Free Republic

LINES of dragons’ teeth bollards protect Ukraine from Russian attacks in the “fortress belt” tyrant Vladimir Putin insists must be surrendered before any ceasefire can be agreed. The Sun on Sunday’s Defence Editor Jerome Starkey visited to see the barricades and tank trap trenches that President Volodymyr Zelenksy says would take four years to breach. The UK’s Defence Intelligence experts predict 1.9million Russian troops would become casualties in the time it would take to overcome the belt — the best defended position in war-ravaged eastern Donbas. It stretches 30 miles from Slovyansk to Kostyantynivka in Donetsk Oblast [province] of which...

Ukraine has made a significant change to one of the key points of the US peace plan by excluding the verification of international aid, according to The Wall Street Journal.A senior US official told reporters that the original wording of the plan called for an audit of all international aid received by Ukraine, presumably to identify potential corruption.However, this requirement is no longer included in the new version of the plan. Instead of verification, it is proposed that all parties receive full amnesty for their actions during the war.

Vice President Vance fired back at Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday after the former Senate republican leader warned the Trump administration not to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin in the emerging Ukraine peace deal.“This is a ridiculous attack on the president’s team, which has worked tirelessly to clean up the mess in Ukraine that Mitch–always eager to write blank checks to Biden’s foreign policy–left us,” Vance wrote in a post on the social platform X.“I wonder if the three candidates to replace McConnell in Kentucky share his views here,” he continued.Vance was responding to a quote from McConnell, who...

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers voted on Tuesday to deepen integration of the bloc’s defense industry with Ukraine as a U.S. peace plan remains in flux and Russia’s unconventional warfare operations rattle the 27-nation bloc. European Parliament legislators voted 457-148, with 33 abstentions, to approve a 1.5-billion euro ($1.7 billion) program, with 300 million euros ($345 million) slated for the Ukraine Support Instrument. Raphaël Glucksmann, an EU lawmaker from France’s S&D party, said that the defense program “will enable us to build a more resilient and sovereign Europe” through partnering with Ukraine to build a cutting-edge military industrial complex....

Ukraine has said a "common understanding" has been reached with the US on a peace deal aimed at ending the war with Russia.The proposal is based on a 28-point plan presented to Kyiv by the US last week, which American and Ukrainian officials worked on during weekend talks in Geneva.In a post on social media, US President Donald Trump said the original plan "has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides".He added: "I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will...

The pressure building on Ukraine is not just diplomatic. While President Donald Trump pushes for a quick resolution, the churning mud of the battlefield has produced only slow and painstaking gains for the Kremlin during the four years since its full-scale invasion. From the front-line city of Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk to Zaporizhzhia in the south and the northern region of Kharkiv, there is little doubt that Russia is making advances. ...But battlefield monitors suggest the picture is not quite so bleak for Ukraine as Trump and Putin suggest. Russia's gains are slow and incremental, won at a heavy cost...

Laurel/Hardy vision of warfare,,,,

Things are very bad in Ukraine right now. The former spokeswoman for Ukraine’s clearly overmatched comedian leader says things could get a lot worse if Ukraine’s government walks away from peace this time. “Every subsequent deal for Ukraine will only be worse — because we are losing. We are losing people, territory, and the economy,” Iuliia Mendel, press secretary for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from 2019 to 2021, wrote in an X post this weekend as negotiators went back and forth in marathon peace talks. ‘Meaningful Progress’ U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday told multiple news outlets that...

The objective is a peaceful resolution, but Zelensky must accept the terms. If he refuses, then “he can continue to fight his little heart out”, meaning Ukraine will fall regardless. Submit, or die. (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)Is this your final offer to Ukraine? No, not my final offer. I would like to get the peace. It should have happened a long time ago. The Ukraine war with Russia should have never happened. If I were president, it never would have happened. We're trying to get it ended. One way or the other, we have to...

