Free Republic

An old Soviet self-propelled howitzer called Gvozdika or "Carnation" is rolled out in an open field and put into position. Its barrel tilts up. "Fire!" comes the command. The gunners hastily move away after the last shot, acting quickly. Although the advancement of Ukrainian forces in the south is very slow, their artillery units remain busy. (snip) The self-styled referendum is bringing a new threat to the local population - mobilisation. Many men could be drafted to fight for the Russian army. Russian soldiers are already going house to house in some villages and writing down the names of male...

Russia is to open an army enlisting centre on the border with Georgia, where massive queues have formed as Russian men try to flee the country to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine. Officers at the Verkhniy Lars crossing will be tasked with serving summons to "citizens of the mobilisation age", the authorities say. Recent satellite images have shown queues going for miles from Russia. All those crossing into Georgia look exhausted, a BBC correspondent says. They are hungry and sleep deprived - but relieved to have reached safety, Rayhan Demytrie says. People have been coming in groups of...

When Ukrainian national Kateryna Rietz-Rakul first heard that Germany wants to take in Russian deserters, she thought it was a bad joke. "I thought this can't possibly be true, I couldn't believe it at first. Until I watched the evening news," says the interpreter, who has lived and worked in Germany for 20 years. There, she was amazed to see German politicians from all three ruling parties literally falling over themselves with offers of help for the Russian conscientious objectors who are seeking to leave the country since President Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilization last week. "Those who hate...

The “partial mobilization” of Russian men to fight in Putin’s War in Ukraine is shaping up pretty much the fiasco we thought it would be (see Vladimir Putin to Address Russia; Annexation of Ukraine Provinces and Mobilization Seem to Be on the Table). It is equal parts black comedy, political thriller, and tragedy. But, don’t worry, the comedic and thriller elements will go away very soon. The war in Ukraine has left Russia facing a military personnel crisis. About 75% of Russia’s regular ground forces participated in the opening act of the Special Military Operation (SMO). These were reinforced by...

Russian men drafted by President Vladimir Putin's recent mobilization announcement are using a Ukrainian hotline to ask how they can give themselves up. The "I Want to Live" hotline was announced by Ukraine's MOD on September 19, two days before Russian President Putin announced the mobilization to the battlefield. Yusov said the hotline has received "a lot of calls" from recently drafted Russians, and even some who haven't yet been mobilized: "They're calling and asking 'What should I do if I get called up? What do I have to do, what's the right way to surrender?'" Putin's announcement sparked protests...

"Soldiers of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ambushed the enemy in a forest massif in Donetsk region." The video shows Ukrainian soldiers running through the forest during a counteroffensive in a separatist region of Ukraine that has been a key battleground for both sides since Russia's invasion on February 24. Over the weekend, nearly 370 civilians were evacuated from the area, according to the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. "After the ambush, the operators of the SSO of Ukraine began to perform other tasks without losses," the General Staff of the...

Ukraine’s recent successes have left some opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war emboldened to speak out against the Kremlin. One of Russia's most celebrated pop stars, Alla Pugachova has asked to be declared a foreign agent, in solidarity with her exiled husband Maxim Galkin. He was designated a foreign agent less than a week ago. In an online post, she said Putin's war in Ukraine was "killing soldiers for illusory aims", and turning Russia into a "global pariah". Is there a shift in Russian public opinion, given Moscow's recent military set-backs in its war on Ukraine?

Tuesday is the final day of voting in a series of referendums on joining Russia. The votes, widely seen as rigged and illegitimate, are likely to pave the way for Russia to announce it has annexed more of Ukraine by the end of the week, analysts say. The votes have been taking place in two pro-Russian, self-proclaimed “republics” in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and southern occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. There have been multiple reports of votes being staged and coercion and aggression being used to force people living in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to vote...

An ally of President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday outlined the scenario of a nuclear strike on Ukraine, saying that the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would be too scared of a 'nuclear apocalypse' to directly enter the conflict in response. Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said Russia had the right to defend itself with nuclear weapons if it is pushed beyond its limits and that this is "certainly not a bluff". Putin last week ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine,...

