Elon Musk compares idea of Ukraine joining NATO to nuclear apocalypse
American businessman Elon Musk believes that Ukraine's accession to NATO may lead to nuclear apocalypse.
"This is literally how the nuclear apocalypse movie starts," he wrote on his X page under a post with a video of a speech by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, during which the top US diplomat said that Ukraine "will become a NATO member."
Musk dubbed his comment with a link to a clip from the 1983 feature film "The Day After", which features footage of a fictional nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated that Ukraine should become a member of the alliance, but said that he did not know when that would happen.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that more aid is urgently needed for Ukraine following meetings with NATO foreign ministers, amid growing concerns that Russia is building up its defense industrial base with support from China, North Korea and Iran.
Ukraine applied to join NATO on a fast-track basis in September 2022, and was assured at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius in July 2023 that it would be admitted if the necessary conditions were met. But, no timetable for its admission was given in Brussels. Meanwhile, the organization has repeatedly pointed to the fact that Ukraine’s accession is impossible while the country remains in a state of armed conflict.
NATO now includes 32 states: almost all European countries, Canada, the United States and Turkey. Bosnia and Herzegovina participates in the program for admitting new members to the alliance. In order to join NATO, a country must meet the conditions of an individual plan, have no territorial disputes and bring its armed forces in line with the alliance's standards.
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Biden administration pushing world to World War III – US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene
The US is instigating a global conflict that could result in World War III by sponsoring Ukraine and waging a proxy war against Russia, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has warned.
In an interview with journalist Tucker Carlson, Greene, who represents Georgia, said “funding a foreign war” is not in the interests of US national security. Washington has provided Ukraine with $113 billion in various forms of assistance since the start of hostilities in 2022.
“Fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, which is a non-NATO member nation, is not protecting America’s national security interests, it doesn’t protect the United States of America, as a matter of fact, it pushes us closer and closer to world war three,” the politician stressed.
She went on to say that while Kiev is clamoring for the US to speed up the approval of the $60 billion aid package that remains stalled in Congress, American citizens are “losing” their country to the “illegal invasion that’s happening on our Southern border every single day.”
“We are angry and people have had it. We don’t want $60 billion to go to Ukraine because as we slept last night we just went $40 billion more into debt and that’s because the interest on our debt is so huge and our debt is so massive,” Greene claimed.
Greene warned House Speaker Mike Johnson that moving ahead with the aid package for Kiev would be one of “the most egregious things he could do.”
The second-term congresswoman added that US intelligence operatives are directing the Ukraine conflict on the ground. She argued that Johnson’s support for such policies belies the Republican leader’s claims of Christian faith.
“Every single day to fund a war, to pay for it, to continue it, to advise it to have our CIA on the ground over there running that war in Ukraine against Russia, nuclear-armed Russia that is a complete departure from anything that is Christian,” Greene said.
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Biden’s advisor warns of possible Russian nuclear strike if US provides more military aid to Ukraine
National Security Advisor to the President of the United States of America Jake Sullivan believes that Russia could launch a nuclear strike on the United States if it provides Ukraine with “too much” military assistance.
This was stated by Representative Michael McCaul in an interview with Puck . “Jake is too cautious. He’s very timid. And he bought into the idea that if we give them too much, Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons on us. Most of the intelligence I’ve seen suggests they won’t do that. Because that this would be a game changer for everyone,” the politician said.
The politician believes that President Joe Biden is also cautious on this issue – he calls them “sort of like-minded people.” “But I just think Sullivan was too timid, too cautious, too cautious. And everything is too provocative. But the crazy thing is that everything he was worried about has already been agreed upon, we are bringing it in. It’s just that too little, too late,” he added.
He says that at the beginning of a full-scale war, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken advocated transferring MIGs to Ukraine. “It’s not him. In my opinion, it’s Jake Sullivan and the White House. It’s a very timid reaction. I like Colin Powell’s doctrine. You’re either in or you’re out. Don’t stop halfway. You know, we’re giving Putin exactly what he’s got.” wants. It’s a stalemate. A war of attrition. And he has more bodies to throw,” McCall added.
McCall also says that the Republican electorate does not understand that 80% of American funds allocated for military assistance to Ukraine remain in the States.
“We have a map that we show people. It’s a map of all the states, where the money is going, the jobs. In the beginning, I said, ‘Why don’t we just make it a Defense Department weapons account?'” But Jake Sullivan thought that that would be too complicated. So, it’s money for Ukraine, but actually most of it will go towards investment and modernization of our reserves. We are dumping the old in Ukraine,” he explained.
