Free Republic

The Louvre failed to spot a gang of thieves early enough to stop the theft of €88m (£76m) worth of French crown jewels, the museum's director has revealed. Laurence des Cars, speaking publicly for the first time since the heist on Sunday, told French senators that CCTV around the Louvre's perimeter was weak and "aging". The only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where they broke in was pointing away from the first-floor balcony that led to Gallery of Apollo housing the jewels, she said. "We failed these jewels," she said, adding that no-one was protected from...

Vladimir Putin initially denied having anything to do with Russia's capture of Crimea in February 2014, when mysterious masked commandos in unidentified green uniforms seized the local parliament and fanned out across the peninsula. Those "little green men" marked the start of Russia's war on Ukraine, which culminated in the 2022 full-scale invasion. The future of Crimea is now at the centre of President Donald Trump's peace plan and has prompted Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to rule out recognising Russian control of the peninsula. The exact terms of his plan have not been published, but reports suggest it would include the...

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered up to 200,000 soldiers into Ukraine, his aim was to sweep into the capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days. He wanted to overthrow the pro-Western government and return Ukraine to Russia's sphere of influence. Putin failed, but more than three years on a fifth of Ukrainian territory is in Russian hands (Excerpt)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said defences must be quickly beefed up across the front line, after meeting commanders in some of the main pressure points in the south and east. "In all major sectors where reinforcement is needed, [we must] speed up building of structures," he said in his nightly address. Russian forces are trying to encircle the eastern town of Avdiivka. And they are targeting the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. With temperatures falling below freezing and Ukraine cloaked with snow, President Zelensky has said "winter as a whole is a new phase of war".