World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
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RUSSIA has staged major nuclear drills off the north of Britain causing Nato to deploy fighter jets to intercept the dangerous bombers.
Vladimir Putin‘s strategic Tu-160 missile-carrying aircraft conducted a 16-hour mission over the neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling on Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to meet him America to come to a final peace agreement. Zelensky said, “Yesterday (Sunday), we discussed with President Trump that such a meeting could be organised in the US, in a format where Putin would find it much harder to refuse. We will see what comes of it. If Russia refuses this chance as well, additional pressure will be needed.”
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Ukraine hit a major Moscow oil refinery for a second time in a week and disrupted commercial flights at the city’s airports in one of its biggest drone attacks since Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago, Russian officials said Thursday.
The attack came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the United States and France, and had won key pledges of further support from the G7 summit this week.
Zelenskyy was expected in Brussels later Thursday for talks with NATO and European Union leaders, including discussions about the possible building of a continental system to protect against ballistic missiles. Russia has relentlessly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defenses struggle to counter.
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Ukraine has launched its largest drone attack on Moscow since the start of the full-scale war, sparking fires in and around the Russian capital
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A suspect in the murder of a Russian national has been detained, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, after an artist critical of President Vladimir Putin was shot dead in eastern Poland this week.
The suspect was detained by police in cooperation with Poland‘s Internal Security Agency, Tusk said on X, adding that the man was using a Georgian passport. Local police in Lublin said the document belonged to a 36-year-old man.
Prosecutors have said the victim, identified as Robert Kuzovkov and also known as Semyon Skrepetsky, was hit by five bullets, including one to the head. Two Belarusians have also been detained in connection with the killing in the city of Biala Podlaska but have not been charged.
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Oh, Trump is now speaking with reporters, sitting next to the Emir of Qatar.
As we suspected (9:43), he confirms he had a “very good” meeting with Zelenskyy this morning and will meet with him again later today.
“Look, Russia should make a deal. Russia’s lost tremendous amounts of people, and so has Ukraine. Last month, they lost 35,000 soldiers between the two; it’s on a monthly basis. They averaged 25,000 people, mostly soldiers, young,beautiful people, and it’s crazy what’s going on there.
But we had a meeting, and we’ll see… I spoke with President Putin on Sunday.”
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VLADIMIR Putin suffered fresh humiliation today as Ukraine drones blitzed Moscow’s main oil refinery.
A swarm breached newly-strengthened air defences in the Russian capital in a strike that coincided with the G7 summit in France.
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TOKYO, June 17. /TASS/. Japan purchased approximately 364,000 barrels of oil from Russia in May this year, according to TASS calculations based on statistical data published by Japan’s Finance Ministry.
According to the data, Japan imported 58,000 kiloliters of Russian oil last month, equivalent to approximately 364,800 barrels. The purchases concerned oil linked to gas supply contracts under the Sakhalin-2 project, which is exempt from anti-Russian sanctions. The oil is also exempt from the price cap introduced by the G7 countries. According to TASS calculations, the price of Russian oil purchased by Japan in May amounted to approximately $103 per barrel.
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President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Tuesday on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, as the leaders of the world’s largest economies renew their focus on the war in Ukraine amid hopes the Iran conflict is nearing a conclusion.
Mr. Trump told reporters after the sit-down that the two had a “very good meeting” and that he planned to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart again later in the day.
Asked about the war, Mr. Trump responded, “Russia should make a deal.”
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While the MoD has assessed Tuesday’s incident was not linked to the seizure of the Russian shadow fleet tanker at the weekend, Parkin said that had been a “huge embarrassment” for Moscow, given there “is a Russian navy ship in the English Channel who is only there to stop this kind of thing happening”.
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British forces on Sunday intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in the English Channel, the defense ministry said.
The six-hour operation in the early hours was supported by aircraft, including Chinook helicopters, and navy vessels such as the frigate HMS Sutherland.
“In the first U.K.-led operation of its kind, the vessel SMYRTOS was boarded by Royal Marine Commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency, despite Russia’s best efforts to evade sanctions and continue fueling its barbaric war with Ukraine,” the ministry statement said.
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In 2022, Scott Sweetow wrote, “Of Roadside Bombs and Drones: Putin’s Looming Insurgency Problem,” where he argued Ukraine’s fight against Russia would rely on a combination of conventional and asymmetrical insurgent tactics. Four years of combat later, we asked Scott to revisit his arguments.Image: National Information Warfare Center PacificIn your 2022 article, you argued that Ukraine’s tech-driven resistance could rapidly evolve into an insurgency-style force.
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A senior Russian military colonel was killed in a car bombing outside Moscow after an explosive device planted under his BMW detonated near his home, according to local media reports.
Damir Davydov, described as the Kremlin’s top artillery chief, died after the blast erupted around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday near his home in Balashikha, a city just outside Moscow.
Surveillance footage shared by Russian media appeared to show the vehicle bursting into flames before slamming into a parked car.
Screenshot- X- Damir Davydov
Bystanders rushed to pull Davydov from the burning wreckage, but he later died from his injuries, Telegram channel Mash reported.
Russian Telegram channel 112 reported that the explosive device had been planted under the driver’s seat and detonated remotely.
The device reportedly had a yield equivalent to 300 to 400 grams of TNT.