As is known, since the beginning of a full-scale war, representatives of the Russian government have been hinting at, and sometimes directly threatening, nuclear strikes against Ukraine or Western countries
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Putin hopes for decrease in support for Ukraine and plans terrible war of attrition
Russian president Vladimir Putin does not intend to cease military aggression against Ukraine and plans for a war of attrition. The Kremlin leader, in his expansionist plans, hopes for a reduction in support for Kyiv from Western countries, reports Bloomberg.
Despite the fact that the Russian occupying contingent cannot break through on the Ukrainian front and is advancing slowly, Putin remains determined to achieve victory on the battlefield, despite losses.
Against the backdrop of his recent re-election for another six-year term in power, the Kremlin leader is attempting, without evidence, to accuse Ukraine of alleged involvement in the terrorist attack in Moscow suburbs on March 22 and to continue the occupation campaign. This comes after previous diplomatic contacts with the United States at the end of last year ended inconclusively, according to four experts familiar with Kremlin military strategy.
According to US representatives, they see no signs that the Russian president took seriously the search for a way to end hostilities at the end of 2023. They have dismissed the idea of negotiating a "ceasefire" without Ukraine's involvement.
"Putin’s likely to escalate now. His goal is victory," said Alexey Mukhin, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Political Information, which provides advisory services to the Kremlin.
He added that Russia is "ready to continue this conflict for as long as necessary."
However, according to Bloomberg, Russia may face difficulties in conducting new large-scale offensives due to a shortage of troops. This could hinder the Kremlin's aspirations to capture cities like Kharkiv and Odesa, especially for attempts to create a "buffer zone" in Ukraine.
"I don’t believe the take over of Kharkiv is possible. The Kremlin doesn’t have enough forces for such a task and the city is too big. For a real breakthrough in this war, Russia needs much better communication capabilities, many more high-precision weapons and many more people," voiced the head of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Ruslan Pukhov.
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Vote on aid to Ukraine in US Congress may be postponed for several weeks
The US House of Representatives vote on aid to Ukraine is unlikely to happen until at least mid-April, and possibly later, as Speaker Mike Johnson is still seeking ways to soften opposition from radical Republicans. Bloomberg reported this, citing the leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives.
They say that Johnson's team has not shared a detailed plan regarding the aid package with Republican lawmakers, and it seems undecided on the actions he will insist on from President Joe Biden's administration, making it difficult for him to secure support in time for a vote next week.
Johnson's spokeswoman, Taylor Haulsee, stated that the speaker's promise of swift action did not intend to establish a specific deadline and that Johnson was "sounding out members" regarding the plan. She did not provide further information on the speaker's consultations.
Two representatives of the Republican leadership stated that there is still a possibility that Johnson could decide regarding the Ukraine aid plan over the weekend and expedite the project's approval next week.
However, Bloomberg notes that such an accelerated schedule could lead to the bill's failure and further confrontation with hardline supporters within the Republican Party.
Recently, the administration of the US president refused to accede to the proposal of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, to provide aid to Ukraine if the president reverses his decision to suspend the issuance of new licences for liquefied natural gas exports.
The US Congress’ approval of over US$60 billion in aid to Ukraine is currently being blocked by Republicans in the House of Representatives. The White House has repeatedly cautioned that this would significantly harm Ukraine’s military efforts on the battlefield.
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Head of Tatarstan advises Russians not to rely on air defense systems after Ukrainian drone attacks
After drone strikes on targets in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, the authorities of Tatarstan called on the region's enterprises not to rely on the air defense of the Russian Armed Forces to repel attacks but to defend themselves independently, states the head of the Russian region Rustam Minnikhanov. According to RBC-Ukraine, during a speech at an international energy forum, he commented on the early morning strikes on April 2 at a plant producing Shahed kamikaze drones and an oil refinery and noted the inability of air defense systems to protect enterprises and facilities in the Russian region of Tatarstan from air attacks.
"You should not expect missile defense to work - it solves other tasks," the President of Tatarstan said.
According to him, locals should solve these tasks on their own, in every enterprise, every municipality, and every city.
Minnikhanov added that the strikes on the Taneko plant and the Alabuga Polytech demonstrated the most vulnerable areas in Tatarstan and that the enemy feels it.
"The Almighty has given us a chance... Wake up, guys, no one will protect us but ourselves," said the head of the Russian region.
He also called on local emergency services to be prepared for emergencies or other incidents.
