Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged it has documented numerous cases of Russian soldiers committing war crimes against Ukrainian civilians in the occupied areas of Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Kyiv. In an April 3 report, the HRW said it had found a case of “repeated rape,” two cases of “summary execution”—one of six men and the other of one man—and unlawful violence and threats against civilians between February 27 and March 14....
Both the Antonivsky road bridge and Kherson rail bridge over the Dnipro River have been heavily damaged, and are “likely unusable for heavy military vehicles” according to U.K. intelligence. The two bridges connect Russian forces in the occupied city of Kherson, on the north-west bank of the Dnipro, with the main Russian controlled area to the south-east. Ukrainian troops have been launching attacks in a bid to retake Kherson, which had a population of nearly 300,000 before the war....
In its Monday intelligence update on the Ukraine war, the British Defense Ministry tweeted that despite the Ukrainian counter offensive in the southern region of Kherson, Russia’s main efforts in Ukraine “almost certainly remain its Donbas offensive operation.” It said Russian forces’ main advance in the Donbas was at Avdiivka near Donetsk City, and, 37 miles to the north, around Bakhmut. “Although Russia has had the most success in this sector, its forces have still only been advancing around 1km per week towards Bakhmut,” the ministry said....
Sergey Protosenya, a 55-year-old Russian gas oligarch, was found dead in his apartment in Spain’s Catalonia region, the Spanish news site, El Punt Avui reported on Wednesday. According to reports, Protosenya’s wife and daughter were also found dead in the apartment, which led Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra investigate police force to theorize that Protosenya stabbed his wife and daughter to death and then hung himself. However, shortly after the news of Protosenya’s death was reported, Novatek, a natural gas producer in Russia, appeared to contradict reports that it was a murder-suicide....
As William Shakespeare once wrote: “The course of true love never did run smooth.” That certainly appears to have been the case for Emily Temple and her family. Emily’s partner went all out to plan the perfect way to pop the question, even getting their young child to hand him the ring as they strolled along an idyllic beach. However, as the video uploaded to TikTok by Temple shows, it didn’t quite go according to plan....
Marko Cheseto, 35, finished 613th overall out of nearly 53,000 runners at the New York City Marathon, the Anchorage Daily News reported Sunday. Two days later, he became a U.S. citizen. Cheseto, who is from Kenya, went to Anchorage in 2008 on an athletic scholarship, quickly earning honors in track and cross country. Grieving the death of another Anchorage runner from Kenya, Cheseto disappeared in the woods near campus in November 2011 — his senior year of school....
Also discussed: Who would you take in a March Madness bracket of 64 milers going head-to-head? Check out the bracket. Chavez shares the latest on Tyson Gay’s coaching move to Los Angeles under John Smith. Will we see Tyson Gay in a Nike uniform ahead of the 2015 outdoor season? (7:30) After winning the Lisbon Half Marathon, is Mo Farah in the conversation for a world record hunt in 2016?...
And a good thing, too, if true: it would test the elasticity of the American political system for a president to get much lower than Clinton had lurched so early in his term. Last week the president appeared buoyant, confident once more during a run of public appearances-so comfortable, and, for the most part, convincing that one wondered where this guy, the Bill Clinton America thought it had elected president, had been hiding the last few months....
Limbaugh, 69, closed his nationally syndicated show today by revealing to his listeners that he had been diagnosed with advanced cancer earlier this month. “I have to tell you something today that I wish I didn’t have to tell you. It’s a struggle for me, because I had to inform my staff earlier today,” he said. “I can’t help but feel that I’m letting everybody down with. The upshot is that I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer....
Iranian naval commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi confirmed Sunday that Iran and Russia had signed their first-ever memorandum of understanding regarding inter-military affairs last week during his visit to Moscow. He also briefly discussed joint military exercises he previously said at the time would be held in the northern Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman. “Soon the preparations and maneuvers’ planning will start and they will be conducted this year,” Khanzadi said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency, which reported in English that the training could be carried by March 2020....
