Free Republic

WAGNER Group warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin fears Ukraine has built up a 200,000-strong reserve of troops ready to launch a huge counter-blitz. The Russian billionaire has warned his feared mercenary army to "prepare for the worst". -snip- Prigozhin, who heads the group, said they have used reconnaissance satellites to spot the reserves. In a post published by Concord group on Telegram, he said: "There is a joke that ends with the phrase: 'So big, but you believe in fairy tales'. "Therefore, the political scientist Ishchenko and other very positive kind guys may turn out to be the best military analysts in...

Update from Ukraine | Uranium shells delivery to Ukraine | Putller scares with response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0lFezJ_OQ8 https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 390 – Summary March 20, 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 18th March 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-390-summary/

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has signed off on legislation that would significantly expand the government’s regulatory power over the news media, a measure that journalists have warned will erode press freedom.Mr. Zelensky, whose administration has been criticized for undermining press freedoms, ordered the drafting of a law increasing media regulation in 2019.The measure was passed by Ukraine’s Parliament earlier this month along with a spate of other bills that lawmakers say were intended to help the country meet the European Union’s legislative conditions for membership. The bills included measures to protect the rights of national minorities. Mr. Zelensky signed...

Attacks come just hours after the Kremlin rejected Zelensky's peace proposals . .....Air raid sirens rang out across Ukraine this morning as Russia unleashed around 120 missiles in a savage barrage which targeted the capital Kyiv and several other major cities. 'A massive air raid. More than 100 missiles in several waves,' presidential office adviser Oleksiy Arestovych wrote on Facebook, while another adviser Mykhailo Podolyak claimed more than 120 missiles had been fired at Ukraine. Mayors of the capital Kyiv, Ukraine's second city Kharkiv and the western city of Lviv all reported that Russian missiles had caused a series of...

Norwegian officials warned Thursday that there could be more arrests after at least seven Russians — including the son of a close associate of President Vladimir Putin — were detained in recent weeks for flying drones or taking pictures near sensitive areas, prompting an investigation by the domestic intelligence service. Norway and other countries are moving to secure critical infrastructure in the wake of the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines. Since then, drone sightings have been reported in Norway’s vast offshore oil and gas fields and at Norwegian airports. On Wednesday, Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will be meeting with Iran's leader, Sayad Ali Khamenei, during his visit to Teheran which will begin on the 19th of July.

The White House said it believes Iran is planning to supply Russia with "several hundred" unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) amid its war Ukraine. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, "Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline." Sullivan said it is unclear whether Iran has already sent some of its drones to Russia and said Washington officials have intelligence leading them to believe that Tehran is preparing to train Russian forces on the UAVs this month.

Ankara's Star Gazete says country's new F-16 radar system modified to recategorize Israeli targets as hostile. Order said to come directly from PM Erdogan's office; naval, submarine radar systems to be changed next Turkey has developed a new radar system for its US-made F-16 fighter jets that will allow them to fire at Israeli targets, Ankara's Star Gazete reported on Tuesday. The orders to modify the system reportedly came directly from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office. The new radar system – Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) – is a defensive command and control system developed by Turkey's Military...

The foreign ministers of Turkey, Sweden and Finland have signed a memorandum for the two Nordic states to join NATO, removing a Turkish block to the accession process. It comes after the leaders of the three nations spoke at a NATO summit in Madrid. A statement from the president of Finland, Sauli Niinisto, said: "We had a thorough meeting with president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and prime minister of Sweden Magdalena Andersson, facilitated by secretary general of NATO Jens Stoltenberg. "As a result of that meeting, our foreign ministers signed a trilateral memorandum which confirms that Turkey will at...

The US will significantly increase its military deployments in Europe with additional troops and weaponry, as part of the largest scaling up of Nato defences since the cold war in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US will establish a permanent headquarters for its 5th Army Corps in Poland, send 5,000 additional troops to Romania and increase rotational deployments in the Baltic states, Biden said, as part of efforts to stiffen Nato’s first line of defences against possible attack. Two squadrons of US F-35 fighter aircraft will be sent to the UK, Biden added, in addition to stationing air...

Today the representatives of Turkiye, Finland and Sweden, under the auspices of the NATO Secretary General, have agreed the following. NATO is an Alliance based on the principles of collective defence and the indivisibility of security, as well as on common values. Turkiye, Finland and Sweden affirm their adherence to the principles and values enshrined in the Washington Treaty. One of the key elements of the Alliance is unwavering solidarity and cooperation in the fight against terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, which constitutes a direct threat to the national security of Allies as well as to international peace...

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) on Thursday accused CNN of conspiring with the Ukrainian military’s neo-Nazi Azov fighters to film a staged attack on civilians.In a press release on their Telegram, the MOD specifically claimed Ukraine’s 72nd Centre for information and Psychological Operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in Kharkov are preparing a false flag.The statement, titled, “Statement of the Joint Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response,” said “professionals of the 72nd Centre for Information and Psychological Operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in Kharkov are preparing another cynical provocation with deaths...

Russia appears to have faked trial results of its flagship Covid vaccine, according to an analysis. A team of researchers in Australia and Singapore, who pored over the original study, have uncovered what they believe is proof the Kremlin fabricated efficacy data. Russian scientists claimed the jab produced nearly identical results across five different age groups when the trial was published last year. It sparked claims among some experts the results were 'too good to be true', given the tiny numbers of infections that occurred in each cohort. Now researchers have run the trial through a simulation model 50,000 times...

'It seems now it's our turn to get our lands back': Smirking Putin threatens Sweden and compares himself to tyrant Peter The Great while issuing chilling threat to Scandinavia Vladimir Putin has compared himself to Russian tyrant Peter the Great as he bragged about 'reclaiming' land in Sweden in a chilling new threat to European security. Putin, speaking on the 350th anniversary of Tsar Peter's birth, referenced the Great Northern war which saw an anti-Sweden coalition - led by Moscow - smash the Swedish empire and establish Russia as a new imperial power in Europe. 'It seemed [Peter] was fighting...

President Joe Biden said Exxon made 'more money than God last year' as he attacked oil companies for not 'drilling' or paying taxes while gas prices are breaking records in a speech Thursday where he continued to blame 'Putin's price hike' on 41-year high inflation. Biden spoke at the Port of Los Angeles just hours after a report was released showing annual inflation in the US has jumped 8.6 percent, blowing past expectations and dashing any hopes that consumer price increases had peaked. 'Today's inflation report confirms what Americans already know — Putin's price hike is hitting America hard,' he...

President Biden said the United States "has never seen anything like Putin’s tax on both food and gas," after the Labor Department announced Friday that inflation hit a new four-decade high in May. The Labor Department said Friday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price for everyday goods, including gasoline, groceries and rent, rose 8.6% in May from a year ago. Prices jumped 1% in the one-month period from April. Those figures were both higher than the 8.3% headline figure and 0.7% monthly gain forecast by Refinitiv economists. The president, from the Port of Los Angeles...

Since progress is reportedly being made on the Russian-Turkish talks to open up a “grain corridor” in the Black Sea, it makes sense why Moscow might have ordered its naval forces to pull back a bit to show that it’s negotiating in good faith, although there hasn’t yet been any confirmation from the Kremlin about this. Kiev claimed that its forces coerced the Russian navy to “retreat” 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian Coast, though this development hasn’t been independently confirmed. In the event that there’s any credibility to Moscow’s reported naval movements, then it’s unlikely that they were done under...

The buckets of cold water Turkey is pouring on Finland and Sweden’s bids to join NATO may be coming from the sea around the shore of Cyprus, the divided Mediterranean island that is a bargaining chip for the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdogan. There is mounting evidence that Turkey could be using its status as a member of NATO to wield its veto power over the anticipated accession to the alliance of the two Nordic countries as a lever to force the international community to confer legitimacy on its de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. London’s Sunday Express recently reported...

The almost 1,000 companies that have opted to pull out of Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are not just benefiting from a reputational boost. They are also being rewarded by financial markets, while those who remain behind are being punished.

One hundred days of all-out war has been plenty of time to get acquainted with the Russian troops. Their lackluster combat performance, artillery barrages against cities, treatment of civilians, intercepted messages home, and interviews with dozens of civilians around Ukraine allow one to put together a mosaic portrait of the invaders. It’s not a flattering image. Many of the soldiers are dirt-poor and badly educated, with many growing up without access to modern amenities. Many joined the armed forces because they have no future in their backwater towns. The majority have bad training, low morale and no faith in their...