The quartet bordering Russia proposes withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty, but add they have no plans to use landmines. Poland and the Baltic states plan to withdraw from an international convention banning the use of landmines, citing potential military threats from neighbouring Russia. The defence ministers of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia said in a … Read more
Russia will seek guarantees that Nato will exclude Ukraine from membership and that Ukraine will remain neutral in any peace deal, a Russian deputy foreign minister said. “We will demand that ironclad security guarantees become part of this agreement,” Alexander Grushko told Russian media outlet Izvestia. “Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status … Read more
Finnish court sentences Russian fighter to life imprisonment for war crimes against Ukrainian soldiers in 2014. A Russian national has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Finland for war crimes committed in Ukraine. The district court of Finland’s capital, Helsinki, ruled on Friday that Voislav Torden, then a commander of the far-right Russian nationalist paramilitary … Read more
Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, dressed in fatigues, visited a command post near the front in Kursk late Wednesday to cheer on his military’s ejection of Ukrainian forces from much of the territory they had been occupying in the Russian border region. The Russian leader’s pointed visit came a day after a U.S. delegation met … Read more
Wang met his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Johannesburg on Thursday. Wang’s remarks come after American and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia this week, without Kyiv’s involvement, to discuss ending the conflict. The talks in Riyadh have raised fears that Washington and Moscow could broker a peace … Read more
In Ryazan, residents posted videos on social media showing more than 50 explosions, including at an oil pumping station and the Ryazan heating power plant, SBU officials added. “It’s the effect of our ‘drone sanctions’ against enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex and the oil sector in the Russian rear. We will continue to weaken … Read more
Storm-hit Russian petroleum tankers trigger fears of fuel spills in Black Sea Financial Times Video appears to show Russian cargo ship split in two, sinking near Crimea CNN Oil spills in Kerch Strait after two Russian oil tankers seriously damaged in storm The Associated Press Two Russian tankers sink in Black Sea spilling 4,300 tonnes of oil The Guardian … Read more
Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SSO) targeted drones at one of Russia’s largest petroleum terminals in the suburbs of Orel early on Saturday, Dec. 14. “After carefully planning the operation, SSO personnel successfully struck a linear production-dispatching station, resulting in a powerful fire,” the report shared via Telegram said. JOIN US ON TELEGRAM Follow our coverage … Read more
The port city of Latakia on the Mediterranean Sea came under heavy attack, the BBC reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that “Israeli warplanes” had damaged or sunk about 10 Syrian naval vessels and levelled “the Barzeh scientific research center” in the town. That same facility was hit in 2018 by Western countries, … Read more
Paul Whelan was in Moscow that day at the storied Metropole Hotel, getting ready for the wedding of a fellow U.S. Marine, when a longtime Russian friend, a junior officer in the frontier guards, dropped by unexpectedly. The friend handed him a thumb drive that he said contained souvenir photos and videos from a trip … Read more