Free Republic

Donald Trump’s message – or rather, the message he transmitted from Vladimir Putin – to Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Monday was stark: accept the deal Russia is offering, because otherwise you’ll lose the war. But if Moscow appears strong now, Ukraine and its European allies believe, it’s partly because Trump’s choices have made it stronger – namely, his decisions to curtail US military aid, interrupt intelligence sharing and, above all, accept Putin’s insistence on a peace deal before a ceasefire. And in fact, Russia is far from battlefield supremacy. Just hours before the Oval Office discussions, the British Ministry...

On Aug 11, Russian soldiers breached Ukraine’s front-line defences and penetrated at least six miles behind enemy lines. Battlefield maps, kept studiously up to date by open-source intelligence groups, showed a red tendril reaching north into Ukraine’s territory through several villages in the contested eastern Donetsk region coveted by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. The advance set off alarm bells among Kyiv’s supporters, who feared it marked the start of an offensive aimed at the stronghold city of Kostiantynivka or the logistical hub of Pokrovsk, both of which could provide Russia with a foothold in Ukraine’s fortress belt. What Russian...

Two years ago today, a small plane exploded in mid-air over Russia and killed all 10 people on board, including the infamous Yevgeny Prigozhin. The 62-year-old billionaire was the head of a mercenary gang called the Wagner Group. His abrupt end, however, came just two months after his bold - some would say barmy - decision to march his team towards the Moscow in an act of utter defiance against Mad Vlad's authority. Formerly an ally of the Russian dictator, he went from being Putin's chef to public enemy number one of the Kremlin. Below we take a look at...

Russia appears to be facing a fuel crisis with gas stations running out of petrol, as Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries sow chaos across the country. Multiple regions across Russia have reportedly been affected, with drivers forced to queue for hours in order to fill up. Some motorists have complained of having to wait for up to eight hours in queues stretching for kilometres. Images widely shared on social media show huge tailbacks as drivers wait patiently to get to the front of the line. Motorists have also seen petrol prices go through the roof as fuel supplies become...

This attack is part of Ukraine’s strategy to target senior Russian commanders, aiming to weaken their military. A TOP Putin general is fighting for his life after a brutal Ukrainian strike blew up a Russian column in Kursk – reportedly leaving him with devastating injuries and multiple amputations. Lt-Gen Esedulla Abachev, 57, was hit on the Rylsk–Khomutovka highway in the Kursk region early on Saturday, according to Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR). The decorated officer – deputy commander of Russia’s North Group of Forces – was urgently airlifted to the Vishnevsky Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow where surgeons amputated an...

VOLODYMYR Zelensky has said he is "counting on America" as Donald Trump prepares to greet Vladimir Putin on the runway after he lands in Alaska. The embattled Ukrainian president said he hopes the peace summit between the two leaders leads to a trilateral meeting to get Ukraine involved in the peacemaking process. It comes after Trump blasted Vladimir Putin for continuing to attack Ukraine and said his urge to kill "might be in his genes". -snip- Trump says tyrant Putin’s need to kill ‘might be in his genes’ but onslaught ‘hurts his He said: "In [Putin's] mind, it helps him...

In a not-so-subtle act of trolling, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Alaska on the eve of the US–Russia summit wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with “CCCP”, the Russian initials for the USSR. Once seen in western capitals as a pragmatic and skilled diplomat, the 75-year-old has in recent years mirrored the Kremlin’s radicalised politics, adopting an increasingly combative tone and resorting to trolling and mockery. Lavrov’s choice of attire nods to the Kremlin’s long-running narrative: Putin has repeatedly claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people”, denying Ukraine’s legitimacy and territorial integrity while promoting a broader notion of unity...

Donald Trump has said Vladimir Putin is “not going to mess around with me” on the eve of his critical meeting with the Russian leader in Alaska. The two leaders are set to meet in person at a US military base on Friday for talks aimed at negotiating a potential ceasefire in Ukraine. The leaders are scheduled to begin discussions at 11.30am local time in Anchorage (8:30pm BST).

A pro-Ukraine hacker group claims to have carried out a major cyberattack on Russia’s biggest airline, Aeroflot. Silent Crow has claimed responsibility for the attack on Aeroflot’s IT infrastructure, which caused the airline to cancel dozens of flights on Monday. -snip- Aeroflot, Russia’s national carrier, said it had cancelled more than 40 flights following the IT “failure”, without saying how long it would take to be resolved. This included journeys to airports across Russia, plus the capital of Belarus, Minsk, and the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, the Reuters news agency reported. Aeroflot has not responded to the hacking claims and...

An RAF signals intelligence aircraft has been deployed over the Black Sea to monitor the movements of the Russian military across the region. The operation, conducted under the watchful eye of NATO and Russian air defence units, comes as the war in Ukraine shows no signs of abating in the near future. The plane being used is an RC-135W Rivet Joint, a modified Boeing aircraft, considered to be one of the most technologically sophisticated in the world. Equipped with an array of sensors, its sensors ‘soak up’ electronic emissions from communications, radar and other systems to build a picture of...

