Free Republic

Russia's under-pressure economy and Vladimir Putin have been dealt a devastating blow after state-controlled gas giant Gazprom recorded a huge net loss of $12.89B (£9.9bn) in 2024. The company's financial woes were compounded by plummeting share prices in its subsidiary Gazpro Neft and an increased income tax rate of 25%. This greatly raised tax liabilities for the company, leading to billions of pounds lost and follows a historic 2023 where Gazprom revealed a net loss for the first time in 25 years, recording a historic deficit of 629 billion rubles ($7.6 billion). The huge financial blow has had a knock...

Out on the frontline, near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman, on 8 November at 15.10, a Russian serviceman called Andrey decided to ignore the orders of his superiors and call his mother with an unauthorised mobile phone. “No one feeds us anything, mum,” he complained. “Our supply is s**t, to be honest. We draw water from puddles, then we strain it and drink it.” Russian forces had been on the back foot in the Donetsk oblast for weeks. Lyman, taken by the Russians in May, was liberated by Ukrainian forces in October. Two days before Andrey made his afternoon...