Free Republic

Scott Ritter describes the paymaster system in the Country 404 military. All of that is being done with US taxpayer money of course.

Ramzan Kadyrov has repeatedly attacked the running of the war in Ukraine He has summoned UAE doctor because he 'does not trust' the Moscow doctors Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov - a close ally of Vladimir Putin - is reported to be seriously ill with kidney problems amid fears of 'poisoning'. The fanatical pro-war zealot who has advocated using nuclear weapons against Ukraine is rumoured to have summoned a leading doctor from the United Arab Emirates because he 'does not trust' Moscow doctors. The kidney illness accounted for Kadyrov's surprising absence from Putin's state of the nation speech last month, several...

Joe Biden has two masters- Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Chinese Communist Party. Zelenskyy makes demands and Biden cannot accommodate them fast enough no matter the cost to this country. How we got here is pretty interesting and one needs to understand it. For a moment let's go back in time. It begins with Obama - and his henchperson Victoria Nuland (Funny how pretty much everything wrong with the country goes back to Obama) "The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made"Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting...

In early December, a sensational story ripped through the tabloid press: President Vladimir Putin had stumbled and fallen down the stairs, involuntarily soiling himself in the process. It proved an irresistible tale for a Western audience largely horrified by Putin's invasion of Ukraine and hungry for his ultimate demise. The claims were covered in The Sun, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, Gawker, and Newsweek, among others. They attributed them to a single, anonymous source: the mysterious Telegram account known as General SVR. The channel is a striking example of the wild media ecosystem that has boomed since the...

This looks like an actual projector pointed at the US embassy in Moscow. I'm open to opinion so is this real?

Russia told the West on Friday that it would view as an attack on itself any actions that threatened Russian peacekeepers in Moldova's breakaway Transdniestria region, one day after Moscow accused Ukraine of planning an invasion. In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected Moscow's assertion that Ukraine wanted to take over the region, while Moldova reiterated there was no truth to the allegations. The warning comes amid increased concerns in Moldova, a small ex-Soviet republic bordering Ukraine, of a possible Russian threat. Its pro-European President Maia Sandu this month accused Moscow of plotting a coup. On Thursday, Russia accused Kyiv of...

Russians are being offered free food to attend a major Vladimir Putin rally in Moscow on Wednesday, according to reports. The mass rally at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow was announced by the Kremlin earlier this month, and it's being held a day after the Russian president's much delayed state-of-the-nation address in the capital. Putin is expected to make an appearance at the rally, which is set to feature performances from pop stars and rock groups. The Telegram channel of the independent Russian publication Sirena shared images of a Google Forms sheet created by a Russian volunteer organization called Mega...

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia's mercenary group Wagner, accused unspecified officials of deliberately denying his fighters sufficient ammunition as part of an ongoing rivalry between himself and parts of the Russian elite. A onetime catering entrepreneur who once shunned the public spotlight, Prigozhin has assumed an ever more public role in Russian politics since the start of the war in Ukraine a year ago, with his Wagner Group spearheading Russia's months-long battle for the town of Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region. In a seven-minute long audio message published on Monday by his press service, an apparently angry and emotional...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO)— Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is calling on the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with F-16 Fighter Jets as soon as possible. Sunday, Graham said that includes training Ukrainian pilots as soon as possible. Graham also urged the Biden administration to not be cautious or fearful of aggravating Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying: “Don’t worry about provoking Putin, worry about beating him.” ...

Two leading House Republicans have called on President Joe Biden to increase military support to Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion and reiterated support on both sides of the aisle for continuing to fund the Ukrainian war effort. Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “State of the Union” in a joint interview with House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner that aired Sunday that bipartisan support for Ukraine is “still very strong.” But as the one-year anniversary of the war approaches, McCaul warned that hedging support for Ukraine could prolong...

