Free Republic

In the same case, the court sentenced in absentia Konstantin Kobzar, the former deputy head of Ukraine’s state bodyguard department and head of the presidential security service, to 10 years of imprisonmentMOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. A Kiev court has sentenced former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in absentia to 15 years in prison on charges of incitement to defection and illegal border crossing, according to the Prosecutor-General’s office’s Telegram channel. In the same case, the court also sentenced in absentia Konstantin Kobzar, the former deputy head of Ukraine’s state bodyguard department and head of the presidential security service, to 10 years...

Five people have been killed in a gunfight in Slavyansk, a city in eastern Ukraine held by anti-government protesters. The fatalities include three protesters and two attackers, who are believed to be from the Right Sector paramilitary. Read RT's live updates on Ukrainian turmoil The deaths came after a night attack on a protester checkpoint on the outskirts of the city. Four cars drove by the checkpoint and opened fire at the local residents manning it, killing two people and seriously injuring several others. “They approached with their high beam headlamps on. Our man went to them and asked not...

While the influence USAID funding exerts on foreign populations to induce and influence regime change may sometimes be subtle at best, other times it is much more apparent. Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine as Vice President in March 2016 may be one of the more well-known examples. After the 2020 Election and the exposé of the Hunter Biden Laptop From Hell, quite a bit of attention was given to an outburst that Joe Biden made during a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018. During his remarks, Biden infamously bragged about pressuring Ukraine officials to fire Viktor...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta was interviewed by none other than Special Counsel John Durham! A new batch of court filings that were brought to the public’s attention by Technofrog reveals Special Counsel John Durham interviewed Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta along with several other members of the Clinton campaign. Podesta claims to have no part in the Clinton Russian Collusion case but Durham believes otherwise hence why Podesta was interviewed. As of now the content of the interview have yet to be released but that could change as the investigation continues to thicken. ~~~~~~~ https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1511888439444185094? New filing...

A few years ago, a friend of mine was sent to Kiev by the British government to teach Ukrainians about the Western democratic system. His pupils were young reformers from western Ukraine, affiliated to the Conservative party. When they produced a manifesto containing 15 pages of impenetrable waffle, he gently suggested boiling their electoral message down to one salient point. What was it, he wondered? A moment of furrowed brows produced the lapidary and nonchalant reply, 'To expel all Jews from our country.' It is in the west of Ukraine that support is strongest for the man who is being...

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” this week to discuss the origins of the Steele dossier. He said it should really be called the “Simpson” dossier. Although Christopher Steele likely contributed “stories” to the dossier, and his years of experience in British intelligence lent credence to the document, Nunes believes that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson may actually have written the majority of it. In his book “Spygate,” journalist Dan Bongino makes the same case. He points out the striking similarities between articles Simpson and his wife, Mary Jacoby wrote for the Wall Street Journal in 2007...

snip Informed sources in both Moscow and Kiev have told TIME that Tymoshenko has reached a deal with the Kremlin, under which she would be more considerate of Russia's needs — particularly for long-term rights to its Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol — and would tone down her traditional anti-Moscow diatribes, and in return she may find Russia more flexible when it comes to negotiating next year's prices for the natural gas on which Ukraine depends. However, Tymoshenko firmly denies rumors of any accommodation with foreign powers, insisting that she abides only by the interests of Ukraine. Rumors of...

Paul Manafort. Tony Podesta. Tad Devine. Greg Craig. Manafort worked for Trump. Tony Podesta is the brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. Tad Devine was Bernie Sanders’ chief strategist. Greg Craig was Obama’s White House Counsel. All four men also, directly or indirectly, allegedly did work for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. And the ECFMU was allegedly a front for Yanukovich's Ukrainian pro-Russian faction. Manafort and the Podesta Group had failed to register as foreign agents. Tad Devine had worked for Manafort on the Ukraine project. Craig had written a report on Ukraine for one of Manafort’s lobbying...

War in Western eyes involves an orderly sequence of ultimatums, declarations of war, invasions, counterattacks, second and third fronts, and finally a negotiated surrender, payment of reparations and a new territorial settlement. Annoyingly, Vladimir Putin is not following that script Edward Lucas writes. The Latvian defence analyst Jānis Bērziņš has written an excellent new paper (available at is.gd/berzins) outlining Russia’s approach to “new-generation warfare”, based on analysis of material in the Russian military press. He argues that the new frontline in this kind of conflict is mental, not physical. Russia uses psychological warfare, intimidation, bribery, and propaganda to undermine resistance...

Mueller indicts lawyer Alex van der Zwaan. MSM scream: the evil Drumpf is about to fall! They're embarrassingly WRONG, of course. And they are MISLEADING you, by not mentioning OTHER names (bombshells incoming). Let me explain.

