Free Republic

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, who steered the Scandinavian country along a sometimes bumpy road to NATO membership and stood tall on supporting Ukraine, stunned the political establishment Wednesday by saying he was leaving the Swedish government next week. “It has not been an easy decision but something that I have thought about and processed for some time,” Billström wrote on X. Billström became foreign minister in October 2022, when Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson formed a coalition government with his own conservative Moderate Party, the smaller Christian Democrats and the Liberals. In May 2022, Sweden and...

1709 was an interesting year. Back then, USA didn't even exist. Scandinavia of those days, naturally, was dark and gloomy. We drank too much Absolut and suicide was frequent. Furthermore, we all believed in Socialism. That pretty much explains the fact that today two of the world's 20 richest men are Swedes (no, Sweden doesn't have oil). But let's forget about Forbes and study Peter the Great instead. 300 years ago, Peter the Great burned Russian soil in panic. 300 years ago, in 1709, Sweden was "defeated" at Poltava. 300 years ago, Sweden survived a major North European conflict while...

MOSCOW. Nov 10 (Interfax) - The exhibition of a unique photograph showing pilots at an American base in Poltava, Russia, in 1944, was held at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday. U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said very few people, even among professional historians, knew that such a base existed in the Soviet Union. The photograph reminds people of the important cooperation between the two countries during World War II, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies, he said. Vershbow compared Soviet-American relations in WW II with the present-day cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. The two countries...