Free Republic

Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City who was involved in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia during the 2016 election, has fallen under the scrutiny of a grand jury convened by U.S. attorneys late last year for his own ties with Russia and other foreign governments, reports Insider. The grand jury is reportedly investigating McGonigal’s business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, according to a recently obtained...

A high-level executive in Russia’s energy sector has died after apparently falling off a boat over the weekend, becoming the latest Russian powerbroker to perish under mysterious circumstances. Ivan Pechorin, 39, managing director of the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (ERDC), was sailing off the coast of Russky Island in the Sea of Japan on Saturday when he fell overboard from the speeding vessel. His body was recovered from the water on Monday following an extended search. Only days earlier, Pechorin had attended the Eastern Economic Forum, which was hosted by President Vladimir Putin in Valdivostok. “Ivan’s death is...

The Manhattan apartment and Southampton mansion of a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin were raided by federal agents on Thursday, according to the FBI and a report. An FBI spokesperson confirmed agents “conducted law enforcement activity” at the Upper East Side high-rise and Long Island estate linked to billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, but declined to comment further. FBI officials and Homeland Security Investigation agents were seen carrying boxes out of Vekselberg’s 515 Park Ave. apartment building and his Southampton mansion at 19 Duck Pond Lane, according to NBC New York, which first reported the searches. The US...

A presenter on Russian state television has issued an apparent threat to "traitors" living in Britain. Kirill Kleymenov warned of the dangers of spying on Russia and advised those who betrayed their country: "Don't choose Britain as a place to live." The comments, made on Channel One's Vremya news programme on Wednesday evening, came amid speculation over who was behind the attempted murder of a double agent on British soil. "I don't wish death on anyone, but, purely for educational purposes, I have a warning for anyone who dreams of such a career," he reportedly said. "The profession of a...

It’s a dangerous time to be a Russian oil executive lately, as eight have died since January under suspicious circumstances. Six of them were linked to state-owned giant Gazprom, while the other two were with Lukoil, the second-largest oil company in the country.The most recent oligarch to meet an untimely end was Ravil Maganov, the (now former) chair of the board of directors of Lukoil who apparently fell from a 6-story window at a Moscow hospital on September 1. His company had criticized Russia’s invasion in Ukraine in March. Hmm.This morning Ravil Maganov, head of Lukoil board of directors, fell...

The WEF boasted it had recruited around 110,000 “volunteers” who would ensure that the opinions of dissenters around the world are discovered, tracked, and censored. In November 2020. The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced it had recruited hundreds of thousands of “information warriors” to control the internet. WEF Leader Klaus Schwab and his fellow globalists have unleashed their digital soldiers to police social media platforms and forums for “misinformation” and “conspiracy” content. As a result, efforts are being made to ensure systematic censorship, such as banning and suppressing social media accounts. In the first year of the pandemic, the controversial...

The daughter of an ultranationalist Russian ideologue believed to have had a strong influence on Vladimir Putin has been killed in a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow, according to multiple media reports. Darya Dugin, daughter of Russian political commentator Alexander Dugin – dubbed “Putin’s brain” – died when the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving was ripped apart by a powerful explosion about 20km west of the capital at around 9.30pm local time. The blast occurred near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy, according to Russian media sites Baza and 112, and state-owned Novaya Gazeta. Witnesses said debris was...

The president's admission that he willingly failed to signal a looming Russian attack has ?punctured the bubble? of his image Many Ukrainians have been infuriated by an admission, from President Vladimir Zelensky, that he concealed news of the imminent Russian special military operation last spring. That's according to the Washington Post, where he made the revelation earlier this week. Zelensky's disclosure that he sacrificed lives to avoid ruining the economy was his first serious communication blunder since the conflict began, the paper said.

Next year Leonid Nevzlin will mark 20 years since his escape from Russia and immigration to Israel. When he fled Russia in 2003, Yukos, the oil giant at which he served as vice president, was forcibly broken up and Nevzlin’s associates were arrested and thrown into Siberian prisons on what many claim were trumped-up and politically motivated charges of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering. Meanwhile, the Russian government demanded that Israel extradite Nevzlin, whom it accused of murder, several counts of conspiracy to commit murder and financial crimes. Israel has repeatedly refused. Nevzlin has long been a vocal critic of...

Three powerful and prominent Jews in Ukraine appear to have had their citizenship stripped as their long-simmering conflict with President Volodymyr Zelensky has reached a boiling point amid the war with Russia.The three men are among the wealthiest Jews in Ukraine, and the official reason for the move appears to be that they hold foreign citizenship — including in Israel. Dual citizenship is technically illegal in Ukraine but is widely tolerated in practice. Several alternate theories are also circulating, including that Zelensky is purging oligarchs with checkered pasts in an effort to prove to the United States and other Western...

