Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk region are encircled, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, declared yesterday. The region was visited by Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time since the Ukrainian offensive in this region of Russia.more
Russia is attempting to have the UK embassy in Moscow closed, the British Foreign Office said yesterday. The diplomatic ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to London and revoked the accreditation of one Russian diplomat and his wife.more
A British diplomat and the spouse of another diplomat are being expelled from Russia, the country's domestic security service has said, in what is being seen as the latest tit-for-tat escalation.
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Three Bulgarian citizens were yesterday found guilty by a jury in London of belonging to a spy network on behalf of Russia. Their targets were said to include a US military base in Germany where Ukrainian soldiers were being trained.more
A British citizen captured while fighting alongside the Ukrainian army has been sentenced in Russia to 19 years in prison on charges of terrorism and “mercenary activities”.
James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, from Banbury, Oxfordshire, was captured by Russian forces last November while fighting on Ukraine’s side during its cross-border offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.more
The European Union spent more money on Russian fuels in the third year of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine than on financial aid given to Kyiv, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), cited by the UK's daily ‘The Guardian’ today.more
Talks between US and Russian delegations took place today in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported. This is the first such meeting since the beginning of the Russian assault on Ukraine. The main topic was Russia's war against Ukraine. The meeting lasted 4.5 hours.more
Sir John Major has accused Donald Trump of “cuddling” up to Vladimir Putin as he warned that “tin-pot” dictators around the world would be emboldened if the US agrees on a deal that leaves Russia in control of Ukrainian territory.more
The connection of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to the European energy network is a breakthrough, assessed President Andrzej Duda yesterday. He added that these countries, together with Poland, will constitute a whole within the EU, ensuring energy security and sovereignty.more
A Royal Navy attack submarine surfaced close to a Russian spy ship off the UK coast in an extraordinary warning to stop spying on British undersea cables, the defence secretary has revealed.more
Danish counterintelligence has established that the idea to occupy Greenland was suggested to Donald Trump by Russian intelligence, using a forged letter to a US senator, ‘Newsweek’ recalled yesterday. The story was revived on social media just before the President-elect's inauguration.more
Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) said preliminary findings indicated that the crash of a passenger plane it owned that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was caused by "external physical and technical interference." Thirty-eight people died in the crash.more
The UK today imposed sanctions on 20 oil tankers that were illegally carrying Russian petroleum products, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced. He added that his government would provide £35 million (US$44 million) to Ukraine to repair its energy infrastructure, which has been targeted by Russian attacks.more
A high-ranking general in the Russian armed forces and his assistant have been killed in an explosion in Moscow.
Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, head of the Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Defence Forces (NBC), was leaving a residential block early on Tuesday when a device hidden in a scooter exploded, Russia's Investigative Committee said.more
Since Russia's attack on Ukraine, more than a thousand companies have severed business contacts with the aggressor country. But almost as many are still doing business there, writes today's ‘Rzeczpospolita’.more
Dutch F-35 fighter jets intercepted three Russian aircraft over the Baltic Sea on Friday and escorted them at a distance over international waters to the border of the NATO area of responsibility, the Dutch defence ministry said on Monday.more
Russia's foreign ministry announced yesterday that it was closing the Polish consulate general in St Petersburg in retaliation for the earlier closure of the Russian consulate general in Poznan. Three Polish diplomats have also been declared undesirable and are to leave Russia.more
If Russian leader Vladimir Putin vassalises Ukraine, he will not stop there, in which case the security of Britain, France, Europe, transatlantic security would be at risk, British MI6 intelligence chief Richard Moore warned in Paris yesterday.more
A team of Bulgarians carried out surveillance on a U.S. military base in Germany where Ukrainian forces were being trained, one of six operations they undertook as part of a spying conspiracy for Russia, prosecutors told a London court on Thursday.more
More than 1.3 million people would have been killed and 950,000 injured if an attack on Warsaw had taken place using a Russian R-36M2 nuclear missile (in NATO code: SS-18 Satan), according to the US ‘Newsweek’ today. The impact of attacks on major European cities was estimated by nuclear technology historian Professor Alex Wellerstein.more
Russia said it was expelling a British diplomat for alleged spying as tensions between London and Moscow rose after Ukraine’s recent use of British weapons to strike deeper into Russia. The FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, announced on Tuesday that it had acted on documents accusing a British diplomat of engaging in “reconnaissance and subversive activities that threaten the country".more
Britain is imposing the biggest sanctions package against Russia's shadow fleet, targeting 30 vessels, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, urging G7 allies to stand with, and equip Ukraine for as long as it needs.more
Vladimir Putin did not rule out attacking military facilities of countries that allowed Ukraine to hit targets on Russian territory with their missiles. He added that Russian forces attacked Ukraine yesterday with a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile.more
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated today that the US anti-missile base in Poland has long been among the possible priority targets for Russia. MFA spokesman Pavel Vronsky stressed that the Redzikowo installation is purely defensive in nature.more
Vladimir Putin's signed amendment to the nuclear doctrine, which stipulates that any conventional attack on Russia assisted by a nuclear power can be considered a strike made jointly, lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, AP assessed today.more
