Russia reportedly bungles staged arrest by mistaking SIM cards for ‘The Sims’

Russia has lost a third of the ground forces it sent to invade Ukraine, British intelligence revealed yesterday.

Russia has made new threats to use its Satan-2 hypersonic nuclear missile to strike Britain in just 200 seconds.

Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina has escaped from Russia as president Vladimir Putin continues to crack down on dissidents in the country.Alyokhina, along with her bandmates, has been arrested and imprisoned multiple times over the past decade and more for publicly protesting Putin’s rule, most recently last year when she was detained for 48 hours after attending protests encouraging others to protest on social media.Amid the continued Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new story in The New York Times reveals that Alyokhina was under house arrest and, when authorities decided to turn that into a 21-day jail sentence last month, she decided to flee Russia.The story outlines Alyokhina’s escape, which included posing as a food courier and being placed on Russia’s wanted list after being refused entry into Belarus on account of her Russian passport having been confiscated by authorities.The report then reveals that Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson was able to assist Alyokhina in getting her a travel document from a European country that allowed her to travel freely from Russia to the EU. It adds that she has now travelled to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.“I still don’t understand completely what I’ve done,” she said in the piece.

As Russian president Vladimir Putin was preparing to address the nation Monday morning during the annual Victory Day parade commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, local television menus were reportedly hacked with program descriptions on smart TVs replaced by a message reading, “The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of murdered children is on your hands. TV and the authorities are lying. No to war.”

New York Times series published Saturday.Investigative reporter Nicholas Confessore’s three-part series “American Nationalist” investigates how the right-wing host seized upon the “white fear” and white nationalism stoked by the Trump administration to rack up ratings.The series begins with selections from Carlson’s “encyclopedia of provocations,” citing his remarks about immigrants, Black Lives Matter protesters and refugees. It also dives into his ardent defense of the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol, as well as Vladimir Putin throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.An analysis of 1,150 episodes of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” revealed how Carlson has popularized “dog-whistle” terms like “legacy Americans” that had once been relegated to white nationalist publications.

Two British aid workers - one from Warrington - have been captured by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, it was reported today. The two men, both volunteer humanitarian workers, were said to have been taken by Vladimir Putin's forces while heading towards Dniprorudne in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast region of south-eastern Ukraine on Monday.

Imax reported a global quarterly box office total of $173.2 million, up 57% over Q1 2021 thanks in large part to the March release of “The Batman” and post-holiday holdover screenings of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Imax also had screenings of seven local language films in countries like China, India and France. Adjusted EBITDA stood at $14.8 million, up from $2.8 million in Q1 2021 during which theaters worldwide closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Russia has sanctioned a number of Manchester MPs and hundreds of others across the country for “whipping up of Russophobic hysteria”.

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Belarus’ support of the war, Wimbledon is reportedly planning to bar Russian and Belarusian players from the Grand Slam tennis tournament which begins in London on June 27. Sportico reported that the event, organized by the All England Club, will break from the rest of the tennis world by refusing to allow Russians to compete — this would include current world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev. The New York Times, citing a highly placed international tennis official, said the ban is expected to extend to Belarusian players as well.