Earlier, it was reported that on April 2, drones from the Defense Forces attacked enterprises in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia for the first time. The explosions occurred in the special economic zone Alabuga, where industrial enterprises are located, over a thousand kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
At that time, the so-called head of the republic, Rustam Minnikhanov, stated that drone attacks had been carried out on enterprises in the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk.
According to a source in the special services, the target of the attack was the assembly plant for Shahed drones. In addition, Russian media reported that drones also hit a dormitory where workers of this enterprise lived. There are known casualties.
According to Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, during the attacks on Russian facilities in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, foreign weapons were not used. He also confirmed that one of the affected objects in Tatarstan was involved in the assembly of Shahed and Geran drones. Furthermore, one of the buildings located near the enterprise was hit by Russian air defense.
By the way, at the end of March, the partisan movement ATESH reported that in Russia, the heads of oil refineries were instructed to purchase electronic warfare systems, use camouflage and strengthen the protection of tanks with sandbags. All of this is to counter drone attacks.
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Russia threatens to burn NATO military bases, Kremlin declared direct confrontation with alliance
Russia and NATO are now in direct confrontation, the Kremlin has declared, on the day the US-led military alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary.
As NATO leaders and diplomats gathered for a ceremony in Brussels marking 75 years of the security bloc, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow: “In fact, relations have now slipped to the level of direct confrontation”.
“NATO was already involved in the conflict surrounding Ukraine and continues to move towards our borders and expand its military infrastructure towards our borders”, he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Western countries are trying to compel all NATO member states to sign up for providing obligatory aid to Ukraine just so long as Kiev keeps up its fight against Russia.
"Now they want to turn voluntary military aid to Ukraine into mandatory military aid under NATO auspices, to force all NATO members to sign up for the obligatory provision of funds and weapons to the Kiev regime through heavy-handed disciplinary measures, just so that it can continue to fight Russia," the top diplomat said at a meeting with foreign ambassadors on a potential settlement in Ukraine.
Bases of the North Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine, if any are ever deployed to the former Soviet republic, will be Russia's legitimate target and will burn, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told.
"These bases will burn. There once was the Yavorovsky training ground on Ukrainian soil where NATO had been training its troops. That target was absolutely legitimate," the Russian diplomat said, when asked how Russia would react were the North Atlantic Alliance to resume training troops in Ukraine or deploying repair centers there at Kiev’s request.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that today the military potential and capabilities of almost all major NATO countries are being "actively used against Russia." Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu emphasized that Moscow was fighting not so much with the Ukrainian military as with the "collective West."
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Putin has plan of attack on Baltic nations from the territory of Belarus on his table
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Drones attack Russian city of Kursk - Strong fire breaks out in residential buildings
A drone attack has been launched on Russian city of Kursk, Russian media reported. The governor of Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said that the air defense system has been activated and 3 drones have been shot. As a result of the attack, fire broke out in two residential buildings. No casualties have been reported yet.
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Ukraine enters new stage of strikes on Russia's deep rear - ISW
The latest drone attack on an oil refinery in the Republic of Tatarstan signals a breakthrough in Ukraine's strategy of striking deep inside Russian territory, according to findings from the Institute for the Study of War.
The report says that on April 2, Ukrainian drones targeted facilities at the Taneko oil refinery in the city of Yelabuga, Republic of Tatarstan. ISW highlighted that this facility is located over 1200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border with Russia.
According to Reuters, such regular drone strikes by Ukraine on Russian oil refineries have led to the shutdown of about 14% of all Russian refining capacity.
"The April 2 strikes are the first Ukrainian strikes on Tatarstan, and the distance of the targets from Ukraine’s borders represents a significant inflection in Ukraine’s demonstrated capability to conduct long-range strikes far into the Russian rear. ISW continues to assess that such Ukrainian strikes are a necessary component of Ukraine’s campaign to use asymmetric means to degrade industries that supply and support the Russian military," the report says.
Recall, on April 2, Ukrainian drones attacked enterprises in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia for the first time. Drones hit the Taneko oil refinery in the Alabuga special economic zone near the city of Yelabuga, which is over 1000 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
According to RBC-Ukraine's sources in the special services, it was an operation by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. In addition to the refinery, drones also hit the Shahed assembly plant.
Russians claim that electronic warfare means downed the drone, it fell and caused a fire. Meanwhile, they do not acknowledge that the strikes caused any significant damage to drone production plants or refineries.
