Free Republic

As the Ukrainian invasion of Russia grinds into its fifth day, Ukrainian troops have advanced as far as 10 miles into Kursk Oblast—and are beginning to mop up any Russian troops they bypassed in their hurry to extend their zone of control. The Russians, meanwhile, are finally bringing to bear their heaviest firepower—lobbing powerful glide bombs at Ukrainian columns rolling along Russian roads. For more than a year, these glide bombs—each ranging 25 miles or farther with hundreds of pounds of explosives—have been Russia’s most powerful offensive weapons, demolishing Ukrainian defenses ahead of Russian ground assaults. Now they’re defensive weapons—and...

Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the Chechen Akhmat unit fighting for Russia, said in a video on Aug. 8 that Ukrainian forces had advanced around 10 kilometers into Kursk Oblast as of Aug. 7 in a rare admission. "The situation is not irreversible, nothing supernatural happened... Yes, our people died, that's a fact. The enemy has entered several settlements," said Alaudinov, a close ally of Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov and an official at the Russian Defense Ministry, in a video published by the Russian independent outlet Agentstvo. Alaudinov became the first Russian commander to acknowledge losses since Ukraine launched a...

The Kremlin scrambled to evacuate residents from a border town Saturday, as Ukrainian troops quickly advanced toward a nuclear plant, four days after gaining a foothold in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region. On Friday, Ukraine knocked out an entire Russian reinforcement convoy, as fighters caught Russian troops off-guard. Video of the aftermath showing smoldering Russian trucks was shared online. Ukrainian soldiers continued to move further into Russia, reaching at least six miles into Russian territory, the deepest advance since Moscow invaded the neighboring nation in February 2022....

kraine has fended off Russia's advances for more than 16 months, and it's now several weeks into its long-awaited counteroffensive. The pace is grinding in some sectors of the front, but Kyiv's top general says he doesn't want to hear complaints it's going too slow.Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, told the Washington Post that it "pisses" him off to hear commentary that his counteroffensive operations are moving slower than anticipated. Kyiv's military is currently undergoing several offensive maneuvers along the front lines in the eastern and southern regions and has made small — but, at times,...

The government of the southern Russian Voronezh region urged residents to avoid the M-4 north-south motorway connecting Moscow to southern regions because a military convoy was on the move there, after the leader of the Wagner private militia suggested that he planned to oust Russia's military leadership. The government said on its Telegram channel that the situation was under control and that measures were being taken to ensure public safety.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a television interview on Thursday that the United States could face the "collapse of NATO" or a direct conflict with Russia if Ukraine does not win the war."Is he ready to go to war? To fight, to send his kids? Are they ready to die?" Zelenskyy asked. "Because anyway, they will have to do this if NATO gets involved."Former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election, would not commit to supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, during a CNN town hall last month. Instead, Trump pledged to end the...

What is it going to take to wake people up? Russia is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, and there is lots of talk in the Russian media about using such weapons to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine. The theory is that once the Russians show that they are willing to use tactical nukes, the U.S. and the other western powers will back off. But that won’t be what happens. Instead of backing off, the Biden administration will respond by using U.S. tactical nuclear weapons against Russian targets in Ukraine. And once both sides have used...

To put it simply, in the current standoff over Ukraine’s territory, Putin has the advantage as far as nuclear threats go. The ongoing brinkmanship there has revealed a serious misunderstanding on the part of some analysts and most of the media attempting to define the threats made by Biden and Putin, by relating it to the Cold War environment. The problem is that in the realm of deterrence, the U.S. no longer has a robust nuclear response at the very low end of the weapons spectrum whereas Russia does (if their maintenance is up to par). The U.S.’s ground-based tactical...

Vovan and Lexus, Russian pranksters known for trolling Western politicians, celebrities, and other public figures, revealed Tuesday that they had tricked George W. Bush into speaking with them. The former president played an instrumental role in the second wave of NATO’s eastward expansion, and the first Euromaidan crisis in Ukraine in 2004. The United States didn’t keep its word to Moscow on NATO’s eastward expansion due to shifting circumstances, and the Bush administration always wanted to see Ukraine join the Western alliance, George W. Bush has revealed in a candid interview with Vovan and Lexus. “I wanted [Russia] on the...

