Free Republic

Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that his country has supplied Russia with drones, insisting the transfer came before Moscow’s war on Ukraine that has seen the Iranian-made drones divebombing Kyiv. The comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian come after months of confusing messaging from Iran about the weapons shipment, as Russia sends the drones slamming into Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian targets. “We gave a limited number of drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war,” Amirabdollahian told reporters after a meeting in Tehran. Previously, Iranian officials had denied arming Russia in its war...

"The truth is on our side and truth is strength!" Vladimir Putin boomed into a microphone on Red Square last week, after a grand ceremony at which he proclaimed four large chunks of Ukrainian territory to be part of Russia. "Victory will be ours!" But in the real world, things look very different. Even as Russia's president signed his illegal annexation treaties in the Kremlin, Ukrainian forces were advancing inside the areas he had just seized. Hundreds of thousands of men have been fleeing Russia rather than be drafted to fight in an expanding war. And things are going so...

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was once considered central to Vladimir Putin’s attempted conquest of Ukraine. But that fleet and its accompanying air wing have been battered by innovative Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, turning the once-feared force into something of an afterthought in Europe’s largest war in seven decades. When Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine in February, the Crimea-based fleet was at the center of the action, launching Kalibr cruise missiles at military and civilian targets deep into the country, blocking access to the country’s ports, and threatening an amphibious landing on Odesa. Since those early days, however,...

Prepare for war: That is the message Joe Biden is thought to have delivered to Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky when the two spoke this week, after the US rejected Russia's security demands in eastern Europe. US intelligence believes the invasion will likely come in February, when colder temperature will have frozen the ground solid - allowing Putin's tanks and artillery to roll in without getting bogged down in mud. If they're right, that gives Zelensky and his generals just a few weeks to prepare their defences. No doubt the question being asked in Kiev right now is: Where will Putin...