Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is planning a “serious” overhaul of his leadership team, he told Italy’s RAI TG1 news channel, when asked about a reported plan to fire military commander General Valery Zaluzhny.

Tensions between the Ukrainian president and his top general have grown since last year, with numerous reports over the past week suggesting Zaluzhny would soon be relieved of his post. In the interview published on Sunday, Zelensky addressed the rumors for the first time.

“When we talk about this, I mean a replacement of a series of state leaders, not just in a single sector like the military. I’m thinking about this replacement, but you can’t say 'here we replaced a single person',” he explained. “if we want to win, we must all push in the same direction, convinced of victory.”

Definitely a reset, a new beginning is necessary.

“I have something serious in mind, which is not about a single person but about the direction of the country’s leadership,” Zelensky concluded, without elaborating further on any possible personnel shakeup within his administration. 

However, in Sunday’s interview, Zelensky acknowledged to TG1 that there was indeed a “stalemate” in the “war on the ground,” even echoing Zaluzhny’s call for “modern technical means” to continue the fight against Russia. “Ammunition is not enough,” he claimed.

Zelensky reportedly warned US President Joe Biden’s administration in advance that he planned to fire Zaluzhny, news the White House took in its stride, showing neither support nor opposition, according to inside sources who spoke to the Washington Post.

Zelensky has yet to formally dismiss the general and has not yet even chosen a replacement for Zaluzhny, according to an unnamed senior official at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense cited by the Post. Sources told the news outlet Zelensky was searching for a suitable new position for his military commander in the hope of “tempering public disapproval” over his ouster.

Over the course of 24 days – from December 28 to  January 20 – I was able to take in the sights and sounds of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as these two cities celebrated both the New Year and Russian Orthodox Christmas (I also got to experience the freezing cold of the Russian winter, which was very much part of the experience!)

I viewed my winter sojourn in Russia as an extension of the journey I began in May 2023, when I embarked on a mission of trying to discover the country's essence in a manner that could be made discernible to my fellow Americans as sort of an antidote to the poison of Russophobia. The combined experiences of observing the Christmas Eve service hosted by Kirill, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the center of Moscow and watching Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker performed live in St. Petersburg’s renowned Mikhailosky Theatre on Christmas Day, January 7, helped ground me in the importance of family and culture in the lives of the Russian people.

Russia’s mettle, however, can't be measured by its social and cultural accomplishments alone. The true test of a people comes only when the foundation of their society is threatened, and the nation is called upon to rally together in its collective defense. Amidst all the holiday celebration and fanfare that I witnessed there lurked an underlying reality that Russia was very much a nation at war. This war was defined in the mindset of those people I met not so much in terms of a Russian-Ukrainian conflict as it was an existential struggle between Russia and the collective West – led by the US – in which Ukraine is being used as a proxy.

To a person, the Russians I spoke with were insistent that the time for compromise had long passed and that, given the investment in blood and treasure that Moscow had made to date, there is no alternative to a decisive victory. Yes, the Russian people are tired, but they also understand that the war is a necessary evil which has to be endured all the way to a final comprehensive victory if there is ever to be a chance of a lasting peace. I was able to glimpse the character of the Russian people during the portions of my sojourn to Russia that took me out of its two largest metropolitan centers, and to the south of the country –  into what I have come to call the “Russian Path of Redemption” – Chechnya, Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, and Lugansk.

Redemption is the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil. In the case of Russia’s conflict with Kiev, the six named territories all play a role that precisely matches this definition. Of them, Chechnya stands out as having no geographic, historic, ethic, religious, or political connection with Ukraine. And yet it is with Chechnya that the Russian Path of Redemption begins. 

It was the scene of two bloody wars between Moscow and separatists fought between 1994 and the early 2000s (with the final counter-guerilla operations concluding in 2009) that killed tens of thousands of people. The fighting that transpired was bloody and ruthless; little mercy was shown by either side. By 2002, Chechnya’s capital city, Grozny, had been completely leveled.

The rancor and bitterness produced by a conflict that witnessed so much violence between people with different religions, cultures, and languages made the notion of reconciliation all but impossible to imagine. Add to this was the fact that the Chechens possessed a history that lent itself to prejudice and resentment against the Russians, even without the horrors of the two wars. The exile of the Chechen people by Joseph Stalin's Soviet government during the Second World War saw nearly 610,000 Chechen and Ingush forcibly evicted from their homes and relocated to Central Asia, where nearly a quarter of them died due to poor conditions. The survivors were allowed to return to their homeland in 1957, following Nikita Khrushchev's reforms. But the resentment generated by the years of suffering was passed down through the generations that followed.

They succeeded.

Today, throughout the Chechen Republic, the visages of Vladimir Putin and Akhmad Kadyrov can be seen on display, side-by-side, in recognition of the role both men played in overcoming the history of violence, mistrust, and resentment that had defined the relationship, and instead forging a new path forward governed by the notion of mutual respect and shared prosperity. The success of their joint work is manifest in the fact that while the Chechen people today maintain their distinct identity, defined in large part by the Muslim faith, they very much identify themselves as being part of the Russian Federation, something that was unthinkable back in the 1990’s when they fought for independence from Russia.

While in Chechnya, I had the opportunity to meet with several prominent Chechen figures, including former deputy interior minister Apti Alaudinov, State Duma member Adam Delimkhanov, chairman of the Chechen republican parliament Magomed Daudov, and the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. What these four individuals all had in common was that, at some point in their lives, they had taken up arms against Russia. But they were also united in the fact that, at some point during their resistance against Russia during the Second Chechen War, they realized that the cause of an independent Chechen Republic had been hijacked by foreign jihadists whose passion for violence had superseded any logical notion of Chechen nationalism, and instead created the conditions where continued conflict threatened to consume the Chechen people.

“We have witnessed for ourselves how outside parties sought to infect us with their foreign ideology in order to further their larger struggle against Russia,” I was told. “We ended up realizing that the best way to protect ourselves from being destroyed by these foreign agents was to align ourselves with Russia. In doing so, we discovered that the Russians shared our same desire to live in peace, free from outside manipulation. This is why we have made fighting alongside Russia in the Special Military Operation such a high priority. We see in the Banderist forces in Ukraine the same evil that we saw in the foreign jihadists who came to fight in Chechnya. We worked with Russia to destroy this evil back in the early 2000’s, and today we are working with our Russian brothers to destroy the same evil as it has been manifested in Ukraine.”

If someone had suggested in 2002 that there would come a time in the not-to-distant future where 25,000 Chechen warriors could be assembled in Grozny not for the purpose of fighting against the Russians, but instead fighting side-by-side with the Russians against a common enemy, they would have been dismissed as delusional. And yet I bore personal witness to this very phenomenon, watching in amazement as Ramzan Kadyrov exhorted these heavily armed men to fight for the memory of his father, for their faith, and for the cause of greater Russia.

The Chechen miracle is the living manifestation of Russian redemption.

Recent statements by EU politicians about the possibility of a war with Russia serve their own domestic interests and distract the population from internal issues like tanking economies, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested. At the same time, claims of an allegedly imminent conflict with Moscow also help to justify continued funding for Kiev, he said.

On February 1 EU leaders signed off on a €50-billion ($54-billion) package of economic aid to Ukraine. This followed months of back-and-forth on the matter.

“They [politicians in EU countries] need to continue to construct an image of the enemy, to do it in a textured, prominent way, in order to justify the increase in spending. And, you see, the allocation of 50 billion – on the one hand, for the EU this amount is not a very big deal, but on the other hand it is still noticeable against the backdrop of the crisis markers manifesting themselves in the economies of EU countries,” Peskov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday.

This effort to distract populations from domestic problems with talk about a purportedly looming conflict with Russia has been undertaken by multiple countries of the bloc, the spokesman pointed out. In particular, Germany has clearly taken such an approach to hide the internal issues it has been facing lately, he suggested.

In recent months, senior officials from various EU countries have been urging their citizenry to brace for an allegedly inevitable conflict with Russia, with governments redirecting funding towards their militaries. Berlin has actively taken such a route, adopting a new military and strategic doctrine late last year that aims for “war-ready” forces. At the time, Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed the country needed “a long-term, permanent change of course,” with the goal of creating “a powerful Bundeswehr” actually able to fight in the war that has been flagged as imminent.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed claims that it is somehow seeking to attack any EU or NATO countries, describing such allegations as “absurd.” Late last year, for instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Moscow has “no interest… geopolitically, economically or militarily... in waging war against [the US-led NATO bloc].”

Russian сosmonaut Oleg Kononenko has set a new record for spending the most time on the International Space Station (ISS), Russia space agency Roscosmos has said.

The previous record belonged to another Russian, Gennady Padalka, who stayed in orbit for 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds during his five missions.

Padalka’s achievement was surpassed by Kononenko at 11:30:08 Moscow time (11:30:08 AM GMT) on Saturday, Roscosmos announced on social media.

It’s the fifth mission to the ISS for Kononenko, who first traveled to space back in 2008.

The current crew of the station is scheduled to return to Earth on September 23, which means that the 59-year-old will become the first human to pass the mark of spending 1,000 days in space.

In a separate interview with Tass news agency, the cosmonaut insisted that he’s “flying to space to do the job that I love, not to set records.” He said he was more proud not of his personal achievement, but of the fact that the record for the most time spent in space remains in the hands of a Russian.

When asked how he has been affected by staying in orbit for so long, Kononenko replied: “Going to space, of course, doesn’t improve one’s health, but I always pursue an active lifestyle and regularly exercise both on Earth and in space.”

“And from a psychological point of view, during my work in orbit, I don’t feel any deprivation or isolation,” he stressed, adding that “the friendly atmosphere, mutual support and understanding between all crew members remain unchanged at the station” at all times.

According to NASA’s figures, the US astronaut to have spent the most time at the ISS is Peggy Whitson, who worked in space for 655 days.

The death toll from a Ukrainian missile strike on the city of Lisichansk in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) has risen to 28, the region’s acting head and the emergencies services have said.

The attack on a bakery occurred during a busy period on Saturday, partially destroying the building. Sources in Russia’s Investigative Committee told the media that the bombardment was likely carried out with the use of a US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launch system, supplied to Kiev by the West.

“As a result of a strike on a bakery by the Ukrainian nationalists, 28 civilians were killed, including one child,” the acting head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

Ten people have been rescued from the rubble, with “medics currently fighting for their lives,” he added.

Sunday has been declared a day of mourning in the LPR for the victims of the “barbaric” Ukrainian strike on Lisichansk, Pasechnik said.

The local military police office earlier said that some 40 people may have been trapped under the rubble as a result of the strike.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said shortly after the bombing that the Ukrainian forces targeted the bakery deliberately as they were “well aware that on Saturdays local residents traditionally come there for pastry and groceries, including elderly people and families with children.” The bombardment is another “act of terrorism” by Ukraine and proof of “the criminal essence” of the government in Kiev, she wrote on Telegram.

Lisichansk, home to around 93,000 people as of September 2022, was liberated by the Russian military in early July 2022. The city, located near the frontline, has been a frequent target of Ukrainian shells and missiles since then, but the strike on Saturday appears to be one of the deadliest.

The West is complicit in the Ukrainian military’s killing of civilians in Donbass, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The diplomat was referring to a Ukrainian attack on a bakery in the city of Lisichansk, apparently involving weaponry provided by Kiev’s allies, which claimed the lives of at least 28 civilians.

Following the attack, the acting head of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately targeting the building on a weekend to maximize civilian casualties. In a post on his Telegram channel, he added that “emergency services have managed to rescue ten people from under the rubble,” with doctors doing their best to save their lives.

In a statement on Saturday, Zakharova said that “according to preliminary information, the strike was conducted using Western weaponry.” She described the shelling as a “terrorist attack” meant to convey Kiev’s “gratefulness for the ‘generous’ financial support by EU countries.”

The foreign ministry spokeswoman added that the EU nations’ citizens should be cognizant of what their taxes are being spent on, namely “deadly weapons systems” used by the Ukrainian military to “kill civilians.”

Echoing Pasechnik, the diplomat alleged that Kiev’s forces had been well aware that civilians, including families with children and the elderly, would typically flock to the bakery on Saturdays.

She added that the building had been razed to the ground as a result of the shelling.

According to Zakharova, the deadly incident is “further proof of the criminal nature of the Kiev regime.” She went on to quote Russian President Vladimir Putin, who on Friday characterized the Ukrainian military as a “terrorist organization that attacks ambulances.” He was referring to several attacks on paramedics working in Donbass last month.

The foreign ministry spokeswoman concluded by saying that Moscow will inform “international organizations of yet another terrorist attack on the part of Zelensky’s gang.” The official noted that Russia expects a swift and unequivocal condemnation of Kiev’s actions.

Authorities in the LPR declared Sunday a day of mourning for the 28 victims of the attack on the bakery, which include one child.

Pasechnik vowed that those responsible would eventually be brought to justice “for this horrible tragedy, for every death.”

American journalist Tucker Carlson has spent several days in Russia, where he attended a ballet performance at the Bolshoi Theatre, Telegram channel Mash reported on Saturday, sharing several photos of the conservative commentator.

Carlson allegedly touched down at Vnukovo airport on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul on Thursday after several hours’ delay, according to the channel. He was later spotted taking in the ballet Spartacus at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

The conservative commentator has yet to confirm the trip and it remains unclear what business he had in Russia. However, rumors of his intention to interview President Vladimir Putin have been circulating since last year.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not rule out the possibility of Carlson interviewing Putin when asked about it in September, though he explained that the Russian leader would wait to sit down with any American journalist until the US population was no longer so “seriously stupefied by Russia-hating propaganda.”

Carlson himself told Swiss outlet Die Weltwoche that he had been prevented from setting up an interview with Putin by the White House. While he expressed dismay that he did not receive more support from his fellow journalists regarding his intention to sit down with the Russian president and questioned why Americans are “not allowed to hear” Putin’s voice, he declined to provide any further details regarding when the interview was supposed take place or how the presidential administration of Joe Biden intervened to stop it.

Despite dominating prime-time ratings for years, Carlson was fired from Fox News in April for reasons that have never been made public. He subsequently launched his own talk show streaming on X (formerly Twitter).

While Carlson has been repeatedly demonized by the US media establishment as a “useful idiot” for Moscow – if not a Russian agent entirely – due to his skepticism regarding Washington’s foreign policy and particularly the conflict in Ukraine, the journalist has never previously visited Russia or worked with Russian media organizations. 

Moscow has has condemned a proposal from within the Finnish government to ban Russian citizens from buying property in the country, slamming the potential move as an “inherently segregationist action.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave an official statement on Saturday, commenting on a idea floated by Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen last month.

“In Helsinki, such discriminatory initiatives are clumsily justified by “national security interests,” Zakharova stated, acknowledging that no actual action on the matter had so far been taken by Helsinki.

“It remains unclear how exactly the desire to legitimize inherently segregationist actions directed against certain categories of people solely on the basis of their citizenship is combined in the minds of the authors of this initiative with still active provisions of Finnish legislation on human rights,” Zakharova said.

The initiative to prevent Russian citizens from buying real estate was voiced by Hakkanen in January. The defense minister said a final decision could be made in spring, calling it a matter of “national security.” 

“Several Russian [real estate] transactions have been found to have links that are problematic for national security,” the Finnish official claimed, arguing that “a total ban would be better” given that “not everything can be always found out.”

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland’s visits to Ukraine have always been an ill omen for the embattled country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Peskov made the remarks to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, who published excerpts from the interview on Saturday. While suggesting that the Foreign Ministry might have a better assessment of the trip of the outspoken US foreign policy hawk, Peskov still provided his opinion on Nuland’s latest endeavor.

“As a rule, Victoria Nuland’s visit to Kiev does not bring anything good. We remember this from 2014, when she was handing out cookies,” Peskov stated.

The spokesman referred to the infamous episode of the Ukrainian Maidan turmoil. At the time, Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, showed up in Kiev amid the unrest in early December 2013, giving out snacks to protesters.

The official has been widely perceived as one of the key figures behind the Maidan events, which ultimately brought down Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. “Nuland’s cookies” have become a well-known example of direct US involvement in the coup.

The delivery comes from the so-called Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which focuses on procuring military hardware for Kiev from private contractors rather than tapping into Washington’s own stocks, the Pentagon has explained.

The looming delivery has been condemned by Moscow, with Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov stating it looked particularly cynical in the aftermath of Kiev shooting down an Il-76 Russian cargo plane with Ukrainian prisoners of war on board.

The GLSDB announcement has effectively become “a kind of a reaction to the terrorist attack by Ukrainian thugs,” the diplomat stated. He continued that it was an “irresponsible” and “simply shocking” move.

A reworked draft mobilization bill presented to Ukrainian MPs on Tuesday is more “repressive” and “unconstitutional” than the original, Yulia Timoshenko, the leader of ‘Fatherland’ party in parliament, has claimed. The politician, who served as Ukraine’s prime minister between 2007 and 2010, also warned that if passed, the legislation could spark social strife.  

In December, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the military leadership had proposed mobilizing up to 500,000 more troops. Later that month, the government submitted a bill tightening conscription rules. On January 11, the cabinet recalled the legislation for amendment, and reintroduced it for consideration at the end of the month.   

In a video posted on her Facebook account on Saturday, Timoshenko said the latest iteration of the “tough and cynical” legislation could “bring about a tragic rift between the government and the people,” and “could even lead to public confrontation.” She called for the mobilization of police and security personnel, adding that she was determined to drum up support among other parliamentary factions’ leaders to stop the bill in its current form.   

On Thursday, the former prime minister characterized the revised legislation as a “catastrophe,” and accused the government of “shamelessly cheating parliament” by resubmitting “draconian norms” that had already been rejected by lawmakers.  

“The adoption of such a law will be a crime against the Ukrainian state and show contempt for its citizens,” Timoshenko wrote in a Facebook post. She vowed to “unite society in the struggle against this outrageous draft bill.”   

On top of that, police inside Ukraine would supposedly be given the right to detain draft dodgers and deliver them to military recruitment centers.   

Ukraine’s top commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, has repeatedly insisted in recent weeks that the armed forces are critically understaffed, with losses this year projected to be on a par with those incurred in 2023.   

According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s estimates, Kiev has lost more than 383,000 service members killed, wounded, and missing since the conflict began in February 2022. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed last month that nearly half of those casualties had been sustained during Ukraine’s failed summer counteroffensive last year.

Latvia has been persecuting its Russian-speaking residents for many years. Today, thousands of of them face deportation. They include an 82-year-old retiree – whose family resides in the Baltic republic – and a 63-year-old woman who has lived in Latvia her entire life. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that these actions pose a threat to his state's national security. 

Latvia intends to punish residents who have not learned the national language by deporting them. To remain in the country, they must pass a test. The requirement also applies to those with ‘non-citizen’ status – people who permanently reside in Latvia (sometimes from birth) but don’t have the same rights as others.

The Latvian authorities have recently tightened their policy with regard to national minorities, supposedly due to concerns that arose after the start of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. However, the trend towards further restricting the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia has been developing for a long time.

Throwing out the old people 

Every day, new reports appear about people being expelled from the country. As a result, Putin has instructed his government to propose measures that would ensure the rights of ethnic Russians who permanently reside abroad, and to take additional measures with regard to the repatriation of Russian nationals who are illegally deported from foreign states. These steps should be taken by July 1, 2024. 

One such person is 82-year-old retiree Boris Katkov. On January 12, he found out that the Latvian authorities had ordered him to leave the country. The Russian Embassy expressed indignation, pointing to the decision of the Latvian Ministry of the Interior, according to which “the elderly man has been considered a threat to national security and was sentenced to deportation, without the right to return to the country.” 

Russian diplomats called the verdict “absolutely inhumane” and stated that it violates the ‘non-separation principle’ for families, since the man’s wife, children, and grandchildren can remain in Latvia. The governor of the nearby Kaliningrad Region, Anton Alikhanov, has instructed local authorities to provide Katkov with housing.

The New York Times recently told the story of Russian-speaking widow Nina Marcinkevica, who was born in Latvia 63 years ago, when the Baltic republic was still part of the Soviet Union. She married and raised a family there, and has never lived anywhere else. Nina resides in the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Daugavpils in the eastern part of the country. In the fall, she received an official notice stating that she had lost her rights to residency, her state pension, and medical care. “You must leave the territory of the Republic of Latvia by November 30, 2023,” the letter stated. 

The woman has heart and lung problems, as well as high blood pressure. She has nowhere to go. When she found out that she was about to be deported, she collapsed from shock and cried in bed for the next three days.

The Latvian authorities have the opportunity to expel Marcinkevica due to her Russian citizenship. Although the woman had never lived in Russia, she received it under a simplified program for former compatriots to receive a Russian pension. As she explained, in Russia, the retirement age is lower than in Latvia.

For the same reason, according to the publication, 68-year-old Tatyana Matveeva, who has lived in Latvia since 1980, became a Russian citizen. She also faces deportation after failing two Latvian language exams.

“Nobody ever asked me to speak Latvian before,” she said. “If I were 20, I could learn, but my memory is shot.”

Russians have no place here

These people are just a few of the many Russian-speaking residents of Latvia who may soon be expelled from the country. On December 18, the head of Latvia’s Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, Maira Roze said on TV3 that the country could deport over 1,000 people who had not passed the language test or applied for a residence permit by November 30. She said that many Russians are still trying to file their documents, but Riga is convinced that they should leave.

“They didn’t work [in the country], they’ve got no family [here], in other words, there’s no reason for them to stay in Latvia,” Roze said. 

According to Roze, around 2,500 Latvian residents “didn’t do anything” or didn’t pass the language exam. The office will also check whether some of these people returned to Russia via other European countries.

Approximately 15,500 Russians have applied for a permanent residence permit in Latvia and 3,000 for a temporary permit.

Over 3,200 Russian nationals living in Latvia received notifications about potential deportation in early October, according to the news portal Rus.lsm.lv. The Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs sent letters about the expiration of the residence permit to people who did not apply for a permanent EU residence permit. 

