Tag: russian
Russian troops are forced to use SHOVELS during hand-to-hand combat in Ukraine
Activists paint a giant Ukrainian flag outside the Russian Embassy in London
![A cyclist passes over a giant Ukrainian flag painted over the Russian Embassy in London. Caption reads: Colored Activism](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/videos/01Y6ey9JwbClOWMoN4hKdPg/hero-image.jpg)
The road of the Russian Embassy in London was painted with the colors of the Ukrainian flag on Thursday. Marking the eve of the one-year anniversary since Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine, Led By Donkeys, originally an anti-Brexit art and activist group, poured hundreds of liters of blue and yellow paint on Bayswater Road to remind Russian president Vladimir Putin that Ukraine is “‘an independent state and a people with every right to self-determination.” Since then, a section of Bayswater Road has been renamed to Kyiv Road.
Feb. 24 marks a year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has displaced over 13 million people and caused over 18,000 civilian casualties.
Four arrests at London’s Russian embassy as protesters paint massive Ukraine flag on road
Tortured and unable to walk: Briton describes being held captive by Russian forces in Ukraine
Russian spy working in British embassy in Berlin jailed for more than 13 years
I pumped a Russian soldier full of lead after he killed my comrade, says Brit fighting for Ukraine in BBC doc
A BRIT fighting behind enemy lines in Ukraine says he pumped a Russian soldier full of lead at close range.
Civilian James Dee said only seconds earlier, the enemy had killed his medic pal Craig Mackintosh, 48, in a surprise attack.
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Recalling the deadly encounter in the eastern city of Kharkiv, James told the BBC the Russian was only “10 metres away” when he opened fire.
The volunteer fighter, who had no previous military experience, revealed: “One of my friends was digging a trench and I was sitting on the edge.
“You know when you get that feeling someone’s behind you, I looked behind me, surely enough, there was someone there.
“He was only 10m away from me, looking all confused.”
James said he saw the attackers “face change” before he made eye contact “with me”.
The Brit screamed “put your gun down” but in a flash the enemy dropped to the floor, opened fire and a frantic firefight exploded.
James unloaded six shots into the attacker, killing him, but it was too late.
Craig, a landscape gardener from Thetford, in Norfolk, who had joined volunteers in August, was dead.
It is believed he was hit in the neck.
Recalling the aftermath, James said: “I looked down and I’ll be honest, I cried. Not because I was scared.
“But seeing it up close and personal, you’re talking with someone, having a laugh and life’s just gone within the click of the fingers.”
I didn’t find out until the day before he was going… I was gutted
Adrian Macrow, Craig’s brother
Craig had two daughters and two step-daughters and had served in the Territorial Army between the ages of 16 to 23 when he had the ambition of becoming a full time soldier.
But an inoperable cyst near his brain meant he failed a medical examination to join the British Army.
After an accident involving a chainsaw left him in constant pain, he decided to volunteer to join the Ukrainian war effort as a medic, leaving the UK on March 24.
He returned briefly in April for a spell of leave before starting a second tour with a volunteer squad in August.
He died on August 25.
‘CRUSHED’
James’s brutal account was revealed in the documentary ‘Brits in Battle: Ukraine’, availiable on BBC iPlayer.
The show features Craig’s broken family, including brother Adrian Macrow who was “crushed” by Craig’s death.
He said: “I didn’t find out until the day before he was going… I was gutted.
“Even on the way to the airport just anything to get him home, but he had his heart set on it.”
Daughter Kiya Mackintosh said her dad’s August 25 death “didn’t feel real” but she praised him as “courageous” for his actions.
Vladimir Putin has already LOST the Ukraine war says top US general as elite Russian unit wiped out for third time
VLADIMIR Putin’s has already lost the war in Ukraine, America’s top general has said.
General Mark Milley said the Russians were “paying an enormous price on the battlefield” as an elite unit has now been wiped out for the the third time in the Ukraine war.
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A picture showing Russian tanks destroyed after an attack near Vuhledar[/caption]
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General Mark Milley said Russia has already lost the Ukraine war[/caption]
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Ukrainian troops stationed in Vuhledar have been under intense fire since January[/caption]
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The aftermath of heavy bombing in the region[/caption]
The huge loss of Russian troops happened during their attempted siege of Vuhledar, a strategic hamlet in Donetsk.
The elite 155th naval infantry were obliterated like “turkeys in a shooting range” as it stormed the mining town, trying to seize the high ground.
General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a NATO meeting: “Russia has lost.
“They’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield
“Until Putin ends his war of choice, the international community will continue to support Ukraine with the equipment and capabilities it needs.”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin echoed the view that the Russians were throwing troops into the meat grinder.
“We see Russia introducing a number of new troops to the battlefield.
“Many of those troops are ill-trained and ill-equipped, and so their casualty rate has been really high.”
Colonel Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said: “The 155th brigade already had to be restaffed three times.
“And now almost the entire brigade has been destroyed.
“The first time after Irpin and Bucha; the second time they were defeated near Donetsk – they recovered again.
“And now almost the entire brigade has already been destroyed near Vuhledar.”
The fighting around Vuhledar has seen one of the heaviest concentrated military losses the Kremlin has suffered since the war began on February 24.
According to POLITICO, the marine brigade of 5,000 men was wiped out.
Russian forces were reportedly losing 150 to 300 marines a day since the planned offensive began in January.
Ukrainian officials claimed the swathe of enemy troops were killed, wounded or captured.
The catastrophic losses come just days after footage emerged of 31 Russian vehicles being blitzed as they encroached the region.
The total carnage and tactical failures were lambasted by Russian hardliners.
Igor Girkin, a Russian former intelligence officer, called for public show trials to punish incompetent generals responsible for the battlefield embarrassments.
Girkin said: “Some of them are complete cretins – all the mistakes that were made before, were repeated.”
During the battle, Ukrainians held higher ground and were able to pick off the marines.
Girkin described the scene “like turkeys in a shooting range”.
The mining town, home to 14,000 people before the war, sits on high ground close to the only rail link between Crimea and Donetsk.
It was fortified with Ukrainian artillery after withstanding three months of attacks from the Spetsnaz special forces, armoured battalions and infantry troops.
The heaviest waves of assault came last week, leading to the bloodbath of marines.
Evgeny Nazarenko, a spokesman for one of the Ukrainian units involved, said the Russian advances were easily spotted from high-rise buildings where they were positioned.
He said: “We are at the top and they are at the bottom.
“They are perfectly visible.”
Ukrainian forces also published a video of Russian troops piling up on the battlefield as they approached Vuhledar from open fields.
During the video, a Ukrainian gunner can be heard saying: “Go make a cemetery.
“Gosh, the first column went there and blew up and then the second one went exactly the same route.”
Tom Cooper, a military historian who has studied the battle, described Vuhledar as “a big, tall fortress in the middle of an empty, flat desert”.
The shameful defeat comes just days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said his troops had control of the area.
Kyiv’s Defence Ministry responded with a video showing the destruction of a Russian military column in the area.
The footage showed Russian tanks driving into minefields, bombs destroying armoured vehicles, panic-stricken troops and bodies of soldiers strewn across the ground.
Ukrainian officials claimed the majority of the losses were from the Pacific Fleet’s 155th Marine Brigade, based at Vladivostok.
The 155th became infamous for looting around Kyiv last year.
The brigade was nicknamed Russia’s “unhappiest” unit after suffering heavy losses in several failed attacks.
Russian eastern commander, Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, was blamed for the mass casualties.
A group of hardline military bloggers and media channels close to Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin have launched an online tirade slamming Muradov.
One social media channel linked to Wagner threatened Muradov with assassination after calling him a “sissy b****”.
Another blogger with half a million followers demanded public trials “to punish officers, especially high-ranking officers, who over and over again demonstrate failures on the battlefield”.
The chronic failures in Vuhledar has damaged Putin’s bravado, who has repeatedly claimed a massive “new offensive” is coming in weeks to coincide with the first anniversary of the war.
The Kremlin is believed to have hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of tanks, and hundreds of warplanes preparing for the new assault.
Putin has also ordered that by next month his troops should fully occupy the Donetsk region.
Currently, half of the city is under Russian control.
However, the Vuhledar fiasco has encouraged Kyiv to believe Moscow has failed to heal divisions among senior commanders.
Oleksandr V Danylyuk, head of the Centre for Defence Reforms think-tank in Kyiv, told the Daily Mail: “This is a serious setback with huge losses from one brigade.
“If they continue to use their troops in this way, it could lead to a collapse of Russian military forces during their expected major offensive.”
Vuhledar is about 100 miles from Bakhmut, the epicentre of the war’s fiercest fighting for several months.
Both sides have sustained heavy losses there after Russia hurled vast numbers of conscripts and prisoner recruits into “the meat grinder”.
Ukraine officials claim 824 Russian soldiers are dying on average a day.
That is four times higher than rates seen last summer.
The British Ministry of Defence confirmed the figure as “likely accurate”.
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Fierce Ukrainian soldier march towards Donetsk[/caption]
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Aerial footage of Vuhledar[/caption]
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Ukrainian gunners have been fending off Russian advances in the region[/caption]
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The town has been totally destroyed as a result of the war[/caption]
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Two Russian tanks stopped in their tracks[/caption]
A second Russian spacecraft docked at the ISS is leaking coolant
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but a Russian spacecraft docked with the International Space Station has sprung a leak. On Saturday morning, Russia’s Roscosmos space agency disclosed on Telegram that a Progress cargo ship docked with the ISS had lost cabin pressure. NASA later said the depressurization was due to a coolant leak.
“The reason for the loss of coolant in the Progress 82 spacecraft is being investigated,” NASA announced. “The hatches between Progress 82 and the station are open, and temperatures and pressures aboard the station are all normal. The crew, which was informed of the cooling loop leak, is in no danger and continuing with normal space station operations.”
Per Space.com, Progress 82 arrived at the ISS on October 28th. Before Saturday’s announcement, the spacecraft was scheduled to leave the station on February 17th. It’s unclear if Roscosmos will move forward with that timeline as originally planned. Russia’s Progress spacecraft are designed to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere after they complete their resupply missions, meaning there’s no way for Roscosmos to investigate the leak on the ground. The timing of the discovery comes on the same day that a second Progress spacecraft docked with the ISS, and less than two months after another Russian spacecraft sprung a leak at the space station.
In December, Russia’s Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft began leaking coolant just as cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev were preparing for a nearly seven-hour spacewalk. Roscosmos later blamed the incident on an apparent meteoroid strike. Unless there’s an emergency at the ISS, Roscosmos has deemed the spacecraft unfit to transport humans. The agency will launch another Soyuz craft later this month to bring Petelin and Prokopyev, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, back to Earth.
Ars Technica’s Eric Berger points out, the Progress incident raises doubts about whether Soyuz MS-22 was actually hit by a micrometeorite. Russia never released images of the impact, and the country’s space program has a history of recent issues. In 2021, for instance, Roscosmos blamed a software bug on the Nauka misfiring that temporarily moved the ISS out of its usual orientation.