Free Republic

Throughout the summer, Ukraine has struggled to mount a counteroffensive that could puncture defenses Russia had spent months erecting. Allies watched in frustration as the Ukrainian military used sophisticated weaponry from Western Europe and the United States to seemingly little effect. The Russians were dug in and, it seemed, going nowhere.But this week, the Ukrainians appeared to be showing signs of forward momentum in the Zaporizhzhia region. The village of Robotyne was liberated earlier this week. Since then, Ukrainian forces have advanced toward nearby Novoprokopivka and Verbove.The recent advance does not mean the counteroffensive can be deemed a success —...

In recent days and weeks, Ukraine has launched drone attacks deep inside Russia — including at Moscow itself. The attacks have rattled Russians, who, for the most part, have been accustomed not to have to think about the war that President Vladimir Putin launched almost 18 months ago.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said that his only goal is to reconquer territory that Russia has illegally taken in its two invasions of Ukraine, first in 2014 and then, on a much larger scale, in 2022.“We are not fighting on their territory,” Zelensky said in the late spring of 2022. “We...

Hopes were high throughout the spring, as a Ukrainian military equipped with Western weapons prepared to launch a counteroffensive that would reclaim land seized by Russia, which had invaded its much smaller neighbor for the second time in early 2022.“We are getting ready for the counteroffensive, so that we can finally end this war,” one Ukrainian soldier said in late May. The counteroffensive began about three weeks later, with Ukraine making initial gains in Donetsk and Luhansk, two regions in eastern Ukraine that were illegally annexed by Russia last year.Since then, however, the pace of progress has slowed considerably, leading...

WASHINGTON - A White House official attacked House Republicans on Tuesday for engaging in “political stunts” over the classified documents found in President Biden’s home and former office, declining to say whether it will cooperate with congressional investigations into the issue. “They’re faking outrage,” White House communications officer Ian Sams told reporters, pointing to Republicans’ apparent lack of dismay after highly sensitive documents were found last summer at Mar-a-Lago, the estate where Donald Trump retired after his White House term concluded. “When it comes to Congress we intend to review and respond to oversight inquiries in good faith,” Sams said....

WASHINGTON — Visiting Kyiv in early 2008, then-President George W. Bush told Ukrainian leader Viktor Yushchenko that it was time that the Eastern European nation join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, a military alliance between the United States and European nations meant to serve as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and, after communism’s collapse, Russia.“Helping Ukraine move toward a NATO membership,” Bush said, “is in the interest of every member in the alliance and will help advance security and freedom in this region and around the world.”Fourteen years later, Ukraine remains outside the alliance. And President Biden...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said on Thursday that it was reimbursing a Florida school district that lost state money for imposing a mask mandate, in opposition to a ban on such orders from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the pro-Trump Republican. The award to Alachua County Public Schools of $147,719 is the first in the nation. It effectively compensates for the money lost in early September. Broward County, in South Florida, also saw state funds taken away because it ordered masking in schools.

There is an alternate universe out there in which we never have to ponder, let alone read, “Unmasked,” provocateur Andy Ngo’s supremely dishonest new book on the left-wing anti-fascist movement known as antifa. In that other world far, far away, Marjorie Taylor Greene remains a nutty CrossFit enthusiast from Georgia, not a member of Congress, and we know nothing of her musings on Jewish space lasers, the execution of Democrats or “false flag” school shootings. If you find that universe, please send directions. Coming as it does in this weary universe of ours, a month after pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the...