War

By Safiullah Stanikzai and Soldier of Fortune A former Afghan Defense Ministry official has reiterated claims that Afghan commandos have been recruited to fight as mercenaries in Ukraine. Reports began circulating late last week that the shadowy Wagner group, a private Russian mercenary force with close ties to the Kremlin, is …

by Owen Thorne KYIV – Early this morning, Russian air attacks began across Ukraine. These attacks have beenanticipated in response to the losses inflicted on the Russian Navy at their base in Sevastopol inthe occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea. With air raid sirens beginning around midnight wewitnessed waves of attacks …

Closed circuit camera broadcasts from Sevastopol have been blocked in the wake of explosions at the Russian naval base there, a Russian official said. “All broadcasts from CCTV cameras in Sevastopol that were previously available to civilians will be closed,” according to Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol. His remarks …

The partial mobilization has ended in Russia, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin on Friday. “The deployment of citizens called up for mobilization was completed today. The conscription of citizens has stopped. The target you set – 300,000 people – has been met. No additional assignments are being …

By A.R. Fomenko Ukrainian forces took a bite out of another alligator this week, when anti-aircraft gunners shot down an additional Russian Ka-52 helicopter. Soldier of Fortune saw the helicopter go down on Monday in the Beryslav district of Kherson. It was the third Ka-52 alligator to be shot down …

Ukrainian efforts to shoot down the Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are “increasingly successful” as Russia continues to use the Iranian-made drones against targets across Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said on October 24. In its regular updates, the ministry said the UAVs are slow, noisy, and fly at low …

A Russian Su-30 fighter jet crashed in a residential area in the city of Irkutsk during a trial flight, killing the two pilots, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry told TASS on Sunday. The crash occurred in Siberia. “Two pilots have been killed. There are no casualties among civilians. The fire …

Russian soldiers from the Krasnodar region have taken to social media to say they have been “thrown out like dogs,” and abandoned in the fields of war-torn Ukraine. The outraged men charged that they are forced to live in holes that they dug with their bare hands. The conscripted soldiers …

The FH70 155-millimeter howitzer has been used by NATO countries for more than 40 years. The designation stands for Field Howitzer for the 1970s. Ukrainian forces first got their hands on them courtesy of Italy in May, and received training in Estonia. These are in addition to the U.S. supplied …

by Mike Eckel, RFE/RL “After receiving orders,” Surovikin “got in his tank without hesitation and rushed to save his country” – Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner Group Just after midnight on August 21, 1991, a column of armored personnel carriers manned by soldiers from a unit of Russia’s 2nd Guards Motor Rifle …