Free Republic

On the evening of December 30, 2014, just as two dozen or so patrons were settling into their seats at a purposefully ramshackle basement theater in central Moscow to watch a film about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, police officials and a television crew entered the hall, declared a bomb threat and asked everyone to evacuate. Despite the declared urgency that a bomb might go off, the police checked and recorded the documents of everyone in the audience and requested that they wait in paddy wagons parked outside, for their own protection. When questioned about the wisdom of taking 45...

LifeNews, a mainstream Russian TV news channel, aired a segment on Thursday in which a regular guest and "expert political analyst" stated that the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris had in fact been carried out by United States intelligence agencies. The guest, Alexei Martynov, suggested that US intelligence had launched the Charlie Hebdo attack in order to sabotage the global effort against Islamist terrorism, which he argued Russia is leading. Martynov also argued that the attack was meant to pressure French President Francois Hollande into maintaining Western economic sanctions against Russia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that the key to ending sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict was the full implementation of September's Minsk agreement, between the government in Kyiv and pro-Moscow separatists. Speaking in Berlin at a press conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Merkel said "the implementation of sanctions had certain causes, and these sanctions can only be lifted when the causes are eliminated again." "I think we need to see the entire Minsk agreement implemented before we can say that sanctions will be lifted," she added. Under the September deal, both sides agreed to...

LifeNews, a mainstream Russian TV news channel, aired a segment on Thursday in which a regular guest and "expert political analyst" stated that the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris had in fact been carried out by United States intelligence agencies. The guest, Alexei Martynov, suggested that US intelligence had launched the Charlie Hebdo attack in order to sabotage the global effort against Islamist terrorism, which he argued Russia is leading. Martynov also argued that the attack was meant to pressure French President Francois Hollande into maintaining Western economic sanctions against Russia. The segment ran for 10 minutes, during which...

US taxpayers looted to destroy sovereign nations As the American people slide deeper into bankruptcy, their government continues to spend billions to overthrow foreign governments and destabilize or destroy foreign nations. Victoria Nuland’s confession that US taxpayers had contributed 5 billion dollars to overthrow the democratically-elected Ukrainian government, and incite a civil war designed to destroy that country, was just the tip of the iceberg. And it gets worse. We now have smoking-gun proof that the State Department under Hillary Clinton corrupted the world’s biggest human rights organization, Amnesty International, by paying it to conduct ultra-secret CIA-style destabilization operations to...

In the midst of the Russian government's tightening control on Internet use, Intel has shut down all of its Russian-language developer forums, blaming the country's new 'Blogger Law' that became effective on 01 January 2015. Users of the Russian developer forums are now being redirected to post on Intel pages hosted on third-party sites including Habrhabr, or to its own English developer forums outside of Russia. As part of the latest crack down, blog post contributions will be disabled; forum contributions will be disabled; in addition to turning off all commenting for Russian content.

In this nervous city in an embattled country, even small explosions can have a big impact. ODESSA, Ukraine — On Sunday night a powerful explosion shook the heart of Ukraine’s most elegant city. The bomb went off right on the porch of the local Euro-Maidan Coordination Council, where volunteers store humanitarian aid for Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian-backed forces in the east of the country. Authorities categorized the incident as “an act of terrorism,” the seventh bombing targeting strategic points of Odessa in the past few weeks. The explosion destroyed the Council’s porch, tearing the entrance door to pieces, breaking windows...

As with other economic one-act shows run by a crackpot, today's Russia finds itself on the financial ropes as the oil price bounces off 6-year lows and it's currency circles-the-drain. And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy than Vladimir Putin. Thus, the Kremlin needs an outside enemy to legitimize a government (living in a Soviet time-warp) that seems to be ruining pretty much everything it touches these days. The collapse in the price of petroleum has pulled-away the curtain and exposed  Oz (Team Putin) as a bunch of economic incompetents who really don't know what to do. Except 'blame the Americans':...

Last spring, eastern Ukraine was a struggling, rust belt region of mines and metal works. Now it's a battle zone where armies face off with heavy weapons and nearly 5,000 people have died. In Russia, one man claims to have touched off the conflagration, and he says he's proud of what he did. His name is Igor Girkin, and he has a knack for turning up in tumultuous places. In this instance, Girkin made his appearance in April of last year, shorthly after Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after months of street protests. Girkin arrived in the eastern...

Russia has presented a startling proposal to overcome the tensions with the EU: The EU should renounce the free trade agreement with the United States TTIP and enter into a partnership with the newly established Eurasian Economic Union instead. A free trade zone with the neighbors would make more sense than a deal with the US.

