As the United States and its European allies continue to provide Ukraine with the wherewithal to kill Russian soldiers and strike ever deeper in Russian territory, the potential for retaliatory escalation creeps higher. Kiev is of course entitled to respond harshly to Moscow’s invasion. As it is doing so with Western weapons, however, Russia has increasing reason to treat NATO countries as formal belligerents, with potentially catastrophic results.
In recent weeks, there has been increasing debate about whether Russia’s war in Ukraine could be ended at the negotiating table.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Russian President Vladimir Putin on what the former described as a “peace mission.” Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently claimed in his regular column for the British Daily Mail tabloid that he had presented former US president and current presidential contender Donald Trump with a “peace plan” that would require Putin to withdraw to “at least” the pre-invasion boundaries of 2022; Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014 and was already occupying parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine by 2022.
For his part, Trump has claimed on various past occasions, including during recent campaign events, that he would end the war immediately if reelected.
America has sent more than 300 M2A2 Bradleys to Ukraine but many have been wrecked in the war. Soldiers fear Donald Trump, if re-elected, would leave them without replacements
The enemy were already closing in on the Ukrainian infantry positions when Sergeant Dzvinka Rymar rolled up to them in her American M2 Bradley fighting vehicle. Her driver pulled it round in a tight arc to reverse up to the Ukrainian trench, its gun facing the Russians.
The Bradley’s rear doors swung open, enabling eight Ukrainian soldiers to clamber to safety, as its Bushmaster 25mm chain gun sent round after round into the treeline opposite, held by Russian troops.
Former President Donald Trump said Friday he had spoken by telephone with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and vowed to end the war with Russia.
In a statement posted on Truth Social on Friday, Mr Trump said that he had a “very good phone call” with President Zelensky, in which the Ukrainian leader congratulated the former president for once again becoming the Republican nominee for President of the United States and condemned the “heinous assassination attempt” on his life last Saturday.
Germany plans to halve its military aid for Ukraine, cutting more than £3 billion next year as it struggles to fill a black hole in its finances with spending cuts.
The reduction from one of Ukraine’s most generous sponsors risks renewed accusations from the United States that Europe is not doing enough to pay for a war in its own backyard.
Donald Trump and JD Vance, his vice-presidential nominee, have both demanded that European Nato allies increase their defence spending and pay more to Kyiv.
Almost 44 per cent of Ukrainians now believe it is time for Kyiv to hold official peace negotiations with Russia
A Ukrainian army deserter has been shot dead, and a military recruitment centre has been bombed as tensions rise over the country’s aggressive mobilisation drive.
As pressure on the front line mounts, with Russia sending waves of soldiers to overwhelm Ukraine, Kyiv has launched a forceful recruitment campaign.
It has led to reports of Ukrainian men fleeing over borders to avoid service, while The Telegraph has been told that medically unfit men are being mobilised.
I can’t help but think we are being kept in the dark. When your people flee rather than fight something is wrong.
“Ukraine will stop Putin” declared America’s failing president whose uncertain political fate and cognitive issues loomed over NATO’s 75th annual conference hosted last week in Washington, where many participants took time on the side to meet with some of Donald Trump’s top advisors such as former ambassador to Germany, Rick Grennel, and ex-NSC chief of staff, general Keith Kellogg. The Europeans are now “paying” more for NATO as 23 members cross the 2 percent of GDP for defense threshold this year, long insisted by Trump , so they may be looking to get their money’s worth in advice.
American and German intelligence services have thwarted a Russian plot to assassinate the chief executive of Germany’s largest arms manufacturer, it has been claimed.
Armin Papperger, under whose leadership Rheinmetall has set up artillery shell factories and tank repair workshops in Ukraine, is said to have been the main target of a conspiracy to kill senior figures from the European defence industry who have been instrumental in supporting Kyiv.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office on Wednesday banned the online newspaper The Moscow Times.
The website was blocked in Russia for allegedly discrediting the country’s military shortly after the start of Kremlin-backed invasion of Ukraine.
A large majority of Canadians have been exposed to Russian false narratives about the war in Ukraine — and people who support the Conservative Party are more susceptible to believing Kremlin disinformation, according to a new report.
A survey from DisinfoWatch, part of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute think tank, found that 71 per cent of Canadians polled have heard at least one Russian false narrative and that a substantial portion “believe them to be true or are unsure of their falsehood.”
h/t Mauser
Russia launched missiles at a children’s hospital in Kyiv, in a barrage that killed at least 20 people in a number of cities.
Explosions rang out and black smoke could be seen rising from the centre of Kyiv, according to reports.
WASHINGTON – Canada will be reassuring allies of its commitment to the western alliance as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travels to Washington, D.C., this week to take part in the NATO leaders’ summit at a critical time for war-ravaged Ukraine.
In a brutal and terrifying three days, Russia has wreaked havoc on the tiny, battered Ukrainian air force – lofting drones to surveil the air force’s front-line airfields and then firing ballistic missiles to destroy hard-to-replace warplanes.
As the missile campaign continues and the toll mounts – four or five aircraft were destroyed in 72 hours – it’s increasingly clear just one thing can save what’s left of Ukrainian air power. More Western-made air defenses.
But they’d better come fast.
Ukraine will be told it is currently too corrupt to join Nato, in a major blow to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The alliance will request “additional steps” from Kyiv before membership talks progress, a senior official in the US State Department said.
The position will be set out in writing in the Nato communique to be signed at the alliance’s annual summit on July 9.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’s drawing up a “comprehensive plan” for how Kyiv believes the war with Russia should end.
“It is very important for us to show a plan to end the war that will be supported by the majority of the world,” the Ukrainian president said at a news conference in Kyiv alongside Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar on Friday.
“This is the diplomatic route we are working on.”
I wonder what debate result brought this on?
h/t Mauser
