Free Republic

16 Million Trees Cut Down to Make Way for Wind Farms, Scottish National Party RevealsNearly 16 million carbon-catching trees have been cut down in Scotland since 2000 – in order to erect carbon-saving wind turbines – the Scottish National Party (SNP) admitted last week. An estimated 15.7 million trees – or about 1,700 per day – have been cut down on public land managed by Forestry and Land Scotland, Scottish Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon revealed in a letter to Scottish Tory MSP (Member of Scottish Parliament) Liam Kerr, who called the news “astonishing.” Sacrificing trees to build wind farms...

Xi Jinping has a clearly-articulated view of the strategic rise of China. By 2049, Xi says, China will have become the dominant world power, once more enjoying the superior military, economic, political and cultural status that was usurped by Western imperialism in the 19th century. Since Xi’s rise to power, all his actions, at home and overseas, have focused on achieving this objective. His vision does not include a relationship with Russia as a peer, and never will. Ultimately, Xi Jinping needs only energy from Putin. Even though Beijing can bargain the price down, they will be buying such vast...

Advisers to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are actively preparing for a possible presidential run, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the conversations who described meetings and preliminary staffing moves — the latest indication that DeSantis is laying a foundation for a national campaign. DeSantis’s political team has already identified multiple potential hires in early primary states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, according to one of the Republicans, who said experienced operatives have expressed interest. This Republican also said that Phil Cox and Generra Peck — two key members of DeSantis’s 2022 reelection team — are involved in ongoing...

Update from Ukraine | Big Drama in Soledar Ukrainian Soldiers hold on | Ruzzian losses are huge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmDltUgQ9Js Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-322-summary/

Conservatives are obsessed with a patriotism litmus test rigged against Black Americans.Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian penal colony Thursday as part of a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was met with widespread celebration. Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison after vape canisters and cannabis oil were discovered in her luggage at the airport. President Joe Biden’s announcement that Griner was safely on a plane bound for the U.S. means the gay WNBA star will miraculously make it home to her wife and family in time for the holidays. But perhaps not surprisingly, the...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido Nord Stream sabotage and hybrid war on Europe 123,200 views Oct 4, 2022 Anders Puck Nielsen 66K subscribers Analysis of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. I use Kilcullen's theory about liminal warfare and prospect theory to analyse the operational design. This shows that Russia is the most likely suspect, because all other actors would have made different operational choices. I then give some pretty depressing perspectives on how Russia might use hybrid warfare against Europe. 0:00 Intro 1:02 Model for hybrid warfare 1:51 Operational design of Nord Stream sabotage 3:05 Consequences of the attack 4:59 US, Poland and Ukraine...

Putin Couldn't Believe What He saw! The Uprising is Growing in Donetsk! Welcome to the US Latest News channel. Watch the video to the end to find out the current and breaking news about the Russian war in Ukraine. In the light of the information we received in previous reports, it was determined that there were a total of 454 regions in Kharkiv and its surroundings that were liberated from the Russian invaders by the Ukrainian Defense Forces. In the liberated areas, the wreckage of the war was gradually removed and actions were taken to restore the people living in...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Danish Energy Agency says one of two ruptured natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea appears to have stopped leaking natural gas. The agency said on Twitter on Saturday that it had been informed by the company operating the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that pressure appears to have stabilized in the pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany. “This indicates that the leaking of gas in this pipeline has ceased,” the Danish Energy Agency said. Undersea blasts that damaged the Nord Stream I and 2 pipelines this week have led to huge methane leaks. Nordic...

Lyman direction -The Ukrainian Army liberated Drobysheve. Russian troops defending the town retreated to Lyman. -Ukrainian forces liberated Yampil and are pushing towards Lyman and Zarichne through the forest area. -Fighting is reported in the vicinity of Terny and Stavky. -The only exit route from Lyman is within the firing range of UA forces. Russian troops defending Lyman are de-facto surrounded. -The Ukrainian Army is also advancing north, but the movement is obscured by the fog of war and actual well maintained silence regime by Ukrainian soldiers. ✈ Denys Davydov Telegram Channel: https://t.me/pilotblog youtube.com/c/PilotBlogAirplanesandAviation https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is promising three protections to Russian soldiers who willingly surrender. Zelensky’s offer comes as Vladimir Putin announced plans to call up 300,000 reservists to replenish the troops who have died in battle. Zelensky delivered his offer directly to Russians as he made his nightly video address.Zelensky addressed them in Russian. He said every Russian soldier who surrenders is guaranteed three protections.1. You will be treated in a civilised manner, in accordance with all conventions; 2. No one will know the circumstances of your surrender, no one in Russia will know that your surrender was voluntary; 3....

