Free Republic

With palaces, planes, yachts He is universally regarded as one of the richest men on earth. Putin's surge to power - and incomprehensible wealth - began in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. He started his career in politics as an advisor to the mayor of St. Petersburg, before moving to Moscow and taking a job in the Kremlin where he rose through the ranks under the wing of President Boris Yeltsin, whom he replaced as President in 2000. Russia was mired in economic turmoil after the Soviet Union fell and the government was in...

In a Sunday editorial in the state-owned Global Times, Beijing warned that allowing the country into the alliance—as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has requested—would lead to an inevitable escalation in the conflict, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats to use nuclear arms against the West. While unlikely—U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan stated in a White House press briefing last week that NATO should delay talks on allowing the country into the alliance—the newspaper warned "all European countries will tremble under the shadow of a possible nuclear war" should it take place, and called for the Western alliance to withdraw...