Free Republic

By nature’s curious design, I was born an optimist — though in some obscure recess of my soul a cynic curls and whispers his dry, inconvenient truths. I believe neither in immaculate conceptions nor second comings, and certainly not in the benevolence of Russian rulers. The fragile hope entertained by some, that they might one day act with reason, springs from a naïve faith in miracles, and miracles stand at odds with both nature and common sense. At all times, under all tsars, commissars, and the latest Kremlin grotesques, Russian rulers, with rare exceptions, have acted not for the benefit...

Ukraine's President Volodymr Zelensky has accused Russia of "doing everything it can" to prevent a meeting with Vladimir Putin to try to end the war.US President Donald Trump has sought to bring the two leaders together, but he said on Friday "that's like oil and vinegar... they don't get along too well".Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin was ready to meet Ukraine's leader "when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all", accusing Zelensky of saying "no to everything". After an intensive week of diplomacy, in which Trump first met Putin in...

Trump now realizes that he can't manage an end to the war. It's out of his hands. So what he's very subtly doing, and you saw all sorts of evidence of it yesterday, is pushing the responsibility for the war and for dealing with Putin onto the ha into onto into the hands of the Europeans uh and the Ukrainians who again are working very closely together. So, I think there's a fundamental change taking place..."

So much about Ukraine seems in flux since President Trump landed in Alaska Friday. It’s been nonstop action with a growing cast of world leaders jumping in. One thing has remained constant: Vladimir Putin’s demands—the surrender of territory he hasn’t conquered, the end of an independent Ukraine and, in its place, a puppet state from which he can threaten Europe. Politically, there appear to be three possible outcomes for Mr. Trump. One is that the American president becomes as tough on Mr. Putin as he has been on Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. Then he could play a pivotal role in getting...

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes it's his destiny to recreate the Russian empire and won't back down in Ukraine, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview with "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." Gates said Putin's aims can be unclear, even in one-on-one meetings. "I'm not sure even in a face to face that you can judge Putin's intention," said Gates, who served as defense secretary under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. "My own view, having dealt with him and having spent most of my life working on Russia and the Soviet Union, is Putin feels...

SOCAR Oil Terminal Destroyed in Odessa Despite claims from the Trump administration about the success of Monday’s meeting with Zelensky and the European pimp delegation, the prospect for a successful negotiation to end the war in Ukraine is zero. Trump continues to mistakenly believe that he simply needs to get Putin and Zelensky together, who will hammer out a deal. Trump labors under the false assumption that the war in Ukraine was caused in part by a personal tiff between Putin and Zelensky. Putin has been very clear that he will only meet with Zelensky once the details of a...

Ukraine has struck the Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, even as widening attacks indicating the war is spreading to the Eurasian landmass. “The Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,” crowed Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s drone chief, on August 18. “Greetings from the Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces.” The strike, the second in less than a week, took out the 4,000km (2,500-mile) pipeline, bringing to an indefinite halt oil flows which had been supplying Central Europe via Ukraine and Belarus since the early 1960s. The language was tongue-in-cheek, but the destruction of the Nikolskoye oil...

A fire has started following a drone strike at an industrial site in Russia's southern Novoshakhtinsk city, home to an oil refinery, authorities said on Thursday, as Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure. “A fire broke out at one of the industrial enterprises in Novoshakhtinsk. Preliminarily, no one was hurt. Emergency services are working at the scene,” said Yury Slyusar, the acting governor of the Rostov region, without specifying the target of the attack. Novoshakhtinsk refinery, which sells fuel mainly for export, has an annual capacity of 5 million metric tons of oil, or around 100,000 barrels per...

In one of the largest overnight strikes since the war began, Russia unleashed some 614 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles across Ukraine, killing one, injuring dozens and destroying an American-owned electronics company less than an hour from two NATO borders, officials confirmed Thursday morning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy said the strike on the private U.S. company, which involved "several" cruise missiles, was "very telling" following President Donald Trump’s attempts to force Moscow to end its invasion.

A massive Russian airstrike hit a US-owned electronics factory in Ukraine early Thursday while some 800 civilians were working there. The Flex Ltd. plant in Mukachevo, a city hundreds of miles from the front line, was engulfed in flames after being hit by two Russian Kalibr cruise missiles around 4:30 a.m., according to Ukrainian officials. The factory was not involved in the war and was just one casualty as “hundreds of drones, as well as hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missiles, targeted civilian and energy infrastructure” in the latest Russian bombardment, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, wrote on X. “One of...

"But where we want to start is about losses, killed in action, wounded in action, missing an action. And what you'll hear me say again and again is any figures where there is incentive and there's no repercussion to lie, then be very very careful with any of this. There's a massive information war that is not only taken on board by people with no lives who do it just themselves, but there's also people with financial incentive to push information, especially on websites like this, as well as state funded propaganda as well. I've got my eye on a...

Through an extended weekend full of summitry, President Donald Trump revived the role of diplomacy in addressing the European conflict, making the first allied contact with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin since early in the Ukraine war. Trump rejected efforts by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and seven European leaders to escalate the endless proxy war against Russia. Despite his narcissistic peculiarities, the president made more progress toward peace in four days than President Joe Biden did in three years, though there is still great skepticism that the war will soon end.

United States President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to explain that Kiev does not stand a good chance of winning the war against Russia if it is only permitted to defend its territory. "It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country. It's like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offensive. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND defend,"...

Russia is sending signals that it intends to slow-walk a peace deal on Ukraine, showing some daylight between the Kremlin and President Trump’s intentions to end the war. From a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to suggestions of security agreements for Kyiv, Russian officials have expressed doubt about some early prospects of a peace deal, parts of which are also being backed by a contingent of European Leaders. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tamped down any progress made at a summit at the White House earlier this week where Trump met with seven foreign leaders as well as Zelensky,...

Meetings between NATO and U.S. defense officials left allies concerned that President Donald Trump would leave Europe to ensure a lasting peace in the war-scarred country.“There’s the dawning reality that this will be Europe making this happen on the ground,” said a NATO diplomat who was briefed on the talks. “The U.S. is not fully committed to anything.” The meetings — which occurred days after Trump and European leaders met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in a sign of unity — underscore the massive task ahead for allies as they weigh plans to send a peacekeeping...

The ugly truth behind any deal that would cede a chunk of Ukraine’s Donbas region to Moscow is that it could immediately strengthen the Russian military, providing a major win for one of America’s leading adversaries in an era of great power competition. In such a scenario, Ukraine would lose some of its most heavily fortified defensive positions. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s generals would seek to deepen their substantial footprint in the strategically vital theater with new military bases. The Russian navy could gain even greater control over the Black Sea. The Russian government and its armed forces could take...

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, at Tuesday's briefing, criticized the "left-wing media" and "failed foreign policy establishment" for "actively rooting against the president in his pursuit of peace in Ukraine." KAROLINE LEAVITT: For one thing that has absolutely not changed is the media's negative and downright false coverage of President Trump and his foreign policy accomplishments. From the beginning of this entire process, much of the left-wing media has been actively rooting against the President of the United States in the pursuit of peace. Initially, the media ridiculously claimed that President Trump was somehow beholden to Russia for even...

A key takeaway from the summit in Alaska is that Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly wants to freeze the war in Ukraine along its current front line in return for the surrender of the rest of Donetsk region. Russia holds about 70% of the region (oblast), including the regional capital of the same name, after more than a decade of fighting in which Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk have been the bleeding heart of the conflict. For Russia to gain all of Donetsk would cement its internationally unrecognised claim to the oblast as well as avoiding further heavy military losses. For...

The number of dead and seriously wounded Ukrainians is apparently much higher than imagined.Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine some three and a half years ago, the Western media has promoted a non-stop barrage of disinformation about the military developments, trying to present a rosier picture than reality can afford.Perhaps no other aspect of the hostilities has been so blatantly misrepresented as the number of casualties and fatalities.We got to the point where Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky had the nerve to say that Ukraine had had 35 thousand losses.That is particularly absurd since we know that Kiev’s...

Witkoff noted that these concessions were partly achieved because the U.S. side tested Russia’s willingness to adopt a more flexible stance. Trump and his team focused on securing a long-term peace agreement rather than a temporary ceasefire during the Anchorage meeting, he added. “We stayed there for quite some time because we actually made progress on how we might get to a peace deal,” Witkoff said. According to him, Trump began to sense that many preconditions for a comprehensive deal were already in place, prompting efforts to negotiate a full peace agreement.