Free Republic

There were no neat rows of tanks or ballistic missile carriers rolling down the smooth cobbles of Moscow’s Red Square on Saturday, as Russia scaled back what is usually a grand militaristic Victory Day parade celebrating the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany. 'Victory has always been and will be ours,” Putin said, addressing columns of troops. He vowed to fight on in Ukraine North Korean troops marched in the parade for the first time, a visible sign of Moscow’s deepening partnership with Pyongyang that has resulted in the deployment of over 10,000 troops to fight the war in...

A spokesman for Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) condemned the United States on Friday for conducting what U.S. Central Command referred to as “self-defense strikes” to protect American assets in the region, claiming that it had responded and caused “significant damage.” Central Command (CENTCOM), the wing of the American armed forces responsible for operations in the Middle East, revealed on Thursday that it had “intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes,” destroying the Iranian assets used in the attack. CENTCOM described a flurry of “missiles, drones, and small boats approaching American naval assets and attacking, but...

Majid Khademi, the IRGC intelligence chief killed in Tehran early Monday, was not a battlefield commander so much as a career security insider who rose through Iran’s secretive counterintelligence system and helped oversee repression, surveillance and anti-infiltration work. His death matters because he sat at the junction of two of the system’s most sensitive functions: guarding the Guards from infiltration and directing the intelligence arm accused of crushing dissent. In March, Washington’s Rewards for Justice program offered up to $10 million for information on Khademi and other senior IRGC figures, a sign that he was seen abroad not just as...

Keir Starmer should step aside in favour of a caretaker prime minister who would run the country until a leadership contest is held in the summer, Labour MPs have argued. Despairing Government backbenchers argue that unless the Prime Minister quits over the Peter Mandelson crisis, the party is heading for disaster at the Gorton and Denton by-election later this month – followed by annihilation in May’s local elections. They hope the Cabinet will this week persuade Sir Keir to quit and allow a ‘non-contentious’ candidate such as Defence Secretary John Healey or Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn to be a...