Vladimir Putin can call up all the troops he wants, but Russia has no way of getting those new troops the training and weapons they need to fight in Ukraine any time soon. With his invasion of Ukraine faltering badly, the Russian President on Wednesday announced the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Russian television that the country will call up 300,000 reservists. If they end up facing Ukrainian guns on the front lines, they are likely to become the newest casualties in the invasion Putin started more than seven months ago and that...

The Turkish President has fired a huge warning to his Russian counterpart who is already struggling in the wake of impressive Ukrainian counter-strikes on Moscow's invading army. ...The comments, made in an interview with PBS NewsHour on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, are likely to spark fury in Russia. When asked if Russia should be allowed to keep some of the territory it's taken from Ukraine since it invaded in February and if that should be "part of a solution to this — to this conflict", he replied through a translator: "No, and undoubtedly...

According to Ukrainian defence officials, units of Russian troops are now trapped at the Dnipro river after the recent counter-offensive. During an appearance on the Ukrainian parliament’s television channel on Monday, September 19, Nataliya Humenyuk, the head of the joint press centre of Ukrainian Defence Forces of the South, claimed that units of Russian troops in the Kherson region are now ‘sandwiched’ between the right bank of the Dnipro River and the advancing Ukrainian forces. “The fire control that we maintain over crossings and transport arteries across the Dnipro makes them understand that they are sandwiched between the defence forces...

Russia's parliament on Tuesday approved a bill to toughen punishments for a host of crimes such as desertion, damage to military property and insubordination if they are committed during military mobilisation or combat situations. The bill, passed in its second and third readings on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, the Duma, comes amid debate inside Russia about a possible mobilisation

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted the biggest shake-up of European energy markets this century. This film explains how Europe became so dependent on cheap Russian gas, and explores the hard choices facing the EU as it tries to balance energy security and climate ambitions. Read more at https://on.ft.com/3D7bv31

Humiliation for Putin's troops is continuing as they begin to abandon the major city of Melitopol in the face of Kyiv's lightning counter-offensive. The city's pre-occupation mayor said that Russian troops were pulling out of the area in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region. Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram that Russian troops were heading towards Moscow-annexed Crimea. He said columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland.

Deputies from 18 municipal districts in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kolpino have called for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s resignation, according to a petition with a list of signatures posted on Twitter on Monday. “We, the municipal deputies of Russia, believe that the actions of its president Vladimir Putin are detrimental to Russia’s and its citizens’ future. We demand Vladimir Putin's resignation from the post of the President of the Russian Federation,” said the petition posted by Ksenia Thorstrom, a local deputy of the Semenovsky District in Saint Petersburg. The petition follows Russia’s first regional and municipal elections since the start...

Ukrainian forces continue to make significant territorial gains in multiple sectors of the frontlines and appear to be greeted everywhere with open arms by civilians, some of which spent over six months under the thumb of Russian occupiers.Videos like the one below have proliferated online as Ukrainian troops push rapidly through Russian lines in the north around Kharkiv and in the south around Kherson. Ukrainian forces in most places appear to be greeted with hugs, handshakes, and tears of joy by their liberated countrymen.

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Ukrainian forces were charging through an expanding area of previously Russian-held territory in the east on Friday after bursting through the frontline in a surprise breakthrough that could mark a major turning point in the war. After keeping silent for a day, Moscow effectively acknowledged that a section of its frontline had crumbled southeast of Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. "The very fact of a breach of our defences is already a substantial victory for the Ukrainian armed forces," the head of the Moscow-installed administration for occupied areas in Kharkiv province, Vitaly Ganchev, said on Russian state TV.