Free Republic

U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth predicted that if China got into a "major war" with the U.S. the Communist-led country would attack the American homeland. "The United States homeland would be at risk as well with both kinetic attacks and non-kinetic attacks – whether it's cyberattacks on the power grid or on pipelines," Wormuth said Monday at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Kinetic military action is a euphemism for active warfare, including the use of lethal force, according to Politico. Non-kinetic action includes soft force such as diplomacy and cyberspace operations. Wormuth also said the Chinese...

Peering through an infrared scope, a Ukrainian soldier noticed some heads poking over a trench a few dozen yards away. “‘Are there any of our guys in front of us?’” he asked, according to an account of the ensuing firefight by fellow Ukrainian soldiers. There were not. Two Ukrainians crept forward into the muddy wasteland of artillery craters between the two trench lines outside the eastern city of Lyman, eventually reaching the wreckage of an armored personnel carrier. Using it as cover to shoot from an unexpected angle, they forced the Russians to retreat. When it was over, they found...

Tensions are mounting in Moldova, a small country on Ukraine’s southwestern border, where Russia has been accused of laying the groundwork for a coup that could drag the nation into the Kremlin’s war. Moldova’s President, Maia Sandu, has accused Russia of using “saboteurs” disguised as civilians to stoke unrest amid a period of political instability, echoing similar warnings from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russian President Vladimir Putin has meanwhile baselessly accused Kyiv of planning its own assault on a pro-Russian territory in Moldova where Moscow has a military foothold, heightening fears that he is creating a pretext for a Crimea-style...

At about 1am on February 24 last year, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, received a troubling phone call. After spending months building up a more than 100,000-strong invasion force on the border with Ukraine, Vladimir Putin had given the go-ahead to invade. The decision caught Lavrov completely by surprise. Just days earlier, the Russian president had polled his security council for their opinions on recognizing two separatist statelets in the Donbas, an industrial border region in Ukraine, at an excruciatingly awkward televised session — but had left them none the wiser about his true intentions. (snip) Later that day, several...

China seems to have thrown down HARD on the side of Russia, and from my news feed, our Google overlords seem like they can't contain their glee. For the last few days, I'm routinely getting news of the Russia-Ukraine war from China Daily, the Global Times, the People's Daily, etc. Now, I might have clicked on one of those (Global Times?) not realizing it was Chinese, which may have triggered an increase in the amount of Chi-Comm news sources I'm getting, but there are still three things I find interesting about this: 1) Of course, I can click on conservative...

KYIV -- The average lifespan on the frontline of the fierce fighting in the city of Bakhmut is "four hours," according to an American fighting side by side with the Ukrainian army against Russian forces in the Donbas. Former U.S. Marine Troy Offenbecker, of Michigan, told ABC News that the situation in the city, which has seen some of the deadliest fighting since Russia's full-scale invasion, is "chaotic" and has been dubbed "the meat grinder." "It's been pretty bad on the ground," he told ABC News. "A lot of casualties. The life expectancy is around four hours on the frontline."

Russia's mounting offensive in eastern Ukraine has left the West in panic. EU foreign affairs chief Joseph Borrell warned member nations that the war in Ukraine will be over unless the bloc finds a way to speed up provision of ammunition to Ukraine within weeks. The EU defence minister will hold a special meeting next month to discuss further military aid to Ukraine from their existing stocks. Borrell said "much more has to be done much quicker'. ...

China is considering giving Russia weapons and ammunition for the Ukraine war, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said. Mr Blinken told CBS News that Chinese companies were already providing "non-lethal support" to Russia - and new information suggested Beijing could provide "lethal support". This escalation would mean "serious consequences" for China, he warned. China has denied reports that Moscow has requested military equipment. Chinese President Xi Jinping is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is yet to condemn Russia's invasion - but he has sought to remain neutral in the conflict and has called for peace....

"We have seen them provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine. The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they're considering providing lethal support,..."...Blinken confirmed that Chinese companies are already providing non-lethal support to the Russian effort. He noted the relationship between Chinese companies and the Chinese government, saying, "To date, we have seen Chinese companies and of course, in China, there's really no distinction between private companies and the state."

