Thousands of American and Filipino forces began on Monday one of their largest combat exercises in years that will include live-fire maneuvers, aircraft assaults, urban warfare and beach landings in a showcase of U.S. firepower in the northern Philippines near its sea border with Taiwan.
The annual exercises, called Balikatan – Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder – will run up to April 8 with nearly 9,000 navy, marines, air force and army troops, including 5,100 American military personnel, to strengthen the longtime treaty allies’ “capabilities and readiness for real-world challenges,” U.S. and Philippine military officials said.
China will likely frown on the war drills given their relative proximity to Taiwan, which it claims as Chinese territory, but organizers said the exercises don’t regard any particular country as a target.
“The U.S. military and Armed Forces of the Philippines will train together to expand and advance shared tactics, techniques and procedures that strengthen our response capabilities and readiness for real-world challenges,” said Maj. Gen. Jay Bargeron, the U.S. 3rd Marine division’s commanding general. “Our alliance remains a key source of strength and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
First staged in 1991, the Balikatan exercises are anchored on the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which commits the United States and the Philippines to come to the aid of the other in case of an attack. The allies aim to be strong and seamlessly braced for any security contingency as deterrence against war. “It’s for mutual defense, never for offense,” Philippine military spokesperson Col. Ramon Zagala said.
The treaty alliance “declares formally our sense of unity and determination to mutually defend against external armed attack, so that no potential aggressor could be under the impression that either of them stands alone,” Zagala told The Associated Press (AP).
But the governor of northern Cagayan province, where amphibious landings with limited live-fire maneuvers were scheduled to be held in the coastal town of Claveria this week, has opposed any joint exercise utilizing gunfire, fearing it could antagonize China.
“The military consulted and asked me, but I said I cannot allow any live-fire exercise. Any exercise is OK, but live-fire,” Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba told The AP by telephone. “We have to engage China, but not in a war, because I know Taiwan is a powder keg.”
China, along with the U.S. and Taiwan, have expressed interest in investing in Cagayan, which has underdeveloped agriculture and related industries, Mamba said, adding “I’m not pro-China, I’m pro-Cagayan.”
A Philippine military official said the beach landing exercises would proceed in Claveria without any live-fire training, which will be held instead at Crow Valley, an aircraft gunnery range in Tarlac province further south of Cagayan.
The combat exercises in the northern Philippines are being held amid heightened tensions between Taiwan and China. But Zagala said most of the military maneuvers have been planned a year ago and did not consider the recurring tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
In what it calls a warning to Taiwan independence supporters and their foreign allies, China has been staging threatening exercises and flying military planes near the island’s airspace, including on Feb. 24, when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese officials led by President Xi Jinping say they are committed to using peaceful means to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. The U.S. has consistently expressed its support for ensuring that Taiwan can defend itself, and Chinese military action against the island in the short- to medium-term is generally considered a remote possibility.
Maj. Kurt Stahl of the third U.S. Marine division said that while most combat exercises and humanitarian projects would take place in the country’s north, some maneuvers will be staged on the western island province of Palawan, along with an air defense exercise featuring U.S. and Philippine fighter aircraft around the western side of Luzon.
That region faces the disputed South China Sea, where China’s increasingly assertive actions, including the building of missile-protected island bases to reinforce its vast territorial claims, have sparked protests from rival claimants like the Philippines and Vietnam, along with condemnation from the U.S. and its Western and Asian allies.
The large-scale exercises reflect how outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte has walked back on his earlier threat to restrict U.S. military activities in the Philippines. He has nurtured closer ties with China and Russia while often criticizing U.S. security policies.
In July last year, Duterte reversed his termination of a key defense pact with Washington that allows large-scale combat exercises between U.S. and Philippine forces like the Balikatan after the U.S. provided millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine that he had publicly demanded.
President Joe Biden has said America’s vaccines were being donated to poorer countries at the time to save lives and “don’t include pressure for favors or potential concessions.”
NEW DELHI, March 28 (Reuters) - India is not considering buying oil from Russia or any other country using Indian rupees, the junior oil minister told parliament on Monday, after Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
With Western sanctions hitting Russia's dollar-based trading, there is focus on Moscow's efforts to switch to other currencies, including the possible use of the yuan and rupee in deals with China and India.
"At present, oil public sector undertakings neither have any contract nor is any such proposal under consideration from Russia or any other country for purchase of crude oil in Indian rupees," junior oil minister Rameswar Teli said.
Indian companies are snapping up Russian oil through spot tenders taking advantage of deep discounts while other buyers shun purchases over Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. read more
India, which has refrained from outright condemnation of Moscow, has not banned the importation of Russian oil.
Refiners in India rarely bought Russian oil in the past due to high freight costs.
Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri this month however said India was in talks with Russian authorities to buy oil and was evaluating issues related to insurance, freight and payment.
India, the world's third biggest oil importer and consumer, is exploring paying for Russian imports in rupees but a formal mechanism has not yet formulated, government and banking sources said. read more
An Indian government source last week said New Delhi welcomes competing offers for oil sales including from Moscow, especially as global prices have jumped.
- A Russian soldier has handed himself and his tank over to Ukrainian troops
. He has claimed a reward of £7,500 and a chance at Ukrainian citizenship
- Ukrainian minister Victor Andrusiv said the soldier 'didn't see the point of war'
A Russian soldier has handed himself and his tank over to Ukrainian troops for a reward of $10,000 (£7,500) and a chance at Ukrainian citizenship.
Misha, one of alleged war criminal Vladimir Putin's invading soldiers, surrendered in a T-72B3 main battle tank after his two other crewmates escaped home and his commanding officer threatened to shoot him.
Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Victor Andrusiv said Misha had contacted Ukraine's national police by phone and arranged a place to meet.
He said: 'For a few weeks in the National Police have identified the phones used by Russians.
'On these phones, we regularly send SMS about how to surrender and hand over the equipment.
'A few days ago, Misha called us.
'We handed over the information about him to the GUR MO [Ukrainian military intelligence].
'He didn't see the point of war.
Misha said that there was almost no food left, military management is chaotic and practically absent. Demoralization is colossal.
'The Russians are giving up!'
