Free Republic

About 352,000 Russian soldiers had died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025, according to a new estimate, underscoring the high cost that President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to bear to pursue his battlefield aims. The figure was released on Saturday — the day of Russia’s annual May 9 parade celebrating victory over Germany in World War II — by the exiled Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazona. The number raises the prospect that about half a million soldiers in total have died on the Russian and Ukrainian sides. In the more than four years since...

The Ardal ground robot had a specific mission: cross open ground, reach the Novoselivka village bridge in Donetsk, and lay an anti-tank mine before Russian forces could use it. It was a basic operation for Ukraine’s elite K-2 Brigade, based four miles away. But when they saw three Russian soldiers on their screen, they did not hesitate to change the objective, detonating the mine and taking the enemy – and the robot – with it. The loss of hardware was not a difficult call. Ukraine is on course to make 25,000 unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the first half of...

Thousands gathered in cities across the country on Saturday to protest President Trump's plan to keep control of Congress after the 2026 midterms by pushing Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps in favor of Republicans. The president’s push for the rare and aggressively partisan redistricting, while centered on Texas so far, has set off a furious response among many Democratic state leaders and party activists. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that he was moving forward with a plan to redraw his state’s lines, and allow voters to approve it in November. On Saturday, progressive activists, labor...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday continued to slam Republicans for moving to sue him over his use of executive actions, calling the move a “political stunt” and urging Congress to “stop hatin' all the time.”

The governing theory of President Barack Obama's foreign policy swung into full view today - after a number of out-of-town tryouts - when Pulitzer Prize winning writer Thomas Freidman wrote in his Sunday New York Times Column: "When President Obama sits down to write his foreign policy memoir he may be tempted to use as his book title the four words he reportedly uses privately to summarize the Obama doctrine: 'Don't Do Stupid Stuff' (with 'stuff' sometimes defined more spicily)." · The reason Friedman was so circumspect about the quote ("? he reportedly uses ?") is because Obama has been...

Cuba's "120 Years Club," inspired by President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) to help Cubans live to a ripe old age, on Wednesday claimed one of its members as the world's oldest man at 119. Benito Martinez Abagan actually says he was born in Haiti in 1880 and came to Cuba in 1925 to work in the sugar cane fields and build roads. But both his memory and identity document, which shows him to be 123, are questionable, say officials. Dr. Eugenio Selman-Housein, Castro's personal physician and president of the "120 Years Club," said experts are working to determine...