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Ukraine and Russia agree to swap bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in war

Ukraine and Russia agree to swap bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in war

BreakingNews.ie2 days ago

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to swap the bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in action.
The agreement emerged on Monday at the latest peace talks in Turkey, where the two sides met for just over an hour, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian state media said.
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The talks delivered no major breakthrough in wider peace efforts.

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4 safe places should World War Three start
4 safe places should World War Three start

Daily Mail​

time23 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

4 safe places should World War Three start

British Army Chief, General Sir Patrick Sanders (pictured), recently warned the UK to train and equip a 'citizen army' to ready the country for a potential land war. The Chief of General Staff said Britain's army is 'too small' and urged ministers to 'mobilise the nation' in preparation for a wider conflict against Russia amid the invasion of Ukraine . More recently tensions heightened between the United States and Iran, after a drone attack killed three American soldiers. With Russia and China warning the US against a 'cycle of retaliation' after Joe Biden threatened to target their ally, MailOnline takes a look at the five places on Earth that could be safe in the event of World War III. Wood Norton, Worcestershire. With only a small radio mast and a security barrier in sight, you would perhaps miss the huge network of tunnels running deep into the Worcestershire forest. Originally bought by the BBC at the beginning of World War II, the bunker's initial purpose was to be a hidden base for the broadcaster in the event a crisis in London. According to GloucestershireLive, Wood Norton is used as a training base for sound engineers and technical staff at the broadcasting company. The bunker also has a mast which would continue broadcasting messages from the BBC if the UK were ever to go into crisis mode. Also referred to as PAWN, Protected Area Wood Norton, the site is hidden deep in the Worcestershire hillside, boasting several storeys of architecture underground. The broadcaster outlined in documents released, also known as the War Book, in 2016 that the base would be utilised in the event of a grave attack on the UK. The facility is reportedly able to house up 90 BBC staff - including 12 news editors and sub-editors - and also boasts a ping-pong table. Raven Rock Mountain Complex, Pennsylvania. The Raven Rock Mountain Complex has maintained an air of mystique ever since they began building the facility in 1948. Dubbed 'Harry's Hole' after President Truman, who gave the project the go-ahead, the Pennsylvanian facility first opened its doors in 1953. Raven's Rock was constructed with the intention of being a 'centrepiece of a large emergency hub' according to Garret Graff, author of Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself - While The Rest Of Us Die. Boasting 100,000 feet of office space, the bunker could facilitate up to 1,400 people. The base also has two 1,000 foot-long tunnels as well as 34-ton blast doors to help reduce the impact of a possible bomb attack. Even though the site was placed into standby mode by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, $652 million worth of upgrades were pumped into the site following 9/11. According to Graff, the underground city was kitted out with 27 new fuel tanks in 2012, with both having the ability to carry 20,000 gallons. Presently, the bunker is thought to have a whopping 900,000 square feet of office space, as well as the capacity for between 3,000 to 5.000 government employees. Family members would not be permitted to reside in the base. He said: 'Families would have been prohibited from Raven Rock — as they would have been from effectively all of the Doomsday bunkers. Athough in recent years as the veil of complete secrecy has lifted, family members of Raven Rock personnel are allowed to visit it for specific ceremonies. So at the very least, family members today can picture where their relatives will spend Doomsday, even as they're barred outside.' Peters Mountain, Virginia. Peters Mountain, situated in the vast Appalachian Mountains of Virginia has been there for some time, functioning as an AT&T communications station. When you spot the sight you can even see an AT&T logo painted on a helicopter landing pad. It serves as one of several secret centres also known as AT&T project offices, according to The New York Post. These facilities are essential for the US government's continuity planning. The centre tucked away in Appalachia has the ability to house a few hundred people. According to Graff, the bunker has received renovations costing $67 million in recent years. He stated that an attack on Washington were to occur, it would potentially be used as a relocation site for intelligence agencies. Cheyenne Mountain Complex - NORAD. Although Peters Mountain and Raven Rock were kept under wraps from the public, one bunker has always been public since its inception. Cheyenne Mountain Complex, which is located in El Paso County, Colorado, is a defense bunker for the United States Space Force. Better known as the headquarters for NORAD, (North American Aerospace Defense Command), the site was constructed in the 1950 in response to Cold War paranoia. The five chambers within the extraordinary bunker all have reservoirs for fuel and water - and in one section they reportedly even have an underground lake. Almost $40 million was invested into the facility in order to kit it out with the best technology, including 15 console displays and three room-sized Philco 212 computers. In the midst of a crisis, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex can hold up to 1,000 people a month. The facility, which costs an eye-watering $250-million a year to run, was on the brink of closure prior to 9/11. Although it was briefly put on standby mode in 2006, the Obama administration opted to breath a new lease of life into the base.

