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KHROMOVE, Ukraine (AP) — Pressure mounted Saturday on Ukrainian troops and civilians hunkering down in Bakhmut, as Kyiv’s forces tried to help residents flee amid what Western analysts say may be preparations for a Ukrainian withdrawal from the eastern city that Russian forces have spent months trying to capture. A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of Bakhmut on Saturday, according to Ukrainian troops who were assisting them. A Ukrainian army representative who asked not to be named for operational reasons told The Associated Press that it...

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered an unusual New Year’s address to his people on Saturday pledging victory against the “neo-Nazis” of the West who are intent on “destroying Russia.”Putin kicked off his 9-minute speech by noting that the year 2022 “put a lot of things in their place – clearly separating courage and heroism from betrayal and cowardice.”“It was a year of difficult, necessary decisions, the most important steps toward gaining full sovereignty of Russia and powerful consolidation of our society,” the he said in regards to Russia’s conflict with Ukraine.(Add Closed Captions and Auto-translate to English in Settings tab)“For...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed Friday to deepen their bilateral cooperation against the backdrop of Moscow’s 10-month war in Ukraine, which weathered another night of drone and rocket attacks following a large-scale missile bombardment. Putin and Xi made no direct mention of Ukraine in their opening remarks by videoconference, which were broadcast publicly, before going into private talks. But they hailed strengthening ties between Moscow and Beijing amid what they called “geopolitical tensions” and a “difficult international situation,” with Putin expressing his wish to extend military collaboration. “In the face of...

ransomnote: The 6 minutes of the transcript shown below are key remarks by Colonel MacGregor. More of the transcript linked at the bottom. Full 25 minute video is here:Douglas Macgregor - The Bottom LineMy summary of this excerpt: Chairman of the U.S joints Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley says the chances of the Ukraine winning 'are not high'.Colonel MacGregor says Zelensky has been lying all alongand the MSM has reported what he says as truth. MacGregor says the Ukraine is doomed: depleted of soldiers, weapons, electricity, food, water etc. He says the Russians are well-equipped and prepared for major...

A particularly good discussion focusing heavily on Zaluzhny's shocking Economist interview. Ritter shares The Duran analysts views (as does Judge Napolitano) that I already posted a few hours ago though goes into it more thoroughly. He thinks that Zelensky is history and that General Zaluzhny will be the one negotiating the terminal settlement (and hopes to be the next Ukrainian president.) One of the most interesting points is why this interview was set up. Clearly Britain and the U.S. wanted these disclosures made at this time. Ritter believes it is because they want this settled before Russia can take Odessa...

A gift that was given to Poland’s top police commander during his recent visit to Ukraine exploded at the national police headquarters in Warsaw on Wednesday.General Jaroshaw Szymcayk met with leaders of the Ukrainian police and emergency service on Sunday and Monday. There, he received the gift. The gift itself has not been specified.The explosion happened on Wednesday morning in a room next to General Szymcsyk’s office. The explosion caused the commander and a civilian employee to suffer what is said to be minor injuries. Szymcsyk has been in the hospital since the explosion for observation. The civilian employee on...

Ukraine needs “about two billion cubic meters” of additional gas to get through the winter, President Volodymyr Zelensky told G7 nations on Monday.During a video conference he also urged the G7 to send more weapons to Ukraine, including “modern tanks” as well as “rocket artillery and more long-range missiles”. “Unfortunately, Russia still has the advantage in artillery and missiles. This is a fact. These capabilities of the occupying army are the ones to fuel the Kremlin’s arrogance,” Zelensky said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin waited only six months before switching from a special military operation to full scale war against Ukraine. Putin's initial assault was limited to barely 150,000 troops. He expected a quick victory followed by negotiations on his principal concerns: Russian control of Crimea, Ukrainian neutrality, and autonomy for the Russian population in the Donbas, but he was wrong. Putin had not counted on Ukraine's stiff resistance or the West's massive military and economic intervention. Faced with a new situation, Putin changed his strategy. Now he is about to unleash his own General Sherman and make Ukraine howl....

China’s satellite coverage in the Western Pacific has doubled since 2018, the Pentagon reported last week in its annual assessment of the Chinese military. That gives China the ability to detect American surface ships with an array of sensors that can guide its 2,000 land-based missiles to moving targets, including US aircraft carriers. The Defense Department’s November 29 report “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” reflects a grimly realistic rethinking of China’s military capacity in its home theater. China hawk Elbridge Colby, a prominent advocate of a Western Pacific military buildup to deny China access to...

Ukraine being flattened by weapons that have no western equivalents.

MacGregor: Up until this time at night we have had freezing but during the day it has gone back up to 40 even 50 degrees. It has to drop below freezing and stay that way for at least two weeks. So if it is now below freezing and stays that way you can do the math. Your looking for something happening no earlier than the 10th; probably no later than the 19th of December. And you're talking about concentrations of Russian troops all the way around the country. We've accounted now formally, these are people who sit in front of...

In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law No. 7172-1 that will ban opposition parties and seize their property. The law targets opposition parties if they deny the armed aggression against Ukraine.The law includes actions that support the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus, the two invading countries.The news was first published on the Ukrainian news website UKRinform. This news was reported the same day US GOP Senators paid him a visit in Kyiv to show their support.Zelenskyy also closed all of the TV stations and consolidated them into one state-run channel.“Ukraine has had to take extraordinary measures to...

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov argued on Thursday that Russia's latest attacks against Ukraine's power grid weren't aimed at the civilian population, urging Kiev to "end the suffering" of its people by accepting Moscow's terms to end the war. Russia's requests for ending the attacks include Ukraine proclaiming political and military neutrality, recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and granting independence to Donetsk and Lugansk.Despite millions of Ukrainians currently without power across the country, Peskov told reporters that Russia's military pays "special attention to avoid striking social targets... As for targets that are directly or indirectly related to military potential, they are...

Col. MacGregor: Zelensky's made a terrible mistake by trying to pin the missiles on Russia. Everyone knows; and what he's done is sacrifice what little credibility he has left. Increasingly he is viewed especially in Europe where more and more truth is getting through to the populations. He's seen as the mayor of the the capital of disinformation and fiction. The truth is the situation that Ukraine finds itself in right now is really quite desperate. The Russians have systematically dismantled most of the energy system. People are lacking in terms of lack of heat, but lack of heat is...

The knockout blow is being prepared MacGregor claims that Mark Milley has warned Biden that Ukraine is at the end of its rope and that nothing good could come of allowing the conflict to continue.

Today, we discuss updates from across the war zone; analyse the latest diplomatic news from the U.S. and Europe; and we speak about the rise and development of Russian fascism with historian Dr Ian Garner.

The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine's leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions.The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kiev maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.

As part of a 'de-communization drive,' Ukraine dismantled Lenin statues nationwide after its 2014 revolution overthrew a Moscow-backed regime Moscow’s occupying authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol said Saturday they had brought back a statue of Lenin, seven years after it was taken down following Kyiv’s pro-EU revolution. The Moscow-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Vladimir Rogov, posted a photograph of workers in the city reinstating the tribute to the Bolshevik leader. "After seven years the statue of Vladimir Lenin has returned to its place in Melitopol,” he said, adding that city authorities had taken it down in...

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna. -snip- Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy". -snip- In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to "stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he...

Ukrainian officials on Monday morning reported a massive barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other cities. Part of the Ukrainian capital was cut off from power and water supplies as a result, its mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Officials also reported possible power outages in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes. The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean peninsula.