Free Republic

A drone hit the cooling tower of Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant, near the border with Ukraine, but caused no fire, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday, calling for "maximum military restraint to prevent the risk of a nuclear accident". The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "has been informed that the cooling tower of a reactor unit of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in the Russian Federation was hit by a drone early on Thursday". "It was reported that the unit was operating at the time, but its operating mode did not change and there was no fire," the...

For Americans who follow the Russian-Ukrainian war, the past few months must look very strange. In the first half of summer, the story from Kyiv – and the many western media outlets that repeated it – was that Ukraine was winning. Then, not long after the NATO summit in July, Kyiv announced it lacked the interceptors to prevent a winter disaster. The country needed 300 missiles to survive, we were told. Even if these 300 missiles arrive, they are unlikely to protect a country as large as Ukraine from the sheer volume of Russian ballistic attacks and glide-bomb strikes. Now...

Volodymyr Zelensky has sanctioned his former press secretary, who claimed without evidence that he had a drug habit. Iuliia Mendel, who lives in the US and has become a critic of the Ukrainian president in recent months, worked as his aide from June 2019 to July 2021 The measures, which will last for a decade, will strip the former spokesman of her state awards, freeze her assets and forbid her from moving capital out of her home country. The decree also sanctioned nine other Russian and Ukrainian citizens. In response to the decree, she posted on social media: "Sanctions against...