Free Republic

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared his support for Donald Trump after guilty verdicts were handed down in his New York City trial on Thursday. Orbán hailed Trump as a “man of honor” and urged Americans to “make their verdict in November” at the ballot box. “I’ve known President Donald Trump to be a man of honor. As President, he always put America first, he commanded respect around the world and used this respect to build peace,” Orbán wrote on social media platform Twitter. “Let the people make their verdict this November! Keep on fighting, Mr. President!” Orbán said, echoing...

The Biden administration has greenlit the use of American long-range strike systems by Ukraine to launch attacks deep into Russia. This puts the entire planet in a “shockingly” dangerous situation, says former DoD analyst and US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. President Biden has knowingly or unwittingly brought the risk of a world-ending nuclear conflict much, much closer after listening to “neoconservative advisors who really don’t have a lot of perspective on the nuclear dangers that they’re walking into” instead of military specialists and okaying Ukraine’s use of NATO weapons to strike the Russian hinterland, Kwiatkowski told Sputnik. “The...

Hungary has long been a thorn in the side of the EU authorities in Brussels in everything linked with the Ukraine conflict. Staunchly refusing to fan the flames of the ongoing NATO proxy conflict with Russia, Budapest has been fending off mounting pressure from its increasingly frustrated fellow EU leaders.Hungary is to be meted out a dose of “punishment” by fellow EU leaders for its staunch opposition to arming Ukraine, Politico reported. A plan is afoot to slap Budapest’s representatives with a “weak portfolio” in the next European Commission, according to diplomats cited by the outlet. Hungary’s Oliver Varhelyi has...

Volodymyr Zelenesky's constitutionally-mandated term as Ukraine's president expired on May 21. The leader canceled elections planned for March or April last November, claiming it was "utterly irresponsible" to discuss such matters amid the ongoing conflict with Russia. President Zelensky's legitimacy has expired, and Russia will proceed from this fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said."Of course, we are aware that the legitimacy of the current head of state [of Ukraine] has ended," Putin said at a press conference in Minsk on Friday after talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Putin recommended anyone looking for answers regarding Zelensky's legal status to...

BELGRADE (Sputnik) - Republika Srpska will propose an agreement on a peaceful division of Bosnia and Herzegovina within 30 days, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said on Thursday. "A peace demarcation agreement will be proposed in the next 30 days. Today we begin with a formal decision that a peaceful demarcation is required. Let us first propose to clarify the political powers in connection with the entities [parts of the country], while maintaining the current model of economic functioning and, within a few years, adapting it to the model of peaceful delimitation. The Serbian people can no longer live in...

TBILISI (Sputnik) - Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said on Saturday that she vetoed the controversial foreign agents bill passed by the country's parliament earlier in May. On Tuesday, the Georgian parliament adopted a bill on foreign agents by a majority vote in the third and final reading at a plenary meeting. The bill, if adopted, would require organizations to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if they get over 20% of their funding from abroad. "I have vetoed the 'Russian' law. This law ... represents an obstacle on the European path. The veto is legally enforceable and...

Russia wants to understand whom it can trust before engaging with partners on the Ukrainian conflict, President Vladimir Putin said during a trip to China on Friday. "We must understand with whom and how we can engage and whom and to what degree we can trust. We are of course analyzing everything that is going on," Putin told a press conference in Harbin. The president pointed to China as a stakeholder that was sincerely trying to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine. "We believe that China is sincere about its efforts to solve this problem. It has suggested...

Russia has no plans to take control of Kharkov, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with students and teachers of the Harbin Institute of Technology. "As for Kharkov, there are no such plans as of today," the president said. Russia is making gains in the fighting in the Kharkov region, he also said, adding that the Russian armed forces are moving every day strictly according to plan. Putin blamed the Ukrainian forces for what was happening in Kharkov region. "They are shooting directly at the center of the city, at residential areas. And I said publicly that if...

ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held an emergency meeting with the heads of intelligence and the ministry of justice after his fellow party member, Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli, had warned of a possible coup d'état being prepared by law enforcement agencies, the Turkiye newspaper on Wednesday. The dismissal of several police officers in Ankara's security directorate accused of links to criminal organization Ayhan Bora Kaplan has caused widespread concern. Their homes had been searched to seize digital materials. Bahceli has said the situation could be a conspiracy against the government, and the suspension of...

