Free Republic

The head of Russia's mercenary outfit Wagner said it could take months to capture the embattled Ukraine city of Bakhmut and slammed Moscow's "monstrous bureaucracy" for slowing military gains. Russia has been trying to encircle the battered industrial city and wrest it ahead of Feb. 24, the first anniversary of what it terms its "special military operation" in Ukraine. "I think it's (going to be in) March or in April," Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said in one of several messages posted online overnight. "To take Bakhmut you have to cut all supply routes. It's a significant task," he said, adding:...

Footage of Prigozhin shows how the slain leader predicted Ukraine's shock offensive. THE slain chief of the notorious Wagner mercenary group predicted Russia would come under siege from Ukraine before Vlad had him killed. Warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin died when his plane was blown out of the sky in August 2023, allegedly on Putin's orders. He led the private Russian military unit that was called in to assist the Kremlin's quest to illegally conquer Ukraine and became increasingly frustrated with how war efforts were organised. Fed up with the Ministry of Defence, Prigozhin eventually threatened a coup against Moscow - a...

BEHIND THE LINES: The US administration appears to fail to notice the broader alliance taking shape behind these forces, and the interconnectedness of the current assault on the West. The statement by US President Donald Trump that Iran would be held responsible for continued attacks by the Yemeni Houthi movement on shipping in the Red Sea sharply raises the temperature in the ongoing escalation between US forces and the Yemeni Shi’ite Islamist movement in that area. “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership...

On Feb. 25, a flurry of accurate Russian drone strikes knocked out dozens of Ukrainian vehicles along the main road to Sudzha, the town that is—or was—the main base for the 10,000-strong Ukrainian force occupying a significant, but quickly shrinking, salient in Kursk Oblast in western Russia. That was “the day you started worrying about Kursk,” wrote independent analyst Andrew Perpetua. Two weeks later, it seems the bulk of the Ukrainian force—Ukrainian army’s heaviest brigades—has evacuated Kursk and repositioned on the Ukrainian side of the border. “My friends managed to leave Kursk, avoiding encirclement,” one Ukrainian source claimed Monday. “It’s...

Syrian forces loyal to the new government in Damascus have engaged in heavy fighting with remnants of the ousted Assad regime in a coastal area in the country's north-west. Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in the clashes in Latakia province, close to a Russian-controlled airbase. A curfew has been announced until Friday morning. They are some of the most violent attacks on forces linked to Syria's Islamist government since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December. Clashes continue in coastal areas that form the heartland of the Alawite community and are a stronghold of the Assad family. State...

The office of Russia’s infamous troll factory believed to be at the vanguard of Russia’s information war has been set on fire in St. Petersburg overnight. An investigation revealed last year that the secretive troll factory had rebranded itself as a media conglomerate with 16 news websites generating more than 30 million pageviews every month. Its operational hub, a website called FAN (Federal News Agency), is based a stone’s throw from the troll farm’s original location in northern St. Petersburg. The Fontanka.ru news website cited police as saying that an unknown suspect broke the agency’s ground-floor window and threw a...

Letters of Marque would allow private organizations to operate in the “dead space” in between government bureaucracies where the Mexican drug cartels operate, Erik Prince, an American veteran and the founder of Unplugged Technologies explained during an interview with Breitbart News Saturday. Prince spoke with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle about a recent post from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), discussing what Letters of Marque and Reprisal were and how they could be used to weaken the drug cartels. Prince admitted that he had “helped put this idea in Senator Lee’s head.” “Letters of marque and reprisal are government-issued...

There's a new Sheriff in town. Trump is not Biden and everybody knows it. see link

Ukrainian officials expect a counteroffensive in western Russia to begin in the coming days as North Korea’s troops train with Russian forces. -snip- The Russian military has assembled a force of 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, as it prepares to begin an assault aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. -snip- North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to fight with Russia in Kursk, American officials say. The troops are wearing Russian uniforms and have been equipped by Moscow, but they will probably fight in their...

he Biden administration has lifted a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems, particularly F16 fighter jets and Patriot air defense systems, an official with direct knowledge of the plan told CNN.

A team of vigilante hackers carrying out cyber-attacks against Russia has been sent awards of gratitude by Ukraine's military. The team, One Fist*, has stolen data from Russian military firms and hacked cameras to spy on troops. The certificates are a controversial sign of how modern warfare is shifting. [excerpt] *One Fist is made up of hackers from eight different countries including the UK, US and Poland.

