“Ukraine – Russia”

In a minivan driving from the EU border to Lviv, a U.S.-educated Ukrainian quizzed me about my family. My wife, I told him, was brought up in Siberia but born in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, then part of the Soviet Union.

“So, she’s Ukrainian,” he advised me.

The man was in his mid-20s, perhaps, and spoke rapid-fire English. I’d met him in an “International Legion” tent on the border that offered — with a sign translated into 12 languages — help to foreigners volunteering to fight the Russian advance, a sensitive role that made him an obvious target for Russian spooks.

Military blogger says strikes by the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems are so accurate they can ‘land on a penny’

US-supplied Himars rocket strikes are so accurate they can “land on a single penny” and Russian forces should be prepared for a “hammering” over the coming weeks, a blogger who witnessed a strike reported.

“Yesterday I happened to witness a Himars strike on Chernobayevka in Kherson, practically in front of my eyes,” Roman Saponkov, a Russian military blogger embedded with frontline Russian forces wrote on Telegram on Monday.

“I’ve been under fire many times, but I was struck by the fact that the whole packet, five or six rockets, landed practically on a penny,” he wrote on Telegram. “Usually MLRS lands in a wide area, and at maximum range it completely scatters like a fan. It makes an impression, I won’t dispute that.”

Ukraine hit a major Russian weapons depot tonight in Nova Kahovka.

HIMARS in action.

pic.twitter.com/gl2vnS34Bb

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 11, 2022

Russian natural gas supplies to Germany via the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 have been halted for 10 days for annual maintenance work.

But German Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned that EU countries had to be prepared in case gas shipments did not resume.

He has accused the Kremlin of using gas “as a weapon” in response to EU sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Mr Habeck admitted Germany had become too dependent on Russian gas.

Germany is bracing itself for a potentially permanent halt to the flow of Russian gas from Monday when maintenance work begins on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that brings the fuel to Europe’s largest economy via the Baltic Sea.

The work on the 759-mile (1,220km) pipeline is an annual event and requires the gas taps to be closed for 10 to 14 days. But never before in the pipeline’s decade-long history has Germany seriously been asking whether the flow will begin again.

Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, has not shied away from addressing the government’s concerns. On Saturday, he spoke of the “nightmare scenario” that could occur.

Leery of a national draft for the Ukraine war, the Kremlin is offering cash bonuses and employing strong arm tactics.

Four Russian veterans of the war in Ukraine recently published short videos online to complain about what they called their shabby treatment after returning to the Russian region of Chechnya, after six weeks on the battlefield.

One claimed to have been denied a promised payment of nearly $2,000. Another grumbled that a local hospital declined to remove shrapnel lodged in his body.

Their public pleas for help got results, but not the kind they were hoping for. Instead, an aide to Ramzan Kadyrov, the autocrat who runs Chechnya, berated them at length on television as ingrates and forced them to recant. “I was paid much more than they promised,” said Nikolai Lipa, the young Russian who had claimed that he had been cheated.

The British public should turn down their heating and switch the time when they eat dinner this winter in order to avoid rolling blackouts, government advisors have warned.

Contingency planning from the British government’s UK National Infrastructure Commission has warned that as many as six million households could face power cuts if there are additional supply issues Russian energy imports.

Parents and educators in the Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine say the occupation authorities are using blackmail to compel them to cooperate with pro-Moscow schools being created for the coming academic year.

Sources tell RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that the occupation authorities are telling parents that they could lose their parental rights if they do not acquire Russian passports and send their children to the designated schools.

“The situation in the city is very, very bad. The Russian occupiers are increasing their presence all the time. They ride around the city with impunity and break down the doors of houses and apartments. Soldiers usually come at around midnight and start searching for evidence of partisan activity. Often, they just take people away. Now they’ve turned their attention to officials. A few days ago, they arrested the mayor and some members of the city council. It’s getting worse…”

Ukraine will lose without drastic Western mobilisation

A couple of weeks ago, I was smoking a cigarette outside my hotel in Kharkiv when a Ukrainian man, hearing me speak English, came over to show me a photo on his phone. It was of his 21-year-old son who he had just buried that day, killed fighting as part of a volunteer battalion outside Izyum. “He was my only son,” the man told me, “I still can’t believe my line has died out. I keep calling his phone and then remembering. Tomorrow I will join his unit and take his place.”