Free Republic

Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency is reporting for the first time Wednesday that the Russian military occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson will soon petition the Kremlin to become part of the Russian Federation. It was in late April that a pro-Moscow “military-civilian administration” was installed after Kherson fell to the invading forces, complete with a local transition to the Russian ruble. While the news hasn’t been officially confirmed by the Kremlin, it’s significant that the report surfaced through RIA and not Ukrainian or opposition sources, suggesting such referendums or even simple declared annexations in captured regions could be...

Reports are surfacing of military equipment of the United States and other NATO countries on the Russia-Finland border. U.S. and NATO armored vehicles were spotted on the border, along with Finnish tanks and armored personnel vehicles, according to a translation of a Shraibikus News report. There have been reports of military exercises in Finland, but Russian intelligence reportedly suspects the military buildup will remain until Finland joins NATO. The report also indicates Finnish authorities are anticipating Finland joining NATO within a few months. Russian analysts consider the military presence on the Russia-Finland border to be a threat, particularly as NATO...

Right now, the fight for control of Ukraine is taking place in the skies above Kyiv and in the streets of Mariupol. However while the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the sky and on the land has ground to a stalemate, Vladimir Putin and his virtual war machine dedicated to sowing disinformation are decidedly losing the information war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks the first major conflict in Europe to take place in the age of social media, an online space that Vladimir Putin has spent decades working to dominate. Over the years, Putin has carefully constructed...

On a snowy tarmac at Amari Air Base in northern Estonia on Sunday morning, pallets of rifles, ammunition and other weapons were being loaded onto one of the largest cargo planes in the world, an Antonov AN-124, belonging to the Ukrainian air force. It is an artifact of the Cold War, built and purchased when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. ... In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they...

Former President Donald Trump slammed his former comrade Vladimir Putin for the growing death toll in Ukraine - calling it a 'massive crime against humanity' - and blasted NATO for its lack of action during a GOP donor event Saturday. Trump spoke to Republican National Committee donors in Louisiana during the Spring Retreat in New Orleans, where he covered a wide variety of topics, including the escalating crisis in Ukraine. Trump also went after NATO, calling it a 'paper tiger' and said the US cannot just stand by while Ukraine is invaded, according to Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey, who...

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s nuclear forces to go on high alert last week, he looked down a long table at his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, who nodded in assent. ... Russian troops’ failure to quickly seize Ukraine, however, has shown Mr. Shoigu’s changes, while real, didn’t create the fearsome fighting force he touted. Poor logistics, flawed strategy and ill-prepared troops mean any victory will be immensely costly, and an occupation hard to sustain. ... “By agreeing to these assumptions and this type of operation, he has essentially thrown the Russian military into a disaster.”

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — In a private video call with American lawmakers over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a “desperate” plea to the United States to help Kyiv get more warplanes to fight Russia’s invasion and retain control of its airspace. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Washington has given a “green light” to the idea and is currently “very, very actively” looking at a proposal under which Ukraine’s neighbor Poland would supply Kyiv with Soviet-era fighters and in turn receive American F-16s to make up for their loss. However, the proposition is fraught with uncertainty