Free Republic

Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor Ukraine is in ruins. Its latest counteroffensive achieved nothing. In the last three weeks, an estimated 26,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in pointless attacks against world-class Russian defenses. 2:30 PM · Jul 21, 2023 ·MBR 55.7K Views

LOS ANGELES, CA—JUNE 19, 2023—Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. responded today to remarks by Secretary of State Antony Blinken last Friday in a speech in Finland, in which Blinken dismissed calls for a ceasefire in the conflict and called for further transfers of high-tech weaponry and aircraft to Ukraine. In response, Mr. Kennedy said: “Blinken’s speech highlights once again that the Biden Administration has no intention of ending this conflict peacefully. The plan, which members of the administration including Blinken have explicitly admitted on numerous occasions, is to use Ukraine to achieve the larger geopolitical goal of weakening...

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Russia unleashed the "most important" assault by drones on Kyiv overnight Saturday-Sunday since the start of the invasion, but nearly all were destroyed, military authorities said. Forty of the 54 drones launched targeted the capital, killing two people and wounding three. "In total a record number of explosive drones launched were counted: 54!" Ukraine's air force said in a Telegram post on Sunday. The attack "took place over several waves and the air raid alert lasted more than five hours!" "According to preliminary reports more than 40 Russian drones were destroyed by air defence" systems over...

Ukrainian forces have used Maxim machine guns, a weapon often associated with World War I, to mow down frontal assaults by Russian troops in the battle for Bakhmut. "It only works when there is a massive attack going on," a Ukrainian soldier identified as Borys, 48, recently told BBC News of the Maxim gun. "Then it really works." "We use it every week," Borys added. Ukrainian forces have found the Maxim M1910 — was first introduced in 1910 (the initial version of the gun emerged in the 1880s) and employed by the Imperial Russian Army during World War I —...

A shocking admission by Ukrainian troops fighting Russia on the ground has come up. Ukrainian troops on the frontline say that western arms may not be enough to defeat Russia, according to a report by the New York Times. The Ukrainian fighters also expressed their surprise at the amount of artillery, tanks, helicopters, and jets Russia has deployed on the battlefield. The admission comes at a time when Ukraine is already facing embarrassment after its much-hyped spring offensive was delayed. ...

“We are fueling a proxy war in Ukraine in order to defend freedom, such as the freedom to censor dissenting views on our proxy war in Ukraine” — Aaron Maté. How long do we have to wait before Volodymyr Zelensky opens a disco in Boca Raton? That’s one of the questions raised by the secret CIA documents leaked last week, supposedly by a 21-year-old National Guard airman in Massachusetts named Jack Teixeira. Since that’s about the lowliest rank in the whole US military, you have to wonder how Jack got his mitts on all that embarrassing info, and what it...

The United States has decided to extend the deployment of the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group to provide options to policymakers after last week's deadly attacks in Syria by Iran-backed forces, U.S. military officials said on Friday. The decision likely means the Bush strike group and its more than 5,000 U.S. forces, which are now in the European Command operational area, will not be returning to home port in the United States on schedule. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Colonel Joe Buccino confirmed the carrier group's extension, which was first reported by Reuters.

Citing Iran’s mission to the UN in New York, Sputnik said after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, Iran expressed its interest to buy combat aircraft, and Russia was a willing partner. “The mission added that the Su-35 combat aircraft are technically acceptable to Iran, so after October 2020, and the end of Iranian restrictions on purchases of conventional weapons (UN Resolution No. 2231), Iran completed the procedures for the acquisition,” the Russian news agency noted... Earlier, a video emerged showing Iran’s Khordad-3 & Mersad air defense systems coming out of what is reportedly an underground tunnel. Interestingly,...

What is almost never mentioned is the role the Soviet Union played in helping North Vietnam...and the mistaken belief of most people that they never played an active part at all.... Starting in 1964, North Vietnamese fighter pilots and anti-aircraft gunners were being trained in the Soviet Union, with Soviet advisors also being stationed in North Vietnam... Soviet archives opened after the fall of the USSR indicate that these anti-aircraft crews, mainly Ukrainian, served for much of the war... Early on, when the North Vietnamese troops were still unfamiliar with the new Soviet anti-aircraft batteries, Soviet crews manned the guns...

