Free Republic

Big trouble may be brewing in little Moldova, which is starting to look like a staging area for the European Union to offset an emerging Russian victory in Ukraine. Whether such a plan, if attempted, would succeed is not clear. But Moldova is not the most stable country in the world with the nation split between pro-EU and pro-Russian elements. US troops are now in Moldova with Romanians, ostensibly for a military exercise called JCET 2024 (Joint Command Exchange Training). The exercise started on April 1 and will continue until April 19. According to a Moldovan Ministry of Defense statement,...

While the world is focused on Israel and the Gaza war, the war in Ukraine grinds on. Russian leader Vladimir Putin gave a brief press conference during his China trip and from that we can conclude the following: firstly that the Russians are concerned about the use of the US ATACMS missile against Russian forces, and secondly that the Russians are worried about the arrival, probably around January, although no one is certain, of F-16 fighter aircraft. The Russians understand that the F-16s will challenge Russian air superiority, at least to a degree, and complicate their operations. Meanwhile, on the...

The main lesson for Israel from the hideous Hamas attacks suffered over the weekend is a simple one: Terrorists can’t be managed. For decades, Israel worked with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) by combining incentives on the one hand with controlled military responses on the other. Major attacks, including rockets from Gaza last May, prompted retaliation, usually with air power, and a subsequent cease-fire, often brokered by Egypt. When Iranian-sponsored militias set up weaponry in the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted on-the-ground operations in Jenin and Nablus. In the case of Hezbollah, Israel allowed the US...

The US is set to begin tests of an air-to-air combat drone, pushing the frontiers of artificial intelligence and human judgment in aerial warfare while attempting to ensure affordable mass for great power competition in the skies. This month, Breaking Defense reported that General Atomics is set to begin flight tests in December of its design for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) LongShot program, which aims to develop an unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) that can launch air-to-air missiles. General Atomics, a US energy and defense corporation headquartered in San Diego, was awarded a contract from DARPA for Phase...

A group of academics have conducted a study that found that during the fastest pace of Fed interest rate hikes in 40 years, the majority of U.S. banks failed to hedge their interest rate risk. The report’s findings include the following: “Over three quarters of all reporting banks report no material use of interest rate swaps.” “Only 6% of aggregate assets in the U.S. banking system are hedged by interest rate swaps.” “Banks with the most fragile funding – i.e., those with highest uninsured leverage — sold or reduced their hedges during the monetary tightening. This allowed them to record...

European countries are buying more liquified natural gas from Russia than they did before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, revealing a weak spot in the energy sanctions targeting Russia that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. In the first six months of 2023, EU countries bought 40% more Russian LNG than they did in 2021, amounting to $5.7 billion in revenue for Russia, according to an analysis this week by the advocacy group Global Witness. This makes Europe the biggest customer for Russian LNG; only the U.S. sells more LNG to the bloc. After the invasion, European...

n July 2022 the UN General Secretary and Turkey brokered a deal with the Russian Federation under which the Ukraine would be allowed to export grain by shipping it from Ukraine through the Black Sea to other countries. A second part of that agreement included the relief of sanctions that block or hinder Russian export of grain and fertilizer. The deal came to pass after Ukraine had falsely claimed that Russia had mined the sea route to Ukrainian ports. The mines had been laid by Ukraine: On Friday, the Ukrainian foreign ministry official said Ukraine had placed some mines. "We...

The Chinese government has made five demands on the United States, including the cancellation of its chip exports ban and sanctions, during US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s four-day China trip ended Sunday. China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Monday that it has expressed concerns to Yellen about the extra tariffs, company sanctions, investment restrictions, export controls and Xinjiang product bans imposed by the US on China in recent years. It said the US should take concrete actions to respond to China’s concerns. Chinese commentators said the China side arranged meetings between key economic officials and Yellen, showing...

There appears to be a potentially big development in Ukraine focused on a negotiated deal with Russia. “Ukraine is ready for negotiations and a peace agreement,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said – “if Russia changes the previously declared goals of the special military operation.” Okeksiy Reznikov (from Twitter) His statement came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Kherson on June 8th to be updated on the ongoing offensive in the Zaphorize region. No doubt Zelensky got news that he did not want to hear: The Ukrainian offensive is not going well and Ukrainian army losses have been heavy. The...

America has long been the biggest military spender of any of its allies, but other nations aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. It’s time to rethink NATO burden sharing, says Justin Logan of the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank that studies many public policy issues, including a more restrained foreign policy that keeps the U.S. strong for future generations. As of last year, the U.S. can include 50 of the world’s countries as formal allies, plus dozens of other informal partnerships. The U.S. shoulders a vastly disproportionate amount of the economic burden: While U.S. allies account...

