Free Republic

The Russian senior official also described Vladimir Zelensky’s threats against civil aviation in Russian airspace as an attempt by the "Banderite regime" to engage in state terrorismMOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has said that Germany deserves a direct strike against all facilities producing military equipment for Ukraine, and possibly against other locations in Berlin as well. "Berlin has accused Russia of an unproven attack on Leipzig Airport. Given the neo-Nazi and rabidly Russophobic policy of the current German leadership, a fabricated act of sabotage is the weakest form of punishment for their...

NATO member Turkey would consider taking its relations with the China and Russia-led security bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, to a higher level, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. "Turkey's prospect of (full) membership to the organization does not imply a breakaway from any other bloc or from the West," Erdogan said, according to a transcript of remarks he made to journalists on his return flight from Kyrgyzstan. Erdogan attended a summit of the SCO, of which Turkey is a "dialog partner," in Bishkek on Tuesday. Erdogan also said on Wednesday that a mechanism is needed to permanently ensure...

Germany’s Foreign and Interior Ministers spoke publicly in Berlin on Sep. 1, 2026, to publicly announce new measures the German government will take against Russia in light of “police investigations” and “intelligence findings” which conclude that a “low-level” Russian agent was behind the drone incidents at Leipzig in August. Security services were first alerted to a potential threat when a quadcopter drone was discovered on the airport tarmac next to a parked Antonov An-124 belonging to the Ukrainian state-owned Antonov Airlines. 800 grams of explosives were attached to the drone, which CCTV footage showed impacting the wing of the aircraft...

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin ​will not attack a NATO country, and he played down media ‌reports that CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned Russian officials against such an attack earlier in the week. "He's not going to attack a NATO territory," Trump said of the Russian leader while speaking to reporters ​in the Oval Office. Earlier in the day, Trump told Axios in a ​phone interview that there would be no such attack, and that Ratcliffe, who ⁠flew to Russia on Tuesday to meet briefly with intelligence counterparts, had not ​been dispatched to...

Western media are reporting that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow, Russia, to warn his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), about striking back against Baltic states. {CITATION} However, that’s only half of the story.Director Ratcliffe wasn’t simply telling Naryshkin not to hit back; he was telling Naryshkin that European NATO provocations against the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (between Poland and Lithuania) were not ‘fully’ sanctioned by the United States. {CITATION Aug 18}EU NATO members have been conducting provocative military operations and psychological warfare via NATO exercises all around Kaliningrad. They have been getting...

MOSCOW, Aug ‌27 (Reuters) - Russia warned on ​Thursday that it ​could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian attacks on targets inside Russia using long-range British cruise missiles. The warning, delivered by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova at a news briefing ‌in Moscow, has been made before but without such rhetorical force or urgency. Zakharova said that London was ⁠just "one step away" from becoming legally complicit — in Moscow's eyes — for what she called "terrorism" against Russian civilians and warned of "inevitable catastrophic consequences" unless Britain changed course. Her ‌reference to...

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he and other European leaders plan to travel to the United States in September to lobby US President Donald Trump to let Ukraine access some of its Patriot air defense missile stocks ahead of the winter, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing an interview. "I'm looking forward to going to New York in September," Burnham told Bloomberg. "I’ve not fully confirmed the details yet but it’s likely I will go, particularly after today’s discussion," Bloomberg quoted him as saying. Ukraine independence celebrations marked by world leaders in KyivThe leaders of Britain and France pledged...

The national average price of gasoline stood at $4.05 a gallon Monday, the highest ever recorded this late in the calendar year, as escalating geopolitical conflicts on two fronts threaten to push prices even higher heading into the Labor Day weekend. In Washington, drivers are paying more than $5 a gallon throughout much of the state, well above the national average tracked by fuel price service GasBuddy. The price surge comes as President Donald Trump announced plans to launch what he described as "the most crushing economic operation" against Iran, adding fresh uncertainty to global oil markets already strained by...