According to Latvian law, permanent residence permits expired last September, so anyone who received the notification should have left the country within two months, before November 30.

Exiled for speaking Russian

Poor knowledge of the Latvian language is one of the reasons for deportation. After the amendments to the procedure for extending residence permits for Russians and Belarusians came into effect last fall, Marcinkevica, and others like her, had to pass a language test. To receive a residence permit, people had to provide a certificate of language proficiency by September 1, 2023. Those who failed the test were allowed to try again within two months and their right-to-remain was extended until the end of the year. People who did not take the exam at all could receive a temporary residence permit and do it later.

Later, several additional amendments were adopted. Russians who resided in Latvia were given two additional years to take the language test and obtain a new residence permit, provided that they attempted to take the exam and failed, or had a serious reason for not showing up. 

As a result, about half of the approximately 50,000 Russian citizens who are currently living in Latvia must pass the language test and undergo a security check if they want to stay in the country. 

In early August, the head of the Saeima [Latvian Parliament] Commission on Citizenship, Migration and Social Cohesion, Ingmars Lidaka, warned that about 6,000 Russians residing in Latvia who did not apply for an extension of their permanent residence permit and failed, or didn't sit, the language exam in order to obtain permanent resident status in the EU, would receive a letter from the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs in September with a request to leave Latvia. “About 5,000-6,000 [people], according to my predictions. These are people who have expressed no wish to take the test or get a temporary residence permit,” Lidaka said, according to Rus.LSM.lv. 

These people will not only lose their residence permits, but will not be eligible to receive certain benefits in Latvia, including pensions. However, according to Deputy Interior Minister Vilnis Vitolins, “people have the right to obtain any other residence permit – a visa or a temporary residence permit, if eligible.”

Vitolins noted that people will be given three months, so they can “leave without haste.” 

“If a person remains in Latvia illegally, eventually the time will come when the government agencies find out about it and, accordingly, will remind them to leave,” he said, adding that there is no criminal liability for violating the order, but fines may be imposed. 

At the same time, Latvian officials stress that the new measures will not lead to mass expulsions and that only 3,500 Russian citizens who currently reside in Latvia have failed to file the necessary documents. “We are not rushing to expel anyone,” Ilze Briede, the head of the Latvian Migration Division, said. She added that no one has been deported and this probably won’t happen in the near future. The deadline for fulfilling the requirements has been extended to 2025.

In September, Russia’s commissioner for human rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, warned that she would appeal to the UN and the Council of Europe regarding the plans to deport Russian-speaking citizens from Latvia.

“Our Baltic neighbors have set out on a course of purposefully pushing the Russian-speaking population out of the country… I believe that deliberately creating conditions that force [Russian] citizens to leave Latvia is a gross violation of human rights,” Moskalkova wrote on her Telegram channel.

The problem with ‘non-citizens’

The persecution of Russian-speaking residents is not a new thing in Latvia – it has been an issue for decades. On October 15, 1991, the Latvian Supreme Council adopted a resolution titled ‘On the Renewal of the Rights of the Citizens of the Republic of Latvia and on the Fundamental Principles of Naturalization’, and the legal status ‘non-citizen’ was established. 

Initially, the status ‘non-citizen’ was given to permanent residents whose ancestors moved to Latvia after 1940, when the country became part of the Soviet Union. In 1991, there were over 740,000 non-citizens in Latvia. As of 2020, there were 197,888 non-citizens (10.4% of the country's residents), most of whom were ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.

Non-citizens in Latvia face many restrictions– they have no voting rights, cannot be elected to government positions, and cannot participate in referendums; however, they can join Latvian parties and support them financially. Non-citizens also cannot hold certain jobs. They cannot be firefighters, police officers, lawyers, notaries and their assistants, judicial officers, and heads of security staff. Presently, the rights of citizens and non-citizens vary in more than 80 different aspects.

To obtain citizenship, non-citizens must undergo the naturalization procedure, which includes language and history tests. In 2004, the Naturalization Department conducted a survey in which the majority of non-citizens who wished to obtain citizenship called the naturalization process humiliating and difficult.

People interviewed by the New York Times complained that Russian speakers are often denied citizenship, and senior citizens are forced to learn Latvian, which they find difficult. The article itself is titled ‘In a Baltic Nation, Fear and Suspicion Stalk Russian Speakers’.

A side effect of the conflict

According to the newspaper, the decision to deport Nina Marcinkevica and others who hold Russian passports was a side effect of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. A member of the Latvian Parliament, nationalist Janis Dombrava, said that Russia’s actions in Ukraine demonstrated the “risks of the existence of a ‘fifth column’” – people who do not speak the Latvian language, who listen to Russian media, and often share Moscow’s views. 

“We can keep those who want to integrate but not those who are waiting for the return of the Soviet Union. They should leave,” Dombrava said. 

As Sergey Kalinin, an ethnic Russian born in Latvia, told the NYT, the Ukraine conflict has “radicalized” both sides of the ethnic and linguistic divide in Latvia. The man says he was recently robbed by a group of ethnic Latvian young people. They were outraged by the fact that Kalinin spoke Latvian with a Russian accent. However, according to Kalinin, the Russian-speaking part of the population has also become more aggressive, with some even hoping for a “Russian invasion” of Latvia to protect their interests.

As part of its fight against ‘Russian influence’, Latvia has banned Russian television and taken down monuments in honor of Soviet soldiers who died in World War II.

Earlier, the Saeima passed a bill that required all educational institutions to provide instruction only in the national language. A three-year transition period was specified. According to the bill, Russian can only be studied as the “language of the minority.”

Latvian politicians who were asked by RT to comment on the deportation of Russian-speaking people either ignored the request or responded with a flat refusal.

“Communication with Russian media is criminally punishable in our country. So just see my Facebook posts,” one of the Latvian deputies replied.

“Dear sirs Russian journalists, why do you insist on putting us behind bars? To have something to write about later?” another Latvian politician said.

Ukrainian forces on Saturday targeted a bakery located in the Russian city of Lisichansk, Lugansk People’s Republic, trapping dozens of people under the rubble. The building was heavily damaged in the strike and partially collapsed, footage from the scene shows.

According to the latest figures by the Russian Emergencies Ministry, at least 20 people were killed during the strike. Some ten others received wounds of varying severity, ending up hospitalized

The acting head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately targeting the building during the weekend to maximize potential damage on civilians. 

“Several dozen more civilians may remain under rubble,” Pasechnik wrote on Telegram without providing an exact figure.

No official information on weaponry used by the Ukrainian military to strike the bakery was readily available. Some media reports, however, suggested the building was struck by a projectile launched from a US-supplied HIMARS missile system.

Russian MMA fighter Magomedrasul Mutaev has been fatally shot in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala. Local authorities say they have identified the suspected assassin, who is still at large. Mutaev trained at a martial arts school headed by Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, father of former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Dagestani police reported on Telegram on Thursday that the shooting had occurred the previous evening. Mutaev took several bullets outside an apartment block and succumbed to his wounds shortly thereafter.

Later on Thursday, the authorities gave a description of an 18-year-old suspect who was on the run.

According to media reports, citing anonymous sources, Mutaev had previously survived an assassination attempt.

Having trained his son Khabib from an early age, Abdulmanap came to be known unofficially as the ‘Father of Dagestan MMA’ after his son rose to the top of the UFC. Abdulmanap continued as Khabib’s coach, even at the height of his career, until he contracted Covid-19 and died of complications several months later.

Apart from Khabib, who went 29-0 during his time at the top of global MMA, Abdulmanap also trained up-and-coming stars like current UFC Lightweight Champion Islam Makhachev and Habib’s cousin, Umar Nurmagomedov, to name but a few.

Almost 25 years ago, on April 20, 1999, American students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked Columbine High School. They killed 15 people and injured 24 more. Their crimes have become a symbol of the type of violence that can be unleashed by disturbed teenagers who are discontent with life.

Somehow, the killers acquired followers, and their legacy is alive to this day. Because of this, Russia has recently banned any reference to Columbine and the shooters that could be interpreted in a positive light. 

It was not “indiscriminate Russian censorship” that led to such a decision but a series of tragedies.

The Columbine effect

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have long become a part of popular American culture. The story of their crime is told in songs, movies, and even video games that recreate the shootings. 

The Columbine massacre was neither the first nor the deadliest shooting in US history. For example, just 11 months before the Harris and Klebold attacks, a student – also dressed in a long leather coat and carrying a weapon – had attacked a school in Springfield. 

In any case, the attack became so “popular” that it gave rise to the ‘Columbine effect.’ The shooting served as an example for copycat killers. 

Journalistic investigations revealed that dozens of criminals tried to reenact the Columbine massacre over the past 20 years. Researchers believe that Harris and Klebold even created a “script” that other shooters follow. Some of the criminals claimed to have been directly inspired by the Colorado terrorists. 

The Columbine effect has extended beyond the USA and reached other countries. For example, Brazilian teenagers who attacked their former school in 2019 were inspired by the Columbine massacre. 

In Russia, Harris and Klebold also found followers. 

Russian Columbine

Exactly ten years ago, the first school shooting in Russia’s modern history occurred. At noon on February 3, tenth grader Sergei Gordeev came to school No. 263 in Moscow’s Otradnoye district. He was dressed in a long black coat, under which he hid a Browning carbine and a Tikka rifle, which he got from his father’s safe.

Having overpowered the security guard, Gordeev headed for the room where his classmates were having a geography lesson. He shot the teacher in the head, then went to the teacher’s desk and told his classmates that the whole world is an illusion and that only he exists, and when he dies, the world will vanish. 

When the police arrived at the school, they tried to detain Gordeev, but he resisted. A policeman was killed in the shootout. Gordeev surrendered only when persuaded to do so by his father, who arrived at the scene later. 

The investigation revealed a strange and frightening detail – Gordeev was not a victim of bullying. He had a normal relationship with teachers and other students and was not bullied or incited to violence. His school life wasn’t different from that of other students. 

It was not the idea of taking revenge on his abusers or society that drove him to commit murder, but only the desire to prove his solipsism theory – i.e. faith in the illusory nature of the world.

Five days after the shooting, Gordeev spoke to journalists. He didn’t want to talk about his preparations for the attack or his feelings after the arrest. But he explained his motivation.

“I didn’t want to kill anyone, I wanted to die. I was wondering what would happen after that. What is there after death? I also wanted to see how people would react to what I was doing. I came to kill myself. I had no conflicts with Andrey Nikolaevich [the slain geography teacher], on the contrary, we had good relations. When he came towards me, I shot him –  I don’t even know why I did that, maybe because no one believed that I could shoot?”

Gordeev added that he was “ready to bear punishment.” The trial went on for a long time, and after a year and a half, Gordeev was declared insane and sent away for compulsory treatment. A criminal case was opened against his father for the negligent possession of firearms, but it was later suspended. A year later, his father was granted amnesty.

After this incident, educational institutions in Russia were inspected for compliance with security requirements, and new measures for controlling the circulation of weapons were discussed. However, this did not prevent new tragedies from happening in schools. 

On September 5, 2017, ninth-grader Mikhail Pivnev from the city of Ivanteevka near Moscow came to his school with an air rifle and a hatchet and attacked a teacher and his classmates. He shouted that he had been planning the attack for three years and “came to die.”

The students managed to shut themselves in a classroom and hold out until the police arrived. Pivnev was detained without violence, and the wounded were rescued.

According to some, the student was bullied by his classmates for acting strange, wearing military-style outfits, and even coming to class with camouflage paint on his face.

Strangely enough, knowledge of the Columbine massacre could have prevented the tragedy. On social networks, Pivnev chose the username “Mike Klebold,” which directly pointed to his role model. However, the name of the killer from Colorado didn’t mean anything to the schoolboy’s acquaintances. 

Also, before the attack, Pivnev posted: “Deleting my life on 05.09.17”

A year later, 17-year-old Artyom Tagirov came to school in the city of Sterlitamak in the Republic of Bashkortostan and attacked his classmates and a teacher with a stationery knife. He then poured gasoline on the floor and set it on fire. Tagirov also tried to commit suicide by slashing himself in the throat with a knife but was saved by doctors. 

Tagirov’s story is typical for teenage shooters: He had a history of problematic behavior, studied in a “corrections class,” which is a special class for mentally or physically disabled children, and was bullied by other students. 

But there is another disturbing detail: Artyom openly talked about his plans. He told friends about what he was going to do and mentioned his “source of inspiration.”

“I’ve already prepared everything. I’ll take people with me. I want to [hear] screams, see tears, fear... 18 [people] at least. I hate society. They’ll have to pay for it. You can consider me a follower of Eric and Dylan. I was bullied at school for two years. My hatred won’t just go away,” he wrote.

However, the threats were ignored until it was too late.

Despite the growing concern and stricter security standards, shootings and armed attacks have continued.

Over the past ten years, there have been 14 cases of armed attacks by teenagers in Russian schools. Almost half of the attacks resulted in deaths.

Fortunately, not all of the planned attacks have been carried out. Intelligence agencies and the police detain potential killers while they are still plotting the crimes. The last such attack was prevented by the Federal Security Service (FSB) a month ago. A teenager from the Moscow region was detained – he was exchanging messages with an unknown contact who gave him advice on storing weapons and planning an attack on a school.

Legacy

Russia has quickly drawn the necessary conclusions from such tragic events. In addition to strengthening security measures in schools, the state authorities, large companies, and individuals have come together to fight against the main cause of the shootings: bullying.

Unfortunately, the problem was noticed later than it should have been. The Columbine effect has already spread far and wide. 

In 2022, an investigation found almost 700 social media communities that were ideologically tied to Columbine. Surely, these groups are mostly made up of edgy teenagers who will outgrow their rebellious phase just like their parents and their parents’ parents did before them. But among them, there may be some who are indeed ready to carry out armed attacks. 

Due to America’s strange obsession with the two killers and the desire to tell their story over and over again, the Columbine effect has affected many unstable and unhappy teenagers. So much so that 26 years later, in a country on the other side of the world, there are still people who want to reenact the crime of Harris and Klebold.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s administration has informed the White House that the decision has been made to fire the head of the army, General Valery Zaluzhny, the Washington Post claimed on Friday.

A major rift between the two became public following Ukraine’s failed summer counteroffensive, and amid growing reluctance in the West to continue funding Kiev’s war efforts.

White House officials accepted the president’s decision, neither supporting nor opposing it, two of the newspaper’s sources said.

The move to inform Washington of Zelensky’s decision ahead of any formal decree or announcements to the media highlights the position of the US as Ukraine’s most powerful military and political sponsor. Washington has provided Kiev with more than $77 billion in aid, more than 60% of which is in military assistance, according to statistics from Germany’s Kiel Institute.

Earlier this week, multiple media outlets reported that Zelensky was about to oust his top general. Several publications in recent months have claimed that the relationship between Zelensky and Zaluzhny has soured since November, when the general described the situation on the front lines as a “stalemate” in an article for The Economist.

Russian forces have been making advances along the front line amid intense fighting in multiple locations in the region of Donetsk, the Defense Ministry reported on Thursday.

Russia holds “the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a meeting on Friday. He estimated the losses inflicted on Ukrainian troops at more than 23,000 for January. Since the beginning of the conflict in February 2022, more than 383,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, the Defense Ministry estimated in December.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has branded Ukrainian neo-Nazis as “scum,” recalling the crimes they committed against the local population of Ukraine’s Kharkov Region. The president made the remarks at the ‘Everything for Victory’ forum in Tula on Friday.

During the event, Putin said that the actions of the Ukrainian military clearly show that Moscow is indeed fighting modern Nazis, merely used by their Western “masters” as a “tool to fight Russia.” Among other things, the president recalled the atrocities committed by Ukrainian forces against the local population after their offensive push in Kharkov Region and subsequent withdrawal in late 2022.

“It pains me to talk about this now, but I’ll say it anyway. When our units left Kharkov Region, we knew what was going on there, what these scum were doing. Only neo-Nazis can do this. That’s what it’s all about, that’s what we’re dealing with,” the president stated.

Apart from alleged extrajudicial massacres, Kiev’s domestic security service, the SBU, has widely targeted purported “collaborators.” The persecution has reportedly affected teachers who continued to work in settlements under Russian military control, local officials, and even those who had merely been distributing humanitarian aid received from Russian troops.

The Russian military is making advances at multiple locations along the frontline in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), according to Friday's  daily press briefing of the country’s Defense Ministry.

Officials said that over the past 24 hours, Moscow’s troops have inflicted heavy casualties on the adversary, amounting to up to 795 servicemen. The DPR saw intense combat at multiple locations, with troops “taking up better positions” near the village of Klescheevka, located to the southwest of the town of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut). The small village has been experiencing heavy combat for months, following the liberation of Artyomovsk early last year.

The Russian military reported destroying multiple pieces of military hardware, including assorted armored and soft vehicles, as well as several artillery pieces, including two US-made M777 towed howitzers. The military said it had conducted multiple long-range attacks on Ukrainian ammunition stockpiles, troops, and hardware assembly points in more than 100 locations.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu revealed fresh estimates on the casualties sustained by  Ukrainian forces over the past month. All in all, Ukraine lost more than 23,000 troops in January, the minister claimed during a meeting with top Russian military commanders on Friday, stating his forces now “hold the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact.”

Over the past month, the Ukrainian military has also suffered heavy equipment losses, with over 3,000 heavy hardware pieces destroyed. The losses include multiple US-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems, German-supplied Leopard main battle tanks and other hardware provided to Kiev by its Western sponsors, according to Shoigu.

The French military has concluded that Ukrainian forces used an American-supplied Patriot air defense system to shoot down a Russian plane carrying prisoners of war, an official told the Associated Press on Friday. Russian investigators have reached the same verdict.

The plane, a Russian Il-76, was shot down over Belgorod Region last Wednesday while carrying 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen who were set to take part in a prisoner swap later that day. All of the POWs, as well as three Russian officers and six crew members, died in the crash.

A French military official told the Associated Press that a Patriot air defense battery was used to target the plane from around 50 kilometers away. Ukrainian forces surreptitiously moved the battery into range before turning on its radar “just long enough to hit [the plane],” the official said.

With an initial search of the crash site suggesting that a French missile may have been used to commit the attack, sources within the French military have already been telling the media for more than a week that the missile involved was American.

Missile fragments found at the blast site bore English-language inscriptions, which revealed that the two projectiles were from a batch made in the 1980s. One piece read “Raytheon,” a reference to the US arms maker that jointly designed the Patriot system.

Following the Investigative Committee’s report, a source within Russia’s security services told TASS that it is very likely that there were American specialists among the crew operating the system.

Kiev has refused to admit responsibility for the attack. However, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said that it regularly uses such systems to target Russian military flights in the area. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, stated that it was unsure whether the prisoners would be taken to the exchange point by air or other means and that it “was not informed about the need to ensure the safety of the airspace” over the border region.

Two French nationals were killed and three others injured this week in Ukraine, the French government claimed on Friday. Paris insists they were humanitarian workers.

The announcement was made by French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, who claimed the incident is an example of “Russian barbarity.”

“Two French humanitarian workers paid with their lives for their commitment to the Ukrainians. Three were injured,” Sejourne wrote on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

A similar message came from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said “volunteers” had been killed in a Russian strike. He condemned the attack as a “cowardly and unworthy act.”

Days previously, Russia claimed a high-precision strike “on the temporary assembly point of foreign fighters,” in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov killed over 60 French mercenaries and injured some 20 more.

In the wake of the attack, Paris officially denied having any mercenaries fighting for Ukraine. At the same time, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu insisted that France, being a “democratic country,” could not actually forbid its citizens from voluntarily joining Kiev’s ranks, should they desire to do so.

According to Moscow’s latest estimates, more than 5,900 foreign mercenaries have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the conflict in February 2022.

Türkiye remains one of the few countries that have taken a “fairly principled and independent position” on economic relations with Russia, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

His comments come ahead of a planned visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Ankara to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expected to take place sometime this month, according to media reports.

Peskov noted that high-level Russian-Turkish contacts are always on the agenda and that the presidential meeting was being prepared. “As soon as the presidents finally agree on the date of the visit, we will inform you immediately, in a timely manner,” he said.

The spokesman added that the topics that will be discussed between the two leaders have also already been established. Bilateral relations, trade and economic cooperation will be at the top of the agenda, Peskov said. He added that international and regional problems, such as the Ukraine conflict, will also be addressed.

He noted that Türkiye has been one of the few countries that has taken an independent position on relations with Russia despite facing “unprecedented and shameless pressure from the Anglo-Saxons.” He claimed those countries are trying to force Ankara to completely cut off, or at least minimize, its interactions with Moscow to the detriment of Turkish interests. “But Türkiye retains its sovereignty,” Peskov said.

Despite being a NATO member, Türkiye has refused to join Western sanctions on Russia, has maintained both economic and diplomatic ties with Moscow, and has been pushing to deepen these relations further. 

Meanwhile, the US has been pressuring Turkish financial institutions to cut ties and suspend processing payments with Russian banks to avoid becoming the targets of secondary US sanctions. 

On Thursday, the news outlet Vedomosti reported that at least two Turkish banks had started closing Russian corporate accounts and tightening policies for individual clients. Other banks issued 30-day closure notices to Russian corporate clients that opened accounts after the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Peskov confirmed the reports and stated that negotiations between Moscow and Ankara on the issue were underway. He noted that the account closures were an example of “unprecedented, blatant, and aggressive US pressure on Türkiye and Turkish companies.”

Russia’s modern weapons are more effective than the arms used by NATO countries, which have provided extensive military assistance to Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has claimed.

Speaking at the ‘Everything for Victory’ forum in the city of Tula outside Moscow, Putin praised the role the country’s defense industry is playing in the conflict with Ukraine and in the national economy, as it provides jobs for millions.

The Russian leader acknowledged that while some Russian military equipment designed and produced in the twilight of the Soviet era is often – but not always – inferior in some respects to NATO hardware, this is not true of modern Russian weaponry.

