Free Republic

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or independence is threatened, issuing another blunt warning to the West just days ahead of an election in which he’s all but certain to secure another six-year term. The Russian leader has repeatedly talked about his readiness to use nuclear weapons since invading Ukraine in February 2022. The most recent such threat came in his state-of-the-nation address last month, when he warned the West that deepening its involvement in the fighting in Ukraine would risk a nuclear war. Asked in an interview with Russian...

NATO Special Forces are already present in Ukraine, leaked Pentagon documents have revealed, raising the fear of direct clash between the Russian forces and the Western military bloc. There is no clarity regarding the exact role of the NATO forces in Ukraine, but Moscow has been repeatedly saying that the military bloc is directly involved in the conflict. ...

A Ukrainian fintech founder and drone developer is offering about $540,000 in prize money to the winner of a race to land a drone on Moscow's Red Square. Volodymyr Yatsenko, the co-founder of Monobank, a Ukrainian online banking service, announced the competition in a Facebook post last week. The competition is open to any Ukrainian drone developers and will take place on May 9, according to the Ukrainian Military Center, a Ukrainian news outlet covering defense. May 9 in Russia is Victory Day, a time when the country celebrates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Yatsenko himself is the developer...

Real senile people like Biden, whose place is not at the head of a huge power but on the grass, surrounded by their relatives with their mouths open with dementia, Ordinary Americans have no idea at all what "Ukraine" is or where it is located. Most of them can't even show this "country" on a map. Why should they suffer such inconvenience for the sake of some obscure part of Russia

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Romania on Monday to underscore Western support for a key NATO ally that borders Ukraine and also for neighbouring Moldova, which has looked especially vulnerable since Russia's invasion last year. Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who accuses Moscow of fomenting unrest in her tiny former Soviet republic, met Scholz and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in Bucharest, pressing for support to speed up Moldova's accession to the European Union. Russia denies causing trouble in Moldova, which is situated between Romania and Ukraine. Scholz's visit to Bucharest comes a day after German armsmaker Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE) announced it was...

The Nordic country will become NATO’s 31st member on Tuesday, expanding the alliance in a strategic setback for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. (snip) Finland’s flag is being raised on Tuesday afternoon at NATO headquarters, a deeply symbolic moment marking the Nordic nation’s official welcome into the alliance and the shifting power calculations as the West strengthens its allegiances in response to the war in Ukraine. The president of Finland, Sauli Niinisto, is expected to attend the ceremony, on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 74th anniversary, in what amounts to a strategic defeat for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,...

He revealed Putin is 'mortally afraid' of Covid and is isolating for fourth year A protection officer who worked directly for Vladimir Putin has defected from Russia, labelling the Kremlin despot a 'war criminal' for his invasion of Ukraine. Gleb Karakulov, 35, is a captain in the Federal Guard Service, known as the FGS or FSO, who escaped Russia to the safety via Istanbul. 'With Putin… he doesn't use the internet or a mobile phone. He only receives information from his closest circle, which means that he lives in an information vacuum,' Karakulov said. This means his knowledge of events...

Several MiG-29 fighter aircraft have been delivered to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against Russia, Marcin Przydacz, Head of the International Policy Bureau of the President of Poland, said to RMF24 radio on Monday. The transfer would make Poland the first Ukrainian ally to supply it with warplanes. Polish President Andrzej Duda said on March 16 that four of the aircraft would be delivered in the coming days. Przydacz said that there would be further transfers of fighter craft to Ukraine. Duda said that Poland has around 20 MiG-29s, Reuters reported.

Finland’s left-wing Prime Minister Sanna Marin conceded defeat on Sunday in the Nordic country’s parliamentary election as the opposition right-wing National Coalition Party (NCP) claimed victory in a tightly fought contest. The pro-business NCP was expected to win 48 of the 200 seats in parliament, narrowly ahead of the nationalist Finns Party with 46 seats and Marin’s Social Democrats on 43 seats, justice ministry election data showed with all ballots counted. “We got the biggest mandate,” NCP leader Petteri Orpo said in a speech to followers, vowing to “fix Finland” and its economy.

The U.S. has overtaken Russia as the top crude oil supplier to Europe, data shows, capping a remarkable 12-month period in which Moscow’s plan to weaponize its position as an energy superpower collapsed from strong Western opposition to the war in Ukraine...One sign of Russia’s diminished status as an energy superpower is futures trading. Russia’s premier Urals crude oil hit a two-year low of $48.40 a barrel last week while the global benchmark Brent crude was trading for more than $75.

A significant minority of Russia's 200,000 Ukraine War casualties have been due to non-combat causes, with many linked to alcohol abuse, the United Kingdom Defense Ministry assessed in a Sunday morning intelligence update. The UK Defense Ministry said that Russian sources have indicated a high number of alcohol-linked incidents, crimes and deaths among deployed Russian soldiers. "Russian commanders likely identify pervasive alcohol abuse as particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness," said the UK Defense Ministry. "However, with heavy drinking pervasive across much of Russian society, it has long been seen as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even on combat...

Ukrainian units began to widely use on the line of contact outdated KS-19 100 mm anti-aircraft guns, developed in 1947 and intended to fight air targets. In all likelihood, the Ukrainian army has serious problems not only with ammunition for Western-style artillery systems, but also with firearms. Nothing more than this can explain the use of outdated anti-aircraft guns. In addition, as noted by military experts, entire artillery batteries from KS-19 guns are being formed in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They plan to use them exclusively to destroy ground targets, since there are simply no air targets...

​Russia said Wednesday it will no longer give the United States advance notice of its missile tests — a month after suspending its participation in the most recent nuclear arms agreement between the two countries. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters that Russia will halt the information exchange after suspending “implementation” of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty​ (START)​. “There will be no notifications at all,” Rybakov said, according to Russian news agencies.