The arch-neocon has told CNN that Washington wanted a compliant leader installed in Moscow Vladimir Putin’s Russia is “not the Russia that we wanted,” Acting US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has told CNN. Nuland explained that Washington wanted a compliant leader in the Kremlin who would “westernize” the country.

Many European countries have been reluctant to tap the reserves themselves, opting instead for the interest earned on them Ukraine’s Western backers should step up efforts to confiscate Russian assets frozen abroad in order to aid Kiev, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said.

The Ukrainian president has pegged Kiev’s total troop deaths at only 31,000 since Russia’s military offensive began two years ago Only 31,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in two years of fighting with Russian forces, President Vladimir Zelensky has declared, alleging a casualty figure far below even the estimates of Kiev’s Western benefactors.