Free Republic

For Ukraine’s Independence Day celebration, Volodymyr Zelensky brought some real fireworks right to the heart of Russia’s occupation. Officials in Kyiv announced this morning that they have landed forces on the western shores of Crimea, raised the Ukranian flag, and have engaged and destroyed Russian forces near two settlements.No word yet from Russia, but this would be bad news indeed for Vladimir Putin if this beachhead succeeds. If it is a beachhead, that is:Special forces landed on the western shore of Crimea, near the settlements of Olenivka and Mayak, in a joint operation with the country’s Navy, according to Ukrainian...

Is Xi Jinping about to say do svidaniya to Vladimir Putin? Or is China’s dictator following an opening set up by Emmanuel Macron to further insinuate Beijing into European security? Karen wrote earlier this morning about how one of Volodomyr Zelensky’s key advisers reacted to Macron’s efforts to get China involved in settling the war. Oleskiy Danilov ripped Macron for negotiating “behind the Ukrainian people’s backs,” and wondering aloud whether Macron would “give up Bordeaux” if invaded … an accusation that could hammer sensitive memories from 1940, and presumably Danilov knows it.Yet less than a day later, Zelensky himself took...

“This is a huge victory for Moscow over Washington,” former national security director John Bolton declared this morning on CBS. “It endangers other Americans in the future, who can be grabbed and used by bargaining chips,” he said of the swap of Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout, one of the world’s most dangerous men before his arrest and conviction.Bolton also revealed in this clip that the Trump administration had an offer to trade Paul Whelan for Bout two years ago. They passed, and as Bolton says, “for very good reasons” (via Caleb Howe at Mediaite):The 1-for-1 prisoner swap of Brittney...

The Kremlin denies it, but right now, it only looks like a matter of time. Russia wants to keep the nuclear power facility in Zaporizhzhia for its own energy needs as well as nuclear hostage in its failing war in Ukraine. The question is whether they can hold it, and for how long. As the New York Times points out, the fallback from Kherson hasn’t bolstered their forces in Zaporizhzhia enough to sustain its seizure in the long run: Following a string of Ukrainian military successes in the south, the Kremlin sought on Monday to tamp down speculation that Russian...

Just how effective have Western sanctions been against Iran — and for that matter, Russia? The US has spearheaded efforts to deny both countries access to Western technology, especially that with dual-use capabilities for military purposes. In the case of Iran, those sanctions and trade restrictions go back decades.And according to an exclusive from the Wall Street Journal today, they appear significantly ineffective. Ukrainian and Western experts have begun looking at the remains of Iranian drones that targeted infrastructure in the Russian invasion, and a lot of the parts come from Western supply chains:New intelligence collected from downed Iranian drones...

Even the solutions turn into problems for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine — big problems. Less than a month after announcing a “partial” mobilization, Russian conscripts have entered into combat in Luhansk. And it appears that they are exiting almost as quickly, provoking even more backlash from nationalist milbloggers who are increasingly balking at Putin’s propaganda. The Ukrainians reported their arrival in combat areas yesterday. Serhii Haidai, the top military official in Luhansk Oblast, claimed that the first conscript wave consisted mainly of ex-convicts: (snip) The Russian milbloggers didn’t take long to confirm the arrival of conscripts — and to complain...

It’s Election Day in parts of Ukraine — but only because Russia imposed it. Vladimir Putin ordered referenda on annexation held in the parts of the Donbas that Russia still controls — and some areas it no longer does — in order to justify the seizure of those areas. That seizure will allow Putin to claim that any further Ukrainian advances in those areas are an invasion of Russia, which will unlock his ability to order full mobilization … and potentially other options.We’ll get to the full-mobilization issue in a moment, but let’s stick to the referenda first. Ukrainian authorities...

The Russians find themselves out of options in their collapsing effort to overrun Ukraine. Not only did they fail to keep territory they seized in the invasion over the late winter and spring, Russia has begun to lose ground it held before the war. They’re running out of resources, and more importantly, running out of troops as Ukraine’s counteroffensive threatens to collapse their lines. What better time than now to hold a plebiscite, eh? Unfortunately, Russia may see that as their only recruitment option in Luhansk and Donetsk:(snip) Er … keep dreaming. Vladimir Putin has no concerns over even the...

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...

Let the record show that Russia may see cutting off its future revenues as a lesser price to pay than denting Vladimir Putin’s ego. And that could very well be a rational calculation, given the tremendously destabilizing impact that a humiliation in Ukraine would likely produce. However, the humiliations stacking up on the other side of the equation carry a cost too, sometimes literally : Russia will cut natural gas supplies to Finland on Saturday, according to Finland’s state energy provider, the latest salvo in a growing confrontation between the two countries over the war in Ukraine. Finland this week...

