Free Republic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused European allies of seeking to "blackmail" Kyiv into reopening a pipeline transporting Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. He said restoring the flow of Russian crude oil through Ukraine into the European Union (EU) would be like lifting economic sanctions on Moscow. Ukraine says the Soviet-era Druzhba oil pipeline was damaged by Russian air strikes in January and has yet to be repaired. Hungary depends on Russian energy and is blocking both fresh EU sanctions on Moscow and a vital €90bn ($103bn; £78bn) loan for Kyiv until the pipeline is reopened. The EU has...

In what may be the biggest news regarding the conflict in Ukraine since it began, The New York Times is now reporting that U.S. officials believe a pro-Ukrainian group blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline. That comes via “new” intelligence that has apparently been kicking around for a while. WASHINGTON — New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months. U.S. officials said that they...