The Ukrainian military selected a place for the soldier to surrender and used a drone fitted with a camera to make sure it wasn't an ambush.
Special forces then detained Misha, who lay face-down on the with his hand up as he surrendered.
Mr Andrusiv added the Russian soldier will spend the remainder of the war as a prisoner in 'comfortable conditions with a TV, phone, kitchen and shower'.
Ukrainian state arms manufacturer Ukroboronprom previously offered $1million for the capture of battle-ready Russian aircraft.
It said the offer also applied to Russian troops wanting to switch sides.
Ukroboronprom said: 'To the pilots of the Russian Federation ready to participate in the programme, we guarantee the issuance of citizenship of a free country!'
The arms manufacturer added it would give $500,000 for every combat helicopter seized from the Russians that could still be used.
Who was Yakov Rezantsev; Russia has lost another of its generals in the war in Ukraine, Kyiv military sources said, as Ukraine inflicts punitive losses on Moscow’s war machine. Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army’s 49th Combined Arms Division, became the fifth general to be killed after being killed in an attack by the Ukrainian armed forces, sources in kyiv said.
He was Commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District. The Russian side has so far not confirmed the death.
Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the head of the President’s Office, said: “Over the last day, our troops, as we previously reported and can now say with certainty, killed the commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army of the Russian Southern Military District, Lt. General Yakov Vladimirovich Rezantsev.
One service member said Lt. Gen. Yakov Rezantsev told them on the fourth day of his deployment that the war would be over quickly. The soldier said, “Do you know what he told us? ‘It is no secret to anyone that there are only a few hours left until this special operation is over.’ And now those hours continue.”
As the Kremlin is reportedly furious at the loss of some of its top generals, experts have said there could be a catalog of reasons why top Russian officials have fallen. It comes amid reports of unreliable equipment and electronic devices among Russian forces, as well as subordinates too terrified to make quick decisions.
According to Arestovych, the enemy general was liquidated at the Chornobaivka airfield in the Kherson region. It comes two days after Western officials said they believed six Russian generals had been killed since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
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BUCHA/LVIV, Ukraine, March 25 (Reuters) - Ukrainian troops are recapturing towns east of Kyiv and Russian forces who had been trying to seize the capital are falling back on overextended supply lines, Britain said on Friday, one of the strongest indications yet of a shift in momentum in the war.
The mayor of a suburb east of Kyiv said Ukrainian troops had recaptured a nearby village and thousands of civilians were leaving the area in response to a call from the authorities to get out of the way of the counter-attack.
A month into their assault, Russian troops have failed to capture any major Ukrainian city. An offensive Western countries believe was aimed at swiftly toppling President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's government was halted at the gates of Kyiv.
The Russians instead have been bombarding, encircling and besieging cities, laying waste to residential areas and driving around a quarter of the 44 million population from their homes.
U.S. President Joe Biden was due to visit Poland for a first-hand look at the refugee crisis, which has seen 3.6 million Ukrainians flee abroad.
Battlelines near Kyiv have been frozen for weeks with two main Russian armoured columns menacing the capital from the northwest and the east. But in an intelligence update on Friday, Britain described a Ukrainian counter-offensive that had pushed Russians far back in the east.
"Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, has allowed Ukraine to reoccupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 km east of Kyiv," the update said.
Volodymyr Borysenko, mayor of Boryspol, an eastern suburb where Kyiv's main airport is located, said 20,000 civilians had left the area, answering a call to clear out so Ukrainian troops could push the Russians further back.
Ukrainian forces had recaptured a village from Russian troops the previous day between Boryspol and Brovary, and would have pushed on further but had halted to avoid putting civilians in danger, he said.
On the other main front outside Kyiv, to the capital's northwest, Ukrainian forces have been trying to encircle Russian troops in the adjacent suburbs of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel, reduced to ruins by heavy fighting over the past few weeks.
In Bucha, 25 km (15 miles) northwest of Kyiv, a small group of Ukrainian troops armed with anti-tank missiles was digging foxholes. Andriy told Reuters had enlisted to defend the town as soon as the invasion began.
"I told my wife to grab the children and to hide in the basement, and I went to the drafting station and joined my unit straight away," he said. "My wife and children were under occupation for two weeks, but then they managed to escape through a humanitarian corridor."
BURIED IN THE FLOWERBED
Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbour. Kyiv and its Western allies call it an unprovoked war of aggression and say Russia's true aim was to overthrow the government of what President Vladimir Putin regards as an illegitimate state.
Unable to capture cities, Russia has resorted to pounding them with artillery and air strikes. Worst hit has been the eastern port of Mariupol, a city of 400,000 under siege since the war's early days. Tens of thousands of people are still believed to be trapped inside with no access to food, power or heat, while the city around them has been reduced to ruins.
In a part of the city now captured by the Russians, one woman waiting in line to receive food supplies told Reuters her diabetic husband had slipped into a coma and died. He was buried in a flowerbed. read more
"We are planning on leaving but it's very difficult at the moment," the woman, who gave her name as Alexandra, said. "I can't leave my husband in a flowerbed ... And then we have nowhere to go."
For the first time on Friday, Mariupol's city council gave an estimated death toll for the bombing of the city's main theatre on March 16, saying witnesses now said 300 people had been killed among many hundreds sheltering in the basement.
In the days after the bombing, Ukrainian officials had said 130 people had been rescued from a bomb shelter that withstood the blast, but it was impossible to know how many were buried. Russia denies blame for destroying the Drama Theatre, which was blown up despite the word "children" being marked out on the ground outside.
The United Nations said it was looking into reports of mass graves inside Mariupol, including one where at least 200 people were buried. No independent journalists have operated inside the Ukrainian-held centre of the city for the past 10 days.
The cities of Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy in the east have also sustained devastating bombardments. Chernihiv was effectively surrounded by Russian forces, its governor said.
In Kharkiv, police said four people had been killed by the shelling of a centre for distributing humanitarian aid. Russia denies targeting civilians.
ANTI-SHIP MISSILES
After attending an emergency summit of NATO and the G7 in Brussels on Thursday, Biden is visiting Poland, which has taken in more than half of Ukraine's refugees.
