Free Republic

Is another shoe about to drop on the Clinton Foundation, and on Hillary Clinton’s problematic rollout? Newsweek’s Rory Ross reported this morning that the largest individual donor to the Clinton family business has conducted trade with Iran, perhaps in breach of US sanctions. Ukrainian energy mogul Victor Pinchuk has connections to the Clintons that go back almost a decade, and financial connections to the regime in Tehran that go much farther: The fourth richest man in Ukraine, Pinchuk owns Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors.Newsweek has seen declarations and documents from...

Russian hackers last year were able to breach a White House computer system after a successful cyber-attack on the State Department, a news report said Tuesday. The report by CNN says the hackers were able to get sensitive information, including non-public details about President Obama’s schedule. White House officials responded by saying the attack last year was made public and that no classified information was compromised. And they declined to comment on CNN’s assertion that Russia was the culprit. …

When Republicans criticize Barack Obama’s foreign policy, their critiques usually break down into two broad themes: America’s enemies no longer fear us, and America’s allies no longer trust us. The part about our enemies fearing us is usually a reference to Russia – conservatives believe quite earnestly that Russia’s military expansionism over the last few years is a consequence of Vladimir Putin sizing up the president and determining that he’s a weakling. No less an authority than Peggy Noonan made this very argument just last Friday, lamenting “a Russian president who took the American’s measure and made a move, upsetting...

Tensions between the major powers have pushed the world closer to a new Cold War, former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Saturday. The 83-year-old accused the West, particularly the United States, of giving in to “triumphalism” after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the communist bloc a quarter century ago. The result, he said, could partly be seen in the inability of global powers to prevent or resolve conflicts in Yugoslavia, the Middle East and most recently Ukraine. “The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are even saying that it’s...

New York (AFP) - For a second year in a row, Russian President Vladimir Putin has beaten Barack Obama to the title of world's most powerful leader as ranked by Forbes. In a year in which Russia annexed Crimea, stoked a conflict in the Ukraine and clinched a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline deal with China that Forbes called the world's largest construction project, Putin remained on top. It was the third time in Obama's presidency that he has lost top billing -- twice to Putin and once to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Third prize went to Jinping, who is expected to...

It was an unexpected question from a woman hoping to sell me her Warsaw apartment: “Are you sure you want to buy now, when war could be coming?” Though she was half joking, her comment revealed an anxiety Poles express frequently these days—that Russian aggression in Ukraine could spread, upending this NATO and European Union member’s most peaceful and prosperous era in centuries. […] Anxieties hang in the air as Poland marks the 75th anniversary Wednesday of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, one of several Russian attacks on its neighbor over the past...

Russia has warned that US air strikes against militants in Syria would be a "gross violation" of international law. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman said any such action, without the backing of the UN, would be "an act of aggression". It comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry meets Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia to try to build a coalition against Islamic State (IS) militants. President Obama has threatened action against IS in Syria as well as Iraq. IS controls large parts of Syria and Iraq after a rapid military advance. In a speech outlining his strategy, Mr Obama...

Russian intervention in Ukraine, including for expressed humanitarian purposes is “unacceptable” without Kiev’s authorization, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her US counterpart Barack Obama agreed in a telephone call Saturday. Such a move “violates international law, and will provoke additional consequences,” the White House said in a statement afterwards, referencing the numerous economic sanctions already in place against Moscow. …

President Obama on Friday called the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 an “outrage of unspeakable proportions,” declared it a “wake-up call” for timid European leaders, and all but laid blame for the tragedy directly at the doorstep of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama’s blunt language, delivered in the White House briefing room from behind a lectern with the presidential seal, offered a stark contrast to his muddled public handling of the disaster a day earlier. As the news broke on Thursday, the White House signaled that the president had first learned about the world-shaking events from Putin at the...

Vladimir Putin has ordered troops in central Russia onto “combat alert” in snap military drills a day after confirming the country is beefing up its presence on the Ukrainian border. The move, which will not affect troops stationed on the Ukrainian border, follows a series of reports of fighting in eastern Ukraine spilling over the frontier into Russia. Announcing the move on Saturday morning Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said the drills would run from June 21 to June 28. “In accordance with [Mr Putin’s] order, from 11.00am Moscow time the troops of the central military district as well...

