Free Republic

Vladimir Putin’s presidential plane left Moscow early Saturday, sparking rumors that he had fled the Russian capital as the Wagner Group’s mercenary forces advanced on the city. The president’s aircraft was spotted on flight radar flying northwest from Moscow to the St Petersburg area — but then disappeared from the system near the city of Tver, the BBC reported, where Putin owns a large rural retreat. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that his boss had turned tail amid the crisis, telling news agency TASS that he was “working in the Kremlin.”

The bad news: 1. Russian NTV channel reported the detention of 25 Ukrainians on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to NTV, they were planning terrorist attacks in Rostov, Volgograd, Tver, Orlov, Belgorod oblasts [regions] and the Republics of Kalmykia and Tatarstan. Among the detained activists, it was stated there were activists of “Right Sector” [ultra-nationalist group], who “confirmed the receipt of instructions from representatives of the SBU [Security Services of Ukraine].” We can laugh out of habit at this and forget about it – you never know what lies PutinTV will come up with next. But in reality,...