Free Republic

Douglas MacGregor describes the current situation

Day 259: November 09 Today there is a lot of news: the Ukrainians finally launched the next wave of their counteroffensive operation in the Kherson region, Russian authorities have publicly announced withdrawal from Kherson, and the Russian-appointed Head of Kherson died in a car accident. The Ukrainians have changed the axis of advance completely, and this time they started from storming Snihurivka.

Kremlin-connected entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted that he has interfered in US elections and would continue to do so, confirming for the first time the accusations he has rejected for years. "Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do," Mr Prigozhin boasted in remarks posted on social media. The statement — from the press service of his catering company that earned him the nickname "Putin's chef" — came on the eve of the US midterm elections. It was the second major admission in recent months...

Russia's elite are worried for their safety after an ally of President Vladimir Putin said those who aren't enthusiastic enough about the war in Ukraine should be repressed, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin loyalist and founder of the paramilitary Wagner Group, said that Russian tycoons who are not supportive enough over the conflict should face "urgent Stalinist repressions", Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. The "Stalinist repressions" are a reference to Russia's Great Purge, a political campaign led by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1937 that aimed to eliminate anyone in his party he considered a threat. Prigozhin's...

Ukraine’s president has suggested he’s open to peace talks with Russia, softening his earlier refusal to negotiate with Moscow while President Vladimir Putin is in power — while sticking to Kyiv’s demands. Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appeal to the international community late Monday to “force Russia into real peace talks” reflected a change in rhetoric for a man who signed a decree in late September stating “the impossibility of holding talks” with Putin. But since his preconditions appear to be non-starters for Moscow, it’s hard to see how Zelenskyy’s latest comments would advance any talks. Zelenskyy reiterated that his conditions for dialogue...

On 9 February 2017, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, a member of the Expedition 50 crew, captured a winter landscape image from the International Space Station. It was of the Dnipro River. The photograph showed a great, coursing white snake that reminded Pesquet of a Japanese ‘Hokusai painting’. The white was ice and it explains why Russian forces on the Dnipro right bank now face a ‘difficult situation’, as described by General Sergei Surovikin, the recently appointed operational commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. In winter the Dnipro freezes over, usually after a 20-day spell of sub-zero temperatures. A...

Welcome to my newest update on Putin’s War in Ukraine. We are now 36 weeks — 254 days — since Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. My last update can be found at Putin’s War, Week 35. The Lull Before the Next Storm. There has been some action, but the crappy weather has slowed things down. Also, both sides are somewhat tired after a punishing summer’s campaigning. I look at this period as the break when the fighters have returned to their corners. Two significant items have been covered outside this update. First, the Pentagon is beefing up the...

The secret British intelligence plot to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge is revealed in internal documents and correspondence obtained exclusively by The Grayzone. The Grayzone has obtained an April 2022 presentation drawn up for senior British intelligence officers hashing out an elaborate scheme to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge with the involvement of specially trained Ukrainian soldiers. Almost six months after the plan was circulated, Kerch Bridge was attacked in an October 8th suicide bombing apparently overseen by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence services. Detailed proposals for providing “audacious” support to Kiev’s “maritime raiding operations” were drafted at the request of Chris...

The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine's leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions.The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kiev maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.

The US “DELTA” command and control system is the computer network used by the US for combat operations. It is constantly updated by military planners and intelligence agencies with information on troop movements, weapons inventories and full attack plans. Russia has hacked it; Ukraine’s battle plans are completely compromised. Just as important, the DELTA system is also constantly updated with information about enemy forces, in this case Russia. Here is what a Russian computer hacker got access to, with videos proving that he got access, and how it is likely to be dispositive of the entire Ukraine war, in Russia’s...

The State Department slammed Russia's 'baseless' accusation that Britain and the U.S. of conspiring to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipes, claiming former Prime Minister Liz Truss texted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the explosion saying 'it's done.' 'Russia’s baseless accusations against the United Kingdom, and before that the United States, are just another attempt to distract from their brutal war against Ukraine,' State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement to DailyMail.com. 'These ridiculous claims have no factual basis. Russia has a long history of spreading disinformation and it is doing so again here.' Vladimir...

Every fifth person mobilized in the Russian Federation died before reaching the front - Novaya Gazeta "According to estimates of Russian journalists, which are based on official data, more than 100 mobilized Russian journalists have been killed since September 21. Every fifth of them did not even reach the front. Such calculations are given by the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Europe," the Censor reports.no. Reports of the deaths of the mobilized began to arrive immediately after the draft, when they had not yet reached the front. The causes of deaths are fights, alcohol, drugs, suicides and accidents. At the...

Award-winning investigative journalist and interviewer Trish Wood has been blowing up conventional wisdom for decades. A television and radio trailblazer, she’s renowned for chasing organized crime bosses through Tokyo, exposing crooked religious cranks, dodging drunken teens with guns at checkpoints in war-torn Burundi, and setting free innocent men. Trish’s intrepid reporting landed exclusive guests and won her fans, accolades and occasionally, critics. Now, she is bringing to a podcast her electric interviewing style, hard-won wisdom and wicked humour, crushing agenda-driven overload with critical thinking. Trish’s deep empathy for the downtrodden but fearless questioning of the powerful creates profound moments. Neither...

Estimates of projected weather in Ukraine show Europe might experience a mild winter, potentially throwing a wrench in Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to use Ukraine's harsh winters to his benefit. Two weeks ago, a Russian politician suggested on state TV that the Kremlin should target Ukraine's energy supply, causing civilians to freeze and starve. Throughout October, Russia has increased its attacks on civilian infrastructure, targeting the electrical grid and plummeting parts of Ukraine into darkness and leaving some residents without a water supply. However, as winter approaches, new reports show Russia's plans to use cold weather to its advantage...

Vladimir Putin's conscripts have been filmed drunkenly battering each other in an alcohol-fuelled brawl at a training barracks ahead of their deployment to the battlefields of Ukraine. An extraordinary leaked video shows the 'drunk' soldiers punching each other, with some ending up unconscious on the floor during the fight at the barracks in Yurga, Siberia. The video shows Putin's army intelligence and military police dragging the unconscious troops, who are from the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, along the street and away from the bloody brawl. The footage tallies with reports of low morale and drunkenness among Russian recruits and...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Facing reverses on the frontline, Russian forces are intensifying strategic strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, with a renewed bombardment of Kyiv (Kiev) cutting off power and water in the capital. Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion who serves as the capital city’s mayor, said an energy facility powering “about 350,000 apartments in Kyiv” had been rocked by five explosions in the early hours of Monday morning.

​President Biden lost his temper and raised his voice on the phone with​ Volodymyr Zelensky when the Ukrainian president continued to press for more aid even after Biden signed off on $1 billion worth of military assistance earlier this year, according to a report Monday. ​ The phone call in June, one of many between the two leaders, turned testy when Zelensky began listing what else Kyiv needed and wasn’t getting​ shortly after Biden announced the aid package, NBC News reported.​ The commander-in-chief reportedly blew his stack ​and, with his voice rising, reminded Zelensky of the generosity of the American...

INTERVIEW of Grigorij Mesežnikov: Why did Putin decide to start mobilization? Should we take the Kremlin's claims about a nuclear strike seriously? What can protests in the Russian Federation lead to? — Why did Putin decide to start mobilization? Did the people who stood for the war to the end win? — He decided to mobilize, because he no longer had a way out. In fact, he is a rat that has cornered itself. The Russian army is losing, and if such dynamics continue, then Ukraine could liberate a significant part of the territory that was captured by Russia by...