The West has ruled out intervening on the ground or answering Ukraine's plea for a no-fly zone, but has supported Kyiv with hundreds of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons that have blasted Russian armoured columns and prevented Moscow from taking control of the air.
A senior U.S. administration official said Washington and its allies were also working on providing anti-ship weapons to protect Ukraine's coast. Ukrainian forces claimed on Thursday to have blown up a Russian landing ship in a Russian-occupied port.
U.S. officials told Reuters that Russia is suffering failure rates as high as 60% for some of its precision-guided missiles. read more
With stocks of precision-guided munitions running low, Russian forces were more likely to rely on unguided bombs and artillery, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said.
BRUSSELS — The White House has quietly assembled a team of national security officials to sketch out scenarios of how the United States and its allies should respond if Russian President Vladimir Putin — frustrated by his lack of progress in Ukraine or determined to warn Western nations against intervening in the war — unleashes his stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
The Tiger Team, as the group is known, is also examining responses if Putin reaches into NATO territory to attack convoys bringing weapons and aid to Ukraine, according to several officials involved in the process. Meeting three times a week, in classified sessions, the team is also looking at responses if Russia seeks to extend the war to neighboring nations, including Moldova and Georgia, and how to prepare European countries for the refugees flowing in on a scale not seen in decades.
Those contingencies are expected to be central to an extraordinary session here in Brussels on Thursday, when President Joe Biden meets leaders of the 29 other NATO nations, who will be meeting for the first time — behind closed doors, their cellphones and aides banished — since Putin invaded Ukraine.
Just a month ago, such scenarios seemed more theoretical. But today, from the White House to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, a recognition has set in that Russia may turn to the most powerful weapons in its arsenal to bail itself out of a military stalemate.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg underscored the urgency of the preparation effort Wednesday, telling reporters for the first time that even if the Russians employ weapons of mass destruction only inside Ukraine, they may have “dire consequences” for people in NATO nations. He appeared to be discussing the fear that chemical or radioactive clouds could drift over the border. One issue under examination is whether such collateral damage would be considered an “attack” on NATO under its charter, which might require a joint military response.
The current team was established in a memo signed by Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, on Feb. 28, four days after the invasion began, according to the officials involved in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning. A previous iteration had worked for months, behind the scenes, to prepare the U.S. government for the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
That team played a central role in devising the playbooks of deep sanctions, troop buildups in NATO nations and arming the Ukrainian military, which have exploited Russia’s weaknesses and put its government and economy under tremendous pressure.
Stoltenberg, sounding far more hawkish than in the past, said he expected “allies will agree to provide additional support, including cybersecurity assistance and equipment to help Ukraine protect against chemical, biological, radiologic and nuclear threats.”
As Biden flew to Europe on Wednesday, both he and Stoltenberg warned of growing evidence that Russia was in fact preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
These are questions that Europe has not confronted since the depths of the Cold War, when NATO had far fewer members, and Western Europe worried about a Soviet attack headed into Germany. But few of the leaders set to meet in Brussels on Thursday ever had to deal with those scenarios — and many have never had to think about nuclear deterrence or the effects of the detonation of battlefield nuclear weapons, designed to be less powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima. The fear is that Russia is more likely to use those weapons, precisely because they erode the distinction between conventional and nuclear arms.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who heads the Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday that if Putin used a weapon of mass destruction — chemical, biological or nuclear — “there would be consequences” even if the weapon’s use was confined to Ukraine. Reed said radiation from a nuclear weapon, for instance, could waft into a neighboring NATO country and be considered an attack on a NATO member.
“It’s going to be a very difficult call, but it’s a call that not just the president but the entire NATO Council will have to make,” Reed told reporters, referring to the governing body of the Western alliance.
“The bottom line is this is a NATO decision,” Reed said. “It won’t be the president’s decision alone. I don’t think he’d want to take action unilaterally.”
One major issue the Tiger Team is looking at is the threshold that could prompt the alliance to use military force in Ukraine. Biden has made clear that he is enormously reluctant to do so, fearing that direct confrontation with Russia could escalate the conflict beyond control. “That’s World War III,” he noted recently.
A second team of officials, also created by Sullivan’s Feb. 28 memo, is looking at long-term opportunities for the United States to improve its geopolitical position as a result of Putin’s invasion. Inside the White House, it has become an article of faith that the Russian leader made a huge strategic error — one that will diminish Russia’s standing, cripple its economy and alienate potential allies for years. But it is early in the conflict, other officials caution, and that conclusion may prove premature.
The immediate concern is what Putin may do next — driven by a desire to rescue a failing military effort or reestablish his credentials as a force to be feared.
Officials believe the chances that Putin will resort to detonating a nuclear weapon are small. But Russia’s steady stream of reminders that it has its arsenal at the ready, and could use it in response to anything it perceives as an “existential threat,” has put Washington on high alert.
Biden will take up with allies “how to deal with the rhetoric and the commentary coming out of Russia on this whole question of the potential use of nuclear weapons,” Sullivan told reporters Wednesday.
“We haven’t seen anything that’s made us adjust our posture, our nuclear posture, but it is of course something we will have to continue to stay in close consultation with allies and partners on, as well as communicate directly to the Russians.”
Several officials said the White House and Pentagon have had some tension over how much detail the Defense Department is willing to share on its highly secretive war planning — especially concerning responses to any use of nuclear weapons — even in the classified setting of the Tiger Team. (The term has been used for many years to describe an emergency task force inside the National Security Council.)
A U.S. official said Biden remained adamant about keeping U.S. forces out of Ukraine. But the official said the administration believed it would be misguided not to closely examine the thresholds, if any, under which the president would reverse himself, or to be prepared to deal with the consequences of the use of weapons of mass destruction.
A senior administration official said any use of a “small” tactical nuclear bomb by Russia — even inside Ukraine and not directed at a NATO member — would mean that “all bets are off” on the United States and NATO staying out of the war. But when pushed, the official declined to lay out the responses under discussion.
The official said American and NATO intelligence communities had not seen any activity by Russian military officials that suggested preparations to use a nuclear weapon. But he said that during internal discussions, administration officials were urging caution, because there was more at stake than just Ukraine.
