Free Republic

Warsaw says soldier died of ‘unexplained natural causes’ while Moscow claims to hit Chasiv Yar command center secretively hosting senior NATO officials Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive commenced, the important city of Bakhmut fell to the Russians. I wrote at the time that it seemed the Russians would also aim to take the town of Chasiv Yar but that didn’t happen because the war shifted to the south and the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Meanwhile, a month later, the so-called hero of Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his Wagner forces, invaded Russia in what looked like an attempted coup d’etat but also...

(Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Friday that if Ukraine does not get promised U.S. military aid blocked by disputes in Congress, its forces will have to retreat "in small steps"."If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defence, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-milimetre artillery rounds," Zelenskiy told the Washington Post."It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps," he said. "We are trying to find some way not to retreat."Shortages of munitions, he said, meant "you have to do with...

ISIL’s Afghan branch – also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) – has claimed responsibility for the attack... “Russian foreign policy has been one big red flag for ISIS [ISIL],” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center told Al Jazeera. “The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Russian actions in Chechnya, Moscow’s close relationships with the Syrian and Iranian governments, and especially the military campaigns that Russia has waged against ISIS fighters in Syria and — through Wagner Group mercenaries – in parts of Africa.” “ISK [ISKP] has consistently demonstrated its ambition...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Thursday again pressed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to take up the Senate-passed national security spending package, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, despite Johnson’s message to GOP senators this week that he’s moving in a different direction. McConnell didn’t express much interest in waiting weeks or maybe months for the House to come up with an alternative proposal to help Ukraine. “The chilling reality here is abundantly clear. Withholding critical weapons has not helped manage [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s escalation. It has only emboldened him,” McConnell warned on the Senate floor. That alternative...

Former President Donald Trump intends to end the war in Ukraine by ending the military assistance that Ukrainian forces require to fight Russia’s invasion, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “He has a very clear vision that is hard to disagree with. He says the following: first, he will not give a single penny for the Russo-Ukrainian war,” Orban told Hungarian state media. “That’s why the war will end, because it’s obvious that Ukraine cannot stand on its own two feet.” Orban offered that prognostication after returning to Budapest from the United States, where he met with American conservatives...

A top House Republican lawmaker is preparing to circumvent Speaker Mike Johnson, R– La., to force a vote on a bill related to Ukraine aid and U.S. border security. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said that he was preparing the legislative maneuver as a fail-safe in the event Johnson does not bring a Ukraine aid bill to the floor. "It’s existential, it’s time-sensitive. Whether it’s our [bill] or somebody else’s, we’ve just got to get the money out the door," Fitzpatrick told reporters on Thursday morning.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday on CNN’s “The Source” that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told him that he would do “everything to support Ukraine.” Anchor Kaitlan Collins said, “You said that you have hope that the U.S. Congress will deliver more aid to Ukraine. With all due respect, why do you have that hope? Because there are some members who are very opposed to sending any more aid to Ukraine. Zelensky said, “I am really thankful with the president and the bipartisan support.”

Russia knew Ukraine’s counteroffensive plans before they began in 2023, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said in frank admissions that came alongside a rare discussion of military casualties in the two-year war. Ukraine’s top-secret war plan was leaked to Russia last year, presumably a contributing factor to what has been broadly accepted as a failed Spring counteroffensive in 2023, but this year Ukraine is creating decoy plans to keep the Kremlin guessing, President Zelensky has said. Speaking at an event on Sunday commemorating the second anniversary of the relaunch of the now ten-year-old invasion and occupation of Ukraine by Russia, Zelensky revealed...

Tucker Carlson 2/25/24 : Into the abyss: Colonel Douglas Macgregor tells us why the Ukraine war must end now.

“Millions” could die in Ukraine’s war with Russia if US lawmakers don’t approve President Joe Biden’s $60 billion aid request for Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about a claim made by the US Senator J.D. Vance that the outcome of the war would not change even if Ukraine receives the money, Zelensky said he wasn’t sure Vance “understands what is going on here.” “To understand it is to come to the front line to see what’s going on, to speak with the people, then to go to civilians to understand …...

