Free Republic

As President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has pursued enemies abroad, his intelligence operatives now appear prepared to cross a line that they previously avoided: trying to kill a valuable informant for the U.S. government on American soil. The clandestine operation, seeking to eliminate a C.I.A. informant in Miami who had been a high-ranking Russian intelligence official more than a decade earlier, represented a brazen expansion of Mr. Putin’s campaign of targeted assassinations. It also signaled a dangerous low point even between intelligence services that have long had a strained history. “The red lines are long gone for Putin,” said...

Gonzalo Lira, a prolific online personality who became an outspoken supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, had his home in Kharkiv raided by the security services.Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has arrested Gonzalo Lira—a dual citizen of the United States and Chile, who has been living in Kharkiv—on charges of producing pro-Russian propaganda.Lira, a prolific and controversial online personality, is accused of creating and disseminating materials that justify Putin’s armed aggression against Ukraine. He is facing the possibility of being imprisoned for five to eight years.Lira, a former online dating coach, was arrested on May 1st at his residence in Kharkiv,...

Russia has accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Vladimir Putin in a double drone strike on the Kremlin overnight, prompting demands from lawmakers in Moscow for the Kyiv regime 'to be destroyed'. Moscow said it had foiled the attempt and furiously decried the attack as 'a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the President of the Russian Federation.' But Ukraine quickly responded to the accusation - the most dramatic Russia has levelled against Kyiv since invading its neighbour more than 14 months ago - saying it had 'nothing to do' with the alleged attack, casting doubt...

4 ‘African Socialists’ charged with election meddling for Russia after FIB raided their homes Four American socialists have been charged with election meddling and spreading Putin’s propaganda after they were arrested in dramatic FBI raids. The four, are members of the African People’s Socialist Party. Omali Yeshitela, the group’s chairman was one of the 4 Americans indicted Tuesday for “sowing discord, spreading pro-Russia propaganda and interfering in elections within the United States.” The DOJ says that the 81-year-old veteran leader of the far-left group conspired along with three others to help Russian efforts to meddle in elections. Yeshitela has called...

Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, were both arrested on Monday morning at their addresses in New York. They have been charged with conspiring to act as agents for the Chinese government, and are expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn. Prosecutors say Jianwang tried to persuade a Chinese fugitive to return home, and continually 'harassed and threatened' the individual in 2018. In 2022 China's government asked Jianwang to locate a pro-democracy Chinese activist living in California. The pair admitted to the FBI that they deleted their communications with a Chinese government official...

A Russian war propagandist who called for the destruction of Ukraine was killed in a bomb attack in St Petersburg. Video shows the moment pro-Putin cheerleader Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was handed a statuette of himself by an unnamed woman that was believed to have contained the explosive just minutes before he was blown to bits at the political event in the cafe. -snip- It is not known if the woman who handed him the statue, which Russian media said was a gold-coloured likeness of Tatarskiy and contained 200g of TNT, was aware of its contents.

An attempted assassination by poisoning has been made on Vladimir Putin's de facto deputy, according to a sensational new claim. Nikolai Patrushev, 71, a former head of the FSB secret service and secretary of the Kremlin's security council, was reportedly rushed to hospital in recent days after falling unwell. General SVR, a dissident Russian Telegram channel which claims to be operated by a former Kremlin official with inside sources, said toxicology test results revealed Patrushev had been afflicted by a 'synthetic poison', but had ultimately survived the attempt on his life. The former FSB head is widely seen as the...

The mood among Russia’s special forces and the FSB began to change dramatically in the fall, when Russian troops abandoned Kherson, suffering the latest of many humiliations for the Russian army. ''' We’ve known most of our contacts in Russia’s special forces and the FSB for years, and none was particularly religious before the war. Now a wave of mysticism has descended on them; the apparent trigger being a growing understanding that the war is not going to end anytime soon. '''

Vladimir Putin on Tuesday angrily gave marching orders to Russia’s security forces to redouble their efforts to root out traitors and spies working to undermine his regime. -snip- “Maximum composure, concentration of forces is now required from counterintelligence agencies, including military intelligence,” Putin said. “It is necessary to harshly crack down on the actions of foreign special services, promptly identify traitors, spies and saboteurs.” In an uncharacteristic break from the official line that the so-called “special military operation” is going according to plan, Putin admitted the situation was “difficult” in the four regions of Ukraine that were illegally annexed by...

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser dismissed Arne Schoenbohm as head of the BSI agency, following reports which "damaged the necessary confidence of the public in the neutrality and impartiality" of his management, the ministry said on Tuesday.... The Cyber Security Council Germany, which Mr Schoenbohm chaired until he became the head of the BSI in 2016, was prone to influence from Russian companies and even the Kremlin’s intelligence agencies, the report said. German media have reported that one of its members was a German company that is a subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm founded by a former KGB agent, which...

Today, Special Counsel John Durham moved to unseal this motion in limine in the false statements case against Igor Danchenko. This motion provides new information on the details of Danchenko’s lies to the FBI, further information on how Special Counsel Mueller ignored Danchenko’s false statements, expected testimony from Clinton-connected executive Charles Dolan, and one crazy development. But we’ll start with the the most damning development: Danchenko was on the FBI payroll as a confidential human source (CHS) from March 2017 through October 2020. The purposes of making Danchenko a CHS should be quite clear. The Crossfire Hurricane investigation was plagued...

Before tweeting a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine that parroted Russian demands, Elon Musk reportedly spoke privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a leading political analyst. Eurasia Group founder and president Ian Bremmer in a Monday email to his organization's subscribers said that he spoke with Musk two weeks ago. At the time, Musk told Bremmer that Putin explicitly told him that he was "prepared to negotiate" under the conditions that Crimea remains under Russian control, that Ukraine remained neutral, and that Russia's annexations of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia were enforced. According to Bremmer,...

A leading Ukrainian presidential aide claimed this morning that the explosion which damaged a key bridge in Crimea may have been ordered by one of Vladimir Putin's warring commanders. The 12 mile crossing over the Kerch strait links Crimea to the Russian mainland and is a major artery for Putin's forces that control most of southern Ukraine's Kherson region and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol. It was damaged in an explosion early Saturday morning which saw chunks of the bridge fall into the sea and a large fire break out. The incident prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials...

According to Ukrainian Intelligence, numerous arrests of servicemen have started in Moscow, with traffic in the city centre blocked, although Russian media are failing to report this. Source: Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence Details: Intelligence reports that a set of measures against the servicemen have begun in Moscow, with traffic in the city centre blocked. Units of the Dzerzhinsky operational division – the elite of the Russian Guard – are reported to have entered the city. They are allegedly moving towards the centre together with police units. Quote from Intelligence: "Numerous arrests, detentions and blockades of...

Footage has emerged of a Russian propagandist being brutally arrested for speaking out against high-ranking Russian officials. Affiliates and members of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group have repeatedly criticised the Russian Armed Forces and its leaders on Telegram. Alexey Slobodenyuk, the head of media for a Russian mercenary group fighting in Ukraine, was pulled from his car by a special branch of the National Guard of Russia known for their unwavering loyalty to Vladimir Putin. Slobodenyuk has been accused of attacking defence minister Sergei Shoigu online, claiming that Russia’s current failings in Ukraine were in part due to organisational failures....

Special counsel John Durham and his team cannot tell jurors about how the primary source for the anti-Donald Trump dossier has had links to Russian intelligence, a U.S. judge ruled on Oct. 4. The FBI opened an investigation into Igor Danchenko, the dossier source, after a colleague of Danchenko’s tipped off authorities, saying Danchenko had said he could get the person money in exchange for classified information. The FBI investigation advanced after agents learned that Danchenko had been in touch with the Russian embassy and known Russian intelligence officers and had in the past been interested in becoming a Russian...

Our federal government paid for Russian disinformation to frame the president of the United States for colluding with Russia. ============================================================ The FBI put a contributor to the Hillary Clinton campaign’s Donald Trump smear dossier on FBI payroll as a confidential human source after investigating Igor Danchenko for allegedly spying for the Russian government, revealed Special Counsel John Durham in a court filing unsealed by a Virginia federal court yesterday. The filing contains this bombshell and seven other significant details about the Democrat-led plot to use U.S. intelligence agencies to deny Americans the results of their choice for president in 2016....

Ukrainian citizen Natalia Vovk, identified as the perpetrator of the murder of Russian political scientist and journalist Darya Dugina in the Moscow Region, will be put on the wanted list and her extradition to Russia demanded, a source in the law enforcement has told TASS."Ukrainian citizen Natalia Vovk, who escaped to Estonia after committing the murder of Darya Dugina, will be put on the wanted list and her extradition demanded," the official said....On Monday, the federal security service FSB told TASS that Dugina’s murder had been solved. According to the FSB, it had been plotted by the Ukrainian secret services.

The outspoken Russian ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin called on Monday for revenge against Ukraine and for Russia to push on in its invasion, in his first comments since a car bombing killed his daughter. The Russian authorities on Monday blamed Ukraine for organizing the killing of his daughter, Daria Dugina, on Saturday on a highway in an affluent district outside of Moscow. Mr. Dugin, who Russian media reports said was driving in a separate car behind his daughter when the blast went off, said she had been “brutally killed by an explosion in front of my eyes.” He said the attack...

Alexander Dugin, known as ‘Putin’s Rasputin’, had strongly attacked the Kremlin leader shortly before his daughter Darya was blown up in a car bomb. There had been an online campaign to disparage Dugin in the days leading up to the fatal blast it appears was intended for him instead of his daughter. The revelations add to the theory that TV personality and ultranationalist pundit Darya Dugina, 29, was killed by Russian special services or other forces loyal to Putin. ... Today the Russian FSB claimed that the SBU - Kyiv’s special services - were behind the murder and said a...