Free Republic

As Russian tanks rumble through Georgia, and Western pundits talk of the "new Cold War," one trope keeps reappearing in their discourse. Russia's newly aggressive stance, we are told, is partly our fault: After the fall of Communism, the West went out of its way to humiliate and trample Russia instead of treating it as a partner--and now, an oil-powered Russia is striking back. "Russia's litany of indignities dates to the early 1990s when the Soviet empire collapsed," Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and former Barack Obama adviser, wrote in Time. "A bipolar universe gave...

The trial of two Iranians and six others, who tried to smuggle 2.2 tons of cocaine to the island, exposed networks spanning the Middle East and Venezuela. JNS Staff. July 9, 2025 / JNS) An Irish court on July 4 sentenced two Iranian nationals in connection with a transnational drug trafficking operation involving more than 2.2 tons of cocaine, as authorities investigate suspected links to Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, Irish media reported. The men—Soheil Jelveh, 51, a former captain of the cargo vessel MV Matthew, and Saied Hassani, 39, a senior officer with significant maritime experience—received sentences of 17.5...

WASHINGTON -- Just when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thought it had its hands around the Iranian nuclear program, NewsMax has learned from intelligence sources that Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is completing a secret, underground uranium enrichment plant that should begin operating in October 2006. Work on the new plant, located 50 miles outside the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad, was begun with help from Russian engineers in 2003, Iranian intelligence sources said. The facility has been built 150 meters below ground in a rugged highlands valley some 38 kilometers southeast of the city of Nishabour. The nearest inhabited...

Jacob Chansley, known as the "QAnon Shaman," claimed the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) knew that an alleged Ukrainian spy participated in the riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison over his involvement in the January 6 riot but was released earlier this year, said in an interview with conservative activist Laura Loomer that the FBI questioned him about the presence of Sergai Dybynyn, an alleged Ukrainian spy with reported ties to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has risen to prominence amid the Russia-Ukraine war.The FBI has not confirmed...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in the coming weeks to maximize the pressure on Ukraine and strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating position in ceasefire talks, Ukrainian government and military analysts said. The move could give Russian President Vladimir Putin every reason to delay discussions about pausing the fighting in favor of seeking more land, the Ukrainian officials said, renewing their country’s repeated arguments that Russia has no intention of engaging in meaningful dialogue to end the war.

Independent Veterans of America CEO Paul Rieckhoff claimed Friday on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour” that Ukrainians are “more American” than the American people. Rieckhoff said, “Donald Trump has completely betrayed Ukraine. He has stabbed them in the back and every week he needs to twist it and drive it deeper with a new move that cuts more of their legs out from under them.” Host Stephanie Ruhle asked, “What do you say to the person who says, I don’t care about Ukraine, I want Donald Trump to stand up for Russia?”

What have I done to be placed on the sanctions list of the Russian Foreign Ministry, alongside several distinguished historians of eastern Europe? My normal hunting ground (not the right word for a maritime historian) is the Mediterranean and the oceans beyond. But maybe Russia’s mandarins know that I am now writing about the Black Sea. Since the reign of Peter the Great in the 18th century, Russia has seen the Black Sea as a vital gateway to the wider world. The Ottoman sultans blocked Russian attempts to reach warmer waters via Istanbul. Russian ships bound for intended conquests had...

During a recent edition of the Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham announced said she was in possession of State Department emails from May 1, 2019 showing that New York Times reporter Ken Vogel inquired about a 2016 Obama White House meeting with Ukrainian prosecutors. That meeting took place at the White House the day before President-elect Trump’s inauguration. At least seven Ukrainians were registered as visitors that day. According to Ingraham, the person who checked them into the White House that day was the person who later became the whistleblower that kicked off the sham impeachment we’re laboring through right now....

Ukraine’s state-run Ukrinform news service on Wednesday reported that Ukrainians who live in Minnesota are pleased with the “firm pro-Ukrainian stance” of Gov. Tim Walz (D), who is currently embroiled in a scandal due to exaggerating his military service for political gain after being tapped as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.Ukrinform’s article was built around an interview with Luda Anastazievsky, who chairs the Ukrainian American Advocacy Committee of Minnesota. Anastazievsky said she met Walz at a rally in St. Paul shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and was favorably impressed by his words of devotion to the...

President Joe Biden is seven times more popular than former President Donald Trump among Ukrainians, a poll released Tuesday reveals. The Hill reports the first-ever poll was carried out by The Counteroffensive/Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. The unabashed affection of Ukrainian respondents for Biden was plain to see as 46.7 percent of those polled said Biden would be a better U.S. president for Ukraine’s war effort, while 6.5 percent said the same about Trump.

