Free Republic

@DougAMacgregor HERE IS WHAT THE MEDIA WILL NOT TELL YOU.. Ukrainian forces are on the verge of collapse, they are totally demoralized. They've all been killed, it's OVER.

President Joe Biden will head to Europe at week’s end for a three-country trip intended to bolster the international coalition against Russian aggression as the war in Ukraine extends well into its second year. The main focus of Biden’s five-day visit will be the annual NATO summit, held this year in Vilnius, Lithuania. Also planned are stops in Helsinki, Finland, to commemorate the Nordic country’s entrance into the 31-nation military alliance in April, and Britain, the White House announced Sunday. The NATO meeting comes at the latest critical point in the war. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says counteroffensive and defensive...

By now, everyone has heard about the narrowly avoided coup in Russia: Last Friday night, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, one of Putin's most trusted allies and the commander of the notorious Russian mercinary Wagner Group, marched on Moscow in an apparent coup d'etat, only to come to a swift agreement with Vladimir Putin and decamp for Belarus. While most commentators acknowledged that things didn't quite add up, the "expert" class happily concluded that at least it had weakened Putin in his war against Ukraine. None seemed to realize the obvious truth: The coup was staged, and completely faked false flag operation. Think...

Made possible/affordable by the magic of boomeranging sanctions...

kraine has fended off Russia's advances for more than 16 months, and it's now several weeks into its long-awaited counteroffensive. The pace is grinding in some sectors of the front, but Kyiv's top general says he doesn't want to hear complaints it's going too slow.Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, told the Washington Post that it "pisses" him off to hear commentary that his counteroffensive operations are moving slower than anticipated. Kyiv's military is currently undergoing several offensive maneuvers along the front lines in the eastern and southern regions and has made small — but, at times,...

78% of Ukrainian citizens have relatives or friends who died or were injured as a result of the Russian invasion. These are the results of a study conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.According to the survey, 63% of respondents have at least one close relative or friend who died. It is noted that, on average, the respondents know closely at least three people who did not return from the war, and that the respondents’ answers are approximately the same in all regions of Ukraine, from east to west.The survey was conducted from May 26 to June 5 by...

The Biden administration is considering giving Ukraine cluster munitions, a U.S. official confirmed Friday. NBC News first reported that Washington was leaning toward providing dual purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) to Kyiv, with an announcement that could come as early as July. A U.S. official told The Hill that “no decision has yet been made but, the U.S. is considering DPICMs for the Ukrainians.” Designed during the Cold War-era, DPICMs are surface-to-surface warheads designed to explode and send multiple small munitions over a wide area to cause maximum damage. Since last year, Ukraine has asked the United States for the...

The Biden administration is considering a plan to send cluster munitions to Ukraine to assist with Kyiv's counteroffensive against Russia, according to two U.S. officials and a person in familiar with the talks. In recent days, the discussion, which involves sending dual-purpose, improved conventional munitions has been growing while Ukraine's efforts against Russia have stalled, but as of late last year the administration was saying it had concerns about delivering the weapons because of humanitarian reasons and because it was not yet determined whether Ukraine needed them at that time, reports Politico. However, the sources said the administration's debate about...

The Biden administration is actively considering sending cluster munitions to Ukraine to help Kyiv’s counteroffensive punch through Russia’s defenses, two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the debate said. The discussion to send dual-purpose improved conventional munitions has intensified in recent days as Ukraine’s effort to break through Russia’s frontline has stalled. The belief among some senior U.S. officials is that the munitions could be one of many tools that makes Ukraine’s campaign more successful. Late last year, the administration said it had “concerns” about delivering the munitions to Ukraine, mainly for humanitarian reasons and also the U.S. didn’t...

How central banks and politicians create the conditions for indentured servitude. Generally speaking, central banks are empowered to control the supply of money by employing a number of tools that include buying government debt, selling government bonds, adjusting reserve requirements, and setting official interest rates. Operating under various legal mandates to sustain an overall healthy economy, central banks ostensibly pursue policies that will produce relatively low inflation, steady economic growth, and low public unemployment. What if these stated goals are merely talking points meant to justify a central bank's continued monopoly over a nation's creation of money, and the true...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) today introduced a resolution to respond to the Russian Federation delivering tactical nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus. This is the first time Russia has deployed nuclear warheads beyond its borders since the fall of the Soviet Union, and represents a serious threat to global security in the midst of the war in Ukraine. Graham and Blumenthal noted their resolution holds that any use of a tactical nuclear weapon by Russia, Belarus or their proxies, or the destruction of a nuclear facility that disperses radioactive contaminants into...

