Free Republic

At least 23 people have been killed and dozens more injured in a Russian rocket strike on a humanitarian convoy in south Ukraine, local officials say. A huge crater next to a row of vehicles in the city of Zaporizhzhia testifies to the violence of the attack. Windows and windscreens were smashed in. The BBC saw half a dozen bodies lying at the scene, apparently civilians. Baggage and coats strewed the tarmac. One survivor told the BBC her boss had been killed in the attack. "She had two kids. I left the cafe to use the restroom when it happened....

In north-eastern Ukraine, a counter-offensive has seen the nation's forces recapture swathes of territory, and drive out Russian troops. But in the newly-liberated areas, relief and sorrow are intertwined - as accounts emerge of torture and killings during the long months of Russian occupation. Artem, who lives in the city of Balakliya in the Kharkiv region told the BBC he was held by Russians for more than 40 days, and was tortured with electrocution. Balakliya was liberated on 8 September after being occupied for more than six months. The epicentre of the brutality was the city's police station, which Russian...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

A four-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome has become the latest innocent victim of Putin's war in Ukraine after she was killed in her pram by a Russian cruise missile which also left her mother fighting for life. Liza Dmitrieva was accompanying mother Irina on a day out in the city of Vinnystya - in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the nearest frontline - when a Russian Kalibre missile launched from a submarine in the Black Sea crashed down on top of them around 10.50am local time. The pink pram that Liza had been filmed pushing an hour earlier was...

Russia now appears to have the initiative over Ukraine in the battle for the Donbas, in the country's east, the UK's Ministry of Defence has said. On the war's 100th day, the UK said Russia holds 90% of the Luhansk region - half of the Donbas - and is likely to complete control of it in two weeks. It said these tactical successes had been achieved "at significant resource cost" with the concentration of forces. On Thursday, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Western nations must be prepared to support Ukraine over the long haul, as the conflict becomes a "war...

Ukrainian troops have reached the Russian border to the north of Kharkiv, the regional governor said today Video showed soldiers carrying a border marker to the frontier after pushing Putin's forces out of the country Russia has now all-but abandoned efforts to seize Ukraine's second-city, having already failed to take Kyiv Jens Stoltenburg, head of NATO alliance, said on Sunday that Kharkiv failure shows Ukraine can 'win' the war Ukrainian troops have reached the Russian border after successfully pushing Putin's forces away from the country's second-city of Kharkiv, as Putin's invasion continues to falter. Soldiers carrying a border marker painted...

A must see video by an independent German journalist covering the Donbass since 2014, 30 min mark MH 17 shot down, all live video. A must see for all, especially the Ukie War cheerleaders.

Civilians in Andriivka, a village about 60 kilometres west of Kyiv, are coming to terms with the devastation and trauma that they suffered during the month they spent under Russian occupation. When Russian soldiers first arrived in early March they expected to be welcomed as liberators. Once they realised that the locals did not want them there, they turned murderous.

Russia pounded targets from practically one end of Ukraine to the other Thursday, including Kyiv, bombarding the city while the head of the United Nations was visiting in the boldest attack on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago. Several people were wounded in the attack on Kyiv, including one who lost a leg and others who were trapped in the rubble when two buildings were hit, rescue officials said. The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who said Ukraine has become “an epicenter of unbearable...

Moskal, plural Moskali, also known as Muscal, is a historical designation used for the residents of the Grand Duchy of Moscow from the 12th to the 15th centuries. It is now used by some Slavic nations, mainly Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland, but also in Romania, as an ethnic slur against Russians. The term is generally considered to be derogatory or condescending. Another ethnic slur for Russians is kacap in Polish, or Chazar (pronunciation Kha:zar) in Czech, or katsap (Кацап in Ukrainian).

