Tag: ukraine

Kiev Shootout Between Ukrainian Security Services SBU and GUR Leaves One Dead and Two Wounded – Zelensky Orders Full Investigation on ‘Absolutely Disgraceful’ Incident

Night chaos in Kiev.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded accountability and ordered a full investigation on the Kiev firefight between the personnel of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and soldiers from Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (GUR).

The incident took place on Yuriya Shumskoho street on the left bank of Kyiv, in the city’s Dniprovskyi district.

The man reportedly clashed with soldiers from GUR while working on disrupting a Russian plot against the deputy commander of the pro-Ukraine Russian Volunteer Corps.

The SBU deals with domestic intelligence and counterterrorism activities, whereas the GUR is tasked with foreign intelligence and reconnaissance.

Financial Times reported:

“Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reprimanded state agencies after a shootout involving two rival security services broke out on the streets of Kyiv.

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Zelensky Threatens To Make Russian Airspace Unsafe For Civilian Aviation

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a warning to airlines, their insurers, and airport operators around the world Monday — saying Ukraine’s drone campaign over Russian territory has made it too dangerous for commercial flights to enter Russian airspace.

The statement was notable for its candor. Zelensky insisted Ukraine was not threatening civilian aircraft — but then made clear that Ukraine’s drone operations would intensify to a point where civilian planes simply have no safe place in Russian skies.

“Drones in Russian skies will be such that this must be taken into account. There are no more safe moments in Russian skies. Civilian aviation has no place among drones.”— Volodymyr Zelensky

Zelensky added that Russian airspace “will de facto be closed — the war Russia started is closing its skies.” The framing offers political cover, but the operational reality is plain: Ukraine is deliberately escalating drone operations over Russian territory in ways that endanger commercial aircraft, and Zelensky is telling the world to plan around it.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry announced it will brief international aviation bodies including ICAO, pressing for a formal airspace closure designation. The move affects dozens of airlines — primarily from Asia and the Middle East — that have continued routing flights over Russia to save fuel costs. Zelensky is now putting them on notice: fly over Russia at your own risk.

The warning came the same day Ukraine launched what Russian officials described as a 516-drone assault across multiple Russian regions. Some of those drones crossed into Estonian airspace — NATO territory — prompting a scramble of alliance fighter jets. Ukraine also struck Ust-Luga, Russia’s largest Baltic Sea oil export terminal.

Whether framed as a warning or a threat, the effect is the same. Zelensky is deliberately creating conditions in which civilian aviation cannot safely operate over Russian territory — and using that as a weapon of economic and diplomatic pressure. The airlines, insurers, and regulators who ignore that signal do so at their own risk.

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India’s Modi Presses Putin to Wrap Up Ukraine Invasion: ‘Move Away from Endless War’

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Russian strongman Vladimir Putin to “move away from endless war” and find a resolution to his ongoing invasion of Ukraine during a meeting on Monday.

The two — along with the heads of state of several other neighboring countries, most prominently China and Iran — are in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to attend a high-level summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The China-led, Central Asia-based SCO is a loosely affiliated security and common interests group, sometimes described as an attempted counterweight to NATO but lacking the strict membership requirements and mutual defense responsibilities of that group. Modi, Putin, and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping are all expected to meet Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, to discuss that country’s war with the United States during the span of the SCO summit, but appear to have prioritized meeting with each other.

Both Indian and Russian media emphasized that Modi used his time with Putin to discourage him from continuing the Ukraine invasion. The comments were notably more pointed than past remarks by the Hindu nationalist leader, who has rejected attempts to sanction or otherwise economically isolate Russia in response to it belligerence and remains a key Russian oil partner.

“Every day spent in war sets humanity back, whereas every step taken towards peace fills humanity with new hope and enthusiasm. We must move away from endless war towards an end to the war. This is essential for the well-being of humanity,” Modi told Putin, according to India’s Economic Times.

“We have consistently discussed the issue of Ukraine. When we met previously, you briefed me in detail on all aspects of the matter. As you know, India supports all efforts towards peace and will continue to do so,” his comments continued.

