Russia

Research indicates that Russian military casualties in the conflict with Ukraine have surpassed fifty thousand. Wednesday marked the release of the death toll, which has been tallied since February 2022, when Moscow's forces invaded the neighbouring state. The BBC noted that the rate of casualties increased in the second year of the conflict.

Early Thursday morning, Russian strikes destroyed a key power plant near Kyiv, according to the energy company Centrenergo. Officials stated that the Trypillya power plant supplied the most electricity to three regions, including Kyiv. "The magnitude of the devastation is horrifying," stated Andriy Hota, chairman of Centrenergo.

According to his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, the autobiography that Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny penned before his death will be published later this year. This revelation reveals the existence of a text that Navalny's inner circle had concealed for years. Navalny, who passed away in February at the age of 47 in an Arctic prison, aspired to be elected president of Russia and was the most ardent domestic critic of Vladimir Putin.

New Arbat Avenue in Moscow is lined with some of the country's largest video displays. Today, each one is exhibiting an enormous candle accompanied by the Russian phrase "Skorbim" (which translates to "We mourn"). The casualties of the Crocus City Hall massacre are mourned in Russia. The ultimate death toll is unknown. An ongoing search for corpses ensues.

"I wholeheartedly support a straightforward annexation of all territories from which labor migrants arrive to instruct them in Russian precisely where they are." Zakhar Prilepin, a novelist who fought for separatists in Ukraine's Donbas region and is now co-chair of A Just Russia, a pro-Kremlin socialist party, stated at a December news conference in Moscow, "Not here, but in Uzbekistan, for instance."

Nearly 30,000 children, according to Ukraine, have been deported or forcibly removed from their families by Russia. Five Ukrainian children have been repatriated to Kyiv by Russia, while thousands more are believed to be in Moscow's custody. Following mediation at the Qatari embassy in Moscow, six children were reunited with their families, according to a report by the Russian news agency TASS.

Blackouts have affected extensive regions of Ukraine as a result of Russian missiles aiming at energy infrastructure. Kharkiv's second-largest city is without electricity, according to regional administrator Oleg Synehubov. In Kharkiv, fifteen explosions were reported; in Odesa, over 53,000 households were without electricity. Russian interference was blamed by German Galushchenko, the energy minister of Ukraine, for "a major breakdown of the nation's energy infrastructure."

Regarding forecasts, a landslide for Putin was the effortless one. In that case, neither a crystal ball nor tea leaves are necessary. Ultimately, the Kremlin exercises strict control over the entire political system in Russia, including elections. Putin, however, will only do a little with his 87%. What might a fifth term of Putin entail?

Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, rode in the luxurious vehicle that Russian President Vladimir Putin presented to him as a gift. Relations between Pyongyang and Moscow have strengthened ever since Kim and Putin met in Russia for the first time in four years in September of last year.

Putin, in his capacity as president, has issued a dire threat that Russia will resort to nuclear war if its sovereignty is threatened. The Kremlin chief stated in a recorded interview posted by Russian media on Wednesday that his nation is "military-technical" prepared for a nuclear conflict. His remarks indicate a resumption of nuclear "sabre-rattling," as it was termed a year ago, in the lead-up to the presidential election this weekend.

"Baby, we are like the lyrics of the song [Hope] – there are cities, airport takeoff lights, blue blizzards, and thousands of kilometers between us," he wrote on St. Valentine's Day, February 14. Nevertheless, I sense your presence in my life constantly, and my affection for you grows," he wrote beside a photograph of himself and Yulia Navalnaya, a tall, blonde former bank teller whom he met in 1998 while on vacation in Turkey.

Early on Saturday, one hundred individuals were evacuated after a residential building in St. Petersburg was struck by a drone. On Saturday morning, a Russian apartment building consisting of five stories was struck by a drone, prompting certain Russian media outlets to attribute the incident to Ukraine. St. Petersburg building occupants reported an eerie explosion, followed by a fire, shortly after 7:00 a.m. local time.