Free Republic

Would you prefer to have to speak Russian or Chinese? You might not have a choice with Biden as President over the next three years. Biden's policies will have the US declining into dependency on both Russia and China, assuring that Russia and China dominate the world in the next decade. The near term is Russia, and the longer term is China. The present- RussiaSince his inauguration day, Biden has been appeasing Vladimir Putin. He refused to stand up to Russian cyber and ransomware attacks. Biden shuts down US oil pipelines and lifts sanctions on Russian pipelines. Germany, who is...

Germany is preventing fellow NATO member Estonia from providing Ukraine with military support by declining to offer export permits for weapons of German origin, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. "Germany, they have a lot of hesitation to deliver to us," Ukraine's defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, told The Journal. A German government spokesperson explained to the outlet that the decision on the exportation of weaponry is a result of a long-standing policy. "The principle governing arms exports is always the same—whether they come directly from Germany or from third countries—and no permission has been issued at this stage," the...

When things fall apart Alexievich’s most recent book, Time Second-Hand – the result of years of research and hundreds of interviews – recreates the trauma of the breakup of the Soviet empire. Using the voices of narrators coming from all walks of life and corners of the region, it tells the story of Soviet collapse, and the subsequent ethnic cleansing, civil wars, impoverishment, and the loss of meaning for the millions of former Soviet citizens. It’s also about how the communist way of life vanished and, with it, how a general apathy settled into the psyche of millions who now...

Will there be a war over Ukraine? Have recent negotiations opened a path to peace? Unfortunately, the diplomats have achieved very little. The White House says no further talks with Russia have been planned.[i] Worse yet, American intelligence officials say that Russia is setting up a pretext to invade Ukraine. On 14 January Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said, “Without getting into too much detail, we do have information that indicates Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion…. In fact, we have information that they have prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct what...

Berlin has rejected calls to provide Kyiv with weapons in a week in which the U.K. and the U.S. reiterated their commitment to helping Ukraine's military amid soaring tensions over a buildup of Russian troops by its border. German defense minister Christine Lambrecht told the newspaper Welt am Sonntagthat there was "consensus in the federal government" that arms deliveries to Ukraine are "currently not helpful." While Lambrecht said Berlin is "standing on Kyiv's side," she said her country would not extend military support for Ukraine and emphasized other help it would provide, such as a field hospital worth €5.3 million...

The U.S. has given approval for three Baltic NATO members to send American-made weapons to Ukraine, U.S. officials said. The decision will enable Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia to send Javelin antitank weapons and Stinger air-defense systems for Ukraine’s forces. The Biden administration has also notified Congress that it intends to provide Ukraine with five Mi-17 transport helicopters, U.S. officials said. The Russian-made helicopters had been intended for Afghanistan’s military and were being repaired in Ukraine.

Dr. Rand Paul Objects to Proposed Sanctions Against the Nord Stream II Pipeline Rumble...

Whether or not Vladimir Putin moves his troops into Ukraine, he has once again confronted Europe with a most painful reality: while being too weak to defend itself, it can no longer rely on the United States to come to its rescue. We are facing a reality in which Russia, despite its economy only having the size of Italy's, can bully and intimidate a continent thanks to its energy reserves and its readiness to project vast military power. Sure, any Russian invasion of Ukraine would cost Russia a fortune and likely degrade into a grinding war of attrition. Invasion is...

Russia on Thursday sharply raised the stakes in its dispute with the West over Ukraine, with a top diplomat refusing to rule out a Russian military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela if tensions with the United States mount. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation in Monday’s talks with the U.S. in Geneva, said he could “neither confirm nor exclude” the possibility of Russia sending military assets to Cuba and Venezuela if the talks fail and U.S. pressure on Russia mounts. The Russia-U.S. negotiations in Geneva and a subsequent NATO-Russia meeting failed to narrow the gap on...

Russia's New 'Conservative' Ideology To Counter Liberalism ...

PART 2 OF 3. The Hunter Biden Files Hunter Biden and his business partners were involved in discussions about possible deals in dozens of foreign countries, often corrupt backwaters, at times invoking official channels like ambassadors, emails reviewed by The Daily Wire show. While most attention has focused on Ukraine, where a gas company paid the now-president’s son tens of thousands of dollars a month while he was in deep crack addiction, and China, Hunter and his partners at a consultancy called Rosemont Seneca were eager to do business in a vast array of other places. The map below highlights...