Two Ukrainian citizens stabbed to death in Germany on Saturday were wounded soldiers recuperating away from the front lines, Kyiv says. A Russian citizen was arrested on suspicion of murder on Saturday after two men were stabbed to death at a shopping centre in southern Germany, close to a U.S. Army base. The victims, both Ukrainian citizens, are now revealed to have been convalescing Ukrainian soldiers. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said per state media that: “the deceased citizens were soldiers undergoing medical rehabilitation in Germany”.

Considering how pessimistic Western analysts and policymakers have recently become about Ukraine’s chances in Russia’s imperialist war, Ukrainians should be even gloomier. They’re the ones doing the fighting and the dying. Russian missiles are destroying their country. Their people are the targets of the Kremlin’s genocidal urges. In fact, Ukrainians remain bullish about their country’s future. To be sure, not quite as bullish as a year ago, but bullish nonetheless.

Last March, a Palestinian delegation arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian officials. The delegation was from Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that's been labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The meeting, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, touched on Russia's "unchanged position in support of a just solution to the Palestinian problem.""When considering the issue of restoring Palestinian national unity, the Russian side expressed its readiness to continue to assist in overcoming differences and bringing together the positions of leading Palestinian political forces and movements on the platform of the Palestine Liberation Organization,"...

So, here’s the short story: McCarthy was ousted because he made a secret deal with the Democrats to fund the Ukraine war forever. He told Matt Gaetz, and the American people, that he would “not have a blank check” for the Ukraine. Then, after obtaining speakership, he said that actually, he doesn’t think there should be a “blank check” for anything, and he just meant “no blank check” in a general sense, and actually, he thinks the Ukraine should get infinity money forever. He just thinks there should be a pretense of oversight. Or whatever. Now, with his ouster, the...

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is launching a network to provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians, as it debuts its annual conference in New York on Monday. CGI Ukraine Action Network will be officially announced on Tuesday, The Associated Press reported, and is a product of a collaboration between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska. The AP reported that several financial pledges are also set to be announced in conjunction with the launch of the initiative on Tuesday. CGI is convening its annual conference in New York Sept. 18-19 and will bring together leaders from...

Don’t push Ukrainians into a corner by cutting Western support for the war or else the millions of refugees who are presently “behaved well” in Europe may start to act unpredictably, President Zelensky has said. Speaking to a British centre-left-leaning news magazine the Ukrainian President has made remarks that may to some ears sound like a threat, or at least a dire warning, as he spoke of the possible negative consequences for European nations if they reduced the donations and aid given to his country. While the interview with the Economist largely paraphrases Zelensky’s words — as a non-native speaker...

The vast majority of Ukrainians – 78 percent – say President Volodymyr Zelensky is directly responsible for corruption in the government and military, a poll published on Monday found. The survey, conducted in July by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, also found that Ukrainians ranked corruption within their own government as a bigger threat to “Ukrainian entrepreneurship” than the ongoing Russian invasion, according to the Kyiv Independent. The poll was taken after months of investigations, which followed months of firings at the highest levels of governments. Zelensky announced measures to fight bribery...

Maksym Bunchukov remembers hearing rockets explode in Zaporizhzhia as the war in Ukraine began. “It was terrible,” he said. He and his wife sent their adult daughter west to Lviv for safety and joined her later with their pets. Now, about 18 months after the war broke out, Bunchukov is in North Dakota, like thousands of Ukrainians who came over a century ago. He is one of 16 new arrivals who are part of a trade group’s pilot effort through the Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian program to recruit refugees and migrants during a workforce shortage. Twelve more Ukrainians are scheduled...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a Christmas message said Ukrainians will celebrate the holidays with one difference this year, as the country observes its first Christmas since its conflict with Russia began. “We will celebrate our holidays! As always. We will smile and be happy. As always. The difference is one. We will not wait for a miracle. After all, we create it ourselves,” Zelensky said on Saturday. Christmas Eve marked 10 months since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Much of the world initially expected Ukraine to only hold out for weeks, but instead it has gained much of...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the U.S. and world are “in awe of the heroism of the Ukrainian people” in a letter inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to address a Joint Meeting of Congress on Wednesday. “America and the world are in awe of the heroism of the Ukrainian people,” Pelosi wrote in the letter. “In the face of Putin’s horrific atrocities, Ukrainian freedom fighters have inspired the world with an iron will and an unbreakable spirit — fighting back against Russia’s brutal, unjustified invasion.” Pelosi’s letter, dated Tuesday, formally invited Zelensky to address Congress in-person as Ukraine’s conflict with...