“Ukraine – Russia”

Russia is preparing to launch a large-scale offensive in the new year, building up its forces to advance deep into Ukraine as far as Kyiv, Ukraine’s top commander has warned.

General Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, said the attack could come “in February, at best in March and at worst at the end of January”.

He warned that Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation drive “has worked” and Russia is now reconstituting its troops to overturn embarrassing defeats this summer and gain more territory.

#Ukraine: Another Ukrainian MT-LB-12 self-propelled 100mm gun in action in #Bakhmut, firing 3UBK8M HEAT rounds at Russian forces.

This is an improvised vehicle made from an MT-LB chassis and T-12 AT gun- compared to a standalone gun this has improved elevation angles/mobility. pic.twitter.com/GYhsYG8xUg

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) December 15, 2022

Asia Pacific’s owner, Anton Trofimov, is an expatriate Russian who graduated from a Chinese university and has other business interests in China as well as a company in Toronto, Canada, according to his LinkedIn profile and other corporate filings.

Dec 15 (Reuters) – The hundreds of Russian drones hovering ominously over the Ukrainian battlefield owe their existence to an elastic, sanctions-evading supply chain that often runs through a shabby office above a Hong Kong marketplace, and sometimes through a yellow stucco home in suburban Florida.

The “Sea Eagle” Orlan 10 UAV is a deceptive, relatively low-tech and cheap killer that has directed many of the up to 20,000 artillery shells that Russia has fired daily on Ukrainian positions in 2022, killing up to 100 soldiers per day, according to Ukrainian commanders.

#Ukraine: In the East, a Russian T-72B tank was damaged by a Ukrainian landmine/IED.

Interestingly, though being equipped with a KMT-7 mine roller the tank still blew up, possibly indicating use of an off-set detonator placed specially to counter mine rolling equipment. pic.twitter.com/TGM5s0BSeV

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) December 14, 2022

Giveaway image was posted before Ukraine blitzed building with missiles

The son of the Wagner Group’s mercenary boss may have given away their secretive location in Ukraine before it was bombed by Kyiv forces, killing dozens of his comrades.

Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the feared private military group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, allegedly posted a photo on social media in front of the Zhdanova guest house in the city of Kadiivka where the mercenaries were holed up.

Then on Saturday at 8.30pm, Ukrainian forces blitzed the Luhansk hotel, with 18 believed dead and 50 injured, after the giveaway image was shared online.

#Ukraine: A compilation of FGM-148 Javelin ATGM and SPG-9 strikes from the Ukrainian Separate Presidential Brigade in the East- 4+ armoured vehicles of the Russian army were destroyed, in coordination with drones. pic.twitter.com/4I5yHFvy1G

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) December 13, 2022

Remembering the Holodomor, the terror-famine Russia inflicted in Ukraine, amid Russia’s latest violence against its neighbor.

… The interpretation of the causes, scope, and effects of Stalin’s assault on the traditional, productive agriculture and industrious peasant farmers of Ukraine in the interests of forced Communist collectivization of farms and the export for hard cash of Ukrainian grain to Western countries was a major controversy until the fall of Russian Communism in the early 1990s, and apologists for Putin’s regime still deny its uniqueness, scope, and significance — indeed, its very existence as a historical fact.

On November 28, the FRANCE 24 Observers team noticed an image of a fake cover of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo circulating on Twitter along with a caption in English that said, “France: Nazism is associated with Ukraine. Charlie Hebdo rolled out a special issue about the adventures of Ukrainian Nazis in Qatar. It’s a satire on the recent incident in Doha, where 3 drunken tourists painted Hitler’s moustache on the symbol of the World Cup.”

Among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grab bag of justifications for Moscow’s latest invasion of Ukraine was a supposed imminent threat from NATO, the 73-year-old collective defense bloc that was supposedly about to use Ukraine as a springboard for aggression against Moscow.

“The danger was rising,” Putin said at Victory Day celebrations in Moscow in May, claiming that “Russia has pre-emptively repulsed an aggression,” in what he said was “forced, timely and the only correct decision by a sovereign, powerful and independent country.”

#Ukraine: A Russian T-64BV tank with KMT-6 mine plough was destroyed by Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of Maryinka, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/y9eNxfKyMd

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) December 12, 2022

After EU Ban Kicks In Almost 90% of Russia’s seaborne crude headed to Asia in the week to Dec. 9

Russia has all but ceased to be a supplier of crude oil to Europe.

A European Union ban on imports of Russian crude by sea came into force on Dec. 5, effectively closing off its closest oil market, which took roughly half the country’s supplies at the start of the year. With the exception of a small volume delivered to Bulgaria, seaborne flows of Russian crude to the bloc have halted.

A salvo of Ukrainian Himars missiles fired against a Russian makeshift barracks has killed or wounded as many as 200 troops, Ukrainian officials claimed.

The volley of missiles was said to strike a recreation resort commandeered as accommodation by Russian forces in the occupied city of Melitopol.

The city’s exiled mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said the strike late on Saturday evening had overwhelmed hospitals in the city, with casualties being ferried to Crimea.

Last night Ukrainian Armed Forces hit barracks of Russian soldiers in occupied Melitopol, southeastern Ukraine

Around 200 Russian troops were killed and wounded by a high-precision strike, according to Ivan Fedorov, Mayor of Melitopol.
🎥https://t.co/GHOf4xuXGr pic.twitter.com/ScEhsbEJqn

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) December 11, 2022

Long-range Ukrainian drone strikes on air bases hundreds of miles inside Russian territory on Monday and Tuesday demonstrated that Kyiv was willing and able to escalate the war on its own terms.

These attacks represent a serious military challenge for the Kremlin but are also politically convenient. They reinforce President Putin’s new message: that this is a national, patriotic struggle for the survival of the Motherland in which there can be no bystanders or backsliders.

Ukrainian forces have struck a headquarters of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk’s Ukrainian governor has said.

Serhiy Haidai said a hotel where the group was based in Kadiivka, Luhansk region, was hit. He added there were major Russian losses.

The BBC was unable to independently verify Wagner’s presence at the hotel.

Wagner are state-sponsored mercenaries who act in the Kremlin’s interests, according to Western experts.

A neo-Nazi paramilitary group linked to the Kremlin has asked its members to submit intelligence on border and military activity in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, raising concerns over whether far-right Russian groups are planning an attack on Nato countries.

The official Telegram channel for “Task Force Rusich” – currently fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin and linked to the notorious Wagner Group – last week requested members to forward details relating to border posts and military movements in the three Baltic states, which were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The news has prompted questions over who has overall command over the far-right pro-Kremlin groups fighting in Ukraine.

The mercenary force is leading the charge for a key battleground in Ukraine

Since late May, Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast has been the site of extremely heavy fighting. Yet, until recently, the city had garnered relatively little media attention compared to the successive Ukrainian victories in Kharkov and Kherson. This has changed as of late, with #Bakhmut trending regularly on Twitter and a flood of news reports and opinion pieces on the battle published daily.

#Ukraine: The Ukrainian 92nd Brigade and TDF destroyed two Russian T-80BV tanks in the vicinity of Kolomyichykha, #Luhansk Oblast. A prime turret toss contender spotted! pic.twitter.com/cVljoWEjG1

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) December 9, 2022