Free Republic

For about 30 hours, the illusion of transatlantic unity over Ukraine was maintained. Europe and Ukraine had demanded a deal on the 30-day unconditional ceasefire the Trump administration proposed two months earlier. European leaders said US President Donald Trump had personally backed their plan – and threat of sanctions if Russia declined to sign up by Monday – in a Saturday phone call, a picture of which they posted online from Kyiv. Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, even joined a chorus of US allies demanding Russia adhere to the ceasefire demand. But then Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke,...

A draft deal between the United States and Ukraine over rare earth minerals and other natural resources is “not the one President Zelensky would accept,” according to a source familiar with the negotiations.“It is a strange offer to try and take from a country that is a victim of war, more than it cost to pay for its defence,” the source told CNN.The US is trying to gain access to Ukraine’s critical minerals and other resources as part of wider negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. In return, Ukraine has been pushing for security guarantees, with Kyiv not...

The changing language used by the Ukrainian military in 72 hours of daily updates tells the story: “Ongoing defensive fighting.” “Significantly worsened.” Russian “tactical success.”You rarely ever hear Kyiv’s top brass sounding downbeat, but their steep southerly trajectory reflects the grave place Ukraine finds itself in. Russia is not just advancing slowly in one place; it appears to be advancing in four, across the frontline.Moscow knows it is on the clock: in about a month, the $61billion of US military aid will start to translate into Ukraine having the weapons it has been begging for. So, Russian President Vladimir Putin...

The five-month wait before US Congress approved $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine may have caused lasting damage that will be felt on the frontlines for months to come. Russian forces have used the “artillery drought” hampering Ukraine’s defenses since December to push forward on the eastern front near Avdiivka, making the largest advance since the early months of the war. Moscow’s progress has prompted warnings from senior Ukrainian military officials of a possible threat to Kyiv’s supply lines and hubs in the east, which are now perilously close to being in range of superior Russian firepower. The bleak...

A series of swift Russian advances have challenged Ukraine’s new line of defense set up after their withdrawal from the key town of Avdiivka and are raising fears about Kyiv’s tactics and momentum on the front lines. Ukraine announced a withdrawal from Avdiivka on February 17 to a series of positions to the town’s west. Yet three tiny villages have since fallen to Russian forces, with Kyiv insisting they never intended to defend them. But the defensive line it declared it would fall back to - three villages further to the west - has since come under heavy Russian assault,...

The lack of understanding in parts of US Congress is breathtaking. A congressman this week suggested Ukraine should name a finite price tag and a specific, simple goal. It’s staggering after two American wars of choice in two decades, costing trillions of dollars, that congressional memories are so short, and comprehension so limited.the most useful headline for Kyiv should be how unutterably bleak the frontlines are for them now. In nearly every direction, the news is grim. Russian forces are hiving off parts of the eastern city of Avdiivka, yet another town Moscow seems content to throw thousands of lives...

Ukrainian marines have advanced for the second time in two weeks on the southeastern frontlines, towards the key port city of Mariupol, with the recapture of the village of Urozhaine appearing to have been partially aided by the Ukrainian use of controversial cluster munitions. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed the village’s liberation Wednesday morning, as a CNN crew approached its outskirts with the 35th Marines. Heavy artillery fire prevented entry into the village, as Russian forces shelled Ukrainian troops holding the area. Drone footage of the intense fight for the village has emerged in which dozens of Russian...

President Trump has clearly been itching to leave Syria for months, once dubbing it nothing but "sand and death." As Trump himself was at pains to point out, he was elected on a promise to get out of "these ridiculous endless wars." But the speed of his decision to withdraw US forces from northern Syria threatens to wreck almost every goal the US has in the Middle East just now. Firstly, the sudden withdrawal of US forces -- designed to leave their erstwhile allies the Syrian Kurds as exposed to a Turkish advance as possible -- comes just as a...

The newly revealed exploits of spies who operated in underground tunnels The CIA dug a tunnel under the Kremlin and installed a hi-tech bugging system to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union's most senior figures, according to the former US intelligence officer who executed the plan. The device was put in by a US agent who had to wear a protective suit and was guided by satellite and sonar images of Moscow's underground. The bugging formed part of audacious operations to rescue a key defector, a KGB officer with responsibility for eavesdropping, and to alert Boris Yeltsin to the attempted coup...

Katowice, Poland (CNN)The American delegation came to promote coal. And the kids laughed in their faces. That was the bizarre and symbolic scene that unfolded Monday at the UN COP24 climate talks at a spaceship-shaped conference center in Polish coal country. The nations of the world are meeting here to hash out a "rulebook" to help ensure the viability of humanity -- preventing runaway global warming from causing even greater calamity in the form of superstorms, searing droughts and deadly heat waves. That work, which follows up on the 2015 Paris Agreement, is seen as more critical now than ever....