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☆ Factbox: Who is Russia's new war commander Gerasimov and why was he appointed?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Gerasimov's deputies will be Army General Sergei Surovikin, the previous theatre commander, appointed three months ago and nicknamed "General Armageddon"; Army General Oleg Salyukov; and Deputy Chief of the General Staff Colonel-General Alexei Kim. "Now the General Staff is directly and uncompromisingly responsible for absolutely everything," said Semyon Pegov, a Russian military blogger who uses the name Wargonzo. Gerasimov was appointed chief of the general staff and deputy defence minister by Putin on Nov. 9, 2012, three days after Putin's long-time ally Sergei Shoigu was made defence minister. Gerasimov played key roles in Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and in Russia's game-changing military support for President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War. Gerasimov was born on Sept. 8, 1955, in Kazan, rising through the ranks from Russia's tank forces to graduate in 1997 from the Military Academy of the General Staff.

☆ Russia appoints top soldier Gerasimov to oversee Ukraine campaign
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Summary Gerasimov to oversee military campaign in UkraineLatest reshuffle follows more battlefield setbacksGerasimov has been target of Russian pro-war criticsJan 11 (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu appointed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov on Wednesday to oversee the military campaign in Ukraine, in the latest shake-up of Moscow's military leadership. In a statement, the defence ministry said Shoigu had appointed Gerasimov as commander of the combined forces group for the "special military operation" in Ukraine. Surovikin will now stay on as a deputy of Gerasimov, the defence ministry said. As the unified commander in Ukraine, Surovikin was becoming very powerful and was likely bypassing Shoigu/Gerasimov when talking to Putin," Lee said. Russian and Ukrainian forces were engaged in intense fighting on Wednesday over the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, a stepping stone in Moscow's push to capture the entire Donbas region.

☆ Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a 'savage' battle, 'trading' them and others for bullets, US official says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russian forces are sending prisoners to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire around the war-torn city of Bakhmut. Moscow's applying a classic tactic of "trading individuals for bullets," a senior US military official said. The official added that Moscow's current tactic of "trading individuals for bullets" has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. "You're talking about thousands upon thousands of artillery rounds that have been delivered between both sides," the official said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly address on Monday that Russia has concentrated its "greatest efforts" on Soledar.

☆ Fact Check-Chechen general referred to 2.5 million Russians, not Chechens
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

There is currently no evidence to support the claim that over 2.5 million Chechens are preparing to fight against Russia, contrary to rumors circulating online. The region’s leader did call in September for marshalling some 2.5 million law enforcement personnel from all parts of Russia to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as discussed in Reuters articles (here), (here) and (here). The population of Chechnya is estimated at just over 1.5 million (here) , (here) and (here). There is no evidence that an army of 2.5 million Chechens is preparing to fight against Russia.

☆ Pro-Putin operatives in Germany work to turn Berlin against Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +17 min

Now the main Russian Cossack organisations are loyal to Putin, and they are fighting alongside Russia’s forces in Ukraine. He is regularly pictured on his and other social media pages at Cossack gatherings, often wearing Cossack military uniform. Felk has worked as a security guard and has run a logistics firm, according to posts on Felk’s OK social media account. Photos shared by Kharkovsky on social media show him and other participants standing in front of a Great Don Army flag. Eremenko confirmed to Reuters that he worked for Russian military intelligence, the GRU.

☆ Here’s a list of Putin critics who've ended up dead
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Jeremy Wilson | Taylor Ardrey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Here's a list of people who have been critical of Putin and the Russian president is suspected of assassinating:Top editors give you the stories you want — delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Anna PolitkovskayaAnna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist who was critical of Putin. In her book "Putin's Russia," she accused Putin of turning his country into a police state. She specialised in uncovering human-rights abuses carried out by the Russian state in Chechnya. Sergei YushenkovSergei Yushenkov was a Russian politician who was attempting to prove the Russian state was behind the bombing of an apartment block.

