Rep. George Santos at the Republican Jewish Coalition annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, in November.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

• Long Island congressman George Santos admitted to lying about his qualifications on his résumé.
• Recruiters said that much of Santos’ résumé was suspicious, including the careless formatting.
• They said his supposed successes, like doubling revenue for a Goldman Sachs unit, are unrealistic.

George Santos isn’t a graduate of New York University’s Stern School of Business, and he didn’t double the revenue of a Goldman Sachs division in seven months.

Presumably, if any politician in Nassau County had asked for a reference at Goldman or had scanned a list of Stern alumni, they would have realized the Long Island congressman was lying. But their relative negligence allowed the Republican to run for election and win in 2022.

Insider asked five recruiters what they would have fact-checked on Santos’ résumé had it come across their desks. The general consensus: everything.

“Trust me, people can weave a great story and résumés can be written creatively and misrepresent ‘facts,'” Kathleen Quinn Votaw, the CEO of the recruiting- and HR-consulting firm TalenTrust, wrote in an email to Insider. “Investigate every credential.”

Here’s what Votaw and other recruiters said they would have scrutinized.

Santos’ careless formatting would raise eyebrows

Hannah Mason, a professional résumé writer and former recruiter, said the careless formatting on Santos’ résumé surprised her. For example, Santos wrote that he received his MBA from “NYU New York University” instead of NYU Stern.

Not only is Santos’ capitalization sloppy and the formatting slapdash, it doesn’t match up with the applicant’s purported caliber, either, Mason said. “For someone who’s at the VP level and who’s worked for Goldman Sachs, I would expect a much higher level of polish,” she added. “This is not the kind of résumé you’d see from someone in a senior, influential role.”

His career achievements seem unrealistic

Pete Havel, a workplace consultant who previously worked as a political consultant, wrote in an email to Insider that he typically asks job candidates about the most significant accomplishments on their résumés and asks to speak with references who have worked with the candidates at previous employers.

Indeed, recruiters told Insider that it’s not uncommon for them to do “backdoor background checks” where they contact someone not listed as a reference who might know the candidate. 

Santos said he worked at Goldman Sachs from January to August 2017. During that time, he said he doubled the revenue growth from $300 million to $600 million. 

“He worked there for seven months, and he doubled the growth?” said Melissa Reitkopp, a career strategist and veteran recruiter, expressing incredulity. “If you ask an investment banker what’s realistic in terms of revenue growth — that doesn’t add up.”

His scant digital presence is suspicious

Havel said he generally Googles a candidate’s name and “the most search-worthy words in their résumé.” If that search turns out to be fruitless, Havel said he would “wonder what’s going on. It’s OK to ask questions.”

“Most recruiters are not going to see the résumé as the single source of truth,” Sarah Johnston, a former recruiter who now works as an executive-résumé writer, told Insider in an email.

That Santos does not appear to have much of a web presence is a red flag, according to Reitkopp. “If you don’t have a digital footprint in this day and age, something is off,” Reitkopp said. 

Hiring managers may miss red flags on job applications more often than we think

“I’m hearing about major companies who aren’t checking with any references,” Havel said. How easily Santos deceived politicians exposed “the weaknesses in the process — that essentially everyone was relying on someone else to do their due diligence,” Havel added.

Reitkopp said that hiring managers need to stay vigilant, adding that people who work in business development — Santos’ self-professed speciality — tend to excel at “telling stories so they can sell.”

And that’s what Santos is good at, too, she said. “He sold a lot of people a whole pack of lies. But if someone seems too good to be true, there’s something wrong.”

George Santos officially became a member of Congress in the early hours of January 7, 2023.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

• George Santos has now been a member of Congress for one week.
• Several of his GOP colleagues want him to resign, and his future remains uncertain.
• In interviews with Insider, lawmakers offered a range of views on the scandal-plagued congressman.

In the early hours of January 7, George Santos officially became a member of Congress.

C-SPAN cameras perched above the floor zoomed in on the freshman Republican as he and 432 of his colleagues took the oath of office after a historic 15 votes for House speaker that lasted four days.

