Free Republic

A Russian army general who was blamed for a costly HIMARS strike on troops in occupied Ukraine last year has been removed from his post, according to pro-war Russian Telegram channels. Lieutenant General Sukhrab Akhmedov was dismissed as commander of the Russian 20th Combined Arms Army (CAA), per reports from prominent Russian milbloggers. The formation is currently engaged in Russia's grinding offensive towards the eastern city of Lyman on the Donetsk front. -snip- Akhmedov has been involved in multiple battlefield setbacks since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, including the 20th CAA's recent inability to make significant progress on...

Gazprom, the energy giant at the heart of Russia's economy, has announced it is selling property in Moscow, one week after posting record losses linked to restricted supplies to Europe linked to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The company said on Wednesday that the properties include office and non-residential buildings, a car parking lot in the capital, and the Imperial Park Hotel and spa sanatorium and resort complex in Rogozino village, just outside of Moscow. "Gazprom is engaged in a fire sale. They had their worst year in decades, and their production has fallen precipitously, down to what it was...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed replacing his defence minister and long-term ally, Sergei Shoigu, more than two years into the Ukraine war, the upper house of parliament said on Sunday. Putin proposed Andrei Belousov, former deputy prime minister, as the new defence minister.

Tanks and columns of troops are massing in Moscow ahead of Russia's annual Victory Day - timed this year to coincide with Vladimir Putin's latest presidential inauguration after another election victory denounced as a 'sham'. The despot is set for another six years in the Kremlin after emphatically and unsurprisingly winning March's presidential poll, with his new term formally beginning on Tuesday. -snip- Last year's Victory Day parade featured just a single tank, a Second World War-era T-34.

Vladimir Putin has had to cancel multiple Victory Day parades over ‘security risks’. -snip- Celebrated every year on May 9, the Victory Parade will take place online in some regions, Elena Tsunaeva, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labour, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs, announced. Portraits of veterans will be placed on public transport instead of the procession. Heads of multiple Russian regions and occupied Crimea, for example, announced that events will be scaled back or not happening at all, despite it being the most solemn day in the Russian calendar. Victory parades and fireworks have...

A Russian deputy defence minister has been accused of taking bribes and remanded in custody by a court in Moscow. Timur Ivanov, who denies the charges, is accused of accepting bribes "on a particularly large scale". Appointed to the defence ministry in 2016, Mr Ivanov, 47, has been responsible for Russia's military infrastructure projects. Mr Ivanov is considered an ally of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and has worked with him for many years. He was previously deputy prime minister of the Moscow region, where Mr Shoigu briefly served as governor. -snip- In 2022, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), the group founded...

Polish director Besaleel’s film will feature an AI-rendered Russian president and footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion. The “world premiere” of a new biopic of Russian president Vladimir Putin featuring an AI-rendered central character, has been announced for 26 September. In a statement released via PR Leap, Polish studio AIO said the film, titled Putin, will be released in 35 countries, and describes itself as “up close and personal with the Kremlin leader’s story”. -snip- Originally titled The Vor in Law (a term used for elite organised crime figures), the film also incorporates footage shot by Ukrainian...

"You can't go anywhere at all, not even to Uzbekistan or Belarus for the May holidays," said one source. -snip- Russia is making overseas travel harder for some officials due to fears that foreign powers may try to gain access to state secrets during the worst crisis in relations with the West for more than 60 years, nine sources told Reuters. The Federal Security Service (FSB) is putting pressure on employees across government ministries not to leave Russia at all, even to visit so-called 'friendly' countries that have not imposed sanctions against Moscow, the sources said. Foreign travel was highly...

New videos appear to show a fire raging in northern Crimea, after reports of explosions around a military airfield overnight. Footage widely circulated on social media by Russian and Ukrainian sources early on Wednesday show bright flashes of light and explosions, with sirens wailing in the background. A local Telegram channel reported "several loud explosions," starting just before 4 a.m. local time, before a fire broke out. Roads around the air base are blocked, the channel later reported. Dzhankoy is a major military hub, home to one of Russia's largest airfields in Crimea. It is a key location for supplying...

Up to 30 Russian personnel may have been killed and another 80 injured, according to a new report, after dramatic footage appeared to show explosions at a Russian military base in northern Crimea overnight. "About 30 Russian servicemen were killed and about 80 were wounded at the airfield in Dzhankoy," a Crimean-based Telegram channel called Crimean Wind reported on Wednesday. Crimean Wind is a pro-Ukrainian monitoring group that focuses on Crimea and generally offers reliable information. Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine's southern forces, described Dzhankoy as a legitimate military target on Wednesday but declined to offer up further details. A...