Modi separately published an image on social media of his meeting with Putin in which he only vaguely suggested conversation linked to Ukraine and emphasized the bilateral relationship with India.

“Discussed the full range of the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. It is gladdening to see significant progress across various sectors in recent years,” he wrote. “Focus areas for the India-Russia friendship remain energy, innovation, space, fertilisers and people-to-people linkages.”

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Ukraine Says Russia is a Planning Ground Invasion of Kyiv as War Grinds Towards Fifth Year

Ukraine says it has intelligence indicating Russia is preparing for a fresh ground offensive against the capital of Kyiv.

The claim raises the prospect of another attempt to threaten the Ukrainian capital more than four years after Russia launched its invasion.

Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said Russian military leadership have been instructed by the Kremlin to plan and prepare offensives targeting Kyiv and Chernihiv.

Ukrainian intelligence has received and verified information about the preparations, according to Palisa.

However, officials have not yet detected Russian forces massing in sufficient numbers to launch such an operation.

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Russia Hits Kiev Ammo Dump Next To Homes; Ukraine Admits 90% Of Retail Food Logistics Wrecked

A Russian drone struck a Ukrainian Defense Forces ammunition storage site in the village of Myla Friday evening, just west of Kiev. The resulting fire and hours of secondary detonations killed at least 37 people, injured dozens more, damaged around 50 residential buildings and a care home for the elderly and disabled, and forced the evacuation of hundreds. Among the dead was the local community head who had gone to help.

In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the placement of a weapons depot next to civilians was “terrible negligence.” The first impact, he said, hit a depot storing shells, mines, other munitions, and drones that “definitely shouldn’t have been there” – while prosecutors in Kiev opened a criminal investigation into the legality of storing explosives next to civilian housing. This is the second such incident in two months. A July strike on a depot in nearby Vyshneve produced similar secondary blasts, deaths, and later detentions of state defense-company executives.  

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Zelensky Appoints Key Azov Commanders to Lead Defense of Last Strongholds in Donetsk – MSM Tries To Whitewash Their Nazi Ideology

The board is set, the pieces are moving for the battle for the last fortified bastions of Ukrainian control in Donetsk Oblast.

We have been reporting here on TGP on the impending major battle that will decide the fate of the Donbas, the cradle of the Ukraine war.

While the Luhansk region has already been fully conquered by Russia, there are still a cluster of fortified towns in northern Donetsk that have been holding since 2014.

But now, the advancing Russian forces are just a few miles from the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk ‘agglomeration’, and the fight for the ‘fortress belt’ is about to begin.

RT reported on Telegram:

“Four kilometers [2,4 miles] are left to the eastern outskirts of Slavyansk — [Russian] Chief of General Staff [Valery] Gerasimov.

Russian advance groups of assault units are fighting on the territory three kilometers from the outskirts of Kramatorsk.

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Moscow Warns It Could Target British Military Facilities In Unprecedented Statement

From the very start of the Ukraine war, the United Kingdom has consistently been among Kiev’s most open and ardent military supporters, time and again transferring heavy weaponry, including cutting edge long-range missiles like the Storm Shadow.

At the start of this week, Britain announced it plans to provide Ukraine with classified technology to allow for the country’s own manufacturing of the British/French-designed SCALP air-launched cruise missile (which in the UK is known as the Storm Shadow). The allies expect to set up a production line in Ukraine as soon as year’s end.

Already, Ukraine has used its domestic-made and designed Neptune cruise missile to strike oil refineries and military sites deep inside Russian territory. A domestic-made SCALP would present the likelihood of Ukraine then using this Western-designed missile to directly attack Russia, which only increases the chances of an eventual Moscow-NATO clash. Ukrainian forces already appeared to have used the missile on Donetsk and other locations closer to front lines in the Donbass.

On Thursday the Kremlin has issued one of its strongest warnings and threats aimed at London to date, accusing the UK of “fully taking part in the war on Kiev’s side” – and thus thwarting any chance of peace talks while adding fuel to the fire.

Moscow is now saying that the UK’s own military facilities could become fair game for direct attacks.

Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a Thursday press briefing, “We have repeatedly warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons against Russian territory could be directed against any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond.”

Zakharova urged “all residents of the United Kingdom to think about the inevitable, catastrophic consequences of the hostile steps taken by their own authorities.” She also laid out:

“We propose that the British leadership once again carefully analyze the situation and immediately, in the most resolute and unequivocal manner, abandon the hostile, aggressive line, which can only… create the risk of the conflict escalating to an entirely new level.”

Ironically this comes just on the heels of a rare visit of the CIA Director to Moscow. US officials claim the Tuesday meeting between John Ratcliffe and top Kremlin intelligence officials was to convey a warning to President Putin to not attack any NATO member. However, many analysts are skeptical that this was the official reason.

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CIA Director Held Covert Moscow Talks With Russian Intel Chiefs As Relations Sink Deeper Into “Crisis”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on a US Air Force C-17 transport jet on Tuesday morning for meetings with Russian intelligence officials, according to CBS News.

The outlet cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who confirmed Wednesday that Ratcliffe met with senior Russian intelligence officials but not President Vladimir Putin.

Putin was later briefed on the talks, according to Peskov, who cautioned that it was too early to determine whether the meeting could help pull bilateral US-Russian relations out of their “deep crisis.”

The visit marks Ratcliffe’s first known trip to Russia since becoming CIA director, though he has maintained contact with Russian intelligence counterparts, CBS noted.

CBS continued:

Ahead of his trip, the US told Ukrainian officials that a senior delegation would be traveling to Moscow and asked Kyiv to suspend strikes until the delegation’s departure from Russia, according to a senior Ukrainian official.

The secretive trip comes as US-mediated peace talks remain stalled and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure have stoked a refined-products crisis that is spreading worldwide in the form of diesel shortages. We must note the energy crisis has been compounded by tanker transit disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. 

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Famed Ukrainian Military Analyst Says Russian Forces are Just 7 Miles from Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, Predicts Assault of the ‘Fortress Belt’ To Begin as Soon as December

The Kramatorsk-Slavyansk Fortress belt is the last major military objective in Donetsk Oblast for the Russian forces.

For a while now, it’s become clear that the Ukrainian news outlets and analysts have become much more adept at reporting the facts than the Globalist MSM.

The legacy news ‘brands’ have usually shrunk to mere Globalist, pro-Kiev propaganda.

That’s why we will use a reputable Ukrainian source to talk about the impending battle for Kramatorsk and Slavyansk.

We have been reporting here on TGP about how the fortifications of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration are the last major military objective for the Russian advances in Donetsk region, the cradle of the war.

And now, the endgame approaches, according to Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko.

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Report: Trump Admin Requests Ukraine Refrain From Striking Russia During Meetings

The Trump administration reportedly requested that Ukraine refrain from striking parts of Russia with missiles while the United States engaged in meetings with Russian officials.

Christopher Miller, the Chief Ukraine Correspondent for the Financial Times, shared in a post on X that officials in the Trump administration had “requested that Kyiv not strike Moscow, St. Petersburg, and northern regions of Russia with its long range missiles and drones on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday when the U.S. would send a plane carrying a senior-level official to the Russian capital,” citing “people familiar with the request.”

“Ukraine agreed, they said,” Miller added. “Today we see that a U.S. Air Force C-17 plane has landed in Moscow.”

Breitbart News’s Oliver JJ Lane reported that a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III was reported to have flown “from the capital of NATO-member Latvia to an airport near Moscow, Russia on Tuesday morning”:

A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III flew from the capital of NATO-member Latvia to an airport near Moscow, Russia on Tuesday morning. The military jet first flew on Sunday from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., reports France’s Le Figaro, citing the open source transponder data which is collected by hobbyist ground-based receivers and aggregated through services such as the Flight Radar app.

Military flights are not obliged to keep their transponders on, but it is best practice to do so for the sake of other flights in the area and air traffic control for the sake of safety. The decision to keep the transponders broadcasting over Russian airspace betrays a desire to make the flight as visible and easily identifiable as possible.

CBS News’s Senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs reported in a post on X that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe was reported to have “traveled to Russia aboard a C-17 for meetings in Moscow today.”

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