Free Republic

There are yet unconfirmed reports that the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced late on Sunday, April 2nd, 2023. that his forces have raised the Russian flag over the administration building of the town of Bakhmut in Ukraine. There is no question that Bakhmut will fall. Zelensky has sent over 100,000 men to their death there desperate to keep the money flowing into Ukraine. It is a sad state of affairs when a high-heel dancing idiot orders generals to fight to the death all for his pride and money. The fall of Bakhmut is simply inevitable and...

It started with Crimea and it will end with Crimea. The grinding war of attrition is into its seventh month with no peace settlement on the horizon. Before the invasion, the issue of Crimea did not top the international agenda. It was not even included in the infamous Minsk Accords and the work of the Trilateral Contact Group, forcing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to look for new formats to voice the Crimea case loud and clear. In turn, Putin legitimised the illegal annexation through false historical narratives, nurturing it with recognition from his authoritarian friends. International actors expressed their traditional concern...

Vladimir Putin has lost two more colonels in Ukraine - including one of Russia's youngest to reach such a high rank - as a video showed a Russian battalion being hit with artillery fire while attempting to rescue a casualty. Elsewhere, in another blow to the Kremlin's war efforts, a separate video released this week showed Ukrainian bombs destroying a Russian ammo depo in a huge ball of flames. Images released by Kyiv also appeared to show a destroyed Russian unit. These are the latest examples of Ukraine's forces putting up a fierce resistance against Putin's invading forces. Moscow expected...

One hundred days of all-out war has been plenty of time to get acquainted with the Russian troops. Their lackluster combat performance, artillery barrages against cities, treatment of civilians, intercepted messages home, and interviews with dozens of civilians around Ukraine allow one to put together a mosaic portrait of the invaders. It’s not a flattering image. Many of the soldiers are dirt-poor and badly educated, with many growing up without access to modern amenities. Many joined the armed forces because they have no future in their backwater towns. The majority have bad training, low morale and no faith in their...

KYIV, April 21 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the Ukraine war on Thursday, declaring the port of Mariupol "liberated" after nearly two months of siege, despite hundreds of defenders still holding out inside a giant steel works. In a televised meeting with his defence minister inside the Kremlin, Putin said there was no need for a final confrontation with the last defenders who were boxed in after surviving nearly two months of Russia's siege. "I consider the proposed storming of the industrial zone unnecessary," he told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in a televised...

New $40 Billion now On Tuesday, RINO Senate leader Mitch McConnell (KY) threw his full support behind Biden’s recently proposed $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, claiming the additional funding was necessary to help the country prevail in the war against Russia. Snip McConnell made his comments during a press conference on Tuesday as he was flanked by other GOP senators. According to him, he expects the aid to be approved sometime this week.

Ukraine has driven Russian troops back to their own border near Kharkiv and now threatens supply lines into Donbas as Putin's army suffers another humiliating loss. Commanders said late Tuesday they had recaptured four small towns to the north of Ukraine's second-largest city, with reports overnight suggesting they had pushed to within three miles of the Russian border. If confirmed, it would put the city of Vovchans'k - a key supply hub linking Russia's Belgorod to its frontlines in Donbas - within artillery range, threatening to cut supply lines and hamper Putin's efforts to take the region. Meanwhile, Ukraine's gas...

Many House Republicans side with Dems and vote for massive Ukrainian spending package as Americans suffer at home(Video Credit: Associated Press)Republicans in the House of Representatives overwhelmingly joined Democrats in voting for an additional $40 billion in aid to Ukraine on Tuesday with only 57 conservatives opposing the move as Americans suffer at home under crushing inflation and oppressive leftist policies.Critics slammed Republicans for supporting the bill given multiple crises that Americans are facing at home including a failing supply chain, soaring gas and food prices, shortages, the border, abortion, and other issues. The final vote was 368 to 57...

Senior Democratic Party politicians are the chief "ideologists" of America's illegal operations in biolabs operating throughout Ukraine, and have involved major multinational biotech companies in their activities, Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops, has indicated. Citing an MoD analysis of seized documents, the RCB Troops chief said the profits politicians earn for the US private biotech sector helps to pay for their reelection via campaign donations. According to Kirillov, the US executive branch has also worked to create a "legislative framework to finance military biological research directly from the federal budget," with "funds of...

Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency is reporting for the first time Wednesday that the Russian military occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson will soon petition the Kremlin to become part of the Russian Federation. It was in late April that a pro-Moscow “military-civilian administration” was installed after Kherson fell to the invading forces, complete with a local transition to the Russian ruble. While the news hasn’t been officially confirmed by the Kremlin, it’s significant that the report surfaced through RIA and not Ukrainian or opposition sources, suggesting such referendums or even simple declared annexations in captured regions could be...

The House overwhelmingly supported sending $40 billion in aid to Ukraine on Tuesday, 368-57, prompting a harsh reaction from critics given the multiple crises that are going unaddressed at home. Particularly, conservatives took issue with the 149 Republicans who joined every single Democrat in passing the bill while inflation continues to soar, the border crisis is ongoing, and our nation’s most vulnerable population—infants—can’t get the food they need.

Reports are surfacing of military equipment of the United States and other NATO countries on the Russia-Finland border. U.S. and NATO armored vehicles were spotted on the border, along with Finnish tanks and armored personnel vehicles, according to a translation of a Shraibikus News report. There have been reports of military exercises in Finland, but Russian intelligence reportedly suspects the military buildup will remain until Finland joins NATO. The report also indicates Finnish authorities are anticipating Finland joining NATO within a few months. Russian analysts consider the military presence on the Russia-Finland border to be a threat, particularly as NATO...

@julie_kelly2 Americans will never receive a full accounting of the $40 billion for Ukraine. We still don't have an accounting for the billions we've already spent over the past decade. And this isn't the last money dump we will see--won't be long before Zelensky is begging for more.

Russian forces have riddled Ukrainian fields with mines and destroyed equipment in areas they once occupied, in what returning farmers and the Kyiv government allege is a campaign by Moscow to hobble the country’s agricultural industry. Russia’s invasion already has decimated shipments of corn, wheat and sunflower oil from what was until recently one of the world’s biggest food exporters. Prices have soared, adding to global food-price inflation and heaping misery on developing countries that had been dependent on imports from the region. The extent of damage to some farms, together with port disruption and a shortage of fertilizer, demonstrates...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is tired of Western leaders repeatedly asking him for a wishlist of weapons for Ukraine. In an interview published Friday with The Atlantic, Zelenskyy said he is often frustrated by repetitive questions asked of him by Western leaders. "It's not interesting to answer the questions you already heard," Zelenskyy said, according to The Atlantic.

Every time gas prices spike, the same questions get asked: Why are gas prices so high? Who’s to blame? What will bring them down? These aren’t terrible questions, and they’re logical in a country where the majority of people are car owners. But the fact that we keep having these questions, decade after decade, suggests they’re also insufficient. A better question may be: Why does gas price volatility have the power to cause so much pain? The answer, of course, is parked in America’s driveways. What this tells us is when it comes to costs, gas isn’t the crux of...

Russia's warplanes bombed Lviv and its missiles struck Kyiv and Kharkiv on Saturday, as Moscow followed through on a threat to launch more long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities after its Black Sea Fleet's flagship was sunk. In besieged Mariupol, scene of the war's heaviest fighting and worst humanitarian catastrophe, Russian troops pressed recent advances, hoping to make up for their failure to capture Kyiv by seizing their first big prize of the war. Moscow said its planes had struck a tank repair factory in the capital, where an explosion was heard and smoke seen in the southeastern Darnytskyi district. Kyiv's...

COMMENT #1: Thank you for trying to tell the truth about Zelensky. He is not defending his own people. We elected him because he promised the opposite. Why does the West only listen to this traitor?…. This is clearly a war against Russia and it has been the dream of the Neocons. It is hard to imagine why Zelensky is putting his entire country at risk over simply honoring the Minsk Agreement and lettering the Donbas to vote on their separation. Zelensky has been part of the corruption – all Ukrainians thought they were getting rid of no doubt. Zelensky...

"The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change."

President Biden on Saturday said that Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t remain in power and hit the autocrat over the destruction the American leader says Putin is wreaking on the Ukrainian people. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness. We will have a different future, a brighter future, rooted in democracy and principals, hope and light, of decency and dignity, of freedom, and possibilities,” Biden said during a speech in front of the Polish presidential palace Saturday night, local time. “For God’s sake, this man cannot...