Free Republic

Soot-choked “black rain" has fallen across multiple districts of Moscow after Ukraine launched its largest-ever drone assault against the Russian capital, scoring a direct hit on a vital energy facility. Close to 200 long-range strike drones targeted the metropolis early on Thursday, overwhelming local air defences and setting the strategic Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya ablaze. As thick columns of dark smoke billowed thousands of feet into the air, residents in the southeastern suburbs and surrounding towns, including Balashikha and Lyubertsy, reported a fine, oily drizzle that coated vehicles, streets, and clothing in a dark, toxic residue. The multi-directional aerial...

French President Emmanuel Macron said on June 10 that it is "very important" for President Volodymyr Zelensky to attend the upcoming Group of Seven (G7) summit. Zelensky's participation "is very important for us because we need to rebuild consensus within the G7 in support of Ukraine on the various aspects of the war," Macron said at the Elysee Palace during a pre-summit discussion with civil society representatives. The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States will convene at the G7 Summit in the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains from June 15-17. Macron's invitation...

Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Vladimir Putin that Ukraine is "very close" to producing a ballistic missile that could be fired into Russia. The statement came ahead of talks with Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany over how to bring an end to the long-running war. "During several years of the war and massive attacks, we learned, we studied and we produced… we produced a lot of different drones and missiles, we still don't have ballistics, but we are now on the way, we are very close," the Ukrainian president told Sky News. Mr Zelensky is the...

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived on Sunday afternoon in London for talks with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France as Europe considers taking a more active role in peace talks with Russia after more than a year of unsuccessful U.S. mediation. Ukraine and its European allies see a new opening to revive talks that have stalled as Moscow made uncompromising territorial demands and Washington shifted its focus to the war with Iran. They note that Russia’s recent battlefield setbacks and mounting economic strains could make a peace settlement more appealing to the Kremlin, a scenario that is also...

The hall at St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Calgary is packed. Three gigantic, artistically painted wooden Easter eggs dominate the stage. Heavily accented voices rise and fall amid the chatter as attendees nibble on poppyseed cake and other Ukrainian delicacies. No one wears the bright blue-and-yellow of the war's early days, but embroidered vyshyvanky peek from under sweaters and jackets. These are the faithful still committed to Ukraine's cause. They came to hear Michael Bociurkiw — a Canadian journalist of Ukrainian heritage now based in Odesa — deliver a sobering assessment of a war grinding into its fifth year....

Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz for talks in Downing Street on Sunday to discuss support for Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader will visit the UK with the French president and German chancellor after a week of heightened hostilities and Vladimir Putin’s rejection of his proposal of face-to-face talks on Moscow’s war. The three countries meeting the Ukrainian leader are some of Kyiv’s staunchest allies. The UK and France are leading the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process. A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted St...

Russian military vehicles are being painted with vivid stripes to baffle AI systems of Ukrainian-launched drones, experts say. Now the "cloaking" tactic has apparently launched a high-stakes game of hide and seek on the highways of Russian-held territory in Ukraine. Todd E. Humphreys, an aerospace and AI expert at the University of Texas at Austin, agrees the paint tactic may be more effective than many realize. "Dazzle paint pushes the vehicles 'out of distribution' -- they no longer look, to the AI classifier, like the images it was trained on," he told RFE/RL. But any specific paint job would have...

Ukrainian drones on Wednesday attacked St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, on the opening day of an annual economic conference that President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to cultivate into a showcase of a modern and prosperous country. It was the second time in a month that Ukraine had struck a major Russian city before an event important to Mr. Putin, as Kyiv expands a campaign of long-range strikes aimed at inflicting economic damage on Russia and demonstrating its vulnerability to attacks. In early May, Ukrainian forces hit sites in Moscow, including a high-rise apartment building near the city center, days...

MOSCOW, May 14 (Reuters) - Russia is establishing a "full-fledged partnership" with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and is encouraging ‌other countries in the region to expand cooperation ‌with Kabul, a senior Russian security official was quoted on Thursday ​as saying. Russia last year became the first country to formally recognise the Islamist Taliban government that seized power in August 2021 as U.S.-led forces staged a chaotic withdrawal ‌from Afghanistan after ⁠20 years of war. Interfax news agency quoted Russian official Sergei Shoigu as saying cooperation ⁠with Kabul was important for the security and development of the region. Shoigu, who is secretary...

