A young Australian volunteer has lost his life in #Bakhmut.
Sage O'Donnell from Victoria, was 24 years old and a former soldier with the Australian Army.
Heavy loss of life on both sides as #Russia's illegal invasion continues.
📷LinkedIn
The strike(s) on the Engels air base while not officially confirmed, look real.
It's exactly 3 weeks since the previous hit in #Saratov.
Some #Ukraine Telegram channels happily showing this satellite pic of the base, where 🇷🇺 wrote "Death to Nazis" - maybe they got their wish!
So #Russia admits 3 people died in the drone attack on its Engels air base in #Saratov.
They claim the ground crews were victims of falling debris when the #Ukraine UAV was shot down. This is almost certainly a lie. One drone hit the target.
A personal representative of hated Ramzan Kadyrov is arrested by #Russia's police in occupied #Crimea.
Four lieutenants of the Akhmat SOBR regiment as well as Hasan Ibragimov are on security cameras beating a guy. The man objected when one of the Chechens groped his girlfriend.
Oops. Missed the thread.
Twitter app is misbehaving for me this morning.
Roll call! Phil, David and Derek supporting me overnight. Each and every donation is very much appreciated and helps me spend so much time compiling these daily threads.
Also thanks to al those who give me tip offs and support with words if they cannot afford tips.💙💛
Sensible words from #Ukraine Air Forces spokesman Yuri Ignat on the "TV Marathon"
While #Russia says no aircraft were damaged at the Engels base, no one trusts that & Ignat says only satellite photos will reveal the truth.
The fact 🇷🇺admits 3 deaths in the attack shows it's bad
New video of the damage following one of the latest attacks on #Kherson.
#Russia shelled the city 33 times in the last 24 hours, but luckily no residents were killed or injured.
He's being operated on in Moscow, but some say he is likely to be paralysed. I put this more into the "speculation" category, but moving him hundreds of kilometres shows it was very serious.
Hundreds came to the opera on Christmas Day. However there was an air raid warning which lasted an hour and a half. Cast, crew, workers and public alike had to gather underground until #Russia's planes returned to base.
2/2
But as soon as the air raid all clear was sounded, the show in #Kyiv began.
No surprise the first 3 are involved in military aggression in the last 24 hours, while #Iran just fights its own people for the time being
Russia needs other wars; others emboldened by Russia's war
Head of #Wagner who enriches himself at the expense of African states + grieving Russian families, has called for rich Russians to be stripped of their wealth.
Prigozhin: "It's necessary to take away everything, the faster the better, then everyone will be on an equal footing."
Thousands more Russian troops are being sent to defend #Melitopol as the invaders see they are in real danger of losing the town.
Petro Andriyushchenko, exiled advisor to Mayor of Mariupol' posted this secret film of some of the convoys heading to occupied #Zaporizhzhia region.
Sanctioned Chief Propagandist says "Russia is bombing #Ukraine without pleasure"
Margarita Simonyan: “I don’t know a single person in Russia, including Putin, who would enjoy what is happening now.”
RU says the dead are
Cdr Yuri Gorovets (callsign Svyatosha) and 3 sappers Maksim Mikhailov, Taras Karpyuk + Bogdan Lyagov
#Ukraine's anti-corruption agency NABU is conducting searches relating to fitness trainer Yana Khlanta.
She's been linked to Dnipropetrovsk Head Valentin Reznichenko. The region awarded Khlanta's company a $40m contract to repair roads despite the start of the full-scale war.
In #Kherson, shelling by #Russia damaged monuments to World War II heroes. This is in Slavy Park.
📷Konstantin Ryzhenko TG jurnko
It's emerged a few messages were posted on local media in #Russia saying five planes had been damaged at the Engels air base in #Saratov. They were swiftly deleted.
Meanwhile reports indicate the Kremlin is moving its planes east to the "Ukrainka" airfield in the Amur region.
They're taking the mickey now, surely?
Air raid warning in Saratov and the Engels airbase.
😅😅😅🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
In #Kharkiv region loud sounds after air raid warnings rang out there. However it's believed to be only air defence for the moment.
I do wonder if they're so embarrassed at what happened they're pretending there is a threat and that this evening they bravely shot all the (non existent) #Ukraine weapons from the sky?
Another monument to a famous Russian writer is dismantled in #Ukraine.
The Maksim Gorky statue is taken away by authorities in #Dnipro.
1/2 A couple of days ago I wrote about a team of volunteers taking Christmas hot meals to liberated, but still under fire, #Lyman in #Donetsk region.
Just been sent videos by Brian and the Alex21/Ukraine Aid Intnl team. They're sponsored by @westportctgov and Germany's Hamburg.
2/2
#Lyman is back in the firing line again with #Russia publicly saying they're launching a new attack to try to occupy the town again.
For the residents it's already a struggle just to survive. Great effort from these guys to risk their lives to help others.
Indeed, there was apparently little danger of paralysis. The operation on Rogozin to remove shrapnel from his buttocks, proved routine and he is said to be comfortable in hospital.
The morning after the night before. A dreadful 24 hours for Ukraine as Terrorism rained down on all four of 🇺🇦's biggest cities.
Russia acts with impunity. Putin & his commanders have got away with war crimes for 4 years, so what will change?
Here's the🧵for Day 1513
As I type, BSky is down, which causes problems as it's much easier to simul-post than go back & repost everything later.
So, like the old days before fascism took over here, I'm on X (itter) only.
But these problems are infinitesimally small compared to 1000s in Ukraine today.
A pretty astonishing 24 hours of round-the-clock day and night attacks from Russia. Trying to exhaust Ukraine's air defence missiles and also exhaust the operators too, no doubt.
Many, many civilian deaths and injuries.
This is how it unfolded..
You've found the start of another daily thread and Friday is Day 1507 of Ukraine's heroic struggle to keep alive its independent statehood.
Since Bohdan Khmelnytskyi's uprising in 1648, Ukraine has never had 35 years of freedom. It's about to accomplish that, but at what cost?
All the important stories, throughout the day, every day. It's all fact-checked; I'm a real, trained journalist with vast experience and knowledge of Ukraine.
What's not to love?😆
Catch up on yesterday's thread here:
This is the beginning of the daily Ukraine thread on Day 1491.
The day started with an attack a major Russian port, which I was still reporting on during yesterday's🧵at 03:15 GMT/05:15 Kyiv
More details on that coming up.
The aerial fightback at the end of the day (start of today) came after Russia broke every record in the book for drone numbers during a cowardly attack on less protected city centres in the west of the country.