Free Republic

Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has halted its recruitment of prisoners to join the fight in Ukraine, the head of the notorious paramilitary outfit said Thursday. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s claims, which could not be immediately verified, follow independent media reports of Wagner resuming its prisoner recruitment process this winter as it takes heavy losses in Russia’s months-long assault on eastern Ukraine’s Bakhmut. Responding to a press inquiry claiming that Russian inmates have not been recruited into Wagner for more than a month, Prigozhin said: “The recruitment of prisoners in the Wagner PMC has completely stopped.” He did not provide an explanation for...

Russian President Vladimir Putin likely decided to supply the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, but there is no realistic prospect of prosecuting him or others, investigators said Wednesday. Investigators said there were "strong indications" Putin had personally approved the transfer of the missile to pro-Russian separatists during fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014, citing intercepted phone calls. But the probe is being suspended because "all leads have been exhausted" into the shooting down of the plane, which crashed with the loss of all 298 people on board. The announcement comes less than three months after...

Russian forces have been moving thousands of civilians in the occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson over the Dnipro River and deeper into Russian-occupied territory this week. The evacuations, announced by the region’s Kremlin-installed governor Vladimir Saldo, followed warnings from Moscow that Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive meant the regional capital, Kherson, could be recaptured. But Kyiv has condemned the evacuation, describing it as an attempt to forcibly deport Ukrainian citizens and settle them in Russia, tactics that Ukrainian officials say the Kremlin has been employing since the war in Ukraine began. Three days into Moscow’s evacuations, we explain the current situation...