It is clear that [these arms] are superior… I mean both missiles, armored vehicles, everything that is being used on the battlefield.

He added that for the army to be successful, it should be able to swiftly react to developments on the battlefield, suppressing the adversary’s artillery and reconnaissance assets. The military should also have its own such assets which should be more effective, Putin said. “Whoever does it faster will win,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, on Friday Shoigu estimated Ukraine’s losses in January at 23,000 service members. In December, he said that Ukrainian casualties since the start of the conflict with Russia in February 2022 had reached 383,000.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have turned into a terrorist organization that intentionally attacks ambulances, Russian President Vladimir Putin said while speaking at the ‘Everything for Victory’ forum in Tula on Friday.

He was commenting on attacks carried out by the Ukrainian military on residential areas of Russian cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which have led to a number of civilian casualties.

In one such attack on January 20, a paramedic working in the city of Gorlovka was wounded while trying to provide assistance to victims following a previous round of shelling. On January 12, another paramedic was also killed during a Ukrainian attack on an ambulance brigade in the same city.

”What is called the Armed Forces of Ukraine has turned into a terrorist organization that attacks ambulances,” Putin said.

“What is this if not neo-Nazism? That’s not to mention the rounds of applause for actual SS officers in the Canadian parliament and the blatant attacks on medical workers and ambulance vehicles,” added the president.

Russia knows of the tremendous strain put on medical personnel working in the territory of the DPR and other regions, he added, vowing to continue support for them. Work would be done to provide hazard pay to ambulance drivers, the president said.

Earlier this week, Putin claimed there is a need to create a larger “demilitarized zone” in Ukraine that would ensure that peaceful Russian cities would no longer be targeted by Kiev’s foreign-made, long-range weapons.

Ukraine lost more than 23,000 troops in January, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said, claiming that Kiev had to deploy reserves to prevent a frontline collapse. In December, the minister revealed estimates that Ukrainian casualties since the start of the conflict with Russia in February 2022 had reached 383,000.

Speaking to top Russian military commanders on Friday, Shoigu stated that after the failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive – which began in early June but fizzled out in the autumn without any substantial gains – Moscow’s forces now “hold the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact.” 

According to the minister, Russian troops have also been advancing and improving their positions, capturing several settlements in the regions of Donetsk and Kharkov.

In addition to inflicting manpower casualties on Kiev, Moscow’s forces also destroyed more than 3,000 pieces of military equipment in January, including German-supplied Leopard tanks, US-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Patriot air defense systems, and HIMARS rocket systems, Shoigu stated.

Shoigu also said Moscow continues to launch high-precision strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure, including production and repair facilities, airfields, field depots, and bases housing Kiev’s troops and foreign mercenaries.

Ukraine announced a general mobilization shortly after the start of the conflict, although the draft campaign has been marred by corruption and draft dodging. Officials in Kiev have been mulling a new mobilization bill to replenish battlefield losses since December, but it has yet to be passed.

Meanwhile, former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yury Lutsenko suggested last month that to attract more potential soldiers, Kiev must admit that it has already lost half a million soldiers in the conflict with Russia. This move, he argued, would signal to the population the seriousness of the situation.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky wants to fire his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, over secret talks he has held with the West to end the conflict with Russia, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has reported, citing his sources. He also suggested that some US officials want to help Zaluzhny in a “power struggle” with Zelensky.

Numerous reports have claimed that the president fell out with the general last autumn after Zaluzhny declared in an interview that Ukraine's much-hyped counteroffensive against Russia had ground to a “stalemate” on the battlefield. The two are also believed to have had several other disagreements regarding military issues.

While Ukrainian officials have denied reports of Zaluzhny’s imminent dismissal, following a spate of reports in Western media, CNN reported on Wednesday that it could happen as early as this week.

In an article published on Hersh's Substack on Friday, he offered a different version of why Zelensky was seeking to boot his top general.

At the same time, according to the article, some members of the US military and intelligence community support Zaluzhny’s peacemaking overture and want reforms in the Ukrainian government.

Hersh noted that the concept outlined by a number of US officials insists that Ukraine must embark on financial reforms, root out corruption, and improve the economy and infrastructure. However, the journalist continued, citing one official, the real plan is “far more ambitious” as it “envisions sustained support for Zaluzhny and reforms that would lead to the end of the Zelensky regime.”

According to Hersh, for this reason, the talk of firing Zelensky left some proponents of the plan “dismayed.” One official, the journalist said, described the tensions between Zelensky and Zaluzhny as “an old-fashioned power struggle.” However, they continued that “we couldn’t have gotten airborne without a willing and courageous pilot,” referring to the general.

Hersh noted that this plan was developed without the involvement of the White House, which has publicly stated it will support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” However, an unnamed US official told the reporter that Russian President Vladimir Putin is also “looking for a way out” of the conflict.

Moscow has repeatedly said that it is ready for talks with Ukraine, provided it recognizes territorial reality on the ground. Putin also stated last year that for any engagement to occur, Zelensky should cancel his decree prohibiting negotiations with the current Russian leadership.

Ukraine’s much-hyped summer counteroffensive ended in disappointment, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior adviser to President Zelensky, has admitted. He also lamented that Kiev continues to suffer from an ammunition shortage.

Kiev launched a large-scale push to breach Russian lines in early June, after being reinforced by hundreds of Western-supplied tanks and other hardware, but failed to gain any substantial ground. Ukraine suffered colossal losses according to Moscow, with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimating them at around 160,000 since the start of the push.

Speaking to Ukrainian 24 TV Channel on Thursday, Podoliak admitted that “there has been a certain negative aftertaste” about what happened in 2023. He noted that both Ukrainian military and political leaders had acknowledged “certain tactical mistakes.” At the same time, he insisted that “this is not a problem,” because Ukraine is fighting a large country with significant resources.

The official also stressed that if Kiev wants to achieve its strategic goal of defeating Russia, it cannot always remain on the defensive. He suggested that those who champion the “strategic defense” approach, do not factor in Moscow’s actions. “I always ask the question: Does this mean that while… Ukraine is accumulating reserves, conducting training, and so on, Russia will just lie on the couch and wait? This is nonsense.”

Last March, the EU made a “historic decision” to supply Ukraine with one million artillery shells over 12 months. However, those ambitious plans have been dashed, as earlier this week the bloc’s top diplomat Joseph Borrell admitted that only a third of that amount had been delivered so far, with the total expected to reach 500,000 by March.

Meanwhile, despite Ukraine’s failure to break through Russian defenses last year, Kiev’s military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov, predicted that the country would make another attempt this spring.

Last autumn, Ukraine’s top general Valery Zaluzhny assessed that the conflict had reached a “stalemate.” His stance on this and other military issues has reportedly caused a rift with President Zelensky, and rumors abound of the general’s imminent resignation. Commenting on Zaluzhny’s remarks at the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine should understand that it has no chance of winning on the battlefield.

Kiev should brace itself for another year of extensive casualties, Ukraine’s top military commander Valery Zaluzhny has told President Vladimir Zelensky, according to the Washington Post. The general delivered the bleak outlook as the president informed him that he would soon be relieved of his post, the newspaper reported, citing anonymous Ukrainian officials.

Earlier this week, several media outlets claimed that Zelensky was poised to fire Zaluzhny in the near future. In recent months, multiple publications have suggested that relations between Zelensky and Zaluzhny had soured since the general characterized the battlefield situation as a “stalemate” in an article for The Economist in November – an assessment that the Ukrainian president strongly rejected.

In its article on Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Zelensky summoned General Zaluzhny on Monday to notify him of his imminent dismissal. The president reportedly cited a need for change at the top amid growing war fatigue among Ukrainians and flagging Western support.

A source told the newspaper that, while he received the news calmly, Zaluzhny warned the president that a rapid improvement in Ukraine’s position on the battlefield was unlikely, regardless of who takes his place. He reportedly insisted that Kiev should mobilize around 400,000 more reservists to ensure parity with Moscow.

The WaPo claimed that the Ukrainian head of state could still reverse course but, if he does not, a formal decree regarding Zaluzhny’s dismissal will likely be issued by the end of this week.

The media outlet named General Aleksandr Syrsky, the current ground forces commander, and Lieutenant General Kirill Budanov, the head of military intelligence, as possible candidates for the post.

On Wednesday, CNN also reported that President Zelensky and General Zaluzhny had a conversation of this description on Monday.

Commenting on similar reports by the Financial Times and the Washington Post earlier this week, Zelensky’s spokesman Sergey Nikiforov dismissed them as “untrue.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that the reports were further proof that the “Kiev regime has a lot of problems, everything is going wrong out there.”

He referred to Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive, claiming that the push, which resulted in no significant territorial gains while apparently incurring heavy casualties, had led to a “growing rift among the Kiev regime’s officials, both in the top military and civilian leadership.”

Ecuador has made a “rash decision” by caving in to US demands for its old military equipment, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

On Tuesday, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa announced that his country will provide the US with outdated Russia-made military equipment despite Moscow’s protests, claiming that the equipment is not war material, but rather “scrap.”

The president added that this does not mean that Ecuador is violating international agreements, arguing that they only apply to military hardware, not scrap.

Speaking to the Russian daily Izvestia on Friday, Zakharova dismissed this notion, saying, “Our partners are well aware of the provisions of the contracts, including the obligation to use the supplied property for the stated purposes only and not transfer it to a third party without obtaining the appropriate agreement from the Russian side.”

The spokeswoman claimed that Ecuador made “a rash decision… under serious pressure from outside stakeholders.” She added that if the Russian-made equipment was indeed scrap, the US would not have offered to replace it.

Russia’s ambassador to Ecuador, Vladimir Sprinchan, warned last month that Moscow would interpret weapons deliveries to the US as an “unfriendly move.”

Viktor Bondarev, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Senate Defense Committee, said that by sending arms to the US, Ecuador would violate its neutral status in the Ukraine conflict. He argued that even if the hardware is not operational, it will eventually find its way to Kiev, which will be able to use it for spare parts.

The US has acknowledged that it has been scouring for Soviet-era weapons in many parts of the world, including Central and South America and the Caribbean. “We are working with the countries that have the Russian equipment to either donate it or switch it out for United States equipment,” General Laura Richardson, the commander of the US Southern Command, said last year.

Russia has warned against supplying Ukraine with weapons, saying it will only prolong the conflict without changing the outcome.

Beijing has demanded that Ukraine immediately removes all 14 Chinese companies from a list of businesses that Kiev has branded “international sponsors of war,” Reuters has reported. 

The demand comes after Beijing’s ambassador to Kiev told senior Ukrainian government officials last month that the presence of Chinese firms on the list could hurt bilateral ties, according to the news agency. 

“China firmly opposes the inclusion of Chinese enterprises [on the list]... and demands that Ukraine immediately correct its mistakes and eliminate negative impacts,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday.

Of the 48 international companies on the Ukrainian blacklist, 14 are from China, the most of any other country.

“The ambassador said that [the blacklist] could have a negative impact on our relations,” a senior Ukrainian source told the news agency, adding that Beijing has not yet outlined any specific consequences.

In November, Kiev added Swiss food giant Nestle and German building materials giant Knauf to the blacklist for continuing to operate in Russia and pay taxes into the federal budget. Last month, Lithuanian seafood company Viciunai Group was also included on the list. Alibaba and Chinese energy giants China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group), and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) are some of the largest companies listed.

A senior Ukrainian Air Force official rejected a donation of Australian fighter-bombers, calling them “flying trash,” the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported on Tuesday. Kiev later changed its mind and asked for the planes months later, but the aircraft had already been scrapped.

The idea of handing over 41 of the Royal Australian Air Force’s retired F/A-18 Hornet jets was first floated last March. Two months later at the G7 summit in Japan, US President Joe Biden gave the green light to his Western allies to send American-made fourth-generation jets to Ukraine.

However, when Kiev was encouraged to make a formal request for the Australian planes, an unnamed Ukrainian Air Force official dismissed them as trash that Canberra was eager to offload, AFR wrote, quoting a defense contractor who was present during the talks.

“He called them ‘flying trash,’” the defense contractor said. “That basically killed the F/A-18 deal. Had he not done it they would have been flying over Ukraine now.”

F/A-18 fighter-bombers are also fourth-generation combat aircraft, but are heavier, two-engine jets manufactured by a different company. Ukrainian officials reportedly feared that the maintenance, ammunition, and training infrastructure would have been strained by the different needs of the two models, especially given that Ukrainian pilots mostly work with Soviet-model aircraft.

Talks once again touched on the F/A-18 Hornets in December, following Kiev’s failed summer counteroffensive. However, an Australian Defense Department spokesman told AFR that the jets were already in the final stages of being scrapped.

“It’s a dumpster fire at the moment,” the defense contractor said. “Ukraine didn’t get its request letter in on time for the Taipans. They’re not good at paperwork.”

Kiev’s Western sponsors have promised that deliveries of F-16 jets will begin in 2024, with Denmark and the Netherlands pledging up to 61 of the fighter planes. Sweden has promised to donate some of its Gripen aircraft once the country is accepted into NATO.

Moscow, which has condemned Western military aid to Ukraine, warned that the fighter planes will be destroyed like other foreign-supplied armaments and will not affect the outcome of the conflict.

The Russian Health Ministry has significantly relaxed its requirements for compulsory vaccination against Covid-19, declaring most people will no longer have to regularly take shots against the disease.

The previous regulations, adopted by the ministry in 2021, demanded almost everyone undergo a mandatory vaccination in case of an epidemic threat, with health and education workers given “top priority” on this list, along with those suffering from chronic diseases, the elderly, and anyone living in cities with a population exceeding one million.

Under the new rules, only those that have never been vaccinated against Covid-19 or contracted the disease itself – as well as those suffering from chronic lung or heart diseases, HIV, or tuberculosis – and the elderly will have to take a mandatory shot.

Vaccination should be done once a year, whereas previously it was twice. The new rules are scheduled to come into effect in September 2024 and stay in force until September 2030.

Last November, the head of the Russian consumer rights and wellbeing watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, stated that a seasonal immunization campaign against Covid-19 was unnecessary due to a lack of risks associated with the disease.

In January, Popova’s agency stated that the peak of Covid-19 infections had passed in Russia and that new mass vaccination campaigns were no longer needed. Russia’s former chief health inspector, Gennady Onishchenko, also said at the time that Covid-19 had “exhausted” its pandemic potential over the years and no longer posed such a serious threat.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been unable to fire the nation’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, because both replacements under consideration refused the job, the tabloid Bild reported on Thursday.

A host of Western and Ukrainian media previously claimed, citing anonymous sources in Kiev, that Zelensky had sacked Zaluzhny, prompting the Ukrainian government to refute those rumors.

According to Bild, the president did attempt to fire the general on Monday and had to reverse his decision “within an hour” because he could not find a replacement for the nation’s top commander. The move drew strong opposition from the Ukrainian generals, the tabloid claimed.

Zelensky allegedly wanted to see Ground Forces Commander Aleksandr Syrsky in Zaluzhny’s place because “he is more loyal to the president,” Bild said, citing Gustav Gressel, a Ukraine expert with the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The generals disapproved of the choice because they see Zaluzhny as a “more humane” leader who is “closer to the troops,” the analyst explained.

Despite Zaluzhny retaining his post, the conflict between him and Zelensky continues to “smolder,” Bild alleged. The relationship between the two men reportedly began to deteriorate when the general wrote an article for The Economist in November, describing the battlefield situation as a “stalemate” following Kiev’s failed counteroffensive. The president has vehemently rejected that assessment.

According to the German outlet, the president and his commander also clashed over strategy in the cities of Bakhmut and Avdeevka. In late spring 2023, when the Russian forces were pressing their advantage against the Ukrainians in Bakhmut, Zelensky insisted the city should be held to the last man, while Zaluzhny wanted to withdraw to preserve his forces, the paper said, adding that the situation was being repeated in Avdeevka.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Zelensky had abandoned his plans to fire the top general after his plan was leaked to the media. CNN reported on Thursday, however, that the Ukrainian leader still wanted to go ahead with the decision and would fire Zaluzhny by the end of the week.

Men must till the soil and women must give birth, the mayor of the southern city of Nevinnomyssk, Mikhail Minenkov, has declared. The local leader stressed that this is the only way to save the population of Russia.

The outspoken Minenkov previously became the center of a media storm after recommending that Russian men “sneak up” on their wives to impregnate them in order to improve the demographic situation in the country.

In a series of videos posted to his official Telegram channel on Tuesday, the mayor said he had recently watched some documentaries about the French city of Marseille as well as the situation in places like Texas. He expressed dismay at how Western cities were being overrun by illegal migrants who refuse to assimilate, as well as drug users and people who try to push the LGBTQ agenda on children.

“It’s sad. It’s unclear if they’ll survive,” Minenkov said, noting that traditional values were being pushed out of these countries and cities. His supporters, the mayor said, agree with him that Russians will die out if they allow these problems into their cities.

“Nobody owes anyone anything. You just have to give birth, or else we’ll die out,” the mayor said, expressing confidence that the country will soon see large Russian families have from two to six children and promised to promote them as examples for the country.

As for those who want to “discuss this” and bring up issues like “what if the woman or man doesn’t want to,” Minenkov said there is no point in such debates. “There is only one formula: the man must plow, the woman must give birth. There will never be any other,” the mayor surmised. 

“Otherwise, we’ll turn into these sh*thole [cities like] Marseille and see the same degradation that has happened in other Western cities, like in the US, where drug addicts plague city centers and illegal migrants come into the country by the thousands,” Milenkov concluded. 

The state statistics agency Rosstat reported earlier this month that the natural decline in population had decreased by 19.3% between January and November last year, compared to the same period in 2022.

The US and its allies have shown little interest in launching an international probe into last week’s crash involving a Russian aircraft that was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday. President Vladimir Putin called for an investigation on Wednesday.

A Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft with 65 Ukrainian POWs on board crashed in Belgorod Region on January 24. All of the Ukrainians, as well as six crew members and three Russian military personnel, died in the crash. Moscow immediately blamed Kiev for the incident.

On Wednesday, Putin said Moscow had asked “for international experts to be deployed [here] to conduct an analysis, assess the existing material evidence” as part of an international probe.

The West’s position came as no surprise for Russia, since it is a “direct participant” in the ongoing conflict, Peskov said. “It is clear that not one of them [the US and its allies] would be interested in conducting a probe and stumbling upon themselves as a result,” he added.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had disputed Moscow’s claims and called for an international probe into the incident as well.

On Thursday, the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed that the aircraft had been shot down by a US-made Patriot air-defense system. Such systems have been provided to Kiev’s troops by the Western backers.

American specialists may have been part of the crew that operated the US-made Patriot air defense system that shot down a Russian military aircraft carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war last week, TASS news agency reports.

The plane, a Russian Il-76, crashed over Belgorod Region last Wednesday while carrying 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen who were set to take part in a prisoner swap later that day. All of the POWs, as well as three Russian officers and six crew members, died in the crash.

On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a report claiming that the plane was brought down using two MIM-104A surface-to-air missiles launched from a Patriot missile system deployed at a staging area in Kharkov Region, Ukraine near the village of Liptsy, around 10km from the Russian border.

Following the Investigative Committee’s report, a source within Russia’s security services told TASS that it is very likely that the crew operating the Patriot system represented a mix of Ukrainian and American specialists.

The TASS report noted that the Russian authorities are still in the process of identifying the exact people who were involved in the attack and were operating the Patriot system.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the use of a US-made system in the killing of Ukrainian POWs means that US President Joe Biden and his administration have made regular American citizens “complicit in the bloody tragedy.”

The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs who were killed last week when the Russian Il-76 military aircraft transporting them was shot down by Kiev’s troops, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has said. 

On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a report stating that the cargo plane was destroyed using two US-made MIM-104A missiles fired by a Patriot air-defense system. The Il-76 came down in Russia’s Belgorod Region last Wednesday. All of those on board – 65 Ukrainian POWs, three Russian troops, and six crew members – were killed. 

Russian investigators stated that Ukrainian troops fired the missiles from a staging area in Kharkov Region, not far from the village of Liptsy, some 10km from the Russian border. They based their conclusion on 116 missile fragments found at the crash site. 

Responding to the report, Zakharova said in a Telegram post that US citizens “need to know where their money is going,” arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.” 

Kiev, meanwhile, has refused to admit responsibility for the attack. The Ukrainian military intelligence agency, the GUR, stated that it was not informed by Moscow that the POWs, which were due to be exchanged later in the day, were being transported by air over Belgorod Region.  

Moscow has insisted that Ukrainian authorities were made aware of all the details of the prisoner transfer ahead of time.

Russian investigators say they have identified the remains of all passengers and crew who were on board a cargo plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war that was shot down by Kiev’s forces in Belgorod Region last week.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of downing the Il-76 aircraft which was carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs as well as three Russian troops and six crew members last Wednesday. The prisoners were being transported to the region for an exchange with Kiev.

Russia has said that the plane was destroyed by two missiles fired from a US-made Patriot air defense system stationed in Ukraine's Kharkov Region.

In a statement on Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee said that it had identified the remains of the deceased as part of the ongoing criminal case. It noted that it had found and recovered more than 670 body fragments in the area of the crash as well as some surviving personal documents.

The agency also released a heavily censored video showing an operative scouring the snow-covered crash site. Investigators can be seen gathering evidence into packages, with the rest of the clip showing what appear to be blood-stained body parts with conspicuous tattoos.

Russia has condemned the downing of the plane as a “terrorist act,” and has called for an international investigation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he “does not understand” why Ukraine needed to destroy a plane with its own POWs who were about to return home.

Kiev has not claimed responsibility for shooting down the Il-76, but has said that it was not informed by Moscow that they had to ensure air security over Belgorod Region at the time. Russia insists that Kiev received all the relevant information.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky intends to fire his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, before the end of the week, CNN claimed on Wednesday citing sources familiar with the situation. The report follows similar rumors appearing in outlets such as the Financial Times and the Washington Post, which have so far been dismissed by Kiev.