The Miami Herald slammed Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., for working with a "fake news site" on Tuesday, after the governor’s campaign committee spent thousands of dollars on fundraising help from the popular conservative political satire site The Babylon Bee. In the April 5 piece headlined, "DeSantis calls out ‘fake news,’ but his campaign used fake news site to raise cash," The Herald attempted to point out the alleged hypocrisy of the DeSantis administration opposing fake news while endorsing a website that writes joke headlines and articles to make satirical points..... While The Herald explained that campaign committees paying advocacy groups...

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he has not seen any Israeli evidence of Hamas operating in Gaza office building hit by airstrike over the weekend. Blinken says he has asked Israel for justification for the strike. Blinken spoke at a news conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, as pressure is increasing on the Biden administration to ask for a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel destroyed a building housing The Associated Press and other military, and claimed that Hamas used the building for a military intelligence office. That contradicts a Jerusalem Post report over the weekend. It also defies common...

Everyone has seen the video that prompted the mass outpouring of anger into the streets of America. What do the body cam videos of the killing of George Floyd show that might change minds on the case? Counsel for one of the other officers on the scene submitted a motion to dismiss today, arguing that the video showed that Thomas Lane could not possibly have known that Derek Chauvin was committing a crime, let alone aid and abet it.Good luck with that motion, Earl Gray: Gray has argued in court that the case against Lane should be dismissed because...

More to the point, Donald Trump doesn’t think Democrats can work with him either. In his Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump complained bitterly about the “damage” done to his family and the country in the impeachment and trial. “I’d like to” work with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, Trump told Hannity, but they’re so dishonest and obsessed with winning that he doesn’t think it’s possible.That sounds like exactly what Pelosi and Schumer would say, too: HANNITY: Two hundred and seventy days from now, I guess the ultimate jury –the American people — go to...

This didn’t take long, did it? Almost as soon as Mitch McConnell got past the 51st vote to use the rules from Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial for Donald Trump’s, he moved to seal the victory: Senate Republican leaders are preparing to move forward on a set of impeachment trial rules without Democratic support.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the verge of having sufficient backing in his 53-member caucus to pass a blueprint for the trial that leaves the question of seeking witnesses and documents until after opening arguments are made, according to multiple senators.That framework would mirror the...

Do Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump want John Bolton to offer a deposition to House Democrats? One might think that, under the circumstances, the president and his attorney might want to lower the temperature with Trump’s former national security adviser after Fiona Hill’s testimony. Instead, Giuliani wasted no time in trolling Bolton over Hill’s reports about his reaction to Giuliani’s work in Ukraine.His conversation with New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi wasn’t too bad: I asked Rudy Giuliani, “If you had to describe yourself as a weapon other than a hand grenade what weapon would you be?” Giuliani responded, “I’m...

To be fair, blame the Germans has proven to be a solid political strategy regarding European affairs for quite a while, and not for no reason. It’s nearly as popular in the UK, historically speaking, as blame the French. And Leo Varadkar might be happy that Boris Johnson isn’t blaming Ireland for the no-deal Brexit everyone knows is coming.But even as much as everyone likes to blame the Germans, this looks like a stretch: An anonymous official in Boris Johnson’s office told broadcast reporters on Tuesday that negotiations with European leaders over Brexit were “essentially impossible” after the British...

The first rule in setting an elephant trap? Don’t let the elephant see it. After Parliament wrested control of the agenda away from PM Boris Johnson and Tories expelled 21 of its MPs, Johnson demanded a snap election on October 15th and dared Jeremy Corbyn to agree to it: Johnson cast the rebellion as an attempt to surrender to the EU, vowed never to delay Brexit beyond Oct. 31 and challenged opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to agree to an Oct. 15 election.“Can I invite the leader of the opposition to confirm, when he stands up shortly, that...

You’ve heard of buyer’s remorse, but now Democrats appear to have developed a case of Bernie remorse. After rushing to out-socialist Bernie Sanders by unquestioningly embracing Medicare for All, the Washington Post reports that presidential candidates have begun singing a different tune. Kamala Harris might be carrying the melody, but she’s getting a lot of harmony from the rest of the choir: The Democratic senator from California is hardly alone. The idea of Medicare-for-all — a unified government health program that would take over the basic function of private insurance — became a liberal litmus test at the outset...

For perhaps the first time this year, I find myself in full agreement with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide seem very strange indeed, so much so that it raises all sorts of questions as to what happened, how, and especially why: Ocasio-Cortez is hardly the only person demanding answers either, as Epstein’s victims have been robbed of their opportunity for justice. Epstein wasn’t just some minor figure sitting in a local lockup who had never sent out any signals of potential self- (or other-directed-) harm. “He was probably the most high-profile inmate” in federal custody in...