Free Republic

“I think he should make a deal,” U.S. president says about the Kremlin chief. The war “is not making him look good.” Russia's war on Ukraine has landed Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in "big trouble," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday. "[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy told me he wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin does ... He might not. I think he should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal," Trump said in the Oval Office on the first day of his second presidency. "I think, Russia is...

Donald Trump doesn’t easily forgive or forget. As Trump’s Republican allies in the United States Congress block military aid that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv desperately needs to avoid defeat in its war with invading Russian forces, it’s clear the former U.S. president’s ill will toward Ukraine has deep roots. It was, after all, a phone call with Zelenskyy that led to Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019, after he was accused of seeking to influence the 2020 election by leaning on the Ukrainian leader to investigate current President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. There’s every sign the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has replaced one of his longest-serving officials, Oleksiy Danilov, who had earlier criticized a Chinese peace plan. Danilov’s firing came after he expressively criticized Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, as well as a Chinese peace initiative, on air during a Ukrainian national telethon. “As for Li Hui, I want to remind everyone: No one will decide our fate but us,” Danilov said on March 19. “I don’t understand who can trade our territories, our lands like that. Because some Hui, I’m sorry, or whatever his last name is, or someone else think they...

Some 20,000 people in the cities of Klimovsk, Lyubertsy, and Podolsk, in the Moscow region, have been left without heating for days — some of them for weeks — as temperatures have dropped below -25C last week, Russian Telegram channel Baza reported. Local authorities declared an emergency. “Due to sanctions and overblown military spending, Russia does not have enough resources to spare for annual checkups of its outdated housing and utilities sector,"

After a year and a half of war, Ukraine’s leaders now have a new reason to worry: Mounting political chaos in America is threatening to derail their supply of money and weapons. Days after lawmakers shelved a vital U.S. plan to send billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own Republican Party colleagues. Aid to Ukraine was named as one of the reasons. In Kyiv, officials are at a loss as to what might happen next. Their staunchest military ally suddenly looks unreliable, despite assurances from President Biden and others the...