Russia has admitted it made mistakes in its drive to call up of hundreds of thousands of military reservists. Reports have been circulating on social media of people with no military experience being called up - as well as others who are too old, or disabled. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has now conceded errors were being made, saying there were cases when the mobilisation decree had been "violated". It comes as people in Russia continue to protest against Vladimir Putin's plan to mobilise 300,000 military reservists. Reports in opposition Russian media suggested that up to one million people could be...

A video posted online Monday appears to show a group of Ukrainian troops shooting captured Russia soldiers dead outside a village west of Kyiv.The New York Times verified the video, which was shared on the social messaging app Telegram, on Thursday. The apparent killing of prisoners of war, which would be forbidden under the Geneva convention, comes as Ukraine has accused Russia of multiple war crimes since it invaded in February."He's still alive. Film these marauders. Look, he's still alive. He's gasping," a man in the video says while an apparent Russian soldier with a jacket covering his head, is...

WASHINGTON — Negotiators to a stop-gap spending bill in the U.S. Congress have agreed to include about $12 billion in new aid to Ukraine in response to a request from the Biden administration, a source familiar with the talks said on Monday.The source, who asked not to be identified, said the measure will also include resettlement funding for Afghan refugees

Congress has complied with the Biden administration’s request to include $12 billion for Ukraine in its stopgap funding bill, Reuters reported Monday. GOP senators remained divided over whether to support the funding request in the continuing resolution, a funding bill that needs to be passed by Sept. 30 to avert a government shutdown, CNN reported on Sept. 19. However, a source familiar with the ongoing negotiations said Congress had agreed to $12 billion in aid on top of the $4o billion authorized in May, Reuters reported. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told CNN the funding package would contain a...

Russian troops have been deployed near the border with Georgia today even as the Kremlin tries to stamp out rumours that Putin is about to introduce martial law and ban people from leaving in order to avoid being conscripted into the army. Footage geolocated to the small town of Chmi, on the main highway from Russia into Georgia's South Ossetia region, shows at least six soldiers sitting on top of an armoured vehicle passing a queue of cars in the direction of the crossing. Troops arrived to set up a checkpoint, sources told the Russia's RBC network, with the FSB...

"Are you for the withdrawal of the Zaporozhye region from Ukraine, the formation of an independent state by the Zaporozhye region and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?" — it was these words (with one syntactic error in the Russian-language version and one grammatical error in the Ukrainian-language version) that turned the topic of "referendums" in the "new Russian territories" from the senseless chatter of journalists and political strategists into the menacing roar of a nuclear apocalypse. It is pointless to talk about the legal side of "referendums" in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and...

The so-called "referendums" of 4 Ukrainian regions are coming to an end. Information has already appeared in the official Russian media that laws on the admission of new territories to the Russian Federation will be adopted within the next few days after the announcement of the results. But what will happen next? Naturally, in any situation there are several options for development. 1. The most likely one is that Putin will start waving a "nuclear club" and demand the withdrawal of the Armed Forces from the territory of these regions. First of all - Donetsk and Lugansk. Parts of the...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

You see, this is why I prefer Catholicism. All we need is confession. Russia’s establishment has grown desperate enough in Ukraine to reach for the martyrdom argument. Patriarch Kirill, a Vladimir Putin crony, declared that Russian men who die for “Holy Russia” by participating in its genocide in Ukraine will have their sins “washed away”: (snip) If that sounds positively medieval, it is, literally. It’s the same indulgence granted during the Crusades. This is the kind of martyrdom teachings one no longer finds in Christianity but still find in radical forms of Islam and extremist political ideologies. In those ideologies,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Monday in Moscow, Belarus state media reported. Russia and Belarus are close allies, with Russia having used bases in Belarus as a staging post for its troops, aircraft and equipment in the invasion of Ukraine.

Washington responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin's veiled threat of using nuclear weapons, warning of serious consequences and that the U.S. response would be "decisive." "The consequences would be horrific," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during an interview. The first Russians drafted in the country's mobilization drive have started arriving at bases, and military analysts are raising doubts as to Moscow's ability to equip and train all of the new troops. The number cited for the mobilization — 300,000 — is nearly double the size of the initial invasion force. Anti-mobilization protests appear to be continuing, with reports of...