Free Republic

Last week, we warned of a coming anti-democratic backslide. Now, we see it happening. A parliamentary vote, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s lawmakers, today took away the independence of Ukraine’s key anti-corruption bodies — the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). Zelensky signed it into law the same day. Under the new law, the prosecutor general, a notoriously non-independent figure, will now oversee anti-corruption investigations — in a complete overturn of the system that was set up to be independent from other law enforcement bodies. In reality, it means that Zelensky’s office will be able to...

On May 23rd, The Times published an extraordinarily candid probe into how militarised drones have irrevocably revolutionised warfare in the 21st century, with Russia far at the forefront of this radical shakeup of how conflicts are waged. Meanwhile, there is little indication NATO members even vaguely comprehend this battlefield reality, let alone a single one of them is undertaking any serious measures whatsoever to prepare for conflict such as that currently unfolding and evolving daily throughout Ukraine’s eastern steppe.The Times piece is a first-person report of a visit to the assorted headquarters of Kiev’s 93rd Mechanised Brigade, in basements of...

Ukraine’s official military casualty figures in the war with Russia may be vastly understated, according to a report published by the French newspaper Le Monde on Monday. Russia’s death toll is much higher, but official figures show the Kremlin’s voluntary recruitment drive is replenishing the ranks faster than its soldiers are being killed. Death tolls in the four-year old war are state secrets on both sides of the conflict and analysts have been reduced to using proxies to estimate the true toll and official estimates from Defence Ministries are almost certainly massaged up or down. However, even these estimates are...

US Senator Lindsey Graham has warned that President Donald Trump will impose steep tariffs on countries that continue to import oil from Russia, specifically naming India, China and Brazil. Graham made the remarks during a recent interview on Fox News. “Trump is going to impose tariffs on people that buy Russian oil – China, India, and Brazil,” Graham said. These three countries account for around 80 per cent of Russia’s crude exports, which Graham argued is helping to fund the war in Ukraine. He said Trump plans to impose a 100 per cent tariff on oil-related imports from those nations...

Russian drone attacks appear to be overwhelming Ukraine's besieged air defenses with their highest hit rates since the war began, it was reported Monday. Moscow's military has used "swarm" tactics, with drones striking targets at three times the typical rate in recent months, Financial Times reported, citing official data. Roughly 15% of Iranian-designed drones, manufactured in Russia, penetrated defenses on average between April and June. That was up from only 5% during the previous three months. The war began in February 2022 when, in an unprovoked attack, Russia invaded Ukraine. The increased effectiveness of the slow-moving Shaheds — drones that...

An American father who moved to Russia to avoid LGBTQ+ “indoctrination” for his kids is being sent to the front line in Ukraine, despite being assured he would serve in a non-combat role. Derek Huffman, 46, feels he is being “thrown to the wolves” after being told that his job in the military would be as a correspondent or as a welder, his wife, DeAnna, said in a recorded plea for prayers, which has since been removed from her YouTube page. Huffman has no prior military experience, DeAnna said, adding that his limited training was conducted in Russian. She suggested...

Donald Trump this week boosted Ukraine’s air defences with new Patriot batteries, threatened Vladimir Putin with sanctions if he does not agree to a ceasefire, and even reportedly gave tacit approval to more Ukrainian strikes on Moscow. Trump’s newfound support for Ukraine is a welcome lifeline. The question is whether his help will be enough to stop Russia’s relentless attacks before Ukraine is engulfed in a critical military, political and social crisis that threatens to destroy it from within. Putin chose war over peace this spring because his spies and generals told him that Ukraine is on the brink of...

@mazemoore After the 2016 election, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Amy Klobuchar traveled to Ukraine together. After the trip they held a press conference and declared that Russia attacked the USA by hacking the 2016 election. It was all lies.

The drone and missile onslaught against Ukraine

Russian president says grain sent under 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative ‘ended up’ in Europe Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused Europe of embezzling grain sent to impoverished countries under the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative. During a Kremlin meeting, the head of the Russian Association of Fertilizer Producers, Andrey Guriev, mentioned that according to the initiative, the grain “was supposed to go to southern countries.” “But it ended up going to Europe,” Putin responded. Guriev also stated that a complete refusal by Europe to use Russian fertilizers for over three years could reduce crop yields and increase fertilizer...