—CSPAN (@cspan) January 7, 2023

For weeks, Santos had been the subject of countless media reports about his long list of resume fabrications and high probability of ethics issues. By the time he’d arrived in Washington, Santos was facing investigations from federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities, as well as the Rio De Janeiro prosecutor’s office. But the drama around Kevin McCarthy’s speaker election, lasting days longer than anticipated, had seemingly delayed a reckoning that Santos, his new colleagues, and the institution as a whole were due.

This week, that reckoning arrived.

Seeking to gain an understanding of how Santos is being received by his new colleagues, Insider spoke with over 20 lawmakers in the halls of the Capitol over the course of this week. While a number of Republicans expressed grave concern about what they see as a serial fraudster and a liability for the conference, some offered a non-judgmental, even welcoming attitude. 

Stuck in the House chamber for days on end last week, the congressman initially sat by himself before eventually finding a receptive crowd among the chamber’s more right-wing lawmakers. But it’s plainly evident that most Republicans simply want to avoid Santos and his baggage.

Santos has admitted to lying about his employment, his education history, and his purported Jewish heritage, but hasn’t yet addressed a slew of concerns about his campaign’s finances. 

“Obviously, there were concerns about what we had heard, and so we’re going to have to sit down and talk to him about it,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise at a Tuesday briefing with reporters, saying the matter would be “handled internally.”

But Santos is clearly a problem for House Republicans. He’s also presented a prime opportunity for Democrats eager to highlight malfeasance in the opposing party. And for journalists — whether they’re investigating a long paper trail left by two congressional campaigns or camping outside his Capitol Hill office, ready to chase him down the halls — he’s become the latest obsession. 

The House’s two Jewish Republicans, Reps. David Kustoff of Tennessee and Max Miller of Ohio, previously shared a stage with Santos at an November event hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has since disinvited him from future events after his claim of being the Jewish descent of Holocaust survivors was exposed as a lie. 

Kustoff embraces Santos and Miller at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas on November 19, 2022.

David Becker / Washington Post via Getty Images

Kustoff said it would be “up to his constituents to make a decision” about Santos’s future, but made clear he doesn’t “think it’s likely” he’ll speak with him again.

Miller, a one-time Trump White House aide with his own unsavory history, was seen walking and talking with Santos through a tunnel beneath the Capitol Complex on Monday evening.

“Do you mind? We’re having a conversation,” said Santos when Insider first attempted to ask him about a new rules package that will severely hobble the Office of Congressional Ethics, which is likely to investigate some of the congressman’s behavior.

“Off the record — we’re having a private conversation,” said Miller. But when Santos was heading back towards the chamber about 20 minutes later, he went out of his way to chide this reporter for initially mis-identifying Miller as an aide.

“Make sure you report accurately, because you called Max Miller a staffer, an aide. He’s a congressman from the 9th district of Ohio,” said Santos. “Get your facts straight!”

But three days later, Miller — who actually represents Ohio’s 7th district — became the eighth House Republican to publicly call for Santos to resign.

‘I don’t intend to speak with him’

By the end of this week, Republican leadership had made clear that they won’t push Santos out of Congress just yet, despite resignation calls from several of his House Republican colleagues (mostly fellow freshmen from New York) a high-profile disavowal by the Nassau County GOP, and a week of headlines that seemed to distract from a raft of mostly-symbolic legislation that Republicans had teed up to kick off their new majority.

“He seems to propel a lot of headlines for quite some time,” said Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who’s told Santos that he’s “praying for him” and has adopted a non-judgemental attitude towards the new congressman. “I try to befriend everybody that’s in a little bit of a bind.”

Santos has in turn made clear that he will not resign and has begun hiring new staff for his office, some of whom come from the furthest-right corners of American politics.

Many Republicans’ public pronouncements about Santos largely mirror the approach taken by McCarthy: the congressman has been duly elected, and some respect should be afforded to that, even as authorities continue to investigate him. 

“I can see the uneasiness up here with him,” said Burchett. “That’s just human nature.”

Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas, among the first of Santos’s GOP colleagues to approach him on the House floor last week, sought to downplay the interaction when asked about it, saying it was just “hey, how are you.” 

“He seems to be, you know, a nice guy. I read the stuff. Obviously I’m very disappointed that there were things that he said that weren’t true,” said Fallon. “I did mention that to him, and he said he’s more disappointed than anyone.”

Fallon, seen beside Santos on the House floor on Thursday, January 5, says the New York congressman told him that he’s “more disappointed than anyone.”

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Others have been forceful, such as Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina or Nick LaLota of New York, both of whom are among the Republicans demanding Santos’ resignation.

“I’m not gonna have anything to do with somebody that can’t be trusted, and clearly defrauded the voters of New York,” said Mace, one of several House members who met Santos at an orientation for new members of Congress in 2020, the first time he ran for Congress. Santos had traveled to Washington to learn the ropes of lawmaking even as it was clear that the election would eventually be called for Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. “I’ve met him, I’ve spoken to him, and he literally pulled the wool over everybody’s eyes,” said Mace.

“I don’t intend to speak with him. His conduct is far below what his office requires,” said Lalota. “The more we engage in the Santos drama, the less we’re able to focus on what we need to focus on.”

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, set to be the chair of a new select committee on China, said he doesn’t want Santos on his own committee and doubts that he’ll be seated on any other committees that pertain to national security.

“I get annoyed every time you guys ask me a question about this guy,” said Gallagher. “I don’t even know this guy. It’s odd that he occupies any space in my brain.”

But Santos has become friendly with some of his Republican colleagues, a number of whom approached him during last week’s speakership drama.

“He’s under fire,” observed Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana. “So I made it a point to shake his hand, and welcome him to Congress. I gave him my cell and told him my staff would be at his avail as he tries to stand up his office.”

“I don’t know what’s true and what’s not true,” Higgins added of Santos’s fabrications. “The media lies.”

“That’s the one that’s got the ethics?” said Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who said that Santos “seems nice” even as he appeared unaware of the extent of his controversies. “I didn’t know he was under investigation in Brazil… that’s sad, I’ll tell you that.”

Santos sat between Greene and Ogles on Thursday, January 5.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“As far as the questions surrounding him, you know, I don’t have the particulars, and it’s not my place or business to judge,” said Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who sat besides Santos and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia during speaker votes. “He is, however, a human being, and he sat next to me, and we have great conversations.”

Greene, for her part, has been perhaps the most forceful defender of Santos, who she appears to have been friendly with for at least a couple of years. While she acknowledged that Santos lied about his resume, she later chastised former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for giving the congressman “zero grace” during a tougher-than-expected interview on Fox News in December.

—George Santos (@Santos4Congress) November 30, 2020

But Greene declined to speak about Santos to Insider, calling this reporter a “jerk” for revealing that she was vacationing in Costa Rica during the House passage of the omnibus bill in December. “No, you can — you can leave me alone,” said Greene.

Rep. Andy Biggs was also among the lawmakers that Santos has apparently met; the two were photographed speaking with one another on the House floor on January 4. But the Arizona Republican denied ever meeting Santos when asked about their interaction.

“Never talked to him once,” said Biggs. “I’ve never met the guy.”

Santos and Biggs on the House floor on Wednesday, January 4.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

‘I have zero respect for him’

Democrats have wasted little time calling attention to Santos. At a press conference on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pointedly declared that Santos was “an issue that Republicans need to handle.”

But New York’s third congressional district, which Santos now represents, is viewed as a Democratic-leaning seat, and a special election triggered by his early departure — coupled with the likely victory of Democrat Jennifer McClellan in a February special election in Virginia — could shave Republicans’ current four-vote margin down to two in a matter of weeks.

“Kevin McCarthy is afraid of losing his majority,” said Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, saying the GOP leader had found a “bullshit excuse” to keep Santos around despite resignation calls from his own rank-and-file. Gallego, whose office sits just feet from Santos’s office, acknowledged having “lots of media” in the hallways but said he had yet to meet his new office neighbor.

Among the Democrats that Santos has met is Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York — also at new member orientation in 2020.

“He did introduce himself, and made a point of mentioning that he was gay,” said Torres, who is also gay. “I just found it to be an odd exchange.” (Former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones of New York, also gay, recently recounted a similar interaction with Santos at that year’s orientation.)

Torres is now one of Santos’s most vocal critics, championing a bill with fellow Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York called the Stopping Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker (SANTOS) Act to require candidates to disclose their educational, military, and employment background to the Federal Election Commission, hitting them with a $100,000 penalty if they’re found to have lied. 