Letter to Congress from American Veteran in Ukraine Jake Broe [I am a United States Air Force veteran who served as a Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer (13N). 437K subscribers 2-24-2024 17:00 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg49VcsWvd8 Excerpt: "Jake is sharing an opinion piece from an American Service veteran currently in Ukraine. An American Veteran plea arm Ukraine or Surrender Freedom. This man's name is John Roberts call sign name is Jackie Not everyone has and uses social media. Not everyone wants to be on camera. So today, I'm going to use my platform and my voice to share his message. This is...

Two members of Congress who were U.S. Military Academy classmates and later reconnected on Capitol Hill are looking to provide avenues for immigrants to gain citizenship while also building up recruitment for the military... “The legislation addresses two challenges facing the United States: an influx of migrants looking to work, build a better life for their families, and contribute to our country, as well as a recruitment crisis within the ranks of our Armed Forces,” according to a release first shared with the Washington Examiner. Ryan said in a statement on the Courage to Serve Act that he and James...

Ukraine will change its citizenship law to allow foreign volunteer fighters to become Ukrainians, as well as “all ethnic Ukrainians” around the world to get passports, no matter how many generations different, the President has said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a raft of new laws he had submitted to the national parliament (Verkhovna Rada) on Monday in a speech marking the Ukrainian Day of National Unity, an annual celebration of the short-lived 1917-era Ukrainian People’s Republic. Among the announcements are a serious liberalisation of Ukrainian citizenship law, allowing dual citizens for the first time and opening up passports to...

"Ukrainian soldiers shoot their own foreign colleagues: - During an argument between Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries in the Ukrainian army the go-pro camera of one of them caught the first ones shooting and killing at close range English speaking militants. It has been reported before (https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/34827) that nationalist units act as barrier detachments to prevent conscripts from surrendering or leaving their positions, in the video the English speaking troops are ordering Ukrainians to go back to their lines when they are shoot by them. - I would say in this case the foreign mercenaries are the ones keeping the...

Women have rarely taken frontline fighting roles within the Ukraine war until now. A Russian mercenary group is attempting to recruit women for combat roles in Ukraine, according to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). In its daily intelligence briefing for Monday, the MoD said that Redut - a state-backed private military company - is appealing for women to work as snipers and drone operators in its Borz Battalion. Redut - formerly known as Shield - has links to the GRU, Russia's foreign intelligence agency. It is part of a group of mercenary forces that protect commercial operations of Russian...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered one of the top commanders of the Wagner military contractor to take charge of “volunteer units” fighting in Ukraine, signaling the Kremlin’s effort to keep using the mercenaries after the death of their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin. In remarks released by the Kremlin on Friday, Putin told Andrei Troshev that his task is to “deal with forming volunteer units that could perform various combat tasks, primarily in the zone of the special military operation” — a term the Kremlin uses for its war in Ukraine. Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was also present at the...

The Cuban government has exposed a Russian trafficking operation used to lure Cubans into the war against Ukraine, Cuban authorities announced Monday. “The Ministry of the Interior has detected and is working to neutralize and dismantle a human trafficking network operating from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday. The authorities are taking legal actions against the traffickers, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.

A Wagner mercenary fighting in Ukraine had only a 1-in-5 chance of making it through unscathed, according to the latest figures. The unverified numbers, posted on Telegram by several Wagner-affiliated channels, claim that in all operations from the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion up until the “capture of Bakhmut” on May 20: · Wagner had 78,000 thousand fighters in total. · 49,000 of these were convicts. · 22,000 were killed. · 40,000 wounded This leave just 16,000 that made it through the fighting without being killed or injured. The figures appear to have been released in response to Russian Ministry...

Breaking news on the crisis in Niger; a PMC Wagner (Russian-language site at link) source has stated: A decision was made to deploy combat troops of the Wagner PMC in & around the capital of Niger, in light of current security situation & foreign threats.PMC Wagner, also known as the Wagner Group, is a Russian state-funded military group controlled by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, and technically operates outside Russian law, which prohibits private military groups.PMC Wagner is also the group implicated in an aborted coup attempt in Russia last June, which led to the arrest of Russian General Sergei Surovikin....