At first glance, Russia may seem to be adapting to the tough new sanctions imposed by Western countries over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The ruble, which tumbled in the first days of the war to a record low, rebounded to its highest level since early 2020 this week. Grocery stores in Moscow are still filled with food, albeit at much higher prices, and revenue from the sale of oil and gas continues to flow into the budget.
Eyewitness testimony, discarded documents and social media posts point to the Russian soldiers and chain of command in the bloody occupation of the Ukrainian town of Bucha
At the end of March, when Russian troops retreated from Bucha, a leafy suburb near Ukraine’s capital, they left reminders of their deadly occupation for all the world to see. Bodies were strewn in the streets. Quaint houses were reduced to rubble. A field near the town’s church had become a mass grave.
Now, as Ukrainian and international prosecutors begin the work of identifying those responsible for the alleged atrocities, Reuters has examined the aftermath of Russia’s hasty retreat – and found vital clues to the identities of individual Russian soldiers and military units present during the bloody occupation.
Among them: An elite paramilitary force that reports up to a former bodyguard of President Vladimir Putin. A paratroop division decorated for its role in Moscow’s long secret war in east Ukraine. Chechen troops linked to the strongman leader of the Russian region. And a paratrooper who was traced thanks to a love letter found in the ruins.
Twenty years after Vladimir Putin flattened their capital Grozny in the same way that his forces are now destroying Mariupol, Chechens refugees in Europe still live in fear of Russia’s long arm.
Tens of thousands fled the small Muslim-majority republic in the North Caucasus in the aftermath of two bloody wars with Moscow, the last launched by Putin in 1999 to bring the breakaway region to heel.
The Russian leader later installed Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechnya’s strongman. He has since ruthlessly suppressed all opposition, and never tires of declaring his ferocious loyalty to Putin.
Group in favour of supplying Kyiv with weapons noticeably younger than those of opposing view
The war in Ukraine is laying bare a generational divide over what lessons Germany should draw from its own history of waging bloody conflicts, as some of the country’s leading artists and intellectuals line up in favour of or against supplying Kyiv with weapons in a series of open letters.
The first, published in the feminist magazine Emma on Friday last week, days after the German government announced it would send about 50 Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, urged the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to refrain from directly or indirectly contributing further heavy weapons systems to the conflict.
It happened in a split-second.
About 10 days ago, a Russian tank that Shadow and a fellow Canadian — the sniper known as Wali — had been quietly stalking in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine turned and fired on them.
Two Ukrainian soldiers who were with them had ignored Wali’s advice a moment before by stepping outside the cover of their observation post — nothing more than a trench — for a cigarette.
On May 1, on Russian TV, the media executive often called “Putin’s mouthpiece” urged the Russian president to launch a Poseidon underwater drone with a “warhead of up to 100 megatons.” The detonation, said Dmitry Kiselyov, would create a 1,640-foot tidal wave that would “plunge Britain to the depths of the ocean.” The wave would reach halfway up England’s tallest peak, Scafell Pike.
“This tidal wave is also a carrier of extremely high doses of radiation,” Kiselyov pointed out. “Surging over Britain, it will turn whatever is left of them into radioactive desert, unusable for anything. How do you like this prospect?”
“A single launch, Boris, and there is no England anymore,” said Kiselyov, addressing the British prime minister.
Olaf Scholz is not a Kremlin stooge, he just leads a confused and unprincipled party.
The war in Ukraine has exposed the emptiness at the heart of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) – the centre-left party which leads the current government. SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz has been on the defensive for weeks, as ever more damning news keeps emerging about the apparently close ties between top SPD functionaries and the Putin regime. Scholz’s initial reluctance to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine angered both opposition politicians in Germany and European allies. Critics of the chancellor say his party has a ‘Putin problem’.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the SPD’s biggest headache has been the relationship between former SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Schröder is not only a personal friend of Putin – he is also a prominent lobbyist for Gazprom, the largely state-owned Russian gas giant. Schröder’s refusal to cut ties with Putin, or to resign from any of his roles with Russian energy companies, has made him a pariah.
I can’t believe I have to ask this but here it is: Are we trying to get Putin to attack NATO?
Is there some strategic benefit I’m missing to turning this into a hot war between the U.S. and Russia? Like, “the war will end much faster and with fewer casualties if we let the U.S. Air Force bomb Russian troops in the Donbas for a week”?
The Canadian military veteran who calls himself Hrulf says he realized after his first combat experience in Ukraine several weeks ago that he could have died, multiple times.
