Free Republic

BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday once again warned the United States that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) will not sit idly by if U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the warning at a daily news briefing. China has repeatedly stated to the United States its grave concern over the issue and the solemn position of resolutely opposing Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, and stressed the severe consequences if Pelosi visits Taiwan, Zhao said. "The will of the people cannot be defied, and those who play with fire...

Russia’s top diplomat has admitted that the Kremlin’s overarching goal in Ukraine is to boot out President Volodymyr Zelensky “The Russians are using the scorched-earth tactics across the entire Donbas. They fire from the ground and from the air to wipe off entire cities,” Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said in televised remarks.Lavrov argued that Russia was ready to negotiate a deal to end hostilities in March when Kyiv changed tack and declared its intention to rout Russia on the battlefield. He said the West has encouraged Ukraine to keep fighting.“The West insists that Ukraine must not start negotiations until Russia...

Russia has said its forces have destroyed two U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, also known as HIMARS, in Ukraine. The number adds to the four HIMARS launchers that Russia claimed to have destroyed over a two-week period in July. A "high-precision" strike in Kharkiv took out the systems and killed 53 people, Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesperson for the Russian defense ministry, said in an announcement on Monday, according to Russian state news agency TASS. "As a result of a high-precision strike in the city of Kharkiv, on the territory of the Ukrainian Energy Machines plant, two American launchers...

Russia is “a gas station masquerading as a country,” the noted warmonger John McCain once said. This astoundingly disrespectful statement by a major US political figure says much about the condescending and diplomatically destructive attitudes of US elites towards Russia since 1991.But Russia’s size, vast stores of critical resources, military might (especially nukes), and tenacious cultural conservatism mean that it will be a significant force in the world for some time. The West could have benefited greatly from a peaceful integration of this enormous country into Europe, but it chose another route. More honestly, the United States chose another route.After...

US weapons fragile, expensive, and not up to the jobLira talks about US in recent decades replacing good weaponns with BS weapons, e.g. replacing the A10 with the F35 ("flying pig")...

In 2019, the CIA-run Radio Free Europe reported on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s connection to Ihor Kholomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch whom the State Department banned from entering the U.S. in March 2021 due to his “significant corruption.” Burisma and the CIA The New York Post reported that Kholomoisky had a “controlling interest” in Burisma Holdings—the Ukrainian energy company which employed Hunter Biden as a board member for $50,000 per month. Russian media, quoted in State Department emails, referred to Burisma as “part of Kholomoisky’s financial empire.” Six months after Hunter Biden departed, Burisma appointed Cofer Black to its board—a position...

European Union policymakers have started to prepare the public for siege conditions this winter if gas supplies from Russia are completely cut, an effort to demonstrate diplomatic resolve as well as avoid panic later in the year. In recent weeks, officials from Germany and other EU member states have begun to talk openly and urgently about the need for immediate reductions in consumption in advance of the peak winter heating season. They have also started to plan publicly for compulsory allocation, including rationing and prioritization among industrial users, as well as sharing among member states in the event there is...

From the outset of Russia’s invasion in February of this year, Western elites have bestowed upon Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a level of adulation that few (if any) leaders have enjoyed. Zelensky’s political rock star tour began with a speech to the European Parliament on March 1. He spoke with the United States Congress on March 16. By April 5, he had spoken to the parliaments of seventeen other nations—all of them closely allied with the United States. Zelensky’s tour hit a snag on April 8. On that day, Zelensky caused an uproar among Greeks when he shared in Greece’s...

Conservative Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has long opposed Nato enlargement and suggested that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was justified.An outspoken Republican senator is set to delay American approval of Finland's Nato application, which must be approved by all 30 Nato member countries. Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky has called for the United States to ignore Nato's Article 5, which automatically guarantees US aid to another member country that is under attack. He argues that any such action must require congressional approval. Paul is pushing for the Senate to vote on an amendment to that effect – which has little...

Russia has invited experts from the United Nations and the Red Cross to probe the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners in a jail held by Moscow-backed separatists, the defence ministry said on Sunday. In a statement, the ministry said it was acting "in the interests of conducting an objective investigation" into what it called an attack on the jail earlier in the week. The separatists put the death toll at 53 and accused Kyiv of hitting the prison with rockets.

Sky News host Cory Bernardi says “everything we are told” about the Russia-Ukraine conflict should be taken “with a huge dose of salt”. “I think the President of the Ukraine is not all that he’s portrayed as by the Western media,” Mr Bernardi said. ...

