Free Republic

When President Biden proposed an additional $24 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine in August, Moscow spin doctors working for the Kremlin were ready to try to undermine public support for the bill, internal Kremlin documents show. In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions, according to a trove of internal Kremlin documents...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, ordered the Ukrainian military to re-establish control over coastal regions in southern Ukraine. Ukraine is amassing a million-strong fighting force in order to achieve this goal.Source: Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s Minister of Defence, in an interview for The Times [of London]Details: "Ukraine is massing a million-strong fighting force equipped with western weapons to recover its southern territory from Russia," The Times wrote.Reznikov said that President Zelenskyy had ordered Ukraine’s military to retake occupied coastal areas which are vital to the country’s economy.Quote from Reznikov: "We understand that, politically, it’s very necessary for our country. The president...

Russia has said that the threat of a nuclear war is very significant, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressing the risks should not be underestimated...Washington wants to see Russia "weakened" as it arms and supports Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday following a visit to Kyiv...

The NATO narrative is that Azovstal – one of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works – was nearly destroyed by the Russian Army and its allied Donetsk forces who “lay siege” to Mariupol. The true story is that the neo-Nazi Azov batallion took scores of Mariupol civilians as human shields since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and retreated to Azovstal as a last stand. After an ultimatum delivered last week, they are now being completely exterminated by the Russian and Donetsk forces and Chechen Spetsnaz. Azovstal, part of the Metinvest group controlled by Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch,...

Defense Department Press Secretary John Kirby said the Pentagon was closely monitoring reports Monday evening of a possible Russian chemical weapons attack on the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol. If Russia is to be found to have used chemical weapons in the strategic holdout city it would represent a major escalation of the conflict, and present a direct challenge to NATO to act. “We are aware of social media reports which claim Russian forces deployed a potential chemical munition in Mariupol, Ukraine,” Kirby said Monday. “We cannot confirm at this time and will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

A fearsome Russian general has been linked to the deadly railway station strike that killed dozens of fleeing civilians that was branded a 'crime against humanity' within the international community. Western officials believe Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov, a Russian commander who oversaw devastation in Syria, is likely to have ordered yesterday’s fatal air strike on the station in Kramatorsk. Graphic images on Friday from the eastern Ukrainian city showed bodies strewn across the floor, lying amongst luggage and children's prams outside the city's busy station. Some had already been put into green body bags, while other photos showed smoke rising...

A European official criticized the continent’s sanctions plan for Russia and urged his colleagues to do more ahead of a vote that supported "full" sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. Member of European Parliament (MEP) Guy Verhofstadt on Wednesday slammed the governing body’s "ridiculous" approach, which he said "doesn’t work" due to the fact Russia is run by an autocrat and the people have "no real" opinion. "That works with a democracy, with democrats, who have a public opinion, a real public opinion," Verhofstadt said. "In Russia, there is no longer a real public opinion." He argued that the newest...

A former Russian diplomat recently posted to the United Nations in New York was a devoted neo-Nazi who plastered the city with Nazi insignia, DailyMail.com has learned. The news comes as his former boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, defends his invasion of Ukraine as an effort to 'de-Nazify' the country. ...... A man who appeared to be Kolchin was photographed making a Nazi salute in an image posted to the Old School Skins account on Instagram - a Neo Nazi group which Kolchin promotes on his own page. On July 29, 2019, a photo was posted to the OSS page...

Bucha is the latest shiny object that the Western cats are chasing mindlessly without taking time to think critically about what Russia is actually doing on the ground. Russia’s invasion on February 24 was not a classic military attack. What do I mean? If Russia was intent on conquering and subjugating Ukraine without regard to the fate of Ukrainian civilians it would have launched massive missile and airstrikes on all major cities, bridges, airfields, railroads and communication systems. It did not do that. Not my opinion. The first phase of Russia’s special military operation consisted of the following: Moved troops...

Link to video only. On the ground reporting in Mariupol, citizen interviews about what is actually happening.

“You know that feeling when it hurts? I once fell in love with a boy, but he didn’t fall in love with me, and I thought it hurt. But it turned out that it hurts to see your mother die in front of you. “My brother keeps coming up to mum, saying, ’Mummy, don’t sleep, you will freeze’. “We will never visit her grave. She has remained in the damp and dark basement. We went to the toilet, slept, ate leftovers in the same basement. “Once uncle Kolya caught a pigeon, and we fried it and ate it. And then...