The relationship between the two men reportedly began to deteriorate when the general wrote an article for The Economist in November, describing the battlefield situation as a “stalemate” following Kiev’s failed counteroffensive. The president has vehemently rejected that assessment.

According to CNN, Zaluzhny was called into Zelensky’s office on Monday, where he was told he would be fired in the next few days. While no formal announcement has yet been made, a source allegedly told the outlet that a presidential decree is expected by the end of the week.

Rumors that the country’s popular military leader would be replaced originally started circulating in the media earlier this week based on anonymous sources in Kiev. The Washington Post claimed that the president explained his decision to Zaluzhny by saying that a new commander was needed to rejuvenate the situation, as the Ukrainian people had grown tired of war while Kiev’s foreign backers had reduced military assistance.

The general was then reportedly offered an advisory position, which he declined, opting instead to leave the military entirely, a source told the outlet. 

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the Ukrainian president had chosen to reconsider the decision after the initial plan ended up in the press. However, another source told the paper that the firing had only been temporarily delayed while Kiev looks for a fitting replacement for Zaluzhny.

Moscow, meanwhile, has described the rumors of the Ukrainian commander’s dismissal as a sign that Kiev’s leadership is in disarray and has “a lot of problems,” according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. He predicted that divisions in Ukraine’s military and civilian leadership stemming from the failed counteroffensive would continue to grow as Russia proceeds with its objectives.

A Russian cargo plane carrying dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) for exchange was downed last week by a US-made Patriot air defense system, the country’s Investigative Committee has confirmed.

In a statement on Thursday, the agency said that it had identified the type of weapon used to shoot down the Il-76 last Wednesday over Belgorod Region. There were 65 Ukrainian POWs, three Russian troops, and six crew members on board, all of whom died in the crash.

The Investigative Committee said that Ukraine fired two missiles from a staging area in Kharkov Region, not far from the village of Liptsy, some 10km from the Russian border.

Officials said that during the investigation they found 116 missile fragments bearing inscriptions in English, with one of them reading: “CONFIDENTIAL classified by PATRIOT SECURITY CLASSIFICATION GUIDE DATED: 9/22/83 ADDENDA DATED 11/28/83 8/8/84 CONTRACT NO/DAAH01-86C-A018.”

Another piece also read “Raytheon,” a reference to one of the designers of the Patriot air defense system, the statement said, adding that an extensive series of forensic tests found that the composition of the explosives indicates they were most likely produced abroad.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also weighed in on the investigation. She stressed that “US citizens must know where their money is going,” and accused the Biden administration of making them “accessories to a bloody tragedy.”

President Vladimir Putin said previously that the plane had been downed by a US-made Patriot and called for an international investigation into the matter. However, he claimed there was no official organization willing to undertake the task. He also said he “does not understand” why Ukraine would want to kill dozens of its POWs, suggesting that it may have been an accident.

Ukrainian authorities have not directly confirmed responsibility for the attack, stating only that they were not informed by Moscow that they had to guarantee air security over Belgorod Region at the time. Russia insists that Kiev received all the relevant information.

While the tragedy initially cast doubt on the possibility of further prisoner exchanges, on Wednesday Russia and Ukraine conducted the largest POW swap to date. Each side turned over 195 service members.

The US is essentially encouraging Ukraine to commit more atrocities by providing Kiev with a new shipment of long-range munitions, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, has said.

On Wednesday, during a visit to Kiev, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said that GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb) munitions (which can hit targets at a distance of up to 150km) were already on their way to Ukraine.

Nuland, a foreign policy hawk, is widely seen as one of the key figures in the 2014 Maidan coup which led to the toppling of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and plunged the country into turmoil. The US official ended up in the media spotlight after she famously handed out pastries to protesters in the Ukrainian capital in late 2013.

Commenting on the announcement on Thursday, Antonov called it “irresponsible” and “simply shocking.” He described the GLSDB delivery as “a kind of a reaction to the terrorist attack by Ukrainian thugs” on an Il-76 Russian cargo plane with 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, three Russian troops, and six crew members aboard.

Moscow has said that the aircraft, which was transporting the POWs to the border region of Belgorod for further exchange, was downed by Kiev’s US-supplied Patriot air defense system.

Instead of admitting the horrific crime of its ‘clients’, the United States is sending them new deadly products. Thusly, not even with words, but with deeds, America incites its puppets to new atrocities.

The envoy noted that Nuland’s announcement “essentially disavows any White House declarations about its willingness to put the conflict to an end as soon as possible.” On the contrary, Antonov added, these actions indicate Washington’s intention to “prolong the agony of the Kiev regime. Even if this means new casualties, including among the civilian population of Russia and Ukraine.”

Russia has consistently denounced Western arms shipments to Ukraine, arguing that they will only prolong the conflict. It has also said that Kiev uses long-range weapons to target civilians.

Russia needs to create a large “demilitarized zone” in Ukraine, one that is big enough to ensure no longe-range weapons can strike Russian cities, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday

Russian border regions have been subjected to frequent drone and missile attacks, as well as shelling by the Ukrainian military, since the start of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. One of the deadliest attacks took place on December 30, when Kiev’s forces struck the Russian border city of Belgorod with multiple rocket launchers, including the RM-70 Vampire – an upgraded heavier version of the Soviet BM-21 Grad system.

A strike in December claimed the lives of 25 people, including children, and left more than 100 injured. In January, another massive strike hit the city of Donetsk, killing 27 civilians. Both attacks were condemned by the UN.

“This [demilitarized] line should… lie at such a distance from our territory that it would ensure the security [of Russian cities],” the president said on Wednesday, adding that he was specifically referring to protection from “foreign-made longer-range weapons that the Ukrainian authorities use to strike peaceful cities.”

The “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine were cited as the major goals of Russia’s military operation from the beginning. Putin specifically mentioned a demilitarized or “sanitary” zone that was to be created in Ukraine in June 2023. At the time, the president said the zone could be created if Kiev’s forces continue to launch attacks on Russian cities. The goal would be to make it impossible for the Ukrainian military “to reach us,” he said.

The list of the longer-range Western-made weapons in Kiev’s possession include British-made Storm Shadow missiles that have a range of 250km (155 miles) and the US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which have a range of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles).

Earlier this week, Politico reported that Washington could provide Kiev with Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), which also have a range of around 160 kilometers (100 miles).

Kiev’s forces used an air defense system supplied by Washington to attack a Russian aircraft carrying Ukrainian POWs for a pre-scheduled swap, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

The attack, which took place last week, led to the deaths of 65 Ukrainians on board, as well as the plane’s crew and three Russian military personnel.

“The plane was downed... by a US-made Patriot system,” Putin said, calling it a “well established” fact that had been confirmed by an expert review. Russian emergency services had previously stated that fragments of one or more missiles had been found at the crash site.

Investigators have not officially commented on the results of the ongoing probe into the incident. However sources close to the investigation told TASS that an analysis of the plane’s black box data showed that it had been intentionally shot down. A source also told the news agency that it was “highly probable” that a US-supplied Patriot surface-to-air missile system was used in the attack.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday disputed Moscow’s version and called for an international probe into the incident. On Wednesday, Putin also said that Russia would call for an international investigation into the downed aircraft.

“I state this officially: We ask for international experts to be deployed [here] to conduct an analysis, assess the existing material evidence of the fact that the plane was downed by the Patriot system,” he stated.

According to Putin, the attack could have been a provocation aimed at prompting a response from Russia. However, Moscow will not stop the POW exchanges with Kiev, he said, as Russia wants to bring its own soldiers back home.

Ukrainian forces will go on the offensive against Russia once more in the spring, military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov told The Telegraph on Tuesday. It remains unclear how Kiev will acquire the weapons or the tens of thousands of men it needs to cover its losses after last summer’s failed counteroffensive.

Budanov claimed that Russia’s offensive operations around the Donbass settlements of Kupyansk, Liman, Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine), and Avdeevka will be “completely exhausted” by “early spring.” 

“We make a move, the enemy makes a move,” he said. “Now is the enemy’s turn. It will end, and then ours will start.”

Ukraine’s last counteroffensive began in June and lasted until around October, with Ukrainian forces attempting to penetrate Russia’s defensive lines at multiple points across Kherson, Zaporzhye, and Donetsk Regions. It failed to achieve any significant territorial gains and cost Kiev around 160,000 lives, according to figures from the Russian Defense Ministry. 

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced plans last month to mobilize around 500,000 new conscripts to cover those lost since the beginning of the conflict almost two years ago. While Ukraine does not publish casualty figures, the Russian Defense Ministry places Kiev’s losses since February 2022 at nearly 400,000 men. Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, put the figure at up to 300,000. 

Zelensky’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, described the battlefield situation in November as a “stalemate,” a comment that reportedly angered Zelensky. Acrimony between the two men exploded into the headlines this week when Zelensky reportedly fired – then rehired – Zaluzhny, all while Kiev’s censorship office dismissed the story as a baseless rumor aimed at “destroying the unity of Ukrainian society.”

According to British newspaper The Times, Zaluzhny’s position was offered to Budanov, who declined. Had Zelensky replaced Zaluzhny with Budanov, he would have swapped a cynic with someone who shares his “messianic” belief in a military victory over Russia, as Zelensky’s aides described his vision in a Time magazine article last year.

It is unclear whether Zaluzhny, like Budanov, believes that Ukraine will be able to launch a counteroffensive this spring.

People committing crimes against Russia’s national security could potentially face the confiscation of their assets under new legislation passed by the country’s lower house, the State Duma, on Wednesday. The proposed amendments to the national criminal code would introduce the penalty for spreading “fakes” and disinformation about the Russian Armed Forces.

The legislation is yet to receive approval from the Federation Council – the upper house of the parliament. It must then be signed by President Vladimir Putin to become law.

Russia passed a bill protecting its military against slander and disinformation in 2022, soon after the start of the conflict with Ukraine. The law initially only covered the regular armed forces, but was further expanded in March 2023 to protect volunteer fighters as well.

The punishment for such offenses can range from fines of 100,000 rubles ($1,114) to 1.5 million rubles ($16,717) or up to seven years in prison and a ban on holding public office. Repeat offenders, whose actions cause serious harm, can be jailed for up to 15 years.

Apart from spreading “fakes” about the Russian military, the amendments also introduce confiscation of assets for such crimes as “public calls for actions damaging state security,” sabotage, and justification of Nazism.

The bill was unanimously approved in its third and final reading by all 337 deputies present at the Duma session.

The State Duma chair, Vyacheslav Volodin, called the bill a “law against villains.” It would allow the punishment of “traitors,” who “throw mud” at their own nation while living abroad, he said in a Telegram post.

Such a seizure would not be a punishment but a criminal law measure, she insisted, adding that it is largely aimed at preventing further criminal activity or confiscating illegal gains obtained from it.

Another Russian MP, Aleksey Chepa, said that the change would hardly affect ordinary people as it primarily targets various public speakers like bloggers gaining profits from the information they are spreading.

“This is aimed at… those who would spread any information for profit. Those who do not care what they do or how they do it… as long as it brings them money,” he said.

Currently, the Russian Criminal Code provides for asset forfeiture in dozens of cases ranging from murder and terrorist activities to illegal alcohol trade.

NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 war games that kicked off in Europe last week present a threat to Russia’s national security, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday, noting that the US-led bloc is an “instrument of confrontation.”

The exercises, hailed to be the largest NATO has held in decades, are said to involve some 90,000 troops from all 31 member states as well as Sweden and will last for several months, ultimately ending in May, according to the bloc’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Christopher Cavoli. 

It’s also noted that some 1,100 combat vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles, as well as over 50 naval vessels and 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets are set to take part in the exercises.

Commenting on the war games, Peskov pointed out that NATO has always been intended as a “instrument of confrontation” that is controlled by Washington.

The launch of NATO’s military drills come as a number of officials from its member countries, including the UK, Germany, and Estonia, have been urging the bloc to prepare for a full-scale military confrontation with Russia in the near future, suggesting that Moscow had plans to attack Europe in the next few decades.

Russia has vehemently denied any such plans, calling the claims a “hoax.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted that Moscow “has no interest … geopolitically, economically or militarily ... in waging war against NATO” and would instead prefer to develop a relationship with the US-led bloc.

Russia and Ukraine conducted a major prisoner exchange on Wednesday, with both Moscow and Kiev confirming the swap.

A total of 195 Russian servicemen have returned home from Ukrainian-controlled territory as a result of negotiations, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, while 195 POWs were handed over to Kiev. The exchange is the largest to date since the start of the conflict between the two countries.

The freed Russian troops, who were “under mortal danger” in captivity, will be flown to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation, the ministry said. They’re already receiving medical assistance and psychological support, it added.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has also confirmed the swap, but provided a different figure in respect of the released Ukrainian POWs. “Our boys are home. 207 guys,” he wrote on Telegram. Zelensky didn't explain where the alleged extra 12 POWs had come from.

Zelensky thanked the Ukrainian negotiating team, which included military intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov, and the head of the president’s office, Andrey Yermak. He didn’t say how many Russian soldiers were released.

Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of downing the aircraft with a surface-to-air missile, saying Kiev had been aware of the ill-fated flight’s route. Zelensky has refused to acknowledge that Kiev’s forces were responsible for bringing down the plane, and has called for an international investigation.

President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday that a Russian investigation had established with certainty that Kiev used a US-supplied Patriot surface-to-air missile system to down the Il-76 aircraft. He also said Moscow “insists” that an international probe mentioned by Zelensky is carried out and invited foreign experts to Russia.  

Reports that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is planning to fire the country’s top general Valery Zaluzhny are further proof that the country’s leadership is in disarray, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Several Western and Ukrainian media outlets reported earlier this week that the Ukrainian leader had asked Zaluzhny to resign from his post and become the head of the country’s National Security and Defense Council – an offer he is said to have declined. 

Kiev’s censorship body, the Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security (CSCIS), has dismissed these reports as “untrue.” However, the New York Times said on Tuesday that the dismissal process had simply been slowed down amid a flurry of media leaks. The absence of an obvious replacement for the veteran general was also a reason for the delay.

Zelensky and Zaluzhny fell out after the general wrote an article in November, describing the battlefield situation as a “stalemate” – an assessment rejected by the Ukrainian president. Zaluzhny’s comments came amid Kiev’s botched counteroffensive in which Ukraine suffered catastrophic casualties while failing to breach Russian defenses, according to Moscow.

He added that Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive had led to “a growing rift among the Kiev regime’s officials, both in the top military and civilian leadership.” Peskov also predicted that these divisions would only deepen as Russia’s military campaign continued. 

Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also commented, suggesting that the situation around Zaluzhny shows that Ukraine has plunged into “agony.” “This is the final collapse of the statehood, of the entire governance system,” she said.

Moscow will continue to exchange POWs with Ukraine despite the shooting down of a Russian aircraft carrying Ukrainian soldiers for a prisoner swap last week, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

All 65 Ukrainian servicemen on board a Russian Il-76 military transport plane were killed in the crash last Wednesday, as well as the plane’s crew and three Russian military personnel.

“We will not stop the exchanges. We need to get our guys back,” Putin said at a campaign meeting for his reelection bid in the upcoming presidential vote in Russia.

His comments came shortly after the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Moscow and Kiev had successfully swapped 195 captives from each side. The Russian servicemen will be transported to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation, the military said in a statement. The ministry also thanked the United Arab Emirates for its mediation and humanitarian efforts in helping to bring the Russian soldiers home.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in a Telegram post that 207 people have returned to his country, including military personnel and civilians. He thanked the Ukrainian authorities for facilitating the swap but provided no further details.

“We have thousands [of Ukrainian POWs] and they have dozens or possibly hundreds [of Russian captives],” he told the meeting.

“We will take our guys back anyway if the Ukrainian side is ready,” the Russian leader said, adding that Kiev has signaled it is prepared to hold further exchanges.

The Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft carrying Ukrainian POWs went down in Russia’s Belgorod Region on January 24. Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of shooting down the aircraft with a surface-to-air missile. It has also claimed that Kiev’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, knew that Ukrainian POWs were aboard the plane.

On Wednesday, Putin said Kiev’s troops had used a US-supplied Patriot surface-to-air missile system to down the Russian military transport aircraft.

“The plane was shot down – this has already been established for sure – by an American Patriot system. An examination has already established this,” the Russian leader stated.

Putin also called for an international investigation into the incident.

“I state this officially: We ask for international experts to be deployed [here] to conduct an analysis, assess the existing material evidence of the fact that the plane was downed by the Patriot system,” he said. Putin accused Western media of attempting to conceal the incident and “purge” details of the case from the public domain.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was poised to fire the country’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, amid a stand-off between the two, but had to ditch the plans earlier this week after they were leaked, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

According to an unnamed senior Ukrainian official interviewed by the outlet, Kiev backed off from firing Zaluzhny on Monday evening when several news outlets reported the move was imminent. The general was also said to have been offered the position of head of the National Security and Defense Council – which he reportedly declined. An NYT source, however, has since said that the process of firing has only been delayed.

An unnamed former Ukrainian MP confirmed this information to the newspaper, adding that Zaluzhny met with Zelensky on Monday, but no decision was made, with one of the major stumbling blocks being that Kiev has no replacement for the general, who has been in charge of the country’s military since 2021.

According to British newspaper The Times, Zaluzhny’s position was offered to Kirill Budanov, the chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, and to Aleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, but both declined.

According to Bloomberg, Zelensky and Zaluzhny are also at odds over a mobilization bill. The Ukrainian leader is said to have been delaying the initiative while Zaluzhny reportedly insisted on lowering the conscription age as soon as possible.

Commenting on the rumors of Zaluzhny’s dismissal, Ukraine’s censorship body, the Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security, claimed that this information “turned out to be untrue.” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry also stated: “Dear journalists, we reply to all of you at once: No, it’s not true,” in an apparent response to the flurry of reports about Zaluzhny’s fate.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also weighed in on the issue on Wednesday, saying Moscow is closely following the developments. “There are still a lot of questions. But one thing is clear: the Kiev regime has a lot of problems, everything is going wrong out there.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last month that Ukraine had lost more than 380,000 troops since the start of the conflict in February 2022. He added at the time that Kiev’s counteroffensive had cost it nearly 160,000 casualties.

There is “a high probability” that Kiev’s troops used a US-supplied Patriot surface-to-air missile system to down a Russian military transport plane carrying Ukrainian POWs last week, a source close to the investigation into the incident told TASS on Wednesday.

Separately, another source in the Russian emergency services has revealed that “the preliminary examination of the striking elements found in the plane shows that the missile [that hit it] belongs to a Western-made air defense system,” according to RIA Novosti. The source, however, did not specify the weapons complex.

The plane in question, an Il-76 transport aircraft, went down last Wednesday in Russia’s Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine. Everyone on board was killed, including 65 Ukrainian servicemen who were being transported for a prisoner exchange. Six crew members and three Russian troops also died.

Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of downing the aircraft with a surface-to-air missile. Russian President Vladimir Putin also said last week that Kiev’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, had known that Ukrainian POWs were on board the plane.

Data from the aircraft’s black boxes “excludes all other possible versions of the Il-76 crash and confirms that the plane was subjected to external influence,” the source said, adding that it was “shot down in the air.” 

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has refused to acknowledge that Kiev’s forces were responsible for bringing down the plane, and has called for an international investigation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow will not close off its own probe into the crash from those who “want to learn the truth.” He also criticized the West for not initiating the inquiry called for by Zelensky, claiming that Ukraine’s “masters… generally dislike international investigations.” 

Kiev's western backers are not even discussing initiatives by China, Brazil and South Africa on settling the Ukraine conflict during numerous meetings on President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called peace formula, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The latest talks were held during the World Economic Forum in Davos two weeks ago and attended by 83 nations, including BRICS members India, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. China took part in earlier meetings on the Ukrainian proposal, but declined to participate this time.

During the BRICS sherpa and sous-sherpa meeting in Moscow on Wednesday, Lavrov said he recently “had conversations with colleagues from a number of friendly states, including about the role that the Global South has been playing during those meetings.”

The Russian minister recalled that a number of alternative peace plans had previously been put forward: a Chinese initiative to settle the conflict between Moscow and Kiev that “puts the emphasis on the need to eradicate the reasons for the current situation in Europe”; a proposal by South Africa and other nations on the continent discussed at the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg last summer; and a plan put forward by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The minister expressed the view that the approach by the US and its allies reveals their “complete disrespect and total disregard of any opinion, except their own.” Meetings like the one in Davos pursue only “one goal – to establish the ‘peace formula’ as having no alternatives,” he stressed.

Zelensky’s plan for ending the conflict, which he has been promoting since 2022, calls for Russia to withdraw from all territories claimed by Kiev, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for the formation of a war-crimes tribunal.

Russian authorities have rejected the proposal as “unrealistic,” characterizing it as a sign of Ukraine’s unwillingness to look for a diplomatic solution. Moscow has repeatedly signaled that it is ready for negotiations, but stressed that it will continue its military campaign in the absence of what it considers reasonable offers from Ukraine and its foreign backers.

Ukrainian military and politicial leaders don’t believe in victory and are stealing Western aid on a massive scale, the former commander of Poland’s land forces, General Waldemar Skrzypczak, has said in an interview with the newspaper Fakt.

The statement comes as Kiev attempts to secure more funding amid its supporters’ growing reluctance to provide further assistance. So far, more than 41 countries, including Poland, have committed a total of €92.5 billion ($100 billion) in military aid to Ukraine, according to the Ukraine Support Tracker of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Ukraine’s Western donors risk losing substantial sums, as the country has weathered a number of corruption scandals over the last few months.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on Saturday the uncovering of a major embezzlement scheme involving high-ranking defense ministry officials and a private arms manufacturer.

“It turns out that the weakest link in Ukraine are politicians and military officers who steal from their army. This is not the first such scandal. Those who steal do this consciously expecting that Ukraine will lose the war. How can you wage war without ammunition? There are hundreds of millions of dollars embezzled by Ukrainians,” Skrzypczak said.

