Free Republic

The question of who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines is likely to remain an unsolved mystery for some time.Even as new details surface from European investigators, one of the most intriguing clues to recently emerge comes not from official probes but via a 29-year-old open-source analyst based in Denmark. Oliver Alexander spent months analyzing data from the maritime Automatic Identification System, or AIS, from vessels that passed near the site of three out of the four pipeline ruptures shortly before the damage. He noticed that the Minerva Julie, a 600-foot Greek-flagged tanker, was headed east from Rotterdam when, on...

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul discusses President Trump’s latest phone call with Vladimir Putin Watch TV shows, movies and more on Yahoo View

The diplomatic relations between Russia and Estonia were downgraded on Monday after the latter's ambassador was ordered to leave Russia, as the country was accused of "total Russophobia". As the Estonian ambassador was expelled, the Russian foreign ministry announced on Monday that the charge d’affaires will head the diplomatic mission of the country. "The ambassador of the Estonian Republic will have to leave the Russian Federation on February 7," stated the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the diplomatic representation of Estonia will also be downgraded from now. According to the statement, the measure was adopted after the...

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, the number of Russian citizens with Estonian roots interested in relocating to Estonia has gone up severalfold. Nonetheless, of 46 such applications received last year, the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) approved just four. Latvian Public Broadcasting (LSM) reported Wednesday that the Latvian state wants to repeal its Repatriation Law due to significant interest in it among Russian citizens. Namely, the law provided Latvians and Livonians, or people with Latvian or Livonian forebears, with the opportunity to relocate, or in some cases figuratively return, to Latvia. Estonia has no...

Estonia is planning to implement a directive that will require fuel retailers to display how much it costs to cover a 100-kilometre journey with each fuel, writes Äripäev. Thus, petrol stations will be obliged to display in euros the financial cost for an "average vehicle" of a 100-kilometre journey. The wider aim is to encourage drivers to buy more environmentally friendly vehicles. The ministry of the economy said the need for the amendment was due to the interpretation of the Alternative Fuels Implementation Directive, which aims to inform consumers about the cost per kilometre of a vehicle using different fuels,...

On this date in 1573, the Swedish commander of Weissenstein (present-day Paide, Estonia), Hans Boije af Gennäs was executed when his fortress was overrun by Russian troops, during the Livonian War. A walled city with a Teutonic Knights-built keep, Weissenstein sat at a crossroads in interior Livonia and changed hands several times during this decades-long multilateral conflict involving Russia, Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Poland, and Lithuania — the latter two of which united into a Commonwealth during the war. Big picture, the Livonian War ran from 1558 to 1583; the stakes were, as one might guess, control of Livonia — essentially, the...

US Sends Infantry Unit To Base Just Miles Away From Russian Border In Estonia Last week the US Embassy in Lithuania announced the Pentagon plans to step up troop deployments in the Baltic states, taking what was previously categorized as "episodic" troop deployments and…

We have seen an increase in calls for a negotiated solution of the war in Ukraine. From the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, from progressive members of Congress and from leading international relations scholars, a growing number of voices urge the United States to invest in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and to give peace a chance. According to some reports, the Biden administration is also warming up to the thought.It’s a dangerous idea.Fears of nuclear escalation between Russia and NATO drive many to argue for negotiations, and although the impetus is well-intentioned, the suggestion is naive and impractical. In...

Moscow’s full-scale war did not come as a surprise to us, but we didn’t believe it would so closely replay those old atrocities. Whenever I receive guests in Tallinn ..I show them a room where portraits line the wallse depicting Estonian heads of government before WWII. I ask my guests to look at the dates of their deaths; all lost their lives at the hands of Soviet occupants in the 1940s or died in Soviet captivity. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not come as a surprise to Estonia, but we did not believe it would so closely replay those old...

The United Nations General Assembly's first committee, which deals with disarmament, global challenges, and threats to peace that affect the international community, voted 152-5, on Friday, on a resolution concerning "the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East". The resolution states that Israel must dispose of all its nuclear weapons and place its nuclear sites under the International Atomic Energy Agency's purview. The resolution, which is submitted every year to the UNGA in New York, was submitted by Egypt and sponsored by the Palestinian Authority and 19 counties including Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. Canada, Israel,...

The leaders of nine NATO nations from Central and Eastern Europe issued a joint statement on Sunday in support of Ukraine's path to membership in the alliance. "We firmly stand behind the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit decision concerning Ukraine’s future membership," the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Czechia, Romania, North Macedonia, and Slovakia said on Sunday. At that 2008 summit, NATO allies said they "welcomed" Ukraine and Georgia's aspirations to the join the alliance, though no clear timetable has ever been announced.

