Free Republic

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly is announcing new sanctions on Belarus Tuesday in response to its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. Joly says in a statement that Belarusian leadership is enabling human-rights violations and allowing the country to serve as a launching pad for Russia’s attacks. Canada is adding 22 Belarusian officials to the sanctions list, including people who are involved in the stationing and transport of Russian military personnel and equipment. The sanctions also affect 16 Belarusian companies across the military manufacturing, tech, engineering, banking and rail sectors. The announcement comes as the country’s exiled opposition leader, Sviatlana...

Russia has been burning through equipment, ammunition and weaponry at rates that have raised questions about how effectively and for how long it can continue to prosecute its war against Ukraine. The challenge of sustaining the military effort isn’t unique to Russia, which after making significant territorial gains early in the war has been yielding territory back to Ukraine in phases. Both sides have suffered heavy losses of men and materiel since the invasion began in February, but Moscow is more dependent on its own shrinking economy to replenish supplies than Kyiv is. Ukraine’s economy has been more devastated than...

At the peak of his power, Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he could use his energy weapon to impose his will across Europe. Now Moldova — with a population of only 2.5 million — is emerging as the last truly vulnerable energy target in his flailing campaign to destabilize governments in the neighborhood taking a pro-EU trajectory. But no matter how hard Putin tries to turn the energy screws to topple the administration, Moldova’s government is doggedly resisting. Only last week Russian missile strikes triggered blackouts in half the country and last month Gazprom slashed gas supplies by a third,...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia lost almost half of their tanks in Ukraine | Bakhmut is a black hole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o6B4sXfnq8 Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps here: https://militaryland.net/ Invasion Day 270 – Summary & Maps November 20, 2022 https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-270-summary/ Poltava’s paratroopers rebranded November 19, 2022 https://militaryland.net/news/poltavas-paratroopers-rebranded/

Russia and Ukraine agreed to a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in April, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened to stop the peace deal, and the US and EU escalated the proxy war to try to weaken Moscow.

Russia may face a domestic bread shortage in certain markets due to massive wheat exports this year as Russia morphs into an international food superpower. Cities such as St. Petersburg may not have sufficient wheat shipments as the transportation capability is being used to get export wheat to ports. +++ The excessive number of carriages allocated for exports is depriving the St. Petersburg milling industry of its own – damaging supply chains, driving up prices and creating a shortage of bakery products, the St. Petersburg governor writes. The letter was sent after St. Petersburg’s most important wheat suppliers, the Orenburg,...

Mark ‏@markito0171 · 2h2 hours ago #Syria #Russia'n airstrikes destroyed 2 medicine-factories, a bread factory & damaged main water pumping station in #Aleppo the past days

Beleaguered Russians rang in the New Year with a special gift from the Kremlin – a cap on the price of their much-beloved vodka. Facing an economy seemingly on the verge of collapse, President Vladimir Putin took steps this past week to ensure that a plummeting ruble would not prevent his country from drowning its sorrows in cheap alcohol. Russians love a drink. Therefore, it is a brave Kremlin leader who stands in the way of his countrymen’s desire for a reliably inexpensive tumbler of vodka. To this day, Mikhail Gorbachev remains a target for abuse and hatred for the...

Russians are fleeing Crimea amid fears that Ukraine will soon move to recapture the region that Vladimir Putin illegally annexed in 2014, according to local media reports. Emil Ibragimov, the head of the Crimean project and educational platform Q-Hub, told Radio NV in a video published on Friday that Russians are fleeing from Crimea to the neighboring Russian region of Krasnodar because they fear Ukraine will eventually liberate the Black Sea peninsula. Ibragimov said that many Russian citizens who settled in Crimea after it was occupied eight years ago had already left. -snip- His remarks coincide with an assessment by...

This stockpile of cruise and ballistic missiles was likely used to deliver massive air strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent months. “They apparently have a withhold for a notional NATO attack, which we would regard as absurd, but they regard it as a real possibility,” Cancian said.“So they’re holding back some part of their inventory for that.”The report further suggests that Russia has built up a stockpile of microchips and other technological components for domestic missile production before invading Ukraine on Feb. 24. In October, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced a set of measures to ramp up output of...

