Sergei Shoigu

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Tuesday to reportedly discuss “continuous and lasting” cooperation, days after Shoigu made a similar stop in North Korea.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin sacked his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, who last year been the subject of the Wagner attempted coup.

Ukrainian Army spokesman Capt. Ilya Yevlash said on Wednesday that about five hundred mercenaries from the infamous Wagner Group have returned to fight for Russia on the battlefield, a month after Wagner’s founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin were reportedly killed in a highly suspicious plane crash near Moscow.

The government of strongman Vladimir Putin sent off North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on Sunday with lavish military gifts including “five kamikaze drones and a ‘Geran-25’ reconnaissance drone,” the Russian news agency TASS reported.

Several Russian journalists on Monday published photos of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander known as “General Armageddon” for his aggressive tactics who has not been seen in public since Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his ill-fated mutiny in June.

The reported potential death of Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin on Wednesday concludes a curious post-mutiny career during which Prigozhin appeared to find some measure of acceptance in Moscow even though he led a column of mercenaries to within a few miles of it.

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu arrived in Russia on Monday to attend the Moscow Conference on International Security, and has plans to visit the allied tyranny of Belarus during his week-long trip.

Kim Jong-un hosted a lavish parade in the heart of North Korea on Thursday alongside Russian and Chinese officials.

Kim Jong-un led Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu through a tour of a “weaponry exhibition house” in North Korea showcasing ICBMs.

Russia tasked its Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to lead a delegation to North Korea this week for Thursday’s festivities in Pyongyang marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice agreement. The visit is Shoigu’s first high-level foreign engagement since the Wagner paramilitary group invaded Russia in June.

Alexander Lukashenko, the despotic president of Belarus, said on Thursday that Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin is back in Russia.

Police in St. Petersburg, Russia on Tuesday announced they have returned about $111 million worth of rubles, U.S. dollars, and gold bars seized in raids on June 24 to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the billionaire owner of the Wagner Group mercenary company who led a very brief “mutiny” against the Russian military command on that day.

The Russia Revolution of 1917 brought us the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, gulags, the Holomodor, and the Cold War, which although it may have been “cold,” still resulted in the deaths of 100 million innocent people. As a result, last weekend’s “news” about thousands of mercenaries heading to Moscow to take over the government from Vladimir Putin was disturbing, to say the least.

The whereabouts of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin remained a mystery Tuesday after Russia’s Putin vowed punishment.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu resurfaced on Monday, making his first public appearance after an aborted insurrection by Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In his first speech following the apparent Wagner coup attempt, Vladimir Putin said organisers of the mutiny will be “brought to justice”.

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on Monday morning issued his first statement since his aborted insurrection over the weekend.

The prominent players in Russia’s drama remain elusive days later, with even new videos being of unclear origin.

Multiple Russian news outlets, including the government-tied Tass news network and the newspaper Kommersant, reported on Monday that the head of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), Yevgeny Prigozhin, continues to face a criminal case for attempting an “armed mutiny” against the Russian Defense Ministry.

“Armed rebellion” against Moscow is treason and betrayal which Putin will “react harshly” to with “inevitable punishment”, he said.

The government of Russia confirmed late Friday that it had opened an investigation into and filed charges against the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, for calling for “armed rebellion” against Moscow.

Ramzan Kadyrov’s Islamist-Chechen paramilitary group signed a deal to come under the control of the Kremlin, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin said Wagner is not capable of staging a coup against the Kremlin, following speculation that he may seek to overthrow and replace Vladimir Putin.

Wagner chief warned of another Russian revolution akin to that of 1917 unless the strategy of the war in Ukraine is drastically altered

The head of the Wagner mercenary group said Russia had promised more ammunition after threatening to pull out in scathing videos.

Russia’s Pacific Fleet was warned Friday to get ready for snap drills centered on practice missile launches in a display of sea power to the West as the fighting in Ukraine goes on.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday announced its withdrawal from the banks of the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s Kherson region was completed, denying reports of a hasty retreat under fire that left equipment and wounded troops behind.

Britain’s defense secretary revealed Thursday that a Russian fighter jet released a missile near an RAF aircraft last month.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a partial military conscription in a speech on Wednesday in which he accused the West of “nuclear blackmail” and trying to “destroy” Russia.

The British Defense Ministry on Monday reported that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has been pushed to the sidelines of the Ukraine conflict by unhappy dictator Vladimir Putin.

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) – Russian missiles hit industrial facilities at a strategic city in southern Ukraine Sunday as Moscow continued efforts to expand its gains in the country’s east.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia’s defence minister said Russian forces took control Sunday of the last major Ukrainian-held city in Ukraine’s Luhansk province, bringing Moscow closer to its stated goal of seizing all of Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on Tuesday that Moscow had achieved the “mail goals of the first stage” of its invasion of Ukraine and that it would now refocus its attacks on the eastern Donbas region.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – The Russia-backed head of a separatist region in eastern Ukraine says he expects thousands of fighters from the Middle East to come to fight the Ukrainian forces.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on Friday that his government has identified over 16,000 foreigners, most of whom come from the Middle East, willing to fight on Russia’s side in the ongoing war with Ukraine.

Russia has announced plans to host the world’s first “International Anti-Fascist Congress” in order to “unite” the world against Nazism.