Free Republic

Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv's forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills.Russia has built heavily fortified defenses along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, honed its electronic weapons to reduce Ukraine's edge in combat drones, and turned heavy bombs from its massive Cold-War-era arsenal into precision-guided gliding munitions capable of striking targets without putting its warplanes at risk.The changing Russian tactics along with...

Another Ukrainian attack got bogged down in a minefield.Losses:3 Finnish Leopard 2R with mine clearing equipment 1 German Bergepanzer III recovery tank (based on the Leopard 2 chassis) with mine clearing equipment 2 German Leopard 2M6 2 U.S. M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles 1 U.S. MaxxPro armored transport vehicle 1 U.S. HMMWV armored transport vehicle 1 unidentified vehicle This follows other significant recent losses.The total replacement cost of the above vehicles at present value is about $60-70 million.During the spring and summer of 2022 the Russian forces destroyed the regular Ukrainian pre-war army. It was replaced with Soviet era material...

The long-discussed Ukrainian spring counteroffensive is underway, Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed, with the country reporting 25 battles fought in the past 24 hours and a handful of villages reclaimed. Ukraine’s own reporting of its progress in the counteroffensive against Russia’s occupation of the southeast of their country claims a clutch of villages and positions taken encircling Donetsk on Monday morning. The gains would be the first settlements reported taken in the counteroffensive so far, which was officially declared by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday but appears to have been underway to varying degrees since early last week.

WASHINGTON — Negotiators to a stop-gap spending bill in the U.S. Congress have agreed to include about $12 billion in new aid to Ukraine in response to a request from the Biden administration, a source familiar with the talks said on Monday.The source, who asked not to be identified, said the measure will also include resettlement funding for Afghan refugees