Free Republic

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) argued that Russia is not participating in the Iran nuclear deal negotiations “in a legitimate or honest way” and is trying to get around sanctions and ensure a market for their oil. She warned that “we have to be very careful in not negotiating against ourselves,” and that “any negotiations with regard to an Iran deal will be quite difficult to accomplish in the near term.”

Russia plans to resume some stock trading on Thursday after a near month-long hiatus, with 33 rouble securities to be traded on the Moscow Exchange. Non-residents will have to wait, though - they will be barred from selling stocks and OFZ rouble bonds until April 1. Trading in blue chips, including state lenders Sberbank and VTB, energy majors Rosneft and Gazprom, will take place between 0650 and 1100 GMT, with short-selling banned, the central bank said on Wednesday. Russian stocks last traded on the Moscow Exchange on Feb. 25.

Putin: unfriendly states will pay Russia in rubles for natural gas. Putin ordered the Russian Central Bank to develop a system for payments in rubles within a week. The list of “hostile” states includes the United States, all EU member states, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, South Korea, Japan, and many others...

Russian space agency Roscosmos will now seek payment in rubles when doing business with foreign entities and countries, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that all gas contracts will be in rubles and ordered the government to instruct Gazprom to make the relevant changes to existing deals. "We will now also conclude all of our foreign contracts with the ruble (as Currency)," Rogozin told the Russian broadcaster Channel One.

March 23 (Reuters) - Russia plans to switch its gas sales to "unfriendly" countries to roubles, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, responding to a freeze on Russia's assets by foreign nations over events in Ukraine that he said had destroyed Moscow's trust. European countries' dependence on Russian gas and other exports has been thrown into the spotlight since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. “Russia will continue, of course, to supply natural gas in accordance with volumes and prices ... fixed in previously concluded contracts," Putin said at a televised meeting with top government ministers. "The...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country would start selling gas to certain nations in Russia's own currency, prompting a rise in the ruble's value on the Moscow Stock Exchange.Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that gas sales to countries deemed unfriendly to Moscow would have to be paid in rubles, saying a freeze on Russia's assets by foreign nations had destroyed Moscow's trust. As of January 27, some 58% of Russian gas giant Gazprom's sales of natural gas to Europe and other countries were settled in euros. "Russia will continue, of course, to supply natural gas in...

Last week, Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov confirmed that about $300 billion of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserve cushion had been frozen as a result of Western sanctions. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the move "theft." The collective West's decision to freeze Russian reserves abroad constitutes the bankruptcy of their obligations before Russia, and undermines faith in their currencies, President Vladimir Putin has said. "In the past weeks, a number of Western countries have taken illegitimate measures on the so-called 'freezing' of Russian assets. The collective West has factually drawn a line under the reliability of its...

The Crimea-born Grandmaster, who switched from representing Ukraine to Russia in 2009, now faces being stripped of his place in the upcoming Candidates Tournament in June. The 6-month ban is due to run until Wednesday, September 21.

ideo showing the true size of Russia compared to Africa has gone viral on TikTok as social media users learn about the misrepresentation of scale on many world maps. First posted in late February, the video had gained around 8.5 million views as of March 14 with just under 400,000 likes. In the video, footage of an interactive map shows an outline of Russia, which at first appears to dominate a huge section of the map. However, as the outline is dragged down towards the continent of Africa and the equator, Russia begins to shrink. By the time the outline...

A credible deterrent is designed to alter a potential aggressor’s calculations of risk and reward. Vladimir Putin determined that the potential cost of invading Ukraine was relatively low, and on Feb. 24 he attacked. It will be the job of historians to try to understand why deterrence failed. Deterrence involves two factors: capability and will. Capability means having the military strength to deliver intolerable damage to an adversary. Will is the determination to use that strength and deliver that damage. .....snip..... By signaling that the U.S. had no intention of using its capabilities, the Biden administration seriously weakened their deterrent...