Free Republic

Eyewitnesses reported as many as 15 distinct explosions in Novofedorivka, Crimea, followed by a larger blast The explosions rocked a Russian held military airbase home to a variety of fighter jets and freight aircraft Airbase is located 130 miles from nearest Ukrainian-held region and Ukraine has not accepted responsibility But a senior military source told the New York Times the explosions came as a result of a Ukrainian strike Russian defence ministry meanwhile is claiming the explosions came as a result of ammunition detonation Russian officials reported one person was killed and five people including one child were injured in...

Russia has "strategically lost" the war in Ukraine and is a "more diminished power", the head of the UK's armed forces has said. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Vladimir Putin had lost 25% of Russia's land power for only "tiny" gains. And while Russia may achieve "tactical successes" in the coming weeks, he said any notion the war had been a success was "nonsense". Admiral Radakin, who is the UK's chief of defence staff, said Russia was running out of troops and advanced missiles and would never be able to take over all of Ukraine. -snip- Admiral Radakin said: "This...

Official Ukrainian statements, independent news reports, local social media, and RF state-controlled news platforms on Friday said UAF advance elements had closed on Ukraine’s border with Russia at multiple locations, Fighting according to those reports was in progress for the Ukraine-side border villages of Lipsy, Vesele, Kozacha Lopan’, Pitomik and Russki Tishy, all to Kharkiv’s north. ….snip Video images made public by the RF state-controlled news platform Readovka on May 13 showed scattered mortar or artillery strikes purportedly hitting fields and homes near the Solokhi, some 10 km inside Russia. There was no outside confirmation of the bombardment, but...

As Vladimir Putin’s health reportedly declines, body doubles have been put on alert to stand in for the Russian not-so-strongman when he undergoes surgery, according to a report. Putin will be out of commission for up to 10 days and the body doubles will be used to make it seem like he’s still in control of the country, the anti-Putin Telegram channel “General SVR” reported. The mysterious Telegram account also claimed that pre-recorded footage will be released of Putin attending meetings and signing laws to make it seem like he is still working. The channel — which is purportedly run...

The Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade sent shock waves throughout our country when it was leaked this week. If the ruling stands, abortion access would be decimated in huge swaths of the country, and the rights of Americans everywhere will depend on whether they happen to live in a blue state or in a red state. Beyond being a violation of the human rights of pregnant people, limiting access to abortion is an imposition of governmental Christianity on us all. And it infringes on the religious liberty of every American Jew.

Russian state TV host Vladimir Solovyov threatened the annihilation of the United Kingdom on Wednesday with the Sarmat, Russia’s newest ballistic missile. “One Sarmat means minus one Great Britain,” Moscow mouthpiece Vladimir Solovyov said on state TV. “Because they’ve gotten totally boorish.” Solovyov — occasionally called “Putin’s voice” for his close ties to the strongman — is the same TV presenter at the center of a debunked assassination attempt, in which the Kremlin said neo-nazis armed with video games planned to kill the Kremlin lackey. Solovyov made the statement from behind a laptop emblazoned with the letter “Z,” which has...

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that it was time for the United States to talk about sending troops to Ukraine.

Russia is worried about increased activity of NATO forces in the Arctic and sees risks of "unintended incidents" occurring in the region, TASS news agency cited Russian ambassador-at-large Nikolai Korchunov as saying on Sunday. In March, Finland and Sweden, which are both considering joining the U.S.-led military NATO alliance, conducted combined NATO military drills. The exercise was long planned, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 added intensity to the war game. Moscow describes its actions in Ukraine as a "special military operation". "The recent increase in NATO's activity in the Arctic is a cause for concern. Another large-scale...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is leading a a six-member group of U.S. lawmakers on a two-day visit to Taiwan on Thursday, a visit that has sparked anger from Beijing. Graham along with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) landed in Taiwan’s Songshan Airport in Taipei on Friday. Graham tweeted that the people of Taiwan are “great allies of the United States” and called Taiwan “a beacon of freedom in a troubled region.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian...

A Senate Democrat said that the U.S. needs to discuss sending American troops to Ukraine — arguing that Vladimir Putin “will only stop when we stop him.” Appearing on Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) was confronted by CBS’s Margaret Brennan about comments he made earlier in the week in which he argued the U.S. needs to figure out when it would be willing to send armed forces to Ukraine. “We are in a very dangerous moment where it is important that on a bipartisan and measured way we in Congress and the administration come to a common...

Russian state television declared Friday night that its conflict in Ukraine can now "safely be called World War III." "What it's escalated into can safely be called World War III – that's entirely for sure," Russia 1 television host Olga Skabeyeva said, according to a translation of Friday night’s broadcast by Britain's Metro News. "Now we're definitely fighting against NATO infrastructure, if not NATO itself. We need to recognize that."The remarks on the Russian state sponsored station come a day after Russia's flagship, the Moskva, sank in the Black Sea on Thursday. While the Russians claim the sinking was the...

British SAS troops have been training Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv in how to use British-supplied NLAW anti-tank missile launchers, it has been reported. The training marks the first time British forces have been instructing their Ukrainian counterparts since Russia's Vladimir Putin launched his invasion on February 24. Two officers from separate battalions stationed both in and around the country's capital told The Times that British Special Forces had trained their troops on two occasions over the last fortnight. Reports of the British training came after Russian TV warned that Western involvement in the war - such as supplying weapons to...

Moscow may be co-ordinating pro-Russian demonstrations across Europe to amplify pockets of support for its war in Ukraine, it has been reported. In recent weeks cities including Berlin, Dublin, Hanover, Frankfurt and Athens have seen people take to the streets with Russian flags and vehicles emblazoned with the pro-war Z symbol that has become synonymous with the Kremlin's forces in Ukraine. Many of the marches have taken place at the same time, despite being hundreds of miles away from each other, prompting Russian experts to suggest they might be being coordinated by Moscow, according to The Times. The experts told...

MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russian air defense units have brought down a military transport plane carrying Western arms outside Odessa, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday. "Near Odessa Russian anti-aircraft defense forces have shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, which was delivering a large shipment of arms supplied to Ukraine by Western counties," he said. In addition, according to Konashenkov, operational and tactical aviation destroyed 67 areas of concentration of Ukrainian military personnel and hardware in the past 24 hours.

Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves (file photo) Serving as president of Estonia between 2006 and 2016, and foreign minister before that, Toomas Hendrik Ilves has always been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Speaking by Zoom from Estonia, Ilves pours water on the idea of negotiating with Russia and says that Georgia's position on the war in Ukraine is "absolutely despicable." RFE/RL: There are many people who think that the roots of what is going on now in Ukraine, and what happened in Georgia in 2008, go back to the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest and the refusal...

While we cannot say with total certainty whether the Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk due to a Ukrainian anti-ship missile or just a fire that crews were unable to control, we know that it is lost. Soon we will find out what happened, but regardless of if it was an unfortunate series of events or enemy action, what we do know is the Russian navy is about as big of a joke as the Bad News Bears baseball team from the 1970s movie. The Russians have admitted that the flagship of their Black Sea Fleet — the ship that was...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzxBKcTpRe4&t=843s

A Ukrainian policeman and municipal workers carry a body bag as they exhume two bodies from graves dug in the yard of a house in the village of Vabliya, near Kyiv, on April 14. A Ukrainian policeman and municipal workers carry a body bag as they exhume two bodies from graves dug in the yard of a house in the village of Vabliya, near Kyiv, on April 14. Blasts were heard early on April 16 in the cities of Kyiv and Lviv after warnings from Russia that it would intensify attacks on the Ukrainian capital after accusing Ukraine of targeting...

Authorities in Russia's Bryansk region bordering Ukraine have accused Kyiv of shelling the Russian town of Klimovo and allegedly causing casualties, while the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (RNBO) rejected the accusations, calling them "an attempt to ignite anti-Ukraine hysteria in Russia." The Bryansk region's governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, said on April 14 that two buildings were damaged in the attack, which he said was conducted by the armed forces of Ukraine. Medical personnel at Klimovo's central hospital told the Russian news agency TASS that seven people, including a pregnant woman and a child, were wounded. Russia's Investigative Committee...

"Curiously enough, today the West and Russia have switched roles. Russia supports the values that had been considered 'western' — the role of the Christian Church, autonomy of the traditional family, and cultural diversity. All these have become secondary in the West. They are only valued as long as they do not contradict liberal dogmas.”In his recent essay, Vakhtang Kipshidze, Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department for the Russian Orthodox Church's Relations with Society and Mass Media, deliberates on the drastic change in the system of traditional Western values. We are publishing excerpts from the piece. “In his sermon on...