“Ukraine – Russia”

What do you do when you have called a victory parade but have no victory to parade?

This is the question that Russian President Vladimir Putin faces as his faction factory prepares to churn out a gigantic street show in Moscow with Tsarist eagles with varvels bearing Volodya’s coat of arms.

The answer is that Putin is likely to keep the parade on May 9 and invent a victory to go with it. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an erstwhile chum of Putin, even claims that Tsar Vladimir will declare victory in his war against Ukraine in tune with his cheat-and-retreat tactic of one step backwards to prepare for the next two steps forward.

We still don’t have any confirmation as to whether or not Vladimir Putin plans to “officially” declare war on Ukraine tomorrow as Russians celebrate the anniversary of their victory over Hitler’s forces in World War 2 on Victory Day. But according to the head of the CIA, intelligence reports suggest that Mad Vlad certainly has no intention of calling it quits and bringing his troops home either.

Members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion trapped inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have said they fear they will be executed if captured by Russian forces, as they pleaded with Ukrainian authorities to help arrange their extraction.

Speaking to the media from inside the besieged steelworks, an Azov commander and lieutenant, looking gaunt and pale, said they had defended the city for the people of Ukraine and the rest of the world and needed a third party to negotiate their exit whether by land or sea.

There are believed to be 2,000 soldiers in the plant, 700 of whom are said to be injured.

No wonder Freeland is in Ukraine!

Whatever else Russia’s Victory Day parade is supposed to represent, it won’t be any sort of victory over Ukraine, regardless of the spin President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin will try to put on it, writes defence analyst Michael Clarke.

This war is one that Russia cannot win in any meaningful sense.

Putin’s foreign military successes around the world after 2008 were all achieved by using small units of elite forces, mercenaries and local militia groups alongside Russian air power.

This gave Moscow considerable leverage at low cost during interventions in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, Libya, Mali and twice in Ukraine during 2014, first in illegally annexing Crimea and then in creating self-declared Russian statelets in Luhansk and Donetsk.

The Russian soldiers were young, younger than her sons, with barely any hair on their chins, but their commander’s words were chilling.

“My men have had some vodka,” he said. “Now they want some entertainment.”

Vika started trembling. She suddenly understood why, earlier that day, when the soldiers came to the house to confiscate their phones, they had asked her to tie white fabric on her front fence.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia used his congratulatory messages to mark the 77th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany to single out the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics — two puppet states carved out of Ukrainian territory by the Kremlin — for their role in what he described as a continued fight against Nazism.

Mr. Putin said that the forces seeking to control the two eastern regions were pursuing the same goal as their ancestors: “the liberation of their native land from Nazi filth.”

Dozens are feared dead after a Russian airstrike hits a school building, officials say.

Dozens of people are feared dead after a Russian airstrike leveled a school in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, local officials said, as Russian forces kept up their unrelenting bombardment of towns and cities across the region.

The Ukrainian government said the basement of the school in the village of Bilohorivka, in the Luhansk region, was sheltering civilians, a claim that could not be independently verified. The village is only a few miles from the front line and has come under repeated assault.

Russian bloggers with hundreds of thousands of followers have been publishing reports from the city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine. Embedded in Russian military units, they film videos close to the action, capturing the intense fighting that has been raging in the port city for weeks. On Telegram, they publish these videos to share a pro-Kremlin narrative of the war, which sometimes borders on disinformation.

#Ukraine: Near Izyum, 2x Russian 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers were struck by Ukrainian counter-battery fire, destroying them both when the ammo on board detonated.

As claimed, Western supplied "high precision" artillery was used, and as can be seen, was effective. pic.twitter.com/qDcyQyTCoK

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 7, 2022

The war in Ukraine has offered NATO planners invaluable insight into the Russian military. NATO can use these insights to improve its tactics and strategy in preparation for any future war with Russia. What are the lessons learned?

