“Ukraine – Russia”

Russia appears to have moved to take direct control of Wagner, after months of infighting between defence officials and the private military group.

Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov said on Saturday “volunteer formations” will be asked to sign contracts directly with the ministry of defence.

The vaguely worded statement is widely believed to target the group.

But in a furious statement on Sunday, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces would boycott the contracts.

#Ukraine: A Russian BM-21 Grad 122mm multiple rocket launcher was destroyed by a direct GMLRS hit of the Ukrainian army near Vuhledar, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/ctfhv8N4Rc

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 10, 2023

FOR those of you who find the standard Western media reporting on the Ukraine war inadequate, biased or a vehicle for Zelensky’s propaganda, and don’t know where to turn, I would like to point you to Simplicius The Thinker’s substack, which offers ‘in-depth geopolitical and conflict analysis’.

While most of us can make a 95 per cent probability guess as to who blew up Nord Stream (not Russia), understanding what happened to and who is to blame for the catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka Dam is significantly harder. Many in the Western media are very quick to cast Russia as the villain, Sky News for example stating categorically that there is ‘no evidence to back Russian claims of Ukraine attack in dam footage.

German investigation examines whether ally’s territory was a springboard for pipeline attack

German investigators are examining evidence that suggests a sabotage team used Poland, a European Union neighbor and NATO ally, as an operating base to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines built to transport Russian gas through the Baltic Sea.

The probe by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office is examining why the yacht they believe was used to carry out the operation journeyed into Polish waters. Other findings suggest Poland was a hub for the logistics and financing of last September’s undersea sabotage attack that severed the strongest bond tying Berlin to Moscow. Poland, which is conducting its own inquiry, has struggled for months to learn what Germany is investigating.

A grainy black-and-white gunsight video Russia released this week to bolster a claim its military blew up some of Ukraine’s most fearsome tanks actually documented the destruction of a tractor, according to a visual analysis by The Associated Press.

The Russian Embassy in Washington announced Monday on Twitter its forces had “annihilated” eight German-made Leopard tanks, among the most advanced and powerful weapons NATO countries have provided to Ukraine.

#Ukraine:The 🇷🇺MoD claimed the destruction of Ukrainian Leopard 2 tanks during the recent counter-offensive- hitting a new level of cope.

The vehicles targeted by ATGM from Ka-52 not only don't resemble tanks but are in fact innocent agricultural equipment- a sprayer & combines. pic.twitter.com/a33ZJJcZgt

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 6, 2023

The Wagner group has been accused of stoking “anarchy” on Russia’s frontlines after one of the Kremlin’s military commanders claimed Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenaries had kidnapped and tortured his soldiers during the battle for Bakhmut.

In a video posted online, Lt Col Roman Venevitin also accused Wagner soldiers of stealing arms, forcing mobilised soldiers to sign contracts with Wagner, and attempting to extort weapons from the Russian defence ministry in exchange for releasing kidnapped soldiers.

#Ukraine: Counter-battery fire from the Ukrainian 45th Artillery Brigade destroyed a Russian D-30 122mm howitzer North-West of Pidhorodne, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/1NQfzNTIGm

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 9, 2023

Ukrainian military opted for a series of mini-offensives in phase one of their counter attack

“Tonight is the night of nights”.

These were the words in the ears of US paratroopers as they boarded planes on Monday 5 June 1944 in Kent.

They were about to step off on the most complex operation in history – the Normandy beach landings that eventually led to the liberation of occupied Europe.

Exactly 79 years later, Ukrainian officers have been quoting these words to their men and women. The long-heralded, much advertised, and anxiously expected Ukrainian counter-offensive against the Russian invader started this week, or at the very least it significantly stepped up a gear.

#Ukraine: At least one Ukrainian M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA IFV was destroyed by the Russian army in #Zaporizhzhia Oblast as a result of ammunition detonation.

Four more damaged Bradleys were abandoned after trying to move through previously abandoned vehicles.https://t.co/vcnvZ9bTjr pic.twitter.com/hrdmahmXUD

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 9, 2023

Ukraine’s counter attack has begun, US officials and Ukrainian military sources have said, following a sweep of attacks along the front line.

