Free Republic

The Kremlin denies it, but right now, it only looks like a matter of time. Russia wants to keep the nuclear power facility in Zaporizhzhia for its own energy needs as well as nuclear hostage in its failing war in Ukraine. The question is whether they can hold it, and for how long. As the New York Times points out, the fallback from Kherson hasn’t bolstered their forces in Zaporizhzhia enough to sustain its seizure in the long run: Following a string of Ukrainian military successes in the south, the Kremlin sought on Monday to tamp down speculation that Russian...

It’s Election Day in parts of Ukraine — but only because Russia imposed it. Vladimir Putin ordered referenda on annexation held in the parts of the Donbas that Russia still controls — and some areas it no longer does — in order to justify the seizure of those areas. That seizure will allow Putin to claim that any further Ukrainian advances in those areas are an invasion of Russia, which will unlock his ability to order full mobilization … and potentially other options.We’ll get to the full-mobilization issue in a moment, but let’s stick to the referenda first. Ukrainian authorities...

Russia has been playing this game for months and now it seems to have reached its inevitable outcome. The gas supply flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been completely shut off. Russia claimed this week that it was shutting the gas supply off temporarily in order to do maintenance on the line. Then it claimed it had discovered a problem which prevented it from resuming the supply. No one is being fooled by any of this anymore. Even the German company that built the machines used to pump gas through the pipeline has said Russia’s explanation makes no...