Russia is somewhat obsessed with Jen Psaki. The State Department spokeswoman has turned into Russia’s favorite punching bag as relations with the United States have deteriorated over the crisis in Ukraine. She is demonized on television. Her gaffes are celebrated widely as internet memes on Russian social media. A popular radio morning show even mocked her in a song set to a popular children’s tune. “There is nobody more competent than Psaki, nobody more pretty, or smarter,” sang the chorus, sarcastically. The song accused her of peddling “nonsense” to journalists and urged her to “keep it up, we want to...

Hillary Clinton is trying to impress voters that she’s a true friend of Israel, which is odd given that relations with the Jewish state reached a low point while she was secretary of State. The Post reports: “Hillary Rodham Clinton cast doubt on the interim nuclear agreement with Iran, saying in a muscular policy speech [in New York] Wednesday night that she is ‘personally skeptical’ that Iran’s leaders will follow through on a comprehensive agreement to end their march toward nuclear weapons. Still, the former secretary of state and potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate told a pro-Israel audience in New...

Vice President Joe Biden is heading to Europe to send a clear signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin (POO´-tihn) about his intervention in Ukraine. Biden leaves Monday evening for Warsaw, where he´ll meet Tuesday with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Bronislaw Komorowski. He´ll meet separately with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. In Lithuania, Biden plans to meet with President Dalia Grybauskaite and Latvia´s President Andris Berzins. The meetings with the NATO allies are part of a broader U.S. campaign to persuade Putin to back off in Ukraine. As Biden was preparing to leave for Europe, Putin recognized Crimea´s...

At the same time that Russia was denying having blockaded Ukrainian naval facilities in Crimea, little-noticed reports came out of Moscow saying that Vladimir Putin’s government had ongoing conversations with eight foreign countries with the objective of building overseas military facilities, including in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. “We need bases for refueling near the equator and in other places,” Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, was quoted as saying by news agency ITAR-Tass. […] Attempts to reach spokespeople at the U.S. State and Defense Departments went unanswered Monday due to weather concerns, but analysts were split about how ominously to take...

In November of 2013, Russian media reported that U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul would soon resign; McFaul emphatically denied he was going anywhere. Yet today, he announced his resignation. Izvestia and Gazeta.ru reported the news back in November. […] McFaul is the chief architect of Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia, a policy that diagnosed Vladimir Putin not as a dangerous foe of the U.S. but as a misunderstood statesman who had been alienated by Republican policies inspired by Ronald Reagan. In practice, “reset” was McFaul’s euphemism for appeasement. The results of this policy were completely predictable: sensing weakness, Putin...

An Egyptian delegation visited Moscow last Thursday to strengthen ties between the two countries, reports Haaretz, just a few days after America announced the suspension of $250 million in military aid to Egypt. With the return of the delegation from Moscow, Egypt expressed intentions to buy MiG-29 planes and other military equipment from Russia in a $15 billion deal. Some reports indicate Saudi Arabia—which is itself experiencing something of a crisis in its relations with the Obama administration—will help finance the deal. …

North Korea has issued a fresh warning of an "all-out war", urging the United States to stop military drills and what it described as "nuclear blackmail". The country also refused to sign a non-aggression pact that John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, offered last week on condition of denuclearisation. In a thinly veiled threat to strike the United States, the North's National Defence Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, said the US government must withdraw its policy of hostility against the North if it wants peace on both the Korean peninsula and the "US mainland".

Unsurprisingly, oil prices are up in reaction to the Syrian mess. It’s worth keeping in mind that President Putin is at the top of the list of world leaders who benefit from this. The linkage between oil prices and Russia’s revenues cannot be ignored in calibrating what has, and may happen yet in the Middle East. Hydrocarbons account for two-thirds of Russian export revenues and nearly half of its state budget. And until very recently just two regions, Russia and the Middle East, dominated world trade in oil and gas. Russia has regularly boasted of being an “energy superpower”. Indeed...

With tensions between the United States and Russia already strained to the breaking point, President Barack Obama is preparing to press Russian President Vladimir Putin even more by meeting with Russian gay rights groups and human rights activists during this week’s trip to St. Petersburg for the G-20 summit. According to BuzzFeed, rights groups, including Coming Out, a St. Petersburg-based LGBT group, have been invited to meet with Obama on Thursday. … The meeting with the human rights groups is not the first time President Obama has met with Russian opposition activists. He last met with non-governmental organizations representing various...