Free Republic

During his visit to Chechnya on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stopped at the Prophet Isa mosque in Grozny and posed for photos while holding, and kissing, a gold-leaf copy of the Quran. Putin was flanked by his hand-picked Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and top Chechen Muslim cleric Mufti Saah Mezhiev during his Quran smooch. The Grand Mufti ceremonially read a verse from the Quran, translated into Russian for Putin. The Prophet Isa mosque, constructed in 2020, is a huge and expensive structure that can accommodate 5,000 worshipers at once. “Prophet Isa” is Islam’s version of Jesus Christ, who ranks...

Vladimir Putin's forces have been caught red handed going on a looting spree in their own country amid the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk. The Russian 'defenders' took advantage of the chaos caused by the stunning cross-border incursion launched by Kyiv's forces almost two weeks ago to steal goods from a mobile phone shop. A quartet of Moscow's soldiers are seen helping themselves in a MegaFon store in frontline town of Glushkovo in shocking security footage. At least three of the four are thought to be from the elite Chechen assault force Akhmat, which was partially responsible for defending the border...

Vladimir Putin is feeling the stress from Russia's invasion of Ukraine - as he is seen wringing his hands in a meeting with his top officials after Volodymyr Zelenskyy's troops bit back and made a counter-incursion into the country. The dictator, 71, was in a security council session on the crisis he faces due to Ukraine's dramatic invasion of the border areas of Kursk region. His very public hand-wringing and fidgeting came as he was told earlier this week about how Russia had lost territory to Kyiv troops and - at the time - more than two dozen settlements, a...

The head of a Russian private militia has called on the army to overthrow Vladimir Putin in what is potentially shaping up to be the biggest threat of revolt the Kremlin has faced since the Wagner mutiny last year. Georgy Zakrevsky is the founder of the Paladin PMC, one of many shadowy military groups like the former Wagner militia, that are loosely linked to the Kremlin. The private military company (PMC) has around 300 members and has fought in wars around the world, including in Syria and Africa. Zakrevsky launched a blistering attack on the Russian president during a video...

-snip- After my first trip to Ukraine, a few readers wrote in or left comments urging me to check out the assessments of retired colonel Douglas Macgregor, contending he had the real scoop. I wasn’t familiar with Macgregor, but a bit of digging illuminated the retired colonel’s very consistent assessment of how the war is going: March 4, 2022: “The first five days Russian forces I think frankly were too gentle. They’ve now corrected that. So, I would say, another ten days, this should be completely over.” March 15, 2022: “The Ukrainians are being crushed. Even the Washington Post and...

Terrified dictator Alexander Lukashenko has urged Russia and Ukraine to agree a peace deal to avoid the war spilling over into Belarus. President Lukashenko, a key ally of Vladimir Putin, said he fears Kyiv's troops are now planning an incursion into his nation after they launched a cross-border offensive in Russia. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers smashed through Russia's western border on August 6 in a major embarrassment for Putin's top military brass. Now in an interview with Russia state television, Lukashenko has said that only 'high-ranking people of American origin' wanted the Ukraine-Russia war to continue. The West, he said,...

North Korea's supreme leader has reiterated his country's support for Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and expressed his intention to foster closer ties between the two regimes. "I express firm belief that the strong and brave Russian people will firmly defend the sovereign right and security interests of the state and surely win victory in the sacred war for regional peace and international justice," Kim Jong Un said on Thursday, according state news agency KNCA.

While Belarus’s Lukashenko has commented on the cross-border attacks, Central Asian nations stay mum. Almost two years ago, a dozen Uzbek youngsters pleaded with their president to save them from the horrors of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Uzbek nationals enrolled in western Russia’s Kursk Medical University recorded a video address to Shavkat Mirziyoyev in October 2022 saying their studies had been affected by Kyiv’s shelling of nearby towns and the hostilities in the neighbouring Ukrainian region of Sumy. “Please transfer us to medical schools in Uzbekistan,” one of the students said. Uzbek diplomats pledged to assess the situation. There have been...