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Ukraine maps show counteroffensive "successes" near Bakhmut

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Ukraine maps show counteroffensive "successes" near Bakhmut

Ukraine has made some progress in its counteroffensive operation near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, according to the latest maps released by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The U.S. think tank’s latest update said Kyiv’s forces continued offensive operations near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly advanced on Thursday.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive to reclaim its territory is now in its fifth month, with particularly heavy clashes taking place along the front lines in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Bakhmut has remained a focal point of the conflict throughout Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Last month Ukraine announced that it had reclaimed the village of Andriivka, roughly six miles south of Bakhmut.

Kyiv said that Moscow’s forces in the area were left “in tatters” after the battle. Bakhmut has seen some of the fiercest clashes of the war, and Ukraine’s counteroffensive is advancing towards the industrial city.

Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Defense Ministry for comment via email.

The ISW cited a report from the Ukrainian General Staff that said Ukrainian forces on Thursday achieved “unspecified successes” east of Andriivka, while Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun reported that Ukrainian forces achieved partial success west of Robotyne, a key village on Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia front.

“Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked towards the railway near Klishchiivka and Andriivka,” the think tank said. “Russian sources claimed that elements of the Russian 132nd Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps) repelled a Ukrainian attack in the Horlivka direction, likely referring to the area between the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions.”

The think tank said Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast, but did not advance on October 5.

It cited the General Staff as reporting that Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to recapture positions east of Dyliivka (15 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut) and near Hryhorivka (9 kilometers northwest of Bakhmut), Klishchiivka and Andriivka.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said on Thursday that Russia lost six tanks during clashes near Bakhmut.

“In one day we destroyed six Russian tanks in the Bakhmut direction,” Syrskyi, who is in operational control of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive efforts in the southeast of the country, said on his official Telegram channel.

“The Asgard group and the Ochi unit of the 120th Separate Airborne Brigade worked in cooperation with the Shark group of the 28th Brigade, the Klavdich group of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, and the head of the electronic warfare and cyber warfare service of the 28th Brigade” to destroy the tanks near Bakhmut, the commander added. “Our soldiers eliminated three T-72 tanks, one T-80 and two T-90s.”

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Even Russian propaganda was hesitant to claim Kyiv would fall in three days

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Even Russian propaganda was hesitant to claim Kyiv would fall in three days

In the months leading up to Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, virtually no prominent Kremlin pundits were actually predicting that Kyiv would fall “in three days.”

Russia’s state-controlled media instead a spent the weeks leading up to the launch of its unprovoked aggression attempting to convince their domestic audience that “the Collective West” was pushing Ukraine to commit a “provocation” that would leave Russia no choice but to intervene in a conflict that, Kremlin-led voices claimed, Moscow was strenuously attempting to avoid.

In fact, the predictions were more readily heard in U.S. media, with Fox News citing congressional sources saying then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Mark Milley provided a potential 72-hour timeline for Russia to take the Ukrainian capital weeks before the war broke out and Newsweek citing three U.S. officials with a 96-hour forecast on the day of the invasion.

While examples do exist of prominent Russian talking heads suggesting that, in the event of a war, Kyiv would fall “in three days,” most of these examples are not from the early winter of 2022, but from the spring of 2021, when Russian military hardware was being transported to within striking distance of the Ukrainian border and the Kremlin’s mouthpieces appeared to have been testing out a variety of potential justifications for plunging the country into conflict.

That earlier hysteria continued until Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu calmed the situation on April 22, 2021 by announcing that the Russian military’s “snap inspection” had been completed successfully. Before that, however, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan had time to utter the phrase that, after Russia did invade just under one year later, provided ammunition for a decisively misleading meme.

On April 11, 2021, during a live broadcast of “Sunday Night with Vladimir Solovyev” on the Rossiya-1 television network, Simonyan did, in fact, say that, “in a hot war, we would defeat Ukraine in two days.”

Like many of the arguments laid out in the three weeks leading up to Shoigu’s April 22 announcement, Simonyan’s remarks were focused on the idea that the United States and NATO were scheming to create the necessary pretexts for an attack on Russia. Before talking about Ukraine, the RT editor-in-chief had given a six-minute lecture about the impossibility of reaching any sort of lasting agreement with the United States.

“That’s why I agree with the previous pessimistic orators that a war is completely unavoidable,” Simonyan said. She clarified that, “in our time, I don’t believe there can be a full-scale hot war like the Second World War, nor a long Cold War, but a war of a third type. It will be a cyberwar.”

