Free Republic

Vulgar chants about Vladimir Putin before he arrived for a regional summit in Belarus did not augur well for the Russian president's hopes of bringing the leaders of former Soviet republics closer together. Matters got even worse when bickering broke out at the start of the meeting, revealing fault lines over the Ukraine crisis and deepening doubts about the future of the loose grouping known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Jibes between Putin and the leader of Moldova, and barbs aimed at the absent Ukrainian leader, raised new questions about his ability to woo countries to the Eurasian Economic...

Iran has reduced its oil prices to Asia to its lowest level since December 2008, hard on the heels of a similar Saudi cut last week, people familiar with the pricing said Friday... The National Iranian Oil Co. has cut its light crude oil price for Asian deliveries in November to a discount of 82 cents a barrel below the Oman/Dubai benchmark, the people said. The cut, which compares to a premium of 18 cents in October, is identical to a Saudi reduction of $1 a barrel last week for the Arab Light grade to Asia....

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Kremlin-backed Russia Today news network has rolled out a provocative ad campaign that takes a sharp poke at U.S. media and the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The pitch is aimed at convincing Americans of the merits of Russia Today - or RT - as an alternate news source to U.S. networks. Featuring a stylized image of former U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations, one ad reads: "This is what happens when there is no second opinion. Iraq War: No WMDs. 141, 802 civilian deaths." The campaign includes two other...

ISIS Bearing Down On Baghdad Even As World Watches Kobani Siege October 10, 2014 Waves of U.S.-led air strikes against Islamic State fighters appear to have done little to stem the terrorist army’s advance in Syria, and now the militants are close to overrunning key positions on the outskirts of Baghdad. With the world’s eyes on the terrorist army’s siege of the Syrian border city of Kobani, where U.S.-led airstrikes are backing Kurdish fighters, some 500 miles southeast, Islamic State fighters are within eight miles of the Iraqi metropolis. The Islamic militants have reportedly infiltrated the Baghdad suburb of Abu...

Pat Buchanan, the columnist, author, and until recently MSNBC's token right-winger, garnered a lot of sympathy when he was fired from his job at the left-leaning news network apparently because of a book he wrote. Too bad, as reported in the Daily Caller, Buchanan had to ruin things by articulating how obnoxious his views really are. In essence, he suggested that Israel with its 300 estimated nuclear weapons was a bigger threat to the United States than is Iran with its nuclear program on Russian television. Buchanan went on about how his favorite Jewish conspiracy, which he called the "neocons,"...

The Houthis, Iranian backed rebels have taken control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The comparison to Hezbollah is apt as Reuters is reporting that the Houthi are blocking the appointment of Yemen’s president. So what’s Iran’s interest in Yemen? It was spelled out by Michael Segall of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs two and a half years ago. A couple of Segall’s observations are sobering: "Iran regards Yemen in general, and its Shia northern part in particular, as a springboard for subversion and for creating a tangible threat to Saudi Arabia, its main religious-political rival in the region. Iran also...

Dissidents claim nuclear facilities moved to conceal location; Rouhani says P5+1, Iran agree on principles for final deal, but gaps remain over the details Iranian dissidents said that Tehran is still researching nuclear arms at facilities it relocated to escape detection. It said Mohsem Fakhrizadeh, whom it described as a Revolutionary Guard brigadier general, leads the SPND.

Obama simply does not get it or refuses to do so. His failure puts us closer to a nuclear cataclysm with every passing day The President’s lack of attention and indifference to years of intelligence reports and analysis is leading to a potential horror in which Iran fulfills its quest to make its own nuclear weapons. It already has the missile capacity to deliver them throughout the Middle East and to Europe. On October 6th Secretary of State John Kerry received a letter signed by 354 members of the House of Representatives that said in part “We are concerned that...

Bad news for the official authorities, television anchormen, and fascist ideologues: Russian culture became great, only after Russia became Europe It has already been six months since the victory of the Maidan (Ukrainian Independence Rallies)... CENSORED. TEXT TEMPORARILY HIDDEN AT THE REQUEST OF ROSKOMNADZOR (Russian FCC) - AWAITING DECISION OF THE COURT. ...In this context: what is this special "Russian culture"? There certainly is a Russian culture, and it gave the world great works of music, poetry and literature. The problem is that Russian culture became great, only when Russia became Europe. Tchaikovsky was not born of the balalaika, and...