The Telegraph has published a draft of the European “peace plan” for Ukraine — an alternative to the U.S. proposal. It includes 24 points, and many of them look tougher in Kyiv’s favor compared to the American version. Key points: 🔵 Full ceasefire and international monitoring (U.S. + Europe, satellites, drones, on-the-ground inspections). 🔵 Russia must return all deported Ukrainian children and all detained civilians. 🔵 Exchange of all prisoners of war under the “all for all” formula. 🔵 Ukraine receives legally binding security guarantees from the U.S. — effectively a version of Article 5. 🔵 No restrictions on the...

The problem is Moscow doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, it wants Ukraine in pieces. Every time the White House offers an olive branch, the Kremlin torches it and commits more heinous war crimes. Washington floated a leaders’ summit in October, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wiped his shoes with it, demanding Ukraine stop resisting and the West ignore kidnapped kids and beheaded prisoners. Well, Trump pulled the plug on Budapest, signaling he might punish the Kremlin, and a panicking Vladimir Putin dispatched Kirill Dmitriev with a “peace plan” so absurd it would shame a mid-level propagandist. To make sure...

Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that Russia would “betray” its promise and “come back” if Ukraine was forced to reduce its army, as proposed under Donald Trump’s plan. The French president was among European leaders meeting at a G20 summit in South Africa who have pushed back at the one-sided plan by Trump that aims to end the war in Ukraine: “We know that if there are no elements of deterrence, the Russians will come back and break their promises,” Macron told journalists. He also said any plan “requires broader consultation” and had to allow for peace for Ukrainians and...

President Donald Trump blasted Ukrainian leaders for having “zero gratitude” towards the United States’ effort to end the Russia-Ukraine war. President Trump’s comments came in a Sunday Truth Social post, blaming former President Joe Biden’s administration for allowing the war to begin in the first place. “The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not...

Over nearly four years of wartime leadership, analysts say the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly played weak hands wisely. A U.S. peace plan may be his biggest test.It is another make-or-break moment of wartime leadership for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Late last week, the Trump administration delivered to Mr. Zelensky a 28-point peace plan that many Ukrainians and their Western allies have called a wish list for Russia, a reward for its aggression and a betrayal of Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader was given seven days to either accept it or potentially watch the United States walk away from any remaining...

In a video released to social media on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke about coming talks to end the Russia-Ukraine War.

The 28-point plan hammered out by US and Russian envoys and put to Ukraine this week came with a deadline and an implicit threat: Sign up or face the risk of being abandoned. US President Donald Trump said Friday that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky would “have to like” the US plan, suggesting he is in no mood to negotiate. Since then, Trump has sent mixed messages, saying the plan was not his final offer but adding that if Zelensky did not accept it he could “continue to fight his little heart out.” Zelensky recognized the stark choice in a somber...

The head of the French armed forces said his country must be prepared to send its children to die in a war with Russia. “Russia is convinced that the Europeans are weak. However, we are strong, fundamentally stronger than Russia,” Chief of the French Defense Staff General Fabien Mandon said. “We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to dissuade Moscow’s regime. What we are lacking, and that is where you have a major role, is the strength of soul to accept pain to protect what we are.” He added, “If our country is weak because it...

"...Ukrainian defensive line is collapsing and Russia is advancing at a very rapid pace now and that that advance is going to continue. There's nothing the West can do to stop it. The numbers are just against them. Uh right now according to the Russian Ministry of Defense they are inflicting a minimum of 40,000 casualties killed and wounded on Ukraine per month. In addition and you know as you know Institute for the Study of War and the Atlantic Council are not exactly what you'd call uh pro-Russian stooges. They're just the opposite. They are the most ardent cheerleaders...

“Their approach, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, is careful: to essentially rewrite much of the document while presenting it as constructive updates. Zelensky and several European leaders are now racing to revise key elements of a US peace proposal ahead of a Nov. 27 deadline, hoping to make the plan more acceptable to Kyiv. European governments are scrambling to buy Ukraine more time after the Trump administration set the Thanksgiving cutoff, pushing Kyiv to respond to the 28-point framework circulated this week. According to officials cited by Bloomberg, the European strategy is delicate: rewrite large sections of the proposal...

BREAKING: Ukraine says it will take part in 'consultations on the steps to end the war' in the comings days and has approved a delegation for peace talks.