“Ukraine – Russia”

Drone footage shows troops desperately holding off the enemy’s advance with fighting compared to the First World War

A lone Ukrainian soldier has been filmed making a last stand against a squad of Russian soldiers clearing out a trench system in the Donbas.

In four minutes of raw and desperate fighting filmed by drone, the soldier holds off the enemy long enough to give his unit precious minutes to escape.

The infantryman, at times mere inches from the Russian troops, fires shots around the corner of his position in a cut-out from the main trench and at one point hurls back a grenade moments before it explodes.

🔴 Ukrainian soldier’s final heroic stand against Russian troops in trench

Extraordinary drone footage shows troops desperately holding off the enemy's advance with fighting compared to the First World War ⤵️https://t.co/VswcIYItqo pic.twitter.com/j4P9qwIlan

— Telegraph World News (@TelegraphWorld) May 29, 2022

It is not the West’s place to demand that Ukraine cede territory to Russia.

The dynamic of the war in Ukraine appears to have shifted in Russia’s favour. After retreating from the outskirts of Kyiv in April, the Russian army has since refocused its efforts on taking swathes of eastern Ukraine. To that end, the Kremlin has poured thousands of troops and hardware into the Donbas region, laying siege to key cities in its two provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukrainian officials have admitted this week that Russia now has the ‘upper hand’ in the Donbas. Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk, estimated that as little as five per cent of his province was still under Ukrainian control – down from about 10 per cent a week ago.

Whatever its outcome, the Russian war against Ukraine, now in its fourth month, is already studied by many analysts with emphasis on two issues. First, will it put an end to Vladimir Putin’s ambition to surround his Russia with autocratic regimes or “illiberal democracies”?

Of the 15 nations that emerged as independent entities after the fall of the Soviet Union, only three, the Baltic republics, have managed to build Western-style capitalist democracies, becoming full members of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, all three, annexed by Stalin, were never fully Sovietized.

I remember that during a visit to Latvia in August 1974, our “minder” from Moscow observed that Riga, the Latvian capital, was “almost like Europe.”

The port city of Berdyansk had been occupied by Russian troops for less than a week, but a new pro-Kremlin online media outlet had already moved in.

The company, whose name translates as Southern Front, makes and distributes pro-Vladimir Putin propaganda across YouTube, social media app Telegram, and through a website that targets areas newly under Russian control.

The Southern Front news site posted its first message on day one of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and now has several correspondents filing stories on a daily basis.

Russia’s ambassador to Britain has told the BBC he does not believe his country will use tactical nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine.

Andrei Kelin said that according to Russian military rules, such weapons are not used in conflicts like this.

He also described allegations of war crimes in the town of Bucha as “a fabrication”.

#Ukraine: Foreign Volunteers (American, British, and possibly Canadian) targeted a Russian BTR-80 APC with a RGW-90 HH launcher, damaging it and causing ammo to cook off.

Note that a Czech RPG-75M appears to fail to function correctly. pic.twitter.com/eVLEMdEIBx

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 27, 2022

British explosives expert Chris Garrett laughs awkwardly when asked how he removed the artillery shell seen in the photo below.

DRUZHKIVKA, Ukraine — Stuck in their trenches, the Ukrainian volunteers lived off a potato per day as Russian forces pounded them with artillery and Grad rockets on a key eastern front line. Outnumbered, untrained and clutching only light weapons, the men prayed for the barrage to end — and for their own tanks to stop targeting the Russians.

Neither side can afford to take an off-ramp

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy has told world leaders that “only diplomacy will end the war” raging in his country, as Russia’s invasion stretches into its thirteenth week.

Up until now, the idea that anything less than Moscow’s total military defeat would be acceptable was effectively a taboo. Those, like French President Emmanuel Macron, who have called for Vladimir Putin to be given an ‘off-ramp,’ enabling him to save face with some kind of propaganda victory, have been slammed for carving up a nation that is doing everything to defend itself.

More than 100 Russian national guardsmen have been fired for refusing to fight in Ukraine, court documents show, in what looks to be the clearest indication yet of dissent among some parts of security forces over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The cases of the 115 national guardsmen, a force also known as Rosgvardia, came to light on Wednesday, after a local Russian court rejected their collective lawsuit that challenged their earlier sacking.

Can a country truly change overnight? Having cultivated a national culture that is inherently suspicious of intervening in foreign conflicts after 1945, the war in Ukraine seemed to have caused a fundamental shift in the way Berlin sees its position in the international order. Within days of the Russian invasion chancellor Scholz declared to ramp up defence spending above 2% of GDP and dedicating an additional 100bn euros to the German armed forces.

But in recent weeks, some of Germany’s leading intellectuals are coming out of the woodwork to voice their unease about their country’s involvement in Ukraine.

Big guns are defining a new phase of the war against Russia, with artillery, rocket launchers and mortars likely to decide the outcome

In the leaves, a muzzle barked. A flash of smoke spun out across the field, something whirred into the distance, and the butterflies among the young crops barely flinched.

The howitzers in the trees fired twice in quick succession, then their crews dismounted, scrambled around, replaced dislodged camouflage, and reloaded.

Artillery, rocket launchers and mortars are more likely to decide the outcome of the war in Ukraine than any other weapon system.

In eastern Donbas, massive Russian barrages are pounding a path for the infantry and tanks as they try to surround the city of Severodonetsk – with ghastly consequences for anyone caught in the way.

OTTAWA – Canada has tapped into its own strategic stockpile of emergency medical supplies — stored for a national emergency — to help Ukraine.
It has donated over 375,000 items of medical equipment and medicines from Canada’s strategic stockpile since the invasion by Russia began.

This includes first aid and trauma kits, medicines and surgical instruments, as well as gloves, masks and gowns.

Russia’s offensive in the Donbas region is making slow progress. Having rushed to launch the operation to avoid giving Ukraine time to bring up new weapons from the west, Russia has found that its depleted and exhausted units are unwilling and unable to assault Ukrainian positions without incurring unacceptable losses. The Russian army has, therefore, fallen back on the mass application of artillery, destroying village after village, which they occupy after Ukrainian units withdraw.

#Ukraine: For the first time we see the self-contained ground launch of US-supplied Switchblade 300 loitering munitions by the Ukrainian forces- these drones are starting to be used more widely in the East and are great against non-armoured targets and infantry. pic.twitter.com/ZAUPyLePOk

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 25, 2022