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was injured on Wednesday in a shooting at the venue of the government’s offsite meeting, the Pravda news agency reported, adding that the attacker was detained. "Robert Fico was wounded after an offsite meeting of the government. The attacker shot several times. He was detained by police," the report said. According to Pravda, the attacker made several shots before the police detained him. The incident occurred after the government meeting when Fico came out to to the public. The prime minister was rushed to a hospital by helicopter. Earlier, the government of Slovakia decided to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the Kremlin press service said. "At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will pay a state visit to the People's Republic of China on May 16-17 as his first foreign trip after taking office," the statement said. Following the talks, it is planned to sign a joint statement by the heads of state and a number of bilateral documents, the statement read, adding that the leaders will determine the directions for further development of cooperation and...

WASHINGTON (Sputnik ) - The United States will not send any troops to fight in Ukraine, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Monday. US House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Sunday that there is a significant likelihood the United States will have to send troops to the conflict zone if Ukraine falls, adding that Washington must continue supporting Kiev in order to prevent a broader war. "The president [Joe Biden] has made clear that he will not send US troops to fight in Ukraine," Miller said in a press briefing. No Reason to Adjust US Nuclear Posture...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia will treat F-16 multi-role fighter jets operated by Ukraine as nuclear-capable assets, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday. "We cannot ignore the fact that these planes are dual-purpose platforms that can be used both for nuclear and non-nuclear tasks … No matter what modification of the aircraft will be supplied [to Ukraine] we will treat them as nuclear-capable and we will consider this step of the United States and NATO as a purposeful provocation," the ministry said in a statement. The ministry further warned the regime in Kiev and its Western donors that their reckless...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Statements by the French President, UK officials and a representative of the US Senate about their readiness and intention to send military personnel to Ukraine require special attention and special measures, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, commenting on military drills announced by the Russian Defense Ministry. “Actually, this is stated exhaustively in the statement of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. There is nothing to add there. If you ask me what statements of Western representatives we are talking about, it is obvious that we are talking about the statement of Mr Macron...

After the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, delegations representing Moscow and Kiev engaged in several rounds of peace talks, including in Turkiye in March 2022. However, it was revealed in 2023 that former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged Kiev to avoid signing any agreements with Russia and instead focus on continuing the proxy fight.Russia and Ukraine were closer than ever to concluding a peace treaty in April 2022, but the Kiev regime rejected several of Moscow’s demands outright, German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag revealed. Specifically, terms regarding the status of the Russian language, and Kiev’s official rejection of...

Former Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton warned Marc Elias, her former 2016 campaign lawyer who was infamous for peddling ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele's "dirty dossier," about the acute threat posed by Republicans and Donald Trump to the US democracy.Hillary Clinton has once again evoked the specter of "Russian collusion" and warned the audience of Marc Elias' "Democracy Docket" podcast that Donald Trump's role model is no one but Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Clinton, the danger of a Trump victory to the US democracy is acute, given that Republicans would do whatever it takes to win the 2024 elections,...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian special services and law enforcement agencies are identifying people behind last month's Crocus City Hall terror attack near Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. "Russian special services and law enforcement agencies continue to investigate, to look into the details of this despicable crime. They are identifying people behind it, including those who commissioned the attack, sponsors and organizers," Putin told the 12th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues in the Russian city of St. Petersburg via a video message. None of those guilty of the attack shall escape just retribution, the president...

The former Fox News anchor and conservative media personality divulged that he had set up an official Telegram channel for his Tucker Carlson Network, encouraging the public to “keep an eye on the announcements there.” The channel has already attracted more than 150, 000 subscribers.Speaking with Tucker Carlson, Russian-born IT entrepreneur and co-founder of the Telegram social network Pavel Durov focused on a variety of topics, including his visit to the United States. The 39-year-old revealed that he was closely watched and monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during his time in the country. “We got too much...

BUDAPEST (Sputnik) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday accused Brussels of violating freedom of speech after local authorities prevented a conference of right-wing European politicians from taking place in Belgium's capital. Earlier on Tuesday, the mayor of Brussels' Saint-Josse-ten-Noode municipality, Emir Kir ordered the shutdown of the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) "to guarantee public security." Orban was scheduled to participate. "The Belgian police decided to shut down the [National Conservatism] conference in #Brussels, just two hours after it started. I guess they couldn't take free speech any longer. The last time they wanted to silence me with the...

Iran launched a large-scale missile and drone attack into Israel overnight Saturday targeting military and intelligence sites in response to an Israeli attack on its Damascus Embassy compound April 1. Prime Minister Netanyahu has threatened to “hurt” Iran, while President Biden has reportedly said the US won’t assist in an Israeli counterattack.Israel’s war cabinet has reportedly failed to reach a consensus on when and how to respond to Iran’s weekend missile and drone barrage, with Israeli media reporting that US pressure has complicated planning. “There will be a response,” an anonymous Israeli official was quoted as saying by Israel Hayom....