If Putin did strike a NATO country intentionally, he would not only bring the force of the military alliance to bear on Russia, but also probably find himself facing NATO troops inside Ukraine, Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s defense minister, told reporters traveling in his country this month with Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“He will get Article 5,” Pabriks said, in a reference to the NATO pledge that an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all.
“If he gets that, basically that would also make us involved in Ukraine,” Pabriks said. “He has no way out of that. So I don’t think he should be so stupid.”
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees, visited the Polish-Ukrainian border over the weekend, meeting with officials from allied countries, visiting a refugee processing center and talking with Ukrainians. King said that as Russian forces struggle to make headway, Putin could try to strike a diplomatic agreement, intensify his bombardment of Ukrainian cities and level them, or lash out against the West with a cyberattack.
“The fourth is escalate to de-escalate, which is a tactical nuclear weapon,” King said, using the term for a Russian military doctrine in which it would employ a nuclear weapon as a warning — and then negotiate.
March 23 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday said sending peacekeepers to Ukraine could lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and the NATO military alliance.
Poland said last week that it would formally submit a proposal for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine at the next NATO summit.
"I hope they understand what they are talking about," Lavrov told staff and students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
"This will be the direct clash between the Russian and NATO armed forces that everyone has not only tried to avoid but said should not take place in principle."
Moscow has accused Kyiv of stalling peace talks by making proposals unacceptable for Russia. Ukraine has said it is willing to negotiate but will not surrender or accept Russian ultimatums.
Lavrov said Ukrainian authorities were backing away from their own proposals at the talks, making it difficult to achieve a breakthrough.
"The talks have started, they are difficult because the Ukrainian side... constantly changes its mind and backs away from its own proposals," Lavrov said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier on Wednesday that the talks with Russia were tough and at times confrontational. read more
Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour's military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.
Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.
KUZNICA, Poland — On the day war broke out in Ukraine, Albagir, a 22-year-old refugee from Sudan, was lying on the frozen forest floor at the gateway to Poland, trying to stay alive.
Drones sent by the Polish border patrol were looking for him. So were helicopters. It was night, with subzero temperatures and snow everywhere. Albagir, a pre-med student, and a small band of African refugees were trying to sneak into Poland, down to the last few shriveled dates in their pockets.
“We were losing hope,” he said.
That same night in a small town near Odesa, Katya Maslova, 21, grabbed a suitcase and her tablet, which she uses for her animation work, and jumped with her family into a burgundy Toyota RAV4. They rushed off in a four-car convoy with eight adults and five children, part of the frantic exodus of people trying to escape war-torn Ukraine.
“At that point, we didn’t know where we were going,” she said.
Over the next two weeks, what would happen to these two refugees crossing into the same country at the same time, both about the same age, could not stand in starker contrast. Albagir was punched in the face, called racial slurs and left in the hands of a border guard who, Albagir said, brutally beat him and seemed to enjoy doing it. Katya wakes up every day to a stocked fridge and fresh bread on the table, thanks to a man she calls a saint.
Their disparate experiences underscore the inequalities of Europe’s refugee crisis. They are victims of two very different geopolitical events but are pursuing the same mission — escape from the ravages of war. As Ukraine presents Europe with its greatest surge of refugees in decades, many conflicts continue to burn in the Middle East and Africa. Depending on which war a person is fleeing, the welcome will be very different.
From the instant they cross into Poland, Ukrainian refugees such as Maslova are treated to live piano music, bottomless bowls of borscht and, often, a warm bed. And that’s just the beginning. They can fly for free all across Europe on Hungary’s Wizz Air. In Germany, crowds line up at train stations, waving Ukrainian flags. All European Union countries now allow them to stay for up to three years.
Watching all this on a TV in a safe house in the Polish countryside, where it’s too dangerous for him to even step outside, Albagir, who asked that his last name not be used because he crossed the border illegally, said he was almost in a state of shock.
“Why don’t we see this caring and this love? Why?” he asked. “Are Ukrainians better than us? I don’t know. Why?”
What Albagir experienced has been repeated countless times, from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel, as European governments have made it difficult for migrants from Africa and the Middle East to enter their countries — sometimes using excessive force to keep them out.
His journey was complicated by the fact that he chose to enter Poland from Belarus, a Russian ally that Western countries said manufactured a huge refugee crisis last year. After Belarus invited in tens of thousands of desperate people from conflict-ridden countries such as Sudan, Iraq and Syria and directed them to Poland’s frontier as a way to cause havoc in Europe, Poland responded by harshly cracking down at that border.
Ukrainians are victims of a conflict on European soil that creeps closer by the day. The result is a response from Europeans that is largely loaded with compassion. That leaves refugees from more distant wars feeling the sting of inequality and, some say, racism.
“This is the first time we are seeing such contrast between the treatment of different groups of refugees,” said Camille Le Coz, a migration analyst in Brussels, who added that Europeans see Ukrainians as being “like us.”
'Hello, I am Janusz'
On Feb. 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Maslova was sitting shotgun in her family’s car, racing through Moldova, guzzling Pepsi.
As she looked out the window, she saw people cheering, waving and giving them the thumbs-up.
She started to cry.
“It was not the bad parts that broke us down, but the good parts,” Maslova said. “You’re not preparing yourself emotionally for the fact that the entire world is going to support you.”
Driving west, they argued about where to go. Someone said Latvia, another said Georgia. But Maslova had her own plan, albeit a bit random.
She had studied animation at a college in Warsaw and her roommate’s parents knew a man whose father had a spare house in the Polish countryside. If this worked out, she could go back to animation school and fulfill her dream of making children’s cartoons. She convinced her family: on to Poland.
On this same day, Albagir was still trapped in the forest on Poland’s border with Belarus. He has been on the run for years. As a boy, Albagir said he watched his homeland of Darfur ripped apart by war and saw “everything you can imagine.” Then he fled to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, to study medicine. But Khartoum soon exploded into chaos too.
So in November, he said he traveled to Moscow on a student visa to take courses at a private university, but after Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering severe sanctions, Albagir feared that his university might be ostracized. So he fled again.
His plan was to travel from Russia to Belarus to Poland to Germany, but he said he hadn’t known that Poland had just reinforced its border to repel the migrants coming from Belarus.
