirmed his land grab following a series of rigged referendums. Ambling late to the podium in front of hundreds of ashen-faced officials, the despot lashed out at the West’s ‘neo-colonial’ foreign policy. ‘I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this,’ Putin said. ‘People living in Luhansk and Donetsk,...

The defence minister of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov believes that Belarusian soldiers have no motivation to enter the war with Ukraine, and if ordered by their authorities to fight, they would lay down their weapons. "I don't understand what would motivate Belarusians to consciously go to war with Ukraine, kill and die for no one knows what, even if they are officers who are under oath obliged to follow orders. If they go on the attack with their units, they could cross the Belarusian border, raise their hands, lay down their weapons and say, ‘Ukrainians, we are your syabry. [Belarusians] are...

Belarus has allegedly threatened to deploy 100,000 troops in Ukraine unless Kyiv withdraws its forces from the ‘new Russian territories’ after the referendums. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the Belarus government in Minsk today, Thursday, September 29, announced that unless Kyiv withdraws all of its military forces from the four new regions of Russia, it will deploy 100,000 troops in Ukraine. They were referring of course to the four occupied regions of Ukraine where the recent ‘referendums’ were held in which people allegedly voted to join the Russian Federation. They also revealed that railway stations and airports in the...

Russian airlines have stopped selling tickets to Russian men aged 18 to 65 unless they can provide evidence of approval to travel from the Ministry of Defense. All flights from Russia to available foreign destinations were sold out Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial” mobilization of the country’s 25 million reservists. Flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia — which do not require visas for Russians — for Sept. 21 were unavailable within minutes of Putin’s announcement, according to Russia’s top travel planning website aviasales.ru. By noon Moscow time, direct flights from Moscow to...

Russia's parliament on Tuesday approved a bill to toughen punishments for a host of crimes such as desertion, damage to military property and insubordination if they are committed during military mobilisation or combat situations. The bill, passed in its second and third readings on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, the Duma, comes amid debate inside Russia about a possible mobilisation

Humiliation for Putin's troops is continuing as they begin to abandon the major city of Melitopol in the face of Kyiv's lightning counter-offensive. The city's pre-occupation mayor said that Russian troops were pulling out of the area in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region. Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram that Russian troops were heading towards Moscow-annexed Crimea. He said columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland.

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Ankara supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and rejects the illegal annexation of Crimea, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. "The return of Crimea to Ukraine, of which it is an inseparable part, is essentially a requirement of international law," Erdogan said in a video message to the Second Crimea Platform Summit. The Crimea Platform is an international coordination mechanism of Ukraine to draw more global attention to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Erdogan said Ankara will continue to support the Crimean Platform that was established to resolve the Crimean issue through peaceful means. "Türkiye does not recognize...

Russia is preparing to hold "sham" referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories within a matter of days or weeks, the US warned on Wednesday. Moscow has instructed officials to begin preparations in areas that have fallen under its control during its war on Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. The first referenda could be announced as soon as this week's end, he added, noting the US and international community will not view any such elections as legitimate. "We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda...

Russia's Black Sea fleet based in annexed Crimea has installed a new commander, RIA news agency cited sources as saying on Wednesday, after Russian military bases on the peninsula were rocked by explosions in the past nine days. If confirmed, the removal of the previous commander Igor Osipov would mark the most prominent sacking of a military official in the nearly six months since Russia launched its war on Ukraine. State-owned RIA said the new chief, Viktor Sokolov, was introduced to members of the fleet's military council in the port of Sevastopol.