She then described the kind of conflict she had in mind, one in which “a button is pushed, and suddenly the lights go out in Voronezh,” a city of one million located in southwestern Russia. “The pipes freeze and there is no heating. Then, from the other side, a button is pushed, and the lights go out in Harlem, or in Florida.”

“It will be a war of infrastructure,” she warned, “and in this sphere, we have many vulnerabilities.” Among them, she cited “the lack of a sovereign internet” and the absence of “a perimeter making it impossible to turn off Voronezh.”

It was in this context that she made her infamous statement about defeating Ukraine “in two days.”

“We need to be ready for this war,” she said, speaking of the cyber world war, “which is inevitable, and which, of course, will start from Ukraine. For this, we need a Stalinist program of mobilization in order to sew up, sew up, sew up these vulnerabilities quickly, quickly. Because I don’t want us to be too enamored of our capabilities.”

At this moment, Simonyan went off on a short tangent.

“So that it is understood, yes, in a hot war, we would defeat Ukraine in two days,” she said. “What is there to defeat? My god, it’s Ukraine. We suppress their firing points, as we discussed during the commercial, and then we won’t even have to bomb their unfortunate cities. God forbid that it ever come to that.”

She then returned to her core argument about Russia not yet being prepared for a cyber world war.

“But this war will be different,” the RT editor-in-chief warned. “We could do that [to Ukraine], and [the West] could respond by turning off Voronezh. Until we take measures to ensure that they can’t turn off Voronezh, we should refrain from being too enamored with our own capabilities.”

Although war-related rhetoric on the Russian airwaves significantly decreased just under two weeks after Simonyan made her projection, it began to pick up again in earnest in January 2022. By then, however, Russia’s domestic propagandists, including Simonyan, were all but entirely eschewing any talk of Kyiv falling “in three days,” let alone in two.

While Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko did say in a February 5, 2022 interview with Rossiya-1 host Vladimir Solovyov that a hypothetical Russian war against Ukraine would last “maximum, three or four days,” the publicly fanciful Lukashenko did so in the midst of a rant about how, were a wider war to break out, “by the time [the Americans] get around to sending their forces, we will already be standing at the English Channel…they understand that fighting us is a hopeless prospect.”

Lukashenko’s comments were not typical. At the time, Solovyov’s program, along with the rest of the Kremlin-controlled domestic Russian media sphere, was focused on the supposed military threat that Kyiv’s largely Russian speaking forces posed to Russian speakers in the Russian-occupied Donbas.

On February 20, 2022, as part of an in-studio dialogue with Simonyan, Solovyov offered up the most common narrative that the Russian public was told in the lead-up to their country’s invasion of its neighbor.

“Why is there this constant talk of war?” Solovyov asked rhetorically. “It’s as if [the West] really wants us to destroy this unfortunate Ukraine. In Russia there is no war hysteria. We do have an anti-war movement, but we have no pro-war movement. It’s surprising. The Americans say ‘no, you must invade. We know it for a fact.'”

Russia shoots down its own Su-35 jet for second time within days: Reports

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Russia shoots down its own Su-35 jet for second time within days: Reports

Russian fighters in Ukraine reportedly downed their own advanced frontline jet for the second time in eight days.

The incident took place Friday in Mariupol, according to multiple reports referenced by Ukrainian defense officials. Information remains scarce but alluded to the pilot of the Russian Su-35 multirole fighter jet surviving the attack.

“At this rate of work of our valiant air defense, we will soon be left without aviation,” reads a Telegram post by Russian military blogger Fighterbomber.

These new reports have not been confirmed by Russian authorities. Newsweek is unable to independently verify the footage or reports and reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian Defense Ministries via email for comment.

The previous friendly fire incident, which Russia still has not publicly acknowledged, occurred on September 28 near the occupied Ukrainian city of Tokmak in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Jordan Cohen, an arms trade expert and policy analyst at the Cato Institute, told Newsweek that if reports are accurate, Russian President Vladimir Putin “is likely pretty angry.”

“With that said, neither side has been able to establish air superiority since the very start of the war,” Cohen said. “This is because both sides have done a good job of deploying armed air defense systems. Thus, without air superiority and operating planes 12 miles from the front, this is not exactly an unpredictable occurrence.”

