Free Republic

The Trump administration has informed Congress that Russia has not complied with a series of requirements necessary for Moscow to evade a second round of U.S. sanctions over the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain. The development, announced by the State Department and House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, means that a new tranche of sanctions on Russia will be automatically triggered under a 1991 law on the elimination of chemical and biological weapons — likely further deteriorating relations with Russia at a time of high tensions. In a statement, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the department is...

Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia, agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This fundamental principle — which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act — constitutes one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests. As we did...

[SNIP] Joseph Mifsud, a former Maltese official who co-directs the London Academy of Diplomacy at the University of Stirling, was identified in media reports after details in the documents pointed to his attendance at a conference in Russia last year. He told the Daily Telegraph Tuesday that he is the professor in the documents, but said that the acquaintance in Moscow with government connections who he introduced Papadopoulos to was only an academic. Mifsud also told the paper that he did not know anything about Russian “dirt” on Clinton, and said that he was upset by the “incredible” claims. He...

At a ceremony marking the centenary of Russia's military intelligence agency, Putin, in comments likely to be seen as provocative in the West, saluted its operatives for carrying out daring special operations and said they provided a model for a future generation. The GRU has been in the spotlight since two men whom London blames for the Skripal poisoning admitted on Russian TV they had been in Salisbury on the day of the attack, but said they had only been there to see the city's famous cathedral spire. The GRU was founded as the Registration Directorate in 1918 after the...

VLADIMIR, Russia -- Anna Galinkina was appalled recently to see portraits of Stalin-era secret-police officers festooning celebratory billboards at local bus stops. Her father, Zinovy Galinkin, was sent to the gulag shortly after World War II on flimsy accusations of "anti-Soviet propaganda," and she resents the rehabilitation of those who persecuted her family under the government of President Vladimir Putin. "Today it is obvious that they've removed their masks...The ruling corporate elite of heirs of the Soviet chekists" -- a reference to the former secret police -- "are openly taking revenge on those who refuse to let society forget about...

The Russian President on Thursday said the country was in dangerous times and needed to step up gun regulations for public safety. While attending a ceremony to promote senior military officers and state prosecutors, Vladimir Putin said that the Rosgvard, the federal national guard service — a force established two years ago to combat terrorism and organized crime — will have to get tougher when it comes to guns. “You must promptly suppress any violation of public order,” said the Russian strongman. “Please note that it is necessary to significantly improve gun control. I expect from you concrete proposals, including...

Let’s start with the basics. If you are a Russian citizen in 2018, it is currently illegal for you to share the Gospel with a friend in your home. It’s illegal for you to invite others to your church. VKontakte— the Russian equivalent of Facebook—can’t be used to spread anything that might be considered “evangelism.” In fact, all religious dialogue has been banned outside of churches and other religious sites. On the street. Online. Even in your own home. How did we get here? How did a country that seemed to be bucking decades of Orwellian control slip back into...

"For all the damage inflicted by sanctions, Kudrin says most of Russia’s troubles are self-inflicted, an “issue of domestic institutional, structural reforms.” Oil prices are having no impact on growth and demand,” Kudrin said. “Their effect on the economy is practically exhausted.” The wariness among investors, currency weakness and the VAT hike are all chipping away at the economy..." From his new perch atop a government agency that monitors the budget, one of the few people President Vladimir Putin has publicly called a friend has some blunt words about what’s in store for Russia’s economy. Alexei Kudrin, the head of...

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told Vice President Mike Pence that a migrant caravan approaching the U.S. southern border is being financed by Venezuela, Pence revealed in a Washington Post appearance Tuesday.“The President of Honduras told me this was organized by leftist groups in Honduras and financed by Venezuela,” Pence declared. A senior administration official confirmed to The Daily Caller a call took place between Hernandez and Pence regarding the migration situation.

Russian president Vladimir Putin used his annual foreign policy address to herald the end of U.S. dominance and tout Moscow's growing military might and diplomatic reach. In a wide-ranging exposition at the annual Valdai forum, Mr Putin continually returned to the idea that US hegemony was the cause of many global ills – but that its twilight offered opportunities for Russia and its friends. "Empires often think they can make some little mistakes because they're so powerful...But when the number of these mistakes keeps growing, it reaches a level they cannot sustain." "A country can get the sense from impunity...

