Free Republic

Fatemeh Mohajerani, the spokesperson for the Iranian government, announced that a 20-year cooperation agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia will be signed soon. She stated, “We hope to witness the signing of the comprehensive cooperation document between the two countries on January 18th of this year.” On Wednesday, January 8th, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported that Fatemeh Mohajerani confirmed detailed discussions about this cooperation document had taken place. While the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, it is believed that Iran has accepted the changes Russia requested in the agreement. Ismail Baghaei, the spokesperson...

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says that currently only Biden is authorised to engage with Russia on behalf of the United States. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Moscow is not satisfied with the proposals of US president-elect Donald Trump’s team to postpone Ukraine’s membership in NATO for 20 years and to deploy a contingent of EU and UK peacekeepers in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already rejected the “peace proposals” of Trump’s team, according to TASS news agency. Although there have been no official initiatives from the United States yet. In an interview with TASS, Lavrov said,...

Russia suffered a major setback after Ukrainian missiles reportedly destroyed a key army military command post in Kursk. HIMARS missiles reportedly took out the headquarters of Russia's elite 810th Marine Brigade, which was hidden in an abandoned five-storey civilian building in Lgov. The devastating attack took place overnight on Christmas Day and caused heavy casualties, killing 17 marines. Lieutenant Colonel Salim Pashtov, one of the brigade's senior officers, was reportedly among those killed. Video footage purportedly of the missile strike shows a huge mushroom cloud of flames and smoke rising into the night's sky on the horizon. Further images shot...

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologizes to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, for what the Kremlin said was a “tragic incident” in Russian airspace involving the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25. Putin tells Aliyev that Russian air defense was active when an Azerbaijani Airlines plane tried to land in Grozny before it crashed in a phone call, the Kremlin says. “During this time, Grozny, (the town of) Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones and Russian air defense was repelling these attacks,” the Kremlin says Putin told Aliyev, without explicitly acknowledging that...

Russia has developed its own mRNA vaccine against cancer, it will be distributed to patients free of charge, General Director of the Radiology Medical Research Center of the Russian Ministry of Health Andrey Kaprin has told Radio Rossiya, APA reports citing TASS.

A leading Putin missile scientist has reportedly been gunned down in a Moscow park by a Ukrainian military assassin. Mikhail Shatsky, the Deputy Chief Designer at the Mars Design Bureau, which develops and manufactures onboard guidance systems for the Russian military and space industry, was allegedly eliminated by an unknown assassin in Kuzminsky forest park, at Kotelniki, eight miles southeast of the Kremlin. Reports say the scientist, an associate professor, was working actively on upgrading the Russian Kh-59 cruise missile to the Kh-69 level, which Russian troops use to strike Ukraine. There was immediate speculation that he was assassinated by...

DRAMATIC new footage shows Ukraine’s “Sea Baby” marine drones using on-board machine guns to pound and damage Russian military helicopters in a ferocious battle. Watch as the armed drones also shoot at Russia's Su-30SM warplanes during the battle in Kerch Bay, close to Vladimir Putin's £3 billion Crimean Bridge. Footage from the view of the unmanned Ukrainian attack boats - first deployed in 2022 - shows the scopes being trained on airborne Russian helicopters and planes. The video shakes violently as Ukrainian soldiers remotely spray rounds of bullets at the aircraft swooping in the skies above. The Ukrainian SBU security...

Vladimir Putin has been dealt a significant geopolitical blow with the downfall of Bashar al-Assad, whose regime in Syria the Russian president had committed considerable funding and military resources to propping up. Assad fled Syria and has claimed political asylum in Russia, Kremlin-backed media reported, his now exiled status depriving Moscow of a key regional ally. Russia's military assets in Syria are now under threat, such as its naval base in the port city of Tartus, which gave the Kremlin a presence near NATO's southern flank in the Mediterranean Sea. -snip- Pro-Moscow military bloggers have expressed concern over the future...

THIS is the moment Vladimir Putin's gas rigs in the Black Sea burst into flames after being hammered by sea drones. Ukrainian forces strike the platforms in daring night raids using the unmanned craft as the seek to dominate the ocean and defend against Russia. The latest footage released by the valiant Ukrainians shows a number of strikes on the rigs which they believe are used to house surveillance equipment. The sea drones attack the structures at their base while air drones strike the platform. Clips show rigs engulfed in massive blazes while others show huge explosions on the platforms...

Russia's ability to outmatch Ukraine with artillery barrages on the battlefield has significantly reduced to just 1.5 Russian rounds for every Ukrainian shell fired back, Western officials have said. This compares with Russian forces launching at least five times as many artillery rounds as Ukraine could in the war previously - with the ratio at times much higher even than that. The Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, put the levelling out down to a "wide variety of factors". These factors include limitations in Russia's defence production lines, difficulties with transporting more rounds to the frontline by rail,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow could deploy its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles system in Belarus in the second half of 2025, Russian state media said. Putin was responding to a request by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a summit in Minsk. He said Belarus would determine the targets for Oreshniks deployed on its territory.

Vice President-elect JD VANCE, a prominent GOP skeptic of U.S. aid for Ukraine, met with a delegation of senior Ukrainian officials and other members of President-elect DONALD TRUMP’s inner circle in Washington on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter confirmed. The Ukrainian delegation traveled to Washington to meet with Vance as well as Rep. MIKE WALTZ (R-Fla.), Trump’s pick to be his national security adviser, and retired Gen. KEITH KELLOGG, Trump’s pick to be special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. The meeting, according to these people, was meant to be a meet and greet for both sides to get...

A visit to Russia by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is being prepared, but there is no clarity yet on when it will take place, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. Peskov said it was unclear whether the visit would happen this year, but that a date for the trip could be agreed very quickly if necessary. "Such a visit is being prepared, preparations are underway," Peskov told reporters at a daily briefing when asked about the matter. Moscow is preparing to sign a new bilateral treaty with Tehran that will include closer defense cooperation, the kind of treaty that...

CHILLING footage shows Putin’s minions grabbing terrified civilians off the streets and forcing them to sign up for Vlad’s meatgrinder army. The kidnapping of a young man was caught on camera, with the video showing huge uniformed officers hauling him from a car despite his protests. He is ripped from the vehicle, manhandled and frogmarched away - likely delivered to a conscription office, according to the footage from Astra media outlet. It is illegal in Russia for the police to deliver people to conscription offices, but these cops are taking no notice. Separate footage shows dozens of migrant workers who...

Vladimir Putin has been branded a "psychopath" as he was seen in a video asking Russian soldiers who have lost their legs in the war with Ukraine whether they are "used to their new condition". -snip- In the footage, Putin is all smiles among the amputee soldiers, even asking one, "Are you used to your new condition? " The soldier responds affirmatively, answering "Yes sir, already new victories, achievements." In the chilling footage another mentions how some have been adapting for two years, still chasing victories and new goals. Putin nods approvingly, saying, "That's a very good thing. It's very...

Vladimir Putin is facing an economic crisis on multiple fronts as the rouble collapses and inflation soars. The head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, looks set to compound Moscow's economic misery further as she warns that inflation is continuing to rise. She warned on Wednesday that interest rates may have to be hiked further but added that the decision is “not predetermined.” Ms Nabiullina said: “We have indicated that the Central Bank is open to the possibility of raising the rate, but I want to emphasise that this is not predetermined. "Yes, there is a new pro-inflationary factor,...

The future U.S. President Donald Trump’s special representative for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has issued a direct response to Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, who dismissed Trump’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine, suggesting President Vladimir Putin would “tell it to go to hell.” In an interview aired on Fox News, Kellogg was adamant in his rebuttal to Malofeyev’s remarks, stating, “Better get back in your box and better understand President Trump, because clearly you don’t and you clearly do not understand the United States of America.”

Russia could end the war in Ukraine with a nuclear strike that turns the country into a "radiation zone", an ally of Vladimir Putin has chillingly warned. Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev warned that the world is "on the brink of nuclear war". Discussing the prospect of a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine, he added: "There will be a radiation zone nobody will ever go into in our lifetime. And the war will be over." -snip- He added: "We want a long-term peace — some sort of general agreement about the global order. Trump wants to go down in history, he'll...

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday to shelve the planned hosting of the "Friendship Games", a big multi-sports event that the International Olympic Committee had condemned as a purely political project. Russia announced last year that it planned to relaunch the competition first staged in 1984 as a Soviet-led alternative to the Los Angeles Olympics, which the USSR had boycotted in retaliation for a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. -snip- Putin's decree, published on an official website, left open the possibility of staging the games at some point in the future pending a "special decision...

BRICS countries show little interest in Moscow’s proposal for an alternative financial system. Browsing through the official photos of the annual BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan last month yields intriguing surprises. In several of them, Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a mock-up banknote featuring the flags of the five core BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Looking at the pictures, one could be forgiven for assuming that the BRICS had just launched a common currency. This is exactly what Moscow would like the world to think as part of its bid to demonstrate that Russia...