Free Republic

1/ Russian soldiers are dealing with the stresses of trench warfare by hiring sex workers to entertain them in their dugouts. Meanwhile, Russian brothels are offering soldiers on leave the opportunity to fulfil their fantasy of "punishing bad Ukrainian [women]". 2/ A report by The Insider highlights how the war in Ukraine has changed the nature of sex work in Russia. The country's sex workers are facing many challenges, from the loss of established clients, to increased competition from soldiers' wives and girlfriends taking up sex work. 3/ The Insider reports on the various impacts of the war on Russia's...

The C.I.A.’s concerns were not unwarranted. In 2019, the Russians undertook an elaborate operation to find Mr. Poteyev, forcing a scientist from Oaxaca, Mexico, to help. The scientist, Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, was an unlikely spy. He studied microbiology in Kazan, Russia, and later earned a doctorate in the subject from the University of Giessen in Germany. He was a source of pride for his family, with a history of charitable work and no criminal past. But the Russians used Mr. Fuentes’s partner as leverage. He had two wives: a Russian living in Germany and another in Mexico. In 2019,...

RIGA, Latvia — Russia’s Federal Security Service late Friday announced a criminal case against Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin, accusing him of “incitement to armed rebellion” after he declared an open conflict with Russia’s military leadership and called on Russians to join 25,000 Wagner fighters against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other top commanders. Prigozhin, whose private military company helped Russia seize the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Moscow’s only significant territorial gain this year, accused the Russian military on Friday of carrying out a strike on a Wagner camp, and appeared to threaten Shoigu, declaring “This scum will be stopped!”...

For a month the two men could not tell their psychologist what had happened to them, only that it was horrible beyond words. “If there’s hell somewhere, it’s worse than that,” said one. The Ukrainian soldiers, aged 25 and 28, had been in Russian captivity — one for one month, the other for three. After their return in a prisoner swap they had been referred to Anzhelika Yatsenko, 41, a psychologist in Poltava who deals with troubled young men. They were suicidal. The younger one had tried to kill himself. “I knew from previous cases they had probably been tortured,”...

Patrons at Miami eatery Versailles cheered when Donald Trump twice declared “Food for everyone!” during a surprise stop at the Little Havana hotspot. Then he left without buying food for anyone, according to a local report. Fresh off pleading not guilty to criminal charges in a Miami federal court, Trump was all smiles as he entered the crowded restaurant Tuesday. Well-wishers sang “Happy Birthday” to the former New Yorker on the eve of his 77th birthday. Trump supporters told NBC 6 South Florida they thought the 45th president was treated unfairly when he was indicted on more than three-dozen counts...

Some people are naturally tribal and don’t like immigration. So they’ll use whatever justifications they can come up with to argue against it. I’ve seen the topic of immigration make capitalists talk like trade unionists when thinking about wages, and people who’ve never shown any interest in climate policy start worrying about carbon emissions. There’s been a lot of controversy around whether immigrants litter too much, but I never see the people making this complaint talk about littering in any other context. It makes me suspect that it might not be their main concern. It’s kind of pointless to argue...

We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left's pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine... America’s got his back.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that he wanted to “burn” the National Institutes of Health “to the ground,” according to a new interview with the Democratic presidential candidate. In a May 9 conversation with actor Russell Brand, Kennedy said that DeSantis invited him to breakfast during the COVID pandemic, to discuss what Kennedy described as his “science-based response” to the crisis. “We talked about him possibly running for the presidency, and I said, how will you handle the NIH?” Kennedy told Brand, whose talk show has more than 1.1 million subscribers on the YouTube...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dined with Miriam Adelson — former President Trump's top financial backer in 2020 — and other major GOP donors in Jerusalem on Wednesday, according to two sources who attended the dinner. Why it matters: DeSantis, considered Trump's top rival for the GOP nomination, is expected to announce his presidential exploratory committee in the coming weeks. Politico reported in October 2022 that Adelson, widow to the late billionaire Sheldon Adelson, told several possible Republican candidates that she plans stay neutral in the 2024 primary. Representatives for Adelson did not respond to a request for comment. DeSantis' campaign...

The combination of losing the spies under diplomatic cover and the end of 29155 had led Russia to turn more to its long-term illegals, said Grozev. “They’ve had to activate their sleepers, and when you do that you risk much more disclosure,” he said. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in The Americans, Others speculate that there could be something more at play. John Sipher, formerly deputy director of the CIA’s Russia operations, said he believed the recent detection of illegals was probably due to someone inside Russia passing information to the US or another western intelligence service. “It’s almost impossible...

On the night of March 31, the defender of Ukraine and four-time world kickboxing champion Vitaliy Merinov died in the hospital from his injuries. Merinov was also the champion of Ukraine in universal combat and a master of sports in boxing. He also served as President of the Ivano-Frankivsk Boxing Federation. The athlete went to war on the first day of a full-scale invasion. He received a gunshot wound in the leg, but after that he was able to recover and return to the front. Merinov is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter.

JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) - China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building "Belt & Road" infrastructure, according to a study published Tuesday. Almost 80% of the rescue lending was made between 2016 and 2021, mainly to middle-income countries including Argentina, Mongolia and Pakistan, according to the report by researchers from the World Bank, Harvard Kennedy School, AidData and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. China has lent hundreds of billions of dollars to build infrastructure in developing...

First Deputy Chairman of the National Association of the Military-Industrial Complex of Ukraine Ivan Vinnik announced the establishment of production of high-precision missiles "Alder". He told The War Zone about this on Tuesday during the XV conference "Security Dialogue between the United States and Ukraine", which was held in Washington. Ivan Vinnik said that now manufacturers are planning to modify the " alder-m "to increase its range to 150 km. He declined to specify when exactly the missiles might be ready and how many would be produced. "Let's just say, we hope, just in time for a counteroffensive, the probability...

The politically connected Chinese donors who pledged $1-million to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal did not only want to build a statue of the former prime minister. They also sought to erect a statue at the university’s law school of chairman Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader who brought his country under Communist control and, in his decades as the Great Helmsman, oversaw policies that led to huge numbers of deaths from famine and violence. “They suggested one of Trudeau and Mao together,” Geneviève O’Meara, a spokesperson for the University of Montreal, confirmed to The Globe...

China is considering sending Russia lethal military aid in the form of artillery shells as President Vladimir Putin’s army rapidly depletes its supply of ammunition a year into his invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials said, a prospect that has alarmed those in the Biden administration who believe Beijing has the ability to transform the war’s trajectory. There is no evidence that any weapons transfers have occurred, these officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. government’s assessment. But if China does move ahead, it would mark the first time Beijing has provided lethal aid in the...

— You have repeatedly said that, in your opinion, Putin will not stop in Ukraine. What exactly do you have in mind? Moldova, the Baltic States, or a self-destructive war with the United States? — In principle, such a worldview has no boundaries. This formula has been adopted almost officially: Russia doesn't end anywhere. This is the standard definition of an empire, because an empire doesn't recognize any borders. Borders in Europe appear in 1648, when the Westphalian system was formed, which later gradually ends with empires. There is an idea that there are borders between countries: "Here we are,...

President Joe Biden visited Kyiv on Monday for the first time since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, demonstrating in dramatic personal fashion his commitment to the country and its struggle as the war enters an uncertain new phase. While in Kyiv, Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as first lady Olena Zelenska at the Ukrainian presidential palace. Biden’s visit comes at a critical moment in the 12-month conflict, with Russia preparing for an expected spring offensive and Ukraine hoping to soon retake territory. The United States and other western nations have...

The case of a suspected spy at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is more explosive than previously known. According to SPIEGEL information, the Russian secret service FSB tried last fall to use BND employee Carsten L., who has since been arrested, to obtain position data on the Ukrainian army's artillery and air defense positions. According to the investigation, the FSB instructed the BND agent, through the intermediary Arthur E., to siphon off and hand over GPS data from the US-supplied Himars multiple rocket launcher and the Iris-T air defense system supplied by Berlin to the BND and hand it over...

Zelensky said that he intends to increase the army to a million people to attack the Crimea. The West is also pushing Kiev to at least some success on the battlefield. Air Defense Colonel Yuriy Knutov, a military expert, believes that Zelensky's statements should not be discounted: the enemy is really preparing the army for an offensive that, according to him, may look like a Tatar-Mongol invasion. More and more experts note Kiev's serious intentions to take revenge for the winter campaign, in which the Russian army was able to seize the initiative. One of the most priority areas of...

When someone shows up at a U.S. port of entry asking for admission and claiming to have information of interest to the United States, CBP and the Department of Homeland Security are tasked with verifying the information provided. If the information is confirmed as true and the person is deemed credible, they are then passed off to the FBI. “The deal with a walk-in is his ID has to be verified and his story checked as well — that could take some time,” explained one U.S. intelligence official. “If and only if he checks out, meaning he is who he...