Free Republic

Ukrainian men are trying in every possible way to escape the war, which has now lasted twenty month. Authorities are increasingly struggling to recruit for the army, which is estimated to have around 500,000 men and women under arms, including reserves. Russia has about three times as many military personnel. The clearest sign that calling up soldiers is not going well came in August. President Zelensky dismissed all the heads of the regional mobilization offices in one fell swoop because they accepted large-scale bribes... There are also men who go into hiding. News channel Al Jazeera tracked one down. In...

Inna Yaschyshyn, 33, insists she didn't raise cash for RUSSIAN GANGSTERS through the fake children's charity. Yaschyshyn said: 'I am the victim right now, that’s all I can tell you. 'I think there is some misunderstanding.' Grilled about the five fake IDs - including a US passport - with photo attached to the name Anna de Rothschild, she insisted: 'That’s all fake, and nothing happened.' Yaschyshyn was found to have Ukrainian and Russian passports as well. She was born in the Ukraine, and became a permanent US resident by marriage in 2011. Yaschyshyn was president of a children's charity was...

It is now fashionable to demonize Russia, but most Americans have forgotten key aspects of 20th-century history, including the Russians’ fight to stop the march of Nazi Germany. Seventy-five years ago this month, the Soviet Red Army surrounded — and would soon destroy — a huge invading German army at Stalingrad on the Volga River. Nearly 300,000 of Germany’s best soldiers would never return home. The epic 1942–43 battle for the city saw the complete annihilation of the attacking German 6th Army. It marked the turning point of World War II.

The Red Army came to Rzhev and Vyazma after their success in Moscow. They stopped here in January 1942 and couldn't move for 13 months, despite enormous efforts and sacrifices. That's why Rzhev battle was conviently forgotten after the war. In textbooks the battle for Moscow is followed by Stalingrad. But there was a year between them, a year of battle near Rzhev. Much of what we will describe is officially still considered secret. The documents are classified. But the truth can't be hidden. And today we can reconstruct events with docum documentary precision. рпрпа

Original Title: "I'm not afraid of death, but I'd like to live"- wrote the soldier to his loved ones back in Karaganda, shortly before his death near Stalingrad Running his finger along the pale lines of text, Vladimir Petrovich Bliyalkin reads aloud: "Papa, it's hard for me to write this, but I'll write it anyway. They gave me a medal for bravery. You can congratulate me and wish further success in the fight against the German occupiers." These are letters from his older brother. Nikolai Bliyalkin was taken to the front in June of 1942. That December the soldier perished...