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Russia’s infamous Wagner Group has abandoned dozens of former Central African Republic (CAR) rebels in Ukraine’s Donbas region after recruiting them to fight Vladimir Putin’s war, two former CAR fighters told The Daily Beast. The CAR sources, who were recruited by Wagner after quitting the Union for Peace (UPC) rebel group last December, said that many of the 100 or so ex-UPC fighters currently in Ukraine have lost contact with Wagner after the group trained them and flew them to the Donbas region about eight months ago. “Some of our colleagues have called us [on the phone] to inform us...

The Ukrainian army has deployed some of its best brigades to eastern Ukraine, including the 92nd and 93rd Mechanized Brigades and the 1st Presidential Brigade. But these elite Ukrainian formations might not be the biggest killer of Russian troops in the east. Under-trained, under-supplied and ambivalently led, Russians in the region are freezing to death by the dozen. Shocking videos that have circulated online in recent weeks tell a tragic story. The videos, shot by the Ukrainian brigades’ hovering drones, depict Russians in the late stages of hypothermia, so cold and sick that they barely react when the drones drop...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia expected to lose 100k more soldiers | Ukraine cancelled their attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mifc4aAD1KY&list=RDCMUCpr-NNORb2UQYDD3k-w-OFg&start_radio=1 Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps & Comment here: https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-274-summary/ SUMMARY & MAPS https://militaryland.net/maps/invasion-maps/

Ukraine is facing technical problems with western artillery amid war with Russia. According to New York Times, one-third of the howitzers sent to Ukraine have developed snags. A U.S. official said that a third of the 350 howitzers sent by the west to Ukraine are out of action. The New York Times reported that the United States Department of Defense is concerned over the development. The U.S. reportedly set up a repair facility in Poland to fix "faulty" weapons, the NYT reported. ...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Vladimir Putin is using the Russian security service to gag mothers and wives from speaking on the dire conditions faced by their husbands and sons on the frontline. It is a SIGN OF THE THREAT perceived by the regime to women opposing Putin’s war. These new laws could see the rounding up and arrest of distraught women opposing Putin’s war because their sons and husbands have been slaughtered or face such a fate. SNIP Putin faced a barrage of criticism from women who claim he has ignored them and their complaints at the way their sons and husbands are being...

Nato is feeling pretty pleased with itself right now. Of course when you chat to officials in the soulless, concrete monolith that is Nato HQ here in Brussels, no-one expresses pleasure at the current situation in Europe after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But they are quick to tell you how surprised, amazed or encouraged they are, and that the alliance is so "very" united. And that both transatlantic and EU-Nato co-operation on sanctions against Russia, for example, have been so smooth. This is far from always the case. "If you'd asked me back in February, or even six months ago,...

Russia is likely removing nuclear warheads from aging nuclear cruise missiles and firing unarmed munitions at Ukraine, Britain's military intelligence said on Saturday. The defense ministry said open source imagery shows wreckage of an air-launched cruise missile fired at Ukraine which seem to have been designed in the 1980s as a nuclear delivery system, adding that ballast was probably being substituted for the warheads. Such a system will still produce damage through the missile's kinetic energy and unspent fuel. However, it is unlikely to achieve reliable effects against intended targets, the ministry added in its daily intelligence update posted on...

Ukrainian security official Oleksiy Danilov has confirmed reports that Iranian advisors were killed as the result of a Ukrainian military strike in Crimea last month, according to a report from The Guardian on Thursday. Danilov did not name a specific number of casualties and said that "they were on our territory. We didn’t invite them here, and if they collaborate with terrorists and participate in the destruction of our nation we must kill them," in an interview with The Guardian.

Armenia has asked the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to chair peace talks with Azerbaijan in a fresh challenge to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly loose grip on Russia’s regional allies in the wake of the war in Ukraine. The snub from a traditional ally to Putin, who had hosted an inconsequential meeting of the warring countries’ leaders last month, comes immediately on the back of his disastrous summit with six former Soviet states. During a “family” photograph of leaders of countries in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Yerevan on Wednesday, Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, stepped away from Putin, who...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former KGB mentor and one-time crony, who later became an outspoken critic, has died from an unexplained “serious illness,” officials said. Viktor Cherkesov, 72, died in St. Petersburg Tuesday night, according to a Telegram post by Alexander Khinstein, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. “Victor Vasilyevich was a wonderful person and a true statesman. Eternal memory to him!” Khinstein wrote. No cause of death was released, but Russian media reported that it followed a “serious illness.” Cherkesov was a former chief of the now-defunct State Drug Control Service (FKSN) and presidential envoy to...