About 130 miles away, to the south, Maslova’s convoy finally reached its destination, a farmhouse deep in the Polish countryside.
Suddenly, a burly man with thinning gray hair emerged from the darkness.
“Hello, I am Janusz,” he said.
Janusz Poterek and his wife, Anna, hugged them and they all started crying. But the tears didn’t stop in the driveway.
Maslova’s family walked into the kitchen and saw the three-course meal that their hosts had prepared for them, and cried. They stepped into the bathroom to a row of brand-new toothbrushes, soaps and shampoos, and cried. They saw freshly washed sheets, towels and blankets lined up on their beds, and cried.
Poterek, an apple farmer, had never helped refugees before, but said that when the war broke out, he “couldn’t stay indifferent.”
'If you come back, we will kill you'
A few nights later, while Maslova and her family were admiring a stack of toys that their hosts brought for the children, Albagir and three men with whom he was traveling were arrested. They had made it across the Polish border undetected, but the driver they hired to get them to Germany forgot to turn on his headlights and was stopped. Albagir said Polish police officers stole their SIM cards and power banks; disabled their phones (so they couldn’t call for help); and drove them back to the place they dreaded: the forest.
At least 19 people have frozen to death in recent months trying to get into Poland after Polish border guards pushed them back into this forest, human rights groups say.
Polish officials insisted it was not their fault.
“It’s the Belarusians’,” said Katarzyna Zdanowicz, a border guard spokesperson. “They direct these people.”
Human rights defenders say the Polish guards are also guilty of abuses. A Polish government spokesperson declined to discuss the treatment of refugees.
“Go! Go!” the Polish guards yelled at Albagir’s group, shoving them at gunpoint toward a barbed-wire fence in an isolated part of the forest, Albagir said. The guards threw one of the men into the fence so hard that he sliced open his hand, Albagir said. When interviewed, he showed a gash mark between his fingers.
A few hours later, after wandering with little food or water and no way to navigate, they reached a Belarusian border post and begged the guards to let them in.
“We needed shelter,” Albagir said.
But the Belarusians had other plans.
Border guards grabbed them and threw them in a frigid garage, Albagir said. A huge Belarusian soldier screamed racial slurs and angrily assaulted them.
“He punched us, he kicked us, he threw us down, he hit us with sticks,” Albagir said.
He said there was one light-skinned Kurd detained in the garage with them whom the soldier didn’t touch.
The soldier then marched them to the forest and said: “Go Poland. If you come back, we will kill you.”
According to human rights groups, tens of thousands of refugees have been pushed back and forth between Poland and Belarus, trapped in limbo, unable to enter either country or go back home.
On March 5, Albagir and his group crossed the border into Poland for the second time within a week, faint and nearly frostbitten. They called a number they had been given in case they got in trouble, and a Polish activist secretly took them into her home, and warned them not to step outside. Their experience would not be totally devoid of acts of kindness.
Albagir plans to apply for asylum in Germany, which has a reputation of being generous to all refugees, and finish his studies. He speaks Arabic, English and some Russian and wears gold-rimmed specs and has a neat beard. He dreams of becoming a doctor and writing a book about what he just experienced. He said he still can’t believe educated people from relatively prosperous countries would treat people in need this way.
One of the men with Albagir, named Sheikh, couldn’t speak English, so he typed a message into his phone and hit play.
The phone’s robotic voice intoned: “All of Europe says that there are rights for every human being and we did not see that.” Asked if he believed racism was a factor in how they were treated, Albagir did not hesitate. “Yeah, so much,” he said. “Only racism.”
'What would I cook for them?'
For Maslova’s family, the treatment just gets better and better. Poterek enrolled her brother and sister in a primary school — the Polish government has extended free education and health care to Ukrainian refugees.
“It seems like the whole country is slightly bending the rules for Ukrainians,” said Maslova, after a doctor refused to accept payment for a visit.
When her hosts were asked if they would take in African or Middle Eastern refugees, Anna Poterek said, “Yes, but we had no opportunity.”
But she said it would be “easier” to host Ukrainians because they shared a culture. For refugees from Arab countries and Africa, she asked, “What would I cook for them?”
Last Thursday, Janusz Poterek spoke to a friend about finding Maslova a job as a translator.
That same afternoon, Albagir and the others made it to a safe house in Warsaw. Once again, they were told not to step outside.
mysticwarrior: The US can't stand an enemy like the Russians who are firing hypersonic missiles from hypersonic jets, the Russians controls the sky and anyone who controls the sky have a huge advantage over the ground.
Russian does not control the sky in Ukraine, talk less of internationally. Underestimate the US and NATO at your peril.
USA underestimated Russia military information intelligence. Russia will have at least over 500K people in Ukraine gathering information for Russia military. USA radars are overrated or not good enough just like they failed in Saudi to detect those Russia drones. USA said its sharing information to Ukraine but same USA can’t spot Russia armed drone watching those equipments moved to shopping mall.
One month later , super power mother Russia is still advancing
Multiple countries are talking about efforts to develop hypersonic weapons, describing them as "game changers." But what are these weapons? Who has them? And just how revolutionary are they?
What are hypersonic weapons?
Hypersonic weapons fly at speeds of at least Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable and able to change course during flight. They are different from ballistic missiles, which can also travel at hypersonic speeds (of at least Mach 5) but have set trajectories and limited maneuverability. What are the different kinds of hypersonic weapons?
There are two main categories of hypersonic weapons: hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles.
Hypersonic glide vehicles are launched from a rocket. The glide vehicle then separates from the rocket and “glides” at speeds of at least Mach 5 toward a target.
Hypersonic cruise missiles are powered by high-speed, air-breathing engines.
What is their significance?
The ability to launch highly maneuverable weapons at hypersonic speeds gives any country a considerable advantage, because such weapons can evade just about any defense system currently in use.
"It doesn't matter what the threat is. If you can't see it, you can't defend against it," General John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience in Washington in January 2020.
As the commander of U.S. Strategic Command in 2018, Hyten said, “We don't have any defense that could deny the deployment of such a weapon against us. … Our defense is deterrent capability.”
