Free Republic

Per capita murder rates in major U.S. cities such as Chicago, Baltimore and St. Louis are outpacing Ukraine's recorded civilian death rate from Russia's invasion. According to the United Nations Human Rights office, 5,401 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's attack began in February, although the agency said it "believes that the actual figures are considerably higher." With a population of about 41,167,300, Ukraine's civilian death rate is 13.12 per 100,000 people using official statistics from the United Nations. The murder rates for several major U.S. cities are considerably higher than Ukraine's civilian death rate. For example, Baltimore,...

8 large explosions reported from Ziabrauka airfield near Homel in Belarus. Lots of Russian military gear is stationed there & the Russians often launch attack against Ukraine from Ziabrauka. Ukraine might have counterattacked Belarusian territory for the first time.

KYIV, Ukraine — A powerful attack on a Russian air base in occupied Crimea was the work of Ukrainian special forces, a Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Wednesday, suggesting an increasingly important role for covert forces operating deep behind enemy lines as the country expands efforts to expel Russian troops. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, did not disclose details of how Tuesday’s attack was carried out. The attack marks a significant escalation in the nearly six-month-old war, demonstrating a new ability by...

Russia's defence ministry said an explosion at a Russian military airbase in Crimea on Tuesday had been caused by a detonation of aviation ammunition, and that there had been no casualties, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. It said there had been no attack, and no military equipment had been damaged.

Ukraine's special forces were responsible for a series of deadly explosions which destroyed parts of a crucial Russian airbase in Crimea yesterday, killing one and injuring 14 according to a Ukrainian government official. Up to ten Russian aircraft were destroyed in the attack, the Ukrainian air force said, which an anonymous official told the Washington Post had been carried out by special forces – despite claims yesterday that long-range missiles could have been used. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile vowed to 'liberate' the peninsula previously part of Ukraine but annexed by Russia in 2014 despite international condemnation. Zelensky did not...

The U.S. Defense Department believes that as many as 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine less than six months ago, a top Pentagon official told reporters today... The United States has now provided nearly $10 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, nearly twice Kyiv’s military budget in 2021... The Pentagon initially estimated that Russia deployed about 120 battalion tactical groups, the Kremlin’s go-to combined arms unit, for the war—numbering around 100,000 troops. Experts said the new casualty estimate is likely to include Russian paramilitary and volunteer forces,...

Women and children captured by Russians in Ukraine are being sold into sex slavery in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to the Daily Mail, American officials confirmed that there are “lost” women and children that were targeted at either Polish refugee camps or taken from Ukraine directly to Russia where they are bartered into UAE servitude. The revelation comes from a report titled “Modern Slavery In Dubai,” published by the Washington Institute For Defence And Security and the New York Center For Foreign Policy Affairs.

Not only citizens of Ukraine will be able to use free train travel on local routes in Lithuania, all people fleeing Ukraine from war with Russia to Lithuania will be able to use free train travel Lithuanian Railways (LTG) said in a statement.

Western leaders undervalued the size and global reach of the Russian economy Headlines concerning the collapse of the Russian economy under sanctions have been many and varied, although more recently observations have been made that sanctions imposed by the West aren’t working to the extent intended. Writing this from Moscow, I can observe that supermarkets are full, there are no shortages, and gasoline is US$3.1 a gallon. That compares with Washington at US$4.99, London at US$8.16, Berlin at US$6.73 and Rome at US$7.31. Why has the effect of sanctions upon Russia been so widely misunderstood? It’s a complicated question yet...

OK, so I woke up this morning with a thought. It may not be worth anything. People here are understandable frustrated with the fundraising and lack of donations to the site. We also do not want to clutter the site with ads and become beholden to outside interests. We want to remain as independent and self-reliant as possible. Why not merchandize the FR name? Sell coffee cups, water bottles, t-shirts, etc with the FR URL and logo? I'm a woodturner and can make pens with logos/messages on them (though I *am* employed full time and would not have the time...

The war in Ukraine is raging with no end in sight. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is ready to sit at the negotiation table. Both claim that their goals are absolute and non-negotiable. With negotiations not an option, both are determined to exhaust the enemy’s resources, manpower and technological potential, and to finally “throw his adversary, and thus render him incapable of further resistance,” in the words of Clausewitz. In the meantime, Russia’s actions in Ukraine paint a clear picture of Moscow’s doctrinal thinking about warfare, and illustrate that Ukraine is only one part of Russia’s broader economic and geopolitical objectives....

