Free Republic

Denys Yaroslavskyi is angry. ... “There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields” he says. He shows me video from a drone feed taken a few days ago of small columns of Russian troops simply walking across the border, unopposed. He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”. Everyone knew that this incursion was...

One of the worst kept secrets in Washington is no one actually knows just how much money the United States has spent in support of Ukraine. Over the past year, however, conservatives in Congress have been pushing President Joe Biden and his administration for the real number, and they’re finally getting some answers. In a letter sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young on Tuesday, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, along with Sens. Roger Marshall, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and twelve other members of Congress, chronicled the immense difficulty Congress...

The Russian Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday that it has opened a criminal case against high-ranking officials from the US and other NATO countires for financing terrorism following the deadly Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow. "It has been established that the funds received through commercial organizations, in particular the Burisma Holdings oil and gas company that is operating in Ukraine, have been used over the past few years to carry out terrorist acts in Russia, as well as abroad, in order to eliminate prominent political and public figures and cause economic damage," the committee declared. Moreover, the committee is...

If Republicans continue to block U.S. military aid to Ukraine, the White House could turn to an ally to provide Kyiv with ATACM missiles capable of striking Russian-held Crimea.MUNICH — After months of requests from Ukrainian officials, the Biden administration is working toward providing Ukraine with powerful new long-range ballistic missiles, according to two U.S. officials.Late last year, the U.S. began to supply Ukraine with Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, but so far it has provided only the older medium-range ATACMS. Now, the U.S. is leaning toward sending the longer-range version of the missile, the officials said, which...

About $60 billion in the bill would go to supporting Ukraine as it defends itself from the Russian invasion that began nearly two years ago. There's nearly $14 billion to allow Ukraine to rearm itself through the purchase of weapons and munitions and another nearly $15 billion for support services such as military training and intelligence sharing. The support also includes nonmilitary assistance. About $8 billion would go to help Ukraine's government continue basic operations with a prohibition on money going toward pensions. And there's about $1.6 billion to help Ukraine's private sector. About a third of the money allocated...

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday blasted his predecessor Donald Trump's comments on NATO, saying they have raised the stakes for Congress to approve new funding to support Ukraine. Biden called "dangerous" and "unAmerican" Trump's comment that he would not want to protect NATO members from a future attack by Russia if those countries' contributions to the defense alliance were lagging.

More than $1 billion worth of U.S. missiles, drones and other weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine have not been properly tracked by officials, according to a Pentagon report released Thursday. Of a total of $1.69 billion worth of items that require additional layers of tracking and monitoring thanks to their sensitive military technology, a little more than $1 billion — or nearly 60 percent — are not fully accounted for, the report found. The Defense Department’s inspector general did not say if any such weapons had been misused or diverted after being shipped to Ukraine because “it was beyond...

Most do not realize that the West has been funding Ukraine’s entire government. Biden and other world leaders have promised Zelensky that they would fund the salaries and pensions for all Ukrainian politicians and government workers. Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister, issued a warning that Ukraine will be unable to pay MILLIONS of government employees if the West does not resume payments. The figures are correct. The West has the salaries of 500,000 Ukrainian civil servants on its payroll, along with 1.4 million teachers. The highest priced item is the 10 MILLION pensioners living completely off of foreign aid....

Russian language transcript at the link. Go to "more" and expand the page to see this option.

... The little hard data we have on Russia comes mainly from one source, an anti-Putin group who have people in Russia who have, since the beginning of the war, continually searched local newspapers as well as thousands of websites all over Russia looking for obituaries or blogger “memorials” to family members or friends. They have been able to find about 36,000 documented deaths. They estimate that they are missing nearly 50% and currently place their “guesstimate” of total Russian deaths at “47,000 – 70,000.” What does this imply for total casualties, that is, killed/wounded/missing/prisoner? ... Assembling public source data...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzian fake Victory in Stepove. Actually they failed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrD4Inv8W8Q Militaryland news: The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the recent developments on the battlefield, as of 20th December 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time) https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-665-summary/ [NOTE: two summaries per week, released on Wednesday and Sunday] Recap Deployment Map changes – Week 50 December 18, 2023 https://militaryland.net/news/recap-deployment-map-changes-week-50/ *** Great interactive maps with viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use for each Front! https://militaryland.net/maps/

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, but in July he approved a law moving Christmas in Ukraine from January 7, the date in the Eastern Orthodox calendar, to the Western celebration day of December 25. See that, Moscow? All the indications are, however, that while Christmas may come sooner in Ukraine this year, it is going to be a bleak one. Mike McCord, the comptroller of the U.S. Department of Defense, informed Congress on December 15 that $1 billion of military aid will be released by the end of the month but, without legislative authorization, there is no more money...

