Free Republic

The Kremlin has doubled its funding in 2025 for Yunarmiya ("Youth Army"), the state-sponsored youth organization that combines ideological indoctrination with military training for children and teenagers. According to documents reviewed by the independent Mozhem Obyasnit news outlet, Yunarmia is receiving 1 billion rubles (approximately $11 million) in funding this year, the largest amount since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This year, Yunarmiya is set to receive 800 million rubles ($9.7 million) in state subsidies through the Youth and Children national project, which was launched in 2024 by presidential decree to create “advanced schools” across Russia’s regions. The funds will...

The Pentagon has halted some shipments of air defense missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine over concerns that U.S. stockpiles are too low, two people familiar with the decision said Tuesday. The slowing of some weapons shipments promised to Kyiv by former President Joe Biden's administration came in recent days, they said, adding that air defense interceptors to help knock down Russian drones and projectiles were among the items delayed. In recent weeks Russia has intensified air attacks on Ukraine's cities, on several nights launching hundreds of drones and missiles at a time, leading to widespread damage and an...

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to see the war between Ukraine and Russia come to a close following their meeting at the NATO Summit. Trump was asked about the meeting during his press conference at the summit in the Hague, Netherlands. “He couldn’t have been nicer. I think he’d like to see an end to this, I do. What I took from the meeting — couldn’t have been nicer, actually — but I took from the meeting he’d like to see it end,” Trump said. “I think it’s a great time to end it....

United States President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that "it is possible" Russian President Vladimir Putin might have "territorial ambitions" beyond Ukraine. "I know one thing. He would like to settle. He would like to get out of this thing. It's a mess for him. He called the other day [and] said: Can I help you with Iran? I said no, you can help me with Russia," Trump told reporters while attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) summit. The US head of state remarked that he believes Putin is a "misguided" person, adding that he thought the settlement between...

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is heading to Moscow and will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday. “Russia is a friend of Iran,” he said at a press conference in Istanbul and noted that “in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its security, its interests, its people.” “All options are on the table…. I will have a discussion with them on how it should proceed.”

Several fires burn and smoke rises tonight across the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, following a large-scale missile and drone attack by Russia.

CAIRO: Iran has warned the United States, United Kingdom and France that their bases and ships in the region will be targeted if they help stop Tehran’s strikes on Israel, Iran state media reported on Saturday.

"We express our profound concern regarding the dangerous escalation of tensions in the Middle East" "We strongly condemn Israel's military actions on the night of June 13 in clear violation of the UN Charter & established principles of international law"

The United States will reduce funding allocated for military assistance to Ukraine in its upcoming defense budget, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a congressional hearing on June 10. "It is a reduction in this budget," Hegseth told lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives. "This administration takes a very different view of that conflict. We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation's interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe." The Pentagon has not yet released the full documentation regarding its 2026 budget. According to Hegseth,...

The Ukraine war won't end until NATO withdraws troops from the Baltics, a top Russian official has warned. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister responsible for U.S. relations, nonproliferation and arms control, made the remarks in an interview with state-run news agency Tass.

What needs to happen is simple, but, at least for now, looks pretty suspect if you ask me. Russia would need to get so exhausted from the war that its lines collapse. After losing 1 million casualties, thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, and billions of dollars in bombers and drones, Moscow would one day see its war effort collapse in a mix of exhaustion, anger about the overall direction of the conflict, and a society that had had enough. This would allow Ukraine to reclaim the initiative and retake large swaths of territory. But from here, things get even...

Ukraine's military launched another attack on a Russian airbase, thousands of miles from the frontlines. The attack took place overnight and targeted Savasleyka airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The airbase is home to a number of fighter jets, including the MiG-31 K, which can fire lethal Kinzhal ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s army said the attack had wiped out a MiG-31 K and a SU-30/34 aircraft, which are regularly used to launch aerial bombardments on the country. The airbase is home to a number of fighter jets, including the MiG-31 K, which can fire lethal Kinzhal ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s army said...

Dmitry Novikov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, made the comments to Russian state news outlet TASS. "I think that Musk has a completely different game, [so] he will not need any political asylum, although if he did, Russia, of course, could provide it," Novikov said, in remarks translated from Russian. Musk and Trump, who had been political allies over desired cuts to federal spending, have publicly clashed recently with the feud escalating on June 5 in a series of exchanges across social media and in comments to reporters.

A senior official who dismantled the US government’s Russian disinformation unit is married to a Russian woman with links to the Kremlin, The Telegraph can reveal. Darren Beattie has provoked alarm within the State Department since being appointed in February for his ardent pro-Russian views. He has been noted for his focus on destroying the agency tasked with tackling Kremlin propaganda. Mr Beattie, the acting under-secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, is married to a woman whose uncle has taken several roles in Russian politics and once received a personal “thank you” message from Vladimir Putin.

ATTENTION!So, it appears Zelenskyy gave the go ahead to attack parked Russian nuclear capable bombers without informing @realDonaldTrump (if true that our President was not consulted nor informed, this isn’t simply a breach of protocol. It’s a geopolitical insult and a warning sign. If Ukraine is willing to conduct strikes with strategic consequences without notifying the White House, we are no longer allies with coordination issues—we are co-belligerents flying blind).Also given Senator “warmonger” Lindsey Graham’s and Senator “Da Nang Dick” Blumenthal’s recent visit, this attack could appear as though it was sanctioned. I pray the Russians have better intelligence than...

FOUR Russian airfields housing Putin's nuke bombers have reportedly been blitzed in an extraordinary drone strike - wiping out at least 40 aircraft. Ukrainian drones - reportedly launched from lorries inside Russia - targeted airbases in Belaya, Diaghilevo, Olenya and Ivanovo as part of a daring operation codenamed "Spiderweb".

(AFP) — Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday that Germany along with Ukraine’s other key Western backers had lifted range restrictions on weapons they send to Kyiv to fight against Russia. Merz, who took office early this month, also vowed that “we will do everything in our power to continue supporting Ukraine, including militarily”, in close coordination with other supporters. “There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine — neither by the British nor by the French nor by us nor by the Americans,” he said. “This means that Ukraine can now defend itself, for example, by...

Russian state TV aired a video of Vladimir Putin warning Donald Trump to stop trying to dictate the terms of a ceasefire with Ukraine. Putin stressed that he plans to finish what he started three years ago and warned that Trump should not push him into a US blueprint for stopping the war.

The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter, raising the question: Are we in a recession? Economic growth, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product, has to be negative for more than one quarter for a recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nonprofit research group that officially calls recessions. According to the NBER: "A recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months." The NBER has not yet declared a recession. The current downturn also hasn't met an unofficial definition of recession, which is...

Russia insists on the international recognition of its hold over Crimea, as well as the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, as a condition for peace negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Brazilian news outlet O Globo published on April 28. This demand, reinforced last week by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, underscores how Russia continues to push its maximalist demands despite the U.S. efforts to broker a peace deal. Russia illegally declared the four Ukrainian oblasts as annexed in 2022 following widely condemned sham referenda, but it does not fully control the...