Russians secretly mocked Obama for so easily giving them American uranium, nuclear fuel contracts and technology, FBI informant reveals in excerpts from the new book "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties." The failed Russian reset .. repeatedly gave Russia's nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, assets like uranium under U.S. soil and billions of dollars in nuclear fuel contracts that made American electricity customers reliant on Moscow for years to come. And then Vladimir Putin pulled the rug out from under the Obama administration in 2014, invading the Crimea region of U.S. ally...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has recently told the world that nations which separated themselves from the Soviet Union, specifically those of the Intermarium, the lands between the Black, Baltic, and Adriatic Seas, are not independent but, rather, “masterless” for the moment. He singled out Poland, Ukraine,” and the “Baltic provinces.” It is telling that Lavrov did not call Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — “Baltic States” [strani Baltii] but “Baltic provinces” [Pribaltika]... What Lavrov implied, of course, was that Russia would take care of the master part sooner or later, slowly but surely. But sometimes the Kremlin sees an opportunity...

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has dismissed two more top security officials following the worst unrest in three decades in the central Asian country. Authorities said the situation has stabilized with forces from the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization fully deployed. Russia's state news agency Tass said nearly 6,000 people, including foreigners, were arrested in last week's violent protests. Reports said at least 164 people were killed during the unrest, which mostly took place in the country's biggest city, Almaty.

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to extinguish the flames of the “Gates of Hell” – a gas crater that has been blazing for decades. The site, also called “Door to Hell,” is located in the middle of the desert about 160 miles north of the capital, Ashgabat, and has become an attraction for the country’s few visitors. The hellish hole, which measures 190 feet wide and 70 feet deep, was formed in 1971 following a Soviet Union gas drilling collapse, according to Turkmen news site Turkmenportal.

A senior U.S. official says the United States is open to discussions with Russia on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on U.S. and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe as part of strategic talks to begin next week. Y MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is open to discussions with Russia on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on U.S. and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe as part of strategic talks to begin next week, a senior Biden administration official said...

MOSCOW—The sixth day of violent unrest devolved into a massacre on the streets of Kazakhstan’s capital city of Almaty, with dozens of protesters and at least 13 law enforcement officials killed, as well as hundreds more wounded. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev—who just a week ago was considered a weak shadow of Kazakhstan’s now-ousted Security Council Chairman Narsultan Nazarbayev—admitted he was the one who had given local security forces the order “to shoot to kill” protestors without warning on Thursday. Never before has any post-Soviet leader confessed to such a terrifying order. A day prior to Thursday’s bloodshed, Tokayev had claimed he...

Fresh violence raged in Kazakhstan’s main city on Thursday after Russia rushed in paratroopers overnight to put down a countrywide uprising in the former Soviet state closely allied to Moscow....Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called in forces from ally Russia overnight as part of a Moscow-led military alliance of ex-Soviet states. He blamed the unrest on foreign-trained terrorists who he said had seized buildings and weapons.“It is an undermining of the integrity of the state and most importantly it is an attack on our citizens who are asking me… to help them urgently,” he said.

Russia’s lead negotiator for coming talks with the U.S. said that Moscow’s demands on Ukraine must be addressed urgently and warned the Biden administration against resorting to the economic pressure it has threatened to try to get the Kremlin to back down. In advance of Monday’s talks with the U.S. in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov sketched out an unyielding stance. He said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military ties to Ukraine represent a threat to Russia even if the country isn’t formally admitted into the alliance. Mr. Ryabkov rebuffed the Biden administration’s calls for the Kremlin to reverse...

Schumer, Pelosi, Swalwell, Blumenthal...they all reportedly took the Nord Stream 2 lobbyist/Democrat party bundler's cash — and Schumer, curiously enough, blocked a vote on sanctions. Democrats for years have accused President Trump of being in bed with Vladimir Putin, but a new investigative report from Daniel Greenfield demonstrates pretty damningly that they're the ones who've been keeping Putin's bed warm. Greenfield singles out Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer as Exhibit A: Schumer, along with a number of other top Democrats, is a beneficiary of campaign contributions from top Democrat fundraiser Vincent Roberti whose lobbying firm was paid over $8.5 million...