Free Republic

“I think it was terrible and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it’s a horrible thing,” Trump told reporters on-board Air Force One on Sunday evening. “I think the whole war’s a horrible thing.”Moscow’s recent missile strikes in Ukraine that killed dozens of civilians show Russian President Vladimir Putin is “mocking” President Donald Trump, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has said. WHY IT MATTERS Ukrainian authorities said that Russia launched two ballistic missiles at the Ukrainian city of Sumy as residents attended church services marking Palm Sunday. Ukraine’s state emergency service said late Sunday that 34...

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the conscription of 160,000 men into the army, state media reported, marking the largest draft initiative in years, even as ceasefire talks with Ukraine continue under U.S. mediation. The timing and scale of the draft raise doubts about Russia's commitment to diplomacy. Ukraine has accused the Kremlin of using negotiations to delay while reinforcing its position on the battlefield, particularly in the Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions. On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would issue secondary tariffs on Russian oil if he believed Moscow was standing in the way of a peace...

he arrests and firing of several high-profile associates of former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu by Kremlin authorities have sparked deep anxieties among members of the Russian elite connected to the current head of Moscow's Security Council, according to a new report. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email. WHY IT MATTERS A slew of well-known figures working in the Russian government and the military were arrested and axed from their posts last year. Western analysts have noted that schisms within the Kremlin's upper echelons are increasingly catching international attention as the grinding war...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals have an artful knack for keeping the Russian military bear off-balance. On Sunday, they renewed their offensive in the Russian Kursk Oblast, once again catching the Russian high command, Kremlin, and many pundits by surprise. Reports of a demoralized Ukrainian army fighting to retain terrain captured during the August Kursk offensive — of which at least 40 percent has been lost — have circulated among western media and Russian milbloggers since November. So too reports that Ukraine’s 155th Mechanized Brigade — trained and equipped by France — was under-resourced in “first person view...