Unless Israel draws concrete red lines in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish army and navy will further encroach upon Israel’s northern and maritime borders. Israel could find itself facing Turkish tanks on the Golan Heights and Turkish frigates off the coast of Caesarea. This is the warning I heard this week from a very senior Israeli intelligence official. The warning echoes the alarm expressed in the 2025 Nagel Commission report (which evaluated Israel’s security budget and force buildup) about the Turkish drive toward an Islamist-jihadist regional order with Ottoman-era hegemonic ambitions. SNIP

The Jerusalem Post @Jerusalem_Post: The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, Roman Gofman, held a phone call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani last week, prior to the airstrike on a Syrian military base. The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said the strikes were due to Turkish military presence in Syria.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Israel struck an air base in northwest Syria early Tuesday, saying it aimed to prevent Turkish troops from deploying there. Turkey, which has close ties with the Syrian government and has been providing assistance to Syria's military, has tense relations with Israel. The rival countries have sought to curb each other's influence in neighboring Syria. Eight strikes hit the runway of the Abu Duhur air base in the northwestern province of Idlib, causing damage but no casualties, state TV said. Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani told reporters in Damascus that Syria condemns the "Israeli aggression," adding that...

The Russian foreign minister said he feels sorry for the UK if it stays with Ukraine until the very endMOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/. Moscow is entitled to consider British missile forces' involvement in strikes on Russia as direct participation in the conflict in Ukraine, with all ensuing consequences, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. "You know, I feel sorry for the UK if it stays with Ukraine until the very end," Lavrov told Vesti journalist Pavel Zarubin. "President [Vladimir Putin] warned of our right to act in any part of the world's oceans if anyone encroaches on our interests or...

Iran has decided to shift its policy from defensive to "fully offensive" due to the deadlock in efforts to agree on a permanent end to its war with the United States, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday. Progress towards peace talks and a resumption of oil tanker traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt, with no sign that the warring parties are moving towards ending the conflict that the US and Israel launched on February 28. "Iranian entities must be prepared to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region, as...

Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its largest aerial attacks on Russia since the start of the war, firing hundreds of drones and killing at least six people. A separate attack sparked a fire at a warehouse owned by the Russian online retail giant Wildberries in the town of Podolsk.

U.S. Central Command has unveiled Task Force Falcon Strike, a new multinational attack drone force for the Middle East. This unprecedented initiative integrates U.S. and regional militaries to deploy unmanned one-way attack systems across air, surface, and sub-surface environments. The move comes amid rising Iranian and Houthi drone attacks, prompting CENTCOM to seek a unified, multi-domain deterrent. Allies are being invited to join this coalition, which builds upon earlier U.S.-only efforts like Task Force Scorpion Strike. Falcon Strike will utilize advanced autonomous systems, including USVs, UUVs, and UAS, marking a significant shift towards a more aggressive, collective defense posture in...

The intelligence-sharing relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine has bounced back to previous highs, according to long-time Ukraine watchers — a welcome boost during a critical window of opportunity for the Ukrainian war effort. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the intelligence committee’s ranking member and a longtime proponent of more U.S. assistance to Ukraine, told POLITICO he sees evidence of an improved intel-sharing agreement — and believes it’s helped Kyiv gain an advantage in Moscow’s four-year-long war.

The US military has exhausted nearly 80% of its interceptors for a key missile defense system as senior US military commanders are warning that the Pentagon’s munitions stockpile is “dangerously low,” according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Stockpiles of key air defense systems have been particularly depleted during the war with Iran. The US military has burned through nearly four-fifths of its THAAD missile inventory compared to pre-war numbers and roughly half of its Patriot interceptors since the start of the war, according to two sources familiar with the latest inventory report. The disclosure of the low THAAD...

President Donald Trump cast doubt in recent days on allegations that Russia is helping Iran target U.S. forces, even as members of his own administration acknowledge Moscow and Beijing are supporting Tehran in other ways. Trump dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's claim that Russia supplied Iran with satellite imagery of U.S. military installations in the Gulf, saying any assistance would have been "very unimpactful" given the damage inflicted on Iran's military. "We’ll find out if that’s true. I’ll ask Putin. We’ll find out," Trump told reporters at the end of July.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that talks with Iran would proceed in two phases and described the negotiations as Tehran’s “last chance” to sign an agreement. He said the first phase would focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with the goal of having it “completely open” by Tuesday. “The second phase will be the denuclearization,” Trump said, adding that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. “has not agreed” to grant Ukraine licenses to produce Patriot missile systems, apparently backtracking on one of Kyiv’s top priorities in its war against Russia.The advanced military technology is “a hard thing to give away,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, adding that a country that receives it could “someday turn on you.”“You have to be very careful,” Trump said. He said the U.S. and Ukraine are still “talking about it.”Trump’s latest comments on the war in eastern Europe came three days after he spoke at the White House...