“Ukraine – Russia”

Standing in the gloom, Maksim Maksimov pointed to the spot where he was tortured with electric shocks. Russian soldiers took him from his cell in the basement of Izium’s police station. They sat him on an office chair and attached a zig-zag crocodile clip to his finger. It was connected by cable to an old-fashioned Soviet military field telephone.

And then it began. A soldier cranked the handle, turning it faster and faster. This sent an excruciating pulse through Maksimov’s body. “I collapsed. They pulled me upright. There was a hood on my head. I couldn’t see anything. My legs went numb. I was unable to hear in my left ear,” he recalled. “Then they did it again. I passed out. I came round 40 minutes later back in my cell.”

Spring of 2022 was a challenging period for Ukraine, particularly for those territories that were invaded by the Russian army. It was a time of uncertainty. Striking from Belarus, the invading forces came dangerously close to the capital. They moved more slowly than anticipated, meeting heavy resistance every step of the way. Still, they were greater in number, and the Ukrainian military was not as prepared as it should have been, given the threat dating back to 2014. Russian casualties did not stop their convoys from moving south. One by one, small towns and villages were occupied. Kyiv, however, proved to be a much tougher target; Russians were stopped a few kilometres away from the city’s outskirts.

“You have no idea how tired I am to say hello to someone in the morning and then have to identify his remains later the same day,” one Russian officer serving as a marine in Ukraine reportedly confided over the phone to a former colleague back home, who published it on his Telegram channel.

“Just yesterday two of my sniper groups were destroyed by a tank. Three men died instantly, the fourth one fought for his life for an hour and a half, another one in critical condition was taken to hospital. We have hardly any men left and we are holding a front line dozens of kilometres long.”

#Ukraine: More ammo captures from #Kharkiv Oblast – 30 uncommon 9M119 Refleks 125mm laser-guided tank-fired anti-tank missiles along with charges were left by the Russian army and fell into the hands of the Ukrainian forces. pic.twitter.com/T9aI8ffRB9

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 16, 2022

LONDON — They come to the U.K. in their thousands — Ukrainians from every walk of life, in urgent need of military training to protect their homeland.

From lawyers to bricklayers, they are flown in from across Ukraine. The aim is to turn the new recruits into soldiers in just five weeks, providing basic military skills — infantry tactics; weapons handling; patroling; first aid; evacuation — before they return to fight on the frontline.

Since June, the U.K. has trained nearly 5,000 Ukrainian early recruits under Operation Interflex, a program that aims to support 10,000 new soldiers within a year across a network of British training camps. Interflex is the successor to a longer-running British program, Operation Orbital, which trained up more than 22,000 Ukrainians between 2015 — shortly after Russia’s initial occupation of Crimea — and May of this year.

#Ukraine: A Ukrainian BRM-1K was destroyed with an admittedly precise drone-dropped F-1 grenade in #Kherson Oblast. pic.twitter.com/OV8zjoLbdM

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 15, 2022

Prisoners warned they will be executed if they arrive in Ukraine and refuse to fight

The head of a notorious pro-Kremlin mercenary group has told inmates at a Russian prison that they will be set free if they survive a six-month tour of duty in Ukraine, but executed if they try to desert.

The offer was made to convicts at a prison camp in central Russia by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy tycoon who runs the Wagner Group private military contractor. The group’s fighters have been accused of war crimes in Ukraine and Syria.

The founder of Russia’s shadowy Wagner mercenary group has appeared in leaked footage attempting to recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine.

In filmed footage, verified by the BBC, Yevgeniy Prigozhin can be seen addressing a large group of detainees.

Mr Prigozhin told prisoners their sentences would be commuted in exchange for service with his group.

The video would confirm long-running speculation that Russia hopes to boost its forces by recruiting convicts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not realise the invasion of Ukraine is a mistake, German chancellor Olaf Scholz has said, after the leaders spoke on the phone on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr Scholz said he urged Mr Putin to withdraw troops and re-enter talks with Ukraine during the 90-minute call.

He called for Russia to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

The chancellor has come under pressure to increase military support for Kyiv.

Mr Scholz said the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine would be the only way for “peace to have a chance in the region”.

Ukrainian citizens accused of collaborating with occupying Russian forces in Kharkiv province and the neighbouring Donbas region are fleeing from recently liberated areas and queueing to cross into Russia at the border, Ukrainian officials have said.

“The ‘commandant’s offices’, ‘prosecutor’s offices’, occupiers and gauleiters are leaving,” the governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Haidai, wrote on Telegram. “The Ukrainian flag, which our guerrillas raised last night over the administration building in Kreminna, remains intact as the Russians now seem to have understood everything so they don’t dare to take it down. Russians and their collaborators are fleeing from Luhansk region, heading towards Russia”. Luhansk makes up the Donbas region with Donetsk to the south.

In one week in September, Ukrainian forces liberated 1,100 square miles in Northeastern Ukraine. This is more than Russia’s military managed to seize in months of costly attritional warfare in the Donbas region. Further withdrawals announced by Russia’s Defense Ministry may result in over 3,200 square miles falling back under Ukrainian control.

Lurking in the shadow of Ukraine’s heavily advertised counteroffensive in Kherson, the Kharkiv campaign took Russian forces by surprise. It became a textbook example of a fast-paced breakthrough and exploitation operation – the very sort of campaign Russian armored units mostly failed to achieve at the beginning of the war.

#Ukraine: Video from another part of this area shows at least two more MT-LB armoured vehicles and a T-72B tank left behind by Russian forces. https://t.co/F9MImfSOmn pic.twitter.com/pBxhnQjd2c

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 13, 2022

Western-leaning politician allowed to voice rare criticism in what may be ploy to prepare the Russian people for possibility of peace talks

A war commentator invited on to Russian state television told viewers that Vladimir Putin has been misled by advisers and said Ukraine cannot be defeated, in what appeared to be a rare example of sanctioned criticism.

Boris Nadezhdin, a Western-leaning politician appearing for the first time in months, called for peace talks as he made a surprise appearance on state-controlled NTV over the weekend.

Mr Nadezhdin, who for years played the token liberal on state television, said: “We’re not at the point where we have to understand – it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine, using the resources and colonial war methods that Russia is using to win this war.

#Ukraine: The 59th Motorized Brigade of the Ukraian Army hit a Russian tank in the South, causing damage at least. pic.twitter.com/OksaOuJwxs

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 13, 2022