All posts tagged: Russias

Russias Delays On Ukraine Ceasefire Amid Verbal Attacks On Europe

Russias Delays On Ukraine Ceasefire Amid Verbal Attacks On Europe

Published by Sam

Russia is yet to formally respond to America’s plan for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine but Vladimir Putin’s top team seems to be playing for time by insulting Europe. After hours of negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine agreed to Washington’s proposal to pause its conflict with Russia after three years of war. The US secretary of state Marco Rubio made it clear last night that the “ball is in Russia’s court” – even though the conflict started with Putin’s 2022 invasion, and would end if Moscow withdrew its troops. Rubio – representing a White House which is particularly sympathetic to Moscow’s cause – added on Wednesday: “If [the Kremlin] say no, then obviously we’ll have to examine everything and sort of figure out where we stand in the world and what their true intentions are.” Although they have insisted they want peace too, Moscow has been particularly coy about responding. Speaking to Russian state news agency TASS about when Russia may reply to the ceasefire plan, the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “You tend to …

Trump to Russia’s Rescue – The Atlantic

Trump to Russia’s Rescue – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Dictatorships seem stable and almost invulnerable, until the day they fall. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime crumbled in days in the face of an offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a group that the United States considers a terrorist organization. But the Syrian civil war is, for now, mostly over. Hundreds of thousands are dead. I wrote more than a decade ago in favor of Western intervention in Syria, back when the butcher’s bill was still in the tens of thousands, and finally gave up when Assad repeatedly used chemical weapons and got away with it. I predicted at the time that President Barack Obama’s decision against military action would undermine America’s position in the Middle East, embolden Iran, and give Russia its first major outpost in the region. Some of my worst fears, sadly, came true, …

Russia’s Ballistic Missile Attack on Ukraine Is an Alarming First

Russia’s Ballistic Missile Attack on Ukraine Is an Alarming First

Published by skeptic

The Oreshnik missile launched Tuesday apparently took off from Russia’s Kapustin Yar rocket base roughly 800 kilometers from Dnipro, well away from intense fighting. This is the first time any IRBM has been used in combat. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, ratified by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1988, banned ground-launched IRBMs. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2019 under the first Trump administration, citing noncompliance from Russia. At the time, US officials noted that China, which was not a signatory to the treaty, possessed more than 1,000 IRBMs in its arsenal. Putin said Western air defenses are not capable of destroying the Oreshnik missile in flight, although this claim can’t be verified. He said Russia would provide warnings to Ukraine in advance of similar missile attacks in the future to allow civilians to escape danger zones. The Oreshnik missiles strike their targets at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second, Putin said. “The existing air defense systems around the world, including those being …

Fire rages at oil depot in Russia’s Rostov after Ukraine drone attack | Russia-Ukraine war News

Fire rages at oil depot in Russia’s Rostov after Ukraine drone attack | Russia-Ukraine war News

Published by Sam

The strike on a depot in Kamensky district comes amid an ongoing blaze at an oil storage facility in Proletarsk city. A Ukrainian drone attack has set an oil depot in Russia’s southern region of Rostov alight, the authorities said. On Wednesday, regional Governor Vasily Golubev confirmed the overnight strike, saying on the Telegram messaging app that firefighters were extinguishing the blaze at the depot in Rostov’s Kamensky district, with no casualties reported. Russia’s Ministry of Defence earlier said air defence units destroyed four drones over the region overnight, without mentioning the attack on the oil depot. Three tanks were burning at the oil depot after two drones fell in the area, according to the Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russian security services. Ukraine’s strike marked its latest attack on Russian oil and gas facilities in retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure. A large fire has been raging at an oil storage facility in Rostov’s city of Proletarsk since August 18 after an earlier Ukrainian drone attack some 200km (125 miles) from …

Inside the Chechen Units Helping to Fight Russia’s War

Inside the Chechen Units Helping to Fight Russia’s War

Published by Sam

Photographs by Nanna Heitmann Text by Neil MacFarquhar Nanna Heitmann spent time observing Russian troops training in Chechnya, then later traveled to Bakhmut, Ukraine. Neil MacFarquhar reported from New York. June 16, 2024 A hulking military transport plane roared onto the tarmac at the main airfield in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic in southeastern Russia, and a group of 120 volunteer fighters heading for Ukraine clambered aboard. Dressed in camouflage, the newly minted troops had just completed at least 10 days of training in Gudermes, near Grozny, at the Special Forces University, which accepts men from across Russia for general military instruction. Some of the trainees lacked any combat experience. Others were veterans returning to Ukraine for their second or third tour — including former mercenaries from the Wagner militia, disbanded in 2023 after a short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin. Some Wagner fighters, chafing at the idea of working for the Russian Defense Ministry, instead transferred whole units to the Chechen-trained forces, known as Akhmat battalions, intended in part to absorb fighters from …

