Free Republic

Set on restoring the once formidable Soviet military presence in the highly contested and resource-rich Arctic, the Russian military has begun building new military bases in the region, a Defense Ministry spokesperson said Monday. "On Wrangel Island and Cape Schmidt, block-modules have been unloaded for the construction of military camps. The complex is being erected in the form of a star," Colonel Alexander Gordeyev, a spokesperson for the Eastern Military District, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti. Russia has been talking about militarizing the Arctic for years as part of its greater strategy to explore and industrialize the pristine...

The ship was circled by one surveillance plane and two fighter jets, according to the defence minister's office. The frigate HMCS Toronto left Halifax in late July to replace HMCS Regina, which has been a part of the Standing NATO Maritime Forces since May. "Canada and its allies are involved in security measures taken by the acts of military aggression perpetrated by the Putin regime and because of the invasion of Ukraine," he said, calling on Russia to stop its "irresponsible actions." This ship has about 250 crew on board and is participating in Operation Reassurance

Sources say three Russian aircraft flew low over HMCS Toronto on Sunday. Two of the Russian planes were SU-24 fighter jets and the third was a slower AN-26 surveillance aircraft, a source said. “We expect this,” the military source said. “They’re going to play cat and mouse with us for as long as we’re there.” At least one of the Russian planes came within 300 metres of HMCS Toronto, a government source said.

Russia has reopened 25-year-old cases that may lead to criminal charges against young people who refused to serve in the Soviet army in 1990-1991, shows a request for legal assistance received by the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office.

Famed Russian musician and leader of the soviet rock band "The Time Machine" Andrei Makarevich has introduced a new song named ‘My country has gone mad.’ The anti-war song was presented during the open studio show ‘Echo of Moscow’ in Moscow’s Gogol Boulevard. The musician has already become the center of a Kremlin witch hunt for his anti-war position. Makarevich openly opposes the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russian aggression aimed at Ukraine. After performing a concert in Donbas in support of the liberation of Slovyansk from Kremlin-backed insurgents, Makarevich suffered severe criticism and persecution in his home country.

Two Russian strategic bombers conducted practice cruise missile attacks on the United States during a training mission last week that defense officials say appeared timed to the NATO summit in Wales. The Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers were tracked flying a route across the northern Atlantic near Iceland, Greenland, and Canada’s northeast. Analysis of the flight indicated the aircraft were conducting practice runs to a pre-determined “launch box”—an optimum point for firing nuclear-armed cruise missiles at U.S. targets, said defense officials familiar with intelligence reports. Disclosure of the nuclear bombing practice comes as a Russian general last week called for Moscow...

The video which follows this article was published on social media by members of the terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, includes threats to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin and liberate Chechnya and the Caucus Region with Russian fighter jets and missiles ISIS had seized from Tabaqa Airport in Raqqa, Syria as reported by IraqiNews.com on 27 August. Vladimir Putin, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is a principal supplier of weapons and equipment for Syrian government forces. A member of ISIS directs his words to Putin, “these Russian planes which you had sent to Bashar,...

On Sept. 5, Ukrainian Facebook users were shocked as the world's biggest social network seemed to deliberately overlook some abusive posts related to the war in Ukraine's east. A day before, on Sept. 4, Facebook user Xela Rekrap posted a picture of the body of a dead Ukrainian soldier hanging on the high voltage wires. A brutal commentary accompanied the image. "A minute of soldier's humour. Starobesheve village. Our militants hung a dead Ukrainian trooper on the wires with the help of a fire truck. Let him fly," read the description.

KYIV, September 8 /Ukrinform/. The self-declared “DPR” stops a process of exchange of captives since it says that it has not received a list of captured militants. This is said on the website of terrorists. “There are fears that we will release everyone, and Kyiv will try to cheat,” acting “minister of state security” of the “DPR” Leonid Baranov said. Due to this, the “DPR” is not planning to release about 1,000 Ukrainian military in order not to become, as they allege, “victims of fraud.”

KYIV, September 8 /Ukrinform/. Russian soldiers and militants conducted active actions near Mariupol and Donetsk since yesterday's evening. Head of the Information Resistance group Dmytro Tymchuk said about this on his page on Facebook. “Since the yesterday's (7.09.2014) evening, the enemy conducted active actions in the area of Mariupol, Donetsk, Debaltseve,” he wrote. In addition, Tymchuk informed that Russian military and terrorists fired positions and roadblocks of Ukrainian military with the use of small arms, mortars and grenade launchers in the area of inhabited localities of Zhdanivka, Zolote, Nyzhnia Krynka, Fashchivka.

The teacher of Free university of Brussels Aude Merlen shared with DW a personal assessment of prospects of the relations of the European Union and Russia in the conditions of the Ukrainian crisis. The position of the European Union concerning Russia is full of internal contradictions. About, whether already accepted EU of the sanction against the Russian economy is effective, whether it is necessary to wait for the fourth package of penal measures and why some EU countries belong to policy of the Kremlin quite loyally, the correspondent of DW has a talk from Aude Merlen who teaches political science...

President Vladimir Putin has fallen under the spell of Satan and faces eternal damnation unless he repents, a top Ukrainian clergyman said on Saturday in an unusually blunt statement that squarely blamed the Russian leader for the war in Ukraine. Patriarch Filaret heads the Kiev Patriarchate, a branch of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of an independent Ukraine. His church, a rival of the Moscow Patriarchate which is closely linked to Putin, strongly supports Ukrainian nationhood and the Kiev government's struggle to defeat pro-Russian separatists...

Does the CIA Believe Obama? Intelligence pros are far more skeptical of government claims than their bosses let on. By Philip Giraldi • September 5, 2014 That the United States’ intention to confront Russia over Ukraine, a place where it has no real interests, borders on the incomprehensible has been clearly demonstrated by both Scott McConnell and Daniel Larison. University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer has also described in some detail how the dangerous confrontation is largely the fault of Washington and its European allies, most notably because of the thoughtless expansion of NATO that genuinely threatened Russia. Former Polish...

There has been fresh shelling near Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine, raising fears that Friday's ceasefire may collapse. The truce held for much of Saturday but shelling in Mariupol, which killed one woman, was followed by the Donetsk airport blasts early on Sunday.

On the Ukrainian-Russian border is worth 58 Kamaz trucks with the bodies of Russian soldiers. According to the news site Press of Ukraine referring to the page Russian activist Yelena Vasilyeva. "Friends, I have just received a message from Dana Yarovaya, known in Kiev volunteer to help the wounded. On the border with 58 Kamaz telami..Okolo 1000 remains "- wrote Russian activist. Recall that Elena Vasilieva Russian activist who has created a facebook group called "Cargo 200", through which activists particles gather information about the victims in Ukraine Russian servicemen. It is a group of "Loads - 200" first released...

<p>SPARTAK, Ukraine (AP) - Clashes broke out Sunday outside the main rebel-held city in eastern Ukraine, throwing the freshly forged cease-fire agreement between government troops and Russian-backed separatists into further doubt.</p> <p>At least two houses blazed in the rural village of Spartak, which lies just north of Donetsk and adjacent to the airport, after they were hit by fire. A man whose house was struck by a shell said rebels had fired from a spot nearby, which appeared to have provoked a retaliatory attack from Ukrainian government troops. This pattern has been regularly observed in the nearly five-month-long military confrontation.</p>

Truth001 wrote: No John GWB destabilized the region by marching into Iraq in the first place all in the name of Oil. Obama was only trying to clean up the mess President Bush and VP Cheney left behind. Remember "mission accomplished" 10 years later, 4000+ soldiers dead and 1.5 trillion dollars later. Obama has been trying to avoid another Iraq disaster like every since he has been in office. - The Foreign Policy of the Three StoogesDear Comrade Pravda,How do you explain the destabilization of Libya, then? Or Afghanistan? Or Pakistan? Or Egypt? Or Ukraine? Were those all George BushÂ’s...

During today’s NATO summit, the alliance agreed to create a rapid reaction force to respond to threats to member states. That force is being formed specifically to deal with threats in eastern Europe. It is a direct response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Russians responded swiftly. The Foreign Ministry suggests a larger NATO conspiracy is at work. The summit adopted a line towards NATO’s eastward expansion and build-up of its presence near Russia’s borders. These plans were nurtured for a long time and the Ukrainian crisis became merely an excuse for the start of their implementation. Russia also accused...

Russian Army continues to violate the ceasefire agreement reached in Minsk. Reports the press office of the battalion «Azov». "Clearly the Russian fighters in the south of Ukraine did not get the news about the ceasefire! An «Azov» stronghold near Mariupol came under a mortar fire today," — reported in the press office. The battalion is also reporting that bodies of two children were delivered into one of the city mortuaries. There were killed by fragments of a missile as a result of artillery shelling of the village Shirokino.

Prominent Member of Jewish Community Shot and Killed in Donetsk, Ukraine Garik Zylberbord, 47, was a friend to many, including Chabad emissaries Rabbi Pinchas and Dina Vishedski Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski and Garik Zylberbord had been close for years. Zylberbord was one of Vishedski’s earliest friends and supporters when the rabbi first arrived in Donetsk, Ukraine, in 1993. The two remained in close contact as the conflict in the eastern part of the country, which began back in February, burned into war and forced the rabbi to flee to Kiev just two weeks ago. When the two men last spoke last...