Free Republic

AP) — A Russian operative under the supervision of one of the Kremlin’s main intelligence services has been charged with recruiting political groups in the United States to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including during the invasion of Ukraine, the Justice Department said Friday. The indictment of Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov reflects what U.S. officials say are ongoing Russian government efforts to meddle in the American political process, to shape public opinion and to sow discord and dissent on hot-button social issues. In this case, the authorities say, Ionov from 2014 through last March recruited political groups in Florida, Georgia and California and...

I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin's speech. Obviously, that won't happen so let me summarise as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible. Setting aside his brief comments on the recent "referendums", he spends most of his speech discussing the West. His primary complaint isn't NATO expansion, which gets only a cursory mention. The West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonise other nations, like Russia. The West uses the power of finance and...

Caius Julius Caesar Germanicus, known to history as Caligula, ruled as the Emperor of Rome from A.D. 37 to 41. For those who are unaware, Caligula, the great grandson of Rome’s first emperor, the brilliant Augustus Caesar, squandered the enormous wealth of the Roman State, declared himself to be a god, appointed his favorite racehorse to serve in the Roman Senate, and according to some sources, considered deifying the animal. After a little less than four years in office, Caligula was removed. Rome’s citizens, as well as its legions, were spared the indignity of having to worship a dead horse....

Ukrainian-born Congresswoman Victoria Spartz has sent a letter to the Biden administration demanding an investigation into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy advisor Andriy Yermak, who is suspected of being an agent of the Russian GRU, the Kremlin’s offshore intelligence arm.“Today, I sent a letter to Joe Biden with a request to provide a briefing on the supervisory procedures that are carried out regarding the head of the Administration of President Zelensky Andriy Yermak,” the congresswoman said.“Based on a variety of intelligence, Yermak’s actions in Ukraine and his alleged dealings with Russia, Congress urgently needs this information to confirm or deny various...

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...

Western policy elites that claim not to have seen this war coming -- after the Biden administration treated Ukraine as a de facto member of NATO during all of 2021, and after Russia had been saying for nearly a decade that it would not tolerate Ukraine as a US military bulwark on its border -- are just plain fools. If they really were this blind, they were unqualified for their jobs.Before the war started, as late as December of 2021, the Russians very probably would have settled the Ukraine problem by a declaration of permanent Ukrainian neutrality (i.e., no NATO...

Ottowa defies Ukraine’s objections to return of equipment for Nord Stream 1 pipeline, saying it needs to support Europe’s access to ‘reliable and affordable energy’ Canada will return a repaired Russian turbine to Germany that it needs for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, despite objections from Ukraine, as the sanctions regime came up against the energy crisis sparked by the war. Canada’s minister of natural resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, said in a statement on Saturday the government was issuing a “time-limited and revocable permit” to exempt the return of turbines from its Russian sanctions, to support “Europe’s ability to access...

Caitlin McFall Sat, July 9, 2022 at 8:19 AM·3 min read Ukraine’s military has seen a spike in the number of women who have volunteered to join its ranks amid its deadly war against Russia.Roughly 1,000 women have volunteered to fight since the war broke out in February, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Malyar said this week according to a report by the defense ministry."From February 24 to today, we have mobilized about 1,000 women – these are those who voluntarily came and declared their desire to be mobilized," she said.

Oleg Moskalenko, a Ukrainian businessman and university professor from a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, was taken prisoner by Russian forces in early March, then was tortured and interrogated for a week before being set free in the middle of a forest and eventually finding his way back to safety. Moskalenko, 53, detailed the ordeal in an interview with Fox News Digital from Warsaw, Poland, where he is currently recovering after losing multiple fingers, a third of his right foot, and three toes on his left foot.

Russia’s capture of the strategic city of Lysychansk means the front line in Ukraine’s east will shift as Russian forces regroup before pushing further south and west, military analysts and Ukrainian officers said Sunday, ensuring that the next phase of the battle will be just as bloody as the last. To take Lysychansk and its neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk, Russian forces moved in from the north, east and west and created a pocket of territory that became indefensible toward the end of June. Now those Russian forces are in a position to attempt a similar maneuver on other Ukrainian-held cities...