‘Everywhere is dangerous’: Russia’s attacks on Kharkiv’s homes, shops and resorts | Ukraine

‘Everywhere is dangerous’: Russia’s attacks on Kharkiv’s homes, shops and resorts | Ukraine

Published by skeptic

The apartment at 24 Liubovi Maloi avenue was an eerie ruin. Its roof and outer walls had disappeared. In one corner a row of suits hung in a wardrobe. There was a TV, a coffee cup, a maroon jacket on a peg. And a black and white photo album with old family snaps taken in communist times. The flat’s inhabitants – Svitlana Vlasenko and her grown-up daughter Polina – were not coming back. The Russian missile that fell on their building on a Friday night killed them and six of their neighbours. Twenty-six people were injured, two of them children. The street in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was not near any military objects. It was a quiet place of flowerbeds, communal benches and a sandy play area for children. Residents walked their dogs in a resin-scented pine forest, which was also hit in the strike on 31 May by five S-300 rockets. Since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kharkiv has been under constant bombardment. Russian troops tried and failed to occupy the city. They …

Is Iranian military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine ‘at a new level’? | Russia-Ukraine war News

Is Iranian military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine ‘at a new level’? | Russia-Ukraine war News

Published by Sam

Kyiv, Ukraine – A Russian man who filmed a heavy drone that crashed in a field outside the western Russian village of Shirinka was jubilant. In a video posted online on May 26, the unidentified man said the white drone belonged to Ukraine and carried “missiles”. German military analyst Julian Roepke said the drone was a malfunctioned heavy, Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone. “Iranian arms support for Russia at a new level,” he posted on X. The crash landing revealed an unpleasant surprise for Ukraine. The alleged “missiles” attached to the crashed drone were high-precision aerial bombs that were supposed to be dropped on the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, analyst Roepke said. Tehran supplies them to Moscow – along with cheaper, slower Shahed “kamikaze” drones, artillery shells and, reportedly, ballistic missiles. Observers say they are sent in return for the Kremlin’s international backing and far more advanced Russian weaponry that can shield Iran from potential Israeli and United States attacks. Since 2022, Shaheds have become “ersatz cruise missiles” that allow Moscow to launch massive, frequent assaults on …

What Ukraine Has Lost During Russia’s Invasion

What Ukraine Has Lost During Russia’s Invasion

Published by Sam

Few countries since World War II have experienced this level of devastation. But it’s been impossible for anybody to see more than glimpses of it. It’s too vast. Every battle, every bombing, every missile strike, every house burned down, has left its mark across multiple front lines, back and forth over more than two years. This is the first comprehensive picture of where the Ukraine war has been fought and the totality of the destruction. Using detailed analysis of years of satellite data, we developed a record of each town, each street, each building that has been blown apart. The scale is hard to comprehend. More buildings have been destroyed in Ukraine than if every building in Manhattan were to be leveled four times over. Parts of Ukraine hundreds of miles apart look like Dresden or London after World War II, or Gaza after half a year of bombardment. To produce these estimates, The New York Times worked with two leading remote sensing scientists, Corey Scher of the City University of New York Graduate Center …

Russia’s Putin gives Rostelecom approval to buy Nokia out of joint venture

Russia’s Putin gives Rostelecom approval to buy Nokia out of joint venture

Published by Sam

:Russian President Vladimir Putin authorised a subsidiary of telecoms firm Rostelecom on Wednesday to buy Nokia Solutions and Networks’ stake in a software joint venture between the companies, according to a decree. Finland’s Nokia said in April 2022 that it would exit the Russian market after Moscow despatched troops to Ukraine in February 2022. In a statement, Rostelecom said that its previous business model had become impossible after Nokia left the Russian market. “The transaction will be completed shortly,” Rostelecom said. “Other details are not being disclosed.” Source link

‘Putin’s patience snapped’: Insiders marvel at Russia’s military purge | Russia

‘Putin’s patience snapped’: Insiders marvel at Russia’s military purge | Russia

Published by skeptic

In the weeks since Vladimir Putin sacked his longtime defence minister Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s FSB security service has pursued a series of high-level corruption cases against a deputy minister and department heads in what many insiders are now calling a purge in the defence ministry. Andrei Belousov, the technocrat economist appointed to replace Shoigu, has a mandate to reduce corruption in the defence ministry and streamline military production for a long war against Ukraine that could largely be decided by industrial output. But former defence and Kremlin officials, ex-officers and foreign observers have said it was likely the exit of Shoigu and loss of his protection that has allowed the FSB, the Russian security department responsible for internal investigations, to take down powerful officials in a power struggle that could have knock-on effects for how Russia fights the war in Ukraine. “The FSB finally got their teeth in the defence ministry and general staff,” said Capt John Foreman, the UK’s former defence attache to Moscow, who said he believed the arrests could continue after “Putin’s …