Free Republic

Hans Braunfisch wants Americans to invest in Ukrainian startups, but there's a problem: there's no clear path for individual investors to put money into the more than 26,000 Ukrainian startups out there.The former PwC consultant plans to change that with Pravo Venture, a platform streamlining foreign investment for Ukrainian startups. Think of it like a meeting point for Ukrainian companies and U.S. investors accredited by the Securities and Exchange Commission who want to support the country with capital instead of aid.While co-heading PwC's Ukraine Taskforce, Braunfisch attempted to persuade clients to invest in Ukraine’s entrepreneurs to help its economic recovery....

"I think President Trump was wrong. He went against the Constitution." Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, joined Chris Jansing on MSNBC Reports to discuss the legality of President Trump’s move to launch military strikes on Iran.

Progressive Squad Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a chorus of Democrats called on President Trump to be impeached after he decided to bomb top nuclear facilities of Iran — blasting the move as “unconstitutional.” “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) declared not long after Trump announced the attack. “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”

Saturday morning, flight trackers picked up a host of stealthy U.S. B-2 bombers that took off from their Air Force base in Missouri and headed west over the Pacific. It was a ruse. Hours later, a group of B-2s attacked Iran’s most important nuclear sites from the east, defense officials said, hitting well-defended facilities where giant U.S. bunker busters were thought to have the greatest chance of success. President Trump said U.S. submarines firing cruise missiles joined in the attack, striking other key nuclear facilities. The move allowed the U.S. to get its bombers over Iran faster and with a...

Russia says that it “strongly condemned” the United States’s bombings of nuclear sites in Iran, calling the attacks “irresponsible” and a “gross violation of international law.” “It is already clear that a dangerous escalation has begun, fraught with further undermining of regional and global security,” the Russian foreign ministry adds in a statement.

A “number of countries” are ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads following American strikes on nuclear facilities early on Sunday, Russian ex-president Dmitriy Medvedev claimed on social media. In a post on X/Twitter, Medvedev suggested that the United States’ attacks on three sites in Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow backfired, and led to the opposite result from what US President Donald Trump had set out to achieve. According to Medvedev, “enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue.” -snip- In addition, he said, “A number of countries...

Hardliners close to Vladimir Putin have demanded Russians "take up arms" in a furious response to the US attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. US President Donald Trump sanctioned the bombings of three nuclear sites in Iran overnight, escalating the Middle East crisis further. Missiles were dropped from American B-2 stealth bombers, including on Iran's Fordow nuclear site, which has caused some Russian oligarchs to demand military support for Tehran. Oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who runs propaganda empire Tsargrad, demanded: “It's high time we helped Tehran with satellite intelligence, air defence, and missiles.” He accused Trump of mocking Putin by “pretending to...

Iran reserves all options to defend its security, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Sunday, adding Tehran could not return to diplomacy while under attack by Israel and the United States, and would consult with Russia on Monday. "The U.S. showed they have no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force," Araqchi said, adding that Tehran has to respond based on its rights before diplomacy can be reconsidered. The Iranian foreign minister said he will fly to Russia, with whom Iran has a strategic partnership, and consult with President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Iran’s foreign minister will head to Moscow late Sunday night to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. The Daily Telegraph reports Abbas Araghchi confirmed Iran “reserves all options to defend its security, its interests, its people…All options are on the table” while applauding Russia as “a friend of Iran.” The report notes Araghchi said he will speak to Iran’s key ally on how to proceed. “We always consult with each other,” he added in a press conference in Istanbul. The trip comes after President Donald Trump announced Saturday evening U.S....

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed full confidence that Iran will emerge victorious amid rising tensions with Israel, calling the Netanyahu government the greatest threat to regional peace and stability. Speaking at an emergency summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Saturday, Erdogan likened Israel’s current actions to those of Nazi Germany under Hitler, warning that Tel Aviv’s policies are setting the region—and the world—on fire. “We are confident that victory will be on Iran’s side,” Erdogan said, adding that “just as the spark ignited by Hitler 90 years ago set the world ablaze, Netanyahu’s...

- Russian President Vladimir Putin quipped on Friday (June 20) that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border. Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, also said he was not seeking the capitulation of Ukraine or denying Ukraine's sovereignty, but that Ukraine had to be neutral. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99 per cent of...

