Free Republic

The truth is that President Zielenski, at least according to the western press a couple of years ago, is controlled by a man named, Igor Kolomoisky, the Ukrainian man who funded Zelinski's television show back when he was an actor, and who subsequently funded his campaign into power in Ukraine. It might also be relevant that Igor Kolomoisky has a controlling interest in Burisma, the energy company at the root of Hunter Biden's laptop scandal. It is also true that Igor funded the, Azov Battalion, the, according to western press at least, neo-Nazi white supremacist militia that has been terrorizing...

Has land for peace ever worked — even lately? We’ll get to that in a moment, but first let’s look at a critical moment in the Russian offensive in Donbas. If Putin wants to force a face-saving settlement, he needs to win a decisive battle to secure an area that he, um, largely controlled by proxy before the invasion. Reuters casts the ongoing battle on the Siverskiy Donets river as Putin’s last, best hope to get out with some claim of victory:The decisive battles of the war’s latest phase are still raging further south, where Moscow is attempting to seize...

Americans are becoming less supportive of punishing Russia for launching its invasion of Ukraine if it comes at the expense of the U.S. economy, a sign of rising anxiety over inflation and other challenges, according to a new poll.The shifts in opinion reflect how rising prices are biting into American households — surging costs for gas, groceries, and other commodities have strained budgets for millions of people — and perhaps limiting their willingness to support Ukraine financially. That may be a troubling sign for President Joe Biden, who on Saturday approved an additional $40 billion in funding to help Ukraine

"Not so long ago, Republicans said they had sworn off nation-building. Following the failure of the neoconservative project in Iraq and Afghanistan, GOP leaders seemed to have learned their lesson. But apparently not. Now nation-building is back with force, with a massive aid package to Ukraine that makes that country a US client state. Up next: a debate over expanding NATO. Many Republicans in Congress have already lined up to support both, almost reflexively. Why?"

Speaking at the Russian Senate on May 17, 2022, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia focused on some of the most sensitive issues, including the nature of Russia’s dialogue with the West: Back in the 18th century, Russia opened up to the West, which became a source of knowledge for us, an example for the transformation of society. Thousands of foreigners came to our country, and for many of them Russia became a second home.At that time, cultural communication was built largely on shared Christian values. However, in modern times in the West, ideas which I believe...

Walls rattled and pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling of a basement converted by Ukrainian troops into a forward outpost. Russian shells hit again and again the crumpled building above. Images on a surveillance monitor, linked to a camera outside in the deserted village, showed plumes of black smoke rising all around the compound. “The Russians are very angry today because yesterday we killed two of their tanks,” said Marian, a platoon leader in the volunteer Carpathian Sich battalion deployed on the front line near the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Izyum. Like most military personnel, he is only allowed...

In the sky over Ukraine, retired Major General of the Russian Air Force Kanamat Botashev was shot down and killed. Information about the death of the pilot was confirmed to the BBC by three former subordinates of Botashev, who kept in touch with him after the end of the service. They requested anonymity for personal security reasons. Botashev is the highest-ranking pilot whose death became known . Prior to his retirement, he was the commander of an aviation regiment. The participation of such a high-ranking officer in air battles can speak both of how difficult tasks Moscow sets for military...

A veteran Russian diplomat to the U.N. Office at Geneva says he handed in his resignation before sending out a scathing letter to foreign colleagues inveighing against the “aggressive war unleashed” by President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. Boris Bondarev, 41, confirmed his resignation in a letter delivered Monday morning at the Russian diplomatic mission after a diplomatic official passed on his English-language statement to The Associated Press. “For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24 of this year,”...

These people will get us all killed. Mitt Romney called on our NATO allies to prepare for a nuclear strike from Russia. The US has already invested tens of billions of dollars in military weapons to Ukraine. The New York Post reported: The US and its NATO allies should prepare a “devastating” response to potential Russian nuclear action, Sen. Mitt Romney said on Saturday. The call to action comes on the heels of threats from the Kremlin and warnings from Russian diplomats that the country’s Ukraine invasion could lead to a nuclear strike, the Utah Republican wrote in an op-ed...

