“Ukraine – Russia”

“In order to preserve life and encirclement, I have withdrawn our units from Avdiivka.”

When he was appointed this month, Ukraine’s new head of the armed forces, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said he would “rather retreat than sacrifice lives”, and that is what he has finally done with this eastern city.

Despite Russians suffering enormous losses, four months of relentless attacks have left Ukrainian troops there outnumbered, outgunned, and with dwindling ammunition.

It is Moscow’s biggest victory since Ukraine’s failed counter-offensive last year.

In today’s world, the battlefield has become transparent, the warheads much more precise and the weapons very cheap.

With each passing day, the battlefield in Ukraine is becoming more and more like the trenches of World War I. Artillery rains on static front lines, troops live in squalid, sodden hovels and the mine-strewn landscape is cratered with shell holes.

Forward progress is measured in meters, and retaken villages become less consequential, quickly forgotten as the days pass.

A big Russian amphibious ship, the Caesar Kunikov, has sunk off the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea, according to Ukraine’s armed forces.

Powerful explosions were heard early on Wednesday, according to local social media, which suggested the landing ship was hit south of the town of Yalta.

Ukraine’s intelligence directorate released video of what it said were Magura V5 sea drones striking the ship.

Ukraine has repeatedly hit Russia’s Black Sea fleet in occupied Crimea.

BREAKING:

Ukraine releases video proving it used a naval drone swarm to strike and sink the 112 meter long Russian Ropucha-class landing ship Caesar Kunikov this morning.

The ship capsized after several hits and quickly sunk

The crew was around 50 men pic.twitter.com/OM7AIPHSeS

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 14, 2024

An international team of investigators say they have tracked down eight Ukrainian children, believed to have been abducted during Russia’s invasion.

More than 60 detectives used digital open source techniques to trace the missing children who are understood to have appeared in Russian propaganda.

Experts from 23 countries joined forces at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague.

They used advanced facial recognition to find recent images of the children online.

We have been warned — over and over again lately — that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an inflection point in history.

And while the soaring political rhetoric may have sounded good over the last few years, it’s very likely that this week — after a cascade of events in Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and, yes, even Ottawa — we truly arrived at that turning point.

We just might not like where it’s going.

Protesters in Kiev demand the immediate resignation of Zelensky chanting “Zelensky — get out.”

Under Zelensky’s Presidency, presidential elections have been suspended and freedom of religion has been supressed, with the Orthodox Church banned.

pic.twitter.com/7F9fvWOJtE

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) February 10, 2024

In World War Two, the average age of a combat soldier was twenty-six. In the Falklands, it was twenty-three. For Ukrainian soldiers, it’s forty-three. The war in Ukraine has been, so far, fought mostly by fathers so their sons and daughters can rebuild the country when the fighting ends. But resisting Russia has cost so much and has continued for so long that the Ukrainian army is depleted. What to do next is a question that’s not just dividing the country but its two foremost leaders: President Volodymyr Zelensky and Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the military.

A year ago, when Washington and much of Europe were still awash in optimism that Ukraine was on the verge of repelling Russia from its territory, it seemed inconceivable that the United States would turn its back on the victim of Vladimir V. Putin’s aggression.

Now, even as Senate Democrats try to salvage an aid package for Ukraine, that possibility remains real. And the political moment feels a long way from 14 months ago when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine stood before a joint session of Congress, wearing his signature drab green sweater, and basked in a minute-long standing ovation.

Swedish prosecutors said Wednesday they would drop their investigation into the September 2022 explosions on the underwater Nord Stream pipelines.

The cause of the blasts in the pipelines built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany is unknown, but it is widely believed that they were the result of an attack.

Public prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said there was no Swedish jurisdiction in the case.

Isn’t that convenient!

A Ukrainian military leader is asking Canada to hand over tens of thousands of rockets that are awaiting demolition at a Saskatchewan military base.

In an exclusive interview with Global News, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov urged the government to let Ukraine have the decommissioned CRV7 rockets.

Doing so would help Ukraine fend off Russian forces and save taxpayers the cost of destroying them, said Lt. Gen. Budanov, chief of the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate.