Free Republic

With President Trump entering the "counter-punch" phase of the Russia investigation, allies are urging him to consider two avenues -- each with its own potential payoffs and pitfalls -- to investigate the origins of the probe and hold top Justice Department officials accountable for alleged wrongdoing. Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced the completion of his investigation last week, transmitting his more than 300-page report to the Justice Department for review. Attorney General Bill Barr released a four-page summary of Mueller’s report Sunday, stating the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia during...

Russia and Syria appeared to attack two more hospitals and a bakery in the already besieged eastern city of Aleppo on Wednesday, in an aggressive push to seize and starve the city—home to as many as 100,000 children—back into regime control. So how will the Obama administration respond to an increasingly provocative Russia? For now, it won’t. There is an unspoken understanding within the administration that despite the many provocations Russia has carried out in Syria, there will be no major American response, a position that increasingly is drawing the ire of top national security officials, three U.S. officials told...

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has warned his armed forces are ready to use "more military means" to obliterate Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria as his fight against the terror group rages on. The Russian leader boasted about how the twisted jihadis have yet to see the full force of his aggression, as he said Moscow was ready to batter the militants with "the most modern weapons". I want to stress that these are by far not all of our capabilities. We have more military means. And we will use them - if need be."

Russia blasted the Islamic State's declared capital in Raqqa, Syria, early Tuesday morning after publicly confirming that a homemade bomb took down its airliner over Egypt. The Russian strikes come days after the French also stepped up their air campaign against the Islamic State in Raqqa after a string of six attacks, while President Obama has said the U.S. strategy does not need a revision. A U.S. defense official said the Russians notified the U.S. before conduct its bombing runs, according to the safety protocols the two countries agreed to last month.

At a rival protest in Kiev this weekend, impoverished workers from eastern Ukraine turned out to show their support for the government and stronger ties with Moscow even as the pro-EU crowd grew ever more jubilant. They were poor. Their clothes looked cheap and worn, their faces tired; their feelings were hurt. A group of workers and miners from Kirovsk, an industrial town in eastern Ukraine, were among thousands of protesters walking on Sunday morning towards the anti-Euro rally in Kiev’s Mariinsky park, to demonstrate their support for Ukraine’s president, Victor Yanukovych, and for friendship with Russia. Two parts of...

Christopher Hitchens on Revival of religion in Russia The only person who seems to be paying attention to this phenomonon of the rising influence of Christianity in Russia is ironically Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently invited brothers Christopher and Peter Hitchens to address the question of whether civilization needs God. Here is what Mr. Hitchens had to say about Religion in Russia today: "The second of the two empires that took part in this hecatomb of civilization in the name of their own religion,...

Medvedev and Obama ordering at Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia. WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the United States and Russia had reached agreement to resume exporting U.S. poultry products to Russia and his administration would support Moscow's accession to the World Trade Organization. "Russia belongs in the WTO," Obama told reporters at a joint news conference with President Dmitry Medvedev. He also declared that the two countries have "succeeded in resetting" their relationship but acknowledged differences in some areas, such as Moscow's tensions with Georgia. "We addressed those differences candidly," he said. And Obama announced...