Free Republic

A very significant political event occurred in Ukraine earlier this month, and almost nobody noticed. President Volodymyr Zelensky, the leader of the war-torn country, just received approval from his parliament to extend Martial Law another 90 days. There have been many parliamentary extensions of the wartime mandate, but this one carried special significance because the 2024 presidential elections in Ukraine were scheduled for March 31, 2024, coinciding with the end of Zelensky’s five year term. Now that Martial Law is in place to cover that time period, Ukraine’s presidential elections have been canceled indefinitely. There is currently no set date...

Forget the fondue. Caviar, magic mushrooms, gold-leaf desserts, A-list selfies, $2,500-per-night hookers and secret dinners are likely to be on the menu as scores of private jets touch down in Switzerland as soon as Sunday to bring the world’s elite to the small Alpine resort town of Davos for what’s officially known as The World Economic Forum 2024.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry on Friday placed the head of Russia's Orthodox Church, a backer of the Kremlin's 21-month-old war against Kyiv, on a wanted list after security services accused him of abetting the conflict. A post on the Ukrainian ministry's wanted list identified Kirill by name, showed him in his clerical robes and described him as "an individual in hiding from the bodies of pre-trial investigation". It said he had been "missing" since November 11. Orthodox Christianity is the dominant faith in Ukraine and authorities in Kyiv have launched criminal cases against clergy linked to a branch of the Orthodox...

American entrepreneur and businessman Robert Kiyosaki is a vocal opponent of the Biden Administration’s policies. During an interview on the Finance with Sharan podcast, he said, “America is going to be the poorest country in the world, starting now.” Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” did the podcast interview while he was in India for Growth Summit India 2023 in September. He explained his visit to Mumbai while on this trip, saying, “I always go to slums. So this time, I went to the slums of Mumbai. And I’m looking at, talking to people. But what shocks most...

As the Russia-Ukraine war nears its second year, each country's military is facing new struggles.According to one Ukrainian soldier, there simply aren't enough trained troops on the frontlines right now, Knewz.com has learned.An unidentified Ukraine soldier told the BBC that some troops helping defend Ukrainian advances on the Dnipro river are incredibly inexperienced."Several brigades were supposed to be posted here, not individual companies — we just don't have enough men," the anonymous soldier said after spending weeks on the Russian-occupied side of the river. "There are a lot of young guys among us. We need people, but trained people, not...

This week’s “No Shit Analysis” award goes to Eugene B. Rumer for his Wall Street Journal op-ed, It’s Time to End Magical Thinking About Russia’s Defeat. Only took him 22 months to figure this out. He may be a slow learner but give him some credit, he finally awakened from his dream world and is beginning to grasp that the Ukraine project is swirling down the toilet.Eugene B. Rumer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington DC. Previously, he served at the State Department, on the staff of the National Security Council...

Yermak, Zelensky and Dubiansky – a tale of power, treason and corruption.Ukraine is in the middle of a virtual civil war between the faction loyal to president Volodymyr Zelensky and another one following Commander in Chief Valery Zaluzhny.Ukrainian Telegram channel Rezident brings former Zelensky adviser Alexey Arestovich that, in an interview with El Mundo, openly talks about the conflict between Zelensky and Zaluzhny.“Vladimir Zelensky is in a ‘serious conflict’ with senior Ukrainian military officers due to the failure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counter-offensive. According to Arestovich, the policy of the current Ukrainian president is becoming ineffective. As Arestovich notes,...

@WallStreetSilv Klaus Schwab: “In the new world, you have to accept total transparency. It will become integrated into your personality” “But if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't be afraid.”

The cluttered car carrying a mother and her 12-year-old daughter seemed barely worth the attention of Russian security officials as it approached a border checkpoint. But the least conspicuous piece of luggage — a crate for a cat — was part of an elaborate, lethal plot. Ukrainian operatives had installed a hidden compartment in the pet carrier, according to security officials with knowledge of the operation, and used it to conceal components of a bomb.Four weeks later, the device detonated just outside Moscow in an SUV being driven by the daughter of a Russian nationalist who had urged his country...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky left Washington last week with a dire warning, that Russia is counting on eroding U.S. support to win its war against his country. “It’s not about some kind of weapon, or some money, it’s not about it, because… we will have some help,” Zelensky told a small group of news outlets in Washington last week, including The Hill. “But in two or three months, if we will lose some support, it means that we can lose the war.”

@WallStreetSilv "You're telling me we're sending $100 billion to a country that's not going to have elections" “We’re sending $100 billion to a country that now has a president for life?” "Does anyone remember the American Civil War? Where 600,000 people died and yet we didn't miss an election?"

Note: The link takes you to a report card for congressmen based on their voting records. It shows their votes and provides a grade: A to F. A is support for Ukraine. F is voting against Ukraine. I did not post the report card due to graphics, formatting, etc. ————— Republicans for Ukraine is a coalition of Republicans who believe that the Republican Party must continue to support Ukraine. We come from all over the country and are united in our support for helping Ukraine achieve victory for democracy. The GOP has always stood for a strong national defense, supporting...

In response to reporting from Breitbart News, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, an American transgender individual claiming to be a “spokesperson” of the Ukrainian military, has criticised Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Moscow for “focussing on the tired trope of gender chaos” after the Republican lawmaker demanded the Biden administration reveal if Ashton-Cirillo receives any American funding or has ties to U.S. intelligence agencies. On Sunday, Breitbart News revealed that Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio had written to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines after apparent Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces spokesperson Sarah...

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday that he will seek the help of government experts on extremism in the wake of a series of school arsons. Officials believe the attacks are connected to a controversial sexual education school program. De Croo spoke just hours after a sixth school in the French-speaking Wallonia region was torched this week. Signs protesting the so-called Evras program were discovered in some of the schools, according to authorities. The program is a required four hours of training for students aged 11 to 12 and 15 to 16, intended to...

An opposition MP has been arrested and detained on suspicion of treason in Ukraine, with the nation’s security service claiming to have collected evidence of him spreading Russian propaganda. Nestor Shufrych, a member of the Opposition Platform — For Life party that was banned by President Volodymyr Zelensky through martial law measures last March following the Russian invasion, is facing 15 years in prison on suspicion of high treason. He is alleged to have spread the “Kremlin’s false narratives that the Ukrainian state is ‘an artificial entity’, that Ukraine and Russia ‘have one history’, and that Ukrainians and Russians are...

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko on Friday ordered the closure of 74 churches belonging to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), citing its alleged “direct ties” to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Klitschko’s decree is similar to that used to seize the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves, which Ukrainian police stormed last month. The world-famous holy site, which is nearly 1,000 years old, was handed over to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a rival organization set up by the government in 2018.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin. “When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said. The Wagner leader’s...

The Maidan coup (pron: My-dan coo) or Ukrainian crisis of 2014 was a violent U.S-backed anti-democratic color revolution which brought the neo-fascist Maidan regime to power in Ukraine. It began when the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown on February 22, 2014, following months of agitation by the Obama State Department and John Brennan's CIA. It was an extension or continuation into Europe of the Obama administration's failed "Arab Spring" regime change policy and widely seen as Western imperialism. With the overthrow of the democratically elected government at least 6 million Ukrainian refugees fled to Russia for...

Are you not curious about where the endless blank checks to Ukraine are going? They are usually labeled as something vague like humanitarian aid or weapons. One Ukrainian top military official seems to have stumbled into wealth amid a full-scale war. Odesa Military Commissariat, Yevhen Borisov, has spent millions of dollars on funding a newfound luxurious lifestyle. Borisov purchased a €3 million villa in Spain, as well as office space in the chic and expensive city of Marbella. The military commander also purchased multiple luxury vehicles during this time. He now owns a 2022 Mercedes-Benz B-class electric car with a...

Standing on a bridge overlooking the road to Odesa’s main port, Nina Sulzhenko surveyed the damage wrought by a recent Russian missile strike: The House of Scientists, one of the Ukrainian city’s best-loved buildings, was in shambles. The mansion’s destroyed gardens spilled down over a ruined residential complex, and burned bricks lay strewn across the sidewalk. “I feel pain, and I want revenge,” said Ms. Sulzhenko, 74. “I don’t have the words to say what we should do to them.” She gestured toward other buildings in various stages of ruin. “Look at the music school! Look at what they did!...