Free Republic

Vladimir Putin's police state has become so repressive that a popular joke from Soviet times has resurfaced and been repurposed for those Russians today who dare to acknowledge the truth about the autocratic regime they are living under. It tells the story of two FSB (successor of the KGB) agents who are having a beer after work. The first one, Ivan, says to his colleague, 'Tell me, Dmitry. What do you really think about Putin?' and Dmitry replies, 'The same as you do.' Ivan thinks for a moment and says: 'In that case, it is my duty to arrest you.'

A Miriam Cahn painting at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo that incited outrage in France after many claimed it represented pedophilia can stay on view, France’s Council of State said on Friday. The council’s ruling affirmed a prior decision that a lower court had made in March. The legal matter continued, however, after several children’s rights groups appealed it, forcing a higher court to look once more at the case. Cahn’s painting, titled XXXX abstraction !, appears in her current survey at the Palais de Tokyo, one of the largest solo presentations of her work to date. Her paintings are widely...

“Unfortunately, NATO, it seems, considers itself to be at war with Russia,” he said. “NATO and EU leaders, many of them, in England, in the US, Poland, France, Germany and of course EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, they bluntly, publicly and consistently say, ‘Putin must fail, Russia must be defeated.’ When you use this terminology, I believe you think that you are at war with the person who you want to be defeated.” Since the invasion began on February 24, the US, UK and EU have sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and businesses and wealthy businessmen, with the US...