While Russia has declined to openly verify these reports, British officials have chimed in on their veracity. Days after the initial incident last month, the British Defense Ministry said as part of its routine Defense Intelligence update that it had 80 to 90 percent confidence that a Su-35S was destroyed in the incident.

“On 28 September 2023, Russian air defense forces highly likely shot down one of their own Su-35S FLANKER M multi-role combat jets over Tokmak, approximately 20km behind the current front line,” the ministry posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“Although Russia has lost around 90 fixed-wing aircraft since the start of the invasion, this is probably only the fifth loss of a Su-35S, Russia’s most advanced combat jet in widespread service,” the update said.

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark Cancian, a senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek via email on Friday that the Russians have a history of friendly fire. He referenced losing three of their six aircraft during the war with Georgia in 2008.

“Friendly fire is unfortunately very common in wartime,” Cancian said. “There is a lot of confusion, and gunners are nervous. It’s particularly difficult for aircraft because air defense does not always have a clear picture of where friendly aircraft are at every moment. A key question is whether this changes Russian tactics. Do they pull back their fixed-wing aircraft?”

The cost of a Su-35, deemed a modernized version of the Su-27 fighter jet, has been disputed. Some reports say that one aircraft costs approximately $43 million, while others say the per-unit cost of a Sukhoi Su-35 is as high as $85 million based on previous transactions between Russia and China.

More than a fifth of Russia’s known manned aircraft and helicopter losses since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022 have been self-inflicted, according to data compiled by Newsweek and published in August.

That equates to about 21.7 percent of jets, helicopters and transport aircraft being self-destroyed due to Russian system malfunctions, pilot errors and friendly fire.

Su-35 aircraft have also been compared to F-16 fighter jets, which some NATO allies of Ukraine have finally provided the war-torn nation to accelerate air defenses. Many U.S. military officials advocated for their sending in the first year of the war.

“Nonetheless, it should raise concerns about using the F-16 to break through Russia’s elastic defense,” Cohen said. “If Russia’s air defenses are able to accidentally shoot down their own aircraft, it does suggest threats to any aircraft flying even the slightest bit near the front from the vast air defense systems both sides are using.”

Update 10/06/23, 1:52 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Mark Cancian.

Putin explains when Russia would use nukes

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Putin explains when Russia would use nukes

Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined on Thursday when his country would use nuclear weapons.

The Russian leader escalated his nuclear rhetoric at an annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, declaring that Moscow has successfully tested the nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable Burevestnik cruise missile—a claim Kremlin officials had denied just days earlier.

There have been growing fears throughout Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia may use nuclear weapons.

Many fear that Ukraine retaking Crimea would be a red line for Russia and that Putin may use his country’s nuclear capabilities to defend the territory. Putin illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

“In the event of an attack on Russia, no one has any chance of survival,” Putin warned.

In a wide-ranging speech, Putin said Russia’s military doctrine outlined two reasons for the country’s potential use of nuclear weapons—the first being a counter attack should another country first launch a nuclear strike on Russia.

He said no nation would survive a retaliatory nuclear strike from Russia.

“To date, there will be no chance for the aggressor to survive in the event of our response,” he said.

The second reason, Putin said, is a threat to the existence of the Russian state, even if conventional weapons are used against the country. Putin said he saw no reason to lower the bar for using nuclear weapons, as one Russian analyst had suggested.

“I don’t see the need for this. There is no situation in which today something would threaten the existence of Russian statehood. I think no person in his right mind would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia. And a potential enemy knows about our capabilities,” he added.

The Russian leader said back in September 2022 that he’d be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.

“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people—this is not a bluff,” Putin said in a televised address to the nation at the time.

Putin was also quoted by Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti as saying Thursday that the “last successful test of the Burevestnik, a global-range cruise missile with a nuclear installation, a nuclear propulsion system, has been conducted.”

When Putin first announced the program to develop the Burevestnik in 2018, he touted it as a “a low-flying stealth missile carrying a nuclear warhead, with almost unlimited range, unpredictable trajectory and ability to bypass interception boundaries.”

Putin didn’t say when the latest test took place.

Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.

What Is Burevestnik? Putin Confirms Tests of Nuclear-Capable Cruise Missile

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What Is Burevestnik? Putin Confirms Tests of Nuclear-Capable Cruise Missile

Russia has carried out a test of its little-known experimental long-range nuclear-powered cruise missile, President Vladimir Putin said, although this “wouldn’t alter the nuclear balance of power” to Russia’s advantage, one analyst has told Newsweek.

“We have now virtually finished work on modern types of strategic weaponry about which I have spoken and which I announced a few years ago. A final successful test has been held of Burevestnik—a global-range nuclear-powered cruise missile,” the Russian leader said on Friday, addressing the audience.

Little is known about how far Russian engineers have got with the missile’s development, but it appears to be still far off being a useful and operational capability, according to Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway.

But even if the Burevestnik was deployed operationally, “it wouldn’t alter the nuclear balance of power,” he told Newsweek. “It’s intended as a second-strike weapons that is not going to increase Russia’s first-strike capability,” he added.

“It is really only intended to deter the United States from striking first, by assuring Russia’s guaranteed second-strike capability,” Hoffmann said.

Because it would not tip the balance of power in Moscow’s favor, it could work to the advantage of Western countries and Ukraine for the Kremlin to continue pouring resources into the Burevestnik, Hoffmann added.

“Development will continue to eat into scarce Russian resources, both in terms of material and the people working on the project,” he said.

Putin’s admission comes just days after the Kremlin denied Western media’s reports that Russia has carried out, or was on the verge of carrying out, tests of the nuclear-capable missile in the Arctic.

Satellite imagery and aviation data analysis indicated movement around an Arctic Russian base that was “consistent with preparations” made in 2017 and 2018 for tests of the 9M730 Burevestnik cruise missile, The New York Times reported on Monday. U.S. surveillance aircraft have also flown around the area of the test site in the past few weeks.

The Burevestnik, which has been given the codename SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO, is a nuclear-powered cruise missile. It was unveiled by Putin in March 2018 with a host of other next-generation weapons. These included the much-touted ‘Doomsday device’ Poseidon, a nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped torpedo.

Although the development of the nuclear-powered missile began years ago, the war in Ukraine has prompted an increase in bellicose nuclear rhetoric, particularly from Russian state media.

Russia has both alluded to the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons and cautioned against the suggestion that the war could turn nuclear, while Ukraine’s Western backers have been hesitant at times about potentially escalating the conflict through further military aid packages.

Prominent Russian officials, such as former President Dmitry Medvedev, and state television commentators regularly raise the prospect of nuclear war. Some hosts and guests on state TV shows have suggested that Moscow should launch nuclear strikes on countries that support Kyiv’s war effort, such as the U.S. and U.K. Margarita Simonyan, a Russian news anchor, floated the idea of Russia detonating a thermonuclear weapon over Siberia, in a comment that drew outrage from Russian officials and fellow Putin allies.

The Burevestnik’s development is thought to have started in 2011 and tests likely began in 2016. Before 2019, Russia had tested the Burevestnik a probable 13 times “with two partial successes,” according to the U.S.-based nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

In February 2019, Russian state media reported that authorities had completed a “major stage of trials” for the Burevestnik.

“In terms of concept and design, this cruise missile looks as if it was taken straight from a Cold War-era playbook and is rather similar to the US Air Force’s Project Pluto weapon concept,” a NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (ENSECCOE) 2021 report stated.

The report noted that while little has been revealed about the weapon, based on Russian military‘s statements the missile is “likely around 12 meters in length and up to 1.5 meters in diameter.”

It is said to have an “almost unlimited range” and cannot be intercepted by any existing air defense system, according to the Kremlin-backed Tass news agency.

In early 2021, the U.S. Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center classified the missile as a developmental, nuclear-capable and ground-launched cruise missile, but with an undetermined range.

The NTI said in 2019 that the missile has a range of approximately 14,000 miles, and is “a second-strike, strategic-range weapon of a type that has not been deployed by any other nation.”

There is “some limited speculation” that the missile could also be released from a Russian MiG-31 BM jet, according to the NTI. A variant of the MiG-31 supersonic interceptor launches Russia’s Kinzhal, or “Dagger” missile, which was also announced by Putin in 2018 and has been deployed widely in Ukraine.

“This program was one of Putin’s supposed “wonder weapons” that were supposed to provide Russia with a technological edge over the West (others were Zircon and Kinzhal, for example, or Russia’s nuclear-armed torpedo Poseidon),” Hoffmann said. “We have seen in Ukraine that Kinzhal is not very special at all, and actually quite vulnerable to Ukrainian missile defense,” he added.

The Burevestnik is thought to be powered by solid fuel, with the motor starting to propel the missile during flight and air heating around the nuclear reactor up to 1600°C to propel the missile, according to Russian media reports.

