Free Republic

It was 2014, and in a building in St Petersburg, the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) was already hard at work building its arsenal to take on US politics. According to US prosecutors, the IRA had gathered stolen identities of real Americans, and a formidable encyclopaedia of what "works" on social media when it comes to riling up Americans talking about politics. Two members of the agency were said to have travelled to the US to gather more intelligence, a fact-finding tour taking in nine states, according to investigators. Back on Russian soil, the IRA began posing online as US...

There are yet unconfirmed reports that the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced late on Sunday, April 2nd, 2023. that his forces have raised the Russian flag over the administration building of the town of Bakhmut in Ukraine. There is no question that Bakhmut will fall. Zelensky has sent over 100,000 men to their death there desperate to keep the money flowing into Ukraine. It is a sad state of affairs when a high-heel dancing idiot orders generals to fight to the death all for his pride and money. The fall of Bakhmut is simply inevitable and...

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday downplayed the threat Russian President Vladimir Putin's military poses on the world during an appearance on Fox & Friends "The fear of Russia going into NATO countries and all of that and steamrolling...That has not even come close to happening," DeSantis said. "I think they've shown themselves to be a third-rate military power. I think they've suffered tremendous, tremendous losses."

I am fascinated by guys like Wes O’Donnell, who publish delusional nonsense without offering one piece of credible evidence. O’Donnell, who claims to have served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force, put up a piece at Medium last week with the catchy title, Putin’s Death Cult Prepares for Huge Casualties in the Coming Days. Here are some salient points from his article: The Russian army just suffered the deadliest 24 hours since the start of the war. According to Ukraine, 1,030 Russians were killed yesterday as Moscow continues to throw thousands of freshly mobilized soldiers into the...

@RepMTG It is heartbreaking to see these disabled Ukrainian soldiers here in the halls of Congress being used as pawns to pressure our Congress to give American’s hard earned tax dollars to Zelensky. I’m calling for an audit of funds to Ukraine and to fund and secure our border.

U.S. President Joe Biden warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage for ships carrying Ukrainian grain. “It’s really outrageous,” said Biden speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.” Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the agreement, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack.

Russia has said it is suspending its participation in the agreement to ensure the continuation of Ukrainian grain exports — vital for food supplies to poor countries — linking the decision to a drone attack on Russian ships in occupied Crimea on Saturday morning. The defence ministry announced the move, and it was also reported by the state news agency TASS. "Taking into account the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation...

The foreign minister of Hungary, in part, blamed the current war between Ukraine and Russia on President Joe Biden in an exclusive interview Wednesday with the Daily Caller. He argued that if the 2020 election had played out differently, there would be no war. “The European economy is suffering. Europe is suffering. That is why the only solution for Europe is peace. But definitely, peace not will come with this behavior. What the U.S. administration has been showing. Why? Because in order to create peace, you would need to talk. You would need to communicate,” Szijjártó said during the interview....

“Ramstein” refers to the U.S. military base in Germany at which meetings have been held on providing military aid to Ukraine.According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine has developed a transparent plan of priority steps in reconstruction, and “this is what Ukraine literally needs to survive.”“The weight of our Fast Recovery Plan is $17 billion for critical immediate reconstruction,” the president said.“These are hospitals, schools, vital transport and energy infrastructure. We have a huge need for housing reconstruction.”“These are salaries of teachers, doctors, social benefits, pensions. Significant funds. But our association is powerful enough to implement such a task as well.”

Ukraine Rebuild Conference hosted by EU: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Ukraine for being a digital society — the most digitized after Estonia among European countries — and having systems work even with a war raging. One of the main messages of the conference, she said, was that Ukraine had everything it takes to rebuild itself — the determination, a vibrant civil society, friends around the globe and an impressive resilient economic base despite the atrocities of the war.