Yes we should stand firm, but let's not make Russia our implacable foe
Yes we should stand firm, but let's not make Russia our implacable foe

The Herald Scotland

time27 minutes ago

  • The Herald Scotland

Yes we should stand firm, but let's not make Russia our implacable foe

It is always dangerous to confuse leaders with countries since all of the former are mortal. Trump is not America. Netanyahu is not Israel. Putin is not Russia. In every case, the channels have to be kept open to a different future, rather than entrenched in assumptions of mutual assured hostility. Indeed, Russia offers the best possible example of that. Somehow, out of the Cold War madness, it produced Mikhail Gorbachev who saw that the system he presided over was unsustainable. That opened the way to co-existence and I feel fortunate to have lived through that interlude in history. At the moment, such reconciliation seems a pious hope. The objectives of the strategic defence review, with talk of 'immediate and pressing danger' are pretty Russia-specific. The threat may no longer be of Soviet hordes appearing with snow on their boots, but the message is much the same. Read more by Brian Wilson It is difficult to dissent from the premises on which this rhetoric is based. Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine are deplorable with no guarantee that he will stop there. Cyber attacks and destruction of energy infrastructure are among the new weapons of war in which Russia is prominent. On these grounds alone, it seems prudent to enhance our defensive capacity, which quickly translates into more money. Three per cent of our national wealth does not sound unreasonable, so long as it is spent on the right priorities. If the rest of Europe is doing it, then so should we. There is a difference, however, between sensible preparedness and an entrenched state of mind which refuses to recognise the perspective of the assumed enemy or prioritise diplomacy over polarisation. If nobody in government is recognising mistakes of the past, then they are missing a large part of this story. One of my Russian memories was created on a very specific date: August 17, 1998. As Trade Minister, I was in St Petersburg to open what was billed as the largest-ever UK trade show in Russia. Unfortunately, nobody came, apart from schoolchildren to pick up the freebies at the deserted exhibition stands. For it was also the day that the rouble collapsed. At that moment, the Russian economy was apparently in a state of terminal crisis. Under the Yeltsin regime, corruption had been rampant, state assets were stolen wholesale and vast sums were finding their way into western banks while Russia's coffers ran dry and the poor paid the price. Far from being treated as the criminals they undoubtedly were, the newly-minted Russian oligarchs and their ostentatious wealth were welcomed with open arms in the West. On the basis that it took a thief to catch many thieves, Vladimir Putin stepped into that void and, in what seemed a miraculously short time, restored economic order. In short, the West treated the break-up of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to be exploited rather than a very fragile new reality to be nurtured with care and respect. That was also the approach taken on foreign policy with an immediate push to extend the boundaries of the EU, and more significantly, Nato, as close as possible to the borders of Russia when it might have been prudent to apply a little more circumspection. This is an impossibly complex subject to be definitive on. The rights of former Soviet republics to seek collective security had to be balanced against Russia's fears of encirclement. As Putin's reign in the Kremlin continued, it became increasingly likely that he would exploit the latter whenever the occasion demanded. I saw some of this behaviour in negotiations over routes for pipelines which would carry oil and gas out of the former Soviet republics to the West. Short of having CIA stamped on their foreheads, it could not have been more obvious that some of those involved certainly did not have Russia's interests at heart – or indeed have any regard for them at all. There was far too much interference in what Russia still regarded as its own rightful sphere of influence. The more that perspective was disregarded, the more likely it became that nationalist sentiments would come into play, under a leader who knew exactly how to exploit them. Ukraine was always likely to be in that front line. In 1954, when dissent was not encouraged, Crimea was transferred from one Soviet republic (Russia) to another (Ukraine), which flew in the face of prior history. Once the Gorbachev genie was out of the bottle, Russian hostility to this arrangement soon emerged. Diplomacy might have forestalled the potential for trouble. Mikhail Gorbachev (Image: PA) In an upheaval as traumatic as the break-up of the Soviet Union, it was inevitable that not all the borders of new states which emerged would be clear-cut. Continuous international support for resolving these incipient conflicts peacefully, without becoming partisans in them, might have saved a lot of subsequent trouble and without a war based on what Kruschev and the Supreme Soviet decided for whatever reason in 1954. None of this in any way excuses the war that Putin has prosecuted in Ukraine though it might imply that negotiation is the only route to a solution. Neither does it call into question the need to defend our own population against the ambitions of any potential foe. The danger is that, around that objective, narratives are created from which it then becomes difficult to escape. We should be sure they are being written with due regard to past history and also future potential for peaceful co-existence. Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003.

Prince William visits Wattisham airfield to speak with soldiers
Prince William visits Wattisham airfield to speak with soldiers

BBC News

time29 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Prince William visits Wattisham airfield to speak with soldiers

The Prince of Wales has pledged to raise the concerns of soldiers about their accommodation. Prince William visited Wattisham flying station near Needham Market, Suffolk, to meet with men and women from the Army Air Corps (ACC) in his role as their discussed concerns about the quality of accommodation while serving bacon and sausage baps to the families of the military personnel . "I'm going to have a chat about accommodation, make sure they look at that," he told them. The prince is a former RAF helicopter search and rescue pilot who later spent two years flying air camouflage military uniform and the AAC's blue beret, he flew into Wattisham on a Wildcat Helicopter, a reconnaissance aircraft in the ACC's he first arrived he entered a camouflaged covered tent, a mock-up of a mobile planning headquarters used when AAC regiments are on deployment, and got to grips with a laptop used to plan missions under the watchful eye of Lance Corporal Sulabh Ale. 'Smiles' Talking about the accommodation, he added: "If they listen to me, that's another matter", and said the issue would be landing on a he asked another group about the issue and only received smiles in response, the prince said: "I'll take that away, a lot of smiles going on, that's all you need to say."He ended his visit by presenting a King's Commendation for Valuable Service and awarded a group of soldiers their promotion from corporal to sergeant. Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

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