Free Republic

Simultaneously with contacts conducted by US President Donald Trump’s representatives Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a delegation of prominent American political scientists visited Moscow. Professor John Mearsheimer, a faculty member at the University of Chicago who took part in the delegation, answered questions from the Russian daily Kommersant on the sidelines of a round-table meeting jointly organised by the Russian Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and the Higher School of Economics. Mearsheimer said that while the Washington administration possesses the potential to play a constructive role in ending the war in Ukraine, it has not yet translated this capacity...

Germany will send Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine from its national ​stocks, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday, warning that ‌Russia was likely to intensify its air campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure as winter approaches. Speaking at a videoconference of nations supporting Ukraine, Pistorius said he had decided to "deliver urgently" additional PAC-2 ​interceptor missiles. Patriot missiles are currently the only effective defence against Russian ​ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine, officials say. "Since Russia is only ⁠advancing very slowly at the front line, it is trying to destroy ​Ukraine's economic base and critical infrastructure by way of air raids...

US President Donald Trump's top negotiators have met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as efforts to end the war in Ukraine gather pace. Footage released by the Kremlin showed Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner being greeted by Putin, who said the current situation "is not so easy". Witkoff thanked Putin for agreeing with Ukraine to halt strikes on each other's capitals for three days. On Sunday the envoys will travel to Kyiv for more talks - their first such visit to Ukraine's capital. On Friday, Trump said Witkoff and Kushner were "bringing with them a proposal to end the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a 72-hour pause in strikes on Kyiv, the Kremlin said Saturday, as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow to try to revive a stalled push to end Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "Putin has ordered that no strikes be carried out against Kyiv for three days, starting at midnight today," presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia's Tass news agency. He said the decision was tied to preparations for Witkoff and Kushner's planned visit to the Ukrainian capital, which Kyiv has said will take place on Sunday. Peskov also confirmed that Kushner...

BERLIN—Germany accused Russia of being behind a plot to send explosive drones to a German airport last month and pledged to retaliate against Moscow, a rare public attribution of blame in the widening campaign of incursions and sabotage across NATO territory. “We do not consider ourselves at war but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare,” said German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, announcing the findings Tuesday from an investigation into the incident at Germany’s Leipzig airport last month, for which he said Russia was responsible. The drone incident marked a serious escalation in what European security and military officials...

An entire batch of Russian low Earth orbit satellites, intended to help create Moscow's version of Starlink, has failed to reach or remain at their anticipated altitudes just over a month after launch. The 16 Rassvet-3 satellites, launched on July 19, were originally supposed to orbit the Earth at an altitude of roughly 500 miles, according to the company developing the constellation, Bureau 1440. But publicly available US Space Force data shows that, as of Tuesday, the Rassvet-3 satellites are instead orbiting at altitudes of between 190 miles and 250 miles. Atmospheric drag at that altitude significantly shortens a satellite's...

The program, codenamed C430L, began in 2023 and was arranged by Russia's state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, in coordination with the US-sanctioned NPO Mashinostroyenia.

Germany’s Foreign and Interior Ministers spoke publicly in Berlin on Sep. 1, 2026, to publicly announce new measures the German government will take against Russia in light of “police investigations” and “intelligence findings” which conclude that a “low-level” Russian agent was behind the drone incidents at Leipzig in August. Security services were first alerted to a potential threat when a quadcopter drone was discovered on the airport tarmac next to a parked Antonov An-124 belonging to the Ukrainian state-owned Antonov Airlines. 800 grams of explosives were attached to the drone, which CCTV footage showed impacting the wing of the aircraft...

Moldova's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has criticized Moscow's plan to open additional polling stations for elections to the Russian State Duma in the unrecognized Transnistrian region. According to Ukrinform, NewsMaker stated this in an article. "The opening by Russia of an additional 16 polling stations in the Transnistrian region for elections to the Russian State Duma is unacceptable without the consent of Moldova's constitutional authorities," the diplomats said. The Moldovan Foreign Ministry was responding to a statement by Vadim Krasnoselsky, leader of the unrecognized Transnistrian region, who said that 17 polling stations would be opened in Transnistria for the Russian...

CIA Director John Ratcliffe proposed a trilateral meeting between President Trump, Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky during his covert trip to Moscow earlier this week in an effort to end the war, two sources briefed on the matter told Axios.

More than 113,000 Russians crossed into Georgia via the Upper Lars checkpoint last week amid growing fears the Kremlin is preparing to announce a new mobilization wave, Politico reported on Aug. 28. The spike in border crossings comes as the Kremlin undertakes increasingly aggressive recruitment measures, expands data collection on military reservists, and broadens the mandate for the National Guard, all of which have fueled speculation of an imminent call-up. Earlier, Ukraine's Presidential Office issued a warning on Aug. 27, saying that Russia plans to mobilize 600,000 recruits over 2026 and 2027, with 300,000 to be called up this year...

