Free Republic

With six months to go until the presidential election, America's NATO allies are planning to boost their defense spending ahead of the potential disruption of a second Donald Trump presidency. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is preparing a funding plan to try to insulate the 75-year-old military partnership from any changing political realities that might affect the alliance, according to Oana Lungescu, who until last year was the longtime lead NATO spokesperson for Stoltenberg. "It is important to have predictability both for allies and for Ukraine," Lungescu told CBS News. "This [plan] relieves the U.S. of some of its organizational...

Since the start of the war, Western allies have asked Ukraine to refrain from using their donated weapons to strike deep inside Russia. Ukraine urgently needs the West's go-ahead to launch attacks on Russian territory with donated weapons, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday after signing a long-term security deal with Belgium that includes the provision of 30 F-16s fighter jets by 2028. The deal, however, prohibits Ukraine from deploying the sought-after aircraft to strike targets located on Russian soil. This follows a long-held policy by Western allies that compels Kyiv to use donated weapons and ammunition strictly within its...

Poland’s Minister of National Defense, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, has signed a contract with the United States for the acquisition of several hundred AGM-158 JASSM-ER air-to-ground missiles. This agreement on Tuesday marks another major procurement by the Ministry of National Defense. Just last week, Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz signed a $960 million contract for the delivery of four reconnaissance aerostats, equipped with advanced radar systems, under the “Barbara” program. “A $735 million contract is being signed today. Another multi-million-dollar contract for the purchase of JASSM-ER air-to-ground missiles, which will be in the equipment of the Polish army,” said the Minister of National Defense. “We...

Poland has signed a $735 million contract with the U.S. for the supply of JASSM-ER missiles, Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Tuesday. The country is spending heavily to bolster its armed forces since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Warsaw is spending around 4% of its gross domestic product on defense this year and last week announced an agreement with the U.S. The missiles have a range of around 621 miles, according to the defense ministry.

Ukraine urgently needs new soldiers, but some — left uneasy by brutal fighting and intensifying conscription efforts — are desperately trying to avoid being called up. “When you see people in uniform, you panic. You start thinking someone will mobilize you now against your will,” a lawyer based in Kyiv told NBC News. He did not want his identity known, fearful, like a growing number of men across the country, of being drafted into the army... “I love my country,” he said in a phone interview earlier this month. “I donate to the Ukrainian army. But unfortunately, I am not...

KYIV (Reuters) -A Ukrainian drone targeted a long-range radar deep inside Russia on Sunday, the second such strike in a week on infrastructure used by Moscow to monitor Ukraine’s military activities, a Kyiv intelligence source said. The source said the strike was aimed at a “Voronezh M” radar near the city of Orsk in the Orenburg region some 1,500 km from the closest territory held by Kyiv’s forces. The source, who declined to be named, did not say if there was any damage, but the move would make it one of the deepest attempted drone strikes in Russian territory since...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Western leaders to pressure Russia into peace using "all means" necessary. ... Mr Zelensky has long said he will not negotiate with Russia directly until Moscow's forces leave all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. ... The Ukrainian president rejected the idea of inviting Russia to a planned peace summit in Switzerland next month. ... Delegates will "try and chart a course for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine" based on 10 demands set forth by Kyiv calling for the return of all invaded territory, reparation payments for war-related damages and the creation of a...

Who is Your Enemy? One of the most fundamental differences between the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and the proposed Georgian foreign agents law is the historical context in which the two laws originated, and who they were directed against. The US Congress adopted FARA in 1938 specifically to target lobbying and consulting firms acting on behalf of the Nazi German government. Concern about Soviet Communist agents also motivated the law. Of course, by 1938, the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt was already well aware that Nazi Germany presented a direct military and security threat to the country....

Designated airbase for hoped-for F16s clobbered by hypersonics...This is a conflict betwewen Christians and Nazis, and the nazis are losing...

The US has been outclassed by its rivals, such as Russia, in its capacity to remotely take out enemy weapons using jamming technology, according to former US military officials. Mike Nagata, a retired US Army lieutenant general who led special operations in the Middle East, said that the US is "still falling behind" in its electronic warfare capabilities, reported Defense One. Electronic warfare units, which use electronic signals to remotely scramble the GPS coordinates used to guide weapons, have played a key role in Russia's war in Ukraine. "The gap between where the United States should be and where we...

