Free Republic

Desperate Vladimir Putin is recruiting a Dad’s Army of old folks to prop up his creaking Ukraine invasion. The Russian army has put out an SOS for volunteers aged up to 60 after sustaining heavy losses during the disastrous six-week campaign. The military wants ex-soldiers nearing retirement age to rejoin in the Siberian cities of Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, according to Russian media. Moscow desperately wants old tank commanders, snipers and engineers. They would join up to 60,000 reservists recently called to active service along with 134,500 new conscripts forced into action. The conscripts - men aged 18 to 27 -...

Russian and Kazakhstan oil exports via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) from the Black Sea may fall by up to 1 million barrels per day (bpd), or 1% of global oil production, due to storm-damaged berths, a Russian official said on Tuesday. Pavel Sorokin, a Deputy Energy Minister, said the second berth could also turn out to be damaged after initial information about one of the three being damaged by a storm. Major global trading houses such as Vitol and Trafigura said on Tuesday they estimated the current Russian oil disruption at 2 million to 3 million bpd and added...

The top Kremlin spokesman said Monday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is still going according to plan and “within the timeframe” that was “approved in advance.”“The Russian Armed Forces are using modern high-precision weapons, hitting only military information infrastructure facilities. All plans of the Russian leadership will be implemented in full within the timeframe approved in advance,” asserted Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, to state-run media.Peskov declined to comment on how long the war, described by Russia’s government as a “special military operation,” will last. Peskov also appeared to dispute a significant number of reports and...

The White House is seeking to pin the blame for high gas prices in the United States on a new target: Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Biden and White House officials this week have increasingly argued that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is the cause of higher prices at the pump, an argument they reiterated after the administration on Tuesday banned imports of Russian oil.