Free Republic

Russia's sacked transport minister has been found dead in his Tesla outside Moscow with a gunshot wound and the principal hypothesis is that he took his own life, state investigators said on Monday, hours after President Vladimir Putin fired him. A presidential decree published earlier on Monday gave no reason for the dismissal of Roman Starovoit after barely a year in the job, though political analysts were quick to raise the possibility that he may have been dismissed in connection with an investigation into corruption in the region he once ran. Reuters could not independently confirm these suggestions, though a...

If you listened only to the ossified mandarins of international affairs, you’d think the age of American supremacy was already dead. “‘Multipolarization’ is a fact,” declared the latest report of the Munich Security Conference, a stale international relations gathering that has accomplished almost nothing in its 60 year history. Such people believe – or perhaps even hope – that American power has diminished and will continue to do so, a process some wish to hurry along by constraining Washington’s freedom of action within their “rules-based” international order. What must they be thinking now? As the White House contemplates joining Israel’s...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement read by a television presenter on Wednesday that his country will not accept US President Donald Trump's call for an unconditional surrender. In his first remarks since Friday, when he delivered a speech broadcast on state media after Israel began bombarding Iran, Khamenei said peace or war could not be imposed on the Islamic Republic. "Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender," he said. "The Americans should know that any...

Half of the thousands of North Korean troops sent to help Russia's attempted invasion of Ukraine have died in action, according to British Defence Intelligence. Roughly 11,000 troops have been dispatched by Kim Jong Un to aid Vladimir Putin's war effort in Eastern Europe since 2022 as the ties between their two countries has become closer. Now it has been revealed that more than 6,000 soldiers from North Korea have lost their lives after being stationed to the frontline in the Kurk region

Spine-chilling footage shows the moment a huge fire engulfed a 67-storey skyscraper in Dubai. Marina Pinnacle - a residential building home to 3,820 people in the affluent area of the Dubai Marina - went up in flames at around 9.30pm on Friday night. Dubai Civil Defence teams spent six hours tackling the blaze until it was successfully contained early on Saturday morning. All 3,820 residents from 764 apartments were evacuated safely and there were no injuries, according to the Dubai Media Office (DMO).

ABC News has fired star anchor Terry Moran just days after he penned a social media post calling Donald Trump a 'world class hater' and blasting top advisor Stephen Miller as full of 'bile.' A spokesperson for the network confirmed the firing in a statement on Tuesday that specifically cited Moran's post as a 'clear violation' of ABC's policy. 'We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post – which was a clear violation of ABC News policies – we have made the decision to not renew,' the statement read. 'At ABC...

But privately Elon's issues with the president ran deeper than concerns over the ballooning public debt. He was pushed to the brink when his NASA nominee, billionaire payments entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was axed by Trump in a late-night Truth Social post. Before launching into space, Isaacman explored a different galaxy entirely: Atlantic City. By his mid-20s, the payments whiz-kid had money to burn - and under the neon constellations of the Boardwalk, he had his first brush with Trump. In 2009, the Trump Taj Mahal sued Isaacman over four bad checks totaling $1 million. The case settled in 2011 for...

At a farm near Moscow, newly arrived guest workers from India are planting potatoes and cabbages - work closely monitored by central bank analysts as they prepare for board meetings to set interest rates. While in developed economies such as the United States food accounts for about 14% of the basket used to calculate inflation, in Russia it makes up a hefty 40% or so, and surging prices for potatoes and other staples have been a major reason for its tight monetary policy. The central bank trimmed its benchmark rate to 20% on June 6 but even that is around...

Production of vodka in Russia has plummetted by more than 13%, according to the latest data. The dip occurred between January and May as the country also deals with a shortage of potatoes. On May 14, President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russians "don’t have enough potatoes". Figures suggest that, in the first few months of 2025, the price of the crop surged by 52%, while the overall harvest dropped by 12%. In the first five months of 2025, Armenia exported nearly twice as many potatoes to Russia as it did during the first half of 2024, and almost 17 times...

Los Angeles was waking up on Monday to another day of high tensions with Donald Trump’s administration after a weekend of protests over immigration raids in the city, with the president controversially ordering in the national guard and the governor of California saying the state planned to sue in response. Federal agents the day before clashed with demonstrators in Los Angeles as police used teargas and “less-lethal munitions” to disperse crowds of people who were mostly peacefully protesting against immigration raids across the city and Trump’s deployment of the California national guard against the will of Governor Gavin Newsom and...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday greeted Muslims all over the world on Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice and known in Russia as "Kurban Bayram." In a statement posted on the Kremlin website, Putin noted that this holiday marks the completion of a pilgrimage to ancient religious rituals, promotes unity among people, and gives believers joy by connecting with their ancestors' rich historical and spiritual legacy. "Following ancestral teachings and traditions, Muslims celebrate Kurban Bayram by performing kind and compassionate deeds, sincerely caring for those in need of help and sympathy," he said. The Russian...

“ Russia's ambassador to the UK has blamed Britain for Ukraine's devastating drone attacks on its airfields. As many as 40 Russian aircraft at five separate bases were destroyed by Ukraine as part of the covert Operation Spiderweb launched on Sunday. But on Thursday night, the Kremlin turned its sights on Britain as its ambassador Andrea Kelin warned this country risks 'War World Three'.”

TWO Russian airfields housing Putin's nuke bombers have reportedly been blitzed in an extraordinary drone strike - wiping out at least 40 aircraft. A Ukrainian security official told Reuters that the SBU conducted a large drone attack on Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers - which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukraine. The source did not specify where the drone attack took place, but Ukrainian media said that Olenya airbase - home to Russia’s Tu-95 strategic bombers - had been targeted. The second base under fire is understood to be the Belaya nuclear airbase in eastern Siberia’s Irkutsk region...

In an apparent swipe at King Charles' symbolic show of solidarity with Canada, Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday to stoke the flames for unification with North America under the Stars and Stripes. Trump declared: "I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!". The proclamation came just hours after King Charles had solemnly opened the Canadian Parliament, a...

At a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, former President Donald Trump was presented with a custom Pittsburgh Steelers jersey by quarterback Mason Rudolph, safety Miles Killebrew, and franchise legend Rocky Bleier. --SNIP-- The high-profile exchange added a layer of celebrity and spectacle to Trump’s Pennsylvania stop, reflecting how athletes and political figures continue to cross paths in battleground states. The jersey handoff also served as a symbolic nod to the cultural and electoral significance of football in the region

On the battlefields of Ukraine, new sights emerge. Thread-like filaments of wire, extended across open fields. Netting rigged up between trees along key supply roads. Both are responses to a hard-to-detect weapon able to sneak into spaces previously thought safe, hi tech and low tech all at once. At a secret workshop in Ukraine’s north-east, where about 20 people assemble hundreds of FPV (first person view) drones, there is a new design. Under the frame of the familiar quadcopter is a cylinder, the size of a forearm. Coiled up inside is fibre optic cable, 10km (6 miles) or even 20km...

Vladimir Putin is demanding urgent potato imports from Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, while he delays supplying the ally with promised notorious Oreshnik horror missiles. Putin has made the shameful admission that he has run out of spuds - one of his country’s leading food staples - amid economic meltdown during his war with Ukraine. It now appears Belarus will not get the lethal missiles until after Lukashenko supplies Putin with new exports of potatoes which have spiralled in prices in Russia. The Minsk tyrant has even cancelled sanctions against imports from the EU to stock up to supply Russia. -snip-...

While it’s somewhat impressive that North Korea was able to so quickly pull off the construction of these ships in such a short amount of time, a year is nowhere near long enough to conduct rigorous testing. Even if the corners being cut weren’t responsible for the second of these warships capsizing, the odds are that they would have started causing issues later on. That speed of construction also raises an interesting question: Is North Korea’s naval modernization more about building up national prestige than it is about developing a credible threat against its enemies? It’s possible, perhaps even likely,...

A Russian military expert stunned Kremlin hawks when he revealed that Ukraine's army currently enjoys a significant advantage over Putin's army. There is growing confidence among Russia's pro-war faction that Vladimir Putin can achieve all his military goals in Ukraine. Western analysts believe that Putin's aims have not changed since he launched his full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country, and that he is more than ever determined to seize all of Ukraine. With Donald Trump seemingly unwilling to get tough with Russia, many Kremlin supporters are starting to smell victory. However, Andrey Klintsevich warned that Ukraine's army was still a...

Cyril Ramaphosa must have prepped for an awkward meeting. After all, just a week earlier the Trump administration chartered a Boeing 767 to fly 59 Afrikaner farmers out of his country so they could claim refugee status amid allegations that the white population faced a genocide. But he may not have reckoned with Donald Trump’s sense of theatre. “Turn the lights down and just put this on,” he directed his aides in the Oval Office. “It’s right behind you.” Ministers, reporters, two of the greatest golfers of all time, and the world’s richest man craned their necks to watch as...