Free Republic

Ukraine is facing "a new stage" in the Russia's full-scale war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a meeting with border guards in Khmelnytskyi Oblast on May 3. Zelensky's statement came amid a deteriorating situation on the battlefield. Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR), said that Ukraine should expect to face a renewed Russian offensive in late spring or early summer, with the offensive intensifying around eastern Donbas region. "The occupier is now preparing to expand its offensive. And all of us — Ukrainians, soldiers, state, partners — must do everything to disrupt Russia's offensive plan," Zelensky said.

The exhaustion of US-provided air defenses resulting from delays in the resumption of US military aid to Ukraine combined with improvements in Russian strike tactics have led to the increasing effectiveness of Russian missile and drone strikes against Ukraine without a dramatic increase in the size or frequency of such strikes. Russian forces have conducted two sets of large missile strikes since intensifying missile and drone strikes at the end of December 2023: a series of strikes primarily targeting industrial and military facilities and critical infrastructure between December 2023 and February 2024 and an ongoing series of strikes heavily targeting...

Ukrainians living in regions illegally annexed by Russia are being coerced to vote in the presidential election of their wartime occupier, Vladimir Putin — an exercise denounced by Ukraine as an illegitimate effort by Moscow to tighten control over its neighbor. Polls don't open in Russia until Friday, but they are open in four annexed regions of Ukraine close to the front line, some of which are not fully in Putin’s control. *snip* In the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, said his city was a symbol of Russia’s “military nightmare” and of an “electoral process in...

Russia went to war in Ukraine two years ago with twice as many artillery pieces as Ukraine had. But it isn’t the advantage in howitzers that really matters – it’s the advantage in shells. The Czechs found, for Ukraine, nearly a million shells precisely when Ukraine needed those million shells the most: at the peak of Russia’s winter offensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Czech artillery initiative probably saved entire Ukrainian cities, by giving the Ukrainian army the firepower to resist a much bigger Russian army. It’s no secret how Ukraine got into an artillery bind late...

The Kremlin promised entertainment.Western analysts feared Vladimir Putin would declare another war.But the Russian president’s more than two-hour-long address on Thursday delivered on neither expectation, though Putin presented Russians with a vision of the future that alternated between nuclear saber-rattling and grand social promises. ###Putin, who cut a relaxed figure, also called for the safeguarding of “traditional family values.”“We see what is happening in some countries where moral norms and family institutions are deliberately being destroyed, pushing entire peoples to extinction and degeneration,” he said. “We choose life.”

Deliveries of all-new Russian aircraft have been delayed by two years due to safety concerns ... The publication said that, for example, the weight of the new MS-21 passenger aircraft has increased by 5.75 tons, compared to the previous version, which used foreign components and Western engines. This means its flight range and altitude have been significantly reduced. One of Kommersant's sources said that, if Russia is unable to reduce the weight of the aircraft, it will be impossible for authorities to make the plane achieve the desired performance characteristics. "It's impossible to increase engine thrust by 20 percent," the...

Russia has approved a temporary ban on the export of gasoline, a representative for the country's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told local media on Tuesday. Beginning May 1, Russia will impose a six-month ban on gasoline exports to allow the country to "offset the booming demand for petroleum products," the official told Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in an internal letter in January, publication RBC reported. Fuel shortages have been reported nationwide in Russia, which is one of the world's biggest producers of oil and gas. Wholesale fuel prices have soared across the country, and Ukraine has ramped up...

Ukraine's president has issued a rallying cry, vowing that his country will prevail, as it marks two years since Russia's full-scale invasion. "None of us will allow our Ukraine to end," Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address in the capital Kyiv. The anniversary comes as Ukraine experiences a range of setbacks in its efforts to expel Russia from its territory. Mr Zelensky said in his speech on Saturday that while any normal person would want the war to end, it could only be on Ukraine's terms.

Who are the 10% of people who believe the Ukraine can win a war with Russia? I guess we should be celebrating – two years ago, a majority thought this was a reasonable proposition. It was always very incredible to me. I kept saying “bro, have you seen a map? Russia is like, a lot bigger than the Ukraine.”

Ivan Sechin, the son of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, died on February 5 at the age of 35, it has been reported. -snip- The VChK-OGPU outlet, which purports to have inside information from Russian security forces, also reported on Sechin's death. Citing an unnamed source, it said that at approximately 4.30 a.m. on February 5, Sechin "complained that he felt bad and was suffocating." "The man fell on the bed and lost consciousness. Those around him carried Ivan to the floor and tried to provide primary resuscitation measures," the Telegram channel said, adding that an ambulance...

Russians will take Odessa and four or five other ethnically Russian cities

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison, the country's state media reported Friday, ending a yearslong fight against corruption and the Kremlin that saw him survive several poisoning attempts. He was 48.

Vladimir Putin's fierce rival and critic Alexei Navalny has died, according to the prison service. The Russian opposition leader, who was the most prominent and persistent domestic foe of President Vladimir Putin, had been serving a 19-year sentence on an extremism conviction. He had been incarcerated in central Russia’s Vladimir region, 140 miles east of Moscow. Navalny has been behind bars in Russia since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned against official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests.

I'm hearing a lot of chatter tonight that the Ukrainian position in Avdeevka has all but collapsed. Evidently the air defense base anchoring their southern defenses was flanked and rapidly overrun, with the Russian flag planted on it. I'm also hearing: The Neo-Nazi Azov brigade (disingenuously referred to simply as the 3rd Brigade in Washington/MSM propaganda today) was sent to bolster Ukrainian defenses on the flanks while troops in forward positions retreated, but they were caught in the open field, massacred, and are refusing to follow orders. This would help explain the general collapse scenario. Maybe it is not so...