ENSECCOE’s report also speculated that the missile has a small nuclear reactor, which carries it to its target,” though it is unclear whether it employs a “nuclear ramjet” or a “nuclear turbo engine.”

“Regardless of what the engine is, it is thought that Burevestnik could fly at a subsonic speed, maintain an altitude of 50-100 meters [165 feet to 350 feet] throughout most of its flight and cover distances as long as 20,000 km,” ENSECCOE report concludes.

On Tuesday, the Kremlin dismissed the report in the Times, saying the newspaper’s journalists should “study satellite imagery more properly.”

Precedent suggests that testing of such weapons can prove very dangerous. Five scientists were killed in an explosion in northern Russia in August 2019, which was reportedly triggered during efforts to recover a Burevestnik from the ocean floor.

“This was not a new launch of the weapon, instead it was a recovery mission to salvage a lost missile from a previous test,” a source with direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence into the missile told CNBC at the time.

On Tuesday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said Moscow had “not left the regime of abandoning nuclear tests” in response to Simonyan’s explosive comment.

However, in late September Russia announced plans to hold nationwide exercises in preparation for “the danger of armed conflicts involving nuclear powers,” according to Baza Telegram channel, which is linked to Russia’s security services.

If confirmed, it would mark the first time that Moscow has held such drills, which will imagine that Russia is at least partially under martial law and that up to 70 percent of the country’s housing facilities have been destroyed, the outlet reported.

The exercises will also include the scenario that general mobilization has ended, and there is the possibility of radioactive contamination, Baza reported.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.

Update 10/08/2023 at 11:50 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional comment from Fabian Hoffmann.

China-made spy tech used by Prigozhin during mutiny: Report

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China-made spy tech used by Prigozhin during mutiny: Report

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late leader of the Wagner Group, used satellites owned by a Chinese technology firm and their imagery to assist in his aborted mutiny in June, news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Thursday.

A document obtained by AFP shows a $30 million contract between the company Beijing Yunze Technology Co Ltd and Nika-Frut, a company then part of Prigozhin’s commercial empire, was signed on November 15, 2022, months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The agreement saw Nika-Frut being sold two high resolution observation satellites belonging to the Chinese space giant Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGST), which enabled the Wagner Group to obtain satellite images on demand.

Prigozhin used some of these images to assist in his failed uprising and “march of justice” toward Moscow against the Kremlin’s top brass on June 23-24, a European security source told AFP.

The late leader of the Wagner Group was killed in a private jet crash in August and the Kremlin has said the mercenary group that was once crucial to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine has been absorbed by the Russian Defense Ministry.

According to AFP’s source, at the end of May—weeks before the mutiny—Prigozhin ordered images of Russian territory along the route between the Ukrainian border and Moscow.

Newsweek couldn’t independently verify the source’s claims and has reached out to Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny saw the late Wagner Group boss take control of two military hubs in southern Russia and advance within 120 miles of Moscow as part of a “march of justice” against the country’s military leadership.

The Wagner chief said on June 24 that his forces faced no resistance as they advanced from southern Russia to the capital. The head of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, said at the time that Moscow concentrated all forces on the defense of the city “otherwise they would have passed through us like a knife through butter.”

Beijing and Moscow have maintained diplomatic, political and economic ties throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Weeks before the war began, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping famously announced a “friendship with no limits.” Beijing maintains that it holds a neutral position on the conflict.

Prigozhin was killed in late August, exactly two months after his uprising. The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately clear, although some reports suggest the jet was downed by Russian air defenses.

On Thursday, at an annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Putin offered a strange explanation for Prigozhin’s death, suggesting that passengers on the private jet may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs that could have resulted in the negligent handling of grenades.

The Kremlin previously said speculation that Prigozhin had been killed on Putin’s orders was an “absolute lie.”

Following Prigozhin’s death, Putin admitted to having fully funded the Wagner Group and its operations after saying for years that mercenaries are illegal under Russian law.

“I want to point out and I want everyone to know about it: The maintenance of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided for by the state,” Putin said on June 27. “From the Ministry of Defense, from the state budget, we fully financed this group.”

News of the November 2022 contract raises questions about whether the satellite imagery allegedly used by Prigozhin to assist his mutiny was unknowingly funded by Putin himself.

Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.