I must say that I'm both a bit confused and disappointed in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and their behaviour on the battlefield on the Southern front. There might be an hidden tactic that will be seen in the coming days, but what we have seen since June 4th doesn't look good. I was very disappointed in the Russian Armed Forces in the beginning of the war and surprised of the combat prowess of the ukrainian forces. While awaiting the ukrainian counteroffensive I expected ukrainian forces to act and perform better than they have. I wonder if it's a case of...

Continued ukrainian attacks but limited progress besides Novodonetske who was taken an hour ago. Leopard tanks was present during the attack in Novodonetske. During the day UkrAF units has continued attacking the same positions as yesterday on the Vreminka salient. Those places are Novodarivka (1), Rivnopil (2), Neskuchne (3) and Novodonetske (4). The ukrainian side is still quiet about the fighting. They will probably say that this is the beginning of the Counteroffensive if they are successful with moderate losses. If not successful, they will probably bury this operation in silence. But the use of Leopards and the capture of...

MOSCOW, June 5 (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday that its forces had thwarted a major Ukrainian offensive at five points along the front in the southern Ukrainian region of Donetsk and killed hundreds of pro-Kyiv troops. It was not immediately clear whether or not the reported attack represented the start of a Ukrainian counteroffensive which Kyiv has been promising for months to recapture territory taken by Russian forces after the invasion of February 2022. Russia's defence ministry said Ukraine had attacked with six mechanised and two tank battalions in southern Donetsk, where Moscow has long suspected Ukraine would seek...

SINGAPORE — China put European patience to the test on Saturday, with a seasoned Chinese diplomat attributing Russia’s war on Ukraine to a failed security architecture in Europe. It fell to Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren to challenge that very Chinese interpretation. “I was actually a little bit surprised to hear it,” Ollongren told POLITICO in an interview moments after she made an impromptu rebuttal of ex-ambassador Cui Tiankai on a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “It’s very, very false.” Cui, a former envoy to the U.S. and unofficially an adviser to the Chinese delegation at this top...

In 2020, when Israel, backed by the US, signed the Abraham Accords with the UAE and some other Middle Eastern states, the Israeli government looked well in charge of the trajectory of the peace process in the Middle East. Three years later, peace-making is no longer made in the US or Israel, as China’s success in mediating between Iran and Saudi Arabia has significantly shifted Middle Eastern geopolitics’ local and international dynamics. Locally, more and more Arab states are now pursuing ‘normalisation’; internationally, Beijing, rather than Washington, is playing the lead role. This adds to Israel’s troubles, as it can...

Yesterday’s attempt to attack the Kremlin with a drone strike, supposedly to assassinate Vladimir Putin, is being pinned on Ukraine. But this is a proxy war of the U.S. versus Russia, and no one is fooled. Ukraine is simply a U.S. pawn and can make no major moves without checking with Washington. The U.S. has successfully muzzled its energy-starved allies in Europe from even objecting to, let alone investigating the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. Europe is stuck with the skyrocketing cost of U.S. supplied replacement fuel. The destruction of Nord Stream followed well-publicized mock U.S. nuclear strikes targeting...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated denial of his country's responsibility for an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin, which Moscow says targeted President Vladimir Putin. Russian officials said Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time of the attack. "We don't attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory," Zelenskyy told a news conference in Helsinki, where he is attending a meeting with Nordic leaders. The Ukrainian president suggested that Russia staged the attack because "Putin needs to motivate his people" after a shortage of Russian victories in the ongoing war. He said Kyiv will leave it to...

China and Ukraine have just said that Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskyy talked over the phone. Below is our English translation of the Chinese official readout reported by China Central Television. In the afternoon of April 26, President Xi Jinping spoke by phone with President Zelensky of Ukraine by appointment. The two sides exchanged views on China-Ukraine relations and the crisis in Ukraine. Xi noted that China-Ukraine relations have gone through 31 years of development and reached the level of strategic partnership, which has provided a boost to the development and revitalization of each country. I appreciated President Zelensky's repeated...

An all-time media blackout is in effect. We’re experiencing real-time Sovietization. It transpires that the infamous incident before the 2020 election in which 50 former intelligence officials signed an open letter declared a New York Post expose about Hunter Biden’s laptop to have the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” was instigated at the behest of the Joe Biden campaign. This at least is the allegation in a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken released by Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government. In that letter, which is not easy...

ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China. Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.” He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets...