Free Republic

The final day of Russia’s week-long vote on overhauling its Constitution is ending with no surprises. Vladimir Putin, who was first elected president in 2000, has been all but handed the opportunity to remain in office until 2036. If that happens, the former KGB officer will overtake Josef Stalin as the country’s longest-serving leader. “All we have is Putin,” said Galina Morozova, 81, outside a polling station in central Moscow Wednesday afternoon after voting yes to the changes. “We have to make sure he stays in power.”

Wednesday was the final day of voting in Russia on the all but inevitable re-election of President Vladimir Putin to another 12-year term, and on whether or not to formally ban state recognition of same-sex “marriage.” Putin said in February that he would back a national referendum to “clarify some things,” including that “marriage is a union of a man and woman” and that “as long as I am president, we will not have parents #1 and #2, we will have ‘papa’ and ‘mamma.’” The comments were consistent with his past opposition to formal promotion of homosexuality. This week’s amendment,...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians opened the door to Vladimir Putin staying in power until 2036 by voting overwhelmingly for constitutional changes that will allow him to run again for president twice, but critics said the outcome was falsified on an industrial scale. Official results published on Thursday, after 100% of ballots had been counted, showed that the former KGB officer who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister had easily won the right to run for two more six-year terms after the current one ends in 2024. That means Putin, 67, could rule until...

Vladimir Putin is heading for victory in a referendum that could extend his rule until 2036 as Russia enters its final day of voting today. The Kremlin strongman would normally reach his term limit in 2024, but voters are set to back a plan to reset his tally to zero and allow him to run for two more terms. The package of constitutional changes would also increase Putin's powers to dissolve parliament and expand his influence over courts and prosecutors.

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House...

The other day, the New York Times was subtly and not so subltely promoting the claim that President Trump was standing callously by and coddling Russia's Vladimir Putin even as Putin was busily offering the Taliban bounties for the bodies of dead U.S. servicemen. It was the old 'Trump is a Russian agent' canard whipped out in a new form. The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a...

A Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to militants in Afghanistan for killing coalition forces — including targeting American troops, according to a report Friday. The revelations, from American intelligence officials — reported by The New York Times — came as the US, Taliban militants and the Afghan government are struggling to cut a peace deal to end the 18-year conflict. The US determined months ago that the Russian unit, which has also been linked to assassination attempts and covert operations in Europe that are intended to destabilize the West, had secretly offered rewards for successful attacks last year,...

A group of Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives urged President Donald Trump on Tuesday to reconsider his decision to cut the number of U.S. troops in Germany, saying their presence is the backbone of NATO’s deterrent against Russian aggression. The six lawmakers led by House Foreign Affairs Committee senior Republican Michael McCaul said in a letter that the U.S. military footprint in Germany served Washington’s strategic interests beyond Europe and into the Middle East and Africa, which have seen the growing influence of Russia and China. […] The lawmakers also warned that Moscow and Beijing sought to sow...

In their final encounter during the transition following the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s incoming national-security adviser surprised Barack Obama’s outgoing national-security adviser. Susan Rice writes in her memoir that the Michael Flynn she was dealing with had nothing in common with the firebrand she had watched leading a “lock her up” chant against Hillary Clinton at the Republican National Convention a few months earlier. Flynn, a retired general and the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was respectful and subdued, eager for her advice. When Rice extended her hand and wished him the best of luck, Flynn asked her...

President Donald Trump’s aggressive campaign to encourage sweeping investigations of his predecessor Barack Obama met a unanimous response from Senate Republicans: No thanks. Trump’s Senate allies on Monday stopped short of echoing Trump’s claim that Obama acted illegally when the Justice Department began probing incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn in late 2016. And they indicated that the Senate would pass on investigating the former president as they conduct their own investigations that could soon ensnare other senior Obama administration officials. “I’m not anticipating calling President Obama,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose panel is investigating the origins...

After Mitchell breathlessly summarized the "stunning" and "unprecedented" decision on Flynn, Mitchell saw something sinister in the Thursday phone call between President Trump and Putin. . . . She then asked Figliuzzi to, "Talk to me about your counterintelligence concerns here." Figliuzzi was certain that the phone call and the decision to drop the case were connected, "Yeah, I think they're actually linked. The dismissal of charges against Flynn and conversation by the president with Vladimir Putin, stone cold adversary of the United States on the very same day, that's not a coincidence."

