Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday, delivered three strong signals that he intends to invade Ukraine. Addressing military commanders and intelligence chiefs at the Defense Ministry, Putin offered a preemptive casus belli to justify invading Ukraine in order to address an existential threat to Russia. The Russian leader warned that the United States "will supply Ukraine with hypersonic weapons," which would reduce the nuclear strike launch-to-target time against Moscow to "five minutes." This, Putin insisted, would pose "the most serious threat" to Russia's security. One that means "we simply have nowhere to retreat further." Note the explicitly existential nature of...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Sky News that the US and NATO are expanding onto Russia's borders - and not the other way around. At his traditional end of year news conference, Mr Putin answered questions from the world's media. And he told Sky News' Russia Correspondent Diana Magnay that his country wasn't threatening anybody and that he didn't want conflict in Ukraine. But he said the ball "is in the West's court". Watch their exchange here in full. (Click link for video)

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a significant majority of Russians continue to feel nostalgia for their country’s communist past, according to a recent survey from the country’s leading independent polling agency. In the Levada Center’s poll, published on Friday, 63 percent of Russian respondents expressed regret over the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. The sentiment was strongest among Russians aged 55 and older, 84 percent of whom described the dissolution as a tragic event. By contrast, a mere 28 percent of respondents said that they did not regret the demise...

Those who fail to meet the Left's political expectations are all enemies to the Left -- whether they see themselves as such or not. It is sobering to recognize how many crimes against humanity first recommended themselves as admirable courses of action prompted by the benignly framed ideological obsessions of activist intellectuals. It would seem that there is nothing inherently civilizing in the pursuit of what has been called "the life of the mind," especially if the mindful individual is merely looking for a more solid foundation on which to ground and justify his hatreds. V.I. Lenin stands as the...

<p>In recent years, President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly insistent that NATO is encroaching close to Russia's borders, and Moscow last week demanded "legal guarantees" that the U.S.-led alliance will halt its eastward expansion.</p><p>"How can one count on equal relations with the United States and the West in such a position?" Gorbachev told state news agency RIA Novosti on the eve of the anniversary of his resignation as the leader of the USSR.</p>

Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the West for increasing tensions in Eastern Europe and suggested a “military-technical” response if his request for security guarantees is not met — while a media mouthpiece for the Kremlin warned that Russia will hold a gun to “America’s head” if Ukraine is allowed to join NATO. In a speech Tuesday to Russian defense ministry officials, Putin said Moscow needs “long-term, legally binding guarantees” from the West that the US and NATO will not deploy missile systems in Ukraine, rather than “verbal assurances.” Russia has massed as many as 175,000 troops as well as...

Vladimir Putin is big on symbols. He began his rule by installing a memorial plaque to a Soviet KGB chief and reinstating the Stalin-era national anthem. More recently, he used the anniversary of the assassination of political rival Boris Nemtsov to award a medal to a Chechen official reportedly involved in organizing it. And he used the birthday of another opponent, Alexei Navalny, to sign a law banning his movement as “extremist.” ... For all the importance of human rights work in authoritarian societies, Memorial is more than just another civil society organization — it is the keeper of the...

Ukraine is again looking warily over its eastern border as Russia threatens its territorial integrity. In recent weeks, a buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border has rattled Western leaders fearful of an incursion similar to, or perhaps even more wide-ranging than, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Then, on Dec. 17, 2021, Vladimir Putin demanded that no former Soviet states, such as Ukraine, be added to NATO – the Western alliance that Ukraine has long expressed a desire to join – and that NATO cease all military cooperation in Eastern Europe. Such rhetoric harks back to the Cold...

MOSCOW, December 21. / TASS /. The US is building up a forward military presence near Russia’s borders, deploying about 8,000 troops in Eastern Europe, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board on Tuesday. "The US is scaling up its forward military presence near the Russian borders. In Eastern Europe, some 8,000 US troops have been deployed. As for the grouping of US troops in Germany, the Command Theater Engagement has been recreated there. Until 1991, it was responsible for using medium-range missiles," the defense minister noted. According to Shoigu, it is...

