Free Republic

Musk understands what many commentators don’t: The war will end in a negotiated settlement or it will escalate, possibly into nuclear war.As if to burnish his reputation as a super-villain in the eyes of the corporate press, Elon Musk this week floated an idea on Twitter for a possible resolution of the Russo-Ukrainian war. For his trouble, he was swiftly accused of being a pro-Putin stooge by guardians of the Official Narrative. His suggested peace plan was dismissed out of hand as “Russia-friendly” and, as The Washington Post’s Olivier Knox put it, “designed to lock in Russian territorial gains.”But Musk’s...

Over the past ten years, China’s Communist Party (CCP) has strategically relied on its $4 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost its image and influence with at least 149 countries to date. But success has eluded its efforts, and the BRI strategy may be doomed as a result. Consider for example the CCP’s stalled attempts at pushing the BRI strategy across countries in Europe. Not anticipated were the barriers and delays created by sanctions imposed on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Before the sanctions, China used Russia as a convenient transit point for the shipment of BRI...

The United States has a history of putting rivals on the world stage in a corner economically, obligating them to make the first moves to war.One of the most famous examples of this strategy came on July 26, 1941.On that date, President Franklin Roosevelt introduced sweeping economic sanctions and asset seizures against Japan.Advertisement - story continues belowAs a result of those sanctions, “Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil,” according to History.Needing oil to maintain its military might, Japan had little choice but to declare war on the West and mobilize...

It should be a no-brainer for America’s leaders to permanently slam the door on the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO.In Washington, D.C., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the equivalent of a foreign policy holy sacrament. To listen to many policymakers and foreign policy commentators, you would think NATO is as essential to America as our Constitution, apple pie, or baseball.Questioning its continued utility in the post-Cold War era — or its further expansion — elicits accusations of being everything from un-American to a Putin stooge. This has made it almost impossible to have a substantive discussion about a...

In the event of a nuclear strike, President Joe Biden could be rushed to a little-known complex inside a mountain near Blue Ridge Summit, which sits along the Pennsylvania-Maryland state line, according to Newsweek. The Raven Rock Mountain Complex, which is near Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, "is this massive, hollowed-out mountain. It's a free-standing city ... with individual buildings, three-story buildings, built inside of this mountain,” journalist Garrett Graff, the author of the 2017 book Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die, told NPR in 2017. “It...

In conclusion of his working visit to Kazakhstan, the President answered journalists’ questions. October 14, 202215:55 Astana Vladimir Putin answered journalists’ questions. President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening, Let’s take your questions. Please go ahead. Aysel Gereykhanova: Good evening, Aysel Gereykhanova, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Mr President, you took part in the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia yesterday, and the creation of a new international organisation was announced yesterday as well. How do you assess these plans and what purpose do they serve? Vladimir Putin: We asked ourselves this question back when this organisation...

State Department ‘Human Rights Report’ reveals what our government really thought of pre-war Ukraine. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (a branch within the US State Department) releases annual ‘Human Rights Reports’ on 194 different countries around the globe. Their 2021 report for Ukraine was released in April of this year. Despite its relevance to whether US intervention in the RU-UA war is merited, the report received zero media coverage. The report highlights “serious abuses” in the Donbas region citing multiple sources: “International organizations and NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the HRMMU, issued periodic reports...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the kind of military alliance the Founding Fathers warned about.Its entangling nature puts America at risk of entering potentially dangerous conflicts where no pressing national interest is at stake. Just look at the present Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Many policymakers in Washington believe that a Slav-on-Slav conflict thousands of miles away somehow involves a critical national interest. In reality, what guides the DC Swamp’s interest in this conflict is the desire to debilitate Russia and make it submit to the liberal hegemonic order. DC is committed to this goal irrespective of the massive risks its entails....

US Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Amy Klobuchar told Ukrainian troops in December 2016 that they would help make 2017 a “year of offense” against Russia and that it was time to make Russia “pay a heavier price”. Knowing they had an agreement with Putin not to let NATO get closer to Russia. The Deep State and NATO have been actively planning and conducting uprisings and unrest worldwide in Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, Libya etc. Ukraine is just one more in a long list of countries that have been devastated for the benefit of the very few that pull the...