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe paid an unannounced visit to Moscow yesterday, spending eight hours in the Russian capital before returning to the US. Though he visited the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that they had met – though Ratcliffe certainly spoke to his counterpart Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR external intelligence service, and other top Russian security officials. The list of topics urgent enough to prompt the first personal visit of a US cabinet-level official to the Kremlin in six months is short. Ratcliffe could have been responding to reports of a planned Russian escalation...

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin ​will not attack a NATO country, and he played down media ‌reports that CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned Russian officials against such an attack earlier in the week. "He's not going to attack a NATO territory," Trump said of the Russian leader while speaking to reporters ​in the Oval Office. Earlier in the day, Trump told Axios in a ​phone interview that there would be no such attack, and that Ratcliffe, who ⁠flew to Russia on Tuesday to meet briefly with intelligence counterparts, had not ​been dispatched to...

A government watchdog group is urging lawmakers to crack down on foreign money flowing into U.S. nonprofits that influence American politics and public policy, according to letters exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.Americans for Public Trust (APT) is sending letters to all 50 governors and officials on six congressional committees directing them to its newly launched FollowForeignMoney.org database, which has cataloged a running total of more than $5 billion flowing from foreign governments, foreign nationals and foreign charities into U.S.-based nonprofits .... The group is calling on state and federal officials to examine whether existing laws adequately prevent...

MOSCOW, Aug 25 (Reuters) - A U.S. military transport plane landed at Moscow's Vnukovo airport ​on Tuesday, data from the flight ‌tracking service Flightradar24 showed. The large Boeing Globemaster with the U.S. registered tail number 07-7181 had flown ​direct from Riga, in Latvia, and ​landed in Moscow at around 0700 ⁠GMT. The Kremlin said ​it had no information on the plane. The aircraft had arrived in Riga on August 23 from the ​U.S. Camp Springs airbase near Washington DC, ​data from Flightradar24 showed.

A retired Russian spy general who ran a company supplying secure communications to Vladimir Putin’s Defence and Interior ministries has been found dead in Moscow. Major-General Igor Laptev’s body was discovered in his study at his apartment on Verkhnyaya Krasnoselskaya Street on August 20. The 83-year-old had a gunshot wound to the head, according to reports in Russia. As reported by pro-Kremlin newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, it was claimed that the decorated former KGB and FSB officer had taken his own life. A possible motive has not been disclosed, nor is it clear whether a note was left. Details are also...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s son, Conor Kennedy, has been named on Russia’s international wanted list for fighting alongside the enemy in the Ukraine war, according to reports. The Basmanny District Court of Moscow authorized the younger Kennedy’s “arrest in absentia,” accusing him of acting as a mercenary for the Ukrainian armed forces, Russian state outlet TASS reported last week. He faces seven to 10 years in prison if captured, according to the outlet.

Andrei Klepach, the chief economist at Russian state development corporation VEB.RF, was reportedly fired on Aug. 16, a day after Russian media widely circulated his warnings that Russia was losing its economic and technological competition with the West. Russian independent media outlet The Bell reported Klepach’s dismissal on Aug. 16, citing two people familiar with the matter. The report came two days after The Moscow Times published excerpts from Klepach’s May remarks, which were subsequently picked up by other Russian media. Speaking at an event organized by the Moscow Exchange’s Nikitsky Club, Klepach reportedly said Russia would be unable to...

Every August, the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Georgia is accompanied by familiar reflections about missed warning signs, intelligence failures, and a supposedly unexpected turning point in European security. The language has become so standardized that it obscures a far more uncomfortable reality. Georgia did not reveal a new Russia. It exposed a Russia that had been behaving consistently for nearly two decades while much of the West continued searching for evidence that Moscow had fundamentally changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Describing the failure to recognize this trajectory as a collection of mistakes understates what actually occurred....

State-owned VEB.RF (Vnesheconombank) has stated that Russia cannot win the economic confrontation with the West as long as Western countries continue to support Ukraine. According to him, the Russian economy is facing rising costs, falling investment, and technological lag, reports The Moscow Times. The bank's chief economist, Andrei Klepach, said during a session of the Nikitsky Club that sanctions and the Western blockade are increasing the costs of the Russian economy, and that Ukrainian strikes on ports, infrastructure, chemical plants, and oil refineries are causing ever-greater damage to Russia. Klepach stated that Russia is losing the technological and economic competition...