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Russia Drops BOMBSHELL Confession Videos Of Ukrainian Fighters: ‘British Trained Us To Blow Up…'

Russia Drops BOMBSHELL Confession Videos Of Ukrainian Fighters: ‘British Trained Us To Blow Up…'

Time of India10 hours ago
TOI.in
/ Aug 20, 2025, 11:40PM IST
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it killed and detained members of a Ukrainian sabotage group in the Bryansk region. According to the FSB, three men were killed and three others captured during the security operation. State media released footage of the suspects identifying themselves as members of Ukraine's Special Operations forces, alongside images of seized U.S.-made rifles, Czech explosives, and NATO-standard grenades. The captured commander, Oleksandr Zhuk, claimed the unit was trained by British, Canadian, and European instructors, allegedly under Western intelligence supervision. He further linked the group to past attacks, including a bridge explosion in Bryansk and a train derailment in Belgorod. Watch.
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Security 'guarantees' for Ukraine are dangerously hazy
Security 'guarantees' for Ukraine are dangerously hazy

Hindustan Times

time25 minutes ago

  • Hindustan Times

Security 'guarantees' for Ukraine are dangerously hazy

As he hosted European leaders in the White House on August 18th, and fresh from a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, Donald Trump declared that peace in Ukraine was at hand—but not quite yet, for it had been trickier than he anticipated. 'I thought this was going to be one of the easier ones,' he declared. 'They're very complex.' The list of obstacles remains long. Vladimir Putin, who met Mr Trump in Alaska on August 15th, wants Ukraine to hand over unoccupied land in the eastern Donbas region, a proposal that Mr Trump seems to favour. Mr Trump has now embraced the Russian proposal to skip an initial ceasefire and go immediately to a final settlement, a sequencing opposed by the Europeans. And Mr Putin has so far rejected Mr Trump's suggestion of a trilateral meeting between the American, Russian and Ukrainian presidents, instead offering the implausible proposal that Mr Zelensky visit Moscow. 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Mr Trump, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden before him, is unlikely to make a commitment to go to war against Russia to protect Ukraine. Nor is it clear what, precisely, Mr Putin and his team told the Americans in Alaska. The details are important. In 2022, during talks with Ukraine, Russia did indeed agree that Ukraine's partners could provide guarantees as part of a peace deal. But the Kremlin later inserted a poison-pill clause that would have allowed it to veto any activation of those guarantees. On August 20th Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said that any new deal would need to be based on those proposals, with China included among the guarantors. There are also mechanisms that fall well short of Article 5. One example would be security 'assurances', rather than guarantees, like the Budapest memorandum of 1994, in which America, Britain and Russia promised to respect Ukraine's integrity and, feebly, to 'consult' if it was violated. Plainly, those did not work. In the middle, says Samuel Charap of the rand Corporation, would be something like the pact America signed with Israel in 1975: a promise to take remedial action if Egypt violated a ceasefire. Such action could include a snapback of sanctions, he suggests, or a revocation of Ukraine's neutrality, assuming that this was part of an agreed settlement. All of this is also tied up with the question of a 'coalition of the willing', spearheaded by Britain and France, that could deploy troops to Ukraine and planes to its skies. The coalition, which could include non-European countries like Australia, has been engaged in detailed military planning for months, with some countries considering where in Ukraine they would place their forces. One sticking point has been whether Mr Trump would enable such a force, for instance with logistics and intelligence, and 'backstop' it by promising to step in if it were to be attacked. In recent days Mr Trump appeared to suggest that he would. On August 18th he said that Europeans would be the 'first line of defence', but America would 'help them out with it', though he gave few clues as to what that might mean. The next day he reiterated that he was willing to help, possibly with air power, 'because there's nobody [with] the kind of stuff we have…I don't think it's going to be a problem.' Marco Rubio, America's secretary of state, is leading a working group to examine this, along with broader guarantees. Russia has reaffirmed that it is opposed to the idea. At the heart of the Trumpian vision of a peace deal is a major contradiction: Russia, the aggressor state, would have to agree to consent to any security guarantees being given to Ukraine, a state it denies exists. The unknowable factor is Mr Putin and his current mindset. If he has indeed come to the opinion that it is time to make strategic decisions to stop, he may bend. If not, the impossible issue of squaring serious security guarantees with a Russian security veto will prove to be a very convenient stumbling block. Mr Lavrov's comments suggest that the obstacle remains. What is also not clear is what, precisely, a European force would do. One aim is for it to train and develop Ukraine's own armed forces. Another is to offer reassurance by the mere presence of foreign troops, who left in a rush in 2022. But if the force was attacked, or if Russia were to break a peace agreement and re-invade, how would the coalition respond? A formal pledge to fight Russia would amount to Article 5 by other means. A vague mandate with woolly rules of engagement could tempt Russia to test European resolve. What if, for instance, a Russian plane launched a bomb at the Europeans from within its own airspace? One worry in the Biden administration was that if a European force was exposed inside Ukraine, it could undercut the credibility of Article 5 on nato soil. In practice, Ukraine, scarred by experience, will put only limited faith in outside pledges and foreign troops. Speaking in the White House, Emmanuel Macron, France's president, acknowledged that the ultimate guarantee was Ukraine's own armed forces. That made it all the more important, he noted, that a peace deal should include no limits on the size and capability of those forces, as Russia has sought. Mr Zelensky cannot sign a deal that would leave his country defenceless. Mr Putin still seeks to turn Ukraine into an enfeebled vassal state cut off from its allies. Mr Trump may have to wait for his Nobel prize.

US tariffs may lower India's growth by 30 bps over a year, says HSBC report
US tariffs may lower India's growth by 30 bps over a year, says HSBC report

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timean hour ago

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US tariffs may lower India's growth by 30 bps over a year, says HSBC report

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Europe will have to take lion's share of burden for Ukraine security: Vance
Europe will have to take lion's share of burden for Ukraine security: Vance

Business Standard

timean hour ago

  • Business Standard

Europe will have to take lion's share of burden for Ukraine security: Vance

European countries have formed a coalition of the willing that would commit forces to guarantee Ukraine's security Reuters US Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that European countries will have to pay the "lion's share" of costs for Ukraine's security guarantees. Why it's important President Donald Trump wants to strike a peace deal to end Russia's 3-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine. One of Ukraine's priorities is security guarantees against Russian aggression. Trump has said he will not put US troops on the ground there but could offer US air support. European countries have formed a "coalition of the willing" that would commit forces to guarantee Ukraine's security. With Trump testy about billions of dollars in US military aid to Ukraine so far, the White House has said Washington willnot continue "writing blank checks" to fund Kyiv's defense. Trump wants to shift more responsibility for the costs to European allies. Key quotes "I don't think we should carry the burden here.... The president certainly expects Europe to play the leading role here," Vance told Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" show. "No matter what form this takes, the Europeans are going to have to take the lion's share of the burden. It's their continent, its their security, and the president has been very clear - they are going to have to step up here." Context Vance said Russia wants some Ukrainian territory, "most of which they have occupied but some of which they haven't." Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine, and Trump has said "land-swapping" and changes to territory will be crucial for any settlement. Ukraine opposes conceding any territory, a position President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said is enshrined in the country's constitution. But Kyiv currently lacks the military capacity to retake all Russian-held areas and has limited diplomatic leverage to force a withdrawal in the short term.

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