Free Republic

A police officer in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson was killed on Wednesday by an explosive device planted by the Ukrainian "resistance movement" and another one was injured, Ukraine's defence ministry said. The reported killing is the latest in a series of attacks on local officials in regions captured by Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February. "The resistance movement clears Kherson of traitors," the ministry's defence intelligence directorate said a statement. The device was set off by radio control on a street just north of the city centre, it said. On Saturday, the directorate urged citizens in the Kherson...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a cabinet meeting on Monday with senior officials, amid concerns about Ukraine's High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the United States that Western officials claim hamper Moscow's war efforts. The rocket systems first arrived in Ukraine in June from the U.S and have been seen as crucial to helping Kyiv's forces repel the Russian military. The Russian state-backed TASS news agency reported on Monday that Putin will hold the cabinet meeting via videoconference on Monday, with the main topics being the development of air transport and aircraft manufacturing. Deputy Prime Minister and Trade...

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu today gave the order to dramatically increase so-called shock and awe attacks on Ukraine. He claimed Kremlin forces must 'exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime inflicting massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of the Donbas and other regions,' according to reports in Moscow. It followed an on-the-ground inspection by Putin's trusty defence minister - and a National Security Council meeting led by Vladimir Putin. Shoigu 'gave instructions to further increase the actions of [military] groups in all operational areas', local reports stated.

American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems being used in Ukraine are making an impact on the conflict there between Ukrainians fighting to preserve their national sovereignty and Russian forces who have illegally invaded that country. The M142 HIMARS system allows for the launching of multiple, precision-guided rockets. Already, the U.S. had provided eight of the systems to Ukraine and last week promised to send an additional four, for a total of 12 of the systems. During a background briefing today at the Pentagon, a senior military official said the Defense Department believes the HIMARS are having an indirect, but significant...

A four-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome has become the latest innocent victim of Putin's war in Ukraine after she was killed in her pram by a Russian cruise missile which also left her mother fighting for life. Liza Dmitrieva was accompanying mother Irina on a day out in the city of Vinnystya - in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the nearest frontline - when a Russian Kalibre missile launched from a submarine in the Black Sea crashed down on top of them around 10.50am local time. The pink pram that Liza had been filmed pushing an hour earlier was...

The lower house of the Russian parliament will gather on July 15 for an extraordinary session, its council decided on Monday, just days after President Vladimir Putin warned that he had not even started to get serious in the war in Ukraine. Putin used a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday to dare the United States and its allies to try to defeat Russia in Ukraine, which Russia invaded on Feb. 24. Parliamentary leaders all thanked Putin for his decisions.