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, two doomsday scenarios have come to capture the imagination of the West. One is that, thanks to climate change, our planet will explode into a retributive blaze reminiscent of the Book of Revelation. The other is that we are on the cusp of inventing an artificial intelligence that will opt to destroy humanity after performing some impenetrable cost-benefit calculation.Our attitude to the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, by contrast, borders on the flippant. It is striking that the Wagner Group’s abortive coup was greeted with neither trepidation nor a sober assessment of...

WASHINGTON, June 25. /TASS/. US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy got in touch with Russian foreign ministry officials amid the situation around PMC Wagner but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has no contacts with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the CBS television channel said on Sunday, citing its sources. According to CBS, contacts with Russia were carried out both between Ambassador Tracy and the Russian foreign ministry and at several other levels. However, there were no contacts between the two countries’ top diplomats.

As armed rebels with the Wagner Group stage a potential coup in Russia, President Joe Biden once again fails to show up on the global stage. According to sources, Biden has been briefed on the situation in Russia and is “closely monitoring” developments. However, it is worth noting the President has yet to comment— a pattern he demonstrates repeatedly regarding foreign policy issues. Biden has, however, tweeted endlessly about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, attacking “MAGA Republicans” for restricting “freedoms by dictating the health care decisions a woman can make.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on...

Russia's Wagner militia forces are headed towards Moscow on Saturday after chief Yevgney Prigozhin initiated a military coup against Putin and his regime, which has seen the group take key cities and mock the President, who called them 'traitors'. Putin addressed the Russian people on Saturday, warning that the military leader had 'stabbed him in the back', as Moscow is on lockdown as troops dig in in preparation to defend the city.

Moscow is preparing for war and battening down the hatches as soldiers build outposts and military vehicles flood the streets ahead of the expected arrival of Russia's Wagner militia forces. Wagner chief Yevgney Prigozhin initiated a military coup against Putin overnight, which has seen the group take key cities and threaten the President, who called them 'traitors'. Putin addressed the Russian people on Saturday, warning that the military leader had 'stabbed him in the back', as Moscow prepares to enter into lockdown, with troops digging in in preparation to defend the city. Prigozhin and his feared 25,000-strong Wagner militia took...

Mutinous Russian mercenary fighters barrelled towards Moscow on Saturday after seizing a southern city overnight, with Russia's military firing on them from the air but seemingly incapable of slowing their lightning advance. Facing the first serious challenge to his grip on power of his 23-year rule, President Vladimir Putin vowed to crush an armed mutiny he compared to Russia's Civil War a century ago. The fighters of the Wagner private army run by former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin were already most of the way to the capital, having captured the city of Rostov and set off on an 1,100 km...

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said Saturday he has ordered his fighters to halt their march on Moscow and return to their bases in Ukraine to avoid bloodshed. Prigozhin's announcement seemingly puts an end to what observers called the most significant challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime in his 23 years in power. In audio posted to social media, Prigozhin said that while his troops were just 120 miles from Moscow, he chose to turn back to avoid "shedding Russian blood."

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has confirmed he has ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to their field camps in Ukraine to avoid shedding Russian blood. 'We are turning back our columns and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan,' an audio message on his Telegram feed said after a meeting between Prigozhin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. An uneasy calm has now prevailed on the streets of Moscow in a city that had been preparing for war. The capital had braced for the arrival of forces from the Wagner...

... 'Headache for everyone in the Kremlin' The formerly media-shy Prigozhin has become the face of Russia's war against Ukraine. His rising publicity has given rise to speculation of possible political ambitions. According to the independent Russian website Meduza, Prigozhin was planning to launch a patriotic and conservative movement that would eventually evolve into a political party — an idea he has publicly denied. As Tatiana Stanovaya wrote in the article for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Prigozhin's ambitions in the political arena may damage his relations with the Kremlin. "The domestic policy overseers don't like his political demagogy, his...