Free Republic

...snip... something now is rotting in Moscow. The latest sign is that one of President Putin’s oldest allies, Anatoly Chubais, today announced his resignation and decamped his country. ...snip... Mr. Chubais has been a far more important member of Mr. Putin’s inner circle than that title suggests. As the man who initially recruited Mr. Putin to the Kremlin, Mr. Chubais was until today’s defection one of the president’s darlings. Mr. Chubais is, moreover, but the latest in a growing list of top players in Moscow who have either expressed skepticism about the war or were forced out by Mr. Putin,...

Russia over the weekend mounted its most serious aggression against Ukraine since President Trump took office, and America punted. Trump’s outgoing ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, described the chain of events that led to the current standoff at the Black Sea as an “outrageous violation of sovereign Ukrainian territory.” She vowed that Washington and its friends would stand with Kiev. So what’s the plan? “It is our expectation that our European partners will lead this effort through the Normandy Four format,” Haley said, referring to a toothless Barack Obama-era gabfest that has mostly served to legitimize Moscow’s illegal...