It sounds like something out of a dark thriller: One of the men who sat at the negotiating table in Belarus on Monday at the talks between Russia and Ukraine is dead!
His name: Denis Kirev (other spelling: Kiriev).
Kirev (44, married, three children) was a negotiator on the Ukrainian side, participated in the first (unsuccessful) round of talks in the city of Gomel.
There were conflicting reports about the circumstances of his death. One thing is clear: kill.
︎ According to the first reports, he was shot by the Ukrainian Internal Intelligence Service when he tried to escape from his arrest. Reason: According to this account, Kirev was a Russian agent among the Ukrainians. It is said that he leaked information from the negotiations to the people of Putin – high treason!
This was reported, among other things, by the Ukrainian news site „Pravda”, which indicated confirmation from government departments.
︎ According to other rumors, he was a double agent serving both countries. investigative journalist Michael Weiss writes on TwitterHe thinks this is reasonable. And the SBU wiped him out, too. A former intelligence chief told him that Kirev spent „as much time” hiding enemy spies as he did capturing them.
Another Ukrainian secret service – the GUR Military Intelligence Service – contradicted hours later. According to him, Kirev was one of three men from the GUR who died in a special operation. And the military service wrote on its Facebook page, that they had rendered heroic service to their country and died honorably in its defense.
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It is also known about Kirev that he worked in banking and private equity firms and that he (source: news portal „Obozrevatel”) was already indicted in 2020 on suspicion of spying for Russia. He often travels to Russia and has connections to the oligarchs who work for former President Viktor Yanukovych, who is close to Putin.
The same news portal noticed another strange detail: Kirev was not even named as a negotiator on the official list of the Ukrainian presidential office. But the photos clearly show that he was sitting at the table in Gomel together with the Kyiv representatives.
For days, NATO countries have been outpacing each other in arms shipments to Ukraine. Leopard 2 tanks will soon be among them again.
KYIV – They're rolling in the Ukraine war again: the one of great importance US arms supplies to the Ukrainian Armed Forces They are on the way forward. Thanks to $61 billion, military aid from other NATO countries is beginning to accelerate again.
Leopard 2 tank: Ukraine receives supplies from “Leos” against Russia
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) rejects the launch of the Taurus cruise missile. While the little one Lithuania gave its last fighter plane to the Ukrainians The British send Paveway IV infrared-guided glide bombs and powerful medium-range ATACMS missiles on their way to the devastated country from the United States.
Now supplies have arrived for the squadron Leopard 2 tanks Ukrainian army. Like the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais Madrid will soon deliver ten of a total of 19 Leopard 2 A4 tanks to the Ukrainians, it was reported on Friday (April 26). It's the next signal of support: Kiev can urgently use every Western battle tank to defend the country against the Russian invading forces of Kremlin autocrat Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine losses: Many tanks remained facing Putin's Russian army
Because: like that New York Times (New York Times) As recently reported, the Russians have, among other things, disabled five of 31 US Abrams tanks delivered in the past two months. According to the open source intelligence website oryx, which documents military losses using photographs and maps. For example, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had lost a total of 796 tanks by April 20 – including 30 German-made Leopard 2 tanks. According to estimates, Kiev received approximately 140 tanks from the West. Many of them failed to fight against the army Russia He has already returned to the battlefield, as evidenced by numerous photos and videos from bloggers on social media such as Telegram.
Recently, Ukraine has had to rely more heavily on old Soviet-era tanks again Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) It stated that some of the newly formed brigades were no longer supplied with tanks at all. In addition to the Spanish tanks, work is currently underway on supplies: Munich tank manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), which has been producing „Leos” for decades, is currently preparing an additional 14 Leopard 2 A4 tanks from German industrial stocks on behalf of For and at the expense of the Netherlands and Denmark.
Weapons delivery to Ukraine: Spain provides Patriot missiles
how El Pais However, the Spanish arms package should be available to Kiev by June 30. The deliveries also include an unspecified payload of Patriot missiles, but Madrid has concluded that it does not wish to deliver a complete anti-aircraft system. This is exactly what Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said (SPD) last in Answer-Broadcasting „Maischberger“If a country has, for example, six Patriot systems, or four, and is not on the front line to the east, they can easily hand over a Patriot system,” other NATO partners asked.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) even wrote letters with similar requests to their counterparts. When Sandra Meischberger asked whether he meant Spain and/or Greece, the Defense Minister replied: “We are currently talking to them.” For its part, Athens publicly announced on Friday that it would not provide the Patriot air defense system. According to unconfirmed reports, the Greek Air Force is said to have 36 so-called Patriot bombers, that is, launchers.