Andrei Nikiforov, a lawyer from St Petersburg, was one of the hundreds of thousands of Russians mobilised since last month to hold the frontlines in his country’s faltering war in Ukraine. On 25 September he received his call-up papers. By 7 October, just two weeks later, he was dead. “We don’t know what happened,” said Alexander Zelensky, the head of the Nevsky Collegium of Lawyers, of which Nikiforov was a member. Zelensky and a member of Nikiforov’s family confirmed his call-up and death. “All we have is a date and a place.” That place was Lysychansk, one of the most...

One of those present at the training ground in Belgorod during the execution by some mobilized others told the Astra Telegram channel that the cause of the conflict could be religious - shortly before the incident, Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Lapin said that Allah is a coward, since he does not allow Muslims to fight for a country where you took an oath. The authors of the material emphasize that at the time of publication they were unable to independently confirm the identity of either the narrator himself or the identity of other persons appearing in the story. “It all started...

The sitting US Secretary of State very recently declared in an official press conference that the NS1 and NS2 pipeline sabotage will have “no impact on European energy resilience”… We should assume that Secretary Antony Blinken was referring to the timely supply of US LNG substitute equivalent to pipeline nat-gas now theoretically available (not) which would save the European day. With a clear smile, Blinken considered it to be a “tremendous opportunity” for the US to help Europe wean off of Russian energy… with the USA ready to be “the leading supplier (of dirty fracked seaborne LNG) to Europe”. And...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Ukraine has quickly devolved into a bottomless money pit for the countless nations and corporations that have been bankrolling its war against Russia.On Friday, billionaire Elon Musk hilariously trolled a pro-Ukraine reporter who tweeted that SpaceX may no longer be able to supply its Starlink satellite internet terminals free to Ukraine due to the prohibitive costs of operating them.In response to the Kiev Post correspondent’s tweet noting that the move “comes days after Ukrainian Ambassador @MelnykAndrij told Musk to ‘f*** off,’ the SpaceX founder quipped: “We’re just following his recommendation.” Musk revealed last week that providing Starlink terminals and service...

As the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) say they hope their offensive reaches the city of Kherson by this winter, Russia continues preparation for a massive counterattack which could begin as early as next month. The results of that battle are likely to be bloody and destructive, but unlikely to settle the war one way or the other.

"For Russians disillusioned with their initial experience of capitalism and democracy, alternative history offered a therapy in which the problems of today gave way to new images of past glory." In 2009, we wrote a book entitled Nationalist Imaginings of the Russian Past. Anatolii Fomenko and the Rise of Alternative History. Its focus was the explosion of 'alternative' history, a publishing phenomenon that emerged in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The leading light in this movement was, and remains, Anatolii Fomenko, a Sovietera mathematician who claimed that the standard historical chronology was hopelessly inaccurate and...

The Russians had virtually no ammunition and some even had to share one assault rifle between two. VIDEO: Ukraine: Russian soldiers appear to 'surrender' Russian troops killed their commander after he tried to stop them from surrendering to Ukraine's army, it has been reported. The soldiers were part of the recently mobilised reserve and had just arrived at the front. Vladimir Putin's army has suffered a series of humiliating defeats on the battlefield in recent weeks. Ukraine's army has made spectacular advances in the northeast, east and south of the country as they continue their counteroffensive on a number of...

During a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a security conference in Kazakhstan, Putin also suggested setting up a natural gas exchange market in Turkey to determine prices, according to the Interfax news agency. "We could consider building another gas pipeline and creating a gas hub in Turkey for sale to third countries, especially in Europe," Putin said. On Friday, Erdogan said he ordered his government to quickly present their implementation plans, saying that the hub "will be an international distribution center." According to Putin, more gas could be piped to Europe via Turkey...

After the two world wars in the 20th century, mapmakers were kept busy redrawing boundaries. Empires disappeared, new countries were born, and power alliances shifted radically. No matter what happens in Ukraine going forward, a weakened Russia cannot “win” in any conventional sense of the word. They may gain a little territory, but at such a horrific cost in money, men, and prestige that their status as a “superpower” will be questioned — even though their nuclear stockpile will (hopefully) remain intact.

Nato’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the alliance would provide Ukraine with “hundreds of drone jammers” after Russia was accused of targeting its cities with Iranian kamikaze devices. “Nato will deliver counter-drone equipment to Ukraine with hundreds of drone jammers which can help render ineffective Russian and Iranian-made drones,” said Mr Stoltenberg, during a press conference at the end of a two-day meeting of Nato defence ministers devoted to strengthening support for Ukraine.