Free Republic

A gift that was given to Poland’s top police commander during his recent visit to Ukraine exploded at the national police headquarters in Warsaw on Wednesday.General Jaroshaw Szymcayk met with leaders of the Ukrainian police and emergency service on Sunday and Monday. There, he received the gift. The gift itself has not been specified.The explosion happened on Wednesday morning in a room next to General Szymcsyk’s office. The explosion caused the commander and a civilian employee to suffer what is said to be minor injuries. Szymcsyk has been in the hospital since the explosion for observation. The civilian employee on...

Ukrainian officials on Monday morning reported a massive barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other cities. Part of the Ukrainian capital was cut off from power and water supplies as a result, its mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Officials also reported possible power outages in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes. The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean peninsula.

Ukrainian authorities on Friday announced further rolling blackouts in and around the country's largest cities amid ongoing Russian strikes targeting energy infrastructure. The press service of Ukrenergo, the sole operator of Ukraine's high-voltage transmission lines, said in a statement that "emergency outages" of four hours a day or more had resumed in the Kyiv region. The capital region's governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, said on Telegram on Friday that residents could expect to see "tougher and longer" power outages compared to earlier in the war.

The presidential press office of Ukraine accused global media outlets of “nuclear hysteria” on Thursday for sharing remarks made by President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he asked the world for “preemptive strikes” on Russia to avoid nuclear war. Zelensky made the remarks during a question and answer session with the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, on Thursday, asserting that NATO had a responsibility to “make it impossible for Russia to use nuclear weapons.

[…]Here are a few facts about the sabotage: 1. Biden said we were going to do it2. It happened “overnight” on the 26th of September3. We have a US Navy P8 fly from the United States to a refueling rendezvous point over Grudziądz Poland at 0210 hrs GMT4. The two aircraft, Callsign N/A, and BART12 sync up at 26,400 ft for an extended 1:20 minute refueling, disconnecting at 0328 hrs GMT5. The BART12 air refueler RTB’d to Spangdahlem Air Base Germany and one should note the flight record has been wiped6. The Navy P8 then continues onto the Nord Stream...

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold an emergency meeting with top security, political and defence officials on Friday, following the Kremlin's announcement of plans by Russia to annex four Ukrainian regions.The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would sign documents on Friday proclaiming Moscow's annexation of regions where Russia organised what Kyiv and the West said were sham referendums staged at gunpoint on Russian-held Ukrainian territory."President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for tomorrow. The agenda and other details will be announced later," presidential...

The emir of Qatar on Wednesday made an urgent appeal to Russia and the West, saying his nation will not be able to re-supply Europe with enough liquefied natural gas to stave off an energy crisis this winter, and urged both parties to bring a speedy end to the war. In an exclusive interview with French news outlet Le Point, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani emphasized that although gas and oil supply chains struggled before the Kremlin's invasion in February, the war has taken a severe toll on the industry. "We want to help Europe, and we will supply...

"As a result of urgent detective measures, the federal security service has solved the murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, born in 1992," Tass reported quoting an FSB statement.The assassin, Natalia Vovk was identified as a citizen of Ukraine, who was born in 1979, the report further added. On July 23, 2022, Vovk and her daughter Sofya Shaban, who was born in 2010, arrived in Russia, the agency reported.The FSB claimed in its report that Vovk and Shaban went to the literary and musical festival Tradition on the day of the murder. Darya was there at the event as an...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is being criticized by some in his country after he said in an interview this week that he held back details of the United States' warnings about Russia's impending invasion because he feared people would flee the country and its economy would collapse."Honestly, my hair stood on end when I read what [Zelenskyy] said about evacuation," journalist Bogdan Butkevich wrote on his Facebook page, reports The Washington Post. "How can a person who has Mariupol, Bucha, and Kherson on his conscience say that an evacuation would have overwhelmed the country? He didn't want to put the...

The head of Amnesty International's Ukraine branch has acrimoniously quit after the human rights NGO published a 'pro-Russia' report that condemned Ukraine for 'endangering civilians'.Oksana Pokalchuk said the controversial study on Thursday had 'unwittingly created material that sounded like support of Russian narratives'.She added in a Facebook post last night: 'Seeking to protect civilians, this study instead has become a tool of Russian propaganda.

The Kremlin said Friday that it's open to talking about a possible prisoner exchange involving American basketball star Brittney Griner but strongly warned Washington against publicizing the issue....Lavrov said Moscow was "ready to discuss" a prisoner swap but that the topic should only be discussed via a dedicated Russia-U.S. channel that President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to establish when they met in Geneva in June 2021."If the Americans again try to engage in public diplomacy and make loud statements about their intention to take certain steps, it's their business, I would even say their problem," Lavrov...

It was late March, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was going poorly. The Kremlin had done its best to black out Western coverage of the war domestically, as well as its reports of failed Russian advances and widespread brutality. On the Kremlin’s flagship media channel, Russia-1, came a very different, ghoulish story: from Russian-occupied Ukraine, an “exclusive” report alleging Ukrainian militants brutally raped and murdered a Ukrainian woman and disfigured her corpse. In the footage, a correspondent follows a pro-Russian separatist soldier into a school basement in Mariupol to view the corpse of a dead woman. The...

President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a new naval doctrine which cast the United States as Russia's main rival and set out Russia's global maritime ambitions for crucial areas such as the Arctic and in the Black Sea. Speaking on Russia's Navy Day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg founded by Tsar Peter the Great, Putin praised Peter for making Russia a great sea power and increasing the global standing of the Russian state.

Washington should assist in promoting a Russian-Ukrainian dialogue for peace instead of working towards including Russia in its list of state sponsors of terrorism, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday. "The US should create favorable conditions to advance Russian-Ukrainian peace talks. Washington should take steps to facilitate a political settlement to the crisis in Ukraine," he said at a briefing replying to a question by TASS as to how officials in Beijing view the US government’s intention of labeling Russia as a sponsor of terrorism.The Chinese diplomat said Beijing sees a peace deal as the only effective...

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia said on Saturday its forces would step up military operations in Ukraine in "all operational areas" as Moscow's rockets and missiles pounded cities in strikes that Kyiv says have killed dozens in recent days.Rockets hit the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region overnight, killing three people including a 70-year-old woman and wounding three others, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said."Three people lost their lives, why? What for? Because Putin went mad?" said Raisa Shapoval, 83, a distraught resident sitting in the ruins of her home.To the south, more than 50 Russian Grad rockets pounded the city of...

Navy veteran Patrick Lancaster describes himself on Facebook as “an independent crowdfunded journalist,” but critics argue that he is a foot soldier in the Kremlin’s information war against Ukraine. The Army is inviting social media influencers to DC to learn how to reach the youths On Monday, Lancaster posted a video from the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, which has been besieged by the Russian military for weeks. The Russians have blasted their way through the city the same way they razed other cities, including Grozny in Chechnya and Aleppo in Syria. The city’s mayor has claimed that at...

Moscow appreciates Beijing’s support in its efforts to uphold Russia’s principal approaches to the formation of Europe’s security architecture and values China’s stance regarding the situation in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. "We highly appreciate the balanced and unbiased stance of our Chinese friends regarding the situation in and around Ukraine," Lavrov said in a video address to participants of the ‘Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era’ conference. "We are supported by Beijing in efforts to defend Russia’s principal approaches to the security architecture formation in Europe," he continued.