Blogs
on August 31, 2025
<img src="https://www.freepixels.com/class="; style="max-width:430px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;" alt="" />The Wagner Group has taken an increasingly visible role in the war in Ukraine as regular Russian troops suffered heavy attrition and lost control over some previously captured territory in a series of humiliating setbacks.
One of the last holdouts of V12 engine production has been Aston Martin with its twin-turbocharged 5.2-liter unit in the DB11 and, now, as a farewell, in the V12 Vantage, after a 15-year run, according to an announcement made by the company on Wednesday. The 2023 V12 Vantage will be strictly limited to 333 units, and it's already sold out.
Russia has already accused the West of using its civilian space infrastructure to support the operations of the Ukrainian troops, including for combat strikes, and detecting the locations of Vladimir Putin's army and its movements.
Three children - two boys and a girl - were present at the media briefing in Kyiv.
Save Ukraine said they were returned to Ukraine on a previous rescue mission last month that returned 18 children in total.
The other semifinal match was suspended due to rain one hour and 56 minutes in, with No.
4 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland leading No. 1 seed Jessica Pegula of the U.S. 7-5, 6-6. Pegula was leading the tiebreaker 4-2. That match will resume Sunday before the final.
'This is a very interesting sign that there's a degrading of their capabilities,' Candace Rondeaux, an expert on Wagner who is a senior director at New America, a Washington think tank, told the New York Times.
The V12 Astons have been since the DB11 came out, but we are genuinely looking forward to this leaner, meaner swan song of a car, and while we wish it could be had with a different gearbox, we expect it will still be a real experience to drive.
Kourtney didn't clarify in the clip if she is still menopausal, or whether she was just experiencing menopause-like symptoms, which include irregular periods, hot flashes, chills, night sweats - and weight gain.
The terrifying group went viral in 2022 after a video of members beating a deserter to death with a sledgehammer spread online, has allegedly offered to help Haiti's embattled government take on violent gangs, the documents detailed.
A 2017 video posted online showed a group of armed people, reported to be Wagner contractors, torturing a Syrian man, beating him to death with a sledgehammer and cutting his head before mutilating and then burning his body.
In December 2021, the European Union accused the group of 'serious human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings,' and of carrying out 'destabilizing activities' in the Central African Republic, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.
The V12 Vantage also gets some extra goodies for its last go around the carousel. It will be the most powerful Aston Martin Vantage ever with 690 horsepower and 555 pound-feet of torque. Those figures, plus new aerodynamic body tweaks mean that this Vantage is good for 200 mph and will make the sprint to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. An eight-speed ZF automatic transmission is the only gearbox on offer, though Aston claims it's been recalibrated to be more sporty.
Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday that the company was using its access to gold and other resources in Africa to fund its operations in Ukraine.
The world used to be filled with magic and mystery and V12 engines. There's still plenty of the former two, but the latter is rapidly going the way of the thylacine, and while we get it -- it's hard to justify the cost and complexity of a big V12 engine in a world where going electric makes a lot more sense -- we're still sad to see them go.
I believe I was 39. Top notch, top tier. I think it gave me a feeling of, like, taking a deep breath. You know I was 39 and I was about to turn 40 and everyone was like, "If you're going to do it, you've gotta do it now."
Aston has made handling a priority for the V12 car and, as such, has increased its body stiffness by using added bracing for things like the fuel tank, the strut towers and more. Spring stiffness was also increased, so don't expect this thing to ride like a DB11. Carbon-ceramic brakes are standard on the V12 Vantage, which, in addition to resisting brake fade in repeated high-speed stops, also shave around 51 pounds of unsprung weight from the car.
Some Russian media have alleged Wagner's involvement in the July 2018 killings of three Russian journalists, who were shot dead in the Central African Republic while investigating the group's activities there.
In November 2022, a video surfaced online that showed a former Wagner contractor Hamadi Bouta, a Syrian army deserter, getting beaten to death with a sledgehammer after he allegedly fled to the Ukrainian side and was recaptured.
Western countries and United Nations experts have accused Wagner Group mercenaries of committing numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.