Free Republic

Trump’s announcement Wednesday evening that he was, for the first time, imposing sanctions on Russia was welcomed by Kyiv and its supporters, signalling that Trump was turning away from his appeals to Putin in favor of a pressure campaign to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine. Senate Republicans and Democrats are laying the groundwork to hammer Putin with a slew of other sanctions. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday advanced a trio of bills meant to punish Russia and its enablers. This includes labeling Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism for its abduction of Ukrainian children; strengthening the U.S. ability...

Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s top economic envoy, arrived in the United States with holes in his sails and no wind to push him forward. He was a man on a desperate mission. A phone call between Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, had not gone well. The meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, expected to take place within two weeks, was shelved. The US president had finally lost patience with his Russian counterpart’s refusal to support a ceasefire in Ukraine. On Wednesday, he slapped Moscow’s largest oil firms with crippling sanctions. With...

Ukraine is rushing to strengthen its positions in the strategic eastern transport hub of Pokrovsk as about 200 Russian troops have infiltrated the city in small groups, Kyiv's military said on Monday. The Ukrainian general staff, which made the estimate of enemy forces, reported small arms firefights and the active deployment of drones. The Russian defense ministry said that its assault groups were trying to advance near the train station. Russia has been aiming to occupy Pokrovsk, a key part of Kyiv's defensive lines, for months, seeing it as a crucial point for its push to fully capture the Donetsk...

A high-ranking Kremlin official has hinted at a potential breakthrough in ending the war in Ukraine. Kirill Dmitriev, a senior Kremlin official, expressed optimism that Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are "quite close" to reaching an agreement to end the ongoing conflict, now in its fifth year.

America should be embracing trade opportunities and peace vs. advocating for the neocon agenda of war with Russia. Why would we alienate a superpower when we could have open dialogue for peace and negotiate trade that would benefit all Americans?

President Trump no longer plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for a second in-person summit “in the immediate future” after Russia rejected his demand to stop the war in Ukraine along the current battle lines. The White House announcement followed a Monday call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which a source familiar with the conversation said demonstrated the Kremlin’s unwillingness to commit to Trump’s strategy for peace. -snip- Trump exhorted both sides to lay down their arms following the third White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Trump returned to...

Former British senior army officer Lord David Richards has told UK newspaper The Independent that Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia without NATO military support and should instead negotiate peace terms with Moscow. Speaking to The Independent’s “World of Trouble” podcast, the “five star” ranked former Chief of Defence Staff who led NATO forces in Afghanistan, said: “What we have done in the case of Ukraine is encourage Ukraine to fight, but not given them the means to win.” The former commando added that even with the right resources, Ukraine “would not win” as “they haven’t got the manpower.”...

President Donald Trump’s working lunch with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday turned acrimonious when the US leader insisted Ukraine make territorial concessions to Russia to end the war, according to European officials briefed on the meeting. Trump, who would later endorse a freeze in current battle lines as part of a peace settlement, grew frustrated and raised his voice multiple times, the officials said. The episode was the latest chapter in the fraught relationship between the two men, and amounted to another shift in Trump’s approach to how the war will be settled. Last month, after meeting Zelensky...

Trump urged Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s terms to end the war, warning that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine if he refused

Those who think that Israel is guilty of genocide as if that is something unique to the Middle East, are obviously blind to the the entire region of the Balkans and Ukraine. This is the motherland of ethnic cleansing and genocide that the Western Press is paid to ignore. Trying to achieve peace in the Balkans may be more difficult than getting it to snow in Hell. The Balkans’ ethnic tensions stem from a mix of historical, political, and cultural factors that have compounded over centuries. Ukraine may not be in the Balkans and is technically part of Eastern Europe,...

President Trump has denied telling President Volodymyr Zelensky he should surrender Ukraine’s entire Donbas region to Russia to end the war — but said Kyiv should give up the land already taken by Russia. Trump insisted that the two leaders “never discussed” giving up the entire region during their closed-door meeting last week, after reports claimed his White House meeting with Zelensky on Friday had descended into an explosive “shouting match.” “We never discussed that,” Trump told reporters on Sunday when pressed on whether pushed for Ukraine to accept President Vladimir Putin’s terms for a cease-fire. “We think that what...

Ukraine may import gas worth around $2 billion from Europe, the United States, and Azerbaijan this winter, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, after its gas infrastructure was severely damaged by Russian attacks. He did not specify how much gas Ukraine planned to purchase. Kyiv had expected to import 4.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas before a series of Russian strikes hit Ukraine's gas sector earlier this autumn. Due to the damage, energy minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said imports would need to be increased by 30%, while analysts estimated total gas import requirements at no less than 6.3 bcm. "We expect that...

Ukrainian President Zelenskiy’s latest White House visit to secure Tomahawk missiles reportedly devolved into a contentious “shouting match” with President Trump. According to anonymous sources, Trump, fresh off a phone call with Vladimir Putin, made a stunning reversal. He allegedly pressured Zelenskiy to surrender the entire Donbas region, warning that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine otherwise. Trump was said to have cursed, tossed aside battlefield maps, and repeated Russian talking points verbatim, including calling the conflict a “special military operation.”

Moscow appears to have rejected President Trump’s latest call to freeze the current state of the front lines in Ukraine, reiterating that “Russia’s stance doesn’t change.” Addressing Trump’s proposal over the weekend that the war in Ukraine end immediately and that each side keep the land they currently hold, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov scoffed at the prospect of allowing Kyiv to keep parts of the Donbas region. “This topic was repeatedly raised in various forms during contacts between Russia and the US. The Russian side answered every time, this answer is well known: the consistency of Russia’s position doesn’t change,”...

The American Conservative sits down with Balázs Orbán, political director to the Hungarian Prime Minister, to discuss why the logic of war should be replaced in the forthcoming Budapest summit by the idea of political settlement. (Wikimedia Commons) President Donald Trump recently demonstrated willingness for a summit with Russia, in Budapest, to seek an end to the conflict in Ukraine. Balázs Orbán, political director to the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (no relation), sat down with The American Conservative to discuss what are the possibilities of peace in Ukraine, and who in the EU might try to hinder that. Hungary...

Another meeting between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly ended with a fiery shouting match—this time behind closed doors.Trump was pressuring his Ukrainian counterpart to accept Russia’s terms for a ceasefire during an explosive White House meeting on Friday, according to the Financial Times, reportedly telling Zelensky that Russia would “destroy” Ukraine if he didn’t agree.Multiple sources told the outlet that the meeting—where Zelensky was hoping, but ultimately failed, to secure long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles—quickly descended into a “shouting match” with “cursing all the time.”

Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Putin's terms for ending its two-year-long war in an explosive meeting at the White House on Friday.Ukraine's President travelled to Washington this week to push for more military support at a time when Kyiv and Moscow are escalating the war with massive attacks on energy systems.But Trump and Zelensky's meeting on Friday turned sour after the two leaders got into a 'screaming match', according to the Financial Times - who cited sources close to the matter. The US leader also reportedly told Zelensky that Putin insisted the conflict was a 'special operation, not...

U.S. President Donald Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to give up swaths of territory to Russia during a tense meeting on Friday that left the Ukrainian delegation disappointed, according to two people briefed on the discussion. Trump also declined to provide Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine's use, and mused about giving security guarantees to both Kyiv and Moscow, comments that the Ukrainian delegation found confusing, added the two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation. After his meeting with Zelenskiy, Trump publicly called for a ceasefire on the current frontlines, a position that the Ukrainian president then embraced...

Last night, on October 19, a series of explosions occurred at the Novokuibyshev Oil Refinery in Russia’s Samara Region following a drone attack. Drones also struck a gas processing plant in the Russian city of Orenburg. According to eyewitnesses, black smoke rose above the Novokuibyshev refinery after the attack, and videos shared on social media show heavy smoke over the facility. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev confirmed the UAV attack but did not disclose details regarding the damage. The Novokuibyshev refinery, owned by Rosneft, is one of the key enterprises in the Samara Region, with a capacity to process up to...

In his video address, Zelensky said that Ukraine will not make any concessions to Russia, emphasizing that "nothing will be given as a gift" and that Kyiv will continue to defend its territory and sovereignty. "In the recent Trump-Putin phone call, Russian President Putin demanded Ukraine surrender the rest of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, in exchange Moscow will drop claims for the remaining Kherson and Zaporozhye regions," - The Washington Post.