Free Republic

Vladimir Putin is ready to share sovereignty of Crimea with Ukraine, according to an astonishing 'new peace plan'. The dictator sent his trusted interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev to the US with new proposals to end the war that the dictator started, say sources in both Moscow and Kyiv. Despite being sanctioned, Kolokoltsev was allowed into the US ostensibly to attend a UN meeting of police chiefs. But this was a ruse allowing him to travel to Washington on a VIP plane from Putin's presidential fleet to transmit to the US government the dictator's real demands for a peace deal, it...

After months of fighting, the Russians are still struggling to gain a toehold in Ukraine’s 266th biggest population center. Shortly after finally capturing the ruins of Avdiivka following a bloody, five-month battle that culminated in February, Russian forces in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region took aim at another eastern prize: the industrial town of Chasiv Yar, which had a pre-war population of around 12,000. Exposed on the very edge of the line of contact west of Bakhmut and depending on a north-south canal—a canal with two easy crossing points—for its defense, Chasiv Yar is vulnerable. And its easternmost canal district, on...

Russia's new offensive into Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region has done what months of lobbying from President Volodymyr Zelensky could not: secured Kyiv's ability to fire advanced Western weapons at Moscow's forces within their borders. The Russian drive into the Kharkiv border region—where fighting is ongoing some 15 miles north of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city and an important political, economic, and cultural center—has prompted Kyiv's NATO backers into a flurry of diplomatic and military activity, with the result that Ukrainian cross-border strikes are now ravaging Russian forces operating in the Belgorod region.

Ukraine has launched another stunning strike against Putin's army on the peninsula, inflicting crippling damage to the Kremlin's war machine. Vladimir Putin suffered a major setback after Ukraine launched more devastating attacks in the Crimea region. Ukraine has intensified its attacks on the peninsula and its immediate surrounding regions in the last few days. On Thursday, Ukrainian maritime drones destroyed seven Russian ships in a daring and spectacular attack. Kyiv's army bosses have now followed that up with another stunning strike that inflicted crippling damage on Putin's war machine in the region. Overnight, Ukraine fired US-supplied ATACM missiles at the...

INCREDIBLE footage shows Ukraine's sea drones nip out of the way of Russian fire during an overnight blitz in occupied Crimea. Meanwhile Kyiv's forces launched missiles towards Vlad's beloved Kerch Bridge - reportedly sparking some 20 explosions and damaging two ships. Dramatic video shows the drones flying over water in Uzkaya Bay, western Crimea. Kyiv's forces dodge the Russian barrage of explosions raining down around them. The Magura V5 marine drones managed to hit two Russian high speed KS-701 Tunets [Tuna] vessels - despite the onslaught. The Tuna boats are used by Russian forces for patrolling as well as transport...

The film features an artificial intelligence depiction of the Russian President in a series of compromising positions, like an affair in his office or the floor of a hospital after soiling his diaper. Russian spies tried to curtail the making of a wild movie that shows an artificial-intelligence created Vladimir Putin in diapers, its director has claimed. 'Putin' serves as an alternative biopic about the Kremlin leader by Polish box office director Patryck Vega, who now goes by the artistic name Besaleel. -snip- Ahead of being shown at Cannes, the depiction is reportedly attracting a great deal of attention from...

Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, has been arrested, local media reported, marking the latest detention of a Russian high-ranking military official in recent weeks. The development was reported by Russian newspapers Kommersant and Izvestia, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter. Kommersant reported that he was detained on Wednesday "in connection with the case of alleged fraud."

An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin fell for a joke on live TV that circulated in the wake of the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. -snip- Not long after the reports emerged, a reporter for a French TV station mistakenly reported as a rumor a joke on Telegram and X, formerly Twitter, that Raisi's helicopter had been piloted by a Mossad agent named "Eli Kopter." State TV host Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most-prominent figures in Kremlin-backed media, appeared to fall for the joke during a live broadcast on channel Russia-1. The Daily Beast's Julia Davis shared an...

Tucker Carlson’s representative denied reports Tuesday that Carlson launched a show on Russian-owned state television Monday night, telling Forbes the reports were “pure nonsense,” indicating Carlson was not involved with the show that is listed on the website for a Russian state television channel. Arthur Schwartz, a representative for Carlson, told Forbes in an email “it’s pure nonsense” in response to questions about Carlson’s show being aired in Russia with Russian voice overs and whether it was licensed by Carlson. Neil Patel, CEO of the Tucker Carlson Network, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the...

