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Thank you USA BTW, there's no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia to Western Europe, including Germany. Nordstream's only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity. All Ukrainian and Baltic sea states have opposed Nordstream's construction for 20 years. Now $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine. Someone, @MFA_Russia, did a special maintenance operation.

Vladimir Putin can call up all the troops he wants, but Russia has no way of getting those new troops the training and weapons they need to fight in Ukraine any time soon. With his invasion of Ukraine faltering badly, the Russian President on Wednesday announced the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Russian television that the country will call up 300,000 reservists. If they end up facing Ukrainian guns on the front lines, they are likely to become the newest casualties in the invasion Putin started more than seven months ago and that...

A 2019 Rand Corporation study commissioned by the US Army laid out exactly what the plan to undermine and weaken Russia through military support would be. The study suggested arming Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russia, ramping up economic warfare, and taking a more aggressive and militaristic posture toward the United States international rival - all while warning this could lead to a military invasion of Ukraine. ...

Vladimir Putin appeared poised to go all-in on his war in Ukraine today, sparking fears of an escalation in fighting that could drag in NATO and spark World War Three. In a day of rapid-fire developments, Kremlin stooges in Ukraine's Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions simultaneously announced referendums on becoming part of Russia between September 23 and 27, with the sham votes expected to easily pass. Dmitry Medvedev, a staunch Putin ally, then vowed 'all forces of self-defence' will be used to protect what he called 'Russian territory' - teeing up a new phase in the conflict involving weapons...

CHISNAU, Sept. 18 (Reuters)-At least 5,000 people rallied in Moldova's capital on Sunday, demanding the resignation of the government and pro-Western President Maia Sandu...

Disclaimer: The Kyiv Independent is publishing this investigation to shed light on the alleged abuse of power in the leadership of one wing of the International Legion – a legion created for foreign fighters dedicated to defending Ukraine. The members of the Legion’s unit say that they reported their commanders’ misconduct to Ukrainian law enforcement, the parliament, and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Office, but saw no proper reaction and thus turned to journalists as a last resort. Soldiers who pointed at the problems within this unit of the Legion claim they received threats for speaking up. For their safety, we do...

“Last month, Ukraine’s parliamentarians voted to give themselves a 70% salary increase. Filings indicate the raise was enabled and encouraged by the billions of dollars and euros of aid that have poured in from the US and Europe.”“The weapons are stolen, the humanitarian aid is stolen, and we have no idea where the billions sent to this country have gone,” a Ukrainian complained to The Grayzone.“Everyone is lying”: US doctor describes shocking corruption Samantha Morris, a doctor from Maine, went to Ukraine in May to try to help provide medical training for soldiers. “The first time I crossed the border...

An official said the blast on the Russian-occupied peninsula was the result of a Ukrainian strike. Moscow said only that munitions had exploded. An attack in Crimea would represent a significant military advance for Ukraine.

The movement of Vladimir Putin's vessels to the port city of Novorossiysk in southern Russia comes after Ukrainian stocks of longer-range missile systems were boosted by Western allies. Ukrainian media reports Serhiy Bratchuk, adviser to the head of Odesa's Regional Military Administration, reporting news of the ships' eastward movement via Telegram. Media outlet Ukrinform reports the official as saying: "According to the information of our Navy, the enemy has redeployed a significant number of warships from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk. "Russian ships were earlier deployed in missile-proof areas in the zone covered by coastal air defence systems, as close as possible...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued executive orders late on Sunday sacking the head of Ukraine’s powerful domestic security agency, the SBU, and the prosecutor general. The orders dismissing SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelensky, and Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova, who led the effort to prosecute Russian war crimes in Ukraine, were published on the president’s official website.

John Sweeney, a prominent British investigative journalist who has long covered Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote in his new book that he feels the leader looks "seriously ill" with puffy cheeks that make him resemble a hamster. In his forthcoming book (out July 21), Killer in the Kremlin, Sweeney described changes he has noticed in Putin's demeanor and physical appearance that he said scare him. He theorized the use of steroids for Putin's changes, noting the president could have started taking the medication years ago to treat a back injury sustained after falling off a horse. According to Sweeney, this...