Kyiv’s ground forces launched ‘wave after wave’ of assaults on Russian lines in the south of the country, Russian sources claimed on Wednesday night.

The reports were followed by officials briefing US media that the long-awaited counter attack was now underway. The start of the campaign was confirmed by a number of senior Ukrainian officers near the front lines.

#Ukraine: The Ukrainian 47th Artillery Brigade destroyed a Russian 2S3 Akatsiya 152mm self-propelled howitzer with counter-battery fire in #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/kd3GDZF4rf

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 8, 2023

#Ukraine: For the first time, a Ukrainian Leopard 2A4 tank was destroyed by the Russian army during the recent Ukrainian attack near Novopokrovka, #Zaporizhzhia Oblast. pic.twitter.com/AwBWbId9sw

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 8, 2023

Destruction of the reservoir will seriously complicate any plans to cross the Dnipro as part of the summer offensive

The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam is a shock. But it should not have been a surprise.

For the Russians – an army on the defensive, expecting an imminent attack, and unbothered by collateral damage – it makes plenty of sense.

For the Ukrainians, it will seriously complicate any plans to cross the Dnipro as part of the summer offensive for two reasons.

Breaking News 📰 KOIKIMEDIA

Ukraine accuses Russian forces of blowing up a major dam on the Dnipro River near Kherson and orders evacuations from flood zones.

The moment that the Nova Kakhovka dam was blown up was purportedly captured on video. If this footage is real, it… pic.twitter.com/0xHUeuxYZ5

— KOIKIMEDIA (@KoikiMedia) June 6, 2023

Russia is believed to be behind the explosions at a major dam and hydroelectric plant in southern Ukraine that have caused a ‘catastrophic’ flood, US intelligence officials claim.

Sources say Joe Biden’s Administration has intel proving Moscow was responsible for the catastrophe, as the White House today said it ‘cannot say conclusively’ what caused the destruction.

Officials are ‘doing the best we can to assess’ reports that Putin’s troops – which have been occupying the dam since last year – caused the blast, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

War is hell 😓 Nobody wins in a war except the weapon lobby 😠 #UkraineWar pic.twitter.com/caVaWsm9Kj

— Talisman (@AmSeriousThough) June 6, 2023

The CIA learned last June, via a European spy agency, that a six-person team of Ukrainian special operations forces intended to sabotage the Russia-to-Germany natural gas project

Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.

This revelation may make the German man on the street take to the streets.

The Wagner mercenary group has taken captive a Russian army brigade commander in one of the most serious cases of infighting within President Putin’s forces since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, released a video showing the interrogation of Lieutenant Colonel Roman Venevitin, commander of Russia’s 72nd Brigade. Venevitin, whose face was bruised, “confessed” to ordering his troops to fire on Wagner fighters as they were withdrawing from Bakhmut, the eastern Ukraine town that has witnessed the heaviest fighting of the war.

#Russia 🇷🇺 / #Ukraine 🇺🇦

"Western supplied houses, each one containing 40 high rank NATO generals, ready for Ukraine's "counteroffensive""
– idk some russian Telegram channel#UkraineWar #UkraineRussianWar #RussianUkrainianWar pic.twitter.com/9rMi4mlQjc

— Nexx_ (@_Nex3_) June 5, 2023

Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes and an ecological disaster has been unleashed on southern Ukraine by the collapse of a major hydroelectric dam on the Dnipro River, which Kyiv said was blown up by Russia in a desperate attempt to ward off a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, declared the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam as an act of terrorism and the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades”.

Video. Appears confirmed. This could be catastrophic for both Russian and Ukrainian settlements along the Dnipro river. It may also cause problems with cooling for the ZPP Nuclear plant.

Water levels behind the damn were reportedly at a 30-year high. https://t.co/vQ8S7DXsQc pic.twitter.com/jvT6exHr6U

— Tommy Liberty (@RucksackRadio) June 6, 2023

All the signs suggest Russia has made up its mind

However you try to spin it, the drone strikes that struck Moscow’s wealthiest neighbourhoods on Tuesday night represented a grim turning point in Putin’s flagging campaign against Ukraine. The surprise attacks — which killed eight people, and for which Kyiv has denied all responsibility — were the first against Russian civilians since the war began. They were also the most significant incursion into Russian territory since the Second World War.