Inform Blogs

 One person has been killed after blasts rocked a military base in Crimea, the head of the Russia-appointed regional administration there said. Sergei Aksyonov wrote on social media that the blasts had taken place at the Saky military base near Novofedorivka on the peninsula’s western coast. Footage circulating on social media appeared to show multiple explosions. Russia’s defence ministry later said ammunition was detonated, but this has not been independently verified. The ministry said there was no “fire impact” on the ammunition storage area, Russia’s state-run Ria news agency reports. The Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014 is a popular destination with Russian tourists, and one video appeared to show visitors fleeing from a beach as smoke rose in the background. Read more : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62482425

Russia has told the US it has “temporarily” suspended on-site inspections of its strategic nuclear weapons, under an arms control treaty known as New START. The Russian foreign ministry said the US was seeking advantages and had deprived Russia of the right to carry out inspections on US territory. It said US sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine had changed conditions between the countries. The treaty came into force in 2011. It is the last remaining arms reduction agreement between the former Cold War rivals. It caps at 1,550 the number of long-range nuclear warheads that each country can deploy. The ministry said the suspension was allowed under the treaty terms “in exceptional circumstances”. The suspension comes a week after US President Joe Biden said he was ready to work on a new nuclear arms deal with President Vladimir Putin. The current one will expire in 2026. The ministry accused the US of ignoring “existing realities” such as “the suspension of normal” air links. Read M...

 Joe Biden calls the sentence against the WNBA star, who was arrested at a Moscow airport in February, ‘unacceptable’. A Russian court has found US basketball star Brittney Griner guilty of drug smuggling, and sentenced her to nine years in prison in a ruling US President Joe Biden called “unacceptable”. The court “found the defendant guilty” of smuggling and possessing “a significant amount of narcotics”, Judge Anna Sotnikova told a court in the town of Khimki just outside Moscow. The player was also fined one million rubles ($16,300). Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star, was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs by police after the verdict, turning to reporters and saying: “I love my family”. Biden condemned the verdict and reiterated calls for the 31-year-old’s release. “My administration will continue to work tirelessly and pursue every possible avenue to bring Brittney and Paul Whelan home safely as soon as pos...

  Iran is planning to supply hundreds of drones with combat weapon capabilities to Russia for use in Ukraine, a top US official said Monday. Jake Sullivan, the White House national security advisor, said the information received by the United States supported views that the Russian military is facing challenges sustaining its weaponry after significant losses in Ukraine. "The Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), including weapons-capable UAVs, on an expedited timeline," Sullivan told reporters. "Our information further indicates that Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs, with initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July," he said. Sullivan said it was not clear whether Iran had delivered any of the drones to Russia yet. He noted that Iran's drones have been used by the Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Saudi Arabia. Drones have played a crucial role ...

  "Right now, we have two big battles," says Dmytro Podvorchanskyi, a soldier with Ukraine's Dnipro 1 Battalion. "The first is an artillery battle," he says, "the second is a battle of technologies". Dmytro is fighting that second, largely unseen war. He leads a unit of just 10 soldiers who form Dnipro 1's drone intelligence unit. Dmytro says he prefers to call it "IT guys who fight". All of them are volunteers. Most of them have a background in information technology, and knew each other before the war started. On a mobile phone one of the team shows us drone footage of the Russian targets they've already destroyed - their "greatest hits". Dmytro lists them: "One tank, three or four artillery guns, two mortar positions and five or six ammunition dumps." "Good results for just 10 people," he says, before breaking into a smile. They've already been fighting in Rubizhne and Severodonetsk - cities captur...