Free Republic

Ukrainian attack on annexed Crimea using U.S.-supplied missiles is reported to have struck a space radar station used by occupying Russian forces. The local Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported on Friday that Kyiv's forces attacked military installations in Crimea on Thursday evening. At least six ATACMS ballistic missiles hit a communications center used by the Russian army that houses "a radio antenna of a space observation station," it said. Newsweek could not independently verify the report and has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment by email.

Russian central bank assets. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the move will hand Ukraine up to €3 billion (about $3.3 billion) this year. "We have approved in the EU using revenues from Russia's central bank's frozen assets to help Ukraine," wrote Lipavsky on X, formerly Twitter. "Up to €3B only this year, 90% goes for Ukraine's military. Russia must pay for its war damages." The financial assets were frozen shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Reuters reported this month that the EU has estimated that by 2027, windfall profits from Russia's central bank...

Kyiv says it has had some success pushing back against a renewed Russian offensive, but Ukraine's defences are in dire need of resupply. A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea early Friday caused power cutoffs in the city of Sevastopol and set a refinery ablaze in southern Russia, Russian authorities said. The drone raids marked an attempt to strike back during Moscow's renewed offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has added to the pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces as they await delayed deliveries of crucial Western weapons and ammunition. Ukraine has not commented on the attack nor claimed responsibility...

Russian air base in Crimea that caught fire following a suspected Ukrainian missile attack hosted dozens of military aircraft central to Moscow's invasion. Ukraine has stepped up strikes on Russian facilities on the peninsula Moscow has occupied since 2014 and which Kyiv has vowed to recapture. Regarding the latest incident, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said there had been a massive Ukrainian missile attack over the port city overnight Tuesday. Footage on social-media channels showed flames billowing into the air at the Belbek airfield near Sevastopol. Here is the focal point of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, whose vessels...

Ukraine used U.S-supplied missiles in an attack that sparked blazes at a Russian military air base in Crimea, according to reports. The Astra Telegram channel posted images of flames at the Belbek airfield near the city of Sevastopol following the strikes overnight Tuesday. Belbek airfield has been operated by the Russian defense ministry since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. -snip- Open-source X user OSINT Technical posted NASA satellite images, which the account said showed large fires raging at the airfield located more than 160 miles from the frontline in Ukraine. "Ukrainian forces reportedly carried out a massive missile strike...

NEW: Ukraine is making a new push to get Biden to lift his ban on using U.S.-made weapons to strike inside Russia, saying the policy kept them from attacking Russian positions as Moscow prepared for its major march toward Kharkiv

There was a striking lack of military hardware on display after major losses in Ukraine. VLADIMIR Putin has vowed Russia is "always" ready to strike the West and snubbed Britain in a snarling World War 2 rant at Russia's annual Victory Day parade. The Russian tyrant instead lavished praise on China and declared Russia was "combat ready" in these "difficult" times as nuclear missiles rumbled through Moscow's streets. -snip- However, today was a much pared-down parade indicating the strains of war. For the second year in a row, it featured just one measly tank - reportedly an 80-year-old T-34.

Russia said on Wednesday that sending NATO troops into Ukraine would potentially be extremely dangerous, and Moscow was closely watching a Ukrainian petition that called for such an intervention. The petition, posted on the Ukrainian president's website, says Ukraine should ask the United States, Britain and other countries to send troops to help it repel Russia's invasion. "We have repeatedly said that direct intervention on the ground in this conflict by the military of NATO countries potentially carries enormous danger, so we consider this an extremely challenging provocation, nothing less, and, of course, we are watching this very carefully."

Once again, Russian President Vladimir Putin is seemingly rattling the nuclear saber. But why now?The Kremlin, citing recent comments by Western leaders regarding the war in Ukraine, said Monday that it would soon carry out simulated use of battlefield, or tactical, nuclear weapons — marking the first time Moscow announced such an exercise.The announcement drew a sharp response. U.S. Defense Department spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder called it “entirely inappropriate.” NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah termed Moscow’s plans “dangerous and irresponsible,” and the European Union called on Russia to “stop the escalation.”Like so many pronouncements from Moscow, this one’s timing might...

Russia plans to hold drills simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced Monday, days after the Kremlin reacted angrily to comments by senior Western officials about the war in Ukraine. The drills are in response to “provocative statements and threats of certain Western officials regarding the Russian Federation,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. It was the first time that Russia has publicly announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, though its strategic nuclear forces regularly hold exercises. Tactical nuclear weapons have a lower yield compared to massive warheads that arm intercontinental ballistic missiles intended to...