Stefano Pozzebon December 31, 2014 Russia plans to build a new high speed railway, with trains that would speed from Moscow to Beijing in just 48 hours. At the moment, it takes about seven days to commute between the two cities and the route requires changes. According to Romanian website Glasul, the Kremlin has awarded the project to China Railway High-speed (CRH), a subsidiary of the state-controlled China Railway (CR), which is working in a joint-venture with the local firm Uralvagonzavod. CR is famous in the train industry for operating the world's only magnetic levitation train in an urban area,...

Despite the recent plunge in oil prices, Vladimir Putin is on his way to becoming one of the most successful authoritarian leaders of the modern era. His sham democracy leaves just enough freedom for dissidents and the media so that he can take on the appearance of legitimacy. In parliament, most members of the political opposition are handpicked by him and seldom oppose him on any serious matter. But it is in his Orwellian propaganda methods where he has really excelled. Whether it’s inventing atrocities by the “fascist” pro-Western government of Ukraine or denying responsibility for the downing of a...

MOSCOW—The ruble weakened on its first trading day in 2015, as the price of oil, Russia’s main source of hard currency, dipped to the lowest level since 2009. The battered currency, which lost more than 40% against the dollar in 2014, was down 6.1% around midsession on Monday, with one dollar buying 59.44 rubles. On the first trading day of 2014, the rate was 32.03 rubles per dollar. Russia’s dollar-denominated RTS index was down 4.1%, while its ruble-denominated peer Mices was up 2.2%. In dollar terms, Russia’s stock market index has nearly halved since the start of 2014. Although New...

"Putin is behaving in a very paranoid way. He’s putting a lot of emphasis on increased repression. He’s taking a lot of money out of domestic coffers: health, education, pensions, to support his own inner circle – to keep peace among competing groups. To bail these people out when the social situation in the country is so dire is an act of….it reveals the regime for what it is, and he can only really keep peace by increasing the repression."

MOSCOW — A year ago, most Ukrainians didn’t want to join NATO. US tanks weren’t doing training exercises near the Russian border. And a dollar bought 33 rubles. But after the most tumultuous stretch of President Vladimir Putin’s 15 years in power, Russia is facing a new reality. Ukraine — the part not held by rebels — has turned firmly toward Europe. NATO troops are on alert in the Baltics, near the Russian frontier. And the ruble has lost nearly half its value against the dollar, wiping away years of gains for Russia’s middle class. Putin has also won major...

Frankfurt (AFP) - Tougher sanctions may destabilise the situation further in Russia and plunge the country into chaos, German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel warned in a newspaper interview on Sunday. "The goal was never to push Russia politically and economically into chaos," Gabriel told the Bild am Sonntag. "Whoever wants that will provoke a much more dangerous situation for all of us in Europe," he said, pointing out that Russia was a nuclear power. The aim of the sanctions imposed against Russia so far was to steer the country back to the negotiating table. "Those who want to destabilise Russia...

On December 31st 2014 the following video was shared on various social media sites, showing what was claimed to be Russian military units inside Ukraine. Of particular interest were BPM-97 mine-resistant, ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles that feature briefly in the video. These Russian vehicles are not used by the Ukrainian military, and their presence inside Ukraine would be compelling evidence Russia has sent military vehicles into Ukraine. However, it has been impossible to find the position this video was filmed, so it has not been possible to confirm this was filmed inside Ukraine. Yesterday a new image of a BPM-97...

The self-styled “Islamic State,” the gaggle of medieval savages and barbarians often referred to as ISIS or ISIL, is now infamous worldwide for its unrestrained brutality. The al-Qaeda offshoot exploded onto the scene in 2014 amid its gruesome and bloody effort to build an Islamic “Caliphate,” exterminate “apostates,” and overthrow the “apostate” regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. America and the West are supposedly next — at least that is what the public is being told. Ever since ISIS emerged seemingly out of nowhere, Americans and people around the globe have been treated to a steady TV diet of beheadings,...

Fox News reported yesterday that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Odessa, and today the International Business Times reported that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Slavyansk. Who makes up the ranks of this elite National Guard when Vice News reported on March 19, 2014 - in their article "A look Inside Ukraine's Volunteer National Guard" - and in it said then that Ukraine had - by its own admission - only 6,000 combat-ready troops? Looks like Kiev didn't/doesn't have a pot to even... much less an "elite National Guard." BTW, Vice News was the news...

President Barack Obama has said Vladimir Putin made a "strategic mistake" when he annexed Crimea, in a move that was "not so smart". Those thinking his Russian counterpart was a "genius" had been proven wrong by Russia's economic crisis, he said.