☆ A Russian tank unit deliberately attacked another Russian position in Ukraine, report says, illustrating vicious rivalries within Putin's army
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Russian tank unit attacked another Russian position in Ukraine following an argument, the NYT said. The incident demonstrates the vicious in-fighting that has plagued Vladimir Putin's military. A Russian drone operator who said he witnessed the episode told the paper that a Russian tank commander drove his T-90 tank toward a group of Russian national guard troops, fired at their checkpoint and blew it up. The Russian military appears to have limited coordination with any of them, officials said, according to the paper. Prigozhin echoed the sentiment, the paper said, commenting about Russian military generals: "Send all these pieces of garbage barefoot with machine guns straight to the front."

Since the early days of the invasion, Mr. Putin has conceded, privately, that the war has not gone as planned. “I think he is sincerely willing” to compromise with Russia, Mr. Putin said of Mr. Zelensky in 2019. To join in Mr. Putin’s war, he has recruited prisoners, trashed the Russian military and competed with it for weapons. To join in Mr. Putin’s war, he has recruited prisoners, trashed the Russian military and competed with it for weapons. “I think this war is Putin’s grave.” Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, a Russian prisoner of war held by Ukraine, in October.

But they fear a harsh new anti-gay law passed by Russian lawmakers will leave them little choice. As the Kremlin prepared to finalize the expansion of the 2013 discriminatory anti-gay law, members of the LGBTQ community in Russia told CNN they feared the uncertain future ahead. Activists say a new legislative package that beefs up an existing anti-gay law is a threat to LGBTQ people in Russia. And it’s just reducing the space within which a non-heterosexual existence can comfortably take place in Russia,” Healey told CNN. Yulia Alyoshina, Russia's first transgender politician, said the new law was discriminatory and would make life tougher for Russia's LGBTQ community.

☆ Ukraine conflict spurs some Russians to seek Kalashnikov training
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Guy Faulconbridge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] A woman takes part in an initial military training for civilians at the sports and patriotic club "Yaropolk" in Krasnogorsk outside Moscow, Russia December 3, 2022. Russia, Putin says, is defending Russians in Ukraine against a decadent West that ultimately wants to carve up Russia's vast resources and eradicate Russian civilisation. The club's videos show training to a popular song with the lyrics: "Be afraid - we, the Russians, are coming." Directorate "A", known as Alpha Group, is one of Russia's most elite special forces units. Russia presents the conflict in Ukraine as an attempt to root out neo-Nazis who Moscow says have persecuted Russian speakers.

☆ Putin's war in Ukraine looks more and more like a failure. Past Russian leaders haven't survived similar mistakes.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Joy Neumeyer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Instead, Russia's failing war effort has raised doubts about Putin's hold on power. For now, Putin looks secure, but past Russian leaders have suffered at home for blunders abroad. By the following summer, the Germans had taken huge swathes of Russian-controlled territory and a million Russian soldiers were dead. Captured Russian soldiers after the defeat at Tannenberg, in present-day Poland, on August 30, 1914. After an ineffectual troop surge, Gorbachev gave up on trying to improve the situation, and the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989.

☆ Vatican website down in suspected hacker attack
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

VATICAN CITY, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The official Vatican website was taken offline on Wednesday following an apparent hacking attack, the Holy See said. "Technical investigations are ongoing due to abnormal attempts to access the site," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, without giving any further information. The suspected hack came a day after Moscow criticised Pope Francis's latest condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In an interview with a Jesuit magazine, the pope had singled out troops from Chechnya and other ethnic minorities in Russia for their particular "cruelty" during the war. Reporting by Crispian Balmer Editing by Gareth JonesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/3] Members of the pro-Ukrainian Chechen battalion check an area, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Bakhmut, Ukraine November 11, 2022. Maga, his nom-de-guerre, is part of a unit of Chechen fighters helping Ukraine battle Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. "We're not fighting just for the sake of fighting," said Maga, who declined to give his real name for security reasons. That has not extinguished hope among Kadyrov's opponents, including Chechens fighting Russian forces in Ukraine, that the authoritarian "power vertical" which Putin has built could crumble if Moscow lost in Ukraine. "The armed forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria are being renewed here today," he told the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Oct. 24.

Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed "General Armageddon" by the Russian media for his reputed ruthlessness, on Nov. 9 recommended Moscow's forces quit Kherson and the west bank of the River Dnipro where they were dangerously exposed. Simonyan urged Surovikin, a hulking shaven-headed figure who has been shown on TV speaking in clipped Russian military language, to ignore "nonsense" from critics, a reference to influential military bloggers unhappy about his retreat. Nor is taking new ground in the east against a highly motivated and Western-equipped Ukrainian military an easy task, especially in the winter. The appointment of Surovikin on Oct. 8 was the first time Russia had publicly named an overall commander for its forces in Ukraine. With the exception of the city of Lysychansk, in eastern Ukraine, he said all the territory Russia held looked defensible.

☆ Russian soldiers in plain clothes are reportedly lingering in Kherson amid fears the retreat is a ploy to ambush Ukrainian troops
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russian troops in plain clothes are reportedly lingering in Kherson. Shortly after, a woman in Kherson told BBC News, "I've seen the announcement and I'm really surprised." Ukraine's military earlier this week warned that Russian troops in plain clothes were being moved into homes in Kherson to prepare for street fighting. Russia relocated thousands of Ukrainian civilians from the city as Ukrainian forces gradually advanced. The Russian leader later acknowledged that the mysterious armed men were indeed Russian troops.

☆ A failed war helped bring down the Soviet Union. Now Putin's failing war in Ukraine might set Russia up for a bleak future.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Joy Neumeyer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

The Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan and Russia's current war in Ukraine have obvious similarities in their disastrous planning and execution. In the 1990s, Afghanistan veterans' sense of aggrievement fused with that of veterans returning from Boris Yeltsin's war in Chechnya. Putin's war, Russia's futurePutin meets soldiers at a military training center outside the town of Ryazan in October. While glasnost-era revelations about the Soviet war shocked the country into supporting withdrawal, these days there is little left to expose. Public self-criticism surrounding the Soviet war in Afghanistan, however brief and contested, shows that reassessment of imperial ambitions is possible.

☆ Putin's time in the KGB taught him 'how to lie' and to think like a terrorist, ex-spies say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Putin's time in the KGB helps explain his worldview and brutal approach to warfare, ex-spies say. A former KGB agent told Insider the biggest thing Putin learned from the Soviet spy agency was "how to lie." But ex-spies and Russia experts told Insider that Putin's time in the KGB — the Soviet Union's primary and much-feared security agency — played an instrumental role in shaping his mindset. "Putin's KGB background tells us a lot about how he thinks and how he sees the war. He is a creation of the KGB, and the KGB was a terrorist organization," John Sipher, a former CIA officer who served in Russia, told Insider.

☆ Russia: West must stop 'encouraging provocations' to avoid nuclear disaster
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Nov 2 (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday that avoiding a nuclear clash between the world's nuclear powers was its first priority, but accused the West of "encouraging provocations with weapons of mass destruction". The Russian Foreign Ministry said it feared the five declared nuclear powers were teetering "on the brink of a direct armed conflict" and that the West must stop "encouraging provocations with weapons of mass destruction, which can lead to catastrophic consequences". Moscow said it stood by a joint declaration issued together with the United States, China, Britain and France in January affirming their joint responsibility for avoiding a nuclear war. In September, Putin said he was "not bluffing" when he stated that Russia was prepared to use "all available means" to defend its territory. Shortly afterwards, Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Chechnya region and a key ally of Putin's, called for Russia to use a "low-yield nuclear weapon" in Ukraine.

☆ Russian women worried about their sons dying in Ukraine should have more babies, influential Orthodox priest says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Vladimir Putin ordered the partial mobilization of 300,000 military reservists last month. An Orthodox priest was asked if he sympathizes with the mothers of mobilized Russian recruits. Mikhail Vasilyev said women should have more babies if they are sad about their sons going to war. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy PolicyAn influential Orthodox priest said that Russian women worried about their sons dying in Ukraine should have more babies. On Tuesday, Putin admitted that Russia faces "issues" in the Ukraine war and urged his team to "provide support for the special military operation."