Excellent MacGregor interview about what prompted Gen. Milley to leak private briefing of Biden. Interview discusses negotiation possibilities...not likely. Huge Russian offensive being prepared for. Milley is concerned that this conflict will end in defeat for the collective West.

The Ukrainian armed forces have already killed or wounded upwards of 100,000 Russian troops, half its original fighting force; there have been almost 8,000 confirmed losses of armored vehicles including thousands of tanks, thousands of APCs, artillery pieces, hundreds of fixed and rotary wing aircraft, and numerous naval vessels. US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment. If we divide out the US defense budget to the threats it faces, Russia would perhaps be of the order of $100bn-150bn in spend-to-threat. So spending just $40bn...

According to Scott Ritter, the Ukrainians deliberately launched the Ukrainian S300 missiles into Poland. NATO knows it is a Ukrainian missile, and it was deliberately fired into Poland. But Zelensky might not know the truth. There are elements in the Ukrainian military who would do it unilaterally, Ritter believes. The Ukrainians want Patriot missiles and a no-fly zone since they are losing badly, especially under the barrage of missiles from Russia. They’re losing their energy systems. Zelensky and his military don’t seem to care if they start World War III.

Just how effective have Western sanctions been against Iran — and for that matter, Russia? The US has spearheaded efforts to deny both countries access to Western technology, especially that with dual-use capabilities for military purposes. In the case of Iran, those sanctions and trade restrictions go back decades.And according to an exclusive from the Wall Street Journal today, they appear significantly ineffective. Ukrainian and Western experts have begun looking at the remains of Iranian drones that targeted infrastructure in the Russian invasion, and a lot of the parts come from Western supply chains:New intelligence collected from downed Iranian drones...

Zelenskyy virtually addressed world leaders at the G20 summit in Bali on Tuesday. He told them that Russia's war must end, and proposed a 10-step peace plan. The plan includes ensuring nuclear and food safety, and an "all for all" prisoner swap. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday laid out a 10-point peace plan for peace, which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and an "all for all" prisoner swap. Speaking in a virtual address at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Zelenskyy said the war should be ended "justly and on the basis of the UN Charter...

Click to skip to bottom of this long transcriptransomnote: I copied the computer generated transcript of Clayton Morris’ interview with Colonel MacGregor. I made many corrections to help improve readability as the transcript contains phonetic and spelling errors. I recommend watching the video if you have time.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bePModNEzUU~TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~ Interviewer Clayton Morris: Well theWestern media, in particular TheWashington Post, today calling thesestrikes on Ukraine overnight and intothis afternoon a ‘turning point’ in the war and Icouldn't help, when I saw that, wondering.I couldn't wait to ask you this question,you know, is that a rhetorical devicedesigned to elicit some sort ofemotional response...

Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia attacks Poland and Ukraine | NATO should response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dunaNDpEccg Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ Military maps here: https://militaryland.net/ https://militaryland.net/news/ukrainian-army-forms-a-new-brigade/ Ukrainian Army forms a new brigade November 15, 2022 Jerome News The Command Staff has decided to expand the 47th Assault Regiment to the size of brigade. All bureaucratic procedures regarding the expansion were recently completed, the unit will soon receive new weapons and equipment. After that, the fighters will return to the front. Ukrainian Ground Forces thus have a new brigade, the 47th Assault Brigade. About the unit 47th Assault Brigade was...

(Subtitle) Isolated and embattled, Russia and Iran are increasingly cooperative. Russia once viewed the G-20 group of leading economies as the world’s key cooperative forum. No longer. The November 15-16 meeting in Bali will not be attended by Vladimir Putin and there is therefore little chance that his isolation will be illustrated through face-to-face condemnations from Western leaders. That’s not to say that Russia has no friends, just that it has fewer than before its all-out war on Ukraine began in February. North Korea, for example, has reportedly drawn closer to the Kremlin through supplies of military equipment to aid...

Russia-Poland strike: 'The stakes are really high', says General Sir Richard Barrons Sky News

The knockout blow is being prepared MacGregor claims that Mark Milley has warned Biden that Ukraine is at the end of its rope and that nothing good could come of allowing the conflict to continue.