France steps in to provide military intelligence to Ukraine as the US freezes vital information
'Our intelligence is sovereign,' Lecornu said. 'We have intelligence that we allow Ukraine to benefit from.'
Lecornu added that following the US decision to suspend all military aid to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron asked him to 'accelerate the various French aid packages' to make up for the lack of American assistance.
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Lecornu said that in the wake of the U.S. decision, shipments of Ukraine-bound aid departing from Poland had been suspended, adding however that 'Ukrainians, unfortunately, have learned to fight this war for three years now and know how to stockpile.'
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Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Russian soldiers disguised in civilian clothes infiltrating front-line city
Credit: 25th Separate Airborne Brigade (supplied) A photograph shared in a group chat shows two men dressed in civilian clothing walking out of a house in downtown Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine. 'Watch out, these are Russians,' the message reads, in a warning to other members of Ukraine's 25th Separate Airborne Brigade. For weeks now, these war-battered Ukrainian soldiers stationed in the city have not only been attacked by Russian drones but also Vladimir Putin's troops disguised as civilians. Russian forces are using this new tactic to infiltrate Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub, and attack Ukrainian soldiers from within, The Telegraph can reveal. It's part of Russia's race to seize the city and as much Ukrainian territory as its forces will allow ahead of Putin's peace talks with Donald Trump, the US president, on Friday. The Telegraph revealed Ukraine could agree to cede territory already held by Russia as part of a European-backed plan for peace. This would mean freezing the front line as part of Mr Trump's settlement and handing Russia de-facto control of the territory it occupies in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea. And Russia's efforts to take as much land as possible are ramping up. Sabotage and reconnaissance units have driven through exposed defences near Dobropillia in Donetsk, marching as far as six miles behind the front line in just 48 hours, battlefield reports say. Their aim is to cut off Pokrovsk and the city of Kramatorsk, another vital stronghold in the Donbas still under Ukraine's control. Yet defiant Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to give up their fight in Pokrovsk, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. It's here that Russian troops are hiding in plain clothes among the population, Illia Petryna, a deputy commander, told The Telegraph. 'We witnessed Russians change from their military clothes, even changing into our uniforms. We find Russian military clothes in areas where we know they were,' he says. The brigade has even intercepted Russian radio chatter in which Russian soldiers discuss these disguises. According to Petryna, their main task is to attack infantry groups or light-armoured vehicles and disrupt Ukraine's logistics. Their secondary task is to communicate with locals and spread disinformation. 'They tell them that there are already 500 Russians who have entered Pokrovsk, to convince them not to help Ukrainians any more,' he says. At least 28 Russian soldiers were identified in the latter half of last month. Petryna says the wave of saboteurs was first detected on July 18 when poor weather limited Ukraine's drone operations and gave Russian troops an opportunity to slip into the city undetected. The saboteurs moved in groups of three or four, occupying abandoned homes and wearing whatever civilian clothing they could find. In one case, a Russian soldier, the last survivor of his unit, was found wearing a Ukrposhta T-shirt, the uniform of Ukraine's state postal service. In a video shown to The Telegraph, a mobile phone recovered from a Russian soldier displays a map of what appears to be Pokrovsk. The map is marked with colour-coded numbers and roads, routes and safe passages used by Russian troops to infiltrate the city. 'We found a route they were using to enter the city,' says Petryna. 'An assault brigade was ordered in and the entrance was closed.' As Ukrainian forces moved along that route, they began finding discarded uniforms in houses. 'That is when we started filtration among civilians,' he says. The filtration process lasted nine days. Ukrainian soldiers went house to house along known infiltration routes, speaking to residents to determine friend from foe. In one building, Petryna says they engaged with Russian troops. Ukrainian forces killed the entire unit by throwing grenades into the basement where they were hiding. Upstairs, they found their discarded Russian uniforms strewn about the rooms. Civilians in Pokrovsk have been helping Ukrainian forces identify the saboteurs. One video shows two elderly residents pointing a Ukrainian drone towards a house where Russian soldiers were hiding. The woman, balanced on her walking stick as she opened the gate for the drone to pass through and kill the troops inside. But their presence can also complicate matters and there are cases where Ukrainian soldiers are unsure who is friend or foe. 'It is very difficult,' says Petryna, recounting a case where a mysterious antenna appeared on the roof of a building. 