Free Republic

The missing American who’d traveled to Ukraine years ago to aid Russian separatists in Donbas was found dead in the country’s war-torn eastern region. The body of Russell Bentley, a 64-year-old U.S. Army vet, was recovered in the Russian-controlled region of Donetsk Oblast, Reuters reported. -snip- The former pothead, who used “Texas” as his military call-sign, left behind a yoga instructor girlfriend to travel to Ukraine. He utilized crowdfunding sites to finance his trip, and had since become a Russian citizen. He also got married after moving to Ukraine, where he began working as a reporter for the state-owned Sputnik...

Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk region, wrote on Telegram that the city of Donetsk was subjected to heavy strikes on New Year's Eve, while a statement from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the assault on the city a "terrorist act" and alleged Kyiv's forces had targeted civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko reported in a Telegram post that members of the Russian "elite" based in occupied Donetsk were attending a New Year's dinner with guests from Moscow at the time of the attack... Pro-Ukrainian X user (((Tendar))) wrote that "accurate readings on what the casualties...

For people who don’t know, Christmas in Russia/Ukraine is a more traditional advent thing, and it’s not commercialized like in the West. It’s also on the 7th of January, because the Eastern Church uses the Julian (solar) calendar. So, New Year’s is the bigger celebration day of the period. They’ve even started with the Western-style gifts, but they do it on New Year’s, not on Christmas.

More than 60 Russian soldiers may have been killed or wounded by friendly fire as they made a hasty retreat from the village of Opytne, in the Donetsk region, Russian sources have said. The chaotic withdrawal was mistaken for a rapid Ukrainian advance across an open field by a Russian drone operator who ordered an artillery strike. Pro-Kremlin military bloggers initially said that the 200 Russian troops were retreating to “more favourable positions”, as Ukrainian forces gradually overcame their defences around the village, which is less than two miles north of Donetsk airport. But one source with knowledge of the...

Ukraine said on Monday its troops had regained more territory on the eastern and southern fronts in the past week of its counteroffensive against Russian forces. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said in televised comments that Ukraine had retaken nearly 2 square km (0.77 square mile) of land around the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia in May after months of fighting. She later added on the Telegram messaging app that the Ukrainian army had in the past week also recaptured 4.8 square km in the southern Tavria sector. In her televised comments, Maliar said Ukrainian forces had captured...

No one was thinking that all this would lead to war. People were scared and unhappy and doing something about it. That the protest took on such a strong separatist colour was due less to the protesters’ basic demands (regional autonomy might have been enough for many) than to the recent Russian annexation of Crimea. ‘The contradictions didn’t necessarily lead to war,’ Dergunov said. ‘But when Crimea went with the option of total separation, it pushed the extremes, both pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian, to the fore. That was Putin’s real crime – this is what created the war.’ Then, on 12...

Last week, following two days of heavy fighting along the southern front in Ukraine, I concluded that the expected push from the south into the back of the Ukrainian forces at the Donetzk frontline, was finally happening. Ukraine - Russian Army Activates Southern Front I was wrong. I, and other analysts following the war, had been deceived by the sudden rush of news from that frontline. It said that Russian forces made progress in a large number of towns. But nearly as soon as I had published my peace that news died down. In the following days nothing happened but...

NATO's head said earlier this month that Russia may want the fighting to slow, seeking a "freeze" in the fighting so it can better prepare for a bigger assault next year. "What we see now is Russia is actually trying to have some kind of 'freeze' of this war at least for a short period of time so they can regroup, repair, recover," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. "And then try to launch a bigger offensive next spring." The UK Ministry of Defence predicted on Monday that Russian forces will not see any big gains over the winter, even...

Oct 30, 2022 (3 hrs. ago) YouTube video Update from the Vuhledar region in Donetsk: Russian forces launched an early morning attack on the 29th Oct 2022, against Vuhledar and Pavlivka. Heavy artillery hits the Ukrainian lines while suicide drones took out Ukrainian SAM systems located west of Vuhledar. With the SAMs taken out, Russian air force operated freely to disrupt any reinforcements the Ukrainians set out to back up the defense lines. TOS-1A framethrowers were reportedly used at the Pavlivka assault. The first line of defense at Pavlivka is overran by the Russian forces, as the Ukrainians are unable...

