Free Republic

WASHINGTON — With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO’s military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev’s beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday. President Obama has made no decisions on providing such lethal assistance. But after a series of striking reversals that Ukraine’s forces have suffered in recent weeks, the Obama administration is taking a fresh look at the question of military assistance. Secretary of State John Kerry, who plans to visit Kiev on Thursday, is...

The Republic found itself at the centre of the latest muscle-flexing exercise by Vladimir Putin after Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons flew past the west coast. A diplomatic spat erupted as the Irish Government warned it was “absolutely unacceptable” that the two Tupolev 95s were in Irish-controlled airspace for five hours without notifying the authorities. The planes were flying with their transponders switched off – meaning they could not be ‘seen’ by civilian aircraft as they passed through the busy airspace, where around 1,800 planes a day travel. The aircraft were tracked by RAF Typhoon jets for more...

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Thousands of protesters in Budapest are demanding the ouster of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government a day before a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Around 3,000 people attended the rally Sunday, which organizer Balazs Gulyas said was meant to show "that the majority of the country does not support (Orban's) policies going closer to Vladimir Putin." Orban's dealings with Moscow, including an agreement for Russia to build new reactors at Hungary's nuclear power plant and a loan of 10 billion euros ($11.3 billion) to help finance the project, are expected to be on the agenda...

Ukraine wants the United Nations to brand Russia a terrorism sponsor amid bloody clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government troops. The Ukrainian ambassador to the UN told Fox News he plans to submit a draft resolution asking the UN General Assembly to formally label “Russia as a sponsor of terrorism." Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev gave no timetable for when he would present the resolution to the UN. He said government officials in Kiev are working on the text. Sergeyev told Fox News the resolution will mirror the Ukrainian parliament’s declaration this week, designating the Moscow-backed separatists in East Ukraine as...

Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t been one to back down in response to sanctions against his country and attacks on his economy. Rather, he has stepped up not only his rhetoric, but his military activities as well. His latest move is yet another show of force to let the West know Russia is prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect its interests. The U.K.’s Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets on Thursday after a pair of nuclear-capable Russian bombers flew across a busy civilian air traffic corridor above the English Channel. The bombers had their transponders turned off, British...

"Eight former U.S. national security practitioners — the two of us, plus former U.S. representative to NATO Ivo Daalder, former undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, former deputy undersecretary of defense Jan Lodal, former NATO European commander James Stavridis and former U.S. European Command deputy commander Charles Wald — come together issuing following recommendations for immediate action. (releasing Monday report: “Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do.”) First, White House and Congress must commit serious money to Ukraine’s defense: $1 billion in military assistance this fiscal year,...

Russia has suspended work in the PACE for a year following the adoption of a resolution depriving the Russian delegation of its voting rights in the organization until the April session. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted on Wednesday a resolution depriving the Russian delegation of its voting rights in the organization until at least the April session. The resolution stresses that the revision of the decision and other sanctions against Russia could be held during opening meetings of the April session if Moscow demonstrates substantial progress in meeting the PACE demands over Russia's alleged role...

More than 25 years after the Berlin Wall’s fall, Russian lawmakers are mulling a proposal to condemn West Germany’s 1990 “annexation” of East Germany as Moscow’s answer to Western denunciation of its seizure of Crimea. Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of Russian parliament’s lower house, on Wednesday ordered legislators to consider an appeal from a Communist Party deputy to denounce the reunification of Germany as an illegal land grab of East Germany by its western neighbor. The collapse of Socialist rule in East Germany—officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR)—heralded the end of the Cold War, and was met with jubilation...

he new far-left government in Greece dropped a bombshell on its first day in office by abjuring an EU statement on Russia. It said in a press communique on Tuesday (27 January): “the aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece”. “In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement”. It added that its new PM, Alexis Tsipras, expressed “discontent” in a phone call to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini. The EU statement on Russia, published on Tuesday morning,...

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Arutz Sheva on Tuesday in time for International Holocaust Memorial Day that the battle over the Holocaust lives on—and is being waged on the field of public memory. According to Zuroff, aside from the widespread scourge of Holocaust denial, a new phenomenon has reared its head recently in eastern Europe, where there are attempts to minimize the genocidal horrors committed against the Jewish people and revise history. “This phenomenon should worry the state of Israel and the Foreign Ministry,” emphasized Zuroff. “In post-Communist eastern Europe, they’re trying...

