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Category: War

Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy

Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy

The Washington Post reports: With upgraded weaponry on the way, Western resolve holding firm, and the Ukrainian army continuing to outmaneuver and outwit Russia’s flailing military, Ukraine’s promised “year of victory” is off to a good start. If 2023 continues as it began, there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to fulfill President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Year’s pledge to retake all of Ukraine by the end of the year — or at least enough territory to definitively end…

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Russia and Belarus extend military drills amid fears of new push into Ukraine

Russia and Belarus extend military drills amid fears of new push into Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Russia and Belarus have expanded their joint military training exercises in Belarus, the country’s defence TV channel said on Sunday, as concern grows that Moscow is pressuring its closest ally to join the war in Ukraine. The two countries added weapons, soldiers and specialised equipment to the exercises and were doing drills drawing on Russian experience in Ukraine, Reuters reported. On Friday the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, visited a military base where Russian troops are stationed to…

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Now fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers seeking revenge against Russia

Now fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers seeking revenge against Russia

The New York Times reports: The sharp crack of sniper fire rang out across the snowbound valley. Soldiers in white camouflage crouched low, shooting at the hill opposite to provide cover as four men evacuated a casualty. The action was part of a live-fire training exercise for new recruits on a recent morning outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. But there was an unusual element to the event. While a Ukrainian Army officer was giving the orders, the trainees were members…

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Turkey supports Ukraine without alienating Russia

Turkey supports Ukraine without alienating Russia

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: On Dec. 20, two Turkish air force A400M transport aircraft that had been stranded at an airfield just outside of Kyiv for 299 days took off and returned home. The planes, believed to have been used to shuttle Turkish drones and other weapons to Ukraine, had been grounded by Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. The airspace between Ukraine and Turkey since has remained contested by Russia and too dangerous to risk the return journey. What…

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Historical perspectives on Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

Historical perspectives on Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

Uilleam Blacker writes: In the 2007 film “Katyn,” directed by Poland’s acclaimed Andrzej Wajda, a young woman in wartime Krakow tries to sell her hair to raise money for a headstone for her brother, who has been murdered and buried in an unmarked grave by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. She finds a buyer in a local theater, an actress who survived Auschwitz and lost her own hair. The actress watches as the woman’s long braids are cut off…

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U.S. and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine

U.S. and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Joe Biden and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz have agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine fight Russia, a day after France said it would supply its own armoured vehicles to Kyiv in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the 10-month war. The joint announcement followed a phone call between Biden and Scholz and amounts to a step change in western military support for Ukraine, which has asked for up to 700 armoured vehicles…

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France to deliver ‘light tanks’ to Ukraine

France to deliver ‘light tanks’ to Ukraine

Politico reports: France will deliver “light” battle tanks to Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced Wednesday, which would make it the first country to send such Western-designed armored fighting vehicles to the wartorn country. The Elysée said after a phone call between Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy that France will send AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles, which Paris has been gradually replacing with new Jaguar battle tanks. Several countries have already sent Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine. Both France…

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Ukraine says Russia plans new mobilisation to ‘turn tide of war’

Ukraine says Russia plans new mobilisation to ‘turn tide of war’

Reuters reports: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was planning to call up more troops for a major new offensive, even as Moscow was facing some of its biggest internal criticism of the war over a strike that killed scores of fresh conscripts. Kyiv has been saying for weeks that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to order another mass conscription drive and shut his borders to prevent men from escaping the draft. “We have no doubt that the current masters…

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A single Iranian attack drone found to contain parts from more than a dozen U.S. companies

A single Iranian attack drone found to contain parts from more than a dozen U.S. companies

CNN reports: Parts made by more than a dozen US and Western companies were found inside a single Iranian drone downed in Ukraine last fall, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment obtained exclusively by CNN. The assessment, which was shared with US government officials late last year, illustrates the extent of the problem facing the Biden administration, which has vowed to shut down Iran’s production of drones that Russia is launching by the hundreds into Ukraine. CNN reported last month…

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Pro-Putin operatives in Germany work to turn Berlin against Ukraine

Pro-Putin operatives in Germany work to turn Berlin against Ukraine

Reuters reports: In a square beneath the twin spires of Cologne’s gothic cathedral, around 2,000 protesters gathered in September to urge Germany’s government to break with the Western coalition backing Ukraine and make peace with Russia. “We must stop being vassals of the Americans,” right-wing German politician Markus Beisicht said from a makeshift stage on the back of a truck. The crowd clapped and waved Russian and German flags. A lean man in camouflage trousers stood at the side of…

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Defending against Russian drones is expensive, but Ukraine sees the cost as worth it

Defending against Russian drones is expensive, but Ukraine sees the cost as worth it

The New York Times reports: They are lumbering and noisy and relatively easy to shoot from the sky. Over the New Year’s weekend, the Ukrainian military said it downed every single one of the 80-odd exploding drones that Russia sent the country’s way. “Such results have never been achieved before,” a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman said on Tuesday. But beneath that result lies a question: How long can Ukraine sustain its effort when many of its defensive measures cost far…

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Ukraine strikes Russian forces in Donbas in deadliest attack in months

Ukraine strikes Russian forces in Donbas in deadliest attack in months

The Wall Street Journal reports: A Ukrainian strike killed dozens of newly mobilized soldiers in Russian-held territory in the east of the country in the single-deadliest known strike in months, piling pressure on Moscow’s military leadership, while Ukraine said it shot down at least 39 drones during another wave of attacks on Kyiv. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday that Ukrainian forces used a U.S.-supplied Himars rocket system to destroy a facility used as a base for mobilized troops in the…

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‘The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them’

‘The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them’

Boris Dralyuk, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, interviewed by Klaus Stimeder: Mr. Dralyuk, we are going into the tenth month of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine. What is your take on the situation? I am no military strategist, but my sense is that the Russian Army’s chances of defeating the Ukrainian Army on the battlefield are nil. Thanks to its allies, the Ukrainian Army is better trained, more experienced, and far better supplied. Also, we must remember…

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The war raging in Europe feels familiar

The war raging in Europe feels familiar

Rolling Stone reports: Dženita Mulabdić hugged the ground, the sound of gunfire fast approaching. The pregnant 20-year-old Bosnian woman and her husband, Muhamed, eyed the locked basement door. Their toddler played close by, unaware of the armed men outside. The commandos from Belgrade, wearing black balaclavas, jumped the fence and entered the house in the ethnically mixed Bosnian city of Bijeljina, a two-hour drive from Serbia’s capital. They trudged downstairs to the basement, encountering a barricade in front of a…

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Ukraine is in the headlines now. But a whole new world of conflict is about to erupt

Ukraine is in the headlines now. But a whole new world of conflict is about to erupt

Simon Tisdall writes: It was a good year to bury bad news – and bad deeds – as a clutch of dictators, assorted killers and repressive or anti-democratic regimes can testify. In Myanmar, Yemen, Mali, Nicaragua, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Afghanistan, to name a few crisis zones, egregious abuses and unrelieved misery attracted relatively scant, perfunctory international scrutiny. The main reason for 2022’s blinkered perspectives is, of course, Ukraine, Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945. This is not to say…

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