Free Republic

The Ukrainian Air Force said its fighters on Friday shot down a Russian A-50 military spy plane, the second of the prized aircraft that Kyiv has claimed to destroy this year. The Beriev A-50 is an airborne early warning and control jet used by Russia to help monitor Ukraine's air defenses. The aircraft typically fly with a crew of up to 15 personnel and are estimated to cost over $300 million to produce. According to Russian and Ukrainian reports, an A-50 was brought down over the Sea of Azov late Friday. Kyiv officials took credit for the jet's destruction, although...

A mystery object shot down by U.S. fighter jets amid ongoing hysteria sparked by a Chinese spy balloon may have been a $12 inflatable launched by a hobby group in Illinois. The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) reported one of its balloons 'missing in action' around the same location - and at the time time - a U.S. Air Force jet downed an unidentified object near Alaska using a $400,000 Sidewinder missile.

As RedState reported, another shoot-down has taken place, this time over Lake Huron in US airspace. That followed a frenzy over the last several days of intercepts of unidentified flying objects, with others downed over Alaska and Canada.What in the world is going on? We joke about it being aliens, but it’s not aliens, right? So why is the White House being so tight-lipped? Are we to believe the fighters that blew these things out of the sky weren’t able to tell what they were? The current dynamic is just weird. We could be on the brink of a hot...

Well, the Chinese have done it again...or have they? Recently, Biden's spokespersons announced the shoot-down of an "object" over far Northeastern Alaska, shot down where it would land on an ice floe in Prudhoe Bay. The Pentagon was quick to "not call it" a balloon, just as they were careful not to call where it crashed down "ice." Instead, they called the balloon an "object" and called it "frozen water." Why did Biden permit a massive balloon, with an equipment pod as large as a commercial airliner, to overfly the entire United States — including our nuclear missile silos in...

The White House said Friday that a 'high-altitude object' has been shot down over Alaska.President Joe Biden ordered the shootdown, spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the origin of the object has yet to be determined.Responding to reporters' shouted questions about the shootdown Friday afternoon outside the White House, Biden called the operation a "success."It comes just days after the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon last Saturday, following a political firestorm.Kirby said the object was about the size of a small car and was at flying about 40,000 feet.He said because it posed a reasonable threat to the...

Primo Levi, a Holocaust survivor of Italian origin who led a distinguished life, was at the Auschwitz concentration camp hospital one day due to high fever caused by an infectious disease. He later wrote in his memoirs that when confronted with Soviet soldiers: "They neither greeted nor smiled; they seemed to be tormented by the guilt of why this crime had to happen." The trial of one of the perpetrators of another heinous crime, the massacre of 30,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988, is currently taking place in a Swedish court. What happened in 1988 was a ruthless, bloody, and...

“Remarking on the soaring tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla voiced support for Moscow and echoed his voice against NATO’s expansion eastward.” (This was way back on Feb. 20, by the way.) Most of us recall the Obama administration's lies and treachery regarding Benghazi. But how many of you know about the Obama administration's lies and treachery against the American families of the Americans ambushed and murdered on the orders of Raul Castro this week in 1996?....... Thought so...Well, please read on: You see, amigos: This week 26 years ago three U.S. citizens and...

Speaking to reporters during a joint press conference with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to reporting that a number of Democrat Senators secretly met with Iranian Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference. “I have seen that piece about some senators meeting with Foreign Minister Zarif. This guy is designated by the United States of America. He’s the foreign minister for a country that shot down a commercial airliner and has yet to turn over the black boxes. This is the foreign minister of a country that killed an American on December 27....

RUSH: Yesterday we played a clip of Trump. He was talking to reporters in the Oval Off… Well, no. It was at the infrastructure event that the president had, and we may have been the only ones to point this out. Trump said yesterday that Soleimani was planning to blow up the U.S. embassy, and I remember asking, “Is that not news?” Nobody in the media touched on it. Nobody in the media covered it. Now we know why today. It’s because they’re trying to claim that Trump is lying or that he’s wrong about it or that he’s making...