In the hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin was expected to address the nation regarding plans to conduct “referendums” in Ukraine’s occupied territories Tuesday, searches for the phrase “How to leave Russia” spiked on Google. The surge was noted by the Telegram channel Mozhem Obyasnit, though it’s available for all to see on Google Trends. The phrase’s popularity appears to have peaked at about 6:00 pm Moscow time.https://t.me/mozhemobyasnit/13553?singlehttps://t.me/mozhemobyasnit/13554?singlehttps://t.me/mozhemobyasnit/13555?singleEarlier Tuesday, Russian lawmakers unanimously passed legislation introducing the concepts of "mobilization" and "martial law" to the criminal code. That, combined with Russian-installed officials in Ukraine's occupied territories calling for "referendums" on annexation...

Alexander Avilov / Moskva News Agency Thousands of conscription-age Russian men appeared to be attempting to flee the country Wednesday as others planned how to avoid being sent to the front after President Vladimir Putin declared a partial military mobilization for the war in Ukraine. “I don't want to be cannon fodder,” one 30-year-old Muscovite who asked for anonymity to speak freely told The Moscow Times. The most obvious way for men to avoid conscription is to leave the country and Wednesday’s direct flights from Russia to Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan — nearby countries that allow Russians to enter...

Terrified Russians are scrambling to flee the country today with one-way flights out of Moscow sold out after Vladimir Putin sparked mass panic by ordering a troop mobilisation in a dramatic escalation of the Ukraine war. Tickets to Johannesburg for a family of three were earlier fetching £44,000, while the cheapest flights from the capital to Dubai were costing more than £4,500 - about five times the average monthly wage, amid the desperate race to escape the potential conscription. In a nationwide speech, Putin ordered the call-up of 300,000 military reserves - a first in Russia since the Second World...

Russian airlines have stopped selling tickets to Russian men aged 18 to 65 unless they can provide evidence of approval to travel from the Ministry of Defense. All flights from Russia to available foreign destinations were sold out Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial” mobilization of the country’s 25 million reservists. Flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia — which do not require visas for Russians — for Sept. 21 were unavailable within minutes of Putin’s announcement, according to Russia’s top travel planning website aviasales.ru. By noon Moscow time, direct flights from Moscow to...

Russian nationals living in Estonia will have their firearms forcibly confiscated by the police if they refuse to hand them over voluntarily under a new law. The gun confiscation measure will also apply to Belarusians living in the eastern European country. The government has finalized the details of the bill and it will be put before the legislature, after which it is expected to be voted into law. ...

Turkish Bayraktar TB2 have destroyed more than 800 Russian targets in ongoing war between Russian and Ukraine including two Ilyushin IL-76 strategic airlifter and more than 120 tanks Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial reconnaissance and strike vehicles turned out to be quite an effective weapon in the fight against various kinds of targets. As it turned out, these drones showed the greatest efficiency in the fight against MLRS, air defence systems and tanks, destroying more than 120 units of heavy combat vehicles and more than 280 missile launchers, although drones even account for combat aircraft and helicopters. According to statistics published...

NEW YORK (AP) — As winter nears, European nations, desperate to replace the natural gas they once bought from Russia, have embraced a short-term fix: A series of roughly 20 floating terminals that would receive liquefied natural gas from other countries and convert it into heating fuel. Yet the plan, with the first floating terminals set to deliver natural gas by year’s end, has raised alarms among scientists who fear the long-term consequences for the environment. Some scientists say they worry that the floating terminals will end up becoming a long-term supplier of Europe’s vast energy needs that could last...

The Estonian government wants to ban the memory of the Soviet past from public life. Riots and Russian cyber attacks cannot be ruled out. At the center of the controversy is an old tank. Lenin got it: his statue still stands in Estonia’s third-largest city, Narva, but it was moved to a secluded, walled-in corner in the courtyard in the 1990s. In the summer, the Russian revolutionary leader was surrounded by an ugly construction site fence. If the Estonian government under Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has its way, all Soviet monuments in the small Baltic state should disappear from public...

Latvia and Estonia have withdrawn from a cooperation framework between China and over a dozen Central and Eastern European countries on Thursday, following in the footsteps of Lithuania which withdrew last May. The move comes during Western criticism towards China for escalating military pressure on Taiwan, a democratically-ruled island that China claims as its own territory. “Past participation in the 16+1 format has not yielded the desired economic results,” Latvia’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters. Relations between Lithuania and China worsened after the Baltic nation allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy late last year. “Latvia’s continued participation in the...