Free Republic

Vladimir Putin has lost four warplanes worth £37 million each despite stepping up their defences after Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb. A pair of Su-34 fighters were destroyed and two more damaged after an attack on on Marinovka military airfield in Volgograd. Ukraine used long range drones to fly more than 200 miles to inflict the latest £148 million blow to Putin’s aerial firepower. It came less than a month after Russia supposedly tightened its military air base security after 40-plus strategic bombers and spy planes were hit in Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb. Russia responded by hitting Ukrainian civilians with a strike on...

Vladimir Putin has announced plans to scale back military spending after Kremlin officials warned that Russia is “on the brink of recession”. The Russian leader said he would reduce defence spending “next year and the year after, over the next three-year period” at an economic summit of five post-Soviet states in Minsk on Friday. Responding to Nato’s plans to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, Putin said the alliance’s members would spend on “purchases from the USA and on supporting their military-industrial complex”. “So who is preparing for some kind of aggressive actions? Us or them?” he...