Russia is managing to produce artillery shells at triple the speed of Ukraine’s allies for a quarter of the price, Sky News reported on May 26, referencing analysis from management consulting firm Bain & Company. Using publicly available data, the firm claims that Russian factories can produce or refurbish 4.5 million 152 mm shells this year for $1,000 per round. European countries and the U.S. are only expected to produce 1.3 million 155 mm shells combined, at an average cost of $4,000 per unit. Slow artillery production has hindered Ukraine’s progress on the battlefield. Soldiers claim that for every round...

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said Ukraine should be allowed to use Western-supplied weapons in strikes against military targets inside Russia. In an interview with The Economist published on May 24, the NATO head called on members to “consider whether they should lift” their current restrictions, saying they make it “very hard” for Ukraine to defend itself.

Video footage of Vladimir Putin's press conference yesterday with Alexander Lukashenko. Russian President Putin Visits Belarus, Discusses Tactical Nuclear Exercises with Lukashenko

In mid-2022, Gazprom restricted gas flows to Europe in what was seen as a move by Putin to get both leverage against Kyiv's allies ahead of the winter season and retaliate against Western sanctions and support of Ukraine. But the EU managed to find alternative long-term sources of gas imports and free itself from most Russian piped-gas imports ... Gazprom's revenue fell by 41 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2023, while sales profits dropped 71 percent and gas production by 25 percent... The report said the company's upstream gas-production base is now isolated because infrastructure connecting its main...

Sen. Vance, freshman senator from Ohio, started the conference critiquing what he called the foreign policy consensus: “One of my favorite passages from the Bible is ‘by their fruits, you shall know them.’ What are the fruits of the last 40 years of American foreign policy? Of course, it's a disaster in Iraq. It's a disaster in Afghanistan and Syria. It's [a disaster] in Lebanon. On issue after issue after issue, somehow, the foreign policy consensus in this town seems to almost always be wrong.” He levied this critique against the current war in Ukraine as well, saying that his...

Russia's war in Ukraine has revealed to the world in graphic detail the smorgasbord of lethal technologies that can be used to destroy one's enemy in a large-scale 21st-century clash. But despite all the capabilities of such cutting-edge military tech, Moscow's primary frontline tactic appears ripped from the playbook of World War I generals - batter Ukrainians with artillery before dispatching waves of soldiers to secure territory inch by blood-soaked inch. It's a style of warfare reminiscent of the Battle of Passchendaele - but it has proved nonetheless effective with Vladimir Putin's forces gaining territory hand over fist in eastern...

... Russian officials have repeatedly called attention to the question of Zelenskyy’s term in office during the past week. “Of course, we are aware that the legitimacy of the current head of state has ended,” Putin said at a news conference in Minsk after talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “We must be completely sure that we are dealing with legitimate authorities,” said Putin, who has repeatedly stated that Russia is ready for talks with Ukraine.

The removal of the navigation buoys is part of a 'broader pattern of provocative behaviour' by the Kremlin, the EU's chief diplomat says. The EU's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has asked Moscow for an "explanation" after buoys on the Narva River demarcating Estonia's border with Russia were removed in the early hours of Thursday. According to Estonian border guards, their Russian counterparts confiscated 24 of 50 buoys intended to mark sailing routes on the border waterway, an act which Borrell described as "unacceptable." "This border incident is part of a broader pattern of provocative behaviour and hybrid actions by...

MOSCOW/LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines, four Russian sources told Reuters, saying he is prepared to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond. Three of the sources, familiar with discussions in Putin's entourage, said the veteran Russian leader had expressed frustration to a small group of advisers about what he views as Western-backed attempts to stymie negotiations and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's decision to rule out talks.

The US State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy in response to a repressive law and crackdowns on protests in Georgia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Thursday. Blinken, who noted that he hopes the country’s leaders will reconsider the so-called “foreign agents” bill, said the new visa policy would target “individuals who are responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia, as well as their family members.” “This includes individuals responsible for suppressing civil society and freedom of peaceful assembly in Georgia through a campaign of violence or intimidation,” he said in a statement. The United...