Five suspects among them employees of the Ministry of Defense and the management of an arms company attempted to steal 1.5 billion hryvnia (around $39.6 million) in state funds intended for acquiring mortar shells for Ukrainian troops, according to the SBU. The agency said the company Lviv Arsenal had received an order for a batch of 100,000 rounds in August 2022, six months after the start of the conflict. However, Lviv Arsenal “didn’t send a single mortar shell to our country” but instead put the money in the accounts of an affiliated company “based in the Balkans,” the SBU said.

Reining in corruption is one of the conditions the European Union has set for Ukraine as it seeks membership. However, embezzlement issues are still dogging the armed forces and the defense ministry.

Skrzypczak has concluded that Ukrainians “cannot be trusted.” “We’re tearing ourselves apart, clearing out warehouses, and they’re embezzling everything they can,” he said, lamenting that “Zelensky promised to sort it out, but he didn’t. There is still corruption in the Ukrainian army. This makes our help pointless. We do it with faith, dedication; we are deceived.”

Poland has provided €3.04 billion in military aid, according to the Kiel Institute’s tracker on how much nations have donated to Ukraine. In September, Poland said it would stop sending weapons to Ukraine “focusing instead on its own defense.”

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny has rejected President Vladimir Zelensky’s “offer” to resign and become the national security head instead, the Financial Times and The Economist reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with discussions between the potential political rivals.

Zelensky allegedly told Zaluzhny that he would be removed from his current position regardless of whether he accepted a new role or not, according to two anonymous sources cited by the FT. The Economist reported it was able to “confirm” that during a meeting on Monday, Zaluzhny was offered the top position in the National Security and Defense Council but turned down the proposal. 

On Monday, numerous Ukrainian media outlets and Telegram channels, citing political and military sources, reported that Zaluzhny was about to lose his job. In response, the Defense Ministry issued a message on Telegram: “Dear journalists, we reply to all of you at once: No, it’s not true.” Zelensky’s spokesman, Sergey Nikiforov, also said that the president “didn’t fire the commander-in-chief.” Ukrainian state-run censorship body CSCIS called the rumors of Zaluzhny’s resignation “destabilizing” and “demoralizing.”

The commander-in-chief is seen as a potential political rival of Zelensky, given his popularity among Ukrainian voters. An opinion poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) released in December found that while public trust in Zelensky had dropped to 62% from 84% a year ago, Zaluzhny was trusted by 88% of respondents.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Kiev’s prime backer, the US, was concerned that “differences” between Zelensky and Zaluzhny were “slowing efforts to crystallize a new strategy” after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year failed to deliver the desired results.

Russia experienced a massive internet outage on Tuesday as people in several parts of the country reported trouble accessing various websites, including banking services, telecommunications operators, e-commerce stores, and even state services.

It turned out that access to websites using the national .ru domain was blocked. The problems were reported in and around Moscow, in St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals, and Novosibirsk Region in southern Siberia, among other locations.

Many reported not being able to access Yandex – the most popular search engine in the country – or the websites of major e-commerce stores such as Ozon and Wildberries, as well as the apps of Russia’s biggest banks, Sberbank and VTB Group.

Moscow residents also said they had trouble accessing Gosuslugi, which provides access to state services. Internet providers in Russia, including Beeline, Megafon, and Tele2, reported that their networks were operating as usual.

The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are specific protocols used to provide cryptographic authentication of data and secure its integrity. It is designed to protect apps using DNS from accepting forged or manipulated data.

The national TLD coordination center did not elaborate on what exactly the technical issue that was detected entailed. It only said that it was working to resolve the issue and some “updated data” would soon be uploaded to the domain name system.

The Russian Digital Technologies Ministry said on Tuesday evening that access to all the affected websites would be restored in the near future.

Ukraine will barely be able to continue its conflict with Russia and sustain its economy without financial assistance from the EU and the US, Politico reported on Monday, citing Ukrainian lawmakers and analysts. Kiev is not even considering a scenario in which they do not get the promised aid, one MP admitted to the outlet.

EU leaders will discuss using the bloc’s collective budget to funnel €50 billion ($54 billion) in aid to Kiev later this week. Hungary has opposed the package, suggesting that Ukraine should receive a yearly transfer for economic assistance rather than a four-year, €50 billion commitment in one go.

“We are not currently even considering an option of not receiving this assistance,” Daniil Getmantsev, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s finance and tax committee, told Politico. The MP said the package was “critical” for Kiev, adding that the Ukrainian government’s non-military spending depended on it.

Another aid package pledged to Kiev by Washington has been stuck in Congress. President Joe Biden requested $60 billion for Kiev in October 2023, but GOP lawmakers have refused to greenlight the bill unless Biden agrees to revise and tighten the US’ border-control laws.

Internal financial resources would not be enough for Kiev to meet its non-military spending commitments, Maria Repko, the head of the Center for Economic Strategy, told Politico. “All analysts agree now that the biggest risk this year is not getting aid,” she said, adding that the only option left for Kiev, in this case, would be to start printing money.

In December, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal allegedly requested an emergency meeting with Kiev’s Western backers to discuss the budget issues faced by his nation. The Ukrainian Finance Ministry said the same month that the state budget might suffer a deficit in the first two months of this year.

Repko admitted to Politico that a quarter of Ukraine’s GDP was generated by territories that have since voted to join Russia in a series of referendums in autumn 2022. Earlier, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov compared the national economy to a “zombie” that only shows signs of life with Western financing.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has called on the German government to abandon its policy of financially supporting Ukrainian refugees on its territory and divert the cash to Kiev instead. The scheme would make aid mechanisms more transparent, he argued in an interview with the public German broadcaster ARD over the weekend.

People who have fled Ukraine and moved to Germany currently receive financial assistance from both countries, Zelensky claimed in the interview, released on Monday by his administration. This needs to change, he insisted.

“It would be better if Germany supported Ukrainians by giving money to the budget of Ukraine,” the president said. He added that the government in Kiev would then distribute the funds, depending on each person’s whereabouts.

Zelensky’s plea comes as Kiev faces a crunch in its cash lifeline from Western backers. Last month, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal allegedly requested an emergency meeting with Western donors to discuss “exceptionally high uncertainty” over its budget, Bloomberg reported.

Ukraine has been rocked by a number of corruption scandals over the last few months, including some involving senior government officials. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry revealed $262 million in military corruption-related costs, citing an internal audit. Transparency International recently ranked the country 104th out of 180 in its Corruption Perceptions Index report.

In mid-January, German outlet Der Spiegel weekly also reported that the government in Berlin was unsure where its military aid sent to Ukraine ended up. Berlin’s massive military assistance to Kiev was left unsupervised, as German policymakers relied on assurances from Kiev, the paper said.

Flight recorder data from the Russian military transport plane that crashed while carrying Ukrainian POWs last week has confirmed that the aircraft was intentionally shot down, TASS reported on Tuesday, citing a source.  

The Il-76 went down over Russia’s Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, last Wednesday. All of those on board – 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen, six crew members, and three Russian soldiers – were killed in the crash. The Russian Defense Ministry has insisted that the plane was shot down by Kiev’s forces, who it says were informed ahead of time that the aircraft would be transporting POWs for a prisoner exchange later in the day. 

While an investigation is ongoing, a source within the Russian security services has told TASS that data obtained from the aircraft's black boxes “excludes all other possible versions of the Il-76 crash and confirms that the plane was subjected to external influence,” clarifying that it was “shot down in the air.” 

“Everything is obvious,” the source said, noting that analysis of the black box data is nearing completion. 

Kiev has confirmed that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place the day the aircraft was brought down, although Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, has insisted that it was not informed about how the POWs would be transferred to the exchange site. 

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has said it considers all Russian military aircraft legitimate targets and will continue to do so. Several sources from Kiev’s armed forces also suggested shortly after the crash that they believed the Il-76 to have been transporting S-300 missiles. 

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that the GUR was informed that the Il-76 was carrying POWs, but nevertheless chose to shoot the plane down. 

“The entire current Kiev regime is based on crimes committed daily, including against its own citizens,” Putin said. “The [GUR] knew that we were transporting 65 military personnel there… and knowing this, they struck the plane.” 

The Russian leader also said evidence found at the crash site suggested that the plane was shot down using an American or French air-defense missile, adding that the full picture “will become clear in a couple of days.”

Rumors suggesting Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had fired the country’s commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, were spread to destabilize Ukraine, censorship body the Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security (CSCIS) has insisted.

On Monday, numerous Ukrainian media outlets and Telegram channels, citing various political and military sources, reported that Zaluzhny had been sacked or was about to lose his job. It was claimed that the general had been offered to head the country’s National Security and Defense Council instead but declined the proposal.

Reports of Zaluzhny’s resignation “turned out to be untrue. This information has been denied by officials,” CSCIS said in a statement on Facebook on Tuesday.

On Monday, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry issued a short message on Telegram: “Dear journalists, we reply to all of you at once: No, it’s not true,” apparently referring to speculations about Zaluzhny’s fate. Shortly after that, Zelensky’s spokesman, Sergey Nikiforov, also said, “The president didn’t fire the commander-in-chief.”

The spread of those rumors was aimed at “destroying the unity of Ukrainian society, demoralizing it, and reducing the motivation to repel Russian aggression,” it said.

The hype around reports of Zaluzhny’s sacking reveals that there are problems “in the field of media hygiene and communications” in Ukraine, the censor added. The government and civil society should learn from those developments and work to “increase stability” in the country, it warned. 

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Kiev’s prime backer, the US, had been concerned that “differences” between Zelensky and Zaluzhny were “slowing efforts to crystallize a new strategy” after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year failed to deliver the desired results.

According to the agency, the “tensions” between the two emerged in November, when the president was angered by the general describing the situation on the battlefield with Russia as “a stalemate.” Zaluzhny later retracted his comments, but “stresses have remained despite official assertions that the leadership is unified,” it insisted.

Moscow is not against signing a peace treaty with Japan, but Tokyo must understand that the Kuril Islands are and will remain part of Russia, former president Dmitry Medvedev has said.

Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Security Council, was responding after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that his country “remains firmly committed to the course aimed at resolving the territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty” with Moscow, despite continuing to support sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

Moscow and Tokyo have for decades been locked in a territorial dispute over four Kuril Islands (known as the ‘Northern Territories’ in Japan), which were captured by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. Russia has argued that its sovereignty over the Kurils is guaranteed by post-war agreements, while Japan has said they do not cover some of the islands.

Against this backdrop, the two countries ended a formal state of war in the mid-1950s but never signed a peace treaty.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Medvedev stressed that “nobody’s against the peace treaty,” which he said should reflect the fact that “the ‘territorial question’ is closed once and for all in accordance with the Constitution of Russia.”

“We don’t give a damn about the ‘feelings of the Japanese’ concerning the so-called ‘Northern Territories,’” Medvedev stated. He suggested that anyone who is unhappy with the situation should “end their life in a traditional Japanese way,” referring to the ‘seppuku’ form of ritualistic suicide originating with samurai warriors.

Moscow ended all talks on a potential peace treaty with Japan in March 2022, one month after the start of the Ukraine conflict. Russia cited Japan’s sanctions against Moscow, which it said were aimed at harming the country’s interests. Russia also canceled an agreement that allowed Japanese citizens to visit the Kuril Islands visa-free. 

“All the blame for the damage to bilateral engagement and interests of Japan itself lies with Tokyo, which knowingly opted for an anti-Russian course instead and developing mutually beneficial cooperation,” the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said at the time.

Moscow has become aware of several cases of Western powers asking certain countries to secretly donate Russian-made weaponry to Kiev for use in the Ukraine conflict, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The Russian diplomat’s comments come as Kiev ramps up its demands for more military aid, citing acute shortages in hardware and ammunition. The US and its allies have also been seeking to approve further financial and military support for Ukraine.

Speaking at a roundtable meeting with the heads of foreign diplomatic missions in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov stated that Russia has been in contact with “certain countries” that the West has been trying to convince to hand over Russia-supplied weapons to Ukraine, without informing Moscow of such transfers.

The minister noted that there have been “several cases of this kind” recorded by Moscow over the past year and a half, and stressed that Russia will continue to demand that all international obligations regarding weapons transfers be observed.

Lavrov pointed out that when a foreign country legally acquires Russian arms, the shipments come with a certain package of documents, including an end-user certificate. “In accordance with this certificate, the recipient of the weapon does not have the right to resell it or redirect it anywhere without the consent of the supplier country,” the minister explained.

At the same time, Russia’s top diplomat noted that the West has been pretending not to notice that its own weapons, which it has supplied to Ukraine, have already spread to war zones across the world, where they are frequently being used by extremists and terrorists.

Last week, speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s claims that Kiev has been reselling Western weapons on the black market, and expressed disbelief that Ukraine’s backers were unaware of this.

Russia has repeatedly condemned Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, insisting that such shipments only serve to prolong the fighting and lead to more bloodshed without affecting the eventual outcome.

Special courses will be created for Kiev’s troops so that they can improve their command of the Ukrainian language, government official Taras Kremen has said.

Kremen, who is Ukraine’s language ombudsman, made the announcement as he met with servicemen at a Territorial Defense Forces training center on Monday, his office said in a statement.

Violations of the country’s language law, which among other things obliges the military to use Ukrainian, have been recorded in a large number of units, including in the capital Kiev, according to the commissioner.

Ukraine historically has a large Russian-speaking population, especially in its eastern regions. Many soldiers reportedly continue to speak Russian on the front lines. In a 2001 census, more than 14.2 million Ukrainian citizens (almost 30% of the population) called Russian their native language.

During the meeting with servicemen, it was “agreed to open language courses for military personnel who want to improve their knowledge and properly prepare for the exam to determine the level of proficiency in the state language,” Kremen said.

Signed by then President Pyotr Poroshenko in 2019, the language law established Ukrainian as the sole state language and made it obligatory for use in all areas of social life. It was a continuation of Kiev’s policy of forcing out the Russian language, pursued by the authorities after the violent Western-backed coup in 2014.

Since 2021, passing a Ukrainian language exam has been mandatory to become a government employee or to obtain Ukrainian citizenship.

“Nobody there [in the conflict zone] speaks Ukrainian,” a sniper from Kiev’s forces told the TSN media outlet in October. Despite concealing his identity, the serviceman enjoyed a certain celebrity status in Ukraine due to his regular interviews and podcast appearances.

He claimed that Russian was common in all sections of the front line that he had been posted to. In his own unit, “two people speak the harshest Surzhik [a mix of Russian and Ukrainian] and, probably, two or three others [use] Ukrainian language. All the rest are Russian-speaking,” the sniper insisted.

Speculation in the West that Russia could attack the Baltic and Nordic states once the Ukraine conflict ends is pure fiction, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking to the heads of diplomatic missions on Tuesday, Lavrov said the US had gathered a group of 54 countries to provide military, technical and intelligence aid to Ukraine to help it fight Russia. “All this is being done to prevent Russia from claiming victory,” he added.

He said Western countries were claiming that “if Russia wins and asserts its interests in this war, the Baltics, Sweden, and Finland will be next.”

Three Baltic nations became NATO members in the early 2000s, more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both Helsinki and Stockholm applied to join the bloc after the start of the Ukraine conflict, although only Finland’s application has been ratified so far.

Lavrov noted that this view was shared by Joe Biden, referring to remarks by the US president in early December, when he said that “if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there” and could proceed to attack a NATO country.

The Russian foreign minister said that “the absurdity of such statements is clear to anyone who understands the slightest bit of history and the goals of the special military operation in Ukraine, which we announced openly and without hiding.”

Russian officials have repeatedly said that Moscow is seeking the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, as well as an arrangement guaranteeing that the country would not join NATO, and would instead recommit to neutrality.

Lavrov further noted that the military campaign against Kiev is aimed at eliminating “historical injustice.” According to the minister, Moscow is fighting attempts to rewrite history, as well as efforts to turn territories where Russians and other peoples of Russia have lived for centuries “into a springboard for US-led NATO to be used to threaten the [country’s] security.”

Last month, Putin said Moscow had no interest whatsoever in launching an offensive against the bloc.

He added that the president of the United States – which he called the “master” of NATO – surely knows that “Russia has no interest… geopolitically, economically or militarily... in waging war against [the bloc].”

More private money is being taken out of Ukraine by its citizens than is coming into the country, data shared by the deputy head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Sergey Nikolaichukhas, has revealed.

The outflow of private funds from Ukraine stood at some $20 billion in 2022. Last year, it reduced to $18 billion, Nikolaichuk announced on Monday.

The figures relate to the money being spent by Ukrainians, who are now abroad, from their banking cards in the ‘Travel’ category, he clarified.

”From April 2023 and to this day, $35 million is being written off from Ukrainian bank cards on a daily basis,” the NBU’s deputy head stressed.

At the same time, the amount of money being wired into Ukraine from its citizens abroad continues to fall, the data suggested. It stood at $14 billion in 2021, before the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. However, in 2022, the sum fell to $12 billion; in 2023, Nikolaichuk said, it dropped further to just $10.6 billion.

In his interview with German public broadcaster ARD on Monday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky urged men who fled abroad to return to the country, saying that they are needed not only to serve in the military but also to sustain the economy and pay taxes.

Earlier this month, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Aleksey Danilov, said that the law on mobilization now being discussed by the parliament might include a clause that would see draft dodgers being denied access to banking services.

Ukraine’s military has lost a substantial proportion of its Leopard 2 battle tanks donated by foreign states, with more than a quarter destroyed by Russian troops and the rest damaged beyond Kiev’s capacity to repair them, according to Foreign Affairs magazine.

While Western media reports touted the German-made tank as a game-changer after Berlin authorized the transfers last year, Kiev has since discovered they are “hardly invulnerable superweapons,” the outlet reported on Monday.

“Of the fewer than 100 Leopard 2s in Ukrainian service, at least 26 have been knocked out; others cannot be used due to repair and maintenance issues,” Foreign Affairs wrote, adding that Ukraine lacks the “extensive support infrastructure” needed to maintain its fleet.

The magazine also pointed to “rushed training” for Ukrainian tank crews by Western advisers, saying they had failed to employ “tight combined-arms coordination” to preserve armored vehicles under fire on the battlefield. The tank brigades were provided just five weeks of instruction, and were largely made up of “inexperienced formations” with little to no combat experience.

Germany announced transfers of the Leopard to Ukraine in early 2023, after the United States pledged 31 of its own M1 Abrams battle tanks. Kiev received the first US tanks only in October, and they also failed to give it the edge on the battlefield, with Forbes recently reporting it was “not clear” what Ukraine was doing with the costly weapon system.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of weapons to Kiev by the US and its allies will not prevent it from achieving the goals of its military operation in Ukraine but only increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have stressed that any Western-supplied hardware will be destroyed, no matter the type.

Belarus has joined the club of “nuclear powers,” President of Russia Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He was referring to Minsk successfully operating its first nuclear power station, which was built by Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation.

Belarus’ energy ministry gave the official green light in November to the commercial operation of the station’s second power unit. With a total power-generating capacity of 2,400 megawatts, the plant is expected to cover up to 40% of the nation’s energy needs, the media reported at that time.

“This is a major step forward,” Putin said on Monday, commenting on the development. The Russian leader said that construction of the power plant had given rise to a “whole new industry” in the neighboring country. “In this sense, Belarus has certainly become a nuclear power,” he added.

Located not far from the city of Ostrovets in northwestern Belarus, the power plant was built between 2013 and 2023 by Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom. It is the first nuclear power station outside of Russia to use Rosatom’s state-of-the-art nuclear reactors of the 3+ generation, RIA Novosti reported.

Military cooperation between the two neighbors further accelerated amid the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow. Putin announced his decision to station nuclear weapons in Belarus in March 2023 in response to the UK’s plans to provide Ukraine with depleted uranium munitions – a move slammed by Moscow as reckless and irresponsible.

In July 2023, Russia said it could consider withdrawing its tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus if the US and NATO reverse their current political course and remove Washington’s nuclear arsenal from Europe, and dismantle its infrastructure.

A Moscow court has issued arrest warrants for four close allies of jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, the legal press service confirmed on Monday.

The list issued by the Basmanny District court comprises the current head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Maria Pevchikh, as well as Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, the head of FBK’s polling service Anna Biryukova and journalist Dmitry Nizovtsev. None of the four are currently in Russia.

Pevchikh stands accused of “creating an extremist group, spreading ‘fakes’ about the Russian Armed Forces as well as vandalism,” the press service said. The woman, who holds British citizenship, assumed leadership of FBK in March 2023. Last December, she was put on Russia’s wanted list. Few details about her case emerged at the time.

In May 2023, the UK national was also added to Russia’s ‘foreign agents’ list. The status is reserved for individuals receiving funding from abroad or deemed to be ‘under foreign influence’ while seeking to impact policies or public opinion in the country.

A journalist from Russia’s Far East, Nizovtsev was put on the wanted list on unannounced charges in December 2023, two months after he had been declared a foreign agent for supposedly receiving money from Ukraine. He and Yarmysh currently host shows on a Navalny-linked YouTube channel.

Navalny himself has been imprisoned since 2021. He was handed an additional nine-year sentence in early 2022 for contempt of court and a second fraud conviction. The charges were related to the activities of the FBK NGO, with the opposition figure accused of spending donations raised by the non-profit for “personal needs” as well as on bankrolling “extremist activities.”

In August 2023, he was sentenced to an additional 19 years on multiple extremism-related charges including creating an extremist group, endorsing extremism, financing such activities, and luring minors into them, as well as rehabilitating Nazi ideology.

Volkov, who headed FBK before Pevchikh, was added to Russia’s terrorism and extremism watchlist together with Ivan Zhdanov, another Navalny associate, who also resides outside the country.

Russia should place its nuclear weapons in “friendly countries” near the US in response to Washington’s alleged plans to move its own tactical arms to Europe, lawmaker Aleksey Zhuravlev has suggested.

