“Ukraine – Russia”

Russia said on Wednesday that it would try to retrieve the remnants of a US drone that crashed into the Black Sea.

The large MQ-9 Reaper drone plunged into the water on Tuesday.

The US said it brought down the damaged drone after it became “unflyable” when a Russian jet clipped its propeller – but Moscow has denied these claims.

Speaking on state television, Russian security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev confirmed Moscow was attempting to find the aircraft.

Chart used by Ukrainian prosecutors maps hundreds of Russian soldiers all the way up to Vladimir Putin

For more than a year, Russian jets have been pounding Ukrainian cities, destroying hospitals and apartment blocks, while Moscow’s troops on the ground have been accused of executing civilians. Flooded with evidence of Russian war crimes, Ukrainian prosecutors moved swiftly.

Kyiv has compiled hundreds of dossiers, naming more than 600 Russians – many of them high-ranking political and military officials – as suspects. The suspects range from senior officials including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to a lesser-known colonel believed to be responsible for some of the most brutal aerial attacks on Ukraine.

Russia does not know who was behind the blasts that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, one of President Putin’s leading allies said as he mocked media reports that said a pro-Ukrainian group was responsible.

“We still do not know for certain who exactly was the author and the perpetrator of the Nord Stream explosions,” Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s national security council, said.

Senior officials in Moscow have accused Britain and the United States of being behind the damage to the Kremlin funded pipelines. Last year Putin has blamed “Anglo-Saxon” powers.

#Ukraine: A Russian T-72B tank was destroyed by Ukrainian forces near Avdiivka, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/YLf1vkjkfY

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 13, 2023

A Russian fighter jet forced down a US Air Force drone over the Black Sea after damaging its propeller, a US official says. https://t.co/uZHEz4Ze8f

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 14, 2023

As Wagner mercenaries are being deliberately expended by the regular military as cannon-fodder in the battle for Bakhmut, their backer, Evgeny Prigozhin, is learning a hard lesson in Kremlin politics: it doesn’t matter how useful you were yesterday, what matters is how useful you may be tomorrow.

Two women sit at a table near the front door of a small, nondescript bar in western Ukraine.

Speak the password, and they will escort you to a closet, inside which is a staircase that leads down to a stone cellar.

As they descend, they’re greeted with bass music from the chic restaurant below. It’s decorated with modern art installations that represent Ukrainian independence and the Russian occupation. On the menu is elevated traditional Ukrainian cuisine. All the ingredients and beverages are sourced from within the country.

One soldier said they were ‘trying to knock out’ the Russian mercenaries that stormed the complex Kyiv had hoped to make a stronghold

Russian mercenaries have stormed a sprawling metal works on the northern edge of Bakhmut that Ukrainian forces had hoped to turn into a stronghold.

In a video, a man claiming to be a Ukrainian soldier described a battle with Wagner fighters in the compound of the AZOM metal works. Explosions and gunfire can be heard as he speaks.

“The Russians entered the industrial complex, we are trying to knock them out. They have entrenched themselves at night. We are trying to storm their positions,” the unnamed soldier said.

BAKHMUT IS HELL

Not clear whose soldiers these are – but it seems clear that the town is a hellscape . pic.twitter.com/56FDktQH6J

— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) March 12, 2023

None of the emerging narratives surrounding the Nord Stream pipeline bombing really contradicts Seymour Hersh’s central allegation that Biden authorized the operation.

IN THE MONTH since veteran journalist Seymour Hersh published his bombshell report alleging that President Joe Biden personally authorized a covert action to bomb the Nord Stream pipelines, we’ve seen a frenzy of speculation, detailed dissection of Hersh’s specific assertions, and the emergence of competing narratives both supporting and denouncing the report.

The question of whether Hersh’s story is accurate — either in whole or in part — is of monumental significance, and there are some issues related to this story that have not received as much attention as they deserve. Among these are questions surrounding the legal and constitutional framework the Biden administration would have used if, as Hersh’s source alleges, Biden directly ordered the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines. There is also an emerging counternarrative to Hersh’s reporting from U.S. intelligence that warrants scrutiny, both on its merits and for how it might relate to Hersh’s story.

The Wagner Group of mercenaries could become a “hardline ideological elite” organization following months of intensive fighting in eastern Ukraine.

In a video posted to Telegram on Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who heads up the paramilitary outfit, said that, after the Battle of Bakhmut ends, the Wagner force will become an “army with an ideological component.”

The underwater bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September was carried out by a team of divers operating from a 15-metre chartered yacht called the Andromeda, according to a new report.

The report in Der Spiegel traces the Andromeda’s route around the Baltic from its home marina in Rostock on 6 September to the German island of Rügen and then finally to the Danish island of Christiansø, close to the site of the blasts on 26 September.

Experts have questioned whether the amount of explosives used in the sabotage attacks, estimated to be several hundred kilograms, as well with the necessary breathing apparatus and other equipment could have been carried on such a small boat, raising the question of whether another vessel was involved.

Note Google translate will work on the Der Spiegel link .

Videos and messages from inside Putin’s army show troops deserting, fleeing and struggling to find their teams

Russians sent to fight on the front lines are mutinying, fighting amongst themselves, getting locked in basements and lost in the chaos of a faltering offensive, a flurry of videos and messages from inside Vladimir Putin’s army show.

Recently mobilised soldiers are refusing orders to face “certain death” by joining “human wave” attacks that they say are destroying entire units at a time.

Some are appealing directly to Putin in desperate videos, while others are standing up to Kremlin officials sent to quell the rebellion.

VATICAN CITY, March 10 (Reuters) – The war in Ukraine is driven by the interests of several “empires” and not just of Russia’s, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Friday.

Francis said the conflict was fuelled by “imperial interests, not just of the Russian empire, but of empires from elsewhere”.