“Ukraine – Russia”

The Germans have just caught another alleged member of the group that bombed the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. Volodymyr Zhuravlev, a deep-sea diver, was detained last week in the Croatian coastal city of Pula. In a fantastical turn of events, he had reportedly been acting as a consultant on the set of director Doug Liman’s next movie, Snake Island, about the team of Ukrainian divers that allegedly carried out the Nord Stream operation.

The bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines — which had up until then supplied Germany with cheap Russian gas — revealed an aspect of Ukraine’s military defense strategy that had previously been hidden. It became clear that the Ukrainians were seeking to break up the Russian-German relationship, which they saw as a direct threat to their own security.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that holding elections in his country amid the full-scale Russian invasion would be highly dangerous, in remarks made in response to a call from the former defense minister to organize a vote.

“I believe that in a war like this, elections as such are a huge risk. Elections right now are a tsunami for the country that will split Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in remarks released on Sunday.

Under martial law, elections are currently suspended in the country as it fights the invading Russian forces. The measure has wide public support.

Russia has launched a fresh wave of attacks on European armaments factories under the guise of plausible deniability, according to Western intelligence sources.

The Kremlin is recruiting local gang members to sabotage defence manufacturers to test Nato’s resolve.

The attacks appear carefully calculated to fall just short of triggering Article 5, Nato’s mutual defence clause, intelligence officials believe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should be asked questions about corruption in his government, his sacked defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has told the BBC.

Fedorov, a popular minister who modernised the military and pioneered drone warfare, was fired last month after reportedly falling out with the head of Ukraine’s armed forces.

He told the BBC a money laundering investigation announced last week meant Zelensky should be asked about his awareness of potential corruption in his inner circle.

Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna on Friday said Kyiv had imposed sanctions on the “producers and distributors” of the Russian children’s cartoon series “Masha and the Bear,” or “Masha i Medved” in the original language.

The step will enable Kyiv to seek to remove and demonentize the series on websites like YouTube or streaming services like Netflix in the country.

A word often applied to Volodymyr Zelensky by foreign leaders and commentators is “Churchillian.”

They’re referring, accurately, to the Ukrainian President’s ability to rally his people around acts of heartbreaking sacrifice, to marshal an international coalition to arm and support his country, and to embrace innovative technologies that have transformed the way the world arms itself.

In Western Ukraine, behind high walls and layers of locked gates, there is a camp full of men captured fighting for Russia.

Many of those crouching in the shade around the edges of the prison yard were recruited from big cities like St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, not far-flung and poorer regions like at the start of the full-scale invasion.

But not all the prisoners are Russian.

Amongst them are soldiers from Ukraine itself: the men who went to war with their own country.

Pressure that elections be held in war-torn Ukraine is this time coming neither from Washington nor Moscow, but from within Ukraine’s own political system. Mykhailo Fedorov, dismissed as defence minister in July, has called on the country to find a way to return to the ballot box even while the war continues.

“We must not allow Putin to decide when Ukrainians can choose their government,” Fedorov said in a video released just hours after Volodymyr Zelensky nominated Yevhen Khmara as the new defence minister. The appointment definitively closed the door on Fedorov returning to the post.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced Wednesday that they are investigating senior officials in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, a day after the country’s recently fired defense minister called for national elections despite the ongoing fight against Russia’s invasion.

The revelation brought another test of Zelenskyy’s political resilience as Ukraine’s war with its bigger neighbor stretches into its fifth year.

A second suspect has been arrested in relation to the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions in 2022, German prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Croatian police, acting on a European arrest warrant, detained a Ukrainian national in Pula.

“The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had Ukrainian Vladimir Z. arrested in Pula (Croatia) by local police forces,” prosecutors said.

They said that the man, a trained scuba diver, “is strongly suspected of jointly causing explosions.”

To many observers they will appear dehumanising and offensive. To many Ukrainians, however, they are a brutal reminder of the fate that awaits Russian soldiers who take part in Vladimir Putin’s invasion, as well as a potent propaganda weapon.

Over the past year and a half, videos of kamikaze drones chasing Russian service personnel to their deaths have become a distinctive genre on social media. They are the brainchild of Robert Brovdi, the head of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces and founder of “Magyar’s Birds”, named after his call sign.

CALGARY — More than 308,000 Ukrainians entered Canada through a special federal program, but immigration officials expect many will eventually leave the country and return home once conditions improve.

A Department of Immigration briefing note obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter said Canada remains committed to providing Ukrainians and their families with temporary refuge while the war continues.

Ukraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war, causing a fire at a distribution warehouse near Moscow and killing at least six people overnight, according to Russian authorities.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down 822 drones, while the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, reported that 600 drones were launched towards the capital’s region, of which 201 were destroyed.

It was the biggest air raid on the Russian capital in two years, the mayor told the Tass news agency, although the rapid recent expansion of Ukraine’s drone’s capability could mean it was the largest attack wave since the start of the war in 2022.

❗️Mega jackpot: Ukrainian drones struck the Wildberries logistics hub in Koledino, Moscow region, triggering a large fire that engulfed the roughly 250,000 m² complex. Koledino had long been one of Wildberries’ largest and most important logistics centers. The company’s other… pic.twitter.com/sTeVYPhdsC

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) August 16, 2026