“Ukraine – Russia”

As Moscow’s war on Ukraine reaches the six-month mark, a top leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in Canada has echoed the Kremlin’s talking points on the conflict, insisting in a recent interview the unprovoked invasion was justified and decrying as “ridiculous” Canada’s sanctions on the church’s war-boosting patriarch.

It is a name plucked from obscurity and plastered on front pages around the world: Natalia Vovk, the woman Russia says blew up the daughter of ‘Putin’s Rasputin’.

The FSB claims she is a veteran of Mariupol’s Azov battalion turned spy, who spent weeks tracking Darya Dugina before planting 800g of explosives under the driver’s seat of her car on August 20 and rigging it to blow as she left a festival near Moscow.

But Kyiv has denied any link to the slaying, the Azov Battalion says it has no record of Vovk having served with them, and evidence that has emerged from social media accounts paints a picture that is at odds with Moscow’s account.

A new Department of Defense inspector general report released last week estimated that the Afghan government possessed $7.12 billion worth of equipment paid for by U.S. taxpayer dollars when it fell roughly a year ago, “much of which has since been seized by the Taliban.”

“This included military aircraft, ground vehicles, weapons, and other military equipment,” the release noted. “The condition of these items was unknown, and the long-term operability of the vehicles was likely to deteriorate without U.S. contractor maintenance.”

Russian resistance fighters were behind the car bombing that killed the daughter of an ultra-nationalist philosopher who had backed the invasion of Ukraine, a former Russian opposition MP has said.

Ilya Ponomarev, who fled to Ukraine after opposing the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, said a group of Russian partisan fighters known as the National Republican Army (NRA) had claimed responsibility for the bombing.

“Love from Toronto.”

“Putin … with loathing from Canada.”

“Liam from Canada says F—k you Putin.”

The rockets Ukrainian forces have been firing at the Russian army in recent weeks have carried taunting messages from Canadians.

The town of Volosovo, near St Petersburg, is booming. Not the economy – it’s the loudspeakers.

Like many towns in Russia, Volosovo has them installed on tall poles that line the main street. Traditionally they are used for playing patriotic music during national holidays. Now, though, they have a different purpose.

“Two volunteer artillery battalions are being formed. We invite men from 18 to 60 years old to join,” the speakers blare out.

#Ukraine: Somewhere in the East, a Russian tank turret joined Roscosmos. pic.twitter.com/yabRD9u82e

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 20, 2022

Car bomb attack in Moscow most likely to be a false flag attack to whip up public support and escalate war against Ukraine

Investigators had barely started picking through the crime scene when Kremlin-linked officials began blaming Ukraine for the audacious car bomb attack that killed Daria Dugina.

But Kyiv, which denied any link to the murder, may have more pressing military concerns than conducting a complex hit on the daughter of a Vladimir Putin whisperer.

Although pro-Ukraine partisan attacks have increased in occupied Kherson and Crimea in recent weeks, Moscow appears to be a big stretch for its military and intelligence capabilities.

#Ukraine: The Ukrainian 30th Mechanized Brigade took out a Russian BMP IFV in the East- with the expected results. pic.twitter.com/LJ0jSbedkT

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 21, 2022

“Vesti Nedeli,” the flagship weekly roundup of Kremlin-controlled television news, recently portrayed a long history of predatory Western powers coming to grief when they invaded Russia: Sweden in the 18th century, France in the 19th, Germany in the 20th.

Enemies now seek to reverse those losses, said Dmitry Kiselyov, the show’s host, blaming the West for the war that Russia instigated in Ukraine. The goal to finish off Russia is “centuries old and unchanging,” he said. “Here we are on the defensive.”

Careless Russian soldiers are dumping powerful weaponry at makeshift sites on the peninsula – and Kyiv is taking advantage

The pig farm across the railway tracks from Svetlana’s home had been abandoned for years.

Nobody paid much attention to the decrepit, dusty building until Russian lorries began rolling through her Crimean village in June.

The window blinds on their cabins were drawn, so none of the locals in Azovske could peer too closely inside.

But Svetlana was not the only person to notice that soldiers had begun dumping crates of ammunition on the grounds of the farm.

#Ukraine: A Russian BTR-82A armored personnel carrier was destroyed by the Security Service of Ukraine using commercial drones armed with improvised munitions based on M430A1 40x53mm HEDP grenades.
This time it took a dozen munitions to finish the APC. pic.twitter.com/QY8httPQRi

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 20, 2022

This is the moment Putin’s aide Alexander Dugin watches the flaming wreckage of a car bomb meant for him that killed his daughter instead when the two switched vehicles last minute.

Dugin, a notorious fascist and Russian ultranationalist, is in hospital after being filmed at the scene of the explosion that killed his 35 year old daughter, Darya Dugina.

He was travelling on a highway near the village of Bolshiye Vyazyomy just outside the capital on Saturday night — but decided to travel in a different car to his daughter, avoiding death only by chance.

Aug 20 (Reuters) – Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine on Saturday of poisoning some of its servicemen in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia in late July.

An adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry said in response that the alleged poisoning could have been caused by Russian forces eating expired canned meat.

Russia’s economy shrank by 4 percent year-on-year over the second quarter, according to data published by Russian federal statistics service Rosstat. The plunge, though significant in absolute terms, was not as drastic as expected by Russian and some Western observers. “June data suggests the contraction in the Russian economy seems to have bottomed out as the situation in some industries is stabilizing,” Sergey Konygin, an economist at Sinara Investment Bank, told Reuters.

“I grew up speaking Russian, I am Russian by blood, but I don’t associate myself with Russia or the Russian world,” says Anatoly Deryugin, a major in the Latvian army.

Anatoly, 43, is one of more than one in three Latvians who speak Russian as their first language. They are now under pressure to prove their loyalty because of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Born and raised in Latvia, he has spent more than half his life in his country’s military. His mother is also a Russian-speaker from Latvia, and his father is from eastern Ukraine.

It marks the first month since the conflict began that major European governments failed to make a single new promise to send weapons

Military support for Ukraine appears to be drying up after research revealed that major European governments failed to make a single new pledge to send weapons to Kyiv last month.

Since Russia’s invasion in February, the UK, France and Germany have promised to stand by Ukraine with whatever assistance it takes to win the battle.

But July became the first month since the beginning of the conflict during which there were no significant new pledges of international support by Europe’s largest economies.