A cyberattack that appears to have originated from outside the United States caused major printing and delivery disruptions at several newspapers across the country on Saturday including the Los Angeles Times, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. The attack led to distribution delays in the Saturday edition of The Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and several other major newspapers that operate on a shared production platform. It also stymied distribution of the West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, which are all printed at the Los Angeles...

"For a long time the English were considered the strongest," he said, but they were no match for Russians with martial-arts training. "There were guys sitting there with a Birmingham banner and we went up to them. 'Either we're taking your banner or you stand up and fight for it.' The Birmingham guys decided they didn't need the banner that much." The violence on Marseille's streets and in the stadium was greeted with jokes and even praise from some Russian lawmakers and officials. President Vladimir Putin called the fighting "sad," then questioned "how 200 Russian fans could beat up several...

Did the Russians really rig the 2016 US election? You bet they did! Secret documents recently discovered in a bin behind a Kremlin-district 24-hour cabbage and tobacco store reveal for the first time the devious extent of Russian interference. These plans were decades in the making. Read on, as never-before-seen communiques between Russian agents Sergei Potrov and Dimitri Bienko outline the wicked plot – beginning in 1947, on the day of Hillary Clinton’s birth: Dearest Dimitri I am pleased to report that phase one of Operation Cankles is total success! Soviet implantation of stupid American woman resulted in birth today...

WikiLeaks has provided a treasure trove of inside information on what Hillary Clinton really thinks about important issues such as trade and immigration, but Clinton herself has chosen not to answer questions about the revelations. She has focused instead on criticizing the Russians as the source of the hacks, despite the fact there is no proof of Russian involvement. The emails also shed light on how the Clinton campaign interacts with Wall Street banks, with friendly media, and how it worked to undermine the candidacy of Democratic rival Bernie Sanders with the help of the DNC. WikiLeaks says it has...

As far back as the 2016 party conventions in July, Hillary Clinton was blaming the Russians for hacking and releasing embarrassing emails. Now the Obama administration, through an executive agency, has decided to back up her claim. Russia Today noted recently that emails and documents of the DNC were first released by Guccifer 2.0 in June, “but the DNC did not react until WikiLeaks released more files – which Guccifer 2.0 said he supplied to them – on the eve of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.” “Within hours, the Clinton campaign was accusing Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally of...

Russian Hackers Altered Emails Before Release to Wikileaks Source: Motherboard Vice, NPR, and MSNBC New evidence is emerging that content from the DNC emails accessed by Russian hackers may have been altered before being released to Wikileaks. This added layer of information joined with the timing of the release and TrumpÂ’s cozy relationship with Putin paint a picture of deep collusion and planning aimed at fracturing any potential Democratic unity at the most crucial point in the 2016 presidential election cycle. Thomas Rid at Motherboard Vice reported on the discovery this morning: The metadata in the leaked documents are perhaps...

The White House is scrambling to strike a last-minute deal with congressional Republicans to save its new nuclear arms treaty with Russia from a lingering death. Obama administration officials are trying to win the support of the GOP point man, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, to schedule a ratification vote in the upcoming lame-duck session rather than next year, when Republicans will hold six more Senate seats. The treaty, which also awaits ratification in Russia, would lower each country's maximum number of long-range active nuclear warheads and set procedures for them to inspect each other's strategic nuclear bases. ...President Obama...

Competitiveness: The president spent Tax Day reassuring Florida voters that money will keep flowing to NASA. But in space as well as on Earth, we'll be an unexceptional nation. In space, no one can hear you scheme. President Obama's speech at the Kennedy Space Center will never be confused with President Kennedy's clarion call in 1961 to send an American to the moon within a decade. Rather it was an admission that we will now boldly go where no one wants to go.

Achievement: The nation that put the first man on the moon may have put its last as budget cuts slash NASA's plans to return. Men will return to the moon, but they will likely speak Chinese. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy announced in front of a joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American to the moon by the end of that decade. It was a clarion call to the American spirit and technology to rise up and prove that America's best days were still ahead. Forty-one years after Neil Armstrong set foot on...