Free Republic

Retired Army Col. Douglas MacGregor believes Ukraine has already lost its war with Russia. But he thinks many Western leaders want to keep supporting Ukraine to accomplish their real goal of pulling the United States into a direct conflict with Russia. “Ukraine has lost this war. I would argue it lost it some time ago,” said MacGregor during an appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s podcast, “Judging Freedom.” (Related: Ukraine is running out of ammunition as Russia continues to overpower its military.) “It’s now becoming so apparent that even the most ardent supporters of Ukraine’s war on Russia in London, Berlin,...

- Ukraine said on Thursday it had received U.S. supplies of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), a powerful long-range weapon system that Kyiv hopes can help turn the tide on Russia's invasion. "Thank you to my U.S. colleague and friend Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for these powerful tools! Summer will be hot for Russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them," Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted of the HIMARS delivery. He did not say how say many of the systems had arrived. Ukraine says it needs the HIMARS systems to better match the range of Russian...

At Greece's largest coal mine, controlled explosions and the roar of giant excavators scooping up blasted rock have once again become routine. Coal production has been ramped up at the site near the northern Greek city of Kozani as the war in Ukraine forced many European nations to rethink their energy supplies. Coal, long treated as a legacy fuel in Europe, is now helping the continent safeguard its power supply and cope with the dramatic rise in natural gas prices caused by the war. Electricity generated by coal in the European Union jumped by 19% in the fourth quarter of...

Since the start of the year, the ruble has soared 40% against the dollar — outperforming every other currency in the world.Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted the ruble’s robust recovery as proof that his economy has successfully withstood the onslaught of Western sanctions. “The idea was clear: crush the Russian economy violently,” Putin told an economic forum in St. Petersburg last week. “They did not succeed. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

Name: Peecycling. Age: As a term, dates to about 2006; as a practice, centuries old. Appearance: All yellow. If this is about peeing while riding a bicycle, I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work. This is about saving and storing your urine. Why would I want to do that? So the CIA can’t get it? So that it can be recycled. Recycled as what? Fertiliser. Human urine is a rich source of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. According to the Rich Earth Institute of Vermont, the urine one adult produces in a year – 125 US gallons (473 litres) – is...

For all Republicans criticizing me for high gas prices in America, are you now saying we were wrong to support Ukraine and stand up to Putin? Are you saying that we’d rather have lower gas prices in America than Putin’s iron fist in Europe? I don’t believe that?

Lithuania has extended the blockade on goods heading for Kaliningrad sanctioned by the EU to also include road transports and not just rail. The U.S. has announced that it is backing Lithuania in its spat with Russia over the blockade.

LONDON (Reuters) -Russia warned NATO member Lithuania on Monday that unless the transit of goods to Russia's Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea was swiftly restored then Moscow would take undisclosed measures to defend its national interests. With east-west relations at a half-century low over Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Vilnius banned the transit of goods sanctioned by the European Union through Lithuanian territory to and from the exclave, citing EU sanction rules. Russia's foreign ministry summoned Lithuania's top envoy in Moscow to deliver a protest while the Kremlin said the situation was beyond serious. "The situation is more...

Posted Jun 20, 2022 by Martin Armstrong Britain’s Military Chief of the General Staff had just taken that position and he has already told the army they need to prepare for war against Russia in Europe. He has told every soldier to prepare to fight Russia in a potential World War III. He has pledged to forge an Army that can beat Russia in battle and said that we must now prepare “to fight in Europe once again.” He added on his fourth day on the job: “There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting...

Now we have the nastiest inflation that we’ve ever seen, we have a war in Ukraine with perhaps millions and millions of people dying in the end…you’re talking about tens of thousands of people dying…and perhaps it’s going to lead to World War III because of the way we’re handling it… We just gave $40 billion on top of another $16 billion, so we’re in for $56 billion…we want to help those people—we have to also save our country, by the way—and it’s horrible, horrible what happened. But when you look at Europe, and Germany and France and all these...

A document released by a news outlet on Tuesday reportedly shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered that his government destroy all the documents related to the nation’s biolabs being run in collaboration with the Hunter Biden-connected firm Metabiota. NBC may have actually caught this destruction on camera. ...

"Russia is done with the West. The divorce is nearly complete. In the past few days we’ve heard from all major Russian leaders the same thing, “The West will play by our rules now.” You can decide for yourselves whether Russia is writing checks they can’t cash, but in the words of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling the BBC bluntly, “We do not care about the eyes of the West.” Lavrov has always been the soul of politeness and discretion when dealing with European media. His open hostility towards his BBC interviewer was not only palpable, it was hard to...

Ukraine's newest heroes: Brave Russian defectors have joined Kyiv's forces on frontlines against Putin's regime to liberate their beloved country from his rule Scores of Russians have defected to fight alongside Ukrainian armed forces They risk severe treatment and most likely the death penalty if they are captured But fighters say they see Putin and the Kremlin as a 'cancer' preventing peace Like all his Ukrainian army comrades, Volodymyr Grotskov is fuelled by deeply-held patriotism as he risks his life on the bloodstained frontline of the brutal war against Russia. The 48-year-old electrical engineer says he loves his country and...

Several depositors told The Epoch Times on June 14 that the health code on their COVID-19 app turned red as soon as they scanned venue barcodes at Zhengzhou, the provincial capital city of central China’s Henan Province. A red health code—indicating a potential COVID-19 patient—means that the carrier is barred access to all public places from public toilets to shops to train stations and faces mandatory quarantine in centralized isolation centers. They’re among tens of thousands of bank depositors who have fought to recover their savings for more than two months. The crisis started in April, when at least four...

Since the Russian army attacked Ukraine nearly four months ago, thousands of civilians have been killed and whole towns reduced to rubble, while millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes. But on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov looked me in the eye and told me things were not as they seemed. "We didn't invade Ukraine," he claimed.

Laurie Meadows 11 June 2022 [ last edited 13 June 2022 2040 UTC] This is a follow up article to the article I wrote on 19th of February 2022, 5 days before the launch of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. It was called 'Mutually Assured Destruction - the Prelude to Mutually Assured Security'. At the time, I didn't think Russia would move into the Donesk. I wrote: "The current lead that Russia has in missile and defensive systems might persuade the US to agree to verifiable arms control, but this is the work of years. In the meantime,...

A big part of the problem in defending this part of Donbas, Ostap believes, is that the people who have stayed behind — the people who haven’t fled — don’t really believe they are part of Ukraine. In his view, the civilians who remain are all separatist sympathizers. He says they help the Russians navigate backcountry roads that aren’t on the maps. He asserts there have been instances of local collaborators getting caught providing information about Ukrainian troop movements or locations. Indeed, Slovyansk fell to Russian separatists in 2014: The retaking of the city by the Ukrainian military later that...

The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured. But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser. “The Russians are...

President Biden said the United States "has never seen anything like Putin’s tax on both food and gas," after the Labor Department announced Friday that inflation hit a new four-decade high in May. The Labor Department said Friday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price for everyday goods, including gasoline, groceries and rent, rose 8.6% in May from a year ago. Prices jumped 1% in the one-month period from April. Those figures were both higher than the 8.3% headline figure and 0.7% monthly gain forecast by Refinitiv economists. The president, from the Port of Los Angeles...

One hundred days of all-out war has been plenty of time to get acquainted with the Russian troops. Their lackluster combat performance, artillery barrages against cities, treatment of civilians, intercepted messages home, and interviews with dozens of civilians around Ukraine allow one to put together a mosaic portrait of the invaders. It’s not a flattering image. Many of the soldiers are dirt-poor and badly educated, with many growing up without access to modern amenities. Many joined the armed forces because they have no future in their backwater towns. The majority have bad training, low morale and no faith in their...