U.S. officials have said that while there are some ground-based radars that can detect hypersonic weapons, there are not enough to give adequate warning of an attack. Officials, like the now-retired Hyten, have advocated the construction of a space-based radar system. How are hypersonic weapons different from ballistic missiles?
Ballistic missiles can also travel at hypersonic speeds of at least Mach 5, but they have set trajectories and limited maneuverability. What countries are developing hypersonic weapons?
The United States, Russia and China are all developing hypersonic weapons. Additional countries are conducting research on weapons, while others have made claims about testing hypersonic weapons that cannot yet be verified.
Here is a closer look at some of the countries developing these weapons:
United States
The U.S. military requested $3.8 billion for the development of hypersonic weapons for fiscal year 2022, and another $246.9 million for hypersonic defense research. Most U.S. hypersonic weapons are still in the development or testing phase, but at least one system is expected to reach early operational capability this year. U.S. hypersonic weapons are armed with conventional warheads.
Russia
Russia has been pursuing hypersonic weapon technology since the 1980s. Russian military officials said Saturday, March 19, that they fired hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine to target what they said was an underground weapons storage site in the west of the country. In 2018, President Vladimir Putin boasted about the Kinzhal hypersonic missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle. Moscow is also developing the Tsirkon, a ship-launched hypersonic cruise missile. Reports indicate the Avangard carries a nuclear warhead. Russian news outlets have further claimed that the Avagard has been deployed in service since December 2019.
China
U.S. military and intelligence officials say China is pursuing hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles, and that at least one missile capable of carrying hypersonic glide vehicles may now be in use. The U.S. officials say Beijing has conducted “hundreds” of hypersonic weapons tests between 2016 and 2021, while Washington conducted only nine tests during the same period. General Mark Milley, U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described a high-profile Chinese hypersonic test carried out in August 2021 as “very significant.”
"We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power … it only happens once in a while," Milley said.
North Korea
North Korea claims to have successfully test-fired two hypersonic missiles so far this year — one on January 5, and the latest on January 11, according to state-run Korea Central News Agency. U.S. officials have so far not confirmed the claims, describing the launches only as ballistic missile tests. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said hypersonic missiles would greatly increase his country’s nuclear “war deterrent,” a position that many experts say puts South Korea at risk.
Other countries
Australia, India, France, Germany and Japan are developing hypersonic weapon technology. Iran, Israel and South Korea are also reported to have done what has been described as “foundational research” on hypersonic weapons.
Kingpin1000: Putin is not coming to any table of negotiations, if He is coming, it is to break that table. The new commanders have upped the game. Hypersonic missiles are now been deployed. Ukraine should continue in their guerrilla warfare, while Russia levels everything .
Russia's President Vladimir Putin is understood to have finally agreed to meet Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy has made clear his desire for a meeting with Putin and described a conversation between the two as one he is 'sure people are waiting for', but the Russian leader has so far refused.
In a video posted to Facebook on Saturday, March 19, Zelenskyy claimed talks between the two leaders was the 'only chance for Russia to minimise the damage done with their own mistakes', adding: 'This is the time to meet, to talk, time for renewing territorial integrity and fairness for Ukraine. I want to be heard by everyone, especially in Moscow. Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such, that several generations will not recover.'
Zelenskyy has so far engaged in talks with the leaders of the West in relation to the invasion of his country, but BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet has indicated a conversation with Putin is on the cards.
'The diplomats are talking, the negotiators are talking,' she said. 'And we understand they are making progress. And we understand President Putin has finally agreed that he will meet, at some point, President Zelenskyy who has been asking for a meeting since January.'
Speaking to BBC's Broadcasting House, Doucet said the Russian president hasn't said he agrees to a meeting 'in public', and in fact 'says quite the opposite in public', but it is understood 'there's many, many eager mediators'.
'Everyone wants the prize of saying they brought this war to an end,' she added, the Express reports. When such a conversation will take place remains unclear, but Doucet said Putin does appear to have accepted that he will need to attend negotiations himself 'at some point'.
News of Putin's potential acceptance comes after Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Putin was not ready for a meeting.
Kalin was in calls between Erdogan and Zelenskyy, and Erdogan and Putin on Thursday, March 17, and claimed that while
'Zelenskyy is ready to meet', ' Putin thinks that the positions to have this meeting at the leaders’ level are not close enough yet,' The New York Times reports.
Kalin did, however, express belief that a meeting would take place 'at some point', saying 'there will be a peace deal' and that while much of the world wants this 'to happen sooner rather than later', Putin will likely want to be 'in a position of strength' when he agrees to such a deal.
If you would like to donate to the Red Cross Emergency Appeal, which will help provide food, medicines and basic medical supplies, shelter and water to those in Ukraine, click here for more information
• Questions have been raised over health and mental state of Russia's president • Fears of nuclear conflict increased when he threatened NATO with 'consequences' if it intervened in the war, and put his nuclear forces on standby • Now, a source has claimed he has told his close allies to prepare for nuclear drills • An element of Russian plans for a nuclear war are a fleet of 'flying Kremlins' • The doomsday planes would allow Putin to fly above an atomic catastrophe
A 'depressed' Vladimir Putin has moved his family to a 'secret underground city' and is 'set to hold a nuclear evacuation drill' with the Kremlin's doomsday plan, insider sources have claimed.
One source that previously said Putin is suffering from multiple and serious medical problems, and also claimed that Russian death toll in the Ukraine war was higher than even Kyiv's estimates with over 17,000 casualties in 23 days of fighting.
Putin 'often pours his anger out on those close to him,' the latest account said from the source - a Telegram channel supposedly linked to an ex-Kremlin intelligence insider who claims to retain close links to those in Putin's circle.
'He has no deep conversations with almost anyone, and limited contact even with his children - not only his [adult] daughters but also his [undisclosed] children with [Olympic gold medal winning gymnast, 38] Alina Kabaeva'.
The source said that Putin shocked his top generals recently by demanding nuclear drill be undertaken, increasing fears he is preparing for a nuclear conflict.
Another Russian expert has claimed that Putin has moved his family to a secret location that is not just a bunker, but a huge underground city to keep them safe from a potential nuclear fallout.