MOSCOW, December 21. / TASS /. The US is building up a forward military presence near Russia’s borders, deploying about 8,000 troops in Eastern Europe, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board on Tuesday. "The US is scaling up its forward military presence near the Russian borders. In Eastern Europe, some 8,000 US troops have been deployed. As for the grouping of US troops in Germany, the Command Theater Engagement has been recreated there. Until 1991, it was responsible for using medium-range missiles," the defense minister noted. According to Shoigu, it is...

The US investigative journalist Robert Parry has made an astonishing claim - and one has gone completely unnoticed. He is reporting that the Russian government has warned Erdogan that Russia is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons to defend its Syrian strike force from Turkish attack. Parry's exact words are as follows: "A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of...

Icky LeaksSensitive diplomatic communications have been published by the Wikileaks Web site, and some of this sensitive material concerns Russia. The importance of Russia as a global power has been downplayed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Leaked U.S. State Department cables give us a glimpse of how dangerous Russia is becoming. The true nature of the Russian regime has not been a popular topic of public discussion; but in secret meetings between diplomats, statesmen and law enforcement officials, there is growing concern. Russia has become the center of international corruption, drawing other states into her orbit.From the leaked...

KIM TAE YON made the statement just now in S. Korean Parliament (budget committee) that this is due to the just released information that North Korea has been building a light water nuclear reactor at amazing speed, details just released to the world and satellite photos also revealed.Minister of Defense of South Korea Kim stated that this is to put a halt to North Korean nuclear weapons ambition, and is now being considered, which will go back on South Korea's committment in 1991 under President Roh Tae Woo to never manufacturer, house or use nuclear weapons in South Korea.

Despite the end of the Cold War, and the dismantling of over 25,000 nuclear weapons, NATO still maintains a stock of nuclear bombs in Europe. These are American weapons, to be used by NATO allies with U.S. permission. They are not covered by START (the strategic nuclear disarmament treaty) because they are not strategic, they are local, or "theater" weapons. NATO would like to negotiate a disarmament treaty to cover such non-strategic nukes, but to get the Russians to do that, it helps if there are some nukes under NATO control. Like with START, a treaty covering non-strategic weapons would...

NATO leaders are unlikely to agree to reduce the defense organization's tactical nuclear stockpiles when they meet later this month, defense officials said Saturday. The leaders are to meet in Lisbon on November 19-20 to map out the future of the 61-year-old alliance. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will also attend the talks expected to touch on missile defense. The nuclear arsenal across Europe remains a source of friction with Russia and within NATO -- with Germany, Poland and Sweden calling for a greater NATO commitment to nuclear disarmament resisted by France and the United States. But a revised mission statement...

Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger last week highlighted significant flaws in the new START arms reduction treaty, including the fact that it allows Russia to load up nuclear weapons on its bombers and failed to address Moscow's growing arsenal of tactical nuclear arms. Schlesinger noted in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the treaty’s failure to limit tactical nuclear arms was akin to the Sherlock Holmes’ story “The Dog That Did Not Bark.” “While New START may be acceptable in the narrow context of strategic weapons, it also needs to be considered in a much larger context,” he...

streaming video from Aug 7 about low-yield nukes for bunker busting

Leading Democrats in Congress expressed grave reservations about Bush administration attempts to create a new class of nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield.The move by the White House to explore developing low-yield nuclear weapons sparked a revolt among senior Democrats in the US Senate, who pointed out that, while valued for their deterrent effect, nuclear weapons have long been considered off-limits for tactical military use."For the past nine or ten years, we've had a prohibition in law against the research and development," Senator Carl Levin said Wednesday at a press conference.But the US Senate voted late...

It’s a pity. We are now being subjected to the profound histrionics of the Leftists and the radical Libertarian "antiwar" crowd, exhibiting major conniptions in response to leaks of the Bush Administration’s nuclear strategy policy, or, as it is more aptly known, the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The document outlines various contingencies for the use of nuclear weaponry. And let’s emphasize here that only selected quotes and parts of the document are currently available, so we are not able to evaluate the full report in its larger context. Noteworthy myriad similar reports have been around for many years, since the...