Free Republic

New 'Novorossiya' General Korsun Vows to Install Harsh Soviet-like System 23:31 (GMT) snip.. The new "United Army of Novorossiya" Gen. Korsun recently gave an interview to a local news site, news-portal.dn.ua from which we get a definite impression of a determined hardliner. snip Asked to be more specific on plans for the industrial rebirth of the Donbass, the general said exports would go to Russia. He said Novorossiya would be run as a socialist system. "Despite Western propaganda, there is nothing bad in socialism. Moreover, the most advertised Western countries are proud precisely of their social orientation. Sweden, Switzerland, and...

But it's not quite the projection of strength that it seems... Last week, two aircraft took off from an air base in western Russia, just east of the Russian city of Saratov. The aircraft, Tu-95 strategic bombers code-named Bear by NATO, flew northwest, skirting Iceland, Greenland, and Canada. Once beyond Canada, the two lumbering, propeller-driven bombers settled on a heading straight toward the United States. Their goal was a "launch box" off the coast of the U.S. from which, during wartime, they would fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles towards American cities and military bases. The provocative flights were timed to a...

World and corporate leaders should look for alternative business partners to minimize the fallout from trade barriers that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin may erect against countries that impose trade sanctions against his nation in response to his ill-conceived plot to send Russian fighters into neighboring Ukraine.Former KGB agent Putin has proven that he cannot be trusted and his willingness to adopt foreign policies that are detrimental to the economic interests of his people are telling. Nor will his legacy as Russia’s leader escape damage in the wake of his support of armed gunman from his country who infiltrated Ukraine to...

The heads of Iran and Russia’s state-run nuclear agencies discussed the construction of new nuclear plants in Iran during a meeting held on Friday around the same time that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, also sat down for a chat about Tehran’s ongoing nuclear negotiations with the West, according to regional reports. Behrouz Kamalvanda, a top official at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) met early Friday with Sergey Kirivenko, the director general of Russia’s state-run nuclear company, Rosatom, to discuss way the two nations can “boost nuclear cooperation,” according to Iran’s state run news agencies....

Russia: Alexey Gaskarov “If, in this country, the way to freedom runs through prison, we are ready to go”. Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky District Court on Monday found four opposition activists guilty on all counts charged of "inciting mass riots" related to participation in Moscow's 6 May, 2012 Anti Putin Bolotnaya Square protests. Alexei Gaskarov and Alexander Margolin were sentenced to 3.5 years in prison each. Ilya Guschin was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. Yelena Kokhtareva received a 39-month suspended sentence. Following the verdict being read, three activists unfurled a banner at the entrance of the courthouse that read: “Russia is...

While Nato sat down for a summit to decide what to do about the war in Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin negotiated a ceasefire deal with Kiev, Russian society recoiled from reports about secret funerals of soldiers killed in Ukraine: missing sons, calls from husbands begging their wives to save them from ­battle, bodies with missing limbs arriving in coffins to Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Pskov, Murmansk, Dagestan and other regions of Russia. The death toll for Russian soldiers jumped to more than 200 soldiers in a few days, between August 12th and September 2nd, in a war that was, officially, not...

Russia has warned that US air strikes against militants in Syria would be a "gross violation" of international law. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman said any such action, without the backing of the UN, would be "an act of aggression". It comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry meets Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia to try to build a coalition against Islamic State (IS) militants. President Obama has threatened action against IS in Syria as well as Iraq. IS controls large parts of Syria and Iraq after a rapid military advance. In a speech outlining his strategy, Mr Obama...

God is inside Vladimir Putin. A divine light transfixed Putin’s essence after his secret baptism as a child. We are not worthy of the Russian president. These were a few of the tenets advanced by radical Russian Orthodox activist Dmitry Tsorionov in a September 7 lecture that marked one of the more bizarre expressions of a many-faceted grassroots cult of personality surrounding Russia’s paramount ruler.

'Mothers, what are your sons dying for?' A new Russian anti-war movement has just recently come to life, as the reality of what the Kremlin was actually up to in Ukraine has become glaringly apparent, even to blindered Muscovites... And the Committee of Russian Mothers' grasp of the situation far outclasses anything we've seen from the feckless West, who can't even bring themselves to admit the Russians are to blame for MH17, let alone stand-up to neo-Soviet expansionism. The emerging Russian anti-war movement issued a statement over the weekend labeling Putin’s now-obvious aggression against Ukraine a blatant violation of the Russian Constitution and international...

Famed Russian musician and leader of the soviet rock band "The Time Machine" Andrei Makarevich has introduced a new song named ‘My country has gone mad.’ The anti-war song was presented during the open studio show ‘Echo of Moscow’ in Moscow’s Gogol Boulevard. The musician has already become the center of a Kremlin witch hunt for his anti-war position. Makarevich openly opposes the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russian aggression aimed at Ukraine. After performing a concert in Donbas in support of the liberation of Slovyansk from Kremlin-backed insurgents, Makarevich suffered severe criticism and persecution in his home country.

