Free Republic

President Donald Trump made an announcement Monday aligning him more firmly with Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion than ever before. The US will send weapons to Ukraine through NATO, the president said during a meeting in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Trump also laid out a new deadline for Russia — threatening trade consequences, including secondary sanctions, if a peace deal isn’t reached in 50 days. Even before the weapons announcement, which the president had telegraphed last week, the hawks were celebrating. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina previewed the announcement Sunday as a “turning...

Drone attacks on Russian territory have become an almost daily occurrence in recent weeks.... Hodges, who has been one of Kyiv's most vocal advocates in the U.S., said in an interview on Monday that the growing drone threat "is a part of the counteroffensive" that is currently raging in southeastern Ukraine. There, Ukrainian troops are pushing into Russian fortified lines, hoping to precipitate a defensive collapse.... "You've got what I would call 'strategic bombing,'" he added. The campaign has seen "drone strikes that have hit Moscow several nights in a row as well as other places throughout Russia, by Ukrainian...

The Battle of Mariupol is over and Russia is busy proclaiming the liberation of the city. In reality, Mariupol has been murdered. This formerly bustling metropolis of almost half a million people now lies on the brink of extinction, pummeled into submission by a vicious campaign of Russian annihilation. The estimated 100,000 remaining residents of Mariupol find themselves reduced to living among the rubble without medicines, running water or electricity. With Russia in control of the city, there is no way of knowing the final death toll or assessing the true scale of the catastrophe that has befallen Mariupol. During...

In revealing testimony before the Duma parliament, the head of CBR told she had to throw everything but the kitchen sink just to prevent a full-blown run on the banking system. “The sanctions imposed against Russia affected the situation in the financial sector, spurred the demand for foreign currencies, and caused fire sales of financial assets, a cash outflow from banks, and surging demand for goods,” said Elvira Nabiullina ... Presenting the CBR’s annual report to parliament, Nabiullina painted a picture to lawmakers of just how grim the situation was that confronted her. Depositors withdrew 2.4 trillion rubles in the...

As many as 9,000 Ukraine civilians could have been executed by Russian forces and buried in mass graves outside Mariupol, according to local leaders. Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko revealed the grim development Thursday and called the site of the atrocities in the nearby village of Manhush “the new Babi Yar,” a reference to the Ukrainian Holocaust site where tens of thousands of Jews were killed in World War II. “Then Hitler killed Jews, Roma and Slavs. And now Putin is destroying Ukrainians. He has already killed tens of thousands of civilians in Mariupol,” ....Meanwhile, Russia continued to shell humanitarian corridors...

UnionPay is afraid to cooperate with a number of large Russian banks because of the risk of secondary sanctions, RBC learned. Sanctioned banks that issued such cards or planned to do so are forced to abandon projects Large Russian banks that have been under blocking sanctions from Western countries will not be able to issue UnionPay cards, as the payment system is afraid to cooperate with them because of the risk of secondary sanctions. RBC was told about this by five sources in large banks, including those that fell under sanctions. An interlocutor close to Sberbank said that the bank’s...

Radical Neo-Marxist billionaire and globalist George Soros is singing the same tune as NeoCons, warmongers, and an uncomfortable number of Americans (26%) who support actions that will result in World War III. He’s doing it in a way that frames his argument as trying to stop such a war, and far too many on both sides of the political aisle are buying into it.According to Alicia Powe at The Gateway Pundit:A third world war will “destroy our civilization” unless Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are “removed from power” warns billionaire Democrat megadonor George Soros.“After receiving a...

Russia has done nothing to deserve its appalling treatment by Western powers and their totally controlled and subservient media - the only thing Russia did was to move into the Crimea, an area smaller than the island of Taiwan, which suited the people there as most are Russian speaking, and the reason they did that was to protect their naval base at Sevastopol after the Western inspired coup in the Ukraine. Apart from that they have done nothing and reports that they are planning to take back parts of Eastern Europe are pure fantasy. Russia has been subjected to an...

What has been well-known amongst informed observers for quite some time is now becoming so obvious that it is almost impossible to hide except from the most gullible members of the general public – that fact the United States is not only not interested in fighting ISIS, but they are actively protecting and shielding it. In truth, the US relationship with ISIS goes much deeper since the US created, armed, and trained the terrorist organization from its inception for the purpose of destroying the secular government of Bashar al-Assad and providing a bogeyman for the fearful masses back home...