Russia is claiming two significant victories in its ongoing sanctions war with the West, after Canada agreed to waive restrictions on a key gas pipeline component and the European Union clarified its position on the standoff over the Kaliningrad exclave."The truth is that some European politicians might be more interested in Russian gas rather than in Ukraine's victory," Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of Ukraine's parliament and the chair of the body's foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek.Merezhko—a member of Zelensky's Servant of the People party—shared a similar view from Kyiv. "To us it's a dangerous political precedent," he explained. "I'm also...

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu today gave the order to dramatically increase so-called shock and awe attacks on Ukraine. He claimed Kremlin forces must 'exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime inflicting massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of the Donbas and other regions,' according to reports in Moscow. It followed an on-the-ground inspection by Putin's trusty defence minister - and a National Security Council meeting led by Vladimir Putin. Shoigu 'gave instructions to further increase the actions of [military] groups in all operational areas', local reports stated.

-At least 20 dead, including three children, and 90 hurt after three Russian rockets struck city of Vinnytsya -Office block was badly damaged in Thursday morning attack, which also torched vehicles in nearby car park -Zelensky called strike 'terrorism', saying there are no military targets in city which is 450 mm the miles from the front -It is the sixth Russian strike in a little over two weeks to hit a purely civilian target, with scores of people killed At least 20 people - including three children - are dead and 90 wounded after Russian rockets hit another Ukrainian city...

Like many of his male friends, Serhiy no longer leaves his home in western Ukraine for fear of being sent to the front line to replace soldiers killed or injured in the fight against Russia. The construction worker spends his days hiding from military officials serving call-up papers at bars, beaches, checkpoints, malls and even church services. One woman complained that officials even chased an 18-year-old riding his bicycle to serve his call-up documents. ‘It’s like some kind of wild boar hunt,’ she said. ‘Why do you need to send to war a person who doesn’t want to go there...

But Russia has adjusted during the second phase of the war by hiding its men behind its fearsome artillery. “Russian artillery has been the decisive factor, but only because it’s had to be the decisive factor,” says Mason Clark, a senior analyst and Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War. Russia has at least 10 times as many artillery and missile systems as Ukraine, and in some places on the front line the disparity is closer to 20 to 1, former Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk says. With a range of hundreds of miles Russian missiles can...

The Yellow Ribbon resistance movement is unfolding in the temporarily occupied Crimea. This is reported by the representative office of the president of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on Facebook, reports censor.No. "In the temporarily occupied Simferopol, as well as in Kherson and Melitopol, the Yellow Ribbon resistance movement began to operate. In particular, in the occupied Crimea, activists put up leaflets with photos of the mass protest of Crimeans on February 26, 2014 and the words "Crimea – Ukraine. Not only since 1954, but always!", "Crimea is Ukraine. We're coming back!"and" time for resistance! Time to fight!...

Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a Russian soldier attempted to destroy a Ukrainian missile launcher from close range with dramatic and potentially lethal consequences. The clip, shared on a pro-Russian channel on social media and messaging app Telegram, shows one of Putin's fighters taking aim at an abandoned Ukrainian S-300 missile launcher sitting mere yards away. After taking a few moments to compose himself, the soldier squeezes the trigger of his PKM machine gun, presumably expecting to damage the hardware or perhaps set off a minor explosion to render it inoperable. A split second later the missile launcher...

WASHINGTON—Below is the transcript of the speech by Hudson Distinguished Fellow and the 70th U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will give today at Hudson Institute on the future of Ukraine and why the U.S. should defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression:“It’s great to be here at the Hudson Institute. To those of you from the Ambassadors Court, thank you for being here. Honored guests and friends, it’s an honor to greet you. I consider it an enormous responsibility to speak to you about a matter of the utmost urgency and significance. It involves war, Ukraine, and the necessity of forming...

VLADIMIR Putin health fears have escalated after the tyrant appeared to fall asleep during a meeting at the Kremlin with his defence minister. The Russian leader appeared bloated and is rumoured to be undergoing debilitating cancer treatment. He was seen slumped over and bleary-eyed in the incredible footage - which mysteriously cut away as he appeared to drift off. Putin, 69, is seen in the Kremlin hunched over his desk as he unenthusiastically congratulates his troops on "liberating" the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk. Sitting in a staged televised meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a worn-out Putin tells his...