Russia’s "supreme shaman" offers prediction on nuclear war

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Russia’s "supreme shaman" offers prediction on nuclear war

Kara-ool Dopchun-ool, the “supreme shaman” of Russia, told a Kremlin-run media outlet that he predicts there won’t be a nuclear war as a result of the Ukrainian war. However, he warned Kyiv’s allies that the West must “come to its senses” in its opposition to Russia.

The “supreme shaman” is a recently created elected post, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), but it has reportedly drawn criticism from some shamanism believers because of the political ties of the position. The AFP said Dopchun-ool was elected supreme shaman in 2018 by “the first all-Russian congress of shamans in the republic of Tuva in southern Siberia.”

Dopchun-ool, who is the head of a shaman organization in Tuva known as the Adyg Eeren (Spirit of the Bear), spoke with the state media outlet RIA Novosti during a Thursday visit to Moscow.

Discussing what would happen if another nation turned to using nukes against Moscow, Dopchun-ool said: “Russian nuclear weapons will cover the whole world.

“Therefore, they are afraid, and only negotiations and a peace treaty are needed. Peaceful negotiations, if those countries wish,” he said, according to an English translation of the RIA Novosti interview by the Russian state news outlet RT.

Dopchun-ool also said the West needs to understand that it is “impossible” for it to defeat Russia.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.

Speaking directly about the war in Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022, Dopchun-ool indicated that Ukraine’s current leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky, must be removed from power so that peace can be achieved.

“Ukrainian leaders are prolonging the war by force, asking for money and weapons from other countries. If the Ukrainian people understand that Zelensky is the enemy of the Ukrainian people, if there is a choice to remove him next year and a new person comes, everything will stop,” the shaman said, according to RT’s translation.

Despite his criticisms of Zelensky, Dopchun-ool called for peace in Ukraine. “We must end the war as soon as possible. We must look for a way out,” he said.

Jason Jay Smart, an expert on post-Soviet and international politics, told Newsweek that “the shaman’s statements are something that the Kremlin wishes to get out.”

“This was not coincidental. This was not just off-the-cuff,” Smart said. “This was intended and planned by the Kremlin.”

He continued: “The most important thing the shaman said—which the Russian press wishes to repeat—is that there will be no nuclear war. For whatever reason, that is a message that the Russian government has decided is something the population should hear.”

Mad Seddon, the Moscow bureau chief at the Financial Times, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) about the RIA Novosti interview and said Dopchun-ool “appears to be official pro-war shaman.”

Seddon also linked to an article on Aleksander Gabyshev, a shaman from the Siberian region of Yakutia who is known for his vocal opposition to Putin’s regime. Gabyshev is being held in compulsory psychiatric treatment, which his lawyer has said is a result of his anti-Putin protests.

Sexyy Red scores big win after Donald Trump support

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Sexyy Red scores big win after Donald Trump support

It’s been a busy week for Sexyy Red. The rapper—real name Janae Nierah Wherry—sparked debate on Tuesday after revealing her support for ex-President Donald Trump during a podcast appearance.

Then on Wednesday, the 25-year-old’s sex tape was leaked on Instagram. Fans accused the star of purposefully distributing the video to draw attention away from her Trump remarks, claims that Sexyy Red has denied.

Whatever people think of the singer’s politics, the furor doesn’t seem to have dented her popularity too much. Her track “Shake Yo Dreads” is currently number one on Spotify’s “Most Necessary” playlist, the web player’s “official voice of the next generation” in hip-hop.

Her single “SkeeYee” from her second mixtape Hood Hottest Princess isn’t far behind, taking sixth place. Sexyy Red’s social media following has also surged, with the star gaining 122,000 Instagram followers on Thursday, according to analytics website Social Blade. She also gained an additional 80,000 followers on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

While appearing on comedian Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast on Tuesday, the rapper said “she likes Trump” and “they support him in the hood.”

“At first, I don’t think people was f***** with him like they thought he was racist, saying little s***, and you know, against women,” she told Von.

“But once he started getting Black people out of jail and giving people their free money. Oh baby we love Trump, we need him back in office.”

The rapper also said she enjoys watching Trump’s interviews, describing the 77-year-old as “bold and funny.”

The interview with Von divided opinion online, with X user Spicy Spice commenting: “You can’t make me hate her.”

“The one thing I agree with her on,” said sexytyrant.

“I love trump..brave man,” agreed Burgeo, while Richie Racks declared “Trump for America””

However, others disagreed with Sexyy Red’s stance, with Tevin Williams calling the clip “cringey as fuck.”

