“Ukraine – Russia”

As Ukraine prepares for its major offensive, it will only get harder to hide the troop build up from Russia’s forces. So Ukraine is having to work out ways to confound the enemy.

In a trench on the eastern front, a Ukrainian mortar team knows Russia’s not just trying to hunt them down with drones – it’s also using electronic warfare to try to locate their position.

The men of Ukraine’s 28th Brigade may have access to 21st Century technology – satellites, smart phones, and tablets – to help communicate and identify targets. But they’re also using a machine from the distant past.

Could use the Benny Hill Music

#Ukraine: A Russian T-80BV tank was destroyed by the 72nd Mechanized Brigade near Mykilske, #Donetsk Oblast.

The tank was hit before being abandoned by the crew and later suffered a catastrophic ammunition detonation due to an internal fire. pic.twitter.com/4VSTWZQ69h

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 2, 2023

Moscow has accused Kyiv of attempting a drone strike on the Kremlin with the aim of killing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday two drones had been used in the alleged attack, but they had been disabled by Russian defences.

In a statement published on its website, the Kremlin stated it considered the attack a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation.

A secret Vatican peace mission to end the fighting in Ukraine appears to have been shot down by Kyiv as the country prepares for a long-awaited counteroffensive to drive out President Putin’s invading army.

Pope Francis said on Sunday that the Vatican was involved in behind-the-scenes efforts to end the war. “There is a mission in course now but it is not yet public. When it is public, I will reveal it,” he said after a trip to Hungary that involved talks with Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, and a Russian Orthodox bishop. “Everyone is interested in the road to peace,” the Pope added.

The United States estimates Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut since December, including more than 20,000 killed in action, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on a call with reporters Monday.

Roughly half of those killed were working with the Wagner mercenary group, Kirby said, often ex-convicts who had been recruited from prison. The figure is based on “some information and intelligence that we were able to corroborate over a period of some time,” Kirby said. He declined to discuss Ukrainian casualties. “That’s up to them to speak to,” he said.

If there were a silver lining in her son being convicted of high treason, it was that Yelena Gordon would have a rare chance to see him.

But when she tried to enter the courtroom, she was told it was already full. But those packed in weren’t press or his supporters, since the hearing was closed.

“I recognized just one face there, the rest were all strangers,” she later recounted, exasperated, outside the Moscow City Court. “I felt like I had woken up in a Kafka novel.”

#Ukraine: A Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces near Marinka, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/d3XtlHSa4Q

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 30, 2023

Two Canadians have been killed in action around the fiercely contested Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, with one of them telling CBC News before his death that the conditions on the front line were like a “meat grinder.”

Kyle Porter, 27, of Calgary, Alta., and Cole Zelenco, 21, of St. Catharines, Ont., were both serving with Ukraine’s International Legion which was attached to the 92nd Mechanised Brigade.

Ukraine’s long-anticipated counter-offensive is proving irresistible to the social media armchair warriors, despite Kyiv’s appeals for them to stop treating the war like a spectator sport. However, their enthusiastic discussion of alternative battle plans belies the degree to which, as a Ukrainian official admitted, “in some ways we all have much less freedom of manoeuvre” than might be assumed.

Publicly the Ukrainians are bullish. Oleksii Reznikov, the defence minister, promised last week that the big push was imminent. “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it,” he said.

#Ukraine: A Russian 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled mortar was destroyed by the Ukrainian 79th Air Assault Brigade and 55th Artillery Brigade in Marinka, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/UPR2sn8y5m

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 24, 2023

In a thicket of trees between two vast farm fields, a plywood trapdoor built into the forest floor opened to reveal stairs leading underground.

Inside was a subterranean bunker, cut into the black earth, where Ukrainian troops from a mortar unit awaited coordinates for their next target. The men squeezed past one another down a shoulder-width dirt corridor lit with LED strips, staring at tablet computers showing a live drone feed of the terrain outside. Blast waves from artillery shells and rockets shook the bunker, and a radio crackled with a warning of incoming Russian helicopters.

