Free Republic

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday he would not be deterred from supporting Ukraine by "irresponsible" Russian rhetoric, after Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike. "There's irresponsible rhetoric coming from Russia, and that is not going to deter our support for Ukraine," he told reporters at the G20 summit in Brazil. Putin's new nuclear doctrine lowers the threshold under which Russia might use atomic weapons to include responding to attacks that threaten its territorial integrity. The move comes as Ukraine used U.S. ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory on Tuesday, taking advantage of...

Welcoming China’s leader to two summits in a Russian city, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia and China can overcome their countries’ difficulties by working together. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping both arrived Wednesday in the Russian city of Ufa for summits of the BRICS trade group and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The BRICS group also includes Brazil, India and South Africa, while the SCO, which also focuses on regional security and political issues as well as economics, includes the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India and Pakistan are observer SCO...