After the 2014 coup in Kiev the dully elected President Yanukovich had fled the country. His supporters in parliament were afraid and would no show up for further assemblies. The incoming U.S. selected government immediately set out to suppress the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. The first move of the rump parliament, now dominated by right-wing people from west Ukraine, was to prohibit the Russian language for official business. The ethnic Russian population in the east and southeast was opposed to the coup and rebelled against it. The new government tried to oppress it by military means. But a lot...

The official representative of the organization Marta Hurtado said that the UN is also aware of another video in which the Ukrainian militant who shot the prisoners confesses to committing the murder, and also tries to justify his actions, explaining them by the fact that the prisoners, allegedly, resisted, and were also employees of the Russian PMC "Wagner". However, Hurtado stressed that these explanations can in no way serve as an excuse for the criminal actions of a militant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who violated the existing norms of international humanitarian law.In a video published in social networks,...

I reported last week that my source from Ukraine, not Russia, was placing the Ukrainian military casualties at 150,000 with 35,000 unaccounted for – missing in action. Including the civilian deaths, over 250,000 people have died. Ukraine is losing the war. With the UK claiming they will now train Ukrainian pilots and provide fighter jets, this is obviously putting the UK at risk and such pilots with a few weeks of training will only crash and burn. Our targets coming into play for April and May are critical. We see major shifts in the financial markets coming even by June....

Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan is the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii. He’s in the Philippines this week, meeting with some of his Asian counterparts and preparing for several weeks of scheduled military exercises with our allies in the region. He gave an interview to the Associated Press yesterday and seemed to fire a verbal broadside at China, declaring that America is “battle ready” and our allies will stand united if forced to do so by countries that have “decided they want to change the world order” in the western Pacific. This is the...

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The center’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat...

Central European countries like Croatia, Hungary, and also recently Austria too are beginning to emerge as voices of reason in the West after their de facto New Cold War bloc’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine over the past year failed to defeat that Great Power. They rightly realize how counterproductive this NATO-led campaign has been for their collective interests, ergo why they’re urging restraint and even an outright reversal of policy at this point in time. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic is unexpectedly giving Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a run for his money when it comes to being the...

For a country constantly chest-thumping about the size of its economy, the United States is remarkably over-reliant on one form of "export" – war. For decades, the American-led political West used proxy wars to hurt its geopolitical adversaries. While most of these weren't a direct existential threat to US rivals and were relatively limited in scope, recent years brought a major shift to this strategic approach. Washington DC has become more bellicose than at any point in its history, aggressively attacking the very heartlands of its opponents. In the case of Russia and China, the only reason America isn't directly...

Discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war in Washington is increasingly dominated by the question of how it might end. To inform this discussion, this Perspective identifies ways in which the war could evolve and how alternative trajectories would affect U.S. interests. The authors argue that, in addition to minimizing the risks of major escalation, U.S. interests would be best served by avoiding a protracted conflict. The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the United States.

"No amount of reckless attempts will let the imperialist coalition forces overpower the heroic spirit of the army and people of Russia, distinguished by fiery patriotism, resilience and strong morale," Kim Yo-jong said TOKYO, January 27./TASS/.The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will always "stand in the same trench" side by side with the Russian army and people, Kim Yo-jong, the Deputy Department Director of the Publicity and Information Department of the Workers Party of Korea, sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said on Friday. In a statement released by the KCNA news agency, she vowed that the...

From day one of the war in Ukraine, the most powerful argument against unrestrained western intervention in the conflict has been the danger of catastrophic escalation into an all-out war between Nato and Russia.So far, western governments have shied away from a truly existential confrontation with Russia. But the threat remains that continuing western military aid to Ukraine will provoke Russian countermeasures that could turn Moscow’s proxy war with Nato into a direct military conflict.Western hawks have long argued the danger of escalation is illusory. In an op-ed for the New York Times, former British diplomat Nigel Gould-Davies claimed “Putin...

Poland is HIDING the truth from the world and it's getting bad | Redacted with Clayton Morris Poland is suffering from the war in Ukraine but are they a willing participant? Columnist Mike Krupa speaks against the narrative of Polish people as willing cannon fodder for a corrupt government and helps us understand how the proximity to Ukraine is costing the people of Poland. Poland is HIDING the truth from the world and it's getting bad