The New York Times reported Friday that Fox News has not had Donald Trump on its network in over 100 days, which the paper said was part of a larger strategy to eliminate the former president as a major GOP player. Trump's last appearance on Fox News came April 13 on "Hannity." But, The Times noted, even Trump has complained his longtime friend "doesn't seem to be paying him much attention anymore." The paper said Trump believes Fox's strategy of shunning him is an effort in "effectively displacing him" from the news cycle and as de facto leader of the...

A “pro-Russian” YouTube vlogger criticised by Boris Johnson for interviewing a British prisoner of war in Ukraine has been sanctioned by the UK Government for promoting actions aimed at “destabilising” the country.Graham Phillips, who grew up in Perth, has become the first UK citizen placed on a register alongside the former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and figures connected to terrorist organisations including Islamic State.The 43-year-old, a graduate of the University of Dundee, relocated to the Donbas region earlier this year after initially espousing pro-Kremlin views during the Russian state’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.A foreign office sanction notice describes him...

Standard disclaimer: I am not a “Putin Apologist” or “Russian Disinformation Agent.” I do not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though I do recognize they had some justification. With that said, I’ve always considered Vladimir Putin and Russia to be enemies of the United States, and I can argue that contrary to some beliefs that he’s fighting the Liberal World Order, in reality he’s just doing what he thinks is best for Russia. If the WEF and others stand in his way, he will attack them as well, though not out of some righteous goal of ending globalism.With that said,...

The Ukrainian government on Tuesday asked Washington to provide Kyiv with a “lend-lease” program to import natural gas from the US to ensure Ukraine has enough gas for heating this winter, Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal indicated. The idea is for the US to provide gas to Ukraine and collect payment at a later time, similar to the World War II-era lend-lease program that was revived this year to facilitate military aid to Ukraine. Via Reuters “Preparation for the most difficult winter in our history continues, and in this preparation we are looking for all possible tools to be ready for...

Protesters at an LGBTQ event in Berlin have demanded that Ukraine is armed in order to allow the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol to host a Pride parade.Pro-LGBTQIA2S demonstrators at a Pride event in Berlin have demanded that weapons are sent to Ukraine in order to enable the country’s rulers to liberate the port city of Mariupol and host a Pride Parade there.The Berlin-based event, which took place on Saturday, was one of many Christopher Street Day demonstrations across Europe, with the pan-European celebration occurring annually in memory of the Stonewall Riots.According to a report by broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, police said...

We might now call the proxy war in Ukraine a tale of two Victorias — a contest between the world views of assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and Indiana congresswoman Victoria Spartz. Nuland magically vanished from the headlines after the post-coup phase of the now decade-old Ukraine fiasco. Recall that Nuland, an abrasive neo-conservative, was instrumental in the 2016 Maidan coup, which overthrew Viktor Yanukovych and a Ukrainian regime that dared to look East to Moscow as a potential ally.Recall also, that when Ms. Nuland was queried about European concerns, she replied, "F--- the E.U."So much for putative allied...

The United States is nearing a gut-check on Ukraine. Five months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war is now reduced to one of attrition. The current dirty, grinding slog is fought mostly with artillery and rockets. Everything from Ukraine’s shopping centers to apartment buildings—and the civilians in them—are Russian targets. Most outsiders have already forgotten the heroic Ukrainian winter repulse of the botched Russian shock-and-awe effort to sweep into Kyiv, decapitate the government, and declare the eastern half of the country a Russian protectorate within mere days. Months later, the long war devolves further into a contest of mass and...

Three powerful and prominent Jews in Ukraine appear to have had their citizenship stripped as their long-simmering conflict with President Volodymyr Zelensky has reached a boiling point amid the war with Russia.The three men are among the wealthiest Jews in Ukraine, and the official reason for the move appears to be that they hold foreign citizenship — including in Israel. Dual citizenship is technically illegal in Ukraine but is widely tolerated in practice. Several alternate theories are also circulating, including that Zelensky is purging oligarchs with checkered pasts in an effort to prove to the United States and other Western...

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska have sparked a strong reaction online, after posing for a Vogue photoshoot in the midst of their nation's ongoing fight against invading Russian troops. With more than 150 days having passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin's fighters entered neighboring Ukraine, the couple posed for the U.S. edition of the fashion bible in a series of shots taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. While glamorous shots show the two hugging one another while seated at a table, another shows the first lady sitting on the grand staircase of a building filled with...