Participants of the “Returning the Names” ceremony traditionally gather at the Solovetsky Stone memorial — installed in 1990 outside the former KGB headquarters in Moscow — on Oct. 29 to read the names, ages and professions of those who died in Stalin’s purges. The Memorial human rights group says it has reached an agreement with Moscow city officials to hold an annual commemoration of the victims of Stalinist terror, days after the authorities withdrew permission for the event. On Monday evening, Memorial said that after a “constructive meeting,” Moscow authorities had agreed to allow the annual ceremony to be held...

Russian President Vladimir Putin told White House national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday that he wants another face-to-face meeting with President Trump as soon as next month, Reuters is reporting. Putin suggested that the two meet in Paris on Nov. 11. In response, Bolton, who is in Moscow for high-level talks with Russian officials, signaled Trump would be open to the meeting. Trump is scheduled to travel to Paris to commemorate Armistice Day on Nov. 11, which marks the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. The trip will come just days after the...

Speaking to reporters, Mr Trump said Russia had "violated" the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The US would not let Russia "go out and do weapons while we're not allowed to", Mr Trump said. "I don't know why President Obama didn't negotiate or pull out," the president said after a campaign rally in Nevada. "They've been violating it for many years." National Security Adviser John Bolton is expected to tell the Russians of the withdrawal during talks in Moscow later this week.

For the first time in 11 years, Moscow city authorities refused permission for an annual ceremony honouring victims of Stalin's terror. Memorial, the country's oldest rights group, holds a 12-hour ceremony every year on October 29, where hundreds of people read out names of those killed during Stalin-era repressions. The group said Moscow city authorities had refused permission this year for "The Return of Names" ceremony at the memorial on Lubyanka Square - outside the headquarters of the current security service and its Stalin-era predecessors. "Today, October 19, that is 10 days before the ceremony was due to go ahead,...

On Orthodox Easter, Russian Patriarch Kirill addressed scores of the faithful, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. He likened the resurrection of Christ—who, in Orthodox parlance, “trampled down death by death”—to the Russian, née Soviet, victory over the Nazis. Kirill’s religious praise of Soviet victory is nothing new. Under Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union tried tapping into the nation’s “enormous spiritual strength” by reviving the Orthodox Church in Russia, albeit in a limited capacity. Realizing the power the church had to unite Russia and its near abroad—and seeking to bring Nazi-controlled territory back under Soviet influence,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia was ready to "annihilate" any attacker who would use nuclear weapons against it, but would never strike first. "An aggressor should know that vengeance is inevitable, that he will be annihilated, and we would be the victims of the aggression. We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will just drop dead. They will not even have time to repent for this," he said. In March this year Putin unveiled an array of new nuclear weapons in one of his most bellicose speeches in years, saying they could hit almost...

"He'll get money from the Saudis. He'll make money from Putin when he gets out — that's why he's been Putin's lapdog. Donald Trump is all about money," the 'Morning Joe' co-host said on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.' MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough has a bold political prediction: he doesn't think President Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2020. "I don't think Donald Trump's going to run for re-election. He didn't want to be elected president, he didn't think he would be elected president. He didn't even think he was going to get the Republican nomination....

he Russian leader said the depraved terrorists had expanded its control in territory controlled by US and US-backed forces. ISIS issued Russia with an ultimatum promising to execute ten people every day. Speaking in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Putin said the hostages included several US and European nationals. Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi: "They have issued ultimatums, specific demands and warned that if these ultimatums are not met they will execute 10 people every day. "The day before yesterday they executed 10 people." Putin did not specify what the militants' demands were. He said...

MOSCOW — It would be one of the world’s more unusual direct flights. But bringing Syrian soldiers and civilians to a Black Sea resort is exactly what was on offer Tuesday, when a delegation from Crimea visited Damascus, the Syrian capital. “We understand that restrictions related to trade, money transfers and tourism are similar to what we have in Crimea,” said Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov, Russia’s top official there. Both Syria and Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine four years ago, have been hit by Western sanctions, and their economies are struggling. “We should turn our minuses into our advantages,”...

Anyone who grew up with the Eastern Orthodox Church (in my case, the Greek Orthodox Church) will get a good laugh at Vladimir Putin pretending to be a Christian during his first Easter as Russian ruler. As recounted by the great journalist Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006), the bravest of all the many Putin-critics to be systematically assassinated, in her book Putin’s Russia: The three men clumsily and clownishly crossed themselves, Medvedev making his crosses by touching his hands to his forehead and then to his genitals. It was risible. Medvedev followed Putin in shaking the patriarch’s hand as if he were...