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Russia launched 16 "kamikaze" drones into Ukraine overnight, Kyiv's military said on Friday, a day after Moscow fired dozens of missiles in its latest barrage against Ukrainian critical infrastructure....An administrative building in the city was partially destroyed, according to Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, who also said there was no information about any casualties.Russia has launched numerous waves of drone and missile strikes against Ukraine since mid-October, heavily damaging its energy infrastructure and forcing planned and emergency power outages.

From what I have read, a truck filled with explosives blew up, killing three people in a car nearby, and then the flames took over a train also crossing the bridge. That train was full of fuel. It is only thanks to the amazing speed at which the bridge crews reacted that the damage was limited to only 9 wagons and, therefore, to a much shorter segment of the rail tracks.Looking at the video, one would imagine that the bridge is in ruins. In fact, traffic was reestablished on both rail tracks and the road in less than 24 hours...

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...

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...

Boy, looks like I missed the hysteria. Instead of thumbing my way around the internet to catch the latest news on the complete devastation of Russia’s Kerch bridge that unites Crimea with Mother Russia, I was at a gun range being trained by a retired Delta Force operator. He is a hell of a teacher.Needless to say, my time was better spent (and cheaper) compared to what Ukraine spent on its spectacular failure to destroy the Kerch bridge. Failure? Yes. The initial images of a veritable Dante’s furnace, complete with rolling clouds of black smoke and frantic tongues of flames...

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Joe Biden’s remarks warning of “armageddon” amid nuclear threats from Russia were “right.” At a fundraiser last week, Biden said, “We have not faced the prospect of armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Discussing Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden added, “I know fairly well. He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.”

The impact of the use of a nuclear device in Ukraine will depend on the details. Like any large-scale industrial army, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have obvious pressure points that would be vulnerable to nuclear attack. These include logistical centers, command and communications nodes, and concentrations of front-line forces. During the Cold War the Soviet Union expected to use tactical nuclear weapons against NATO (and expected that NATO would use them in return) and it is therefore likely that the Russian armed forces have workable theories as to how they might best use tactical nukes to inflict damage on Ukraine’s...

At least 30.000 Russian soldiers stranded in eastern Ukraine!

Click to enlargeAttack On Kerch Bridge: Initial Geolocation Of Damage🇷🇺 This will undoubtedly go down in history as a textbook conventional strategic strike on vital infrastructure. Yet we do not yet know how it was achieved. The fog of war is still thick, just hours after the attack.Ahead of fresh satellite imagery, I have made a first pass at geolocating the damage, caveats apply. It appears to be south of the steel arches over the shipping lane.At least three spans of road appear to have collapsed into the sea. There are two sets of lanes and only the inbound (towards...

Russian citizens who criticize the Kremlin could find themselves on the receiving end of a nasty visit from Chechen forces, according to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s attempted "partial mobilization" of fighting-aged Russians into the war in Ukraine has prompted a wave of social displeasure, including a mass exodus of apparent draft dodgers and protests in the outlying regions where people are bearing the brunt of the war. Russian lawmaker Adam Delimkhanov, an ethnic Chechen politician known for threatening to decapitate the relatives of a human rights activist, warned university students against any display of disrespect. “I...

Recently mobilized Russian soldiers are decrying "inhumane" conditions, weapons shortages and mistreatment by officers, according to video published by the independent news website The Insider on Wednesday. Footage of new recruits sleeping on the floor, being armed with outdated rifles and ordered to source their own supplies appeared almost immediately after President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilization last month. Around 500 troops gathered in western Russia’s Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border with no training and no knowledge of where they were being deployed, the latest video’s authors said. “Nobody needs us,” a voice behind the camera, flanked by...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Russia has begun to prepare its people for the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. “They begin to prepare their society. That’s very dangerous,” Zelensky said.

A stunning series of photos and videos shows the violent impact of the explosion that tore through Russia’s prized Kerch Strait bridge to Crimea early Saturday morning. A monstrous fireball bloomed over all four of the bridge’s vehicle lanes at 6:07 a.m. as a passenger car and a freight truck drove side by side up the incline to its towering arch. The flames appeared to reach across the water, enveloping the twin railroad bridge about 100 feet away.

Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, delivered a warm congratulatory message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 70th birthday, after a week of criticizing how the Ukraine war has been handled. In a stark shift of tone after publicly ridiculing Putin's military amid a series of successful counteroffensives conducted by Kyiv in Ukraine's south and northeast, Kadyrov extended his well wishes to Putin, offering praise and crediting the leader for supporting Chechnya "in the most difficult times." "Russian President Vladimir Putin played a key role in the fate of the Chechen people," he said, adding that Russian leader "saved the republic"...

A powerful truck explosion seriously damaged Russia’s road-and-rail bridge to Crimea on Saturday, hitting a prestigious symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula and the key supply route to Russian forces battling to hold territory captured in southern Ukraine. The blast on the bridge over the Kerch Strait, for which Russia did not immediately assign blame, prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials but no direct claim of responsibility. Russian investigators said three people had been killed, probably the occupants of a car traveling near the truck that blew up.

According to Ukrainian Intelligence, numerous arrests of servicemen have started in Moscow, with traffic in the city centre blocked, although Russian media are failing to report this. Source: Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence Details: Intelligence reports that a set of measures against the servicemen have begun in Moscow, with traffic in the city centre blocked. Units of the Dzerzhinsky operational division – the elite of the Russian Guard – are reported to have entered the city. They are allegedly moving towards the centre together with police units. Quote from Intelligence: "Numerous arrests, detentions and blockades of...

Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation: Permission has been received for the movement of trains along the Crimean bridge. In the video, the first test train on the railway track was successful.

Members of the security forces of Russia's Chechnya region massed in its capital, Grozny, on Friday to mark Russian President Vladimir Putin's 70th birthday and see local leader Ramzan Kadyrov honoured for supporting Ukrainian separatists. Kadyrov, one of Putin's most loyal allies, has sent Chechen soldiers to support Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine, notably in the self-styled separatist Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in the east. DPR leader Denis Pushilin presented Kadyrov with the medal of a "Hero of the Donetsk People's Republic" before a crowd of service personnel that Chechen television said numbered around 20,000. Among the ranks of black-clad...

Ukrainian authorities have found a mass grave in the recently liberated eastern town of Lyman and it is unclear how many bodies it holds, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an online post on Friday. Separately, the Ukrinform news agency cited a senior police official as saying the grave contained 180 bodies. Ukrainian troops retook Lyman, in the Donetsk region, from Russian control on Saturday. Ukrainian authorities have regularly accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in occupied territories, a charge Moscow denies.

Vladimir Putin’s disastrous military adventure in Ukraine has raised the prospect that his 22-year rule could be nearing its end. But will he go, or will he have to be pushed? Seven months into the Russian president’s war of aggression, his troops have suffered massive losses of men and equipment and are in headlong retreat in eastern Ukraine. Putin’s order last week to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men has descended into chaos, drawing rebukes even from his own propagandists and political allies. The 69-year-old autocrat rose to power in 2000, succeeding an ailing Boris Yeltsin after championing Russia’s second...