Free Republic

Ukraine’s military successes against Russia have transformed calculations in Washington and other Western capitals, leading to a sharp increase in military help for Kyiv as a war that started with Western efforts at damage control has become one that offers a strategic opportunity to constrain Russia’s expansionist ambitions. The U.S. and its allies are now shipping large volumes of heavy weaponry to Ukraine, including more advanced Western systems to supplement the light weapons and Soviet-era arms that were funneled into Ukraine since before the invasion started. Those shipments are aimed at supporting Kyiv in the next decisive phase of the...

As Russia launched its invasion, the U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News. That near real-time intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, the officials say, helping repel a Russian assault on a key airport near Kyiv. It was part of what American officials call a massive and unprecedented intelligence-sharing...

A 3-month-old baby was among six people Saturday killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a Telegram post that two missile strikes from Russian troops struck a residential area in the city "Nothing is sacred," Yermak wrote. "Evil will be punished.

PROOF Putin's soldiers and Wagner mercenaries carried out Bucha atrocities: German intelligence 'intercepts Russian troop messages discussing murders as part of strategy to sow terror' German intelligence agency BND has intercepted audio messages from Russian soldiers discussing killings Messages indicate the massacre was part of everyday Kremlin tactics and the Wagner Group was involved Spy chiefs believe there are similar scenes in other Ukrainian cities after further recordings were heard The barbaric atrocities at Bucha were part of a deliberate Kremlin strategy carried out in part by the feared Wagner Group of mercenaries, intercepted Russian radio transmissions have revealed. Germany's...

PRESIDENT Volodymyr ­Zelensky fought back tears as he visited the town of Bucha where Vladimir Putin’s troops have been accused of butchering civilians and burying them in mass graves. The Ukrainian leader, who was visibly emotional, was flanked by security as he vowed to ensure that the “war crimes” committed by Russian soldiers on his country’s soil were “the last such evil on Earth”. Harrowing pictures from the city, to the north-west of the capital Kyiv, showed the bodies of civilians scattered in the road and in shallow graves — many with bound hands and signs of torture. Some of...

A VILLAGE mayor in Ukraine was kidnapped, executed and dumped in a forest pit along with her husband and son, reports claim. Neighbours said Russian troops occupying Motyzhyn, 30 miles west of Kyiv, tried to win the support of local officials and butchered them when they refused to collaborate. The horrors emerged after Putin's forces retreated from the Kyiv region back towards Belarus. The mayor Olga Sukhenko, her husband Igor and son Alexander were reportedly kidnapped on March 23. Their fate was unknown until their bodies were found on Saturday in a shallow grave behind houses that Russian soldiers had...

Ukraine has taken back the 'whole Kyiv region' from Russian troops, the country's deputy defence minister said today as the fightback against the invaders continues. In a statement posted on social media, Hanna Maliar said: 'Irpin, Bucha, Gostomel and the whole Kyiv region were liberated from the invader.' Irpin and Bucha, commuters towns outside Kyiv, were retaken by the Ukrainian army this week. Both towns have suffered vast destruction and high civilian death tolls. Bucha's mayor said 280 people had been buried in a mass grave in the town and that corpses littered the streets. At least 200 people have...

CHERNOBYL is back under the control of Ukrainian troops after Russian forces formally gave up the nuclear plant. The site of the 1986 nuclear tragedy in northern Ukraine was captured in the opening days of the war, sparking fears of a major radioactive disaster as a result of heavy fighting around the plant. Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom said on Thursday that all of the "outsiders" who had been occupying the plant have left. It released a letter signed by the Russian National Guard in which custody of Chernobyl was handed back to Ukraine. Earlier, it said that some Russian...

Russian state television has broadcast an extraordinary rant about the state of the war in Ukraine, warning Vladimir Putin’s regime faces “final and complete defeat”. Yakov Kedmi, an Israeli-Russian pundit and former diplomat, is usually a reliably pro-Kremlin voice. But in an appearance on the prime time show Tonight with Vladimir Soloviyev, he was remarkably negative about the situation in Ukraine. Mr Kedmi said Russia could not afford to compromise on the initial goal of its invasion, which was to take major Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, and overthrow the government. In his view, anything less than that –...

Russia is facing numerous setbacks as its invasion of Ukraine heads into a second month. In the battlefield, Ukrainian forces have managed to push back Russian advances around the west of the capital, Kyiv. And in the Kremlin itself, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's top advisers has resigned.

The signs are abundant of how Ukraine frustrated Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a swift victory, and how Russia's military proved far from ready for the fight. A truck carrying Russian troops crashes, its doors blown open by a rocket-propelled grenade. Foreign-supplied drones target Russian command posts. Orthodox priests in trailing vestments parade Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag in defiance of their Russian captors in the occupied city of Berdyansk. Russia has lost hundreds of tanks, many left charred or abandoned along the roads, and its death toll is on a pace to outstrip that of the country’s previous military campaigns....

Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as "dismal". Its military advances appear to have largely stalled and some now question whether it can recover from the losses it has suffered. This week, a senior Nato military official told the BBC, "the Russians clearly have not achieved their goals and probably will not at the end of the day". So...

The husband and father of the Ukrainian woman and two children killed by mortar fire as they tried to escape shelling outside Kyiv Sunday learned of his family’s murder on Twitter, according to a report. Mom Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, kids Mykyta, 18; Alisa, 9; and Anatoly Berezhnyi, 26 — a church volunteer who was helping them escape — were killed by Russian forces as they ran across a damaged bridge in Irpin. A photo of their bodies strewn across the pavement led Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to promise he would kill “every bastard” responsible for the indiscriminate civilian slaughter.

According to a Norwegian International Affairs researcher, the images people in Russia are being shown by the official media are far from the brutal reality of the Ukraine war. Russian president Vladimir Putin is reportedly painting a completely different picture of his ongoing invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. For people only consuming Russian media, it comes across as there being an ongoing "special military operation" in Ukraine, which has the aim of protecting the people of East Ukraine against the so-called nationalistic government in Kyiv. Russian state television aired a short statement by Putin last week, where he described Ukrainian president...

In the days since the West imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, ordinary Russians are feeling the painful effects — from payment systems that won’t operate and problems withdrawing cash to not being able to purchase certain items. “Apple Pay hasn’t been working since yesterday. It was impossible to pay with it anywhere — in a bus, in a cafe,” Moscow resident Tatyana Usmanova told The Associated Press. “Plus, in one supermarket they limited the amount of essential goods one person could buy.” Apple announced that it would stop selling its iPhone and other popular products in...

The White House and other observers are increasingly sounding the alarm about the mindset of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seems poised to escalate his country’s war with Ukraine. Experts, analysts, lawmakers and even administration officials have speculated that Putin’s isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic has raised his paranoia. They’ve pointed to decisions he’s made such as the invasion itself and his move on Sunday to put his nuclear forces on alert in suggesting he is not making rational decisions.

... With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Putin’s gamble is failing. The Ukrainian people are resisting with all their heart, winning the admiration of the entire world – and winning the war. Many dark days lie ahead. The Russians may still conquer the whole of Ukraine. But to win the war, the Russians would have to hold Ukraine, and they can do that only if the Ukrainian people let them. This seems increasingly unlikely to happen. Each Russian tank destroyed and each Russian soldier killed increases the Ukrainians’ courage to resist. And each Ukrainian killed deepens the...