Free Republic

“Today, Russia ranks among the worst violators of religious freedom and human rights,” Ambassador Callista Gingrich said during a roundtable discussion on Ukraine held at the US embassy in Rome. “There is no sign that its persecution of religious minorities and foreign missionaries is coming to an end.” “Russia routinely conducts sham trials to persecute Ukrainians,” she explained. “Religious freedom also remains heavily constricted in areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation and control." The ambassador is married to former House of Representatives Speaker, Newt Gingrich, an adviser and ally of the president, who has repeatedly stressed there is no evidence...

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was briefly detained in Moscow on Thursday, ahead of the country's presidential election from which he has been banned. Navalny, the best-known political opponent of President Vladimir Putin, reported his detention in a series of tweets and said authorities had begun legal proceedings against him for organizing anti-government protests. It's not clear when he might face court, but he could be jailed for a maximum of 30 days and could possibly still be in prison for the March 18 election. His chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, tweeted that he, too, had been detained. The Kremlin...

During a markup of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher asserted that the Assad regime was “the protector of the Christians” in Syria. As Syrian Christians who grew up in Syria, we would beg to differ. Hundreds of innocent Christians seeking freedom have been tortured to death in Assad’s jails or shot to death by his brutal thugs – including the activist Bassel Shehadeh, who was killed at a protest, then killed in spirit because Assad forces prevented his friends from going to church to pray for his soul. Human rights lawyer Khalil Maatouk has been detained in...

1. Putin like Gorbachev has entered an arms race with a weak economy that can’t support it. 2. Putin has gotten involved in long-running foreign policy “adventures,” Afghanistan in the case of Gorbachev who ultimately got out of that one and Putin in the case of Ukraine. 3. Putin is prepared to fund all the misfits of the world who are prepared to support him just as Soviet leaders including Gorbachev until the money ran out were prepared to back those of “’a socialist orientation.’” 4. Putin is spending enormous sums on “pompous celebrations and ‘projects of the century’ like...

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Monday the Democratic Party was the one with a “clear link” to Russia during the 2016 presidential election. While appearing as a guest on Fox News, Nunes told host Sean Hannity that Democrats have been hypocritical in criticizing the memo compiled by his office because the “counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary [Clinton] campaign.” “We have a clear link to Russia,” the California Republican said referring to the Democratic Party. “You have a campaign who hired a law firm, who hire Fusion GPS, who hired a foreign agent,...

There is no doubt that the U.S. delegation has something to tell the world,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook. “For example, Nikki Haley can share America’s experience in breaking up protests, going into detail about how, say, the mass arrests and the stifling of the Occupy Wall Street movement happened or how Ferguson was ‘quelled,’” she added.

Barring severe illness or the most extraordinary electoral upset of the 21st century, Vladimir Putin will end 2018 in the Kremlin, having won a new six-year mandate in March elections that will take his rule over Russia to 2024. Even if the result is in little doubt, the manner of Putin’s victory will influence how the year develops. With no real opposition candidates taking part, victory is ensured but the Kremlin is worried about turnout, as political apathy grows, and a low one would ring alarm bells. The one opposition politician running a real campaign, Alexei Navalny, has been barred...

If there is one thing the Russian leadership despises, and fears, it is civil unrest. The “color revolutions” of recent decades in Ukraine and elsewhere, along with the “Arab Spring,” have shown Moscow in real time what can happen when a political movement spirals beyond control. The Russian people have seen their standards of living decline, and social services cut in favor of military spending over the last several years. In short, the trappings exist right now for a good old-fashioned spate of civil disobedience. The Kremlin knows this. They thought they had all the T’s crossed and the I’s...

Stalin's NKVD started to round up the Kalmkys. Their crime, some had served the Germans. Of the 95,000 ethnic Kalmyks, about half died enroute or during their first winter in Siberia. Stalin's order was absolute. Ethnic Kalmky's were pulled out of the front line infantry and tank units and deported. Included were 21 Kalmyk soldiers that had been awarded "Hero of the Soviet Union." for their service in combat to the Soviet Union.

China and Singapore show what countries can achieve when they admit they are behind and have much to learn from others and play by the rules. But “Putin’s Russia conducts itself in a principally different way, pretending to be a counterweight to the West and in fact to the role of a world leader.” “Not having the resources for this and also lacking any chance to achieve what it wants in an honest way, Putin” first violates the rules of the game and then begins to threaten that he will do even more unless others change the rules so that...

Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin may have been reticent to celebrate the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution, but it had no qualms about celebrating a hundred years since the founding of the Cheka, Lenin’s political police, on Dec. 20. Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and a veteran of the old Soviet KGB, was predictable in his message. His agency was, he claimed, “free from political influence.” It “does not serve any party or group interest” and even its bloody-handed past was nowhere near as reprehensible as assumed. Yes, he conceded, it was the engine of Stalin’s Great Terror,...

The number of Russians who regret the collapse of the Soviet Union is the highest in nearly a decade, according to an independent Levada Center poll published Monday. In polls taken since 1992, an average two-thirds of respondents said they lamented the collapse of the USSR, peaking at 75 percent in 2000 and dipping to 49 percent in 2012.

The Russian capital Moscow is growing increasingly Islamic, as the number of Muslims in the city has increased to over 1.5 million in the past decade, according to Russia’s chief imams. There are hundreds of mosques in Moscow, but not enough to accommodate the huge number of worshippers, forcing many to pray on the streets. In 2015, more than 160,000 Muslims attended prayers marking the Eid holiday, according to the Moscow police. “A large number of labor migrants come to our mosques and during holidays our mosques -- there are only four of them in Moscow now -- of course...

The Moscow Patriarchate’s chief ecumenical officer praised a non-sectarian class in religions in Russia’s schools and called for the course’s extension beyond fourth grade. “If our children do not know religious teachings, they can involuntarily become an easy prey for terrorists,” Metropolitan Hilarion, the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations, said in an interview with Ekaterina Gracheva of the television station Russia-24. “We must always remember that terrorism cannot be motivated by religion,” he continued, though “there are people who cover their criminal acts with religious rhetoric.” After stating that Orthodox children should learn about Islam, and Muslim...

On December 1, Vladimir Putin addressed the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. His remarks on the Orthodox Church’s historical and contemporary value to Russian society illustrate his utilitarian view of the church as a conduit of the Kremlin tasked with maintaining “stability and unity.” Putin’s view is at odds with that of Patriarch Kirill, who criticized the state’s influence on the church in remarks delivered later that day. The differences in opinion between President Putin and Patriarch Kirill shed light on broader cleavages in Russian society over the future relationship between church and state, which the...

"We are thankful to Russia for its position on the international arena, including Russia's position in the protection of Sudan. We are in need of protection from the aggressive acts of the United States." The Sudanese leader praised his earlier meeting with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. "We are currently launching a programme to modernise our armed forces and we agreed with the defence minister that Russia will contribute to this," Bashir said. Putin said that Russia was keen to intensify economic ties including in agriculture and energy. "There are prospects not only in the hydrocarbon sphere but also in...

Russia just gave Venezuela a big break on debt payments. It's the latest sign that the two nations are deepening ties as the Trump administration cracks down on Venezuela. The Kremlin announced that it had agreed to restructure $3.15 billion of debt payments that Venezuela owes Moscow. Russia's finance ministry is spreading the payments out over the next 10 years with "minimal" payments in the first six. It's unclear if that's the total amount Venezuela owes Russia. One analysis published by Harvard Law Roundtable from September put the total sum at over $9 billion, but government officials haven't clarified what...

“In the modern world, the decision is up to the woman herself,” Russia’s president said in his annual marathon press conference on Wednesday, which ran to just shy of four hours. Any attempt to suppress it, he added, would only push the practice underground, causing immense damage to women’s health. Putin also cautioned against tightening the country’s historically liberal laws on abortion any further, saying that any decision on future regulation “must be careful, considered and based on the general mood in society and the moral and ethical norms that have developed in society.” Putin’s comments—his first clear statement on...