Free Republic

Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets and his delegation safely reached Russian-occupied Oleshky in Kherson Oblast on 30 October, with the local truce at 80 hours and holding. He said he was talking with residents to learn what help they need most. Russia has kept Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnipro River, cut off for months, leaving residents starving. Now the test is where the buses take people. The White House promised residents who wish to leave transport to their “preferred destination.” Lubinets said on 27 October that everyone who wants to go to Ukraine will be able...

WASHINGTON -- Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no willingness to end his war against Ukraine, warning that Moscow’s growing cooperation with Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang poses a serious challenge to Western security. In an interview with RFE/RL on October 29, Pompeo, who served in President Donald Trump’s first administration, discussed Ukraine’s prospects for peace, the risks of negotiating with Putin, Iran’s support for Moscow, and the need for stronger Western security guarantees for Kyiv. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFE/RL: With a fresh round of attacks on...

VIDEO Today, the biggest news is coming from the Kherson direction. Here, Ukrainian marines just launched a daring operation into the besieged town of Oleshky, on the Russian-controlled side of the Dnipro River. Ukrainian civilians in the town have been under tight Russian control since the full-scale invasion, and recently the situation became critical enough to warrant a massive rescue mission. Heavy bomber drones flew into the Russian-controlled town, delivering dozens of heavy crates full of food, water, medicine, and hygiene supplies to the Ukrainian residents. Smaller Ukrainian FPV drones were also deployed, hoping to carry as much humanitarian aid...

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, known collectively as CRINK, are seeking to undermine U.S. leadership by weakening the rules-based international order. Human rights violations and trafficking at the Alabuga complex in the Russian town of Yelabuga illustrate the increasingly complex ties among the CRINK regimes. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created a demand for drones that Moscow could not initially meet. Its answer was an arrangement to manufacture the Iranian-designed Shahed on Russian soil. This report contends that the burgeoning labor force that powers the Alabuga drone factory has become a site of gross human rights...

Last Friday, hidden in the aftermath of the U.S. government’s decision to waive sanctions on Russia, was language proposing a joint U.S.-Russia project on data centers. As part of wider negotiations with the United States, Special Envoy to the Russian President Kirill Dmitriev suggested that a joint initiative between the two countries could focus on building data center infrastructure. Moreover, his statement suggested that several Russian companies were “actively participating” in the preliminary stages of these discussions. Data centers are a delicate issue. Domestically, the rise in AI use is driving massive economic investment in data center development across the...