Free Republic

President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg on July 14 in Kyiv, marking their third official meeting. "We discussed the path to peace and what we can practically do together to bring it closer," Zelensky wrote on X. "This includes strengthening Ukraine's air defense, joint production, and procurement of defense weapons in collaboration with Europe. And of course, sanctions against Russia and those who help it." Kellogg's arrival follows U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to send additional Patriot air-defense systems to Ukraine. If approved, a new transfer would mark his first military package to Ukraine...

When asked on July 7 whether the United States would be sending more weapons to Ukraine, President Donald Trump responded in the affirmative. “We have to, they have to be able to defend themselves,” Trump told reporters, referring to the Ukrainians. “They’re getting hit very hard. Now they’re getting hit very hard. We’re gonna have to send more weapons.” Many foreign policy analysts in Washington and Europe greeted the remarks with a sigh of relief. Six days earlier, the Trump administration suspended some U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine in a move American defense officials at the time said was part...

President Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that the U.S. has agreed to sell arms to NATO just moments after he said Russian President Vladimir Putin has 50 days to secure a peace deal with Ukraine or face "100%" tariffs. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Trump called him on Thursday to confirm he wanted to enter into a deal with NATO allies to sell them arms for aid to Ukraine. Trump said billions of dollars worth of U.S. arms would be purchased from allies like Germany, Finland and Denmark that will be "quickly distributed" to Ukraine. "This is really big," Rutte...

... Or face 100% secondary tariffs BREAKING News. Trump speaking now.

As the prospect of a broader NATO-Russia war grows, remember what we’ve already lost. As Peter Schweizer noted in a short report for the Hoover Institution on Christmas Day 2000, twenty-five years ago the United States was “spending less on defense as a percentage of GNP than anytime since the Great Depression.” That all changed nine months later when the so-called “peace dividend” from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was reinvested in a “Global War on Terrorism.” Eight trillion dollars later, and what do Americans have to show for their sacrifices in...

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said during an interview today with CBS News that people should “stay tuned” for tomorrow’s announcement from President Trump regarding Russia, with him adding, “The game, regarding Putin's invasion of Russia, is about to change. I expect, in the coming days, you will see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves. I expect, in the coming days, that there will be tariffs and sanctions available to President Trump he has never had before. I expect, in the coming days, more support from Europe regarding the efforts to help Ukraine. Putin made...

European Union envoys are on the verge of agreeing an 18th package of sanctions against Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine that would include a lower price cap on Russian oil, four EU sources said after a Sunday meeting. -snip- The sources said they had also agreed to a dynamic price mechanism for the price cap. On Friday, the European Commission proposed a floating price cap on Russian oil of 15% below the average market price of crude in the previous three months. One of the sources said the initial price would be around $47 a barrel based on...

President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kyiv on Monday to discuss security and sanctions against Russia with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump has said he will make a “major statement” regarding Russia on Monday, as he’s set to welcome NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to the White House.

United States President Donald Trump voiced his displeasure with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that he is "very disappointed" with him. "I thought he was somebody who meant what he said, he'll talk so beautifully and then bomb people at night. We don't like that," Trump told reporters on his way back from the FIFA Club World Cup final. When asked by a reporter whether he would be announcing sanctions on Russia tomorrow, Trump gave no direct answer. He announced last week that he would be making a "major statement on Russia" on Monday, without elaborating.

While Donald Trump – and other western leaders – are taking their time to catch up with reality, it is obvious that Vladimir Putin has no apparent desire to halt the war in Ukraine. A realistic future military and diplomatic strategy for Kyiv has to accept that fact – and formulate a new approach. The past six months have been dominated by the erroneous assumption that it would be possible for Trump to negotiate a ceasefire, even an armistice. That would be followed by the arrival of an Anglo-French led stabilisation force to secure the future of Ukraine. But Putin...

Ukrainian authorities said Russia hit civilian targets in the towns of Slovyansk and Samar on July 13, but the strikes came amid a relative lull in reported attacks ahead of what US President Donald Trump said would be "major statement" on the conflict. The military administration in Slovyansk, in eastern Ukraine, said there were casualties including a 13-year-old boy as Russian shelling hit residential areas. They did not immediately provide further details. In Samar, 170 kilometers to the west, authorities said a school building and residences were hit. There was no immediate official confirmation of media reports of casualties. Meanwhile,...

Russia is more than a millennium old with a long diplomatic history. Some of Russia’s difficulty may come from the U.S. elites’ ignorance of Russian history and its sensitivities to real or perceived threats of foreign invasion. Many Americans remember the huge drama which arose during the Kennedy presidency when the Soviets put a few missiles in Cuba. Foreign policy wonks still talk about how close we came to World War III. Americans who do not know or acknowledge Russia’s history are unable to understand Russian thinking, thus compromising their ability to consummate agreements with Russia. After the collapse of...

The following is the transcript of an interview with Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 13, 2025. -snip- Stay tuned about a plan to go after the seized assets more aggressively. Stay tuned for a plan where America will begin to sell to our European allies tremendous amounts of weapons that can benefit Ukraine. Putin has calculated that we would get tired, and Europe would get weary. He made a huge mistake. NATO is bigger and stronger, and we're more committed to...

Lindsey Graham says in the coming days, Trump will unleash weapons to Ukraine "at a record level," along with enacting unprecedented sanctions against Russia

Russia and China's foreign ministers on Sunday discussed their relations with the United States and the prospects for ending the war in Ukraine, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement. President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Beijing on Sunday. Lavrov is due to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's (SCO) foreign ministers in China. "The parties also discussed relations with the United States and prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis," the foreign ministry said. "The importance of strengthening close coordination between the two countries in the international arena, including in...

President Trump is set to meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte this week on the heels of the U.S. leader announcing plans to sell NATO allies weapons that it can pass on to Ukraine. In a statement, NATO said Rutte will be in Washington on Monday and Tuesday and will also meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and members of Congress. CBS News reached out to the White House for additional comment. Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that he and Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal will be meeting with...

For 40 cruel and bloody months, Ukraine has fought the Russian invader. Since February 2022, when Moscow’s full-scale, countrywide onslaught began, its people have faced relentless, devastating attacks. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded, millions have lost their homes. Ukraine’s industries, shops, schools, hospitals and power stations burn, its fertile farmlands are laid waste. Its children are orphaned, traumatised or abducted. Despite repeated appeals, the world has failed to stop the carnage. And yet Ukraine, outnumbered and outgunned, has continued to fight back. Ukrainian heroism amid horror has become so familiar, it’s almost taken for granted. But as...

US President Donald Trump says he will send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, saying they are necessary to defend the country because Russian President Vladimir Putin “talks nice but then he bombs everybody in the evening.” -snip- “We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening. But there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it,” Trump tells reporters at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington. “We basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated...

-SNIP- ... In his second term thus far, Trump has defied his critics with several major international wins, and he’s relished the results. His green light for the June 22 US strikes on Iranian nuclear-related targets was a stunning interpretation of what defines “America first.” At the NATO Summit in The Hague days later, he pivoted from years of lambasting European partners to securing a historic agreement to lift Alliance-wide defense and defense-related spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2035, while reaffirming shared security guarantees. Both the Iran and NATO moves are legacy-defining, peace-through-strength actions. They could...

In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill. The reason: rapid innovations in drone technology. From just a few commercial and homemade drones, which the Ukrainians used at the start of the war to locate invading Russian columns, unmanned vehicles now dominate the battlefield. Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line. Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. ‘Wedding...