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The Crimean Bridge will be destroyed in the first half of 2024- Ukrayna elan edib
A Ukrainian Army pledged to destroy a key bridge that connects occupied Crimea with Russia. "I don't think we have to wait long — this year for sure," Oleksii Neizhpapa, Commander of the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said recently.
How any Ukrainian attack would unfold is unclear and there are serious doubts about whether the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine is capable of pulling off a special operation against such a well-defended and obvious target. Russia has taken extensive measures to protect the bridge, strengthening anti-aircraft defences and deploying a “target barge” as a decoy for incoming guided missiles.
The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine thinks it can disable the bridge soon. “We will do it in the first half of 2024,” one official told the Guardian, adding that Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the main directorate of intelligence, already had “most of the means to carry out this goal”. He was following a plan approved by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to “minimise” Russia’s naval presence in the Black Sea.
The Guardian recalls that the bridge has been hit and repaired twice before. A raid by Ukrainian sea drones last July caused extensive damage to the road section, which runs parallel to a separate railway section used by Russia’s military to move tanks and supplies. In October 2022 an explosion, Russia said from a bomb smuggled on to a truck, caused several spans of roadway to fall into the water.
The Atesh guerrilla movement, via Telegram, reported Russia’s deployment of S-300 air-defense missile systems and Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft artillery systems to safeguard the Kerch Bridge against potential Ukrainian attacks.
“Our agents are vigilantly monitoring the Kerch Bridge area,” read the caption accompanying the photos and footage released by the partisans.
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Iran launches new operations against US and Israel, the danger for diplomats is increasing
"An important message was sent to the American government as a supporter of the Zionist regime. America must be held responsible," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian wrote on his account on X.
According to the reports from Syria and Iran, the Israeli Air Force attacked a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, where several senior Iranian officials were located, among them Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who is actually the deputy commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria and Lebanon. A very senior member of the Iranian hierarchy, he managed the entire operation of smuggling weapons from Syria to Lebanon. He was a very senior person who can be said to have given Israel a lot of headaches in the last twenty years, according to Jerusalem Post.
"This is a severe and painful blow to the Iranian regime, a matter in which the Iranians are more inclined to take revenge against Israel”, says Hezi Simantov, a commentator and correspondent for Arab affairs of “News 13”. "They are laying the groundwork to strike at Israeli diplomatic representations worldwide, in the Arab world, Europe, or the United States or South America,” Simantov said. “The assassination attributed to Israel certainly makes the confrontation between Iran and Israel more direct, rather than indirect, as it has been until now in Syria.”
“Israel has very good intelligence about what is happening in Syria and Lebanon, unlike what is happening in the Gaza Strip, even before October 7,” he added. “There is still very good intelligence about these trained members of the Revolutionary Guards and senior Hezbollah figures in Lebanon and Syria. In my estimation, Iran is deterred from direct confrontation with the US. It does not want that. Iran does not want to bring the US into a direct military confrontation.
“Therefore, this situation in which it is increasingly engaging in terrorism activities in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the envelope to pressure Israel - that is something it will continue to do. Direct confrontation with the US or with Israel that would involve the US - that is not what it wants to do, at least not at this stage, that could change," Simantov concluded.
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“We have found Russian equipment" - Footage of Russian equipment falling into a pit on a road side
Footage of the Russian military equipment destroyed during the occupation of eastern Donetsk region in the direction of Bakhmut and Avdiivka cities has been released. Russian soldiers shared the image of the equipment that was disabled and fell off the road in the direction of Avdiivka.
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France may put 1,500 military personnel on alert for Ukraine
The French military, consisting of about 1,500 people, may be put on combat readiness in April for transfer to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.
“New information is emerging about Paris’s preparation of a military contingent to be sent to Ukraine. For these purposes, the command of the French Foreign Legion in early March approved the composition of a battalion tactical group of about 1,500 people,” Zakharova noted.
She added that it is expected that in April the group will be brought to a state of full combat readiness for an operational rush “to the Ukrainian theater of military operations.”
"Meanwhile, the French continue thу part of their history, which in general should be consigned to oblivion: the business of their ancestors, who were engaged in the secret export from Ukraine of cultural treasures, including ancient Byzantine icons, for their alleged, as they phrase it, preservation in France," the diplomat said.
Earlier, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin told that Russian side has information that France is preparing a military contingent of 2,000 troops to be sent to Ukraine. "According to information coming to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, a contingent to be sent to Ukraine is already being prepared. Initially, it will include around 2,000 troops," he said. "It will thus become a legitimate priority target for attacks by the Russian armed forces," he stressed.
