Free Republic

And publicly humiliates hapless deputy PM for 'fooling around' Sergei Surovikin was demoted yesterday after just three months in command He was replaced by his heavily criticised understudy Gen. Valery Gerasimov An enraged Putin also publicly humiliated one of his deputy prime ministers Denis Manturov was blasted for failing to procure military and civilian planes During his short time overseeing the troops in Ukraine, Surovikin was credited with strengthening coordination, reinforcing control and introducing a campaign to knock out the invaded country's public utilities as a pressure tactic. But he also announced a humiliating withdrawal in November from Kherson, the...

When Vladimir Putin unleashed an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the Ukrainian media, public and policymakers almost unanimously began calling the Russian president and the state he leads “rashyst.” The term is a hybrid of a derogatory moniker for Russia – “rasha” – and “fascist.” Ukrainians did so for two reasons. First, they were countering Putin’s absurd insistence that the Ukrainian authorities – including Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – were Nazis and that Ukraine needed to be “de-Nazified.” Since Ukraine’s tiny number of right-wing extremists are about as influential as the Proud Boys in the United...