The United States and the European Union (EU) have been ineffective in their trade war against Russia and are currently working on their sixth package of sanctions. These sanctions have caused price hikes and food shortages, severely harming innocent people all around the world. As the West struggles to constrain Russia’s military mission in Ukraine, European gas importers have already surrendered to Russia. European gas importers have quietly violated the EU’s own sanctions and have begun buying gas in Rubles, capitulating to Russia’s new rules. As the West’s economic warfare scheme backfires, EU leaders are beginning to crack even further....

Ukraine's military said on Tuesday it was working to evacuate all remaining troops from their last stronghold in the besieged port of Mariupol, ceding control of the city to Russia after months of bombardment...

When reflecting on European sanctions against Russia, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said they only work on paper, noting that those who impose a continental blockade usually fail. The European Union is abusing its power and forces an alien culture and ideology upon Hungary, the nation's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday. "However, we still do not let migrants in, we do not give permission for gender ideologies and we do not accept economic measures that would destroy Hungarian families," the prime minister stressed. Brussels is also reducing individual bloc member's powers, Orban continued. He also took a dig...

Russia’s new war goal is to create a land bridge between Crimea and Donbas, join with Transnistria, and seize Ukraine’s coastline,

The USA just gave Russia an excuse to seize all of Ukraine Abraham Stein Apr 25 The United States has just given Russia a valid reason to take complete control of all Ukraine. Today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Diplomat Anthony Blinken paid a visit to the Ukrainian president Zelensky in Kyiv, it was their first visit with Joe Biden as American President. The visit made it clear that the United States is directly involved in the conflict with the Russians, and the comments from Secretary of Defense Austin makes it abundantly clear that only a full Russian takeover...

The propaganda continues to portray the war in Ukraine as that of an unprovoked Goliath out to decimate an innocent David unless we in the US and NATO contribute massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine to defeat Russia. As is always the case with propaganda, this version of events is manipulated to bring an emotional response to the benefit of special interests. One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that ‘s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is...

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 operation with a non-NATO partner that...

On Sunday, Russia entered the third month of its invasion of Ukraine, with no sign of an end in sight. Despite severe pushback in the shape of the toughest economic sanctions ever imposed on a country, the ruble, the Russian currency, appears to be strengthening.What’s become evident is that, despite an enormously broad package of sanctions on Russia’s government and oligarchs, as well as an exodus of foreign enterprises, the moves are mostly ineffectual if foreign nationals continue to consume Russian oil and natural gas, which supports the ruble.On Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, the ruble traded...

According to Western media, now copy-paste reporting the same claims, Russian forces apparently secretly buried *up to 9,000 Mariupol civilians* in "mass graves" in a town just west of the city. Except, it never happened, there is no mass grave. It's actually just a normal, small, cemetery…no pits, no mass graves, just an orderly cemetery whose grave diggers refuted Western claims. On April 23, with journalist Roman Kosarev, I went to Mangush (Manhush in Ukrainian), found a normal cemetery setting, and spoke with the men responsible for burials, who refused the allegations and said they buried each person in a...

Russia has stumbled again. Its southern offensive, the second phase of the Ukraine war, has failed to be the "biggest tank war since World War II," as some analysts were predicting. Instead, Russia's ground forces have shown the same lackluster performance on the ground, unable to break through anywhere. The towns and villages of the south, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, "are the places where the fate of this war and the future of our state is being decided, now." Experts point to May 9th—Victory Day in Russia commemorating the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945—as the next decisive...

Former Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman said Saturday that former President Donald Trump "bears enormous burden of responsibility" for the Russia-Ukraine war. Vindman, who testified in the House during the first impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019, appeared on MSNBC when he was asked about how the situation in Ukraine ties to the actions of the Trump administration. "What is happening on the other side of the world in Ukraine, a country from which you hail, is directly tied to the attacks on democracy that you witnessed in the White House while you were the director for European affairs at...