Free Republic

Donald Trump, the US president, is preparing “shock and awe” sanctions on Russian exports, a senior Republican has said. Senator Jim Risch, the chairman of the powerful Senate foreign relations committee, said Mr Trump would make good on his pledge to impose crippling economic penalties on Moscow’s trading partners by Aug 8. The US president this week shortened his deadline for hitting Russia with the most severe sanctions on its oil experts to date, giving Vladimir Putin 10 days to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine. “When and if secondary sanctions hit, it’s going to be shock...

President Donald Trump on Friday blasted former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, saying, “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances.” Trum,p then ordered U.S. nuclear submarines to be moved following Medvedev’s comments: “Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10. … He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,” Medvedev wrote on X. “Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.” I’m sorry, but the words...

Already prone to droughts, Iran has exacerbated the problem with poor water management policies, which Mr. Pezeshkian acknowledged on Monday. Climate change, too, has played a role; the country has weathered five consecutive years of drought. Now, the crisis has grown so extreme that the government shut down all government offices and services in Tehran and more than two dozen other cities across the country on Wednesday, creating a three-day weekend in an attempt to lower water and electricity usage. Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokeswoman, said cities could have similar closures once or twice a week going forward, and suggested...

US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he had heard that India might no longer buy oil from Russia, though he acknowledged he was not certain about the claim. "I understand that India is no longer going to be buying oil from Russia. That's what I heard, I don't know if that's right or not. That is a good step. We will see what happens," Trump told ANI. Trump's remarks come days after his tirade against India for buying Russian oil and the White House's decision to levy 25 per cent tariffs on all exports to America and an...

Donald Trump announced that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines towards Russia in response to threats from the country’s former president. The US president said he was sending the vessels to “appropriate regions” in a move that broke decades of Pentagon secrecy around high-level deployments. It comes after Mr Trump was engaged in a war of words with Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and the deputy chairman of the country’s security council.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to US President Donald Trump’s remarks expressing “disappointment” over stalled progress on Ukraine, calling for realistic expectations and a return to diplomacy. “Disappointments stem from excessive expectations,” Putin said on Friday during a press briefing in Valaam. “Approaching problem-solving peacefully requires thorough discussions, either publicly or discreetly through negotiations.”

Russia said on Thursday it had captured the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine after nearly 16 months of fighting, opening the way for potential further advances. Russia's Defence Ministry said in a brief statement its forces had "liberated" the town.

The Kremlin is building its way toward a reality where it can soon launch 2,000 Shahed one-way attack drones in one night, according to two recent Western assessments. Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding, the German defense ministry's commander of planning and command staff, said in a Bundeswehr interview aired on Saturday that Russia was "striving to further increase production capacity" of its Shaheds. "They want to expand the drone attacks we just talked about," Freuding said. "The ambition is to be able to deploy 2,000 drones simultaneously." "We need to consider intelligent countermeasures," he added. In a separate assessment on Sunday,...

US President Donald Trump said on July 31 that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were “disgusting” and indicated that new sanctions against Moscow were coming over its invasion of its neighbour. “Russia – I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing. I think it’s disgusting,” Mr Trump told journalists. He also said he would send his special envoy Steve Witkoff, currently in Israel, to visit Russia next. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already met Mr Witkoff multiple times in Moscow, before Mr Trump’s efforts to mend ties with the Kremlin came to a grinding halt. Washington has given Moscow until the end...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sent a letter to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, offering his full support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine and recognizing the occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as part of Russia, as was reported on July 30. -snip- The letter, co-signed by Ortega’s wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, expressed solidarity with the Russian people and praised the sacrifices of Russian military families. Ortega also reiterated Nicaragua’s support for Russia’s so-called “special military operation,” which the Kremlin claims is being conducted to protect Russian citizens and defend its sovereignty. In the letter, Ortega stated,...