This is the moment six Russian commanders were killed in a Ukrainian ambush, according to one of Kyiv's senior officers. Dramatic footage captured how a two-vehicle convoy - said to be carrying the Russian top brass back from a meeting - were struck by anti-tank missiles. Footage, thought to have been captured on the Donbas frontline near Avdiivka, shows how the lead vehicle was blown to smithereens before the second rolled over. -snip- It comes after Lieutenant Colonel Olga 'Kursa' Kachura, 52, who was Ukrainian-born but fought for Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's east, was reported killed. Kachura, who commanded an...

It would be an understatement to say that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is very interested in Russia's war in Ukraine. NATO countries and experts see this war as a battle for democracy. Musk Sides with Ukraine "We cannot let Putin take over Ukraine. This is crazy," the Chief Executive Officer of the premium EV maker said in March during an interview with Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer. During the same interview, the tech tycoon explained that someone of his rank had a responsibility and should therefore use the power and...

Kazakhstan has significantly boosted its defence spending while seeking to strengthen ties with China and Nato nations amid anxieties that Moscow could expand its geopolitical ambitions beyond Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported, citing a Kazakh official. The ex-Soviet state is committing an additional Kazakhstani tenge (KZT) 441bn ($918mn) to its defence budget, marking a nearly 1.5-fold rise from last year’s budget of $1.7bn, the newspaper reported. Part of the money would go to increasing Kazakhstan’s military reserves, according to a the quoted senior official, who added that Kazakhstan has learned lessons from Ukraine’s fierce resistance to the...

Moscow, August 3, Interfax - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has tasked Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal with considering the legalization of same-sex marriages in Ukraine in response to a respective petition signed by over 28,000 persons which was filed July 3. Zelensky said in his response published on the website for online petitions that the Ukrainian Family Code defines a family as the primary and basic unit of society. "A family consists of persons living together, sharing a life, and having mutual rights and obligations. According to the Ukrainian Constitution, a marriage is based on voluntary consent of a woman and...

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski on Wednesday asked the country's Prime Minister Denis Shmyha to consider the possibility of legalizing same-sex marriage in the country. Zelenski thus responded to a petition presented on July 3 and signed by more than 28,000 people. However, he stressed that, as stated in the country's Family Code, the "family is the basic primary unit of Ukrainian society". "A family consists of people living together, connected by a common life, with mutual rights and obligations. According to the Ukrainian Constitution, marriage is based on the free consent of a man and a woman," the president said,...

A leading Russian senator has vowed that Vladimir Putin will come to China's aid if it goes to war over Taiwan. But Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy chairman of the international committee in Russia's Federation Council, said the Kremlin's backing would be offered on the understanding that Beijing would show support in kind for the war in Ukraine. 'I see no grounds to refuse to help China,' the politician declared. 'But I would like to see a two-way movement with China. 'It means that we should have some benefits from this cooperation.' Putin and China's president Xi Jinping have seemingly...

Vera Sharav was only 3 years old when her world collapsed.She and her family were chased out of Romania and herded into a concentration camp in Ukraine during World War II, where they were left to wait, and starve.“The cloud of death was always there,” Sharav told The Epoch Times.Weekly, a list determined who would be sent where; whether it be a death or slave labor camp, she said.While at the camp, she said her father died of typhus when she was 5, which had been widespread throughout the camps because of the cold and malnutrition.After three years at the...

Kyiv, Ukraine – Oleksiy Vadatursky was known as a “grain tycoon” who helped make Ukraine a key wheat exporter. A Russian missile killed him and his wife Raisa in their house in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Sunday, raising suspicion among Ukrainian politicians and pundits who called their death a calculated murder aimed at stalling the resumption of exports. Unlike other oligarchs – a group of super-rich and unpopular Ukrainians with immense political clout who gained control of key industries after privatising Soviet-era plants and factories – Vadatursky was widely respected as a self-made man. “He worked. He didn’t...

US weapons fragile, expensive, and not up to the jobLira talks about US in recent decades replacing good weaponns with BS weapons, e.g. replacing the A10 with the F35 ("flying pig")...