Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with an ally of the Wagner Group signals his struggle to address setbacks in the Ukraine conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking decisive steps to address growing challenges as he seeks to regain control over his struggling military campaign in Ukraine. On May 2, Putin met with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Russia's Tula Oblast, and a known associate of the Wagner Group, at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in Moscow Oblast. The meeting has raised questions about the stability of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's position, signalling Putin's increasing desperation in the face of unmet...

Russia is intensifying its efforts to seize Chasiv Yar, a crucial stronghold in eastern Ukraine, as exhausted and under-equipped Ukrainian brigades struggle to hold the line while waiting for US military aid. -snip- Chasiv Yar is seen as a key prize for Moscow, with senior Ukrainian commanders claiming the Russian general staff has ordered its forces to seize it by May 9 when Russia celebrates the end of the second world war. -snip- It took the Russian military nearly a year to advance six kilometres from the ravaged city of Bakhmut to the edge of Chasiv Yar.

A Russian deputy defence minister has been accused of taking bribes and remanded in custody by a court in Moscow. Timur Ivanov, who denies the charges, is accused of accepting bribes "on a particularly large scale". Appointed to the defence ministry in 2016, Mr Ivanov, 47, has been responsible for Russia's military infrastructure projects. Mr Ivanov is considered an ally of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and has worked with him for many years. He was previously deputy prime minister of the Moscow region, where Mr Shoigu briefly served as governor. -snip- In 2022, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), the group founded...

Fire broke out at energy facilities in Russia's Smolensk region after a Ukraine-launched drone attack and people were evacuated from parts of Lipetsk in Russia's southwest after a drone there fell on an industrial park, regional officials said. "Our region is again under attack by Ukrainian UAVs," Vasily Anokhin, the governor of the Smolensk region in Russia's west, said on the Telegram messaging app. "As a result of the enemy attack on civilian fuel and energy facilities, fires broke out in the Smolensk and Yartsevo districts," Anokhin said on the Telegram messaging app. It was not immediately known what facilities...

Ukraine has moved to restrict consular services at its diplomatic missions for men of conscription age (18-60) who live abroad as Kyiv tries to increase troop levels in its fight to repel invading Russian forces. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on April 23 that he ordered the restrictions because "staying abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the Homeland." "As it looks like now, a man of conscription age goes abroad and shows his state that he does not care about its survival. He then comes back and wants to receive...

Congress is facing the most significant and transformational opportunity to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) since the end of World War II. The heritage equipment that the United States has provided to Ukraine for its self-defense in the face of the brazen and illegal invasion by Russian forces in 2022 needs to be replenished to ensure the United States is postured to continue to deter its adversaries. The new hardware will be produced at factories across the nation. Of the $113 billion appropriated by Congress to date related to the conflict in Ukraine, as much as $68 billion...

Speaker Mike Johnson completely sold out to Joe Biden on the bill, who gleefully announced he would sign it into law. Here are the 151 GOPers who voted to sell out America:

Ukraine's government has mocked Russia on the second anniversary of the sinking of Moscow's former Black Sea flagship at Kyiv's hands, after Ukraine targeted a slew of Russia's vessels since the start of the year. The Moskva sank on April 14, 2022, less than two months after the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The loss of the large cruiser, housing hundreds of crew members, was a significant strategic and propaganda blow to Russia in the opening weeks of the war. -snip- Kyiv said it used home-grown anti-ship missiles to strike the guided missile cruiser close to Snake Island,...

A lack of air defenses meant Ukraine was powerless to prevent a Russian airstrike last week that destroyed the biggest power plant in Kyiv region, President Volodomyr Zelensky said. Russia fired 11 missiles towards the Trypilska power plant, Zelensky said. Ukrainian air defenses downed the first seven missiles, but the next four completely destroyed the plant. “Why? Because we had zero missiles. We ran out of all missiles,” Zelensky told PBS NewsHour in an interview that aired Monday. Zelensky has repeatedly warned allies that Ukraine’s air defenses are running perilously thin, as Russia has recently renewed its assault on Ukraine’s...

Tens of thousands of residents in the Russian city of Orenburg and neighbouring Kazakhstan have been told to evacuate immediately as flood waters inundate homes. -snip- Orenburg is home to half a million people, and the city's mayor Sergei Salmin said the situation was extremely dangerous. "Over the last 10 hours, the water level in the Ural River has risen by 40cm … these levels are dangerous," he wrote on the Telegram messenger app. He called on residents to gather essential items and to abandon their homes. Emergency workers said water levels in the Ural River were more than two...