For over a year now, pro-Russian voices have circulated the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was close to signing a peace deal in the spring of 2022, only to be thwarted by the West. Although this narrative has repeatedly been debunked as disinformation, it stubbornly persists in some circles.The central premise of the theory is that, only a few weeks into the war, Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia amid peace talks in Istanbul until Western powers, led by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ordered Kyiv to scrap the deal. It is thus argued that blame for...

Ukraine's president has issued a rallying cry, vowing that his country will prevail, as it marks two years since Russia's full-scale invasion. "None of us will allow our Ukraine to end," Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address in the capital Kyiv. The anniversary comes as Ukraine experiences a range of setbacks in its efforts to expel Russia from its territory. Mr Zelensky said in his speech on Saturday that while any normal person would want the war to end, it could only be on Ukraine's terms.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) arrived in Ukraine on Friday, part of a congressional delegation set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the nation marks the two-year anniversary of the start of its war with Russia. Schumer is being joined by four fellow Senate Democrats — Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.) — in an effort to show Kyiv that the U.S. still stands behind the war-torn country despite the struggle to approve a new tranche of aid. In a statement, the Democratic leader said...

Russia has made an explosive claim about NATO's involvement in the Ukraine war. Moscow claimed that NATO troops, disguised as mercenaries, are operating in Ukraine. The claim has been made by the chief of the main operational directorate of the Russian general staff, Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy. He said that NATO troops control multiple launch rocket systems and air defences in Ukraine. The startling statement comes as the Ukrainian army is unable to defend its territory. In the latest blow, the Ukrainian military lost control over Avdiivka. Watch this report to learn more.

United States citizens and other foreign nationals can now join Ukraine's national guard, the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has said, as Kyiv hopes to maintain its forces heading over the threshold of two years of war against Russia. "Foreigners and stateless persons" can join the Ukrainian national guard as of Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader said in a statement published by the presidential office. Foreign fighters have been present in Ukraine's ranks since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 but often volunteered as part of the International Legion.

Russian Economy In Chaos After Major Bank Collapses | Breaking News With The Enforcer The Enforcer 160K subscribers 2-22-2024 3:30 p.m. EST 10:40 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U59dftqGGs4 Russia announces that they will begin to open Gulags for Ukrainians living in occupied territories that wish for the Ukrainian army to liberate the area they live in. A major Russian bank collapsed overnight leading to large tremors being felt throughout the Russian economy. The Russians have begun a new multi pronged offensive in the northeast in an attempt to regain the land lost in the late summer of 2022.

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. will announce a major package of sanctions against Russia on Friday over the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the two-year Ukraine war, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday. Biden, speaking to reporters as he departed on a trip to California, did not give details but said he would provide more information about the package on Friday. The package will "hold Russia accountable for what happened to Mr. Navalny" and for its actions over the course of the war in Ukraine, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said, without providing details...

Tucker Carlson says he went “from amused to legitimately angry” at U.S. political leaders during a recent trip to a Moscow grocery store, where the independent conservative journalist and his crew guessed that a cart full of food would cost about the equivalent of $400 in American dollars – and it came in around a hundred bucks. “Coming to a Russian grocery store, the ‘heart of evil,’ and seeing what things cost and how they live, it will radicalize you against our leaders,” Carlson said in the video shot on-site as he shopped for eggs, bread, wine and other staples....

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner has made information concerning a “serious national security threat” available to all members of Congress to review, the committee said on Wednesday. While Turner and the White House remained vague on what the threat entailed, two sources and a US official tell CNN the threat is related to Russia. Multiple sources familiar with the intelligence characterized it as “very sensitive.” One of the sources who has seen the intelligence confirmed that “it is, in fact, a highly concerning and destabilizing” Russian capability “that we were recently made aware of.”