The video which follows this article was published on social media by members of the terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, includes threats to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin and liberate Chechnya and the Caucus Region with Russian fighter jets and missiles ISIS had seized from Tabaqa Airport in Raqqa, Syria as reported by IraqiNews.com on 27 August. Vladimir Putin, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is a principal supplier of weapons and equipment for Syrian government forces. A member of ISIS directs his words to Putin, “these Russian planes which you had sent to Bashar,...

57 names in all... And don't think this stuff doesn't come from the Kremlin- freelance propagandists in the Russian media (that have their nose way-up Putin's patootie) have been doing his bidding for some time now: 1) Andrei Makarevich (Mashyna Vremeni bans) 2) Alexei Navalny (opposition politician) 3) staff of “Echo of Moscow” radio station 4) collective channel: “Rain” 5) collective portal: Lenta.ru 6) Arnold Schwarzenegger (bodybuilder, actor, former California governor) 7) Ruslana (Ukrainian singer) 8) Yuri Shevchuk (DDT) 9) Nikita Dzhigurda (actor) 10) collective group “Okean Elzy” 11) collective group “Liapis Troubetzkoy” 12) Sergei Zverev (singer, stylist) 13) Deacon...

The Estonian-Russia border at Luhamaa does not look like a new Checkpoint Charlie. Set among the wooded plains that mark Nato and the European Union's eastern-most territory, the crossing is more likely to be the site of long lines of idling lorries than machine-gun nests and prisoner exchanges. But that era of post-cold war calm may have come to an end on Friday morning, when, according to several Estonian accounts, smoke grenades detonated at an Estonian customs post, and all radio and telephone signals were jammed as armed Russian men suddenly materialised and dragged away a local official.

is has been one of the underlying themes of those who have argued from the beginning of this drama that the West doesn’t have a stake in Ukraine’s fate to even approach the stake of Russia, which has included Ukraine within its sphere of influence for the past three and a half centuries and has viewed that relationship as crucial to its sense of national security. This raises a question: If we don’t have a serious stake in the matter, and we’re very clear with ourselves and the world that we won’t fight over it, and the preponderance of power...

During today’s NATO summit, the alliance agreed to create a rapid reaction force to respond to threats to member states. That force is being formed specifically to deal with threats in eastern Europe. It is a direct response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Russians responded swiftly. The Foreign Ministry suggests a larger NATO conspiracy is at work. The summit adopted a line towards NATO’s eastward expansion and build-up of its presence near Russia’s borders. These plans were nurtured for a long time and the Ukrainian crisis became merely an excuse for the start of their implementation. Russia also accused...

Would Putin commit suicide by letting his missiles fly against the United States? No. Rather, he would respond with a limited nuclear strike against a couple of European capitals -- not London or Paris, but smaller ones, presumably in Eastern European countries that have only recently joined NATO. Warsaw, against which Russia has already conducted a drill simulating a Russian nuclear attack, first comes to mind. Or, say, Vilnius, Lithuania's capital. The point is, Putin would bet on decision-makers in Washington, Berlin, London, and Paris not retaliating with nuclear weapons against Russia if it had "only" hit a city or...

Obama’s cultists often compare him to a chess master, playing the long game. There is another chess metaphor that is far more apt, however. Specifically, there is a story that has gained wide currency in which Vladimir Putin compares Obama to a chess playing pigeon. Putin supposedly said: ”Negotiating with Obama is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, s**** on the board and then struts around like it won the game.” This story is almost certainly false. The chess playing pigeon meme dates to far before Obama’s time. But there is no person...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appeared emotional in recent footage showing him witnessing a performance of his country's national anthem while on a visit in Mongolia. In the footage broadcast on Mongolian TV, the normally stoic Putin is seen standing next to Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, looking down and at one point moving his hand to wipe his eye. “Putin is [so] manly, he's required to shed a tear every so often to maintain hormonal equilibrium,” said a user of the army enthusaist site militaryphotos.net. Last year, Russia's longstanding president was seen wiping away a tear during a Kremlin concert...

Yeah, it's not as if the poor guy ever gets to go on vacation or play a round of golf . . . On her MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow fretted about everything that was on President Obama's plate, from devising his immigration amnesty, to dealing with Putin, to Ebola, to a US plane forced to land in Iran. Concluded Maddow: "aren't you glad you're not President?" Really? When Barack Obama ran for the office back in 2008, think he figured the Oval Office would be a bowl of golf balls? Not to mention those few perks that come...

…I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black. My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch. Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero. Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares? One less hungry mouth on the welfare… Changes – 2Pac It's been almost 20 years since 2Pac, arguably the greatest rapper in history along with Notorious BIG, sang about the difficulties of being born black in America, and at the same time about the racism of American society. Twenty years in which nothing...