Russia pummeled Ukraine’s capital with hundreds of drones and missiles early Thursday, the latest in a string of deadly Russian strikes this week. The attacks suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin had little intention of de-escalating his war, after he declared recently that he believed it was “coming to a close.” Explosions shook Kyiv, the capital, over several hours Thursday morning as Ukrainian forces tried to intercept and shoot down the drones and missiles, some of which evaded overwhelmed air-defense systems. The attack included cruise and ballistic missiles that Moscow often stockpiles for mass bombardments. As the sun rose, rescue...

About 352,000 Russian soldiers had died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025, according to a new estimate, underscoring the high cost that President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to bear to pursue his battlefield aims. The figure was released on Saturday — the day of Russia’s annual May 9 parade celebrating victory over Germany in World War II — by the exiled Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazona. The number raises the prospect that about half a million soldiers in total have died on the Russian and Ukrainian sides. In the more than four years since...

If symbolism matters, and in Russia it always has, then today’s Victory Day parade on Red Square spoke volumes. The absence of tanks grinding across the sacred cobblestones was not merely an omission; it was an admission. A regime that once flaunted military might before the world could muster neither armour, missiles, nor meaningful battlefield hardware for its most important national spectacle. For a country that has built so much of its modern identity around martial power, this was less a celebration of victory than a carefully stage-managed display of strategic exhaustion. When Vladimir Putin resurrected and expanded the Victory...

Nato is “disintegrating”, Poland’s prime minister has said after the United States announced it was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany. Donald Tusk made the dire assessment of the Western alliance on Saturday amid an escalating war of words between Donald Trump and Germany over Berlin’s criticism of the war on Iran. In a post on X on Saturday, Mr Tusk wrote: “The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.” On Friday evening, the US department of defence...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday said $400 million in Ukraine support was released after Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) penned an angry op-ed criticizing the stall in funding. “The department recognizes that $400 million was allocated for European capacity building, and as of yesterday, it has been released,” Hegseth said in response to a question about the aid from Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-Md.). Elfreth followed up to ask whether the money was released under contract. Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst III said the aid was “not under contract, but released to be put under contract.” When pressed by Elfreth on when...

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Hungary’s amended Child Protection Law violates EU law and discriminates against gay and transgender people. It is the first time the court has found that an EU member state breached the fundamental values set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The law was pushed by Viktor Orbán in a referendum coinciding with a general election vote. At the time, the law faced accusations that it unfairly criminalised gay men as pedophiles. The ruling on Tuesday comes nine days after Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which the opposition Tisza Party defeated Orbán’s...

Russian President Vladimir Putin could travel to the G20 summit in Miami in December, the Kremlin said on Friday after U.S. President ​Donald Trump suggested it would be very helpful if he did attend and that it had been a mistake to expel Russia from the G8. The United States has invited Russia to the annual meeting of Group of 20 countries that Washington is holding this year in Miami, and Moscow has accepted the invitation, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said on Friday. Putin has not attended a G20 summit since 2019 due to the COVID pandemic...

The U.S. military, which has been responding to Iran’s loitering drone attacks, has finally adopted Ukraine’s air defense technology. As low-cost drones continued to damage high-value military assets, it is interpreted that the U.S. has deployed Ukraine’s combat-proven response system at key Middle Eastern bases. On the 22nd, Reuters reported, citing multiple sources, that the U.S. has deployed Ukraine’s command and control platform at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, a key military asset in the Middle East, to defend against Iranian drones.… Ukrainian military officers are reported to have visited the base over recent weeks to train U.S. forces...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat Sunday in the country’s parliamentary election, calling the result "clear" and "painful" as partial vote counts showed a decisive win for opposition leader Péter Magyar.

Viktor Orbán has conceded in a speech to supporters, telling them: "The result of the election is clear and painful."

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared a 32-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over the Orthodox Easter weekend, following an earlier call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pause in some of the hostilities to observe the holiday. Putin's decree, released by the Kremlin, orders Russian forces to observe a ceasefire starting at 4 p.m. Saturday and lasting until the end of Sunday. Zelenskyy proposed earlier in the week that each side stop targeting each other's energy infrastructure over the holiday, saying he made the offer through the United States, which has been mediating talks between delegations from Moscow and...