After a year of hard fighting there are a rush of observers trying to make sense of the current balance of power in Ukraine. The focus in often on (often small) movements in the frontlines, casualties, or the performance of particular platforms and systems. Those things matter, but wars are not generally fought to take individual trenches or solely to inflict casualties. They are fought for strategic objectives. In this episode I dig into Russia's history of Empire, its modern strategic objectives, and try to assess whether or not the war in Ukraine represents a success or failure by Russia's...

Vladimir Putin hosted Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at his own residence near Moscow for a meeting. However, the Russian leader's odd and fidgeting body language sparked a swirl of speculation about his health. President Putin can be seen uneasily moving his legs throughout the entire duration of the public conversation with President Lukashenko. -snip- Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, tweeted a clip of the moment: "Putin's feet during his meeting with Lukashenko. Is this Morse code?" Tendar, which regularly monitors the conflict in Ukraine, added: "Putin’s continuing problem to control his legs and...

A Russian state television host complained that "Europeans didn't freeze" this winter after energy prices on the continent skyrocketed due to international sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war and President Vladimir Putin's army attack on the country's critical energy infrastructure. After experiencing stalled progress on the battlefield, Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for several months. Russia on Thursday launched fresh missile strikes on critical infrastructure in Lviv, in western Ukraine, away from the frontlines in the east.

LIMA, Ohio (AP) — Thousands of miles from the front lines, a sprawling manufacturing plant in the small midwestern city of Lima, Ohio, is playing a critical role in the effort to arm Ukraine as it fends off the Russian invasion. Owned by the Army and operated by General Dynamics, the plant is expected to refurbish Abrams tanks for the U.S. to send to Ukraine, and is already preparing to build an updated version of the vehicle for Poland, U.S. Army officials said Thursday as they toured the facility.

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Spending on new cars in Russia more than halved last year as the auto industry felt the full force of Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, with production plunging, prices soaring and buyers switching to cheaper used models. While analysts continue to debate the overall effectiveness of economic curbs on Russia, there can be no doubt they have hit hard in its car industry, which was heavily reliant on foreign manufacturers and imported parts.

The U.S.-based think tank's report published on Thursday says that Russia's purported goal of capturing Bakhmut by next week "would require a significantly higher rate of Russian advance than anything seen for many months."...While the Kremlin may be unlikely to capture Bakhmut soon, ISW maintained that missile strikes on "civilian targets throughout Ukraine" could instead mark the war anniversary because "actual military success continues to evade the Russian military."

"No matter what the Ukrainians decide about Crimea in terms of where they choose to fight etcetera, Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is at a minimum, at a minimum, demilitarised," Nuland told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Asked about the dangers of escalation in the Ukraine war, Nuland said Russia had a host of military installations crucial for the conflict. "Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them and we are supporting that," Nuland said.

As the forces of global banking and business seek to create a world economic order that puts China and Russia to the sidelines they have to convince people on the Left and Right to support it. For the Left "Climate Change" is a sucker issue that makes "Progressive" people think they are saving the planet when in reality climate policy is the re-aligning of the world system away from oil (made by Russia) and coal (made and used by China). It is creating a new kind of economic system led by the United States the "Green Economy" is an economy...

A former Russian police general who had been in charge of cracking down on protesters has been found dead in an apparent suicide following his dismissal by President Vladimir Putin, state media reported. Major General Vladimir Makarov, 72, had helped oversee Russia's crackdown on opposition activists in his role as deputy chief of the Russian police's anti-extremism unit. Putin dismissed Makarov, who was described as “once the main organizer of the ‘hunt’ for opposition activists and inconvenient journalists,” in late January. Police found Makarov’s body at his suburban home northwest of Moscow on Monday, the state-run TASS news agency reported...

Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children - likely many more - in sites in Russian-held Crimea and Russia whose primary purpose appears to be political re-education, according to a U.S.-backed report published on Tuesday. The report said Yale University researchers had identified at least 43 camps and other facilities where Ukrainian children have been held that were part of a "large-scale systematic network" operated by Moscow since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The children included those with parents or clear familial guardianship, those Russia deemed orphans, others who were in the care of Ukrainian state institutions before...