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Iran's parliament threatens Azerbaijan: "Israel's embassy in Baku must be targeted"
A few days ago, one of the scandalous opinions expressed during the discussion on the issue of Israel in the Iranian Parliament captured the media headlines.
Azernews reports, with reference to Iranian sources, that after the Israeli air attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, a threat was voiced against Azerbaijan in the Iranian parliament.
One of these hypocritical speeches came from Jalal Rashidi Kuchi, a radical member of the Iranian parliament, who made a post about this on his X account.
"Procrastination, patience, and delay in giving a decisive and similar response to the military attack of the "Zionists" on Iranian territory under any title is equivalent to a heavy blow to the reputation and honour of the great name of Iran.
My proposal is to openly and directly target the diplomatic representation of the "Zionists" in one of the diplomatic centres of the regional countries, preferably in Azerbaijan."
It should be recalled that diplomatic relations between Iran and Azerbaijan have been unilaterally suspended since January 2023, that is, after the terrorist attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran. Although the Azerbaijani embassy was recalled after the incident, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran repeatedly appealed to Azerbaijan to restore diplomatic relations.
In addition, the government of Iran had expressed its personal opinion on the relations between Azerbaijan and Israel earlier, but the leadership of Azerbaijan diplomatically responded to the other side that the relations between the two independent states do not concern the third party.
However, it seems that Iran cannot draw conclusions from this, and with such an inadequate approach in the parliamentary debate, they create conditions for straining relations with Azerbaijan again.
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Images of a large convoy of Russian military equipment surrounded in Avdiivkvka steppes
Fighters of the Ukrainian armed forces’ 68th brigade and the "Shadow" unit have prevented the convoy of armored combat vehicles of the invading Russian army that launched an attack near the city of Avdiivka. The fighters destroyed a large number of armored vehicles of the invaders with Javelin anti-tank missile complex and Kornet anti-tank missiles. Survivors from among the infantry and crew members involved in the attack sought to escape
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Russians whose moving tank was targeted by a drone, managed to escape this time
The aerial scouts of the "Shadov" unit of the Ukrainian armed forces detected and targeted a moving tank of the invading Russian army. After the first strike of the kamikaze drone, the invading soldiers in the damaged tank ran and tried to escape. The tank was destroyed by exploding with subsequent strikes.
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Terrifying images of the devastating earthquake in Taiwan - more 700 people injured
A major earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck the central east coast of Taiwan, roughly 20 kilometres south of the city of Hualien.
Locals near the epicentre described severe to violent ground shaking during the quake – strong enough to make standing and driving a vehicle difficult. It was reportedly felt across the country, as well as in neighbouring China.
At least four people have died and dozens more were injured due to the quake, officials said. Taiwan's government said that 711 people had been injured in earthquake, and that 77 people were trapped.
Strong shaking was felt in Taipei, the capital, some 100 miles away, with aftershocks continued for roughly two hours. And there were reports in China that people as far away as Shanghai, about 500 miles to the north, could feel the earthquake.
While much of Taiwan’s population lives on the west coast of the country, Hualien City is one of the largest population centres on the east coast. Its population is roughly 100,000. Landslides also occurred along the mountainous central east coast. Authorities in Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines issued tsunami warnings, which were later lifted.
The quake had a depth of 9.6 miles, according to Taiwan's Central Weather Administration. Taiwan's two nuclear power stations were not affected by the temblor. Taiwan's official Central News Agency said the quake was the biggest to hit the island since 1999 when a 7.6 magnitude tremor killed around 2,400 people and destroyed or damaged 50,000 buildings in one of Taiwan's worst-recorded quakes.
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Ukrainian Army destroyed Russian Forpost drone worth US$7 million over Black Sea
Anti-aircraft gunners of the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed a high-end Russian drone over the Black Sea, the local Air Force command posted to social media. The downed UAV was identified as a Forpost, a Russian-made attack and reconnaissance drone, originally based on Israeli designs for the Searcher, updated to resemble the Turkish-made Bayraktar, and estimated to cost $7 million.
“On 1 April 2024, the soldiers of the Odesa anti-aircraft missile brigade destroyed a Russian Forpost attack and reconnaissance UAV in the Black Sea,” the Air Force wrote.
According to Illia Yevlash, spokesperson for the Air Force Command, as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda, the Forpost drone is one of the most expensive in the world, able to carry two missiles or other air-to-ground weapons.