A RUSSIAN commander closely involved in Vladimir Putin's war effort has been found shot dead at his office. Colonel Vadim Boyko, 44, who had been involved in the mobilisation campaign, reportedly had “multiple bullet wounds”. Colonel Vadim Boyko was found with 'multiple bullet wounds' He was deputy head of the prestigious Makarov Pacific Higher Naval School in Vladivostok. It was reported he came to work, entered his office, and soon afterwards five shots were heard. Another officer heard the shots and then rushed to find Boyko - only to find his corpse. Russian reporting initially said it was "suicide" -...

Russia's president was snubbed three times by his supposed ally on Thursday when he met with some of his country's closest partners at an international summit. Vladimir Putin met with leaders from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-dominated alliance of post-Soviet nations. But the supposedly friendly forum proved hard going for Putin, who was slighted multiple times by the prime minister of Armenia in protest at its ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan. Nikol Pashinyan used his speech at the start of the summit — held in Yerevan, Armenia's capital — to criticize the effectiveness of the alliance, where Russia...

-Vladimir Putin's crony Yevgeny Prigozhin was responding to EU vote on Russia -He showed a bloodied sledgehammer he wants to present to the EU parliament -Sick stunt relates to episode in which Wagner fighter bludgeoned to death -He had defected to Ukraine before being exchanged back allegedly at request The head of Russian private army Wagner has trolled the West showing a bloodied sledgehammer he wants to present to the European Parliament. Vladimir Putin's crony Yevgeny Prigozhin was responding to a vote to declare Russia a 'state sponsor of terrorism'. The sick stunt relates to an episode in which a...

In a visit to Moscow, Miguel Díaz-Canel showed his support for Russia’s leader, in exchange for the postponement of debt payments. Cuba and Russia are united by sanctions and historic confrontations with the United States. On Tuesday, the leaders of the two countries – Miguel Díaz-Canel and Vladimir Putin – met in Moscow to strengthen their bond. -snip- “We denounce the sanctions against Russia and the sources of the current conflict… make no mistake, Russia is not responsible,” the Cuban president said at the beginning of his meeting with Putin. He went on to accuse Washington of expanding NATO “in...

Vladimir Putin has again been pictured tightly gripping a chair and shuffling his feet amid on-going speculation about the Russian president's health. Footage from Putin's Tuesday meeting with Miguel Díaz-Canel, the president of Cuba and leader of the country's communist party, showed the Russian despot sitting awkwardly in his chair as the pair spoke in front of the cameras. -snip- In the latest example, a puffy-faced Putin is seen smiling gingerly as he speaks with Díaz-Canel infront of a marble fireplace in Moscow. His left hand is seen wrapped tightly around the arm of the white chair he is sitting...

After forcing Russian troops to retreat from the city of Kherson two weeks ago, Ukrainian special forces are now battling the Russians on the islands and in marshes to the southwest, trying to push them out of a strategically vital peninsula at the mouth of the Dnipro River where it meets the Black Sea. The fighting is focused on the Kinburn Spit, on the east bank of the Dnipro River, the Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday. For tourists who have visited the sliver of land, the spit is a place of rare natural beauty, but it could also prove pivotal...

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly is announcing new sanctions on Belarus Tuesday in response to its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. Joly says in a statement that Belarusian leadership is enabling human-rights violations and allowing the country to serve as a launching pad for Russia’s attacks. Canada is adding 22 Belarusian officials to the sanctions list, including people who are involved in the stationing and transport of Russian military personnel and equipment. The sanctions also affect 16 Belarusian companies across the military manufacturing, tech, engineering, banking and rail sectors. The announcement comes as the country’s exiled opposition leader, Sviatlana...

Russia has been burning through equipment, ammunition and weaponry at rates that have raised questions about how effectively and for how long it can continue to prosecute its war against Ukraine. The challenge of sustaining the military effort isn’t unique to Russia, which after making significant territorial gains early in the war has been yielding territory back to Ukraine in phases. Both sides have suffered heavy losses of men and materiel since the invasion began in February, but Moscow is more dependent on its own shrinking economy to replenish supplies than Kyiv is. Ukraine’s economy has been more devastated than...

Russians are fleeing Crimea amid fears that Ukraine will soon move to recapture the region that Vladimir Putin illegally annexed in 2014, according to local media reports. Emil Ibragimov, the head of the Crimean project and educational platform Q-Hub, told Radio NV in a video published on Friday that Russians are fleeing from Crimea to the neighboring Russian region of Krasnodar because they fear Ukraine will eventually liberate the Black Sea peninsula. Ibragimov said that many Russian citizens who settled in Crimea after it was occupied eight years ago had already left. -snip- His remarks coincide with an assessment by...