"The Russian side has repeatedly stated that a deployment of armed forces of other countries in Ukraine under any pretense would be absolutely unacceptable and it would regard this as preparations for foreign military intervention," Maria Zakharova statedMOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. Russia treats the idea of the "coalition of the willing" to create a multinational force as a plan of military intervention and will regard its units in Ukraine as legitimate targets, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. The diplomat was commenting on the outcome of the coalition’s earlier meeting. Following the event, the office of UK Prime Minister...

Col. Douglas Macgregor is at pains to emphasize how the Narcotraficante Cartels pose a substantial risk to the security of the U.S. through its "soft underbelly". And Azerbaijan, as a remote government strongly involved with organized crime, has emerged as an important player in military attacks on U.S. opponent, Iran. Contrasts between these two criminal governments. The comparison between the Azerbaijani regime under Ilham Aliyev and the Mexican state nominally led by Claudia Sheinbaum, yet heavily penetrated by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, is not a contrast between a corrupt and a clean government—but rather a study in...

President James Monroe: “The American continents … are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” Monroe outlined two separate spheres of influence: the Americas and Europe. The independent lands of the Western Hemisphere would be solely the United States’ domain. In exchange, the United States pledged to avoid involvement in the political affairs of Europe (Including Ukraine and Russia)

And so it happened that yesterday (14) US President Donald J. Trump took multiple steps that were widely perceived as against Russia and pro-Ukraine.To begin with, Trump authorized $10 Billion in military aid for Ukraine in an ingenious formula: NATO (Europeans and Canada – but not the US) will pay for the American weapons.At the same time, the US president threatened Moscow with harsh secondary sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not reach a peace settlement with Ukraine in 50 days.[Ukrainian MPs and European officials have complained that Trump ‘gave Putin 50 days to conquer Ukraine’.]In the runup to...

President Donald Trump made an announcement Monday aligning him more firmly with Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion than ever before. The US will send weapons to Ukraine through NATO, the president said during a meeting in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Trump also laid out a new deadline for Russia — threatening trade consequences, including secondary sanctions, if a peace deal isn’t reached in 50 days. Even before the weapons announcement, which the president had telegraphed last week, the hawks were celebrating. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina previewed the announcement Sunday as a “turning...

President Trump on Monday suggested that first lady Melania Trump convinced him that Russian President Vladimir Putin has continually backed out of his promises over a possible peace deal with Ukraine. He explained that his wife pointed out Putin's false promises following Trump's phone calls with the Russian leader amid calls for a deal to end the conflict. "I go home. I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh, really? another city was just hit,'" he said. "There's times I'd get home. I'd say, 'First lady, I had...

President Donald Trump was reportedly caught “flat-footed” when the Pentagon abruptly announced it was freezing shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot missile interceptors, precision-guided GMLRS, and artillery rounds.The rationale for halting shipments of defensive weapons to Ukraine stems from a review that found that the U.S. only has about 25 percent of the Patriot interceptors needed for all Defense Department military plans.Yet just days later, Trump reversed course. “They’re getting hit very hard now,” he said. “We’re going to send some more weapons — defensive weapons primarily.”The rapid pivot back to arms transfers to Ukraine illustrates just how...

When asked on July 7 whether the United States would be sending more weapons to Ukraine, President Donald Trump responded in the affirmative. “We have to, they have to be able to defend themselves,” Trump told reporters, referring to the Ukrainians. “They’re getting hit very hard. Now they’re getting hit very hard. We’re gonna have to send more weapons.” Many foreign policy analysts in Washington and Europe greeted the remarks with a sigh of relief. Six days earlier, the Trump administration suspended some U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine in a move American defense officials at the time said was part...

As the prospect of a broader NATO-Russia war grows, remember what we’ve already lost. As Peter Schweizer noted in a short report for the Hoover Institution on Christmas Day 2000, twenty-five years ago the United States was “spending less on defense as a percentage of GNP than anytime since the Great Depression.” That all changed nine months later when the so-called “peace dividend” from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was reinvested in a “Global War on Terrorism.” Eight trillion dollars later, and what do Americans have to show for their sacrifices in...

... Or face 100% secondary tariffs BREAKING News. Trump speaking now.