It took Alexander Litvinenko 23 painful days to die. It has taken another agonizing 2,987 days for the British government to open a public inquiry into his murder, a process that cannot deliver justice to the victim, his widow Marina or son Anatoly, but may at least provide an official account of events leading up to his death. As he lay dying after ingesting radioactive polonium-210, Litvinenko blamed the Kremlin. Yet the evidence expected to unfold at the High Court in London over the next 10 weeks is likely to reveal not only an intricate web of relationships between spies...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “common criminal dressed up as a Head of State” who ordered the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to stop him exposing him, the inquiry heard. The former spy was murdered for trying to reveal Putin’s close links to organised crime and a cabal of crime lords who prop up his corrupt regime, it was claimed. Ben Emmerson QC, representing the Litvinenko family, said the trail behind the “act of unspeakable barbarism” led directly to Putin’s door. He said Russia was a “Mafia state” where the Kremlin and Russian organised crime syndicates were “indistinguishable”. Mr Litvinenko...

Russian-Backed Separatist Commander Givi Tortures Ukrainian POWs 16:07 (GMT) An extremely graphic video was uploaded January 22 to YouTube showing Givi, commander of the Somalia Battalion of the Russian-backed separatist forces of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republics" (DNR). Givi, a commander who has been popularized in hundreds of Russian state TV broadcasts and "Novorossiya" YouTube channels, is shown beating, threatening and screaming at Ukrainian POWs evidently arrested after the fall of the Donetsk Airport to separatists on January 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-gJ46pVLMo Open News Room's Donie O'Sullivan noted that bald man seen in the line-up of POWs and clearly at 4.12 in...

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoons. A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president...

Igor Girkin, ex-minister of defense of the so-called Donetsk Republic, who fled Donetsk in August of 2014, when Ukrainian forces began their suppression of terrorist forces, has now become a peculiar kind of self-whistle blower. Recently, sitting in a studio of the “Polit-Ring” debate TV show featured by something called NeuroMirTV, Girkin has openly described some of the schemes which were implemented during the illegal referendum in Crimea in the spring of 2014, which was later used as the excuse by Russia for the annexation of the peninsula. As his opponent is passionately describing how Crimean outfits of the Ukrainian...

Despite all the fear-mongering by Nea Demokratia (ND), Syriza's victory over the incumbent is dramatically larger than expected (exit polls indicate a potential 12 point margin vs 7 point spreads in the run-up). However, as JPMorgan details, the fear-mongery was very evident in bank deposit runs as proxied outflows surge EUR8 billion last week - more than all of December and the rest of January combined...Via JPMorgan Flows & LiquidityGreek deposit outflows rise sharply this week The monthly Bank of Greece balance sheet data for the month of December revealed a significant increase in Greek bank ECB borrowing which...

Spot report by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), 24 January 2015: Shelling Incident on Olimpiiska Street in Mariupol MARIUPOL 24 January 2015 Where We Are: OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine What We Do: Conflict prevention and resolution This report is provided for the media and general public. At approximately 09:15hrs on 24 January, the SMM in government-controlled Mariupol heard at its location incoming massed Multi-Launch Rocket System (MLRS) attacks from a north-east direction, consisting of an extremely heavy barrage lasting 35 seconds. Twenty minutes later the SMM received information from the Joint Centre for Control and...

1st Aviation Brigade of US Army fighting in Mariupol, Ukraine?

Amid the devastation of yesterday's Mariupol artillery strikes which killed or wounded dozens, which was promptly blamed by both sides on the "adversary" - and has been proclaimed by both 'sides' (more on that later) as more violent than before the truce - an 'odd' clip has emerged that appears to provide all the 'proof' a US intelligence officer would need to surmise that US military boots are on the ground in Ukraine. As the following clip shows, a Ukrainian journalist approaches what she thinks is a Ukrainian soldier (since he is wearing a Ukrainian military uniform and is carrying...

Germany would be prepared to negotiate a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Russia as a way out of the deadlocked Ukraine conflict, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday. Merkel told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Germany was “ready” to open talks about “possibilities for cooperating in a collective trade area”, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. But she said that a precondition for the plan, suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin several years ago but ignored by European leaders, would be a comprehensive peace agreement in Ukraine. …