The walls of Russia’s new Orthodox cathedral dedicated to the Armed Forces will be decorated with the faces of President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Soviet leader Josef Stalin, the MBKh News website reported Friday. The 95-meter Armed Forces cathedral, a symbol of close defense-church ties in Russia, is expected to open on May 9 — the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II — at a sprawling military-themed park near Moscow. Once completed, the building will become one of the tallest Orthodox churches in the world. Following MBKh News' report, the...

The walls of Russia’s new Orthodox cathedral dedicated to the Armed Forces will be decorated with the faces of President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Soviet leader Josef Stalin, the MBKh News website reported Friday. The 95-meter Armed Forces cathedral, a symbol of close defense-church ties in Russia, is expected to open on May 9 — the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II — at a sprawling military-themed park near Moscow. Once completed, the building will become one of the tallest Orthodox churches in the world. One of the cathedral’s mosaics...

Moscow (AFP) - Russia is ready to cooperate with Saudi Arabia and the United States to cut oil production, President Vladimir Putin said Friday. Putin said Russia was willing to make agreements within the framework of the OPEC+ group and that "we are ready for cooperation with the United States of America on this issue," according to a statement published by the Kremlin. "I believe that it is necessary to combine efforts in order to balance the market and reduce production." Oil prices have tumbled in recent weeks in the face of a drop in demand and global economic uncertainty...

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a Moscow hospital for coronavirus patients and wore a protective suit. During a visit to the Kommunarka hospital on the outskirts of Moscow, Putin praised its doctors for high professionalism, saying they were working “like clockwork.” After a meeting with the hospital’s chief doctor, Putin donned a yellow hazmat suit with a mask and went into the area where patients were treated. Russia has registered 495 cases of the coronavirus and reported no deaths, which contrasts with the quick spread of contagion in Europe. Some experts say the low numbers could be attributed...

Russia holds large-scale military exercise on Ukraine’s border that involves hundreds of airborne assault vehicles, tanks, attack helicopters, fighter jets and thousands of soldiers.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the world, there are growing questions in Russia about the official number of cases that have been declared. According to the count released by its health ministry, Russia currently has only 253 confirmed cases of the virus. That is vastly lower than in other major countries in Western Europe, where there are already thousands of cases.What really makes Russia an outlier, however, is the number of tests it is carrying out compared to its number of positive cases. Russia has done 133,101 tests, putting it behind only China, Italy and South Korea.But with just 306 cases of the...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Police in St. Petersburg and several other Russian cities have detained activists during and ahead of protests against sweeping constitutional amendments that open the possibility for President Vladimir Putin to remain in power for another 16 years. The March 12 demonstrations were held while local lawmakers discussed the amendments, a day after parliament's two chambers both overwhelmingly approved the changes. In St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, an RFE/RL correspondent reported that police had detained two activists of the Peaceful Resistance group. Dmitry Negodin and Yevgeny Musin rallied in front of the Legislative Assembly with posters urging...

Lyudmila Ivanova and her fiance came to the Arctic from a village in southern Russia in 1978 in search of a better life. Their destination was Vorkuta, a coal-mining city 90 miles north of the Arctic circle. Vorkuta, which means “place of bears”... Now, a better nickname may be “the fastest dying city in Russia.” The lure of higher wages and better housing is long gone, and the population has plummeted... When darkness falls, often just a handful of lights can be seen in apartment buildings of 100 units or more. Ivanova, now 62, feels trapped. Like tens of thousands...

DUBAI/MOSCOW - Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would boost its oil supplies to a record high in April, raising the stakes in a standoff with Russia and effectively rebuffing Moscow’s suggestion for new talks. The clash of oil titans Saudi Arabia and Russia sparked a 25% slump in crude prices on Monday, triggering panic selling on Wall Street and other equity markets that have already been badly hit by the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Oil prices LCOc1 recovered some ground on Tuesday, but were still 40% down on the start of the year. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke...