Blazingcatfur

“I’m not a war tourist or anything like that,” Ajay tells me, from his base near Kyiv where Ukraine’s armed forces have been defending the country’s capital.

“I was quite comfortable back home sitting with my cat,” he says in a strong Belfast accent.

Ajay Spence travelled to the war in Ukraine from Northern Ireland a month ago, having first got in touch with the Ukrainian embassy in Dublin.

Having told them about his previous experience with the British army in Afghanistan and Iraq, he was soon on his way to Poland before crossing into Ukraine.

Russians are for the first time expressing their open outrage and anguish at the catastrophic death toll of Vladimir Putin’s troops – especially among young ‘cannon fodder soldiers’.

They are speaking out online despite the threats of severe punishment for doing so.

Putin’s invasion has suffered another blow after it was revealed on Friday his force’s death toll rose to 19,000, according to Kyiv’s estimates.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team has launched an investigation into three Twitter accounts that claim to be run by journalists on the frontlines in Ukraine. The suspicious accounts were originally spotted by Conspirador Norteño, an account that specialises in studying misinformation on social media. But before that, they were thought to be authentic – one even appeared in an article in a British newspaper. We found several clues that raise concerns about whether these three people exist.