So, the G-7 leaders are in agreement, more war with Russia. Without actually saying exactly that, that was the main takeaway from he meeting of the most feckless leaders in the world. They also pledged $600 billion they don’t have to fund global infrastructure projects to ‘combat China’s Belt and Road Initiative.’ One wonders where all this money and, in the case of Europe, energy is going to come from to fund all of this. But the question I’ve had from the beginning of this obvious war of attrition the West wants to impose on Russia is the following: Do...

Irina Yarovaya emphasized that the President's decision to conduct a special military operation made it possible “to suspend the Pentagon's dangerous military-biological activities on the territory of Ukraine.” She recalled that for the effective work of the Commission, there were created four working groups: on medicine, law, security, information and a scientific advisory council, that would help to discuss important issues in various formats with experts, interested ministries and departments and analyze documents and materials. “I want to present to you the materials that have already been studied by the Commission. These are documents that we had analyzed in the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Friday that western alliances in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine are "pushing" Russia and Belarus to unite. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has thus far been able to keep Minsk’s direct involvement out of the war in Ukraine, but comments by Putin posted to the Kremlin’s website suggest this may not be the case for long. "The unprecedented political and sanctions pressure from the so-called ‘collective West’ is pushing us to speed up the unification processes," the Kremlin chief said according to Russian media outlet RIA. "After all, together it is easier to minimize...

Since the start of the year, the ruble has soared 40% against the dollar — outperforming every other currency in the world.Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted the ruble’s robust recovery as proof that his economy has successfully withstood the onslaught of Western sanctions. “The idea was clear: crush the Russian economy violently,” Putin told an economic forum in St. Petersburg last week. “They did not succeed. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

After lying for months, the media are preparing the public for Ukraine’s military collapse. It is long overdue. The Western media did everything in its power to give the Ukrainian defense the appearance of far greater strength than it really possessed. Russian errors were exaggerated out of all proportion to their significance. Russian losses and the true extent of Ukraine’s own losses were distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored. But conditions on the battlefield changed little over time. Once Ukrainian forces immobilized themselves in static defensive positions inside urban areas and the central Donbas, the Ukrainian position was hopeless. But this...

Mike Billington with Executive Intelligence Review interviews Col. Richard Black (ret.). BILLINGTON: Hi, this is this is Mike Billington with Executive Intelligence Review and the Schiller Institute. I am here today with Col. Richard Black, Sen. Richard Black, who, after serving 31 years in the Marines and in the Army, then served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1998 to 2006, and in the Virginia Senate from 2012 to 2020. I’ll also allow Colonel Black to describe his military service himself. So, Colonel Black, welcome. With the with the U.S. and U.K. and NATO surrogate war with Russia, which...

Ukraine said Wednesday it would not demine waters around the Black Sea port of Odessa to allow for grain to be exported, citing the threat of Russian attacks on the city. “The moment we clear access to the port of Odessa, the Russian fleet will be there,” spokesman for the regional administration Sergiy Bratchuk said in a video statement on social media. He said that Russia “dreams of parachuting troops” into the city and that Moscow’s army “wants to attack” Odessa. The Turkish and Russian foreign ministers were meeting in Ankara Wednesday to discuss the creation of security corridor to...

President Biden on Friday declined to rule out Ukraine having to cede part of its territory to Russia in order to end Moscow’s more than three-month-old invasion.“Does Ukraine have to cede territory to achieve peace?” a reporter asked Biden after his remarks on the May jobs report.“But it appears to me that at some point along the line, there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement

The DPR People’s milita provided evidence that despite having signed international treaties banning their stockpiling and their use, Ukraine still possesses and uses anti-personnel mines, especially in the Donbass. For the seventh year, the Donbass residents live in a state of continuous war. The armed forces of Ukraine use heavy artillery, mortars and shooting weapons. The use of anti-personnel mines, which are prohibited by international treaties, by the Ukrainian military is of particular concern. During the briefing of the official representative of the DPR People’ s Militia Eduard Basurin, based on collected photos and video materials, we will show all...

Germany has reportedly supplied Kiev forces with thousands of anti-tank mines on the hopes of slowing down the advance of the Russian military in Ukraine. In a report released on May 17, Der Spiegel revealed that Germany sent 1,600 DM-12 PARM and 3,000 DM-31 anti-tank mines to Ukraine over the last few weeks. The German-made DM-12 off-route anti-tank mine, which is mounted on a small tripod, fires a fin stabilized rocket with an effective range of 2 to 40 meters and the ability to penetrate 600 millimeters of armour. The mine incorporates an arming delay of five minutes. It can...