Free Republic

The Russian prosecutor's office has warned Russians against participating in a mass protest in the centre of Moscow after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. -snip- According to videos and photos on social networks, people in other Russian cities were paying their respects to Navalny after news of his death spread.

Israel will hardly be able to ensure its security even by “drowning the Gaza Strip in blood,” Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said on Monday. “Even by decapitating Hamas and even by drowning the Gaza Strip in blood it will hardly be possible to ensure Israel's security. After some time, the tide of hatred and terrorism may rise again with renewed force. This cannot be ruled out,” Ushakov said as cited by state news agency TASS. “The Palestinian problem is unrivalled in terms of its ability to spread to the global level,” he added. “Israel's military measures fail to narrow...

Russian scientist Dr. Dmitry Fedyanin seemed to die doing what he loved. German officials say the 34-year-old expert in ultra-violet light and a senior research fellow at the Nanooptics Department of Siegen University in Germany fell to his death Berchtesgadener Alps National Park after following his hiking app over a cliff. Fedyanin’s body was found at the bottom of Hoher Laafeld peak, which sits at about 7,000 feet. Fedyanin was using his hiking app to make his way down the mountain but the route he was taking didn’t have paths and the app “sent him over mountain precipice.” “Our investigators...

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet which crashed killing all on board, Russia's civil aviation authority has said. Earlier, Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported that the private plane, which belonged to Prigozhin, was shot down by air defences. It was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg, with seven passengers and three crew.

During an interview set to air on Sunday’s broadcast of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” President Joe Biden was asked by network correspondent Scott Pelley about the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin using chemical or nuclear weapons as his nation’s military struggles to hold on to territory gained in its Ukraine ground invasion. “Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Biden said. “You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.”

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has authorized Russian troops, planes and ships to deploy to Nicaragua for purposes of training, law enforcement or emergency response. In a decree published this week, and confirmed by Russia on Thursday, Ortega will allow Russian troops to carry out law enforcement duties, “humanitarian aid, rescue and search missions in emergencies or natural disasters.” The Nicaraguan government also authorized the presence of small contingents of Russian troops for “exchange of experiences and training.” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told the Russian news outlet Sputnik that the measure was...

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, is convening a meeting of her security council on Tuesday following a series of incidents in the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria and a warning from Moscow that the Russian-backed region could be drawn into the war in Ukraine. Transnistria, which borders western Ukraine, is controlled by pro-Russia separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot. Last week, a senior Russian commander said the goal of Russia’s new offensive was to seize control of southern Ukraine and to gain access to Transnistria, creating worries that the small east European country...

Foreign aircraft lessors seeking to recover some $10 billion worth of planes from Russia were dealt a new blow Monday when President Vladimir Putin signed a law clearing the country’s airlines to fly the planes domestically.Sanctions and reciprocal airspace closures in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month have cut off the country’s air travel market. Boeing and Airbus have said they will no longer supply parts to its airlines. That could force carriers to cannibalize other jets for parts.There are some 728 Western-built aircraft in the country’s airlines’ fleets, 515 of them leased by foreign lessors, according to...

President Vladimir Putin has promised government backing for Islamic religious education in Russia, in a bid to stave extremism and cater to Russia’s large Muslim community. Up to 20 million Muslims make up Russia’s second-largest religious minority. Thousands of young radicalized Russians have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join jihadist fighters in recent years, making the country the largest source of foreign fighters in the war-torn region. At a meeting with Islamic religious figures on Wednesday, Russia’s president pledged “undoubted support” for a "revival of Islamic education in Russia," the state-run TASS news agency reported. “Traditional Islam is an...

For the last several years, Russian security services have driven Islamist radicals and others out of the North Caucasus and other regions of the Russian Federation under paid of jail or death to fight for ISIS in Syria, Israeli expert Avraam Shmulyevich says. Now that the last redoubts of the Islamic State in that country have fallen, these same services, exploiting Chechens in Syria, have begun to extract these same people back to Russia, an action that strongly suggests, the president of the Israeli Eastern Partnership Institute says, that Moscow plans to make use of them elsewhere – and may...

Almost 450 extremists from various nationalities arrive to Idlib to fight against Russian troops, after leaving Syria and passing through Turkey.Close to 450 extremist Arab and foreign nationals have arrived in Ukraine from Idlib to fight against Russia's forces, less than only three days after they left Syria, passing through Turkey.Relatives of extremists that have arrived in Ukraine told Sputnik that senior fighters from terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the rebranded version of Jabhat Al-Nusra, i.e Al-Qaeda) have held a number of meetings with senior leaders in the Turkistan Islamic Party group and Ansar Al-Tawhid and Hurras al-Din groups, and...

