Free Republic

One of the side effects of war is economic dislocation. No matter what Vladimir Putin chooses to call his war in Ukraine, it is a war, and it is dislocating markets worldwide. Most of the attention has been on the potential disruption of Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe, but a more significant problem than cold Euros is looming. Ukraine is one of the world’s leading exporters of wheat and sunflower oil. Because of Putin’s War, Ukrainian products can’t pass through the Black Sea to get to market.Fears of a global food crisis are swelling as Russian attacks on...

Just before Easter, the Russians announced that they had accomplished all of their pre-invasion objectives and were beginning a new phase. The new phase required the abandonment of Russia’s attempt to seize control of Kiev and focus the war on gaining control of Donbas and establishing a land bridge from Russia to Crimea (read Ukraine’s Future Depends on These Three Fights That Russia Must Win and 10 Days Into Putin’s ‘New Phase’ of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, There Are Minor Advances but the Clock Is Ticking). That goal eventually expanded to creating Russian-owned territory from Russia to Moldova and stripping...

Tuesday, it became evident that the Russian Army was abandoning territory in Ukraine that it seized shortly after Putin’s War began on February 24 (Russian Troops Retreat From Ukraine to Russia: Planned Redeployment or the Beginning of Collapse?). That withdrawal opened the way for Ukrainian forces to recover previously occupied territory from north of Kharkiv to the border with Russia.What a difference a week makes. Russian positions a week ago on the left; from yesterday on the right. h/t @Militarylandnet pic.twitter.com/5gVye2hQra— streiff (@streiffredstate) May 10, 2022Unconfirmed but solid reports that Ukrainian troops have reached the Russian border to the North-East...

Over the last week, the Russian position north of Kharkiv has collapsed. There are two explanations, and both involve an endgame for Putin’s War.Most commentary on military operations over the last week has focused on what is assumed to be the center of gravity of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, Donbas, and the siege of Mariupol. However, in my opinion, the real activity to watch has been occurring on the Ukraine-Russia border. Kharkiv had been under daily artillery and rocket fire, destroying most of it.When I saw the city center of Kharkiv, destroyed by air bombs, I was shocked. Last...

It is now May 9, and the speculation about what Russian President Vladimir Putin will do on the occasion of the 2022 Victory Day Parade has been answered.Due to the war raging in Ukraine, a lot of SmartSet™ types had been speculating that Putin would use the Victory Day Parade as the catalyst to mobilize Russia for his war in Ukraine, if not declare war outright. Read my coverage of Putin’s possible courses of action at Tomorrow Is ‘Victory Day’ in Russia but Vladimir Putin Is Losing, So What Does He Offer Russia?.The preliminaries of the parade are in the...

The Russian ammunition dump in Tomorovka, Russia, was wracked by explosions on Sunday morning. Tomorovka is just west of Belgorod and barely 40 miles north of the Ukrainian strongpoint city of Kharkiv. This ammunition dump would be critical to sustaining the Russian offensive in Donbas. There is no claim of responsibility, so it might be another of those mysterious fires plaguing Russian strategic installations and those installations supporting the Donbas operation. Video of the explosion and aftermath are posted below.There have been a series of explosions and fires at military logistics and storage points inside #Russia that are used to...

According to the Jerusalem Post, Belarus faces an organized sabotage campaign aimed at railroad lines carrying Russian troops and supplies into Ukraine.The General Prosecutor of Belarus opened a criminal case into what it called an act of terrorism carried out by an organized group against infrastructure of the Belarusian Railway, according to TASS.The general prosecutor added that signaling facilities and other transport equipment were rendered “unusable.”The BYPOL group, which consists of former security officers who support the opposition in Belarus, said on Tuesday that a series of sabotage actions had targeted the railway system in Belarus, disrupting the movement of...

On Wednesday, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was touting a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ to the war in Ukraine (see Proposed ‘Fifteen Point Peace Plan’ in Russia-Ukraine War Is a Total Defeat for Putin, but Zelensky Is Biding His Time), President Vladimir Putin gave a speech that did not indicate that he had any intention of settling for less than total victory in Ukraine and signaled a crackdown on elements of his own society.<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>The first part...

Multiple sources report that Vladimir Putin has ordered the arrest and detention of General Roman Gavrilov, the deputy director of Rosgvardiya, or the National Guard of Russia. This National Guard is not to be confused with anything like our National Guard. The Rosgvardia is composed of internal security troops, from police to paratroops and special forces, that report directly to Vladimir Putin and whose responsibility is the stability of the state.In 2016, President Putin signed a decree that created the National Guard, known in common parlance by its Russian name Rosgvardiya. This did not entail whole new organizations or the...

On Wednesday, the Financial Times ran an exclusive story on the ongoing peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Those negotiations started only four days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was little progress until March 10, when Turkey announced it was hosting a “high level” meeting between the two parties. On Monday, I posted how the Russians and Ukrainian peace delegations were making pleasing noises about “progress,” see Russians and Ukrainians Say Peace Talks Show Progress but ‘Getting to Yes’ Seems Very Far Away.Today’s news comes in a story titled Ukraine and Russia explore neutrality plan in peace talks.IMPORTANT...