Free Republic

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday said Russia’s strategic objectives in its attack on Ukraine have “been defeated.” “The war is not over, but so far the Russian strategic objectives have been defeated,” Milley said at a news conference alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Municipal deputies for the Smolninskoye District in St. Petersburg plan to submit a petition to the State Duma (the Russian parliament) to charge Russian president Vladimir Putin with high treason for unleashing the war in Ukraine. Deputy Dmitry Palyuga announced the intention on Twitter. According to Palyuga, “the majority of deputies in attendance supported the decision.” In conversation with The Insider, he specified that seven out of ten voted in favor of the initiative. According to its sponsors, Putin’s actions since the beginning of the “special military operation” fall under Article 93 of the Russian Constitution, which stipulates for the...

The United States ambassador to United Nations says there's evidence that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been interrogated and forcibly deported to Russian filtration camps, in what she's calling "a series of horrors." The accusation by Linda Thomas-Greenfield — dismissed as fantasy by Russia — came during a United Nations Security Council meeting late Wednesday. This comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken makes an unannounced trip to Ukraine Thursday— his second visit to Kiev since the war began six months ago.

Filatiev published “Zov" on the Russian social network VK in early August. The human rights organization Gulagu helped him leave the country a few weeks later, moving him from one place to another until finally helping him reach France. He spent two days inside the Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting to be approved for entry. In Russia, he said, “I understood that no lawyer could defend me,” he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. On his wrist, he wore a silver bracelet adorned with a crucifix. Filatiev said Russia's army is degrading by the day, unable to replace the...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

[G]athered in a basement on a quiet, tree-lined street, the Belarusians preparing to leave Warsaw to join the Ukrainian army look more like a bunch of computer programmers getting ready for a long car trip. Maybe that’s because they are a bunch of computer programmers—or anyway, some of them are—gathered in a basement on a quiet, tree-lined street, getting ready for a long car trip...If they are identified, members of their families could be visited, harassed, even arrested by the Belarusian police. “Our relatives are hostages,” one of them told me. Already, mothers of Belarusian soldiers fighting in Ukraine have...

Sofia Ukraini on twitter did a Ukrainian verison of a English captioned version of a Russian military recruitment commericial.Transcript below. If you ever wanted to commit war crimes, If you ever wanted to see a HIMARS rocket coming at you,If you want to find out "what airdefence doing", Time to join the Russian Army.You're going to Ukraine. With the rest of the idiots we press-ganged,With guns older than your dad, With gear the quartermaster stole and then sold back to you.After two weeks of basic training,You'll be charging fortified Ukrainian positions head-on. Don't worry about things like logistics.It's a Western...

As the war in Ukraine lurches toward the 200-day mark, Russia is turning to global pariah state North Korea to purchase Soviet-era weapons, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report. Moscow is preparing to buy “millions of rockets and artillery shells” from Pyongyang, a U.S. official told The Washington Post on Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the declassified intelligence, which was first reported by the New York Times. The move by Russia’s Defense Ministry indicates that “the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions,”...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

The Director of Russia’s National Guard has begun a campaign to reassure Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukrainians are supportive of Russia seizing territory in Ukraine when the reality couldn’t be further off. “I would like to emphasize that we can feel that the population of the liberated areas is supporting us. They realize that we are defending their right to a peaceful life and their children’s happiness,” the director, Viktor Zolotov, told Putin, according to the Kremlin. In a video of the exchange, Putin looks visibly troubled and concerned, gripping the table, while Zolotov shares his thoughts.

At the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, most experts expected that Kyiv would fall quickly. Ukrainian forces were fighting against a military that was bigger and better armed. Russia’s troops had more combat experience and funding. The question was not if Moscow’s forces would depose the Ukrainian government but when regime change would happen. Of course, Kyiv didn’t fall. Instead, the Ukrainian military stopped Russia’s assault on the capital and forced a retreat. Russia downsized its initial mission from wholesale conquest, and the war now mostly consists of grinding offensives and counteroffensives in Ukraine’s east and south. The question...

An obelisk with Soviet stars at the top that was the centrepiece of a monument commemorating the Red Army's victory over Nazi Germany has been toppled in the Latvian capital. (Aug. 25)

Russia’s economy shrank by 4 percent year-on-year over the second quarter, according to data published by Russian federal statistics service Rosstat. The plunge, though significant in absolute terms, was not as drastic as expected by Russian and some Western observers. “June data suggests the contraction in the Russian economy seems to have bottomed out as the situation in some industries is stabilizing,” Sergey Konygin, an economist at Sinara Investment Bank, told Reuters. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban claimed in a speech last month that the European Union’s sanctions strategy against Russia has failed. “A new strategy is needed which should...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

SEIZING THE STRATEGIC INITIATIVE’: Russia is taking Ukraine's threat to retake the southern province of Kherson seriously, shifting forces from its eastern front to prepare for an expected Ukrainian assault to reclaim lost territory in the south. “Ukraine is likely seizing the strategic initiative and forcing Russia to reallocate forces and reprioritize efforts,” says the latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War. “Russian forces are increasingly transferring personnel and equipment to Kherson and western Zaporizhia Oblasts at the expense of their efforts to seize Slovyansk and Siversk, which they appear to have abandoned.” “Russian forces are also...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Sanctions strengthened Putin and caused “unfriendly nations” to form a closer alliance against the West. As the West suffers from an energy crisis with no solution in sight, Russia is benefitting from this in more ways than one. You may have heard of the China–Russia East-Route Natural Gas pipeline or the Yakutia–Khabarovsk–Vladivostok pipeline. Construction was approved in 2007, and in 2012, Putin ordered Gazprom to begin construction and renamed the project “Power of Siberia.” China and Russia signed a 30-year deal for $400 billion in 2014, and by December 2019, the pipeline was functional. The mainstream media focuses on the...

Poland's intelligence services say they have identified camps where thousands of Ukrainian children have been held and adults brutally beaten by invading Russian forces. Special Services minster Stanislaw Zaryn said on Wednesday that over 1.5 million Ukrainians including 'thousands of children' were being held in various locations inside occupied territory where 'Ukrainians are sent en masse' and 'subjected to torture'. Zaryn continued: 'The aggressors carry out a verification of the detained, looking for people with combat experience and officials of the Ukrainian administration. 'They also study the attitudes of specific people towards Russia. 'Those who do not raise any objections...

At the start of the year, Russia dispatched more than 2,000 troops to its longtime ally Kazakhstan to help put down violent antigovernment unrest. Six weeks later, when Russian troops stormed into Ukraine, Kazakhstan had an opportunity to repay the favor by supporting the invasion. It didn’t.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces on Wednesday damaged a bridge that is key to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, where Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow will consolidate its territorial gains.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled RT television and the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia plans to retain control over broader areas beyond eastern Ukraine, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south, and will make more gains elsewhere.Lavrov's remarks and the Ukrainian missile attack on the strategically important Kherson region bridge indicated the nearly five-month war could broaden after unfolding mostly in eastern Ukraine since...