Free Republic

While special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, some of the key people in creating the Russia-collusion narrative themselves have ties to a foreign nation. Both the Democratic National Committee as well as Fusion GPS—the company hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to research the Trump campaign—were using Ukrainian sources in their efforts to discredit Trump. Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, was a common thread involved in Democratic opposition research efforts into former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the...

Political newcomer and television comedian Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday declared victory in Ukraine's presidential elections after exit polls showed he was on track for a landslide win against incumbent and chocolate magnate Petro Poroshenko. "We did it together. Thanks to everyone! Now there will be no pathetic speeches, I just want to say -- thank you," Zelensky said amongst loud cheers from a crowd of supporters. Projections put Zelensky at 73.2%, giving him a significant lead over Poroshenko, who has won just 25.3%, according to an exit poll published by Ukinform. Shortly after the exit poll, Poroshenko conceded defeat. Zelensky's...

Many commentators have suggested that the greatest threat to the authoritarian regime in Russia would be a Ukraine that successfully navigated the difficult passage to economic development and political freedom, but apparently even Ukraine’s moves in that direction are a problem for the Kremlin. That is because, as the SerpomPo telegram channel put it, the chief reaction of Russians to the debates between the two Ukrainian presidential candidates is envy, envy that each of those who watched as many Russians did could decide for himself or herself who won and how they would if they could vote, something not possible...

A private investigator for Amazon and "Washington Post" owner Jeff Bezos says that Saudi Arabia hacked into Bezos's phone and accessed his data...... North Korea says a raid on its embassy in Madrid, Spain was a "grave terrorist attack"..... In Malaysia, A Vietnamese woman accused of spraying the nerve agent VX onto the face of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un's half brother Kim Jong-nam has entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge..... German police released 11 men who were arrested in pre-dawn raids early Saturday morning...... He's a comedian who's portrayed the President of Ukraine, but now Volodymyr Zelenskiy...

Senator John McCain has written President Donald Trump to call out Russian attempts to 'dismember' Ukraine through new attacks, and warning that his new administration is being tested by President Vladimir Putin. He wrote after Russian artillery fired on Ukrainian positions, reigniting the conflict and killing as many as a dozen soldiers.

Outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Monday for sanctions on Russia to stay, urging the world to stand up to its "coercion and aggression" after President-elect Donald Trump mooted ending the measures under a possible deal with Moscow. Speaking on a swan song visit to Kiev, Biden said the G7 nations and European Union should lift the sanctions only after Russia had fully implemented a peace deal on ending a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine and returned control of Crimea. Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday, raised the prospect that he would propose offering to end the...

U.S. Vice President Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a call on Friday that the United States is prepared to move forward with a third loan guarantee agreement to support reforms against corruption, the White House said. The United States promised the third $1 billion loan guarantee in November, but it was contingent on progress on reforms and fighting corruption. Biden also welcomed the appointment of a new prosecutor general in Ukraine as "an important first step to bringing much needed reform," to the prosecutor general office. Ukrainian lawmakers on Thursday appointed Yuriy Lutsenko, a close ally of Poroshenko,...

T he United States and Russia traded accusations on December 11 over the conflict in Ukraine at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Russia delayed the meeting for an hour and a half with an attempt to block testimony by UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic, prompting Washington to accuse the Kremlin of trying to suppress public discussion of facts about Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists in the east. In the end, Simonovic spoke at the meeting despite protests from Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who said human rights discussions should take place in Geneva at...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has taken part in ceremonies to commemorate the millions who died of famine under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Poroshenko attended a ceremony in the capital, Kyiv, at the museum dedicated to the famine, or Holodomor. A minute of silence was also held across Ukraine. November 28 has been marked in Ukraine as the day to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor since 2006. The famine took place in 1932 and 1933 as Soviet leader Stalin's police forced peasants in Ukraine to join collective farms by requisitioning their grain and other foodstuffs. It is estimated that up...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko banned a number of Western and Russian journalists from the country, accusing them of being a "threat to national interests" or promoting "terrorist activities," according to a list published on the presidential website on Wednesday. Two British journalists working for the BBC—Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg and producer Emma Wells— and BBC cameraman Anton Chicherov had been banned from entering Ukraine but Judith Gough, the British ambassador to Ukraine, confirmed on Twitter that the BBC journalists would be released. Two Spanish journalists, Antonio Pampliega and Angel Sastre, were also included on the blacklist although Sastre went missing...

KIEV, Ukraine—The burly man with the close-cropped silver hair and his two companions ask not to be identified too closely when they talk to me in some dowdy offices near an ancient monastery overlooking the Dnieper River. They want to be described as “patriotic businessmen,” they say, and one of them, whom we’ll call Alexander, is a very, very rich patriotic businessman. They have been funding Ukrainian self-defense militias formed in response to what they see as the ineffectiveness of the Ukraine Armed Forces in the face of pro-Moscow separatists and Russian troops in the country’s southeast. And they suggest...

Vice President Joe Biden backed out from appearing with President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine at a memorial ceremony in Kiev on Friday, when the Secret Service determined it “wasn’t a good idea” after a crowd became “unruly,” a pool report said. “When Biden’s motorcade arrived on outskirts of what had become very large and somewhat unruly gathering, many chanting ‘shame’ at Poroshenko. … [U.S.] [S]ecret [S]ervice decided wasn’t a good idea for Biden to wade in,” according to the pool report.

MOSCOW — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Kiev on Friday condemned Russia for its “unacceptable” military intervention in Ukraine, while exhorting Ukraine’s newly elected government to complete its democratic and anticorruption reforms. During a joint news conference, Mr. Biden urged Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, to form a new government “in days, not weeks,” and to champion economic reforms, promote further economic integration with the West and root out what Mr. Biden called “the cancer of corruption.” “Even if the guns in the east fell silent tomorrow, Ukraine would still face a struggle for its democratic and economic...

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko claimed his country was "prepared for total war" as fighting continued around the pro-Russian rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Fresh volleys of artillery fire were heard across many parts of Donetsk yesterday (local time), fuelling fears of a military build-up amongst rebel forces

The perpetrators are often members of the radical right-wing group Right Sector It’s a bad time to be a Ukrainian politician. The war in the east refuses to end, despite a “ceasefire”. Winter is approaching, and with it all the worries of another “gas-war” with Russia. And with parliamentary elections just weeks away, pre-revolutionary MPs are getting nervous about hanging on to their jobs. To make things worse, there is a growing chance of ending up in a wheelie bin. Since early September up to a dozen MPs, city councillors and other officials accused of wrong doing have been hauled...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is running a magic show. By pretending his country has a chance of joining the European Union or NATO, he is hoping to obscure Kiev's, and Europe's, gradual capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Thursday, Poroshenko announced a reform program meant to culminate in a bid for EU membership. "The doors of the European Union are open to us, I am absolutely sure of that," he said. "Well-bred people always knock and never enter without permission, even if there's no lock." Today, Poroshenko's administration submitted a bill to parliament to repeal the country's non-aligned status...

American fighters intercepted the Russian warplanes over Alaska United States officials have attributed the provocation in the sky with the visit of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko US fighters intercepted six Russian military aircraft in the area of ​​Alaska. About it on his Twitter said CNN journalist Jim Skuitto. "Russian planes stormed the US airspace larger group than usual: Two fighters, two bombers and two tanker" - wrote the correspondent. Skuitto reported that the Americans intercepted the Russians. According to him, officials of the United States associated with the arrival of a provocation President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko States. On...

Ukraine's new president Petro Poroshenko said his country would never give up Crimea and would not compromise on its path towards closer ties with Europe, spelling out a defiant message to Russia in his inaugural speech on Saturday. The 48-year-old billionaire took the oath of office before parliament, buoyed by Western support but facing a crisis in relations with Russia as a separatist uprising seethes in the east of his country. Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in March, weeks after street protests ousted Poroshenko's pro-Moscow predecessor Viktor Yanukovich, in a move that has provoked the deepest crisis in relations with...

<p>Petro Poroshenko, the newly elected president of Ukraine, inherits a low-grade civil war against separatists backed by Russia, an economy rapidly descending into recession and a fragmented political system in which most power lies with a lame-duck, unrepresentative parliament. But as he sees it, he does have one thing going for him: For the moment, at least, a decisive majority of Ukrainians are behind him.</p>

(Reuters) - The United States and Europe exchanged angry words with Russia on Saturday in a tug-of-war over Ukraine, with U.S., EU and NATO leaders saying Moscow must not strong-arm Kiev into an unpopular alliance. At conference in Munich where Western diplomats met leaders of the Ukrainian opposition, United States Secreatary of State John Kerry said the protesters believe "their futures do not have to lie with one country alone, and certainly not coerced". "Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine," he said. "The United States and EU stand with the people...