U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear that he wants a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine by August 8, the United States told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. “Both Russia and Ukraine must negotiate a ceasefire and durable peace. It is time to make a deal. President Trump has made clear this must be done by August 8. The United States is prepared to implement additional measures to secure peace,” senior U.S. diplomat John Kelley told the 15-member council.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that India's purchases of Russian oil are helping to sustain Moscow's war efforts in Ukraine and it is "most certainly a point of irritation" in New Delhi’s relationship with Washington, although not the only point of irritation. In an interview with Fox Radio, Rubio claimed that the US President is frustrated with the fact that India continues to buy oil from Russia despite having so many other oil vendors available and helping to fund Russia's war effort against Ukraine. -snip- One of the biggest points of contradiction that has stopped India...

The ousting of Kiev regime leader is ongoing – and today, the successor was anointed in the pages of Vogue. After three and a half years hailed as the heroic defender of democracy and a present-day Churchill, Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky rapidly fell out of favor with both the exhausted Ukrainian population and with his masters in the West. We reported today here on TGP how the EU has frozen all aid until the independence of the anti-corruption agencies is restored.

A line of antitank ditches and barbed wire cuts through the sunflower fields all the way to the horizon here in Ukraine’s battle-scarred east, fortifications the country bets it can lay fast and far enough to halt Russia’s summer offensive. But the defensive gamble is facing increasingly long odds. Kyiv is in the midst of its most ambitious defensive construction effort to date, erecting obstacles and carving up the earth to thwart manned and unmanned assaults. While riflemen scan the sky for enemy robots, Ukraine’s own drone operators sit below them in an extensive network of subterranean dugouts. “The army...

The US has sanctioned eight India-based companies and five Indian nationals as part of its latest Iran-related sanctions action targeting entities engaged in trade of Iranian oil, petroleum products, and petrochemicals, and those identified as part of a shipping empire controlled by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani — the son of Ali Shamkhani, a top political advisor to the Supreme Leader of Iran. In the latest action, announced Wednesday, the US Department of the State imposed sanctions on 20 entities and identified 10 vessels as blocked property. Simultaneously, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated more...

US President Donald Trump on Thursday took a sharp jab at India and Russia -snip- Russia and the USA do almost no business together." He added, "Let’s keep it that way, and tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”

President Donald Trump has said he will likely allow Ukrainians who have fled the war with Russia to remain in the U.S., ending months of uncertainty over whether they would be forced to leave. "I think we will, yeah, I do, I think we will," Trump said Tuesday evening from the White House in response to a question by reporters regarding whether he will allow Ukrainians to remain in the U.S. until the war ends. "We have a lot of people that came in from Ukraine, and we're working with them," he added. Concern over the temporary protected status (TPS)...

Ukraine is very close to obtaining its own ballistic missiles, Defense Minister Denis Shmygal said in his first interview since taking the position of Defense Minister, BBC Ukraine reported on 30 July. Denys Shmyhal was appointed Ukraine’s Minister of Defense on 17 July 2025, following his resignation as Prime Minister during a major government reshuffle. His appointment aimed to boost domestic arms production and improve defense management amid ongoing war with Russia. “Ukraine’s president has already announced that Ukraine will have its own ballistics. We are very close to this. That’s basically all I can say publicly on this matter,”...

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he won’t be cowed by Trump ahead of 50% tariffs set to hit Brazil Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he does not fear getting on the wrong side of Donald Trump, as South America’s largest economy braces for the introduction of 50% tariffs.Trump announced plans to slap Brazil with tariffs on 1 August earlier this month, partly in retaliation for a supposed political “witch-hunt” against his far-right ally Jair Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian president faces decades in jail for allegedly plotting a military coup to stop Lula from taking office...

I remember the first time I met Randy Fine when he was a candidate before he barely won Florida’s deep red 6th district seat, as we were being told he might actually lose the seat because the strong Trump district couldn’t relate to him and didn’t like him. He was telling me that he and his wife were looking forward to moving to Washington and he hadn’t even won yet. I said to him that Washington isn’t a good place to live and he should live in the district he will represent. You know that whole “representative” thing. But he...