Putin “declared” martial law in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine on Oct. 19. The measure, while illegal, could be used to justify tighter control over essential infrastructure and public transportation. The decree bans people from leaving the regions, greenlights Russian forces to deport people into Russia and confiscate their property, and establishes so-called “territorial defense units.” To fill those units, Russian troops plan to forcibly recruit locals. In Russian-occupied Donetsk, Oleksii knows a thing or two about forced conscription. Like thousands of others, he has been hiding at home for over eight months as Russian proxies grab people from the street...

Ukraine's Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate announced a reward of $100,000 on Saturday for the capture of Igor "Strelkov" Girkin. Girkin is a former Russian FSB agent and a key figure in Russia’s initial occupation of Ukraine in 2014, when he led Kremlin-backed separatists to seize Slovyansk, in the Donetsk Oblast. A former Russian intelligence officer who once boasted he had “pulled the trigger of war” in Ukraine, Girkin served as the leader of the Kremlin’s forces in Slovyansk in the first months of the 2014 conflict. Going by the pseudonym Igor Strelkov (which means “shooter” in Russian). Girkin was...

Russia is preparing to evacuate senior officers in the Federal Security Service (FSB) and their families from occupied areas of Ukraine, Kyiv on Wednesday claimed. According to the National Resistance Center (NRC), which is a civilian resistance office launched by the Ukrainian government following Russia’s invasion, senior Russian officers in the FSB have been "informed about the evacuation routes." The NRC said officials in all five occupied regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea – have been notified of evacuation plans.

Oleksii tells me: "I feel safe here because we are on our land and even the ground will bring me help." That's despite the nearby sound of small-arms fire, exploding artillery shells landing within sight and the roar of Russian jets overhead. The ground he and the small team of Ukrainian troops now occupy is on the border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The same ground that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently declared as being Russian forever. Over the past week the men of Ukraine's D1 National Guard Unit have advanced more than 20km (12 miles) east from the...

Ukrainian troops have reported outages of their Starlink communication devices on the frontline, hindering efforts to liberate territory from Russian forces, according to Ukrainian officials and soldiers. Thousands of Starlink terminals, made by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, were purchased by the US government and crowdfunded by donors to help Ukrainian troops operate drones, receive vital intelligence updates and communicate with each other in areas where there are no other secure networks. The systems which connect a small antenna to a 35-centimetre-high terminal also provide internet for Ukrainian civilians. Some of the outages led to a “catastrophic” loss of communication in recent...

A sense of unreality continues to permeate Russia and their claims to annexation of southern Ukraine, and that may be almost literally. Newsweek reports today that the Kremlin added “fake cheers” to Vladimir Putin’s speech on Friday announcing the annexation to sell this glorious nonsense to a Russian audience that has clearly grown tired of the war. And speaking of the audience … Unedited footage from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation speech in Moscow on Friday appears to show fake cheers were edited onto clips broadcast on state TV, while reports say that people were bussed in to attend the...

In less than 24 hours part of Ukraine becomes part of Russia and NATO just held a secret meeting to ramp up the war. Vladimir Putin pointed the finger directly at the U.S. for its attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Germany is on the brink of collapse as German energy experts point to coming blackouts.

Voting in internationally criticised referendums for four Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories to become part of Russia has continued into its third day despite shelling by Ukrainian forces. ...

Four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine are expected on Friday to begin voting in referendums on joining Russia, in a move that raises the stakes of Moscow’s invasion seven months after fighting began. The referendums, which are illegal under international law, could pave the way for Russian annexation of the areas, allowing Moscow to frame the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive as an attack on Russia itself. Such a move could provide Moscow with a pretext to escalate its faltering war, which has seen Kyiv regain thousands of square miles of territory this month. In an address Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised...

The referendum ascertains three sequential decisions: secession of territories from Ukraine; formation of an independent state; and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject. The referendum on September 23-27 in the Donbass and southern Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine on their accession to Russian Federation is, prima facie, an exercise of the right of self-determination by the native population who reject the Western-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014 and the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi leanings in the power structure. But it has other dimensions, too. In all probability, the referendum will overwhelmingly opt...

STORY: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces are set to hold referendums between 23 and 27 September. Vladimir Vysotsky, the voting chief, showed reporters ballot boxes made of clear plastic, promising the voting process would be “just as transparent”. The stations Vysotsky visited on Thursday were, according to his estimation, 100% ready for polling. ...