Free Republic

A planned exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war failed to take place on Saturday, with Moscow accusing Kyiv of postponing the swap at the last minute, something Ukrainian officials dismissed as “dirty games” from the Kremlin. Russia said Ukraine unexpectedly postponed a transfer involving prisoners of war and the bodies of dead soldiers, leaving more than 1,200 frozen Ukrainian bodies waiting in refrigerated trucks at an exchange point with no one to collect them. Ukraine rejected Russia’s account of the events, saying that the two sides had agreed to exchange seriously wounded and young troops on Saturday but...

Paris CNN — French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for five years after being found guilty of embezzling European Union funds, in a politically explosive ruling that has shattered her hopes of winning the presidency in 2027. A Paris court also handed Le Pen, who was the frontrunner for the next election, a four-year prison sentence with two years suspended, to be served under house arrest, and a €100,000 ($108,000) fine. She can appeal but the ban will stand unless overturned by another court. Her party, National Rally (RN), was ordered to...

Romania, a country on Europe’s eastern fringe, is perhaps a surprising focus of attention for a new US administration whose foreign policy priorities include ending the war in Ukraine, reshaping the Middle East and expanding American territory. Accustomed to flying under the radar, many in the country have been stunned by the Trump administration’s interest in its politics, which rarely garners international attention. “It’s been unprecedented,” said Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of the GlobalFocus Center, a think-tank in the capital, Bucharest. She said she cannot recall a time in Romania’s post-Soviet history that its affairs have been so closely scrutinized from...

• Syrian rebels are speeding toward the major city of Homs, where residents are fleeing ahead of potential clashes between the rebels and regime forces. • The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, the second major city taken from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in just over a week of fighting. • A new uprising has also emerged in the southern Daraa province, with rebels there claiming to have taken a major military base and announcing that their “destination is Damascus.” • Russia’s embassy in Syria has urged its citizens to leave the country, citing “the difficult military and...

Syrian armed rebels have entered Aleppo just three days into their surprise offensive, marking the first time they have set foot in the country’s second largest city since government forces recaptured the city in 2016. Rebel forces launched a surprise attack this week, sweeping through several villages outside the city and reigniting conflict that had been largely static for years. In a video geolocated by CNN, a rebel fighter films as he drives through the deserted streets on the western side of the city. He is heard praising God as the vehicle approaches the Zine El Abidine Mosque in western...

Georgia has been rocked by protests after its increasingly autocratic government said it would halt the former Soviet country’s bid to join the European Union. The ruling Georgian Dream party, which claimed victory in last month’s election that observers said was fraudulent, announced on Thursday that it would suspend accession talks with the EU until 2028. Its decision quickly sparked protests in the capital, Tbilisi, where demonstrators were heard chanting “Russian slaves” at police officers guarding the parliament building. The protests were eventually put down early morning Friday. Police fired water cannons and tear gas at protesters, while men wearing...

President Vladimir Putin has updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine, two days after his US counterpart Joe Biden granted Ukraine permission to strike targets deep inside Russia with US-made weapons. Under the updated doctrine issued Tuesday, Moscow will consider aggression from any non-nuclear state – but with the participation of a nuclear country – a joint attack on Moscow. In a phone call with reporters Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted the changes mean that “the Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression using conventional weapons against it and/or the Republic of Belarus.” “An important...

The frontlines of Russia’s war in Ukraine have become infested with rats and mice, reportedly spreading disease that causes soldiers to vomit and bleed from their eyes, crippling combat capability and recreating the gruesome conditions that plagued troops in the trench warfare of World War I. A Ukrainian servicewoman, who goes by the call-sign “Kira,” recalled how her battalion was beset last fall by a “mouse epidemic” while fighting in as the southern Zaporizhzhia region. “Imagine going to bed, and the night begins with a mouse crawling into your pants or sweater, or chewing your fingertips, or biting your hand....