“The Air Force downed a pretty good target. We don't shoot down targets like that very often, but we managed to hit one of the most expensive attack drones, of the Forpost type,” he said. “This is a Russian UAV, worth about seven million dollars.”
One of the country's most expensive reconnaissance tools, Forpost drones first came to prominence in the 1980s as the default remote surveillance craft of the Israeli army before its export to a number of foreign powers across Asia and Europe.
While typically unarmed, Russia has used armed versions of the drone in combat operations in the past, though the drones are now primarily used for surveilling enemy positions on the battlefield. The weapons have also been deployed in Syria.
The Defense Ministry of Russia reported that Forpost trained interaction with submarines. Black Sea fleet drones detected warships and transmitted coordinates to the Kolpino diesel-electric submarine. It delivered a conditional strike with Kalibr missiles.
earlier, Forpost of the Baltic fleet trained in Kaliningrad region to detect targets and adjust fire of naval artillery. The Defense Ministry said the drones transmitted target and fire information by digital channels in real time from an altitude of several kilometers.
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Ukraine's new drone surprise to Kremlin: Any target inside Russia can now be easily hit
Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said that in 2024 Ukraine managed to increase the production of long-range UAVs tenfold compared to last year. Fedorov said this in an interview with Welt.
"Most of the drones that attacked Russian oil refineries have a range of 700 to 1,000 kilometres, but now there are models that can fly over 1,000 kilometres", he added.
The minister reported that the outcome depends on the progress in drone development. Fedorov predicts that the first prototypes of artificial intelligence drones in small numbers could appear on the battlefield by the end of 2024.
However, the official says, it is currently impossible to say who is winning the technological war.
"However, it is not yet possible to say who is winning the technological war – in some areas we are winning, in others the Russians are surpassing us", Mykhailo Fedorov added.
Fedorov also said prototype drones with AI technology could appear on the battlefield by the end of 2024.
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree in February to create a new branch of Ukraine's Armed Forces specifically dedicated to drones.
The Unmanned Systems Forces will reportedly focus specifically on improving Ukraine's work with drones, creating special drone-specific units, ramping up training, systemizing their use, increasing production, and pushing innovation.Zelensky said in January that one of the main goals for 2024 was outpacing Russia in the production of drones. The Ukraine-Russia war has become a proving ground for what drones can do in conflict. With the war now in its third year, Ukraine is leaning hard into drones as a combat strategy, ramping up its domestic production and counting on allies to deliver one million of them in the next 12 months.
Colonel Kristen Thompson, a U.S. air force military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, credits Ukraine's nimble use of drones with helping it hold its own against Russia.
"Ukraine's ability to acquire and crowdsource commercial drone technology, tactically modify drones in the field based on real-time feedback and alter tactics to defeat anti-drone systems have proved to be crucial to its war effort," Thompson said.
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Russia's new railway in occupied territories may pose serious problem – Ukraine warns
Ukraine's Defence Intelligence chief believes that the railway being built by the Russians on Ukrainian territory and connecting it with mainland Russia could be a problem, but he assumes that Ukraine will "cope with it".
Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence, said this.
"In fact, Russia has been building a railway to connect their own territory with our southern temporarily occupied territories for more than a year now. This process is almost complete, and it could pose a serious problem for us.
But I hope that we will somehow manage the land section of the railway.
Everyone has experience in this, and this is much easier than the Crimean bridge issue", Budanov added.
Earlier, UK Defence Intelligence reported that the Russians repaired the railway in Donetsk Oblast. UK intelligence examined the situation surrounding Russia's construction of a railway line through the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Observers noted that, on 18 March, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin mentioned the construction of a railway line from Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia to Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories through Crimea.
According to Putin, the new line will eventually reach Sevastopol and is intended to provide redundancy for the Kerch bridge.
Putin also stated that the first completed section of the railway has restored access to Berdiansk. This railway connection runs through territory that could be targeted by Ukrainian high-precision long-range systems.
The new railway line south of Donetsk is nearly 60 kilometres long and was constructed in eight months. The UK Ministry of Defence stated that it is almost certainly one of Russia's largest infrastructure projects in Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories. The constructed branch resumes railway communication disrupted by hostilities in Donetsk Oblast.
The new line's primary purpose is likely to support Russian activity in Mariupol.
This port city, destroyed by Russia in 2022, houses the Azovstal metallurgical plant and other heavy industry facilities, which, while severely damaged, Russia may attempt to repair and operate in the future, the analysts noted.
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