Free Republic

Russian leader Vladimir Putin should first end the war that Russia started in Ukraine before talking about mediating in the Middle East, stated US President Donald Trump during a conversation with journalists, APA reports citing RBC Ukraine. "I spoke to Putin yesterday, he offered to help mediate. I said, do me a favor — mediate your own. Let's mediate Russia first, OK? I said, 'Vladimir, let's mediate Russia first, you can worry about this later," Trump said. According to the US President, he told Putin that he should deal with Russia first before involving himself elsewhere. "So many people have...

As Russia was unleashing its deadliest attack on Ukraine’s capital in nearly a year, President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the Canadian Rocky Mountains early Tuesday hoping to meet with President Trump and secure more support for Ukraine from the Group of 7 industrialized nations. Instead, Mr. Trump left the global powers’ summit early, canceled his meeting with Mr. Zelensky, lamented Russia’s absence from the leaders’ get-together and rejected the idea of issuing a joint statement in support of Ukraine. A single, brief reference to Ukraine in a summary of the talks’ conclusions, released by the host, Prime Minister Mark Carney...

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea will send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to support reconstruction work in Russia’s Kursk region, a top Russian official said Tuesday, the latest sign of expanding cooperation between the nations. North Korea has already supplied thousands of combat troops and a vast amount of conventional weapons to back Russia’s war against Ukraine. In April, Pyongyang and Moscow said that their soldiers fought together to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region, though Ukraine has insisted it still has troops present there. Wrapping up a one-day visit to Pyongyang, Russian Security...

Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, traveled to Pyongyang on Tuesday under the direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling a deepening of strategic military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. The visit, Shoigu's second in less than two weeks and third meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in just three months, comes as Moscow seeks to draw Pyongyang closer in its protracted war effort in Ukraine. Observers say the visit suggests a bid by Russia to leverage shifting global attention — particularly the West’s growing preoccupation with escalating tensions between Israel and Iran — to secure...

Putin holds phone call with Trump Statements from Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov: 🔸The call lasted 50 minutes 🔸The conversation was useful, with the two leaders discussing the escalating situation in the Middle East. 🔸Putin informed Trump about his recent phone contacts with the president of Iran and the prime minister of Israel. 🔸Putin reminded Trump of Russia’s proposal to seek mutually acceptable agreements on the Iranian nuclear issue. 🔸Trump assessed the situation in the Middle East as highly alarming. 🔸The presidents did not rule out a return to the negotiating track on the Iranian nuclear program. 🔸Putin also informed Trump...

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in separate telephone conversations on Friday, told Iran's president that Moscow condemned Israel's actions against Tehran and told Israel's prime minister that questions around Iran's nuclear programme could only be solved through diplomacy. A Kremlin statement said Putin told Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian that Russia "condemns the actions of Israel taken in violation of the U.N. Charter" and expressed condolences for those killed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered on Thursday to build and deploy drone troops as soon as possible, APA reports citing TASS. "We are currently building drone troops as a separate branch of the military, and these should be developed and deployed as soon as possible," the head of state said at a meeting discussing a new state arms program. Fighting against various unmanned aerial vehicles has required "new approaches and non-standard solutions," Putin explained. "The new state arms program should provide for forming a universal air defense system that would function in any situation and effectively hit means of air...

Ukraine just struck deep into Russia, destroying a key electronics factory in Cheboksary that powers Putin’s missiles, drones, and glide bombs. With only two stealth drones, Ukraine crippled a plant essential to Russia’s war machine—impacting everything from missile guidance systems to nuclear sub components. As smoke rises, Ukraine’s message is clear: nowhere is safe.

The United States will reduce funding allocated for military assistance to Ukraine in its upcoming defense budget, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a congressional hearing on June 10. "It is a reduction in this budget," Hegseth told lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives. "This administration takes a very different view of that conflict. We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation's interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe." The Pentagon has not yet released the full documentation regarding its 2026 budget. According to Hegseth,...

Russia has signed a contract with Iran to build eight nuclear power plants, with four to be built in Bushehr, a district in the southern part of the nation, according to an announcement by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization. Ebrahim Rezaei, the spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, commented that the Iranian people wish to support the nuclear industry, as it secures the country's future, according to The Iran Press.