Do you remember Armand Hammer? If you're over 50, you may. Hammer was a business tycoon who died in 1990. He was most famous for his deal-making with the Soviet Union. Hammer would cut business deals directly with the Kremlin. This was unusual; most U.S. businesses had very few dealings with America's greatest adversary. Today, by contrast, many American multinational businesses see their growth as much or more tied to China, our new primary adversary, as they do to America. I began my career as a young lawyer on a special congressional committee set up to investigate the transfer of...

So is every top Democrat who accused President Trump of Russian collusion. “A single, ominous question now hangs over the White House: What could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States?” Senator Schumer insinuated in 2018. Why is Schumer putting Russia’s interests ahead of those of the United States by blocking Nord Stream 2 sanctions on Putin’s pet pipeline into Europe? 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 by...

he Kremlin has dismissed the feasibility of reviving the Soviet Union, even amid U.S. concerns and the growing nostalgia for some aspects of the former Communist system among Russians today. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, repudiated remarks made days two days earlier by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, who expressed "concern" to lawmakers that the Russian leader "is actually as a legacy project seeking to reconstitute the Soviet Union," especially in regard to Ukraine, which she argued Putin believed "is actually a part of Russia, belongs...

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center specializing in investigative reporting on the Left and Islamic terrorism. “A single, ominous question now hangs over the White House: What could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States?” Senator Schumer insinuated in 2018. Why is Schumer putting Russia’s interests ahead of those of the United States by blocking Nord Stream 2 sanctions on Putin’s pet pipeline into Europe? Schumer, along with a number of other top Democrats, is a beneficiary of campaign contributions from top Democrat fundraiser...

President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly plans to push the Ukrainian government to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin by ceding territory, The Associated Press reported Thursday

LIVERPOOL, England, Dec 12 (Reuters) - While Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps the West guessing over Ukraine, it was the might of Chinese President Xi Jinping that garnered the long-term strategic focus when the diplomats from the Group of Seven richest democracies met this weekend. The United States and its other G7 allies are searching for a coherent response to Xi's growing assertiveness after China’s spectacular economic and military rise over the past 40 years.

Many view the United States as having the most sophisticated and capable national defense and intelligence apparatus globally. In totality, this is arguably true. However, often not taken into account is that all of America's capabilities rarely, if ever, come together to achieve a unified objective. Instead, you have constant and bitter bureaucratic infighting, with agencies often distrusting each other and operating as their own fiefdoms. Take, for example, Project GUNMAN. In 1978, the NSA discovered a sophisticated radio transmitter inside a false chimney in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The NSA told the CIA and State Department that the...

More than seven years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and the Crimean Peninsula, Moscow maintains some 100,000 troops in Ukraine’s periphery capable of executing a countrywide offensive. Should Russian forces invade Ukraine again, it would be a military operation of a scale and intensity unseen on the European continent since the close of World War II. Some 40 to 50 Russian battalion tactical groups would presumably pour into Ukraine from multiple vectors, likely preceded by waves of missile and rocket attacks. According to a recent assessment by Ukrainian defense officials, a prospective Russian offensive could come from...

In 1932 and 1933, 7 Million (estimated) Ukrainians were massacred by genocidal famine ordered by the Bolshevik government. Many were Christians. Students do not learn about the Holodomor in middle school, high school, or even college. There aren’t dozens of major Hollywood films depicting the horrific events that took place.

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Russia's defence minister on Tuesday accused U.S. bombers of rehearsing a nuclear strike on Russia from two different directions earlier this month and complained that the planes had come within 20 km (12.4 miles) of the Russian border. But the Pentagon said its drills were announced publicly at the time and adhered to international protocols. Moscow's accusation comes at a time of high tension with Washington over Ukraine, with U.S. officials voicing concerns about a possible Russian attack on its southern neighbour - a suggestion the Kremlin has dismissed as false. Moscow has in turn...

Whilst Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are rightly hailed as being the first men to step on the moon, it was a stray mongrel named Laika who propelled the space race into new territory. On November 3, 1957, the little part-husky dog – who was also known as Curly – became the first animal to orbit Earth when she flew out of the atmosphere in the Soviet Union's Sputnik 2 spacecraft. At the time, the Russians told the world that, until her air supply ran out, the dog had survived for six days inside a capsule which provided her with...