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska have sparked a strong reaction online, after posing for a Vogue photoshoot in the midst of their nation's ongoing fight against invading Russian troops. With more than 150 days having passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin's fighters entered neighboring Ukraine, the couple posed for the U.S. edition of the fashion bible in a series of shots taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. While glamorous shots show the two hugging one another while seated at a table, another shows the first lady sitting on the grand staircase of a building filled with...

We have been working for the enemy for a long time: new details of the case of Kulinich and Sivkovich, who are suspected of involvement in the surrender of the South. EXCLUSIVE Details of the case of high treason of the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine in Crimea Oleg Kulinich and former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Vladimir Sivkovich, who are suspected of surrendering the south of Ukraine to the Russian invaders in February 2022, have become known. According to the investigation, both worked for the enemy since at least June...

The U.S. is shipping four additional HIMARS launchers to Ukraine as part of its latest package of military assistance to counter Russia. It will include artillery ammunition and rockets and be the 16th drawdown of firepower from the Pentagon’s own inventory since last August. Ukraine will have 16 HIMARS from the U.S. and four more rocket launchers from other allied countries...Proxy officials working on Moscow’s behalf will arrange sham referendums on joining Russia, officials said. “Russia is attempting to set the conditions on the ground by seeking to establish branches of Russian banks, to establish the ruble as the default...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine's history of rampant corruption and shaky governance.As it presses ahead with providing tens of billions of dollars in military, economic and direct financial support aid to Ukraine and encourages its allies to do the same, the Biden administration is now once again grappling with longstanding worries about Ukraine's suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of American aid.Those issues, which date back decades and were not...

Ari Fleischer is wrong. In promoting his new book Suppression, Deception, Snobbery, and Bias: Why the Press Gets So Much Wrong — And Just Doesn’t Care, the former White House Press Secretary writes the following: “The press is not the enemy of the people, but they are their own worst enemy. And they’ve done this to themselves.”Sorry, Ari.The media are, in fact, your enemy. And mine. And ours....As I will argue in a forthcoming book, the American media is now the equivalent of the Stasi, the diabolical East German secret police who acted like a violent criminal gang under communism....

A major bridge in occupied Kherson has been hit by Ukraine's armed forces. The Antonivskyy (RU: Antonovskiy) spans the Dnipro river and is the shortest route for the occupiers to reach the city from Crimea.

Hunter Biden allegedly used the Naval Observatory as his hub to meet foreign political and business leaders while Joe Biden was vice president for eight years.. Hunter Biden met with his father at least 30 times at the White House or the vice president’s residence, often just days after he returned home from overseas business jaunts. The breakfasts, lunches and other gabfests between 2008 and 2016 raise questions about whether Hunter was relaying messages to his father on behalf of foreign clients, and cast new doubt on the president’s repeated denials that he had any role in his son’s shady...

If you were holding out hope that the media and military analysts predicting the imminent collapse of Russia because of the failed invasion of Ukraine would get a grip on reality, think again. I take the New York Times as the leading indicator of the establishment mindset and the Times published a piece that reveals the delusion and confusion about the war in Ukraine that infects the Washington/New York Swamps.Put simply, the article–Ukraine’s Demands for More Weapons Clash With U.S. Concerns–tacitly concedes Russia is winning but holds out hope for a dramatic Ukrainian come back. Here are the highlights (and...

More than four months into Russia’s invasion, the wail of air raid sirens warning of an incoming strike has become, to some Ukrainians, a kind of background noise: irritating, alarming, but also possible to ignore. A series of deadly missile attacks by Russian forces in recent days that have hit civilian targets, however, has changed the calculus, sending Ukraine’s leaders scrambling to reinforce the message that adherence to the advisory to seek shelter saves lives. “I’m begging you, once again: Please don’t ignore the air alert signals,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a national address this weekend. “Appropriate...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, ordered the Ukrainian military to re-establish control over coastal regions in southern Ukraine. Ukraine is amassing a million-strong fighting force in order to achieve this goal.Source: Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s Minister of Defence, in an interview for The Times [of London]Details: "Ukraine is massing a million-strong fighting force equipped with western weapons to recover its southern territory from Russia," The Times wrote.Reznikov said that President Zelenskyy had ordered Ukraine’s military to retake occupied coastal areas which are vital to the country’s economy.Quote from Reznikov: "We understand that, politically, it’s very necessary for our country. The president...