☆ Factbox: Has Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The West says Russia has made repeated threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but what has President Vladimir Putin actually said on the possible use of nuclear weapons? The Kremlin chief said the West was plotting to destroy his country, engaging in "nuclear blackmail" by allegedly discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them," Putin said. Putin, the ultimate decision maker on any nuclear launch, has not publicly mentioned tactical nuclear weapons in relation to Ukraine. Russia's nuclear doctrine allows for a nuclear strike after "aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened".

☆ Close Putin ally says 23 soldiers died in Ukrainian shelling attack
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Re-elected head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov attends an inauguration ceremony in Grozny, Russia October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Chingis Kondarov/Oct 27 (Reuters) - Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Thursday said 23 of his soldiers had been killed and another 58 wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack this week. Kadyrov's comments were unusual, given that pro-Moscow forces have rarely admitted to major battlefield losses since the war started. "All rescue operations at the site have been completed and there is a final list of dead and injured - 23 soldiers were killed and 58 wounded," he said. After the attack, Chechen forces carried out a revenge attack and killed about 70 Ukrainians, he said.

☆ Ukraine lawmakers brand Chechnya 'Russian-occupied' in dig at Kremlin
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Ichkeria is the historical name of Russia's southern region of Chechnya that was devastated by two bloody wars between Russian troops and Chechen separatists after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. A majority of Ukrainian lawmakers voted on Tuesday to back a resolution that "recognises the Chechen republic of Ichkeria as territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation as a result of armed aggression which contravened the UN's Statute". Ukraine uses the same language - "temporarily occupied" - to describe swathes of Ukrainian territory that were seized by Russian forces in 2014 and following this year's invasion. Ukraine's 450-seat parliament, which has continued to function behind closed doors despite Russian attacks on the capital Kyiv and other cities, said 290 lawmakers had voted to adopt the resolution. The parliament known in Ukraine as the Verkhovna Rada said 352 lawmakers were present for the vote.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register"For the moment, Putin is hanging in there," said Anthony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Russia. In power since 1999, Putin has weathered numerous domestic crises and wars, and more than once faced down large street protests before effectively outlawing any real opposition. The Kremlin says Putin is backed by an overwhelming majority of Russians and won a landslide re-election victory in 2018. said Weiss, who has had various policy roles on the U.S. National Security Council and has written a book about Putin. A senior European official said Putin would have to demonstratively lose the war to be unseated.

☆ Explainer: Why Russia's missiles on Ukraine have limited impact
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Peter Graff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Ukraine says Russia fired 83 cruise missiles on Monday and that it shot down at least 43 of them. Both sides say the attack was on a huge scale, unseen at least since Russia's initial wave of air strikes on the first night of the war in February. Western military analysts have no firm figures for how many missiles Russia has left, but for months have pointed to indicators suggesting the supply is limited. Ben Hodges, another former commander of U.S. ground forces in Europe, said that despite Monday's attacks, Ukraine still appeared to have "irreversible momentum" on the battlefield. "Russia's logistics system is exhausted and no Russian wants to fight in Putin's war in Ukraine," he tweeted.

☆ Russia's defence ministry: All targets hit in massive missile strikes on Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry said it hit "all designated targets" in a massive missile attack on Ukrainian military, communications and energy infrastructure on Monday. Russia said the goals of the missile strikes had been achieved, in one of the largest coordinated Russian attacks against Ukraine since the first weeks of the war. Ukraine said the rush-hour attacks in eight regions appeared to have been deliberately timed to kill people, accusing Russia of terrorism. "Today, Russia's armed forces have inflicted a massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons against Ukrainian military, communications and energy targets," the Russian defence ministry said in its daily briefing. Ukraine said it was seeking a "resolute response" from the United Nations and the West in response to the attacks.

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