Chechen Residents: Dozens of Those Killed in Battle in Ukraine Have Been Delivered to the Republic. Local residents say that several dozen residents of Chechnya, who took part in the fighting in Ukraine and died in the Donetsk region, have been brought back to their homeland in the last few days, giving numbers from 35 to 40-45 dead. The Republic’s security agencies declined to comment on these reports, writes a correspondent for Caucasian Knot. Caucasian Knot has reported that, following the change of power in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, clashes broke out in the towns of...

A squad of Chechen special forces 'hunters' has been unleashed in Ukraine to detain or kill a set of specific Ukrainian officials. Each soldier was reportedly given a special 'deck of cards' with Ukrainian officials' photos and descriptions on them, a Moscow Telegram channel with links to the security establishment reported. The list is of officials and security officers suspected of 'crimes' by the Russian Investigative Committee, the report added. It came as Ukraine's president admitted he is 'target number one' for Russian assassins in his capital, while his family is 'the number two goal' for Putin's hitmen. The Chechen...

The warlord who runs Chechnya held a rally of an estimated 10,000 fighters who could be dispatched to Ukraine to take part in the invasion. The servicemen gathered in the Chechen capital, Grozny, after Friday prayers in a show of strength by Ramzan Kadyrov, an erstwhile separatist rebel who became one of President Putin’s most loyal henchmen. Addressing the uniformed men, Kadyrov, 45, said that fighters would serve in the “hottest spots in Ukraine”, and that he could muster 70,000 volunteers. Video showed the Muslim fighters standing in serried ranks in a central square and crying in unison: “Allahu Akbar!”...

A squad of Chechen special forces 'hunters' has been unleashed in Ukraine to detain or kill a set of specific Ukrainian officials. Each soldier was reportedly given a special 'deck of cards' with Ukrainian officials' photos and descriptions on them, a Moscow Telegram channel with links to the security establishment reported. The list is of officials and security officers suspected of 'crimes' by the Russian Investigative Committee, the report added.

In Gostomel area on Saturday, Ukrainian troops defeated a special unit of the Russian Guard of Chechnya. This information was confirmed to Interfax-Ukraine by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. It is reported that during the defeat of the unit, General Magomed Tushaev, commander of the 141st motorized regiment of the Chechen National Guard, was killed. This was confirmed by a captured fighter from this unit. According to a source in the Ministry of Defense, “the National Guard of Ukraine and the Alpha special unit are now dealing with the rest of the unit with small arms already.”

MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia's Chechnya region and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Saturday that Chechen fighters had been deployed to Ukraine and urged Ukrainians to overthrow their government. In a video posted online, Kadyrov boasted that Chechen units had so far suffered no losses and said Russian forces could easily take large Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, but that their task was to avoid loss of life.

In the area of Gostomel on Saturday, the Ukrainian army defeated a special unit of the Rosgvardiya of Chechnya. This information was confirmed to Interfax-Ukraine by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the censor reports.No. It is reported that during the defeat of the unit, general Magomed Tushaev, commander of the 141st motorized Regiment of the Rosgvardiya of Chechnya, was destroyed. This was confirmed by a captured soldier of this unit. According to a source in the Ministry of Defense, "the National Guard of Ukraine and the Alpha special unit are already dealing with the remaining small arms."

Ukraine landed a significant blow on Russia Saturday after it killed a large group of bloodthirsty Chechen special forces dispatched to assassinate the country's president Volodymyr Zelensky. The armed group - famed for their barbaric violence and human rights abuses - were obliterated after their convoy of 56 tanks was blown to smithereens by Ukrainian missile fire on the second day of the Chechens' deployment. It is unclear how many died - but the number is likely to run into the hundreds. Among those wiped out was Chechen general Magomed Tushaev. He was commander of the 141th motorized national guard...

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have assured that shortly after 8:30 p.m. they have “neutralized” the Chechen general, Magomed Tushayev. Apparently, he could have been killed near Kiev, in the area known as Hostome. Tushayev He was in charge of the 141 motorized regiment of the so-called Kadyrov guard: one of the most elite units in Chechnya and whose contingent would be made up of about 400 men.