Free Republic

President Biden raised doubts this week about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s claim that he never intended to use nuclear weapons. “If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it?” Biden said during an interview with NewsNation Thursday. “Why does he talk about the ability to use a tactical nuclear weapon?” The president described Russia’s leader as “very dangerous” in his approach to nuclear weapons. “He can end this all, get out of Ukraine,” Biden added. The US president expressed skepticism about Putin’s intentions just hours after the Kremlin strongman said at a conference of international foreign policy...

President Biden on Friday vowed to hold Russia accountable for its “fraudulent attempt” to annex Ukrainian territory and called on other countries to do the same. Biden blasted a move earlier in the day by Russian President Vladimir Putin to announce the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, four Ukrainian regions that he claimed were now part of Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent threat to use nuclear weapons will not staunch U.S. aid to Ukraine, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson said Thursday. “In terms of the statements or the announcements coming out of Russia, it does not affect the commitment to continue working closely with our international partners and our allies on providing Ukraine with the support that it needs in their fight to defend their country,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday blamed America’s struggle with inflation on “Putin’s war in Ukraine.” Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You heard Secretary Yellen say this week she got it wrong about inflation. In July, you told Bloomberg that inflation would be temporary about a year ago. As recently as six months ago, you were calling inflation, quote, a short-term problem, not a long-term problem. so, you got it wrong, too.”

RANCHO DEL CIELO, Calif. — Arriving at the Reagan Ranch in California’s Santa Ynez mountains is like stepping back in time to the 1980s. The 40th president’s Western White House is privately owned by the Young America’s Foundation, which invites high school and college students to visit and learn about the Reagan legacy. There are no exhibits or velvet ropes. Everything remains as it was when the Reagans lived here, from Nancy’s handwritten instructions for operating the TV remote to the jar of “Brim” freeze-dried coffee in the kitchen.

December 2014 is the month Putin’s Russia was plunged into undeniable crisis. Between the dramatic drop in oil prices and the collapse of the ruble, under Western sanctions pressure, Russians are going into the new year in a dramatically different, and lessened, economic situation than the one they enjoyed at the beginning of the year now ending.This will bring myriad hardships to Russians, particularly because even Moscow is admitting that low oil prices may be the “new normal” until the 2030’s. Caveats abound here. The vast majority of Russians don’t travel abroad, much less have vacation properties in Europe, nor...

While the White House has continually threatened further sanctions against Russia for non-de-escalation (even as it un-de-escalates itself), the specifics of the additional sanctions have been sparse. German CEO warnings over blowback from economic sanctions... the "nonsense" of replacing Russian gas with US gas... the Russian warnings of "interdependence" and "boomerangs"... all reduce the West's arsenal of financial sanctions. But, as The Times of London reports, perhaps the US has found a crucial pain point for Putin - a sanctions regime that would target Putin's personal wealth, which includes a reported $40 billion stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As The...

Exclusive: U.S. Sanctions Actually Target Putin’s Domestic Rivals B. Christopher Agee 3-17-14 While the move was sold as a clear message to Russian officials responsible for the current Ukraine crisis, the end result seems to bear little resemblance to that goal… Barack Obama announced a series of sanctions against officials in Russia who he claims have played a role in the continued unrest in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. The move came one day after a majority voters in the region supported a referendum to unite with Russia. In a statement Monday, Obama said the U.S. would not recognize the...

(Reuters) - Ukraine mobilized for war on Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. "This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country," said Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, head of a pro-Western government that took power when Russian ally Viktor Yanukovich fled last week. Putin obtained permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine, spurning Western pleas not intervene. Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea...

President Barack Obama said he welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s involvement with Syria, in an interview that aired Sunday. “I welcome him being involved,” Obama said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I welcome him saying, ‘I will take responsibility for pushing my client, the Assad regime, to deal with these chemical weapons,’” he continued. “This is not the Cold War. This is not a contest between the United States and Russia.” The president, responding to Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times, said he doesn’t “think that Mr. Putin has the same values that we do.” Obama added that Russian influence...

Appalling as the Benghazi, AP, and IRS scandals are, this dwarfs them all. This puts US national survival, and hundreds of millions of lives at stake. The head of Russia’s National Security Council has arrived in the US on a two-day visit for top-level talks on key stumbling blocks in bilateral relations. He will also deliver President Putin’s response to a letter President Obama sent in April. Putin aide Yury Ushakov confirmed on Tuesday that Patrushev is carrying the presidential letter and is scheduled to meet Obama. Among the US officials Nikolay Patrushev will meet during his trip is National...

Are Putin's agents behind shooting? By Toby Harnden in Washington and Adrian Blomfield, Moscow Correspondent Last Updated: 2:43am GMT 06/03/2007 Speculation of the involvement of Russian agents intent on silencing opponents to President Vladimir Putin's regime, wherever they may be, has increased with an attempted murder in America and an apparent suicide in Moscow. Alexander Litvinenko, who died last November, was a friend of Paul Joyal On the face of it the two incidents appear to have nothing in common, but Paul Joyal, shot in Adelphi, Maryland, on Saturday, is a friend of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy poisoned...

Putin's nuclear show blows up in his face By Julius Strauss in Moscow (Filed: 18/02/2004) Russia's biggest military exercise since the collapse of communism flopped yesterday, ruining an attempt to project Vladimir Putin as a global leader and reaffirm the country's status as a nuclear superpower. With Mr Putin and a host of military officials watching from the nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk, two intercontinental ballistic missiles went wrong during a firing from a submarine believed to be the Novomoskovsk. They were aimed at Kamchatka on the Pacific coast. A malfunctioning satellite was blamed. Putin promised that Russia will again be a...

Putin's language is becoming the talk of the vulgar By Julius Strauss in Moscow (Filed: 08/11/2003) President Vladimir Putin has a reputation for foul-mouthed asides, but Italian journalists sitting in straight-backed chairs in a Kremlin reception room cannot have expected what was coming. Opposite them, Vladimir Putin, immaculately dressed and statesmanlike, answered a question about one of the country's notorious billionaires. The interpreter's voice petered away into embarrassed silence. "You must always obey the law, not just when they've got you by the balls" is a rough equivalent of what Mr Putin had said. For a western politician such a...