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Ukraine is preparing for peace talks with Russia as there is “no way to win on the battlefield alone”, Kyiv’s deputy spy chief has said

Russia has issued arrest warrants for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as several high-ranking former officials including former President Pyotr Poroshenko. The wanted list published by Moscow’s Interior Ministry was updated on Tuesday to include President Zelensky. The arrest warrant states that the Ukrainian leader is wanted over a violation of the Russian Criminal code, however, the exact alleged offence has not been published.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Russian troops have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs. Ukraine’s military has acknowledged the Russians have gained a “foothold” in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says that fighting continues.

Ukraine is facing "a new stage" in the Russia's full-scale war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a meeting with border guards in Khmelnytskyi Oblast on May 3. Zelensky's statement came amid a deteriorating situation on the battlefield. Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR), said that Ukraine should expect to face a renewed Russian offensive in late spring or early summer, with the offensive intensifying around eastern Donbas region. "The occupier is now preparing to expand its offensive. And all of us — Ukrainians, soldiers, state, partners — must do everything to disrupt Russia's offensive plan," Zelensky said.

Israel has never been satisfied with its version of the Patriot air defense system that Ukraine views as essential to its survival. This creates a bizarre split screen where Ukraine was all but pleading for more Patriot missiles to defend its cities and forces on Monday even as Israel began to shut down its older Patriot batteries, a move that came less than a month after it battled an unprecedented missile barrage from Iran. Israel and Ukraine's experience with the Patriots could not have been more different. Israel first used Patriots in combat in 1991 against approximately 40 Scud ballistic...

'I am not ruling anything out,' Emmanuel Macron insisted in an interview published today, pressed on whether France would send troops to Ukraine in its hour of need. The remarks echo a new tone on Moscow in recent months, the French President reiterating pledges roundly rebuffed by his allies in the US, UK and Germany. Europe and the United States have now committed more than £130bn to Ukraine in aid but NATO members have stopped short of promising boots on the ground - with Putin still willing to exploit the threat of nuclear Armageddon when prompted. While Macron has argued...

The Azov brigade is still not allowed to receive US assistance, and Zelensky has refused to resolve this issue, said brigade commander Denis Prokopenko. According to him, the team twice tried to submit a petition on the website of the President of Ukraine, but they refused to publish it. The OP referred that this issue does not fall within the competence of Zelensky. The point is that the US itself is prohibiting the supply of American weapons to Azov. “This was a consequence of amendments to US laws, which have been in force since 2017, and block the provision of...

In Ukraine, the Russians are slowly grinding down the Ukrainian army and there is the prospect of a major Ukrainian collapse and/or a major Russian offensive. Signs of collapse are evident due to manpower/materiel shortages but no one can say for sure when these things will happen. Another event many are expecting is an attack on the Kerch Bridge, which even I, the arch optimist, am expecting to happen sooner or later… … May Day - Trophy Exhibition Opens in Moscow Workers all over the world have been celebrating May day and Russia marked it be opening an exhibition of...

Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield — to win hearts and minds.A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer...

Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with an ally of the Wagner Group signals his struggle to address setbacks in the Ukraine conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking decisive steps to address growing challenges as he seeks to regain control over his struggling military campaign in Ukraine. On May 2, Putin met with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Russia's Tula Oblast, and a known associate of the Wagner Group, at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in Moscow Oblast. The meeting has raised questions about the stability of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's position, signalling Putin's increasing desperation in the face of unmet...

This is the moment more than 100 Russian troops are believed to have been killed in an ATACMS tactical ballistic missile strike on occupied Luhansk. A military training ground was seen being hit by multiple explosions typical of an ATACMS strike in footage captured by a drone flying high above. The strike targeted a group of 100-plus soldiers who were seen in aerial images, say OSINT analysts in what would be the single largest loss of Russian stories in months. The ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) showered the troops with hundreds of M74 APAM mini-bombs which are carried by the...

US House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith said that holding on to the territory currently under the control of the regime in Kiev is the best outcome for Ukraine, given the realities of its conflict with Russia. Ukraine must hold on to approximately 82% of its territory, including access to the Black Sea, in order to consider the outcome of the conflict a success, Smith said, according to a Foreign Policy report released on Thursday. The Biden administration has avoided making such a statement because it does not want to admit that Ukraine might have to relinquish territory...

The five-month wait before US Congress approved $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine may have caused lasting damage that will be felt on the frontlines for months to come. Russian forces have used the “artillery drought” hampering Ukraine’s defenses since December to push forward on the eastern front near Avdiivka, making the largest advance since the early months of the war. Moscow’s progress has prompted warnings from senior Ukrainian military officials of a possible threat to Kyiv’s supply lines and hubs in the east, which are now perilously close to being in range of superior Russian firepower. The bleak...

A very sobering @olliecarroll interview with Ukraine’s deputy mil intel chief. He says Chasiv Yar will fall eventually, that Ukraine is far from stabilising the front and that Russia is “generating a division of reserves” & wants to strike at Sumy/Kharkiv. ‘Right now, both sides are jockeying for the “the most favourable position” ahead of potential talks. But meaningful negotiations can begin only in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, he guesses

(Kyiv, May 2, 2024) – Russian forces appear to have executed at least 15 Ukrainian soldiers as they attempted to surrender, and possibly six more who were surrendering or who had surrendered, since early December 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. These incidents should be investigated as war crimes. “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its forces have committed many heinous war crimes,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “The summary execution – or murder – of surrendering and injured Ukrainian soldiers, gunned down in cold blood, expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law, is...

Over the last decade, Ukraine has been the battleground in a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia – a conflict massively escalated by the Kremlin’s invasion in 2022. The fight erupted in early 2014, when Biden and his team, then serving in the Obama administration, supported the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Leveraging billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, Washington has shaped the personnel and policies of subsequent Ukrainian governments, all while expanding its military and intelligence presence in Ukraine via the CIA and NATO. During this period, Ukraine has not become an independent self-sustaining democracy, but...

Russia needs to up the number and quality of its weapons heading for Ukraine to maintain Moscow's push on Ukraine's defensive lines, Russia's top defense official has said, ahead of a likely summer offensive expected to start in the coming weeks. "To maintain the required pace of the offensive and ensure the build-up of the combat strength of troop groups for further actions, it is necessary to increase the volume and quality of weapons and military equipment supplied to the troops," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, according to comments published by Moscow on Wednesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron restated a previous commitment of making troops available for Ukraine, using an interview published Thursday to detail the issue would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian front lines and Kyiv made such a request

Just as Russia had started to bring back some refinery capacity damaged by Ukrainian drone attacks earlier this year, a new wave of drone attacks hit a major refinery owned by Rosneft, for a second time.Rosneft’s Ryazan refinery southeast of Moscow caught fire after the overnight drone attack, an anonymous Ukrainian military source with knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg News on Wednesday.The refinery in the region of Ryazan, whose main city of the same name is some 120 miles southeast of Moscow, was first attacked by drones in the middle of March. The first attack also led to a...

In successfully lobbying Congress for an additional $61 billion in Ukraine war funding, an effort that ended this month with celebratory Democrats waving Ukrainian flags in the House chamber, President Biden has cast his administration’s standoff with Russia as an existential test for democracy. “What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas,” Biden declared in his State of the Union address in March. “History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6th.” While Biden’s narrative is widely accepted by Washington’s political establishment, a close examination of...