Free Republic

Shortly after Russia’s unprovoked invasion, Putin put his military’s nuclear forces on high alert. Putin formally reduced the requirements for the Kremlin to deploy its nuclear weapons last year following Ukrainian attacks on the western Russian city of Kursk. That cleared the way for Russia to use nukes against any nation that attacks its territory and has the backing of a nuclear power. Recently, Trump has begun to sound more glum about the prospects of getting a deal done between the two sides. “Maybe it’s not possible to do,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired...

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to give up Crimea to Russia as part of a peace deal - despite Kyiv's previous rejections of any such proposal. Asked if he thought the Ukrainian president was ready to cede control of its southern peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, Trump replied: "I think so." He made the comments to reporters after returning from the Vatican, where he held a brief meeting with Zelensky before Pope Francis's funeral. Trump said that meeting had "gone well" and that Crimea had been...