Free Republic

Russia acknowledged on Monday that scores of its troops were killed in one of the Ukraine war's deadliest strikes, drawing demands from nationalist bloggers for commanders to be punished for housing soldiers alongside an ammunition dump. Russia's defence ministry said 63 soldiers had died in the fiery blast which destroyed a temporary barracks in a former vocational college in Makiivka, twin city of the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk. It said the accommodation had been hit by four rockets fired from U.S.-made HIMARS launchers, claiming two rockets had been shot down. Kyiv said the Russian death toll was in the...

Ukraine’s First Lady’s message to Britons facing crippling energy bill hikes and a cost of living crisis is that while they might be “counting pennies”, her county is counting casualties. “There is no comparison to the suffering of people here, but at home in the United Kingdom, as you acknowledge, people are facing very painful choices because of the soaring cost of energy that’s going to make things very tough for people,” said BBC presenter Laura Kuenssberg in an interview with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska.

In a now deleted VK post, the pro-Kremlin media outlet Readovka claims that Russia’s Defense Ministry stated at a “closed briefing” that it’s lost 13,414 soldiers in Ukraine *plus* another 7,000 who are missing. 116 sailors killed aboard the Moskva, with 100+ still missing.

Russia suffered major losses during the special military operation in Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted, speaking live on Sky News on Thursday. "We have significant losses of troops. And it's a huge tragedy for us," he said.

The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reports that, according to the Russian MoD's figures, the Russian Armed Forces have sustained 9,861 killed in action and 16,153 wounded in action in Ukraine. A shocking figure.

Vladimir Putin has declared that all military deaths will be classified as state secrets not just in times of war but also in peace – a move that activists worry might further discourage the reporting of Russian soldiers’ deaths in Ukraine.The Russian president has amended a decree to extend the list of state secrets to include information on casualties during special operations when war has not been declared, among other changes...Rights advocate Valentina Melnikova, secretary of the Union of Soldiers’ Mothers Committees, said the decree simply legalised the common practice of withholding information on all military losses, which had been...

Editor’s Note: Lawfare’s Board of Directors has published a post regarding this article and our editorial standards here. In the United States, the latest Iranian protests have sparked a kind of debate in which we argue fervently about whether the U.S. should tweet its support or just shut up. At the risk of making the Trump administration look moderate, I think we can choose between more than waving our hands and sitting on them. Remember, when the Iranian regime decided it didn’t like U.S. activities in Iraq, it found considerably more direct ways to express its disapproval. It just started...

Two explosions, one just outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and another at the nearby Baron Hotel, caused several casualties Thursday. The attacks came less than a day after the U.S. Embassy warned U.S. citizens to get out of the area. Here’s what we know so far: The explosion outside the Kabul airport is “definitely believed” to have been carried out by the Islamic State group, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Thursday attacks were carried out by two suicide bombers and gunmen. Pentagon spokesman John...

Wuhan Corona Virus (COVID19) is a legitimate health concern, but it is no cause for panic or irrational hysteria. Yes, follow commonsense practices for hygiene, take care of yourself. Seek medical help if necessary. Do NOT surrender to fear. Fear is our biggest enemy. At the moment in the U.S., we have 32,356 Coronavirus cases, 414 deaths and 178 recovered. In Italy the country that is the country that is hit the hardest so far we have 59,138 Coronavirus cases, 5,476 deaths and 7,024 recovered. By contrast, China has almost twice as many cases, 81,250, but 3,253 fatalities. From the...

Kurdish fighters of the YPG in Afrin, northwest Syria. Photo: ARA News Syrian Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) on Thursday shelled a Turkish army base near Afrin district northwest of Aleppo, military sources reported.“In response to the Turkish aggression against our people in Afrin, the YPG targeted headquarters of Turkey’s military with heavy artillery,” a YPG spokesman told ARA News. At least one Turkish soldier was killed and several others wounded in the bombardment.“The clashes continued between the YPG and Turkish troops over the past few days after the latter entered Afrin countryside in a bid to...

A US official tells ABC News at least 11 have been wounded, by likely a vehicle-borne improved explosive device. An Afghan official tells ABC News that US forces have cordoned off the air base, located in northeastern Afghanistan, about an hour north of Kabul.

Between 2003 and 2009 the Iraq war resulted in 109,032 deaths, which included 66,081 civilian deaths. George W. Bush's war is widely considered to be a disaster. In comparison, Obama's Syrian war has produced 470,000 deaths to date with civilian deaths estimated at north of 100,000. It's also produced a global refugee crisis and multiplied terror attacks around the world most notably the U.S. I call it Obama's war because, (a) he started it with his petulant and ill-advised Arab Spring movement, and (b) he greatly prolonged it through inaction and indecisiveness, which has emboldened Russia. Just a little tidbit...

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

According to initial reports, multiple injuries have been reported at the scene. Unconfirmed reports state that 10 have been pronounced dead at arrival. A reporter at the scene said: “There are people in blood everywhere” BREAKING: Truck Drives Into Crowd During Bastille Day In Nice, France.

President Barack Obama and his first attorney general, Eric Holder, called for an honest conversation about race. Holder even called us "a nation of cowards" because we were unwilling to have a "national conversation" about race. The truth of the matter is there's been more than a half-century of conversations about race. We do not need more. Instead, black people need to have frank conversations among ourselves, no matter how uncomfortable and embarrassing the topics may be. Among the nation's most dangerous cities are Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, Memphis, Milwaukee, Birmingham, Newark, Cleveland and Philadelphia. These once-thriving cities are...

With the massacre in Orlando, Fla., Islamic terrorists have now killed 91 and injured more than 370 on U.S. soil since President Obama took office. Yet Obama still refuses to admit that radical Islam is a threat. Could this explain why his administration keeps missing warnings signs that could have prevented these attacks?

It may not be politically expedient to admit, but Iran is engaged in a live, "hot" war with the United States and its NATO allies -- even as we continue to do business with it. US officials have recently detailed Iran's latest hostile military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the training and arming of insurgent groups directly responsible for the death of many Americans on the battlefield.

Richard Hoagland, the acting U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, discussed with Code Pink and anti-Israel activists what he said was classified information, during an October 3 meeting with the groups in Islamabad. Code Pink, a liberal anti-war organization known for disrupting Republican and conservative public events, uploaded a video of the meeting to an Internet video sharing website on Oct. 5. Realizing what he had said, Hoagland told the activist gathering: “I probably just, you know, got into big trouble with what I just said.”

There was a time when America’s Commander-In-Chief held a certain poise, a refinement of manner, a humble je ne sais quoi. And nothing could be more important to the families of America’s soldiers than assurance that the lives of their sons and daughters are valued above everything except the liberty they defend. Aaron Carson Vaughn, a member of the elite SEAL Team VI special forces once wrote a note of assurance to his concerned parents about his chain of command saying, “They won’t let me die.” This week, America honors her heroes in recognizing Veterans Day, including our brave SEALs....

WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) -- Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday he's "absolutely certain" that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons against civilians. Since the beginning of Syria's civil war in 2011, there have been a number of accusations that Assad has employed the use of gas chemicals against rebels and civilians. Most recently, Human Rights Watch said it found evidence the government used chemical weapons in the Idlib governate in attacks spanning two weeks in March. "I am absolutely certain -- we are certain -- that the preponderance of those attacks have been carried out...