Much has been said about Russian forces’ failures , but they have also shown some strengths. Although its casualties approach or perhaps exceed 20,000 killed in action, Russia has been able to maintain some offensive action for more than two months. The first lesson is thus that Vladimir Putin has a very high tolerance for losses.

Considering the heavy costs and low likelihood of success that now attach to Russia’s military prospects in Ukraine and the escalating economic costs of Western sanctions, Putin might have been expected to suspend major combat operations by now. So far, however, Putin remains committed to highly ambitious goals. He is as likely to escalate this situation as he is to deescalate — perhaps more likely.

Immediately after it was released on April 16, doubts emerged about the authenticity of a video the Russian Defense Ministry said showed surviving crewmen from the guided-missile cruiser Moskva, which had sunk in the Black Sea three days earlier.

A photograph obtained by RFE/RL has deepened those doubts. It appears to be a still from the same video — but the sailor it depicts has not returned to his family, and his mother, after initially being told he survived, was later told he was missing and still later that he was dead.

The war in Ukraine is unfolding in ways Russian President Vladimir Putin may have not anticipated—not only with the growing resistance of the Ukrainian people but now also with reports that his troops are sabotaging Russian equipment.

On Friday, the Armed Forces of Ukraine said it had reclaimed five areas in the Kharkiv region—Oleksandrivka, Fedorivka, Ukrainka, Shestakovo, and Peremoha—in addition to part of the Cherkaski Tyshky village.

Former US intelligence officers are advising their successors currently in office to shut up and stop boasting about their role in Ukraine’s military successes.

Two stories surfaced in as many days in the American press this week, citing unnamed officials as saying that US intelligence was instrumental in the targeting of Russian generals on the battlefield and in the sinking of the Moskva flagship cruiser on the Black Sea.

The initial report in the New York Times on Wednesday about the generals was partially denied by the White House, which said that while the US shares intelligence with Ukrainian forces, it was not specifically shared with the intent to kill Russian general officers.

The annual military parade in Moscow’s Red Square has a new significance this year, as Russian forces continue their two-month assault in Ukraine. As tanks roll through the city streets, speculation is intensifying over President Vladimir Putin’s next move.

Fighter jets and bombers roared over Moscow earlier this week.

It was just a rehearsal – for a grand military parade and flypast to mark Victory Day.

The ninth of May is one of the most important holidays in the Russian calendar and on Monday there’ll be military processions all over the country to commemorate the Soviet Victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. As always, flags flutter from almost every building and shop windows are decorated with golden stars.

#Ukraine: This Russian T-72B3 Obr. 2016 tank was halted in the picturesque fields of East Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/8Jz7thK918

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 6, 2022

Stop using the war in Ukraine to bash Hungary.

Hungary has said that it will not support the EU’s proposed sanctions on Russian oil and, potentially, gas. For some among the Western media, this is further proof that Hungary is too close to Russia, and that Viktor Orbán is ‘Putin’s puppet’.

This is grossly unfair. Hungary’s president, prime minister and parliament have all condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an unprovoked, barbaric attack on a sovereign country. They have also condemned the alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops. Does this sound like a nation that is too close to Russia?

Russian soldiers occupying Mariupol unveiled a strange statue in the embattled Ukrainian city on Thursday. The statue, of a Ukrainian peasant woman holding a Soviet flag, is of “Babushka Z” – who appeared in a video recorded by Ukrainian soldiers and has now become the unlikely latest icon of Russian propaganda.

In recent weeks, the elderly Ukrainian woman – whose image is a throwback to a stereotypical peasant woman of the Soviet era – has become the new face of Kremlin propaganda as well as a star among pro-war Russians. Giant placards depict her waving a Soviet flag in Moscow while postcards of her with the same banner are being sold all over Russia.

LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin will send a “doomsday” warning to the West when he leads celebrations on Monday marking the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, brandishing Russia’s vast firepower while its forces fight on in Ukraine.

Defiant in the face of deep Western isolation since he ordered the invasion of Russia’s neighbour, Putin will speak on Red Square before a parade of troops, tanks, rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles.