92 m. ago Ukraine war briefing: Drones hit Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery

Russian attacks kill four on Saturday; Serbian government faces deadline to oust Russian owners from state oil company. What we know on day 1,362 Ukraine’s army said on Saturday it struck a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region near Moscow, as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”. Explosions and a large fire were observed at the site, said the military. Ryazan is located about 200km (125 miles) south-east of Moscow.Russian officials often do not admit such attacks have succeeded, and the Ryazan governor, Pavel Malkov, adopted the standard line that Ukrainian drones were shot down but debris happened to hit the target. “Falling debris caused a fire on the premises of one enterprise,” Malkov said. A wave of 25 Ukrainian drones attacked the region, Malkov said.Officials in southern Ukraine said four people were killed by Russian attacks on Saturday. Prosecutors in the Kherson region said “three civilians are known to have been killed” i...

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57 h. ago Putin's savage army as officers kill their men 'for sport' and fight each other to the death

Russia's army in Ukraine is turning on itself, with escalating reports of soldiers deliberately slaughtering their own comrades amid the brutal 'meat grinder' offensive that costs 1,000 lives each day

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65 h. ago Ukraine's army chief visits besieged city as Zelenskyy confronts graft scandal

Ukraine’s top military commander says he has visited troops holding the front line in the key eastern city of Pokrovsk, which is besieged by a bigger Russian force, to coordinate operations in person

Politics

1 week ago Shocking new footage emerges from Sudan showing laughing gunmen machine

Shocking new footage has emerged from Sudan showing laughing gunmen machine-gunning innocent civilians in the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher.

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1 week ago Blood spilled in Sudan can be seen from space. Nobody can feign ignorance about what’s going on | Nesrine Malik

The massacres carried out by the RSF in El Fasher, Darfur, with the support of its UAE sponsors, will only stop when the international community actsIt unfolded in plain sight over 18 months. The city of El Fasher in the Darfur region of Sudan, besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fell to the militia group last week, and what has followed is a catastrophe.Mass killings are under way. There are reports that in one maternity hospital alone almost 500 people – patients and their families – were killed. The few that managed to escape tell of summary executions of civilians. The RSF has embarked on a killing spree of civilians so severe that images of blood saturating the ground have been picked up by satellite. The speed and intensity of the killings in the immediate aftermath of the fall of El Fasher has already been compared by war monitors to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide. Continue reading...

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1 week ago He told the world what was happening in El Fasher. Then they sought him out. How Sudan lost ‘a true hero of the war’

For months, Mohamed Khamis Douda shared accounts of what life was like under siege. He was killed when RSF fighters finally took the Darfur city, raising fears activists and civil society figures are being hunted downFor months, militiamen on the perimeters of El Fasher have asked those few who managed to escape the besieged Sudanese city whether Mohamed Khamis Douda was still inside. They shared videos threatening to kill him, which, as they hoped, made their way to the activist.Even as the hunger and fear of living under siege and bombardment made him desperate to leave, Douda remained inside El Fasher, constantly working to let the outside world know what was happening to the people there. Then, on Sunday 26 October, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces overran the city and it was too late. His friends and family have confirmed to the Guardian that Douda has been killed.Monday 4 AugustI awake each morning tired from the efforts of the previous day. Our first struggle is the ...

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2 w. ago Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine says its troops still holding out in embattled Pokrovsk

Ukraine military says it has improved positions in several districts, while Moscow says its troops are enclosing in on Ukrainian forces. What we know on day 1,348Ukraine’s top military commander said his troops were still holding out in the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow said its forces were at last enclosing in a pincer movement after more than a year of fighting. “We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Facebook on Saturday. “A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing.” Ukraine’s military said that it had improved its positions in some districts. Kyiv is raising the number of its assault troops in the area, the 7th Rapid Response Corps said on Facebook, adding that the situation remained “difficult and dynamic”. Capturing Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, would be the most important Russian territorial gain inside Ukraine since Moscow took the ruined city of Avdiivka in early 2...

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2 w. ago Russian army chiefs torturing and executing soldiers who refuse to fight in Ukraine, report says

Investigation lists 101 superiors accused of tactics such as using drones to ‘finish’ off retreating troops and sending soldiers on death missionsRussian commanders are executing or deliberately sending to their deaths soldiers who refuse to fight in Ukraine, according to a new investigation by the independent outlet Verstka, which paints a bleak picture of internal violence within the Russian army.Drawing on testimonies from serving soldiers, relatives of the dead, leaked videos and official complaint records, Verstka said it had identified 101 Russian servicemen accused of murdering, torturing or fatally punishing their own comrades. The outlet said it had verified at least 150 deaths, though they said they believed the true tally to be far higher. Continue reading...

Sport

2 w. ago Putin claims Russian troops have surrounded 2 Ukrainian cities but Ukraine says that's not true

Russian President Vladimir Putin is claiming that Ukrainian forces are surrounded by the Russian army in two key eastern cities and is offering to negotiate a deal for their surrender

Politics

2 w. ago Grave fears for civilians after Sudanese paramilitary claims capture of El Fasher

RSF says it has seized control of army’s main base in Darfur, home to famine-stricken displacement campFears are growing for hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in El Fasher after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said it had captured the city, which it has been besieging for more than a year in Sudan’s civil war.The group said on Sunday that it had seized control of the army’s main base in the city in Darfur, where famine was declared in a displacement camp last year. It then released a statement saying it had “extended control over the city of El Fasher from the grip of mercenaries and militias”. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Why Russians are fighting against Russia: ‘Putin has not only ruined Ukraine, he’s ruined my country’

Sam Kiley meets Russian volunteers in Ukraine’s army near the southern front line who explain why they turned on Vladimir Putin - and how they’re happy to kill their countrymen

Politics

3 w. ago Field Marshal Lords Richards on Ukraine, the Iraq dodgy dossier and breaking ranks in Sierra Leone

Britain’s most senior army officer has warned Ukraine cannot win the war against Russia.

Politics

4 w. ago Ukraine cannot win against Russia, warns top British army chief

Field Marshal Lord Richards tells The Independent’s Sam Kiley that Ukraine has been given false hope by its Western allies and cannot triumph against Russia unless Nato forces join fight

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