'Our drones started to fly around this building. [thinking Russians may be hiding there], and first it was a man who came out, and then he showed his wife and his kid.' Because Ukraine does not enforce evacuations from embattled towns, soldiers must constantly decide who is a civilian and who may be an enemy in disguise. This uncertainty also limits the weaponry they can use, often forcing reliance on drones instead of artillery. In addition to carrying out sabotage, Petryna believes Russian soldiers wear civilian clothes out of fear and in the hope of going undetected. He says the brigade has intercepted radio chatter in which Russian troops questioned their purpose. 'They started to ask themselves, 'Why are we here? We do not understand what the task is.'' While some reports suggest the saboteurs could be Russian Diversion and Reconnaissance groups (DRG), a type of special forces, Deputy Commander Petryna says the soldiers found in Pokrovsk are regular infantry, a platoon of about 30 men, split into smaller groups of three or four. 'We are sure they will not send their special forces into Pokrovsk on these assignments because it is almost 100 per cent death,' he says. According to Petryna, these soldiers are used as cannon fodder, sometimes sent into the city as punishment and as a cheap way to gather intelligence on Ukrainian positions. The Ukrainian deputy commander says he heard of one DRG operating in the nearby town of Rodynske, but that group has since been eliminated. 'It is very difficult to hold the defence all up and down the front, especially when the weather is bad. We have found some spaces where they [Russian soldiers] just jump in.' Russian DRG units have been confirmed operating in the wider area. This week, they achieved a major breakthrough north-east of Pokrovsk. Russian assault units followed soon afterwards, establishing positions seven kilometres deep into Ukrainian lines. The breakthrough occurred in fewer than 48 hours. On Tuesday, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's commander in chief of the armed forces, deployed additional troops to Pokrovsk to eliminate saboteur groups in the city. 'The enemy is using its numerical superiority and, despite suffering heavy personnel losses, is trying to infiltrate our front line in small groups,' said Andrii Kovaliov, spokesman for the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine. For now, Pokrovsk hangs in the balance. Depending on the outcome of Friday's meeting in Alaska between the US and Russia, if Ukraine cannot hold the Donetsk region through diplomacy, Russia may take it by force. It's capture would help secure the entirety of the Donetsk region and boost momentum at a time when the Kremlin is making slow but consistent gains on the battlefield. For those in Ukraine's front-line cities, they will fear that by the time Mr Trump sits down with Putin and any form of peace is agreed, their homes could have already taken by advancing Russian troops. 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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Russia says its demands are unchanged: full Ukrainian withdrawal from regions that Moscow claims
By Dmitry Antonov MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday that its stance on ending the war in Ukraine has not changed since President Vladimir Putin set out his conditions last year: the full withdrawal of Kyiv's forces from key Ukrainian regions and the abandonment of its NATO ambitions. Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are due to meet on Friday in Alaska, the first U.S.-Russian summit since 2021, to discuss efforts to end the war. Trump has said both sides will have to swap some of the land they currently hold to make this happen. Russia currently controls 19% of Ukraine including all of Crimea, all of Luhansk, more than 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. After reports by some media that Washington understood Putin was ready to compromise on his territorial demands, the Russian Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesperson, Alexei Fadeev, was asked by reporters if Russia's position had changed or not. "Russia's position remains unchanged, and it was voiced in this very hall just over a year ago, on June 14, 2024," Fadeev said, referring to a speech Putin delivered then at the foreign ministry. At that time, in his fullest public remarks so far about the shape of a possible settlement, the Kremlin chief set out demands including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that they still control. Putin also said that Kyiv would have to officially notify Moscow that it was abandoning its plans to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, and that it intended to remain neutral and non-aligned. In addition, Putin said that the rights and freedoms of Russian-speakers in Ukraine would have to be ensured, and the "realities" that Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson were now part of Russia. Putin has said his conditions would also have to be reflected in international agreements. At the time of his 2024 speech, Ukraine rejected his demands as tantamount to an absurd ultimatum. Ukraine has repeatedly said it will never recognise Russian occupation of its land, and most countries recognise Ukraine's territory within its 1991 borders. Based on the current frontlines, Putin's demand would entail Ukraine ceding an additional 21,000 sq km (8,100 sq miles) to Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia must agree to a ceasefire before territorial issues are discussed. He would reject any Russian proposal that Ukraine pull its troops from the eastern Donbas region and cede its defensive lines. Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
When he meets with Putin, Trump should demand some American land back, too
If President Trump is going to be talking land swaps with Vladimir Putin later this week, maybe he can get some American land back, too? Friday's talks in Alaska offer a historic and welcomed opportunity for rapprochement in our bilateral relations with Russia. We should try to get along with our neighbors, difficult though they may be. Trump is right to do so in attempting to broker peace in a war that should never have started. However, the prospect of establishing neighborly relations again while negotiating over Ukrainian territory also raises long-frozen but now relevant issues between us in the very place where these leaders, and indeed our own two countries, meet — the Arctic. Acknowledging and working to resolve them will go a long way towards laying the groundwork for a better future between our nations. Yesterday marked the 144th anniversary of the discovery and claiming of Wrangel Island by the US Coast Guard on August 12, 1881. Wrangel is a large island located in the Arctic Ocean about 270 nautical miles northeast of the coast of Alaska, about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. It was discovered that day by a landing party from the USRC Corwin, a patrol cutter of the Bering Sea Patrol — then the U.S. government authority in the young territory of Alaska. The landing party, which included famed naturalist John Muir, hoisted the American flag and claimed the island in the name of the president of the United States. The island was surveyed later that month by the the USS Rodgers, and subsequently incorporated into official U.S. government documents and records. Four decades later, however, on August 20, 1924, Wrangel was seized by Bolsheviks aboard the Soviet icebreaker Red October. The American settlers were arrested, hauled off and taken prisoner in Vladivostok. The leader of the Nome-based settlers died in custody. The U.S. didn't have diplomatic relations with the Soviets until 1933 and has never acknowledged Russia's claim to ownership. The same goes for the De Long Islands further west, which had been discovered months earlier by the crew of the USS Jeannette, which was lost in high Arctic when the Coast Guard Cutter Corwin was dispatched to rescue it. Today, Wrangel is the 'Gibraltar' of the Northern Sea Route, providing a key choke point on its eastern entry and hosting a modern naval base from which Russia projects force over the Arctic and American interests. As the leaders discuss demilitarizing Ukraine, perhaps Wrangel could also be demilitarized and made a joint U.S.-Russian scientific area and monument to peace between our nations? Alternatively, if the U.S. is going to continue acquiesce to Russian control, perhaps it is time Russia should compensate us for what their Soviet predecessors took by force. One way they might do so would be to sign over their frozen sovereign assets to the U.S. — roughly $210 billion. This would go a long way toward American taxpayers recouping the $350 billion we have lost, greatly increasing our national debt, to finance a deadly war that never should have happened. To those who would consider such history trivial and say Americans don't have skin in the game in these islands, a visit to Annapolis, Md. should help. There, they might climb up to the highest point on the highest hill, in the cemetery overlooking the US Naval Academy. Standing there is a monument that dwarfs every other surrounding it on this hallowed ground – it's to the USS Jeannette Arctic Exploring Mission of 1879-1881, and the 20 men who perished in their discovery. Although remembered by few today, the story of the USS Jeannette and its rescue party was an epic story known across America at the time, heavily chronicled in the thousand-page reports of Congressional investigations that followed. Back then, things were also very different between our countries. America's discovery of new islands north of Russia was welcomed with excitement there, with Tsar Alexander III extending to the survivors a lavish reception in St. Petersburg. As Trump works to secure our hemispheric defense, America's outermost islands matter. This is especially so in the Arctic, certain to see increased trade, commerce and geopolitical rivalry in the decades to come. If we do not secure our periphery, we put our homeland at risk. And others take notice. Just this past week, five Chinese Arctic research vessels sailed easily through the Bering Sea and past the Aleutian Islands, where former defense installations at Attu and Adak — sites of WWII combat and American sacrifice — today sit abandoned or disused. In U.S. history, the story of America's lost Arctic islands holds a very dubious distinction: It's the only time America has yielded land in the face of a hostile force that it has subsequently failed to recover. Today, however, a recovery through negotiation and dialog may yet be possible. Finding a peaceful solution to Wrangel and the De Long Islands would be a very positive step in establishing a new relationship between the Russian Federation and the U.S.