His comments came after The Telegraph reported on Saturday that the US is looking to deploy its nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years, in order to counter a supposedly increased threat from Russia.

In a post on Telegram, Zhuravlev, who is first deputy chairman of the Russian parliamentary defense committee and leader of the Rodina (Motherland) party, pointed out that Britain has its own nuclear weapons, and that the US has already deployed part of its atomic arsenal to several European countries close to Russia.

“Therefore, it’s unlikely that additional deployment [of nuclear weapons to the UK] would have an effect on the military-political landscape,” Zhuravlev surmised.

Nevertheless, the politician suggested that Moscow should consider deploying its own nuclear weapons closer to the US and send them to “friendly countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.”

He also pointed out that Russia has strategic aviation as well as a vast arsenal of submarines stationed in unknown locations around the world’s oceans.

“We have ways to respond to any encroachments by the US and NATO, which it controls,” Zhuravlev said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has previously warned that Moscow would be forced to enact “compensatory countermeasures” in the event that American nuclear warheads return to Britain. Russia has also repeatedly accused the West of fueling tensions in Europe, and has cited NATO’s continued eastward expansion as one of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict.

Russia, however, has vehemently denied any plans to invade neighboring European countries, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov calling such claims a “hoax.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has also stressed that Moscow “has no interest… geopolitically, economically or militarily... in waging war against NATO” and would instead prefer to improve ties with the US-led bloc.

There are currently 880,000 people serving in Ukraine’s armed forces, according to President Vladimir Zelensky, who insisted that Kiev wants to mobilize even more troops, primarily males who left the country after the start of the conflict with Russia.

Just last month, Zelensky claimed that Kiev’s ground forces numbered over 600,000 service personnel, while in February 2022, when Russia launched its offensive, the Ukrainian army officially had only about 260,000 servicemen.

In an interview with the German public channel ARD news broadcast on Monday, the Ukrainian leader stated that Kiev now has “a million-strong army,” adding that there are also over 30 million people who are working in the country right now, one million of whom are employed in the defense and security sectors.

At the same time, Zelensky noted that between 6.5 million and 7.5 million people had left Ukraine since the start of the conflict and stated that Kiev wants to repatriate citizens who are eligible for military service.

His comments come as the country's armed forces continue to experience dire personnel shortages on the battlefield, as has been admitted by a number of top Ukrainian military officers and commanders, including the head of the country’s armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny.

While Kiev doesn’t publish its casualty figures, Russia’s Defense Ministry has estimated that Ukraine’s forces have lost as many as 160,000 service personnel since the launch of their failed summer counteroffensive, and that, over the course of the conflict, nearly 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded.

The US outlet Daily Beast also reported last week, citing interviews with Ukrainian men who have been avoiding mobilization, that Kiev was now sending untrained conscripts to the frontline shortly after drafting them from the streets, with many of them failing to last even a few days on the battlefield.

In light of these personnel shortages, late last year Kiev intensified its mobilization efforts, with Zelensky stating at the time that the military was looking to call up an additional 500,000 new recruits. One Ukrainian official even proposed mobilizing the country’s entire population.

Ukrainian lawmakers, in turn, have been debating proposals to amend the country’s mobilization laws to lower the draft age, to recruit more women and to penalize draft-dodgers by cutting off their bank accounts.

At least three people have been killed and one other wounded in a Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Donetsk, Aleksey Kulemzin, the mayor of the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic, has said.

The Kalininsky District in the eastern part of the city was targeted on Monday, Kulemzin wrote on Telegram.

Footage allegedly shot at the scene captured several bodies on the ground and the burning debris of a car that had been destroyed in the attack.

According to the republic’s Joint Center for Control and Coordination, eight missiles from a multiple rocket launch system were fired at Kalininsky District at around 3pm local time.

Donetsk, which is located close to Russia’s front line, has frequently been a target of Ukrainian strikes amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. But, earlier this month, the city of some 600,000 came under one of the worst attacks when 25 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded during a weekend bombardment of a busy market.

A drone was used to target an oil refinery in Russia’s Yaroslavl Region on Monday, according to local governor Mikhail Evraev. The attack was prevented using electronic warfare systems that successfully brought the UAV down, the official added.

The incident marks the first time since the start of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict that an oil refinery has been targeted in the Yaroslavl region, which lies to the north-east of Moscow, and some 700 kilometers from the country’s border with Ukraine.

In a message on his official Telegram channel, Evraev said that the incident had occurred at the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery  - one of the largest facilities of its kind in the country - noting that law enforcement agencies and special services were currently working at the scene.

The governor added that the attempted attack did not result in any casualties or fire.

In a later post, Evraev also stated that explosives technicians from Russia’s Federal Security Service had successfully neutralized the warhead on the UAV, declaring that there was no longer any threat to the safety of the facility and that it’s now operating as normal.

Telegram channels Mash, Baza and Astra have posted photos of what is claimed to be the downed airplane-type UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) that was brought down near the oil refinery. They have also reported that local residents heard a loud bang in the area at the time when the attempted attack is said to have occurred. 

According to local news outlets, the refinery has now been cordoned off by emergency services and law enforcement, and an ambulance, a demining vehicle and traffic police are on standby near the facility.

The incident in Yaroslavl is the latest in a series of attempted attacks on Russian energy facilities that began after the start of the Ukraine conflict. Earlier this month, a Novatek natural gas processing terminal based in the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad Region, nearly 1,000 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, caught fire as a result of an “external impact,” according to the company’s press office.

The people of Western nations have been subjected to anti-Russian rhetoric for decades, and it will take time for attitudes to change, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

In an interview broadcast by the TV channel ‘Rossiya 1’ on Sunday, Peskov argued that some countries, including Germany and the Baltic states, have been using “Russophobia” as a means of diverting public attention from domestic issues.

“Their economic problems are obvious. The competitiveness of the famous German industry is declining. The cost of living is rising. The economic and social pressure is increasing,” which has prompted some some European leaders prefer to make a “bogeyman” out of Russia, the spokesman claimed. 

"Right now, Russophobia is at its peak. It will go down… It will happen someday, and common sense will gradually prevail."

Many Western countries have imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow in response to its military operation in Ukraine, launched in February 2022. In addition to trade and financial restrictions, Russia has been barred from major cultural and sporting events.

In November, President Vladimir Putin said “Russophobia” has become the de facto “official ideology of the Western ruling elites.”

Last month, the Russian State Duma drafted a bill that would criminalize discrimination against Russian nationals living abroad, and “public incitement to extremism by international officials and public organizations.”

Men should “sneak up” on their wives and impregnate them this very evening, the mayor of the city of Nevinnomyssk in Stavropol Region in southern Russia has insisted.

The fact that in Nevinnomyssk, which has a population of some 117,000, only around 700 children are born yearly is unsatisfactory, Mikhail Minenkov declared in a video on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.

There are various reasons for people refraining from having kids, including “the belief that they haven’t earned enough money or the desire to live for oneself,” the mayor wrote.

However, he insisted that low birth rates are a path towards the “degradation” of society. “If there’ll be few of us, we’ll lose everywhere and in everything,” Minenkov warned.

It’s clear that there are more than 700 “healthy, strong women who are capable of becoming mothers” in Nevinnomyssk, according to the city head.

The mayor, who has three children, acknowledged that his comments “might sound naive and funny.” But he insisted that developing society through bringing more children into this world is “the main program of development of our city, our region, and Russia as a whole.”

The state statistics agency Rosstat reported earlier this month that 1.16 million people were born in Russia between January and November last year. It said the natural decline in population has decreased by 19.3% compared to the same period in 2022.

Rosstat also presented its demographic forecast for 2046 in January. According to the most optimistic scenario, the Russian population would grow by 4.59 million people and reach 150.87 million by that time. The pessimistic scenario says that the number of people living in the country could decrease by 15.4 million to 130.6 million in 2046.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to crush modern-day forces that promote Nazism, singling out Ukraine and the Baltic states as countries where the authorities have embraced such ideologies.  

Speaking on Saturday at the opening of a memorial to Soviet civilians killed by Nazi German forces in Leningrad Region, the Russian head of state said: “these days the outcomes of the Nuremberg trials are effectively being revised.” He claimed that some countries have gone from rewriting history and whitewashing the Nazis to “arming themselves with Hitlerite ideology and methods.” 

President Putin cited the Baltic states, in an apparent reference to their treatment of Russian-speaking minorities, which Moscow deems discriminatory.  

“The regime in Kiev lionizes Hitlers’ accomplices, SS members, and uses terror against” those who resist it, the Russian leader alleged, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of subjecting the elderly, women and children to “barbaric shelling.”  

According to President Putin, “in a number of European countries, Russophobia is being promoted as the state policy.”  

“We will do everything – everything to undercut and eradicate Nazism for good,” the Russian head of state pledged.

Putin noted that January 27 marks 80 years since the Soviet Army broke the Nazi Siege of Leningrad, which began in September 1941 and claimed the lives of more than a million civilians.

President Putin’s own parents lived through the ordeal. Indeed, his older brother succumbed to diphtheria at the age of two in the besieged city.

He noted that Nazi Germany was conducting a genocide of the Soviet population, leaving a deep scar on all generations since, with memories never fading away over the past eight decades.

In his New Year’s address to Russians, former President Dmitry Medvedev said that the “ultimate defeat” of neo-Fascism, an ideology “Russia’s enemies are trying to rekindle” should be the country’s “main goal” in 2024.

Earlier in December, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told AFP that Moscow “will not allow the existence on our borders of an aggressive Nazi state.”

She added that the goal of “denazification” of Ukraine proclaimed by President Putin back in February 2022 remain unchanged.

Military veterans returning from the Ukraine conflict should become Russia’s new elite, President Vladimir Putin has proposed. Addressing ministers and top St Petersburg city officials on Friday, Putin also called on Russian ministers to provide decommissioned military personnel with all the support necessary to facilitate their transition back to civilian life.

The Russian head of state previously revealed that some 617,000 service members had been deployed in Ukraine.

“I met today with students, who put their studies on hold, many of them, [and] went to the warzone,” Putin remarked.

“It’s out of these people that we should be forming the country’s elite in the future,” he added. The Russian head of state described returning troops as those who can be entrusted with the country’s development.

He also contrasted veterans with “people who, pardon me, expose their genitals or show their bottom” – an apparent reference to a private party featuring an ‘almost naked’ dress code organized by prominent Russian blogger Anastasia Ivleeva in Moscow last month.

Photos and videos from the event, which was attended by Russian celebrities, mostly pop artists, ended up on the internet, scandalizing conservative activists and authorities alike.

One attendee in particular, 25-year-old rapper Nikolai Vasilyev, aka Vacio, drew special attention as he sported nothing but a Balenciaga sock on his penis in the way of clothing. Some have since suggested that he was emulating Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis’ look from the 1990s.

Several days later, a court in Moscow found Vacio guilty of promoting LGBT values and sentenced him to fifteen days of administrative detention on top of a 200,000-ruble fine (just over $2,000). The rapper insisted that he merely wanted to “surprise the public,” adding that he is not an LGBT supporter.

In the wake of the party, organizer Ivleeva posted videos on her social media, expressing regret that footage of the private event had been made public. She also vowed to direct all the proceeds from the sale of tickets to charitable organizations.

In late December a court deemed the ‘almost naked’ event to be LGBT propaganda under a law banning such activities that had been signed by President Putin in December 2022.

Last November, the Russian Supreme Court under the law recognized the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organization and banned its activities in the country.

Moscow has released a video that it says shows Ukrainian POWs boarding the military transport plane which was shot down over the Russian border region of Belgorod on Wednesday. 

The Russian Il-76 crashed near the village of Yablonovo, killing everyone on board, including 65 Ukrainian captives who were slated for a prisoner exchange, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Russian authorities have accused Ukrainian forces of downing the aircraft with a surface-on-air missile.

Kiev has not provided its version of events, but confirmed that its forces consider Russian Il-76s and other military planes legitimate targets.

The minute-long video published by Russia’s Investigative Committee on Friday shows several trucks driving to a transport plane parked on a snowy airstrip.

The investigators described the footage as “Ukrainian POWs boarding the Il-76 that crashed in the Belgorod region as a result of a terrorist act.”

Kiev’s actions in Donbass between 2014 and 2022 were nothing short of “genocide,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. The post-Maidan coup authorities in Ukraine were determined to “physically” get rid of anyone who still supported the development of good relations with Moscow, he added.

Russia cited the need to protect the people of Donbass from continued persecution by Kiev as one of the major reasons it launched its military operation in February 2022. In the wake of the 2014 Maidan coup, two former Ukrainian territories with predominantly Russian-speaking populations declared their independence from Kiev and created the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

The post-coup Ukrainian government responded by launching an “anti-terrorist” operation against the two Donbass republics, sparking a protracted conflict that has raged ever since, in one form or another.

Russia initially sought to resolve the issue through the later-derailed Minsk Agreements, which envisaged a special autonomous status for the two republics within Ukraine. Moscow repeatedly accused Kiev of failing to implement the terms of the accords. In 2022, former German chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the accords brokered by Russia, Germany, and France in 2015 were merely a strategic ploy aimed at buying Ukraine more time to prepare for a conflict with Russia.

According to the president, Russia’s “geopolitical adversaries understood that they could not just turn Ukraine upside-down with its Russian-speaking population in the southeast.” The 2014 coup opened the way for the “physical extermination of anyone who was willing to develop normal relations with Russia,” Putin said, adding that “it had become clear that we would not be allowed to build normal relations with our neighbor.”

Putin has repeatedly referred to Ukraine’s policies in Donbass as “genocide.” In June 2022, several months into the conflict with Ukraine, he said “there can be no other definition for the Kiev regime’s actions than ‘a crime against humanity’.”

In February 2022, just days before the start of the Russian campaign, the nation’s Investigative Committee reported that more than 2,600 civilians had been killed over the past eight years amid the conflict in Donbass. More than 5,500 civilians were injured over the same period, it added.

A UN report published in January 2022 put the total number of deaths linked to the Donbass conflict at that time at more than 14,000. At least 3,400 of them were civilians, including more than 150 children, it added.

Covid-19 has lost its pandemic potential in the years since it was flagged by the World Health Organization, Russia’s former chief health inspector Gennady Onishchenko has said.

Onishchenko’s statement comes after the Russian consumer rights and wellbeing watchdog Rospotrebnadzor stated earlier this month that the peak of Covid-19 infections had passed in Russia and that new mass vaccination campaigns were no longer necessary. It was noted, however, that people should nevertheless remain vigilant, as coronavirus cases still grow seasonally.

In an interview with RIA Novosti published on Thursday, Onishschenko, who is currently the deputy president of the Russian Academy of Education, acknowledged that over the years of the pandemic, up until the announcement of its conclusion by the WHO, the coronavirus had mutated and caused several serious waves of infections, including fatal ones. 

“New strains may still appear, [the virus] is constantly mutating,” the academic said. He added, however, that “this coronavirus, by all indications, has exhausted its pandemic potential.”

Covid-19 initially emerged in late 2019 and developed into the most widespread epidemic in nearly a century. In the three years since, the disease has killed an estimated seven million people around the world. The Lancet medical journal has suggested that number may even be higher at 18 million.

At the recent Davos Forum in Switzerland, world leaders also discussed a ‘Disease X’ pandemic - a hypothetical virus postulated to be 20 times deadlier than Covid-19. While the discussions sparked controversy in the media and on social media, experts have explained that the consideration of a hypothetical virus outbreak is the usual routine used by researchers and scientists when considering a plan of action to prepare health systems for such an emergency.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, knew there were prisoners of war aboard a Russian military transport plane shot down by Kiev’s forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. The full story of the shootdown will “become clear in a couple of days,” he added.

The IL-76 military transport plane was shot down over Russia’s Belgorod Region on Wednesday morning. Everyone on board – 65 prisoners, six crew members, and three Russian soldiers – died. The Russian Defense Ministry claims that the plane was brought down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles while en route to a prisoner exchange in the city of Belgorod, located near the Russia-Ukraine border.

The GUR was aware that Ukrainian prisoners were traveling on the plane, Putin said on Friday, according to RIA Novosti.

“The entire current Kiev regime is based on crimes committed daily, including against its own citizens,” Putin said. “The [GUR] knew that we were transporting 65 military personnel there … and knowing this, they struck the plane.”

In a statement issued on Wednesday night, the GUR did not deny that the jet was taken out by Ukrainian forces. Instead, the agency said that it was unsure whether the prisoners would be taken to the exchange point by air or other means, and that it “was not informed about the need to ensure the safety of the airspace” over the border region.

Putin said that material seized from the crash site suggests that an American or French air-defense missile was used to bring down the plane, and that exactly how the aircraft was shot down “will become clear in a couple of days.”

“The results of the investigation into the IL-76 case will be published so that the Ukrainian people know” what happened to their soldiers, he stated.

“All currently available data points to a deliberate, premeditated crime,” Russia’s deputy representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday. “The Ukrainian leadership was well aware about the route and means by which [the Ukrainian] soldiers would have been transported to the agreed exchange point,” he claimed, alleging that “the regime in Kiev had decided this time to sabotage [the swap] in the most barbaric way.”

Russia’s security service (FSB) has apprehended two men on suspicion of working for the Ukrainian intelligence service, the body’s press office revealed on Friday. The suspects had allegedly been gathering information on Russian military facilities and units and sharing it with Kiev’s representatives in exchange for money.  

Since the start of Moscow’s military campaign against the neighboring country in February 2022, the FSB has reported arresting dozens of suspects, both Russian and Ukrainian nationals, who are believed to have either been spying for Kiev or carrying out acts of sabotage or terrorist attacks on Russian territory.  

In a press release on Friday, Russia’s Federal Security Service said that the latest arrests took place in the city of Rostov-on-Don, located not far from the border with Ukraine. The two suspects, who are both Russian citizens, were charged with high treason, the FSB added.  

According to the authorities, the men had contacted the Ukrainian intelligence service on their own, and were tasked with observing Russian military units that took part in military action against Ukraine.  

The FSB has also released a video clip depicting the arrest of the suspects, apparently outside of a Russian military base. 

A court has placed both men in pre-trial detention.  

Last July, the FSB detained three Russian citizens in the southern region of Voronezh on suspicion of providing information on Russian military facilities and transport infrastructure to the Ukrainian radical group ‘Right Sector’. 

Another high-profile case from last summer involved a neo-Nazi group, members of which were accused of plotting the assassination of RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and journalist and former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak at the orders of the Ukrainian intelligence service. 

More should be done to minimize the risk of a major accident at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, warned at a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday.

The Zaporozhye facility, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, has been under Russian control since the outbreak of hostilities with Ukraine two years ago. The facility has also hosted a monitoring mission sent by the UN nuclear watchdog since Septermber 2022. 

In his report on the IAEA’s work to secure and monitor the situation around nuclear facilities in the Ukraine conflict zone, Grossi stated that the “nuclear safety and security situation at the ZNPP [Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant] – in particular – continues to be extremely fragile.” 

He explained that although six of the plant’s reactors have been shut down since mid-2022, the potential dangers of a major nuclear accident “remain very real.” 

Since the start of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev have regularly accused each other of attacking the ZNPP. However, the Russian Defense Ministry noted in November that the number of incidents had significantly diminished in recent months. 

The watchdog chief noted that while the plant had not been shelled for a considerable time, military activities continue to play out in the region and sometimes in the vicinity of the ZNPP. Members of the IAEA mission have reported rockets flying overhead close to the facility, he added. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s top spy, Sergey Naryshkin, claimed in an interview with RIA Novosti on Friday that Western intelligence services, particularly Britain’s MI6, have been preparing Ukrainian reconnaissance groups for provocations at nuclear power plants in Russia, including the ZNPP and a nuclear facility in Kursk. 

In October, a Ukrainian UAV rammed into a nuclear waste storage facility during an attack in Kursk Region in western Russia. Several more drones were also downed in the vicinity of the Kursk facility during that attack, local authorities reported at the time. 

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately targeting nuclear facilities throughout the conflict, claiming that the Ukrainian government has no qualms about resorting to “nuclear terrorism” and sparking a full-scale nuclear disaster that would affect the whole of Europe.

A Bloomberg report claiming that Russia has signaled to the US that it is ready to withdraw its demand for Ukrainian neutrality in exchange for recognition of its new territories is completely false, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Citing “two people close to the Kremlin,” the news agency alleged on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had used an unspecified backchannel to tell Washington that he could be ready for talks on Ukrainian security.

According to the report, the Russian president could drop “an insistence on neutral status for Ukraine and even ultimately abandon opposition to eventual NATO membership.” In exchange, Putin is said to have asked the West to accept Russian sovereignty over all former Ukrainian regions that have joined the country in recent years after voting in public referendums.

Asked to comment on the report, Peskov refuted it as “false and absolutely untrue.” The spokesman earlier also told Bloomberg that while Russia is still open to talks on Ukraine, it is “determined to reach our goals.” While Moscow would prefer to achieve its aims by diplomatic means, it will do so by continuing its military operation against Ukraine if this avenue does not result in any progress, he added.

At the same time, Ukraine has repeatedly said it is only prepared to accept the withdrawal of Russian troops from all the territory that Kiev claims as its own. In the autumn of 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky also signed a decree banning all talks with the current leadership in Moscow.

In the US, which is Kiev’s main backer, President Joe Biden has vowed to follow the principle of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Russian officials have consistently said all negotiations on the conflict should be conducted with the West, but argue it has shown no appetite for a constructive solution.

Russia does not want to enter into a “big war” and has no intention of attacking other countries, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He lamented that relations with the US are at rock bottom, and blamed Washington for the current state of affairs.

In recent weeks, senior officials in several European nations have been urging their citizens to prepare for a potential military confrontation with Russia. Moscow, however, has insisted that it has no interest in waging war against NATO.

Speaking at a Q&A session at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, Lavrov said that despite growing escalation and bellicose rhetoric, “no one wants a big war,” including Russia. “We have lived through ‘big wars’ many times in our history,” he added.

