Free Republic

Moscow puts subsidiaries of German and Italian firms under the control of a Gazprom division, sparking annoyance from Italy and the EU. In a move that is likely to increase tension between Russia and Western Europe, the Kremlin has unexpectedly announced the "temporary external management" of Russian subsidiaries of Italian water heating company Ariston and German appliance maker BSH Hausgeraete. The subsidiaries, Ariston Thermo Rus, and BSH Household Appliances, now come under the management of Gazprom's Household Systems and are now completely under Russia's control. The Executive Order, signed by President Vladimir Putin, which was revealed on Friday and backdated...

U.S.-provided precision-guided munitions have failed in mission after mission in Ukraine, taken down by Russian electronic warfare. On Wednesday, the Pentagon revealed the latest casualty. A new ground-launched version of an air-to-ground weapon developed for Ukraine on a rapid timeline failed to hit targets in part because of Russian electro-magnetic warfare, Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, said at an event held by think tank CSIS. LaPlante suggested that Ukraine may no longer be interested in the weapon. “When you send something to people in the fight of their lives that just doesn’t work, they’ll try it three times and...

American officials now estimate that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely did not order the assassination of Alexei Navalny, one of his most significant political rivals. Navalny died approximately two months ago in prison, with his body with held from his family for some time after his death. According to the Wall Street Journal,a number of American agencies reviewed the report and certified it. It was based on both classified intelligence and publicly available facts....

The British government said on Tuesday it would commit its largest-ever tranche of military aid to Ukraine as part of a package worth £500 million ($622 million). The assistance will include further deliveries of Storm Shadow air-launched, precision-guided missiles, as well as vessels and vehicles. The Paveway IV—the latest in the Paveway series of bombs—converts unguided munitions, also known as "dumb bombs," into precision-guided weapons. They can use laser guidance or satellites to find their way to a target. "The Paveway IV will enable Ukraine to strike back" at Russian forces and target high-value assets such as command centers and...

Ukraine will be a “humiliating fiasco” for America like Vietnam if Washington continues its muddied involvement, a Russian official said Sunday. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued the scathing comment a day after US lawmakers in the House of Representatives green-lit a long-delayed $60 billion aid bill for Ukraine that will help the war-weary nation buy more advanced weapons and defense systems. “Washington’s deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for the United States, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan,” Zakharova said, adding that it’s become clear the US...

The House speaker’s comments wrecked one of the far right’s most ridiculous, reprehensible tropes.It was a remarkable moment: After introducing a package of bills that includes military aid to Ukraine, Mike Johnson flatly told reporters on Wednesday that enabling Ukraine to defend itself is in the best interests of America and the world. This surprised a lot of people who had wrongly assumed the House speaker was effectively functioning as a stooge for Vladimir Putin—and Donald Trump—and would thus slow-walk Ukraine aid to death before ever allowing a vote on it.Johnson’s new stance has attracted a good deal of positive...

Ukraine's air force has previously said Russia has used the Tu-22M3 aircraft to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at Ukrainian territory. The HUR said the bomber that was downed "carried out a missile attack against Ukraine on the night of April 19." The aircraft was shot down "as a result of a [HUR] special operation in cooperation with the Air Force," it said, adding that it was struck at a distance of about 300 kilometers from Ukraine. The HUR added: "It should be noted that this is the first successful destruction of a strategic bomber in the air during a combat...

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted last August that a drop in the importance of the U.S. dollar was "irreversible"—but there appears to be no sign that the global economy is turning its back on the greenback. "The U.S. Dollar was used in 48% of international payment transactions last year, the highest level in more than a decade. But Brics...," it said next to the graph, which showed the euro making 23.2 percent of transactions and the Chinese yuan way behind at 3.47 percent. "BRICS countries would like their currencies to be used in world trade, but each has a major...

Iran's massive missile and drone barrage targeting Israel over the weekend is similar to Russian tactics used in frequent strikes on Ukraine, according to a new assessment, after Iran launched its first-ever direct strike from its own territory into Israel. "Iran's use of drones and missiles shows how Iran is learning from the Russians to develop increasingly dangerous and effective strike packages against Israel," the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Saturday. Russia has launched thousands of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine in nearly 26 months of all-out war in the country....

.....De Croo said that Belgian agencies are working closely with the Czech authorities after a pro-Russian influence operation was uncovered there. He said that probe showed that members of the European Parliament were approached and offered money to promote Russian propaganda.

