Free Republic

Douglas MacGregor describes the current situation

Ukraine liberated the city of Kherson after Russian troops fled, with soldiers treated to a hero's welcome by jubilant as they arrived in city centre this afternoon. Flag-waving locals wept, chanted the name of Ukrainian armed forces, hugged and kissed troops as they arrived in the city's main square hours after the bulk of Moscow's forces withdrew across Dnipro River. Ukraine's artillery had pounded the city and the nearby Dnipro River overnight and into the early hours in the hopes of destroying any last Russians trying to flee. Rumours swirled that thousands of troops might be trapped in the city,...

Day 259: November 09 Today there is a lot of news: the Ukrainians finally launched the next wave of their counteroffensive operation in the Kherson region, Russian authorities have publicly announced withdrawal from Kherson, and the Russian-appointed Head of Kherson died in a car accident. The Ukrainians have changed the axis of advance completely, and this time they started from storming Snihurivka.

Russia's decision to pull its forces back from the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson was "positive and important," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. "Russia's decision regarding Kherson is positive, an important decision," told reporters in the capital Ankara on Thursday before leaving for a summit of Turkic countries in Uzbekistan. Vowing to maintain dialogue with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Erdogan's comments came after Moscow ordered its troops on Wednesday to withdraw from Kherson to the east bank of the Dnieper River. "I don't know whether there will be Russian participation in the G20 or not. We'll have...

Russia's elite are worried for their safety after an ally of President Vladimir Putin said those who aren't enthusiastic enough about the war in Ukraine should be repressed, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin loyalist and founder of the paramilitary Wagner Group, said that Russian tycoons who are not supportive enough over the conflict should face "urgent Stalinist repressions", Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. The "Stalinist repressions" are a reference to Russia's Great Purge, a political campaign led by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1937 that aimed to eliminate anyone in his party he considered a threat. Prigozhin's...

Russian mobiks, as the newly mobilized recruits are called, have been complaining for weeks that they were sent to the front lines in Ukraine with no training and little to no equipment. As you would expect when troops with no discipline and no equipment are sent to the front lines, the results are not good. Over the last few days there have been reports that hundreds of mobiks sent to the front lines in they city of Makiyivka in eastern Ukraine were wiped out. Here’s a map created by the Guardian which show the location of Makiyivka:The report about what...

Oleg Kozhemyako, the governor of Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East, has published videos on his Telegram channel, ostensibly showing marines from the 155th Brigade and fighters of the Tigr Battalion outside Pavlivka. The servicemen deny heavy losses and say they are “alright” and that the Russian forces are faring well. “There have been reports that the 155th Brigade, our detachment, no longer exists. We want to say we’re holding the line. The brigade is fighting. There have been losses, unfortunately. Fighting is heavy in Pavlivka. It's tough. We’ve lost a few men, wounded and killed. But we keep...

In late October, near the village of Pavlivka in the annexed part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, heavy fighting broke out between Russian and Ukrainian forces. On November 5, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that it had “defeated" Ukrainian forces on the southern Donetsk front; the following day, however, multiple Russian “war correspondents” posted a message from marines in the 155th Brigade of Russia's Pacific Fleet who took part in the offensive. The marines alleged that their unit had lost approximately 300 people and half of their equipment in just four days. They asked Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Russia’s Primorsky Krai,...

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...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the world to pressure Russia into “genuine peace negotiations” with Ukraine in an address to the nation on Monday, insisting his administration had “repeatedly proposed” talks but received only “insane” responses. Russia first invaded Ukraine nearly a decade ago, in 2014, and has been waging a proxy war in the eastern Donbas region since the invasion and colonization of Ukraine’s Crimea region in March of that year. Russian leader Vladimir Putin escalated the conflict into a full-scale invasion this February, formally introducing Russian troops into the battle theater and bombing major urban centers, including the...

Ukraine’s president has suggested he’s open to peace talks with Russia, softening his earlier refusal to negotiate with Moscow while President Vladimir Putin is in power — while sticking to Kyiv’s demands. Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appeal to the international community late Monday to “force Russia into real peace talks” reflected a change in rhetoric for a man who signed a decree in late September stating “the impossibility of holding talks” with Putin. But since his preconditions appear to be non-starters for Moscow, it’s hard to see how Zelenskyy’s latest comments would advance any talks. Zelenskyy reiterated that his conditions for dialogue...

The United States will send 40 armored riverine boats to Ukraine as part of the latest assistance package. The riverine boats are part of a $400 million aid package announced Friday. It’s the second time the U.S. is sending riverine boats to Ukraine as part of ongoing assistance in response to the Russian invasion. The aid assistance package does not detail the type of riverine boats the U.S. is sending to Ukraine. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh did not provide details but said that how the riverine boats will be used is up to the Ukrainian forces. The U.S....

Hours after Aleksei Agafonov arrived in the Luhansk region on 1 November as part of a battalion of new conscripts, his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night. Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit. “A Ukrainian drone first flew over us, and after that their artillery started to pound us for hours and hours, nonstop,” Agafonov, who survived...

An entire battalion of Russian mobilised men was wiped out within days of being sent to the frontline in Ukraine, survivors have told Russian opposition media. The soldiers had been ordered to the frontline in Luhansk, Donbas, and then told to dig trenches, the Verstka news agency said in an unverified report. “We had three shovels per battalion and there were no provisions at all. We dug in as best we could and in the morning the shelling started from artillery and helicopters. We were simply shot,” Agafonov, the alleged unit survivor, said. “When it all started the officers simply...

High-ranking unit in the Russian navy is reeling after experiencing significant losses in a recent offensive. The 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade was involved in Wednesday attack on a Ukrainian military garrison in Pavlivka, a town southwest of the recently annexed Donetsk region, according to The Moscow Times on Monday. The offensive intended to give Russian forces access to a key supply line in the area. In the wake of the offensive, the elite naval unit is reportedly pointing the finger at "baffling" leadership decisions that led to the loss of roughly 300 men. These complaints were made in a...

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University

This is a must watch video. It shows Russian troops mocking their commanding general. I heard them chanting "nie pravda", literally, not true, or calling the general a liar. This could be the start of the next Russian Revolution.

Update from Ukraine | Turkey blocks Ruzzian Ships | NASAMS in Ukraine | Antonov - 225 Rebuild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL9K4KHee10 Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps here: https://militaryland.net/ https://militaryland.net/maps/invasion-maps/ https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-256-summary/

In the wake of Russia’s brutal missile attacks on civilians across Ukraine, the mounting evidence of atrocities by Russia’s forces, and the firm and unequivocal rejection by 143 nations at the United Nations of Russia’s illegal attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine, the United States is offering additional military assistance to help Ukraine’s proud defenders protect their country.Pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, I am authorizing our twenty-third drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. This $725 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories. This drawdown...

"President Biden today announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, bringing the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine to $1 billion in just the past week, and a total of $2 billion since the start of the Biden Administration. The assistance will take the form of direct transfers of equipment from the Department of Defense to the Ukrainian military to help them defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion."The new $800 million assistance package includes:800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;2,000 Javelin, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems;100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;100 grenade launchers,...