Free Republic

Spare some pity for Mike Johnson, the stuck speaker of the House of Representatives. A relatively obscure congressman thrust into leadership six months ago when the ungovernable Republican majority threw out the former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, Mr Johnson may be defenestrated too if he does something that he seems to think that he must: provide additional military aid to Ukraine, over the objections of the isolationist wing of his party. While the European Union and its member countries have contributed considerably to Ukraine’s budget and humanitarian needs, America has been Ukraine’s largest provider of military aid, amounting to $44bn since...

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he will try to advance wartime aid for Israel this week as he attempts the difficult task of winning House approval for a national security package that also includes funding for Ukraine and allies in Asia. Johnson, R-La., is already under immense political pressure from his fellow GOP lawmakers as he tries to stretch between the Republican Party’s divided support for helping Kyiv defend itself from Moscow’s invasion. The Republican speaker has sat for two months on a $95 billion supplemental package that would send support to the U.S. allies, as...

Republican lawmakers on Saturday demanded the U.S. launch a retaliatory strike against Iran for the drone and missile attacked launched against Israel. On Saturday, Iran launched hundreds of suicide drones toward Israel and later ballistic missiles in a retaliatory attack for an airstrike on the Iranian consulate building in Syria that killed Tehran’s top commanders. President Joe Biden vowed prior to the attack to do everything possible to protect Israel. However, aid to Israel amid the country’s war with Hamas has been delayed due to division within the Republican party. Following the attack, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced the House...

Iran's massive missile and drone barrage targeting Israel over the weekend is similar to Russian tactics used in frequent strikes on Ukraine, according to a new assessment, after Iran launched its first-ever direct strike from its own territory into Israel. "Iran's use of drones and missiles shows how Iran is learning from the Russians to develop increasingly dangerous and effective strike packages against Israel," the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Saturday. Russia has launched thousands of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine in nearly 26 months of all-out war in the country....

This week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin all but confirmed a blockbuster report in the Financial Times from late March indicating that the Biden administration was prepared to sacrifice Ukraine’s battlefield objectives if they imperiled his own reelection prospects. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Austin scolded Ukraine for executing long-range attacks on Russian oil refineries. “Ukraine is better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight,” the Pentagon chief said. But Austin gave away the game when he fretted that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian infrastructure “could have a knock-on effect.

Russia and NATO are now in "direct confrontation", the Kremlin said as the U.S.-led alliance marked its 75th anniversary on Thursday. NATO's successive waves of eastern enlargement are a fixation of President Vladimir Putin, who went to war in Ukraine two years ago with the stated aim of preventing the alliance from coming closer to Russia's borders. Instead, the war has galvanised NATO, which has expanded again with the entry of Finland and Sweden. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "In fact, relations have now slipped to the level of direct confrontation." NATO was "already involved in the conflict surrounding...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill on Tuesday to lower the conscription age to 25 in a bid to expand the ranks of his military ahead of what promises to be another tough year defending against Russia. With the Spring Thaw quickly approaching, fighting on the ground in the war between Russia and Ukraine is likely to again intensify. Last year, Kyiv launched a highly touted yet ultimately unsuccessful “counter-offensive” attempting to recapture lands seized by Moscow. This year, with dwindling manpower and alleged shortages of weapons and munitions, Ukraine appears content with digging in, while Moscow appears to...

The US must be aware of and avoid Russian disinformation operations at all costs if it wants to maintain its Western values and help Ukraine win the war, conflict analysts argue."Basic facts are in question daily as the Kremlin floods the Western debate with its narratives," analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a March 27 report.The analysts said that "the notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia's dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin's real strategy and only real hope of success."For years, Russia has...

<p>The U.S. and other Western countries are considering transferring to NATO a U.S.-led multinational group that coordinates the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, one of several new proposals that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kyiv under a second Donald Trump presidency.</p>

Victoria Nuland: "With this money, Ukraine will be able to accelerate the asymmetric warfare that has been most effective on the battlefield. As I said in Kiev three weeks ago, this supplemental funding will ensure Putin faces some nasty surprises on the battlefield this year."