Watch the moment a strike hits the Russian oil depot. THIS is the moment a Russian oil depot exploded in a huge fireball in yet another humiliating blow to Putin. Plumes of black smoke could be seen rising into the sky in Vyborg after the explosion at the oil refinery near the Nato border with Finland. Dramatic footage showed the oil depot engulfed in a raging inferno. Leningrad regional governor Alexander Drozdenko denied a Ukrainian kamikaze drone had hit the facility. He also denied there was a fire and claimed "there was a bang due to the use of pyrotechnics"....

In a conversation with the First Vice President, the special assistant to the Russian President stated that, by Putin's order, two advanced aircrafts with special helicopters and 50 professional mountain rescue personnel will be dispatched to Tabriz, Iranian media reported on Sunday overnight.

Iran will send a batch of eggs to Russia for the first time next week, said Hamidreza Kashani, chairman of the republic's poultry farmers' union. "The first batch of eggs (to Russia) will be sent next week," said Hamidreza Kashani. Kashani hopes that Iran's exports to Russia will get better thanks to Islamic Republic President Ebrahim Raisi's visit to Moscow on 7 December and the signing of an agreement to establish a free trade zone between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries and Iran. This is reported by IRNA, a partner of TV BRICS. He noted that now "strict quarantine...

Russian President Vladimir Putin demoted Nikolai Patrushev, a Cold War warrior who crafted the Kremlin's national security strategy, to a job overseeing the shipbuilding industry while raising two younger lieutenants to senior Kremlin jobs. -snip- Patrushev, a former KGB officer from St Petersburg where Putin was born, was moved from the heart of the modern-day politburo, where he had worked for 16 years as secretary of the Security Council, to oversee shipbuilding as a Kremlin aide. -snip- Patrushev Senior was heavily demoted," a senior Russian source told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of such public remarks....

Lt-Gen Yuri Kuznetsov was arrested "on suspicion of criminal activity" just after Putin dismissed his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. A RUSSIAN general was dragged out of his bed at 5am to be taken into detention facing "criminal charges over state secrets" in Vladimir Putin's latest purge. Lt-Gen Yuri Kuznetsov, 55, was arrested by heavily armed cops in balaclavas who smashed their way into his home using crowbars. The top MoD official was reportedly “dragged out of bed and taken away for interrogation”. The arrest of the military chief comes a day after Vladimir Putin oversaw major changes in Russia's defence,...

A Russian commander was reportedly killed in Crimea following a Ukrainian missile strike in the region. On Monday, the Russian independent outlet Astra said on its Telegram channel that a Russian air defense base located near Mount Ai-Petri in Crimea was hit with "an early morning missile attack" by Ukrainian forces. "The commander of the military unit was killed," Astra reported. "On the mountain, there is a 'secret' military air defense base of the 3rd radio technical regiment of the Russian Armed Forces." The outlet identified the Russian military commander as Alexander Kulakov. Another Russian soldier was also killed in...

A video posted Monday on social media shows the Ukrainian military destroying 10 Russian military vehicles in a single strike. The video was posted by the 63rd Separate Mechanized Brigade on Telegram. Reportedly, five Russian BMP-1s, an amphibious infantry fighting vehicle, along with five tanks, were burned in the strike. The 63rd Brigade said that at least one vehicle was a Russian T-90M battle tank. The Ukrainian defense effort reportedly occurred near Terni in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. The 63rd Brigade said it destroyed the vehicles "with the help of artillery and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drops."

Gazprom, the energy giant at the heart of Russia's economy, has announced it is selling property in Moscow, one week after posting record losses linked to restricted supplies to Europe linked to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The company said on Wednesday that the properties include office and non-residential buildings, a car parking lot in the capital, and the Imperial Park Hotel and spa sanatorium and resort complex in Rogozino village, just outside of Moscow. "Gazprom is engaged in a fire sale. They had their worst year in decades, and their production has fallen precipitously, down to what it was...

Russian President Vladimir Putin tapped a civilian economist as his surprise new defence minister on Sunday in an attempt to gird Russia for economic war by trying to better utilise the defence budget and harness greater innovation to win in Ukraine. -snip Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the change made sense because Russia was approaching a situation like the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, when the military and law enforcement authorities accounted for 7.4% of gross domestic product (GDP). That, said Peskov, meant it was vital to ensure such spending aligned with and was better integrated into the country's overall...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed replacing his defence minister and long-term ally, Sergei Shoigu, more than two years into the Ukraine war, the upper house of parliament said on Sunday. Putin proposed Andrei Belousov, former deputy prime minister, as the new defence minister.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with an ally of the Wagner Group signals his struggle to address setbacks in the Ukraine conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking decisive steps to address growing challenges as he seeks to regain control over his struggling military campaign in Ukraine. On May 2, Putin met with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Russia's Tula Oblast, and a known associate of the Wagner Group, at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in Moscow Oblast. The meeting has raised questions about the stability of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's position, signalling Putin's increasing desperation in the face of unmet...