Watch footage of the bizarre tanks ploughing through the battlefield. PUTIN'S failing forces have resorted to using bizarre mobile sheds on the battlefield in an attempt to withstand Ukrainian kamikaze drones. Russian tanks have appeared underneath turtle shell-like cages after it was revealed that a humiliated Putin has lost almost all of the tanks he had when he began his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Strange footage shows a row of ageing Russian tanks trawling through fields under the steel covers. The odd-shaped metal blanket appears to be designed to shield Putin's dwindling fleet from Ukrainian onslaught. Up close clips show...

Russians left homeless following floods have directed their frustration towards President Vladimir Putin and local officials. Over a hundred individuals sought aid from Putin on Monday after the city or Orsk was struck with the worst flooding ever recorded, expressing their discontent with local authorities whom they accuse of insufficient assistance. An emergency was declared in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan, as the Ural River, Europe’s third longest, surged several meters in mere hours last Friday, breaching a dam embankment in the city. Large portions of Orsk, situated 1,800 km east of Moscow with a population of 230,000, now lie...

Watch the harrowing moment a fireman weeps at the sight of his father's body. RUSSIA targeted firefighters in a sick "double tap" drone strike on an apartment building in Ukraine - killing a father in front of his son. Heartbreaking footage revealed the hideous aftermath of Putin's cruelty that left at least five dead, including three rescuers responding to the first hit. Vladyslav Logienko, 52, was one of the first on the scene early on Thursday morning after an Iranian-made Shahed drone smashed into a block of flats in Kharkiv. In less than an hour, he had been killed with...

Voting for Russia's presidential elections was disrupted today in the border region Belgorod amid new shelling and incursions of anti-Kremlin Russian groups from Ukraine that forced 'thousands' of people to evacuate. Polling was suspended in Belgorod city after it came under artillery fire, with clips circulated by Russian news channels on the Telegram messaging app showing trucks and cars blown to pieces by the shelling. Election officials were seen wearing bulletproof gear as they monitored voting on the first day of a three-day election expected to return Putin by a landslide. Meanwhile, footage appears to show anti-Putin pro-Ukrainian partisan paramilitary...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Republican senators Wednesday to expect the House to send them legislation to help Ukraine, but cautioned that what comes out of the House will look substantially different than the $95 billion foreign aid package the Senate passed last month. Johnson tried to reassure frustrated GOP senators who asked him about funding for Ukraine during a question-and-answer session at the annual Senate Republican retreat, which was held at the Library of Congress. Johnson told senators that the House will send a Ukraine aid package to the Senate but floated the idea of making it a loan...

President Vladimir Putin is facing trouble in his ongoing war in Ukraine, days before the country's election, which is expected to result in the Russian leader remaining in power until at least 2030. This week has so far been tumultuous for the Russian president. On Tuesday night, the country was attacked by more than 60 Ukrainian drones, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, with targets including a Federal Security Service building in the southern Belgorod region and an oil refinery—both of which sustained damage. Multiple incursions by Russian defectors were also launched on Russian soil. The militia groups Freedom of...

Ukraine destroyed a Russian tanker that Moscow used for surveillance and for deploying first-person-view (FPV) drones in southern Ukraine, according to Kyiv's military. Ukraine's air force conducted a "successful strike" on the Russian-flagged Mechanik Pogodin on Tuesday, Kyiv's navy said in a statement. Ukraine said Russia's military was using the vessel as a command center, with the ship serving to launch FPV drones and to carry electronic warfare (EW) equipment. Kyiv said the use of the vessel for surveillance and control made the tanker a legitimate military target. A brief video posted by Ukraine's armed forces appeared to show the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ousted the country’s navy chief after a series of humiliating Ukrainian attacks decimated Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet, according to multiple reports. Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, 61, Russia’s navy commander-in-chief since May 2019, has been replaced by Northern Fleet Cmdr. Alexander Moiseyev, reported several Russian outlets, including the St. Petersburg news service Fontanka and the pro-Putin Izvestia newspaper. Moiseyev, 61 — who holds the country’s highest honorary title, “Hero of Russia” — was said to have been tapped as acting navy commander-in-chief and will soon be appointed on a permanent basis. The Russian navy’s rank-and-file have reportedly...

A drone launched by Ukraine fell and caught fire at an oil depot in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, the regional governor said on Sunday. “Fire brigades and emergency services are working at the scene,” the governor, Roman Starovoit, said on the Telegram messaging app, without giving further details.

An online video has emerged that appears to show Russian soldiers riding a Chinese-made Desertcross 1000-3 "golf cart" as it's blown up by an anti-tank mine. The footage (warning: graphic content) has been shared by multiple social media channels, including NEXTA Live, an eastern European media outlet. "Russian cosmonauts are training in the Zaporizhzhia direction," the publication said on Telegram. The Russian soldiers appeared to be riding a Beijing-manufactured Desertcross 1000-3 all-terrain vehicle, which resembles a golf cart. The Russian military has been using them in battle since last fall