Coming under small-arms, artillery and aerial fire from Russian forces was a “living hell,” he said.
But the Quebec native is now battling a different kind of foe, as he and the Norman Brigade foreign-fighter unit he commands come under serious criticism from several of the brigade’s former members.
Ukrainian fighters have found a new use for outdated grenades that is proving spectacularly effective at destroying Russian tanks and other armored vehicles.
This photo released by Aerorozvidka, an organization that develops Ukraine’s use of small drones in warfare, shows a Ukrainian-made octocopter drone with two bomblets mounted beneath it.
Pope Francis in an interview published on Tuesday slammed NATO over the Ukraine war.
Questioning the conflict’s causes, the pope spoke of an “anger” in the Kremlin which could have been “facilitated” by “the barking of NATO at Russia’s door”.
The remarks came as the pope reiterated that he requested a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, while comparing the scale of the bloodshed in the country to the genocide in Rwanda.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to visit Kyiv as soon as possible.
In an exclusive interview with CBC News Network’s Power & Politics on Wednesday, Shmyhal said he and other Ukrainian officials are still waiting for a visit from high-ranking members of the Canadian government.
“We are waiting [for them] so much,” he told host Vassy Kapelos. “We will be very glad. It will be a big honour for us to host your prime minister, your government members.”
“C-list” may be overstating their status.
On one hand, the impulse to cheer is undeniable, especially with the brutality and clear ethnic-cleansing strategy behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On the other, the US and NATO seem to be edging very closely to fulfilling Vladimir Putin’s propaganda needs, if this New York Times report is accurate.
U.S. Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals, Officials Say
WASHINGTON — The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials.
Ukrainian officials said they have killed approximately 12 generals on the front lines, a number that has astonished military analysts.
The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine. That intelligence also includes anticipated Russian troop movements gleaned from recent American assessments of Moscow’s secret battle plan for the fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, the officials said. Officials declined to specify how many generals had been killed as a result of U.S. assistance.
#Ukraine: Somewhere in the South, three Russian 2S1 Gvozdika 122mm self-propelled howitzers were targeted by Ukrainian artillery fire. However, we can only see one clearly destroyed- damage to others is possible. pic.twitter.com/vnOp64aoFW
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 4, 2022
The Department of National Defence (DND) says it has concluded its 2021 review into the findings of a report from George Washington University that cited allegations by a far-right group in the Ukrainian military that claimed it had trained with the Canadian Armed Forces and other western military and found itself absolved.
In a statement emailed to CTVNews.ca Wednesday, as spokesperson for the DND reiterated that all Task Force Ukraine personnel receive pre-deployment training on right-wing extremism, including symbols.
Russia Triples Down – Israel’s mercenaries are fighting in Ukraine with the Azov battalion!, says Moscow
In an interview with radio station Sputnik, Maria Zakharova stated, “Israeli mercenaries are practically shoulder to shoulder with Azov militants in Ukraine.”
Its members are part of the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, which is holed up within the Azovstal steel complex, which Russian soldiers attacked on Tuesday.
By implying that Israelis are fighting with Azov, whom Russia regards as “fascists” and “Nazis,” Moscow is exacerbating tensions that arose when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared on Sunday that Hitler had “Jewish blood.”
Fierce fighting has continued inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks, the commander of Ukrainian forces in the plant said, as more civilians fled the city on evacuation buses following weeks of brutal bombardment that have reduced much of it to rubble.
Ukrainian forces were fighting “difficult bloody battles” against Russian troops for a second day, Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov regiment, said in a brief video released on Telegram late on Wednesday.
“I am proud of my soldiers who are making superhuman efforts to contain the pressure of the enemy … the situation is extremely difficult,” commander Denis Prokopenko said.
Moment £4m next-generation Russian super-tank with reinforced steel and special automatic defence system is blown up by Ukrainian army just days after making its battlefield debut
This is the moment Ukrainian troops destroy one of Russia’s most advanced tanks which are protected by special reactive armour.
The armour on the T-90M is designed to explode when hit reducing the penetrative power of an incoming round.
The tank is also protected with a automated defence system which fires smoke grenades when it is ‘painted’ by a laser beam used by an incoming missile.
#Ukraine: A Russian Mi-35M attack helicopter was drag out from Dnipro river, #Kyiv Oblast. Highly likely this one was shot down on Day One – and it is also observed on the famous video below.https://t.co/XqODvY6rXH pic.twitter.com/t0xyVMfLd1
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 4, 2022
