Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Western response to his war in Ukraine is pushing Russia and Belarus towards unification. "Unprecedented political and sanctions pressure from the collective West is pushing Russia and Belarus to speed up the unification process," Putin told a bilateral forum in the Belarusian city of Grodno on Friday. "After all, it is easier to minimize the damage from illegal sanctions, it is easier to master the production of demanded products, develop new competencies and expand cooperation with friendly countries," the Russian leader added.

KYIV. Nov 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian members of parliament have demanded the presidents of Ukraine and the United States, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, investigate suspicions of the legalization of $7.4 billion by the "family" of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych through the American investment fund Franklin Templeton Investments, which they said has ties to the U.S. Democratic Party. At a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday, MP Andriy Derkach announced that deputies have received new materials from investigative journalists about international corruption and the participation of Ukrainian officials in it. "Last week, November 14, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO),...

...During NATO's 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania, the issue was discussed and, after opposition from France and Germany, a decision was made to offer neither Ukraine nor Georgia a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) — essentially a path for Ukraine to receive membership — at that moment. Vague promises of NATO membership in the future were made, but the United States later appeared to drop its support for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Russia's brief war with Georgia in August 2008 helped underscore the decision's importance, but NATO and Ukraine held further talks in December. Again, however, no specific...

<p>The picture above shows the scene earlier today in Kiev, as Ukraine's parliament voted to hold early elections and dismiss President Viktor Yanukovych.</p> <p>It's a heart-warming image. The bloody, protracted protests in Ukraine seem to have achieved their goals: Yanukovych is gone, new elections are due, and Yulia Tymoshenko, a key figure in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, has been freed from prison. Ukraine looks as though it might have pulled back from the brink.</p>

In February 2017, the Washington Post’s Miller had the lead byline on a story based on leaks of Trump’s conversations with Australia’s prime minister and Mexico’s president. Six months later, the Post published the entire transcripts of both conversations in another Miller story. It was through such national security correspondents that anti-Trump sources -- intelligence officials -- pushed leaks of classified information and other tidbits intended to damage Trump into the media. There it merged with other anti-Trump currents in nearly every corner of the press, where it blossomed into Russiagate. After a nearly two-year investigation, the special counsel found...

As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia’s most critical neighbor. The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ). The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long — during the meetings and afterward — to realize the Americans’ objectives included...

Fifty-five pages of texts between Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort make their way online.

In a key finding of the Mueller report, Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is tied to Russian intelligence. But hundreds of pages of government documents — which Mueller possessed since 2018 — describe Kilimnik as a “sensitive” intelligence source for the U.S. State Department who informed on Ukrainian and Russian matters. Why special counsel Robert Mueller’s team omitted that part of the Kilimnik narrative from their report and related court filings is not known. But the revelation of it comes as the accuracy of Mueller’s Russia conclusions face increased scrutiny. The incomplete portrayal...

I often find myself having a weird perspective on things, coming to an understanding of issues by piecing together information obliquely, or by going “the long way ’round.” I suppose to some degree, that’s just the nature of the human experience – what, with having limited time and experience to draw from, you can only start to solve some of these puzzled from where you are. But it’s not lost to me how… particularly specific and tangential this lead-in will be.

While special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, some of the key people in creating the Russia-collusion narrative themselves have ties to a foreign nation. Both the Democratic National Committee as well as Fusion GPS—the company hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to research the Trump campaign—were using Ukrainian sources in their efforts to discredit Trump. Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, was a common thread involved in Democratic opposition research efforts into former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the...

Updated | Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who once helped prepare a report for the Ukrainian government, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to lying to federal agents as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Documents charging van der Zwaan are dated February 16 and were filed publicly Tuesday morning. His sentencing is scheduled for April 3. Van der Zwaan, 33, is a Dutch lawyer who helped prepare a report for the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice on ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2012, according to court documents. He worked at the time...

A prominent Washington lawyer who authored a report that's a key part of the special counsel's investigation into Paul Manafort has left his law firm. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom confirmed Tuesday that Greg Craig, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, is no longer with the firm. His biography has been removed from the law firm website. The firm didn't immediately comment beyond confirming his departure. Craig wrote a report funded by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice about the trial of a former Ukrainian prime minister.

Former Obama White House Counsel and Clinton-linked attorney Greg Craig may soon be charged by the Justice Department for engaging in illegal unregistered overseas lobbying, in a case initially probed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- a development that would make him the first Democrat to face prosecution amid the long-running Russia investigation. The case centers on lobbying work that Craig performed in 2012 for the Russian-backed president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, while Craig was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Craig allegedly never registered as a foreign agent under a U.S. law known...

Have you ever noticed what Paul Manafort’s major crime was? After two years of investigation, after the predawn raid in which his wife was held at gunpoint, after months of solitary confinement that have left him a shell of his former self, have you noticed what drew the militant attention of the Obama Justice Department, the FBI, and, ultimately, a special counsel who made him the centerpiece of Russia-gate? According to the indictment Robert Mueller filed against him, Manafort was an unregistered “agent of the Government of Ukraine.” He also functioned as an agent of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president from...

Clinton-connected lobbyist Tony Podesta knew he was working with Paul Manafort on behalf of a Ukrainian politician, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office. Podesta, Manafort and Mercury Public Affairs all failed to register as foreign agents of Ukraine for the work. Manafort entered a plea agreement with the special counsel Friday. Two lobbying firms, including one owned by Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, knowingly worked with Paul Manafort at the direction of the Ukrainian government, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office. The indictment, which was released ahead of an expected plea...

A Ukraine court has found former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of authority for signing gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her Tuesday to seven years in prison. Authorities deployed hundreds of police officers around the court to keep order, state media reported. Dozens of angry Tymoshenko supporters took to the streets of Kiev in August when she was taken into custody. "Dear friends, I just want to say that I disagree with this verdict and I am saying that the year 1937 is back again," Tymoshenko said in the courtroom on Tuesday, making a reference to Josef...

snip Informed sources in both Moscow and Kiev have told TIME that Tymoshenko has reached a deal with the Kremlin, under which she would be more considerate of Russia's needs — particularly for long-term rights to its Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol — and would tone down her traditional anti-Moscow diatribes, and in return she may find Russia more flexible when it comes to negotiating next year's prices for the natural gas on which Ukraine depends. However, Tymoshenko firmly denies rumors of any accommodation with foreign powers, insisting that she abides only by the interests of Ukraine. Rumors of...

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed a large cache of evidence against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and a former chief strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was all over it. Tad Devine, Sanders' chief strategist, appears from exhibit 5 onward. Mueller listed a memo from 2006 involving Manafort, Devine, and former Ukrainian President Viktor Vanukovych, Russian President Vladimir Putin's puppet in Ukraine. Mueller's evidence lists email after email between Devine and Manafort, connecting them both to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Putin-connected operative whom Manafort described as "my Russian brain." Devine's name appears a total of 21 times in...

According to news reports, during the 2016 presidential election, “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump” and did so by “disseminating documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter…” Ukrainian officials also reportedly “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.” At the center of this plan was Alexandra Chalupa, described by reports as a Ukrainian-American operative “who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee” and reportedly met with Ukrainian officials during the presidential election for the express purpose of exposing alleged ties between then-candidate Donald...

President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was indicted on Monday, as a federal grand jury brought forth charges including conspiracy and money laundering against the longtime political lobbyist and consultant. The indictment ― the fruit of the ongoing investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller ― says that Manafort and his associate Richard Gates acted as unregistered agents for Ukrainian political figures and parties between at least 2006 and 2015, specifically naming former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as one of their employers. While working for Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, Manafort and Gates allegedly accrued...