Free Republic

Russian forces occupied Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, for just under a month. Across those 29 days in early 2022, they committed acts of such barbarity that this Ukrainian town will forever be synonymous with war crimes; this conflict’s Srebrenica. Residents were killed and tortured in their hundreds; more than 100 were buried in a mass grave outside the Orthodox Christian church. Others were murdered as they fled. The basement of a children’s summer camp was converted into a torture chamber where women and children were systematically raped. Soldiers slashed throats, mutilated victims and killed parents in front of...

Decades of ignoring the menaces posed by Russia and China has led the West to a precipice. ... Deterrence, however, does not disintegrate overnight. Contrary to the narrative of U.S. belligerence and imperialism that has been impressed on countless university students, the United States has, since the end of World War II, largely pursued a policy of restraint despite its considerable military power. Unlike other superpowers, it has not sought territories or treasure—on the contrary, it incurred considerable expense to foster a peaceful international order where other nations could thrive. Under the belief that a market economy, normal trading relations,...

... Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, recently got the all-clear for a massive increase in investment after parliament voted to exempt defence spending from strict rules on debt. The country's top general has told the BBC the cash boost is urgently needed because he believes Russian aggression won't stop at Ukraine. "We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is needed to deter that," Gen Carsten Breuer says. He warns that Nato should be braced for a possible attack in as little as four years. "It's not about how much time I need, it's...

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24th, it caused a lot of problems for voices on the right and the left. Putin has a lot of fans in both corners, and these fans had spent years portraying him as a tactical genius, bamboozling us all with his four-dimensional chess moves. Right up until February 23rd, these Putin stans had been assuring us that Putin would never do something as dumb as launch a full-scale invasion of a sovereign democracy. Ever since then, the right have been able to change gears on Putin fairly seamlessly. This is WAR, and...

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be preparing to launch an invasion of Ukraine, with more than 100,000 troops positioned around the country. Certainly, the U.S. believes that’s the case and President Joe Biden has warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that an attack could come in February. But Russia denies it’s preparing to invade and Putin’s intentions remain a mystery.

In May, Vance was among nearly 50 members of Congress added to a long list of lawmakers banned from entering Russia in retaliation for U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow. "In response to the anti-Russian sanctions regularly introduced by the Biden administration, which are intended, according to Washington's plan, to inflict maximum damage on Russia by personally affecting officials and ordinary citizens of our country, entry into the Russian Federation for 500 Americans is being closed as a countermeasure," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement at the time... It isn't clear why Vance was specifically targeted by Russia in May,...

Another apocalyptic conspiracy theory is going around on TikTok — but there’s a simple answer to it. The online panic started when a video of Friedrich Merz, a German politician, posted to Twitter saying, “Dear Colleagues…September 24, 2022, will be remembered by all of us as a day which we will say, ‘I remember exactly where I was.’ “ The remark sparked several conspiracy theories of things going wrong that day, including that a big solar flare would hit the earth and create tropical cyclones resulting in mass destruction, according to Middle East Mashable.