Free Republic

Ukrainian forces struck multiple Russian airfields and military facilities overnight on June 6, hours before Russia launched one of its heaviest aerial assaults of the war, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported. Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted Engels and Dyagilevo airfields — two key hubs for Russia's long-range bomber fleet, as well as logistics sites in Russia's Kursk Oblast. -snip- Engels-2 air base, located in Saratov Oblast, nearly 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Ukraine's front lines, hosts Russia's Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 bombers — aircraft regularly used in missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine's General Staff said a strike...

Kyiv has finally turned off Russia’s gas supply to Europe, ending a source of income that helped pay for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The decades-old deal, which allowed the transit of natural gas produced by Russian energy giant Gazprom through Ukraine, ended at midnight on December 31, shutting down Russia’s last major gas corridor to Europe. Europe’s dependence on Russian energy had already drastically reduced since the invasion in February 2022, so the gesture is mostly symbolic. But it doesn’t make the decision less important or mean there are no consequences for the remaining Gazprom customers in Europe.

The situation with Russian payments to China continues to deteriorate: Chinese banks have begun to return about 80% of transfers in yuan to Russia, informed sources told Kommersant. According to them, the Chinese side has been tightening requirements "increasingly" since December 2023. Then US President Joe Biden signed a decree allowing the US Treasury to impose secondary sanctions against credit institutions of third countries for cooperation with Russian sanctioned companies and assistance to the military-industrial complex (MIC). After another tightening of sanctions in June, when the United States included all sanctioned persons, including Russian banks, in the definition of the...