“Ukraine – Russia”

“Ukraine and its allies, including London, are threatening Russia for the last 1,000 years, to move Nato to our borders, to cancel our culture – they have bullied us for many, many years.”

That is what Yevgeny Popov, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament) and an influential TV host in Russia, told the BBC’s Ukrainecast on 19 April. “Of course Nato plans for Ukraine are a direct threat to Russian citizens.”

His views were both surprising and enlightening as to the very different narrative put out by the Kremlin, compared to the way it’s viewed in the West. To European and Western ears, these pronouncements sound almost unfathomable, even amounting to a blatant disregard for carefully documented evidence. Yet these are just some of the beliefs held not only by Kremlin supporters in Russia and across the wider population there but also in several other parts of the world.

Research has found the president’s ally may be behind pro-Kremlin propaganda on a bizarre variety of platforms

A Russian troll factory has spread lies about the war in Ukraine across social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, according to research commissioned by the government.

Boris Johnson and other world leaders have been targeted as part of a Kremlin disinformation campaign which, it is suspected, has been orchestrated by a close ally of President Putin.

The troll factory was trying to manipulate international public opinion in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, researchers found.

Ukraine’s fighter pilots are vastly outnumbered by the Russians, and have become legendary – thanks in part to the story of an alleged flying ace called the”Ghost of Kyiv”.

This hero is said to have downed as many as 40 enemy planes – an incredible feat in an arena where Russia controls the skies.

But now the Ukraine Air Force Command has warned on Facebook that the “Ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!”.

As the war drags on, new narratives are emerging

Every day since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, I’ve been immersed in the world of Russian state TV, tracking the narratives that are pushed to viewers across the world’s largest country.

Nine years ago, when I began learning Russian at university, I’d not heard of either Vladimir Solovyov or Olga Skabeyeva, whose TV talk shows now dominate my working life as a media monitor.

In a studio with enormous screens showing images of purportedly fallen Ukrainian soldiers, guests stand in a circle. An enormous Z – the letter that now symbolises Russia’s invasion – is emblazoned on the floor.

The first group of civilians who have been sheltering under a steel plant that is the last redoubt for Ukrainian forces in the destroyed city of Mariupol have managed to get out.

A senior Ukrainian soldier inside the Azovstal steelworks said about 20 women and children had left, as the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, met Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, where she pledged support for his country’s “fight for freedom”. Pelosi, whose visit was not announced beforehand, is the highest-level US official to meet the Ukrainian president since the war began.

#Ukraine: An uncommon Russian T-90A, which was captured in damaged condition during the previous battles in #Sumy Oblast. This was not previously seen. pic.twitter.com/eop07PRQmG

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 30, 2022

This tank stopped working when shown a picture of Pelosi

GONZALO Lira is alive and well. If you don’t know who he is or why this is good news I’ll explain in a moment.

But first, let me ask a quick question: does it matter whether or not we get to the bottom of what’s really happening in Ukraine?

I hope you’ll agree with me that it does very much. And the same goes for all the other wars that have cost us blood and/or treasure over the last few decades from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya and Syria.

The war between Russia and Ukraine is swiftly evolving into a war between Russia and NATO. In one respect, this is good: It gives Ukraine a higher chance of repelling Moscow’s invasion and even winning. In another respect, it is risky: The wider the war spreads, and the more Russia seems to be losing, the more compelled Vladimir Putin may feel to lash out with extreme violence.

This shift in the West’s approach to the war was first signaled on Monday, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the U.S. goals in the war were not only to protect Ukraine as a democratic, sovereign country but also to “weaken” Russia as a military power. This has been obvious for some time, but even some U.S. officials were surprised to hear Austin express the fact so explicitly.

I’ll start believing we’re in a real war when Justin volunteers the Ru Paul Field Make-Up and Heels Brigade to train Ukraine’s soldiers in camo runway modelling techniques.

Russian troops have been forced to merge and redeploy units from their “failed advances” in Ukraine’s north-east, the UK Ministry of Defence has said, as both Kyiv and Moscow deal with serious losses on the frontline in the Donbas region.

“Russia hopes to rectify issues that have previously constrained its invasion by geographically concentrating combat power, shortening supply lines and simplifying command and control,” a British military intelligence report released early on Saturday said.

“It has been forced to merge and redeploy depleted and disparate units from the failed advances in north-east Ukraine. Many of these units are likely suffering from weakened morale.”

#Ukraine: Artillery fire from TDF "Azov" forces landed near a Russian tank somewhere in the East, damaging it. pic.twitter.com/qbDsNcX1qz

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 30, 2022

Ukraine’s prosecutor has accused 10 Russian soldiers of atrocities in the town of Bucha, where evidence of mass killings was uncovered.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said the 10 soldiers from Russia’s 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Ground Forces Brigade who occupied the Kyiv suburb were “involved in the torture of peaceful people”.

A former US Marine has been killed fighting alongside Ukrainian forces – the first US citizen known to have died in combat in the war with Russia.

Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, was killed on Monday while working for a military contracting company that sent him to Ukraine, his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.

They kill and maim indiscriminately and are uncommon in modern warfare

Residents of bucha, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, report finding thousands of miniature darts embedded in buildings and cars. The metal projectiles, less than 3cm long and known as flechettes, from the French for “little arrows”, have a particularly brutal reputation and are unusual in modern warfare. Why is Russia using them?