Ukrainian forces struck multiple Russian airfields and military facilities overnight on June 6, hours before Russia launched one of its heaviest aerial assaults of the war, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported. Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted Engels and Dyagilevo airfields — two key hubs for Russia's long-range bomber fleet, as well as logistics sites in Russia's Kursk Oblast. -snip- Engels-2 air base, located in Saratov Oblast, nearly 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Ukraine's front lines, hosts Russia's Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 bombers — aircraft regularly used in missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine's General Staff said a strike...

June 6 marks the eighty-first anniversary of D-Day, when Allied troops crossed the English Channel, landed under heavy fire on the beaches of Normandy, and launched the successful campaign to liberate Europe from Nazi control. It was one of the riskiest amphibious assaults in military history — not only because of the size of the operation, but also because everyone on the continent knew that it was coming. The German High Command anticipated the timing and location of the Allies’ arrival; but for robust counterintelligence measures, brilliant logistical planning, and good fortune, June 6 could easily have become a day...

Ukraine’s chief rabbi warned of a new “axis of evil” developing between Russia and Iran... Moshe Reuven Azman — who lost a son in the Ukraine war and whose daughter serves in the Israel Defense Forces — came to Washington on his own dime this week to plead with lawmakers and government officials to continue supporting Ukraine and Israel. “Israel and Ukraine, they have the same enemies — an ‘axis of evil,’ I call it, that looks like World War II,” Azman told The Post on Thursday. “I am an eyewitness myself: I lost my son one year ago when...

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Russia and Ukraine need to submit "concrete proposals" for ending the conflict, or Washington will step back as a mediator, US Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce revealed on Tuesday. "We are now at a time when concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict. How we proceed from here is a decision that belongs now to the [US] president [Donald Trump]. If there is no progress, we will step back as mediators," Rubio said, according to a readout by Bruce during a...

Russia insists on the international recognition of its hold over Crimea, as well as the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, as a condition for peace negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Brazilian news outlet O Globo published on April 28. This demand, reinforced last week by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, underscores how Russia continues to push its maximalist demands despite the U.S. efforts to broker a peace deal. Russia illegally declared the four Ukrainian oblasts as annexed in 2022 following widely condemned sham referenda, but it does not fully control the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday thanked North Korea for sending troops to fight alongside Russia in Moscow's war against Ukraine and vowed not to forget their sacrifices. Putin's comments came just hours after North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had deployed troops to fight Ukrainian forces. -snip- In a statement, Putin praised North Korean troops who he said fought "shoulder to shoulder with Russian fighters, defended our Motherland as their own." "The Russian people will never forget the heroism of the DPRK special forces," Putin said. "We will always honor the heroes who gave their lives...

As Russia continues its warfare against Ukraine, one outspoken Republican senator is encouraging President Donald Trump to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place. "Putin has reneged on every promise that he has made to President Trump. His latest proposal is, well, nothing. He wants to keep all the territory that he's taken," Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on the latest installment of "Fox News Sunday." "He wants to prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO, and he wants America and Europe to stop helping Ukraine," he added. "I think that Putin thinks that America has taken the bullet train to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal to establish a temporary international administration in Ukraine under UN supervision is based on historical precedents, according to Kirill Logvinov, who heads the Foreign Ministry's Department of International Organizations. He told TASS on Sunday that the UN already has experience with this process. Moscow has repeatedly stated that it is not possible to sign a peace agreement with Kiev because the current Ukrainian leadership lacks legitimacy. Vladimir Zelensky's presidential term expired in May 2024, though he has remained in office without holding elections, citing martial law. Putin suggested earlier this week that creating "external management...

WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, then-U.S. President Joe Biden took a firm stand in solidarity with Kyiv, forged a bulwark of European allies and set veteran advisers to the task of isolating Moscow economically and diplomatically. Washington's approach changed dramatically with Tuesday's initial meeting between U.S. and Russian negotiators. The officials met just a month after Donald Trump returned to the White House, with Ukraine and NATO partners sidelined by a relatively inexperienced team of Trump aides and Putin granted concessions even before the talks got...