For the second time in the space of one week, officials in Sofia and Moscow exchanged harsh words, after Russia’s foreign ministry said that an interview by Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev with a German newspaper was “regrettable”. Speaking to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview published on October 4, Plevneliev said that Russia was a “nationalistic and aggressive state” and Russian president Vladimir Putin viewed Europe as an opponent rather than a partner. In his weekly media briefing on October 9, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich said that Plevneliev’s interview was cause for concern, because it “once again repeated...

The United States and Russia are dangerously close to stumbling into a war over Ukraine that could go nuclear and kill hundreds of millions of people in a single day, a Nobel laureate who is one of the world’s leading experts on the dangers of nuclear weapons warned in Washington this week. “It’s an incredibly dangerous situation. …If there’s a nuclear war tonight, that’s the Northern Hemisphere (of the entire world) gone, Dr. Helen Caldicott told a National Press Club Newsmakers news conference on Wednesday. She was speaking on the topic: “Ukraine: Is Nuclear Conflict Likely?” Caldicott is an Australian...

Even after decades of making the most eccentric statements, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka can still impress. In an interview with Kazakhstan's 16/12 Internet television channel posted on October 5, he flatly condemned Russia's bid to redraw international borders in Europe. Lukashenka argued that, once the process of rearranging borders according to historical claims begins, there is no end to it -- and Russia might end up disappearing if the borders of the medieval Mongol-Tatar Yoke are revived. "Then we would have to give to Mongolia and Kazakhstan and someone else practically all the territory of Russia and Western Europe and...

A court in the Belarusian capital Minsk has jailed eight Ukrainian football fans after they sang an insulting song about Russian President Vladimir Putin. One man was sent to prison for 10 days for possessing fascist symbols. Seven others were jailed for five days for using obscene language. They had joined in anti-Putin chants and songs at the Euro 2016 qualifier between Ukraine and Belarus. A number of Belarusian fans were also convicted and fined. Both local and visiting fans at the Euro 2016 qualifier between Ukraine and Belarus in Borisov came together in a rousing rendition of a well-known...

Moscow (AFP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, 83, has been hospitalised but is determined to fight for his life, Russian press agencies reported Thursday. "My state of health has been moderate for a week and today I am in hospital. My health is deteriorating," Gorbachev was cited as saying by Ria Novosti agency. "I'm hooked up to a monitor," he added, without saying where or why he was hospitalised. "You know my character. I am determined to fight for my life," he told Interfax news agency. The last leader of the Soviet Union was hospitalised in June 2013 for...

General Draza Mihailovich WWII The 70th anniversary of Belgrade’s liberation in WW2, will be marked by a military parade. After a 29-year hiatus, some 3,000 members of the Serbian Army will parade on October 16. Also scheduled is the appearance of the Russian acrobatics group “Strizhi”, flying the newest MiG-29 fighters. The celebration will be graced by the presence of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, a symbol of Russia’s rebirth. Putin’s visit to Serbia is a clear signal to both Serbian citizens and the West. During their aggression against the Serbs in the 1990s, Washington and Brussels have exterminated...

A rare Siberian tiger released into the wild by Vladimir Putin earlier this year appears to have defected across the border into China. State media said the tiger, named Kuzia, had swum across the Amur River, most probably in search of food. Kuzia was one of three endangered tigers released under the president's supervision in a remote part of eastern Siberia in May. The tiger's tracking device picked him up close to China's Taipinggou nature reserve in northeastern Heilonjiang province, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The Lutheran church in the territory of park on Blyukher Street will start being built probably this year. About it the E1.RU portal was told by representatives of a Lutheran community in Yekaterinburg. Documents on granting the territory according to the lease contract are already agreed with MUGISO and underwent all necessary procedures, including public hearings. Now parishioners expect the construction license which will allow to achieve, at last, long dream – to return to residents of Yekaterinburg the Lutheran temple. The area of building – about 400 square meters. - We awaited five years for this decision, - the...

Thanks to the ubiquitousness of dashboard-mounted video cameras in Russia yet another bright object has been spotted lighting up the sky over Siberia, this time a “meteor-like object” seen on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 27.

20-year-old Anton Tumanov, from Kozmodemyansk in Mari El Republic, went to war and died. This is his mother’s story.

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, friends, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that the place for your discussions, for our meetings is well chosen and that the timing is good. We are in the centre of Russia – not a geographical centre, but a spiritual one. [Novgorod Region] is a cradle of Russian statehood. Our outstanding historians believe and have analysed how the elements of Russian statehood came together right here. This is in the light of the fact that two great rivers – the Volkhov and Neva – acted as natural means of communication, providing a natural linkage...