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Mar 11 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Fighters in the Central African Republic have pledged allegiance to the Kremlin and said they are preparing to enter the war in Ukraine thetimes.co.uk/article/africa…
A group of ten heavily armed soldiers appeared in a video saying they would soon be joining their “Russian brothers” on the front line to bring “peace and order”.

President Putin has also given the green light to bring in thousands of “volunteers” from the Middle East
At a meeting this morning, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said there were 16,000 “volunteers” in the Middle East who were ready to come to fight with Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine
🗣️ “If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,” Shoigu said.

Putin responded: “Please do this”
In a video apparently shot in the Central African Republic, a masked fighter flanked by nine comrades announces that they will soon be on their way to Ukraine.

He declares: “To our Russian fighting brothers, we are aware of what is happening in Ukraine"
The masked fighter added:

🗣️ "Russian soldiers are carrying out military operations to bring peace and order in the face of Ukrainian nationalism. We African soldiers are ready to go to the side of our Russian brothers to support them"
"Our Russian brothers, stand fast! We Africans, we’re coming soon. Courage! Courage!” he said
Russia 🇷🇺 has offered extensive military support to the Central African Republic’s President Touadéra in recent years, helping to bolster the regime’s poorly equipped army in fighting back rebel militia groups
There are also believed to be thousands of Russian mercenaries fighting with the Wagner Group, a private military organisation based in 🇷🇺 whose members have reportedly taken part in conflicts across Africa and in Syria on the side of the Syrian government
thetimes.co.uk/article/wagner…
Read the full story 👇
thetimes.co.uk/article/africa…

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Mar 12
Sarah Simoni first met Harold Leenen while he was a high-flyer in the corporate banking world — eight years later Harold is now Alexandra.

The pair tell @LouiseMGannon their story 👇

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🗣 "If you had told me at 21 that I’d fall in love and marry a man who transitioned to a woman… And then she and I would move into a big house with my mum, dad, sister and her three teenage children... Then I’d have said, ‘You’ve got to be joking. That could never happen to me'"
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Mar 12
As the Russians advanced she sent her three children away.

Now @lesiavasylenko has taken up a rifle thetimes.co.uk/article/lesya-…
@lesiavasylenko When Vasylenko was given a gun to defend herself and her country against the Russian army, she realised that she would have to cut off her beautiful long fingernails.

🗣 "That was a tragedy for me, because I have been fighting for 34 years the habit of biting my nails"
@lesiavasylenko 🗣 "I was so proud that I was finally able to kick that habit and grow my nails and then the universe says ‘no’ to you through Vladimir Putin, who decides to attack your country... and then you have to pick up a gun and in order to be able to use it you have to cut your nails"
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The Times Profile picture
Mar 12
A Russian spy chief is said to have been placed under house arrest in a sign that President Putin is seeking to blame the security services for the stalled invasion of Ukraine thetimes.co.uk/article/kremli…
Sergey Beseda, head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, was arrested with Anatoly Bolyukh, his deputy, according to a leading expert on the Russian security services, who said that sources from within FSB had confirmed the detention of both men
Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist, also confirmed the arrests. He added that FSB officers had carried out searches at more than 20 addresses around Moscow of colleagues suspected of being in contact with journalists Image
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The Times Profile picture
Mar 12
For many, returning home after the devastating floods in Australia has meant coming back to more than ruined furniture and clothing.

Snakes and spiders, some deadly, have also been heading indoors, with many found nestling in people’s sofas and beds thetimes.co.uk/article/plague…
Pythons, venomous red-bellied snakes and eastern browns — the second most lethal on the planet after the inland taipan, also an Australian species — are on the move after floods across the populous east forced them from their lowland hideouts thetimes.co.uk/article/plague…
Glenn Lawrence, a snake catcher in Brisbane, was called out this week to remove an eastern brown from a school classroom. Another was spotted by an alarmed family in the south of the city.

🗣 “It was up on the veranda behind a [portable cooler] and looking very comfortable”
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The Times Profile picture
Mar 11
A woman accused by the Russia’s embassy in London of having faked her injuries from an airstrike on a Ukrainian hospital has given birth to a baby girl called Veronika thetimes.co.uk/article/woman-…
Images of Mariana Vishegirskaya, bloodied and heavily pregnant, were published around the world after a bomb dropped by a Russian plane hit the maternity and children’s wards in Mariupol Image
The Russian embassy accused Vishegirskaya, who they named as Marianna Podgurskaya, of having applied fake blood and dirt to herself for a staged photograph thetimes.co.uk/article/russia…
Read 9 tweets
The Times Profile picture
Mar 11
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is allowing opponents of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to push for the deaths of Vladimir Putin and his soldiers in a temporary change to its hate speech policy thetimes.co.uk/article/facebo… Image
Meta will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence in the context of the devastating assault upon Ukraine, according to internal emails
Facebook is also temporarily allowing some posts that support the deaths of Vladimir Putin or Alexander Lukashenko, but those containing other targets, or which have two indicators of credibility such as the location or method, are banned
Read 11 tweets

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