Free Republic

CONFUSION: Maxine Waters claims Putin ‘continuing to advance into Korea (around 1:18 mark)

Outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Monday for sanctions on Russia to stay, urging the world to stand up to its "coercion and aggression" after President-elect Donald Trump mooted ending the measures under a possible deal with Moscow. Speaking on a swan song visit to Kiev, Biden said the G7 nations and European Union should lift the sanctions only after Russia had fully implemented a peace deal on ending a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine and returned control of Crimea. Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday, raised the prospect that he would propose offering to end the...

Trump's USA may cooperate with Russia like never before, significantly altering global power equations. The invocation of the "foreign hand" to explain unexpected political developments is quite common in the [Indian] subcontinent. But the last place in the world to have a debate on the "foreign hand" is the United States. Usually, it is Washington that is accused of meddling in the internal affairs of other nations -- from promoting military coups to propping up friendly regimes and engineering regime changes. But right now, it is America that is debating the nature and extent of the Russian President Vladimir Putin's...

Ukraine was due to start two days of missile tests on Thursday - a move that has angered Russia, prompting it to put its air defense forces on high alert on the annexed Crimea peninsula. The disagreement marks a fresh escalation in tensions between the one-time allies, whose relations collapsed in 2014 after Russia seized Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine says the tests in its southern Kherson region, bordering Crimea, are legitimate and will be conducted within the framework of international obligations and treaties. "We will continue to strengthen the defense capability of our nation...

RUSSIA has massed 55,000 troops along their eastern border as they prepare to unleash a "frightening war" upon Europe. -------- Military bosses claim Vladimir Putin has sent his mighty army to disputed frontiers along Eastern Europe. Putin’s mass military deployment comes as Russian lawmakers threatened a looming “frightening war” unless their enemies back down over the annexation of Crimea. Russia has been at loggerheads with NATO ever since it seized the peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014. Shockingly earlier this year Russia withdrew from the International Criminal Court after the organisation branded its occupation illegal and said it was...

European Union leaders will explore next month the possibility of improving strained ties with Russia in response to growing irritation among some member states over economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over its role in the Ukraine crisis. But the sanctions appear likely to remain in place for now, especially those slapped over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula seized by Russia in March 2014, despite the legal and political challenges of maintaining them. A series of Reuters investigations recently showed how European companies including German retailer Metro and France’s Auchan were doing business in Crimea despite the punitive sanctions regime there....

InformNapalm international volunteer community identified more than 30 types of weaponry and special equipment of the Russian Armed Forces in the Donbas through open-source intelligence activities (analysis of satellite imagery, chance videos made by bystanders, personal photos from social network accounts of Russian mercenaries and military personnel, etc.). Most of the identified pieces are relatively new types which entered service with the Russian Army from 2004 to 2015. The weapons and equipment presented in the report directly point to the Russian presence in the occupied parts of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. This report features only confirmed data. We did not...

More than two years after Russia annexed Crimea and promised its 2 million people a better life, residents say prices have soared, wages and pensions have stagnated and tourists have fled. The sunny and mountainous Black Sea peninsula is back in the news, with Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing Kiev of sending infiltrators across the border to wreck its industry. But locals say the damage has already been done by Moscow's neglect. "We joined Russia and they stopped giving a damn about us," Yevgeny, a worker at a titanium plant in the town of Armyansk told Reuters.

At the same time that Russia is condicting its latest massive military drill on the border with Ukraine, and one day after the latest stark warning by Ukraine' president Poroshenko that the simmering conflict with Russia may be set to explode again when he said on national TV that “the probability of escalation and conflict remains very significant" adding that "we don’t rule out full-scale Russian invasion", Russian president Putin made a not so subtle point that Crimea will not be relinquished when he flew into contested territory on Friday, one day after staging war games there, and said he...

It has been reported that Russian tanks have been spotted moving into occupied territory in Crimea, which was seized following an operation carried out by Vladimir Putin's forces in 2014. Witnesses have reported large amounts of Russian military hardware massing near the towns of Dzhankoy and Armyansk in northern Crimea, close to the border with Ukraine. Norman Dzhelalov, deputy chairman of Crimean Tatar Mejlis – which represents the peninsula’s ethnic Tatar group, claimed on Facebook that tanks had arrived. He wrote: "Witnesses report that large groups of Russian military hardware have been massed near Armyansk and Dzhankoy. "Dzhankoy has been...

