Free Republic

March 1 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that the changes in Iran ‌brought about by U.S. and Israeli strikes ‌should be "used properly" to benefit the country's people who had ​withstood violence from their authorities. Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said Iran's authorities had killed "tens of thousands of people in the last couple of ‌months alone," referring ⁠to a crackdown on protests. Iran, he said, had "predetermined the way it is treated" ⁠by supplying attack drones to Russia in Moscow's four-year-old conflict in Ukraine and had also "fomented wars ​in the ​region." "It...

Ukraine is outmatched by Russian forces and requires significantly more infantry and weapons if it hopes to win the war, according to military intelligence and independent battlefield monitors. Although Moscow is paying an extraordinary price for comparatively minimal gains, western officials believe the country can sustain at least another year of war at the current rate of attrition. On Tuesday it will be four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After months of incremental advances, it appears to be on the verge of capturing a series of strategic locations in Ukraine’s so-called “fortress belt” and is expanding...

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine surpassed 1,418 days last month, it officially exceeded a historic milestone — the same span of time it took Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II. And unlike the Red Army that pushed all the way to Berlin eight decades ago in what it called the Great Patriotic War, Russia’s 4-year-old, all-out invasion of its neighbor is still struggling to fully capture Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. After Moscow failed to seize the capital of Kyiv and install a puppet government in February 2022, the conflict turned into trench warfare with tremendous cost....

Why, exactly, did Washington back Sunni rebels taking down Assad, and if Washington wants a Turkish-backed Sunni Muslim caliphate in Syria, should we as Christians cheer Washington getting its way?All of those in the West celebrating the fall of the Assad regime in Syria had better be careful what they wish for.I’ve heard some awfully dumb statements coming from conservative circles in recent days about the “stunning” nine-day collapse of Syria. It’s not so stunning when you learn that the American CIA had been planning the offensive for months with the full support of its NATO ally Turkey.One prominent regular...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled his country, now under the protection of Vladimir Putin in Moscow. In only a few days, a regime that had withstood over a decade of brutal civil war crumbled into dust before the onslaught of a new rebel offensive.Now, Syria teeters on the brink of tribal mayhem as disparate factions espousing differing strains of radical Islamism begin to squabble over the carcass and jostle for power. ISIS has even reemerged as part of the victorious rebel coalition, prompting U.S. airstrikes over the weekend.But, on cue, the neocons crawled out of the woodwork to gloat,...

Russia has captured 162 square miles of the Ukrainian territory since June 14, the Interfax news agency said Tuesday, citing Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia's security council. Russian forces have captured the village of Tymofiivka in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Interfax news agency quoted the defense ministry as saying Tuesday. Also, Russian forces have thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to penetrate the border in Russia's Kursk region, the interim governor of the region said Tuesday.

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...

When President Biden proposed an additional $24 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine in August, Moscow spin doctors working for the Kremlin were ready to try to undermine public support for the bill, internal Kremlin documents show. In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions, according to a trove of internal Kremlin documents...

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...

Russian cities erupted in flames overnight as more than 60 explosions ripped through several top military air bases. Vladimir Putin's prized weapons went up in flames last night after a devastating Ukrainian drone blitz on three different military air bases. Costly bombers were wiped out during an assault on the Engels, Yeisk and Morozovsk military bases. A senior Kyiv intelligence source later confirmed to Reuters that the attack on the Morozovsk air base in the Rostov region wiped out at least six Russian warplanes in a joint operation between the security services and military. The blitz also damaged at least...