Free Republic

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Dmitry Kovtun is dead, say reports. Mr Kovtun led an unusual life: from wannabe porn star, rubbish collector, waiter and alcoholic, to one of two Russian agents implicated in the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. What dreams are made of.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has an end date in mind for his war in Ukraine and it is quickly approaching. The Armed Forces of Ukraine general staff said that Russian propaganda “imposes the idea that the war must be completed before the 9th of May 2022.” “Despite the significant losses and demoralized personal composition of the Russian Federation military-political leadership does not refuse to continue the war against Ukraine. The enemy continues to destroy the infrastructure of peaceful cities and villages of Ukraine, rudely violating the rules of war and ignoring the requirements of International Humanitarian Law,” it said on...

A wealthy Russian businessman indicted in Boston late last year on hacking and insider trading charges could have access to documents and information about the 2016 election hacking in the U.S. Vladislav Klyushin was extradited to the U.S. from Switzerland late last month and charged with overseeing a multinational scam that pried privileged documents that companies were filing with U.S. regulators before they were public, then trading on the information. Among his employees, and also named in the indictment, is Ivan Yermakov – who was among a dozen Russian military intelligence officers former special counsel Robert Mueller indicted in 2018...

Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran. Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former inspector and director of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS, member said models of the World Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon and other United States government buildings "were in our headquarters." In an explosive interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper last week, Zakeri stated that al-Qaida leader and Egyptian terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri,...

On the grimy walls of the Ivanovo Machine Tools Factory, a declining Soviet behemoth once venerated as a model of Socialist efficiency, hangs a solitary display of safety guidelines. In a series of fading illustrations, it instructs workers how to behave in the event of a Nato nuclear attack: don your gas masks, head for the nearest shelter and dispatch messengers on horseback to warn outlying villages. Sergei Ivanov, the visiting joint first deputy prime minister of Russia, might not have seen the posters as he strode on to the factory floor, in Ivanovo, a gloomy city 220 miles north...

Symposium: When an Evil Empire Returns By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | June 23, 2006  The Cold War is back. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, is leading his country back into the dark ages of Soviet totalitarianism and instigating a global confrontation between Russia and the United States -- as well as between Russia and the West as a whole. The Russian President has consistently rolled back democratic freedoms. And he is proving that the genie can be placed back into the bottle: he has centralized authority and suffocated dissent in the media and in the nation at large. Reformers making efforts to build...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed that a devastating drone strike which obliterated more than 40 Russian aircraft, including "irreplaceable" nuclear-capable warplanes, was orchestrated from within Russia—right under the nose of the Kremlin’s feared security service. The dramatic operation, which reportedly caused a staggering $7 billion in damage, was launched using 117 drones and struck at the heart of Russia’s air capabilities, hitting 34 percent of its strategic cruise missile carriers. In a remarkable statement on his official X account, President Zelensky shared details of the operation, describing it as a major success that had been in the works for...

MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government...

Newly-declassified memos written by disgraced FBI official Andrew McCabe shine new light on how he kept the Trump-Russia collusion hoax investigation alive during a critical period in the first half of 2017 before he got it handed off to a special counsel. The eight memos penned by McCabe, most of which had never been released until earlier this month, span his discussions and meetings (including with President Donald Trump) held from January 24, 2017 to May 21, 2017 — a critical time period ranging from just before the FBI sprung an interview on retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn to just...

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's defense minister has revealed that two senior Kremlin officials served in military intelligence - underscoring the clout of security service veterans in the administration of President Vladimir Putin. Sergei Ivanov said that Putin's envoy to southern Russia, Dmitry Kozak, and a deputy Kremlin chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, are both veterans of the Russian military General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, known by its Russian acronym GRU. "I know two well-known people who served their military conscription terms in GRU's Spetsnaz (special forces) - Dmitry Nikolayevich Kozak and Vladislav Yuriyevich Surkov," Ivanov told Rossiya state television late...

An Aurus limousine believed to be part of Vladimir Putin’s official car fleet exploded and caught fire in Moscow. Footage appears to show the £275,000 Aurus Senat ablaze on a street just north of Moscow’s FSB secret service Lubyanka headquarters. The car is believed to be part of fleet of vehicles beloinging to the Kremlin's Presidential Property Management Department. Images show the engine fire spreading to the the interior of the limousine. It was not clear who was in the vehicle at the time of the incident.

To the European Court of Human Rights From Oleg Alexandrovich Zhirov, Address ----------- The Netherlands Telephone: -------- A description of the events at the Dubrovka theatrical center, in the city of Moscow, October 23-26, 2002. On October 23, 2002, my wife, Natalya Zhirova, and our 14- year-old son, Dmitriy, were in attendance at the Russian musical 'Nord-Ost', being held at the Dubrovka theatrical center. I learned of the theater's seizure by terrorists from the television. I immediately dressed myself, and within 15 minutes I was at Dubrovka. I received the first call from my wife on my mobile phone as...

Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine. “If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.” The wartime coalition between Putin and his patriarch is called symphonia, an...

Leading white supremacist and antisemite says he’s backing the Jewish candidate over Trump because of former president’s ‘full-throated subservience to Israel and the Jewish lobby’JTA — David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, endorsed Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is Jewish, on his radio show Tuesday. Duke, long one of the United States’ highest-profile white supremacists and antisemites, has repeatedly sought political office while spreading conspiracy theories about Jews. In his endorsement of Stein, he said that she was the candidate with the strongest stance against “Jewish power” because she opposed Israel’s military campaign.“Although Dr....

Top Russian spy defects after betraying U.S. ring By Thomas Grove Thomas Grove 21 mins ago MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's deep cover U.S. spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said on Thursday, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War. The newspaper, Kommersant, named the man as Colonel Shcherbakov, and said he was responsible for unmasking a Russian spy ring in the United States in June whose arrests humiliated Moscow and clouded a "reset" in ties with Washington. The betrayal would make Shcherbakov...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former KGB mentor and one-time crony, who later became an outspoken critic, has died from an unexplained “serious illness,” officials said. Viktor Cherkesov, 72, died in St. Petersburg Tuesday night, according to a Telegram post by Alexander Khinstein, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. “Victor Vasilyevich was a wonderful person and a true statesman. Eternal memory to him!” Khinstein wrote. No cause of death was released, but Russian media reported that it followed a “serious illness.” Cherkesov was a former chief of the now-defunct State Drug Control Service (FKSN) and presidential envoy to...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched an investigation into a radio station backed by leftist billionaire George Soros that revealed the locations of undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A stake in more than 200 Audacy radio stations across the United States was purchased by a Soros-backed group last year. Among those stations was the San Francisco-based KCBS 740, which revealed the live locations of undercover ICE vehicles and agents that were conducting deportation operations around San Jose. The FCC's Enforcement Bureau has reportedly sent a formal Letter of Inquiry to the station as part of an investigation Fox...

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoons. A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president...

For years, world leaders have accused Russia of funding environmental groups in Europe to steer nations away from energy independence and strengthen Russia’s iron grip over the continent. As nations across the globe begin shunning Russian oil in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. leaders are also questioning how deep Russia’s ties go in the environmental community. "The Russians actually fund some of the most rabid environmental groups in Europe because they sic them on the energy projects that aren’t Russian," James Carafano, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign...