Free Republic

The young Russians who fled their country for neighboring Kazakhstan to avoid being conscripted to fight in Ukraine all want to go home one day. They just don’t know when that will be. Russians refusing to fight in Ukraine flee country but long for home “I feel very sad, because, actually, I love Russia,” a 25-year-old Muscovite told NBC News in the biggest city in Kazakhstan, Almaty, a prime destination for Russians avoiding conscription. “Maybe I stay here two or three months. I don’t know.” Like the other wary exiles NBC News spoke with, the young Muscovite asked not to...

Israel’s two chief rabbis, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Rabbi David Lau, Egypt’s Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb and Pope Francis were just some of the top clergy who gathered last month at the VII Congress of Leaders of World And Traditional Religions in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital city, to discuss ways in which the world’s religious leaders could work together to overcome extremism, conflict and disunity around the world. “It was an extremely well-organized event and obviously the centerpiece was the participation of the pope,” Malcolm Hoenlein, vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who was...

Kazakhstan is home to 18 religious’ denominations, making it one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. In September, it opened its doors for a global interfaith dialogue. Its capital Astana hosted the 7th edition of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. Delegates from more than 50 countries came together, urging peace and consolidation around the world. “The efforts of world leaders, the efforts of international organizations are not enough to overcome the challenges that humanity is facing. And the voice of spiritual leaders who have great authority among the world's population, calls for the...

Over the past ten years, China’s Communist Party (CCP) has strategically relied on its $4 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost its image and influence with at least 149 countries to date. But success has eluded its efforts, and the BRI strategy may be doomed as a result. Consider for example the CCP’s stalled attempts at pushing the BRI strategy across countries in Europe. Not anticipated were the barriers and delays created by sanctions imposed on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Before the sanctions, China used Russia as a convenient transit point for the shipment of BRI...

"China is our most important partner," says Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on the prospect of Afghanistan becoming part of the New Silk Road initiative

China called on its citizens still in Ukraine to strengthen security precautions and evacuate the country given the severe security situation within Ukraine on Saturday. The appeal was made by the Foreign Ministry and China’s embassy in Ukraine in a news release. Already last week, the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine had issued three successive notices, reiterating the grave safety situation in the country, reminding Chinese nationals to take emergency shelter and prepare emergency supplies.

More than 200,000 Russian citizens have arrived in Kazakhstan since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his partial mobilization order, according to Kazakh Interior Minister Marat Akhmetzhanov. One of them is Russian government official Dmitry Palyuga who is also calling on Vladimir Putin to resign. He spoke with CNN’s Erin Burnett.

As Russians escaping a partial military mobilization in their homeland drank their morning coffee in a cinema that opened its doors for them in northwestern Kazakhstan, Central Asia was waking up to yet more fallout from Moscow’s bloody war in Ukraine. Almost a week into the drive for soldiers that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on September 21 in response to a tide-shifting Ukrainian counteroffensive, sightings of Russians wandering the streets of cities throughout the region with backpacks and lost expressions have become commonplace. So, too, have lengthening lines at the state borders that Russian citizens can still cross without...

Russian men who are fleeing the country to avoid being drafted into Moscow’s war against Ukraine should seek asylum in the US, the White House said Tuesday. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her regular briefing that the response inside Russia to the so-called “partial mobilization” ordered last week by the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, shows “this war that was started by the Kremlin is unpopular.” “Regardless of their nationality, [people] may apply for asylum in the United States and have their claims adjudicated on a case by case basis,” Jean-Pierre added. “We welcome any folks who are seeking...

Russia has just finished a Potemkin referendum conducted in the illegally occupied Ukrainian oblasts (provinces) of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson (see Vladimir Putin to Address Russia; Annexation of Ukraine Provinces and Mobilization Seem to Be on the Table). The “voting” began on September 23, and the question is whether those provinces wish to be annexed to Russia.There are complicating factors. All four oblasts are on the front line of a war between Putin’s invading army and the armed forces of Ukraine. Many, if not most, of the residents, are refugees. The voting began within 48 hours after the announcement....

Vladimir Putin appeared poised to go all-in on his war in Ukraine today, sparking fears of an escalation in fighting that could drag in NATO and spark World War Three. In a day of rapid-fire developments, Kremlin stooges in Ukraine's Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions simultaneously announced referendums on becoming part of Russia between September 23 and 27, with the sham votes expected to easily pass. Dmitry Medvedev, a staunch Putin ally, then vowed 'all forces of self-defence' will be used to protect what he called 'Russian territory' - teeing up a new phase in the conflict involving weapons...

Tehran (AsiaNews) – Iran will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the signing of the memorandum of obligation at a summit in Samarkand, on 15-16 September. “This year, within Uzbekistan's chairmanship, Iran, as an observer state will ... become a full-fledged member of the SCO,” RIA Novosti quoted Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov as saying yesterday during a meeting in Moscow. Iran took one step closer to full membership on 17 September last year when its application was accepted 15 years after it was made. On that date, SCO began the country's accession, which usually...

Tony Bobulinski, one of Hunter Biden’s former business associates, is worried that former elite FBI agent Timothy Thibault may have helped hide information he provided the bureau about his relationship with the Biden family, directly familiar sources told The Washington Free Beacon. Except that wasn’t supposed to happen: “Someone please remind Democrats that according to the precedent established during Alexander Vindman, nobody gets to question the veracity, the motives and the integrity of great Patriot and naval veteran Tony Bobulinski while giving testimony to the Senate tomorrow. Check and mate.” Bobulinski was brave enough to give his story to the...

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...

Russian tourists in Kazakhstan have faced anger from locals and even fines from police for sporting pro-war Z stickers on their cars.

Philip Perry, who is married to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, is a partner at the same law firm representing President Joe Biden’s scandal-ridden son, Hunter. Last week, the Daily Mail reached out to Hunter Biden’s attorney for comment on a story unearthing new details to the extent the younger Biden leveraged the family name for lucrative overseas business ventures. In 2014, the paper reported, then-Vice President Biden met with a pair of Chinese energy executives connected to Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals. An attorney named Christopher Clark, who is listed with the firm Latham & Watkins as partner, responded to...

Kazakhstan has significantly boosted its defence spending while seeking to strengthen ties with China and Nato nations amid anxieties that Moscow could expand its geopolitical ambitions beyond Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported, citing a Kazakh official. The ex-Soviet state is committing an additional Kazakhstani tenge (KZT) 441bn ($918mn) to its defence budget, marking a nearly 1.5-fold rise from last year’s budget of $1.7bn, the newspaper reported. Part of the money would go to increasing Kazakhstan’s military reserves, according to a the quoted senior official, who added that Kazakhstan has learned lessons from Ukraine’s fierce resistance to the...

Kazakhstan's president fired two more top security officials on Sunday after the worst unrest in three decades of post-Soviet independence and authorities said the situation was stabilising, with Russian-led troops guarding key facilities. The sacked officials were deputies to former intelligence chief Karim Massimov, who was arrested on suspicion of treason after violent protests swept the oil- and uranium-producing Central Asian republic that borders Russia and China. Thousands of people have been detained and public buildings torched during mass anti-government protests in the past week. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev issued shoot-to-kill orders to end unrest he has blamed on bandits and...

At the start of the year, Russia dispatched more than 2,000 troops to its longtime ally Kazakhstan to help put down violent antigovernment unrest. Six weeks later, when Russian troops stormed into Ukraine, Kazakhstan had an opportunity to repay the favor by supporting the invasion. It didn’t.

Kazakhstan’s president on Thursday blasted his government for its handling of a sugar crisis as shortages and price spikes contributed to chaotic scenes in supermarkets. Rising living costs since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic have helped fuel unrest in Central Asia, including in the region’s richest country, Kazakhstan, where bloody turmoil in January left 238 people dead. Demonstrators attend a rally in memory of victims of the recent country-wide unrest in Almaty on February 13, 2022. Hundreds gathered in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty on February 13, 2022 to commemorate victims of the deadly unrest last month, defying an official...