#Ukraine: Near Nevelske, #Donetsk Oblast the Ukrainian 59th Motorized Brigade destroyed with an FPV loitering munition a damaged T-72A tank that Russian troops were attempting to evacuate.

The ammunition on board eventually detonated, completely destroying the tank. pic.twitter.com/aAGaW4IKFB

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 26, 2023

More than a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. plans to increase production of key munitions have fallen short due to shortages of chips, machinery and skilled workers.

Arms makers have added factory shifts, ordered new equipment and streamlined supply chains to boost output of Javelin antitank missiles, artillery shells, guided rockets and much more, which Ukrainian forces are firing by the thousands at the Russian invaders.

Years of stop-start Pentagon funding for munitions led companies to close production lines or quit the industry, while output of many components and raw materials moved overseas. Defense department chiefs estimate the decline will take five or six years to reverse.

#Ukraine: Additional footage from the same place showing two more Russian tanks – T-80BV and T-72B with cope cages – being destroyed by the Ukrainian 59th Motorized Brigade using FPV loitering munitions.https://t.co/7m2EwzOvEP pic.twitter.com/linZj3rNEv

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 28, 2023

A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just prior to the mysterious September blasts, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information.

The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage confirmed the existence of the hitherto publicly unknown photographs.

“I’m aware of the information from before … This is not new information to us,” Mats Ljungqvist said on Friday.

For more than 80 days, Mariupol endured a brutal and unrelenting bombardment, as Russian forces determined to take the port city reduced much of it to rubble.

In March 2022, a few days after the war began, Russian forces cut off electricity, water and gas supplies, forcing residents to melt snow for water and cook outside over open flames. Mariupol was encircled and the relentless bombing of the city began.

#Ukraine: A rare Russian MT-LBM 6MB infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by a RGT-27S2 thermobaric grenade dropped into an opened hatch from a Ukrainian drone in #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/OtNuhQR9TD

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 27, 2023

A Russian army officer has been arrested for allegedly stealing the engines out of T-90 battle tanks.

The Kommersant newspaper reported that Colonel Alexander Denisov is accused of stealing seven V-92S2 engines worth 20.5 million roubles (around £200,000) between November 2021 and April 2022.

Col Denisov, who is in charge of technical support for tanks in the Southern Military District, was arrested last month near Rostov in southern Russia and was charged with “stealing parts intended to be installed on tanks”.

#Ukraine: A recently delivered Canadian 🇨🇦 Leopard 2A4 main battle tank and a Ukrainian soldier.

In total Canada donated 8 Leopard 2A4 tanks to the Ukrainian army. pic.twitter.com/a92DziJBVJ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 27, 2023

Wearing video goggles, 1,000 newly Ukrainian-trained drone operators plan to fly swarms of small but deadly Chinese-made kamikaze drones across southeastern Ukraine’s front lines next month. This futuristic vision of warfare is not the nightmare of Russian military planners tossing in their sleep but of a Russian military blogger known as “Russian Engineer.”

In a blog post that drew 2.1 million readers, Russian Engineer claims that Ukrainian military cutouts cornered the market last winter on cheap, racing drones produced by the world’s largest drone producer, DJI Technology Company. The Russian blogger claims that the Ukrainians have bought up to 100,000 of these drones from the Shenzhen-based producer.

U.S. intelligence holds that Russia will be able to fund the war in Ukraine for at least another year, even under the heavy and increasing weight of unprecedented sanctions, according to leaked U.S. military documents.

The previously unreported documents provide a rare glimpse into Washington’s understanding of the effectiveness of its own economic measures, and of the tenor of the response they have met in Russia, where U.S. intelligence finds that senior officials, agencies and the staff of oligarchs are fretting over the painful disruptions — and adapting to them.

While some of Russia’s economic elites might not agree with the country’s course in Ukraine, and sanctions have hurt their businesses, they are unlikely to withdraw support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to an assessment that appears to date from early March.

#Ukraine: A Ukrainian 9A330 TLAR of the Tor air defense system was taken out of action by a Russian Lancet loitering munition in #Kherson Oblast.

The first confirmed loss of this AD system, very rare in Ukrainian service. pic.twitter.com/df8AmmXNsh

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 26, 2023