Go West, young man – that American slogan [3] of the mid-19th century is not an idea the Ukrainian men of Odessa, Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk, Poltava and Sumy can contemplate today as long as the danger of press ganging into the army in Kiev and Lvov is a higher risk to their lives than staying put in the eastern cities as they collapse. They must calculate that they are better off trying to do without electricity in the east, and wait for the Kremlin to suspend the campaign – as it did during 2023 – or for the Russian General Staff...

Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) has released video of its claimed sabotage operation against a Russian missile corvette on Sunday in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, which the intelligence service said had "disabled" the vessel. The footage purportedly showed a fire being set somewhere inside the Serpukhov Buyan-M class corvette, which is part of the Baltic Fleet and can be armed with either Kalibr or Oniks cruise missiles. The video also showed what were claimed to be blueprints of the vessel, presumably used by HUR operatives to plan the attack. The claimed HUR attack took place while the...

Members of Russian military intelligence unit 29155, who allegedly have access to microwave or ultrasound weapons, had been placed at the scene of reported attacks that resulted in US personnel suffering health problems, according to a year-long investigation by the Latvia-based Insider in collaboration with CBS’s “60 Minutes” and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Christo Grozev, the head of investigations with The Insider, told “60 Minutes” that he uncovered accounting records that show a 29155 officer received a bonus for work related to the development of “non-lethal acoustic weapons.” Unit 29155 has reportedly operated around the world since 2008, and is suspected...

Strikes on Russian oil refineries have a significant impact on Russia’s ability to conduct warfare. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, Commander of U.S. Forces Europe in 2014-17, stated this during the 16th annual Kyiv Security Forum. “Of course, attacks on oil refineries have a significant impact. Russia is less able to pay for this war, and it also deprives it of the necessary fuel to continue hostilities. I would recommend ignoring the calls for an end to such attacks.” The Lieutenant General emphasized that sanctions against Russia need to be strengthened. He also added that 2024 will be the year of...

On March 29, 2024, Ukrainian forces relayed via their social media platforms a notable military achievement: the Signum strike drone unit of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade detected and neutralized the very first next-generation Phlox 2S40 self-propelled mortar using a night-operating FPV drone. This self-propelled mortar, representing a major technological advancement for the Russian army, had been deployed on the Ukrainian front as early as October 2023. The action took place near Bakhmut, marking a significant success for the Ukrainian forces in defensive operations....

Warsaw says soldier died of ‘unexplained natural causes’ while Moscow claims to hit Chasiv Yar command center secretively hosting senior NATO officials Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive commenced, the important city of Bakhmut fell to the Russians. I wrote at the time that it seemed the Russians would also aim to take the town of Chasiv Yar but that didn’t happen because the war shifted to the south and the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Meanwhile, a month later, the so-called hero of Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his Wagner forces, invaded Russia in what looked like an attempted coup d’etat but also...

Gasoline production in Russia has fallen after a series of strikes by Kyiv on the country's oil refineries, figures show. Rosstat, Russia's Federal State Statistics Service, said that in the week ending March 24, the nation's production of motor petrol fell by approximately 7.4 percent to 754,600 tons compared to the week prior, when production was at 815,300 tons, local media reported. Moscow depends on its oil exports and energy industry, which make up some 30 percent of the country's budget revenues and are crucial for the funding of the war in Ukraine. Kyiv ramped up its attacks on Russian...

During interrogation, the terrorist stated that he was promised one million rubles for participating in the terrorist attack and was given one half in advance. Some anonymous people found the Tajik through social networks, who quite easily recruited the terrorist.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Sunday that the difference between democratic and authoritarian regimes is that Russia and Iran would not tell the United States if there was going to be a terrorist attack in the U.S. Host Shannon Bream asked Kaine on “Fox News Sunday” whether the southern border can lead to “real danger” within the U.S., pointing to the attack in Russia that has left more than 133 dead in a Moscow concert hall. He first reiterated that the U.S. warned Russia about this kind of attack earlier this year.

NATO begins to crumble Nato fops and neocon wankers have engineered the biggest military debacle since the HMFIC of Tangut called Genghis Khan a plastic man, very much worse than either Little BigHorn or Dunkirk.You saqy you've never heard of Tangut?? That is because Genghis Khan ordered his commanders to remove every trace on the planet of Tangut ever having existed. Scholars finally started finding written documents in caves in the region towards the middle of the last century; prior to that, they had regarded the tale of Tangut as some sort of a fairytale or a cautionary story for...