Free Republic

The former US Army General tapped to be Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia warned last week 'we're on the precipice of World War III' as he outlined a plan to end the war by forcing both sides to the negotiating table. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, 80, told Fox News of the precarious geopolitical circumstances after Vladimir Putin launched a never-before-seen hypersonic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. - snip- 'When you look at what's happening... with an alliance that President Trump kept apart. You know, he had North Korea over here, he had China over here,...

Donald Trump's dominant victory in this week's US presidential election has left politicians, captains of industry and military chiefs the world over scrambling to calibrate their approaches ahead of his return to office. -snip- A recent Wall Street Journal report citing three sources 'close to the president-elect' claimed that Trump's transition office is considering one proposal that would prevent Kyiv from joining NATO for at least 20 years in exchange for lucrative arms deals. In the meantime, the conflict would be halted by the implementation of a large demilitarised zone (DMZ) that would effectively freeze the fighting in place and...

This is the moment a smug Vladimir Putin is taken down a peg by one of his top energy officials in a dispute during a tense discussion about Russia's Arctic infrastructure projects. Director General of Russia's state atomic energy corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev yesterday visited the Kremlin where he delivered a presentation about the company's performance and ongoing projects under Vladimir's steely gaze. After a lengthy speech in which he boasted of Rosatom's 24 per cent annual revenue growth and lauded the successes of the company's work to establish Russia as a major player in nuclear energy globally, the director...

A Russian commander who presided over attacks in Ukraine that led thousands of men to slaughter has been dismissed from his post, Western officials have claimed. General Rustam Muradov had led Russia's Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) for almost a year, having taken up the role after his predecessor's attempt to assault Kyiv in the first weeks of the war. Muradov, a close ally of Russia's military chief Valery Gerasimov, earlier this year launched an attack on the mining town of Vuhledar in the eastern Donetsk region. His tactic, a frontal assault in broad daylight, ended in utter disaster. Survivors...

With palaces, planes, yachts He is universally regarded as one of the richest men on earth. Putin's surge to power - and incomprehensible wealth - began in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. He started his career in politics as an advisor to the mayor of St. Petersburg, before moving to Moscow and taking a job in the Kremlin where he rose through the ranks under the wing of President Boris Yeltsin, whom he replaced as President in 2000. Russia was mired in economic turmoil after the Soviet Union fell and the government was in...

Pro-Moscow authorities in Moldova's separatist region of Transdniestria, which borders Ukraine, have claimed they prevented a terror attack organised by Kyiv against separatist officials. Security officials said in a statement they had halted 'a terror attack... directed by Ukrainian security services, being prepared against a number of officials,' including Transdniestria's leader Vadim Krasnoselsky. 'The suspects have been detained. They have given confessions,' the report claimed, providing no further information. The comments were published by Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti and come on the same day that the Moldovan parliament adopted a declaration condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prompting suspicions...

Ukrainian officials last night said they expect Western allies to provide their armed forces with long-range missiles after the UK, US, Germany and several other nations agreed to send battalions of tanks long-sought by Kyiv. Presidential advisor Mikhailo Podolyak told The Daily Telegraph: 'Right now we are seeing a sharp change in sentiment among the political elites of European countries... we will reach, I am sure, no doubt, an agreement on long-range missiles.' In a devastating blow to the Kremlin, nine countries joined Britain yesterday in agreeing to send tanks to destroy Russia's forces in eastern Ukraine. The coalition came...

A leading Ukrainian presidential aide claimed this morning that the explosion which damaged a key bridge in Crimea may have been ordered by one of Vladimir Putin's warring commanders. The 12 mile crossing over the Kerch strait links Crimea to the Russian mainland and is a major artery for Putin's forces that control most of southern Ukraine's Kherson region and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol. It was damaged in an explosion early Saturday morning which saw chunks of the bridge fall into the sea and a large fire break out. The incident prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials...