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RUSSIA HAS SAID it will respond “extremely” harshly to all future incursions from Kyiv, after Moscow deployed jets and artillery to fight off an armed group that crossed over from Ukraine.
As Russia took stock following the most serious attack on its soil since Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine began in February 2022, the chief of the Wagner mercenary group said 10,000 prisoners he recruited died in Ukraine.
“We will continue to respond promptly and extremely harshly to such actions by Ukrainian militants,” Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told military officials after two days of fighting in the southern region of Belgorod.
Today, Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that the territory was targeted overnight by numerous drones. Regional authorities said that 13 people had been injured as the region came under sustained artillery and mortar fire.
Moscow said that Russian forces had killed “more than 70 Ukrainian terrorists” and had destroyed several armed vehicles during the skirmishes, but AFP was unable to independently verify the claims. Russia said that the remaining fighters had been driven back across the border.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose ragtag forces have been leading an assault for the eastern city of Bakhmut, said around 10,000 convicts that he had recruited to fight with Wagner were killed on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“I took 50,000 prisoners, of which around 20% were killed,” Prigozhin said in a video interview published late Tuesday.
Prigozhin said a similar percentage were killed among those who had signed a contract with Wagner, but did not give a precise figure.
Prigozhin, who has criticised the regular army and blamed Shoigu for Moscow’s massive losses, also said Russia’s border with Ukraine was not properly protected.
“Sabotage groups cross the Belgorod region absolutely calmly,” he said in the video interview.
Convicts are believed to have been used as cannon fodder in Ukraine, accounting for most of Wagner’s losses in the pro-Western country.
Last year, Prigozhin toured Russian prisons in a bid to convince inmates to fight with Wagner in Ukraine, in exchange for an amnesty upon their return should they survive.
In early May, the White House said that more than 20,000 Russian troops have died and another 80,000 were wounded in five months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, particularly in Bakhmut.
Prigozhin, whose influence has risen hugely during the more than year-long offensive, has scathingly criticised Russia’s top brass, accusing them of being responsible for huge losses.
“There are now tens of thousands of relatives of those who were killed. Probably there will be hundreds of thousands. We cannot hide from this,” he said.
Russia also announced today that it will try five foreign men – three British citizens, a Swede and a Croatian – for fighting alongside Ukrainian troops.
The trial will take place in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and the five men are believed to face trial in absentia.
The men have been accused of fighting alongside Ukrainian forces – including the Azov regiment, which battled against Russian forces during the siege of the southern port city of Mariupol.
The Britons have been identified as John Harding, Andrew Hill, and Dylan Healy. The Swede has been named as Mathias Gustafsson and the Croatian as Vjekoslav Prebeg.
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I wonder would it Pass an NCT
Why it won’t be comming here….?might as well ask if its taxed
Would you really want the guys in NCT test centres putting it up on ramp
The test does not harm a car.the worst is the engine been reved highly for the emissions apart from that the test is a doddle a bit of a shake while they test the links/joints/bushes/shocks etc.
Doubt it would have to do a NCT it would be a vintage by now.
@henry,that’s right anything pre 1980 is test exempt and 52e to tax.I bring in the odd classic from the UK.easy to find a decent one and they require all vehicles to have a mot so road worthy and peace of mind its good.its a very very cheap way of having a second vehicle
Funny how it looks like the car Homer Simpsons designed.
The Homer!
It was going for only 2 million til they found a pair of Catwoman’s knickers under the passenger seat.
Holy handbags that’s alot of wonga ..poow dang wallop
I hear some joker bought it
Yeah he was two faced though
Speed bumps will be the bane of his existence now…
I see what u did there :p
Who didn’t love this car as a kid?! In fairness my favourite batmobile was the one Michael Keaton drove.
He bought it for a dollar and spent 9k dollars doing it up. Tidy profit.
According to the Independent George Barris had a mere 15 days and $15,000 to transform the vehicle into what it was. Also peculiarly the indpendent originally today said that the buyer was a 56 year old Mr Champagne revealed through Reuters, but later say that the winning bidder had not been disclosed! Odd
That’s not the original car! The original car was black with a kinda greyish whietish pinstripe. I saw it on tv when I was about 6 or 7.
That must be the one they used in the movie. That one had the orange stripe ok.
I read up about this a few years ago – apparently it was the same car but the paint job was originally a lot less dramatic, more matt-black, they repainted it the glossy block and red early on so as to look more impressive. Or so I read then…
Nikolas , I bow to your knowledge but I was really alluding to the fact that we only had monochrome TV when I was seven! But seriously though when I went to see Batman the movie I couldn’t get over the colours of things that I knew so well from the TV series. The orange stripe, the blue tinge to the batcape (which meant that the one my gran made for me wasn’t as authentic as I thought :( )
Well Bruce Wayne was stuck for a few bob seeing as Catwoman got his prints who then gave them to your man who gave them to Bane who made a mess in the stock exchange. I saw it in a movie so it must be true…
Holy nama batman
Holy God Robin!
Hold on one sec,so a car ten years old needs an annual nct but a car 30 years old cause its “vintage” doesnt?have I understood that correctly?
Yes
That can’t be right,so I can buy a banger from 1970 or so that’s falling to bits without an nct but my 99 bora needs an nct to be roadworthy?ah here leaaaavvvee irrrrrr ouhhhhh,that nct is a scam pure and simple
You’ll probably find it’s cheaper to run a 99 car than one from 1970, even with the NCT, when you consider the cost and rarity of replacement parts and how unreliable such an old car would be. But you’d have the satisfaction of laughing at the rest if us who fell for the scam.
There were eight of them I think, and three still survive. This must be one of the three.
That the first one nikolas
Is it? They made the body of the car by adapting the Futura, then made a mold of the body and created eight fibre-glass bodies, and then cars. They tended to get wrecked during filming. They all can be justifiably called original. It’s a lovely idea that there was “one” batmobile, but it’d be almost impossible to prove that this is the “original” original, given that all 8 were made from and repaired with stock parts and empty paint cans that were lying around the workshop.
Holy utility belt
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