Sergey Lavrov has affirmed that Russia supports Iran's response against Israeli aggression. In a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov emphasized that Russia would vehemently back Iran's response against "Israel" at the United Nations Security Council. Lavrov additionally affirmed that the Iranian response was "responsible and within an interval of self-control," and noted that Russia never doubted Iran's intention to retaliate against "Israel's" aggression against its consulate and officials in Syria. He also described the aversion of certain countries to condemn "Israel's" attack against the Iranian consulate as "unfortunate". On his part, Amir-Abdollahian...

Russia said on Sunday it was extremely concerned by Iranian strikes on Israel and called on all parties to exercise restraint but said tensions would remain high until the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians was resolved. -snip- Russia noted that Tehran had said the attack was made within the right to self defence after Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that Moscow condemned. Russia, which has close ties to Iran, said that the West had blocked attempts in the United Nations Security Council to respond to the Israeli strike on the consulate. "We have repeatedly warned that...

Tens of thousands of residents in the Russian city of Orenburg and neighbouring Kazakhstan have been told to evacuate immediately as flood waters inundate homes. -snip- Orenburg is home to half a million people, and the city's mayor Sergei Salmin said the situation was extremely dangerous. "Over the last 10 hours, the water level in the Ural River has risen by 40cm … these levels are dangerous," he wrote on the Telegram messenger app. He called on residents to gather essential items and to abandon their homes. Emergency workers said water levels in the Ural River were more than two...

Russell Bentley, an American who fought against Ukrainian forces, is missing in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, police there said Friday, adding that a search was underway. Bentley went missing on April 8, according to police. The online news outlet Mash said he had disappeared after a district in the city of Donetsk was shelled by Ukrainian forces. Mash cited his wife as saying he had gone to see if anyone needed help but had not returned. She was quoted as saying she had found his car with his baseball cap in it along with his smashed mobile...

Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson on SiriusXM's 'The Megyn Kelly Show' addressed the divide on the right on Israel and called out Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens for criticizing the situation on the ground in Gaza. -snip- VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Most of the evangelical community I know is still very pro-Israel. I think what we're talking about is the libertarian, right intellectual movement. I know that Tucker Carlson is voicing things, Candace Owens has, the CATO Institute's been very vocal. There's some people on that website who've called for breaking relations almost with Israel. But I don't think...

Tucker Carlson invited Palestinian Christian Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac to discuss the situation in Gaza and attacked Christians who support Israel's war in Gaza, independent US news website Mediaite reported on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson engaged in a discussion with Isaac, shedding light on the complexities of Christian support for Israel's actions in Gaza. Carlson's critique of Christian leaders in the United States was blunt, arguing that they are "not being more critical of the destruction in Gaza." He backed his views on the ongoing war and the US Christian leader's response, remarking: "If you wake up in the...

I used to enjoy the occasional Tucker Carlson monologue on Fox News. His content was usually pointed and amusing and delivered with a breezy charm. But I rarely bothered with a Tucker Carlson interview. As an interviewer, too often, I found him strangely incurious and glib instead of breezy. But his interview on Tuesday with Reverend Munther Isaac was so much worse than merely glib or incurious. Carlson chose to interview Isaac to find out how the Jewish State of Israel treats Christians. Isaac is a priest who neither lives nor works in Israel and who uses the loaded phrase...

Tucker Carlson has sparked ire among several conservative commentators after interviewing a Palestinian pastor, who discussed how the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has affected Christians in the region. -snip- “This is mendacious hit piece that shows Tucker's generally well-hidden hand. The Christian population of Bethlehem all but disappeared after the PLO took over in 1996 due to Islamic persecution. The only Christian population in the Middle East that is growing is the Christian community in Israel. The Christian community in Gaza disappeared after Hamas took over in 2005.” -snip- Darrell C. Scott, a pastor and vocal supporter of former President Donald...

Tucker Carlson has made a name for himself as a conservative political commentator, though it seems that not all of his kids share the same political views as him. Three of his four adult children are registered Democrats, In Touch can exclusively confirm. The former Fox News host, 54, shares children Lillian, Buckley, Hope and Dorothy with wife Susan Andrews. Buckley, 27, was the first of Tucker’s children to register as a Democrat, which he did in The District of Columbia on June 5, 2015, according to voter registration ​records viewed by In Touch. Lillian, 29, later registered as a...

Watch footage of the bizarre tanks ploughing through the battlefield. PUTIN'S failing forces have resorted to using bizarre mobile sheds on the battlefield in an attempt to withstand Ukrainian kamikaze drones. Russian tanks have appeared underneath turtle shell-like cages after it was revealed that a humiliated Putin has lost almost all of the tanks he had when he began his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Strange footage shows a row of ageing Russian tanks trawling through fields under the steel covers. The odd-shaped metal blanket appears to be designed to shield Putin's dwindling fleet from Ukrainian onslaught. Up close clips show...