Free Republic

President George W. Bush famously underestimated Vladimir Putin. Asked about his impressions of the Russian president, the then-US president claimed that he had “looked into Putin’s eyes” and “saw his soul.” His secretary of state, Colin Powell, said that he, too, had looked into Putin’s eyes “and I saw the KGB.” Bush found out what was behind Putin’s eyes a little too late. Toward the end of Bush’s second term, in 2008, Putin’s Russia invaded the neighboring country of Georgia... Ever since Putin repeated his Georgian maneuver on a much grander scale in Ukraine in 2022, there are still people...

A claim by the Russian Defence Ministry that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was "in the epicentre of a drone attack" has turned out to be a staged performance by the Kremlin. Russian state media claimed earlier this week that when Putin visited Kursk Oblast for the first time since the hostilities began in the area, his helicopter came "under fire from Ukrainian drones". In reality, this was not a combat incident but a meticulously staged event. Four sources within the government and the Kremlin told The Moscow Times that security officials promoted this shocking and "risky" episode in the media...