Free Republic

The review reflects mounting concerns in Washington over Moscow’s determination to exploit European disunity in order to undermine Nato, block US missile defence programmes and revoke the punitive economic sanctions regime imposed after the annexation of Crimea. The US move came as senior British government officials told The Telegraph of growing fears that “a new cold war” was now unfolding in Europe, with Russian meddling taking on a breadth, range and depth far greater than previously thought. “It really is a new Cold War out there,” the source said, “Right across the EU we are seeing alarming evidence of Russian...

Russia hunts for pilot's killer in Syria-Turkey border town Published January 27, 2016 FoxNews.com Seeking "revenge," Russian forces stormed a Syrian town on the border with Turkey hunting for the attacker who claimed he shot and killed the pilot of a downed Russian jet, state media reported Monday. A Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down the Russian aircraft near the Turkish border north of Latakia, Syria on Nov. 24, a senior U.S. official tells Fox News. Soon afterwards, Turkish citizen Alparslan Çelik said in a video that he killed the pilot on the ground because Russia had been dropping bombs...

The families of some of the 10 British victims of flight MH17 angrily accused “Russian gangsters” of killing their loved ones in an “act of war”, as evidence mounted that a missile supplied by Moscow brought down the Malaysia Airlines flight. Grieving relations also demanded that the airline and the aviation authorities explain why the Boeing 777, with 298 people on board, was allowed to fly over a war zone where three military aircraft had been shot down in the previous four days. Among the Britons killed in Thursday’s disaster in Ukraine were two undergraduates on their way to Australia,...

A public petition asking to broaden the legislative limits of self-defense has been rejected by the Interior and Justice Ministries, but activists intend to continue the campaign and promise pickets near the government HQ and rallies across the country. The petition entitled “My home is my fortress” has collected over 100,000 signatures of Russian citizens on a dedicated web-site which officially gave it legislative legs. If the draft was passed any action of a citizen inside his or her home against an intruder would be qualified as necessary self-defense, which, in turn, could lead to the withdrawal of murder charges...

The profound and pervasive crisis in Ukraine is a matter of grave concern for Russia. We understand perfectly well the position of a country which became independent just over 20 years ago and still faces complex tasks in constructing a sovereign state. Among them is the search for a balance of interests among its various regions, the peoples of which have different historical and cultural roots, speak different languages and have different perspectives on their past and present, and their country's future place in the world. Given these circumstances, the role of external forces should have been to help Ukrainians...