'I am not ruling anything out,' Emmanuel Macron insisted in an interview published today, pressed on whether France would send troops to Ukraine in its hour of need. The remarks echo a new tone on Moscow in recent months, the French President reiterating pledges roundly rebuffed by his allies in the US, UK and Germany. Europe and the United States have now committed more than £130bn to Ukraine in aid but NATO members have stopped short of promising boots on the ground - with Putin still willing to exploit the threat of nuclear Armageddon when prompted. While Macron has argued...

This is the moment more than 100 Russian troops are believed to have been killed in an ATACMS tactical ballistic missile strike on occupied Luhansk. A military training ground was seen being hit by multiple explosions typical of an ATACMS strike in footage captured by a drone flying high above. The strike targeted a group of 100-plus soldiers who were seen in aerial images, say OSINT analysts in what would be the single largest loss of Russian stories in months. The ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) showered the troops with hundreds of M74 APAM mini-bombs which are carried by the...

"Military pay, ammunition, tanks, planes, and compensation for dead and wounded soldiers, all contribute to the GDP figures. Put simply, the war against Ukraine is now the main driver of Russia's economic growth" Foucart said... Other areas of Russia's economy are hurting as the war drags on. Moscow is slammed with a severe labor shortage, thanks to young professionals fleeing the country or being pulled into the conflict. The nation is now short around 5 million workers, according to one estimate, which is causing wages to soar. Inflation is high at 7.4% — nearly double the 4% target of its...

Despite the time and political capital spent on the $60 billion aid for Ukraine, some Biden administration officials are skeptical it’s enough for Ukraine to win its two-year war with Russia. Battlefield dynamics have shifted a lot in the last few months, partly because Ukraine ran low on weaponry and ammunition while Congress debated authorizing more aid, according to three U.S. officials, all granted anonymity to detail sensitive internal thinking. During that period, Ukraine struggled to maintain eastern territory, though Russia didn’t make significant gains, either. Russia maintains a manpower and weapons advantage, and it would take a lot to...

President Joe Biden suggested war is peace on Wednesday after he signed legislation to provide Ukraine the funds to conduct a war against Russia. “It’s a good day for world peace,” Biden claimed about the war funds in the State Dining Room of the White House, echoing George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” “It’s going to make America safer, it’s going to make the world safer, and it continues America’s leadership in the world, and everyone knows it,” Biden said of the funds. The Senate passed the foreign aid package on Wednesday. Just minutes after the vote, Biden signed the legislation...

Congress is facing the most significant and transformational opportunity to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) since the end of World War II. The heritage equipment that the United States has provided to Ukraine for its self-defense in the face of the brazen and illegal invasion by Russian forces in 2022 needs to be replenished to ensure the United States is postured to continue to deter its adversaries. The new hardware will be produced at factories across the nation. Of the $113 billion appropriated by Congress to date related to the conflict in Ukraine, as much as $68 billion...

A spending bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) includes hundreds of millions of dollars in American taxpayer money for border patrol agents in Ukraine as illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border remains at record levels. The spending bill, which 151 House Republicans helped 165 House Democrats advance on Friday, would see more than $95 billion sent to foreign countries — including about $61 billion to Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia.

The House speaker’s comments wrecked one of the far right’s most ridiculous, reprehensible tropes.It was a remarkable moment: After introducing a package of bills that includes military aid to Ukraine, Mike Johnson flatly told reporters on Wednesday that enabling Ukraine to defend itself is in the best interests of America and the world. This surprised a lot of people who had wrongly assumed the House speaker was effectively functioning as a stooge for Vladimir Putin—and Donald Trump—and would thus slow-walk Ukraine aid to death before ever allowing a vote on it.Johnson’s new stance has attracted a good deal of positive...

House conservatives have stymied proposed supplemental funding packages for Ukraine since the fall. But their justifications for further delays in delivering military aid to Kyiv got little oxygen during an April 17 defense budget hearing before a key appropriations panel. “With Mr. Putin saying very openly and repeatedly that he wants to restore the old Soviet Union, all of the nation states, in Eastern Europe especially, are looking to us,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said, referring to the Russian leader’s demands seeking no further NATO expansion, no missiles on Russia’s borders, and a return of...

Ukraine’s shortage of ammunition and military equipment resulting from the US and its allies’ struggle to resupply the country’s military is having an increasingly dire effect on the battlefield, US and NATO officials are warning, as Russia intensifies its attacks on Kyiv’s dwindling air defenses knowing that they likely won’t be replenished anytime soon. The Ukrainian military is “experiencing shortages in air defense munitions, mostly in the medium to long range,” a NATO official said on Wednesday. “It’s not just that we know that. It’s that Russia knows that. So Russia is using drones and missiles in ways that are...