Experts at Norway-based Rystad Energy found that a new liquified natural gas (LNG) facility northwest of St. Petersburg, near Russia’s border with Finland, is burning an estimated $10 million worth of gas every day, causing waste and environmental damage as energy costs soar, BBC News reported. The LNG plant is located close to a compressor station at the start of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which transports gas to Germany under the sea via a Baltic Sea pipeline....
Russia opened the scoring in the third minute through Viktor Vasin, but Kevin Mirallas levelled for Belgium from the penalty spot and Christian Benteke scored twice to give the visitors a commanding advantage at halftime. Russia pulled one back 15 minutes from the end through substitute Aleksey Miranchuk and then snatched a morale-boosting equaliser. It was a much-improved performance from Russia, whose recent results were sounding increasingly loud alarm bells ahead of next year’s tournament....
The Ministry of Defence provided an update on the situation in Ukraine on Monday, September 19 and explained its findings on Twitter. The intelligence body also highlighted the air force’s desire for greater risk may be a consequence of Ukraine pushing back against Russian forces on the ground. “Russia has highly likely lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to approximately 55 since the start of the invasion,” the post read....
Reports that the Moskva was seriously damaged by a blast came from both Ukrainian authorities and Russia’s defense ministry. Maksym Marchenko, governor of Odessa Oblast and former commander of a battalion of Ukrainian ground forces, wrote on Telegram that the Russian vessel was hit by two Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles, which caused “very serious damage.” Reuters journalist Idrees Ali reported on Thursday that a senior U.S. defense official said that some Russian seacraft had been moved back from Ukraine’s coast after the reported strike....
The British defense ministry said in an intelligence update Wednesday that Ukrainian armored forces have continued to assault Russian troops on several axes across the south of the country since Monday. “Ukrainian formations have pushed the front line back some distance in places, exploiting relatively thinly held Russian defences,” the ministry said. Ukraine’s counter-offensive to retake the Kherson region from Russian forces intensified this week. Kyiv said Monday that Ukraine successfully breached the “first line of defense of the Russians on the Kherson front....
Only Eritrea joined Russia in voting against the resolution as 32 countries of the 47-member body based in Geneva, Switzerland, voted in favor of establishing an independent commission to investigate the allegations against Russia. Thirteen countries abstained from the vote, including some nations generally considered close to Russia. China, Cuba and Venezuela all abstained. Cuba and China also abstained in a vote of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that called for Russia to remove its troops from Ukraine....
Kelly, who served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) on three separate missions, had on Sunday criticized Rogozin for sharing footage of international flags being stripped from a Russian rocket; a sign of deteriorating international relations with Russia amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Kelly had said that Russia’s space program, overseen by its Roscosmos space agency, “won’t be worth a damn” without international partners. Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, has hit out at international sanctions against Russia in recent days and weeks and blamed the country’s increasingly isolated space industry on the actions of other nations....
Moscow’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, made these remarks following reports Russian officials and companies will be hit with punitive measures. These are reportedly due to be implemented to punish the Kremlin for a cybersecurity hack on U.S. government departments, targeting SolarWinds software, and interference in the 2020 U.S. election. Russia has denied being behind these actions. Sources quoted by Bloomberg and Reuters said that up to 30 so far unnamed entities will be sanctioned....
The comments came from Oleg Bocharov, Russia’s deputy minister of Industry and Trade, speaking earlier this month at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. During an address on “Air transport accessibility of the Far East in conditions of turbulence,” he said: “Together with the Ministry of Transport, we must train and certify pilots as universal fighters: they must simultaneously be pilots and aircraft technicians. And the equipment should provide for the possibility of field repairs in operation....
Recent images from U.S.-based based company Maxar Technologies show that the 40-mile-long convoy of tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery has largely moved into nearby towns and forests after being stalled north of Kyiv for about a week. In an intelligence update on Friday, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said that the repositioning showed that the Russian military was “likely seeking to reset and re-posture its forces for renewed offensive activity in the coming days,” which “will probably include operations against the capital Kyiv....