[…]"It is vital that the response to this and other similar Russian attacks is not silence from the world, but concrete action," Zelenskyy said in his statement."Action from America, which has the power to force Russia into peace," he continued. "Action from Europe, which has no alternative but to be strong. Action from others around the world who called for diplomacy and an end to the war -- and whom Russia has ignored. There must be strong pressure for the sake of peace..."

What needs to happen is simple, but, at least for now, looks pretty suspect if you ask me. Russia would need to get so exhausted from the war that its lines collapse. After losing 1 million casualties, thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, and billions of dollars in bombers and drones, Moscow would one day see its war effort collapse in a mix of exhaustion, anger about the overall direction of the conflict, and a society that had had enough. This would allow Ukraine to reclaim the initiative and retake large swaths of territory. But from here, things get even...

The Ukraine war won't end until NATO withdraws troops from the Baltics, a top Russian official has warned. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister responsible for U.S. relations, nonproliferation and arms control, made the remarks in an interview with state-run news agency Tass.

Russia launched what Ukraine said would be the largest air assault of the war to date, with nearly 500 missiles and drones airborne, prompting Warsaw to scramble NATO air assets to protect its airspace. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 479 drones, four ballistic missiles, and 16 cruise missiles against its territory overnight. If the figures are accurate, it would make Sunday evening the biggest Russian air raid against Ukraine in the course of the over-three-year war to date, and underlines the ability of the combatants to sustain ever-larger drone attacks as the conflict goes on, given Russia launched another...

During the Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine, when presented with Moscow’s demand that Kiev’s troops must withdraw from territory of the four regions that they have partially conquered (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson), the Ukrainian delegation reacted with a strong rejection of this point. It’s been widely reported that, at this point, Russian negotiators warned their foes: ‘Next time, it won’t be four regions, but six or eight’. That could, of course, be nothing but bragging, except that today the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that units of the 90th Tank Division have reached & crossed the western border...

Ukrainian drones struck two major facilities supplying Russia's military on Monday, dealing a double blow to President Vladimir Putin's war machine. The facilities struck in early morning attacks were a plant in the Chuvash Republic, which produces navigation systems for Russian drones and missiles, and a gunpowder factory in Kazan, according to local reports.

Ukraine's military launched another attack on a Russian airbase, thousands of miles from the frontlines. The attack took place overnight and targeted Savasleyka airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The airbase is home to a number of fighter jets, including the MiG-31 K, which can fire lethal Kinzhal ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s army said the attack had wiped out a MiG-31 K and a SU-30/34 aircraft, which are regularly used to launch aerial bombardments on the country. The airbase is home to a number of fighter jets, including the MiG-31 K, which can fire lethal Kinzhal ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s army said...

Panic in Russia is growing amid intensifying attacks by Ukrainian forces on key infrastructure. Two major Moscow airports were temporarily shut down on Sunday due to a Ukrainian drone strike targeting Russia's capital city, Russian officials claimed, while an oil refinery in Engels, Saratov Oblast was targeted in a similar attack on Friday. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that Russian air defense units destroyed multiple Ukrainian drones flying towards the city. Emergency personnel have been deployed at the wreckage sites, he said. This comes as Russia unleashed a massive air strike in Ukraine, with the war showing no...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin's threatened retaliation against Ukraine over its drone attack last weekend has not happened yet in earnest and is likely to be a significant, multi-pronged strike, U.S. officials told Reuters.The timing of the full Russian response was unclear, with one source saying it was expected within days. A second U.S. official said the retaliation was likely to include different kinds of air capabilities, including missiles and drones.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity. They did not detail Russia's expected targets nor elaborate on intelligence matters. The first official said Moscow's...

For a second night in a row, Russian Federation forces pounded military targets in Kiev, Kharkov and many other Ukrainian cities, in what many see as retaliation for the Ukrainian terrorist attacks on civilian trains in Bryansk and Kursk, and – of course – for the drone raid on Russian strategic airfields.Russian military Telegram channel Military Chronicle has put forward a thought-provoking theory that the ‘retaliation’ will take the form of a prolonged series of missile and drone raids over the next days.“Russia’s missile strike on the night of June 5-6, 2025, according to the latest information, was not a...