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Russia suffered a new night of hell as Ukraine signalled its new advantage in the war. Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces sent FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles on a 1,000 mile mission to massively damage a key Putin military plant in Cheboksary. Amid a night of failures by Russian air defences, another refinery – Novokuibyshevsk – was also blitzed in the Samara region.
Two more oil facilities named Lobkovo and Vtorovo, linked to pumping fuel to Moscow and northwestern Russia, were struck and damaged by Ukrainian drones in the Vladimir region, risking further petrol pump shortages. In a key strike, Ukraine blocked traffic by damaging another bridge connecting the Arabat Spit to the mainland in the Kherson region as part of a bombing campaign that is curtailing Putin’s supply access to the jewel of his Ukrainian invasion – the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which he has held since 2014.
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LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine.
The U.K., France and Germany, the so-called E3 group of European nations, have been prominent backers of Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The U.K. and France lead the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process.
The meeting on Sunday evening comes in the wake of a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack that targeted Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, underscoring Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia. Gov. Alexander Beglov said three people sustained minor injuries in Saturday’s attack, during which residents were advised to stay indoors.
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A French fighter jet shot down a drone that entered NATO ally Latvia’s airspace from Russia on Monday, the latest security incident along Europe’s eastern border while Russia wages war on Ukraine.
NATO command ordered the shoot-down after it was determined that Russia had used electromagnetic warfare in the area, Latvian Defense Minister Raivis Melnis told reporters. The drone was brought down Monday morning near the village of Berzgale, roughly 20 miles from the border. No property damage or injuries were reported.
The U.S. House has passed a funding bill for the Ukraine War in the amount of $18 billion. The bill passed 226-195 with the help of 18 Republicans who crossed party lines to help the Democrats pass the funding bill.
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Russia has accidentally dropped at least 25 glide bombs on its own territory and within occupied Ukraine this year, British military officials said in their latest assessment of the conflict in Ukraine.
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A Russian drone struck an apartment building in NATO-member Romania, its defence ministry said on Friday, wounding two people in a city near the Ukrainian border.
“During the night of May 28–29, the Russian Federation resumed drone attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, near the river border with Romania,” the Romanian defence ministry said, condemning an “irresponsible escalation”.
“One of these drones entered Romanian airspace, was tracked by radar as far as the southern part of the city of Galati, and crashed onto the roof of an apartment building, with the impact triggering a fire,” it said.
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KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone that was part of an overnight attack on Ukraine crashed into an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people, Romanian authorities said Friday.
In response to the crash, NATO member Romania asked the alliance for a faster transfer of anti-drone capabilities, the Foreign Ministry said, calling the drone’s flight a serious violation of international law.
Ukrainian forces shot down 217 drones overnight on Friday according to the country’s air force. In total, Russia attacked with 232 drones and one ballistic missile. Hits were recorded in 14 areas, the air force said.
The drone was tracked by radar in Romanian airspace and crashed onto the roof of a
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Ukraine has a list of 500 targets in Belarus ready if Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko joins the war with Vladimir Putin, a senior Ukrainian military commander has warned.
Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, advised Belarus against interfering in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
“To the Minsk Gauleiter Lukashesku: a barking dog does not bite. A bird of prey is different. The first 500 targets are already on the list. Free and very practical advice: don’t get in Ukraine’s way,” Brovdi said in a Facebook post, as reported by Ukrinform.
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Entire residential buildings were demolished in Ukraine’s capital as Russian launched a “massive and virtually nonstop” aerial barrage on Kyiv and other major cities over the last two nights, according to Ukrainian officials. They said more than 1,500 drones and over 50 missiles were launched in the last two days.
At least seven people were killed in Kyiv, many in a strike that leveled an apartment building overnight, while 20 more remain missing, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy said he had met with his top staff on Thursday about “a massive and virtually nonstop Russian attack that lasted nearly 48 hours.”
“This is a deliberate terrorist tactic by the Russians, who amassed drones and missiles over a period of time and intentionally calculated the strike so that its scale would be significant, creating the greatest possible difficulties for our air defense,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
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What happens when the Arctic starts to look like the South China Sea?
Historically, a neutral region where cooperation prevailed, the Arctic is quickly becoming a contested space. This is no more evident than in the increasing scope and volume of Russian and Chinese lawfare affecting the region. Through excessive maritime regulations, coordinated challenges to Western continental shelf claims, and the use of shadow fleets to avoid accountability, Russia and China are increasingly coordinating their efforts to exert influence and challenge Western claims to Arctic resources and freedom of navigation. As these tactics continue to converge, the United States and its partners — Arctic and non-Arctic — should establish clear strategies to respond and counter or risk ceding control of this critical region to those who seek to reshape the law in their favor.
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One person each in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions were killed in Russian drone attacks, regional governors and police said in separate reports on Sunday.
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, governor Oleh Syniehubov said eight people, including two children, were wounded in drone strikes on the regional capital and nearby settlements.
Seven people, including a child, were also wounded in the Kherson region in drone or artillery attacks since early Saturday, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Sunday.
The State Emergencies Service said Russian forces attacked one of its rescue vehicles in the Dnipropetrovsk region with a drone, wounding a 23-year-old driver.
Kyiv’s air force said Russia had launched 27 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight – a lower number than usual – but that air defences had downed all of them.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Sunday afternoon that nearly 210 clashes had taken place along the sprawling, 1,200-km front line since early Saturday.