Putin previously threatened NATO allies with 'consequences greater than any you have faced in history' should they intervene in the Ukraine conflict, and placed Russia's nuclear forces on high alert earlier this month.
On Saturday, Russia launched its 'unstoppable' nuclear-capable Kinzhal hypersonic missile, destroying a military storage facility in Ukraine.
In a recent post, the Telegram channel General SVR said that senior political figures 'were warned on behalf of the president that, perhaps in the near future, they will participate in practising evacuation in case of a nuclear war.
'All who were contacted with this warning were seriously surprised and concerned about this initiative by the President.
'But all, without exception, confirmed their readiness to participate.
An element of Russian plans for a nuclear war are a fleet of 'flying Kremlins' - Ilyushin Il-80 Maxdomes, on permanent standby - that would be used by Putin and his closest allies to stay above a potential war.
These 'doomsday' planes are seen as ageing and due to be replaced by adapted Ilyushin 96-400M's allowing the Russian leader to control troops and missiles during an atomic catastrophe.
However the ultramodern bunker in the sky is not believed to be ready yet.
While initially the channel was dismissed as unreliable, lately briefings attributed to Western intelligence have echoed its assertions over Putin's supposed health issues.
The channel also said: 'The general mental state of Vladimir Putin has recently caused alarm among people in the president's inner circle.'
Repeating earlier claims about his alleged condition - previous dismissed by the Kremlin - the post said: 'When Vladimir Putin, who suffers from oncology, Parkinson's disease and schizoaffective disorder, invites members of the government and the heads of the State Duma and the Federation Council [the lower and upper houses of parliament] to take part in preparing for evacuation in case of a nuclear war… it becomes not fun at all'.
The only person who might trigger Armageddon is Putin, said the account.
It names ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, who now has a security role, along with the speakers of the two houses of parliament - Vyacheslav Volodin and Valentina Matviyenko - as among those allegedly told there would be a drill for nuclear war.
A schizoaffective disorder is a mental health condition including schizophrenia symptoms, for example hallucinations or delusions, and mood issues like depression or mania.
The channel today claimed Russia had logged the death toll as 17,000 including 12,949 service personnel.
The rest were from private military armies - or mercenaries, backing the Kremlin and supposedly deployed in Ukraine.
Russia has not given its estimated death toll in Ukraine for more than two weeks.
Earlier reports have said Putin had moved unidentified members of his immediate family either to a luxury mountain villa in neutral Switzerland, or to a hi-tech underground bunker in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.
Political scientist Valery Solovey, 61, linked to the Telegram channel, said earlier this month: 'In fact, it is not a bunker, but a whole underground city, equipped with the latest science and technology.'
He warned: 'I hope this means something to you?
'That the President sends his family to this bunker.'
He did not identify Putin's family members but previously alleged Kabaeva is his secret spouse, and Russia's hidden first lady. 'This is his real family, and Alina is capable of influencing his decisions,' Solovey said last year.
A former professor at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) - a training ground for future top diplomats and spies - Solovey's home was recently searched and he was quizzed for eight hours.
The channel has also claimed that Putin and defence minister Sergei Shoigu - in charge of the faltering military invasion of Ukraine - attended a shamanic ritual in Siberia which involved the sacrifice of a black wolf in a rite to improve the president's health.
'A piece of white fabric was soaked with the wolf's blood and burned,' it said.
'They allegedly saw a black raven in the smoke that circled for a long time.
'For some reason, this sign was explained to Putin as a great success.'
Quizzed over his claims that Putin had a serious illness, strongly denied by the Kremlin, Solovey said: 'I do not use the expression 'terminally ill' and I have never used it.
'I use a euphemism: personal circumstances of compelling force.'
Putin has two adult daughters Dr Maria Vorontsova, 36, a geneticist, and Katerina, 35, a high-kicking 'rock'n'roll' dancer-turned-mathematician.
He is also reported to have a daughter Luiza Rozova, a 18-year-old heiress also known as Elizaveta Krivonogikh, from a previous relationship with cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 45, now a part-owner of a major Russian bank.
Unconfirmed rumours denied by the Kremlin say he has children with Kabaeva.
In an embarrassing security lapse last year, one of the four existing doomsday planes was infiltrated and robbed as it was undergoing a refit in Russian city Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov.
Some 39 pieces of radio equipment were stolen after a cargo hatch was opened.
As Ukraine continues its strong resistance against Putin's forces, resulting in more death and destruction amongst Moscow's ranks than was ever expected, the Russian leader is said to be getting increasingly paranoid about even his closest allies.
Report suggest the humiliated dictator is looking for a scapegoat for the war's failure, which is now dragging into its fourth week.
Boris Karpichkov, a former KGB spy now living in the UK, told the Sun Online that Putin lost the way before it even started.
'He turned out to be a psychopath really heavily obsessed with paranoid ideas and conspiracy theories against himself and about non existent threats Russia allegedly faces from the rest of the world,' Karpichkov said.
Putin reportedly only had contact with his inner circle during the Covid-19 pandemic, but even they were asked to present faecal samples several times a week to check for infection and, in some cases, asked to isolate for two weeks before meetings.
Rumours surrounding the Russian leader's health have been swirling for years, with repeated reports suggesting that he is suffering from cancer and Parkinson's disease, or been affected by long Covid-19 causing 'brain fog'.
This - coupled with Putin putting Russia's nuclear forces on high alert earlier this month - has raised fears that the world is edging closer to nuclear conflict.
'Senior officials of the leading Nato countries also allow aggressive statements against our country, therefore I order the minister of defence and the chief of the general staff to transfer the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty,' Putin said in a televised address last month.
'Western countries aren't only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading Nato members made aggressive statements regarding our country.'
Meanwhile, the president of Belarus, who has allowed Russia to use his country's territory to invade Ukraine, says he has no intention to host Russian nuclear weapons.
Alexander Lukashenko has beefed up military ties with Moscow after Western sanctions over his crackdown on protests after his reelection to a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that the opposition and the West rejected as rigged. He has
Lukashenko had previously offered to host Russian nuclear weapons, but in an interview with Japanese broadcaster TBS released by his office on Friday, he said he has no such plans.