Torres credited his legislative director for devising the bill’s name. “It’s a brilliant acronym,” he said.

The duo also filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee over Santos’s financial disclosure and hand-delivered it to his office on Tuesday in a made-for-TV moment.

—Mychael Schnell (@mychaelschnell) January 10, 2023

 

“I told him I had a complaint to give him, and he asked me to give it to his staff member,” Goldman said, recounting the brief interaction with Santos.

“This is very near and dear to my heart,” Goldman added. “To allow someone like George Santos to be sworn in as a member here is a desecration of this great institution.”

And four other Democrats with military backgrounds, including Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, sent a letter to McCarthy this week urging him to block Santos from receiving classified information.

“I don’t say this lightly: I have zero respect for him as a member,” said Ryan. “He’s the only one of the entire body I would say that about.”

At one point during the days of Speaker votes, Santos was photographed speaking with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on the edge of a larger group of Republicans. Asked about the exchange, Ocasio-Cortez said that “chatting is a generous term” to describe the interaction. 

Santos and Ocasio-Cortez briefly spoke on the sidelines of a gaggle of GOP lawmakers on the House floor on Wednesday, January 4.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“He said, ‘you know, we may have some things in common,'” said Ocasio-Cortez, recounting the interaction. “And I laughed at him and I said, ‘oh, really?’ and that was all.”

‘A long way to go to earn trust’

Rejected by his fellow New York Republicans and under watch from party leadership, Santos may find himself throwing in his lot with the more combative right flank of the House GOP.

He’s hired a handful of new staffers to build out his office, including a former communications staffer for ultra-conservative Republican Reps. Madison Cawthorn and Paul Gosar. He’s also brought on Vish Burra, a Republican operative who’s worked as a producer for Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast.

“George Santos is a National Treasure,” wrote Burra in a since-deleted tweet over a video of Santos from the day before the January 6 riot in which he claimed his own congressional election was stolen in 2020. “This is why the corporate press is trying to silence him.”

By Wednesday, Santos had begun to assume a combative attitude towards his detractors, tweeting at former Rep. Adam Kinzinger to “go on @CNN and cry about it” after the Illinois Republican called on him to resign.

Santos walking with operations manager Vish Burra in the Cannon Tunnel at the Capitol on Thursday, January 12.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

And on Thursday morning, he sat for his first interview in weeks on “War Room,” where he fielded softball questions from Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has his own history of federal investigations. 

“I could ask you what it’s like to be an embattled congressman, but I kinda know a little bit about that scene,” Gaetz said to Santos, who went on to sidestep repeated questions from Gaetz about where he got the $700,000 he reported lending to his campaign.

But Santos’ future as an effective public servant looks bleak. 

It’s unclear who would co-sponsor legislation with him, given most congressional Republicans’ desire to avoid associating with him. It’s unlikely that he’ll be able to provide many services for his constituents, given local officials’ pledge not to work with him. And it’s difficult to imagine Santos winning re-election in two years — let alone making it out of a Republican primary, given the local party’s disavowal of him.

McCarthy told reporters this week that Santos has “a long way to go to earn trust,” comments that mirrored his pronouncement that Cawthorn, who made wild claims about Republicans snorting cocaine and having orgies, had “lost my trust” amid his own web of controversies last year. Republicans in Washington later worked to sideline and defeat the young congressman.

What does seem likely is that an aura of controversy — and its attendant media scrutiny — will surround Santos until either Republicans decide to remove the distraction or officials at the federal, local, or state level file charges against him.

The collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire wiped out $32 billion in enterprise value, according to Deutsche Bank data.

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

• FTX’s implosion in November was one of the largest corporate failures in history.
• The crypto exchange’s descent into bankruptcy wiped out $32 billion in enterprise value.
• Here’s how FTX stacks up against other spectacular collapses – including Lehman Brothers and Enron.

FTX’s collapse last year wiped out tens of billions of dollars in enterprise value overnight.

In November, the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy after questions about its links with sister trading firm Alameda Research fueled a selloff in its native FTT token, sparking a solvency crisis.

Only 10 months earlier, FTX had closed a $400 million funding round at a $32 billion valuation – and was rumored to be mulling listing on the stock market through an IPO.

Here’s how its fall compares to some of the biggest corporate collapses in history:

FTX’s dramatic implosion wiped out more value than Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual – three high-profile institutions that folded up during the 2008 financial crisis.

But it’s still dwarfed by AIG – the insurance corporation bailed out by the US government after it collapsed during the Great Recession – as well as Enron and WorldCom, two high-profile stocks that crashed in the early 2000s after their financial departments were caught committing accounting fraud.

FTX’s own balance sheet emerged as part of its bankruptcy filing – and provided evidence that CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and three other senior executives knew that around $8 billion in customers’ money had been used to prop up Alameda.

In December, Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the US, where he has been charged with eight counts of fraud, money laundering, and violating campaign finance laws.

In 2022, the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases totalling more than 400 basis points sparked a stocks selloff, roiled bond markets, and triggered a crypto crash that saw bitcoin plunge by more than 60% to under $17,000.

So far, FTX remains the only billion-dollar company to have collapsed amid the market carnage.

“2022 clearly saw many accidents,” Deutsche Bank managing director Jim Reid said in a recent research note. “You saw once in a generation moves in equities, the worst year for US bonds in 236 years, a gilt market under siege for a brief period, and numerous things we hadn’t seen for decades or through any financial history.”

“We also saw one of the largest corporate collapses in history with FTX,” he added. “Although this has been charged as fraud, you can argue that a Fed hiking cycle exposed it as it reversed the enthusiasm for crypto which ultimately exposed the corporate wrongdoings at the company.”

Read more: FTX bankruptcy documents show list of investors set to be completely wiped out, including Tom Brady and Robert Kraft

mothers TikTok

• People say “it takes a village to raise” children.
• But many millennial parents don’t have this support and are drowning in high childcare costs.
• Some are sharing their struggles on TikTok and saying the village doesn’t exist. 

“It takes a village to raise a child,” says the famous African proverb. But many millennial parents are raising children without anything resembling a village to help them. 

Some are sharing their childcare struggles on TikTok through hashtags like #MomsofTiktok, #ittakesavillage, and #wheresthevillage.

“Stop telling us ‘it takes a village to raise a child,'” one TikToker wrote in a video caption. “There is no village.” 

“Women were never meant to raise their children completely isolated, which is why a lot of us feel completely alone and also depressed,” another said in a video with over 38,000 views. 

Allison Ellsworth, a 28-year-old from Michigan, details the ups and downs of raising her two-year-old son for her over 91,000 TikTok followers.

She and her husband often work weekends and holidays, when she says daycare centers often can’t “cater to the days and times” they need. While she occasionally gets help from her parents — who live an hour-and-a-half away — this is “very difficult to arrange,” she told Insider. 

They’ve resorted to paying $1,000 to $1,500 per month for private part-time care, which in itself was “very challenging” to find. 

“Becoming a parent is more challenging than you can possibly anticipate, no matter how much childcare experience you have,” she said. “I moved away from my family to pursue the job that I have now because I thought that was the best thing for our future. That just put me in a position though, where I don’t have the support system that I need to effectively care for my child.”

In 2018, the left-leaning Center for American Progress found that over half of Americans lived in an area where childcare was sparse, and the shortage only grew worse during the pandemic. Employment in the childcare industry is still down 8% — or 80,000 workers — compared to pre-pandemic levels. When parents do find childcare, it’s often extremely expensive. National childcare costs average between $9,000 and $9,600 annually, per the advocacy organization Child Care Aware, a rate that’s unaffordable for nearly two-thirds of working parents in the US — and the cost could shoot even higher over the next year. 

“They say it takes a village because it’s true”

The cost and time commitment of childcare are among the reasons many Americans are choosing to follow their “village” and live close to where they grew up — where they are more likely to have childcare support.

Hannah Cases, a 31-year-old mother of one who works full-time, shares her experiences raising her 16 month year-old child with her over 267,000 TikTok followers. 

She and her husband began their journey as parents living in San Diego, where they had “zero family around” to help with childcare, she told Insider.

One week last year, when both she and her husband got sick and it was “extremely hard” to manage, they realized they needed extra help.

“We both felt terrible and just needed an extra set of hands,” she said. 

This was among the reasons they moved across the country from San Diego to St. Louis last October. They’re currently living with her parents while they look for a home of their own. 

“Now that we have family around it makes such a difference,” she said. 

Roughly 60% of young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up, and 80% live within 100 miles, according to a July study conducted by researchers at the US Census Bureau and Harvard University. 

This isn’t possible for all parents, however. And while many that live close to home may find themselves better off when it comes to childcare, some may have to turn down a more desirable or higher-paying job in another state to do so. Others, like Cases, may find life in another state appealing, but ultimately can’t make it work. 

In an ideal world, Americans would have access to affordable childcare no matter where they lived, providing them the true geographic flexibility that remote work alone can’t. But that’s not the reality right now in most parts of the US. And it’s why some parents feel living close to family is their best option. 

“I would tell other mothers to try to put themselves in a position where they’re surrounded by trusted people that can help them,” Ellsworth said.

Cases agrees.

“I recommend living close to family if you are able to and have a good relationship,” she said. “It can make such a huge difference and take some of the pressure off of you as a parent. We weren’t meant to do this alone. They say it takes a village because it’s true.”

New ways to find your village

While some politicians are advocating for legislation that could help make childcare more accessible and affordable, this doesn’t help parents today. In the meantime, there are a few potential childcare solutions for families without a traditional village to help them out. 

Parents can organize shared childcare with another family — effectively nanny or sitter sharing — to split the bill of their childcare provider. To completely eliminate costs, families can form a parenting co-op, an arrangement of anywhere between three and 20 families, to rotate childcare responsibilities between a group of parents. 

While many parents may be hesitant to trust their children with other families, the app Carefully claims to offer an “easy way to build a network of parents you know and trust to share care.”

While none of these solutions are ideal, they may help some struggling families. 

Footage of Russian soldiers in a crossfire with Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian state border force

• Drone footage shows the Ukrainian troops annihilating a unit of Wagner fighters in Soledar. 
• The footage comes from the Donestk region, the scene of some of the war’s most fierce battles.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has painted a grim picture of the situation in the town.

Drone footage posted on the State Border Service of Ukraine’s Telegram shows the Ukrainian military winning a firefight against the infamous Wagner Group. 

The Wagner Group is a private army with close links to the Kremlin that has been at the forefront of the bitter battle for Soledar in eastern Ukraine. It has conscripted many of its fighters from Russia’s prison system.

The video shows soldiers — who the State Border Service of Ukraine identified as Wagner Group fighters — being monitored by a drone.

The soldiers then come under fire from Ukrainian fighters using large-caliber machine guns, resulting in a number of injuries, according to the border force. 

The video ends after a series of Ukrainian artillery shells explode among the Russian unit, and the unit’s men appear to be lying immobile on the ground.

—Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 11, 2023

In a Telegram post, the State Border Service of Ukraine described the events.

“In Soledar, we explosively meet the Wagnerites. At the beginning of January, the border guards, together with the units of one of the mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, held back the enemy offensive. Our aerial reconnaissance detected a group of enemy infantry.

Approaching the positions of our defenders, the Wagnerites came under a favorable crossfire. Large-caliber machine guns inflicted casualties on the enemy. The defeat of the occupiers in this direction was completed by a well-hit artillery strike, which was also corrected by the border ‘bird.’ Effective aerial reconnaissance is the key to success on the battlefield.”

Insider has been unable to independently verify the footage. 

Fighting in the salt-mine town of Soledar, in the Donetsk region, has intensified recently, with Russian troops — including the Wagner Group — making tactical advances and now controlling most of the settlement, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. 

—Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 10, 2023

 

On Friday, Moscow said it had finally captured Soledar. But Ukraine officials disputed the claim and called it  “information noise,” reported the BBC.

Speaking during his nightly address from Kyiv on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “The tough battle for Donetsk region continues, the battle for Bakhmut and Soledar, for Kreminna, for other towns and villages in the east of our country continues.

“Although the enemy has concentrated its greatest forces in this direction, our troops – the Armed Forces of Ukraine, all defense and security forces – are defending the state.”

Putin and the Kremlin elite are out of touch with reality in broad terms, which they fail to see or merely ignore.

Ukraine calls on UN states to support its Peace Plan

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