Free Republic

Jews have been fleeing Russia in droves | Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images As Vladimir Putin’s war rages on for the fifth month in Ukraine and repression suffocates civil liberties back home, Russian Jews are worried they’ll soon become the Kremlin’s targets. Jews have been fleeing Russia in droves; those who’ve stayed behind are terrified of directly criticizing the war, which Putin has cynically claimed he launched to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. “In our congregation, we don’t talk about any political issues,” said a Moscow rabbi who asked not to be named. He added that after a 2011 crackdown on protests linked...

LUGANO, Switzerland (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday the reconstruction of his war-battered country is the “common task of the entire democratic world,” as his prime minister laid out a $750 billion recovery plan once invading Russia’s guns fall silent.“The reconstruction of Ukraine is not a local project, is not a project of one nation, but a common task of the entire democratic world — all countries, all countries who can say they are civilized,” Zelenskyy told hundreds of attendees in Lugano. ”Restoring Ukraine means restoring the principles of life, restoring the space of life, restoring everything that...

President Biden said the United States is “rallying the world to stand with Ukraine” and pledged to support the cause “as long as it takes.” U.S. officials have downplayed the (Russian} gains, calling them halting and incremental. The scrutiny is fueled by U.S. government assessments of other wars, notably in Afghanistan, where officials habitually glossed over widespread dysfunction and corruption and sidestepped questions of whether battlefield successes were not only achievable but sustainable. A Ukrainian lawmaker shared similar concerns. “We are losing the most valuable thing, our soldiers and officers.” Benjamin Friedman, a policy director at Defense Priorities, said that...

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin on Sunday that Moscow and its allies now controlled all of Ukraine’s Luhansk region after capturing the last major city, Lysychansk. (cut) The ministry had said earlier on Sunday that its troops had captured the villages surrounding Lysychansk, encircling the area, and were fighting inside the city. Calls to the Ukrainian General Staff and Defence Ministry went unanswered. The ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The withdrawal of Ukrainian troops to Seversk, Donetsk region, will allow Ukrainian forces to reduce the risk of immediate encirclement by Russian occupation forces. This is reported by the Censor.No, with reference to data from the Institute for the study of war (ISW). So, it is noted that yesterday Russian troops managed to enter Lisichansk and advance within the city, but the Ukrainian military did not officially announce the withdrawal of troops from Lisichansk, but also did not report on defensive battles around the city. Also, according to American analysts, Russian forces may establish control over the remaining territory of...

Volunteers to the country’s territorial defense forces, reserve units of Ukraine’s armed forces, were initially assigned unglamorous but safe tasks in relatively tranquil regions like western Ukraine, where the Russians did not invade. But severe losses of manpower in the Donbas region, where Russia is grinding forward with ferocious bombing and shelling, has forced Ukraine’s military to draw reinforcements from the West. Many of the fighters like Mr. Brukhal, who had no previous military experience, are simply unprepared for that escalated level of fighting. And the training they receive is limited — sometimes two weeks or less. Colonel Kurko said...

A newly released transcript of a call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals Putin prioritized a game of ice hockey ahead of scheduling peace negotiations with U.S. President Joe Biden.The transcript of the Feb. 20 phone call between Putin and Macron was obtained and jointly published by AFP and the French-language publication Le Temps. The transcript revealed that during the call between Macron and Putin, the French president asked Putin to agree to meet U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva, Switzerland for peace talks…

Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have started the war in Ukraine if he was a woman, according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn't, but if he were, I really don't think he would've embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has," Johnson told German broadcaster ZDF on Tuesday evening. Putin's invasion of Ukraine is "a perfect example of toxic masculinity," he said, calling for better education for girls around the world and for "more women in positions of power."

General Timo Kivinen said Finland has prepared for decades for a Russian attack and would put up stiff resistance if it happened. He added a crucial factor is Finns would be motivated to fight. The defence chief said: "Ukraine has been a tough bite to chew [for Russia] and so would be Finland." He added the Nordic country has built up a substantial arsenal. General Kivinen said: "We have systematically developed our military defence precisely for this type of warfare that is being waged there [in Ukraine], with a massive use of firepower, armoured forces and also airforces." Helsinki has...

