Free Republic

Kyiv will not meet Vladimir Putin's request for Ukraine to withdraw troops from its four partially occupied regions, Volodymyr Zelensky has said. The Ukrainian leader said "it's our land," in a briefing to reporters on Monday, according to The Kyiv Independent on the day when the Russian president and U.S. President Donald Trump held a much-touted phone call. Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of humanitarian group Hope for Ukraine, told Newsweek Putin's ceasefire demands, which include Ukrainian forces leaving all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, were "impossible to meet." Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment. Why It Matters In...

Russian state media have reported Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may attend Moscow's May 9 celebrations in Red Square to commemorate the end of World War Two. Zvezda, a TV channel of the Russian defense ministry, cited an unnamed diplomatic source that the U.S. might be represented by Rubio at the show piece event for the Kremlin which parades Russian military hardware. Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department and the Kremlin for a response.

Several Ukrainian army officers have reportedly been arrested and charged with negligence linked to Russia's operation in Ukraine's Kharkiv region last May, which saw Moscow make large gains. Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) detained two generals and a colonel, according to the news outlet Censor.NET. The details of the charges are not yet clear, but one commander was arrested for not informing the authorities about a mass desertion of troops, Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported. The arrests raised questions about whether there is a real attempt to seek justice or a political move underway to deflect the blame for Ukraine's...

Vladimir Putin has been dealt a significant geopolitical blow with the downfall of Bashar al-Assad, whose regime in Syria the Russian president had committed considerable funding and military resources to propping up. Assad fled Syria and has claimed political asylum in Russia, Kremlin-backed media reported, his now exiled status depriving Moscow of a key regional ally. Russia's military assets in Syria are now under threat, such as its naval base in the port city of Tartus, which gave the Kremlin a presence near NATO's southern flank in the Mediterranean Sea. -snip- Pro-Moscow military bloggers have expressed concern over the future...

-snip- "Putin has to be convinced that it's going to be too costly for Russia to continue because he wants to overthrow the government, take over the whole country, and no one has been willing to stop him until now," Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told Newsweek. "It's a matter of putting some credible capability on the table to convince Putin that he has to stop," said Volker, who was Trump's special representative for Ukraine until September 2019. "Therefore, I'm not sure it's a matter of meeting any Russian demands, nor do I think that Zelensky's desire the...

A suggestion by a NATO chief that the alliance should target Russia's missile launch sites has been condemned by the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov responded to remarks made by Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO's military committee, about how the alliance can deal with the threat posed by Russia. During a question-and-answer session after his address at the European Policy Center in Brussels, Bauer said, "The idea was we are a defensive alliance, so we will only sit and wait until we are attacked, and then when we are attacked, we will be able to shoot down the...

Vladimir Putin has admitted that sanctions on Russia and worker shortages have contributed to economic turbulence in the country. The Russian president made the comments days after Russia's Central Bank raised its key interest rate to a record 21 percent—higher than the emergency 20 percent level introduced in the aftermath of Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine when facing Western sanctions and isolation from the global financial system. -snip- Russia's economic growth has been fueled by record levels of military spending but a lack of workers exacerbated by troop losses in Ukraine and a brain drain of those avoiding the draft,...

Restrictions on long-range strikes within Russia by Western weapons supplied to Kyiv should be dropped following confirmation that Vladimir Putin is using North Korean troops to fight Ukraine, Lithuania's president has said. Pyongyang has been supplying Russia with munitions to fight Ukraine but Rutte said the deployment marks "a significant escalation" in its involvement and was "a dangerous expansion of Russia's war." On Monday, the Pentagon said that North Korea had sent 10,000 troops to Russia who could join Moscow's fight against Ukraine in the "next several weeks" amid concerns from South Korea and the U.S. that Moscow might offer...

One of Moscow's fighter jets has been shot down by Ukrainian forces, according to a military blogger with links to the Russian air force. Another pro-Moscow milblogger said that the Sukhoi Su-34 aircraft had been downed by a Western-supplied F-16. Neither report has been confirmed and Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment over the unverified claims which have sparked much speculation on social media. The Telegram channel Fighterbomber posted on Saturday a message which looked like a tribute to a lost Su-34 fighter jet. Next to an image of the supersonic medium-range fighter bomber, which...

Russia continues to pay a high cost in troops and equipment during its full-scale invasion, according to Kyiv, the recent figures of which outline losses of several dozen artillery systems—as well as two warplanes. Sunday's update by Ukraine's military noted how two aircraft had been among the equipment losses Russia had suffered over the previous day. This followed what Ukraine's General Staff said was a drone strike on the Morozovsk airfield, a Russian military base in the Rostov region near the Ukrainian border, which is home to Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-34 glide bombers. Kyiv said that the strikes hit warehouses...

Russia has not classified Hamas as terrorist group. Officials from Palestinian movement, including Haniyeh, have held meetings with Russian officials in Moscow in recent years. Hamas is viewed as a terrorist group by several countries, including the U.S. and many of its allies. Russia's deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov has warned the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran was unacceptable and will lead to an escalation of violence. "This is all very bad. This is an absolutely unacceptable political assassination, and it will lead to a further escalation of tensions," "Iran's direct capability is very poor, which is...

Donald Trump has cast doubt over whether as U.S. president he would defend Taiwan if China were to invade the self-governed island Beijing views as part of its territory. "Taiwan is 9,500 miles away," the former president told Bloomberg, "it's 68 miles away from China." China's long-ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as its own but has never ruled there since coming to power in Beijing in 1949. Taipei rejects its neighbor's assertions. The GOP nominee for the U.S. presidential election appeared to suggest that Taiwan should pay the U.S. for protection, telling the outlet: "I don't think we're any different...

Moscow must find other ways to pay for exports or its sanctions-hit economy faces "ruination" one of President Vladimir Putin's top bankers has said, following moves by Chinese lenders to suspend transactions with Russian banks. ICBC, China CITIC Bank and most other Chinese banks have made similar moves, worried about falling foul of Western sanctions, which have been stepped up to choke off the funding for Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, the U.S. and other countries unveiled a new wave of sanctions that targeted Russian financial institutions and entities and individuals who do business with them. "If...

Kremlin propagandists have claimed that countries in Latin America, including Mexico, could host missiles that can strike American targets. (snip)"Russians on Kremlin State TV yesterday declared that Mexico was their military ally and they are wanting to place their missiles on Mexican territory so Mexico can attack the United States," Jake Broe a former U.S. Air Force nuclear and missile operations officer, posted on X next to a screen grab. "This is insane." Mexico has condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine but has adopted a policy of neutrality and refused to participate in sanctions against Moscow. Newsweek has contacted the Mexican...

Gazprom, once Russia's biggest earning company, last year made its largest ever cut in natural gas production as the war in Ukraine continues to affect the majority state-owned energy giant. Until 2023, Gazprom was the largest publicly listed natural gas company in the world, but the engine of Russia's economy has paid a high price due to Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, last month posting its first annual loss in a quarter of a century. Adding to the bad news, Gazprom's annual report released Monday said that it had cut natural gas production by 13 percent to an all-time...

Russia has rolled back on comments suggesting that a major agreement with Iran had been suspended due to problems it faced with Tehran. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Tehran has supplied Moscow's war machine with equipment such as the Shahed drone, which has been used to attack Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. In September of that year, work on a new treaty between Moscow and Tehran was announced during a meeting between Putin and the late President of the Islamic Republic, Ebrahim Raisi. Russia's Foreign Ministry had said in January that the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty...

Ukrainian drones are threatening Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov, it has been reported, signaling an intention by Kyiv to target Moscow's infrastructure beyond the Black Sea. -snip- British outlet Sky News reported Ukrainian forces had carried out a "coordinated strike" against a Ropucha-class landing ship overnight Saturday, which had moved to the Sea of Azov, connected to the Black Sea by the Strait of Kerch. Ukrainian Telegram channel Crimean Wind and Ukrainian Mariupol mayoral adviser Petro Andryushchenko gave more details, saying a ship was hit near the port of Yeysk, located in Krasnodar. But there are conflicting reports...

Top officials in Russia have raised concerns about Kremlin moves to nationalize companies and an overheated economy in rare rebukes of Vladimir Putin's economic policy. On Tuesday, Herman Gref, the CEO of Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, warned about the negative effects of high state spending on the military to fund the war in Ukraine. "Our economy is definitely overheated," Gref told the Federation Council, Russia's upper house, on Tuesday, according to the Tass news agency. The next day, questions were raised about a Kremlin policy of forced nationalizations since the start of Putin's full-scale invasion, which has been followed by...

In mid-2022, Gazprom restricted gas flows to Europe in what was seen as a move by Putin to get both leverage against Kyiv's allies ahead of the winter season and retaliate against Western sanctions and support of Ukraine. But the EU managed to find alternative long-term sources of gas imports and free itself from most Russian piped-gas imports ... Gazprom's revenue fell by 41 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2023, while sales profits dropped 71 percent and gas production by 25 percent... The report said the company's upstream gas-production base is now isolated because infrastructure connecting its main...

Conservative TV host Tucker Carlson has launched his own show on a Russian state television channel. The former Fox News anchor is presenting the program Tucker on the rolling news channel Russia 24, with the first episode now available online, Russian state newspaper Rossiskya Gazyeta reported. The paper said that the show is part of a joint project with Carlson TV, in which he will interview figures and politicians who have "alternative views to the mainstream." -snip- This is a breaking story. More to follow.