Free Republic

It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding. On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense,...

Rebel commanders say Khamis Gaddafi, one of Colonel Gaddafi's most feared sons, has been killed in an air strike 60km south of Tripoli. He is said to have been in an armoured Toyota Land Cruiser when it was reportedly blasted off the road by a missile apparently from a Nato Apache helicopter. Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay, who is at the scene, said a man claiming to be Khamis' bodyguard confirmed that he had died in the vehicle. The explosion incinerated the 4x4 and was so intense it set nearby trees on fire, Ramsay reports. Claims about the death of...