According to Lavrov, the US bears responsibility for the heightened global tensions while accusing Russia of being a threat. He cited Finland’s accession to NATO last April and Sweden’s aspirations to join as examples of Washington “dragging neutral countries” into the US-led bloc.

The foreign minister characterized Russian-US relations as being at a “low point,” with “practically no contacts” apart from discussions over the functioning of the two countries’ diplomatic missions.

Earlier this month, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom called on his compatriots to prepare for a potential military conflict, amid rising tensions with Moscow. Last week, UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps predicted that a global conflict between the West and Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea would break out within five years.

Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the chair of the NATO Military Committee, has said the military bloc’s member states should ensure that their industries can be quickly put on a war footing and that there are mechanisms in place to arrange the mass mobilization of civilians in case of a large-scale conflict.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has also warned that while Germany is not currently under a direct threat of attack, it should start preparing by beefing up its military.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed these warnings as “nonsense,” saying Moscow has “no interest” in attacking any NATO nations.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has caused a stir. But this time not by haranguing the West on how much it owes his country (in short: everything and then some). Or because prominent Ukrainians (former presidential adviser Aleksey Arestovich, for instance) are plausibly accusing Zelensky of missing a real and favorable opportunity for peace with Russia almost two years ago.

Rumors of intrigues surrounding the military leadership of General Valery Zaluzhny or accusations of authoritarianism leveled by, for example, the mayor of Kiev, Vitaly Klitschko, are not the reason either. By now, that sort of thing is just Kiev background noise.

Instead, this time Zelensky has managed to get attention by issuing a decree ‘On Territories of the Russian Federation Historically Inhabited by Ukrainians’. Much of this fairly short document, which officially came into force on Ukraine’s Unity Day (January 22) is unsurprising. First, there is a rehash of weaponized/nationalized ‘history’ narratives that would make any serious historian blush, painting Russia (including during the Soviet period) as an evil empire that has ‘systematically’ sought to ‘destroy’ Ukrainian national identity for centuries. In Zelensky’s own words, the decree is meant to “restore the truth about the historical past for the sake of the Ukrainian future.”

But the document itself offers not truth but a silly and crude caricature. In reality, modern Ukrainian identity emerged comparatively late, and the Russian-tsarist authorities did try to curtail and restrict it, while the Soviet authorities attempted to shape it by both attacking it and promoting one version of it (as well as fighting alternatives, including a fascist version that allied with Nazi Germany). As you would expect, beyond politics, the even greater complexity of Russian-Ukrainian interactions – across the realms of (mixed) identities, beliefs, and culture, for instance – finds no reflection either.

But let’s be fair, Ukraine and Russia have been openly at war – and on a large scale – for almost two years now. (The causes of this avoidable war are, fundamentally, the West’s reckless, shortsighted, and cynical strategy of expanding NATO come-what-may; the Ukrainian leadership’s unforgivable decision to let the West use Ukraine and its people as a proxy to weaken Russia; and last but not least, great miscalculations on all sides.) Against that background, a Ukrainian president – even one less ill-educated than Zelensky – can hardly be expected to deliver a sophisticated lecture on the discontents of national identity. So, let’s not believe the caricature he is offering us, but let’s not get worked up about it either.

What is more intriguing is another feature of the decree. Its central explicit purpose is to protect the national identity and rights of Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation, including but not limited to six named regions. Three of those regions border Ukraine and the other three used to border it before 2014, when Crimea became part of Russia. The decree labels these territories as “historically inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians.” The list of measures to be taken to do so is predictable and, frankly, not interesting. It is a mix of lawfare, international lobbying, and instrumentalization of academics and experts that you would expect (again with a special mission for those historians eager to let themselves be used as information warfare foot soldiers). The Ukrainian World Congress, Ukraine’s Academy of Science, and the Foreign Ministry, for instance, are all charged with making their contribution to what the decree promises will be a “truthful history” – apparently without irony. Pro tip: Truth in history, insofar as possible, never comes from a government decree.

Of greater interest is the question of what this decree is really supposed to accomplish. It is, after all, a strange document to issue now. Zelensky’s regime is facing a serious, potentially fatal decline in Western backing. The situation on the front lines – think Avdeevka, the crucial fortress town in eastern Ukraine about to be taken by Russia – is so dire that the common Western euphemism of ‘stalemate’ has simply become silly: This is not what a stalemate looks like, this is what being on the verge of losing looks like. Moscow, meanwhile, has signaled no hurry in making peace, especially after recent Ukrainian attacks inside Russia, some with major civilian casualties.

Did Zelensky feel that he needed something uplifting to offer for Ukrainian Unity Day (22 January, the day of the decree’s publication)? Is the decree meant to confirm that the president wants to continue the war, by hinting that as bad as things may look now, in the future, Ukraine will turn the tables? If so, it seems a risky gamble. Among Ukrainians abroad, especially in the so-called ‘diaspora’, such gestures may still play well. (And maybe that is why the Ukrainian World Congress received separate mention.) It is intriguing, in this regard, to watch Zelensky’s public address on the occasion of Unity Day. Produced in his signature high-stagecraft style (complete with a dramatic score that seems to come out of a Hollywood melodrama), it climaxes in a long sequence highlighting Ukrainians abroad. But those Ukrainians actually in Ukraine could feel alienated. For them, this decree at this time may come across as a gimmick, and worse, as revealing (or confirming?) that Zelensky is no longer attached to reality.

But what if the motives behind the decree are more complicated? Could it be an attempt to create a bargaining chip (weak, certainly, but perhaps better than nothing) for a future settlement with Russia? If that is the case, it is most likely to come across as a sign of despair, a case of clutching at straws. For it is difficult to see why future Russian negotiators would care. If Zelensky – and those around him – really still believe that yet another narrative offensive can compensate for real defeat on real battlefields, then they have learned nothing.

That was an awful idea. But it never went away. While most of the war has unfolded more conventionally, as a clash between large armies, there have also been infiltration, sabotage, and assassination campaigns. With the war going badly for Ukraine, some irresponsible strategists in both Washington and Kiev are bound to consider a plan B – namely, answering a Russian victory with an attempt to launch an extended insurgency.

The guerrilla-style operations undertaken up until now have one feature in common with Zelensky’s strange decree – the targeting of areas inside Russia. It may appear far-fetched, and it is a matter of speculation, but we should not rule out the possibility that Zelensky is trying to hint that Ukrainians inside Russia could become an asset in this type of warfare. If so, then the true intention of the decree would be to promote paranoia inside Russia. And the best response is to absolutely ignore it.

Both Russia and Ukraine now find themselves unable to make any progress on the battlefield, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told the tabloid Bild on Thursday. 

Pistorius has insisted on boosting his country's weapons production and called on other European countries to do more as well. The Ukrainian government has consistently criticized its foreign backers for not supplying its forces with enough military hardware and munitions, arguing that the lack of weapons was the primary reason for its difficulties on the battlefield.

Germany is already “reaching its limits” regarding military aid for Ukraine and that its production capabilities are not keeping up with demand, the minister said. 

However, he argued that the frontline situation was not as bad for Kiev as has been reported, telling Bild that “in fact, the situation is deadlocked. There are no gains in territory on either side.”

President Vladimir Putin recently declared that Russian forces currently have the initiative. He described Kiev’s counteroffensive as a “complete failure,” achieving no notable territorial gains while costing a tremendous amount of personnel and equipment. 

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian forces lost some 215,000 troops and 28,000 pieces of military hardware last year, while nearly 400,000 Ukrainian personnel have been killed or wounded since February 2022.

Meanwhile, Kiev has continued to criticize the West for failing to supply and produce enough munitions for its forces. Zelensky has also stated that the current rate of weapons production throughout the whole world is not enough to sustain the fight against Russia.

After sustaining heavy losses throughout the conflict, Kiev has also been struggling with personnel, with the Ukrainian president stating last month that the army was looking at ways to obtain an additional 500,000 new recruits.

Lithuania has banned its military personnel, border guards and police officers from visiting Russia, China and Belarus while off duty, citing espionage concerns. Vilnius claimed the three countries pose “threats to the security of Lithuania and its citizens.”

Along with fellow Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania has repeatedly suggested that Russia is planning to invade it since Moscow launched its military campaign against Ukraine in February 2022. Belarus, which borders Lithuania and Latvia, is one of Moscow’s closest allies, and has hosted Russian tactical nuclear weapons since last summer.

Meanwhile, relations between China and the US and NATO – of which all three Baltic states are members – have taken a negative turn in recent years, in particular over Taiwan.

According to the ministry, the three nations’ respective intelligence services gather information on Lithuanian citizens who have access to classified information, probing for vulnerabilities that may help recruit them.

In addition, Lithuanian citizens could be subjected to “interrogations and provocations” in Russia and Belarus, defense officials reportedly claimed.

Exceptions may be made in cases when Lithuanian military or security personnel have close relatives residing in those countries who are critically ill or have died. Moreover, permits may be issued for personnel who need to carry out parental or guardian duties in those jurisdictions, or have property rights there, LRT reported.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Latvia for deporting ethnic Russians who have failed or not taken a compulsory Latvian language test. He described the issue as “directly affect[ing] the security of our country.”

Moscow has for years accused Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia of discriminating against the substantial Russian-speaking ethnic minorities in each of the three countries. Putin also insisted in December that Russia “has no interest… in waging war against NATO.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said families need at least three children to improve the country’s declining population. He addressed the question of the country’s birthrate while speaking to university students in Kaliningrad Region on Thursday.

“If two people produce only one, then the population decreases. Even if there are two, it remains on the horizontal bar. And in order to ensure population growth, the minimum requirement is for a family to have three children.”

Putin explained that a more educated society leads to a more difficult demographic situation, because people’s priorities change. Women who want to get an education and start a career end up having their first baby over the age of 30.

“Of course, there’s no strength and no time for a second one,” the president lamented. The Russian leader noted that starting a family is a very difficult process, especially for a woman, who needs to study and keep her professional qualifications, as well as care for a child. “So that’s why we are trying to help young families in the first place.” He added that it is important to start a family “on time” and that there is “a pragmatic interest on the part of the state.”

In 2023, 1.213 million children were born in Russia. Such a low figure has not been seen since 1999, when only 1.215 million children were born. Rosstat, the national statistics bureau, has predicted the birthrate will continue to decline until 2027.

More than 450,000 citizens have taken advantage of the scheme since its launch, the chief executive of DOM.RF corporation, Vitaly Mutko, told reporters in January.

Preferential mortgage programs for families with children have a positive impact on demographics, according to a study by the Russian Academy of National Economy.

Azerbaijan may withdraw from the Council of Europe due to a dispute over the rule of law and human rights, the country’s official news agency, APA, reported on Thursday. The news came after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted to suspend Baku’s delegation.

According to APA, Azerbaijan “will not stand idle in the face of an unfair and biased attitude” and is considering “not only leaving PACE, but the Council of Europe as a whole.” Baku may also decide to stop abiding by the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, the news agency said.

During Wednesday’s session in Strasbourg, PACE passed a resolution arguing that Azerbaijan has “not fulfilled major commitments” in the field of democracy and the rule of law. “Very serious concerns remain as to [Azerbaijan’s] ability to conduct free and fair elections, the separation of powers, the weakness of its legislature vis-à-vis the executive, the independence of the judiciary and respect for human rights,” the resolution read.

The Azerbaijani delegation to PACE released a statement, accusing the body of attempting to meddle in the country’s elections. Officials described the decision to reject the credentials of the delegates as “a serious blow to the credibility and impartiality of the Council of Europe.” 

“Never before in the history of the PACE has this organization behaved in such a disgraceful manner,” the statement read, as cited by the news agency Trend. Baku said that it is suspending all engagements with PACE until further notice.

A Russian conglomerate will be allowed to buy out the coal-mining companies previously owned by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, the Kremlin confirmed on Thursday. President Vladimir Putin has approved the sale in line with the current anti-sanctions measures.

The joint stock company Best Solution will acquire 100% of the shares of Don Anthracite and Obukhovsky Mine Management, located in Rostov Region, from the Cyprus-based Fabcell Limited.

Putin signed off on the sale under his August 2022 decree on “applying special economic measures in the financial, fuel and energy sectors in connection with the unfriendly actions of certain foreign states and international organizations.” 

In September 2022, however, Akhmetov’s assets in Russia were seized for “financing terrorism,” because his SCM Holding was giving significant amounts of money to the Ukrainian military. Another Cyprus-based company, Fabcell Limited, appeared at that time as the legal owner of the two mining enterprises. 

In June 2023, Fabcell handed the administration of Don Anthracite and Obukhovsky Mine Management to SBK Premier, formerly a division of Sberbank. 

Best Solution was founded as a small business joint stock company in November 2022, and acquired by Orion-1 Specialized Financial Company LLC in January 2023, reportedly led by senior Sberbank executives.

Akhmetov is considered the richest man in Ukraine, with $5.7 billion in assets. His holding company, SCM, is the largest shareholder of DTEK, and has investments in a variety of industries, from energy and transport to mining, metallurgy, banking, and finance. He is also the owner of the soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk, named after the coal mines.

Ukrainian troops shot down a Russian military plane carrying their fellow soldiers in order to derail a prisoner swap, Moscow’s envoy told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

The Il-76 cargo aircraft crashed in Russia’s border region of Belgorod on Wednesday morning, killing everyone on board. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the plane was transporting 65 Ukrainian POWs slated for exchange later that day.

“All currently available data points to a deliberate, premeditated crime,” Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy representative to the UN, said. “The Ukrainian leadership was well aware about the route and means by which [the Ukrainian] soldiers would have been transported to the agreed exchange point.”

“It was not the first such operation. However, for some inexplicable reason, the regime in Kiev had decided this time to sabotage [the swap] in the most barbaric way,” the diplomat added. 

According to Polyansky, the aircraft was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile fired from the village of Liptsy in Kharkov Region in eastern Ukraine. A preliminary investigation has found that either a US-made Patriot missiles or German-made IRIS-T was used in the attack, he said.

Kiev confirmed that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place the same day the plane was downed, while the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it considers all Russian military aircraft legitimate targets. In a video address on Wednesday night, President Vladimir Zelensky called for an international probe into the incident. He did not say who was responsible for downing the Il-76, however.

Addressing the Security Council, Ukraine’s deputy envoy, Kristina Gayovishin, stopped short of directly blaming Russia for shooting down the plane carrying the POWs. Nevertheless, she argued that “Russia bears full responsibility for all atrocities, deaths and destruction caused by the war.”

Gayovishin added that Ukrainian troops will continue to target Il-76s and other Russian military planes, including those operating in the “Belgorod-Kharkov direction.”

Citizens of the Western bloc have become disillusioned with the Ukraine conflict, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, said on Thursday.

Western capitals are now trying to drum up public support by hyping up the phantom threat of a “Russian invasion” of NATO, Naryshkin told Sputnik in an interview.

Polls have made it “clear that the population of these countries is simply tired of the Ukrainian crisis,” Naryshkin said. “Few people believe in the possibility of achieving victory over Russia.”

Those who wish to continue the “simply colossal” financial assistance to President Vladimir Zelensky’s “gang” are fewer still, according to the SVR head. “And no one understands why the citizens of Western countries must suffer for this.”

Industries of EU countries have taken a massive hit over the past two years due to the bloc’s embargo on Russian energy imports. Recent reports showed millions of UK residents struggling to afford electricity.

Faced with their people’s growing reluctance to continue doing this, Naryshkin said, Western governments are using the tried and true technique of fear-mongering, talking about “the possibility of aggression by Russia.”

NATO’s belligerent rhetoric is also part of a “hybrid war” against Russia, attempting to intimidate Moscow into abandoning the objectives of its military operation in Ukraine, the SVR head said, noting that such a turn of events is unlikely.

Moscow has repeatedly warned the West that continuing to supply Kiev with weapons will make them participants in the conflict with all the attendant consequences. Russia has also given notice that anyone involved in atrocities perpetrated by the Ukrainian military against civilians – including Westerners – will not escape justice.

Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, there’s been much talk about the family of US President Joe Biden and alleged corruption schemes connected with Ukraine. The story itself isn’t new, but facts have recently come to light which make it clear why the American leader and his fellow Democrats remain intransigent on the Ukraine issue. 

In the footsteps of assassins and those who hire them

Andrey Derkach, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian who became widely known for publishing recordings of conversations between ex-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and high-ranking foreign officials, including Biden (who was then US vice president), gave an extensive interview earlier this month to journalist Simona Mangiante. During this conversation, he disclosed sensational new details about the “special ties” between the Biden family and the Ukrainian authorities.

According to Derkach, “President [Vladimir] Zelensky’s office was involved in distributing the Poroshenko-Biden recordings and helped organize the media coverage [of the story].” At the time, Zelensky and his team were interested in exposing his political rival by any means possible.

Everything changed after the start of the 2020 US election campaign and the arrival of Biden as president. “In a situation when Zelensky and [Ukrainian presidential aide Andrey] Yermak are begging Biden and [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken for money, a [news] story about how they had once created problems for Biden’s election campaign is a big problem for them,” Derkach explained.

”On January 19, 2022, US Secretary of State Mr Blinken arrived in Ukraine to meet with Zelensky. Quite a lot of people attended this meeting – at least 14 people. At the meeting, Mr Blinken told Zelensky the following: ‘You urgently need to resolve the issue with Derkach’. Zelensky began talking about some people from the opposition. But Blinken said, ‘If you don’t resolve this issue with Derkach, then we will resolve the Derkach issue with our partners.’ Those who were at the meeting were taken aback, because the position of the US secretary of state was quite harsh. Just think of it, the task for the president of Ukraine is to resolve the issue with Derkach,” the former deputy said.

It is noteworthy that in 2021, the Ukrainian police discovered plans to assassinate Derkach and the head of the group of prosecutors in the Burisma energy company case, Konstantin Kulik, but did not initiate a criminal case. The investigation tracked down the criminal gang from Eastern Europe hired to carry out the hit, as well as their base in Transcarpathia. The assassin himself was supposed to be an Albanian, but the information was leaked, and the gang escaped.

There was also an attempt to assassinate former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. According to former US Associate Attorney General and ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Shokin (whose dismissal Joe Biden has openly bragged about) was poisoned with mercury while on a trip to Greece. Nikolay Korpan – a doctor at the Austrian Rudolfinerhaus private clinic who treated presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 – reportedly confirmed this to Giuliani. According to Korpan’s findings, while the permissible amount of mercury in the blood is no more than two units, Shokin was found to have 9.2 units and was starting to experience liver failure. It was clearly a murder attempt.

The number of witnesses in the Burisma case – a company though which Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden earned profits via alleged corruption schemes – is also steadily decreasing. Shortly before she was due to testify as a witness in the case, the wife of Nikolai Lisin – a former partner of Nikolai Zlochevsky – was found dead in her apartment. She had been responsible for accounting at Burisma and had been aware of transactions carried out in the interests of the Bidens. Lisin himself died in a car accident back in 2011.

In light of this, it seems Derkach is right to say that anyone who talks about Biden’s corruption in Ukraine is in danger of being physically removed.  The same can be said about his opinion that there is “a single organized crime group: Biden, Blinken, [Victoria] Nuland, the ‘deep state’ represented by the Department of State. And then there is their ‘extension’ – either in the form of Poroshenko, or of Zelensky and Yermak.”  As Derkach says, Zelensky and Yermak “attacked” the “organized crime group” headed by former President Poroshenko and took their place. “They have brought their own particular innovations into these matters. They have become even more cynical and cruel.”

Hunting for Ukrainian gas

What are the Bidens and their partners in the Democratic Party trying to hide by waging war against whistleblowers in Ukraine?

The fact that Hunter Biden abused his father’s official position, receiving a profit of several million dollars through corrupt schemes and violating US legislation on foreign agents, isn’t the only problem. There’s much more to it than that. 

In order to understand the scale of the potential profits for the Biden family, we need to go back to 2012. The Yuzovsk shale gas field is located on the territory of the Donetsk and Kharkov regions. The total area of the deposit is about 7886 sq km. According to the State Geologic and Subsoil Survey of Ukraine (UGS), the proven resources of the field are up to 10 trillion cubic meters, and it can deliver around 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. In May 2012, the British-Dutch company Shell won the tender (organized by the UGS) for the right to conclude an agreement on its development. On January 24, 2013, Ukraine signed a production sharing agreement with Shell. Incidentally, US company ExxonMobil had participated in the tender along with Shell, but the Europeans won. 

On February 22, 2014, the Ukrainian parliament removed Yanukovych from power, in a move of dubious legality. Aleksandr Turchinov became interim president, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, backed by Nuland, became prime minister. In April 2014, the Ukrainian army started an “anti-terrorist operation” in Donbass, and Shell was forced to stop the development of shale gas deposits. 

Meanwhile, on May 12, 2014, Burisma announced that Hunter Biden had joined its board of directors. The energy company was headed by Ukrainian oligarch Nikolay Zlochevsky, who was Ukraine’s minister of natural resources under Yanukovych. While he held that post, Zlochevsky’s firm received nine licenses for the development of various energy deposits, thereby increasing its annual production volume sevenfold. The oligarch’s activities drew the attention of Interpol, since Zlochevsky had ties with Maltese businessman Pierre Pillow. He was involved in laundering huge sums of money in Maltese banks and helped Zlochevsky open accounts for Hunter Biden in Satabank, known for its dubious operations.

In 2018, Burisma took up the development of shale deposits located in the exact same area where the military conflict between Kiev and Donbass was raging. At least $10 billion – i.e. the sum of the contract with Shell – was at stake.  

But the story didn’t end there. Sergey Zavorotny, adviser to former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov, described the Bidens’ alleged schemes involving reverse gas flows. Derkach’s records state that while he was US vice president, Joe Biden pressured Poroshenko to leave Andrey Kobolev as CEO of Ukraine’s Naftogaz. In turn, Kobolev appointed Amos Hochstein – who may be called Biden’s “wallet” – as an independent director of the Naftogaz supervisory board. It is at this time that the reverse gas flow scheme was organized.