The New York Times has obtained video that shows the moment a Ukrainian airliner was hit minutes after takeoff from Tehran.

Pentagon officials believe the Iranian regime shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS 752 with a Russian anti-aircraft missile Tuesday night. All 176 innocent civilians and the crew were killed. The victims were from Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iran. There were no Americans onboard.  "Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a Boeing 737–800 en route from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airpot to Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport, stopped transmitting data Tuesday just minutes after takeoff and not long after Iran launched missiles at military bases housing U.S. and allied forces in neighboring Iraq. The aircraft is believed to have...

The Ukrainian Airlines flight which crashed in Tehran killing 176 people on Wednesday was shot down by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile system, Pentagon and US intelligence officials believe. Three security officials said that Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was struck by a Russia-built Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile system as it left Tehran on the way to Kiev, according to Newsweek. Two of the officials said the aircraft was likely targeted by mistake by Iranian missile systems that were active on Wednesday night as Iran launched rockets at two US basis in Iraq, waiting for a possible counter-strike. The plane, a Boeing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co said it was aware of media reports regarding a plane crash in Iran and was gathering more information.

A second senior airline industry source has revealed his belief that there is some sort of conspiracy behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. As The Herald Sun reports, Emirates president and CEO Sir Tim Clark made world headlines in October when he revealed his doubts about the fate of the missing plane, which disappeared early in the morning of March 8 this year. Now a second senior airline industry source has voiced his doubts about the fate of the plane, with the even wilder claim that the Boeing 777 may have been shot down by US military personnel...

Iran’s navy chief warned the United States on Monday that Iranian forces could shoot down more surveillance drones if they violate the country’s airspace, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf. “The enemy dispatched its most sophisticated . . . and most complicated surveillance aircraft” to spy on Iran, and “everyone saw the downing of the drone,” Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi said Monday, referring to the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk drone shot down by Iran last week. The incident capped a week of tensions following attacks on two commercial...

President Donald Trump and his aides were confronting dramatically increased tensions with Iran on Thursday after the downing of a US drone near the Persian Gulf. "Iran made a very big mistake!" the President tweeted mid-morning as he and his national security officials huddled to weigh possible responses. The ominous — if vague — message came after Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had shot down an "intruding American spy drone" after it entered into the country's territory Thursday.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that Iran made a “very big mistake” by shooting down a U.S. spy drone in the already tense oil-rich region.Hours earlier, U.S. officials said an Iranian surface-to-air missile shot down the unmanned military surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said the aircraft was over its territory. “Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. “This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace.”

Image caption: One US official identified the drone as a US Navy MQ-4C Triton A US military drone has been shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile while in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, US officials say. Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said it shot down the drone over Iranian airspace, near Kuhmobarak in the southern province of Hormozgan. IRGC commander Maj-Gen Hossein Salami said the incident sent "a clear message to America", state media said. It comes at a time of escalating tension between the US and Iran. On Monday, the US defence department said it...

Saudi Arabia has shot down two ballistic missiles over the cities of Taif and Jeddah, east and west of Mecca respectively, which it blamed on Yemen's Houthi movement. Saudi air defences shot down a ballistic missile over the city of Taif, 65 kilometres east of Mecca, in the early hours of Monday morning. Another missile was launched at the port city of Jeddah, on the other side of Mecca, according to Saudi-owned news channel Alarabiya.

One doesn’t often see a climbdown from Moscow, especially not from strongman Vladimir Putin, and even more so this fast. Yesterday, Russia’s defense spokesman spoke ominously of “the right to take appropriate measures against hostile actions by Israel” after Syrian air defense forces shot down a Russian surveillance plane. Now however, Putin has danced away from the threat, calling the downing the result of “tragic chance events”: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday described the downing of a Russian plane in Syria as the result of “tragic chance events,” appearing to dial back a rare flare-up in tensions with...