China is fueling Moscow’s war in Ukraine by sending fighter-jet components, navigational systems for military helicopters, and other technology since last year’s invasion, Russian customs data shows. The shipments, which are not weapons but have wartime uses, are reportedly among thousands of Chinese imports from both state-owned and private businesses recorded by the Russian customs office, a list that also includes telescoping antennas for military vehicles that can be used for communications jamming and parts for a radar system used to detect jets and missiles. Customs data compiled by the Washington-based national security nonprofit C4ADS and examined by the Wall...

By contributing to the war in Ukraine, the Trudeau government is — perhaps unwittingly — marching us all down the road to Armageddon. This is by no means hyperbole. Even the academics who rule the Doomsday Clock have set the dial at 90 seconds to midnight. We used to hear all about that clock during the height of the Cold War, when liberals thought President Ronald Reagan was going to start bombing Moscow. But 90 seconds is closer than it's ever been. I have little patience for people — usually those with no defence experience or expertise — who insist...

The US military is leading a team that is helping to repair Ukraine's military hardware over the phone. These virtual exchanges often take place during battle, the Associated Press reported. Ukrainian troops, meanwhile, are pushing artillery systems to the limits to keep Russia at bay.

From day one of the war in Ukraine, the most powerful argument against unrestrained western intervention in the conflict has been the danger of catastrophic escalation into an all-out war between Nato and Russia.So far, western governments have shied away from a truly existential confrontation with Russia. But the threat remains that continuing western military aid to Ukraine will provoke Russian countermeasures that could turn Moscow’s proxy war with Nato into a direct military conflict.Western hawks have long argued the danger of escalation is illusory. In an op-ed for the New York Times, former British diplomat Nigel Gould-Davies claimed “Putin...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 11h FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES. Get this crazy war ended, NOW. So easy to do! Jan 26, 2023, 5:44 AM

Ukrainian officials last night said they expect Western allies to provide their armed forces with long-range missiles after the UK, US, Germany and several other nations agreed to send battalions of tanks long-sought by Kyiv. Presidential advisor Mikhailo Podolyak told The Daily Telegraph: 'Right now we are seeing a sharp change in sentiment among the political elites of European countries... we will reach, I am sure, no doubt, an agreement on long-range missiles.' In a devastating blow to the Kremlin, nine countries joined Britain yesterday in agreeing to send tanks to destroy Russia's forces in eastern Ukraine. The coalition came...

The decision to move forward with providing the tanks marks a reversal for the Biden administration, which had been resisting pressure from Germany to send them to Ukraine. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that the United States is sending 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in its war against Russia. The U.S. will also provide the necessary training and supplies needed to operate and run these tanks, he said. NBC News reported the development Tuesday. The president said sending the tanks will "enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives" because they are "the most capable...

Ukraine is finally getting the Western-made tanks that it wants, but there's still a few big items on its wishlist. Kyiv says the next thing it wants is fighter jets. "We have new tasks ahead: Western-type fighter jets, sanctions, Peace Formula implementation," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said after Germany announced on Wednesday it would send Leopard 2 main battle tanks, a decision that followed weeks of mounting pressure by European countries. Yuriy Sak, an advisor to the Ukrainian defense minister, concurred, telling Reuters that "the next big hurdle will now be the fighter jets." Some others, however, have pointed...

The Pentagon has given a tacit endorsement of Ukraine’s long-range attacks on targets inside Russia after President Putin’s multiple missile strikes against Kyiv’s critical infrastructure. Since daily assaults on civilians began in October, the Pentagon has revised its threat assessment of the war in Ukraine. Crucially, this includes new judgments about whether arms shipments to Kyiv might lead to a military confrontation between Russia and Nato. This represents a significant development in the nine-month war between Ukraine and Russia, with Washington now likelier to supply Kyiv with longer-range weapons. “We’re still using the same escalatory calculations but the fear of...

While Europe correctly perceives that some sectors of the U.S. economy are raking in profits at the expense of Europe, the economy of the United States is showing clear signs of a retracting economy on multiple fronts.

The Associated Press has fired the journalist who reported a story that Russian-fired missiles crossed into Poland after it was revealed that Ukraine likely fired the projectiles, according to a report.