The scheme implied that “Russian gas crossed the Ukraine-Slovakia border through a built-in 1.5 kilometer-long pipe and immediately returned to Ukraine, but with an added cost of $50 per one thousand cubic meters. Biden, Kobolev, and Amos Hochstein collected one and a half billion dollars using this scheme," Zavorotny also claims.

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko drew attention to the fact that the perpetrators of the corruption scheme were never punished, and said that “the investigation was not carried out under the new president. The president changed, but all the policies that were carried out externally in regard to Ukraine, as well as inside the country, have remained the same.”

While intense fighting was underway in Ukraine, Burisma launched the first shale gas production line in Donbass. Hunter Biden arranged that process, while Hochstein “organized” the reverse gas flows. At that time, Hochstein became the US Special Envoy for Nord Stream 2.

Everybody knows what happened to Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines, built to supply energy to Germany. We won’t accuse anyone in particular, but will only let the interested parties speak for themselves. 

In a recent interview, Derkach recalled the criminal case against Burisma lawyer Andrey Kichi, who tried to give a $6 million bribe to law enforcement officials in order to close the Burisma case. On April 21, 2022, with the consent of a Burisma representative, a Ukrainian court transferred the $6 million in cash to the military unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine. According to Derkach, “after a certain period of time, Nord Stream exploded, there were assassination attempts. The heads of the Ukrainian special services do not hide the fact that they commit terrorist acts and political assassinations using off-budget cash. Once again, Biden’s business partners who are involved in the corrupt business in Ukraine also finance terrorist acts, thus avoiding responsibility for corruption in Ukraine.”

These claims are yet to be proven, but the hostility towards the Nord Stream project by representatives of the US administration is indisputable. In his investigation of the explosions, renowned US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh wrote that the Democrats directly threatened to destroy the gas pipelines. As President Biden stated during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February 2022, “If Russia invades [Ukraine], there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Twenty days before that, Under Secretary of State Nuland had said: “I want to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

It’s not known whether this implied attacking the gas pipelines, but after the sabotage, Secretary of State Blinken said: “It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from [Russian President] Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs. That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come, but meanwhile, we’re determined to do everything we possibly can to make sure that the consequences of all of this are not borne by citizens in our countries or, for that matter, around the world.”

As a result, the European gas market has undergone a huge transformation in the past couple of years. By the end of 2023, LNG accounted for 42% of the EU’s (including Türkiye’s) gas imports. This comes down to about 165 billion cubic meters of natural gas, when converted through regasification. Half of it – i.e. 77 billion cubic meters – was supplied by the US. According to a report by shipbroker Branchero Costa, the US is now the largest exporter of LNG, accounting for 21.7% of global shipments. In total, the US exported 88.9 million tons of LNG last year, which is 12.0% more than in 2022. To compare, the US exported 72.5 million tons of LNG in 2021, and just 48.2 million tons in 2020. What more can we say? 

And it’s not just nature that paid a heavy price for “independence from Russian gas.” In November, Germany’s Finance Ministry froze additional government spending until the end of the year. This affected almost all budget allocations, including the financing of measures to prevent the growth of energy prices, and the economic stabilization fund. As German Economy Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in the Bundestag, “We provide military and economic support to Ukraine, as well as to European countries that continue to support Ukraine. Therefore, we spend money – the money is no longer here, and we have to admit that it does not enter our economy.”  Habeck admitted that the German economy had lost its competitive advantage due to the rejection of Russian gas, and energy prices in the country have increased. 

Russian investigators have found what appear to be fragments of one or more missiles among the debris of the downed Il-76 in Belgorod Region, TASS reported on Thursday, citing a source in the emergency services.

The military plane was transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war to a scheduled exchange when it crashed on Wednesday morning. The Russian Defense Ministry said that two surface-to-air missiles were fired from Ukrainian territory and apparently struck the Il-76, leaving no survivors. The flight manifest showed six crew members, three Russian officials and 65 Ukrainian POWs were on board.

”Elements were found on the ground confirming an external impact on the aircraft,” the agency’s source said on Thursday. “They will be sent for examination.”

Civilian, military and criminal investigators are currently combing the crash site for clues and collecting the evidence for analysis. 

Kiev officials have since said that they were never notified about the prisoner flight, that planes over Belgorod are a legitimate military target, and that Russia is ultimately responsible for anything that happens to the POWs anyway.

A French military source has told state broadcaster FranceInfo that the missiles that brought down the Il-76 were US-made Patriots, operated by the Ukrainian army. One of the Russian investigators on site also said the “pattern of destruction and damage to the fuselage” pointed to the Patriot, according to Russian reporter Alexander Kots.

The Kremlin has condemned the incident as a “monstrous act” by the Ukrainian government against its own citizens. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has called for an “international investigation” to “determine the hard facts” about what happened, insisting that the plane went down in Russian territory.

Former Donetsk militia commander Igor Strelkov was sentenced by the Moscow City Court on Thursday to four years in a penal colony; after his release, he will be banned from administering websites for three years. He was charged with public incitement of extremism over two posts on social media.

Strelkov, whose real name is Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, shot to fame leading a Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) militia group that defended Slavyansk for nearly three months in 2014, after the region split from Ukraine following the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev.

He later served as defense minister of the DPR but was relieved of duty in August 2014, going on to become a popular military blogger and publicist.

”Girkin is sentenced to imprisonment for a term of four years, to be served in a general regime colony,” said a judge at the Moscow City Court.

Prosecutors had requested a sentence of 4 years and 11 months, with five years being the maximum. His lawyer Alexander Molokhov told RIA Novosti that he will appeal the verdict.

While the proceedings were held behind closed doors, the sentencing hearing was open to the public.

The court refused to grant him bail, noting that ‘Strelkov’ had a “vast network” of contacts and skills that could help him escape. The former blogger and soldier had also been an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

After the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, Girkin became an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, accusing Moscow of dragging its feet and urging for escalation.

A Dutch court tried him in absentia for his alleged role in the July 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, in which all 298 people on board died. Ukraine has blamed the incident on the DPR militia and Russia. In November 2022, Girkin and two others were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Moscow has rejected the verdict as “politically motivated” and refused to extradite the trio.

Switzerland is no longer a neutral country and pursues an openly anti-Russian national security strategy, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has suggested. Moscow's top diplomat was speaking after meeting in New York with his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis, who offered to serve as a mediator between Moscow and Kiev.

Russia has repeatedly insisted that it remains open to peace talks with Ukraine, as long as its national interests are considered and Kiev acknowledges the “new realities on the ground.” Moscow insists Kiev recognizes the four regions that joined Russia following a series of referendums in 2022.

Kiev, however, has been reluctant to engage in peace talks, and President Vladimir Zelensky has even signed a law banning negotiations with Moscow while Vladimir Putin remains president.

Speaking at a press conference at the United Nations on Wednesday, Lavrov stated that during his meeting with Cassis, the Swiss Foreign Minister tried to convince him that Switzerland could “as it did in the past, serve as a mediator on any issue.” 

“I explained to him that a mediator must be neutral,” Lavrov said, pointing to the fact that “Switzerland was previously famous not only for its military neutrality, but also neutrality in a broader sense, which allowed it to successfully host various negotiation processes.”

While not officially a member of any international blocs, such as the EU or NATO, Switzerland has nevertheless joined nearly all of the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow, frozen billions of dollars’ worth of its assets, and actively supported Kiev following the launch of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine in 2022.

Commenting on Bern’s proposal to mediate talks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also stressed that peace initiatives coming from countries that actively aid Ukraine are “manipulative.”

“Such pseudo-initiatives and false statements are designed to create the feeling of some kind of activity aimed at peace, while simultaneously, the supply of weapons continues as do the splitting of budgets in search for ways to support the Kiev regime,” she said.

Zakharova stressed that if Switzerland wanted its proposals to seem honest, it should “stop sending weapons and inciting conflict” in Ukraine. She stated further that there could be no talk of peace initiatives with those trying to use Kiev to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia.

Darya Trepova, who was found guilty of assassinating Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky last spring, has been handed a 27-year prison sentence. It’s the longest jail term for a woman in modern Russian history, with life imprisonment reserved exclusively for male convicts.

Vladlen Tatarsky was killed on April 2, 2023, when a bust gifted to him by Trepova exploded at an event in a St. Petersburg cafe, injuring some 52 people.

The court found the woman guilty on counts of terrorism, as well as illegal possession of explosive devices and a counterfeit driver’s license. She pleaded guilty only to the latter charge.

Aside from the lengthy prison term, Trepova was also slapped with a fine totaling 600,000 rubles ($6,720). Her defense team said they would appeal the decision.

Trepova’s accomplice, Dmitry Kasintsev, who is believed to have allowed her hide at his home after the assassination, was sentenced to almost two years behind bars.

Following the arrest, she repeatedly insisted that she was unaware that the statuette had contained an explosive device and claimed that she had been duped.

At a court hearing in April, she said she “deeply regretted” what happened, adding that she herself had survived the explosion by accident.

Moscow described the assassination as an act of terrorism, pointing the finger at the Ukrainian government. 

The FSB, the Russian security agency, identified a key accomplice of Trepova’s as Ukrainian national Yuri Denisov. He allegedly provided the disguised bomb and collected intelligence on Tatarsky.

Any groups in Syria that are looking to the US for protection will eventually understand that they have misplaced their confidence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.   

Speaking at a press conference in New York on Wednesday, where he was attending a UN meeting on Ukraine and the Middle East, Lavrov responded to reports that Washington is considering a complete withdrawal of its troops from Syria, which has been in the throes of a civil war since 2011. The Pentagon has denied any such plans.  

The US – which has consistently backed opposition forces fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government – first intervened in the conflict in 2014, declaring that one of its aims was to defeat the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group.  

Commenting on Wednesday, Lavrov recalled that the US had previously announced the withdrawal of troops from Syria under then-President Donald Trump back in 2019. Washington later backtracked and continued to maintain a military presence illegally, despite a backlash at home and abroad.  

However, when the US “changed its mind,” these groups soon retracted their requests and “immediately returned under the American wing,” the minister added.   

The point here is not whether [US troops] will withdraw or not. They are there illegally. Political forces among Syrian Kurds who are counting on the ‘American umbrella’ and US patronage, are making a morally and politically wrong bet.

The US currently has about 900 troops in Syria. Washington insists their main goals are to contain IS, reduce violence, and address the humanitarian crisis in the region. The government in Damascus insists that the US presence is “illegal,” and has repeatedly accused Washington of stealing oil in the northeastern part of the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to the country's westernmost region of Kaliningrad is not aimed at sending a message to NATO, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Putin arrived in Kaliningrad on Thursday – which is also Students Day in Russia – to meet with students at a local university. According to the Kremlin, he will also meet with local officials to discuss the economic and social welfare agenda.

Kaliningrad (formerly Konigsberg) belonged to Germany until the end of World War II, when it was handed over to the USSR under the Potsdam Agreement. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it remained part of Russia, but is now bordered by NATO member states (Poland and Lithuania).

Commenting on Putin’s trip, Peskov stressed that when he “visits Russian regions, this is not a message to NATO nations,” adding that the main focus should be on the president’s actions.

The main thing is not to send messages, but to do what he has been doing for many years, namely working for the betterment of our country and our regions, to improve the economy, and to develop socio-economic projects.

However, Peskov said that Russian officials took “special security measures” to protect the president on the trip. He also noted that Moscow did not request a direct flight path over Lithuania to reach Kaliningrad. Shortly after the start of the Ukraine conflict, the EU imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, including a complete ban on Russian planes flying over its territory.

Western media outlets have suggested that Russia could target this area in the event of a full-scale conflict with NATO, potentially cutting the Baltic states off from the rest of the US-led military bloc.

Russia has repeatedly denied having any plans to attack the alliance, saying it has no interest in doing so.

Russia welcomes initiatives from Pope Francis aimed at achieving a lasting peace in Ukraine, but has noted Kiev’s apparent reluctance to consider such calls, according to Moscow’s envoy to the Vatican, Ivan Soltanovsky. 

Pope Francis has repeatedly urged a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict throughout the hostilities. In his latest Christmas address, he once again implored peace between Moscow and Kiev, as well as in the Middle East and other conflict zones, calling on humanity to say “no” to war and cease weapons manufacturing. “How can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?” the pontiff asked.  

Moscow has backed the Vatican’s calls, and Soltanovsky told RIA Novosti on Thursday that “for our part, we welcome any initiatives that could bring closer the achievement of a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine, especially when they come from such authoritative leaders as Francis.” 

However, Soltanovsky claimed that “practice has shown” that Kiev only respects the opinions of politicians who are “interested not in stopping hostilities, but in inflating it by pumping Ukraine with weapons and ammunition.”  

The envoy also said Kiev has effectively “tied its own hands” by banning negotiations with the current Russian leadership. In October 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree that made it illegal for Kiev to hold talks with Moscow while Vladimir Putin is in power. 

In an interview with CBS News earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that Russia is prepared to listen to anyone interested in establishing “justice” in relations between Moscow and Kiev. Russia will also discuss any “serious proposal” that addresses the situation on the ground and the root causes of the conflict, he added.  

Lavrov stressed, however, that for such talks to happen, the West would have to stop its policy of using Ukraine as “an instrument of war against Russia,” recalling Moscow’s long-standing concerns about NATO expansion. 

Officials from Moscow and Kiev recently revealed that the two sides were close to reaching a peace deal early in the Ukraine conflict. However, the process was reportedly derailed by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who allegedly convinced Ukraine to continue fighting.

The US will not be able to persuade Türkiye to allow access for its warships to the Black Sea amid the Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at a press conference in New York on Wednesday, where he was attending a UN meeting on Ukraine and the Middle East, Lavrov was asked on whether Türkiye could abrogate the Montreux Convention regulating maritime traffic via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits connecting the Aegean and Black Seas.

The question came after Pentagon official Celeste Wallander said on Tuesday that Washington wanted to work with Black Sea powers, including Türkiye, to “move away from the state of conflict” which allowed Ankara to block warships from passing through the Turkish straits.

Earlier this month, Turkish officials cited the treaty when denying passage to the Black Sea to minesweepers donated to Ukraine by the UK.

“If this is the case, our Turkish colleagues have told us that they, as the guardians of the legacy of the Montreux Convention, will strictly abide by its provisions,” Lavrov said. He suggested that the US has stepped up diplomatic efforts on this front after Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin was released from the hospital last week following two weeks of treatment for prostate cancer.

Adopted in 1936, the Montreux Convention grants commercial ships unhindered passage through the Turkish Straits. Warships must comply with a number of regulations in times of peace, while in wartime belligerents are not allowed to sail them through the straits, except when they are returning to base.

Shortly after the start of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine – which Ankara has described as “a war” – Türkiye banned all foreign states from sending their warships through the straits, repeatedly stressing that it intends to follow the rules stipulated in the convention.

On Wednesday, an Il-76 transport plane was downed in Russian airspace. It was reportedly carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs scheduled for a prisoner swap, escorted by three Russian military guards, as well as six crew members. All on board were killed. It seems the aircraft was destroyed by missiles launched from a US-supplied Patriot system.

The incident prompts a critical question: What were the Ukrainian soldiers doing so far from their homeland that air transportation was necessary? The answer is simple: The POWs were initially held in the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, but then came a Ukrainian HIMARS attack on a prisoner camp in Olenovka near Volnovakha on July 29, 2022, killing 53 people. This seems to have been the reason for the transfer, aiming to distance the POWs from high-tech precision weapons systems provided to Kiev by NATO. 

Today, we can say with absolute certainty that this did not help. Ukraine has once again shown the world just how dangerous it can be for its own citizens.

What happened? 

Around noon on Wednesday, Moscow time (9am GMT), footage spread online depicting the crash on snow-covered fields. A distinctive church seen on video meant the location was soon identified as being near the village of Yablonovo, Korochansky District, in Belgorod Region.

Almost immediately, Ukrainian Telegram channels, both anonymous and verified (such as Unian and Ukrainskaya Pravda), were inundated with posts citing sources close to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). These posts claimed that a) the plane was purportedly carrying missiles for Russia’s S-300 systems intended for use in attacks on Kharkov, and b) the downing was attributed to the Kiev's actions.

Immediately afterwards, statements about the involvement of Kiev’s forces began to disappear from the Ukrainian internet, as well as any mention of the alleged cargo (missiles for the S-300 system).

At 3pm Moscow time, the Russian Defense Ministry made an official announcement, stating that two Ukrainian missiles had been launched from the Liptsy suburb of Kharkov. The point of impact was approximately 100km away, a range well within the coverage of the AFU’s Patriot missiles of all modifications, including PAC-2 GEM-T and PAC-3 MSE.

Concurrently, lists featuring the names of Ukrainian servicemen surfaced, which can be verified through the meticulous maintenance of Ukrainian POW databases by dedicated enthusiasts.

Background 

Belgorod’s civilian airport has been shut down since Russia launched its military operation in February 2022. This closure is a precautionary measure due to the airport’s location within the range of Ukrainian air defenses.

Nevertheless, the air transportation of prisoners to Belgorod for exchange is a well-established practice. Previous instances were conducted using the Il-76 aircraft, notably on January 3, 2024, with the actual exchange occurring on January 8.

It’s reasonable to assume that the Ukrainian side was notified about these flights, similar to how Russia is informed about visits by foreign leaders to Kiev. 

On Wednesday, two planes were involved; the second Il-76 aircraft, transporting another group of prisoners, promptly reversed course and returned to base after the first aircraft crashed. 

The AFU’s actions have precedents. On multiple occasions, they have covertly positioned Western air defense systems, including Patriots and IRIS-Ts, near the border of Belgorod Region or the line of contact, attempting to use them to engage aircraft within Russian airspace. Despite claiming success in these operations, Ukrainian forces have consistently failed to substantiate their reports with evidence.

What now?

Ukraine, as always, is firmly in denial, so we are unlikely to learn the real motives behind the actions of its military anytime soon. Was it a mistake caused by a lack of coordination and general sloppiness, a deliberate provocation, or both? Were they aiming to shoot the plane down on its way home with Russian POWs on board, but something went wrong?

Is this the end of prisoner exchanges? One would hope not. In just under two years, more than a thousand captured Russian soldiers have been brought home in POW swaps, but many others are still being held captive, so these exchanges need to go on. 

Will there be any reaction from the West? I’m certain there won’t be. At best, we’ll hear routine hypocritical expressions of concern, or, more likely, another round of tirades about how Russia is to blame. The West continues to use Ukraine, while it can get away with it, and will keep turning a blind eye to anything, including the killing of Ukrainians by Western “weapons of freedom.”

Not that it matters to the dead Russian pilots or Ukrainian soldiers who were on their way home. What matters is that the idea that the Ukrainian government being the worst enemy of its own people has just be bolstered. 

Moloch

The Ukrainian army, which is getting weaker by the day, is not fighting for a “better future.” 

The Ukrainian army is not fighting for “freedom.” People at the highest levels in Kiev have confirmed that they were offered what would be incredibly accommodating terms by current standards at the peace negotiations with Russia in Istanbul back in March and April 2022. 

The Ukrainian army is not fighting “to expel the enemy,” as only the craziest of fanatics continue to claim that this can be achieved by military means. 

The Ukrainian army is fighting and Ukrainian soldiers are rotting alive in rat-infested trenches, dying by the thousands for one thing only: to keep the current Kiev regime in power. 

It’s a regime that refuses to accept reality and keeps saying it’s winning. 

It’s a regime that has no qualms about sacrificing thousands upon thousands of its own citizens for a fleeting spot in the media limelight, just for the show.

It sacrificed them in Bakhmut, even though trying to hold the city was clearly pointless. It sacrificed them near Rabotino, even though the Ukrainian army leadership realized the failure of the counteroffensive after just a few days. 

It sacrificed them during suicidal, flag-waving raids on Snake Island and Crimea, even though few came back from those escapades. It’s sacrificing them today in Krynki, in Avdeevka, and near Belgorod – just like that, for nothing in particular. 

Every day, Ukraine’s plight is getting worse. Zelensky is running out of fuel for his fire, but he keeps throwing more soldiers into the flames, sending people-catchers to grab anyone they can get their hands on in the street.

All of those are not separate incidents but the work of an inhuman machine of annihilation, which will only go down when the Ukrainian state falls. 

The plane incident is just another episode. But one would like to think that this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

If that happens, it will mean that the deaths of our pilots and Ukrainian POWs will not have been in vain.

Ukraine’s murder of its own citizens in an attack on a Russian military Il-76 plane, was “a monstrous act,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. 

A Russian military transport aircraft carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs went down in a field in Russia’s Belgorod Region on Wednesday morning; there were no survivors.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has insisted that the plane was brought down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles, noting that Kiev had been informed of the flight, its passengers and destination ahead of time. The POWs were meant to take part in a prisoner swap later that day, according to Russian and Ukrainian sources.

Kiev, however, has disputed Moscow’s claim that the Il-76 was shot down by a Ukrainian missile; President Vladimir Zelensky has called for an international investigation into the incident that would “determine all the hard facts.”

Peskov noted that Kiev’s actions “defy understanding” and that it’s hard to explain the logic behind the attack, suggesting that the Zelensky Administration should explain their actions.

He also stated that it is currently unclear how Kiev’s attack will affect any future prisoner exchange negotiations, but noted that it’s too early to say anything definitively on that matter.

Shortly after the plane crashed on Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda initially reported, citing sources within the military, that the aircraft had indeed been brought down by Kiev’s forces as it was believed to have been carrying S-300 missiles. That report was later deleted after Russia revealed that the plane was carrying Ukrainian POWs. 

The Ukrainian General Staff, meanwhile, has stated that it has and will continue to use “measures of destruction” against Russian transport aircraft in the Belgorod Region, adding that they pose a “terrorist threat.”

Russia has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the downing of the military aircraft, with Russia’s Foreign Ministry accusing Kiev of committing a “terrorist act” and blatantly disregarding the lives of its own citizens.