Free Republic

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he doubts Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants to end his war in Ukraine, expressing new skepticism that a peace deal can be reached soon. Only a day earlier, Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were “ very close to a deal.” “There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump said in a social media post as he flew back to the United States after attending Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican, where he met briefly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump...

President Donald Trump on Thursday offered rare criticism of Vladimir Putin, urging the Russian leader to “STOP!” after a deadly barrage of attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine won’t enter peace talks with Russia until it has security guarantees against another offensive. Zelenskyy added Friday’s contentious spat with President Donald Trump was “not good for both sides.” But Zelenskyy said that Trump — who insists Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to end the three-year grinding war — needs to understand that Ukraine can’t change attitudes toward Russia on a dime.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it assassinates him. “If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order calling for the U.S. government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”

President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine and that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict. “We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Trump said in exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.” Trump did not say who from his administration has been in contact with the Russians but insisted the two sides were...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's conduct behind closed doors, in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and in meetings around the world is described in the same dual way by those who regularly see him in action. He is often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused. Sometimes he doesn't grasp the finer points of details. He occasionally forgets people's names, stares blankly and moves slowly around the room.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s conduct behind closed doors, in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and in meetings around the world is described in the same dual way by those who regularly see him in action. He is often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused. Sometimes he doesn’t grasp the finer points of details. He occasionally forgets people’s names, stares blankly and moves slowly around the room.

U.S. intelligence officials have determined that people with ties to Russian intelligence are planning to stage protests in hopes of toppling the Moldovan government, according to the White House. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the intelligence shows that actors, some connected with Russian intelligence, are seeking to stage and use protests in Moldova as a basis to foment an insurrection against Moldova’s new pro-Western government. Kirby said the intelligence shows that another set of Russian actors would provide training and help manufacture demonstrations in Moldova, which was granted European Union candidate status in June, on the...

Support among the American public for providing Ukraine weaponry and direct economic assistance has softened as the Russian invasion nears a grim one-year milestone, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Forty-eight percent say they favor the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, with 29% opposed and 22% saying they’re neither in favor nor opposed. In May 2022, less than three months into the war, 60% of U.S. adults said they were in favor of sending Ukraine weapons. Americans are about evenly divided on sending government funds directly to Ukraine, with 37% in favor...

The United States has determined that Russia is suffering "severe manpower shortages" in its six-month-old war with Ukraine and has become more desperate in its efforts to find new troops to send to the front lines, according to a new American intelligence finding disclosed Wednesday. Russia is looking to address the shortage of troops in part by compelling soldiers wounded earlier in the war to return to combat, recruiting personnel from private security companies and even recruiting from prisons, according to a U.S. official who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the downgraded intelligence finding....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden hit back Thursday against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, unleashing robust new sanctions, ordering the deployment of thousands of additional troops to NATO ally Germany and declaring that America would stand up to Russia's Vladimir Putin. He also acknowledged that the invasion -- and efforts to thwart Putin -- will have a cost for Americans. But he sought to reassure that the economic pain that may come with rising energy prices will be short lived in the U.S. As for the Russian president, Biden said, “He’s going to test the resolve of the West to...

President Joe Biden is ready to warn Vladimir Putin during a video call Tuesday that Russia will face economy-jarring sanctions if it invades neighboring Ukraine as the U.S. president seeks a diplomatic solution to deal with the tens of thousands of Russian troops massed near the Ukraine border. Biden aims to make clear that his administration stands ready to take actions against the Kremlin that would exact “a very real cost” on the Russian economy, according to White House officials. Putin, for his part, is expected to demand guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden has formally recognized that the systematic killings and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century were “genocide” — using a term for the atrocities that his White House predecessors have avoided for decades over concerns of alienating Turkey.

USA Today is touting a report out this morning that “ID’ed 4500 Trump golf-club members through” their social media accounts as well as an online service that lets golfers track their handicaps: Do they not see how awful this looks?