The conflict in Ukraine is driving a modernization of NATO weaponry, honing the alliance’s ability to face off against Russia and adding to the list of unintended consequences from Moscow’s invasion of its smaller neighbor. Former East Bloc NATO members have been arming Ukraine with Soviet-designed equipment similar to Kyiv’s existing gear. That has permitted a military housecleaning of their own arsenals on a scale that would have been unimaginable months ago. In turn, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will help its eastern members replace those arms with newer ones, greatly improving efficiency.

Shannon Vavra Mon, June 27, 2022, 11:14 AM Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Russia fired a series of rockets at a shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, on Monday, raising alarm bells that Russia is stepping up its attacks on civilian structures regardless of the loss of life. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday there were more than a thousand civilians inside the shopping mall and the casualties to come might bring even more shock and horror to Ukrainian people already confronting so much death and destruction as...

Member states of both NATO and the European Union, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have repeatedly called on NATO to provide a substantial increase in the number of foreign troops stationed in the region following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. The Baltic countries have also pushed for an urgent update to the alliance’s so-called “tripwire” approach. That’s because, under NATO’s existing strategy, Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has warned that the former Soviet state and its historic capital city of Tallinn would be “wiped off the map” in the event of a Russian attack, according to The Financial Times....

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany, June 27 (Reuters) - Two top OPEC oil producers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, can barely increase oil production, French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said he had been told by the UAE's president. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been perceived as the only two countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with spare capacity to boost global deliveries that could reduce prices. "I had a call with MbZ," Macron was heard telling U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 summit, using shorthand for UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin...

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...

Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov has raised and dismissed a rumor about Russian President Vladimir Putin's health. In an audio recording posted Wednesday to his Telegram social media channel, Kadyrov said that he had "read that our president had fallen into a coma" and that "they are looking for a replacement right now." Since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, there has been much speculation about whether the Russian president is ill. Scenes of him gripping the edge of a table on April 21 during a meeting with his defense minister Sergei Shoigu added to the rumor...

A request for Russian military assistance from the head of a Moscow-backed rebel in Ukraine's Donbas region has been batted away by the Kremlin. Facing fierce shelling from Ukrainian forces, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), requested additional assistance from the Russian government in a video published on his Telegram channel on Monday. Pushilin accused Kyiv of using "prohibited methods of warfare," and that the central districts of Donetsk were being shelled while other settlements in the republic were under fire. "In this regard, an understanding was reached that all the necessary additional forces of the...

Russia is scrambling to recruit men to fight in Ukraine after major losses in the early months of the war left the army stretched thin and some soldiers disenchanted. The Kremlin has so far declined to order a general mobilization of draft-age soldiers, because this could signal that the war is not proceeding as well as depicted in the Russian media and threaten to stir grass-roots resistance to the military campaign.

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,...

'It seems now it's our turn to get our lands back': Smirking Putin threatens Sweden and compares himself to tyrant Peter The Great while issuing chilling threat to Scandinavia Vladimir Putin has compared himself to Russian tyrant Peter the Great as he bragged about 'reclaiming' land in Sweden in a chilling new threat to European security. Putin, speaking on the 350th anniversary of Tsar Peter's birth, referenced the Great Northern war which saw an anti-Sweden coalition - led by Moscow - smash the Swedish empire and establish Russia as a new imperial power in Europe. 'It seemed [Peter] was fighting...

The top Ukrainian official who was fired for spreading misinformation has admitted that she lied about Russians committing mass rape in order to convince western countries to send more weapons to Ukraine.Lyudmila Denisova, the former Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, was removed from her position following a vote of no confidence in the Ukrainian parliament which passed by a margin of 234-to-9.Parliament member Pavlo Frolov specifically accused Denisova of pushing misinformation that “only harmed Ukraine” in relation to “the numerous details of ‘unnatural sexual offenses’ and child sexual abuses in the occupied territories, which were unsupported by evidence.”In an...