Donald Trump has come under fire for his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ties to the country--and he suggested Sunday that he might recognize Russia's control of Crimea. "You know, the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were," he said on ABC's "This Week." "And you have to look at that, also. Now, that was under -- just so you understand, that was done under Obama's administration. ... Crimea has been taken. Don't blame Donald Trump for that." Trump made those comments just after saying Putin is "not...

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today (13 June) admitted a referendum called by euroskeptic groups on whether to back closer ties between Ukraine and the EU had been “disastrous” after voters soundly rejected the pact. “I’m totally against referenda, and I’m totally, totally, totally against referenda on multilateral agreements, because it makes no sense as we have seen with the Dutch referendum,” Rutte told a conference of European MPs. “The referendum led to disastrous results,” he added. …

Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has whipped up a storm on Russian social media for an off-the-cuff comment he made to a Russian pensioner last month. Medvedev was caught on camera telling an elderly woman in Crimea, a region annexed by Russia from Ukraine in spring 2014, that there was "no money left" in Russia's budget when he was asked why the state pension of 8,000 Russian rubles a month (around $125 a month) was not higher given the rising cost of living. "There just isn't any money now. When we find money, we'll make the adjustment," Medvedev replied to...

France has delivered the first of a series of Mistral warships to Egypt, the Egyptian news website Al Ahram reported Thursday. The helicopter carriers were initially constructed for the Russian Navy, but France pulled out of the deal following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. France paid to Russia 950 million euro ($1 billion) as compensation for breaching the deal. The official ceremony was attended Egyptian Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi, the commander of the French naval forces and other top military officials from France and Egypt. The warship was named after the former president of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser. A...

The U.S. military must rebuild in Europe to face a more aggressive Russia, whose advanced submarines, weapons systems and geographic advantage have the U.S. “playing zone defense,” the top U.S. commander in Europe said Thursday. “We have about 20 years of a different paradigm to correct,” Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command, said during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Breedlove, who has led EUCOM during the command’s biggest transformation in a generation, said he did not foresee a need to return to a Cold War-style military posture. But the era of trying to make a partner...

Russia is now preparing an offensive in order to create a land corridor through mainland Ukraine to the Russian-occupied Crimea, according to Deputy Secretary of National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Mykhailo Koval who addressed the participants of the meeting of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Seimas of Lithuania and the Sejm and the Senate of the Republic of Poland, an UNIAN correspondent reported.

For months, Scandinavian countries have accused Russian military planes and ships of slipping into their waters without permission. It’s made many Nordic governments wary of the Kremlin’s intentions in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Russia’s assertive behavior is driving Sweden and Finland — two countries that have never been part of NATO — closer to the alliance. At present, Norway, Denmark and Iceland make up NATO’s Nordic members. According to Anna Wieslander at the Atlantic Council: Denmark has played a key role, with some support from the United Kingdom, putting Baltic Sea security and the perspective of relevant...

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday criticized Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, accusing him of placing a "time bomb" under the state, and sharply denouncing brutal repressions by the Bolshevik government. The harsh criticism of Lenin, who is still revered by communists and many others in Russia, is unusual for Putin, who in the past carefully weighed his comments about the nation's history to avoid alienating some voters. At the same time, he signaled that the government has no intention of taking Lenin's body out of his Red Square tomb, warning against "any steps that would divide the...

Fr. Lubomyr Yavorskyy, head of the Chaplaincy Services of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, on the physical trials and spiritual challenges of ministering to Ukrainian soldiersIn mid-February 2016, Fr. Lubomyr Yavorskyy, Deputy Head of Chaplaincy Services of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, visited numerous parishes and venues in Toronto and parts of southern Ontario at the invitation of Bishop Stephen Chmilar, Eparch of Toronto, and of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC). Bishop Chmilar and the UCC had jointly organized a fundraising campaign called “Save Lives” in order to assist Ukrainian soldiers with their extensive humanitarian...

Senator Ted Cruz with Cavuto speaking about the IMF in the Ukraine aid package and Hobby Lobby issue before SCOTUS.