Leopard 2 Ukrainians: Putin seized tanks that demonstrated in Russia
As for the “Panthers”: In recent months, the Russian army has been conducting a real hunt for Panther tanks in Ukraine, and this has been documented through pathetic posts published by Russian military bloggers on social media. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed a captured Leopard 2 A6 tank while transporting the tank on a low-loading truck across western Russia to the capital, Moscow – with offensive comments on social networks. Now Ukraine gets more from Assad again against Putin's imperialism. (evening)
In the United States, the H5N1 bird flu virus is spreading among cows, and even milk from supermarkets is affected. Researchers fear that the Mo flu could get out of control.
In March, cattle ranchers in the US states of Texas, Kansas and New Mexico noticed something disturbing. Something was wrong with her cows, they looked sick. Some of the animals gave less milk than usual, the milk was thicker, and the animals appeared to have lost their appetite. A few days later it was clear: they had contracted the bird flu virus H5N1 Experts detected it in their milk and, in one case, in a throat swab. Since then, more and more farmers in the United States have reported cases of infection in their herds. Recently, the American authorities found Genetic effects of the virus in pasteurized milk From the supermarket. New samples indicate The outbreak is likely to be largerwhich the official figures indicate.
Britain is set to supply Ukraine with heavy guided bombs to help it fight the Russian invasion led by Vladimir Putin.
KYIV — Ukraine's allies want to know: As the Russian army advances in Donbas, the United States has released $61 billion in arms shipments to Kiev. Great Britain put together a $3.7 billion military package, and tiny Lithuania gave the Ukrainians the last fighter plane to fight back against Vladimir Putin.
Arms shipments to Ukraine: British send Paveway IV bomb to Kiev
For example, the medium-range ATACMS missiles that Washington sent to the Ukrainian military, according to a US media report, before Congress finally voted yes, are much more powerful. The time factor when it finally arrives has a major impact on the course of battles between the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions in the Ukraine war.
They are also highly accurate – like the ATACMS – Paveway IV guided air-to-surface bombs, which London says it is supplying to the Ukrainian armed forces as part of the latest weapons deliveries. Newsweek It will save. In this case, it is air power, which repeatedly inflicts heavy losses on Russia – especially in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
Military aid to Ukraine: Great Britain is significantly increasing its arms package
At the start of the week, the UK increased its planned 2024 military aid to the Ukrainians, who are in dire straits on the ground, by another £500m to £3.23bn. Such as, among others, the independent electronic portal for Eastern Europe Setback It was reported that these arms shipments include, for example, 160 Husky armored personnel carriers, in addition to 1,600 offensive bombs and anti-aircraft missiles. also telegraph Reports on this topic.
American news magazine Newsweek He speculates that Paveway bombs should be part of this package. The big advantage: After being launched, the bomb can glide greater distances in the air and search for a target independently or be actively guided towards a target. For this purpose, the Paveway IV is equipped with a modern laser array, which, in addition to GPS, includes both an infrared and a laser seeker on the head of the weapon. The bomb can also be directed at moving targets, such as moving tank convoys.
Ukraine War: Vladimir Putin attacks cities with huge bombs
The so-called Aurora Integrated Detonator from the French arms company Thales allows a rapidly approaching bomb to detonate in the air above the target, on impact or after penetrating the target – depending on previous programming. This means that Paveway could also be used against command and communications centers in bunkers – in theory. Because: The warhead weighs 226.8 kilograms, which is equivalent to 500 pounds. This is a lot and would certainly be enough to establish shelters in the ruins of destroyed homes, such as the ones the Russians continue to erect. But also for caches?
For comparison: Moscow is dropping FAB-1500 bombs on the front-line town of Chasiv Yar in Donbas, which, according to videos and photos on X (formerly Twitter), is currently being destroyed by Putin's brutal Kremlin regime. Like Bachmut before. Or like Avdiivka in the meantime. high Süddeutscher Zeitung (SZ) The Russian Armed Forces have been using FAB-1500 aircraft with a gross weight of 1.5 tons since January 2024 in the Ukraine war to an unprecedented extent. “One of the biggest problems is their increasing use: 80 of them a day in one place, and that has a huge impact,” military expert Michael Kaufman explained in a podcast called “War on the Rocks.” It is said to be dropped intermittently, and the warhead alone weighs 1,400 kilograms.
NATO Guided Missiles: Ukrainians are turning their fighter jets against Russia
The Paveway's advantage over Russian FAB bombs, which date back to the Soviet era, is not least its tremendous accuracy. The Ukrainians have so far demonstrated that they are capable of mounting Western missile systems in practice using pylons on the wings and fuselages of their MiG-29 fighter jets and Su-24M front-line bombers. This is now also expected for Paveway IV guided bombs equipped with the appropriate devices. (evening)