My first experience of combat as a Marine was in Mogadishu, Somalia in the '90s and then subsequently I was in the first Marine division during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. I have completed tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, been involved in the evacuation of civilians from Libya in 2011 and commanded a special operations task force against the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2016...I have a greater respect for the ethical behavior of the Islamic State than I do for the Russians. That is no exaggeration.

A fearsome Russian general has been linked to the deadly railway station strike that killed dozens of fleeing civilians that was branded a 'crime against humanity' within the international community. Western officials believe Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov, a Russian commander who oversaw devastation in Syria, is likely to have ordered yesterday’s fatal air strike on the station in Kramatorsk. Graphic images on Friday from the eastern Ukrainian city showed bodies strewn across the floor, lying amongst luggage and children's prams outside the city's busy station. Some had already been put into green body bags, while other photos showed smoke rising...

A former Russian diplomat recently posted to the United Nations in New York was a devoted neo-Nazi who plastered the city with Nazi insignia, DailyMail.com has learned. The news comes as his former boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, defends his invasion of Ukraine as an effort to 'de-Nazify' the country. ...... A man who appeared to be Kolchin was photographed making a Nazi salute in an image posted to the Old School Skins account on Instagram - a Neo Nazi group which Kolchin promotes on his own page. On July 29, 2019, a photo was posted to the OSS page...

Bucha is the latest shiny object that the Western cats are chasing mindlessly without taking time to think critically about what Russia is actually doing on the ground. Russia’s invasion on February 24 was not a classic military attack. What do I mean? If Russia was intent on conquering and subjugating Ukraine without regard to the fate of Ukrainian civilians it would have launched massive missile and airstrikes on all major cities, bridges, airfields, railroads and communication systems. It did not do that. Not my opinion. The first phase of Russia’s special military operation consisted of the following: Moved troops...

Link to video only. On the ground reporting in Mariupol, citizen interviews about what is actually happening.

TALLAHASSEE, FL —Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stirred up controversy this week after he proposed allocating state funds to grow his own personal army of Uruk-Hai orc warriors. "Frankly, the federal government is terrible at everything, including the Army, which has been taken over by wimpy-dimpy pink-haired SJWs," said DeSantis. "It's time for Florida to breed its own Uruk-Hai force." DeSantis touted the many uses of a personal Uruk-Hai army, such as helping with hurricane relief, monitoring the polls on election day, and making sure public schools aren't making kids wear masks. "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed every CNN anchor while breaking the story...

President Donald Trump stunned the entire world late Thursday night when he announced that he and First Lady Melania Trump had contracted COVID-19. Almost immediately, reactions began to pour in from NBA players.

Although we usually have a pretty good handle on all the different kinds of blips and blobs detected by our telescopes, it would be unwise to assume we've seen everything there is to see out there in the big, wide Universe. Case in point: a new kind of signal spotted by radio telescopes, which has astronomers scratching their heads. Four of these strange objects have been detected. All of them are circular in shape, and three are particularly bright around the edges - like a ring, or a bubble that is more opaque around the edges. An international team of...

There's something unusual lurking out in the depths of space: Astronomers have discovered four faint objects that at radio wavelengths are highly circular and brighter along their edges. And they're unlike any class of astronomical object ever seen before. The objects, which look like distant ring-shaped islands, have been dubbed odd radio circles, or ORCs, for their shape and overall peculiarity. Astronomers don't yet know exactly how far away these ORCs are, but they could be linked to distant galaxies. All objects were found away from the Milky Way's galactic plane and are around 1 arcminute across (for comparison, the...

**SNIP** “Under the federally-mandated review process, there should be a full study and consideration of ways, first to avoid, then to minimize and then, as a last resort, to mitigate the adverse effects of the plans to build the OPC in historic Jackson Park,” the letter states. Instead, “virtually all the focus” of the City Hall presentation was on “how the city was looking at mitigation. ... They completely skipped consideration of avoidance and minimization,” the letter states. As a result, the meeting “felt a lot like meetings past: an engineered agenda with a pre-determined outcome, paying lip service only...