“The ignorance is real,” said @branchsells. “Thoughts & prayers to Ms. Sexyy.”

“What has he actually done for any of us?” asked ElderGoose, while Samuel wrote: “These wack rappers are really pathetic.”

Shortly after her Trump remarks went viral, a sex tape was posted to Sexyy Red’s Instagram on October 4. Fans accused the hip-hop star of sharing the video herself to distract from the podcast appearance, but Sexyy Red confirmed on X that the leak was non-consensual and deleted quickly after going live.

“I’m so heartbroken anybody that kno me knows I wouldn’t do no goofy s*** like that,” she wrote.

Newsweek has reached out to Sexyy Red for comment via email.

‘Sound of Freedom’ surpasses ‘Good Will Hunting’ in new box office record

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‘Sound of Freedom’ surpasses ‘Good Will Hunting’ in new box office record

It received mixed reviews from critics, but the anti-trafficking crime movie Sound of Freedom became a surprise box-office hit this summer. Now, the independent film has reached another milestone—overtaking Academy Award-winner Good Will Hunting’s cinema success.

Since its release on July 4, the sleeper hit has grossed $230,684,308 worldwide. In comparison, Good Will Hunting earned $225,933,435 worldwide during its run in 1997. Directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting won the Oscar for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams and is often cited as one of the best films of all time.

This is the second Academy Award-winner the Sound of Freedom has surpassed at the box office, already beating Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The 1994 crime film starred John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, racked up $214 million globally, and was nominated for seven Oscars, winning one.

Sound of Freedom is based on the real-life story of Tim Ballard, a former CIA operative who founded the anti-trafficking non-profit Operation Underground Railroad (also known as O.U.R). Ballard’s role is played by Jim Caviezel, best known for playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004).

The film follows Ballard as he attempts to save two siblings from child traffickers in Colombia, with Mira Sorvino starring as Ballard’s wife Katherine.

Despite its box office success, the movie has been criticized for its portrayal of child trafficking with some calling it inaccurate and for allegedly promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, particularly Q-Anon.

Beginning in 2017, the Q-Anon movement believes that a group of Satanic human cannibals secretly operate a worldwide child sex trafficking ring while uniting in a plot against former president Donald Trump.

In July, Ballard denied the connection. Appearing on Fox News, he called the accusations “sick.”

“Every show I’ve seen they just like to throw the word out QAnon, they make zero connection to the actual story,” he told host Steve Doocy.

Ballard himself has come under scrutiny, after being accused of sexual misconduct by seven women in September. According to Vice News, Ballard asked women to pretend to be his wife during undercover missions abroad, reportedly pressuring them to share a bed and shower together to trick traffickers.

Ballard denied the allegations in a statement, stating that they are “baseless inventions designed to destroy me and the movement we have built to end the trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable children.”

In response to the allegations, O.U.R. said that Ballard had resigned in June 2023 and that the organization was “committed to combatting sex trafficking and saving children who have been captured and sold into slavery.”

Introducing ‘Horizon,’ the Kevin Costner project that broke ‘Yellowstone’

Fox News
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Introducing ‘Horizon,’ the Kevin Costner project that broke ‘Yellowstone’

Warner Bros. has released the first teaser for Kevin Costner’s new film series, Horizon: An American Saga. Costner’s sprawling Western passion project may have inadvertently led to the demise of Yellowstone after the film’s shooting schedule reportedly caused tension with the series’ showrunner Taylor Sheridan.

News of Yellowstone’s abrupt conclusion broke in May, after weeks of reports that leading man Costner and Yellowstone creator Sheridan couldn’t come to an agreement over scheduling and pay to complete the second half of the Paramount series’ fifth season.

One of those disputes was reportedly related to Horizon: An American Saga, a two-part film series directed, produced, and co-written by Costner, who will also star. The Western epic will span two installments, both set to release in summer 2024. Newsweek has reached out to Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan for comment via email.

Here’s everything to know about the Oscar winner’s ambitious new project, and how it may have led to the death of one of TV’s biggest shows.

What Is Horizon: An American Saga About?

Horizon: An American Saga is the first project Costner has directed since Open Range—also a Western—in 2003.

In an interview with Variety, the 68-year-old said that the Horizon films are separate stories that interlink. Set during the settlement of America’s Western frontier, the films span a 15-year period that covers before and after the Civil War.

“You’re watching a saga of these storylines that are happening,” he told the publication in June. Horizon will focus on both settler groups and the Native Americans that call the land their home — themes that are similar to that of Yellowstone and its prequels 1883 and 1923.

“It’s a really beautiful story; it’s a hard story,” Costner said. “It really involves a lot of women, to be honest. There are a lot of men in it, too, but the women are really strong in Horizon. It’s just them trying to get by every day in a world that was impossibly tough.”

Here’s how Warner Bros. describes the two films: “In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, Horizon: An American Saga explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.”

When Will Horizon: An American Saga Be Released?

Horizon: Chapter 1 is set to release on June 28, 2024, followed by Chapter 2 on August 16, 2024. Originally, Costner planned four installments, with a new chapter released every four months. Production for the first two movies is complete, with the third chapter on hold due to the now-concluded writers’ strike and ongoing actors’ strike.

Who Stars in Horizon: An American Saga?

Anatomy of a Scandal star Sienna Miller, Avatar actor Sam Worthington, and Legally Blonde’s Luke Wilson feature alongside Costner.

Ted villain Giovanni Ribisi, Stranger Things baddie Jamie Campbell-Bower, The Wire’s Glynn Turman, and Academy Award nominee Kathleen Quinlan will also star.

Did Costner’s Work on Horizon: An American Saga Affect Yellowstone?

Although Yellowstone focuses on the sprawling Dutton family and those surrounding them, Costner’s role as patriarch John Dutton is crucial to the narrative—with the actor winning a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the ranch owner. In April, rumors began to swirl that Costner and series creator Taylor Sheridan had been at loggerheads over the show’s direction for a while, leaving its future uncertain.

According to Daily Mail, the 52-year-old showrunner—who also helms spin-offs 1883 and 1923—had “developed a God complex” behind the scenes, leading to a breakdown in his relationship with Costner, who is also an executive producer on the show.

“Kevin will forever be proud of and grateful for Yellowstone and the cast is like family to him,” a source told the publication.

“He just felt like Yellowstone is headed in a direction that was not in line with their initial vision and he was met with criticism, including that he should just stick to acting.”

Meanwhile, a report from Puck alleged “many of Costner’s Yellowstone cast, crew, and executives have been frustrated by his ego and his unavailability for a few years now.” The actor had reportedly negotiated short shooting windows for Season 5 in order to focus on Horizon, and only offered a week to film the back half of the season, followed by two days of pick-ups, which was said to have placed strain on the rest of the cast and crew.

In response, Costner’s attorney Marty Singer called the reports “an absolute lie.”

“It’s ridiculous—and anyone suggesting it shouldn’t be believed for one second,” Singer told Puck in February. “As everyone who knows anything about Kevin is well aware, he is incredibly passionate about the show and has always gone way above and beyond to ensure its success.”

Costner reportedly blamed script delays for the production issues; Sheridan writes every episode of Yellowstone and its spinoffs himself, and reportedly got behind schedule on delivering episodes. Costner reportedly made himself available for filming in both late 2022 and early 2023, but the scripts were not ready.

“Kevin’s been extremely cooperative with working with Taylor and his production company, 101 Studios,” a source told the New York Post. “They were supposed to shoot the second chapter of season five late last year, but they just didn’t have the scripts.”

Whatever happened between Costner and Sheridan behind the scenes, Paramount ultimately decided to end Yellowstone in its current form following the conclusion of the still-incomplete Season 5B. The studio instead greenlit a sequel series, which will reportedly star Matthew McConaughey and is expected to bring back a number of other Yellowstone cast members without Costner.

“Yellowstone has been the cornerstone on which we have launched an entire universe of global hits — from 1883 to Tulsa King, and I am confident our Yellowstone sequel will be another big hit, thanks to the brilliant creative mind of Taylor Sheridan and our incredible casts who bring these shows to life,” said Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, in a statement in May.

“The Dutton story continues, picking up where Yellowstone leaves off in another epic tale. We are thrilled to bring this new journey to audiences around the world,” added David Glasser, CEO of 101 Studios, who produces Yellowstone.

Sheridan is also working on a second season of Yellowstone prequel 1923, and another spinoff in the Yellowstone universe, set around the franchise’s rival 6666 ranch. The prolific producer also oversees a number of other dramas for Paramount, including the Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman series Special Ops: Lioness, Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King, Jeremy Renner’s Mayor of Kingstown and the upcoming David Oyelowo limited series Lawmen: Bass Reeves.

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