Free Republic

Moscow is in a tizzy: The denizens of the Russian capital did not see this version of President Trump coming for Mad Vlad. Prior to Trump’s inauguration, Russia’s gilded oligarchs and apparatchiki were confident the 47th president of the United States was going to serve Ukraine to Russian President Vladimir Putin on a silver platter. That was then. This is now — and the man from Mar-a-Lago has Moscow panicking. Instead of giving Putin the golden keys to the Ukrainian kingdom, Trump issued an ultimatum to the Kremlin: Cut a deal to end the war or, as he posted Wednesday...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals have an artful knack for keeping the Russian military bear off-balance. On Sunday, they renewed their offensive in the Russian Kursk Oblast, once again catching the Russian high command, Kremlin, and many pundits by surprise. Reports of a demoralized Ukrainian army fighting to retain terrain captured during the August Kursk offensive — of which at least 40 percent has been lost — have circulated among western media and Russian milbloggers since November. So too reports that Ukraine’s 155th Mechanized Brigade — trained and equipped by France — was under-resourced in “first person view...

How many Ukrainian civilians have been killed by missiles, drones and artillery fired from the Crimean peninsula? How many of those munitions were made in Iran or North Korea? It is highly doubtful that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would use its limited ATACMS munitions to attack non-military targets — particularly as at no point during the war up to now has Ukraine intentionally targeted Russian civilians. Rather, it is more likely that the Russian beachgoers were killed not by ATACMS or other US-made weapons, but by Russian military 9M330 air defense missiles fired by Moscow’s TOR-M2 anti-aircraft platform. Early...

Ground zero of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine shifted Friday to Moscow’s Crocus City Hall. ISIS claimed responsibility for the concert shooting that killed 133 and injured 140, but all is likely not as it seems — and the Kremlin is putting the blame on Kyiv. ISIS may or may not have been involved. If the latter, the Federal Security Service (FSB) was probably behind it. ISIS often claims responsibilities for attacks it did not commit to build its reputation and exaggerate its reach. Heavily guarded Moscow feels like a heavy lift for the Islamic terrorist...

But upcoming Biden administration and German decisions concerning the deployment of precision deep-strike weapons — namely ATACMS and the Taurus cruise missile — are likely weighing heavily on Putin’s mind, along with the coming introduction of F-16 fighter jets. Ditto bilateral security guarantees, some signed just days ago, with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada — and Sweden’s and Britain’s announcements last week of additional military assistance. Europe is not giving up on Ukraine. Propaganda wins aside, it was a losing week for Putin... As many as 65 soldiers from Russia’s 39th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade...

In Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO entered the critical fourth quarter of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s war of survival against Russia. President Joe Biden, unfortunately, fumbled the football. Instead of strengthening Zelensky in the eyes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin cronies and talking heads, Biden in fact diminished Zelensky. In his 2014 book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote of then-Vice President Joe Biden, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Even former President Barack Obama was reported...