Russia's navy has been forced to cancel its annual flagship event in St Petersburg, in a humiliating blow for Vladimir Putin. Navy Day is a major national holiday and is held on the last Sunday of July, celebrated by the public and military alike. The event is used by the Kremlin to show off its latests ships and technology, as it attempts to project its naval power to the watching world. As the maritime capital of Russia, St Petersburg holds a Main Naval Parade along the River Neva, which is normally attended by the Russian president. Usually ships from the...

The Russian-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine's east are teetering on the brink of a severe humanitarian crisis, with certain locales having been parched for four months straight. The dire water scarcity is attributed to rampant corruption and gross mismanagement by the Kremlin-backed leadership. Donetsk and Makiivka are bearing the brunt of the crisis, inciting residents' fears of potential disease outbreaks. In response, local officials have rolled out emergency water rationing for the nearly 1.3 million inhabitants of both cities. Andrey Chertkov, the interim head honcho of the self-proclaimed DPR government, cautioned citizens about the new tri-weekly water...

Podnosova once said that women weren’t into Putin during their uni years. RUSSIA'S top judge and Putin’s former university pal has died today - just 15 months after taking the helm of the country's supreme court. -snip- Podnosova had revealed in 2001 how a gawky Putin was not fancied by girls at discos at Leningrad State University where they both studied in the law faculty in the Soviet era. “I well remember the last New Year [at university] - everyone dressed in masquerade costumes, and Volodya [Vladimir] came in a modest suit. "He commented: ‘This is Stierlitz’s outfit," in reference...

Oleksandr Usyk has become boxing's undisputed heavyweight champion for a second time after beating Britain's Daniel Dubois at a packed Wembley Stadium. The Ukrainian, 38, knocked Dubois down with a stunning right hook midway through round five, before finishing the job moments later with a devastating left hook to the chin of the 27-year-old. Dubois was bidding to avenge his previous loss to Usyk and become the UK's first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 1999. Usyk - who brought a group of Ukrainian war veterans to the fight - came in with the WBO, WBC and WBA belts,...

Vladimir Putin has pulled back the curtain on what has been described as the ‘largest and most secret’ drone factory ahead of a joint naval drill with Iran. Footage – a blend of Cold War secrecy and TikTok-era propaganda – offers a rare glimpse of the Yelabuga production facility in the Russian republic of Tatarstan. Recorded by Zvezda, the Russian defence ministry’s TV channel, it shows the star of Putin’s war in Ukraine – the ‘Geran-2’ drones. This is the Kremlin’s locally branded version of Iranian-designed Shahed 136. -snip- Above the entrance to the factory, a giant screen read, ‘Kurchatov,...

Prominent Russian propagandists have warned Donald Trump of severe consequences following his approval of weapons to Ukraine and threat of sanctions. -snip- The move was met with fury in Moscow state TV propagandist and war pundit Aleksandr Sladkov accusing the United States of attempting to intimidate Russia into agreeing to peace. He said: “Trump is trying to scare us with missiles, but this is difficult to do, Trump should be scared. “Everyone is trying to push us to turn Kyiv and Lviv into Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Sladkov continued his threat of nuclear war, telling the audience that Russia’s strategic nuclear...

Donald Trump has claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin sabotaged a Ukraine peace deal four times. But the US President also said he was pleased with the progress made to increase NATO defence spending. Speaking in a frank interview with the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue, Mr Trump said he had been close to brokering a ceasefire on multiple occasions, only for fresh Russian attacks to derail progress each time. The White House had contacted the BBC minutes before the conversation to say Mr Trump was ready to speak - underscoring the urgency he appeared to attach to the issue. Mr Trump said:...

President Zelensky has an unlikely ally in the White House: Melania Trump. The first lady, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, has been reminding her husband of the deadly toll of Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and is thought to have played a role in convincing the president to sign off the delivery of Patriot air defence missiles to Kyiv this week. -snip- Her interest in the Ukraine war can be explained by her background. Born behind the Iron Curtain in 1970, in the former Yugoslavia, Melania has previously described her admiration for Ronald Reagan, the president who helped...

A series of explosions are heard inside the plant, with workers rushing and screaming as they try to get to safety. Ukrainian drones attacked a military-industrial complex in the Russian city of Izhevsk on Tuesday, in one of the deepest strikes inside the country since Putin's full-scale invasion. UAVS struck the Kupol Electromechanical Plant, causing a major fire to break out at the site. Video images circulating on social media channels show the dramatic moment of impact as the deadly drones zeroed in on their target. In one clip, an explosion can be heard, and then a giant ball of...

THE Russian invasion of Ukraine has been advancing at an incredibly slow pace - with Kyiv's "dronegrinder" warfare miring Putin's summer offensive. The rate at which Moscow is capturing land has been dubbed "slower than a snail" - all while the human cost of Russian casualties is sky high. After 448 days of fighting inside Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast, the Russians reportedly only managed to take control of 50 per cent of the city. Which means the troops, on average, are only able to take 0.00629 square miles of land per day - which is a painfully low conversion...