MOSCOW — Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled to Russia a year ago after being toppled by months of street protests, said he was ready to return to Ukraine if the opportunity arose. The pro-Russian leader was overthrown by the "Maidan" uprising in Kiev against his decision to back away from a deal that would have taken the country towards integration with Europe and instead tighten economic ties with Russia, Ukraine's old Soviet master. Just weeks after his departure, Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula, a base for Russia's Black Sea fleet, and pro-Russian separatists seized key buildings in the...

He is Dmitry Firtash, a former fireman and soldier. In little more than a decade, the Ukrainian went from obscurity to wealth and renown, largely by buying gas from Russia and selling it in his home country. His success was built on remarkable sweetheart deals brokered by associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, at immense cost to Russian taxpayers, a Reuters investigation shows. Russian government records reviewed for this article reveal for the first time the terms of recent deals between Firtash and Russia's Gazprom, a giant gas company majority owned by the state. According to Russian customs documents detailing...

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) accused former Prime Minister Sergiy Arbuzov and former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Klymenko of financing the thugs who provoked riots in Odessa of May 2, which led to at least 46 deaths. Arbuzov and Klymenko served in the administration of disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was overthrown in the EuroMaidan Revolution on Feb. 22. ........ “Subversion in the Ukrainian city of Odessa that was financed by former top officials was targeted at disruption of stability on the south of Ukraine,” said Kateryna Kosareva, SBU press spokeswoman. “Its organizers were planning that it would be the...

ZURICH, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The Swiss government said it will order banks to freeze any funds in Swiss banks found to be linked to ousted President Viktor Yanukovich. "The federal council decided yesterday to freeze any Yanukovich funds found in Switzerland," government spokesman Andre Simonazzi said in an emailed statement.

KYIV, UKRAINE — Ukraine on Friday rebuked the West for what it called foreign interference in its internal affairs after an outcry over legislation rushed through parliament to curb anti-government unrest in the ex-Soviet republic. The U.S. State Department and senior European Union politicians voiced deep concern with the measures, which still need President Viktor Yanukovich's signature and foresee prison terms of up to 15 years for “mass violation” of public order. “I am deeply concerned by the events in Kyiv,” Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said in a statement, adding that the legislation was “restricting the Ukrainian...

The European Commission has abruptly terminated new trade talks with Ukraine 48 hours after they began. The news came in two tweets from neighborhood commissioner Štefan Füle on Sunday (15 December) morning. […] Füle met with Serhiy Arbuzov in Brussels on Thursday. At the time, he promised Ukraine extra funds if it signs an EU free trade pact and agreed to launch talks on a new “roadmap” on implementation of the treaty. […] But the roundtable, also on Friday, turned into a farce when (Ukrainian President Viktor) Yanukovych threatened to prosecute Ukrainian officials who negotiated the terms of the EU...

KIEV, Ukraine — Battalions of Ukrainian security forces early Wednesday stormed Independence Square, the central plaza in Kiev where protesters had been rallying against the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovich for more than two weeks. By dawn, the police had taken control of a large section of the square and brought in front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to clear it. Tents and other remnants of the protest encampment were bulldozed, scooped up and lifted into a dump truck. Then, shortly after 9 a.m., the authorities began an effort to retake the occupied Kiev City Hall building, setting off...

KIEV, Ukraine — Protesters in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, toppled the city’s main statue of Lenin on Sunday and then pounded it into chips with a sledgehammer as a crowd chanted and cheered. The destruction of the statue was a cathartic moment in the biggest day of demonstrations so far against President Viktor F. Yanukovich’s turn away from Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians filled the streets of Kiev on Sunday, first to hear speeches and music and then to fan out and erect barricades in the district where government institutions have their headquarters. Carrying blue-and-yellow Ukrainian and European...

Angry outbursts over agreement allowing Russian Navy to stay.Politicians pelted Ukrainian lawmakers with a smoke bomb and eggs as the parliament approved an agreement that will keep the Russian navy based in the Crimean Peninsula. Chamber speaker Volodymyr Litvyn was forced to take shelter under his umbrella as he was hit by eggs after deputies from newly elected President Viktor Yanukovich's coalition approved the extension to the Russian Black Sea Fleet's base in Crimea. Ukrainian nationalists, led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former President Viktor Yushchenko, regard the base as a betrayal of Ukraine's national interests. They wanted...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia invited Ukrainian president-elect Viktor Yanukovich on Monday to visit Moscow, aiming to consolidate improved relations with Kiev after years of acrimony under the outgoing president. President Dmitry Medvedev made the invitation in a letter to Yanukovich released by the Kremlin press service. Ukraine's electoral commission confirmed on Sunday Yanukovich's win over his rival Yulia Tymoshenko in a runoff on February 7, paving the way for his inauguration. Tymoshenko says she intends challenging the result in court. If Yanukovich accepts the invitation, it could be his first foreign trip as president, reinforcing expectations that he will steer...