Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday described legal proceedings against former US president Donald Trump as “politically motivated persecution.” The Kremlin, seen has having friendly relations with Trump, has repeatedly spoken out in defence of the former president, who is facing a series of charges linked to election interference. “As for the persecution of Trump, for us, in the current environment, it’s good because it shows the rottenness of the American system,” Putin said at an economic forum in the Far East. “It is a politically motivated persecution of one’s competitor.” Putin, who served in the Soviet security services, added:...

Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged in a television interview on Tuesday, without citing evidence, that Western powers had installed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, as president of Ukraine to cover up the glorification of Nazism. -snip- Putin told Russian television reporter Pavel Zarubin: “Western curators have put a person at the head of modern Ukraine - an ethnic Jew, with Jewish roots, with Jewish origins. And thus, in my opinion, they seem to be covering up an anti-human essence that is the foundation ... of the modern Ukrainian state,” Putin said. “And this makes the whole situation extremely disgusting, in...

<p>Gambino, a prolific author of mob history and a scion of the family that saw the rise of the likes of John Gotti and Paul Castellano, said the nature of the mob made it fundamentally better equipped than traditional law enforcement to handle a threat like ISIS.</p>

Posted on Oct 18, 2015 By Juan Cole The Arabic press is reporting that under cover of Russian air support, the Syrian Arab Army of Bashar al-Assad has made some advances against al-Qaeda in Syria and hard line Salafi rebels fighting for imposition of sharia or their conception of Islamic law on the country. On the 11th day of the Russian intervention, the Syrian Arab Army has taken the town of Atshan in the northern hinterland of the city of Hama, after fierce battles with the rebels there, including al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front or Support Front). Atshan fell to the...

Obama may not be willing to stand up for Christians, but God is. I don't always know how He's going to do it, but I'll take His protection over that of Vladimir Putin any day - and you should too. A friend of mine responded to the headline as follows: “Hitler said the same thing in 1933.” Lest you get concepts confused, I don’t think Putin is talking about riding in shirtless on a horse to defend the rights of Christian bakeries and florists, nor to save the would-be victims of Christian-hating gunmen. But the threat he references is not...

Even now with the Russians on the verge of combat operations in Syria, the White House still says it believes that they’re there to fight ISIS. John Kerry says that his Russian counterpart told him that the Russians are “only interested in fighting” the Islamic State. Other administration officials hold out hope for a grand U.S.-Russia coalition against ISIS. But that’s nonsense: Vladimir Putin landed troops in order to protect his investment in Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. The White House should know better, because no matter what U.S. officials say about fighting the Islamic State, Obama’s underlying goal in Syria...

Actually, it’s the Swiss who are probing the 2018 World Cup award to Russia, and the US bid was for the 2022 World Cup that went to Qatar.  Vladimir Putin won’t let those facts get in the way of a good anti-American rant, of course. The Russian strongman publicly questioned why the US would have any interest or jurisdiction over a legal argument that doesn’t involve its own citizens, which also turns out to be … not true: Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of meddling in FIFA’s affairs and hinted that it was part of an...

HE is known as Russia's Osama bin Laden; Public Enemy No 1 for the Kremlin. Even the US has put a $5 million bounty on his head. Doku Umarov, 49, the Chechen warlord with the blackest of reputations, is assumed to be the mastermind behind a bombing campaign intended to disrupt Vladimir Putin's cherished dream of a successful Winter Olympics in Sochi. Certainly, he has set out his aims clearly enough. The Olympics, he said, were being held on "the bones of many, many dead Muslims buried on our land by the Black Sea".

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been named International Person of the Year by Britain's The Times newspaper for succeeding in his ambition of bringing Moscow back to the international top table. The paper said Putin, 61, a judo black belt, has hip-flipped US President Barack Obama on the Syrian crisis, wrestled the EU to the ground on Ukraine, tripped up the opposition at home and rescued weaker team players such as President Assad of Syria and Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, who was given asylum in Russia. Also this year, Putin, who served two...