A huge fire has started at a chemical plant in the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk, with about 800 civilians hiding in bomb shelters at the plant. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made an appeal to Russians to stand united and build on the “deep feelings of patriotism” and “spiritual foundations” that run through Russia’s […]

The Russian occupation authorities in southern Ukraine say they have started handing out Russian passports to locals in two cities— Kherson and Melitopol. Ukraine condemns the creation of Russian citizens on its territory as “Russification”. President Vladimir Putin is fast-tracking the procedure. Russia’s Tass news agency says the first 23 Kherson residents got Russian passports […]

Intense street to street fighting is ongoing in the key eastern city of Severodonetsk and both Ukrainian and Russian sides are likely suffering high numbers of casualties, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update. However, Russian forces have not made advances into the south of city, the MoD says. It […]

Vladimir Putin’s admiration for Peter the Great is well known but he now seems to have ideas of ‘Great’-ness himself. He has openly compared himself to the Russian tsar, equating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today with Peter’s expansionist wars some three centuries ago, and making his strongest acknowledgment yet that his own war is a […]

Demoralised Russian troops in Ukraine are plotting ways to get out of the country including trying to arrange ‘fake marriages’, Ukraine’s intelligence agency has revealed. Analysts say that the Russian military is overstretched, with low morale and could soon run out of combat-ready units as the war in Ukraine enters its 105th day. A wiretapped […]

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her record on handling Vladimir Putin in her first major interview since leaving office. She said she had “nothing to apologise for” over her response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, when she supported sanctions. She also defended her opposition in office to Ukraine joining […]

A number of explosions shook parts of Kyiv early on Sunday in the first assault on Ukraine’s capital for weeks. Russia claims it targeted a site storing tanks supplied by Europe, but Ukraine says rockets hit a train repair plant where no tanks were held. Columns of black smoke could be seen above the city […]

Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of ‘adding fuel to fire’ by supplying advanced rockets to Ukraine and said it did not trust Kyiv not to fire them into Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that `we believe that the U.S. is deliberately pouring oil on the fire. The U.S. is obviously holding […]

Russian military on Tuesday said it has found the bodies of 152 Ukrainian fighters in the underground bunkers of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol it captured earlier this month after a protracted siege. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov in Moscow said “152 bodies of fallen fighters and soldiers of the Ukrainian armed forces were […]

Maxsym Lutsyk looks older and more serious, and makes fewer jokes, than when I saw him in the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Back then, the 19-year-old had just put university on hold and volunteered to fight. Last week he made a difficult journey out of the Donbas front line, using back roads at […]