Free Republic

Into the depleted field of journalism in America, a handful of websites have appeared in recent weeks with names suggesting a focus on news close to home: D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and a newer sister publication, the Miami Chronicle. In fact, they are not local news organizations at all. They are Russian creations, researchers and government officials say, meant to mimic actual news organizations to push Kremlin propaganda by interspersing it among an at-times odd mix of stories about crime, politics and culture. While Russia has long sought ways to influence public discourse in...

Sweden officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Thursday, a historic shift that highlights how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is transforming European security in ways he may not have foreseen. At a meeting in Washington, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson deposited the final paperwork with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the last step needed for the former militarily nonaligned nation to become NATO’s 32nd member. Sweden’s neighbor, Finland, joined last year. To justify his aggression in Ukraine, Putin cited the possibility of NATO expansion. Now, in one of the conflict’s many twists, his war has brought a...

Moldova and France will sign a defence cooperation accord on Thursday as part of the West's efforts to strengthen the former Soviet state's capabilities amid what they fear are increasing efforts by Russia to destabilise Moldova. Moldova, a western neighbour of Ukraine, has a tiny defence budget and has long had tense relations with Moscow, which have worsened as Chisinau backs Ukraine in the war against Russia. Russia has troops and peacekeepers based in Transdniestria, a breakaway statelet of Moldova that has maintained its autonomy for three decades with the Kremlin's support. The French presidency said in a statement on...

Ukraine said Tuesday it had sunk a Russian patrol ship off the coast of occupied Crimea, claiming another victory over the Kremlin's forces in the hotly contested waters of the Black Sea. Moscow did not confirm the claim, which would represent the latest blow to its naval power as Kyiv strikes targets deep behind the war's front lines, even as its army suffers setbacks on the battlefield. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that it had used high-tech sea drones in an overnight attack on the large patrol ship Sergey Kotov near the Kerch Strait, which separates the annexed peninsula’s eastern...

For one day at least, Russia’s opposition came alive to mourn its lost leader. The funeral of Alexei Navalny on Friday almost did not happen at all. But thousands ultimately turned out — braving the snow, heavy security and weeks of Kremlin efforts to derail the event — so that they could pay their respects to the man who challenged President Vladimir Putin with a vision for a democratic Russia. Bearing flowers, candles and placards, the crowd chanted Navalny’s name as his body was first delivered to a church in southern Moscow for a brief funeral and then to a...

Today, we mark two years since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. Starting the biggest war in Europe since World War Two. Let me begin by honouring all those brave Ukrainians who have fallen or been wounded in defence of their homeland. The situation on the battlefield remains extremely serious. President Putin’s aim to dominate Ukraine has not changed. And there are no indications that he is preparing for peace. But we must not lose heart. Ukraine has demonstrated remarkable skill and fierce determination again and again. Ukraine did not collapse in weeks, as many feared it would. You have recaptured...

The Ukrainian Air Force said its fighters on Friday shot down a Russian A-50 military spy plane, the second of the prized aircraft that Kyiv has claimed to destroy this year. The Beriev A-50 is an airborne early warning and control jet used by Russia to help monitor Ukraine's air defenses. The aircraft typically fly with a crew of up to 15 personnel and are estimated to cost over $300 million to produce. According to Russian and Ukrainian reports, an A-50 was brought down over the Sea of Azov late Friday. Kyiv officials took credit for the jet's destruction, although...

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said on Monday that she would press on with her husband's fight for a free Russia and called on supporters to battle President Vladimir Putin with greater fury than ever. Navalny's death robs Russia's disparate opposition of its most charismatic and courageous leader as Putin prepares for an election that will keep him in power until at least 2030.In a nine-minute video message laced with rage, Navalnaya, 47, said Putin had killed her husband and in doing so had robbed her of a husband and her two children of a...

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team declared his death a murder Saturday as authorities claimed his life ended because of a medical condition called “sudden death syndrome.” Navalny, 47, died Friday in Russia’s brutal IK-3 penal colony in remote Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. “Alexey Navalny was murdered. His death occurred on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to the official message to Alexey’s mother,” Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh wrote on X early Saturday. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service originally claimed “the convict” collapsed and died after he “felt unwell” during a walk. “When Alexei’s lawyer and...

For many months, President Biden has been rallying global leaders to provide more military aid to Ukraine and pressing Congress to pass a multibillion-dollar aid package to help the country beat back Russian aggression. Former President Donald J. Trump has been undermining that effort, pressing Republicans to thwart it. But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump tried to flip the script, suggesting that he would do more to protect Ukraine than Mr. Biden, who he said would effectively cede Ukraine as a gift to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Speaking at a campaign event in North Charleston, S.C., Mr. Trump said...

I don't think Tucker Carlson got what he bargained for in this interview. The interview ran about two hours but most of that was made up of Putin's rambling answers that sometimes went on for 10-20 minutes. To his credit, Carlson started at the most obvious starting point for a discussion with Putin, which is the reasons behind the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Instead of a clear answer he got a 30 minute lecture about the history of the region going back to the 8th century. (snip) Carlson interrupted several times saying he wasn't sure why all of this...

Tucker Carlson has announced he'll be interviewing Vladimir Putin soon in a video designed to garner attention for the effort. But like a lot of things Carlson says these days, some of it is pure and obvious bunk. Take for instance his claim about being the first western journalist to bother interviewing Putin.Speaking of western countries take on the war in Ukraine Carlson said, "Their media outlets are corrupt. They lie to their readers and viewers and they do that mostly by omission." (snip) Having established that it's bad for media outlets to lie to their viewers by omission and...

Well, this was a bit unexpected, given what Trump supporters have been implying about what Trump’s Ukraine policy would be. Far from cutting off funds or ending the war (the latter of which Trump has indeed promised), Trump, at a rally, told the audience that the US has been bearing a disproportionate portion of the cost and he would pressure European governments to increase their own contributions to the same level as the United States. Given that this is Trump, I wouldn’t call this an iron-clad-take-it-to-the-bank promise to keep pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine’s war coffers, but it does...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the last remaining holdout in Sweden's bid to join NATO, now says he supports its application and vows that Hungary's parliament will say yes "at the first possible opportunity." Orbán's remark, made during a call today with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, comes a day after he asked his Swedish counterpart to first fly to Hungary for negotiations on NATO membership, only to be snubbed by the Swedish government. Hungary also broke a promise not to become the last to ratify Sweden's bid, when the Turkish parliament approved Stockholm's membership status late Tuesday, some 20 months...

Turkey's parliament ratified Sweden's NATO membership bid on Tuesday, clearing the biggest remaining hurdle to expanding the Western military alliance after 20 months of delay. Turkey's general assembly, where President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling alliance holds a majority, voted 287-55 to approve the application that Sweden first made in 2022 to bolster its security in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. All NATO members need to approve applications from countries seeking to join the alliance. When Sweden and Finland asked to join in 2022, Turkey raised objections over what it said was the two countries' protection of groups it deems...

The State Department on Monday brushed off reports of Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering his government to look into the nation’s former “real estate” abroad, saying Alaska would be staying in American hands. Putin signed a new decree last week to allocate funds for the research and registration of Russian property overseas, including that in former territories of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, Russian state media TASS reported. The decree, which comes amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, did not specifically mention Alaska, though it caught the attention of military bloggers, who argued Putin was using the decree to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a new decree relating to Moscow's historic real estate holdings abroad, a move interpreted by ultranationalist bloggers as a foundation for future revanchism against Russia's neighbors—and even the U.S. The decree, signed by the president late last week, allocates funds for the search, registration, and legal protection of Russian property abroad, including property in the former territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This would include Alaska, swathes of eastern and central Europe, large chunks of central Asia, and parts of Scandinavia. Russia's Foreign Ministry and its presidential administration's Foreign Property Management...

In a rare challenge to the Kremlin, a growing number of Russian women are fighting to bring home their husbands, brothers and sons who were drafted to fight in Ukraine. They say the men have served their time on the front lines, 15 months after some 300,000 reservists were called up to bolster Russia’s struggling campaign. But with little sign of President Vladimir Putin scaling back his ambitions, the military is ignoring their pleas and propagandists have sought to villainize those speaking out. The women’s mounting frustration has bonded them together, providing common cause in their defiant public stand just...

A court on Tuesday sentenced a former senior officer in the National Guard to six years in a prison colony after convicting him of buying equipment unable to protect the bridge which links southern Russia to Crimea, the TASS state news agency reported. TASS said that Colonel Sergei Volkov had purchased two radar-based air defence systems for 395 million roubles ($4.5 million) which were meant to be able to bring down Ukrainian attack drones by suppressing their signal. A military court in Moscow had determined that the equipment - which was also meant to protect a gas pipeline running from...

A prominent liberal priest faces expulsion from the Russian Orthodox church for refusing to read out a prayer asking God to guide Russia to victory over Ukraine. In a verdict published on Saturday, a church court said Aleksiy Uminsky should be “expelled from holy orders” for violating his priestly oath. The decision was forwarded for approval to Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian church who strongly backs President Vladimir Putin. The case shows how the church is clamping down on internal dissent as it throws its support behind Putin and his “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is now...