Shmyhal said this on the air of the national telethon, Ukrainian News Agency reports."We held very good talks with the German government, as well as with parliamentarians and leaders of the German political forces and said that Germany will increase the allocation for military aid to Ukraine next year. The Finance Minister has promised to increase this from EUR 690 million to more than EUR 2 billion," he said.The Prime Minister noted that the increase in aid was discussed with members of the Bundestag and directly with German Finance Minister Christian Lindner.As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on October 11,...

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday asked the international community to cover an expected budget deficit of $38 billion next year for his war-torn country, with Moscow's invasion also badly hitting the economy. At an international reconstruction conference for Ukraine in Berlin, Zelensky urged European leaders to offer greater financial support for his country more than eight months after Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into Ukraine. "At this very conference we need to make a decision on assistance to cover next year's budget deficit for Ukraine," Zelensky said via video-link. "It's a very significant amount of...

Musk understands what many commentators don’t: The war will end in a negotiated settlement or it will escalate, possibly into nuclear war.As if to burnish his reputation as a super-villain in the eyes of the corporate press, Elon Musk this week floated an idea on Twitter for a possible resolution of the Russo-Ukrainian war. For his trouble, he was swiftly accused of being a pro-Putin stooge by guardians of the Official Narrative. His suggested peace plan was dismissed out of hand as “Russia-friendly” and, as The Washington Post’s Olivier Knox put it, “designed to lock in Russian territorial gains.”But Musk’s...

Not to beat a dead horse, but most of the world has a delusional image in their head of the war in Ukraine. As I have written previously, much of the fault lies with Hollywood, which through a plethora of movies has conditioned the masses to think of war as the conquest of critical territory. But that is a misleading image when it comes to Ukraine. Yes, there are strategically important pieces of territory that must be captured or defended, but there also are vast swaths of plains (we call them prairies here in the United States) that are tactically...

Michael Flynn, an outspoken ally of former President Donald Trump, had harsh words for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday.Flynn previously served as a lieutenant general in the U.S. Army before taking on the role of national security adviser in the early days of the Trump administration. He resigned from the position amid a controversy over his communications with a Russian ambassador and has been generally noted for his strong connections to Russia throughout his various careers.On Saturday, Flynn appeared on the conservative, pro-QAnon web series, "The Mel K Show," where he discussed the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine....

Vladimir Putin yesterday claimed that four occupied Ukrainian regions would remain part of Russia ‘for ever’ in a bizarre 40-minute tirade that included rants about ‘Satanism’ and colonialism. The rambling speech formed part of a ceremony in Moscow that formally confirmed his land grab following a series of rigged referendums. Ambling late to the podium in front of hundreds of ashen-faced officials, the despot lashed out at the West’s ‘neo-colonial’ foreign policy. ‘I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this,’ Putin said. ‘People living in Luhansk and Donetsk,...

Thank you USA BTW, there's no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia to Western Europe, including Germany. Nordstream's only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity. All Ukrainian and Baltic sea states have opposed Nordstream's construction for 20 years. Now $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine. Someone, @MFA_Russia, did a special maintenance operation.

President Biden is set to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the second time as president on Wednesday, when he will announce new U.S. investments to address global food insecurity, rebuke Russia over the war in Ukraine and tout his administration's foreign policy actions since he took office. The address comes as Mr. Biden seeks to rally global leaders to continue supporting the Ukrainian government with arms and financial aid, with the war now in its seventh month. Mr. Biden will emphasize the principle of the United Nations charter that countries cannot conquer their neighbors by...

New interceptions of phone calls of Russian soldiers in Ukraine demonstrate – many of them are in despair and want to save their lives after the start of Ukrainian large-scale counter-offensive on the eastern and southern front lines. At the same time, they are afraid that surrendering is dangerous for them – Russian state propagandists make sure that of that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph8z8kTDnbg

An official said the blast on the Russian-occupied peninsula was the result of a Ukrainian strike. Moscow said only that munitions had exploded. An attack in Crimea would represent a significant military advance for Ukraine.