Author: Blazingcatfur

A phone camera pans slowly across the portraits of 55 men, each wearing the dress uniform of Russia’s elite airborne units. Small candles have been placed by the photographs of the men, as have sky blue berets and the blue-and-white striped undershirts worn by the paratrooper units who led Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The video of the memorial for the soldiers of the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment is unverified – it was first published by Russia’s iStories news outlet, which said it was submitted by a reader.

But the footage adds weight to a growing consensus that the numbers of Russian casualties – especially among elite units such as the Russian airborne – are far higher than officials have so far admitted.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world has come to the realization that it cannot rely on an autocratic regime for its supply of oil and gas. The European Union, and in particular Germany, now understands that a significant reliance on Russian oil and gas is unacceptable. With such exposure, the EU has found itself in the position of either being forced to make economically damaging reductions in these imports, or in effect continuing to finance Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression against the people of Ukraine.

ATHENS, April 7 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s address to the Greek parliament on Thursday caused an outrage from opposition parties after a man who identified himself as an ethnic Greek member of Ukraine’s ultranationalist Azov battalion appeared on a video.

Zelenskiy spoke about the destruction of the Russian-besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol – home to thousands of ethnic Greeks – and appealed to Athens for help.

Dozens of people have died after rockets struck a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk that was being used to evacuate civilians to safer parts of the country, Ukrainian authorities have said.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said at least 39 people were killed and 87 wounded, many of them seriously, updating an earlier estimate of 30 dead.

Reporters at the scene saw at least 20 bodies grouped and lying under plastic sheets next to the station. Blood was pooling on the ground and packed bags were strewn outside the building.

A video has emerged which purports to show Ukrainian forces shooting and killing a captive Russian soldier.

It was filmed on a road to the west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where Russian forces have been retreating.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Thursday that he was aware of the video and it would “definitely be investigated”.