@RichAStern New Ukraine “aid” bill would bring the total to over $173 billion, over $1,300 per American household and over $11,500 per Ukrainian household. This will continue to drive higher inflation and mortgage rates across the US – making every American family pay the price. If this new bill is implemented, our total aid to Ukraine will be more than the annual wages paid out to every American worker in all agriculture, mining, and oil and gas extraction industries. Our total aid to Ukraine would be more than the annual wages paid out to every American manufacturing worker that produces...

Ukraine faces defeat as early as next summer if American and Nato military aid dries up, a senior US official has warned.Vladimir Putin’s chances of victory have been buoyed by war fatigue and blocks on funding in both America and the EU.“There is no guarantee of success with us, but they are certain to fail without us,” a senior US military source told CNN.Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, last week blocked a £43 billion EU aid package for Ukraine.Austria had also threatened to block the bill until Kyiv toned down criticism of an Austrian bank still working in Russia. Western...

While the world’s attention is focused on the war in Gaza, Ukrainian officials are full steam ahead trying to convince their US and NATO partners to remain steadfast in bankrolling Kyiv’s war effort against Russia.Unlike Zelensky’s shop, the Biden administration’s messaging on the war has been all over the place. On one day, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is beaming with confidence that Washington and its European allies will best Russian President Vladimir Putin “in a contest of wills.” Yet on others, a nervous Biden is taking to the White House podium to shame congressional Republicans into writing and passing another...

President Joe Biden and his leaders at the Pentagon are doubling down on their support of Ukraine despite a failing military counteroffensive, amid a push to get Congress to approve $24 billion more for the war. Biden argued in front of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that if Ukraine was not safe, no nation would be safe, and that investment in Ukraine’s future was an investment in the future of any country that seeks a rules-based world order.

President Biden on Tuesday called on United Nation members to stand up to “naked aggression” against Ukraine by Russia, arguing that if Ukraine was not protected, no nation would feel protected. “Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence. But I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles of the UN Charter to appease an aggressor, can any member state feel confident that they are protected if we allow Ukraine to be carved up? Is the independence of any nation secure?” he said. “The answer is no. We must stand...

If you think, like Elon Musk, that instead of fighting, Ukraine and Russia “should agree to a truce,” the recent interview with General Andrey Mordvichev, one of Russia’s top commanders in Ukraine, should give you pause. Asked about the war’s expected duration, he said the quiet part out loud: There is still “plenty of time.” According to him, “If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to, of course then it will be longer.” In other words, the Kremlin is in the conflict for the long haul. Not only it is committed, as Russian President Vladimir Putin...

The vast majority of Ukrainians – 78 percent – say President Volodymyr Zelensky is directly responsible for corruption in the government and military, a poll published on Monday found. The survey, conducted in July by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, also found that Ukrainians ranked corruption within their own government as a bigger threat to “Ukrainian entrepreneurship” than the ongoing Russian invasion, according to the Kyiv Independent. The poll was taken after months of investigations, which followed months of firings at the highest levels of governments. Zelensky announced measures to fight bribery...

Ukraine is spending approximately $100 million a day on the war against Russia, outgoing Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview with state media. In a lengthy sit-down with state-owned Ukrinform for his first interview since his ousting on Sunday, the former defence minister attempted to dispel suggestions of his involvement in the mounting corruption scandals swirling around the war effort. When pressed on the allocation of money donated by the public to the military since Russia’s invasion, Reznikov said that such donations have been minimal in comparison to foreign funding and taxation, claiming that only 3 per cent...