'I'm not planning to deploy nuclear weapons here, produce nuclear weapons here, create and use nuclear weapons against anyone,' he said, dismissing the allegations of such plans as an 'invention by the West.'
Lukashenko said that he had made an earlier statement about a possible deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus in response to the talk in the West about a possible redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Germany to Poland.
The Belarusian leader noted that the constitutional amendments approved in a vote last month that shed Belarus' neutral status has no relation to nuclear weapons.
Wuppdex: They should shut up, not everyone is inhuman like USA, Ghost of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hunting them, USA is the only nation to use Atomic bomb on civilian population till date because Japan is Unwinnable
President Vladimir Putin can be expected to brandish threats to use nuclear weapons against the West if stiff Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion continues, draining conventional manpower and equipment, according to a new assessment by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Protracted occupation of parts of Ukrainian territory threatens to sap Russian military manpower and reduce their modernized weapons arsenal, while consequent economic sanctions will probably throw Russia into prolonged economic depression and diplomatic isolation,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in its new 67-page summary of worldwide threats.
The combination of Ukraine’s defiance and economic sanctions will threaten Russia’s “ability to produce modern precision-guided munitions,” Berrier said in testimony submitted to the House Armed Services Committee for a hearing on Thursday.
“As this war and its consequences slowly weaken Russian conventional strength,” Berrier added, “Russia likely will increasingly rely on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and external audiences.”
The Pentagon agency’s grim appraisal of the war’s broader stakes comes on the eve of a call between President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping. Even as U.S. officials struggle to discern China’s position on the war, Biden will seek Xi’s help ratcheting up pressure on Moscow to end it.
Putin already has announced that he’s put Russia’s nuclear arsenal on a state of higher alert. The Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the Defense Intelligence Agency report.
Unlike a report on global threats issued by multiple intelligence agencies last week with findings that predated the Russian invasion, the new report reflects information as of Tuesday.
A senior Pentagon official told reporters Thursday that the invasion is largely stalled, with Russia relying so far on more than 1,000 long-range missile strikes into Ukraine.
“U.S. efforts to undermine Russia’s goals in Ukraine, combined with its perception that the United States is a nation in decline, could prompt Russia to engage in more aggressive actions not only in Ukraine itself, but also more broadly in its perceived confrontation with the West,” Berrier said.
A key motivation for the invasion, he said, is Russia’s determination “to restore a sphere of influence over Ukraine and the other states of the former Soviet Union.”
He added that “despite greater than anticipated resistance from Ukraine and relatively high losses in the initial phases of the conflict, Moscow appears determined to press forward by using more lethal capabilities until the Ukrainian government is willing to come to terms favorable to Moscow.”
Putin’s Order
Berrier said Putin’s order in February putting Russia’s nuclear forces on “special combat duty” refers to “heightened preparations designed to ensure a quick transition to higher alert status should the situation call for it.”
In addition to seeking to intimidate Russia’s adversaries, he said, it reflects “Moscow’s doctrinal views on the use of tactical, non-strategic nuclear weapons to compel an adversary” into pursuing negotiations “that may result in termination of the conflict on terms favorable to Russia, or deter the entry of other participants when Russian offensive progress of its conventional forces looks like it might be reversed or the conflict becomes protracted.”
On conventional forces, Berrier said Russia’s setbacks so far in Ukraine call into question Putin’s boasts about his military’s ability to deter or defeat threats with “fifth-generation fighters, state-of-the-art air and coastal defense missile systems, new surface vessels and submarines, advanced tanks, modernized artillery, and improved military command and control and logistics.”
General Roman Gavrilov, the deputy chief of Russia's Federal National Guard, has reportedly been detained by the much-feared FSB security service and accused of leaking information
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – originally forecast to be over in less than a week – limps into its third week, furious Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin is looking for someone to blame.
Reports are emerging that General Roman Gavrilov, the deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia unit which was the spearhead of the first push into Ukrainian territory, has been arrested by the feared Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation – The FSB.
The reason for Gavrilov’s arrest is not immediately clear.
One source quoted by Bellincat’s Christo Grozev say the charge was "wasteful squandering of fuel” while a more serious charge of "leaks of military information that led to loss of life” has also been rumoured.
Russian broadsheet Pravda reported that Putin was throwing elite the Rosgvardia [Russian Federal National Guard Troops Service] special forces into the war against Ukraine, and listed a number of casualties that the unit had already sustained.
Estimates of Russia's total casualty figures vary wildly. According to official Kremlin sources, just 498 Russian servicemen have lost their lives in the invasion of Ukraine while a US estimate puts the figure closer to 7,000 – more than the number of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Meanwhile Ukraine claims to have killed in the region of 13,500 invading Russian troops.
Sergey Beseda, head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, has also been arrested along with Anatoly Bolyukh, his deputy, according to The Times.
While the official charges relate to financial misconduct the real reason is likely to be Putin’s fury at receiving what he calls “unreliable, incomplete and partially false information about the political situation in Ukraine.”
Pentagon officials say that Putin is “angry and frustrated” at his army’s lack of progress and may be willing to cause “even more violence and destruction” in a bid to force President Zelenskyy to surrender.
CIA Director William Burns, himself a a former US. ambassador to Moscow, says the Russian leader is living in a “propaganda bubble” with no advisers daring to give him bad news,
'He's likely to double down and try to grind down the Ukrainian military with no regard for civilian casualties,” Director Burns said in an address to the US Congress.
But the challenge that Putin faces, Director Burns says, is that he has “no sustainable political endgame in the face of what is going to continue to be fierce resistance from Ukrainians”.
MDK777: Where Are The Western Ass LiCKErS? Pls Come Oh! Your Powerful Dollar Is Getting To The MuD. Puttin My Guy ! He SaBi The Game Well Well. IDiOT DeY There They ShouT SancTiOn UpAnd Dan
Use your brain ! It will take decades for the dollar to be replaced and even then third world countries will suffer the most.
So before you start screaming like an extremist think about the terribble impact to Nigeria.
Politics / Re: Farooq Kperogi: Four Presidential Aspirants Who Will Make Me Renounce Nigeria by GodHatesBigots(m): 5:53pm On Mar 28, 2022 
